Religion: crushing children's dreams since forever
Things were a lot simpler when I was young. Christian, agnostic and atheist kids could shoot one another with their cap guns and not give a hoot what the other believed.
Religion: crushing children's dreams since forever
Wow, it's like they videoed my childhood.
I remember sneaking up at 6:00am on Saturday morning so I could watch Smurfs, sitting right next to the tv, volume set to 0.001 so I could barely hear it, hand on the dial (yes dial) ready to change the channel to something else if I heard anyone's footsteps.
Because Smurfs are magical you see and that's evil.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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Things were a lot simpler when I was young. Christian, agnostic and atheist kids could shoot one another with their cap guns and not give a hoot what the other believed.
My first neighbour after we moved to Canada had kids my age and we became friends pretty quick, but after they found out we were Lutheran the kids were told not to play with me.
They moved not more than a year after we moved there, I was always so curious what was so offensive about a Lutheran.
My friend seems to agree with me on just about every social issue and even science issues (ie evolution, global warming, etc). I just come at it from different paths. I want to help fight poverty because I just have this belief that if we are good to others, others will be good to us. He wants to continue to the works of Jesus Christ. We end up on the same sides of just about every issue, so why do I need to disparage his beliefs?
While I respect that the United Church, (as a very limited example) does evolve its doctrine (see what I did there) with society, the fact is that there is no more evidence that God supports doctrinal 'evolution' than there is for a rigid fundamentalist viewpoint. I'm a live and let live kind of guy. I don't go around picking philosophical fights or challenging people's beliefs, let alone disparaging them, but if there is a discussion to be had, I'm not going to pretend to think any differently about religious beliefs just because a believer happens to agree with me on other issues. The fact of the matter is that while some believers will find support for what I would consider enlightened viewpoints, others will find support for regressive and oppressive nonsense. In my view, if the foundations underlying your beliefs support such vastly different interpretations with nothing to choose between them, there's a problem in the foundation of your belief structure whether you choose to see it or not.
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onetwo and threefour... Together no more. The end of an era. Let's rebuild...
I read the article Saturday before heading out on my morning run (loved all the great running/bike paths in Calgary!!) and was thinking about what my friend had sent me. I ended up at the same place as you.
The "I have no problem with religion because it is possible to hold your religious beliefs while espousing enlightened beliefs" idea allows for people to form their ethics around a book written by men thousands of years ago. Just because my friend took those words and still holds modern views on women's rights, gay rights, etc doesn't mean that all that read those same words will come to that same place. But saying that it is all right to form your ethics around the Bible (or any other religious tome for that matter) takes away our ability to reason someone into a viewpoint we many want to propogate (ie gay marriage).
I forgot about this thread, there was a recent thing in Texas where a 14 year old girl was protesting the abortion bill going on there, with a sign that says "Jesus isn’t a DICK, so keep him OUT of MY VAGINA"
"But today, I would ask that our thoughts would be your thoughts; today, I pray that our ways would be your ways. Let our house be your house today, and let our laws be a reflection of your laws."
"We know that there is a time to weep and a time to rejoice. Help us to sow tears of sorrow today so we can rejoice tomorrow."
"We need a representative who knows you and loves you enough to plead for justice on your behalf. We need leaders who have learned to follow you."
and the real kicker
"Help us to get our eyes off of ourselves and to be more concerned about our righteousness than our rights."
...
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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Wow was that ever brutal! She had no original thoughts, just kept going in the same direction from the start. What a moron!
I especially liked her referral to Willaim Lane Craig's review of Aslan's book, as if he represents "main stream" scholarship in the study of Jesus.
What is so ridiculous in this exchange is that Aslan's study and arguments are actually pretty pedestrian. The fact that she made such a big deal about his "Muslim bias" very clearly shows that she has prejudiced his work exclusively on the basis of his personal religious convictions, and not on any of the content of the book itself.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Icelanders are outraged that Franklin Graham is holding a festival in Reykjavík next month, but they’re literally not taking it sitting down.
In a social media-fueled protest against the avowed anti-gay-marriage evangelist, Iceland residents are reserving hundreds of tickets to Graham’s upcoming sermons with the intention of leaving the seats empty.
The protest was reported Thursday on Visir.is, an Icelandic-language news site. The report was confirmed to International Business Times by Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, a deputy and features editor for Iceland Review magazine.
A team led by Miron Zuckerman of the University of Rochester found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies
The studies used in Zuckerman's paper included a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children - those with IQs over 135 - in a study which began in 1921 and continues today.
Even at 75 to 91 years of age, the children from Lewis Terman’s study scored lower for religiosity than the general population - contrary to the widely held belief that people turn to God as they age. The researchers noted that data was lacking about religious attitudes in old age and say, “Additional research is needed to resolve this issue.”
As early as 1958, Michael Argyle concluded, “Although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs, and rather less likely to have pro-religious attitudes.”
