time to pry his rifle

[olyclimber]

the lord helps them who help themselves.

 

to extra portions.

[archenemy]

I have a bigger problem with someone saying Christians are evil b/c some Christians judged (and sometimes killed) others for being pretend Christians and then turning around and doing the exact same thing (the judging part).

[olyclimber]

judge not lest you be judged

[JayB]

From Hitchens:

 

"Implicit in this ancient chestnut of an argument is the further -- and equally disagreeable -- self-satisfaction that simply assumes, whether or not religion is metaphysically "true," that at least it stands for morality. Those of us who disbelieve in the heavenly dictatorship also reject many of its immoral teachings, which have at different times included the slaughter of other "tribes," the enslavement of the survivors, the mutilation of the genitalia of children, the burning of witches, the condemnation of sexual "deviants" and the eating of certain foods, the opposition to innovations in science and medicine, the mad doctrine of predestination, the deranged accusation against all Jews of the crime of "deicide," the absurdity of "Limbo," the horror of suicide-bombing and jihad, and the ethically dubious notion of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice.

 

Of course Gerson will -- and must -- cherry-pick this list (which is by no means exhaustive) and patter on about how one mustn't be too literal. But in doing this, he makes a huge concession to the ethical humanism to which he so loftily condescends. The game is given away by his own use of G.K. Chesterton's invocation of Thor. We laugh at this dead god, but were not Norse children told that without Valhalla there would be no courage and no moral example? Isn't it true that Louis Farrakhan's crackpot racist group gets young people off drugs? Doesn't Hamas claim to provide social services to the downtrodden? If you credit any one religion with motivating good deeds, how (without declaring yourself to be sectarian) can you avoid crediting them all? And is not endless warfare between the faiths to be added to the list of horrors I just mentioned? Just look at how the "faith-based" are behaving in today's Iraq.

 

Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first -- I have been asking it for some time -- awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

 

Essentially conceding that philosophy and secularism do not condemn their adherents to lives of unbridled selfishness, and that (say) the Jewish people did not get all the way to Mount Sinai under the impression that murder and theft and perjury were okay, and also that we could not have evolved unless human solidarity was in some way innate, Gerson ends weakly by posing what is a rather moving problem.

 

"In a world without God," he writes, "this desire for love and purpose is a cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution but designed for disappointment." Again, he substitutes the wish for the thought. We very probably are, as he admits, not the designed objects of the Big Bang or of the process of natural selection. But this sober conclusion, objective as it is, is surely preferable to the delusion that we have been created diseased, by a capricious despot, and then abruptly commanded to be whole and well, on pain of terror and torture. That sick joke is one that we can cease to find impressive, that belongs in the infancy of our species, and gives a false picture of reality that we would do well to outgrow."

 

 

[olyclimber]

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

[JayB]

judge not lest you be judged

 

This has to be one of the most pathetic and profoundly wrongheaded moral injunctions of all time, don't you think?

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

judge not lest you be judged

 

This has to be one of the most pathetic and profoundly wrongheaded moral injunctions of all time, don't you think?

 

 

and misquoted (or incompletely quoted):

 

judge not lest thee be judged BY THE SAME MEASURE

[JayB]

judge not lest you be judged

 

This has to be one of the most pathetic and profoundly wrongheaded moral injunctions of all time, don't you think?

 

 

and misquoted (or incompletely quoted):

 

judge not lest thee be judged BY THE SAME MEASURE

 

Definitely an improvement there.

[olyclimber]

judge not lest you be judged

 

This has to be one of the most pathetic and profoundly wrongheaded moral injunctions of all time, don't you think?

 

well it depends on what you are judging. a dog show is perfectly fine. but the fate in the afterlife, should there be one, i'll leave to the experts.

[JayB]

Without KK's extension, it seems like an injunction against rendering any moral judgments about anything.

 

If Nihilism was your religion, then the unextended aphorism would be a good match for the creed.

[sexual_chocolate]

Will no one stand up and defend the honor of the Prophet Leegnar, apostle of the Man/Goat/Snake God?

 

does he come complete with promises of young nubiles and many goats and maybe a mercedes or two?

 

Only then will I defend Him!

 

Perhaps he comes with promises of love and compassion?

 

Will I defend him then?

 

Just who is this Leegnar you speak of?

[JayB]

Will no one stand up and defend the honor of the Prophet Leegnar, apostle of the Man/Goat/Snake God?

 

does he come complete with promises of young nubiles and many goats and maybe a mercedes or two?

 

Only then will I defend Him!

 

Perhaps he comes with promises of love and compassion?

 

Will I defend him then?

 

Just who is this Leegnar you speak of?

 

The Moses of his time and place, if you will...

 

"I have to say that while I'm not terribly impressed by Moses, I'm not a huge fan Leegnar, the warrior priest who channeled the divine wisdom of Rixtnosophlib, the vengeful goat-man-python god at the heart of the Quixtanthor people who fluorished briefly in a remote corner of what is now French Guiana 1500 years ago, before being wiped out by a catastrophic mudslide."

 

Ask of Rixtnosophlib - a deity with objective evidence to support his existence that's every bit as compelling as the deity(ies) at the center of many such discussions - and ye shall receive.

 

Just as a precaution, stay away from steep, waterlogged slopes when doing so. Folks who constructed their homes on the steep slopes in the greater Seattle area would do well to contemplate the fate of the Quixtanthor people, and engage in the appropriate supplications prior to the next Pineapple Express rolls into town...

[ivan]

shit - arch is right - i shoudl stay the hell away from anything involving religion - it was the one rant of my teenage years it took a decade to shut off. i don't know if there's ever been a constructive argument about religion. i think the horror of being forced to sit through mass after mass for 18 long damn years did irreparable damage. it bugs me that i still have all that brain space filled up w/ all that garbage, that i can walk back into a catholic church and still remember when to kneel, to stand, when to break out my wallet and what to say after snack-time.

 

so, why not lighten things up w/ another dead guy words? a guy certainly cooler that charlton heston, who had no end of funny things to say about religion and as such had the best attitude for countenacing its silliness, a man who wrote a "wholly remarkable book...more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway? "

 

some douglas admas' pearls:

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. "

 

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. "

 

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

 

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

 

"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot."

 

"I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it."

 

"If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. "

 

"The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

 

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

 

"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously."

 

"If I were not an atheist, I think I would have to be a Catholic because if it wasn't the forces of natural selection that designed fish, It must have been an Italian."

 

[archenemy]

I think most arguments/discussions around religion are constructive in one way or another. Opting not to see that does not make it untrue.

 

I have a beautiful boxed-set of Adams' work. Love him.

[ivan]

 

I have a beautiful boxed-set of Adams' work. Love him.

and no one had to pry shit out of his hands after he was dead!

[sexual_chocolate]

oh my god, we are all going to die.

[sexual_chocolate]

this is not a joke, it is real.

[archenemy]

Some days, I really look forward to it.

[sexual_chocolate]

before we know it, we will be somewhere, alone or with loved ones, perhaps falling off a mountain, at the last moment of consciousness before the end of THIS.

[sexual_chocolate]

no more thinking, no more feeling, no more seeing.

[archenemy]

Having made it through a NDE, I disagree 100% with the no seeing feeling thinking thing. But maybe we all just end up getting what we expect--whaddo I know?

[sexual_chocolate]

ahh but it has been shown that there is brain activity for days after "death". biology functioning as it will.

 

oh the despair of meaninglessness! impersonal universe and biology taking a conceptualized "self" for a ride....

[ivan]

christ, we're like only a few seconds away from having to read another chapter of war'n'f'n'peace!

[archenemy]

ahh but it has been shown that there is brain activity for days after "death". biology functioning as it will.

I've read about that. All I can say is that the "functioning" is so incredibly different from anything else ever experienced that I know it isn't simply neurons firing around. It isn't even like acid or sleep. Like nothing else.

[sexual_chocolate]

christ, we're like only a few seconds away from having to read another chapter of war'n'f'n'peace!

 

the russians had it right:

 

despair despair and then kiss the cross before you die.