Ye Religion Thread

[fanny]

The Great Cow always was. The cow exploded. Cow dung flew all over the place and then ignited. And the Great Cow said "This is good."    

I always wondered where the burning bush deal came from, now I know   LOL

[Whirlingdervish]

wait how did the cow say anything after it exploded? did the flaming dung speak or was the cow
transformed into some sort of mystical spirit-bovine that existed without her big fat body?
I'm confused!

Also, are you sure it was a cow? it seems quite logical that the universe is
composed of bullshit, but that would mean the "cow" must have been a "bull"...

[M^tster]

Im not sure even if youve proven there is a God, that many people would choose to follow His laws anyways.Like me for instance I believe and follow most of his laws, but sometimes I just do things Im not supposed to do.Even though I KNOW He is there.The creativity I see in other people is also what confirms my belief in God.Only someone that was created by a perfect being could come up with most of what we see in our lives, good, or evil.Some of the most interesting people I know um hmm "pants" um hmm for one, dont believe in God, even though he's been blessed w/such an interesting and restless creative mind.Such smart people cant see some things that are right in front of them.
  Why would God make it easy like in the old days when he would walk around the garden of eden w/ Adam.When we screwed it all up (damn that woman!).We ate from the tree of knowledge and like in some people it corrupted our souls.You know if you tell a man how to make a nuclear bomb, he might not make one, but the next guy will.Knowledge corrupts some people.PLUS He said not to eat it.I know it makes it sound like we were just giant pets or something, running around knowing only what He told us.And maybe thats what we were.But we pooped on the carpet and He said fine then find it all out for yourselves, have free will, see how far ir takes you.And of course there were those who used the accumulating knowledge to do evil.And fast forward to present day, now there is a dog eating, glasses wearing, platform shoe ordering DICKtator testing nuclear weapons in N. Korea.

I will co9ntinue this later....stay tuned for another action packed episode offfff... Matts Opinion!   

[quadz]

Im not sure even if youve proven there is a God, that many people would
choose to follow His laws anyways.Like me for instance I believe and follow
most of his laws, but sometimes I just do things Im not supposed to do.Even
though I KNOW He is there.

[Wheet]

I wonder what meta-God looks like, do you think it's like a giant warewolf with fangs and such?

[paradisel0st]

Lmao Quadz. 

[Waffle Whiffer]

wait how did the cow say anything after it exploded? did the flaming dung speak or was the cow
transformed into some sort of mystical spirit-bovine that existed without her big fat body?
I'm confused!

Also, are you sure it was a cow? it seems quite logical that the universe is
composed of bullshit, but that would mean the "cow" must have been a "bull"...

This is just one of the great mysteries that requires faith.

I guess it might have been a bull or maybe even a horse. 

[Waffle Whiffer]

I think we will have all the answers once we reach the 9th dimension. You may ask...How do you get to the 9th dimention?. You turn left at the 8th dimention.

Warning: Stay away from the religions that pop up when comets pass by.

[QuakeDuke]

I mean, one of the most popular denominations of Christianity bases their whole concept of Original Sin on people getting kicked out of paradise because they wanted more knowledge.

I must say there are a lot of denominational errors - the first one being the concept of denominations itself. The one and ONLY time the division into "denominations" is dealt with in the Bible is to chastise those involved for their divisiveness. (references on request) The farther away from the central message of the gospel you get, the more error and exclusiveness abounds - eek! Did I just say that?

Actually, our founding parents were kicked out for disobedience - there were three "reasons" or justifications why they disobeyed. I'm still convinced if Adam had been - pardon the expression - "man enough" to accept his responsiblity instead of trying to shove it all off on his wife, things would have turned out much different than they did. But, what the hey - we still try to pass responsiblity for our actions on to others, don't we?

QD

[QuakeDuke]

Some of the most interesting people I know um hmm "pants" um hmm for one, dont
believe in God, even though he's been blessed w/such an interesting and
restless creative mind.Such smart people cant see some things that are right
in front of them. 

Only problem I have with pants is those darn 'nades

QD

[quadz]

I mean, one of the most popular denominations of Christianity bases their whole concept of Original Sin on people getting kicked out of paradise because they wanted more knowledge.

I must say there are a lot of denominational errors - the first one being
the concept of denominations itself.

[QuakeDuke]

# The farther away
# from the central message of the gospel you get, the more error and
# exclusiveness abounds - eek!

I think of that all the time: when did Jesus ever say to
go on crusades and inquisitions?  Or love your alterboys
as thyself, etc.

Never, and from Jesus' time on you cannot line up ANY kind of "aggressive behavior" such as the cursesades and inquisition with  His teachings. He taught very persuasively and left it entirely up to the individual whether to believe or not. At the risk of ending up in trouble (and not wanting to get into who defines what is morality, ammorality, immorality, etc) I will tell you I've never been one to believe you can legislate morality because man will always build laws to allow him to justify what behavior he wants to exhibit. While I believe spiritual laws should influence and guide (not control) temporal laws, spiritual laws are supposed to transcend temporal laws. I also believe the church should be separate from the state, should get no more special treatment than anyone else and should pay their share of taxes. Hey, even Jesus paid taxes man!

# I'm still convinced
# if Adam had been - pardon the expression - "man enough" to accept his
# responsiblity instead of trying to shove it all off on his wife

So because our great-great-great-NNNNNNNN-great-grandfather's
relationship was co-dependent with his wife, our species and
all their progeny are cursed???

I'm not sure of what you mean by co-dependant. That's another one of those words than has several (good and bad) meanings. 

What I was refering to was according to the record we have (and despite the fact in almost every case it is taught it was totally the woman's fault)  woman wasn't even in the picture yet when the command came to not eat of the tree of the knowldege of good and evil - it was given directly to the man, not the woman - therefore it was the man's reponsiblity to communicate - teach if you will - to his wife everything he had learned to that point about how they should conduct themselves and to make sure she understood those teachings.

A case can be made for his failure to do so by his wife's response when tempted. She "added" to the commandment "But of the tree of the knowldege of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" the words "neither shall ye touch it". The tempter was perfectly correct when he answered her statement "neither shall ye touch it" with "ye shall not surely die" because it was true - just touching it wouldn't (didn't) kill her because it wasn't part of the commandment.

Since she didn't immediatley die when she touched it, she thought "hmmm... that part didn't happen / wasn't true, maybe the rest of it isn't either...."   As kids, our parents might tell us ( or we might tell our kids) "don't do _____" or "____ will happen" and when we / they do it, it doesn't happen right then so we / they are emboldened to keep on although many times what we / they warned would happen does, just not right when we  / they thought it would.

Since no man is an island (where have I heard that before? ) our actions -  contrary to all who might say I'm only affecting or  hurting myself -  affect all those who are around us; our friends, families and even our enemies.  When the equal and opposite reaction to our action (hmmm... thermodynamics?) does happen, we many times rationalize the reasons it happened to absolve us of guilt in doing what we shouldn't have to it being someone else's fault that we did what we did and so we shouldn't be blamed or held accountable for whatever it was we did because it was "their" fault. 

I think it's ironic how this ancient account of accountablity depicts so well our modern view of accountablity. It wasn't the woman's fault she did what she did, it was the serpents. It wasn't the man's fault he did what he did, it was the woman's. It's not my fault I've done ___________, it's _________ fault. If I hadn't been born in _________ or If I hadn't been raised __________, on and on.

Now, with that said, I do strongly believe we can, if I may co-opt a phrase, break the cycle. Using the same premise our actions affect each other, we can affect one another positivley instead of negatively. We can do better by our desendents than was done by us. We don't have to continue the same cycles of "me first" that seem to consume mankind. However, that does require us to back to the core teachings of the gospel, contained in only 2 commandments,  regardless of the language it's spoken in " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself."

We are cursed because man largley seems to be incapable (or unwilling) to learn from history and keep doing the same insane things over and over and over and over and you get the idea... despite all those who've shown the way to break the cycle of destruction.

STOP IT!  STOP IT!  STOP IT RIGHT NOW!  STOP IT!  All right, no one is to
stone _anyone_ until I blow this whistle.  Even...  and I want to make this
absolutely clear...  even if they do say, "Jehovah.  "
 
 

Uh.. does this mean I should start running?.....

QD

[The Dreaming Dragon]

IN HEAVEN EVERTHING IS FINE

http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=15981

[Kingsize]

Maybe we're just all a big sims game that GOD has been playing for many years

[Whirlingdervish]

I found an interesting read that actually pertains to the conversation at hand, while looking around the net.
It's mostly the viewpoint of an atheist evolution-touting author who sees religion itself as a major self-perpetuating problem with humanity. The first 2 paragraphs may get a few of you more devout TS members a bit riled up and bring to mind the word "blasphemy".. but I guess it's important to understand everyone's point of view in order to formulate one of our own. so keep reading even if you do find it slightly offensive. Blame me later if you hate it.