Hell explained

[takburger]

I'm an atheist and I think beliefs are personal matter and the opinions about their validity should remain silent. Unless the religion is in fact a sect that abuses from people.

Whatever you believe into, if you're happy... namaste.

[Light]

I'm an atheist and I think beliefs are personal matter and the opinions about their validity should remain silent. Unless the religion is in fact a sect that abuses from people.

Whatever you believe into, if you're happy... namaste.

People say that belief in a god is personal and we shouldn't say anything about it, but if that same person believed in Santa, alien abductions, Bigfoot, fairies, etc .. people wouldn't hesitate a moment to laugh or mock. Why should something equally silly get special treatment?

I'm not saying I go around making fun of religious people, but if they bring it up to me, I take it as an invitation to discuss it. It's something that interferes with our daily lives, influences our laws, causes inequality, etc. and I won't respect that. If they don't have any evidence to support their claims, yet they want to push it on you / others, then they're in the wrong.

If you don't live in the US, it may not be as much of a problem to you.

[takburger]

I'm an atheist and I think beliefs are personal matter and the opinions about their validity should remain silent. Unless the religion is in fact a sect that abuses from people.

Whatever you believe into, if you're happy... namaste.

People say that belief in a god is personal and we shouldn't say anything about it, but if that same person believed in Santa, alien abductions, Bigfoot, fairies, etc .. people wouldn't hesitate a moment to laugh or mock. Why should something equally silly get special treatment?

I'm not saying I go around making fun of religious people, but if they bring it up to me, I take it as an invitation to discuss it. It's something that interferes with our daily lives, influences our laws, causes inequality, etc. and I won't respect that. If they don't have any evidence to support their claims, yet they want to push it on you / others, then they're in the wrong.

If you don't live in the US, it may not be as much of a problem to you.

Yes right, I think in the US people tend to proselytize too much about their faith, I would also be pissed and may want to show them the truth sometimes. (I feel awkward when I have a dollar note to read: "in god we trust", and when the president say : "and may god bless the usa" I just have chicken skin)

About the Santa and stuff, they are beliefs that don't carry a powerful and serious message therefore people criticize it because it is just something cultural and not so serious. But thinking about my experiences, I never laughed about those people believing into aliens or whatever they decide to believe in.

I just tell them they are nice people and that I don't wanna talk about it because it will just lead into an argument that cannot be solved (one cannot make someone change his beliefs like that).

[Light]

About the Santa and stuff, they are beliefs that don't carry a powerful and serious message therefore people criticize it because it is just something cultural and not so serious. But thinking about my experiences, I never laughed about those people believing into aliens or whatever they decide to believe in.

The thing is, Christianity doesn't have all positive messages. There are people who pick and choose what they like from it, which would probably be most, but it's still giving support to the whole thing. If they choose to ignore different parts of it, I think it's doing them a favor by showing them that they're the moral ones and don't need a book to tell them how they should act and treat people.

That same book in another person's hands may be used to justify the parts ignored by the regular moderates. When that's the book that people say during your whole life is the most important book, a book you should live by, etc. it can help pull some weight to his side. I think the people who use religion to take away from others is sick whether it's rights, money, or even their time that may be better spent doing something else they can actually improve their life with.

I just tell them they are nice people

It's true. Most of the people who have some odd beliefs are still normal and nice in pretty much every other aspect. If it's something that comes up a lot, it may be quite annoying, but I still don't really hold it against that person. For example, my mum brings up God and Jesus a lot, and I find it pretty annoying. Just because of who she is to me, I won't try to discuss it because I know it will just make her made and she'll stop talking. When you're familiar with logical fallacies and the problems with many of the basic arguments for religion, it's a tad hard to stand there and say nothing when you could pick their whole argument apart. lol

I don't wanna talk about it because it will just lead into an argument that cannot be solved (one cannot make someone change his beliefs like that).

If you're not comfortable talking about it, then by no means should you feel obligated to. As for it not solving anything, or not being able to change their beliefs ... that's not so true. Of course you're not going to stand there and turn them into an atheist on the spot, but you can cause people to think about their beliefs and possibly have them put more effort into figuring out if what they believe is true or not.

When you do it, you may make them question, or you may even make them a stronger believer. Either way, at least you're giving them some information and one day maybe it will make a difference. I've actually had people tell me they've tried to research and look into their beliefs more after discussing it. That they had to think about it. No, they didn't say they stopped believing, though even if they were on that route it would take time for most people, but just knowing that you've gotten them to question their beliefs is a pretty big step.

On the other hand, when you have too many religious people together, it may be about useless. They seem to ignore any factual information you respond with and many times try to make jokes to avoid actually having to discuss something. When they have other people there to support them when they do it, it just turns out to be pointless.

If you actually find someone that is interested in talking about it though, and is willing to listen to your side as well as talk about their beliefs and their reasoning for believing it, I think it's a great thing to do. Making people more skeptical (not overly skeptical) is a good thing in my opinion. It's a much better way of avoiding believing false things. Not that you will probably avoid them all, but if you can avoid more or most, I say it's a step in the right direction.

[takburger]

All what you say is true, but so not applicable to my world. Things may happen that way and have those issues in US, in France its not really like it.

Yes we have some problem about radical branches of religions: (IMPORTANT: THIS LIST ONLY APPLY FOR RADICALIZED PEOPLE)
- christians tend to be a bit nazi (against non white/homos/non french/non christians)
- jews tend to be a bit sensitive and lobby a lot
- muslims tend to step onto women rights & in one exceptional case, kill for the cause

But that is so minor we barely notice it. For example, few month ago, my parents went out in Paris streets, and they came back and told me:
" Oh there was some stupid people in the street, they must have been 30 or something, totally dumb talking about our president/gay marriage/muslims like crazies".

And this makes headlines, but its only 30 people in the street.

Most of the religious people will be comprehensive and their aim will be: peace and harmony in a mixed society.

For a last point: I'm totally comfortable talking about religions, I know them a bit (I plan to read all different books soon) and I actually like to argue with people. But I feel that talking about religion is like starting an argument on 4chan with someone, the only result you will have is a waste of time and to look dumb

[sinewav]

Whoa, whoa, settle down. At least alien abductions are at least possible, through highly, highly improbable, unlike those other things. Well, maybe Bigfoot was possible in the past but that one has to go in the "impossible" box now.

[Light]

Whoa, whoa, settle down. At least alien abductions are at least possible, through highly, highly improbable, unlike those other things. Well, maybe Bigfoot was possible in the past but that one has to go in the "impossible" box now.

We don't know if there's ET life yet, though it's pretty likely there's something. With all the galaxies in our universe, it's pretty easy to imagine another place is capable of sustaining life. Though, if there is, we can pretty much claim to know they're not visiting Earth. Not with absolute certainty, of course, but then again I think absolute certainty is something you can't really claim about much of anything.

Maybe we're like bacteria to them and they want to take us back to their lab to analyze us. Watch us reproduce and fill their little dish full of human.

[takburger]

Whoa, whoa, settle down. At least alien abductions are at least possible, through highly, highly improbable, unlike those other things. Well, maybe Bigfoot was possible in the past but that one has to go in the "impossible" box now.

We don't know if there's ET life yet, though it's pretty likely there's something. With all the galaxies in our universe, it's pretty easy to imagine another place is capable of sustaining life. Though, if there is, we can pretty much claim to know they're not visiting Earth. Not with absolute certainty, of course, but then again I think absolute certainty is something you can't really claim about much of anything.

Maybe we're like bacteria to them and they want to take us back to their lab to analyze us. Watch us reproduce and fill their little dish full of human.

whatever how low the probabilities are to find a planet that can have life and another form of life in it, the universe being infinite makes the probability likely to happen several times. But the probability that we find about it is still close to 0.

[Light]

whatever how low the probabilities are to find a planet that can have life and another form of life in it, the universe being infinite makes the probability likely to happen several times. But the probability that we find about it is still close to 0.

The size of the universe is unknown to us. It may be infinite, but I think that's unlikely. There have been ideas that seem much better, but that's based off of opinion and limited understanding. So, "if" it's infinite, then yes it would be unrealistic to think it wouldn't happen elsewhere.

Mathematically, there would be a point at which particle combinations could repeat and there would be expected repetitions of everything. There could be another Light out there. Eventually, if you go large enough, we could expect repetitions of the whole observable universe. Though, this is going off topic a bit.

Just going off of the observable universe, it's not unrealistic to think there could be life out there. I think NASA had an image on their site that showed the Milky Way compared to the observable universe, and Earth inside that ... we're barely a spec of existence.

Hmm .. How would an infinitely large universe collapse. Random, curious thought.

[Titanoboa]

Just going off of the observable universe, it's not unrealistic to think there could be life out there. I think NASA had an image on their site that showed the Milky Way compared to the observable universe, and Earth inside that ... we're barely a spec of existence.

This one?

[Light]

A different one came to mind but I've seen parts of that one before. I think it's a slideshow of images. Anyway, still a good example, and a little laugh.

On top of that could be added the size of a human, which would need many zoom levels just to get to that distance away from Earth. Kind'a amazing how big it is.

[Fippmam]

edit: wrong topic sorry

[woof]

The thing is, Christianity doesn't have all positive messages.

Like what?

[Light]

Like what?

Well, some quick examples off the top of my head would be stoning your children to death, stoning gays to death, killing women on their father's doorstep for not being a virgin, owning human beings as slaves, treating women as lower class than men (along with less rights), punishing people for thought crimes, threatening children with eternal torture, infinite punishment for finite crimes, the list can go on for a while ...

What I also said though ..

There are people who pick and choose what they like from it, which would probably be most

As I'm sure you're much more moral than the god you claim to worship. You use your own morality to choose what you already know as good from it and leave what you don't agree with. I would very much so prefer people like that, even if it really don't make much sense, since if you embrace the whole bible you would very likely be in prison for life or sittin' on death row.

I know you're a good person, and I have nothing against you. I don't think you would agree with the stuff I stated first, but it can be found right in that book.

Edit: How did I leave out genocide? That lovely flood tale of how generous god is to save one family and murder the rest .. amazing children's story plot. Then punishing Adam & Eve for listening to that dick of a talking snake when they didn't yet know right from wrong.

[sinewav]

Start here.