Jesus Camp.

Blind_Io said:
jeffy777,

Alot of that comment relates back to other conversations with those guys so you don't really have a context to judge it. I have been a member at Underground Garage alot longer than I have been here and the atmosphere there is different. I was poking fun and a couple of our members, and they know it.

ahhh....ok....if you say so, lol....

BTW, I searched the internet far and wide for the origins of that grumpy atheist picture and it seems pretty apparent that it is a mock up that dind't come from an actual Christian source :)
 
I can't do anything to make you believe me. The choice is yours. We have had a very intelligent conversation here and I don't think I have anything to prove about my character. The comment you quoted was made in jest and my fellow UG members give me an equally hard time - all in good fun. We have been friends for so long we can make jokes like that without damaging our relationship - we can also have debates like the one here and remain friends. I didn't post anything as inflamatory as that comment here because I have not been here long enough to develop that kind of relationship with this group. Also FinalGear has many more active members than UG, over there we are a pretty tight group.

If my comment on UG offended you, I'm sorry. It was never intended for your eyes or for the audience of FinalGear. You have my most sincere appologies.
 
jeffy777 said:
Blind_Io said:
jeffy777,

Alot of that comment relates back to other conversations with those guys so you don't really have a context to judge it. I have been a member at Underground Garage alot longer than I have been here and the atmosphere there is different. I was poking fun and a couple of our members, and they know it.

ahhh....ok....if you say so, lol....

BTW, I searched the internet far and wide for the origins of that grumpy atheist picture and it seems pretty apparent that it is a mock up that dind't come from an actual Christian source :)

Thanks for tracking that down, I'll pass that along to UG. It still says something about the state of things that a person is inclined to make something like that express his frustrations - and that so many people on both sides see it as plausibly genuine. Maybe that is what we should take away from this.
 
///M said:
Atheists tend not to do that, we leave that for the religious folk.
That's such bullshit. Not only are there atheists on the warpath against religion, but I've seen many posts on this vary forum to the effect that religion should be abolished.

there is nothing wrong with teaching your kids about your religion, or your nonreligion. Parents will always pass thier beliefs onto thier children, it's always been this way. Children eventually grow up and make up thier own minds, but to say that kids should be just taught the basics and left to figure things out, well that's pretty stupid I think.

I was rasied in a christian family and went to church untill I graduated high school. I have been able to make up my own mind since then and I don't feel I was brainwashed or any bullshit like that. My parents simply taught me what they believe and when I got old enough to form my own opinions form them I did, and now I don't go any longer.

Telling children there is no god is exactly like telling them there is one. It's two sides of the same coin, you're "brainwashing" your kids either way.

And where the fuck did this whole, "violent ugly brutal, blah blah blah religion" shit come from? I don't think having children attend sunday school and draw pictures of Noah and all the animals is exactly going to ruin them. Have some of you even been these churches you speak against? Of course there are bad churches, but that that goes for atheist groups as well. It's the same thing.

Either way you're fighting for mindspace with the same goal, to spread your ideas farther into the human mindscape, teaching religion and teaching no religion are no different.
 
Blind_Io said:
If my comment on UG offended you, I'm sorry. It was never intended for your eyes or for the audience of FinalGear. You have my most sincere appologies.

Naw dude, I said if you say so, then that's cool. No worries.

BTW, I play BF2 as well, so I didn't go to that site just to read that discussion ;)

And yeah, the goat picture is a hoax (maybe you should let your Atheist friends know), just like the entire site that it came from. I'm not going to post the site here because I think it's a lame attack at Christianity. Atheists aren't above creating propaganda it seems.

Blind_Io said:
Thanks for tracking that down, I'll pass that along to UG. It still says something about the state of things that a person is inclined to make something like that express his frustrations - and that so many people on both sides see it as plausibly genuine. Maybe that is what we should take away from this.

My first impression was that it had to be a joke. If some Christians thought it was genuine, then I feel sort of sorry for them, if you know what I mean :lol: To me, it illustrates the misinterpretations that Atheists may have about Christianity. Most of us are really nice people ;)
 
Jeffy,

You should come by our server sometime. If you have XFire you can find me "ugblindio"

We try to run a pretty tight BF2 server, but the DCF server in anarchy right now. We are currently debating what rules to reinstitute (we went no-rules a while ago in an attempt to draw more traffic).

I am still kind of a newb to BF2, so I should be easy pickings for you. I hope to see you in-game.
 
zenkidori said:
///M said:
Atheists tend not to do that, we leave that for the religious folk.
That's such bullshit. Not only are there atheists on the warpath against religion, but I've seen many posts on this vary forum to the effect that religion should be abolished.

there is nothing wrong with teaching your kids about your religion, or your nonreligion. Parents will always pass thier beliefs onto thier children, it's always been this way. Children eventually grow up and make up thier own minds, but to say that kids should be just taught the basics and left to figure things out, well that's pretty stupid I think.

I was rasied in a christian family and went to church untill I graduated high school. I have been able to make up my own mind since then and I don't feel I was brainwashed or any bullshit like that. My parents simply taught me what they believe and when I got old enough to form my own opinions form them I did, and now I don't go any longer.

Telling children there is no god is exactly like telling them there is one. It's two sides of the same coin, you're "brainwashing" your kids either way.

And where the fuck did this whole, "violent ugly brutal, blah blah blah religion" shit come from? I don't think having children attend sunday school and draw pictures of Noah and all the animals is exactly going to ruin them. Have some of you even been these churches you speak against? Of course there are bad churches, but that that goes for atheist groups as well. It's the same thing.

Either way you're fighting for mindspace with the same goal, to spread your ideas farther into the human mindscape, teaching religion and teaching no religion are no different.

Dude, everything you've said in this topic has been very true. I appreciate your balanced view.
 
No, there is a huge difference. How the hell can you say it is OK to pass on to a child your worldview? Do you think a child is old enough to differentiate between different options and make a decision? You are OK with it because you grew up with it and turned out fine, what about all the other nutjobs out of there.

Look at the Noah story for example. A kid reads a comic book or a fairytale and the parents will point out that it's make believe if someone does some whacky shit. Religious stories, on the other hand, are 100% literal. Kids take this silly belief that god flooded the world, and that a man and a few of his homies built a ship that could fit each and every species, and it stays with them into adulthood. This may be an innocent example, but there are other violent, ugly, and yes, brutal, images in religions that children hear about.

And most importantly, ignoring all the wild stories that children hear from religion, they are forced to believe them to be true, in most cases. Religion ultimately is an excuse for humans not to think and reason logically. It's the big, magical explanation for where we come from, what we are here to do and where we are going next. It asks for unconditional faith and doesn't allow people to ask for evidence. Wouldn't it be much better to teach a child how to think critically, analyze things, and pose questions so that in adulthood he can make a better choice?

http://www.antonioedward.net/compon...28/func,fileinfo/filecatid,50/parent,category
http://www.antonioedward.net/compon...28/func,fileinfo/filecatid,49/parent,category

Really good documentary which balances out the religious extremism with extreme logic and reasoning.

You have to understand that I am not out to convert anyone. But I don't believe that religions are holy and should not be criticised. I believe it's a human construct that needs to be discussed more. Again, at the end of the day, there is no believer and non-believer to an atheist. If an atheist convinces a person to leave their faith because he/she made a great point, hey, atleast he/she probably went about doing it in a convincing fashion that gave sources other than holy books.
 
The nutjobs are a minority, and their existence shouldn't dictate how the vast majority of people raise their children.

Let's apply your reasoning to other topics as well. Let's ban violent games because some kids play them and shoot up schools. Or let's shut down myspace because some kids meet sexual predators on there. Or let's ban guns because some people use them for murder....

You can't use the fringe as an example to set policy.

And quite frankly, if a parent teaches their kids about Noah's ark, it's none of your business.
 
///M said:
Religion ultimately is an excuse for humans not to think and reason logically. It's the big, magical explanation for where we come from, what we are here to do and where we are going next. It asks for unconditional faith and doesn't allow people to ask for evidence. Wouldn't it be much better to teach a child how to think critically, analyze things, and pose questions so that in adulthood he can make a better choice?

You make it seem to be an absolute that only stupid people accept religion (those who can't think critically, analyze things, etc.) and they aren't "allowed" to "ask for evidence" :thumbsdown: News for you pal, I became a Christian in college (top of my class in most subjects) after examining it for myself and I didn't have any influence from my family (they weren't religious). And it's not just blind faith. I have the evidence I need, but I'm not going to go into that here, as you'll just attempt to pick it apart and belittle it (notice the word "attempt").
 
Firecat said:
And quite frankly, if a parent teaches their kids about Noah's ark, it's none of your business.
That's the whole point of my original post.

It's none of your business what parents teach thier kids or how they raise them. Just let people be and do your own thing, that's what freedom is all about.
 
Jeffy, Not to nitpick, but teh evidence required by science to prove a hypothesis must be more than what faith can offer. There's no conclusive evidence that can prove the existence of a god or the "truth" of a religion.
 
Blind_Io said:
There's no conclusive evidence that can prove the existence of a god or the "truth" of a religion.
And there is no evidence to prove the absence of a god or "truth" of a religion. The door swings both ways, like I said, two sides of the same coin.
 
zenkidori,

Sorry but you are incorrect. It's a logical impossibility to prove a negative, or non-existence, all you can show is a lack of evidence. That's why in the scientific method the null hypothesis is considered true until evidence shows otherwise. The burden of proof is on the existence of a god, not the non-existence of god. Athiests and Agnostics assume the null hypothesis in the absence of hard data to the contrary, all scientists adhering to the scientific method do the same.

I could sooner ask you to disprove the existence of the Chupacabra. You can't, all you can do is look for it and not find anything. That does not mean it's not there, just that you didn't find it. In scientific studies there's always the chance for a Type I or Type II error, in which you have either a false positive or you missed the proof. Through mathmatical analysis of data you can either increase or decrease the chance of each of these errors. Your goal is to make the possibility of error so small that it's practically impossible.
 
zenkidori said:
Blind_Io said:
There's no conclusive evidence that can prove the existence of a god or the "truth" of a religion.
And there is no evidence to prove the absence of a god or "truth" of a religion. The door swings both ways, like I said, two sides of the same coin.

Exactly.

And dude, I've experienced enough to know that God is real. I can't prove it in a lab, but there's no doubt in my mind.

In addition to my personal experiences, I think it's quite reasonable to believe that God exists. I don't want to start a whole new debate here, as we've sort of touched on that in the past (Evolution thread that got locked because we just kept going around in circles).

Since you mentioned it, Here why I think it's reasonable to believe in God:
To say that life came from nothing (or any other non-living matter) is un-scientific: it has never been observed, nor is it falsifiable. There is no evidence for spontaneous generation either. Therefore, it's not far fetched to say that God has always existed and all life came from God. Some may think it's crazy to think that God has always existed, but it's just as outrageous to think that life came from nothing or even from non-living matter (that's not scientific). To me, it makes more sense that God is the origin of life, which can't be proven/observed/falsified either, but it is more logical.

Again, I don't want to start a debate on that (my paragraph above isn't intended to be about Creation vs. Evolution, so don't bring it up....the emphasis is on God existing), but I just posted that since you mentioned it. I don't want to open a new can of worms, but we really can't debate that anyway because of the "two sides of the same coin" that zenki mentioned.
 
I could sooner ask you to disprove the existence of the Chupacabra. You can't, all you can do is look for it and not find anything. That does not mean it's not there, just that you didn't find it.
You just proved my point right there.

Either way, the point is that you have no right to object to parents teaching thier kids about god or no god. Well sure you can object, you just can't do anything about it. Even arguing about it is just the same fight for mindspace that both sides engage in.

As firecat pointed out, the same logic of stopping parents from teaching religion to kids based on a very very small percentage of nutjobs can apply to anything from violent movies, games and pornography to guns, cars, chemistry and damn near anything.
 
I certainly never intended to suggest that we attempt to stop parents from teaching religion, that's the kind of shit that happens under fascist regimes. At the same time I don't understand why so many people in this country think Athiests are dangerous and untrustworthy. To descriminate based on someone's religion or spirituality is no less fascist than outlawing it entirely. I certainly don't seek to outlaw religion, but I do want a healthy distance between religion and matters of state. What do you think my chances are of getting elected to public office if I publicly announce that I'm an Athiest? There may be no official requirement, but don't be fooled, to reach any position of power in our government you have to pass the god test.
 
What do you think my chances are of getting elected to public office if I publicly announce that I'm an Athiest? There may be no official requirement, but don't be fooled, to reach any position of power in our government you have to pass the god test.
Indeed it would seem so, sadly.
 
zenkidori said:
What do you think my chances are of getting elected to public office if I publicly announce that I'm an Athiest? There may be no official requirement, but don't be fooled, to reach any position of power in our government you have to pass the god test.
Indeed it would seem so, sadly.

Yeah, I think that sucks as well.

Blind_Io said:
At the same time I don't understand why so many people in this country think Athiests are dangerous and untrustworthy.

You've got to remember that the "study" you cited was based on only 2000 people. You can't really quote that as gospel (pardon the pun). They probably just questioned a bunch of old people (as BlaRo suggested in the other thread). I know of more than a few people in my town that don't believe in God. No one is trying to chase them out with a pitchfork or anything, hehe. The only people that would possibly distrust them would be the old fogies who were already old during the cold war.
 
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