Scientology for dummies

Christianity highlights many strong women in the bible. Like Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene were close friends to Jesus and they were respected. Lydia, a wealthy respected business woman is talked about in the New Testament. The bible doesn't look at women as lower than low. They saw different roles between a man and a woman. Each role was important. The bible does not look down on women.

And the witch hunts...people do many stupid things out of fear. I guess these early "Christians" thought that they were doing their community a service by trying to get rid of "demons." I am not going to try and justify their actions, but I will reiterate that God does not want us to kill other people and they did and they shouldn't have. Once again...people make rash decisions when they are afraid.

You can conjure up the mistakes of past "Christians" and you will...to prove YOUR points, but the key here is that people are human first and foremost and the actions that many so called Christians in the past have been the furthest thing from true Christian ideals and God's plan. Humans make mistakes.

The Nazis...they claimed to be Christian, but nothing that they did followed true Christian ideology. They were anything, but. Missionaries that killed Natives who chose not to believe...all of those examples are of people who did bad things in the name of a religion; not based on those religion's principles.

I don't call you insane or crazy. I call you afraid. Insanity comes later.

You know, it's really not far greater than human comprehension. Pretty to think so but not really so

Are you kidding? It's the easiest thing there is. No thought required! Check your brain at the door! All those people who doubt you? No need to really debate them. You have the ultimate trump card: "Oh it's all beyond your understanding. It's a mystery of faith"

I think you are right: They are not misguided or brainwashed. I think they do it mainly because they are afraid. Natural human tendency. Fear of the unknown. We need a pretty story to neatly explain away all the things we don't understand.

It's the same reason that the Greeks and Romans came up with stories about Zeus and Apollo and all the various gods they worshipped. Need an explanation for fire? Well there must be a fire god of course! Why do the ocean waves rise and fall? Why there must be an ocean god, of course.

Nobody asked him to. But providing a little proof would be nice.

Well then if I don't believe in him, it's his fault. I'm just working with the tools he gave me.

And there is the source of the fear that led man to create god in the first place. The fear that maybe there IS no purpose. Because people fear a world in which there is no "grand design". They read a story about some wacked out father burns his 5-year-old daughter alive with lighter fluid, watch a little innocent girl die horribly and in pain and then turn to everyone else with a straight face and still try to maintain that a loving God made the universe and that this is part of his grand plan.

That's the source of the insanity, by the way.

My favorite bit is the part the Catholics tried to sell me. About how that girl had to suffer because she had "original sin".

That was their rationalization. What's yours? Oh wait, don't tell me. It's a mystery of faith, right?

We seem to have a bit out confusion here in the term "crystal clear". Appearing before me in physical form and changing the course of a river with the wave of a hand -- something along those lines -- now THAT is crystal clear.

Having the sun rise and the day be pretty? Not so much. I could just as easily say it's the Flying Spaghetti Monster that does that and would be every bit as valid.

Of course you do. But you chose to do that first. God was the result of that desire to believe, not the other way around. Please at least see that.

I feel those who deserve mockery are those who turn off their brains, get all starry-eyed and say "I believe" without a rational source. People who are otherwise rational in all aspects of life seem to competely throw out the rules when in comes to this stuff.

If I lookout the window and see it raining one day, I take my umbrella. Because I know from experience that rain will make me get wet.

If I see an open flame, I do not put my hand upon it. Because I know from prior experience exactly what the result is going to be. I didn't see some pretty sunrise one day and realize the fire will burn me. Not even my parents TELLING me that really made it sink in. No, like most kids, I actually tried it one time and what do you know, I got burned.

People make such rational decisions in the tiniest of matters every day without a second thought. Yet when it comes to the most important matter of all - the question of a "purpose" for life, these very same people throw all the rules of evidence out the door.

They say, "Oh I know God has never appeared before me. I realize he's never turned water into wine for me or made day become night in some way that science could not explain. But I'm going to ignore every rational impulse I've ever had in my life - impulses upon which my very life DEPENDS - and just believe in God anyway.

Such careless disregard for rationality makes me sick. I have no sympathy for religious people who get upset when the sheer absurdity of their beliefs is pointed out to them. I don't go around volunteering my atheism to them but they seem to feel perfectly acceptable shower us all with their "faith" and have the gall to be insulted if I tell them I think their faith is ridiculous

Too many tens of thousands of people have died for your beliefs, lady. The burden is on you.

The latter is true enough. At one level they do seem to believe in stuff without rational proof, don't they. People like Einstein, even. Crazy!

So while we await your mockery of Einstein (though the poor guy ain't around to defend himself!) I'll suggest that some might find the notion that you have it all figured out, what's true and rational, what's not, why people believe what they do, and the fact that they all do out of the same single motivation... well, there are those who might find that a little mock-worthy too.

Such a profound a nuanced understanding of human behavior and belief and religion!

OK, so you do worship a jealous god and his name is rationality. Heh.

And in all seriousness, I'm with you there Joe. I'm very very un-fond of being evangelized to. Being told what to do, what to believe, doesn't sit well with me. I'm not crazy about their forms of religion, nor their certainty that they're right and you and I are wrong, and insistence that we listen to them while they don't to us. That sh!t sux.

All the same I gotta say, you paint with a broad and unsubtle brush and write as though you have about as broad and deep an understanding of your fellow man and his motivations and needs and beliefs as your typical fundamentalist. I see an enormously wide spectrum of beliefs, of reasons for the beliefs, of practices, of conceptions, of morality... there's a whole lot more here than a true/false quiz "do you believe in one or more big ol' magic dude(s) in the sky called 'god'?" And tremendously good and horrifically bad results from what people do with these beliefs and practices. And also plenty of good and bad that comes from people being human (which is to say, in part, animals and not androids running on pure logic), that probably doesn't really have all that much to do with the religions though the religions get the credit or the blame.

Tilman Hausherr

Millions of people in the world have died for MANY different types of beliefs daily...whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, so on. It's not right and I'm not going to pretend that it is.

Having faith in something in a society that looks down upon you for your beliefs IS a difficult thing, especially for a twenty-something woman. We live in a society that cares so much about what other people think and pleasing those around us. Those things don't concern me. Do you think it's easy to come on to a public forum to explain MY faith...my own personal beliefs and be criticized for it? NO, it's VERY difficult. I didn't check my mind in at the door when I chose to believe in a higher power. It's an on going winding road that does take TRUST and FAITH in the unknown. That is why I say it's beyond human comprehension. People aren't likely to waste their "free-thinking" minds on faith of the unknown. Not everything can be explained into a neat little package. You're right.

How much better would it be to just think to myself: "There's no real purpose to life. There is no afterlife. We live and we die and that's it." It seems so easy and there have been times in my life where I wonder...is it really that simple?

I PERSONALLY don't believe that it is that simple and so what that I think that. It's not checking my brain at the door. It's a matter of searching and believing in something MORE. You act like as a Christian, you completely give up the ability to be rational and you are wrong.

"And there is the source of the fear that led man to create god in the first place. The fear that maybe there IS no purpose. Because people fear a world in which there is no "grand design". They read a story about some wacked out father burns his 5-year-old daughter alive with lighter fluid, watch a little innocent girl die horribly and in pain and then turn to everyone else with a straight face and still try to maintain that a loving God made the universe and that this is part of his grand plan.

That's the source of the insanity, by the way.

My favorite bit is the part the Catholics tried to sell me. About how that girl had to suffer because she had "original sin".

That was their rationalization. What's yours? Oh wait, don't tell me. It's a mystery of faith, right?" QUOTE

There's no part of me that condones harm or violence upon someone else in the name of God because it is twisted and it is man. How could someone burn their child in the name of God? They are not God and they do not know his plan. Who in the Catholic faith told you that her death was okay considering that God says that no one should commit murder. I have a hard time believing that they would condone killing another human being. If they do, then they are not following the word of God. They are turning it into something else.

Like I said before in my other posts...I have NO problem with the fact that you don't believe, I am not shoving my faith down your throat. I am defending my faith to your patronizing post and there's a difference. I am trying to shed light on the fact that there is more to Christianity and a relationship with God than the bad examples that have been seen throughout history.

I don't expect you to understand. Christianity is a risk....not an easy out. It is faith in something that is unseen, but something that you feel and know is right in your heart and in your soul. Maybe you don't get it and that's okay. Quite frankly, it doesn't affect YOU one way or the other.

Searching for significance in world where people criticize, judge, and name call....just like you did in your previous post is the real burden that I don't mind bearing. Some people don't agree in my faith...I don't expect them to.

please dont squeeze the garmin wrote:

The latter is true enough. At one level they do seem to believe in stuff without rational proof, don't they. People like Einstein, even. Crazy!

Ah but Einstein postied theories. Not religions.

All the same I gotta say, you paint with a broad and unsubtle brush and write as though you have about as broad and deep an understanding of your fellow man and his motivations and needs and beliefs as your typical fundamentalist.

Admittedly I paint with a broad brush there. That comes as much from a desire to keep a huge post from being...er... "huger" as it does from a belief that every religious person out there has some secret fear of the unknown. But I do think that's the primary foundation of most religious belief because it does not stand up to the logic and critical thought that we happily apply to the rest of our lives. Such processes are usually rejected out of hand when religion comes along and I cannot understand why.

I see the dichotomy between rationality in every day life and the near complete abscence of it in the bigger questions and my reaction varies from bemused to outraged. Mostly I keep this stuff to myself (as I wish religious folk would) but every once in a while I reply and posts like my previous one result.

So, you can't stand when religious people post to stand up for their beliefs, but have no problem with people who bash them and their relgion? Sounds like a major double standard.

I think it should be. If you really believe this stuff, what on earth do you care what I think about it? And if I or someone else asks a pointed question that you cannot answer except with "I don't expect you to understand," and even THAT doesn't reach you, then again, how is it that my opinion of you does?

Trust and faith have to have a SOURCE. Suppose I know someone all my life and from my experience I know he's a standup guy. Honest, caring, etc. Then one day he's accused of a crime. He tells me he didn't do it and I believe him.

Now THAT is trust and faith. I know someone. I've conversed with him. I've spent countless hours with him. I have prior experience. In the very least, I don't have to wonder if he even EXISTS. I don't have to trust and have faith in that.

My friend earns that trust and faith because he is there. Not in a sunrise. Not in a flower. Not in metaphor. But physically THERE. Speaking to me in the English language. I can see him, speak to him and touch him.

But apparently I don't rate that kind of interaction from God. I'm supposed to hear a story from the bible written by a man and just believe. Doesn't that seem a even little bit outrageous to you?

Why does it need to be? Nobody is asking God to explain the basics of matter vs anti-matter. Nobody expects him to explain string theory or how/if the big bang actually happened. All they want is a simple little bit of proof that he is actually THERE. That's not so hard for an infinite being, right?

But apparently it is.

Why?

Nobody asked you to. Yes that would be easy. But that's not what I would suggest. It isn't hard to believe that there is no purpose. But try believing that and still living a good life. Christianity did not invent "treat your neighbor as yourself".

Try choosing your own purpose. Or even better, just admit that you don't know one way or the other. What's hard is saying, "I don't know what the purpose of life is or IF THERE IS a purpose to life. I certainly have no reason to believe a pretty bible story about it. But I think I'm going to live like a good person anyway, "

Those grey areas are a hell of lot harder than either of the extremes. But everyone wants the extremes.

I think you misread what I wrote. None of the priests or nuns who taught me ever told me that her death was "okay". They actually told me that she wasn't going Heaven because of original Sin. (I think Vatican II changed things so that she would go to purgatory first but I can't remember my sunday school stuff. But I digress...)

The only real official rationale that the Catholics give for bad things happening to good people is the story of Job. He's a good guy. God throws bad times at him. He stays good. So God makes him better. Not really something that applies here.

My point is that such stuff is a part of his plan because it happens in the first place. Because it is ALLOWED to happen in the first place. Because Free Will is supposed to be worth that price. Simply allowing it to happen is condoning it. God is condoning it.

Suppose I declare you God for a day. Suppose I tell you that you can ensure the future happiness of all mankind. And all you have to do is horribly and brutally torture one little girl (or stand by and let someone else do it).

Would you?

Onahigh wrote:

So, you can't stand when religious people post to stand up for their beliefs, but have no problem with people who bash them and their relgion? Sounds like a major double standard.

I can stand it just fine. As long as they can stand if I contradict them. As I said, I don't generally go around volunteering my atheism to others.

God doesn't control the choices that people make. Setting a little girl on fire was God's plan? Think again. We are free thinkers and doers...that man chose to do an awful thing and no matter how hard you try, you cannot blame that on God. Blame it on a twisted, sick man. Also, the Catholic church has absolutely no control over the fate of the little girl's soul. They are not God, so who are they to say where she ends up in the after life? They don't have that kind of power or knowledge.

Apparently, you want me to admit that I don't know anything about life...maybe like you, and just accept that there's no higher power and no real purpose beyond what we see on a day to day basis here on Earth. Well, I'm not going to do that. When I say that I don't expect you to understand it's because my faith and relationship with God is very individualized. How can I show you and prove to you what I feel and the things that I experience through a message board? It's virtually impossible. That sounds like an easy out, but it is reality. You know what...it's fine that you want to live like a good person. Good for you. I am not on here to tell you that you need anything more. I am telling you that I needed something more.

As human beings...we are rational thinkers and we need proof in order to believe that something is true. You don't realize that there is so much more to our complex beings. We are physical, mental, emotional, and we are SPIRITUAL. No matter what form that takes on, most people need something to satiate that aspect of themselves. I have faith in the wind. I can't see the wind, but I can see the affects of it. I may not be able to see God, but I feel his presence and I can see the things that he has done in my life and the lives of countless people. I know that's not good enough for you, but what I am sensing is that no explanation that you get from me or from anyone else will ever be good enough. You have your mind made up and you seek to discredit me and my faith. That's fine, but I am not a mindless idiot. I believe for reasons that are beyond your comprehension.

People who have a relationship with God do spend time with him and converse with him and they KNOW he exists.

Well, I'm off. I have to go run. I'm sorry that I could not give you the answers that you were looking for, but just know that it's okay for people to think differently than you. It doesn't make them a moron, they are just searching for and finding truth in things that the "average joe" can't and won't understand.

But in the post I was responding to, you seemed irrationally upset with people based on their beliefs, when you said:

So I gotta think you're doubly ill in Albert's general direction, knowing that here's a dude who really should've known better!

Even if I accepted that you were right about "fear of the unknown" being the primary reason five or six billion people hold various religious beliefs and observe a mind-boggling array of practices and meet as congregations and sing and discuss creation myths and codes of conduct and celebrate births and mourn deaths and so on and so on... I'd still ask, if religion effectively addresses this fear, what's so wrong with that? Isn't the rational view that it's effective at solving a problem? Would you be happier if they took a pill for it instead?

And if by "unknown" you mean primarily death, again, a gentle reminder that not all religions believe in an afterlife. Jews don't have a heaven. It's just dust to dust, baby!

You still seem awfully focused on religion being about the Existence of a Great Big Magic Dude in the Sky, which is of course unprovable (and even, some of us would agree, more and more implausible the more literal a version one has in mind). There are other angles from which to observe religions, some of them far more interesting and useful than their stories about deities, IMO.

And some of the things people get from their religion, such as values and rules to live by, are simply not in the domain of pure rationality, untainted logic. As much as some folks (Kant comes to mind) struggled to make them so (why? Was he afraid of the unknown? Of emotion, of instinct, of our fundamentally animal nature?)

Rationality doesn't ultimately tell me anything, really, about what to do and what to hold dear, as an individual nor as a member of a society. It is no doubt a pretty damn important tool in helping determine how to go about pursuing what I value (e.g. self-preservation) but I'll be surprised if you can convince me either of us is getting or should receive our values from pure logic.

I do not consider muslims who blow themselves up to be martyrs. They are only brainwashed psychos who do not understand what they are doing.

You cannot even compare radical Christians and radical Muslims. I do not deny that there have been isolated incidents caused by radical Christians, but they do not measure up to those of Muslims. Radical Muslims are far worse than radical Christians. Again, who caused 9/11?

They were not all doubting, only Thomas was. Ever heard of "Doubting Thomas"?

But who made that twisted sick man? And, more importantly, what grand plan is worth the hell that she suffered. Are you telling me God did not KNOW what that sick man was going to do? I think he did. But that's supposed to be the price of free will. Tell me, is free will worth that?

Where were you when I was twelve years old! Seriously, though they would agree with you on that

On the contrary, they say that they definitely have that knowledge. I thought they were kind of full of it even when I was a young though.

I don't want you to admit you don't know anything about life. I certainly don't want you to say there is no no higher power. I don't know if there is one or not (perhaps that makes me agnostic, not atheist, but labels like that get wearing after awhile). I just don't understand why you, like the rest of us, base so much of your life on rationality except the one thing that matters most.

Holly I don't mean to say that you don't feel the things you do. That would be ridiculous. I just don't understand how you can base the most important belief of all upon nothing more than a feeling when (again, like the rest of us) you base most other decisions on empirical evidence and personal, material experience.

I don't doubt that. I just don't buy that our "spirituality" somehow magically imposes reality upon the universe.

Yes I do, as do you

Not really. I do however wish that the next time you try to hand it someone else, you would come up with a better explanation than, "You wouldn't understand". I'm actually a pretty smart guy, Holly. I might surprise you.

I don't believe you are Holly. I think that smartest people in the world can "turn of their minds" if they so desire. That does not make them mindless idiots

I very much doubt it.

But never in the material, physical sense of the word, do they. The same reasoning you use to KNOW that god exists can be used to KNOW that the Easter Bunny or Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.

God gave me this Euclidean mind of mie Holly. He can hardly be surprised when I use it to try to separate the real from the unreal.

I have brothers, sisters and parents who believe as you do, Holly. I do not think they are morons any more than I think you are. I just think they, and you give up (intellectually speaking) too easily.

Hey, if I'm wrong, I've got a hell of a payback coming when I die, right?

Anyway, you never answered my question. For the happiness of all humanity, would you brutally torture that one little girl, or stand by and let her be tortured?

Jim Jones. David Koresh. The cats that thought the comet was coming to pick them up. Twelve easily swayed individuals in the case of the apostles pales when compared to some more modern day "martyrs".

Sorry...I didn't see that question in your post.

I don't quite understand your question, but I will try to answer it. For the happiness of humanity would I torture that little girl? Absolutely not nor would I stand by and let that happen, either. I care about people. I care about their safety and I absolutely would not wish harm or support harm on another human being regardless if some religion said that it was okay. There's no part of me that would stand by and let her be killed, no way. God would not want me to stand ilde and watch. How awful. The people who told you that this little girl had it coming or that she is doomed because she is a sinner are idiots. Like I said before...they are not in control of her fate, or their own. That's God's job and He loves his children, whether they believe in Him, or not. That NEVER changes.

Here's the deal. My Christian experience is about a relationship with God not just a matter of calling myself something. I don't agree with you when you say that it was God's will and that he was in control of the death of that little girl. I will go back to my previous statement when I said that people are free thinkers and God designed us to make decisions...good or bad. This man make a horrific, bad decision. That was not God's will. It happened. A human being MADE it happen. God did not force that man to do it. And although he exhibits control over the universe, he does not control our actions like we are robots. He specifically made it so we are not robots.

I hope that this answers your question.

*To the previous poster who mentioned the apostles and 911. I was not calling you out on your post. I actually was agreeing with you....although I would reiterate that religions can be taken to the extreme. Radical muslims were responsible for 911, majority of Muslims are peaceful and do not wish harm on others. That's all. I thought that you made a very valid point about the apostles. Paul is the best example that I can think of.

Holly wrote:

Sorry...I didn't see that question in your post.

I don't quite understand your question, but I will try to answer it. For the happiness of humanity would I torture that little girl? Absolutely not nor would I stand by and let that happen, either. I care about people. I care about their safety and I absolutely would not wish harm or support harm on another human being regardless if some religion said that it was okay.

It was a loaded question. I knew you wouldn't. And so you have my congratulations. Because you have just shown yourself to be more compassionate than God himself. Because God himself would stand by, did stand by, and DOES stand by every time such things happen. Every day. Complete innocents suffer horribly and die. And God does nothing.

The nuns and priests told me it was so we could have the gift of "free will". I don't think that price is worth it. Do you? More importantly, I don't know how anyone justifies the cost. And so I don't understand how anyone can believe in that God.

Now I don't expect you to suddenly embrace my belief (or disbelief, as it were) but I am willing to discuss it and back it up with argument for as long as it takes. I certainly would never claim it was "beyond your understanding".

Ultramiler wrote:

Venerable Bede wrote:

So why are you expressing yourself in a Christian language, using abstract Christian idioms ('it is more acceptable to believe') and a Christian timescheme?

This is rhetorical, of coure, not a challenge. The point is you can't think outside of the box of your own culture. You make a nodding reference to Jupiter (Zeus) as though that were an exotic alternative, rather than the pre-Christian predecessor to this culture.

A Christian language? That's so ludicrous a statement that I'm not even going to bother with it. I'm sure the Angles and Saxons would have been very surprised to hear that their language was a Christian one. That aside, the very concept of a language being inextricably bound up with religion is a ludicrous one. Even Arabic existed before the Qur'an.

Next thing you'll say is that America is a Christian nation. Sheesh.

But we're not posting in Anglo-Saxon, are we? Or Old Low German or anything like that. We're using a tongue that is quite recognizably that of Pope and Dryden and Shakespeare and even Chaucer...something that was formed and nurtured by Western Christianity. A Christian language; indeed, a Catholic language.

Same would be true if we were talking in French or German, or indeed most western languages.

You can't get away from it.

I have a question. Throughout american history, has christianity been more of a positive or negative influence to the US?

scientology is gay for being the cause of this supremely gay thread that just unrightfully bashes religon. now i am all for support of bashing scientology because it is not a real religon, it was an old washed up authors attempt to save some cash through taxes, and all of a sudden he sees golden scam and thus scientology for dummies. but the bashing on real religons weather you believe in them or not does not belong on a board where many others who believe in said religon are going to read such things. NO arguing on a letsrun board is ever going to change anyones mind on this matter plain and simple it doesnt belong. I believe in God and more so in Jesus, because weather or not my religon is true or not, i know that Jesus was 100% a real person (son of God or not) and the followings of christianity is to live your life as best you can as Jesus would. And i am a better person for it and honestly that is all that matters.