Religion - which one is "the best"?

SheWolf wrote:

IndigoWolf wrote:

I've always held my hand close and not wanted to reveal my cards. Not quite sure why I've become comfortable enough to share what I have.

Those who are with strong, honorable heart will come together with kindred spirits and share the bounties Mother Earth has to offer. I'm sure you will resonate with this.

Indeed, I concur...

I give my thanks to the Maker of mother earth.

Happy Easter!

and if your not really into that....

Happy Anniversary of the Alleged Rebirth of our Mythological Savior!



wish i could claim this as my own work!

Thank you. Happy Easter.

and a happy Ostara to you ....

Strange how there's nothing but silence from this guy isn't it?

Or is it?

Maybe he's still trying to pull his underwear out of the crack of his ass from the rest of the world giving him an atomic wedgie....

Or maybe at 6pm he jumped off his roof in hopes he would float up to heaven?

Based on the amount of money his "church" has pulled in over the last few years, I'm guessing he's laughing his ass off on some private island he now owns.

motokid wrote:

Based on the amount of money his "church" has pulled in over the last few years, I'm guessing he's laughing his ass off on some private island he now owns.

The problem with that theory, they spent the majority of it before the Saturday. So who knows. Actually, who gives a sh*t.

trav72 wrote:

motokid wrote:

Based on the amount of money his "church" has pulled in over the last few years, I'm guessing he's laughing his ass off on some private island he now owns.

The problem with that theory, they spent the majority of it before the Saturday. So who knows. Actually, who gives a sh*t.

Well, I wouldn't mind seeing some charges thrown at him for fraud or something....but I do understand he wasn't forcing anyone to "donate" money to his "whoreganization".

Still - it's his kind of "business" that makes me think it's high time churches were declared taxable entities.

motokid wrote:

it's high time churches were declared taxable entities.

+1

Saw this at advrider and laughed out loud.

Wow...raised from the dead, this thread!

SheWolf wrote:

Wow...raised from the dead, this thread!

For some I thought it might be a humorous diversion from the topics of late.

I tried with the food threads and stuff...but we keep circling back like vultures over dead meat.....so maybe some religious can help.

Prayer is a powerfull tool. It can help break Satans grip over things in our lives.

I can't remember the last time I prayed, so it was probably a long time ago.

But just for context while we're all having a few yucks about them silly religious people, whether they believe in a supreme being or wood sprites and Mother Earth, a few other notables who also laughed at prayer and religion in general (I'd throw their pics in one of those funny unmotivational posters, but I'm going riding):

Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Mao Tse-tung
Pol Pot

Captain Midnight wrote:

Prayer is a powerfull tool. It can help break Satans grip over things in our lives.

Way to use your logic and reason!

In relation to Motokids motivational post, I submit my favorite prayer quote, "Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer."-Anonymous.

While searching for the origin of that quote I found this post with it:

Quote :

The truth is so beautiful.

Both sets of hands you speak of, are supported by intelligence, reasoning and morality. The hands clasped in prayer mean to seek the intersession of an imaginary force to do what is their job or make it easier, while the other squanders not it's time in unproductive ritual but knows the productive value of hard, truthfully smart work.

Children have died because parents thought that prayer and worship would cure their child with God's healing power, when all they had to do was pick up the phone and call a doctor.

How gullible can God worshipers be? Tragically, the promoters of Gods have no remorse for their part in the fraud. They continue to indoctrinate (brainwash) their victims with fear, baseless and unsupported claims, promises of favoritism and to manipulate human greed with fictitious rewards, even though no science supports a "spiritual" God or Spaghetti Monster, heaven or hell, afterlife or reincarnation.

All life from man to moth, from whale to virus, has the following purpose:

"To prosper the species and control it's environment and destiny."

For this, ALL life has evolved many faculties including the hands of humans. All life including humans, either continue to prosper and evolve, or they become extinct. From Darwin to astronomy, nuclear physics and DNA, we are learning about the nature and evolution of all forms of Energy that comprise life and the universe.

But those who promote the clasped hand fraud have caused great suffering, divisions, wars and genocide for the singular most evil motive, the Glory of their cult and beliefs, at the expense of humanity and the truth as supported by nature.

Regards,

Forgive and Share

Fortunately I grew up in a Catholic and atheist home, so I was closely exposed to two ideologies while growing up. My mother was Catholic and my father is an atheist, but my father never intervened with my mother raising me Catholic. As I got older, around the age of 10, I started to ask questions, in which Catholics(Christians too) would aways say you have to have faith, it's god's will, or they would say you just have to pray and god will answer you, well I never got answers from the imaginary god. None of these answers worked for me or seemed logical, again this is me thinking at the age of 10, but when I would ask my father questions he would give me straight forward scientific rational answers, like we don't know yet, we can look it up or that's a part of life. I was also fortunate to have grown up with the "Discovery Channel", "TLC (The Learning Channel)", "NASA Channel", and more importantly I had unrestricted access to the internet in my room at age 10 and up; this is where I was able to find real answers to many of my question about life and matter. The truth and answers are out there, you just have to look 'em up! By my experience and observations I can tell you many others and myself got ZERO answers or help from praying. I quite going to church and taking religion serious as soon as I started to reason, about the age of 10.

And to end my post I'll submit one of my all time favorite quotes:
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan

This thread just won't die, will it? I guess it shows the longing in humans to grapple with & try to understand eternity. But it also seems there are a lot of angry, anti-christian people posting.. maybe had some bad experiences growing up? We don't see the same hostility directed toward Mohammad or Buddha, so it must be a personal, christian thing, rather than a god in general thing.

It is also very interesting to me how those who proclaim loudest their own open mindedness & liberal leanings, are the most intolerant of christians. The religious certainly have no monopoly on hypocrisy.

It's like a pack of wolves with a feeding frenzy of mocking & ridicule. One or 2 christians come on here, repeating some standard dogma, & the snapping & howling begins! But several new age wiccan types post & all they are greeted with is understanding & acceptance. You guys can't see this? Read back over this thread. I hadn't been following it, but since it resurfaced, i caught up from a very early post i made on page 3 or 4.

Hypocrisy at it's finest. If you've suffered psychological damage because of how you were raised, or from some trauma with a priest, fine. Get therapy. But to just come here & beat up on 'the religious' is really lame.

Everyone is religious. Everyone has a world view or philosophy of life they 'believe' in. Most atheists are just as dogmatic as any other religious subscriber. They just believe there is no god. And many of them are just as zealous for their creed as any christian. Can they prove there is no god? Can anyone prove there is a god? Since the answer to both is 'no', then it is a matter of faith for either. The agnostic is only pleading ignorance: 'i don't know if there is a god'.

If you're wanting an honest debate about world views, the existence of god or a spirit world, then make your points, defend them logically, & read the responses. But i guess that's not what is really wanted here.. it is a bash fest for the mob... a ridicule circus for mockers & people who do not have a reasonable, defend able world view of their own & only want to bash other's.

aaronhall555 wrote:

All life from man to moth, from whale to virus, has the following purpose:

"To prosper the species and control it's environment and destiny."

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan

The above was not directed at you personally, Aaron. But i did have a couple of comments on your quotes. I don't know of any species that really 'controls it's environment & destiny,' except for man, and only in a very limited way. Most of us creatures can only adapt to what is there the best we can. And i don't really see how that matters anyway to the discussion of philosophy.

And the Sagan quote can be used by theists as well. It is quite obvious that delusion exists, & is very widespread, especially in the philosophical realm. Perhaps everything is a delusion.. but perhaps there is a Truth. Just because we are too ignorant or thick or delusional to grasp it does not invalidate the Truth in any way. I do not know this 'Truth', but i am a seeker of it. This Truth exists in spite of all the different religions & philosophies.. it might be in some of them.. but maybe not.

But how does mocking & ridiculing another's world view prove anything? Does it aid in this quest for truth & reality? If you disbelieve another's position (which we all do), fine. But why do some feel the need to mock & ridicule? Are their philosophical arguments too lame to defend with reason?

..pompous, self righteous rant over..

Can we rename this thread to "The thread that will piss everyone off", religious or not everyone has a strong opinion
It's interesting how we all think, an intelligent person could suddenly become an idiot the moment you discover they are religious or not
Kinda like your best friend would be cool til they tell you they are gay then suddenly you think less of them, or if you discover they smoke pot or own a Harley
We all seem too quick to judge
Good people are good people and religion will not make a bad person good
One thing for sure, these snake oil salesmen like Peter Popoff etc etc really need to be put in jail and all the people who believe in them need to be evaluated
There is something seriously wrong with a person who will follow these creatures and it seriously injures the credibility of other religious groups

rydnseek wrote:

This thread just won't die, will it? I guess it shows the longing in humans to grapple with & try to understand eternity. But it also seems there are a lot of angry, anti-christian people posting.. maybe had some bad experiences growing up? We don't see the same hostility directed toward Mohammad or Buddha, so it must be a personal, christian thing, rather than a god in general thing.

I think that the reaction is more toward the use of the religion than toward the religion itself.

Since there are people that mix religion with things that have nothing to do with spirituality, it causes problems averywhere. It's exactly the same problem between Israelites and Palestinians. the problem is related to who occupies what part of the country but yet many are using religion to group people against each others.

In north america there are people that use the religious people in political matters and it causes reactions. The reaction is toward Christians because there are not a lot of muslims that dare to show off these days. I must say that the muslims and the jews are quite more exposed in my area than the christians.

Anyway as long as religion stays a way to develop spirituality, there is generally no problems and I would say that it helps many people. As soon as religion gets into something else, it's show time. It should stay what it is, a private matter.

Jäger wrote:

I can't remember the last time I prayed, so it was probably a long time ago.

But just for context while we're all having a few yucks about them silly religious people, whether they believe in a supreme being or wood sprites and Mother Earth, a few other notables who also laughed at prayer and religion in general (I'd throw their pics in one of those funny unmotivational posters, but I'm going riding):

Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Mao Tse-tung
Pol Pot

There were a number of our founding fathers who were non-theists as well. Several were skeptics at best when it came to religious theory. Thus the freedom from state religion and the freedom for religious choice, ... or not.

Source: Thomas Jefferson, "Religion" in Notes on the State of Virginia (1782), p. 287.

"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

Source: Thomas Jefferson, "The Virginia Legislature, Review and Reform of the Law," in Autobiography.

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

Dancamp wrote:

I think that the reaction is more toward the use of the religion than toward the religion itself.

Ding, ding, ding.....we have a winner!

Best line of the whole thread.

I'd vote for Mark Twain. In "Letters from the Earth," Twain argued that "man fell from the higher animals." Based on what I see in political forums, I think most monkeys have better capacity for logical thought. Any religion that describes a god smart enough to be disgusted by humans is a good pick. Obviously, any religion invented by humans is suspect; Twain and Thomas Paine excluded from the run of the mill human riff raff.