cuchulain

wanting something to be true doesnt make it so, any more than Edith Hamiltons mythology is true. do theists want something so badly they'll accept anything from fear of death?

i wonder of late. if the bible IS infallible, and Christianity evolved from Judaism, and that began roughly 1500 b.c.e. by all the sources i can find, but the biblical age of the world is about 6k years... why no evidence from BEFORE Judaism? There was apparently 2500 years before Judaism, biblically speaking. Am I missing something obvious?

and usually by a christian who just asserted we should nuke the middle east...

i dont know.

I can appreciate the belief, but you cannot call belief fact just because you believe it, you know? If you believe all this, offer some proof. Of course, the bible says...but that's not really proof. But if you want to acknowledge that it's belief based instead of fact based, by all means believe as you wish.

lack of ability to disprove an argument doesnt make it a truth.

your story assumes that the bible is true AND that your audience here believes it, but speaking for myself...it isnt and i dont. i dont see a positive message from this either.

jews, romans, christian or pagan...all human.

i haven't always been the best person on this forum, but i will attest that i consider you to be one of the most tolerant to others, and i have often thought as deeply as I'm capable of when reading your posts(i know, not a ringing endorsement, eh).

we were poor enough when i was extremely young that we often received donations of meat from hunters and stood in line for government cheese at the housing projects...i miss that cheese, it was good. my mom decided to change our circumstances and got her 4 year rn in two years, and we werent poor anymore. i think her hard work was the best lesson i ever had, both in what we can do and in whats worth it.

i think its part of the human condition...to which we should all have some common ground, eh?

and dont forget erroneous belief. maybe i think i know you well enough to trust your word on it, and i turn out to be wrong. and level of claim vs belief, that iss...it really isnt something relavent to me so choosing to believe is frivolous, as opposed to belief in religion that claims horrible consequence if i dont.

Faith as an instinctive need? I am not certain about that one. There is a lot of historical data, lots of societies and cultures through the centuries that appear to have clearly made things up simply to explain the universe, so maybe it's true. Of course, another thing that's true about people is that we are capable of recognizing our baser instincts and correcting those behaviors. So, if faith is not instinctive, it's a non issue. If it is, then we are capable of bettering that flaw(I see it as a flaw anyway, can't speak for everyone). I agree that thinking about belief isn't belief. It's kind of like thinking about drinking water doesn't quench your thirst...

i dont see anything as falling into those categories, rather that we dont understand at present. of course, irrational behavior is human and understandable and at times we fail to be rational, but the pursuit is worthwhile for me.

It has been suggested that I never start topics. I smile at this, remembering when I used to start many topics, but when I realized that quantity did not equate quality. We have several new members, I see the list grow on a daily basis. Many different beliefs, philosophies, ideas. Call them as you will. Call a rose by any other name, and it would smell as sweet, I say. So I thought, with these new people, these new ideas, perhaps there would be some few who were seeking information about others' ideas and beliefs. I haven't posted anything in a while about stoicism, which is a philosophy I follow(or attempt to, for often I fail to live up to my own ideas, yet still I try). So I thought I would post some of the basic ideas that I attempt to hold to, for those who might be curious as to what stoicism is. Nature is rational. The universe is governed by the law of reason. We cannot escape this force, much like the current of a river, but we can choose to go with the flow. A life led by a rational nature is innately virtuous. Passion is antithetical to reason, and so should be avoided as best we can. Pleasure isn't good or bad, it merely is. Poverty, illness, death, these are not evil...they are states of being that we find ourselves in. Wisdom is the base of virtue. It is obtained through experience and learning. Virtue should be sought for virtue's sake, that is not through pleasure, but duty. Focus on what you can control, not on what is beyond your control. Take action. When a decision is reached on right action, take action to make it so. Or conversely, if you believe something is wrong, do something about it or cease doing it. Amor Fati: Love everything that happens. Understand that life is experience, experience is wisdom, and take in everything that happens to you for your improvement. Turn obstacles into opportunities. Be mindful. Sounds kind of Jedi like, doesn't it? There are other ideas that flow through all this, but this is a general representation in any case. Feel free to discuss, disagree, or agree...Attack the ideas I have presented if it please you, and maybe we can all learn something from the confrontation. Add to the ideas if you think there needs to be more, by all means. Life isn't set in stone, certainly...well, unless you choose to be buried in a mausoleum that is But then, it isn't life anymore, is it?

It sounds like an action that would fit right in with the stoics as well. I would say that objects are not as important as people, and maybe the Rabbi understood the cycle these things tend to take. Maybe he thought if he could absolve the thief of wrongdoing, the thief's future actions would change for the better. Of course, it's all speculation on my part I don't know, in reality.

I admit that debating is something I enjoy. If that's your opinion, that you already know everything, how do you expect to learn anything? I fully admit I have faults, one of them is this in particular, this responding to people when I know I shouldn't. I understand it's something of a fault, and I do try to work on it. I fail, often. Sometimes I succeed. I do like to converse, and I am not trying to pick everything you say apart for any negative reasons. I simply like people to converse and examine their own beliefs as they examine mine. I will acknowledge this. Many religious people are power hungry, especially those who think they are in a position of power. Knowledge is power, and those who believe they know believe they have more power than those who don't. And often act accordingly.

I think when you call someone power hungry, it's an opinion. That's because its a subjective thing. Power hungry to one person is something else to someone else, yes? I tend to believe that things that are subjective are opinion. "That color is green"..."Oh no, you can't call that green, it's celery"..."Oh that isn't celery at all, more a sea foam". All of them are green to me, but hey...other people have different definitions, you know?

As an aside, sorry for the multiple posts to respond, I am not the most tech savvy person and don't know how to multiquote or whatever it's called.

This is what I reference when I say you act offended. The part where you say I enjoy trying to aggravate others because its what I live for and must have a really lonely existence and have your pity. Surely...you can see where a person might thing, after you attack them like that...that you are offended in some manner? But if you aren't offended, I apologize. It just seemed that way to me, and I must have misread or misinterpreted.

This was my very first response to you that you took such offense at...what you said was bashing you. What you claimed was an attack.

This is the specific post I responded to initially. And you took offense at my response? Look at what you said about Catholics. YOU said they(Catholics) was to believe the words of many conceited, power hungry sin filled popes, which is opinion by the way, not fact. All because Rabbi O(and how did you miss from his name that he is NOT Catholic?????) asked a question of your comment... But no, by all means, you are not being combative or defensive in any manner...right?

Those two other posts you mentioned? Simply put, I couldn't figure out what that guy was trying to say. How do you respond to someone's message if you can't decipher it? I am not saying it was his fault, my eyes kept skipping around with all those ...'s thrown in the middle of everything, and it seemed to be very disjointed to me. It's probably my failing for not taking the time to interpret it. But either way, I am allowed to choose what I wish to respond to on this forum, yes? Do you honestly take offense that I don't respond to EVERYTHING? That seems a little hypercritical to me. The other post? The one you said Fred was referencing? That's the one I was primarily referencing as well. And you even have a moderator on that page telling you the exact same thing I advised. And on that post, where I suggested it would be better in the pulpit section? You took offense, obviously, that I suggested such a thing. But hey, I'll let it go. Knock yourself out with your posts, have fun. I will do the same.

I don't believe faith to be a choice. If it were, there would be many people who would have a lot of work to do researching all the claims made of a religious nature or requiring faith, in an effort to determine for themselves if those claims were worth having faith in. And how would they differentiate? How does somebody choose to believe in Apollo the sun god but not Ra? Not Bel? Not Ishtar, or Shiva, or...well, the list goes on and on and ON with religion. There are so many deities to CHOOSE, if it were a choice. I think that perhaps, to choose an example just for example, the pope had been born in ancient Greece, he most likely wouldn't have been a Christian. A lot of people born in the United States are Christian, and most studies I have seen indicate it's primarily a family upbringing issue. They have been raised as Christians, they have been around other Christians, they have heard others make fun of people who choose differently...in other countries that are less religious, it's somewhat different. It isn't that they haven't heard about the bible, don't know about Christianity, or anything like that. It's that they see it as fairy tales, and can't understand how grown people believe that sort of thing(I can't remember the country in question or I would cite it, but I saw lots of interviews with the people there, and it was primarily an Atheist country in Europe). So to answer the last two questions: I do not think people of faith choose their path to find peace, initially. I think they CAN choose to think critically about their path, and I think that many of them do find ways to justify their faith and stick it out. Lots of people are afraid of looking foolish or having others think they were wrong about anything and will fight tooth and nail to prove they were right, even if they might be wrong. Accepting that people of no faith arrive at peace as well seems relatively easy for me. But maybe that's because I have studied various religions and encountered Buddhism. They don't believe in a deity that I am aware of, and they certainly seem pretty peaceful. Does faith or the lack of it matter to humanity in practical terms of survival? I don't know. I can see arguments for both sides, arguments from the faithful that sticking together as a society is important(of course, ignoring that they could choose to side with us instead of us with them ), and the argument from the non faithful, who can often point to the religious as deliberately sabotaging progress in the scientific arena(remember when stem cell research was such a major issue)? I guess that question comes to an "I don't know" from my side of things, but I am open to arguments from both sides.

I didn't intend to bicker. You may believe that or not, that's your choice... This is how simple it is for me. This is a forum. I am here to learn about other people's beliefs and ideas, as well as to share my own. In order to do that, I encounter new members like Dave here, who has ideas that are clearly different than mine. I certainly don't disparage your ideas, Dave. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot, and maybe I didn't communicate myself very well. Honestly, I don't think the former is the case, but maybe I didn't. I was simply trying to point out that in the spirit of getting along, it might not be wise to disparage an entire religion(in this case, you were saying negatives about Catholics as a whole). You took that as an attack... So maybe at this point it would behoove me to say that I view disagreement as a simple disagreement, not as an attack. Maybe you, Dave, view it differently? I am not attacking you, I am merely discussing your ideas. But if you go back, you became very defensive very fast, for...well, nothing really. You were preaching. Even Fred, who agrees with you, states that you were giving a good sermon...SERMON. All I did initially was point out that maybe it would be better situated there. That's all, and you took simple advice, advice which you certainly weren't obliged to take, as a direct attack. This is all the advice I will give about this particular branch of conversation. I simply thought it was a sermon, as Fred clearly stated he did as well. I thought it would be better situated in the Preachin' section. That's it. If you take that as an attack, you have very soft feelings and cannot accept criticism very well at all. As well, this is a forum where people disagree regularly. Disagreement is NOT attack. It's simply a difference in opinion. In this case, I had the opinion that your sermon belonged elsewhere, and stated it. I didn't flag your post, I didn't attack you as a person, all I did was suggest that maybe you shouldn't blanket statement negatively about Catholics. And I still hold that opinion. I'm not even Catholic...but I don't like to see others attacked broadly in such a manner. You believe it to be truth, and you think that's a shield for your attack? Reread those Terms of Service, friend, that you agreed to when signing up for this website. You are not allowed to disparage other people's faith. That's my little rant. Take it or don't, doesn't bother me. I think you may be reading more emotion in my posts than is present