The non-thinking that is Religion.

[Keerin]

Originally Posted by Thee Alex

The only difference I can see is with the first you are wrong on your own, whereas the latter is wrong with others.

I think that the main difference is that you can change your own mind freely and without any dissonance if you are not a member of a religious but have personal beliefs which are either religious or spiritual in nature. Organised religion will not allow you to change your mind as the system of belief is so rigid and only changes when the head of the religion decides it should.

[Thee Alex]

They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past," said Father Efstathios Kollas, the President of Greek Clergymen.

You could cut the irony with a knife.

[Curate]

"Co-religionists" eh?

[Lynnie]

Using some random website finder I found this website which gave me a laugh and was informed that some of the lovely people here might indeed like it.

Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

[: : Scott : :]

BBC NEWS | Politics | Archbishop sparks Sharia law row


lolz i am so becoming a muslim so i can do stuff

[EVilL]

This made my brain run away screaming..

http://www.philosophyquotes.net/cgi-bin/god_game1.cgi

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by EVilL

This made my brain run away screaming..

http://www.philosophyquotes.net/cgi-bin/god_game1.cgi

It's full of pish because you're forced to choose "true" or "false" to questions which could have answers not necessarily limited to those options (for example the question about believing in the existence of the Loch Ness monster without evidence). Then it chastises you later for contradicting yourself when if you'd been allowed to answer properly you wouldn't have at all.

Some of it logically inconsistent too. For example it asks you if God should want as little suffering as possible. I answered "true". Then it asks if Peter Sutcliffe, if he believed God told him to commit his crimes, would be able to personally justify them. To which I answered "true". Then it claimed this was a contradiction. Nonsense.

[Keerin]

my game:

You have reached the end!

Congratulations! You have made it to the end of this activity.

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets. The average player of this activity to date takes 1.39 hits and bites 1.11 bullets. 417089 people have so far undertaken this activity.

Click the link below for further analysis of your performance and to see if you've won an award


***next page***


Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates - and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement!

[Keerin]

I avoided the Sutcliffe question. it didnt seem to be asking a question at all!

"The serial rapist Peter Sutcliffe had a firm, inner conviction that God wanted him to rape and murder prostitutes. He was, therefore, justified in believing that he was carrying out God's will in undertaking these actions."

I know it is a true or false but on first reading, it seemed to be a statement rather than a question and put in there to trick me! I would say False to that if I had answered it.

[Rebelius]

it doesn't load for me

[My First Kev]

Dawkins and The Dr

It was mentioned in the papers today that the hardline christian mob have already complained to the BBC.

I guess the chap can't even do something light hearted now. Do the 'godheads' really think the BBC will show hard hitting religious satire sandwiched between Strictly Come Maria and the Lottery?

[pagan]

I think that religion & science are very similar in that they are both trying to explain our perception of reality and come up with some sort of explanation for the nature of things.

I think both ultimately fail, how can you quantise the infinite ?

I don't hold much with organised religion but respect others beliefs providing they are (1) Not pumped down my throat (2) Are not used as an excuse for conflict. The same applies to science.

Science also has it's part to play in conflict, it could be argued that the biggest scientific advances have come as a direct result of war / conflict, i.e. the nuclear bomb.

For me conflict is a part of human nature, as others have said, most battles are over land or food, (or inflated egos). Eliminate food shortages & give everyone a decent home to live in and the world will be a much more peaceful place.

IMHO We can never really be sure what the story is until the moment of death and if there is no afterlife we'll never know.

My own personal take on it is that the universe is a infinite explosion of energy, that energy is within all of us, it drives the atoms we are made from, it is the energy that is our thoughts, it is everything and we are part of that. Is there an intelligence guiding all of this, who knows, I think there are certain things hard wired into the way the universe works, i.e. rules that seem to apply in most circumstances, this would imply that there is an order of some kind to this universe, does it also imply a higher intelligence ?

[Thee Alex]

Alex is the first to put up pictures and slag off on the basis of appearance, he is setting the ground rules for this and if he can't take it, he shouldn't dish it in the first place.

Having logged out last time I restarted meant I actually saw this reply and I felt I had to respond to it.

You say I'm the first to point at people and shout 'ugly!' or 'fat!'? I think you'll find, going back over my many posts on this forum that I'm not. Any point that resorts to drawing attention to the physicality of an individual, something they have little control over, is the surest sign of being bereft of intelligence.

Example:

You called me all sorts of names, based on my appearance, and even went to the trouble of photoshopping me (and, apparently, joining the forum purely to do this).

I insulted Rotting Remains, pointing out that his ACTIONS made him look like Nathan Barley, at no point saying anything about his physical appearance.

See the difference?

Personally I feel that insulting anyone's physical appearance is beyond the pale (note: on When Goths Cry I'm pointing and laughing at what people are CHOOSING to wear, very different from going 'What a huge fat biffer! He must be crap because he's so FAT!') and only mentioned Kate's stature after finding it hilarious that she should call ANYONE else 'little' or 'fat', when she is (technically) both of those things. Also she had started, unprovoked, in the T Shirt thread so I figured maybe it was time to turn the 'lolz' on her.

Ultimately, using the 'Alex is fat' insult is utterly redundant - sure I'm carrying a couple of extra pounds, but I'm in no way 'fat' (being 6ft helps with that), so trotting that or the 'he looks like Danny Baker' (balding? Yeah, my full head of very thick hair really matches up there) mantra merely shows the originator up as an imagination free dolt who probably reads the Daily Mail. Oh, and it's a redundant insult because it DOESN'T BOTHER ME IN THE SLIGHTEST.

Pagan, now I'm logged in again you're going to vanish from my screen, I'm sure you'll be spreading your ill-informed notions around other threads so have fun with that!