Ideas on Religion

[Guest]

A little while back, Stogie Bear made some provacative remarks about religion; Christianity to be precise. If memory serves, he said the effects of Christianity on a person was worse than having been raped as a child.

My rebuttal to this is that a person can at any time choose or not choose to be in a relationship with God. However, if a person is raped, at any age, there is no way to become un-raped. You can't put the shit back in the horse after being sexually violated.

I accept that S.B. has strong negative feelings about Christianity, and I would never tell him he should not express himself in any way he chooses. But as a Christian myself, albeit a poor one, I must stand up for my Savior. My relationship with the Lord has brought me a contentment that I had never previously known. Whether or not you decide to make the same decision as myself or you side with S.B., we still should be able to respect each others' opinions without emnity.

[Guest]

not sure what but i know as a child i had no say what so ever i was forced into private christan school and made to study the bible which i being did not want to do. sounds like rape to me plus being cathloic did not help original sin and all.

[Guest]

There were plenty of books I had to read in school, but Pride and Prejudice didn't make me want to be British!

If you don't believe in God, the Bible is just another book. Why the anger?

[stogie bear]

a person can at any time choose or not choose to be in a relationship with God

Rubbish.... Children have no power to resist religeon, the same as they cannot resist against being physically abused.

Unfortunately this sickness of the mind (religeon) has captured the hearts and minds of weak people who serve it and strong people who wield it like a weapon.

If you train your children to believe in voodoo, cults and strange ghosts then you should be seperated from your children. The scars of a physical beating can heal but the mental and emotional stains of religeon lasts a lifetime.

God lovers should be seperated from contact with children and churches should be like bars... for 18s and older.

I have nothing but contempt and hatred for people who are feeble minded enough to destroy their children with these moronic so called 'faiths.'

Children should be raised to have joy and happiness every day of their young lives without guilt and it's a parents duty of care to do what they can to provide it.

[Guest]

You call it feeble to live by certain absolute rules like not to murder, lie, or steal. Yet it is ok to live by capricious whim?

To pander to a child's whim puts them in charge of the parent. Who is better able to deal with the grotesqueries of life? A child or their parent? Childhood is about preparing the child for adulthood and not the pursuit of pleasure. I mean, why educate a child if it makes them unhappy? Because whether they like it or not, those skills increase their capability to live as an adult.

[stogie bear]

You call it feeble to live by certain absolute rules like not to murder, lie, or steal...

No I don't. Why are you putting words in my mouth? Are you suggesting that people who are NOT Christians all live by murdering, lying and stealing? Is living a good life the province of Christians alone? Hmmm!

To pander to a child's whim puts them in charge of the parent.

Agreed. But now you are changing your argument for religeon into one where the be all and end all of parenting is "a child's whim!" Are you now suggesting that spiritual guidance that is NOT Christian is tantamout to spoiling one's kids? Hmmm...

Who is better able to deal with the grotesqueries of life? A child or their parent?

Are the "grotesqueries of life" cured by a conditioning of religeous scripture in a child or is it the very same scriptures that exacerbate these so called "grotesqueries" and maybe even the cause of them?

Childhood is about preparing the child for adulthood and not the pursuit of pleasure.

WRONG! Parenting is about the preparation and well being of a child, NOT childhood. Childhood is all about innocence and guilt free pleasure and should be prolonged as long as possible in a young persons life.

I mean, why educate a child if it makes them unhappy? Because whether they like it or not, those skills increase their capability to live as an adult.

So - education makes children unhappy, now? Fervent conditioning of confusing ghost stories about imaginary devils and gods probably does, but the natural laws of what is good and bad and what is right and wrong transecend any religeon. These things are not merely taught, they are followed and copied as a way of life.

The most well behaved and rational kids are the ones who are completely free of guilt and are happy with themselves. Things that religeon seeks to stifle in children in it's evil campaign to stilt a childs growth with guilt and self doubt.

If you want to teach your children something useful then it should be a musical instrument, Tae Kwon Do, or computers. Something that nourishes an inquisitive mind and can provide rational answers to rational questions.

Putting the fear of God into people does none of these things and only distorts a young persons understanding about what is morally right or wrong.

God is for the weak or the strong. The weak have a supreme arrogance in believing that their lives are somehow worth something and that they will go on to better things when they are dead. For the strong - God is a simple form of extortion both monetarily and morally.

[PigDogg]

(stogie bear @ Aug. 26 2006,17:28) Putting the fear of God into people does none of these things and only distorts a young persons understanding about what is morally right or wrong.

i agree.  the idea that god should be feared is a perversion of christianity.

but there are 21st century liberal christian churches that don't get into any of the fire and brimstone crap.  their message instead is to go for it in life and think positive.
i've made lots of good friends at church and found it be a great place to pick up women!  good ratio!    

i feel more drawn to buddhism though.  from what i know of it unlike other major religions they don't believe in a deity that created the world.  the message seems to make sense.

there are many paths and atheism is one of them.  no matter which path one chooses there is one ultimate truth so all the paths actually lead to the same place.

[Stewart]

no matter which path one chooses there is one ultimate truth

And what one is that?

[PigDogg]

(Stewart @ Aug. 26 2006,21:51) And what one is that?

beats the hell out of me!

i'm not sure if it really matters though.

[Bravo]

Guys,

I think there are two different issues here, one is organised religion and the other is personal faith.

Boxercr - you talk about your personal faith in God and that it brings you comfort. That's great and I hope your relationship with your god helps you.

Stogie seems to be talking more about organised religion (apologies for putting words in your mouth Stogie), the way in which a religious group make a set of rules that you must live by. This is simply a way of controlling people and they way in which they live.

[Mai-Kee]

Time to post this one again:

[ohnoriceagain]

Ok, I am not religious but my ex wife is, and my daughter is (15 yrs old). I've never tried to dissuade her though the daughter knows I do not believe. Yes, I see it as blind faith but it is no where the same thing as rape. Rape is violence, religion does teach basic morals and when she is older, she can decide. It's kind of like when she was young, she believed in Santa Claus then found that it just wasn't real.

God is a weird concept, heaven and hell, but honestly, I think that people grow out of the absolute, still believe in the almighty power, but know that their actions are not a sentence of purgatory for an eternal lifetime.

My kiddo may realize it's all bullshit when she hits college, or she may never realize it's all bullshit. She's not going to start a war, though religions like to war but she will grow up and use it for what it is worth. Her kids will get the same.

So, ok, religion is man made, fake, corporate, but not in any way should it be correlated with rape. Rape is some sick psycho fuck pulling physical empowerment at that time and moment. Religion is Sunday school when you're a kid, and you can change your mind when you get older.

Religion=Rape is an asinine argument.

[stogie bear]

So, ok, religion is man made, fake, corporate, but not in any way should it be correlated with rape...

Rape is some sick psycho fuck pulling physical empowerment at that time and moment...

In my mind these two statements contradict each other.

Religion is mental rape pure and simple. It's worse than physical rape, because physical injury gets better. The abuse of the mind that is religion is a permanent mind stain.

You cut me - I heal... you call me fat, I never forget that.

Religion is some sick psycho fuck pulling mental empowerment at that time and moment...  Hmmmm.....

[andre459]

You cut me - I heal... you call me fat, I never forget that

Surely the pyschological damage that a rape victim suffers can last a life time.

[Tomcat]

(boxercr @ Aug. 26 2006,14:20) we still should be able to respect each others' opinions without emnity.

Come on, this is the real world,. If Stogie has a grudge against religion he aint the only one.

Anyway why should we respect religeon, it has no logical base and is just knowledge by revelation and not real proven facts.When you hear these creationist nuts saying there were Dinosaurs on Noahs Ark and wanting to teach this crap in Schools it beggars belief.

The Story of the Bible is no more fact than the Wizard of OZ.( Mind you we had a few good spin offs like Ben Hur
and the chariot race .....mmmm.....)

anyway
So far no god has needed to be invoked for what we see in the Universe. You can make a rational line of causality back 15 Billion years to the big bang and before that we havnt that many clues to what the initial state was.

And besides that everyone knows that the answer to the meaning of life is 42.