I have had it up to here.....

[skill_guy101]

"You need to repent"
"You need to get out of my face"

pea, have you read the old testament? It is packed full of wars, many in the name of God.

[lefteyewilly]

anybody see the Lewis Black "red white and screwed" special on HBO??? He has a great bit on the old testament and the new testament. Plus, he's funny as hell with the rest of his stuff.

[RUSHVision]

Doesn't the ten commandmants spell out in clear language what thoust shall not do.

They aren't requests and they aren't suggestions.

They are actually none of the above. The Ten Commandments should be interpreted as "How you will know you are on the path to God." They are not rules of any kind, nor are there any consequences to ignoring them other than those brought on by the natural causality of events. Like everything else, they have been wrongly interpreted by the mind of man.

You can do whatever you wish, but when you don't want to kill, to covet, to steal, etc., then you will know that you are closer to becoming one with God.

Everyone holds their own 'truth', their own perception of life, the universe, and our place within it. There are also 'universal truths' however, and these are recognized by our inner knowing. There will always be those who need help answering the questions of purpose and meaning simply because of the nature of the human condition. We are placed on this earth in a state of forgetfulness, ignorant of our origin and our power, in order to better ask the questions..."Who and what are we?".

We are here to explore ourselves and to do that we have but one directive...to conceive, to create, and to experience what we have wrought.

The world which we have been given to do this has been set up according to certain rules. You basically get back what you give out. So dream big and live by The Golden Rule and you should be good to go.

[Ask The Geezer]

I know you were answering Frets comment. But I got to say it, if they could lose the part about those rules coming down from someones invisible friend, and said it was some wise old man that thought it up, it would mean a lot more. Might never have ended up something to fight over.

[RUSHVision]

Yes, everyone's perception of 'God' is also different. I know that mine certainly doesn't agree with any organized religion currently in existence.

Universal truth can be found anywhere, though...even in organized religion. They just tend to package it up with a lot of other crap.

[Frets]

Well,,, to be honest I asked a religious question and in return I received a spiritual / ideological response. Of that I thank you for RushVision. And I fully admit that I engaged in the quest for knowledge. Which is something quite different then going out for a can of ravioli and someone trying to force a diet of worms.

[silverx2]

is this where you all wanna be when jesus comes back? picking on religious people?

[pea3698]

"You need to repent"
"You need to get out of my face"

pea, have you read the old testament? It is packed full of wars, many in the name of God.

As others have said here, my beliefs are not hardcore. Yes I know of what you talk of, but I am more of a new testament type of fellow. Even though a war is included in the bible doesn't mean that the war was actually gods doing. Did god write the bible, no.

The way I interpret it is, live to be the best you can be, be honest, curteous, kind, and giving. You will get back threefold of any bad you do, yet you may not recieve threefold of any good you do. But how much good versus bad you do, really shouldn't enter your mind. Your thought should be along the lines of "What can I do to help another out today". Ofcourse I am the first to say I love money and can be very selfish the majority of the time, so by no means am I anywhere near 1% perfect in any way other than being human. I have have numerous things happen to me in my lifetime that give me a firm belief in what I believe, not in what someone has pounded into my head. I will be the first person to get up and walk out on a sermon if I feel that a preacher is making the bible a personal thing instead of just teaching it.

I have to aggree with indivision. I am talked to by people perhaps 3 times a year. I tell them thankyou for the information, but that I am a christian and am happy with my denomination. That is the end of it. They say have a great day and go about there merry way. If they still pester then I get nasty with them. But then they just proved their point.

My main point in the very beginning of this thread was that everyone that trash talks the people that try to spread their beliefs is just as bad. You come to a public board and start bashing their beliefs because yours is right and they are ignorant. Bad thing is anyone that comes to a public board and preaches anti-christian theories reaches 100s more people than the person standing in front of the grocery store. Who is pestering who. Yet if I didn't want to read what you had to say I can just hit that little red X in the top right of my browser, just like you can walk past, around, or away from these people.

[Ask The Geezer]

is this where you all wanna be when jesus comes back? picking on religious people?

I'll take my chances.

anyone that comes to a public board and preaches anti-christian theories reaches 100s more people than the person standing in front of the grocery store

Makes note to keep eye out for more religious threads.

[RUSHVision]

Well,,, to be honest I asked a religious question and in return I received a spiritual / ideological response. Of that I thank you for RushVision. And I fully admit that I engaged in the quest for knowledge. Which is something quite different then going out for a can of ravioli and someone trying to force a diet of worms.

I agree that knowledge should not be forced down people's throat's, but rather given to those coming in search of it. I also believe that knowledge can come to us (and should) in many different forms when we most need it.

I don't care for bible-thumpers and pamphlet-wavers any more than the next guy, but there have been plenty of times in my life when information that was apparently unsolicited was just what I was looking for, whether I knew it or not. I take it upon myself to pass on what I know to those who I think can benefit from it, much the same as many others. The input that we receive from others in general is invaluable. If the cost of the greater interaction is the occasional dismissal of some guy who wants to hand me a piece of paper with his truth on it, then so be it. Who knows, that piece of paper might actually have a kernal of knowledge in it that I can place inside my own framework of belief.

The way I interpret it is, live to be the best you can be, be honest, curteous, kind, and giving. You will get back threefold of any bad you do, yet you may not recieve threefold of any good you do.

This universe was not created as a place to restrict or control us as is suggested by your statement that says we are only punished for our 'sins'. You do get back what you give out, be it good or bad. Thus is the cycle of experience completed...you get to see what it is like to be on both the giving and receiving end of any given thought, action or feeling.

[indivision]

look at the ratio in the thread itself. in my experience, people who have strong feelings against religion are 10 times more likely to complain about it than religious people are to suggest religion to others. i find self-righteous athiests more annoying, lacking manners and far more common.

[Ask The Geezer]

Oh, come on. In all fairness, the thread was started to complain about religious freaks. If you want a ratio that means something, compare religious threads in this Forum over all. I haven't kept count, but it seems there have been far more threads started for than against, further, threads started to talk or complain about apples over pc's outnumber religious and political threads put together. The real leader is war threads though.

I can't wait til the next one.

[indivision]

hah. well. start one up!

really though. i dont recall very many threads posted about telling people they should join a religion. i do recall several threads about how "fed up" someone is with religious people.

do the math. buy a little notebook and mark a point every time someone suggests a religion to you and mark a point every time someone complains about religious people. even if it was really frequent enough to be qualify as annoying (imo) the person is usually decent at least. frequently, when people complain about religious people, its inflammatory and insulting.

[Ask The Geezer]

Well, look at it. Non religious people have to go through life looking at scaberous, gothic structures built to agrandize archaic beliefs they don't believe in, ducking wars started by them and cleaning up after their wars are over. Some of the ugliest buildings blocking out the skyline are monuments to other peoples fears of the unknown. They have to fight traffic jams on Sunday and put up with snooty attitudes by people who think they are the moral majority and in reality are neither moral nor the majority.

Of course they're going to be inflammatory and insulting.

[indivision]

traffic jams, ugly buildings, snooty attitudes. i dont buy it. i cant say that ive noticed more traffic on sunday. in fact it has always seemed less trafficky. there are plenty of ugly buildings to go around for all kinds of purposes. however, considering that people, religious and non-religuous visit famous churches en masse, it seems that the consensus is that at least some of them are pretty interesting. snooty attitudes. like i said, do an honest tabulation of who acts snooty. from my experience, i hear more high-and-mighty talk from non-religious people, for whatever reason.

[Ask The Geezer]

Do the snooty know they are snooty? Would they admit if they did? Not in my experience. People going to europe do visit old churches in droves. Those are the only old things left standing after hundreds of years of war, and half of them are going through the doors wondering why anyone wasted so much time and effort on something that's only used for a few hours one day a week. The others know it was built on forced labor for the benefit of a few.

All my life I've known religious people who claim to be rightious but are anything but, and that drivel gets old fast. I've never known a single one to live up to what they claim to be. Better they just didn't bother with the lies. I'd respect them more. They'd probably respect themselves more. So what are the odds that during a lifetime of meeting the same old dregs, that I'm all wrong about what I see in front of me? I know the answer. Now, I don't claim to be better people than they are, and that's my point. I don't claim to be better period. When they can say the same, we'll be even.

In the mean time, while I wait, I'll be content in my own belief, that they are suffering from some form of dillusional myopia that there may be a cure for some day. Poor things.

[Natsia]

Pea, until mother takes your sister to be exorsized or accuses you of being a witch and goes off at you, swining the bible in your face, quoting, talking tounges and begging god to forgive you because youre too blind to do it yourself, I'll have some empathy for your standing.
Thankfully she has calmed down a lot, but at times it was really hard to live in the same house as her.
I was not attaking her religion, its just that I've learned how to swim beneath the radar and its a hell of a lot better than getting into an argument that you cannot win or come to some consensus or common ground because they absolutely REFUSE to see anyone's persective apart from what they believe.
All I meant my my last post was: Deal with it, if you've made up your mind about what you believe / dont believe at least have the decency to walk away and not cause a fight or scene.
No one gains form a situation like that.

[Visionray]

I've never had the pleasure of a Jehovah's Witness knock on my door.

People complain about this all the time, and wish they would go away. However, I wish they would show up at my door. I would love to have a talk with them.

I don't complain about religion much anymore. There's no point really. Once in awhile I listen to Christian radio to get a good laugh and to not lose sight of how many delusional people there are out there.

[bvgroote]

Do you hear yourselves. Seriously. You say that "It is their mission in life to make everyone believe what they believe. If you dont, then you can go to hell and die!" or "you dont ever win with these kinds of people, logic is not something they seem to understand.". Put your name where you have theirs.
If they don't believe in what you believe in then they can go to hell is what your saying. Therefore everything that you are saying is bad about these people is exactly what you are doing. The only thing that your not doing is trying to spread the "logic" word in front of a grocery store. Which in turn makes these people seem to at least believe more in what they believe in than you, due to the fact that they are willing to go out and talk to people about what they believe.
One thing that I think is core in thier belief is that they should try to spread the word, but if you don't want to hear it then they should be tolerant. Now i'm not saying that the are tolerant, but I am saying that in the bible it says that it is not ones place to stand in judgement of another person.
Now if you are so intelligent and scientific, should you not be open to any possibility. Really scientific fact changes all the time do to someone being open to possibilities and testing those possibilities. And if you are definitly not open minded enough to admit that there is that slim possibility, should an intelligent person not be tollerant. It just isn't smart to not be tollerant imho.

dudeqwerty, if these wars were not able to be done in the name of religion then they would occur in the name of something else. At least when it comes to christianity, no one has a right to fight a war in the name of god. That is a crock o shat. The bible does not promote fighting in gods name. Your referring to people that used the bible to sway the masses. Religion had nothing to really do with it.

I haven't read all of this thread but most of it.

I think you are kind of avoiding the issue here. No-one is saying that you aren't allowed to believe in what you want, do you religious things etc etc

It's just when someone imposes it on you. It turns religion into a product, to be sold and mass distributed. I'm sure the problem isn't with religious people, it's with the idiots who take it upon themselves to try and change other peoples ideals, when no-one else is trying to change theirs.

"If they don't believe in what you believe in then they can go to hell is what your saying."

Not at all, believe in what you want WE DONT CARE, you are wrong in assuming this man. But if you try and sway my opinion without me asking for it, I'm going to treat you like a salesman or any other annoying person who does similar things.

"Now if you are so intelligent and scientific, should you not be open to any possibility. Really scientific fact changes all the time do to someone being open to possibilities and testing those possibilities. And if you are definitly not open minded enough to admit that there is that slim possibility, should an intelligent person not be tollerant. It just isn't smart to not be tollerant imho."

Again man, you're talking about something that we aren't. We don't deny that there might be something out there, or that religion might be a good thing or this or that. BUT if we want to find out for ourselves, we will, WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPLORE THESE THINGS IN OUR OWN TIME, BY OURSELVES IF WE CHOOSE TOO! By forcing this crap on us you are trying to take that away. If I think religion is my thing, I'll go to church, I WILL DO IT. If I want to buy a toaster, I will read up on the best toasters for the best price, make my decision and then go to the store.

Have to go make dinner now,

bye

[Odisey]

Is this a comedy? You're a comedian ... right...?! Did I win! Whadda I get!

Big world A?

Are you 17 or 26?

Questions questions and more questions...... Awe... Whadda to do...? Whadda to do....?

My thoughts....