Keith, I hope you stick around this thread for days on end. You and I can have alot of fun.....

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I'm sure you could re-post your so-called 'proofs' in here.

I'm considering it... They're just a few 'post history' clicks away... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

This is what I call stupid, Keith, (mostly because I lost my patience long ago): people who insist that their bible is entirely correct when many parts of it are demonstrably absurd. I find "very stupid", people who insist on believing that Yeshua of Nazareth actually did the more fantastic things - walking on water, turning water into wine, healing the sick with the laying on of hands, raising Lazarus, etc etc etc -
They believe those 'comic book stories', yet we all know Superman is a fantasy. and some of his things are exactly the same. Some of them are even better. They call Greek Pantheon 'mythology' but in those days, it was just as believed as today's religions are! This failure to see the same situation demonstrates deliberate blindness - people put their hands over their ears, shut down their brains, and refuse to think or even hear it.

It's very easy to go around pointing fingers at religions other than your own and say it worries you, or it's followers are sick and need help, but your religion is exactly the same case. It's just a question of degree of pathology and in which direction. (For Troy, btw, comparing religion to an actual science is utterly off once again. Troy, you need more years and experience under your belt, because you really don't understand the picture. Freud can be proven right or wrong - religions' 'blind faith' is immune to disproof - the same way you can't reason with a schizophrenic.)


Even if some parts of your holy book are actually correct, what stock do you need to put into it? Give it the value it deserves - a good source of history, even if extremely colored, but that's all. When I read the Iliad do you think I take it all as true?! I'm sure it's a very colored version of the war, written by the victors. But it gives a good picture of life in the bronze age.


There are many who understand much of their book is absurd, yet they go on to say that by and large, we can accept it with a grain of salt, even if the stories are symbolic or allegorical. Well what the hell are you adopting a half-baked version of reality for when you could help science along? Science, that has proven to be the only hope for humanity? Or would you rather go back to living in a cave? Civilization is thanks to experimentation and logical deduction, NOT divine revelation. Adopt the scientific method fully. Do science wherever you can so that you add to the knowledge of humanity. Don't waste your brain and the brains of HUNDREDS of others on fantasy! You like helping people, become a counsellor. You like helping the community, then EDUCATE the people who need it, don't just hand out soup for today; you'll be handing out soup to those people the rest of your life instead of teaching them to work and be able to buy their own lunch. Normally, contributing to knowledge instead of contributing to the ignorance of a credulous fantasy is a no-brainer. Why should religion be exempt?

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

So, Keith, if you keep your brain closed about religion being utterly false, never questioning it, making all kinds of rationalizations to yourself to reconcile absurdities, then yes, you would be stupid.

It looks like Troy's case is simply brainwashing along with a lack of experience due to his short years.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

It looks like Troy's case is simply brainwashing along with a lack of experience due to his short years.

It maybe, who knows maybe one day I'll chang my mind but I find it unlikely. And I don't know if I would use the term brainwashing given the fact I disagree with the established dogma of not just my religon but others (See the Stem Cell thred) and I maybe young but to say its lack of experience when you know next to nothing of who I am, assumptions are almost as dangerious as sweeping generlazations. At the very least I've provided rationlazations for what I belive, at most I have provided a solid foundation for what I belive. I mean Chuck I could say you've been brainwashed by the 'God is Dead' movement as easly as you can fling that as me.

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

'What is impossible with men is possible with God.'

~ Jesus ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I am just going to state my opinion.
Imagine yourselfs as a archeoligst 3,000 years in the future. You discover a ancient society that believed that a god created the sun and the earth and the moon in 6 days and on the 7th he rested. Now you discover that this culture believed that all people were sinners and that their god sent his son to earth to forgive them for their sins. And that if they believe in their lord then they can live forever with him and escape eternal damnation.

Sounds alot like other ancient civilizations silly religous views.

There are alot of psychological reasons for religon.
1.It comforts people
2.It answers some of the greatest questions we have
3.We dont want to believe that this is all we are and religon offers us an escape to that reality.

Time is infinite.
There was an infinite amount of time before us and there will be after us.
Humans have always had gods. The Romans had Gods for things they didnt understand such as lightning. Religon is still related to things we dont understand (Where we came from and what happens to us when we die?)
We are just another animal on this planet but we happen to be intelligent
Where did God come from?
The bible was written hundreds of years after the events took place.
God was confused when he wrote the bible cause it contridicts itselfs many times.
If God loves us so much then why has he held a 2,000 year grudge?
We all have a choice according to priests. Yet if God already knows what choice we are gonna make then why are we here? Why doesnt he send atheists like me to hell and all the saved people to heaven right now?
If god is so powerful then why did it take him 6 days to create everything?
"Stars are tiny little objects of light, so small that every star in the universe could easily fall onto the ground of Earth" - The bible makes many assumptions.
I can understand why people need religon. It comforts us. It comforted me after 9/11. It allows us to think that there is someone who watches out for us and has a plan for us.
To me it seems much more likely that we are just another species who evolved and created gods to satisfy our psychological needs.

Why can't we all just get along?
Us Atheists are happy believing what we believe and the Theists are happy. Just let each other be! We are all human beings here. We all have the same basic hopes and dreams and we all love those who are close to us. So lets just be happy and enjoy our time together on this rock.

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I am just going to state my opinion.
Imagine yourselfs as a archeoligst 3,000 years in the future. You discover a ancient society that believed that a god created the sun and the earth and the moon in 6 days and on the 7th he rested. Now you discover that this culture believed that all people were sinners and that their god sent his son to earth to forgive them for their sins. And that if they believe that in their lord then they can live forever with him and escape eternal damnation.

Sounds alot like other ancient civilizations silly religous views.

There are alot of psychological reasons for religon.
1.It comforts people
2.It answers some of the greatest questions we have
3.We dont want to believe that this is all we are and religon offers us an escape to that reality.

Time is infinite.
There was an infinite amount of time before us and there will be after us.
Humans have always had gods. The Romans had Gods for things they didnt understand such as lightning. Religon is still related to things we dont understand (Where we came from and what happens to us when we die?)
We are just another animal on this planet but we happen to be intelligent
Where did God come from?
The bible was written hundreds of years after the events took place.
God was confused when he wrote the bible cause it contridicts itselfs many times.
If God loves us so much then why has he held a 2,000 year grudge?
We all have a choice according to priests. Yet if God already knows what choice we are gonna make then why are we here? Why doesnt he send atheists like me to hell and all the saved people to heaven right now?
If god is so powerful then why did it take him 6 days to create everything?
"Stars are tiny little objects of light, so small that every star in the universe could easily fall onto the ground of Earth" - The bible makes many assumptions.
I can understand why people need religon. It comforts us. It comforted me after 9/11. It allows us to think that there is someone who watches out for us and has a plan for us.

Why can't we all just get along?
Us Atheists are happy believing what we believe and the Theists are happy. Just let each other be! We are all human beings here. We all have the same basic hopes and dreams and we all love those who are close to us. So lets just be happy and enjoy our time together on this rock.

We didn't make the universe...but we can live and thrive....

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Us Atheists are happy believing what we believe and the Theists are happy. Just let each other be!

This is the most sense I've heard in this thread in 5 years... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Fine. Then I don't expect to hear bullcrap being babbled out by jeffrey every 5 posts, or have my doorbell rung by kids barely out of their teens wanting to talk to me about some other idiotic fantasy. I don't expect to lose friends in a twin-tower terrorist attack because some sect of muslims decides thay WON'T be hypocrites and that they will follow EXACTLY what their holy book tells them to do. I don't expect to be uneasy if I visit Northern Ireland. I don't expect to have my head lobbed off for me - being forced to kneel on a foreign flag - just for travelling through the wrong part of Iran.

You got a pi-in-the-sky solution for that, Walla? I do. It's called REPLACE RELIGION WITH SCIENCE. THEN you'll see no more hatred in the world.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Fine. Then I don't expect to hear bullcrap being babbled out by jeffrey every 5 posts, or have my doorbell rung by kids barely out of their teens wanting to talk to me about some other idiotic fantasy. I don't expect to lose friends in a twin-tower terrorist attack because some sect of muslims decides thay WON'T be hypocrites and that they will follow EXACTLY what their holy book tells them to do. I don't expect to be uneasy if I visit Northern Ireland. I don't expect to have my head lobbed off for me - being forced to kneel on a foreign flag - just for travelling through the wrong part of Iran.

You got a pi-in-the-sky solution for that, Walla? I do. It's called REPLACE RELIGION WITH SCIENCE. THEN you'll see no more hatred in the world.

idiotic fantasy? What like haveing a president who isn't a complete idiot? No one expects to lose freinds, do you think that when I enlisted I expected to have drinking buddies wind up dead in Iraq and Afganastan? No one ever does. Once again, even with the Muslems it was the 2% that had to crap in everyone elses pie, and even then most muslims don't want to fly planes into the side of stuff. I'd know... I used to live in Qatar, I worked every day with the locals screening mail for the American military and Embissay.

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

Hint to Mt. Soledad cross's fate lies in desert
Friends, foes of memorial await result of Mojave case

By Dana Wilkie
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

July 27, 2006

WASHINGTON – It's a war memorial. It includes a cross. It is on public land. And while politicians use congressional maneuvers to keep the cross there, others say it's unconstitutional and should be removed.

This sounds a lot like the cross atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla, but it's not.

About 275 miles away in the Mojave Desert stands a far less prominent but nonetheless controversial cross that, like the Mount Soledad cross, has been the subject of lawsuits and court-ordered removals. Unlike Mount Soledad, however, the battle surrounding the desert cross at a place called Sunrise Rock has focused on the U.S. Constitution's provisions guaranteeing separation of church and state.

Should the Mount Soledad cross end up in federal hands, as many in Congress would like, its future likely will rest on interpretations of the Constitution. And that, cross foes say, means the history of the Mojave cross may provide clues to the fate of the Mount Soledad cross.

“There are many significant similarities between the two cases,” said Alex Luchenister, an attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which argues that placing religious symbols on public land violates the Constitution.

“In both cases, the government maintained the crosses were war memorials, and in both cases, the courts ruled that displaying the crosses was unconstitutional,” he said.

Mount Soledad cross supporters say that from a legal perspective, the Mojave cross is far different.

“The Mojave is a 5-foot cross that's two metal beams stuck into a pile of rocks out in the middle of nowhere,” said Charles LiMandri, an attorney advising a group of Mount Soledad cross supporters. “A reasonable person walking through there would have no reason to think it's a war memorial.”

Last week, the House passed a bill by San Diego County's three Republican congressmen that seeks to preserve the Mount Soledad cross by giving title of the Korean War veterans memorial to the government and having it administered by the Defense Department.

A federal judge had ordered the cross removed on the grounds it violated the state constitution's ban on government support of religion. But the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that order this month, keeping the 29-foot-tall cross on its massive pedestal.

Capitol insiders suggest the Senate will likely approve the House bill, which has the support of liberals such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. President Bush said he would sign it.

Cross foes such as James McElroy, who represents Philip Paulson, the Vietnam War veteran and atheist who filed a lawsuit over the Mount Soledad cross in 1989, have vowed to fight the land transfer if it becomes law. Observers say such a challenge would take the focus off the state constitution and place it on the U.S. Constitution – as happened in the Mojave case.

In at least two Western cases involving crosses on public land and the U.S. Constitution, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the removal of the displays.

The Mojave memorial, a cross of metal tubing in the Mojave National Preserve, honors World War I veterans. Five years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union sued to remove the cross on behalf of a former National Park Service worker who complained it violated the First Amendment. A federal judge in Riverside ordered the cross removed, and the 9th Circuit upheld that ruling.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, intervened by passing a measure trading the cross's land to a private veterans group. A year ago, the same Riverside judge said Lewis' land transfer was invalid. The ruling is being appealed to the 9th Circuit.

For now, the National Park Service has covered the Mojave cross with a plywood box.

In 1996, the 9th Circuit ruled that a 51-foot lighted cross – also a war memorial – on city parkland in Eugene, Ore., was a religious symbol that violated the Constitution. The ruling reversed a lower court that sided with voters who passed a referendum to keep the cross in place.

“Whether it's the federal Constitution, federal property, state property – it doesn't matter,” said Peter Eliasberg, an ACLU attorney fighting to remove the Mojave cross.

Douglas Laycock, an expert on church-state separation matters at the University of Texas law school, said that even though the 9th Circuit last month refused to intervene in a lower court's order to remove the Mount Soledad cross on state constitutional grounds, federal law tends to be more flexible.

The reconfigured U.S. Supreme Court – with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito – is seen as more inclined to allow religious symbols in public places if the displays have historical value or nonreligious meaning.

“The court has never said here's an absolute rule – a city can't put this stuff up if it's religious,” Laycock said. “They're not going to say the president can't issue Thanksgiving proclamations. There's always going to be a layer of government sponsorship of religion they will view as insignificant.”

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me@rescam.org

Troy, you gotta realize that it's always religion that's used in BIG measure to justify any war. That's the idiotic fantasy. What was the favorite quote of Dubya right after 9/11? "God is on OUR side."
Right. If there were any gods involved, then it was obviously Alla who carried the day.
Tell me, how many times did you hear 'god' this or 'god' that during your training? During your pep-speeches? During Dubya's addresses? How many fellow soldiers were you aware of that were athiests?

Yes - I all religions are idiotic fantasies. Anyone who understands critical thinking understands that

orthodoxies as the mortal enemy of critical thought-all orthodoxies, including those that lie close to home

http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-02/thinking.html

Of course religions try to get accepted by claiming that religion and science aren't incompatible to each other; why just look there are scientists who still go to church.
Those people aren't being scientific when they go to church. They shut down their critical thinking and their scientific method when they switch over to 'believing'. Personally I wouldn't want someone able to switch their brain so readily anywhere NEAR me. It's like Schizophrenia.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

you gotta realize that it's always religion that's used in BIG measure to justify any war.

Matthew 5:20

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 23:13

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Matthew 23:14

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Matthew 23:22

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

Matthew 23:24

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity.

Matthew 23:26-27

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

It's all in the manual... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Troy, you gotta realize that it's always religion that's used in BIG measure to justify any war. That's the idiotic fantasy.

I don't remeber a lot of religon in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Korea, World War II (aside from the Nazi genicide) or World War I...

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

It has been said that...
Religion came about as an elemental and emotional need within the human psyche.
Says a lot really.

Hey, Glen. Good to see you here again.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

It has been said that...
Religion came about as an elemental and emotional need within the human psyche.
Says a lot really.

If it is a basic need of the human psche then what it is that people who regulary have lower blood pressure, lowe to be rates of sucide and are less likely dependent on substance abuses?

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society