Religious Discussions

A place for more serious off-topic discussion and debates.
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Cilogy wrote:so I've always had this theory that Christianty just kinda happened because Mary was kind of a ho and didn't want to admit she cheated on Joe with some other guy

discuss
But the guy built a solid portfolio after that.

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Bacon wrote:
August 28th, 2018, 1:27 am
Catholic Priests Abused 1,000 Children in Pennsylvania, Report Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/c ... vania.html

why is no one talking about this
I think because it's happening under the "sanctity" of religion. So there are probably just enough Catholics who are turning a blind eye or are just in denial for the whole thing to be "debatable."

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Disband the Catholic Church

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Pretty sure I'm having an existential crisis rn.

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Bacon wrote:
January 9th, 2019, 6:48 pm
Pretty sure I'm having an existential crisis rn.
Interesting thread to put this in ...

But what's going on?

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Honestly not sure.

I'm not depressed or anxious or self-loathing, but I'm really reflective right now. Something happened when the New Year came and I can't put my finger on it. It's like I'm realizing how much of my childhood/young adult-hood was stifled by the strictness of religion and how I'm not even sure what I believe in anymore.

I feel like I've been conditioned to think a certain way that was hammered into me since I was so young, and I can't figure out if I really believe it or if it's just my brain since childhood reacting to the indoctrination. It's like Santa Claus as a kid, wondering if it's all a lie, except worse, as if nearly all of your family fully believes in flying reindeer. Scary feeling.

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Bacon wrote:
January 9th, 2019, 7:12 pm
Honestly not sure.

I'm not depressed or anxious or self-loathing, but I'm really reflective right now. Something happened when the New Year came and I can't put my finger on it. It's like I'm realizing how much of my childhood/young adult-hood was stifled by the strictness of religion and how I'm not even sure what I believe in anymore.

I feel like I've been conditioned to think a certain way that was hammered into me since I was so young, and I can't figure out if I really believe it or if it's just my brain since childhood reacting to the indoctrination. It's like Santa Claus as a kid, wondering if it's all a lie, except worse, as if nearly all of your family fully believes in flying reindeer. Scary feeling.
Look at you go, ma man. Self reflect some more and then let go of the fear of the unknown, you’ll eventually find a spiritual place within you, and around the people you love, that is much stronger than any of the predefined situations and experiences you’ve been conditioned to believe in. 🕷️

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Peace wrote:
October 16th, 2015, 6:42 pm
Least they don't worry as much.
What? You mean religious people? Religion has nothing to do with the amount you worry. On the contrary: when looking at my social circle, the more religious a person is, the more they worry! Which is also probably not the case, so that's why I'm saying that it has really nothing to do with your anxieties.

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Allstar asked me by PM why I left the Catholic Faith, and I thought it may be worthwhile sharing it here as well.

It's challenging to reduce it down to a single experience, it was an accumulation of experiences over probably 10 or 15 years of my life.

It really began as recognizing that most of what we think of as religious customs in the Catholic faith were made up by men in pointy hats literal centuries after Jesus died (ringing bells during the consecration, shit like that) so a lot of what we think of as "Catholicism" isn't actually anything Biblical or what Jesus set up directly. So instantly, a lot of the customs, how you actually "practice the faith" seemed culty and arbitrary.

another level was studying conditioning, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mind, and general issues tied to behaviorism, and you start to see the ye-olde "opiate of the masses" problems crop up, where they constantly promise a pleasurable outcome (eternal life, community, etc) while being ultra-judgemental, shameful, and punitive. it's the same exploitative psychological mechanisms that get people to gamble, and it's scary shit. I don't think they sat around in a room and devised it in bad faith (pun lol), it was more it arose as a logical way to get people to conform to their belief system they fully believed was valid. Regardless, it's really toxic.

and then there's the inherent moral relativism buried into the faith that's tied to my ideas of agency and free will in general. when people would say oh god saved this young child, praise be, and yet if god 'saved' that child therefore he allowed millions others to die or be born into poverty. You take that idea and apply it to hundreds of scenarios. Katrina, 9/11, etc. or the idea that god is "punishing" people for acting on their physiological impulses if you're gay, when it's statistically almost impossible for people to sexually repress themselves permanently, especially when there's no material or observable consequence. So, by their own logic, God has created a situation that has a high probability of damning every single person who is gay. It is a shocking absence of empathy, particularly when the Biblical Jesus was chill city and extended empathy to all.

And along those same lines, the actual bible has stark instances of contradicting moral logic like God "hardening the heart" of the pharaoh and fucking him over anyway, and the old testament is full of war and murder and rape that's semi-justified. something I forgot to mention as well is that the historicity of the bible is suspect as hell, new and old testament.

I could go on and on, but eventually I was like fuuuuuuckkkkkk thhhhiiisssss nooooiseeee and got outta there


-Vader

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