Post: #126

   

Post: #127

(09-05-2013 06:16 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  "There are no aetheist in foxholes".

A lot of truth in that statement. I wonder why?

From what I've heard from veterans, it's not true at all. If you're fighting a real war with universal conscription and all, you'll end up with all sorts of people in trenches and they'll be having this same debate all the time in the trench since death will be in their minds.

This is just another projection of religious people who seem to be constantly wavering between belief and doubt so they think everyone is the same. Me, I had no religious upbringing, I had no superstition even as a child and I've only ever been inside a church a few times in my life. I don't even really know any religion so I can't suddenly swap into belief...

Post: #128

Religious until it comes to marriage.

Conservative until time comes to find poosy paradise.

Post: #129

Serious question: how is religion anything more than a pretty lie?

Post: #130

I feel far more masculine knowing that I have no fundamental connection to feminist, like Atheism.

Post: #131

(09-05-2013 06:32 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(09-05-2013 05:39 PM)soup Wrote:  Man, it sounds like what happens when people take E. Just because you have a feeling about something doesn't mean it is real.

That's how girls think. They feel it is real, therefore it is to them.

You're not understanding it because you're processing what I'm saying through your logic complex without any reference point in your experiences to relate. We're all able to distinguish different emotions. We know the difference between sadness, happiness, anger, boredom, excitement. A spiritual experience is often emotional for the first time; with ensuing feelings of bliss and ecstacy, but on repeat visits to "that place" the experiencer is able to move beyond the primary emotions and go through something that's much deeper and profound. It's an experience beyond simple "feelings".

Using your reasoning, I could say the same thing about nearly anything. Just because you see something, doesn't make it real. Just because you hear something, doesn't make it real.

Our experience as living beings is dependent on our ability to sense. Our realities are built upon the sensory. But at the end of all of it, it's as simple as reasoning that all experiences are subject to question given the subjective nature of the thing.

What are humans? We're just little fixed points of consciousness. Little flashlights moving through a sea of space, bumping into each other and having our own unique experiences. There is no concrete reality; only what we perceive as reality. You can call my spiritual religious experience a farce, just like I can call your daily waking life a farce. Neither matters. I can sit someone down and guide them through a meditation (and have) and give them a fairly profound experience (and have). You can call that "just feelings" too, because you're not the one experiencing it.

Again, 1+1=2 will always be regardless of whether or not you are blind and deaf.

It is impossible to exist outside of existence.

Post: #132

I find it utterly astonishing that there are people who are members of a forum, who are claiming to be religious, when the very forum they post on pretty much advocates, as a lifestyle, to betray every single commandment in any holy book.

Ali is probably trolling and laughing his head off at our responses. I'd find it absolutely hilarious if he was an actual committed Christian.

Post: #133

^^^I'm Baptist, but since you are not religious, shouldn't speak of my choices. That is like writing a trip report about a country you have never been to.

Post: #134

(09-05-2013 07:03 PM)Teedub Wrote:  Ali is probably trolling and laughing his head off at our responses. I'd find it absolutely hilarious if he was an actual committed Christian.

I was gonna say, AliB single-handedly derailing the thread. I don't think he's a committed Christian either.

Post: #135

(09-05-2013 07:06 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  ^^^I'm Baptist, but since you are not religious, shouldn't speak of my choices. That is like writing a trip report about a country you have never been to.

By the same reasoning, shouldn't you avoid speaking of atheist choices?

Post: #136

(09-05-2013 07:06 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  ^^^I'm Baptist, but since you are not religious, shouldn't speak of my choices. That is like writing a trip report about a country you have never been to.

I don't wish to offend, never have done. However, my points remain.

Post: #137

^^^I'm representing a higher power. Atheists don't have one, and have to rely on science, which can't even explain the female orgasm. Not a group I would hang with.

Post: #138

Post: #139

(09-05-2013 06:16 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  "There are no aetheist in foxholes".

A lot of truth in that statement. I wonder why?

Wrong. The Russians, the Chinese, the Vietcong, etc... basically most of the communist bloc countries.

Post: #140

This is a stimulating and important topic for us, because it brings us into uncomfortable contact with the spiritual crisis of our times.
I wanted to add a few things to what our brother Samseau has pointed out in previous posts in this thread.

To understand and appreciate the function of religion, we should take a rationalist approach. It is all too easy to mock the absurdities of theology and ritual, but the mature mind will look beyond this and seek the purpose of such things.

It is not possible for one mind, in one lifetime, to acquire such scope of understanding as to sit in judgment on the traditions of centuries. Religions developed over many thousands of years of trial and error, and the moral codes they embody were arrived at by a long, laborious process of experiment and trial and error. How can we, with our limited experience on this earth, ever hope to comprehend the whole?

Religion is man's ultimate commentary on life and one of his few defenses against death. It is difficult for us, in this age of comfort and leisure to fully understand the hardships that ancient and medieval man faced. This experience of chaos, short life spans, and pestilence is what molded ancient and medieval faiths. We are quick to mock the superstitions and theologies of medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but forget the hardships and chaos that Christians, Jews, and Muslims faced. It seemed clear to men in those eras that the savage impulses of man could only be reined in by a moral code that had the backing of a Divine Force.

And not only this, but men need a belief system that balances hardships with hope, provides solace in anguish, ennobles his existence with divine poetry (prayers) and art, and provides some defense against the frightening brevity of life by promising an eternal life. It does not matter whether these things are "true" or not. This is the mistake that all atheists make. What a shallow knowledge of human nature do atheists have!

The average man does not want truth; he wants certainty and security. Without religion, life for most simple people becomes a terrifying and coldly impersonal cycle of creation and destruction, devoid of all meaning. There is nothing more tender and inspiring that the devotion and sincerity of medieval man, as he went about the honest pursuit of his faith.

Rituals and symbols are important aspects of religion: prayer, sacraments, and ceremonies, because they bind together the group, bring believers into comforting contact with others, charm the senses with magic and ritual, and instruct the young on proper conduct and morals. What could be more socially useful? We have paid a high price for secularism. And I question the idea of "progress" and "reason" which can prove whatever our impulses desire. Reason is frail: it can be used to prove anything suggested by our passions. And has anyone ever been convinced by logic? The whole man, the complete man, needs both faith and reason bound together in his soul.

Of course one can find incredibilities and absurdities in religions. But the people cry out for them. If atheists take away from people their cherished beliefs, they will simply adopt more and greater superstitions in their place. Atheism can only destroy; it cannot build. And atheists find it difficult to understand why people will never listen to them for long. The reason is that they can provide no consolation for the average person's life. In place of a comforting ritual, the atheist substitutes a cold, analytical sterility.
Atheism has no answer to the mysteries of life, except despair and sterile "knowledge".

No moral code will ever be fully accepted by people unless it is backed up by the force of some "God". Hammurabi, Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Mohammed, Moses, and the early Church fathers all instinctively understood this. The atheist, naive as he is, wants to keep the morality and throw out the theology. But this never works. Because it is the theology that causes the lessons to really sink into the people's souls. It is easy to mock theology, but the atheist fails to realize the comfort and solace that theology brings to people in parts of the world wracked by violence, disease, and penury. People need the terrors of hell dangled over their heads, if they are to behave and act in a socially responsible way. Atheism turns man into beasts.

Of course, we can always point out that great cruelties and violence has been done in the name of religion: the Inquisition, the crusades against the Albigensians and Cathars, the persecution of scientists by the Church, the maltreatment of Indians in the New World. All this is true. But without religion, the violence would have been even worse. Man's instincts for violence and sex are very, very strong, and without some moral code holding it in check, anarchy would come about.

Post: #141

(09-05-2013 07:27 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(09-05-2013 06:16 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  "There are no aetheist in foxholes".

A lot of truth in that statement. I wonder why?

Wrong. The Russians, the Chinese, the Vietcong, etc... basically most of the communist bloc countries.

^^^ and those guys killed millions of christians...

Post: #142

So who exactly wrote the book and decides on how to be "Red Pill" besides watching The Matrix?

Is it blue pill to have a belief (or lack of belief) based on objective observation and questioning claims without supporting evidence? Or is it more "Red Pill" to do what you're told according to a book?

Post: #143

(09-05-2013 07:30 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  This is a stimulating and important topic for us, because it brings us into uncomfortable contact with the spiritual crisis of our times.
I wanted to add a few things to what our brother Samseau has pointed out in previous posts in this thread.

To understand and appreciate the function of religion, we should take a rationalist approach. It is all too easy to mock the absurdities of theology and ritual, but the mature mind will look beyond this and seek the purpose of such things.

It is not possible for one mind, in one lifetime, to acquire such scope of understanding as to sit in judgment on the traditions of centuries. Religions developed over many thousands of years of trial and error, and the moral codes they embody were arrived at by a long, laborious process of experiment and trial and error. How can we, with our limited experience on this earth, ever hope to comprehend the whole?

Religion is man's ultimate commentary on life and one of his few defenses against death. It is difficult for us, in this age of comfort and leisure to fully understand the hardships that ancient and medieval man faced. This experience of chaos, short life spans, and pestilence is what molded ancient and medieval faiths. We are quick to mock the superstitions and theologies of medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but forget the hardships and chaos that Christians, Jews, and Muslims faced. It seemed clear to men in those eras that the savage impulses of man could only be reined in by a moral code that had the backing of a Divine Force.

And not only this, but men need a belief system that balances hardships with hope, provides solace in anguish, ennobles his existence with divine poetry (prayers) and art, and provides some defense against the frightening brevity of life by promising an eternal life. It does not matter whether these things are "true" or not. This is the mistake that all atheists make. What a shallow knowledge of human nature do atheists have!

The average man does not want truth; he wants certainty and security. Without religion, life for most simple people becomes a terrifying and coldly impersonal cycle of creation and destruction, devoid of all meaning. There is nothing more tender and inspiring that the devotion and sincerity of medieval man, as he went about the honest pursuit of his faith.

Rituals and symbols are important aspects of religion: prayer, sacraments, and ceremonies, because they bind together the group, bring believers into comforting contact with others, charm the senses with magic and ritual, and instruct the young on proper conduct and morals. What could be more socially useful? We have paid a high price for secularism. And I question the idea of "progress" and "reason" which can prove whatever our impulses desire. Reason is frail: it can be used to prove anything suggested by our passions. And has anyone ever been convinced by logic? The whole man, the complete man, needs both faith and reason bound together in his soul.

Of course one can find incredibilities and absurdities in religions. But the people cry out for them. If atheists take away from people their cherished beliefs, they will simply adopt more and greater superstitions in their place. Atheism can only destroy; it cannot build. And atheists find it difficult to understand why people will never listen to them for long. The reason is that they can provide no consolation for the average person's life. In place of a comforting ritual, the atheist substitutes a cold, analytical sterility.
Atheism has no answer to the mysteries of life, except despair and sterile "knowledge".

No moral code will ever be fully accepted by people unless it is backed up by the force of some "God". Hammurabi, Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Mohammed, Moses, and the early Church fathers all instinctively understood this. The atheist, naive as he is, wants to keep the morality and throw out the theology. But this never works. Because it is the theology that causes the lessons to really sink into the people's souls. It is easy to mock theology, but the atheist fails to realize the comfort and solace that theology brings to people in parts of the world wracked by violence, disease, and penury. People need the terrors of hell dangled over their heads, if they are to behave and act in a socially responsible way. Atheism turns man into beasts.

Of course, we can always point out that great cruelties and violence has been done in the name of religion: the Inquisition, the crusades against the Albigensians and Cathars, the persecution of scientists by the Church, the maltreatment of Indians in the New World. All this is true. But without religion, the violence would have been even worse. Man's instincts for violence and sex are very, very strong, and without some moral code holding it in check, anarchy would come about.

This is the very definition of the blue pill.

Post: #144

(09-05-2013 07:17 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  ^^^I'm representing a higher power. Atheists don't have one, and have to rely on science, which can't even explain the female orgasm. Not a group I would hang with.

Because there isn't one. Tell you something mate, there's a flying purple Unicorn that hovers around Jupiter ever seventh Friday. He knows your thoughts, (tell you a secret, he even knows your chest hair length, crazy I know) and knows what underwear you wear on Thursdays. Not Fridays as that is his day of rest. Baptist or no Baptist, believing in the Bible shows not only childlike imagination, but also unimaginable idiocy from someone I considered intelligent

Post: #145

Atheists avoid religion to avoid persecution. Fear=blue pill.

The OP was right.

Post: #146

I find it really difficult to accept the notion that atheism is responsible in any large part for the decline of traditional values, the rise of consumerism, whatever...
Are these not just inherent common denominators of Western life, religion aside?

Demographically speaking, the United States is way, WAY more religious than Russia, China, France, Sweden... And while these countries certainly have their own problems, for the most part I think we would agree they produce women much closer to marriage material than what you'd find here.

Post: #147

(09-05-2013 07:54 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  Atheists avoid religion to avoid persecution. Fear=blue pill.

The OP was right.

And people flock to religion for the fear of death and what lies beyond, hardly because of love for the creator.

Post: #148

Ali, I went too far in calling you stupid and whatnot, but I do find it really, really hypocritical how religious people can advocate what we advocate here, and yet claim to be religious to the extent I am gleaming you probably are.

Forget all the arguments about atheism etc, just answer the above.

Post: #149

^^^ Go to church and you'll understand. A Baptist one, not the Catholic ones. The priests aren't to good around young men.

Post: #150

(09-05-2013 07:06 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  ^^^I'm Baptist, but since you are not religious, shouldn't speak of my choices. That is like writing a trip report about a country you have never been to.

Banged out the married daughter of a Baptist preacher. From Texas.

She was an absolute whore in bed.