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Haha where’d you get that from? (Tweets4 in case anyone was wondering)
Good ending!
Haha nice find, beem.
Re religion, Christopher Hitchens wrote a fantastic book about 6 or 7 years ago about how religion literally poisons everything. Great read.
I was raised in a conservative evangelical household and just never bought into it. I was born a skeptic and always challenged what I was taught.
Lol. That was good
they should have shown the americans shovelling billions at the Israelis
last night I was (dragged) downtown Toronto to see a play a friend was in, and there was a fairly massive protest happening at Bloor and Avenue Road. Probably 1000 Palestinians and a couple hundred jewish folks (no idea how many had real Israeli roots or not). It was pretty heated, both having spokespeople shouting rhetoric into megaphones. Surprisingly no violence. Canada I guess. Also some random Turkish and Iranian flags. Guess it was a pile on. ‘We hate jews too!’.
So weird, all for religion. Ricky Gervais said it best. There are some 3000 organized major religions in the world, each with their own God, or version of God. Ricky is an atheist (as am I) who believes in none of them. He believes in 0 out of 3000 Gods.
Followers of those 3000 religions though all believe in their own Gods…but don’t believe in the other 2999 , and will in fact kill or go to war etc over that fact.
So the deeply religious are almost as atheist as Ricky and me. We just believe in 1 less God than them.
Here’s a video of the protest in front of the shard (architectural name for that crazy building) at the Royal Ontario Museum
Strong work bringing up Christopher Hitchens. I enjoy his debates, there are some good ones on youtube.
It’s like anything - I hate rigid thinking and I find religion (generally) instills that rigid thinking, no matter what your religion is. Religion is akin to some of those AMD/EPL nuts lol - rigidly believing in something no matter what facts are presented.
I’ve not seen that Ricky Gervais thing. a genius quote! Very factual way of looking at it.
[quote=“bangoman,post:1957,topic:2944”]
Nicely put Bangoman.
The most insincere conversations I’ve ever had are with people who wanted to talk about religion.
Religious discussion is taboo to me, but I like what you just said Saki.
I was force fed religion as a kid and now as an adult I can’t say that I’m a practicing anything. I’ve never said “I am an atheist” but I’ve had a lot of things happen in my life that made me question if there is a “god.”
I’m a strong believer that religion is the biggest reason for war and hate. It has been since the beginning of time, it’s also a way to control the uneducated or manipulate the weak minded.
Now I have to decide how I want my son to experience religion, which I’m not very excited about. I don’t want to force him into anything, but I want him to have the option to believe if he wants. I know the questions will come about what I think of God and I’m just going to be honest with him.
Maybe tell him you haven’t completely figured it out yet yourself. You’re keeping an open minded and haven’t completely ruled out God but that you’re still collecting information. Tell him the best approach (to most things in life) is to collect and gather information prior to making a decision and that’s what you’re doing. In some cases, you end up having to make a decision earlier than you had hoped and must make an informed decision on partial facts. In God’s case, you can wait for a long long time before making a final decision on what you believe. A life’s worth of gathering information.
As long as you keep an open mind, don’t rule anything out and learn about all religions as much as one can, one will be 1. Equipped to make a decision down the road whenever they feel they’re ready and 2. Will have learned about many religions which will help in multiple ways. Learning about world religion helps understand other cultures, helps understand why people behave certain ways, helps understand different viewpoints and a wide spectrum of human beliefs and the cherry on top is that you also learn about history.
I’m an atheist myself but I know more about religions than many (most?) religious fanatics. When I have kids, this is the message I will give them and make sure they’ve learned about many religions, not just one. It develops the mind to be open and to think, compare, assess, etc.
My only problem will be with my fiancee’s parents. They’re extremely religious, closed minded, bigoted, mildly racist and I’m going to have to keep them in check. I’ve been working on them for years now. The mother is a little “scared” of me which is exactly where I want her. I told her if she ever does things to my kids behind my back (i.e. teach to hate and to only believe in one single thing and to close one’s mind), that she will never get to see her grand kids again for the rest of her life. I’m serious and by now, I think she’s realizing I’m serious.
Good luck with your own approach though.
Haha where’d you get that from? (Tweets4 in case anyone was wondering)
Good for you. You deserve what you tolerate.
Haha nice find, beem.
Re religion, Christopher Hitchens wrote a fantastic book about 6 or 7 years ago about how religion literally poisons everything. Great read.
I was raised in a conservative evangelical household and just never bought into it. I was born a skeptic and always challenged what I was taught.
Strong work bringing up Christopher Hitchens. I enjoy his debates, there are some good ones on youtube.
It’s like anything - I hate rigid thinking and I find religion (generally) instills that rigid thinking, no matter what your religion is. Religion is akin to some of those AMD/EPL nuts lol - rigidly believing in something no matter what facts are presented.
[quote=“bangoman”]
Nicely put Bangoman.
The most insincere conversations I’ve ever had are with people who wanted to talk about religion.
Maybe tell him you haven’t completely figured it out yet yourself. You’re keeping an open minded and haven’t completely ruled out God but that you’re still collecting information. Tell him the best approach (to most things in life) is to collect and gather information prior to making a decision and that’s what you’re doing. In some cases, you end up having to make a decision earlier than you had hoped and must make an informed decision on partial facts. In God’s case, you can wait for a long long time before making a final decision on what you believe. A life’s worth of gathering information.
As long as you keep an open mind, don’t rule anything out and learn about all religions as much as one can, one will be 1. Equipped to make a decision down the road whenever they feel they’re ready and 2. Will have learned about many religions which will help in multiple ways. Learning about world religion helps understand other cultures, helps understand why people behave certain ways, helps understand different viewpoints and a wide spectrum of human beliefs and the cherry on top is that you also learn about history.
I’m an atheist myself but I know more about religions than many (most?) religious fanatics. When I have kids, this is the message I will give them and make sure they’ve learned about many religions, not just one. It develops the mind to be open and to think, compare, assess, etc.
My only problem will be with my fiancee’s parents. They’re extremely religious, closed minded, bigoted, mildly racist and I’m going to have to keep them in check. I’ve been working on them for years now. The mother is a little “scared” of me which is exactly where I want her. I told her if she ever does things to my kids behind my back (i.e. teach to hate and to only believe in one single thing and to close one’s mind), that she will never get to see her grand kids again for the rest of her life. I’m serious and by now, I think she’s realizing I’m serious.
Good luck with your own approach though.
Good for you. You deserve what you tolerate.