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I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but honestly what are the odds that God would be looking down on the Catholic, or Muslim, etc. rituals being practiced and say, "There it is, that's the religion that got it right! And since everyone else hasn't showed up to mass, you're all going to hell." I mean, it seems terrible at best. Personally, I'm a conservative Jew. There are some aspects of my religion that I disagree with, but I stay because I need to believe in something and, well, right now Judaism seems at least the slightest bit logical by comparative terms. I'm just wondering where you all stand on this matter (*coughGOATGETTHEFUCKINTHISTHREADcough*)

Damn his wife is hot...

Use religion to make yourself a better person. Judging others on the basis of their beliefs, does not make you a better Jew, Christian or Muslim. Self righteousness is always a trap and all major religions underline humbleness as a virtue. ;-)

Good movie (Secret Sunshine) that asks some daring questions about religion: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109868.msg1208650#msg1208650

One fact about religion is that people who believe in a god are gullible.  They would make good scam victims. :)

Good scam victims indeed. It's called donating to a church.

You don't have to be religious to believe in god.

And on the flip side, you don't have to believe in god to be religious.

Exactly, just look at r/atheism (http://reddit.com/r/atheism)!

I prefer r/TrueAtheism (http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAtheism), they engage in real discussion of atheism, instead of childishly mocking the opinions of the most ignorant and bigoted theists.

You mother fuckin' sorry bastard! What the hell are you doing with my old lady? You think you're slick, don't you, you douchebag slimy whore-ball. And I was beginning to like you. Now this, under the guise of religion. Pinkie Pie, pray for this guy.

~Cackling Bear~

PS or EDIT (you pick): And I didn't read a single word in this thread because I'm too teary eye.

Truth is the goal, don't lie to yourself to make yourself better, that's a rocky foundation. Know yourself, know what is real and what is not. If you don't, you'll be stumbling through your life blind.

Religion is a tool. It is a tool to allow people to surrender themselves to whatever happens to them in the name of God. It is a tool to give people hope outside of the world they live in. It's a way to check out of life.

To those who control this tool can make life whatever they wish it to be. The religious masses will be putty in their hands.

"Religion isn’t the opiate of the masses; religion is the placebo of the masses." - House: M.D.

How can you be 100% sure that any characteristic belongs to your real self ? Maybe it has to be built by hard working. Gain level :).



On topic: Religion is madness at a socially accepted level and goes well with Nietzsche's quote "Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups."

Religion has it's own good parts as a tool for one's spiritual growth, introspection, acceptance and hope maybe but it goes bad when it meets the situation in the quote above. "God" is a very subjective matter. Someone's definition of "God" might be more evil than one's definition of the "Devil". "God" can serve also as a tool for easing someone's burden of his own Ego. Can mean imprisonment of desire.

There is no "real self". There are only various purported perceptions of you by other people. In other words, there are various "selves". There is the "you" you perceive. Then there are various ones others perceive. Sure there are common characteristics amoung each perception but they do vary.

Reality is defined by your perception and nothing more. The perception of others go only as far as you perceive them. There is no common reality.

1.: If you are a member of a religious community, i.e a church. The community is NOT the religion, The belief system is in you!

2.: If you believe that there is any purpose in your own life, you want to have your children do well in life or you have any objection to other peoples suffering, you believe in something even though you claim to be an atheist. The justice system is a church, your legal sense of right and wrong, is your god concept.

3.: The OP asked whether he had made a good bet in choosing a specific religion, suggesting that God will judge lesser religions or rituals, and he want's to be on the winning team. This kind of lottery / judgement mentality is typical of people not going to church that often.

4.: Last, Creationism is stupid. Science vs. religion is not in conflict. The lesser scamming kind, often American pseudo churches, use creationism as a defence to them being exposed as scammers.

Oh, you got me going:

5.: To really dismiss any kind of faith, you'll have to be a purist like miss Rand, and only consider yourself as a complex macro molecule.
No, even that can be seen as a kind of religion. If you consider the gene pool of all living things to be the true life on earth, how do you define their will to survive and compete? There are no built in intent to live and multiply in the genes. Of cause, this molecular competing behavioural mechanism can have been a fluke accident, being fed on the matter and energy in the universe. But having genes making humans to build spaceships to leave the dying Earth in 700M years when the sun becomes to hot, is taking it to far (knowing that, as we are the only ones who are able to contemplate the future), suggesting that there is a higher purpose with our DNA.

If that's the case, any concept of God would be a virtual projection in our mind of the chemical "intent" in our genes. As genes are a result of biochemistry, one would suggest that the capability of the elements to form amino acids is a property of atoms which are a consequence of the properties of bosons and other elementary particles, which push the burden of proof back to  the time of the earliest universe. The same period of time that real scientists argue and joke about the possible influence of a god.

6.: If we rate the success of different genes on the size of their populations, bacteria or grass are the winners. Humans are just a dead end in evolution, only 7 billion of us!
The Panspermia theory speculate that bacteria already do interstellar space travel.
Maybe the divined plan concerns them and not us?

So if you dismiss any kind of yardstick of free will and meaning, and accept that evolution has left us behind, go jump off a cliff to feed our bacterial masters of the Universe.

Conclusion: You cannot have a sense of self and will, without a feeling of purpose in you.  Making every one a believer. Feel free not to acknowledge the fact that this is indistinguishable for a concept of God!

Believing in a godor being spiritual is not being religious. Some of the greatest minds ever believe in a higher power but fuck do any of them believe any of the religious books which yeah are complete BS and you have to be gullible to believe in that.

In my opinion believing in a higher power or meaning, makes you a religious person. The institutions surrounding religions are a different matter, I agree. A church or other community hold value to their congregation and to society where people agree to work together on what they consider virtues i.e. charity. Each members faith is in their own head, being a member of a church does not make you more or less of a believer unless you seek it with members of your church for personal guidance. I have plenty of criticism for religious communities, even my own church, but that has nothing to do with my faith.

Judaism has the concept of God's breath or spirit, and Christianity has the Holy Spirit which I kind of understand as a divined purpose, or soul in humans, which exist in all living things. Renouncing the holy spirit is considered worse than ordinary blasphemy of the grand old man.

So even in the Old Testament, the Jews had this meta concept of god being a "built in" purpose of everything. Quite new age. So believing you own life is important and meaningful and having a sense of a higher being or meaning, certainly makes you a religious person in a very traditional way.

Atheism can not be a fact based ideology. Seeking proof of a world without meaning runs into the same logical fallacies as people trying to prove the existence of God. Atheists are often angry with churches and their own bad experiences, some of their arguments I agree with. Proving religion ideologically  wrong, for the lack of evidence, demands proof. If Atheism is not to be considered  just another religion which worship  the existence a non god, they need hard evidence to convince people that they are more than a religion.

Wait a minute... isn't Goat on a boat?

Sorry, you got it all wrong!

Mister "Conservative Jew" just started a thread on "Religion" merely to slip in the fact that he'd like to spend a night on the dreidel with Goat's wife...

How pathetically douchebaggy of you!



(PS: Am I the only person here whose subconscious is tempted to spell out Goat's name with an additional 'e', specially when there's a genitive form involved? I digress..)

Damned, I fell for it too. Bitcoin is also a religion, Agnostic maybe?

Hey, who you callin' a douchebag?!

Mr. Douchebag, may I suggest the proper profile picture?

http://couchfiresports.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Guido-300x274.jpg

Eh, why not?

Awesome!!

It won't be long now before the girls from Jersey come in droves!