So browsing Newgrounds (banned, I know) I came upon a movie titled "Dare". Interested, I watched it, and it's a flash music video for some Switchfoot song. It was extremely well done, I thought, and had a great message. Rare is the extremely family friendly movie on Newgrounds.

I won't link you, but if you were to, say, go to Newgrounds, I'm certain you might be able to find it. Not that I'm insinuating you should, but I think it's on their front page as well.

Wow.

That was a really good animation, and when it hit the end, I changed my mind into thinking it was an excellent movie.

I never have liked Switchfoot too much, but I like those two songs.

I'm waiting until the guy puts it up on his website, then I'm giving the link to my Bible teacher. She's a Switchfoot fanatic.

Why is newgrounds banned?

Because of all the tie wearing hens.

I'll look at this when I get home.

The material found on Newgrounds can be Massassi-bad.

That was pretty lame. Music was pretty crappy as well.

Give the guys cokes? Man, he'd be mugged at the hobo, and the arse**** at approaching the thugs.

But, um, hey, the ending was...

Yeah, he became an evangelist dude. You know, like Pat Robertson. Heroes of the modern age, and all that jazz. They didn't show him being corrupt and/or indolent down the line.

Or was more eloquently said by an NG reviewer:

I disagree with Lord Kuat.

I agree wholeheartedly with Lord Kuat.

Thanks for not deleting the message, but I might as well anyway.

Please nobody respond to this flamebait. He has a right to his opinion, and you have a right to yours. Don't turn this into a religious debate. Thanks. -Yecti

wow. Hes allowed to believe in God if he wishes. Just because he disagrees with you doesnt mean you have to attack those beleifs.

I'm not attacking him, I'm attacking the implied message of the file. It seemed, to me, to state that to live a full/complete life, and to be a truly good person, you need faith. This I strongly disagree with. Sorry if my tone was harsh, but it's against the message, not the person.

Okay haha, it sounded more like you were saying you were sorry that Axis was spiritual

Totally agreed with Lord Kuat. Being a good person and being religous doesn't really have to be the same thing. So I second everything in that quote of his. Also, was that a goth next to the homeless guy? Hah.

I somewhat disagree with LK.

That was really good, IMO. The Christian element kind of threw me off at first.

But then I thought about it. Ugh...

I am not afraid of religion like so many ahteists (which I do not consider myself one of) so I like to think I can make an objective observation.

You don't need Christianity to live a full life.

But you DO need a cause and a framework for your time on earth, of some sort. They may have been doing a somewhat evangelist message, but any halfway intelligent person with a small amount of creativity and emotional maturity can, if they choose, take messages out of things that are not written into them.

What are you talking about? That guy totally dumped all common sense and suddenly decided that being a christian was going to make he, himself, a better person. That's just creepy. Some people take religion to a cult level. Seriously. Jesus walked on water, God got tired and rested on sunday, and moses made an entire sea part way for religiously opressed people. On top of all of that, simply reading a book and drawing from it all of your personal beliefs will make you a better person.

I just don't see how any of that is logical, feels good, or even seems like a thing one would want to try. Spiritual enlightenment shouldn't be about how much ignorance you can muster, or how much meaning you can draw from a book, or how much of a connection you can make with a long dead good-guy. Ug, that all bothers me.

Kirby, you look at every thing from one angle, and think you can see all you need to. You are many of the things you accuse Christians of being. As long as you're comfortable with your one angle and I don't think there's anything anyone else can do.

How in the WORLD Am I being one angled? I'm not at ALL downplaying RELIGION as a whole. I just don't understand how SOME people are devoid of internally justified morals and self-actualization, and rely wholly on a book.

But the book is right...

[edit] That is what people choose to believe. There's nothing wrong with that, but you are entitled to your opinions. I don't think this thread should get turned into a twenty page argument, though. Lets just... think about Dare.

So randomly making up morals and self righteously applying them to other people is better then getting them from an fixed source?

Well, that was cute. It's good to know that the next time I see an angry looking thug on the street, I can just give him a coke, and he'll be happy and quit his life of crime!

Randomly?

I should totally try that this tomorrow and see what happens.

I think that's all the response that post deserves.

Do you really think that? Or are you just saying for sake of argument. Even then...

Because they do. Shut up and deal with it.

Randomly making up morals can be quite useful at times. Although you ought to steer clear of obvious immoral qualities, living different morals allows you to get to know them. You get to test them, then shed the ones that are not useful to self-growth. Getting your morals from a single, unchanging source denies one the great opportunity to shed morals here and add new ones there that actually are the most effective for yourself.

I haven't actually done this myself but I plan to. I've read about people who've done this and they all seem very well-grounded individuals and they come out the other end much better people.

Um, wow. That was a helpful post.

What good are morals if you can change them whenever you want?

(I'm being a bit extreme, I know)

More importantly, the video didn't say that you have to be a Christian to be a good person. He already was a good person. All the video was showing was that some people need a bit more to feel completely fufilled, and that this guy chose Christianity.

Making all decisions on your own all the time can be very hard. IT's nice to have a little help sometimes, right?

I liked it, minus the moronic, pointless advertisements for Coke and McDonalds, wtf.

and yours was?

Some people have different beliefs than you. They use the Bible to guide them by example. Why is it wrong to follow a book that suggests doing good?

Um, because the book also suggests doing bad? It suggests a lot of things actually--enough things that you can selectively follow it and either be cool and pretty normal, or be super-weird like that one guy.

I'd thought Kwiet had grown out of his "atheists have no basis for their morals" phase, but I guess not.

MB, you know I know you're a cool guy but you're acting like arguing with someone is the same thing as telling them they have no right to believe something. It's really not, unless that's what Kuat said in his baleeted post.

fiiiirstly, kuat didnt delete any posts.

I was just annoyed that kirby said (what i read it as at least) that believeing in a book was pointless.

It wasnt the fact that Kirby was arguing, it was the way he went about doing it.


[edit- and yes I agree religious fanatics are loony, but i also agree that selectivley following the book is good for you]

Altering your morals every now and then can be good. For instance, I had a friend who hated gays. A lot. Thought it was morally wrong, gonna burn in hell, blah blah. After a few years, he kind of grew up a bit and decided that it really wasn't morally wrong, and he doesn't care anymore, and has quite a few gay friends. He is generally a much more tolerant guy now. I see nothing wrong with this. If you set your morals in stone, you allow no room for improvement. It's okay to change your mind or admit you were wrong in your thinking. Thats the one real problem I see in Bible-based morals. The Bible was written a long time ago, and many of the rules/morals expressed in it just aren't really applicable anymore. Not to say they all aren't, but honestly, if we all followed them all ridgedly, we'd get nowhere.

Thats just my opinion though, I have nothing against Christians or the Bible.

I know that changing morals can be a good thing. I was being extreme on purpose. Sorry. I was just pointing out that it is good to have something to fall back on.

Also, part of the problem is that Christians aren't really supposed to follow the rules in the Old Testament, but people act like they are sometimes. A big part of what Christ did was say "those were the old rules because people weren't ready for the new rules. Here are the new rules".

So yeah, the flash animator does a pretty good job of animating. Not the best I've ever seen, but not the worst by any means.

I already said that I wasn't downplaying religion as a whole. I'm talking about making the morals mean something to YOU. It scares me how people just pick up the bible and asymilate to all of it's teachings without justifying any of the morals for themselves. That, in itself, is frightening. Spiritual Enlightenment should be far more self-induced, and a lot less medicated. Being perscribed to take "3 pages a day after dinner for 6 months, call me if you have questions" should NOT be the path to being a better person. That's just stupid, you ask me.

Yeah, I can't say I agree with everything Jesus taught, but generally, he taught tolerance, kindness, turn the other cheek, ect. It's when people get caught up in the "Fire and Brimstone" side of Christianity and the Bible that we have things like people protesting funerals.