It's one thing to put references to God in courthouses....

[Metal Man]

One point I've seen brought up before: The basis for religious people saying others are not right because they aren't in their religion is founded in their belief that you need 'God' or whatever it is to give you morals, and that the human itself is unable to find or make them.


Yet I find myself enforcing morals on myself more strict than a number of such religions, practicing things like not drinking alcohol or smoking which are perfectly permissible under such religions.

The more universal code of morals I make for myself, furthermore, can be relied upon because I answer to myself when I make a mistake. On the other hand, the Christian who has lost faith in God may be completely unstable and erratic due to their reliance on an external medium for their morals--and the loss of that rendering them far more chaotic, and, potentially evil, than anything I would come up with constrained by my own moral code.

Funny, what ironies come up at times.

[Everybody Nose]

I would actually prefer that for the sake of those of us that don't try and push it in your face that you not mock what we believe.

You may not agree with it, but I don't think anyone here is telling you to.

[Parts Man]

@Andre:
I don't know what you're reading, but I didn't see Metal Man mock anything; and he actually brings up a valid point. What he's talking about is a false conversion. The person thinks they're "getting Jesus" with promises of a happy life, all their problems solved, joy, peace, and all the lot. When these things don't happen, the person becomes embittered towards God and Christianity, and the end of the man is worse off than the first. Ray Comfort describes this in a CD called "Hell's Best Kept Secret", saying that they are rightly embittered toward the ones who gave them this false hope. Jesus promised that troubles would come, and that anyone who wanted to be his desciple would have to give up everything to follow Him - the joy and peace are results of following Christ, not the means. Jesus also promised that those that were His would stay because He would keep all that God gave to Him. I apologize to anyone who has been told the lie that Jesus died and rose again to give them a happy life. His sacrifice was made to cover our sin debt toward God, and He rose bodily from death in order that we could repent from our lawlessness and cry out for mercy in Jesus's name and be saved from the wrath to come.

[CaptHayfever]

Originally Posted by Metal Man

The basis for religious people saying others are not right because they aren't in their religion is founded in their belief that you need 'God' or whatever it is to give you morals, and that the human itself is unable to find or make them.

To me, the basis for my thinking that my religious beliefs are right is simple: If I didn't think they were right, they would cease to be my beliefs. Similarly, if I thought others' beliefs were right, they would immediately become my beliefs.
It has nothing to do with morality, but simply the fact that there is no such thing as believing in something that one doesn't actually believe in or as not believing in something that one does believe in.

Please tell me if I need to explain that better; it seems kinda muddled to me.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Sarai and Samiel]

He wasn't talking about your belief that you're right, Cap. He was talking about the dogmatic tendency of religious people to insist that those with different beliefs are wrong, and need to 'repent' for their own beliefs. Honestly, it always bothers me a bit that there are so many religions (and religious people) now that spend so much time insisting that everyone else is wrong and that changing the religious beliefs of others is of vast importance.

While we may not know it absolutely for certain, from what I recall of my history lessons, most of the members of the older, non-Judaeistic religions didn't give a foetid pair of dingoes' kidneys what other people believed- and that's *either way*. The vast majority of wars back then were about societies, territory, goods, and slaves, not who had the right god. That's not to say there weren't clashes (usually of our war god against your war god), but those weren't the big point of anything. And I certainly haven't heard of any Buddhistic, Shintoistic, or African (what are the words for the local religions of that continent, anyway?) religious terrorist acts, though it might just be the side effect of the highly U.S.-centric news around here.

Mind, this isn't to say I think that Moslems, Christians, Jews, and so on are bad people at all, just that the dogma seems a little bit too focused on what everyone else is doing. Which is, if I understand it correctly, Metal Man's point.

The fact of the matter is that, and this *was* discussed in another thread previously in an argument I wound up getting into and eventually ending because it went nowhere, there is far too much put into the moral element of religion by quite a lot of people. Metal Man and I are both non-religious, and because of this, many religious people (mostly Christians) assume or would assume if they knew, that he and I and others without a set of religious rules telling us what to do have no moral compass at all and thus nothing to keep us from doing wrong. That, or they would assume that we actually do have (a) religion(s), and simply aren't admitting to it.

The fact of the matter is that a moral compass is something integral to each person, and that religion can try to dictate it, but it doesn't always work (just look at the sheer variety in moralities among Moslems, even those of the same sect [I am recalling right that Moslem religion has subsects, yes? It's sometimes hard keeping all this clear.]), and isn't necessary for someone to be good and live a moral life.

On the other hand, someone who has lived by a relatively valid moral code all their life (say, a Christian), and then is brought to divorce themself from their beliefs for whatever reason, has just lost what has been made a fundamental element of their way of treating other people, which often results in one of the more destructive and/or 'evil' people around- which is what Metal Man is saying.

This is not mocking anything, and in fact is a point in *favor* of strongly moral religions like Christianity.... right up to the point where people become disillusioned with it, usually thanks to intolerance- an intolerance that is more often expressed by the priests and preachers of the religion than the members as a whole or the more reliably expressed parts of the belief (Bible, Qu'ran, Torah, et cetera). At which point it's a valid problem, and still has nothing to do with mocking.

I'm a little worried that you seem to have been looking to take offense from Metal Man, Andre. I'm a little worried.

[Metal Man]

Originally Posted by The Member Formerly Known As Andre

I would actually prefer that for the sake of those of us that don't try and push it in your face that you not mock what we believe.

You may not agree with it, but I don't think anyone here is telling you to.

Yes, however by saying 'may' in the section about the fallen Christian being more erratic due to lack of moral code, I note that not all Christians rely entirely on 'God' for their moral compass; and still yet others base it on the tenets of their religion and keep them with them all their life.

The irony is that of the person who puts their morals as being entirely created by their religion, and then of those people, those who would then point at me and declare me evil not because of my actions but because of where my morals come from. It is then revealed by the actions of such people if they lose their religion that their distrust of the more mundane moral codes followed by a disillusioning with their 'higher' moral codes leaves them with little to no morals left over, wheras if they had simply respected the moral codes of others and not artificially limited themselves they would probably be able to continue to avoid bad things even outside of their religion.

I apologize for the confusing wording of this sentence, but I wished to explain the unique case I mentioned. I don't usually do so because of how hard it is (even for me) to understand such a confusing case when stated explicitly like that, but just to show that I'm not going "Lol christians" there you go.

In truth, I believe all moral systems are created equal, as long as they are actually moral (obviously, any moral system which says killing people is good and such is excluded) and that I respect them all the same; my qualm is with those who belittle other moral systems without taking a good look at how they apply their own to themself in the first place.

I apologize if it seems to be mocking, for having travelled through the puebloan lands, I know well how much that sort of thing can harm people. Although editorial comment has its place, this topic isn't one of them, so feel free to note if I get a bit snarky at times--that's just due to the fact it's often my normal tone. @_@

Selene's post addresses some other notes to this accord; having been addressed, I do not need to re-mention that I was not out to mock anything in that post to begin with and so forth.

[Everybody Nose]

Originally Posted by Metal Man

Yes, however by saying 'may' in the section about the fallen Christian being more erratic due to lack of moral code, I note that not all Christians rely entirely on 'God' for their moral compass; and still yet others base it on the tenets of their religion and keep them with them all their life.

The irony is that of the person who puts their morals as being entirely created by their religion, and then of those people, those who would then point at me and declare me evil not because of my actions but because of where my morals come from. It is then revealed by the actions of such people if they lose their religion that their distrust of the more mundane moral codes followed by a disillusioning with their 'higher' moral codes leaves them with little to no morals left over, wheras if they had simply respected the moral codes of others and not artificially limited themselves they would probably be able to continue to avoid bad things even outside of their religion.

I apologize for the confusing wording of this sentence, but I wished to explain the unique case I mentioned. I don't usually do so because of how hard it is (even for me) to understand such a confusing case when stated explicitly like that, but just to show that I'm not going "Lol christians" there you go.

In truth, I believe all moral systems are created equal, as long as they are actually moral (obviously, any moral system which says killing people is good and such is excluded) and that I respect them all the same; my qualm is with those who belittle other moral systems without taking a good look at how they apply their own to themself in the first place.

I apologize if it seems to be mocking, for having travelled through the puebloan lands, I know well how much that sort of thing can harm people. Although editorial comment has its place, this topic isn't one of them, so feel free to note if I get a bit snarky at times--that's just due to the fact it's often my normal tone. @_@

Oh no no, I notice that my post may have come off as a little snappy but that wasn't meant to be the case. It was more of a "yeah, let's talk about it, but don't mock me for my beliefs because I don't mock you for yours"

You are correct though, you don't necessarily need religion to have morals, at hte same time, you can be religious as you want but be morally unsound. As I've stated many times before, I don't consider myself "Christian" more like a child of God. When you start getting into religion you start getting into some churches who have corrupt leaders that lead people to attempt to worship the pastor and not the purpose. When I pray at night I'm sure my prayer is very different from most, while I fear God, I embrace him as sort of a giant parent. I talk to him about my feelings and sometimes I cry expressing myself, but in the end I know that he's heard what I wanted him to hear.

In the end people who attempt to down folks that don't believe the same as them, or just don't agree with them are hypocrites. You're not getting your job done if you're alienating people even more because of different beliefs. I don't drag my friends to church, but if they're looking for one, I tell them about mine and they're welcome to come with me. When people ask me why I believe, I tell them that my faith has been gathered and reinforced through various points in my short lifetime.

[Sarai and Samiel]

Originally Posted by The Member Formerly Known As Andre

... while I fear God, I embrace him as sort of a giant parent...

This, I think, is the part that's always bugged me most about Christianity and similar religions. I can't help but worry over people who often seem to need someone threatening to punish them if they do 'bad' in order to avoid wronging other people intentionally. Most people outgrow having parents telling them not to do things 'because it's wrong' or 'because I said so', and the idea of still having a parent forever, whose best reason for me not to do bad things is that I'll get punished later, grates on me a bit. I guess I have a bit of trouble with authority (for which you can thank my father's method of... well... pretty much everything) when I have no actual reason for doing as the authority advises or directs.

Yeah, I'm one of those people who won't change what they do without a 'good reason'.

Anyway, it always seemed to me that there are better reasons for doing good than 'you'll be in so much trouble if you don't'. In fact, I've always been a bit surprised that more Christians aren't utter *******s simply for the sake of rejecting authority, on account of that the moral dogma has little to do with the actual effects of what you do and tons to do with God saying not to do it.

I have no idea how to end this post, so I'll just

[Dr. Horrible]

You had pretty strict parents, didn't you Sarai?

[Sarai and Samiel]

Surprisingly not. I was a bit of a trouble-child, being effectively an only child (My elder brother and sister are 32 and 3...4? 35? Whatever. Respectively. To my 24.), very intelligent, and thus socially on the outs. Mostly, though, my mother is great and my father is really bad at parenting. Oh well. Curse of the baby-boomers, I guess.

Anyway, no, not really. Though they're still kinda wierded out that I refuse to drink alcohol, didn't want to drive, and have no interest in making lots of money.

[Dr. Horrible]

Ahh. Only reason I asked is because you seemed to focus on the disciplinarian role of a parent, which isn't what I would guess Andre was talking about when he described God as a parent figure.

[Sarai and Samiel]

I guess. Still, from where I sit, what is a parent specifically? A disciplinarian. The parts aside from that are parts of pretty much any family member you're close to, so the only thing that makes it a parent is the discipline/responsibility angle.

My mother, for instance, who is much more of the understanding and helpful sort than my father (whose way of making people happy is to throw expensive things at them, and whose idea of winning a disagreement is being as loud as possible and then, if proven wrong, claiming he was saying what you said all along), is someone I see much more as a friend than a parent.

It doesn't help much that my social problems early on kind of stemmed out into a mistrust of my parents (again mostly my father) thanks to the way they (still mostly my father) attempted to handle/help me handle the issues.

[Everybody Nose]

I meant parental as in the nurturing guide part.

[Sarai and Samiel]

In that case, do please disregard my argument and continue on.

[Wyborn]

My God is a pretty hip dad, incidentally.

[Metal Man]

Heh, parents who focus entirely on discipline miss the point: Teaching their children to not do the thing and not require discipline to act respectful, etc. Making them rely on you to discipline them just makes them chaotic once they're let loose on the world, like, sadly, a lot of my peers.

This is why I generally hang out with people 2-4 years older than me. They've learned that sort of stuff usually. (Although there are plenty of people my age who also know it, they're hard to find in some places)