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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
What in the name of all that is right are you talking about. I am not talking about fairlytales. I am talking about the God of the universe. I hope I am not the only one sick and tired of your disrespectful unbelief. This isn't Cinderella to whom I refer. It is Jesus Christ. No one is trying to force anybody to believe anything. that is impossible. But reffering to God as Bush's imaginary friend is way over the line of insantiy. Do you not belive that Bush is sincere? Beleive that he is playing us for fools or something? Or do you just not accept God's existence at all? What is it with you?
I didn't bring religion to this discussion, it was here before me.
Now I don't want to get on the wrong side of the religious moral majority because I know from first hand experience what an angry bunch of hate-filled hypocrites they can be when discussions regarding ethics and humanity turn into arguments about faith. So I will say this and repeat it; believe whatever you wish to believe.
"I know the Bible is correct, because it is the Word of God, and I know it is the Word of God, because it says so in the Bible."
It is a fairytale based on the ancient Greek myth of Herakles (son of Zeus, raised by mortals, performed heroic labours and rid the world of monsters before finally venturing into the Underworld/Hades and being reborn as a Olympian/God).
I am quite happy for you, and whomever else wants to, to believe whatever you wish to so long as you don't try to base laws on things that are as verifiable and have as much bearing on the physical world as the toothfairy.
But whatever helps you get through life and gives you strength to struggle through without going mad can't be all bad. Do unto others is the golden peanut.
Believe what you want but don't use such unprovable, untestable, untenable beliefs to justify laws or foreign policy that impacts upon the lives of, impinges on the freedoms of and enacts control over others whom you deem to be heathens or whatever just because they don't believe in the unquestionable word of your old book.
If as I said there were an all-powerful, all-knowing supernatural force at once infinite and singular, then it would want to KNOW everything, the good and the bad. If all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, then there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and you are the imagination of yourself. When the ride is over every living thing rejoins the singularity for a debrief and how long you spend in the bad place depends on how long you want to before you make the choice to end the suffering and rejoin the light.
This is a common belief amongst those who have had Near Death Experiences, 'mind expanding' drug trips, or suffered dissociative states of mind. It lends credence to the theory that all religious belief can be traced back to the hallucinogenic bark of an African tree known as Iboga (the tree of knowledge). Then fragmented, bastardised, mythologised, organised and militarised. Now they all fight over which is the one true fairytale. But the fighting is all for bullshit reasons.
What matters is how you act in life, how you treat others in life and how you live with that until you die.
Nothing else matters. It matters not what you believe, nor what I believe because in the end we all die. So why should there be any suffering on Earth? We all have one life, and one life only and it should not be a miserable one no matter what the oft-translated words of a 2000 year old Chinese-whisper have been forced to mean.
I'm not trying to unconvert you, that would be pointless but I am trying to make you see the light.
I am a liberal humanist and I believe that clashes in ideologues are keeping us back. If humanity could move beyond petty things such as intolerant religious beliefs and nationalism we'd realise we're just one species sharing one planet, a tiny blue speck in an infinite universe. We're lucky but we're not blessed. Let's just make the most of it why not?
I'll close with the words of Bill Hicks who said it, and everything else, best:
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"The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride..." And we... kill those people.
"We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: It's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much, you've been great."
Bill Hicks (December 16, 1961 -- February 26, 1994)