Eucharistic Shenaninigans

#61

Edit: this is @ MTL…
One of the things about religion is that there are so many different variations on it. For example, Unitarian Universalism, which is actually the religion my mom grew up with, sounds a lot like what you’re talking about. It’s actually extremely popular in my area - the local UU church is basically the cornerstone for the local Religious Council that includes all of the local churches, the temple, the mosque, etc. Wikipedia says it’s a “theologically liberal religion characterized by its support for a ‘free and responsible search for truth and meaning.’ Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth. Unitarian Universalists draw on many different theological sources and have a wide range of beliefs and practices.”

While it technically has its roots in Christianity, one of the leaders of the church got involved in a huge shitstorm because he made a speech or sermon or something that discussed God in a way that a lot of people didn’t feel was appropriate (ie it was a sermon similar to what you’d hear in a more typical Christian church). Just food for thought. :wink:

@GB’s sig: can you explain how Christianity and evolution are mutually exclusive? I’m not being at all sarcastic here, I’m just interested to hear your thoughts on the subject…

#62

Sure.
Evolution and science is an explanation of life based purely on the scientific method. If you apply the scientific method to religion it doesn’t make sense and it wouldn’t be logical at all to say that part of the universe follows the scientific method while another part doesn’t. Also, using the scientific method, scientists have created a set of laws for the universe which contradict the existence of a god and his ability to be all powerful, cause miracles, create the world etc.

#63

This is two pages late, but I wasn’t directing my post at you. More the people who would make the same argument against religion while pushing atheism on others. You’ve actually done a pretty good job at trying to discourage this idiocy.

Look, guys, I’m an atheist/agnostic, or probably better said, an apatheist (new term I learned today, google it.) But I don’t feel the need to run around screaming about how terrible faith is and how superior atheism is. Why in the hell do you?

What is it you guys condemn religious believers for again? “Forcing” their views on you? Calling your behavior “deviant?” Have you even looked at yourself and realized that you’re doing the EXACT SAME THING regarding religious belief?

You’re not going to get anywhere doing this. Hell, I don’t even think there’s a single Christian on here who is opposing you. You’re just repeating various atheist talking points in an attempt to make yourselves feel good, and as a result it’s annoying good people like Catz who simply want to be left alone and to believe what they want to believe.

If you want to think of yourselves as enlightened above all those silly little backwards religious folks, go ahead. If you want to have an actual debate on the benefits of atheism vs theism, be my guest. But first, learn what an actual debate is. It involves rationality, civility, and most of all, an opposing side, which seems conspicuously absent here.

#64

Don’t like this argument? Then GTFO.

What soup asked for doesn’t exist. There is no argument so how are we meant to talk about it?

#65

Touche.
But I highly disagree with about 25% of the opinions in this thread and I would like to address these opinions.

#66

So you’re telling me, if I don’t like something, I should leave it alone?
You’re proving my points quite nicely. :wink:

#67

You are saying you hate this argument. I’m saying I hate some of the opinions in this argument. There’s a difference.

#68

The principle stands.
You’re complaining about people forcing their opinions and are responding by forcing your opinions on other people. You’re exhibiting a behavior and, when somebody challenges that behavior, you tell them to leave. You then continue to challenge other peoples’ behaviors.

On a side note, when people whine about “forcing opinions,” they often refer to somebody challenging their viewpoint. This is not something I disagree with - which is why I don’t ask people not to challenge my viewpoint.

My problem lies in people who are essentially wishing to not only have a soapbox, but to demolish the soapboxes of all others.

#69

This is the original post:

Now it seems to me that what is up for debate is that people have been addressing Soup in his non belief. They stated to him that their view is correct, and attempted to cite youtube videos as proof.

I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to follow that the idea of this upset me, and that is is a major problem. It is one thing to have beliefs and faith, but if you intend to come to someone and say they should view things the way you do, you should provide them with something they can either grasp and relate to, OR provide them with stimulating thoughts stemming from your beliefs and hope it influences them to your point of view. In either situation, you can’t claim you are correct. At best you can claim it’s what you believe and those are the reasons.
That is the point I’ve been drilling down in every post.
I sprinkled in what I thought and believed, but I also said outright I don’t want ANYONE to think the things I do, or believe the things I do. I don’t walk up to people and tell them they are wrong, and I am right, and they should be like me. I feel in somethings I am right, and others are mislead. However there is a great deal I don’t have the needed information to influence others, so I don’t even want to convince them to think or believe anything close to what I do, because I understand the limitations of my beliefs.

#70

That’s really all there is to it. They shouldn’t tell someone they’re wrong and then shove Youtube videos into their face as evidence. Especially when there’s really no evidence that they are right in the first place.

#71

OK, I see what you’re saying. It really depends how you interpret religion, miracles, etc; I think we’re going to touch on the actual topic for once :rolleyes:

The Bible, in my mind, was written by various scholars through the ages who were simply recording oral tradition. Large chunks of it, IIRC, were written down by imprisoned Jewish scholars with nothing but time on their hands, circa 1000-500 BCE. With that said, I don’t think the Bible is unimportant; quite the opposite, in fact. I think that the Bible, when taken as a whole, really captures the essence of Christianity and (in the case of the old testament anyway) Judaism. To a certain extent, even Islam. You just have to understand that major parts of it are “signs of the times” and/or accepted knowledge of the time. For example, the oft-quoted bits about homosexuality, which I think are just the opinions of ancient people that somehow managed to find their way into their writings (this never happens now, not at all :rolleyes: )

I don’t believe that the world was created in one fell swoop; I believe in the modified Big Bang theory or whatever the current theory of the universe is. I trust the scientists who know a LOT more than I do about it; most of what I know about the history of the universe is from my physics textbook (which covers just about the first half a second of the universe) and A Briefer History of Time (really amazing book - I highly recommend it, even if you don’t really have a head for science). I’m really interested in science, I try to learn as much as I can about it, I would be very surprised if I didn’t go into a career in science; it’s just that, as of right now, I have no chance of becoming an expert on it.

I believe in evolution, just like 95% of other Christians. Evolution is a simple, elegant theory that makes perfect sense. It’s supported by common sense. I’m really surprised no one thought of it earlier; I guess it had to do with the lack of knowledge of genetics at the time. I view the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor - a lot like the legends and proverbs told by every major civilization on Earth. Like I said, you have to look at the bible as a whole and take out the overall themes. If you only look at certain parts of it, the only thing you’ll get out of it is confusion. I think Christianity is to blame for a lot, if not all of this confusion; memorizing and spitting out random verses isn’t very conducive to taking the Bible as a whole.

In the case of miracles, I think it really depends on how you personally interpret religion and the world as a whole, even how you interpret the term “miracle” itself. My concept of miracles is probably completely different than what you would get if you asked a random member of my church; it’s a very personal thing. There’s a lot of room for interpretation. I would say that the entire universe is one big miracle, especially life. It’s the only way I can rationalize why there’s anything at all. I mean, I know the universe is here because of the big bang, and the big bang may or may not have happened because of a Big Crush, but why is there the cycle to begin with? Why is there anything?

I’ve been hit by cars on my bike several times, never gotten any serious injuries, thankfully. The worst collision I had, I just happened to be on a mountain bike rather than my road bike, I skidded sideways, but didn’t fall. If I had been on my road bike, I most likely would have been run over. You can take whatever you want from that. You might call it sheer luck, I would call it a miracle. In my experience, the two are synonymous. I don’t picture God reaching down from the clouds and whispering in my ear to choose the thick tires, that’s not really how I picture miracles. It’s an incredibly hard concept to explain to other Christians, never mind committed Atheists. :smiley:

Sorry if I ramble or make no sense whatsoever, I’m really tired. I got more sleep last night than I’ve gotten all week, yet I’m more tired today than I’ve been all week. How does that work?

TL;DR: lots of room for interpretation; look at the bible as a whole, not it’s component parts; Christianity != ignorance; I don’t give a rat’s ass what you believe, as long as you’re a reasonably decent member of society or at least aren’t out to destroy the world :stuck_out_tongue:

Hope that clears some stuff up. I’ll clarify tomorrow if need be.

EDIT: hoooly shit; that’s an even more massive wall of text then I thought it was… Sorry. :fffuuu:

#72

I actually can’t find anything in here to disagree with but I really don’t see much religion in it.

Congratulations, you won this argument, I have no right to tell you to leave. I will still smash religious soap boxes while establishing my own because I feel I’m right, and religion is wrong. I have no problem though with you forcing your own soap box so I am not hypocritical. (except for when I told you to leave, I was wrong there, I withdraw that statement)

#73

I return to this thread to find my post did not get any flames.

Great, what am I to do for the night?

Oh wait… I’m going to Avatar in a few hours…

#74

Not quite.

This axiom reeks of “you should be tolerant of intolerance or you’re a hypocrite.”

(Yes, I’ve been called a hypocrite in the past for being intolerant of intolerance.)

#75

I see your point, but it would have been better to make it once the topic had run its course.

#76

Oh God not another one of these threads.

#77

Hello. I’m happy to see people actually argue about this. Despite the many ruffled feathers and the huge screwing up potential it’s the right thing to do.
I’m an atheist and i just wanted to clarify things a little bit, without taking sides (we’ll see if i manage that).
But let’s begin on topic : Soup, nobody will show you any proof of that kind. NEVER. And if those people insist on bothering you, explain to them that showing such cheap b#llshit to other people is just dragging one’s religion through the gutter.
Why ?
Well, it seems in this thread some militant atheists think that to be religious you have to be some sort of retard (after all, you mix up reality and fairytales). They absolutely and utterly miss the point : it’s not that faith and rationality can’t see eye to eye, it’s just that they are and always will be invisible to one another, because they are totally separate mechanisms. They coexist inside everyone of us but they just cover remote areas of our relation to the world. Proving one’s faith, or proving the stupidity of one’s faith for that matter, is not only impossible, it’s just plain nonsense.
And don’t tell me that reason is obviously superior to faith in everything, it’s not that simple. Every last one of us live off faith as naturally as he draws breath, down to the most rabid rationalist/atheist. It is a basic human need.
One example : making the decision of having children is a huge investment of faith, don’t you think ?
But faith is not religion, that one being one step further : little faith, being fragile and easily scared, is in need of security. So people form groups and search for a unifying principle, a unique and everlasting Truth, upon which they put a face and a name : God.
Well i have no problem with that, since that’s exactly what we do all day long whithout even realizing it : putting a friendly face on a world that is otherwise probably cold and ruthlessly indifferent. But unfortunately that’s usually when the trouble begins…

#78

Which, it seems to me, it has! Everyone’s agreed that no religion can be proven (especially not with a series of Youtube videos…) and neither can the nonexistence of God. I don’t know why Biological Evolutionists and Christians (I’m in this group) think that they’re ideas are contradictory. From what I’ve seen, they fit together like puzzle pieces :slight_smile:

NOTE: Read this in a slow, curious voice, not a quickly-worded, loud or angry voice! Because that is the inflection on my thoughts!

Another idea that interests me is that Evolution cannot be proven by any matter of science. I mean, it’s not like other manifests of science like the Big Bang theory that can be proven using math. It’s never been able to proceed further than the “Wouldn’t it be cool if it worked like this?” stage of science. And for every false prophet or fake miracle, there’s a scientist who lies to prove evolution and gets caught or missing link that turned out to be a hoax. I’m not trying to disprove any religion or Evolution, I’m just saying it takes as much faith to believe in Evolution as it does to believe in God.

Think of it this way: Imagine if the Superstring Theory started being taught in elementary and high school as if it were fact. There would be an uproar from the scientific community! Steven Hawking would be standing outside a school district with a sign! (Taped to his chair? You know what, it doesn’t matter.) But there is as much proof for Evolution as the Superstring Theory (albeit that the Superstring theory is a little harder to swallow). So why do we accept the teaching of Evolution so readily before other ideas, when it’s only a theory? A faith?

Not trying to start an argument. Just food for thought.

#79

First, the religious aren’t stupid, it’s their religion that is stupid. Most often they’ve just been brainwashed by their parents.

No matter what you say, faith is a stupid weak thing. You’re just getting faith and trust mixed up. You have reasons to trust, you don’t have reasons for faith. Having a child, if you are being responsible, should be a huge investment of trust, if you have your child based off faith, there’s a good chance things will go wrong. I don’t have faith, I have trust.

EDIT: Evolution is not faith!!! It is IMO more than %50 likely so I support it with all my might. Evolution may not be %100 proven, but it’s got a hell of a lot more evidence and reason behind it than anything else.

#80

i c wat u did there

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