Jesus V. Religion - Page 5

it's either god or ancient aliens, pick one.

Loco its meaningless what that retarded swami thinks its the definition of religion, what he describes is NOT religion, ""To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is cheese. Whatever you do for your own sake is not cheese." the word religion has its own meaning he is just trying to clean it redefining it.

Also a quick Wikipedia shows that Swami believes in levitation, mind reading, living without breathing and other ridiculous shit so he is just another delusional religious nutjob

On January 13 2012 22:43 LikeASet wrote: it's either god or ancient aliens, pick one.

sums up my thoughts really.

LOLOLOL ^

Edit: this was meant for that dairy/cheese picture not anything on this page -_-

On January 13 2012 22:40 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On January 13 2012 19:01 egood wrote: My girlfriend is a hardcore christian and I'm an atheist. I think the poem is stupid. I don't know if she's seen it yet, but she would probably love it. I don't argue with her but I explain my side of things and she explains hers and we try to come to a common understanding. how could there be any common understanding between an atheist and a hardcore christian, that is not possible, one is a reasonable being, the other believes in invisible overlords.

that common understanding is called "let's bang each other".

On January 14 2012 00:43 pluzich wrote: Show nested quote + On January 13 2012 22:40 Baalim wrote:   On January 13 2012 19:01 egood wrote: My girlfriend is a hardcore christian and I'm an atheist. I think the poem is stupid. I don't know if she's seen it yet, but she would probably love it. I don't argue with her but I explain my side of things and she explains hers and we try to come to a common understanding. how could there be any common understanding between an atheist and a hardcore christian, that is not possible, one is a reasonable being, the other believes in invisible overlords. that common understanding is called "let's bang each other".

Pretty much this lol.

I'm just waiting for her to dump me because she can't date an atheist. But in the mean time...

On January 13 2012 14:52 lebowski wrote: Show nested quote + On January 13 2012 13:35 zulu_nation8 wrote: why would you want to get your ethics and morals from science lol dude, please stop being so enigmatic and enlighten everyone with your view of things, making some sort of argument. I'm still waiting to hear why you think Aquinas is the man (or why the Roman Catholic guy in the link you provided is correct perhaps?) , while you claim to be a non religious person. I am not smart enough to understand everything you mean with those one liners (not that I disagree with this last one)

Why do you assume the author is Catholic just because he is an Aquinas scholar?

On January 13 2012 14:52 lebowski wrote: The Christian god has been dead for a long time, there is no room for misinterpretations if you look closely at what humanity has discovered even centuries ago.

what does this mean? That God was a dude and he died for some reason? I think there's probably some room for interpretation there. What has humanity discovered?
I see nothing wrong with the author's arguments against Dawkins. I think it's weird the author would take any proof of God from any philosopher seriously. I think it's hilarious Dawkins actually tried to disprove Aquinas' proof as if that would mean he won or something.

If anyone believes morals are to be obtained from science, he is extremely deficient in the humanities, and also probably doesn't understand science.

I'm gonna stay away from this thread now cuz anything else I post is just gonna sound more and more condescending and douche because every time this topic is brought up anywhere on LP or TL the amount of like, lack of basic reading, supreme self-confidence in empty opinions, and general idiocy is disconcerting.

On January 13 2012 21:00 Baalim wrote: look what yo did Dsmart your stupid posts woke up Loco from his slumber. What you call spirituality is just bullshit same as religion why because its based on the same random assumptions based on "faith" lacking the slightest shred of evidence of logical thinking, there is no reason to believe in a thing you call "soul", there is no reason to believe that our consciosness is something beyond the simple biological process of the brain, in fact all evidence points that our conciosness doesnt trascend it in any form, damage the brain and your consciousness will be damaged, so yeah no matter how much your ego struggles to be great, we are just semi-smart animals meaningless to the cosmos.

There is a difference between "there is no evidence" and "I haven't seen and don't want to see any evidence". I have posted on numerous occasions that there is proof of the existence of the soul but you have to research several different deep topics that I am sure you will not since you are very egocentric and wouldn't want to come here stating "hey d_smart I think you are onto something". Also, the existence of the soul would most probably falsely incline to you that there is God which means that religion is not completely bullshit which means you were dead wrong which would lead to cognitive dissonance and you would be an even more hardcore atheist. This is just human psychology and your brain would try to protect its beliefs in order not to change which would cause lots of stress and thinking. Here are the topics that combined prove the existence of the soul (which has nothing to do with God): Quantum Physics, Kirlian Photography, Near Death Experience, Afterlife research, Entheogens, Out of Body experience.

To most people science is mostly what they see on TV - microchipping animals to understand their behavior, putting substance A into substance B to see what happens and developing the new iPhone. But Science is, in fact, everything which gives us understanding of the Universe which we live in through experimentation and result analyzes even if it sounds out of this world and is something that we can't see with our eyes. So if you want PROOF, please go on and spend a day researching Quantum Physics and a few of the other topics of your liking and pleaaaaaase shy away of government sites and wikipedia. Find some interviews, documentaries, challenge your belief system.

Zulu what are you trying to say here really? That there is a God and the Bible is true? cliffs pls i got lost with all the walls of txt

On January 14 2012 02:34 zulu_nation8 wrote: Show nested quote + On January 13 2012 14:52 lebowski wrote:   On January 13 2012 13:35 zulu_nation8 wrote: why would you want to get your ethics and morals from science lol dude, please stop being so enigmatic and enlighten everyone with your view of things, making some sort of argument. I'm still waiting to hear why you think Aquinas is the man (or why the Roman Catholic guy in the link you provided is correct perhaps?) , while you claim to be a non religious person. I am not smart enough to understand everything you mean with those one liners (not that I disagree with this last one) Why do you assume the author is Catholic just because he is an Aquinas scholar?   On January 13 2012 14:52 lebowski wrote: The Christian god has been dead for a long time, there is no room for misinterpretations if you look closely at what humanity has discovered even centuries ago. If anyone believes morals are to be obtained from science, he is extremely deficient in the humanities, and also probably doesn't understand science.

Yeah... because your understanding of science is superior than someone like Sam Harris, a neuroscientist... right.

what you did was basically look up an established scholar whos opinion matches yours, jack off at his credentials and take his word as dogma. Believe it or not there are greater thinkers than this Sam Harris guy who believe moral values should not be obtained from science. But you probably don't know anything about the philosophy of science and merely read people who agree with what you believe in already. Learn to read basic literature and decide for yourself please.

I'm sure you guys are all fantastic people and great poker players, and people from all walks of life hold prejudices of every kind, but some of you are fucking blinded by hatred of religion that you don't even know what it is you're hating. Put some work ethic in there and pick up a few books instead of circle jerking to other idiots' opinions that you can't evaluate because you've never read anything to begin with please. Sorry for being condescending and mean but the fucking idiocy in this thread. Also learn to judge for yourself what is good and bad literature, and maybe read books not by scientists like dawkins but like actual intellectuals and philosophers, if you don't know the difference, learn.

Woa, first of all I don't take his word as dogma, I agree with a lot of what he says but I haven't made up my mind yet about it and I don't go around saying we should get our morals from science as I don't fully understand what that really means myself.

Also am I right to believe that those "greater thinkers than this Sam Harris guy" happen to believe what you believe? You don't have to answer this to the forum just something to think about.

I do agree with you that we lack a lot of information, we are just speculating and probably doing terrible at arguing as I think no one here is an expert in the field. But as we are all in the same boat I think this isn't about winning or losing, just voicing opinions in the clearest way we can and maybe we could all learn something from each other.

Have you read a lot of books from Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc? I have to admit those and some others are the only people I've been reading lately, I do lack different perspectives and would be very grateful if you or anyone else could direct me to other great thinkers.

FWIW I have no interest in authors that base their whole ideas on premises that can't be verified, at the moment, ie. religious people because I've been reading and hearing them my whole life and that's just not for me. But I love philosophers that reach their own logical conclusion from scratch.

oh so now youre skeptical. My point is don't agree with something just because someone really qualified agrees also. Try to come up with counterarguments. And the only times you can really appeal to authority is if they are truly great thinkers and in which case you'd still have to understand what they're talking about. I'm asking you to consider that really smart people believe in different things, just because this guys a neuroscientist or that guys a professor emeritus doesnt mean you should circle jerk to him.

I don't see what's wrong with trying to understand what a clearly smarter and way more knowledgable person than myself is trying to tell the world.

And of course I'm skeptical, what else can I be?

What constitutes a great thinker in your opinion? I believe Harris is a great thinker.

a reasonably skeptical person would never subscribe to "new atheism" or whatever people call it. For basic literature maybe pick up some comprehensive philosophy of religion and philosophy of science books. For a scientist who was also an intellectual, a great thinker, and who had a grounded perspective of science, see Paul Feyerabend. If you have no previous knowledge of any philosophy of science or religion, I doubt you have the resources to hold any respectable opinions on science or religion, and it looks like most of the religion bashers in this thread don't know how to read. No, reading a random article on why religion is bad in scientific american is not considered "reading".

and no sam harris is not a great thinker, people may remember daniel dennet 100 years from now but it won't be for his thoughts on religion. If you read a bit about the history of scientific thought you will see why people like sam harris are clowns. hence why these people are populists, and not intellectuals, they are only taken seriously by people who don't read shit. DD is alright though.

To make a poker comparison you wanna read what isildur has to say and not phil helmuth, once in awhile there may be a phil ivey who fanboys and grinders all admire but in the times now when more and more poker enthusiasts are fanboys instead of grinders, it gets harder and harder to have a reasonable conversation about poker with anyone.

On January 13 2012 22:49 Baalim wrote: Loco its meaningless what that retarded swami thinks its the definition of religion, what he describes is NOT religion, ""To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is cheese. Whatever you do for your own sake is not cheese." the word religion has its own meaning he is just trying to clean it redefining it.

completely agree here. Religion is a belief with very specific rules. The quote is plain wrong.