When has religion irked you personally and why?

maliagar wrote:

Frankie keeps pulling my pants and misbehaving, eager as a spoiled kid to get acclaimed by the populus as the Victor, the Patriarch, the Man!

No need to kick and scream, Frankie. Older boys don't do that. Silence can have maaaany meanings, you see? I know: Your exegetical impatience, excuse me, prowess, leads you to the convenient conclusion that my silence must mean one and only one thing (to be found, I suppose, on Leviticus 20:13????)

No problem: Just go to your group think / support pals. You'll get the recognition you crave. You'll feel good. You'll sleep with a smile on your face. You'll keep your good standing as the Oracle of Oracles.

Whatever brings a proud "agnostic" happiness and a sense of fulfillment in this life.

Hey, Maliagar, good to see you talking to me again. I mean it.

I missed ya. Man.

I really missed ya.

Now, since we are pals again, perhaps you will respond to the items I directed to you that you have been ignoring.

I hope so.

Allow me to re-cap so you won't have to go to the trouble of looking it up:

You wrote:

Quote:

If this value (a willingness to lay down one's life for others) is shared by all, then we should find examples of people living it in all cultures and all religions. In fact, there are plenty of examples (for those who pay attention to these things).

However, the most radical and heroic examples of fulfilling this universal value are to be found among commited Christians: Millions of known and anonymous examples of living and dead saints through the centuries.

I gave three examples.

You gave no comparable example that would disprove my assertion that the most radical cases are to be found among Christians.

To which I responded:

Quote:

I think it is found among Islamics.

They are often willing to "lay down their lives for others" in ways that make the Christian efforts look weak.

Of course, they do have different ideas of what it means to lay down one's life for another -- but it is an easily defended idea.

I've also asked whether you consider hijacking an airplane and flying it into a building to be a rather radical way of laying down one's life for the lives of others -- which one can argue is what is happening in the effort?

How about blowing up a truck filled with explosive while you are at the wheel as a way of laying down one's life for the lives of others?

How about the Japanese Samurai who often laid down their lives for the lives of their lords? That is pretty radical too, wouldn't you say?

How about kamikaze pilots who use to dive their explosive laden planes onto enemy ships? Sounds rather radical to me.

So what say, buddy. Wanna discuss this for a bit?

There's other stuff - but we can start here.

By the by, ole man - you don't consider conversation with me to be a proximate occasion of mortal sin for you, do you?

That would be silly. We can talk. Your god will understand.

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maliagar, If you look hard enough, you'll find that most man-made organizations that have been established for a long period of time has been guilty of having wronged others simply because they are an assembly of humans. If you understand that, you will understand how groundless your arguments. Attempting to defend the saintliness of your church is an impossible task, because for every good, there will also exist the bad. Telling us about similar wrongdoings by other religious organizations proves nothing; we are already aware they are not perfect. c.i.

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maliagar does not recognize that there has been as much skulduggery in his religion as in any other. Even some of the Popes are guilty or at least suspect. In the child abuse scandals, in WWII in connection with the holocaust - Many years ago I read a history of the Popes. One story that stands out in my memory is of a Pope getting murdered, to be supplanted as Pope by the one engineered his death. The new Pope even had the dead Pope propped up in a chair so he could read charges and rail against him for a considerable time. Witch burning is another of my favorites. In Adventures of Cellini we read of the Pope's scheme to have Cellini murdered. There is no higher standard for Catholics than for other people. A personal friend of mine became pregnant and because of it she was disallowed a church wedding. Four years later, she and her husband went to a priest to see if they could be reinstated. The priest's answer: "I think so; but, you owe God a lot of money."

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or as the priest would say "indulge me"

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this irks me TOTALLY
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- A pastor said Saturday that church leaders were trying to heal an autistic 8-year-old boy when he inexplicably stopped breathing and died during a prayer service Friday night.

During the hourlong session, the boy's feet and hands were restrained by his mother and other church members who prayed intensely for his violent tendencies to cease, the pastor's wife said.

"He just passed away," Pastor David Hemphill said of the boy. "God is a mysterious person, and if he wants to call a life back, he does."

Milwaukee police officers arrested a man Friday night at Faith Temple Church of Apostolic Faith, a small storefront in a strip mall that houses a pizza restaurant and a dry cleaner.

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One day my aunt told me how a man broke into a Billy Graham service and fired a gun. Nobody got hurt in the incident. My aunt told me, "God was there, protecting those people." I replied, "I read last night about a church roof caving in on a church congregation of nine hundred people."

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truth
What I detest most of all, Edgar, is when Christians claim that they have been spared by God from some disaster, say in an airplane crash. The implication is that all those who died were deemed unworthy by God for the same salvation. In rural central America people who have survived a calamity often commission a painting on a piece of tin (a retablo) which depicts the calamity. One comes to mind, a house on fire with its resistents fleeing and an angel floating above the house. The people say they commission the retablo in gratitude to the saint, to honor the saint. In reality they are proclaiming to their neighbors in a permanent way (the painting) that they were deemed worthy in the mind of the angel to be saved. Social hypocrisy.

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JLN, That's religious hypocrisy, and nothing else.

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JLN, Closer to home; my sister's husband died after a long illness from Parkinson's and a stroke. She said she prayed to god every day for his recovery, and actually thought he would get well. What can I say? c.i.

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truth
C.I., well at least she felt more comfortable up to the time of his death. I remember engaging in various irrationalities myself while my wife was dying. There are times, I think, when irrationalities should be indulged, don't you think?

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Yes. That's the reason why I never criticize my siblings for praying even though I understand the fatility of it all.

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My friend and former associate, "X", told me God helped him to quit drinking. When a few months later he tried to quit smoking and failed, I wanted to ask him why God would help him quit drinking but not smoking? Capricious be the name of the Lord.

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It is God's will that we pursue a thread such as this.
Lord have mercy on those who do not participate in the cleansing of our minds.

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Quote:

Vivien wrote:
"most religions have as their core beliefs no killing, no adultery, don't mistreat people - " The big problem with these edicts is that almost nobody heeds them.

Aha- And now we come to the crux of the matter. I don't believe that nobody heeds those edits. But, most don't. What religion serves to do is engender guilt amongst those people who do not follow the religion's teachings.

Religious groups understand that guilt is an extremely efficient way to control people!

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Quote:

Phoenix32890 wrote
Religious groups understand that guilt is an extremely efficient way to control people!

I agree some groups may. Me, the power of guilt has been destroyed along with fear. I've found Peace, Joy, Contentment, and Purpose in my faith.

I really think that the bible is trying to release us from guilt - but priests and such - reverse and twist it for their own selfish and beaucratic (sp) needs.

I don't think that you can find where "GUILT" is a good thing in the bible.

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Quote:

I really think that the bible is trying to release us from guilt - but priests and such - reverse and twist it for their own selfish and beaucratic (sp) needs.

Husker- You appear to be a person who has found joy and contentment with you faith......and that is good, in terms of your life. The problem is, many many of the faithful have become pawns of the religious bureaucracy of which you speak. IMO, that is neither good nor productive for a person.

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Phoenix, But that is part and parcel of being a christian; to help save other souls. c.i.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Phoenix, But that is part and parcel of being a christian; to help save other souls. c.i.

C.I.
Can you explain that a little more??
Thanks

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You've been touching on the collectivism of religion. The irony is that one always reads that the Christian God gives each individual free will, something collectivism means to destroy. The authoritarianism is there even as much as the clerics up through the hierarchy of the church deny it. They want to forgive their own for breaking the law, of course the most notably example being the recent Catholic church scandal (of which a few unsubstatiated transgressions of other religions cannot wipe out). The church has already admitted they have been wrong in hiding the sexual predators (straight or gay). What are they doing about it? More whitewashing than anything concrete. They probably had secret party when the sodomy laws and the statute of limitations were struck down as it let the majority of the preists off the hook. Now we can all go comfortably back to our little jokes about the priest and the choirboy.

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BTW, Francis Crick's scientific proof that a soul exist is a soul that doesn't need to be saved. Religions have made themselves exclusive within their own ranks, praying for the souls of others is a totally abstract concept.

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When has religion irked you personally and why?

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