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The Bible

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Comments

  • #242
    Shenshen
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    B.A._Baracus wrote: »
    I say believe in what you want to believe in and let others do the same.

    Couldn't agree more.
    I'm actually quite fascinated with people who are very religious. Not so much about religions, but about the people who follow them. I'm curious about their motivations, about their perception of their religion and about their reasons for being religious.


  • #243
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    B.A._Baracus wrote: »
    I say believe in what you want to believe in and let others do the same.
    What if I believe you deserve to be tortured for not believing what I believe.

    This is something all Christians have to square away in their head. Everyone else is going to sent to a land of torture and suffering because they won't get down on their knees and worship their god. It's not about being bad, it's about not worshiping their king/god. All those Buddhist monks, eternity of torture. All the people suffering through a dictatorship in N.Korea, there's no relief in death, it's only going to get worse when you die.


  • #244
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Couldn't agree more.
    I'm actually quite fascinated with people who are very religious. Not so much about religions, but about the people who follow them. I'm curious about their motivations, about their perception of their religion and about their reasons for being religious.

    I have a different fascination myself. I have a genuine strong fascination for people who can "believe in what you want to believe in". How does that even work? What does it feel like?

    I myself can not choose what to believe. I am COMPELLED to believe in things in the face of the evidence for them.......... or I simply fail to believe in the absence of any.

    For those of you who can simply believe what you want..... how labile does your credulity get? Can you, for example, look into a clearly empty box and simply choose to believe it stuffed full of cash? Do you actually then start to see the cash there?

    It is probably a wonderful skill to have. For example I can only imagine my personal feeling of well being, as good as it is, would be elevated if I could simply choose to believe Lisa Hannigan is deeply in love with me.

    There is a genuinely interesting phenomenon where people can lose use of a limb. An entire arm following something like, say, a stroke can simply stop working. But these people will simply believe it is fully functional. And if you ask them to touch their nose they will actually use the working hand to LIFT the "dead" hand, touch their nose with it, put it back..... and they will tell the doctor they did what was asked and the arm is fully functional.

    Is it a bit like that??


  • #245
    Shenshen
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    I have a different fascination myself. I have a genuine strong fascination for people who can "believe in what you want to believe in". How does that even work? What does it feel like?

    I myself can not choose what to believe. I am COMPELLED to believe in things in the face of the evidence for them.......... or I simply fail to believe in the absence of any.

    For those of you who can simply believe what you want..... how labile does your credulity get? Can you, for example, look into a clearly empty box and simply choose to believe it stuffed full of cash? Do you actually then start to see the cash there?

    It is probably a wonderful skill to have. For example I can only imagine my personal feeling of well being, as good as it is, would be elevated if I could simply choose to believe Lisa Hannigan is deeply in love with me.

    There is a genuinely interesting phenomenon where people can lose use of a limb. An entire arm following something like, say, a stroke can simply stop working. But these people will simply believe it is fully functional. And if you ask them to touch their nose they will actually use the working hand to LIFT the "dead" hand, touch their nose with it, put it back..... and they will tell the doctor they did what was asked and the arm is fully functional.

    Is it a bit like that??

    I get that, to some extend. For me personally, though, the fascination is linked with the decision on which religion to go with.
    Let's face it, there's more choice of religion out there than there are wines in your off-license. You can try a few, yes, but if you're serious you can't give them all the same consideration. And you will not find out until it's too late if your choice was the right one.
    Yet most religious people I've spoken to have told me that they have no doubt whatsoever that their's is the one and only correct one.
    I'd be very curious to understand that - so far, I can't.


  • #246
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Shenshen wrote: »
    I get that, to some extend. For me personally, though, the fascination is linked with the decision on which religion to go with.
    Let's face it, there's more choice of religion out there than there are wines in your off-license.

    Indeed, I read an interesting statistic from the "World Christian Encyclopedia" that suggests there is over 33000 brands, off shoots, sects and divergences in Christianity alone. Let alone all the other world religions.

    Another interesting statistic I remember reading was that Americans change religion more often than they change Cell Phone Providers. And often for the most mundane of reasons that should, you would think, pale in comparison to the goal of choosing the "right" religion rather than the most convenient.

    You would think peoples reasons for choosing a religion would be more like "I genuinely think this is the right path to god" and less like "Well this religion has their meet ups on tuesdays and that fits in perfect with my schedule"

    Fascinating stuff, as you say.


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  • #247
    brickmauser
    Registered Users Posts: 403 ✭✭brickmauser


    Skommando wrote: »
    Actually some of the best books about Kennedy and the Titanic were written in recent years, when time allowed the measured consideration of the collection of all the events and accounts. I've still seen nothing convincing that the gospels could not be written and complied by those who either witnessed the events themselves, or recorded those who had. As for your Pauline claim, only a third of the New Testament is Pauline and details the councils of Jerusalem. Jesus was anything but a politician. Politicians crave earthly power and aims, they don't reject them. As for hippy's they came and went in the 60's. As for claimed messiahs, they still come and go today, yet none of them have the following of Christ.

    Jesus had aristocratic pretensions - his ancestry linking with the Dravidian line is trumpeted in the gospels - he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey during Passover when the city would have been full of pilgrims much as Mecca today would be full to burst during the Haj. The cleansing of the Temple was a clear act of rebellion against the Jewish puppets who the Romans allowed to rule the city. His speeches preaching equality for Jew and pagan, Roman and slave before God and brotherhood of man challenged the Empire.
    This is why he was arrested and crucified.
    The Jews wanted to prevent an explosion precisely like the explosion that led to the Jewish uprising that brought about the destruction of Jerusalem decades later.
    In a less rational age mesmeric men like Martin Luther King and Ghandi and Elvis would be considered prophets and religious figures.


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