Controversy! Arguementation! Choose your religion!! [With poll]

[Geno]

Hey, Reggie! Is that rhinocerous around?!

[A Black Falcon]

I added Baha'i (a few days ago) because I also thought I remembred OB1 saying he was one...

As for Star Wars, it definitely is true that the Old Republic Jedi had really harsh rules. Unnecessarially so. Episode III definitely should help explain that and why it changed...

As for 'the new jedi' though, I'd take that as a referece to the New Jedi Order book series, set many years after the RotJ... and that series kind of does change how the (recreated, Luke-led) Jedi order operates. I can't say exactly how it ends up though because I haven't read the last two books (of a 20 or so book series)...

[Great Rumbler]

I added Baha'i (a few days ago) because I also thought I remembred OB1 saying he was one...

I don't know about specifics, but it seems like I remember OB1 saying that he was part of a religion other than what some might call "the norm".

[Darunia]

Well---uh, hi, my name is DARUNIA, and I'm an atheist.

ALL: Hi, Darunia!

Yea, there's like... no God, and stuff. Any takers?

[Geno]

Darunia: There's no God.

Geno: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

OB1: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

GR: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

ASM: Yeah their IZ!

Darunia: No there isn't.

Ryan: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

EM: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

God: Yeah there is.

Darunia: No there isn't.

God: No, Darunia... I am God.

Darunia: No you're not.

ABF: *opens mouth in preparation to speak*

OB1: Shut up, ABF, you don't have an opinion.

GR: Neither do you.

OB1: Yeah I do!

God: No you don't.

OB1: Dammit!

[A Black Falcon]

:)

[Great Rumbler]

That's pretty much accurate.

[A Black Falcon]

Definitely.

[deanna]

that was good Geno

[OB1]

If there's one thing I try to never do, it's argue about religion. It's all about belief, right? So what right do I have to tell something that they're wrong about not believing what I believe in? It's perfectly alright if ABF and Darunia don't believe in God.

[Geno]

If there's one thing I try to never do, it's argue about religion. It's all about belief, right? So what right do I have to tell something that they're wrong about not believing what I believe in? It's perfectly alright if ABF and Darunia don't believe in God.

Agreed.

[Great Rumbler]

You guys are no fun at all. :)

[Geno]

It's something we try not to do, but sometimes we (or I, anyway) get caught up in it anyway.

[Darunia]

I don't want to fight over stupid things like religion; let's all jsut be friends!

[Great Rumbler]

...

[Weltall]

I don't want to fight over stupid things like religion; let's all jsut be friends!

Who are you and what have you done with Darunia?

[Geno]

Are you saying you miss the old Darunia? :D

It shows you really do care. :)

[Darunia]

We don't need no education.


--Pink Floyd

[Great Rumbler]

Or dark sarcasm!

[Geno]

Pink Floyd kicks so much ass.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, they're pretty cool. *has Echoes and Dark Side of the Moon*

[Weltall]

"Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd smiling"

[OB1]

I like their earlier stuff more.

[Great Rumbler]

Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky.

[Geno]

I have Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, and Wish You Were Here. Those last two CDs only have five songs each, but they're all, like... 15 minutes long. :D

[Great Rumbler]

Echoes has about 32 songs, it's a "best of" collection.

[Weltall]

Eight years later:

My quest to fortify my relationship with Christ has sort of gone wrong. Over the last three years, I slid from liberal Christianity to true 50/50 agnosticism to soft atheism to full-on anti-theism in the style of Christopher Hitchens.

In almost all ways, if I could debate myself from eight, nine years ago, I would destroy myself savagely.

[Great Rumbler]

You post a lot of stuff on Facebook, Weltall.

[Fittisize]

8 years ago when this thread was created I'd probably identify myself as a Catholic and today I'd more properly sum myself up as "Catholic but in an I don't give a shit kind-of-way." I have zero faith in God and by no means am I a practicing Catholic, but it's still a part of my being and I don't think I'll ever shed that part of me.

But I've been doing a lot of tinkering over the years. I'm starting to dig astrology and voodoo and all kinds of spiritual practices. I believe in ghosts. There's all kinds of life forces out there.

I've also been doing a lot of reading and research from an academic perspective. I'm still in school after all these years and in the past few it's been the topic of freedom of religion that's interested me most. I've spent a great many hours and a great many pages shed about the Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada and the United States, and the many many Supreme Court battles and prolonged efforts of civil disobedience in the face of widespread persecution in order to affirm the right to practice their religion freely. Do you wonder why they can just come onto your property, knock on your door, and spread the good news of God? Because that specific practice has been given constitutional protection. Stuff like that I find tremendously inspiring, so when I see Christopher Hitches-style militant atheism I'm sort of left conflicted because, freedom of speech on one hand, it's sometimes seriously denigrating towards a civil right of paramount importance, a right that some groups have fought with unbridled bravery and determination to protect. I sometimes wish that atheists would stop appointing themselves the magistrates of logic and reason and understanding as if people of faith, even those with fundamentalist convictions, are incapable of having those qualities. Why can't we all just love one another.

[Dark Jaguar]

I've heard that from former Catholics in that they still somehow consider themselves catholic even after shedding pretty much every single aspect that makes them a catholic. That's not a bad thing, it's your choice, but it is weird that so many former Catholics hold onto the label. It's not something you see from most other religions. I've not heard of former protestants who keep the title of "christian" or former scientologists who still consider themselves scientologists after abandoning everything else, or former jedi who still call themselves jedi. Well actually come to think of it a lot of former Jewish people (Jewish faith, I should make that distinction) still call themselves Jewish, even if they don't actually believe anything that would make them Jewish any more. It is an odd peculiarity I have a hard time wrapping my head around. I understand the "entire identity wrapped up in faith" thing mind you, as mine was once upon a time, but when I finally decided to go all the way to "6 out of 7" on the atheism scale, I had no desire whatsoever to keep ANY part of that, title and all, in my life.

I'm not saying you can't call yourself whatever you want to call yourself, but it does defy understanding by someone on the outside. Is part of it a community thing?

[A Black Falcon]

Maybe some more so than others, but I'm sure we all said things back then that we would now disagree with, on this or plenty of other subjects...

[Sacred Jellybean]

For instance, I identified as a buddhist. What pretentious nonsense.

Otherwise, us athiests would have won the Christian vs Athiest tug-of-war (tied now at 4). Sorry for dropping the ball dudes.

[etoven]

I suck porpoise bung hole and call it faith. I'm not seeing that option in your survey?

[Weltall]

You just missed it, it's "Islam".

[alien space marine]

I've gone from being a bible pushing door knocker , to a godless heathen.