Jeb351

What I don't understand is how an intelligent person, and I know some like this, will belive whatever they are told. I am studying engineering and am surrounded by very intelligent people who are excellent critical thinkers, but when it comes to the bible there is absolutly no question about its accuracy and accreditation. I just don't understand this. How can a rational person belive in such blatant BS. I feel like whomever said, "Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom, it is the rock of sanity in a world of religious madness". OK, I'm done ranting, (for now).

On another note, I am making a page (or two, or three,... or ten) of quotes to laminate and put on my dorm room door. Who knows, someone might stop to read them and acctually be stimulated to *THINK*. What a novel thought, ay? Some good ones would be appreciated. Here are a few that I have already...

"Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed."
- Robert G. Ingersoll

"Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate."
- F.M. Knowles

"A man without a god is like a fish without a bicycle."
- Adapted from a quotation of feminist Gloria Steinem

"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk."
- Thomas Edison

"No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry."
- Edgar Allan Poe

"God is a fragile thing; it may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense."
- Unknown

"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
- Unknown

"‘God is as real as I am’, the old man said. I was relieved since I knew Santa wouldn't lie to me..."
- Author Unknown

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
- Albert Einstein
(Now only if I could fit that on a bumper sticker)

(Also, one of my own creation...)
"Rational thought and religion is like oil and water; they just dont mix."
- J.E.Brown, Rationalist

Vinnie

Those quotes wouldn't make me stop and think much. Most of them seem to be catered to atheists. If you want to get the religious to think you might want to try catering quotes towards them. I could be wrong but I doubt telling a Chritian, "So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk" will accomplish much.

Vinnie

[ May 21, 2002: Message edited by: ilgwamh ]</p>

beachbum

Hello vinnie

Glad to see you back and (I hope) well and fully recovered. As for your comments I think you are correct. Unfortunately for a little different reason, in that I do not think the average - everyday xian will want to listen to reason or logic if that reason or logic flys in the face of everything that xian has been told is the only way he will get to heaven.

There in lies the rub. In my opinion I find that religion has primarily used the carrot and stick method with many of its followers. An omnipotent god creating everyting for everyone and then killing his creations by the tens of thousands. Later, deciding that man needed god to die for the forgiveness of sins created against god. Circular logis might not be best but in many cases it it the only logic the average xian has.

Again, Vinnie I am really glad you are back.

Stan the beachbum

The Dark Lord

Ah... you forgot Nietzsche's The Antichrist.

2: "What is more harmful than any vice?--Practical sympathy for the botched and weak--Christianity..."

7: "Christianity is called the religion of pity.-- Pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness: it is a depressant. A man loses power when he pities. Through pity that drain upon strength which suffering works is multiplied a thousandfold."

12: "What has a priest to do with philosophy! He stands far above it!--And hitherto the priest has ruled!--He has determined the meaning of "true" and "not true"!"

And, My personal favourite...
15: "Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes ("God" "soul," "ego," "spirit," "free will"--or even "unfree"), and purely imaginary effects ("sin" "salvation" "grace," "punishment," "forgiveness of sins"). Intercourse between imaginarybeings ("God," "spirits," "souls"); an imaginarynatural history (anthropocentric; a total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general feelings--for example, of the states of the nervus sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical balderdash--, "repentance," "pangs of conscience," "temptation by the devil," "the presence of God"); an imaginaryteleology (the "kingdom of God," "the last judgment," "eternal life").--This purely fictitious world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the later at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of "nature" had been opposed to the concept of "God," the word "natural" necessarily took on the meaning of "abominable"--the whole of that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (--the real!--), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the presence of reality. . . . This explains everything. Who alone has any reason for living his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to suffer from reality one must be a botched reality. . . . The preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for decadence..."

You can find Nietzsche's writings at <a href="http://www.fns.org.uk/fnslink.htm#NOnlineEng." target="_blank">http://www.fns.org.uk/fnslink.htm#NOnlineEng.</a>

[ May 21, 2002: Message edited by: The Dark Lord ]</p>

Hastur

"One mans' theology is another mans' belly laugh." --R.A. Heinlein.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie! What the hell! Good to see you, man. We tangled when I had another name. Hope you are fully recovered and feeling like streeeeetching those intellectual muscles. Gonna hang around?

Vorkosigan

Tercel

You're a Rationalist? Really, really? I must say I'm suprised. Posting on these boards where the naturalists all seem to be Empiricists, it has seemed to me that to be a naturalist would mean dropping my Rationalism. Or did you just mean that you try to think rationally as opposed to that you hold the philosophical position of Rationalism?

Are you trying to give us more reasons to be a Christian here? Or are you actually advocating Nietzsche's abhorrant philosophy?

Vinnie

"""""Vinnie! What the hell! Good to see you, man. We tangled when I had another name. Hope you are fully recovered and feeling like streeeeetching those intellectual muscles. Gonna hang around?

Vorkosigan """""

Thanks! Its good to be able to be seen I'm fully recovered pretty much. My body does things it didn't do before but they are minor and I'll live with them gratefully I should be sticking around for a while posting here and there.

"""Glad to see you back and (I hope) well and fully recovered. As for your comments I think you are correct. Unfortunately for a little different reason, in that I do not think the average - everyday xian will want to listen to reason or logic if that reason or logic flys in the face of everything that xian has been told is the only way he will get to heaven."""

Hi Stan, thanks for the welcome back. I think what you are saying is true in a sense. But its not only the soteriological aspects of Christianity that Christians cling to. I would call young earth creationism another example. All the attempts at harmonizing the Bible might be another still. Its been my experience that the average-everyday Christian doesn't know how to properly define words like "fath" and "reason." They usually define faith so that it ends up being "blind"--contrary to the teachings of what they accept as the inerrant and authoritative word of God. But the point of my last post is that if a person wants to encourage critical thinking in the Christian camp, posting less confrontational quotes on a dorm room door might work better (e.g. possibly a modification of "Test Everything. Hold on to that which is good" instead of "God is a fragile thing". But if a person's purpose is to put quotes delineating strictly their own views on their dorm room door then I'd suggest going with quotes that correspond to your personal views. I was just commenting on the intended purpose of the quotes. If its to encourage Christians to think more critically, those aren't going to work.

Vinnie

Vinnie

"""As for your comments I think you are correct. Unfortunately for a little different reason, in that I do not think the average - everyday xian will want to listen to reason or logic if that reason or logic flys in the face of everything that xian has been told is the only way he will get to heaven."""

One more thing, that general reaction is not limited to Christians. I think most people are reluctant to accept something if it flys in the face of all they have been taught. We could even look at some scientific history from the 1900s too see this reaction from scientists. Once a person or community has accepted a certain paradigm I don't think it will be easily swayed. Your everyday Christians and atheists have different ways of viewing the world. They wear different lenses and do not meet or see things eye to eye.

Vinnie

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: ilgwamh ]</p>

abe smith

BUmpersticker: Your categories are inadequate to exhaust Reality. 1.Question everything. Mother lies. 2. You can do anything I would't do. Just don't get caught. 3. "A fool is more dangerous than a rogue." GBS Glad you're back & better of whatever that was, Person. Abe