Non-Religious Sanctuary Thread

They raised from 9.50 for AOTC because they added the DLP.


I'm so glad I got to meet all of you, but I'm sorry all of you didn't get in. It was a blast as usual. All of us went down to IHOP afterwards again, to say goodbye and plan for the next activities.

 

Cy - if thought is energy, so is faith. If there is a God, it's probably more like what the author Khab refers to is descrbing. Perhaps he needs the energy of faith to exist.

I sort of don't doubt that all the gods every culture has believed in are real things, I just doubt they are what people imagine them to be. For example, if fear drives you to make stupid decisions, that fear is acting like an actual force in your life, even though it's not one. IT's easy to personify the fear into some sort of deity or demon. But that's not reality.

 

(It's flaws are minor, dealing mainly with the understanding's of science at that time, but even so, Aquinas touched upon the theory of relativity centuries before Einstein developed it under that title. Other than that it's a thoroughly modern treatise in it's thinking.)

Aquinas predicted the theory of relativity? Darth_Brooks claims become wilder all the time!

 

maybe we should rename this place "The Atheist/Agnostic Discussion Thread".....all this talk of sanctuary, and "religion" seems to be creating some sort of pointless rivarly

 

Maybe we should rename is "We hate Christians". I mean, who are we to shatter their dreams of being persecuted?

 

I concur, or we could go a little further by renaming it Diocletian's Persecution Hut

 

Oh why hold back, let's call it the Spanish Inquisition

 

This thread should be retitled, "Immoral Heathens and Hedonistic Blasphemer's Fornicating Thread"

 

The self fulfilling prophecy thread--"persecute us. Dammit, non-believers, persecute us! We don't got all day fer cryin' out loud!"

 

now now my brothers and sisters, toleration should be our watchword, being non sectarian our love has to go global

 

You know, if you guys want to show the religious sanctuary thread a thing or two about misconceptions and bashing, we could start disucssing how sad they are for thinking dark skin tones and left-handedness are the mark of Cain, and indicate that his descendants are hellbound.

Oh, wait.... that's actually true. My cousin was raised "Southern Baptist" or so they claim - never heard of real Protestants who believe in Purgatory, but whatever - and was forced to write right-handed because her natural left-handedness reflected Satan's corruption.

But you know, the way to treat them the way they treat us is to assume ALL Christians force right-handedness on their kids and form militias intent on taking out non-white people. Take the weirdest Christian you can find, and apply his/her beliefs and habits to all other Christians, and you've got a dandy bigotry going there.

 

was forced to write right-handed because her natural left-handedness reflected Satan's corruption.

Well, duh!

Actually my sister is left handed and she is as xtian as they come. I suppose God overlooks the left handed thing in that case?

As far as tolerance going global, i agree.
But it's still fun to tease.

When i hear people blab about their beliefs in public, i just don't get involved. Even when i'm put on the spot i do my best to change the subject. I could lay into them, but why? Let them have their thing and give non believers a hard time. I think it's wrong, but whatever. Unless it gets to the point of harassment, that is. This happened with a freaky guy i worked with a few months back. I got so sick of him judging me in front of others that i started aksing him questions he couldn't answer. His response came later on. He pulled me aside and started telling me about how he didn't think i was doing a good job, how he had "reported" me a few times for various things that were innocuous. It was a side i hadn't seen from him before.

But i wonder how some christians would react if you or i walked up to them out of the blue and said, "Oh, GREAT NEWS! Have you read the TAO? Oh man, that's some good stuff. All about how we are all one and that no one knows anything about god or anything, we're just all connected and stuff. Isn't it trippy?" I don't think they'd react in the same forced tolerance i would. But i don't know, because it's not the sort of thing i would even consider doing.

 

I had a run in with a fundy at the hospital a couple of weeks ago. We brought my Grandmother into the emergency and I was sitting in the emergency waiting room. This old lady said "I think I'll sit next to this fine looking young man" and I jokingly said "ah, I could tell you were checking me out." I don't think she got it.

Anyway, she asked me do I believe in Jesus and then started rubbing my shoulder(maybe she did get it?) and telling me Jesus solves all your problems. I just sat there and blushed because I finally realized while she was doing all this preaching that she was probably a retired nun that hangs around the hospital in her free time.

 

Wow, what a great place to accost someone, a freaking hospital. Was she cute?

Actually, the having "all my problems solved" concept is really hard for me. I write dark moody songs, and they need the problem thing. I don't really want major problems, of course. But without some sort of challenge or struggle, i wonder if i would even be able to write? For a while i was semi-new agey, deepak chopra style. Everything you want, just ask and it's there. But wouldn't that be kind of boring? Isn't that what heaven is like? Don't we need challenges? It got to the point that i was afraid to write anything negative, becasue i didn't want to bring negative stuff into my life, and of course got some nice writer's block because of it. I felt somewhat sad but couldn't allow myself to be inspired by it. Still kind of dealing with it.

Which kind of makes me think of a funny article i read in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times a year or so back, it was about how christian rock was starting to sell a good amount of records. This one particular xtian songwriter said that he found it easier to write songs that were sad, that had a sense of struggle in them. Didn't Jesus solve all his problems?

 

Leave it to TC to find the perfect approach....Use the bible to attack and defend.

 

Wow, what a great place to accost someone, a freaking hospital. Was she cute?

Maybe if I was eighty or older I might have thought so. My sense of humor tends to get me in trouble.

Luckly my Mom showed up and called me away from her as I'm not sure I could turn any redder.

This one particular xtian songwriter said that he found it easier to write songs that were sad, that had a sense of struggle in them. Didn't Jesus solve all his problems?

Were they by any chance about martyrs?

 

Treecave has probably caused more holy wars than we can even begin to imagine.


I don't know about that songwriter guy, that probably was it. Maybe it's like the songwriters who think "as long as one person in the world is miserable or goes hungry, i will be miserable but not go hungry." Guy probably needs persecution to write. Well, i don't like that type of music, so i won't help him be inspired.

 

That, or they'll write about the evils of this secular society. Then they'll head home in their Jaguar.

I'll have to check out your music sometime. I imagine it'll be similar to what Bowie put out in the 70s?

 

KR, you captured my sense of irony perfectly! LOL! And Cy, holy wars - well, hey, anything to thin the surplus population.

Ender, Cy.... I feel for you guys. I must put off some "don't even try it, Christian" vibe because it's been 10-15 years since anyone tried to preach to me. But here you both go - as a gift from me, here is the response I give Christians when they accost me. You guys are welcome to use it, but I suggest practicing it a bit so you "own" the role, as actors say.

Actually, I have two standard approaches. One is to simply say, "Yes" - works on "Have you been saved?" and "Do you know Jesus loves you?" etc. Stops them dead in their tracks, especially if you look at them like they just asked, "Have you ever used this toilet paper stuff?"

My second response - and this is the one you'll have to practice, because in your cases it's probably not true - works against tirades on the benefits of Christianity. And I recommend sort of getting closer and closer to the person in an intimidating fashion, and wearing a very smug, Anakin-esque smile while saying all this. "I used to be Christian. My father was a Baptist minister - of course, he tried to screw half the female congregation. Fortunately, he was so repugnant no one would have him, but he liked to lie and tell my mother he was having affairs." Usually at this point, the Christian will be trying to escape from you, but if you get a really dense one, just continue with: "But I didn't let that separate me from God - I got the best available translation of the Bible, and I poured over every single word, including annotations, every single night for almost 3 years. Read it from cover to cover - even Deuteronomy and Leviticus. And I came to the conclusion it was the perfect religion for people like my father. So if you think you can convert me when I spent three years studying the Bible in more depth than you could probably apply to an ingredients list from a pack of Cheetos, you are sorely mistaken."

I have had good luck with this speech. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it's deeply personal, the sort of thing no one should ever share with a complete stranger. In that sense, it is a perfect taste of their own medicine. Plus, I tend to get on the verge of teary-eyed, somewhere between stabbing-your-mate-67-times and breaking down in the middle of a restaurant. Very dramatic, unsettling.... very human. It bothers the "hell" out of them. Therefore, I consider it doing them a favor.

 

I'll try to remember that. I just turned red. I thought maybe if I made myself look like Satan......

 

Remember we have that ESP mental telepathy thing going on TC. Of course I got it

 

LOL! OK, Ender, I just pictured that, and I don't even know what you look like.

Oh, guess what? I had a crazy dream last night that I was explaining this very in-depth concept to someone about how the SW saga is actually the correct version of the Christian myth. Surprisingly, when I woke up, I remembered the concept, and it still makes sense, in context, anyway. I'll probably make it make less sense by over-explaining it, so I apologize in advance. Anyway, here it is:

Jesus, son of God, martyrs his physical self to show individuals the way to salvation/enlightenment. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have helped the world - things are falling farther and farther out of balance, in terms of there being so many people suffering needlessly and so on.

Conversely, Anakin, son of midi-chlorians, martyrs not only his body but also his goodness - his soul, if you believe in souls, but I would just say he gives up his true nature (loving and compassionate). Now, the reason he does this is because balance cannot be restored without someone "falling to the dark side" - if he hadn't, someone else (maybe his child) would have had to, because evil can only be destroyed by itself. Evil (Palpatine) gets destroyed when its own power-lusting scheme (turn Anakin and make him a slave) turns on him. Events in Anakin's life push him toward his "fall", and he has enough faith in the basic fairness of the universe to follow his path - and in the end, in the way he least expects, he actually does "end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy", or at least set the stage for it.

By allowing himself to be crucified even though he could have called on his father to light all the Romans and Jews on fire, Jesus taught the world that you can remain good no matter if people torture you until you are an irreparable blithering wreck of a human shell. That's an interesting personal lesson every individual may find worthwhile, but it doesn't really lessen the grip of "evil" on the world in the long run.

Anakin's lesson, conversely, is that if you have real faith that the universe is a fair place and no one is meant to suffer, you "must let go [your] pride and do what is requested of [you]". That's how you will best serve the world: all beings, as opposed to just those who follow your code.

Weird. It was a very deep dream. I'm not thinking I'd try to publish this idea in a doctoral thesis, but there's some interesting stuff in it.

 

That is very cool TC. I guess that is just another example of how GL borrowed from so many faiths to create this alternate galaxy. I can see why his daughter calls them Buddhist-Methodist

 

That actually is pretty cool treecave. Have to read it again a few times to let it all sink in though.

Ender- Bowie in the 70s? Never even crossed my mind not.

 

Ender, I can assure you Cy looks exactly like Bowie in the 70's if you see him in person not.

And on that note, I'm going out for the evening. Be very, very jealous. I'm going to sit at a coffee house and chat with my friends instead of doing it here at home. Big, exotic stuff going down in West Hollywood. (Well, we did see Andy Dick last week, but does this really matter in the big scheme? He looked and smelled VERY, VERY stoned.)