Red Mosquito

McParadigm wrote:Regardless of whether an afterlife exists or not, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that tendency toward belief is an isolated concept that is genetically influenced.

I can very vividly remember sitting in the summer church program thing my parents put me in for ages 5-7, just getting incredibly confused. The songs were fun to sing, and the arts and crafts and whatnot were all great...but then I started to realize that people actually thought it was all true. Like, real in a way that the Gumby-like David and Goliath show we watched after we ate our lunches was not. That blew my mind.

But it was all worth it to make that macaroni and glue picture on a paper plate.

We had a Christmas pageant one year, and my brother had to play a turtle because he was in a wheelchair. We all had a song about how he was slow but that was okay.

Have patience
Have patience
Don't be in such a hurry

When you are
impatient
you only start to worry

Remember
Remember
That God is patient too

And think of all the times
that others had to wait
for you

All while a handicapped kid in a wheelchair is struggling inside a paper mache turtle costume to somehow get down the aisle before the song ends.

The 80's were basically one enormous and beautiful punchline to a joke that nobody got until ten years later, but that keeps getting funnier with time.

McParadigm wrote:Regardless of whether an afterlife exists or not, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that tendency toward belief is an isolated concept that is genetically influenced.

I can very vividly remember sitting in the summer church program thing my parents put me in for ages 5-7, just getting incredibly confused. The songs were fun to sing, and the arts and crafts and whatnot were all great...but then I started to realize that people actually thought it was all true. Like, real in a way that the Gumby-like David and Goliath show we watched after we ate our lunches was not. That blew my mind.

I have similar memories, but instead of a summer church program it was little illustrated bible stories we had at home. I can still remember some of the pictures pretty clearly (baby Moses floating away in a basket, David flinging a rock at Goliath, the ark swaying wildly on the waves) and I remember thinking they were really cool stories. I don't remember when I came to the realization that people believed all these things happened, but it seemed no different to me than believing the Ninja Turtles really did fight off Bebop and Rocksteady on Saturday morning.

kahli sana wrote:....Regarding wanting to see your family and friends after you die - I'd rather embrace an inconvenient truth than a comfortable lie.

Please prove your statement as a truth.

surfndestroy wrote:

kahli sana wrote:....Regarding wanting to see your family and friends after you die - I'd rather embrace an inconvenient truth than a comfortable lie.

Please prove your statement as a truth.

That's fair. I called it a truth, but now I'll equivocate.

Every piece of evidence points to consciousness being inextricably linked to the brain. Brain damage can change personalities, can erase memories, and can completely change who a person is. If all the evidence points to the brain being responsible for consciousness, then there's no reason to think that consciousness can survive the death of the brain.

So, my equivocation is this: I see no compelling reason to believe in an afterlife, no matter how attractive such a thing might be. Until convincing evidence to the contrary is presented, I'd rather embrace the likelihood that there's no such thing than believe in something for which credible evidence does not exist.

McParadigm wrote:We had a Christmas pageant one year, and my brother had to play a turtle because he was in a wheelchair. We all had a song about how he was slow but that was okay.

Have patience
Have patience
Don't be in such a hurry

When you are
impatient
you only start to worry

Remember
Remember
That God is patient too

And think of all the times
that others had to wait
for you

All while a handicapped kid in a wheelchair is struggling inside a paper mache turtle costume to somehow get down the aisle before the song ends.

The 80's were basically one enormous and beautiful punchline to a joke that nobody got until ten years later, but that keeps getting funnier with time.

I know one thing, if there is an afterlife with an ever loving God then your brother better get his fucking legs or whatever a cure for whatever ails him. The though of all of these angels flying around tooting their horns while people with no choice in the matter struggle their lies away just really grids my gears.

I so mad look at my typos!

Kaius wrote:I so mad look at my typos!

it grids my gears two, friend
frind

malice wrote:

Kaius wrote:I so mad look at my typos!

it grids my gears two, friend
frind

This tread si pissing me of.

Ooh, he card read good.

oh the boundless wit of n&d

McParadigm wrote:oh the boundless wit of n&d

?

McParadigm wrote:oh the boundless wit of n&d

┌──────────────────────────‐
| Are you talking about a thing? I hear it's terrible.
└───y────────────────────――

malice wrote:

McParadigm wrote:oh the boundless wit of n&d

┌──────────────────────────‐
| Are you talking about a thing? I hear it's terrible.
└───y────────────────────――

It finally feels like I'm ME, you know?

McParadigm wrote:

malice wrote:

McParadigm wrote:oh the boundless wit of n&d

┌──────────────────────────‐
| Are you talking about a thing? I hear it's terrible.
└───y────────────────────――

It finally feels like I'm ME, you know?

there's never a better time to be yourself than now.
and on RM.
in the N&D forum.
in a thread about God.
at Christmas.

second accounts excepted, of course

malice wrote:there's never a better time to be yourself than now.
and on RM.
in the N&D forum.
in a thread about God.
at Christmas.

I want to believe in the mercy of the world again.

McParadigm wrote:

malice wrote:there's never a better time to be yourself than now.
and on RM.
in the N&D forum.
in a thread about God.
at Christmas.

I want to believe in the mercy of the world again.

i watched the last hour or so this version of a christmas carol tonight and I'm pretty sure i saw the scene your avatar was taken from. does that help at all?

I dislike the word "worship". I don't worship Christ's story. It just makes sense to me. To mirror Christ is to make small sacrifices every day for your family & neighbors. In the Christian philosophy, that is what leads to survival. As opposed to the common adage "Only the strong survive". Adapt or die.

Perhaps this philosophy of love & sacrifice was born out of the evolution of mankind's understanding of God. Once man developed morality & virtue, his understanding of God matured. Human reason might tell us that this formation of moral order was only part of the evolution of the human conscience. And no more. But while I can't prove it scientifically, I still can't shake the feeling that this is in fact the grand design. That our understanding of God (through our conscience) slowly matures for the greater good.

This is a lot of the basic ideas I see in New Testament. And while atheists will nitpick the Bible for its historical flaws (or even moral depravity), I want to find what rings true to my conscience.

My interest in the Bible is more about textual criticism. The tracing of the material to its source, the selection process surrounding the Textus Receptus, back further to the 4th century Vulgate, the addition of some stories loooooong after the fact, etc.

Religion as primarily a source of kindness or humanistic behavior is really a post-Enlightenment thing, in the west...so it's not so much the material as how we've begun to present and interpret it.

Harry Lime wrote:I dislike the word "worship". I don't worship Christ's story. It just makes sense to me.

Does it make sense to you that he was born of a virgin, brought Lazarus back from the dead, healed a blind man with mud, fed a multitude with a couple of fish,and rose from the dead 3 days after dying?

Or just the peace and humility part?