vertigo25 wrote:I dunno. I actually read it as saying that in order to be happy you have to give up ignorance...
Since you've said that, now I have to wonder... the more I try to decipher it, the more obscured it becomes...
but I guess i'll just choose to remain ignorant about which of the 2 meanings it truly is... lol, that'd be such a pain to find someone to translate it for me.
(If that's not an example related to this skepticism discussion, I don't know what is... haha)
i question my faith constantly...and a lot more viciously than most would imagine. Maybe that makes me a bad christian but..i don't really care. I'm not in this to impress a church or be a part of some nerdy ass club. ( i -really- don't want the embarassingly cheesy t-shirts)
I'm in this because in my heart i feel it's right..and ii've never crammed anything down anyone's throat..never condemned anyone. Most of my friends are non-christians..and i tend to think i'm a fairly decent human being and treat people with respect.
If that's the side-effect of moral failure then..well hell..maybe i'll finally get that bad reputation i've always wanted but never seemed to get.
The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
blindboy wrote:I wish technology would hurry up and kill god already.
i don't see that happening any time soon. people are to naive.
example:
my gfs uncle had a heart attack and died the day before thanksgiving. he was revived afterwards a few times using paddles.
he is now laying in bed braindead. yet, the entire family insists that he is fighting to survive because occasionally he opens his eyes and blinks ,is still breathing, pissing, and doing things controlled by the spinal column.
there is nobody home and there never will be again, but if i tell them that they will just get more pissed at me.
blindboy wrote:I wish technology would hurry up and kill god already.
i don't see that happening any time soon. people are to naive.
example:
my gfs uncle had a heart attack and died the day before thanksgiving. he was revived afterwards a few times using paddles.
he is now laying in bed braindead. yet, the entire family insists that he is fighting to survive because occasionally he opens his eyes and blinks ,is still breathing, pissing, and doing things controlled by the spinal column.
there is nobody home and there never will be again, but if i tell them that they will just get more pissed at me.
blindboy wrote:I wish technology would hurry up and kill god already.
i don't see that happening any time soon. people are to naive.
example:
my gfs uncle had a heart attack and died the day before thanksgiving. he was revived afterwards a few times using paddles.
he is now laying in bed braindead. yet, the entire family insists that he is fighting to survive because occasionally he opens his eyes and blinks ,is still breathing, pissing, and doing things controlled by the spinal column.
there is nobody home and there never will be again, but if i tell them that they will just get more pissed at me.
Damn, that sucks... Sorry, man...
hell, i don't care. i didn't know the guy. but thanks anyway.
The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have
---Penn Jillette
Rational thought....what an odd thing.
"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."---Georges Clemenceau
