Marihunana & Pot parties....
For me, it's a real juggling act to be both pro-troops and anti-war....
Seems to clash with free will if you ask me...
...then what are we? Just puppets?
Most religious people have never done any research into superstition and the rise of religion...
Cause and effect has always been problematical for us humans.
This woman has nothing. She is of a lower caste that she can't get out of. She is often hungry. She is, in a word, powerless. Religion's promise of a better life after death is the reason she and people like her don't rebel against the unjust system. Kind of nice the way that works, isn't it?...for the people in charge...
Religion is not the opiate of the people, it is the placebo.
I've always found it funny that even with more modern (and more accurate) translations of the bible available, most people still perfer the Thee, Thou, Smite, Doeth and words like that. I think that it's because it sounds more mysterious, thus otherworldly.
Just like the belief that the old USA is the best country that is or ever was.
Dearest friends, you know that part of your brain that you use to determine that mermaids aren't real? Try using that same part to think about a talking snake...
(You want that taught to your Snowflake in Sunday School?)
In my opinion this book is exactly as accurate as the Bronze Age bible...
The other day I asked a couple of people if they believed in the biblical story of the flood and they said they did. I asked them if it concerned them that two of every animal on earth simply couldn't fit in a boat that big and they said, "Maybe god shrunk them or something."
I said, "But if the earth flooded, the water would be salt water, thus killing all vegetation. So, where did the leaf that the dove brought back come from?" Again, another miracle to explain it.
I asked, "When the carnivores got off the boat, what did they eat?" Another miracle of god providing meat.
I asked how Noah got two bison and two kangaroos and two polar bears. Of course, god transported them...even though the same book that gave the EXACT materials and dimensions of the boat SAID Noah went out and collected them.
Then I asked, "With such detail in the make-up of the crew and the construction of the boat, why would the account leave out so many important facts?"
"I don't know," they shrugged.
"Does the lack of logic not concern you?" I asked.
"No," they said or gestured.
Then one of them asked, "Why does it matter anyway?"
Indeed.
Why does it matter anyway?
Why does it matter anyway?
2 comments:
"Why does it matter anyway?"
I'd wager it matters about as much to them as your contradictorily-simultaneous belief in free will and causality means to you. That is to say, it probably means virtually nothing during the majority of their waking lives. You said it yourself: it's a placebo. We pop a sugar pill when we feel those existential dreads, but usually we just stroll right along...
"I'm a special snowflake" is exactly the same kind of placebo, fwiw.
... by way of illustration, do you constantly think to yourself, "Gosh, I feel super-comfortable walking around in public because of my Special Inviolate Right not to have my spleen cut out and eaten by crazed psychopaths"?
No? Well, I'd say cannibalization by nutters is infinitely more likely than the Ark tale having direct implications on our lives, and yet the Ark tale seems a more frequent locus of attention for most self-described atheists.
I mean, fundamentalism is certainly silly and bad, but not all people who claim to believe OT myths are fundamentalists (many "believe they're metaphors" and such). And regardless, as I've said before: I think there are far worse and more impactful things in the Bible than creation myths and soul-talk and magic virgin-spawn.
I mean... I feel like instead of saying, "Dear sister/brother, I think you're going about this 'morality' business in quite the wrong way," we're often found saying, "HAHAHA, YOU LIKE SPIRIT-WORDS AND JESUS-FEELINGS, YOU DUMB CHAWBACON!" Which is just... bullyish. I might be too generous to the religious and too critical of my fellow skeptics, I guess...
... nah, screw that! I like being a contrarian!
:)
Religous zealots drive me crazy. Only THEIR religion is the right one and all others will be damned.........kinda ironic, don't you think.
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