nomadpete

Reminder to all:

Thread title = "Athiest knowledge"

Pleeease.

Don't let the side down.

Do I guess from that, that you don't really like your brother-in-law ?

That's what I tried to tell them at the Cinema while watching that Kim Bassinger movie ....[/QUOT

Bex, where's the secular knowledge in that post? Isn't that what this thread is all about? I mean, if you keep drifting off like this , we'll end up with thousands of off beat contributions....

But then again as someone said earlier, you could make it even easier by having just one minimalist commandment - "don't be an a55hole" has some appeal.

Let's face it, 10 commandments are a lot easier to remember than the 613 Hebrew commandments that were proclaimed a long long time before the J.C. Story started.

After owning a laptop that came with Vista, I swore off window$.

I run Ubuntu without any particular problems.

Open source works great for me.

Well there you go Marty - unable to tell the difference between love and lust.

Do you think that King James meant that 'covert' = 'lust' ?

My wife doesn't mind where I get my appetite so long as I always come home for dinner.

Anyway, wasn't there a debate about whether 'love thy neighbour' really meant something about 'fellow believers' versus 'non believers?

Oh, thanks Marty for explaining.

For a while there I thought I was going to have to explain to that 50 shades of grey is NOT a religion.

So you're a fence sitter?

I've gone over to the Grey side.[/QUOT

Ok I'll bite.

 

Which side (of what) is the "grey side" ?

What everyone REALLY wants to know about the Census religion question is : How many Jedi Knights were there? Since 2001 the Jedi Census phenomenon has been very successful around the world, but despite this, the ABS still refuses to put in an official category in the output for Jedi, lumping them in with ‘Not defined’.... This group (which also includes Pastafarianism, Chocolate, and various football teams) grew by 22% to 132,600 people in 2011.

WOW!

http://blog.id.com.au/2012/population/australian-census-2011/2011-australian-census-how-have-our-religions-changed/

Turbs said...

"What annoys me most is that even though we are discussing belief in God vs non-belief in God, and in the research I did for this thread we got back 30,000 years, there are still people who are fixated on the Christian religions with all their obvious failings, and can't get any further than that."

I don't think this thread has a fixation about ANY one brand of religion. Fortunately many contributors have broadened the scope to include quite a number of other brands of religion. If they hadn't, the thread would have dried up ages ago. Thanks for your contribution to that. But nice to hear that you agree about "all their obvious failings"!

Please note that I have not tarred the whole of the Catholic (or any other) church with the same brush. Especially I have no wish to shake anybody's personal faiths. My personal objection to 'religion' is that it inevitably becomes a power and control system (which is fertile ground for bad behaviour by those protected within it). Then major damage eventuates when a big bunch of people use religion to get together and try to use their group power to damage other people's lives. The end result is everything from 'religious' wars right down to individual discrimination and bullying. For instance, all governments seem to 'bless our troops' going into a war, as if they are calling up the god to condone, approve and assist the terrible things about to be inflicted.

Although I am an atheist, I don't have a problem with people who choose to believe in a god, so long as they don't try to force anything on anyone or use it against anyone. The actual spiritual connection that an individual aligns themself with, is personal stuff for each of us to decide and to follow. This might be called a religious belief if it involves a supernatural entity. I personally don't think that a god would really need a bunch of human beings to organise his (selected) subjects. Which is what religions seem to set out to do. Pretty sure it would only take a wave of his/her wand to make that happen if it was what they wanted. I do enjoy a 'no blame' debate which might help me to evolve my own spiritual concepts, and I try to keep an open mind so I don't miss any gems of wisdom that apply to me. Interesting stuff. even after 2300 posts.

Just the same anti-religious stream coming from the same people, and mostly aimed at the side issue of Christians rather than the opposite of atheists.

Actually Turbs, that isn't an anti-religious stream. It is a criticism of church hierarchy and of the lack of integrity that has become ingrained in those church systems. The actual religion is 'ho hum' to me. BUT the bad behaviour of some LEADERS and practicioners is simply unacceptable. Please accept that many of us athiests are not particularly anti-religious. In fact we are more religiously tolerant than most who practice 'religiosity'.

Better than funding a school for heathens.

Surely 'heathens' need education as much as other groups!

PS educate me more and I'll stop calling you sh

I cynically view the antics of our political leaders and our religious leaders with equal distain, mixed with a vague amusement which only arises from curiosity about what their next amazing (or immoral) move or revelation might be.

It seems that regardless of the idealism of each individual that enters those careers, most of them end up not representing the interests of their constituents and by then are beyond the control of a mere pleb such as me.

There's nothing wrong with the quality of Australian BS sensors. The problem lies with our greatest Australian shortcoming - apathy. Somewhere in a previous post, there are stats quoted that indicate that the majority of Australians are not theists. I think that the majority are apathetic to the point of excessively tolerant of differing views (whether those relate to religion or politics). We are not motivated enough to get interested in either unless they impact directly on our footy, cricket or drinking habits.

Lighten up, FT, no need to get personal. We're only on about a Humorous light hearted debate. It's not the end of the world.

If you can't keep a smile through all this, and the thought provoking fun is gone, then it's time to stop reading here - and go to another thread.

Try this one.......

And God Looked Down...

Most seniors never get enough exercise. In His wisdom God decreed that seniors become forgetful so they would have to search for their glasses, keys and other things thus doing more walking.

And God looked down and saw that it was good.

Then God saw there was another need. In His wisdom He made seniors losecoordination so they would drop things requiring them to bend, reach & stretch.

And God looked down and saw that it was good.

Then God considered the function of bladders and decided seniors would have additionalcalls of nature requiring more trips to the bathroom, thus providing more exercise.

God looked down and saw that it was good.

So if you find as you age, you are getting up and down more, remember it's Gods will. It is all in your best interest even though you mutter under your breath.

Oh, thank g......

No, wait!

I didn't mean to say that. That was just a leftover automatic learned response that had been programmed into me from childhood.

(switches logic module 'ON' - click!)

Thank you all - for contributing to this great thread. I've been away for a while and was missing the humour and the thought provoking content. Yes, really! It's so good (and rare) to be able to have open, frank and wide ranging discussion about the whole topic. Unfortunately we frequently self censor in order to avoid the very chance of offending someone's beliefs, when they (and I) really should not be afraid to hear whatever theories anybody may have. After all, a differing opinion doesn't have to be a problem. But, having said that, I do recall coming across folk who seem afraid (threatened, actually) to hear any thing which might require them to realign their beliefs. I don't want to rock anyone's boat, but I do enjoy a good open debate from which I can learn stuff. I really enjoy all the input because it helps me to define and refine my beliefs (the spiritual stance) and my understanding (the logical, factual understanding).

I was afraid that the thread might have died away. Sometimes it just makes my day to read through this stuff. So, thanks.

I have heard that there have been quite a number of 'Jabdrifters' . So called because they are sometimes known to quietly drift down from the sky. This might be called an unexpected design feature.

Anyway, I am proud to be one of those strange people described in Phil's Quote out of the Hitchiker's Guide. Now I'll have to go back and re-read the whole series just to check up. Shirley, Doug Adams didn't really say all that?

And the winner of the spon prize of an autographed pair of revolving cardboard socks is........

BEX !!

Congratulations Sir! You got the 2000th post (by cheating)

Hi fellas, I just stumbled on to this thread. I don't have enough time to read it all, so just a couple of quick questions.Was /is Jesus real? yes/no

 

Was/is God real ? yes/no

 

Is the Bible fact or fiction or based on a true story ? Yes/no/ maybe

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Cheers

Oh, Dazza, you really know how to keep a thread going! That should be good for another thousand or so posts, now.

Hey! We're up to page 100 of this most educational thread!

And somebody started it by querying a connection between atheism and knowledge? There has been a lot of thought provoking knowledge shared here and, for me, it has been much more worthy than reading that other 'Never ending Story'!

It's time to start running book on who gets to post the 2000th comment.

We might call that a 'good book'

Either the Good Book is the word of god, or it is not. How can a lowly human presume to edit the word of god?

Either god meant what he said (His Word/s) , in total, or he didn't.

Any human who believes that they have the authority to edit the Word of god must be expecting the rest of us to believe that he (or she) is more powerful and more all-knowing than god.

So, assuming the'Good Book' is the word of god (transcribed by humans of his choosing), I prefer not to align myself with such a bloodthirsty god.

No offence intended to anybody's views, it's just a personal opinion. I'm happy to change my opinion if god informs me of his or her rationale.

I thought he created him in his own image. Nev

I'm confused.

Which one created which one in which image?

Anyway, I read someplace that 'Clothes maketh the man'.

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”

- Oscar Wilde