Your faith

[GRAV]

I agree with smattle.

As for me and what i belive in...well...lets just say that everything i beleive in and have done contradicts the very fabric of space, time and religion. my very existence is contradicting to anything and everything. so, to balance my self out or give people a perspective of what i believe in i just tell em "I beleive in death".

Well...now that i have said my thing, i say, "w00t!"^_^'

[smattle]

Originally Posted by GRAV

I agree with smattle.

Haven't heard that in a while :]], and I appreciate it.


Here is an interesting fact to think about:

18% of US American children are being raised in a community that teaches them the "Creation" as a fact.
These 18% will grow up in a belief that Dinosaurs and humans actually lived together about 5000 years ago. They are being thought that they as the humans are the superior beings, and have nothing in common with any of the animals on this planet (e.g. Monkey, Mammal, Pig, Wolf etc.) AT ALL.

[Chaotic Lionheart]

Well truthfully I really dont know what i am I'm christian but i dont believe god is a man more accurate he has no material form he's more or less to me a spirit

[AuroraVirtuaFighter]

To be honest, I don't know exactly what religion I am at all. Me and Seong Mina were just discussing this the other day, too (we share the same views). I thought I was agnostic, but isn't agnostic when you like don't believe in a god at all? I do believe that there is a god...I just don't believe in stuff like the Bible, or Christianity. My mother is a Jehovah's Witness, and (I'm not sure if this is true for all JWs, it might just be a her thing, so please don't be offended) she tells me all this stuff about God that SCARES me. And so I do not believe God is the way she tells me he is. Really, nobody can REALLY be sure what God is like, because he or she has never appeared physically to a person and said "Hi, it's me, God." So I believe there is a diety, but what he or she is like I can't be sure of. I just pick and choose what I believe. I'm not sure if there's a specific name for that kind of faith, but that is my faith at the moment.

[Chaotic Lionheart]

I think my religon would be like taoisn or buddhism i guess

[Vermilion Thanatos]

Originally Posted by smattle

Haven't heard that in a while :]], and I appreciate it.


Here is an interesting fact to think about:

18% of US American children are being raised in a community that teaches them the "Creation" as a fact.
These 18% will grow up in a belief that Dinosaurs and humans actually lived together about 5000 years ago. They are being thought that they as the humans are the superior beings, and have nothing in common with any of the animals on this planet (e.g. Monkey, Mammal, Pig, Wolf etc.) AT ALL.

If anyone wants more in-depth debates, there are several atheist/agnostic/secular/humanist forums scattered across the internetz. I'm presently a member of Atheistnation, and I must say that it's nice to talk to other people who have actually bothered to research religion instead of just blindly following dogmatic fairy tales.

And actually, the last time I heard, it was around 40% of Americans were for Intelligent Design. People say atheists are immoral yet even though we've only about 5% atheistic population, less than .5% of the American prison population are atheists. Contrast that with nearly the entirety of Scandinavia and Japan, which apart from Vietnam are the most atheistic nations in the world and they've the lowest crime rates, along with higher wages, health care, education, and overall standard of living. Why? Because they've removed archaic superstitions from their societies and instead do things because they're socially beneficial, not because some fictitious deity says so.

@Chaotic: Taoists only believe in a universal "force," not a sentient deity. The former is almost acceptable to atheists because it doesn't have any other dogmatic implications, but the latter is basically what leads to war ("kill the infidels because they don't follow my god!"). Buddhists are divided; some still believe in Hindu polytheism, some only believe that Buddha is god, some believe he was just a really wise man, etc. If your Xian, though, obviously by definition you can't be Buddhist because Xians believe Christ Jesus is god and the primary moral teacher and Buddhists believe Buddha is. Both had some smart things to say (if indeed they ever existed, in which case it is merely the stories have some nice morals), but their teachings don't align perfectly so whichever you choose over the other in those instances is obviously the one you'd follow more...

And I make too many walls'o'text...I won't even get into why the separation of humans as a superior being than animals is a mostly false assumption...

[smattle]

Originally Posted by Vermilion Thanatos

If anyone wants more in-depth debates, there are several atheist/agnostic/secular/humanist forums scattered across the internetz. I'm presently a member of Atheistnation, and I must say that it's nice to talk to other people who have actually bothered to research religion instead of just blindly following dogmatic fairy tales.

Ok, true story:

I went to atheistnation, saw an interesing ad about people answering questions regarding god...so I clicked it (I wasn't sure whether to expect a serious discussion central or internet porn, but I would have been fine with either one anyways.) . It actually was somewhat of a website with lots of fora (yes that is the correct plural of forum) about atheism.
So I went into a random one with a promising header.
All they did was discuss how gay the op's avatar pic was and why Toronto was a ****hole. (Sidenote: Op's avatar pic made him look so gay, he could have convinced other gays they aren't doing it right.)

Originally Posted by Vermilion Thanatos

And actually, the last time I heard, it was around 40% of Americans were for Intelligent Design. People say atheists are immoral yet even though we've only about 5% atheistic population, less than .5% of the American prison population are atheists. Contrast that with nearly the entirety of Scandinavia and Japan, which apart from Vietnam are the most atheistic nations in the world and they've the lowest crime rates, along with higher wages, health care, education, and overall standard of living. Why? Because they've removed archaic superstitions from their societies and instead do things because they're socially beneficial, not because some fictitious deity says so.

Immorality and racism are the basics of our existence as we know it in the western world.
Both of which the Nordic tribes have proven to have plenty of throughout history.
(Sidenote: Completely out of topic, Greenpeace is a organisation based on racism, but fighting against immorality...DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME! I see them right next in the line to KuKlux-Clan [Or whatever those sheetscrapers call themselves] and neo-nazis.)

Anyways I have to totally agree with you Thanatos. Scandinavia is a great example of what freedom of belief in a modern society really means, and what great efforts it can result in. But the standards the countries like Sweden set can and will never be matched by the USA because, your whole government is a corrupted sh!thole. yeah I said it. Corrupted sh!thole.
It's funny how you send your troops to other countries to "liberate" them and give them democracy, whereas they should be headed to Washington DC to liberate yourself....well I'm going too far off topic again, and I'm sorry about that. Anyways...you blame Jihadist for what they supposedly did to you on 9/11 and then you set off to a century reigned by a war that is completely based on your religious beliefs. Now that's a real good way to convince the Mohammeds what they're doing is not right. As long as there is "In god we trust" on a dollar note, there will be no such thing as freedom of belief in USA.
Unlike you, I'm not really familiar with the numbers, but I think of the atheists in USA as a minority same as other well known ones. Stating that as a fact, not as an offense. So like all other minorities in USA, they'll be restrained and looked down on until the end of days. (USA's days). Dam, I just can't get off the USA thing...gonna step back for now.

[Vermilion Thanatos]

Originally Posted by smattle

Ok, true story:

I went to atheistnation, saw an interesing ad about people answering questions regarding god...so I clicked it (I wasn't sure whether to expect a serious discussion central or internet porn, but I would have been fine with either one anyways.) . It actually was somewhat of a website with lots of fora (yes that is the correct plural of forum) about atheism.
So I went into a random one with a promising header.
All they did was discuss how gay the op's avatar pic was and why Toronto was a ****hole. (Sidenote: Op's avatar pic made him look so gay, he could have convinced other gays they aren't doing it right.)



Immorality and racism are the basics of our existence as we know it in the western world.
Both of which the Nordic tribes have proven to have plenty of throughout history.
(Sidenote: Completely out of topic, Greenpeace is a organisation based on racism, but fighting against immorality...DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME! I see them right next in the line to KuKlux-Clan [Or whatever those sheetscrapers call themselves] and neo-nazis.)

Anyways I have to totally agree with you Thanatos. Scandinavia is a great example of what freedom of belief in a modern society really means, and what great efforts it can result in. But the standards the countries like Sweden set can and will never be matched by the USA because, your whole government is a corrupted sh!thole. yeah I said it. Corrupted sh!thole.
It's funny how you send your troops to other countries to "liberate" them and give them democracy, whereas they should be headed to Washington DC to liberate yourself....well I'm going too far off topic again, and I'm sorry about that. Anyways...you blame Jihadist for what they supposedly did to you on 9/11 and then you set off to a century reigned by a war that is completely based on your religious beliefs. Now that's a real good way to convince the Mohammeds what they're doing is not right. As long as there is "In god we trust" on a dollar note, there will be no such thing as freedom of belief in USA.
Unlike you, I'm not really familiar with the numbers, but I think of the atheists in USA as a minority same as other well known ones. Stating that as a fact, not as an offense. So like all other minorities in USA, they'll be restrained and looked down on until the end of days. (USA's days). Dam, I just can't get off the USA thing...gonna step back for now.

Yes, at atheistnation we mostly just comment on new anti-religious clips/news and welcome new members. The rest is just lounging around waiting for a theist egocentric enough to try refuting our arguments. Sure, we've differing opinions on a lot of things, but for the most part we agree or agree to disagree on those matters so discussion doesn't happen too often...

Are we talking about the same Greenpeace? The one that is one of the major driving forces behind environmental sustainability, something while not as much of an emergency as Al Gore's lies advertise is still something we'll eventually need to impose worldwide? Are there dirty secrets I've never bothered to find out?

RAmen to that; U.S. has one of the lowest standards of living of first-world countries, ****ty education, hardly any social services, and an incredibly disorganized government. And non-believers, though the largest minority in the U.S., are still the least trusted, largely due to the propaganda the Church spews. I mean, a priest can't tell his parishioners exactly what an atheist's position is and why he/she holds it because if he had bothered to understand it himself he would no longer be a priest. And if you have to cherry pick through scripture to find morals that actually work, it's obvious that you're judging them on a more objective standard, i.e. reason, so ironically atheists are the ones who have seen past that and can live more moral lives than those tied down by dogma...

[smattle]

Originally Posted by Vermilion Thanatos

Are we talking about the same Greenpeace? The one that is one of the major driving forces behind environmental sustainability, something while not as much of an emergency as Al Gore's lies advertise is still something we'll eventually need to impose worldwide? Are there dirty secrets I've never bothered to find out?

The very same Greenpeace.
On first sight one would easily think that this organisation's pursuit of a healthy environment, and sustainable energy usage policies is a good thing.

However, I do not agree, and so do many others.
The reason is simple: I occasionally like to drink a glass of water, take a shower, drive to work, or just go to a pub. I like to call friends, go to the movies, watch internet porn. I also like to have a machine making my coffee, another one keeping my food cold and fresh, and another one washing my not-wearable-any-more pile of clothes. (This one is right next to my dirty-but-still-wearable pile of clothes, right next to my empty cupboard). I enjoy typing right now in this very moment, because I know you still have no clue what I am aiming at. All these things are quite comfortable and enrich my life.

3.5 billion people on earth do not have that luxury.

That's roughly 50% of our planets homini.

Now unlike me and a handfull others out there, Greenpeace has come to the conclusion that those 50% shall never be able to enjoy anything like that.

If we look back into not so ancient history we'll eventually discover how it comes that we in the so called Western-World do have all that and others don't...Industrial Revolution. Exactly...we cut down, burned down, rolled over, dig out and stamped down every bit of nature that was in our way. We built factories to pollute the air until we would get doped up from it. We laid tracks, built roads, and send out whole fleets of ships to distribute the goods from A to B and from B to C, where they'd be turned over and sent back to point A, so we could call them fancy imports. (j/k on that last bit) until we had restrained every wild living animal and peace of nature to such small areas that we could easily build fences around them and call it a Safari. Every single bit of nature, that we could get to without sweating our pants off, we exploited until there was nothing left.

Now....a good century later we finally discover that what we did was not that good for our mother earth...but well...what's done is done right? Not like anyone was gonna invent a time machine any soon...so what to do?

Exactly, we just make sure the 3.5billlion people that haven't done so yet, will never get there, and maybe we'll have a shot at clean air and fresh water for another hundred years. And how do we do that? We make laws Laws are generally a amazing thing because they always seem to work out just fine for the ones setting them up. So we just make laws that the other 50% of the world are not allowed to cut their trees, pollute the air, or even demand any kind of electricity. And when laws don't work in the middle of fcuking nothing somewhere in the wilderness of Uganda, well then we still have...Greenpeace

Like our own little anti human rights hitsquad that goes into the bush and tells the people to leave the trees alone so their grandchildren would have fresh air to breathe. Because that's exactly what Greenpeace does.

If I was to put my words in a picture, you'd see Greenpeace, as a healthy white male in his mid twenties , with 2.6 children, 1.8 houses and his 1.6th wife, holding up a bag of MC'Donalds towards a little starving black child (Representing 3rd world countires) and telling him, he can't have the cheeseburgers because eventually that would mean his own grandchildren would have to starve one day. However he'd be willing to kindly offer a trade of 1 of his cheeseburgers for 3tons of Coffee, or 1.5 tons of Tobacco.

My point is I haven't seen any organisation, willing to disregard all human rights for a certain group of people, ever since the Nazis.

That's what I think of Greenpeace.

Originally Posted by Vermilion Thanatos

RAmen to that; U.S. has one of the lowest standards of living of first-world countries, ****ty education, hardly any social services, and an incredibly disorganized government. And non-believers, though the largest minority in the U.S., are still the least trusted, largely due to the propaganda the Church spews. I mean, a priest can't tell his parishioners exactly what an atheist's position is and why he/she holds it because if he had bothered to understand it himself he would no longer be a priest. And if you have to cherry pick through scripture to find morals that actually work, it's obvious that you're judging them on a more objective standard, i.e. reason, so ironically atheists are the ones who have seen past that and can live more moral lives than those tied down by dogma...

RAmen? I'm not sure what you mean by that, this some sort of atheist thing? I don't know....or you refering to noodles? They taste great once you know how to eat them....

Anyways, I take it you agree with my opinion

And I sure do agree with the 2nd part of that lower section of yours.

[Chaotic Lionheart]

Yeah I think I don't have a religon I'm Christian but I don't feel like one I just feel like a black dude who believes there's a god but I don't know most religon seem too uhh what's the word serious like to the point in having arguements about whats the right path and what god wants these religons say we must follow rules and such to get into heaven if we don't we go to hell. The thing is how come must most church require you to pay wait offerings but what does god need money for if he's chillin up there

[smattle]

Reading this...I miss VT ...and no I ain't looking at anyone here.

As for the offerings, maybe "God" has to pay rent like everyone else too? I mean, heaven is quite a place with incredible view and lots of virgins right? That has got to be the most expensive place ever.