All you're doing is dragging this out when you ask what air is. If we travel this route you're gonna ask me what life is, and I won't know why, because I didn't say anything that could trigger such an event as far as I know.

But anyway, Air is oxygen to me. The sensation of wind would be a transparent, soft, fluid, but forceful sensation. It's character would be cool. This is all subjective, though. As is Christianity, in its message and, you know, whatever..

Where did this even come from.

He's trying to prove some point by pretending that wind is magic.

Is this some kinda religion hoodoo talk?

The question is a half-cut cigarette, you puff a few before flicking it to the rain sloshed pavement, you coolly pull another light it and place it in your mouth the sweet ash twists down into your gullet like a cartoon snake from a 1940's cartoon short.

A series of questions that lead to eachother even if the actions themselves seem to be in separate ranges of awareness. The wind thing points out, that though we're able to understand where something comes from and even it's logical purpose in the vine covered clock. We have little explanations for the interactions we experience with these moving patterns on the Earth.

For example, your with your girl the day is cloudy not gray but an almost ethereal blue that sinks into white like light through the window in a knob-job cathedral, you take your girl up to a hill which oversees a grassy field that extend fifty miles due east. The outline of trees and the reflective ponds place sporatically on the flat plain gives the scene a picturesque quality to it, and the experience is similar to a distant sound building as it approaches. The wind picks up and it blows your love's hair back, her autumn curls shimmer a bit at the moment her face given a glow of summer long dispersed. It's beautiful and the moment fades, the clouds reattatch and flow on into the silky mold.

I'm not questioning evolution, nor carbon dating, nor anything else that's been proven again and again and improved upon by the human observation and experimentation. And I highly doubt what I've described is any predestined work. But is the ability to feel such a way, the colliding events so small yet so, to be idiotic. . . lovely is it just nothing more than a collsion of patterns in a twisting engine?

I think there is a higher understanding than we imagine, god, whatever you want to call it, continually swims in all forms in all times and I think we're all apart of it regardless of belief, state of mind, or previous action. The Universe is greater and more lively than we can ever know.

Snobbish contempt aside.

I just don't understand why this world isn't enough for people.

Because people's minds expand beyond it.
Are you happy with the world alone?

Very

What do you think of the concept of perfection?

In what respect? I've never come across anything nor heard of anything that's perfect.

I've been in debates before arguing the idea of Heaven, and to me that if such a place existed, it would require an utter lack of any remnants of the human existence. Including a person's individuality.
But that raises other questions, can a utopian society ever stand while at the same time allowing mankind to have their freedom of will?

I really do think it's just a collision of patterns. I'm not ruling out anything, but I'd be more prone to believing that over something supernatural guiding it all.

I don't really believe in a "utopia," in the general sense, but, I do believe that with the right perspective, you can look at the world itself, not society, as a "utopia," of sorts. The world is an absolutely incredible thing, and though I'll never be able to describe why it works (and I don't care to), I'm never short of stunned as to how beautiful and unreal it all is.

I don't think I really addressed what you were looking for though.

Not really looking for anything, I believe our current status of being "hapless sinners" is perfection. :thumb:

i swear dawg, if jesus ever tries that end-of-days-return-to-earth-shit ima be like "yo back the fuck up nigga we run dis shit fo relllz."

holla.

Fo' **** man, fo' ****.

It's just good-natured debate. Neither me nor anyone else in this thread are likely to change our opinions on the matter. :)
Yes, there are phonies in Christianity, as there is in just about any cause or movement you'll find on this planet. Those who put on a fake mask and judge everyone else will suffer for their actions in the afterlife.
I've only given birth to 13 rabbits. :D
That wasn't what I was saying at all. My point was that people who use Christianity as justification for their crimes can do so because there are set principles to Christianity that they can blame it on. When it comes to Atheists, they don't have principles based on religion. Maybe principles based on morals or laws or whatever, but not on religion.

My nigga Jesus will stomp you OUT son, I mean just stomp away.

I still don't know how this came up for me.

all i have to say about you guys and faith is...im not judging you because who am i to do that? lol


but this is my out look on christianity.







lyrics for those who can't understand it....

Suicide Silence - Unanswered Lyrics

so you listen to shitty music and pretend it has some spiritual relevancy on your life? for some reason i don't see the connection.

it would be awesome if people stopped using parsed lyrics and cliched phrases to explain away their emotional baggage. people only get to live about seventy years (if you're lucky), and you're going to tell me that it's up to the music you listen to to paint your spiritual canvas? here dude, some real words to live by:

think for yourself.

Well-played, good sir. :clap:

You're deliberately ignoring my point so I'll cut right to the chase. You are claiming your beliefs on the basis of faith, just faith. You have no logical or scientific ground to stand on and I could make similar claims based on faith and there's no way to prove them to be true (hence the absurd question I posed to you that you ignored.) Despite this you came in here and started arrogantly attacking atheists/agnostics and stating they were immoral in comparison to Christians and then you treated the non-belief like some romantic teenage movement of nihilistic pseudo-intellectuals. This is fundamentally wrong seeing as scientific skepticism is a super idea to modern Catholicism.

Interesting you say this now seeing as earlier you insinuated that atheists committed more crimes than Christians.

It is true that my religious beliefs are based entirely on faith and it really isn't up for discussion obviously, because this conversation isn't really based on fact for me. I never attacked Atheists/Agnostics, I defended Christianity. All I said was that Christianity can be a very good thing in life and it can change the way you think and act in life, hence why people become born agains. As for the "nihilistic pseudo-intellectuals", that wasn't all-encompassing (in fact, it didn't include you as I pointed out earlier in the thread). When I said what I did, I was referring to people who don't bother to research or look for themselves but who prefer to be part of the modern society that no longer embraces Christianity the way it used to.
And I stand behind what I said. That doesn't make Atheists/Agnostics any lesser of people, they just don't have any role model of sorts to base their morals off of. They don't have the motivation to do good that Christians have.

Jesus doesn't like it when you lie. You didn't come in here and defend Christianity and talk about your faith being a personal choice. Read your posts, want me to quote them for you? You sarcastically mocked atheists, demanded they prove something you yourself said was unprovable and then avoided any discussion by citing "faith" as your sole reason for believing. Do not continue this discussion by pretending you were being anything other than arrogant, condescending and self-righteous.

Then it's a stupid statement to stand behind. Christians did not invent morality and they have no claim to it - nor do they have claim to many of the great civil rights advancements of recent times. In fact by using faith as your justification you're only condoning the acts of extremists (e.g. 9/11 and suicide bombing.)

There's also another logical fallacy I see in your post. You're essentially saying that the believer has reason to be moral because of his fear of eternal punishment by that logic, the moral nonbeliever (and there is such a thing as a moral nonbeliever) is moral for no reason other than for the sake of being moral. Which do you consider to be the more noble moralist? For me it's the latter.

As far as nonbelievers committing more crimes (aside from you having provide no evidence other than personal experience) I highly doubt they do it because of their critical thinking and skeptical inquiry. Let's take an example near and dear to your heart (as a Catholic) if you see a man molest a child why do you think he did it? Because he was an atheist (or more likely a Priest) or because of lust? There's no logical connection between the former and the act, however there is a logical connection between lust and the act.

I stand firmly against this. I don't need a role model to base my morals off of, because I have my own sense of right and wrong, and just because I don't believe in God doesn't make it any more or less "moral" on those terms. I don't need God to give me motivation to do good, I give myself motivation to do good because I believe it is right.

I really don't see how you can validate that statement. Just because someone doesn't believe in God doesn't mean they don't have a will to do good, and to claim otherwise I think is ridiculous.

Please explain, on what basis to you think non-believers have no motivation to do good simply because they don't believe in your religion?

The idea that a nonbeliever is less moral than a believer is of course complete bullshit. Warren Buffett, who's possibly the greatest philanthropist of our time, has donated more to charity than Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson have ever even considered giving.

Right, so by your reasoning, atheists have no moral compass, and have no desire to do good.

Well, not only is that comment incredibly offensive, it's extremely ignorant. Since I'm conveniently an atheist, lets use me as an example shall we? I started volunteering at a homeless shelter at the age of 15, went to cambodia for 2 months (on my dime) to volunteer for a non-profit organization and teach english at an orphanage at 20, at 21 I worked at that same homeless shelter at home when I could have made more money at a boring office job, and now at 22 I just came back from an internship in Cameroon working for a non-government organization when I could have stayed in Calgary working for a newspaper. Now I'm working to set up a job (be it paid, or simply for room and board) in india working for an ngo.

My motivation to work in the non-profit sector most certainly does not come from religion. It sure as hell doesn't come from any desire for financial gain, and it's disgusting that you think that an atheist can have no capacity to desire to do good in the world. Long and short of it, you embody every quality of the arrogant ******* Christian that I really despise.

To expand on this secular morality vs. christian morality argument; humanistic movements have been motivated by societal needs as opposed to religious needs throughout history. Movements towards civil rights and voting came about through societal pressure and acceptance; not because the Bible said so. It's really only after the fact that people go through the Bible and point out a verse and go "see! the bible is anti-racism and pro-feminism" but by the same token the bible can be interpreted to say just the opposite (which is why I wouldn't consider it the complete book of morals. You can justify anything through it.)

My reply to the initial question of this thread would probably go something like this:

Christianity, on the personal level, is only as real as you want it be. If you had never heard of Christianity and discovered The Bible as an adult, you probably wouldn't be basing your life-system off of it. It's a big reason why adults who grew up in religious-tolerant homes, but still remained Christian as a matter of tradition, create their own version of Christianity. However, for some it has enough of that "faith-healing" factor to trigger the initial human tenacity in us all that helps people to kick drug addictions and recover from serious illnesses.

On a family level, it acts quite strongly as an invisible nanny if the parents decide to enforce the religion on their childrens' minds. It convinces the kids that being bad never goes unnoticed. "If the parents never know about it, God surely did, and you better believe that you'll answer for what you did eventually." It's this kind of mental parasitism that promotes the notion that being different (i.e. gay, of a different faith or faithless) is wrong - and in fanatical circumstances - punishable by death. Therefore, the kids' minds will keep themselves in check.

On a national level, you might get something similar to what we have going on today between the US and the Middle East. That old notion of the different peoples of the world being wrong and "evil" triggers mass hysteria and hate-mongering. "And if we destroy the world while we're at it? That's Okay, because our God will understand that it was what we had to do to get rid of all the heathens. And then we can all go live with Jesus in fluffy clouds." Although technically the United States is not a Christian nation, it's far from completely secular (i.e. national holidays, Manifest Destiny). And there are plenty of mentally feeble dupes to convince to go to strange places, learn strange, new customs, and meet strange, new people only to kill them. All because their reverend, pastor, priest, father, parishioner, president, general, TV said it was the right thing to do.

So depending on what level we refer to it, Christianity is real in a completely harmless way, and on another level it could wield the power to destroy most of the life on the planet.

I think the question is, "Should we allow it to exist as a harmless idea when it has genocidal potential?"

What you depict (I'm assuming your description of its role in the family is the "harmless idea" side of Christianity) is mental child abuse.

You're right, the motivation is different. Atheists do good for the sake of doing good, not to try and earn brownie points with Jesus.

Also, with regard to your insinuation that atheists commit more crimes, what do you make of the statistical reality that there are disproportionally lower numbers of atheists in prison than religious people?

Amen brother.

Edit:
Specifically the devils/demons aspect of it as well.

Ethan brings up another point about the idea of putting the "fear of god" into people. The whole notion of doing good for fear of the wrath of god feels wrong to me. I'd rather my children raised to know what is right and wrong, and make good decisions based on their own knowledge, understanding and judgement, not based on the fear that some spiritual boogy-man is going to smite them if they don't toe the line.

Well, these people must have only "found god" AFTER going to prison. and now, god bless their immortal soul, they're SAVED! In the eyes of god a rapist and murderer is just as good and beautiful a person as Ghandi or Mother Teresa since he's accepted Jesus as his lord and savior. And because a child molester mumbled "yeah...sorry bout that" to god, he now has stronger morals than us atheists damned to eternal hellfire.

doesn't that just move the fear of judgment from God to society? I don't think this argument has gone much past a superficial level so far.

LOL. Of course. :laughing:

No. I think the comparison is morality as a result of spiritual fear versus morality as a result of genuine willingness to do good, regardless of consequence for negative actions.

'genuine willingness to do good,' where does the idea of 'genuine' come from, why is there a 'willingness' present, and how do we define the 'good'? sounds like a series of responses to social pressures to me. if you could arrive at such a state without interacting with other people and being forced to adopt the social game, you'd have to assume the existence of God.

Not in my mind no. Someone who refrains from causing harm on others merely because it is against the law and only because they fear repercussions from society is no better than someone who only refrains from causing harm because of the fear of god.

A truly good person is someone who seeks to help people not just to "earn brownie points with jesus" or to earn brownie points from society, but because they are driven by something inside them, and have some internal motivation to make a positive difference in whatever way. The motivation shouldn't come from a fear of god or a fear of society, it should come from an internal desire to do good.

It's the assumption that (most) humans have a natural capacity to care that's not a result of legal consequence.
I think, if anything, the inability to care is more of an effect of societal pressure than the inverse.

Edit:
Instead of inability, I should have said "unwillingness".