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Oodain
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21 Feb 2012, 8:39 am

its from a video game and a pretty humorous and relatively non violent game at that,
Grim Fandango published by lucas arts in 1998.

[Looking at the door to his office]
Manuel Calavera: Wasn't too long ago the name on that door was "Supply Closet."


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21 Feb 2012, 8:46 am

I've been spending some time at the FFRF - Freedom From Religion Foundation on facebook. A lot of what I'm reading makes perfect sense. I don't have to pretend to be happy. It feels so good to let go. I feel...free. Does that make sense?



Oodain
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21 Feb 2012, 9:17 am

it does,

that said what is most important is for you to feel honest with yourself, whatever road that might take,
for all the atheist/theist fighting going on in here what people really want is for others to feel as they do, not just accept it as unconditional reality, that is why its so hard.

we can all pretend we have all the answers but in reality life really is a life long struggle of finding the answers that suits us best. :)


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simon_says
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21 Feb 2012, 10:20 am

Right. The problem of a diety tolerating evil has two parts.

A) The degree. Ok, you've given someone free will and they've killed 40 people. You get the picture. Why let him kill 100 people or 10 million? Many of those people losing the chance at expressing their free will and being sent to hell as a result. Hello? Nothing fair about that.

B) Disasters and suffering that have nothing to do with free will.

But the bible isnt an answer machine. It's an IOU for an answer. You either need to make up your own answers or just have faith that you'll get some eventually. That said, I think the OP is pulling everyone's leg.



goodwitchy
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21 Feb 2012, 10:43 am

All religion is man-crafted. Religion attempts to answer questions that we may not have answers for, and things we'd prefer not to accept as harsh realities of life.

Not having religion doesn't necessarily equate to not having faith, and doubt is actually normal for many people.

Religion does not equal God.



ETA: To me, "scary" and "evil" are two different things. Scary might describe something we relate to fear. Symbols have meaning, yet they only have the powers we would choose to give them.


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Last edited by goodwitchy on 21 Feb 2012, 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Fnord
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21 Feb 2012, 10:51 am

goodwitchy wrote:
All religion is man-crafted.

Religion is the man-made socio-political expression of faith.

goodwitchy wrote:
Religion attempts to answer questions that we may not have answers for, and things we'd prefer not to accept as harsh realities of life.

That too.

goodwitchy wrote:
Not having religion doesn't necessarily equate to not having faith, and doubt is actually normal for many people.

God, faith, and religion are three entirely different things.

goodwitchy wrote:
Religion does not equal God.

Faith does not equal God, and faith does not equal religion.

God is what you believe in, faith is the belief in un provable things, and religion is the expression of faith.

Metaphorically: God is the producer, faith is the script, and religion is the play.



goodwitchy
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21 Feb 2012, 10:56 am

Fnord wrote:
goodwitchy wrote:
All religion is man-crafted.

Religion is the man-made socio-political expression of faith.

goodwitchy wrote:
Religion attempts to answer questions that we may not have answers for, and things we'd prefer not to accept as harsh realities of life.

That too.

goodwitchy wrote:
Not having religion doesn't necessarily equate to not having faith, and doubt is actually normal for many people.

God, faith, and religion are three entirely different things.

goodwitchy wrote:
Religion does not equal God.

Faith does not equal God, and faith does not equal religion.

God is what you believe in, faith is the belief in un provable things, and religion is the expression of faith.

Metaphorically: God is the producer, faith is the script, and religion is the play.


I agree.



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21 Feb 2012, 10:58 am

I'm always amused when people accuse me of hating God whenever I question the veracity of the Bible or the validity of religion.



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21 Feb 2012, 11:42 am

Fnord wrote:
I'm always amused when people accuse me of hating God whenever I question the veracity of the Bible or the validity of religion.


Not I.

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peebo
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21 Feb 2012, 3:36 pm

bakunin sums up my feelings on this issue very concisely. i would recommend the original poster read this quote, and if interested follow the link below. it might provide some new insight. i'm sure i've posted this very quote on the forum some time ago, but here goes again...

makhail bakunin wrote:
The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty-Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

We know what followed. The good God, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed Satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers. Our Catholic and Protestant theologians look upon that as very profound and very just, precisely because it is monstrously iniquitous and absurd. Then, remembering that he was not only a God of vengeance and wrath, but also a God of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men. That is called the mystery of the Redemption, the basis of all the Christian religions. Still, if the divine Savior had saved the human world! But no; in the paradise promised by Christ, as we know, such being the formal announcement, the elect will number very few. The rest, the immense majority of the generations present and to come, will burn eternally in hell. In the meantime, to console us, God, ever just, ever good, hands over the earth to the government of the Napoleon Thirds, of the William Firsts, of the Ferdinands of Austria, and of the Alexanders of all the Russias.


http://libcom.org/library/god-and-state-mikhail-bakunin


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MCalavera
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21 Feb 2012, 3:43 pm

DEdwards wrote:
MCalavera and DC make very interesting points. I'll have to look into them further.

I laid in bed last night and I said aloud, "You're not real, are you?" I just felt like I was talking to myself.

There'a another secular phrase out there, "Good without God". For me, this speaks volumes. I am however slightly disturbed and scared that MCalavera's profile picture looks like a skull on a man. I'm asking about my religion, MCalavera is touting the benefits of atheism while having a profile picture that, to me, represents evil.

Representation and symbols. They're useless, aren't they? I mean, for the safe of the hearing impaired or those that don't speak a language. Skulls aren't evil. One's in my head right now and I'm not evil....


Manny Calavera is a very good man. He's just dead ... in a living way.



Thom_Fuleri
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21 Feb 2012, 3:52 pm

DEdwards wrote:
Even talking about it, I'm getting very angry with Him. I'm seriously thinking of looking into the heathen religions or worse yet, no religion at all.

I say "worse"...how bad can it be? Atheists seem happy enough.


Speaking as an atheist, I am generally happy. I would be angry with God too if I believed in him! Instead, I'm angered by religion, which (as many here state) is not actually condoned by any deity. I find it hard to take a man seriously when he tells me to give up my worldly possessions from the balcony of a palace, surrounded by his own personal army.

Dump Christianity. You can keep God if you can separate him from the mess, but it isn't necessary. A just and worthy God won't care whether you believe in him as long as you live a just and worthy life.



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21 Feb 2012, 10:03 pm

I'm so afraid. I'm afraid of losing all I hold dear. I'm afraid of losing my place int he community, the respect of my coworkers, people I serve in the community. I'm afraid of what will happen to my soul.



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21 Feb 2012, 10:15 pm

DEdwards wrote:
I'm afraid of losing my place int he community, the respect of my coworkers, people I serve in the community.


You can continue to volunteer for your church, unless the volunteering involves evangelisation.

DEdwards wrote:
I'm afraid of what will happen to my soul.


Your soul is fine. Remember, the only reason that you think that you know about damnation in the first place is the Christian doctrine! If you don't believe the Christian doctrine, then you also don't have any reason to believe that your soul can become endangered by rejecting Christianiy.



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21 Feb 2012, 10:53 pm

just all those years of hellfire being burned into my mind, even as a child, they'd threaten with damnation for something as small as claiming I didn't wash my hands before dinner.



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21 Feb 2012, 11:52 pm

DEdwards wrote:
just all those years of hellfire being burned into my mind, even as a child, they'd threaten with damnation for something as small as claiming I didn't wash my hands before dinner.


Just because you're afraid or have doubts doesn't mean that you're falling from grace.
Fear of damnation shouldn't have been used to keep you in line when you were young - or at any age.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer