What Is Religion?

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Consider Christianity and Islam which has a lot to say about the after life. By the way, Orthodox Jews believe in the world to come. This is a belief they picked up during the Babylonian Captivity.

ruveyn

Another common aspect of religion is who to collectively throw their own feces at... something athiests seem do regularly.

How about a little of that "tolerance" you keep saying religious people don't show?


From "Flame Warriors";
Atheist is Deacon's cyber-doppelganger. Deacon and Atheist hold equally fervent, though diametrically opposed beliefs about religion, and both feel compelled to share those beliefs at every possible opportunity. Should an unsuspecting forum member make even a passing comment about faith or spirituality of any flavor, Atheist will descend like one of the Furies, mercilessly hectoring all of the ignorant and delusional believers about the sordid history of the church and the pernicious effects of religion on society. After a few of Atheist’s anti-religious jeremiads most other Warriors will avoid the subject altogether, though Evil Clown may egg him on a little, and Philosopher may amuse himself by pointing out flaws in his reasoning. If a forum has the misfortune of having both Deacon and Atheist as members, the bickering often continues until Nanny or Admin pulls the plug. Bliss Ninny can also sometimes squelch the conversation by saying, “Well, everyone has a right to their [sic] opinion.”

Please support that blatant assertion with some empirical evidence.

Or is your bigotry showing?

ruveyn

Actually, if you want to use the throwing-of-feces analogy while relying on Flame Warriors, the "Howlers would" probably be a better choice than "Atheist".



http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warrio ... owlers.htm

It is interesting, you even see it with Abraham, when at his death, he is "Gathered to his Kin," conversely the Egyptians equivalent at the time was "Gathered to his Ka" and most of mesopotamia was "Joining the Ghosts of One's Ancestors" so it was an ancient near-east belief that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Ishamael all believed in, and this concept of "lying down with ones fathers" was interpreted as such by even medieval commentators from Rashi to Sforno.

So, there was a pre-Maimonides belief long before Abraham of an afterlife, better described following Egyptian and Babaylonian captivity, and later better defined in full. The Talmud & the Mishnah even go as far as to say that a Jew who doesn't believe in the hereafter, doesn't go there.

Which is quite nice and shows you the preoccupation of the Jew and the Torah with this world as the one that matters, while still acknowledging that an afterlife exists beyond this one but is of less importance. The Christian preoccupation is with the next life, and the humanist only has this lifetime. I don't fully know about Islam, but I think they are like Christianity, in that it is the next lifetime that matters most.

You mean like EVERY DANG THREAD where the athiests laugh at religion, cruelly insult any followers of them, and use phrases like imaginary friend, sky fairies, flying spaghetti monster, etc?

And I'm the bigot?

If people were insulting homosexuality or a race they'd be banned for it.

You're actually proving that atheism is a belief system when you do nothing but parrot Richard Dawkins. Both of your posts have been said by Dawkins, verbatim. At least cite sources when parroting other peoples' ideas. Atheist groupthink on display right here.

And it was actually science that allowed both the moon landing and 911. The guys most responsible for the moon landing also believed in God too. Von Braun and Kennedy for instance. Hell, Buzz Aldrin even took communion in space.

The problem is not how it is said, but what is said. Homophobia or racism are unacceptable in polite language as well.

+ the FSM is an analogy to a typical religious argument, used as a counter-argument. You should start by a rebuttal said counter-argument, instead of saying it is wrong to use it because it hurts you.

What feces? Produce empirical evidence of feces being thrown.

Rational criticism or reasoned disagreement is not feces, verbal or otherwise.

ruveyn

ruveyn

Oddly enough, insulting homosexuality is something the christians love to do.

Here's what I've come to notice recently. Most religions seem to have descriptions of the same kinds of events taking place in their holy books; events that are confirmed by ancient texts, texts more ancient than the bible. I believe that all religion does have SOME truth behind it, but in this day and age, it's all been corrupted ridiculously to the point where its original meaning is mostly lost, and we all just fight and argue about everything now.

Like, I believe there WAS a flood. Why do I believe this? Ever heard of the epic of gilgamesh? many ancient texts talk about a great flood, and supposedly they've found evidence that a comet or some other similar object(i'm not too sure on what exactly the object was, but let's just say it was a bigass rock) crashed into north america thousands of years ago, which caused a lot of glaciers to melt, raised the sea level, and I believe even caused an ice age. In addition to this, they've found evidence of ancient civilizations beneath the sea... Civilizations that would have to have existed in a time long before most modern scientists(and religious people) are willing to even admit there even WERE civilizations. I don't take bible stories literally, but I don't completely and utterly dismiss them anymore like I used to. However, because I know there has been lots of corruption(dark ages, anyone?), I'm willing to accept that there's a lot of BS to them.

I think everybody here could benefit from watching a video series on youtube called Spirit Science. I believe there really is more to life and the world than what you can see with your eyes, but it has nothing to do with a bearded man who lives in the clouds. I used to call myself an atheist, and I sorta still do. I still view all religion as mostly wrong about a lot of things.

I REALLY hate how whenever something new comes from out of the scientific community, there's always some damn christian there, ready to deny it, make up some horse s**t story, and say whatever they've discovered was put here to test our faith... Like the dinosaur fossils. Yeah, god said "oh, well in a few thousand years, the people I've created will dig up these fake bones I've planted so I can toy with their emotions and minds... Buwahahaha!" I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. And no, I'm not trying to lump every christian or every religious person together with this line of thinking, but there sure seem to be a lot of those people out there. Also, I'm sorry, but the devil doesn't write music.

I think its absolutely appropriate that they do what they do. Frankly, it is quite upsetting that we religious people don't have an answer to so many of these things, especially when the knowledge of people who like to critique the torah is so primitive... so it is healthy to not only know the arguments of why we believe what we believe, just as much as it is to know the motivations of those you oppose. In the end, you may find they have some good ideas too.

I frankly find every insult hurled at religion an open invitation to discuss and explore my own positions as well as critique those I disagree emotionally with... because I do admit, I started out holding almost all of my positions not knowing much of the reasons for why I hold them other then they just feel right, and this is 7 years ago fresh out of high school. No one on here or in real life is innocent of that. We aren't the authors of our our positions. I've been there and back again, first a christian, an atheist, a jew, and now just a religious humanist who doesn't care about titles anymore but still has emotional attachments to all four of those faiths. So keep your mind open, and if you don't have an answer to unicorns and spaghetti monsters, then let them have their fun.

That said, I wish you luck in your encounters with these people, their constant berating of religion needs to be answered, so hit the books and help me out.

Even if these are Dawkins, verbatim, that is fine, the things he puts forward could have been done so by anyone, but it still needs to be answered. And our side has answers...

You miss the point of the text if you look for the science in it. The gilgamish epic was here to embue to us what society thought of the Gods, their relationship to us, our relationship to animals, male-female relationships, what we value as a society, and what we want to communicate to future generations. Ritual existed to remind future generations that these events were seminal moments for our community, and hopefully these rituals and stories will communicate these things to you, future sumerian.

I seriously urge you to read the gilgamesh epic alongside the torah account of Noah. Read why the hero was chosen by God, study the hero. Read what would qualify the entire destruction of every living thing and ecosystem on earth, the relationship the God(s) had to man, who closed the door of the arc, the order of people who entered and left the arc, the prayer following end of the flood, and what man first does as the first settlers of earth. The contrasts are powerful and clear, and if you need help or have any questions understanding it, let me know.

Even if you don't believe in religion, the ethics and principles embedded in the text is overwhelming, and more relevant today to a non-believer then ever before.

No, that's okay. I don't need to read text to get ethics. I already have those. I don't treat others in a manner I wouldn't want to be treated myself, or at least I try my ass off not to. I have no desire to read the torah. The only religions I have any real interest in are Buddhism, Hinduism, and ancient Egyptian.

Namaste.

Well that's fine, and actually, extremely fascinating as Egyptian religion was one of the biggest influencers of the torah, and almost every reaction in it to something in life was heavily influenced by the Egyptians so too I have an enormous fascination with them as well.

I was just responding to your misunderstanding or confusing the text as a source for science or history. If you want to know either of those two, read a science or history book, but if you want to understand life as they saw it, read the Gilgamesh epic, or the Noah account. It is not helpful to bring science or history into it, and frankly, unfair to Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, or Sumarian epics, you miss their greater tasks of communicating the principles that guided their approach to life.

Interesting that most athiests seem to feel they have the right to insult religions and their followers for being "below them". Sure sounds like punishing people for believing in something different to me...

How long until you're killing people in the streets for it? Will this just be Sharia Law under a different flag?

You guys want religion to either disappear or at least stay behind closed doors - yet you can shout your preferred way of life from the rooftops?