What?
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
If anybody else reading happens to find anything I’ve written thought provoking in the least, that’s just a bonus.[/quote]
Your posts are a lot of the reason I keep clicking on this thread. [/quote]
Me too, batman. You’ve put up some good points. I usually stay out of the deep religious and political discussions here, but I’ve enjoyed thinking about this over the past few days. [/quote]
Cheers guys (and gal).
I’ve enjoyed your contributions as well. I’ve also found an number of jjackrash’s posts to be particularly interesting as well.
In fact this whole discussion has turned out to be much more productive than I might have anticipated. I usually avoid this sort of thing like the plague as well, but something about the OP’s question caught my attention.
Glad it did.
PP, your kid sounds cool. Challenging but cool. Reminds me a little of my own. Have fun with that…
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
It affects all humanity? I seem to recall you saying that religion is the worst thing to ever happen to humanity or some such. How about greed? Imperialism? Fossil fuels? What about Science? Without that maybe we’d still be living in a pre-agrarian utopia. Lower birth rates and higher infant mortality would protect the planet from the scourge of over-population and nationalism. The inability to maintain standing armies would preclude meaningful warfare of any scale, let alone nuclear. Plastic particles wouldn’t outnumber plankton in the oceans and there would be no garbage in space. I personally dig science, but hey…
[/quote]
The only thing certain is that adherence to science and its principles will increase our sphere of knowledge going forward. There’s really no way to tell whether that knowledge is going to give us SkyNet or Star Trek Next Gen or something else entirely.
[/quote]
I agree completely.
I only posted this to illustrate the absurdity of putting forward an opinion about something citing only it’s worst case outcomes, both historical and potential future, while completely overlooking everything else.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]bulkNcut wrote:
For those of you who are not religious, where do you find your faith? More specifically what makes you trust that things will turn out alright in the midst of adversity?
[/quote]
I refuse to let the opposite happen.[/quote]
Don’t take fighting lessons from a guy that’s never been hit in the mouth.
As to the OP:
Faith is the wrong word to use, because I think at a certain point religious people also realize that it’s not all smiles and sunshine in this world, and sometimes things don’t end up turning out the way you want, despite your best efforts. I think the key to accepting this is being able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning, knowing that no matter what happened, you did the best you possibly could.
The Serenity Prayer has this notion nailed down perfectly:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
You don’t need to have faith in a higher power to appreciate the simplicity and brilliance of this concept.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
When the mere topic of God/religion comes up there is an immediate knee jerk response of anger and contempt. AC, who is in my estimation a pretty bright cat, was caps lock shouting at Beans about “your God” and “your Bible” after Beans had expressly stated that he didn’t subscribe to any particular religion at all. If that isn’t an example of a passionate belief system distorting one’s views, I don’t know what is.
[/quote]
I’ll be the first to admit that my passionate disbelief distorts my views. Perhaps my second step father who used to whip the shit out of me with extension cords and put cigarettes out on my back while reciting bible verses to “cast the demons away from me” might have something to do with it.
I’ve seen first hand how religion can be used as a justification to hurt people. It’s a very powerful tool that is used to manipulate sheep into doing evil shit. So I take every opportunity I can to discredit it. But then I usually bow out of the conversation and go about my day once I’ve said my piece.
[/quote]
No, you’ve seen someone who is mentally ill and a sociopath (as your stepfather clearly was) use religion as a tool, not a justification, to hurt people.
[quote]killerDIRK wrote:
for pushharder:
maybe IF we did not indoctrinate young minds into religion at age 4 , but waited to expose them to it until they where 13 we would not rank 27 in the world in science and math ?
This:Religious Children Struggle To Separate Fact From Fiction | IFLScience
and this: - YouTube
so, where do I find Faith ? In myself and my abilities ![/quote]
Unfortunately that’s not correct. When America was at the top of the world in science, math and well, everything else, it was a whole heck of a lot more religious than it is now.
There have been dramatic shifts and influences in education in the last 50 years that have led to us no longer being in the top ten, and an uptick in religiosity isn’t one of them.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Ya, diggin the batman’s posts too. [/quote]
Yep, me too. Very well thought out and very well written.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
As to the OP:
Faith is the wrong word to use, because I think at a certain point religious people also realize that it’s not all smiles and sunshine in this world, and sometimes things don’t end up turning out the way you want, despite your best efforts. I think the key to accepting this is being able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning, knowing that no matter what happened, you did the best you possibly could.
The Serenity Prayer has this notion nailed down perfectly:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
You don’t need to have faith in a higher power to appreciate the simplicity and brilliance of this concept.[/quote]
But it certainly helps.
Otherwise, the prayer needs to be edited to something like this:
God, I know you’re a farce and I certainly have no faith in you but I need you to do some things for me anyway –
grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.[/quote]
Once again, your mastery of completely missing the fucking point is unparalleled.
Pushhard, you are consistently one of the most useless and clueless posters. Holy fuck, man. Holy FUCK.
Watch it push, Legendary has claws and knows how to use them ; )
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
Pushhard, you are consistently one of the most useless and clueless posters. Holy fuck, man. Holy FUCK.[/quote]