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Originally posted by: Regicidal_Maniac
Kingsama you are definitely well versed in the historical origins of your beliefs, which is something I respect a great deal. Knowledge and intelligence don't oten go hand in hand with faith, you may well take exception to that but you must also realise that most people are, to put it kindly, not very smart.
Unfortunately i have to agree with you here. A good 90% of the people that clame my faith, or any other faith for that matter, have very little knowledge of the faith and its inner workings. Their limited knowledge is based on Cultural Churchdom/Christendom and not the pillars of the faith. But on the flip side you have those that have become so intrentched in CHurchdom tradition that they loose all fresh perspective on the book they hold dear. But this parisght of thoughtlessness attaches itself to people outside of different faiths, people everywhere are sheep. I had the blessing of being raised outside the faith, and of having wonderful teachers that taught me to quesiton.
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I HAVE studied my opposing views as I mentioned my upbringing already. My profile will tell you where I'm from but I don't see what being an Aussie has to do with this discussion.
I respect that you have studied other alternatives to your views, most people dont try there ideas against those who appose them. Oh and as for why i asked your homeland...Simple, if there is a person on the other side of the box, and not just a bunch of words, then it becomes less easy to be the bolegerent idiot i often times become.
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I've mentioned before than I waver between Atheism (denial) and Agnoticism (apathy) depending on what I've been drinking and what mood I'm in. I am well aware that a distinction exists between the two and I almost never pay religion, the churches or God any consideration until they start to annoy me somehow. I have some spiritual belief based on what I've experienced but that too I have researched the origins of and found it to be similar to a near death or a K-holing/third-eye type experience.
You sound a lot like my best friend here...
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I would like more people to understand what they believe and question why. To question if they believe that those things that are thoroughly untestable, not just unprovable but completely unfalsifiable because they cannot even be tested, things that have no impact on the world should be the genesis for laws that discriminate and promote ignorant hatred (jimbo) toward others for reasons unknown and nonexistent.
though i suppose i disagree with you on the amounts of evidence out there, and at this point would rather leave it at that.(It will save you and me both time and effort, i have had my fair share of lengthy internet debates where we take turns referenceing various authers ideas, books, blah blah balh, only to see that once the dust clears you still stand where you did and vice versa.) I agree with you on the need to be informed. I work with at risk youth, and they like many others, have die hard beliefs about a myriad of things. I constantly challenge them to why they belileve what they do, "Give me and example" "what is the evidence?", "why do you believe what you do?" i say constantly, always playing the devils advocate. I, in the end, just want people to think. Hopefully if you can do that it will prevent the hatred...
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I'm not a hostile person at all I just get argumentative in discussions with people who don't think that morals can come from anywhere except the bible and that there is one true belief and that this true belief states that this kind of person is right and this kind of person is wrong and the wrong person will be punished in death so we are free to legislate against them in life. That kind of idiotic thinking is what disgusts me.
In the end the only purely logicical pov is agnostic pov. We really dont know, or cant prove ANYTHING. Descarte, I believe, was kinda coping out a bit with the i think there for i am bit. It was an out for someone struggling with the question of existence. Maybe i am wrong though. To completely dismiss another theory is crap. I may disagree with you but you know what it is still possible that you are right. To speak specifically on morals, for all i know they could be nothing more than a result of social evolution, i dont, but there is know way to prove either theory 100% right or wrong.
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Religion is my pet peeve and as I said before I make sure I don't associate with many of their type (the bible wavers) in my life as they only end up pissing me off with their high and mighty attitudes and life's too short to share a drink with a tongue-clucker. I don't mind what anyone believes as long as they know why they believe it and why they shouldn't NOT believe it and as long as they keep it to themselves and out of government and legislature.
Hey not all of us bible wavers are bad people, i know many people that would be considered fundi's if you look at core theology, but are nothing like the cultural traditions that are readily assotiated with the term "fundi". By the by what in the world is a tongue clucker???
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I think I got to this point in the thread because Bush is a dangerously stupid Theocrat who believes in things I'm sure he has never questioned. I don't doubt that he believes as I know from first hand experience what a powerful thing a drug-addled born again experience can be, but in my case I continued to question it until my sanity returned and Bush likely did not question the root causes of such a vision. It's a common enough occurence but there's nothing divine about it so far as my inquiries and research can ascertain. But then I'm still looking, is Bush? Or is he going to smite the heathens because his vision commands him to do so?
Obviously i support Bush and think he is a geniuine person, further more i dont think that he by and large lets his faith dictate policy. One of the places that a really disagree,though, with him is with homosexual marriage. I personally think that there should be no federally or state sponsered version of marriage, civil unions for all. If i want to married i can do so through my church, synagogue, temple, etc. If i am not religious i can go have my traditional serimony and be married. Let the sacred argue about it, and take the GOV out of it. But this issue isnt as important to me as many others so i still back him.