On Religion

[Paolo]

A_1,

I KNOW where you live and work, fella...

LOL

[A-1 (imported)]

A_1,

I KNOW where you live and work, fella...

LOL

Better not fool around there...

My workplace is about 80% women and I have told them how sweet and rich you are. Three of them want a date now.

kissme:

[Kortpeel (imported)]

I cannot accept the non-existence of God without evidence, if I were to take the atheist position, I would be making a statement of faith.

Exactly. But it is surprising how many people are unable to understand that. Maybe people don't like to admit that they just don't know. In the end it boils down to "each to his own." Even when they are wrong.

Kortpeel

[Paolo]

Yeah, and most of them think that Mason, who was born Sunday before last when YOU were at home lounging instead of WORKING, is my GRANDSON...

hehe

[A-1 (imported)]

Yea verily Old Poop thou art one of the false prophets and thine entropy will surely decline and the black knight with the luminous sabre will wreak his vengeance upon thee for using false metaphor to speak of that which he hath forbidden.

Knoweth thee all that there will be poverty and hardship in all the world and all those that conjoin with their maternal parent will suffer greatly and justly so. Those blessed with wealth and wisdom will see their fortunes grow for such is the way that it has always been and shall ever be so.

The poor will suffer because that too is the way that it has always and their only hope is to remove their stones that their numbers may become less and then shall there be sustenance for all: ova fried in saturated fats and laminations of meat from swine so that diseases of the heart will come upon them and slay them and there be none left and then shall the rich remove the faeces from their proctal regions with their own hands and perform other vile chores for themselves. Then they will cry unto their god, Oh Dollar why hast thou forsaken us that we must wipe our own assholes? and Dollar will reply Thou art sinners whose greed and pelf destroyed the world I gave thee and thou didst not let my bounty trickle down unto those over whom I gave thee dominion. So wipe away ye who conjoin with their maternal parent for I love thee not.

For he that hath ears, let him hear.

Kortpeel

As the squawls of an earlier time pierced the eardrums of the dead yellow-haired longknife in the hope that he might possess the ability to listen to reason in the next incarnation I beseech thee to read carfully and soften thy heart. The Dollar is a false God and does not really exist except on paper. What is real is the love of neighbor not the love of his money.

Avast ye young sailors and know ye that a camel is called a ship of the desert because it is full of Iranian semen. Yet, the flaps cover her nostrils and humps stick out of her not into her and and i-did-a-job loves ali bama more than a Klansman on meth. The overture of submission is more than enough to prove that evil is only skin deep but lust conquers all. The one with the eternal five o'clock shadow seeks to stick his nether appendage into us dry as the sand of the barren lands and then to break it off.

As for here forsooks and GADZOOKS, the glorious, moonless night will be lit not by a sabre savior but instead by the intellect of a brightness unequaled since the relativities of he with the wild white hair that split the atom like so much chord-wood which splits easier than the soft because of it's hardness ran forth like water over the falls of Niagra.

Even though dice is not what he played it is nevertheless what he left us with in '55 with no chance of unification in our lifetimes, his belly bleeding inside like the pale inn isolationists in the hills of Kentucky. Know ye that the fortunes that you long for lie buried in a vault in the Alps guarded by the great de-regulator that did not tear down the wall but instead drilled a whole through it and stole the gold from under the noses of the Red communist bushkavites whilst they oiled our assholes with 4-buck-a-gallon gasoline.

No more states red majority-wise but left us with a case of the blues not even leadbelly himself can match. Yes, woe to the 'Publicans and their harlots with in thick bushes as their gold lies hidden into the mountains of a foreign land. Gramm the CRACKER will crumble under the relentless pressure of the seven-headed dog beast and the gold will roll out to the feet of the sandy flatlanders as the mountains again crumble to reveal stolen gold that will be caught as the spoils of the enemies of the infidel.

Lubed with the oil sucked from mother Earth this bitch-machine of Hell's Angels will roar from the pits of motor-land to again humvee his sucking song. And the sucking thirst sahll not be quenched by the blood of the innocent again using the great destroyer al-afraida as an excuse to rob the old and the infirm of their entitlements from a loving God who promised to take care of the meek and the pure at heart.

For you see the swine when hungry eat their own and fall into fits aflicted by a disease that rots the brain. As they madly froth from the fang and turn on each other, knowing that they hold the Bush bag of the ultimate snipe hunt, failing the beloved white-haired, bald headed hero from an earlier time. And so the pail in gets brought to recieve the puke and the venom of failure as the venomous leaders regurgitate corruptions of the dead movie star, seeking to reach his glory but in reality could not make a drop of pus from a pimple on his long-dead ass.

Yes, WOE be to the 'publicans for it will be years before they rise again to steal gold from the widows and orphans and refuse them spices and herbs to help them to cure their infirmities.

So gird up your loins and keep the one who gave you life from walking the highways and by ways of the road of life and she will not come in with a hopper full of the progeny of thine enemies. Verily I say unto you that the MILF is not born but made by the lust of the rapers of the old. Therefore seek ye not the private hairy grotto of she who gave you life but instead beware of the new red who wants blue to be the bad guy...

[Kortpeel (imported)]

So gird up your loins and keep the one who gave you life from walking the highways and by ways of the road of life and she will not come in with a hopper full of the progeny of thine enemies. Verily I say unto you that the MILF is not born but made by the lust of the rapers of the old. Therefore seek ye not the private hairy grotto of she who gave you life but instead beware of the new red who wants blue to be the bad guy...

Amen to that.

Now they've lifted the ban it's okay to write in plain English once again.

Writing that cryptic nonsense is quite good fun and could become habit forming. I realise now that the John who wrote Revelations had got into literary bad habits and indulged them when he was writing his book:

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways,and pour out your vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. etc.(Rev16.1)

That fire and brimstone stuff is easy to write and would scare the hell out of sinners up until mediaeval times and still does scare some today. But it doesn't actually mean anything, any more than mine and A-1's ravings above mean anything.

If St. John the Divine, whoever he actually was, had anything really important to say he would have put it in plain language. As it is I can imagine him sitting at his ancient keyboard (one that Mac the Wolf gave him) and after a few pots he writes his crap. He is chuckling to himself thinking

'This'll give 'em all something to think about for centuries to come. It'll fool the lot of 'em."

He succeeded so well that they put it into the Bible. It was so cryptic that those learned scholars didn't like to admit they didn't understand it.

Yea verily I say unto thee, Ye that heedeth not the words of the great prophet that men calleth the Old Poop shall suffer in the eternal flames and shall cry out for water, that thy torment be eased but none shall be given thee. And the Old Poop will peer down at thee from the cool shades of Heaven and thou shalt cry out, Oh forgive us Old Poop for we kneweth not that thou wert a true prohet. With thy grey beard and tattered raiment we mistook thee for just another dirty old man And Old Poop in his infinite kindness and compassion will look down with mercy upon thee and shall say Well, thou knowest now.

So beware.

Kortpeel

[nullorchis (imported)]

After reading all of that I am more convinced that Humanism is what will serve me best in my over the hill days.

Although Modern or Classical Deism might be more appropriate for our age of enlightenment.

[hazbalz (imported)]

I am an atheist. No, I'm not arrogant as some state. I don't go around screaming at people that they are fools for believing. In fact I have many good friends and family members that believe in God. Its quite simple, I do not believe, based on the evidence, in supernatural beings, whether God, Jehovah, Allah, Santa Claus, Fairies, etc. Now, some want me to prove a non-existence of God. Please, that is "proving a negative." Prove to me that invisible pink unicorns don't exist. Its an absurd argument.

The thread was started by a self-described agnostic (a word invented in the 19th century). That seems, to me anyway, both a popular and cowardly way out. Its the "I don't know and neither do you" argument. In reality agnostics are atheists, they don't believe in God. Agnostics may claim that atheists don't know for certain if there is a God either. That one must look throughout the entire universe to be certain. (Perhaps God is in a galaxy far far away.) Again, that is a cowardly way out. To be honest we can look at our small part of the universe and see that patterns here are present everywhere. We know Atlas isn't holding our planet on his shoulders and there is no bearded guy above the clouds listening in to us.

I have respect for a lot of believers and don't usually engage in religious discussions unless asked or irked by stupid comments. But I have traveled widely throughout the world and have seen both the beauty in religion and the horrors. I have also crossed paths with missionaries who are doing good works, but always for selfish reasons. (I have been repeatedly told "I'm doing this to get into heaven," etc.)

In the US, atheists/agnostics make up about 12% of the population. There is no way one of us could ever get elected to national office (look at the North Carolina Senate race). Speaking only for myself, all I want is to keep all superstitions out my kids schools and to be free from evangelists in the public sphere. If people want to believe in Bronze Age superstitions, fine with me. Just don't base our society on it.

[A-1 (imported)]

Amen to that.

Now they've lifted the ban it's okay to write in plain English once again.

Writing that cryptic nonsense is quite good fun and could become habit forming. I realise now that the John who wrote Revelations had got into literary bad habits and indulged them when he was writing his book:

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways,and pour out your vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. etc.(Rev16.1)

That fire and brimstone stuff is easy to write and would scare the hell out of sinners up until mediaeval times and still does scare some today. But it doesn't actually mean anything, any more than mine and A-1's ravings above mean anything.

If St. John the Divine, whoever he actually was, had anything really important to say he would have put it in plain language. As it is I can imagine him sitting at his ancient keyboard (one that Mac the Wolf gave him) and after a few pots he writes his crap. He is chuckling to himself thinking

'This'll give 'em all something to think about for centuries to come. It'll fool the lot of 'em."

He succeeded so well that they put it into the Bible. It was so cryptic that those learned scholars didn't like to admit they didn't understand it.

Yea verily I say unto thee, Ye that heedeth not the words of the great prophet that men calleth the Old Poop shall suffer in the eternal flames and shall cry out for water, that thy torment be eased but none shall be given thee. And the Old Poop will peer down at thee from the cool shades of Heaven and thou shalt cry out, Oh forgive us Old Poop for we kneweth not that thou wert a true prohet. With thy grey beard and tattered raiment we mistook thee for just another dirty old man And Old Poop in his infinite kindness and compassion will look down with mercy upon thee and shall say Well, thou knowest now.

So beware.

Kortpeel

It is but the michelle De Nostradamus principle.

...for you see, IT DOES HAVE MEANING...but the meaning is different to each reader...and that is the trick, for I am NOT the Prophet. YOU ARE! You make up your own future...

...Prophets are never honored in their own time...

But how about we now Prophesize the OBVIOUS... it is not difficult...

Therefore,...we shall also live to see the election day of a female U.S. President...

...I DID predict the election of O'Bama on this very political message forum. Over a year ago now...

...flash in the pan, indeed! (I AM sorry Krister, you will never live that one down...)

:-\

[nullorchis (imported)]

The way religion is being sold these days is more like 17th Century Venice in the days of the Doge. Fire and brimstone, damnation. Fear and threats. Believe what I believe or you will go to hell.!

How comforting. And I am suppose to believe in something that is so mean spirited?

The whole thing sounds like a churning pool of masochists and saddists each feeding off the other's favorite sport.

When I look at the natural Earth, void of humans or anything created by humans, the earth, the sea, the sky, and infinity beyond, one can not help but wonder. It is all a mystery. I like a good mystery. It doesn't need an answer for any answer created by any human is but conjecture, an assumption, something made up, a fantasy.

I enjoy seeing all that there is, appreciating it, and enjoying the mystery of it all.

No answers, no beliefs, no bull. Just enjoy. And just wait. Maybe the mystery will be revealed. Maybe not. That is in the future. For now.........enjoy the mystery of life instead of wasting precious time debating that which really can not be proven in the here and now.......no matter how strongly you believe whatever you believe.

It's a mystery. Once you accept this and make it your baseline, life becomes much easier. Involvement in religious debates becomes a waste of time. It becomes sometimes amusing, but usually boring, watching "believers", who have many different beliefs, and "non-believers" debate. How much more they could be accomplishing if they spent their short lives doing something more useful .

Ta Ta.