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Mr ProgFreak 
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Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
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 Posted: July 22 2010 at 00:42 |
 Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Textbook wrote:
But that is a different matter Ivan. Those people may not have been religious, but they were monstrous people. A benevolent leader who does not believe in heaven may be less inclined to send people to their death. |
One simple question.Where they atheists or not?
Monsters or not they were atheists.
Iván |
Atheists or not, they were monsters.
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Textbook
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 05:04 |
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Another question- is the theist insulting his friends, loved ones and the planet in general by living for the afterlife? Leaving aside the question of why exactly it is noble to do as god says because there's a reward, this attitude seems to suggest that the people, experiences and scope of your life is not good enough for you. You "deserve" more than this paltry lot and a few decades in their company cannot be all there is, that just doesn't cut it. I wonder if people would appreciate their family and others more if they didn't think they would have eternity to reconcile with them in the afterlife.
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Mr ProgFreak
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 06:14 |
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^ Indeed this is my biggest concern when it comes to religions that focus on the afterlife ... it can lead people to neglect the life they know they have.
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Textbook
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 06:45 |
It's been suggested that that is actually one of the original intents of the church. As a power structure which seeks to rule and govern, it helps a lot to rule subjects who aren't terribly interested in the world or their lives/fates so that they'll just accept what you do. Great way to achieve this is to convince them that this life is irrelevant and doesn't matter because they'll go to heaven! so they become apathetic and pliable.
Note that though priests and churches repeatedly stress that this world is an illusion and that your position in it does not matter, they do little else other than jockey for influence and dominion.
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Icarium
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 06:51 |
that brings to mind what I was not awere of for a year ago then I stumbled upon a wikipedia article about a cult called the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, i was feeling chills from top of my head and down to my feet, I become nautiuos but also felt uncontrolable anger building from within me at what I read from that cult, and what that di too the people who were within it, you enlighted progsters are probably familiar with it.
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akin
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Location: Brazil
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Points: 976
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 07:12 |
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Don't know about places where you live, but where I live people is not particularly religious (they say they are in polls, but they don't follow it) and they are in a worse state of apathy towards life, the world and everything else than in the past, when people used to follow the religion they were part of.
This is not a purpose of the church, but the purpose of those who aim the power. Everyone know the expression "bread and circuses". Most of people are not concerned in living their lives according to what they think right and get the most of it.
I believe most people do not have any purpose in life, so they just live the way they are told how to live, so it doesn't matter who tell them that: the priest, the government, any philosopher, television, marketing companies. etc, they just blindly follow it. Be it Richard Dawkins or Billy Graham, they are just preaching a style of life that, if the masses adopt, will be profitable for them. And most of the masses who listen to them think: "Well, if the guy is so assured that it is good for me, it must be".
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Textbook
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 07:12 |
Someone mentioned Bill Maher before... he did some interesting work where he put forward the idea that religion is not simply a case of being wrong but that is actually a neurological disorder caused by faulty upbringing. He might be right but this is not the sort of thing you say to a religious person to get the ball rolling on a conversation about religion's validity. Not only are you saying their religion's bunkum, but they have mental problems and their parents were in some way deficient. A real ice breaker.
Somewhat surprisingly after this and various other videos and statements he has made, Maher is not an atheist. He's actually an agnostic (though he says apatheist, a more specific term meaning he thinks that questions about god and afterlife are absolutely unanswerable, and does not wonder as an agnostic might). I think this gives him a lot of credibility actually- he's not pretending to have knowledge or proof that there definitely is no god, the same mistake that the religious make. What is he saying is that "I don't know and you don't know and all religious stories/beliefs can be traced to manmade origins, they do not come from outer space and mysterious voices. Religion is superstition and tradition, nothing more."
His big objection to religion is that it "stops people from thinking" which is what MrPF and I were getting on to a few posts back.
Here's a clip from Sherri Shepherd's (host of woman's daytime show in the USA) wiki page that nicely illustrates this:
Now even a religious person would probably concede that Shepherd's behaviour in these incidents is asinine. But why is she behaving in this way? Because she has been taught, presumably from a young age, that absolute knowledge of the universe is already in our hands and this breaks down her entire capacity to reason and inquire. It's almost as though she "has faith" that Jesus predates the Greeks, and "has faith" that the world isn't round. She feels this things intuitively and why, that's good enough if you have faith, who cares about investigating and ascertaining facts?
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 07:13 |
aginor wrote:
that brings to mind what I was not awere of for a year ago then I stumbled upon a wikipedia article about a cult called the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, i was feeling chills from top of my head and down to my feet, I become nautiuos but also felt uncontrolable anger building from within me at what I read from that cult, and what that di too the people who were within it, you enlighted progsters are probably familiar with it.
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I remember when that was in the news. One of those events that played a role in my moving away from religion.
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Mr ProgFreak
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 08:03 |
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^^ Check out the book The God Virus. When I first saw the title I wasn't sure whether you could go that far, but as I read the book it made more and more sense to look at religion as a virus - just cultural instead of biological. And of course one of the primary vectors for distributing such a virus is "parent -> child". Gullibility is the key - and children are especially gullible and consider their parents as authoritative (at least until adolescence sets in). Other good vectors are people who have experienced trauma or sudden loss - most "born again" religious people will tell you that they lost a loved one, or had other traumatic experiences.
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 08:50 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Given the choice, I'd rather be perceived by you to be an idiot or insecure jerk, than be perceived as a humorless, petulant prick by the rest of the world. Sorry, but that's how you come across in this post IMO.
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Maybe humorless, but I'm sure that most people would be if abn idiot insults what is holy for you.
That's not numor, that's provocation.
Luckily the guy is a perfect idiot who doesn't bnow what he's talking about.
Iván
BTW: Who is more arrogant, the one who lives and lets other live or the one who insults what otthers consider holy?
BTW II: Read what the rest believe of you before talking for the whole world.
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 22 2010 at 08:51
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Trademark
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:07 |
"I'd rather be perceived by you to be an idiot or insecure jerk" It's your lucky day then. 
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Mr ProgFreak
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:24 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Given the choice, I'd rather be perceived by you to be an idiot or insecure jerk, than be perceived as a humorless, petulant prick by the rest of the world. Sorry, but that's how you come across in this post IMO.
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Maybe humorless, but I'm sure that most people would be if abn idiot insults what is holy for you.
That's not numor, that's provocation.
Luckily the guy is a perfect idiot who doesn't bnow what he's talking about.
Iván
BTW: Who is more arrogant, the one who lives and lets other live or the one who insults what otthers consider holy?
BTW II: Read what the rest believe of you before talking for the whole world. |
Do you really think that Dillahunty thinks that he aquired the power to consecrate communion wafers? Obviously that wasn't the point at all. The point was that Catholics get so upset when people of other denominations - or Atheists - make fun of their beliefs. Just like Muslims get upset when you draw a picture of Mohammed. Ridiculing a religion is a victimless crime. It shouldn't matter to you. But instead you get upset and play the hurt feelings card. I would say that this pretty much confirms Matt, me and most of the other Atheists who point out that free speech should win over freedom of religion in the public place - religion should be respected, but not at the cost of freedom of speech or expression.
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The T
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Joined: October 16 2006
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:36 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Ridiculing a religion is a victimless crime.
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Go tell that to Theo Van Gogh or any of the victims of Islam... 
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:41 |
The T wrote:
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Ridiculing a religion is a victimless crime.
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Go tell that to Theo Van Gogh or any of the victims of Islam... |
Actually, that's more about retaliation than the actual act of ridicule. 
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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The T
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:52 |
Because he ridiculed a religion (not even that really)...
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 09:53 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Do you really think that Dillahunty thinks that he aquired the power to consecrate communion wafers? |
No,but he is trying to make people believe so.
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Obviously that wasn't the point at all. The point was that Catholics get so upset when people of other denominations - or Atheists - make fun of their beliefs. |
It's a most sacred belief, what do yu expect? It's an act of desecration, he's even asking people to take posetion of what we belief is God, for him to make mockery
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Just like Muslims get upset when you draw a picture of Mohammed. Ridiculing a religion is a victimless crime. It shouldn't matter to you. |
Better talk in first person, I would never make fan of the beliefs of any person, no matte if he's a Catholic, Jewish or Moslem, but it's obvious you find it funny,.
BTW: It's not victimless, because you are insulting the beliefs of millions of persons (victims), and you dare to call me arrogant for showing respect?
I underdstand why they get upset, I will never justify any fom of retaliation, but I understand why they feel attacked, because you are provoking them to show how superior you believe you are.
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
But instead you get upset and play the hurt feelings card. I would say that this pretty much confirms Matt, me and most of the other Atheists who point out that free speech should win over freedom of religion in the public place - religion should be respected, but not at the cost of freedom of speech or expression.
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We don't play anything, some acts offend us deeply, and we are getting tired of this, desecration of religious symbols is a crime is a crime in many countries, because one thing is freedom of speech and another is freedom to insult.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 22 2010 at 09:57
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Vibrationbaby
Forum Senior Member
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 10:05 |
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OK. I have not read down this thread. I'm listening to PSY Power by Hawkwind as I write these precious words. I have more than 4,700 on fast jets. I have flown at 150ft above MSL and as high as 60,000 ft. I HAVE SEEN MORE UFOS than Gods. My bosses were more interested in the goddammed UFOs. My nav & myself encountered a UFO bigger than the Olympic Stadium. Couldn't get a visual. But we were getting a radar signature.
As far as I'm concerned there is no guy in a robe with a beard sitting on a cloud,
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UndercoverBoy
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Location: Tulsa, OK, U.S.
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 10:17 |
Vibrationbaby wrote:
As far as I'm concerned there is no guy in a robe with a beard sitting on a cloud,
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I'm pretty sure that no one here thinks that God is a guy in a robe sitting on a cloud. If I remember correctly, that image came from Zeus, and the Christian God was perceived that way to make it more accessible to the Pagans.
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BaldFriede
Prog Reviewer
Joined: June 02 2005
Location: Germany
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Points: 10266
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 10:21 |
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I am not of Christian faith, but I would not be peeved if someone ridiculed my religion. I ridicule atheists, because most of them aren't even atheists. The same is true for Mike, by the way; he is not an atheist at all. He attacks a certain image of God, that's all, but that image has nothing to do with God at all.
Edited by BaldFriede - July 22 2010 at 10:21
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 BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.
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jampa17
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2009
Location: Guatemala
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Points: 6802
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Posted: July 22 2010 at 10:29 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
^ Well, ordained or not, consecrated or not ... wafers they were, and wafers they remain. I'm relieved though that the video didn't totally upset you. |
The video only reveals the ignorance of some people:
- A guy who believs he can be ordained priest by mail, is a perfect idiot.
- A guy who believes he can coonsecrate a host by the power invested by Internet is twice an idiot
- A guy who claims we believe that a host turns into flesh .ad meat, is an ignorant, the eklements remain intact, the precense is spiritual.
- A guy whjo insults other people's beliefs is simply an inseccure jerk.
So no, it doesn't affect me, idiots don't bother me.
Iván
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Given the choice, I'd rather be perceived by you to be an idiot or insecure jerk, than be perceived as a humorless, petulant prick by the rest of the world. Sorry, but that's how you come across in this post IMO.
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You can choose whatever you want and feel whatever you like... this kind of posts prove that you are not interesting in answers, you just want to show everyone how good you are because you don't follow any religion. You act like a superior person because you think you can make fun of sacred things for millions. Well, think whatever you want man, you prove each time how wrong you are and how false is your search for true. You just search to make fun of all the people who disagree with you...
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Change the program inside... Stay in silence is a crime.
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