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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 Is it just me or have people recetnly started bragging in almost every thread about how great universities they're attending or how smart they are?

USC 4 LIFE!

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Originally posted by tathi I wish it were the case that people's opinion could be swayed by reason alone, that factual evidence would be the basis for belief. Religion is what is wrong in todays world, it's a disease, it infects the minds of the dumb and ignorant, what's worse is the disease is not terminal. In the past religion may have had some credibility, a way for despots to control the idiot masses, add 5000 years and you have an insidious corrupt money hungry facade. Propaganda / marketing / spreading the faith, it's all the same bullshit, only the simplistic of mind fall for it. Christianity / judiasm / islam / hindu: They are all a pathetic amalgamation of retired religions, a syncretic blend of past forms of faith that have failed. The only reason these conceptual ideologies are still in business is that they threaten their drones with "eternal hellfire" in case they leave. If there was no such thing as Satan (or its equivalent in other religions) would there even be religion in todays world? I believe Robert Heinlein has provided us with some very good insight into what places of worship will be like in the future. Pubs, Poker Machines and Prostitution. The only difference between churches now and his speculative view of churches in the future, is that now the christian church is a brothel were seedy old men can sodomise underage boys. I bet Robert didn't see that one coming. Man created god in his own image

Couldn't have said it better then that....

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Occrider So what are your opinion of people who have chosen to make the leap of faith in believing that there is a God of greater good, yet shun organized religion for all its faults and pretenses?

I have nothing against deists

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Bondor or is it because im religious, USC means nothing to you:

It's because i've never heard of it

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Bondor it takes a lot stronger mind to have faith instead of fear, and it takes an even stronger mind to act in faith instead of fear. (faith is not the "i am of the Christian faith" kind, its the "i have faith that this will work" or "i have faith in you", faith in my mind is sort of like the opposite of fear, doubt, and worry. to me it is trusting god, and that is hard to do)

So you believe the opposite of faith is fear, fear of what? Concepts like Satan and Hell? Wouldn't it take a stronger mind to realise that they are just concepts and laugh at them, rather than follow the collective will of your herd? From what i have read, you have given me the reason why you are religious, you are afraid, you believe that without your 'god' you would be full of fear, doubt and worry (at being an individual?)

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Orbax You're an idiot. Have fun doing well in life.

Hahaha, i love it when people call me an idiot, especially by christians, being called a christian is an insult where i am from, maybe you should call me a christian and not an idiot, i would take more offense

and i am doing very very well in life

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Che Couldn't have said it better then that....

;p

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Originally posted by tathi So you believe the opposite of faith is fear, fear of what? Concepts like Satan and Hell? Wouldn't it take a stronger mind to realise that they are just concepts and laugh at them, rather than follow the collective will of your herd? From what i have read, you have given me the reason why you are religious, you are afraid, you believe that without your 'god' you would be full of fear, doubt and worry (at being an individual?)

you have found ... part of it ..., but i think you have misunderstood it... let me explain...

fear of what you ask? most surely not satan or hell, i think it is foolish to fear that. yes i do realize that they are concepts and i do laugh at them. no, the fear im talking about is the everyday fears you face all the time. 'did i lock the house before i left?' 'im worried i didn’t do that well on my test' 'is my girlfriend cheating on me?' 'what if i dont make the team?' 'what if im not able to make my house payment' 'i doubt i will be able to do it' 'im afraid of what could happen if mom finds out' ...etc, etc, etc, ...

these are the kind of fears im talking about REAL life fears, and having faith is to say "who cares, god will take care of it" and to actually believe that is to have a strong mind. And to act that is to have an even stronger mind.

I am not afraid of being ‘without my god’ because god is eternal. However, I do know from personal experience that it is better to be with god then without, and that you attract what you fear, (“the thing I feared has come upon me”). Therefore I think it is silly to be afraid of being without god.

as for the 'individual' part, could you elaborate?

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fear of what you ask? most surely not satan or hell, i think it is foolish to fear that. yes i do realize that they are concepts and i do laugh at them. no, the fear im talking about is the everyday fears you face all the time. 'did i lock the house before i left?' 'im worried i didn’t do that well on my test' 'is my girlfriend cheating on me?' 'what if i dont make the team?' 'what if im not able to make my house payment' 'i doubt i will be able to do it' 'im afraid of what could happen if mom finds out' ...etc, etc, etc, ... these are the kind of fears im talking about REAL life fears, and having faith is to say "who cares, god will take care of it" and to actually believe that is to have a strong mind. And to act that is to have an even stronger mind.

And god locks your door in case you forget to? And god gives you that little extra money when you are short and you need to pay your bills? "here ya go bondor, here's some cash" And god helps you cheat on all of your tests? "i think the answer is 7"

Karl Marx “Religion is the opium of the masses”

your belief in god is a placebo

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I am not afraid of being ‘without my god’ because god is eternal.

lol, thats just silly

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However, I do know from personal experience that it is better to be with god then without, and that you attract what you fear, (“the thing I feared has come upon me”). Therefore I think it is silly to be afraid of being without god.

murphys law confined to athiests? lol.
Being an Atheist is not for the weak of mind

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as for the 'individual' part, could you elaborate?

the opposite of a sheep

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Originally posted by tathi And god locks your door in case you forget to? And god gives you that little extra money when you are short and you need to pay your bills? "here ya go bondor, here's some cash" And god helps you cheat on all of your tests? "i think the answer is 7"

yeah .... for example, yesterday i was supposed to do some stuff for an essay but i didn’t have the time so instead i prayed about it and once i got to class it turns out that she didn’t even collect it, or check to see if i had done it. stuff like that happens all the time for me, as a mater of FACT in the past 23 days 38 similar "coincidences" have happened.(yes I have kept track)

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Karl Marx “Religion is the opium of the masses”

this opium is SOOOOOOOOO good!

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your belief in god is a placebo

yeah but it also works on the physical too!

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lol, thats just silly

do you have anything to back that up?

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murphys law confined to athiests? lol. Being an Atheist is not for the weak of mind

not confined, applied. and i always thought that Murphy’s law was "what ever can go wrong will go wrong," which to me is quite different then attracting the thing you fear.

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the opposite of a sheep

i meant what do you mean in the context of the quote

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...you would be full of fear, doubt and worry (at being an individual?)

in my own case im the only one in my dorm building who blatantly loves trance, i think that is pretty individualistic. which leads me to believe that, i don’t think i fully understand what you mean by 'individual'

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tahiti, you as a fellow psycology-afficando should understand that religion does have a valid place in our society. It provides many good for many people. It is a good release of stress, and the belief and rituals have shown to actually be very healthy for individuals.

I think this goes back to mind over matter. If you believe in something strong enough, you can control that thing. If you believe it is a stronger being doing it, and still achieve the same results, what is the harm in that?

But read up on it, many studies have been conducted on religion - and most tend to agree its not as evil as you make it out to be... what is it you have against the "faithful" anyway, aside of course from your sterotypes?

I have nary the time to read this whole thread right now, so if I am being repetitive, than I apologize. I would like to make a few points, however.

1. The existing universe only exists because it is stable. It is not even that complex. Smaller masses orbit around a central nucleus. This is a natural state of equilibrium. If any possible universe did indeed exist, it would need to reach some state of equilibrium; otherwise, it would not exist. Perhaps this wasn't the first time there was a "big bang." Perhaps there were a trillion big bangs before, and this was the one that existed long enough to produce intelligent life capable of comprehending concepts like "complexity" and "God." All other failure universes were unaccounted for, since they didn't exist long enough to produce intelligent beings to account for them.

The one largest flaw in human belief over all time is that the universe ends where our knowledge ends. Everyone who has predicted a limit to the universe has been wrong. But just because we don't have any evidence of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Perhaps there is never an end to the universe. Perhaps the big bang was just one in an endless series of explosions creating a "universe." Perhaps our "universe" is only the size of an electron in our solar system. In other words, just because our knowledge has limits doesn't mean the universe cannot. Perhaps there are infinity big bangs. Perhaps there is no end or begining. Originally, we thought the SURFACE of the earth had an end, and that you would fall off if you reached it. We were embarrasingly wrong. Even after we found out the earth's surface has no ends, we still believed the sky had an end. We later found out otherwise.

2. This leads me to conclude that humans, in general, tend to mould not just God, but nature to their beliefs. Their main error is that they were moulded to nature's laws, and not the other way around. Our minds are a product of nature, yet we think as if nature was a product of our minds. Our minds evolved to help us survive, and evolution has specially tailored us for that. And we've been damn good at it so far. But there has been not one pressing force to mould our way of thinking to understand the universe beyond our environment. We don't need to, so we don't. In simple, this explains most human behavior. As long as the lie doesn't kill us, we will keep believing in it untill we are forced to change.

3. Human thinking is completely arrogant. Our methods that we use to understand this world are more ridiculous than trying to attatch wax wings to your arms and fly over the ocean. It is like boring a hole in marble with a toothpick. The tool is so limited in the endeavour that it will never work in it's current state. That is not to say that humans are stupid, because the human mind is sharp in many other matters. It is just to say that as far as understanding the universe goes, we will never be particularly adept at doing so, and quite frankly, it is amazing that we have made it this far.


To truly understand the universe, one must admit to all the faults of their consciousness. One must admit that we cannot explain everything, but we can look for patterns. God is a cop out. God is a concept of human imagination. Anyone who thinks that God created us in his image is arrogant and self centered. It is like saying that the rocks in my garden repel tigers because I have never been attacked by a tiger. We are just here. No one created us or the universe. Us being here is not a miracle in any sort of way. Think of all the places we are not. Out of the 600 centillion (times infinity) cubic miles in this universe [and I'm talking the WHOLE universe, not just the part we can prove exists], we only occupy a few of them durring a very, very short time span. The odds of something like us eventually popping up are pretty much 1:1. It is not facinating at all. It is perfectly mundane. We're here simply because we and our universe survived.

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Tracks that fuel my dreams:

CM - Dream Universe (Marino's Space Mix)
Illuminatus - Hope (Oliver Lieb Remix)
Virtualmismo - Last Train to Universe
Stefano Libelle - Ascension
Magica - Magica (Ibiza Remixx)

Last edited by cougar23 on Sep-24-2003 at 07:21

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Bondor 23 days 38 similar "coincidences" have happened.(yes I have kept track)

I'm an atheist, and the victim of very lucky circumstances, more so than you, you believe god is watching over me?

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i meant what do you mean in the context of the quote

to be an individual is to be capable of autonomous thought, so what if your idiosyncrasy is trance, it may make you feel like an individual, you still think like a sheep, and sheep are not confined to religious organisations, just look at all the wage slaves out there.

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Yoepus you as a fellow psycology-afficando should understand that religion does have a valid place in our society. It provides many good for many people. It is a good release of stress, and the belief and rituals have shown to actually be very healthy for individuals.

On a small sociocultural scale, religion may be beneficial for its drones, what of the death and suffering religion has caused on a global scale? throughout time? Including the damage it has had on science?

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I think this goes back to mind over matter. If you believe in something strong enough, you can control that thing. If you believe it is a stronger being doing it, and still achieve the same results, what is the harm in that?

There is no spoon?

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But read up on it, many studies have been conducted on religion - and most tend to agree its not as evil as you make it out to be... what is it you have against the "faithful" anyway, aside of course from your sterotypes?

i have nothing against the "faithful" i pity them because their lives could be so much better. "Evil" a concept created by religion, has become it's most faithful adjective.

- Morally objectionable behavior
- That which causes harm or destruction or misfortune
etc etc,

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cougar23 God is a concept of human imagination. Anyone who thinks that God created us in his image is arrogant and self centered.

Man Created god In His Own Image
In Order To Worship Himself

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Originally posted by tathi I'm an atheist, and the victim of very lucky circumstances, more so than you, you believe god is watching over me?

please tell us your lucky circumstances.

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to be an individual is to be capable of autonomous thought, so what if your idiosyncrasy is trance, it may make you feel like an individual, you still think like a sheep, and sheep are not confined to religious organisations, just look at all the wage slaves out there.

thanks for clearing up what you meant.

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please tell us your lucky circumstances.

hahahah ok

- was part of a government pilot, that helped me get a degree in half the time and at half the cost (only a few people got picked out of thousands)
- the amount of times i have been let off by police for major traffic offenses, fck me
- i have been very very lucky at professional investing in real estate, i make quite the sum of money plan to retire from my normal job at 20
- plus hundreds of little trivial examples of luck similar to the ones you have given (without having to pray to my imaginary friend, Shambola)

anyway back to the bible bashing / astrophysics, preferably astrophysics

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Originally posted by cougar23 Smaller masses orbit around a central nucleus. This is a natural state of equilibrium. If any possible universe did indeed exist, it would need to reach some state of equilibrium; otherwise, it would not exist.

Nope, the natural state of equilibrium has nothing to do with gravity. More so with the second law of thermodynamics.

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anyway back to the bible bashing / astrophysics, preferably astrophysics

Agreed on the latter ... I'm more of a live let live person.

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Retro ...