cuchulain

Through my life, many are the men and women who have proclaimed the truth with thunderous voices. Many are those who expounded wisdom as loudly and often as possible. Many those who proclaimed i did not follow a right path. Many to stand against my choices. "They say the empty can rattles the most'...metallica. I go MY path. It is my truth, my responsibility, my strength in overcoming the notions of those 'empty cans'. I am stronger for the adversity layed in my path. Wiser for the foolishness espoused against me. And clearly the religious fear me to array so strongly against my simple truths.

And that people want to believe. Some are so frightened by the idea of a final death they simply begin denying it is real. Then invent a support system to reinforce that false belief. Then persecute those who don't agree that we are really immortal after all.

There is a similarity to religion and atheism. I know, gasp. Atlanta. Frank has been driven to the park by his parents his whole life, and now he's older and drives himself the same route. It's the route he knows. It's the one his parents said works, the only one. He believes firmly that this is the only way to get to the park. Bob was driven as a child to the park, but now he takes his own way. He researched it himself, found about 20 different ways before he settled on the one he likes, which is short and direct. Alice never really got to the park as a kid, but found out about it later on and decided she wanted to go too. She carpooled with a lot of different people who took different routes before she decided on the one she liked because it had nice scenery. Mary walks butt naked by the moonlight to the park, heck with driving. Phil lives in the park. He wears these weird robes and meditates all the time. Now, Frank and Bob talk pretty regular. They debate the best way to the park. More, they debate the history of the roads of Atlanta, who created those roads, were there paths there naturally that man just sort of paved over or did the city planners create everything from scratch. Frank is pretty pushy about it, he thinks there are no other routes after all and Bob is telling him there are indeed other roads. Some of their debate entails which buildings are on which path. Frank insists that there is a Starbucks on his route, but Bob has researched it and found that the Starbucks is actually a couple of roads over and Frank is wrong. Alice doesn't give a crap about Starbucks, she just likes to look at the trees. She gets tired of hearing Frank and Bob argue on a regular basis, so she determines a new area of the park to sit in so she doesn't have to hear it. Mary is there at night, when nobody else is around. It's a good thing, because nobody really wants to see her naked butt dance in the moonlight. Everyone else agrees that's weird and leaves her alone. Phil likes everybody. He doesn't mind hearing the arguments, and occasionally chimes in to cool things down because he knows Frank and Bob are friends and don't want something as silly as a road to get in the way of friendship. That just spurs Frank to tell Bob that he's using the wrong kind of gas in his car, got the wrong tires, and needs a car wash before going to the park. Probably fairly obvious. Frank is the overzealous know it all Christian who refuses to be wrong even when he is. Bob is the arrogant, somewhat condescending atheist who knows Frank is wrong and just won't admit it, but keeps trying anyway. Alice might be a bit tricky. She's the Satanist who chose her own path because she liked it, and not for anyone else's reasons. Mary is the pagan, most likely Wiccan. Phil be the Buddhist. The park...that's the ending, isn't it? We all die. We all end up at the park by whatever road we choose. The details on the path are pretty irrelevant, unless your Frank, in which case you believe thoroughly that there is only one path anyway and anyone taking a different path is gonna end up in the wrong neighborhood where they have drive by's and shootings and muggings and whatnot. And even Frank doesn't know everything, regardless of wanting to claim he does. But then, Bob goes strictly by the city map. Maybe that map just hasn't been updated. After all they put in new Starbucks on a regular basis, as we all know. But who's the winner? Alice. She chose her own path. She got tired of the bickering and went to a more peaceful corner of the park.

God is good all the time so emulate god. He flooded the world and killed the wicked newborns and babies in utero...so abortion is fine.

I don't believe that's true at all. Can you prove it?

Step outside the box. Seems poor phrasing. Almost deliberately misleading. Thinking outside the box refers to inovative thinking. Innovative, a new idea. How is this new stuff? Its the same drivel we've gotten for centuries with dressing. And i hate blue cheese.

I just can't fathom grown ups believing its true...because it said so. Thats ultimately what it amounts to. I got similar stories AND delivery at the carnivals when i was a kid.

There's this book based on ancient manuscripts from the middle east, and it's totally true because like...it SAYS it is. Its got a flood and all sorts of miraculous happenings and this one central character who's the son of the creator! Everyone should really be spreading the good news of Marduk Kurios, the ancient sumerians say so!

The argument goes...god didnt provide proof so we could have faith, but the proof(that he didnt provide by the way) is prophecy. Then there's the 'he could see the future but didnt' argument when discussing free will. Dan's actually made that one before. Kind of shoots prophecy in the foot though, doesnt it? Either he saw the future...or not.

Agreed, lol.

When a brain cannot accept new information or keeps a person from accepting fact because of previous false information...it's damaged.

A true prophecy should be specific and applicable to one event...and not be written after the fact as though predicting the future but really be about an event that already occured.

This is where you did indeed say this.

I'm still stuck on the title including the word practical in terms of angels and souls...there is no practice to base it on other than possible delusions.

Judge by the fruit. The misinterpreted bible has caused enormous suffering. God the all powerful and knowing could easily have given us all the knowledge in a much better way, but didn't. The fruit of his alleged inspiration has been mass murder and bigotry. Is gods fruit good? If not, take the bibles advice and judge him accordingly.

I dont believe you.

You cant disprove that there are little green men on the moon who're great at hiding. But it sounds dumb, doesnt it? And it not true just because it cant be disproven. Much better to admit you like christian myth and so choose to accept it rather than attempt to make reality different to agree with you.

What about people that start off liberal or conservative then switch? Reminds me of douglas monroe and his forgeries on druidry. He stated the left brain is artistic and instinctive, feminine. The right is logical and male. Of course he seemed to entirely forget its one brain in one head with a corpus collosum communicating between.

I can paint the flying spaghetti monster but it is not real and a painting proves nothing. Nor does speculation about pics.

Misrepresentation to claim that I believe the universe came from nothing. Better to acknowledge that I don't know how the universe began, but that doesn't mean your version of the beginning is correct.

How does this prove your religion over any other explanation or religion, beyond your claim?

Hypocrisy to claim everything has a cause to disprove the big bang but claim god doesn't have a cause with the next breath.

Atheists have learned your beliefs. You should do the same with evolution to be fair.

The simple counter to this argument: Two wrongs don't make a right. On a side note: I am constantly amazed at how often the argument crops up. "Your beliefs are every bit as much subjective, so you should accept MINE!" What kind of fallacy is that? Now, another counter. If God as the chrisitans describe were real, reality would NOT be subjective by us whatsoever. It would entirely be determined by that divine being. Nothing subjective, at least beyond the divine's own subjective and sometimes demented whims.

If there were no religion, knowledge would have been better preserved in my opinion. How many texts were burned for religious fundamentalism? How many are now beyond recall? How many ideas have been stymied over the centuries because the prevalent religion disagreed with science and sought to silence it? In more recent years I think of stem cell research. In historical terms, how many cadavers were stolen in an effort to learn some small amount about anatomy without the church authorities throwing a burning party? No...religion certainly saved some esoteric texts that supported itself. But in broader terms, it burned where it couldn't convince.