I don't believe in anything that can't be proven, so therefore I don't believe in god and heaven.
Quite a bit of belief in that post,
If you can prove something, then belief is not really all that necessary. It becomes a fact, as it's been proven, but if a fact has not been proven yet, is it still a fact? Of course. Because what is, is.
But until it is proven, I won't think it's true until it is.
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
I was raised roman catholic but by no means do I have season tickets. I appreciate it for what it can teach me about history. Faith in the power of love and in our consciousness I do carry with me. If a creator exists in the form of man, he'll still let me in even though I think organized religion is a joke, because my side of the street stays clean ... BIATCH!
If he doesn't want to let me in and directs me to Lucifer, i'll opt for the vampire option.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention ... organized religion can blow me.
Post edited by [Deleted User] on
1996: Toronto 1998: Barrie 2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills 2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal 2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids 2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2006: Toronto X2 2009: Toronto 2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton 2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula 2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo 2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit 2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2 2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2022: Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto 2023: Chicago X2 2024: New York X2
I don't believe in anything that can't be proven, so therefore I don't believe in god and heaven.
Quite a bit of belief in that post,
If you can prove something, then belief is not really all that necessary. It becomes a fact, as it's been proven, but if a fact has not been proven yet, is it still a fact? Of course. Because what is, is.
But until it is proven, I won't think it's true until it is.
Right! and has it not been proven? through out the ages? Even today? Now the question then becomes why do you think it has not been proven? Or do you know, it has not been proven? To which we direct the topic back to human consciousness.
The same things, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Plato, Enoch and the rest of the great figures of history have spoken about.
We see it all the time, if God exists, why do we have war? If God exists, why do bad things happen? Also what are these bad things?
Do you take part in them? If so why? If you do not, why? Also what is 'bad' (to a degree) is relative, but we will get into that soon no doubt.
My point is, if someone said "I can walk on water", or "I can come back to life after dieing" I would need to see some solid proof. I view religion in the same way.
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
When I was a little boy I believed in God, faeries, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Then one day I grew up.
I don't need the threat of some magic land of lava and pain called "hell" to keep me in line. The idea that you're constantly being watched by God and being judged... it's just a way to keep people scared. To control them.
You once believed in Santa? and the Easter bunny? Faeries? No wonder you don't think God exists
Why did you believe in all of those things? Including God, maybe someone told you these things existed right? Now at what point did you come to a realization that these things do not exist?
Because we know, and no reasonable person will say that the easter bunny and santa exists. But at the same time these same people may not be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, thus God does not exist.
When I was a kid, I believed in santa and god, but as I grew up, I found out santa was a lie, so god is a lie. It's just a level of control. (as you feel religion is)
There's so many widespread stories of near-death experiences, that it's getting quite difficult to deny that there is not an afterlife.
Yet if you followed what science and the bulk of the stories of near-death experiences have shown, you'd be likely to change your tune. It stops being religious and starts being a study of what actually happens.
So there's no guarantee that it IS afterlife, but it's not some Big Foot or alien random find. It's widely documented.
I am a proud agnostic. People are a certain religion because their parents were and because of where they were born. A devout Christian in America, if born in India, would be a devout Hindu. There is absolutely no thought that goes into someone's religious "beliefs." There is a huge difference between beliefs and facts.
Religions are an interpretation of the unknowable. I look at religions as fairy tales and religious texts as works of fiction. We dismiss Greek Mythology so quickly, so what make Christianity, Judaism, Islam any different?
My point is, if someone said "I can walk on water", or "I can come back to life after dieing" I would need to see some solid proof. I view religion in the same way.
So if you saw someone walk on water, you would believe in God? Or If you saw Someone come back to life, you would believe in God?
Chris Angel walks on water and people have come back from the dead hrs after being pronounced dead. But for me that's hardly proof of God, I am, like you (I guess) a science/physics person. The math must add up, but what you are asking is, you want some else to show you the answer, yet do not yet have the grasp of the equation.
Now what would be the calculation? Human Nature and consciousness of course! the tools, ego, sound logic, reason etc.
I am a proud agnostic. People are a certain religion because their parents were and because of where they were born. A devout Christian in America, if born in India, would be a devout Hindu. There is absolutely no thought that goes into someone's religious "beliefs." There is a huge difference between beliefs and facts.
Religions are an interpretation of the unknowable. I look at religions as fairy tales and religious texts as works of fiction. We dismiss Greek Mythology so quickly, so what make Christianity, Judaism, Islam any different?
Religion is a joke.
Perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss Greek Mythology then? Because people do, how can you use that as an answer.
Remember, you care, as you said in another thread. So care! Be, and it is.
Break down each religion and you will see the common truth, to which we see, that it our lack of knowledge that corrupts our interpretation of religion.
I am a proud agnostic. People are a certain religion because their parents were and because of where they were born. A devout Christian in America, if born in India, would be a devout Hindu. There is absolutely no thought that goes into someone's religious "beliefs." There is a huge difference between beliefs and facts.
Religions are an interpretation of the unknowable. I look at religions as fairy tales and religious texts as works of fiction. We dismiss Greek Mythology so quickly, so what make Christianity, Judaism, Islam any different?
Religion is a joke.
You actually remind me of my 10th grade religion class taught by a priest who was well loved but was later arrested for pedafilia (sp). (I went to a Catholic HS).
He asked the class for weeks the same question. "Why do you believe in God?" The most intelligent answer was "because my parents taught me to". Wrong! He insisted that the reason we did was because we chose to, and that's the only thing I remember about any religion class, honestly. Reasoning that parents taught you to believe isn't substantial.
Quotes from RichardDawkins.net. Eddie is included...too funny.
"Religion and science have a common ancestor - ignorance"
A.C. Grayling - Permalink
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein - Permalink
The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none.
Charlie Chaplin - Permalink
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
Christopher Hitchens - Permalink
I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.
Clarence Darrow - Permalink
If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!
Clark Adams - Permalink
The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight -- that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.
Daniel Dennett - Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Permalink
To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.
David Brooks - The Necessity of Atheism - Permalink
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Delos B. McKown - Permalink
From 'Marker In The Sand'
Those undecided,.... Needn't have faith to be free
And those misguided, there was a plan for them to be
Now you've got both sides... claiming killing in god's name
but god is nowhere,... to be found, conveniently
From 'Big Wave'
I used to be crustacean, In an underwater nation
And I surf in celebration, Of a billion adaptations
From 'Do The Evolution'
I am ahead... i am advanced.... i am the first mammal to wear pants
I'm at peace... with my lust... i can kill 'cause in god i trust
I'm a thief, i'm a liar... there's my church, I sing in the choir
Eddie Vedder, lead singer for Pearl Jam - rd.net reader Richard T. - Permalink
I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it..
Edith Sitwell - Permalink
They said God was on high and he controlled the world and therefore we must pray against Satan. Well, if God controls the world, he controls Satan. For me, religion was full of misstatements and reaches of logic that I just couldn't agree with.
Gene Roddenberry - Permalink
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
Gore Vidal - Permalink
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart
H.L. Mencken - Permalink
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
H.L. Mencken - Permalink
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all... I personally resent it bitterly." ~Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov - Isaac Asimov - Permalink
What have been [Christianity's] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
James Madison - Permalink
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate,
contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and
unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the
discomfort of thought."
John F Kennedy - John F Kennedy - Permalink
Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
Jon Stewart - Permalink
The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."
Kurt Vonnegut - Permalink
No Gods -- No Masters.
Margaret Sanger - Permalink
The War Prayer: "O Lord our God, help us to tear their bodies to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded."
I am a proud agnostic. People are a certain religion because their parents were and because of where they were born. A devout Christian in America, if born in India, would be a devout Hindu. There is absolutely no thought that goes into someone's religious "beliefs." There is a huge difference between beliefs and facts.
Religions are an interpretation of the unknowable. I look at religions as fairy tales and religious texts as works of fiction. We dismiss Greek Mythology so quickly, so what make Christianity, Judaism, Islam any different?
Religion is a joke.
You actually remind me of my 10th grade religion class taught by a priest who was well loved but was later arrested for pedafilia (sp). (I went to a Catholic HS).
He asked the class for weeks the same question. "Why do you believe in God?" The most intelligent answer was "because my parents taught me to". Wrong! He insisted that the reason we did was because we chose to, and that's the only thing I remember about any religion class, honestly. Reasoning that parents taught you to believe isn't substantial.
If I went to that school, I would have cut class every day. Imagine, instead of listening to that crap, we could have skipped school and went to Friendlys!! It would have been fun
What I see is someone terrified that they've been praying to a God that doesn't exist and wasting a lot of time and money on Sunday mornings.
God is an invention of man. End of story. It's not any more real than the Easter Bunny.
Churches make a lot of (tax free) money by scaring people into giving it to them. They need all that money to pay the legal fees from the lawsuits over the kids they fucked.
Religion is the major cause of hate, wars, guilt and mind-control. And that's all it will ever be.
When I see all those douchebag football players thanking God for the touchdown, it makes me want to puke. As if there were a God and he chose to not help starving children being raped and shot in the head in Somalia because he was too busy helping you win the big game.
Religion is just a money-making scheme by power-hungry control freaks. "Do as I say or God will punish you."
And if you can't see that, you're obviously very weak-minded.
And by the way... nobody has ever died and come back to life. It's never happened once. Yes... some people have been declared "legally dead" and been revived.. but there has never once been a case of someone whose brain stopped all activity who then came back to life. Which should prove to anyone with a brain of their own that those "images of heaven" and "bright white lights" are just the brain doing what it does when you're asleep... having hallucinations that seem very real. But they're not. They're called "dreams."
My point is, if someone said "I can walk on water", or "I can come back to life after dieing" I would need to see some solid proof. I view religion in the same way.
If no one here steps up with the proof you're looking for, then I'd hope you're out researching it, because sitting on the belief that it doesn't happen, while being ignorant on the topics, does not mean it's impossible. Because near-death experiences, from looking at research, is real.
And by the way... nobody has ever died and come back to life. It's never happened once. Yes... some people have been declared "legally dead" and been revived.. but there has never once been a case of someone whose brain stopped all activity who then came back to life. Which should prove to anyone with a brain of their own that those "images of heaven" and "bright white lights" are just the brain doing what it does when you're asleep... having hallucinations that seem very real. But they're not. They're called "dreams."
There's so many widespread stories of near-death experiences, that it's getting quite difficult to deny that there is not an afterlife.
Really? Last night I dreamed I was swimming naked with Scott Caan. Did that happen too?
Yet if you followed what science and the bulk of the stories of near-death experiences have shown, you'd be likely to change your tune. It stops being religious and starts being a study of what actually happens.
No. It doesn't. That's just desperate Christians grasping at anything to prove something.
So there's no guarantee that it IS afterlife, but it's not some Big Foot or alien random find. It's widely documented.
So has Bigfoot. And hey... there's pictures and lots of people who saw him while they were awake.
My point is, if someone said "I can walk on water", or "I can come back to life after dieing" I would need to see some solid proof. I view religion in the same way.
If no one here steps up with the proof you're looking for, then I'd hope you're out researching it, because sitting on the belief that it doesn't happen, while being ignorant on the topics, does not mean it's impossible. Because near-death experiences, from looking at research, is real.
No. It's not. There is no "proof" that anyone went to heaven. Just people desperate to believe it.
I love when people quote Albert Einstein, so smart he was, so civilized, so intellectual, so moral. Oh yes he was, so smart, he urged the building of the Atom Bomb.
What I see is someone terrified that they've been praying to a God that doesn't exist and wasting a lot of time and money on Sunday mornings.
God is an invention of man. End of story. It's not any more real than the Easter Bunny.
Churches make a lot of (tax free) money by scaring people into giving it to them. They need all that money to pay the legal fees from the lawsuits over the kids they fucked.
Religion is the major cause of hate, wars, guilt and mind-control. And that's all it will ever be.
When I see all those douchebag football players thanking God for the touchdown, it makes me want to puke. As if there were a God and he chose to not help starving children being raped and shot in the head in Somalia because he was too busy helping you win the big game.
Religion is just a money-making scheme by power-hungry control freaks. "Do as I say or God will punish you."
And if you can't see that, you're obviously very weak-minded.
And by the way... nobody has ever died and come back to life. It's never happened once. Yes... some people have been declared "legally dead" and been revived.. but there has never once been a case of someone whose brain stopped all activity who then came back to life. Which should prove to anyone with a brain of their own that those "images of heaven" and "bright white lights" are just the brain doing what it does when you're asleep... having hallucinations that seem very real. But they're not. They're called "dreams."
I love when people quote Albert Einstein, so smart he was, so civilized, so intellectual, so moral. Oh yes he was, so smart, he urged the building of the Atom Bomb.
Do people not see the truth?
I guess you got me there..........................................
I'm an almost a 100% Atheist, but I know that the only God who is alive and well is the one who find parking spots for xtians, but that's his one and only job.
And I found this little gem
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it"
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I'm an almost a 100% Atheist, but I know that the only God who is alive and well is the one who find parking spots for xtians, but that's his one and only job.
And I found this little gem
that cartoon is thought provoking. thanks for sharing.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
I love when people quote Albert Einstein, so smart he was, so civilized, so intellectual, so moral. Oh yes he was, so smart, he urged the building of the Atom Bomb.
Do people not see the truth?
Albert Einstein also said 'the only knowledge is experience'
So, minus your age from any number above 70 and that's when you'll surely be close to checking out and you'll know for sure if you'll be worm food or in a cozy corner of a cloud with Janis. Just be patient.
1996: Toronto 1998: Barrie 2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills 2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal 2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids 2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2006: Toronto X2 2009: Toronto 2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton 2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula 2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo 2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit 2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2 2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2022: Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto 2023: Chicago X2 2024: New York X2
I love when people quote Albert Einstein, so smart he was, so civilized, so intellectual, so moral. Oh yes he was, so smart, he urged the building of the Atom Bomb.
Do people not see the truth?
Albert Einstein also said 'the only knowledge is experience'
Yes my friend! So..experience it, as the formula has been presented. Now you must answer it to know for yourself.
I love when people quote Albert Einstein, so smart he was, so civilized, so intellectual, so moral. Oh yes he was, so smart, he urged the building of the Atom Bomb.
Do people not see the truth?
Albert Einstein also said 'the only knowledge is experience'
Yes my friend! So..experience it, as the formula has been presented. Now you must answer it to know for yourself.
I'm sorry ... the formula, say what?
1996: Toronto 1998: Barrie 2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills 2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal 2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids 2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2006: Toronto X2 2009: Toronto 2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton 2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula 2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo 2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit 2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2 2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2022: Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto 2023: Chicago X2 2024: New York X2
That's my understanding, and I'm sticking with it.
This is what I find troubling. Refusal to contemplate one's beliefs, swearing that your mind will never change. As they say "“A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood”.
If we don't ever change our outlook in life, we don't evolve.
I was raised christian and am agnostic now. How am I being a block of wood? I'm just stating how I see life and what makes sense to me.
I'd like to think there's more to do than just this life, but seriously, what is everyone going to do when they get to this heaven?
I think there's a bigger picture that our minds can't comprehend. Religion is a way to over simplify things. It offers comfort and I can totally see why someone would follow it.
I think its great that people have beliefs. Thats what keeps us going. Gives us hope.. Just as long as I'm not judged for having different beliefs about the unknown, we'll get along just fine.
Comments
If he doesn't want to let me in and directs me to Lucifer, i'll opt for the vampire option.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention ... organized religion can blow me.
1998: Barrie
2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills
2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal
2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids
2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
2006: Toronto X2
2009: Toronto
2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton
2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula
2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo
2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit
2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2
2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2023: Chicago X2
2024: New York X2
other things that have been documented...
[*]The Lock Ness Monster
[*]Aliens in flying saucers
[*]Bigfoot
[*]Ogo Pogo
[*]The Yeti
[*]Elvis Presley living in Kalamazoo, Michigan
Right! and has it not been proven? through out the ages? Even today? Now the question then becomes why do you think it has not been proven? Or do you know, it has not been proven? To which we direct the topic back to human consciousness.
The same things, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Plato, Enoch and the rest of the great figures of history have spoken about.
We see it all the time, if God exists, why do we have war? If God exists, why do bad things happen? Also what are these bad things?
Do you take part in them? If so why? If you do not, why? Also what is 'bad' (to a degree) is relative, but we will get into that soon no doubt.
You once believed in Santa? and the Easter bunny? Faeries? No wonder you don't think God exists
Why did you believe in all of those things? Including God, maybe someone told you these things existed right? Now at what point did you come to a realization that these things do not exist?
Because we know, and no reasonable person will say that the easter bunny and santa exists. But at the same time these same people may not be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, thus God does not exist.
When I was a kid, I believed in santa and god, but as I grew up, I found out santa was a lie, so god is a lie. It's just a level of control. (as you feel religion is)
You don't see a flaw in that logic?
Religions are an interpretation of the unknowable. I look at religions as fairy tales and religious texts as works of fiction. We dismiss Greek Mythology so quickly, so what make Christianity, Judaism, Islam any different?
Religion is a joke.
So if you saw someone walk on water, you would believe in God? Or If you saw Someone come back to life, you would believe in God?
Chris Angel walks on water and people have come back from the dead hrs after being pronounced dead. But for me that's hardly proof of God, I am, like you (I guess) a science/physics person. The math must add up, but what you are asking is, you want some else to show you the answer, yet do not yet have the grasp of the equation.
Now what would be the calculation? Human Nature and consciousness of course! the tools, ego, sound logic, reason etc.
Perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss Greek Mythology then? Because people do, how can you use that as an answer.
Remember, you care, as you said in another thread. So care! Be, and it is.
Break down each religion and you will see the common truth, to which we see, that it our lack of knowledge that corrupts our interpretation of religion.
He asked the class for weeks the same question. "Why do you believe in God?" The most intelligent answer was "because my parents taught me to". Wrong! He insisted that the reason we did was because we chose to, and that's the only thing I remember about any religion class, honestly. Reasoning that parents taught you to believe isn't substantial.
"Religion and science have a common ancestor - ignorance"
A.C. Grayling - Permalink
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein - Permalink
The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell - Permalink
By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none.
Charlie Chaplin - Permalink
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
Christopher Hitchens - Permalink
I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.
Clarence Darrow - Permalink
If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!
Clark Adams - Permalink
The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight -- that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.
Daniel Dennett - Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Permalink
To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.
David Brooks - The Necessity of Atheism - Permalink
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Delos B. McKown - Permalink
From 'Marker In The Sand'
Those undecided,.... Needn't have faith to be free
And those misguided, there was a plan for them to be
Now you've got both sides... claiming killing in god's name
but god is nowhere,... to be found, conveniently
From 'Big Wave'
I used to be crustacean, In an underwater nation
And I surf in celebration, Of a billion adaptations
From 'Do The Evolution'
I am ahead... i am advanced.... i am the first mammal to wear pants
I'm at peace... with my lust... i can kill 'cause in god i trust
I'm a thief, i'm a liar... there's my church, I sing in the choir
Eddie Vedder, lead singer for Pearl Jam - rd.net reader Richard T. - Permalink
I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it..
Edith Sitwell - Permalink
They said God was on high and he controlled the world and therefore we must pray against Satan. Well, if God controls the world, he controls Satan. For me, religion was full of misstatements and reaches of logic that I just couldn't agree with.
Gene Roddenberry - Permalink
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
Gore Vidal - Permalink
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart
H.L. Mencken - Permalink
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
H.L. Mencken - Permalink
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all... I personally resent it bitterly." ~Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov - Isaac Asimov - Permalink
What have been [Christianity's] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
James Madison - Permalink
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate,
contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and
unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the
discomfort of thought."
John F Kennedy - John F Kennedy - Permalink
Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
Jon Stewart - Permalink
The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."
Kurt Vonnegut - Permalink
No Gods -- No Masters.
Margaret Sanger - Permalink
The War Prayer: "O Lord our God, help us to tear their bodies to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded."
Mark Twain - Permalink
If I went to that school, I would have cut class every day. Imagine, instead of listening to that crap, we could have skipped school and went to Friendlys!! It would have been fun
What I see is someone terrified that they've been praying to a God that doesn't exist and wasting a lot of time and money on Sunday mornings.
God is an invention of man. End of story. It's not any more real than the Easter Bunny.
Churches make a lot of (tax free) money by scaring people into giving it to them. They need all that money to pay the legal fees from the lawsuits over the kids they fucked.
Religion is the major cause of hate, wars, guilt and mind-control. And that's all it will ever be.
When I see all those douchebag football players thanking God for the touchdown, it makes me want to puke. As if there were a God and he chose to not help starving children being raped and shot in the head in Somalia because he was too busy helping you win the big game.
Religion is just a money-making scheme by power-hungry control freaks. "Do as I say or God will punish you."
And if you can't see that, you're obviously very weak-minded.
And by the way... nobody has ever died and come back to life. It's never happened once. Yes... some people have been declared "legally dead" and been revived.. but there has never once been a case of someone whose brain stopped all activity who then came back to life. Which should prove to anyone with a brain of their own that those "images of heaven" and "bright white lights" are just the brain doing what it does when you're asleep... having hallucinations that seem very real. But they're not. They're called "dreams."
If no one here steps up with the proof you're looking for, then I'd hope you're out researching it, because sitting on the belief that it doesn't happen, while being ignorant on the topics, does not mean it's impossible. Because near-death experiences, from looking at research, is real.
Do your research.
Really? Last night I dreamed I was swimming naked with Scott Caan. Did that happen too?
No. It doesn't. That's just desperate Christians grasping at anything to prove something.
So has Bigfoot. And hey... there's pictures and lots of people who saw him while they were awake.
No. It's not. There is no "proof" that anyone went to heaven. Just people desperate to believe it.
Do people not see the truth?
are you sure i'm the one that's terrified?
Talk about ego, whoa!
I guess you got me there..........................................
And I found this little gem
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Why not (V) (°,,,,°) (V) ?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Albert Einstein also said 'the only knowledge is experience'
So, minus your age from any number above 70 and that's when you'll surely be close to checking out and you'll know for sure if you'll be worm food or in a cozy corner of a cloud with Janis. Just be patient.
1998: Barrie
2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills
2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal
2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids
2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
2006: Toronto X2
2009: Toronto
2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton
2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula
2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo
2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit
2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2
2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2023: Chicago X2
2024: New York X2
Yes my friend! So..experience it, as the formula has been presented. Now you must answer it to know for yourself.
I'm sorry ... the formula, say what?
1998: Barrie
2000: Montreal, Toronto, Auburn Hills
2003: Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal
2004: Boston X2, Grand Rapids
2005: Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
2006: Toronto X2
2009: Toronto
2011: PJ20, Montreal, Toronto X2, Hamilton
2012: Manchester X2, Amsterdam X2, Prague, Berlin X2, Philadelphia, Missoula
2013: Pittsburg, Buffalo
2014: Milan, Trieste, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Detroit
2016: Ottawa, Toronto X2
2018: Padova, Rome, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Barcelona
2023: Chicago X2
2024: New York X2
Typical Christian response... halfway between "I know you are but what am I" and answering with a question.
If you can't actually discuss a topic... try to find cute one-line responses that mean nothing.
I think there's a bigger picture that our minds can't comprehend. Religion is a way to over simplify things. It offers comfort and I can totally see why someone would follow it.
I think its great that people have beliefs. Thats what keeps us going. Gives us hope.. Just as long as I'm not judged for having different beliefs about the unknown, we'll get along just fine.