[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Stop thinking like a robot. With that same vein of thinking, why make art when your time can be better spent doing something constructive, something useful towards society? Hell, why be given choices at all, we should let Big Brother make all the decisions for us, for he would know what's best for society?

The reasons humans work is because we allow our unexplicable parts to be expressed in things like art, religion, and freedom of choice. You try to logically explain any one of these phenomenons, and your brain will explode--that's just the nature of it. Maybe eventually you'll realize that your crusade to find a way to explain religion is just silly pseudo-intelligence disguised behind the fact that you, personally, have no beliefs. Realize that not everyone takes a logical approach to religion, and life would end up a lot better, and worse off if they did.[/QUOTE]

Woah, wait... you're saying that not believing in God is a lack of beliefs? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, I'm asking: Is that what you're saying?

To reply to the parts of your post that I do understand, I don't think I'm being robotic at all. Art is perfectly logical. Our eyes take in light and sound. These all trigger different chemical reactions in our brain. If we form a picture that creates the chemical reactions we want to get across, we call it art and hang it on our wall so that we can feel those reactions at our own disgression.

I don't see my logic as robotic, but... logical. Logic isn't a lack of beliefs, but is instead the application of knowledge. That doesn't mean I have no beliefs at all.

In fact, I think religion is sometimes the moral justification of beliefs. The difference between my belief in not killing someone is because I think there are much easier ways of solving a situation, as opposed to someone else's belief that God said not to kill anyone.

External VS Internal Motivation. That isn't at all the difference between having a belief and NOT.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]If nothing else, I had to respond to this. You base your beliefs on a guy who took gold plates from his backyard that were "divinely given", then magically disappeared. Honestly, that's sillier than any other religion I've ever seen, and that's only the BEGINNING of it.[/quote]

I don't see how it is any sillier than parting a sea, or a guy who magically disappears.



Converting people has nothing to do with getting into heaven. Do you know what the concept of heaven is? We seem to get a lot of crap because 'we aren't sending enough people to hell'.



So that they can get into BYU.

*rimshot*

There is this thing in scripture that I am too lazy to find that speaks of obtaining as much intelligence and education as possible. Somehow that relates into getting straight As, I suppose.

There seems to be this concept that you won't succeed unless you have a four year degree from BYU (some people it is the U of U, in Utah it is called the Holy War, and there is a huge football game which is really a lot of fun) and that you won't get into BYU if you don't have a 4.0

Nevermind the fact that most people I know who went to BYU work in grocery stores...

It is kind of odd, but I don't have that problem. I do okay in school, and take time to chill and relax and do things I enjoy. I am not a normal Mormon though, but I know a handfull of kids who don't do well in school. The other thing is that not doing well in school seems to be sign of a trouble child for many. Nevermind when I went to church with eyeliner on to protest the oppression of emo kids. :p



I know not of this Ska thing. However, all of the kids in the ska scene here are Mormon, with a handfull of exceptions. They are however, not the majority. I am sometimes ostracised for owning Iron Maiden CDs. They are coming around though, soon there will be a healthy crop of scary Mormon kids.

I completely agree with Kirby thus far, and furthermore, another example like God vs. Followers.

Hypothetical situation: you are a first grader.
Your hypothetical first grade teacher tells you it is against the rules to hit anyone else.
You don't agree with your first grade teacher on many topics, doesn't mean you allow yourself and others to hit people.
Just because you don't agree that God exists, doesn't mean you don't have any morals, if that's what you're saying.

Robots work only on logic instead of on emotion (well, in practice so far. You know what I'm getting at). Art is emotion. Don't try to tell me otherwise. And not having religion because of all the logical evidence against it isn't a lacking of belief, but a robotic belief that there is no God. It's funny, because you call religion a "justification of morals". It's as if you try to justify everything as somehow being logical, you go out of your way to think of it as logical progression, when religion is not in any which way logical. You even say so in your first post (which was just flamebait waiting to happen, by the way)


Obviously you don't think that anyone can logically believe in such things, yet they do. Catholics and Christians also go back on their beliefs all the time--they lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, sometimes even murder, they are envious. Many of them have no qualms with the wrongs they commit according to their doctrine of beliefs. So how would that be a justification for their own moral beliefs? Doesn't make sense.

I invited some Mormon missionaries into my house. They gave me a video and a free Book of Mormon. They visited me every thursday afternoon for a few months and they explained to me what they believed and why. I even went to their church once. This one kid had a really big mohawk, but was wearing a white shirt (just like all the others.) They were pretty nice, too.
Ultimately I decided that I wouldn't be a Mormon, though. I disagreed with what they believed in. I didn't have an unsettling feeling, either. They told me I was going to heaven just for being a Christian and that I didn't have to be a Mormon.

Logically, you can do something because you like it, want to, or enjoy what it triggers.

For example, I participate in these unconstructive debates because I like it when my quite concrete beliefs are intelligently questioned and criticised, causing me to question myself and others. It's mentally stimulating, and I enjoy meaningful conversation. That is my logic for doing unproductive things.

It is more than possible to logically deduce art and the like. I consider writing art, and consider conversation a form of verbal expression (writing) art.
To me, these debates are art.

Art- logically.

I said it SOMETIMES is a justification of beliefs.

Logic and Emotions can easily coexsist. Emotions, however, do not explain anything. Emotions are REACTIONS, not actions. Acting on emotions is like reading a translation of a translation. You shouldn't react to your emotional fear of death by saying that there logically must be something after death. That's what I'm saying.

<3!

I'll use this as an expansion of my opinion above:

Instead of using what you feel as a means for understanding, you should understand WHY you feel what you do, and foster that. Instead of deducing that there MUST be an afterlife due to your fear of death, it's far more productive and logical to understand that your fear of death is something you'll have to get over, as death is inevitable. Instead, one should help their fear of death through means of a fulfilled life. Decide what fulfillment of your emotional fear of death is, and you've suddenly become a logical emotional person.

Yeah, logic and emotion can coexsist.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Robots work only on logic instead of on emotion (well, in practice so far. You know what I'm getting at). Art is emotion. Don't try to tell me otherwise. And not having religion because of all the logical evidence against it isn't a lacking of belief, but a robotic belief that there is no God. It's funny, because you call religion a "justification of morals". It's as if you try to justify everything as somehow being logical, you go out of your way to think of it as logical progression, when religion is not in any which way logical. You even say so in your first post (which was just flamebait waiting to happen, by the way)


Obviously you don't think that anyone can logically believe in such things, yet they do. Catholics and Christians also go back on their beliefs all the time--they lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, sometimes even murder, they are envious. Many of them have no qualms with the wrongs they commit according to their doctrine of beliefs. So how would that be a justification for their own moral beliefs? Doesn't make sense.[/QUOTE]

Wait, WHAT?

Why is it, to say, that one cannot deduce logic FROM emotion?

So why I'm participating in THIS debate, I'm not sure...

That's cool dude.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Robots work only on logic instead of on emotion (well, in practice so far. You know what I'm getting at). Art is emotion. Don't try to tell me otherwise. And not having religion because of all the logical evidence against it isn't a lacking of belief, but a robotic belief that there is no God. It's funny, because you call religion a "justification of morals". It's as if you try to justify everything as somehow being logical, you go out of your way to think of it as logical progression, when religion is not in any which way logical. You even say so in your first post (which was just flamebait waiting to happen, by the way)


Obviously you don't think that anyone can logically believe in such things, yet they do. Catholics and Christians also go back on their beliefs all the time--they lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, sometimes even murder, they are envious. Many of them have no qualms with the wrongs they commit according to their doctrine of beliefs. So how would that be a justification for their own moral beliefs? Doesn't make sense.[/QUOTE]


But shouldn't you believe in your religion BECAUSE it dictates your opinions? You shouldn't have your opinions dictated by your religion.

You mistake "LOGIC" for "ROBOT"

You can logically believe something because all the evidence you have points that way, and you have/put your faith in the evidence

You seem to skip the evidence step and attribute evidence as robotic, and seems that you should have pure faith without looking at evidence, and if you don't you're robotically dismissing God?

Should. But a lot of people don't. This being where logic fails.

[QUOTE=everyone who was stupid enough to comment in this thread]Bla bla bla...witty obnoxious abuse... religous banter.... yadda yadda yadda...pointless arguing.... etc etc etc.... N00bing and trolling[/QUOTE]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OMGLOLZZ!!1 hahahalollollylol1oneHAHAHA

this thread makes ruthven sad

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I commented on this thread with a your mom joke...

Does that make me special like you?

Yeah, you know this for a fact since you've met every catholic person, quit stating obvious things to get attention.

I read through to half-way through the thread before simply saying this: the 144,000 in Jehovah's Witnesses is a mis-understanding of the book of Revelations, which says that 12,000 from each of the 12 Jewish tribes will be saved during Armageddon.

(Forgive me if this has already been mentioned)

Probably, but it's always good to reiterate.

i heard christians sacrifice kids for partys.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]i heard christians sacrifice kids for partys.[/QUOTE]

No that's just me.

[QUOTE=Glyde Bane]No that's just me.[/QUOTE]

I too partake in this act of merriment.

Bloody 'ell, I'm laid up in bed sick for a few hours and I come here to find this. Gotta be the fastest four pages ever.

Now it's time to read through the fabled "Squirrels" thread.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]i heard christians sacrifice kids for partys.[/QUOTE]

I've heard (actually heard) that Mormons marry their dead.

I had difficulty believing this. Then I converted, and met Sally. She's not a talker, but she'll listen for hours on end.

Plus...

...she can't say no.[/size]

...wow

Get your own, Pope-boy.

what satisfies you, then? besides sex......



not too flame/disagree with you. genuinely curious.

...what do you think moksha, nirvana, Tien, and Heaven are[/b]?

But on a subject that you have little, or no, knowledge of, then logically you cannot come to a logical conclusion. If logic is based on knowledge, then there can be no logic when there is no knowledge.

Fact is, we don't know what happens to us after death, because those that experience it can't very well come back to tell the rest of us. We can theorize and speculate, but we can never know for certain.

We don't know how the universe, or the world, or human beings were created. We can theorize, using what evidence we have, but we can never know, because we can't turn back time and observe the events for ourselves.

We don't know if there's any higher, god-like power. We can theorize, based on evidence for and against such a possibility, but Gods are, by nature, beyond mortal comprehension (or rather, supposed to be), so we can never truly know.

Therefor, in the case of Christianity, anyway, we can not prove, nor disprove, its validity, because we just don't know. (You could argue that modern science has already disproven it, but it hasn't. It has created alternate possibilities, based on what we do know, but again, we don't know if those are valid, either, because we can't. See above.)

I don't know if there's actually poverty in third-world countries. People tell me of starving children, rampant disease, and what have you, but I havn't observed it for myself, so how can I truly know if it really exists? I can't. I take other people's word for it.

Faith.

I can't prove that God exists, or that what the bible says is true. It's impossible. But I have faith, because I believe it. I can't prove it, I can't begin explain it, but I believe it.

So, uh yeah.


Durka durka, Muhammed jihad.

You are one fine bovine.

This thread is no longer awesome because gold doesn't post in it anymore

Don't inflate his already rather rotund ego too much more.

I know

I havent read the whole thread, and I'm only going to answer the original post

1. Why do we follow priests who are imperfect?
A: We dont. We do not follow priests. We follow CHrist, not the priests. The priest is Christ's representation on earth, just as the pope is Christ's head on Earth.

Its a bit difficult to explain.. let me try this way: You study say the writings of Aristotle. You have a teacher who helps you. You are not studying the teacher, you are studying Aristotle. Same thing with priests.

Why are they imperfect? THey are human, like the rest of us. I have met many priests and almost all of them are really good people. Unfortunatly, they stray into error, like the rest of us. The teaching offered of late is not very good and they fall into error.

If a priest teaches error, we cannot listen to that. That does not always make the mass invalid btw.

The only person who was not imperfect was Mary, which leads on to your next question:

We do not worship Mary. Let me make that really really clear. Worship is for God and God alone. First commandment says that quite clearly.

We honour Mary, which is different. Why do we honour her? Because she was so perfect and she was the Mother of God.

In the natural order of things you have this (from the bottom up)

1. Plants, trees, etc.
2. Animals.
3. Man.
4. The angels.
5. God.

Mary is placed above the Angels, despite being a human. This I believe was the reason why Satan turned to evil, because he saw how great she would become and his pride got in the way of that. He was the greatest of the angels, and he couldn't cope with it. For a time (and that is our way of expressing something which can't really apply to us, I'll discuss that in a minute) they (the angels) had a choice: To follow God or not to, just as we do. After they may their choice, that was it.

I think (and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure) Angels are not subject to time, since they have no physical bodies like we do. When I say time above, it was something outside of time, I dont understand it and I dont know if anyone does. An angel can see the full consequences and have a perfect understanding of what it is doing, far more than us. That is why they got the one chance.

Why do we follow the Bible? The Bible is not the one and only source of Dogma. That is what the Church is there for. "Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not hold out against it".
So ok, why do we follow the Church when it is in control by man and subject to the errors I have already discussed? When the Pope is in communion with the Bishops and acting as the universal pastor, he cannot teach error in regards to faith and morals. He simply cannot. He is prevented by the Holy Spirit.

Futhermore, I notice there is a lot of dissention about what we catholics do. One on corner you see people doing one thing and on the other you see them doing another. What is right?
The answer is: What the Church teaches. You do not take what Bob across the road says as true beacuse he is a catholic and he says so. You obey the universal Church and the Canon set down by her.

With regards to the idols we should not worship them, because as rightly stated they are against one of the commandments. Instead they are there to remind us of what we are doing, eg worshipping Christ.

The matter of the trinity:
God is three persons in one nature. Go here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm
That site is very good and it can explain it better than I can. Don't expect to be able to fully understand it, it is outside our capabilities. But thats no excuse not to try

"They obviously like to punish those that only go at Christmas with some HEAVY mass"... not true. I love those masses. They are very solomn and very beautiful. I love a good sung high mass. I quite literally listen to gregorian chant at home (along with rammstein heavy metal too :D).

God the Son, being Jesus Christ, was both God and Man at the same time. He was two natures in one person. He has a Human Nature, and a Divine Nature and at no time was either diminished. He was both.

Why? In order to re-open the gates of heaven, there needed to be a perfect sacrifice by a Man. We are not capable of a perfect sacrifice, only God is. So this person needed to be both God and Man.

To the people who say we add stuff: The church cannot create new Dogma. That is not with in its powers. The reason that the Catholic Church will not ordain female priests is because She does not have the power.
The Church can only clarify things to apply them to modern day situations... if you get my drift. Public revelation stopped at the death of the last apostle.


Oh and... FLAME FLAME FLAME FLAME FLAME DIE BURN FLAME WHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!

What I don't understand is why Catholics believe that Mary was sinless.

It states many times in the bible that all man is sinful. I've heard it said that Mary must have been sinless, because she gave birth to Christ, but I don't see why one would say that; It says many times in the bible that all man is sinful, and I don't see why Mary would be an exception, as the power of Christ's birth came from God, not Mary, and I havn't been able to find any bible verses that specifically refer to Mary as sinless.

But I'm not trying to mock catholicism or anything. I'm genuinely curious as to why they believe this.

I know this bit is a bit old but:


Collins Latin Dictionary (ISBN 0-00-472092-X)

crux, -ucis f gallows, cross; (fig) torment; abi in malam ~cem = go and be hanged!

Hopefully we can leave that one well and truly behind us now.

I'm on the way out the door, but I pulled this up real quick for ya:
http://www.catholiconline.com/featured/headline.php?ID=555

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Another sidenote--the religion that seems the most true to the bible to me is Islam. It basically preaches all the goodness that man should be, also one of the most interesting counters to all christianity has come from a follower of that religion that pointed out something to me--Why do Christians worship Jesus when, in essence, he is but a false God? He is not God, not the one you should worship according to the Old Testament and 10 Commandments.[/QUOTE]

Heh, but they also say that he didn't die on the cross, because he was a prophet. "It was someone else, who just looked like him."

Islam is really interesting. A Turkish friend told me that they're not allowed to envision heaven because that's beyond everyones imagination. I like this idea, although I'm not very religious.

Excellent point. It's a question I've asked quite a few Christians and one that I've never really gotten an especially good answer to.. Why reject Islam? Why accept the prophet Jesus, but reject Muhammed?

The entire 'trinity' idea of Jesus/Christ*/God seems really to be an unnecessary, confused, messy mix to justify the worship of a prophet. The Islamic view accepting Jesus as a prophet (and all the others before him) seems to make much more sense.
But then again, Islam does also take the perspective that Jesus' crucifixion was a divine 'illusion', which seems also quite confused and messy.

Also, I imagine that the responses to this are going to follow 'But Muslims worship Muhammed just like we worship Jesus', and the role of Muhammed is indeed a central issue for contemorary Islam, and is one of the more subtle theological differences between Sunni, Shia and Sufi Muslims. Should a Muslim be celebrating the birth of Muhammed, for instance, is one of the questions that the three will answer differently. But false idol worship is at least an issue in Islam.


* [I understand that 'Christ' means 'Anointed', as a title not a name, but I'm not sure what the Islamic perspective on this is. Do they consider him to be the anointed one? They'd clearly refer to him 'Jesus', or 'Jesus of Nazareth', but would they refer to him as 'Jesus Christ'? Hmm.]