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I don't have it.
As far as religion goes-it seems crazy to me.
Lotsa folks have faith.
 ISIS has faith. Hitler had faith. the religious snake grabbers that I grew up with have faith.
Seems to me FAITH is a belief in some supernatural s**t. Or a reason to say-" I'm better than you!"
I don't buy it-and most FAITH start wars.
I'm not impressed by folks who have it. I think their deluded.

I ain't an atheist-I'm a heretic.
I believe nothing.


feel free to throw rocks.

You seem to believe that religion is stupid and that the folks who follow religions are crazy...

Yeah.

 That wasn't a mystery-I mean-ya know...like what I said...

Faith is extremely dangerous. I understand the psychological appeal but I don't trust it. That said, if someone has a relatively reasonable faith in a mainstream religion, they are usually extremely trustworthy (and predictable). I admire a lot of people who have faith, not for their faith itself, but for the good character it produces.

Ah-but they seem to be in the minority.
Faith gives use Isis, and morons who bomb abortion clinics.
The Crusades  and reasons to wipe out Jews or American Indians.
Faith? I wouldn't call it faith.
I would call it evil prejudice.
Blind belief gave us Charlie Manson and Donald Trump.
A belief in a idea with no basis in fact is insane.

Screw faith, RC, look for evidence of the divine. It's out there.

But frankly, man, when you've been drinking you are at your most emotionally naked, and what I read from your cynicism and negativity is less about conviction and more about pain seeking alleviation. You want happiness and you wish you had it. You'd be glad if you had something that would make your life better. Substance abuse is not it.

If you're right and you die and your consciousness ends and your body rots, then why not embrace the drug of faith that brings more happiness than it does misery and at least have a little more joy in this short life? If there is no God, no afterlife, why is feeling happy about thinking there is one any more insubstantial than the brief bliss that comes from a bottle?

It might even do you some good, and at the very least your loved ones, including those here, would not have to be a witness to your piecemeal self-destruction.

Since you're willing to take so many other drugs (alcohol is a drug) why shun one more, if that's all belief in God is? Especially since that belief has the power to change you for the better? Ever wonder why you look on God and see only the dark side of belief rather than the light? Have you honestly ever tried to look toward something higher than yourself?

The thing about you that bothers  me sometimes, Ronny, is that you are, whether you get mad at me for saying this or not, in your own way a sweet person, and a smart person, and you take an easy path and let what's good in you get smothered by so much negativity.

Any fool can be negative, RC. Try a tough path for a change. Try aiming for the best in yourself. Some of the most intelligent people who ever lived believed in God, so maybe you should wonder what it is they saw that you do not. More good has come out of faith than bad, and I do believe that.

What are you afraid of? Why do you think there is worth in putting down what most others believe in?

If I thought you were worthless, like I think YOU think you're worthless, I wouldn't have bothered taking five minutes to write this, but across ten years I've seen there's a lot of good in you that you're not letting through, and that is a true shame.

It's a new year. It'd be a good time to make some changes.

Lose the vile cynicism, man, it's not helping anything.

Religious faith only makes the news when it does something bad.
Ten thousand Christians go to church, worship, come home, and eat dinner, and the news never mentions it.
One radical goes against what Jesus taught and bombs and abortion clinic or shoots someone, and immediately every single news outlet in America mentions that he is a "fundamentalist Christian."

I believe because after a lifetime of research I am convinced the Gospels are telling the truth about who Jesus was.
And that faith makes me a better, kinder, and more loving person.
and I am NOT in the minority.  It's just that most of us who try to live our lives as Jesus taught never make the news for doing so.

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
 
...but He loves you.

He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but he's just not good with money! "

-- George Carlin

Speaking as a child abuse survivor, I have always had faith in a Higher Power.

For me, I think faith exists, so it makes sense to at least play around at the edges of set of beliefs that has some sort of history.

There's a sort of saying that people who don't have religion tend to create one for themselves. It's very easy to see how communism and marxism turned into a religion for those people. Murray Rothbard the libertarian guy once made the point that Marxism's dialectic, the idea that Marxism is historically inevitable is a variation on milllenialism and so forth

Anyway, if you KNEW you were going to end up believing in SOMETHING woud you rather it be something that has some sort of established guidelines? or some demented Scientology that is like a religion focused on doing nonsensical rituals in order to socially network in Hollywood.

Faith is trust in something, it can be faith that your mother will never let you down, or faith that your dog won't runaway, or faith that you will find your way...
I don't believe that faith HAS to be about religion, though of course, the word "faith" is typically used to describe a religious belief system.  I envy anyone who has faith and admire faith.

You folks are right. I am cynical. I envy you.
ER-Your right. I am cynical and have no faith. I wish I could believe in something.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I really wish something in this f**king world would show me that there is a god-of love and there is some kind of good destiny and meaning to this life.
But I can't find it.
I just can't.
I'm destitute. I'm barren. I feel like I'm hollow.
I wish something would happen to show me life is good. Tiana wants me gone when I get my money from SSI-she doesn't hate me-she just wants to move on. I can understand that.
I have -I don't know. I have nothing to look forward to. I was an artist. I had dreams of being an artist. I'm a loser. I lost it all.

If nothing else, RC, you have in this odd, eclectic bunch of people on this weird internet forum, a group of friends.
We care about you, and while I can't speak for everyone, I know that I even pray for you.
Look for the good, my friend.  There is more out there than you imagine.

Faith as in religion Im not strictly a believer in...though coming from a heavily christian conservative family I do find it hard to escape religion...I suppose deep down I find comfort in the idea of wishing positive outcomes into reality. the idea that if someone is desperate enough for an outcome and enough people want it to be the case, that faith and trust in an unknown force could potentially dictate that outcome...Not that I strictly believe in a devine being or anything. but I will admit there have been moments where I've been sat thinking to myself "For the love of batman please let this thing go this particular way1!!"

As for Faith in the trust sense it's a belief thats equally as fragile to me...I used to hold humanity in a somewhat trusting light but the last 2-3 years have really shown that as a species we're not to be trusted xD

Are you an atheist?

I kinda see where RC is coming from, actually.  I really do. 

I'm not really a believer in definate anythings really xD I dont like the finality that atheism implies, but I think Agnosticisms a bit too wishy washy in terms of the whole "there may be something, or there may not..." kind of vibe... I suppose thinking about it faith in the form of extended optimism works for me as a great comfort blanket...while I dont specifically believe in a creator believing that thinking positive will tend to skew things towards positive outcomes (Even if thats scientifically and statistically unlikely) is a great source of relief and comfort...

By and large I tend to have the outlook that "If something bad happens its chaos theory; nothing personal. lifes just like that. if a good thing happens then promoting that good vibe could potentially make more good things happen"

Admittedly its all a bit hippy dippy...but I've had a pretty happy 10 years or so doing that  :smile:

Sorry for the long winded reply...but I suppose the short answer is: I dont believe in a creator or an afterlife, But I wouldnt class myself as an atheist strictly...

religious people also have moments of atheism or some do.


Also, once I saw a lecture on something and the guy made the point that if you look at the insect world its so unbelievably brutal its hard to comport that with any sort of nice God. Maybe being a human being as opposed to other sorts of animal has so any advantages that we are uniquely well off.

When I think of a mere housefly, this non-aerodynamic blob, staying aloft only by the dizzying miracle of it flapping its wings 500 times a second, I find it hard to think nature alone devised such a talent, when nature can rarely even produce straight lines. In fact flight itself presents a good deal of consternation in a biological theory based simply on natural selection, with the best explanation (at least when I was in college pursing an undergraduate degree in biology) being that some species developed large, flappy limbs for catching bugs and fish, and from those wings came to be.

I suppose if you want to go really far into the matter of faith, why not go to the extreme of questioning whether reality even exists, or is all the illusion of Maya, as Hindus are fond of offering as a brain-teaser, and Age of Enlightenment-era French philosophers liked to consider when trying to impress the subscribers to their periodicals.

I think the universe has fingerprints all over it.

If you want to see one of those fingerprints, google something called the Golden Ratio (sometimes called the Golden Mean).

Er- my point was more along the lines of this

https://twitter.com/chr1sa/status/930873095086206977 (https://twitter.com/chr1sa/status/930873095086206977) "Turns out that fungus doesn't take over the ant's brain, as thought, but rather creates an internal network of fungus cells that controls the limbs. "The ant ends its life as a prisoner in its own body. Its brain is still in the driver’s seat, but the fungus has the wheel."



https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/)

you could forgive this ant for thinking maybe a benevolent God doesn't exist

Except ants don't think.

Whoa whoa WHOA!
How do you know this?
They are pretty damn well organized... just because the thought process of ants is alien to us doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
I'm sure some super-evolved space life form would find were akin to a bunch of ants.
(and I do believe there's life in space).

I see evidence of organization and design in how ants were made.
But no real evidence of self awareness or conscious thought.
But then, I could be wrong.

I dunno....If you see an ant hill-with lotsa busy little ants going about their ant business-and you drop a piece of candy next to them-they discover it-and go apes**t! They drop what there doing and figure out the situation fairly quickly.  They think- "FOOD!" or maybe they think "MANNA!"
(I was a weird kid-ants amazed me.  :lookingup: )

We have the big red harvester ants around here; I used to watch them for hours.
Apparently their behavior is driven by the release of scents called pheromones.

Ever watch when 2 ants meet each other and communicate with their antenna?
But we can never really know. We're driven by our senses too.  Dogs think. So do whales and birds. Why not ants?

Maybe-because the ants have no clue we exist-but that candy fell into their lap-it was manna from the gods.
Not supernatural-just beyond they're ant comprehension of the universe. So when-as in past times-fish fell from the sky-or when one sees something that shouldn't be-a ghost, a UFO-it's just so far beyond us-we can't begin to figure it out. We're just guessing.  We're ants. And to me religion-created by us ants-is guess work.

I guess that's why some folks have faith . I just can't see myself-or any human-being able to figure all this out. I just don't know. I never will.

Whatever else may be said of them, ants are some of the most fascinating beings in existence. Like RC and Indy both said, they're amazing to watch. I am not entirely sure that ant colonies shouldn't be called civilizations.

They have colonies-we have cities.

They fight wars. I don't think any other species-beyond ants and humans-wage war.

Did you know ants capture other ants from rival colonies and enslave them? They also grow crops and even have livestock in the form of these worms they raise so they can eat the sugary secretions of the worms. Ants also construct bridges and boats and amazing networks of tunnels, and some build towering structures equal in proportion to skyscrapers. I really do marvel at ants.

If I had to do it over again I think I'd make a career of studying them.

Do ants go to Heaven? I mean-if they are God's creation? Do ants have religion?  :question:
Or is that just privileged for us? Is there an ant Messiah?  :question:

These may seem like insane questions-I don't think so.

I dunno, RC, but when I was a kid I saw a documentary that said all dogs go to Heaven.

I grew up Catholic.  Went to Catholic school until around 8th grade.  Found people in the church and congregation to be...hypocritical.  Years since then, I've fallen out with the church.

I don't know if I can say blatantly that I disbelieve...as in, I can't say I'm an Atheist.  I'm not setting foot in a church anytime soon and I don't begrudge anyone who lives that way.  

Young me fought and would try to disprove things.  Me, in my 30s...well, I'm calmer.  Let people be happy.

Is there anything? We don't know.  We won't know until our day of death.   :question:

Anytime someone tries to tell me there are no animals in heaven, I pose one question:

Then how the heck is the lion supposed to lay down with the lamb?

 I seen a documentary one where a hunter shot a duck in the face and his bill spinned around!
But he put it back it place and said-"It's Wabbit season!"  :teddyr:

 

Ok as an agnostic i have to reply here. I cannot claim to know there is no god. There could always be a higher being that created a clockwork universe running on automatic laws of physics that looks like it was not created by a higher power and if it is intelligent enough to do this it is too intelligent for us to comprehend. A deceptive god could not be disproven.

That said i am fairly certain that most major religions are mostly false and mostly if not purely human constructs created to maintain and justify worldly power and dominance by those in power. I believe the abrahamic religions are man made and the god they all portray is pure fiction meant to serve as the ultimate boogeyman plus a justification to terrorize,  torture and murder anyone who refuses to kneel before them.

The hindu religions have some better ideas than the abrahamic ones but i'm not sure about it either.

And to be clear i do consider the abrahamic religions to be evil. They justify human evil like slavery,  murder,  rape,  torture,  theft,  etc. In all abrahamic religions the above evil acts are not only ok,  they are divinely permitted or even ordered. The abrahamic god represents the lowest aspects of humanity,  i consider it subhuman,  the opposite of divine.

Also when reviewed thoughtfully most of it can be disproven.  The story of jesus is bogus from beginning to end. The bit about joe and mary having to travel from nazareth to bethelem for taxes? Nonsense. There is no record whatsoever that the romans ever did anything like that. It's utterly absurd. People could pay their taxes in the town they lived. The romans never even thought of the returning to your home town to pay taxes. Travel then was time consuming. People spending weeks traveling are not working and producing wealth for the empire. The roads would be clogged,  travel would be impaired,  commerce would suffer,  etc. It's just nonsense meant to explain why jeez was born in bethelem but raised in nazareth.

As to the story of him rising from the tomb,  nonsense again. When romans crucified someone it was an act of torture and destruction. The bodies were treated like garbage,  fed to wild animals,  cut up and dumped in trash heaps,  etc. They were most certainly not turned over to their families for respectful burial. Nonsense from beginning to end.

Culture clash explains both events.

Romans may not have ordered anyone to move to their ancestral home, but a Jewish man might've wanted to return there before being counted.

Romans treated crucifixion victims as scum, but Jesus was a controversial figure, and the region wasn't exactly stable. One part of the population thought he was a prophet; the other thought he was a warlock. Push one side too far and you'd wind up with another revolt. So the governor did the practical thing instead of the moral thing. A group threatens the peace, saying this man could lead a rebellion? No evidence? Too bad; appease the complainers. Someone else asks for His body? Well...you had no real evidence. Appease him too.

Actually, while most crucifixion victims were dumped, there was an excavation in Jerusalem of a young Jewish man who was crucified and then buried with all traditional ceremony.  There was still a nail in his ankle.

Speaking from personal experience, if there's one thing that'll put you straight off God it's a strict Catholic school. One more reason my children don't go to one.

And, hey, on-topic, I see your karma has also hit the ever-popular 666.

I am with you that one in three religions traceable to Abraham is a cult, founded by a pedophile crime lord, but the other two I am fond of.

On the other hand, human-centered philosophies, like Communism, have brought just SO much joy into the world, haven't they?

As for the harm religion does, it's like this....

There is a gay man I know who tried to torture my cousin and his friend, young gay males, and make them use heroin, and he has a long history of domestic abuse and violence, yet the same night he tried this I bet 10,000 gay men in our city had peaceful hookups, yet if this crazy fool (currently recovering from a bizarre bit of street crime that came his way and left him hospitalized, instant karma, eh?) had succeeded in doing harm to my cousin, which would have made the news, the 10,000 incidents of enjoyable wholesome M2M butt sex, or the one gay sociopath messing with two hot young things?

Likewise a billion Christians living good lives somehow doesn't erase the deeds of a few nutjobs.

That takes care of conduct, as for factual status...

If you could use Occam's Razor and give to me any better explanation for the Biblical resurrection claims than the fact Jesus rose from the dead, I'd be grateful to you, because then I could return to my default setting of pursuing sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but as much as I have put thought into it, I cannot but come back to the fact that given all that we know about subsequent events, Jesus indeed returned to life.

And if Jesus returned to life...well it's like finding the finger bone of a million-year-old primate in Kenya, and using that to build a profile for a whole creature. By that I mean if Jesus returned to life, why doubt all the rest?

Seriously, take it point by point and use the scientific method on the resurrection story. Consider how the Romans, history's greatest killers, gotta love them, would mess up and leave someone alive.

Consider how uninspiring a beaten crucified figure would have been after that. Hardly someone you'd follow to the death.

Consider how SOMETHING changed Jesus' followers from fearful men scattering before the law, to those so convinced of their message they were willing to die rather than recant. To them it was not even about faith, it was the evidence of their senses. You might make money off a con but why die for it? All but one of Jesus' original twelve who saw Jesus back alive was murdered for their belief. They could have saved their lives by recanting, but they did not.

Clearly an event of history-changing dimensions came to pass. What other event but a miracle would engender such devotion? And if there was a miracle, why try to say it was not the one several independent authors from that time described?

And, congrats, you attacked an idea this time without going after the people who hold it. That's true progress in maturing as person!

Well,  ancient Rome was a brutal dictatorship that robbed the masses in Judea.  It was ripe for opposition to grow. The person the jeez myths are based on was clearly a charismatic leader who opposed roman dictatorship and was executed for it. As to how a religion arose, most of christiaity is copied from earlier religious mythology.  The creation myth is closely related to the Egyptian creation myth,  sanitized a bit.

The myth of Eden is clearly a dumbed down version of the Greek story of Prometheus and Pandora.

The story of jeezus being betrayed,  killed and raised is a lot like similar stories in religious history,  especially Horus from Egyptian myth. A lot of religions have people rising from the dead.

The whole story of jeezus being a "god man" is like the myths of other "god men" like Hercules,  Perseus,  Thor,  and other "god men" who were the illegitimate offspring of mortal women and gods.

Judea was ripe for an uprising and jeezus became the figurehead.  He was the lucky spark out of all the other potential sparks that could have started the fire if the wind had been a little different.  A revolution was inevitable,  he was just at the right time and place to become the rally point.

Also Christianity caught on due to politics in the roman empire. Nero was an unpopular emperor and decided to scapegoat Christians as a handy diversion from his own unpopularity.  Nero was so hated that his condemnation of the little cult lead people to respect it out of spite against Nero.

As Roman society decayed people sought something else to cling to. Christianity was the thing people picked.  Constantine latched onto it and there you go.


The fact chtristianty is means nothing.  Islam is huge too.  Does that make it right?

Svengoolie - some good points. I am a proponent of the "jesus as Robin Hood" sort of idea too. As you say, the region was ripe for rebellion and the old testament post babylonian exile predicts some sort of transformative figure to come in and do soemthing at some point.

I think Jesus came and left and a little later they were like "oh that was the guy wasn't it?" basically. misunderstood in his own time, as it were. the ending of the first gospel is pretty bleak I think thats more how it really was.

ER- I agree with you too though. Saying elements of the New testament are fraudulent or borrowed from other cultures does not mean at all that there was no such person as Jesus and that Christianity is some hodge podge. Jewish people who followed this belief stopped doing animal sacrifices, pagans stopped worshipping weird statues, people began living different kinds of lives. Why? All, 100 percent, of the first Christians were converts from something else. they didn't do it because they were like into Zorastrian mythology

Bleak?  OK, cut Mark off at Ch. 16:8 - what are the last words?  "Behold, He is not here, He is risen."
Those words were written within about 20 years of the actual event.  The eyewitnesses were alive.  Mark and Luke talked to them, Matthew and John WERE them.
As for all the alleged similarities between the dying and risen Jesus and all those other mythical figures, Osiris, Mithras, et. al. - the closer you look the more you see the differences were VAST and the similarities VASTLY overblown.
The fact is, Jesus of Nazareth was executed by the Romans.
Within a few weeks of that event, His followers were boldly proclaiming that He had risen from the dead and they had seen him.
The men who executed Jesus could have easily dragged His body out of the tomb and paraded it through the streets, and Christianity would have been strangled in its cradle.
And if there was no tomb, as some try to insist, despite the fact that EVERY account within the first hundred years after the event specifically says that there was?
They could have at least published an official rebuttal, with sworn affidavits from the soldiers that Jesus was dead, that they threw Him in the city dump, that they fed Him to their pet goldfish, or SOMETHING.
But what did they do?  At first, NOTHING.  Stunned silence from the same people who conducted an illegal trial and hired false witnesses to condemn Jesus to death.  Then, what?  Threats and bluster.  "Teach no more in this name or we'll flog you!"
And the disciples kept right on preaching.
What ER said is true - there is a gaping hole in the history of First Century Jerusalem that is the exact size and shape of a Resurrection.
NO OTHER explanation fits the facts as we have them.

That is why I believe.

indiana - bleak in the sense that he is alone on the cross after being betrayed and abandoned and even God seemingly abandons him. and the original ending is a bit more open ended than the revisions. its not to challenge that a ressurection happened. its just that he received the treatment anti authority figures tend to get: thrown under the bus and vilified in their own time and lauded later by people who realized what he represented

I think most christians suffer from a very primitive "Like me=good. not like me=bad" mentality and kind of, deep down, like the idea of those who are not like them being crushed and suffering for all eternity. Ditto for muslims.

I have a more cosmopolitan, egalitarian mindset and find the idea of eternal agony and suffering for the majority of people absolutely intolerable. there are people i would not like to have in the same afterlife i went to if there is one, and there are people i'd like to see sent to a sort of correctional hell to show them how their actions affected others, but eternal hell is just an evil, terrorist concept meant to terrorize people into bowing to a particular social form. I cannot believe any mind that could create a universe could be so small, petty, childish and evil to do that.

You could say I have faith that no being that could create the intricate universe we have, quantum mechanics, etc, could be that barbaric. :bouncegiggle:

That is one of the great objections to Christianity that has been raised many times, Svengoolie, and it's a valid question.
If I may point you to the best answer to it I have ever read, there is a book by Lee Strobel called THE CASE FOR FAITH that has a whole chapter on the question of hell.  It's a very good read, and whether you wind up agreeing with it or not, I think you might find it interesting.

Been thinking for a while about posting on this thread. Going to get back to the OP a bit.

For me RC, faith isn't a bad thing, but then equally faith does not have to be in any way connected to religion. You can have faith in an ideal, someone you look up to, science, little green men from Mars, your fellow human beings or any number of things without having to go near religion. I've met the heads of two major world religions and a few who founded their own smaller ones. Some seemed delusional, others genuinely nice people who wanted to make the world a better place. None of them ever had any kind of holy aura about them, or anything that would make them stand out from anyone else in the street and despite many long debates and arguments none of them were ever able to give me anything that would make me doubt my belief's and switch to theirs. I've also read the books of and spoken to various scientists and athiests many of whom denounced religions so vehemently I couldn't tell the difference between them and a religious zealot. Both seem inclined to force their views on others and be equally unaccepting of others views.

What I think you are needing most isn't faith in a god though. Some people go down that path and it works for them and that is great as long as they don't try forcing it on other people in either hard or soft ways. What I think you need faith in first of all is you. If you are unhappy with your life, it is never to late to start to turn it around. I just think you need that faith in yourself that you can do it and I hope you can find it.

Jumping onto the later posts. Given the requirements to get in and the people who wouldn't be allowed in I think I'd rather suffer in hell than be with the smug gits in heaven. Should the rapture ever come, I can't remember the exact number, but isn't it around 100,000 people on earth get saved? Given how many people their are on earth currently your odds of being one of them are pretty damn low, but the idea of being lifted up and saved while everyone else suffers whatever fate does not sit easy with me. But then I also turned down the chance to go for my commission as I tend to view officers as being smug gits who I didn't want to have to spend more time with than necessary so I many be biased there.

On a slightly lighter note, with the sheer number of religions out there who for the most part tell you that they are the only way to salvation how would you even start to pick out which one is right? Might as well stick their names in a hat and pick one at random. When I was in my mid twenties I sat down and made a list of all the things I'd expect from a benevolent deity and what I wouldn't. I think looked in the belief's of as many of the worlds religions as I could and all of them fell short of what I'd expect from any creature who expected my worship and devotion, so I am mostly athiest. I'm prepared to be proved wrong though.

In the meantime, I'll stick with pagan gods on the basis of, well I might not 100% believe in them but at least they generally knew how to have fun and didn't claim to be perfect.

Well said and reasoned out, Alex.

One slight correction: while interpretations vary, the Bible NEVER lists the number of people who are going to be "caught up."
The figure you mention is probably the 144,000 cited in Revelations.  But that is not the total number who are saved or raptured; it is the number of Jewish proselytes who will be preaching on the earth during the time of the Beast.

As for the rest - it is a matter of individual choice to believe in God or not believe.  For me and ER, the evidence of Christianity is strong enough.  It might not be for you - but I appreciate your willingness to discuss it without being rude or inflexible.  Tip o' the hat, sir!

Considering Hinduism has a third of a billion gods, Alex, if you went that route you could have some anthropomorphic deity all to yourself.  Might I recommend one of those with human female bodies from the neck down?  :cheers:

Thank you ER, now in my head I have some sort of wierd hentai thing going on with Ganesh and that trunk of his. I am just going out to order some mind bleach.

I used to argue about religion, but then I thought, what would happen if I won the argument? I'd convince some poor guy to give up a belief that brought him comfort? Now I just live and let live. Believe whatever you want, as long as you're not stepping on my toes I don't care.

Also, as I used to think, just imagine if you removed the hope of faith from someone and changed her whole life. That'd be heavy.

Taking away belief in Christianity could be wonderful.  You could free someone from living in fear of a giant invisible man living way up in the sky on a cloud who will send them to an eternal flame  for not groveling to him.  You could free someone from feeling they gave to reject a loved one because that person isn't a halohead too.  You could free them from hating themselves because something about them doesn't pass holy roster.

http://foo.ca/wp/chick-tract-satire/whos-your-daddy/ (http://foo.ca/wp/chick-tract-satire/whos-your-daddy/)

Trouble is, if you take it away I can promise you people would just replace it with something else that would have the same kind of benefits and drawbacks. The positive thing about hell though is that it is always going to be the right weather for a BBQ, which is why I plan on being buried with some steaks and my favourite beers.

You make me nostalgic since you remind me of myself as a teenager, though I was more open-minded and courteous, less convinced I knew enough to make absolute declarations, and also I had a better vocabulary.

As I said, and which you didn't do, explain the resurrection as a fraud in ways that cover every known fact and you'll have my genuine gratitude.

This topic grows stale. On to the next...

some of this is based on peoples personalities

Some people just aren't religious and some are and some of those people are born or fall into what is probably the wrong category for them.

people in weird cults based on UFO's and whatnot would probably be better of in a normal church, but wouldn't make good atheists bcuz part of their way of getting through life depends on faith in higher powers. People who don't connect with the idea of God and spirituality can recite the lords prayer all day and its just not going to mean what its supposed to for them, other than being blandly sort of nice.

My brother in law is an atheist and I can't picture him being anything else.


it gets to the heart of what really IS a religion?

What if you were a conservative Muslim who lived that way and felt it was the best but just really didn't believe that the arch angel Gabriel actually whispered the quran into Muhammed's ear ( if thats what it is I can't remember) are you still a Muslim?

Thats why I've always been interested in what people do as opposed to what they allegedly believe. The first Christians stopped  the practice of sacrificing animals, for example. whether they actually pooled their wealth , practiced chastity, rejected race and class and so forth who knows but the point is what something is IN PRACTICE and as a lifestyle is maybe better evidence of something than its holy books, which were written by human beings and ultimately are prey to human error and so forth.


otherwise it just becomes a holier than thou p**sing contest. how many Christians understand what the trinity is supposed to be, how many Jews have read the Talmud? how many Buddhists actually believe buddha cried or something and that first tear produced the first tea leave?

When I was 10 and reading ahead in one of my textbooks in class, I ran across a Chinese version of a famous parable about the difference between Heaven and Hell.  I think the most popular version is called “The Parable of the Long Spoons”.  The version I read had chopsticks.  Anyway, later in life, this parable kind of gave me the idea that, in very casual terms, God is throwing a party and doesn’t want to invite the a-holes.  The a-holes’ only punishment is to be in the company of their own kind.   Through our life, we present which of us is truly wicked through our words, actions, thoughts, etc., and only God will know who is virtuous for their own selfish purposes and who is sincerely good by nature.

Also, to piggy-back off what Alex posted in another thread, I don’t think the devil’s greatest trick was to convince people he doesn’t exist.  After all, I think anyone who chooses to be kind and lead a somewhat moral life without a promise of reward or fear of punishment is a much better person than your average church lady.  Though I look forward to those people feeling salty in heaven.  I think the devil’s, or rather evil’s, greatest trick is to exist under the guise of good.

I have faith, but I don’t go to church.  I can’t stomach sitting through lectures that are guilting, pressuring, or frightening people into believing something or behaving a certain way.  I also don’t like being called a sinner like it’s an occupation.  I know they all aren’t like that, but I think too many of them are.  I believe in Jesus, but I agree that too much of Catholicism/Christianity/whatever religion is muddled with historical corruption, and it’s hard to trust churches.   I decided long ago that if I go to hell for being who I am, then I gladly accept my fate and I will be in good company.

Missed ya, Paq.  :smile:

You remind me of people I knew who were obnoxious,  pompous and self righteous. But I don't feel nostalgia for them.


BTW,  the resurrection was a fraud.  Plain and simple.  Like Joe Smith's magic hat runes or all the miracles of mohammud in the Koran.. I'm sure you dismiss all the miracles mohammud (yes I'm misspelling it)  was recorded to have committed in the Koran.  Look at how you dismiss them and you'll see how to dismiss the resurrection.

Let's steer away from ad hominems, shall we? The topic is inflammatory enough as is.

hey, when er stops taking swipes at me I'll be happy to stop swiping back.

As to faith, to be honest I've reached a point where I hear people in america talking about their faith it makes me sick with disgust. We had a president for 8 years that was a good family man with two daughters, a man of kind disposition, who sought to help the poor and sick much as the bible decrees, who turned the other cheek to his enemies as the bible dictates and was a model of temperament and civility.

The majority of people of faith in america spent 8 years hurling excrement, poison and fire at him. A man of faith had this prayer for him.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/david-perdue-obama/486587/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/david-perdue-obama/486587/)

Then in 2016 people of faith overwhelmingly voted for a man who embodies most of the 7 deadly sins. Wrath, greed, gluttony, pride, envy. A man who committed acts that the bible calls for the perpetrators to be stoned for. A man who uses language that is not able to be broadcast on network tv. But the faithful voted for him.

Actions speak louder than words and when the faithful voted for this man their actions proved what their faith was worth.

Flyleaf. 
http://youtu.be/417YOjyl1kg (http://youtu.be/417YOjyl1kg)

I listen to Flyleaf in regards to some turmoil here.  They're a Christian Rock/Metal band and a lot of their songs have helped me out when needed.  If that's anything.

For the record, not ALL of us fell for that con man.  I fought that tide as hard as I have fought anything in my life.
For the record, also, the Quran does NOT attribute any miracles to Muhammad.  It is a collection of his sayings, not his deeds.  The miracles attributed to him are found in a collection of stories called the Hadith, stories about his life that were composed long after his death.  The earlier Hadith don't include miraculous deeds, either.  They don't begin to show up in the narratives of Muhammad's life until more than a century had passed after his death - in other words, long after the witnesses were conveniently dead.

You  posit the Resurrection as a hoax.  OK, if you want to take that route, I would enjoy asking you a few questions.
WHO perpetrated this hoax?
HOW was it done?
and WHY was it done?
Lastly, what proof do you present that your answers to those questions are correct?

Not looking for a flame war, and I'm not trying to throw any shade at you.
But since you reject something that I have built my whole life around, and apparently would be very happy if I rejected it also, I invite you to give me some reasons.  Fair enough?

First off in biblical days there were no photographs and drawn. Art was poor.. How do fake a resurrection?  Wait a while then start spreading stories about it.  Written accounts of Jesus didn't begin appearing until many years after his death.

Also. Remember in those days most people lived their lives within 20 miles of where they were born.   So when stories of Jesus began spreading thru the roman empire most Romans had never been there. 

Who spun this fable?  The people who wanted to rebel against Rome and needed a divinity to serve as a rally point.

You think lies can't easily be spread especially back in biblical times?  Look at how many lies people spread today in an age of instant communications and access to data.  Look at this lies that have been spread despite not only no proof but actual overwhelming evidence that they are lies.  Obama's fake birth certificate.  The Hillary emails.  The Ben ghazi lies.  All lies,  all disproved repeatedly and believed  by those who want to believe in them for their own purposes.  They we're spread by people with a political agenda and believed by people who wanted to beliefs them.

So in the biblical days people hated Rome and wanted to believe in a Messiah,  a God mightier than Rome,  a Savior who best Rome's whipnhand,  crucification.  People believed it because they wanted to just people today believe all the lies being told for political reasons.

As for the fact you spent most of your life believing this and letting it mold your life,  that means absolutely nothing whatsoever.  Ask yourself about the people who believe in Islam all their lived and model their lives on it.  What about the people who believe in reincarnation and follow Hindu beliefs all their lives?  What would you say to them about how much their beliefs and the fact they. Modeled their lives on them mattered?  You'd likely tell them they were wrong.  Well,  imagine being told what you'd tell them.

Christianity is about keeping people in line and keeping most people down and a few on top. So's Islam.  A lot of religion is about controlling people thru lies meant to create fear and offer comfort.  Christianity and Islam. Are the most controlling religions,  the ones with the biggest scarecrows and the most dictates.  They are also the two biggest.  Coincidence?  I think not.

I really got no use for religion. More negatives than positives-and I just can't suspend my belief that much. I like science to much.
It's FAITH that escapes me, not religion. Religion can go on spinning it's web-I could care less.
i'm getting to the point of apathy. With religion, (like Svengoolie sez-the religious nuts who voted for Trump and that backwoods, gun-toting, child molester from Alabama), and with politics. I used to be very passionate about all this-but I have no faith. It all makes me sick.
I have no problem with anyone's beliefs-unless they try to stick it down my throat. And I got passionate about politics because that IS my problem-having dishonest, self serving people make the laws I have to live by bugs the s**t outta me.

I wish I had never started this topic. I should follow that old rule-"Never talk religion or politics"
But it's hard to NOT discuss it-when it affects all our lives.
 :bluesad:

svengoolie -

"The people who wanted to rebel against Rome and needed a divinity to serve as a rally point" the Jesus as Robin Hood idea. I agree with this but it doesn't mean that Jesus wasn't ressurected.

maybe it was the IDEA of Jesus that didn't die when he did and it took 3 days for people to realize that? maybe THAT is what a resurrection really is. in the same way that Jesus probably didn't calm down the winds but made people feel so at ease that it was like he did. or that they had such a good time at the wedding that no one noticed there was so little food.


more to the point here: Christiniaty isn't the only religion! to say the Christian notion of Heaven and Hell is cartoonish is one thing.

Peoples consciences are more judgemental than the Christian God could ever be. many people are mired in guilt and performing rituals that they don't need to do. maybe if they read the New Testament they'd have more mercy towards themselves and others.

truith and mercy are two sides of the same coin, after all. i didn't write that

...don't say anything else don't say anything else don't say anything else don't....

Well, like Oscar, I never could resist temptation.

The idea that the movement surrounding Jesus caught on because he was anti-Roman is an odd one to perpetuate, since when his foes were trying to trick Jesus into speaking sedition against the Romans, Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's..."

Hardly the words of a political revolutionary. Far from hating Romans, Jesus is recorded dining with their representatives, and even healing the daughter of a centurion. When hauled before Pilate, Jesus did not take the opportunity to denounce Rome with one final manifesto, as a fanatic likely would. These things are there in the written records that constitute the biography of Jesus.

As for how accurate those records are, they were penned by eyewitnesses or those who knew eyewitnesses, in a time when other living witnesses were alive who could contradict  the inaccuracies of the accounts, yet the enemies of nascent Christianity did not deny these records, they said Jesus was a devil-worshiper.  Even Josephus speaks of Jesus in his histories, written in the first century. First-century accounts are much closer in time to Jesus than any histories of Alexander the Great, which are more than four-hundred years after his time, or Mohammad, whose tales in the hadith were composed more than a century after he died. Buddha, in final comparison, has zero known accounts of his life and sayings that can be dated to within eight-hundred years of his lifetime.

Also when the anti-Roman revolt of circa AD 70 erupted in present-day Israel, Christians played almost no role. Their numbers were too small and their mindset too otherworldly, too much expectation of the end-times being at-hand to be overly preoccupied with waging a conflict. The revolt in the 70s was almost entirely Jewish, and Jews overwhelmingly rejected Jesus, so again, it’s a bad theory to say Jesus' popularity was mired in anti-Roman sentiments. Christians were by then living peacefully in Rome itself.

Also, going back a bit to the frankly weird notion that the Garden of Eden was borrowed from a Greek myth....just wow.

The Garden of Eden is a story found embedded in Mesopotamian lore to at least 2,000 BC, likely much more ancient, and the Mesopotamian civilization is the oldest known on the planet, pre-dating Classical Greece or even proto-Hellenic culture by millennia. The idea that Mesopotamians somehow went west, encountered myths among the comparatively primitive Peloponnesians and came home and spread it so it displaced tales and gods peculiar to their native Mesopotamia is as fanciful a bit of fiction as I’ve ever heard. It simply does not cohere.

The notion that Jesus survived a beating and crucifixion seems to me even more fantastical than the notion that  a miracle took place, since I have every respect for the Romans’ capacity to be deft killers. (Did you know if a condemned prisoner escaped or survived execution those responsible for carrying out the sentence forfeited their lives? Might be motivating to do things right, huh?) Why think a man who’d been tortured beforehand could possibly survive crucifixion?

And since women had such low status in Jewish culture that they could not testify in court,  why would any sane Jewish writer who was inventing an account of someone coming back to life choose to make his witnesses to the event a gathering of women, when many observant Jews would think women lacked the mental capacity to be believable witnesses? If women had not seen the event, why say they had instead of saying it was men?

If Jesus did survive his execution and live, who would see that as miraculous so much as lucky? Why follow some mutilated pathetic criminal? Would you die for someone like that? No, I think the account of the disciples seeing a miracle is a very good explanation for why their lives were suddenly so changed and they were willing to die for what they claimed they saw. They never got rich or powerful, personally, they were hunted and beaten and ultimately all but one were murdered. Why die for a falsehood?

I do think Jesus came back from the dead, and anyone who can do that deserves to be listened to. That is the basis for why I believe. If ever the day comes any of that can be disproven, I’ll change my mind.

But I don’t think it ever will.

Okay, NOW I and done here. Honest. Cross my toes. Done. Moving on. Unlesssss….No, no, I am done!

revelation I think is pretty clear on the position of Christians towards Rome and the pharisees. it's passive, basically saying okay you guys are doin good we are going to create our own universe here and exist in it and watch you all play yourselves and pick up th pieces when you're gone , which is what they did

it's hard to parse "the Whore of Babylon" and "Synagogue of Satan"

I simply can't add anything in defense of the historicity of the Gospels that my friend ER didn't already say better in that last post.

Svengoolie, your bottom line seems to me to be that you believe Christianity is based on a lie because you hate Christians, particularly American Christians who disagree with you on political matters.  You present no evidence, only supposition, in your defense.

You have the absolute freedom to believe, or disbelieve, or believe something else.  That is what the First Amendment is all about.
All I can do is treat you in such a manner that maybe, as you get to know me better, you will see that not all Christians fit the negative mold you have cut for us.  In the meantime - peace be with you.   :cheers:

Ah,  the old ''You hate christians'' line.  TBH,  I do.  Not because you're religious,  I don't hate Hindus or Jews,  but because you try to force your religion on others.  Christians helped put trump in the white house and yes I hate them for that.

I was agnostic long before that.

"Forcing" my faith on others is anathema to me.
I share, persuade, I debate, I discuss.  And that's it.
I do detest Trump and I think evangelical support for him was a badge of shame we will wear for a long time, though.

I really can't blame true 'Christians' for Trump. I've known Indy for some years, and he's a TRUE Christian. Back woods racist poor white trash are what voted Trump in.  If they claim to be Christian-they're  only kidding themselves. Go to church on Sunday and smoke foils on Monday.
I know-I'm poor white trash in Michigan-and most of my fellow PWT are dumb as a bag of doorknobs.

I'm sure plenty of Christians voted for Hillary too?

But likely not many deep south bible thumpers and snake handlers.
I went to an Assembly of God as a kid-we had to-Mary Jo-(the step mother) made us. All that speaking in tounges s**t.
What a bunch of looney tunes. Babbling on Sunday, telling n****r jokes on Monday.
But others voted for Trump too-folks who fell for his lies. Honestly thought he was going to "make America great again."
Regular working class WHITE folks. You know few blacks voted for him.
Or folks who just plan didn't trust Hillary-I know I wouldn't trust her.
And likely rich guys like him who knew they would get that big tax break.
And Russians, of course.  :wink:

You make a good point, RC. The worst foes of Christianity are not atheists, they're believers who do not conduct themselves by the code they claim to follow. Religious hypocrites, in other words who find it easier to advocate an idea than to live up to it. You follow Jesus you live by the Golden Rule and you love others.

You live by:

Judge not, lest you be judge, condemn not, lest you be condemned, forgive, and you will be forgiven.

It was mainly because of those people, religious hypocrites, that I despised most evangelical Christians for so long, and didn't have much use for Catholic doctrines either, going to daily Mass in school and after school.....well, any priest hearing my confession got an earful.

Partly my rancor related to the fact I was young and the young tend to be areligious or anti-religious, partly I was extremely scientifically-minded and didn't catch on yet that science and God are not incompatible, some of the greatest scientists were religious, and there is also the truth that many mainstream scientists today are every bit as dogmatic and closed-minded as some people of faith.

I also had a light bulb go off in my head one day that, hey, you know, most Christians aren't actually out there burning books and bombing abortion clinics, a lot of them, like my almost father in law, are running soup kitchens and free stores, and doing good work every day. I gazed around at my fellow agnostics, and some of the atheists I knew (atheism is a philosophy I have just never gotten, it's so closed-minded) and I saw people who tended to be selfish and selfist.

So I matured and lost a lot of my venom toward Christians long before I ever took the step of defining myself as one, based more on belief than any church-attendance. (I go to church to be with my daughter and some other loved ones. If my daughter ever wants to stop going, I'll stop too.)

After all, to say you hate Christians is to say you hate 4/5th of Americans and about a quarter of the world. Not even Hitler spread his hate that broadly.

(And, hey, I'm just replying to my dear friend and fellow sci-fi fan RC, not continuing this thread after I said I was done. Uh...yeah.)

RC- why deify politics? I don't judge people by what mark they make on a largely meaningless piece of paper every 4 years.

ER- do you ever watch Dateline. There are sometimes "Christians" who kill their wives because they don't want to get a divorce because of their alleged standing in the community. You know right away when you hear the ridiculous 911 call the guy is guilty

I've watched Dateline a few times over the years. Lotta a***oles in the world, mate.

Because the Trump agenda is not a moral agenda. If you don't judge people by they're morals-what DO you judge them by? They're taste in music? What type of beer they drink I mean-..?  :question:

RC- Hillary's agenda wasn't moral either. the point is we weren't put on this earth solely to vote in US presidential elections.  it's just politics what matters are our families and communities and our own lives.

I said already I didn't like Hillary either.

As for the rest-yeah-I know all this. My family and friends have nothing to do with my politics.  In the REAL world I worry about the weather or what I'm going to cook for dinner more than politics. I just discuss it here because it's something to discuss.
But who wants to discuss pork chops and saurkraut? Because that's what I made for dinner. With green beans.

right. I guess in general I get having faith, I get not having faith and I get being somewhere in between. I get that religion has caused a lot of harm I mean obviously fundamentalists in particular are wreaking havoc one place or another all the time. AND I get the idea that not having A faith as a sort of base can lead people to become communists or scientologists or basically turn other more recent, less proven things into religion (anyone ever see Kumare? about the fake guru guy)

it was the idea that "Christians put Trump in the White house and I hate them for that" that someone said that kind of blew my mind.

Religion is almost entirely toxic. If I were in the Middle East they'd be arguing over whether to behead me for not believing in their invisible sky Daddy or throw me off a building for wanting to stick my dick in another Man's ass. Meanwhile they engage in beating women and slitting the throats of living animals as a part of religious ceremony.

In the US we still have retards like Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee trying to force their religious morality on me by trying to take away my right to marry a man and lying about how this country was founded on "Christian Principles".

We have conmen like Kent Hovind and Ken Ham straight up lying to people and indoctrinating children to not believe actual verifiable science in favor of their ancient book of fairy tales that said that one man crammed a bunch of animals in a boat and survived a world flooding that magically left behind no evidence of it happening.

The Catholic Church actively fought against scientific advancement and oppressed Europe for many, many years. As well as ruining Uganda by sending missionaries there to spread their bulls**t, leading to the deaths of many gay people.

Donald Trump has suggested I'm "Unamerican" because I don't believe in God. (And here I thought the US had freedom of religion, silly me.)

Jack Chick was a thing until he (Thankfully) died in 2016.

In Salem Massachusetts all someone needed to do was call you a Witch and you'd be killed.

And American cinema has been stuffed full of low quality (and often immoral) "Christsploitation" films such as the increadbly mean spirited and strawmanning "God's Not Dead", "Old Fashioned" which glorifies dysfunctional relationships, "Fireproof" which tries to force sexual purity by depicting internet porn as a drug, "God's Club" which suggests you should throw out your depression meds cause "All y'all need is Jesus" and the unbelievably awful "Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas" which tried to justify the commercialized nature of Christmas while allowing Kirk Cameron to spew s**t he made up as well as padding it out to feature film length with a slow-mo dance scene.

If someone else wants to be religious, that's fine, but keep me out of it. Don't use religion to tell other people what to do. You do you, I do me.

But if we did not have Christianity, we would not have -
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
the great Gothic Cathedrals
Most of the classic works of Renaissance artists
the Red Cross
the YMCA
the Salvation Army
the Scientific Revolution (Isaac Newton, Descartes, and most of the founders of modern science were devout Christians)
the works of John Milton, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and countless other literary greats
nearly all classical music
the Gregorian calendar
and the list goes on and on and on.

It's easy to focus entirely on the negative.  Christianity's legacy in the world has many positives as well.

Remember, untempered science brought us the forced sterilization of Negroids peoples, in the United States, in the twentieth century, the eugenics-based aborting of Jewish, Slavic, African, and other "lesser" offspring by Margaret Sanger, the Darwinian-influenced ideas of racism-cum- survival of the supposedly fittest in Nazi Germany, the US Army radiation experiments on human (and again, black) test subjects, the horrors of the pre-frontal lobotomy and other psychological mad-scientist run amok atrocities, often done with such ignoble goals as (well into the 1970s) curing homosexuality, and before that there was the  Victorian fad of forced clitorectomies to cure the defect of the female orgasm, in the hallowed  name of progress for medical science. And let us not overlook how science, the thing that in its positive sphere gave us good things also has killed millions on the battlefield through the development of everything from mustard gas to souped-up biological agents, to the Vickers machine gun. Science is the other hemisphere of human destructiveness in action.

I don't think you can take credit for, for example, Beethoven's symphonies. It's quite a leap to take to assume such a talent wouldn't write great symphonies if there were no Christianity to inspire him. (Yes, the lyrics to the "Ode to Joy" would be different, but he also might have written an even greater symphony in praise of pagan ideas or abstract concepts). There's a big difference between "people who professed Christianity did great things" and "Christianity is the sole reason people did great things."

Now, you have a better case for the idea of public charities---that is more specifically Christian in origin.

Ok I'll say that I do not hate all christians in america. Some are not bad. But I do hate a lot of christians in america and they dohappen to be prominent.

The things I really hate about the christians I do hate is that most of them fall into the conservative camp and I hate them for their arrogance and hypocrisy, and I will cite examples of this.

When christians decide to defy the law and the government, they think they're heroes standing up for freedumb and libirdy.

When people who are not christians defy the law and government, they are "thugs" and "anarchists" and"socliaist/communists" who need to be crushed.

When Kim Davis defied the law and refused to issue same sex marriage certificates in kentucky, she was a hero.

When Susan Mcdougal defined the law and refused to help ken starr persecute bill clinton, she was a "criminal"

When Kim Davis was arrested and jailed, she was being persecuted.

When Susan Mcdougal was jailed for vastly longer, she "deserved it".

When anti choice protestors block abortion clinics, they're heroes.

When OWS blocked wallstreet, they were "socialist terrorists".

When anti choice protestors are arrested and jailed they are victims of persecution.

When OWS was beaten, gassed, shot at and trampled "they deserved more."

When Cliven Bundy and his bunch pointed rifles at federal law agents they were heroes.

When a 13 year old black kid is gunned down by police while playing with a toy gun in a park bu police he was "stupid and got what he deserved".

When that guy Lavoy finicum was killed while in possession of a rifle during thyat bondy standoff he was murdered by a fascist state.

When an unarmed black man is murdered while sitting in a car obeying police orders, he "did something to deserve it."

When Nazis march and protest, they are exercising their rights.

When BLM marches and protests "they're terrorist thugs who hate police."

The chrtistian right in america thinks everyone else's xxxx stinks but theirs smells like lilacs. And they don't stop to look at their own hypocrisy or take a good strong whiff of their own xxxx because they don't think like that. They have "faith" that their views are right and therefore anything they do no matter how hypocritical is Ok because their "faith" tells them that. They don't think, they just have "faith" because if they thought about it they might realize their xxxx stinks too.

As is, people of "faith" deny the reality of human influenced climate change because their "faith" tells them that their god controls the weather and not man and it's "arrogant" to think otherwise. People of "faith" deny scientific data and evidence because it disagrees with their "faith". They don;t believe the fact that bacteria are evolging into antibiotic resistant forms because of overuse of antibiotics  evolution is something people of "faith" don;t believe in no matter how much proof there is. Poeple of faith may very well help wreck this planet and create a disaster of unimaginable scale and duration because they don't believe in provable facts, they believe in "faith".

So, yeah, I kinda hate them.

Wow.  Basically, all your hates are bundled into politics.
I may think some people are wrong, politically, but I don't hate them for being wrong.  Life's too short for hate.
And frankly, I see a lot of stereotyping built in there.  Conservatism is a broad philosophy, and not all of us are in lockstep on all the issues you describe.
I find that some liberals can be just as irrational and hateful as conservatives.
Frankly, I think the country would be a better place if we talked more and shouted less.
Ironically, I'm an old school Reagan conservative who has never voted for a Democrat Presidential candidate in my life - but last night I got flamed as a "libtard" on social media because I refuse to bow down and worship at the altar of Trump.

It's a free country, believe what you like.  But life is easier when you don't automatically lump people together.

 I DO have something that makes me feel mellow and relaxes me when humanity brings me down, and that's the fact that,when the human race is long gone, planet earth will still be here. New animals and  sea creatures and things we can never dream of.  We exist here for just a moment-and like the dinosaurs will be gone. But the world will keep spinning and new life will begin. I like that.
I have faith in that.

Hey, RC, I like to think about things like that, too, in fact one of the greatest sci-fi stories I ever read (well, among the best stories I ever read, period) is all about that: Poul Anderson's In Memoriam.

Ever read it? I first saw it in an old Omni my dad had. It begins with the death of the last human and goes forward from there across millions of years of future time. It's one of the most thought-provoking tales I've ever come across, and here is a link to it. It's about seven pages long, a ten-minute read, so I hope you check it out and like it as much as I do. Sorry the text was presented with no paragraph breaks. I don't know why that was.)

Hope you guys enjoy it....

http://dateallaround.com/index.php/article/view/Anderson-Poul-In-Memoriam (http://dateallaround.com/index.php/article/view/Anderson-Poul-In-Memoriam)

Okay, I apologize but in that link to the story, for some reason, for about a quarter-page, right in the middle, some transcriptionist seems to have slipped in a report about Shoemaker and Mars, but the story itself, by Anderson, does continue on unabated past that. It looks confusing for a second. Sorry...

I do like me some Poul Anderson- I'll give it a read! Thanks!  :thumbup:

they must feel pain though?

Ants think. They feel. Maybe they love.
Who knows?
Nobody REALLY knows.
And never will.
We as humans like to think we got it all figured out.
So arrogant.

I dunno.  they lose a leg and keep right on scurrying - I lose a leg, I roll on the ground screaming and frantically trying to use my belt as a tourniquet so I don't bleed out!  If the DO feel pain, they are the toughest little SOB's on the planet!!!

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Yes.