Quote Originally Posted by WeedGremblin
Religion -A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.


Religion is so much more personal than any of those other topics. I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about contradictions in the Bible, I never said I was grounded in any religion. What religion is to me is hope/faith whatever you want to call it, it’s the same, that there is something infinitely good out there when we live in a world that promotes evil things.
You don't see the contradiction there? An infinitely good being that controls a "world that promotes evil things"?

And I still maintain that faith is not a virtue. Skepticism is. Demanding evidence and not taking your beliefs on tradition, authority, wishful thinking or blind speculation is a much superior way of approaching the truth.
I try not to be so critical about it,
Why not?
I take what I can leave what I don’t agree with; it’s a win/win situation you know? When you boil it all down it’s about how to be a better person to one another and God, what’s so wrong about that.
Because God doesn't exist. Also, there is not one single shred of evidence that religious people act more morally than atheists. Most people who live by their own principles without religion are perfectly normal, morally upright individuals, and study after study finds they do not engage in obviously immoral behavior (murder, rape, arson, stealing, etc.) any more than religious people do.

I would say continuing to publish the Bible and the horrible abominations within, and distributing it to children, is potentially harmful to their morals, since if they do decide to take it literally and obey all of God's words to the prophets (as Jesus himself commands) they can be sucked into a very dangerous ideology.
You focus so much on what you don’t like about the Bible that you totally toss aside the good.
You have the opposite problem: you focus entirely on the few pages of good stuff and toss aside the majority of the book!

I'm sorry, I can't just shop around and pick out which verses I agree with and which ones are crap. It's an all or nothing thing. Either the Bible is reliable, or it isn't. I mean, I can sift through Mein Kampf and probably find a few good quotes too, but that doesn't mean the book isn't an authoritarian racist piece of crap. I have found relatively few real good morals in the Bible. Even the good parts are pretty much common sense. Don't kill people cause that's bad for society, okay, duh, everybody knows that. And stealing is bad too, uh huh, what's the big deep revelation here? If I can figure out for myself what is moral and what isn't, why do I need to sift through sexism, rules for keeping slaves, detailed instructions for animal sacrifice, and boring stories about ancient Jewish lineages to find a few common sense ideas by a guy who said he was God and told people he could exorcise demons that cause disease.

If you ask me, there have been way better philosophers. Voltaire, Rousseau, Thoreau, Emerson, Ingersoll, Russell, heck even Sartre is way more profound than Jesus and his "be nice or burn forever" philosophy.
To me it’s like this, God is this almighty creator who creates beauty and life but destroys it,
Why? That's a horrible thing to do. If God fucked up the first time, why didn't he just fix things himself instead of fuckin killing everything and hoping it works better the next time?
His son Jesus takes human form to live like a human. He see’s how we are and has sympathy, compassion, love and understand towards us so he gives his life so that we do not perish.
But he didn't bother to say anything about all that slavery, or the sexism, or anything. Or provide sufficient evidence for his existence. Why did God need to kill his son to change the rules of the universe anyways? That doesn't make any sense.
It’s about love, compassion, and understanding towards each other so we can better ourselves. To me that is all its about, it’s about something good. We live in a time of evil, we see it everyday. Its hope in something better, not everyone has the ability to make an impact on the evil in the world so they have faith. Just as good if you ask me.
Umm...you do know that Jesus promoted the idea of hell, don't you? The idea that, if you commit a sin and don't ask for forgiveness, you will be tortured for all eternity? That's not very forgiving.

And I have to disagree. Faith is not "just as good". If you feel powerless to make an impact on the evil in the world, then try harder! Don't cop out by adopting an escapist ideology that everything will be fine and you'll live forever, that this life is merely a place to wipe your feet on the way to the eternal afterlife (what is 7 or 8 decades compared to an eternity?). Go out and do something! Be creative. Two hands at work accomplish more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
Excuse me while I roast a fat one in honor of Oneironaut. I really do respect you alot man, and I am glad that we have someone with such intelect in a cannabis community, it gives hope. :thumbsup:
(sparks bong)