Continued theology discussion... Not sure what to call this really....

[ShaneMan]

There are "religious" people of this forum. Wonder why none of them post, especially on a thread like this one? or if they do they don't stay long!

 

[chergh]

Wonder why none of them post, especially on a thread like this one? or if they do they don't stay long!

Is it because they are too busy looking for fairies in their garden?

 

[ColinEssex]

As I said no ? , and given Col's insistence on correct English I assumed that he wasn't actually asking for a resonse.

The phrase "I don't know what you want me to do" does not need a question mark.

If you were at work (for example) and your colleague said things similar to your comments knocking my comments and actions - then you said, "I don't know what you want me to do" - would you expect further clarification? Or as in your case they just walk off and leave it.

Perhaps "oop north", it is normal to be ignorant and just ignore people, I realise education and manners are taught much more sparingly, so maybe I should just let this go being as you're a Northerner.

Col

 

[Leffe78]

Is it because they are too busy looking for fairies in their garden?

Trolls more likely.

 

[Rich]

I think that attacking the poster is best avoided wherever possible, this extends to not using insulting language to describe an emotive topic when it draws no benefit.

Well let's look at the facts logically, it's against the law here to discriminate against homosexuals, unless you're a Catholic, I find that deeply and personally offensive. The Catholic church has a long history of abuse against young boys, the Papal heads not only denied for donkeys' years such events ever happened but now blame homosexuality itself, not it's dogma, I find that deeply and personally offensive. Now since those who carry out these offenses are dicks and they claim to follow the teachings of god then god must also be dick. Now who's the really offended, get my drift?

 

[Adam Caramon]

Can you actually insult a concept or does the insulting nature only arise from it being implicitly targeted towards the group of people who subscribe to it?

Well, concepts don't feel insulted when you say bad things about them, only the people that think the concept is a good thing. I'd like to think people could have a rational discussion about a particular form of government, or a particular religion from a detached perspective. But as I said before, most people who ascribe to the concept cannot detach themself from it.

We all felt very foolish when we found the definitive answer but it shows how differently individuals interpret reality. For me, religion is just a result of this, not a cause.

True, but once you discovered what it was, you all agreed on what it was. That's what I mean by reality. Now, if one of those people said that it was the voice of god, and no manner of proof could sway them, then their "reality" is different.

If a landlord isn't maintaining their property, and the property collapses and injures someone, we should all be able to look at the evidence and come up with the same conclusion. But if someone sticks to "that's the hand of god", its really hard to have a rational conversation with them.

Perhaps. There was a very long thread here on whether there would be wars without religion. I think there still would be. As I said before, religion is just a symptom of how people interpret reality differently. This would still happen without religion, in my opinion, and wars would still spring from that.

Oh, I don't think religion is the only problem that faces us as humans. I'm sure we would still be in wars if there was no religion, but I think there'd be less wars. We'd still have differences, and those differences would inevitably cause wars.

There is a serious dangerous of implicitly expressing a mal-intent by using insulting language, don't you agree?

I do agree. In the early part of this thread Kryst51 was trying to explain her religious views, and I was politely asking her some questions, and thanking her for taking the time to answer them. She is obviously a person of deep faith, and I do not think that by talking to me she is going to change her mind.

The insulting language is probably what drove her (and some others) off.

I would say that this is the same for everyone. We are all immersed in our own interpretation of what is real.

Yes, but there are many things that we can all grasp as normal. Rain, snow, sleet, sunshine, these are all forms of weather. We can (or should) be all able to agree that these occur due to various scientific reasons.

Someone else may believe that a person sitting up above the clouds is controlling the weather. Now, as a joke that can be funny. Or on a pleasant day if someone says "god is smiling on us" that's fine. I interpret that the same as I would someone saying "What a beautiful day." But again, if someone actually, truly believes there's a guy controlling the weather, it becomes incredibly difficult to converse with them.

As another example, when someone dies, I've heard religious people says "It was his time." That is sort of a generic, there's nothing anyone could have done so don't feel bad about it statement. It's intended to ease a person's grief. Its ok and makes sense.

But if someone truly believes that everyone alive is going to die at a particular time that is already predetermined, it is hard to have a conversation with them. Why wear seatbelts? You're going to die when its your time anyway. Why quit smoking? Why avoid dangerous lifestyle choices? Etc, etc.

There are "religious" people of this forum. Wonder why none of them post, especially on a thread like this one? or if they do they don't stay long!

A lot of them probably feel outnumbered and under attack. Some of that is unavoidable, so I can't place all of the blame on those doing the attacking (or at least, aggressive debate).

Personally, being that this is the internet and all, I was surprised how well the early parts of this thread were going. For the most part is was quite civil and informational.

 

[Brianwarnock]

The phrase "I don't know what you want me to do" does not need a question mark.

If you were at work (for example) and your colleague said things similar to your comments knocking my comments and actions - then you said, "I don't know what you want me to do" - would you expect further clarification? Or as in your case they just walk off and leave it.

Perhaps "oop north", it is normal to be ignorant and just ignore people, I realise education and manners are taught much more sparingly, so maybe I should just let this go being as you're a Northerner.

Col

As usual you pick one point out of context, as I have already said, I told you in my first post what you should do but for your benefit here it is again.

suggesting that the poster might get a better response if he had a meaningful title, you might even suggest one to help in future postings, then that's fine

surely even you can understand such a simple concept.
As for manners why do you think that your sacastic comment on the OP's title displayed good manners?

Brian

 

[Rich]

Is God a poster on the boards? Do you know something that I don't?

Well according to some of the posts I've read, God's everywhere, so he must be

 

[dan-cat]

Well let's look at the facts logically, it's against the law here to discriminate against homosexuals, unless you're a Catholic, I find that deeply and personally offensive. The Catholic church has a long history of abuse against young boys, the Papal heads not only denied for donkeys' years such events ever happened but now blame homosexuality itself, not it's dogma, I find that deeply and personally offensive. Now since those who carry out these offenses are dicks and they claim to follow the teachings of god then god must also be dick. Now who's the really offended, get my drift?

I think you've just illustrated that the insult springs from your desire to express anger against certain people, not of any kind of abstract concept.

You've just bound the two together when previously you were trying to keep them apart.

 

[dan-cat]

Adam,

I've read your post and I'll try to respond later today.

I've got way too much to do today to risk getting involved in this thread again.

 

[Rich]

I think you've just illustrated that the insult springs from your desire to express anger against certain people, not of any kind of abstract concept.

Where ?

 

[chergh]

Where ?

Dan just makes it up as he goes along

 

[Adam Caramon]

I've got way too much to do today to risk getting involved in this thread again.

haha. I know what you mean. Have a good day.

 

[dan-cat]

Where ?

You're entire justification for God = dick is based on the premise of an insult towards a group of people.

Now since those who carry out these offenses are dicks and they claim to follow the teachings of god then god must also be dick

Not only have you bound the insult to both the subscriber and the concept, you've made the insult to the concept reliant on the insult to the subscriber.

Must work now...

 

[Rich]

You're entire justification for God = dick is based on the premise of an insult towards a group of people.



Not only have you bound the insult to both the subscriber and the concept, you've made the insult to the concept reliant on the insult to the subscriber.

Must work now...

The subscribers are reliant on the concept

 

[Adam Caramon]

This is all a rather interesting situation. It seems like we have already established that in order to facilitate communications, both sides should try to avoid insulting one another. Interestingly enough though, religion in and of its self is insulting to some people.

As an example, if a particular religion believes that "non-believers" will go to hell for all eternity, then even while non-believers do not believe this will happen to them (they don't accept the legitamcy of the statement), they may feel insulted that there are some people who DO believe that.


To me this leads to one of a few situations, as a non-believer.

1. You assume the religious person is being mislead or tricked.
2. You assume the religious person is not very intelligent.
3. You accept that while the religious person believes in some strange things, they are still a decent human being otherwise.
4. You come to the realization that they may be right, and thus you convert to their religion to avoid an eternity of living in hell after death.

4 virtually never happens, 3 happens a lot less than we'd like as a whole, and I think 1 and 2 are the most common. This is what creates a rift between the religious and non-religious.

Basically by a religion saying that a person or a group of people is/are going to go to hell, they are saying that that person is a bad person. Thus an insult.

 

[Kryst51]

Basically by a religion saying that a person or a group of people is/are going to go to hell, they are saying that that person is a bad person. Thus an insult.

I really am trying to stay out of all of this mud slinging, so have kept my mouth closed when I have had comments. But this is one, I do have a comment for, that I don't think will get me into too much trouble.... (I hope not, fingers crossed )

What if the religious person thinks that they themselves are bad people too, therefore there is no discrimination occurring?

 

[Alc]

Just to go back to the actual post that caused the (latest) furore.

"God wants humanity to have to beg his forgivness so he has judas crucify Jesus, his own son, just so you worship him.

Not only does he have his son killed but also makes sure judas gets condemned to the centre of hell for doing something he had no choice in as its all part of gods plane to enslave our souls.

This god guy sounds like a bit of a dick to be honest."

Replace 'God' with 'Steve', 'Judas' with 'Mike' and 'condemned to the centre of hell' with 'sent to prison' and the last line is a fair enough comment.

"Steve wants humanity to have to beg his forgivness so he has Mike crucify Jesus, his own son, just so you worship him.

Not only does he have his son killed but also makes sure Mike gets sent to prison for doing something he had no choice in as its all part of Steve's plane to enslave our souls.

This Steve guy sounds like a bit of a dick to be honest."

The described behaviour does make Steve sound like a bit of a dick. The post doesn't even say that he is a dick, just that this behaviour, when taken in isolation, does make him sound like one.

I get the fact that it was easier for some to try to divert the argument onto the whole nature of insults and to try to twist it to be about that, but no-one has yet tried to say that the assertion by Chergh was wrong. That the above actions, whoever carried them out, are indicative of a nice-sounding guy and seem perfectly reasonable.

In what context would a religious person explain those actions as being acceptable?

 

[chergh]

What if the religious person thinks that they themselves are bad people too, therefore there is no discrimination occurring?

Didn't you mention this earlier?

While you may consider yourself a "bad" person you also think you are going to heaven because you have accepted christ as your saviour where as those of other religions and those without faith are bad people who are going to hell as they have not accepted christ as their saviour.

If this is correct there still is discrimination as you are saying only the right sort of bad person gets to go to heaven?

 

[Adam Caramon]

What if the religious person thinks that they themselves are bad people too, therefore there is no discrimination occurring?

That would change things if the reason of the insult was that non-religious people had the view that religious people thought they were better than everyone else. I don't think it is as simple as that. I think a lot of it is control.

We like to be in control of our own lives. When a religion states that someone is going to hell for not submitting themselves to another's will (i.e. allow themselves to be controlled), that's where I think the initial insult comes from.

Some religions say "you must do x, y, and z otherwise you're a bad person and will suffer for eternity."

People who do not believe look at that as simply some guy said those things, i.e. they have no more weight or importance than Bob down the street saying the same things. But they are insulted by the fact that other people, religious people, think that those words are true, and think that they apply to everyone.