Is it bad to take up religion...

...just to piss people off?

I think I could add to the pleasure by saying I believe in God and the power of prayer, but I'm not sure that Richard Dawkins exists.

Yikes.

God will smite you for trolling.

richard dawkins believes in you. whether you believe in him or not.

I don't know about bad, but it's certainly beside the point.

Yes, that's very bad. You will go to hell.

you will end up like the creepy priest boy in There will Be Blood.

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:24 PM, encey said:

I don't know about bad, but it's certainly beside the point.

It doesn't bother me if people are religious or not. It does annoy me that people are now concluding that those with faith are stupid. I just know very bright people with very strong faith and I hate seeing some kids pumped full of Dawkins sneering at it. Whatever happened to live and let live, and if your neighbour believes babbling prayers does them good, let them at it?

i have a friend that found god after years of alcohol abuse, jail time, and just straight up thuggin'. and another friend which is his cousin was all like "why?" and the rest of us told him to shut the fuck up and let him have his happiness.

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:29 PM, Conor74 said:

It doesn't bother me if people are religious or not. It does annoy me that people are now concluding that those with faith are stupid. I just know very bright people with very strong faith and I hate seeing some kids pumped full of Dawkins sneering at it. Whatever happened to live and let live, and if your neighbour believes babbling prayers does them good, let them at it?

It took peadophilia to bring your country into the modern era after it was left fucked by the church. The 80's were a grim oppressive time. Religion is just admitting that someone can deal with themselves or the world. And of course most of the 10 commandments are good, but I dont need a list to remind me not to chin a stranger.

^ do you mean 'can't'?

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:39 PM, Dirty Protest said:

It took peadophilia to bring your country into the modern era after it was left fucked by the church.

Oh I agree the Church as an institution has so much to answer for, particularly in this country. But I'm really talking about people having faith. Why the need in some areas to denounce them as stupid?

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:38 PM, asymmetrical head said:

i have a friend that found god after years of alcohol abuse, jail time, and just straight up thuggin'. and another friend which is his cousin was all like "why?" and the rest of us told him to shut the fuck up and let him have his happiness.

I agree with you.

However it is funny that no one ever seems to find God after a good day.

I was walking through a park with my best friend, around seven at night, and we hear this shouting coming from the other side of the park. We look and there's this guy, standing on some kind of box. Yes, it was a man preaching salvation to the few people walking past him. So we rush over to where he is and decide that we want to be "saved." We played it off real well. We were Bob and LuAnne, looking to find change in their lives. Bob almost started crying when he realized how his life had turned to shit because of his sinful ways. We were A+ actors. At least, Bob was. I accidentally called him by his real name at one point. Oops.

Anyway, it was weird. He was there with a bunch of other people from his church too and a crowd of about three or four other people, periodically coming up, listening, then walking away. The guy on the box, he called himself Mark (like "The Gospel of Mark," he said) and, boy, he was totally lost. I mean, his brain was stretched over another dimension. That's the only way to explain some of the things he was spouting. He was a former football player, who loved playing because of the glory it brought him. But that, my friends, is SIN, because you should only wish to bring glory to GOD. He also said how we're used to sinning, but that doesn't make it right. He said that if you're brought up to eat excrement (yes, he said this) and you like it, that doesn't make eating excrement right. God is like hamburgers. You hate hamburgers. But they're so good, they make you so happy. You just don't know it yet. So you must repent your excrement eating ways and learn to eat hamburgers. I am not bullshitting you, this is what he told us. He mixed in some jive about the Ten Commandments and told us that we shouldn't sin. My friend lit up a cigarette and asked him if it was sinning. Mark told us that you must respect your body, so smoking is a sin. I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the Bible about that though, so Mark is full of shit.

Then I asked one of his friends (didn't catch his name) if I should change churches because I am an Orthodox Christian (partially true, it's a cultural thing). He made some really weird analogy about how churches are like restaurants and God is a food inspector and the bad churches feed you bad food if they don't teach you to be saved and something or other. He basically told me to leave my church because only his could save me. Shit, I thought all Christians were the same. I guess not. No brotherhood amongst these thieves. Then we tried to leave and they offered to walk with us. They didn't leave us alone until we told them that we would see them at their church tomorrow. Mark wrote down his phone number and gave it to Bob, in case Bob needed counseling. It was generally a strange experience and I wouldn't want to relive it again. I highly suspect they were all former meth addicts.

But, you know, they weren't awful people or anything. Their hearts were in the right place, but their heads were up their assholes.

i fuckin' love hamburgers.. but i always thought eating hamburgers would be a sin! at least that's what it feels like to me. it's almost like engaging in matters of the flesh!

My favorite burger place has free bibles by the register where you order. Go figure.

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:29 PM, Conor74 said:

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:24 PM, encey said:

I don't know about bad, but it's certainly beside the point.

 

It doesn't bother me if people are religious or not. It does annoy me that people are now concluding that those with faith are stupid. I just know very bright people with very strong faith and I hate seeing some kids pumped full of Dawkins sneering at it. Whatever happened to live and let live, and if your neighbour believes babbling prayers does them good, let them at it?

You make it seem like, in the real world and not some nerdy internet enclave, it's atheists doing most of the disparaging towards religious people and not the other way around.

I don't know about Ireland (but I can imagine), but in certain parts of the States I'd go so far as to say that discrimination against nonreligious people is not only still acceptable, it's encouraged. And when it's encouraged by hate-filled or at least blithering, science- and reason- averse types who don't know (and, worse, refuse to learn) what "theory" means in a scientific context, the natural response to such antagonism is antagonism.

By way of example (acknowledging deficiency in sample size), I have some gay friends who admitted to me that coming out as an atheist was far harder than coming out as homosexual, and the repercussions were far more severe (eg, job losses, targeted smearing in job networks) precisely because many, in certain parts of the States, feel they can still get away with this type of discrimination.

And even when there's no direct discriminatory act per se, there's a shit-ton of social stigma attached to just being nonreligious (this isn't true everywhere, mind). You think Barack would have been elected if he took a respectful nonreligious stance instead of associating with a total moron like Wright?

But, yeah, no, go ahead, I'm not at all tired of getting preached to by people who think my personal position wasn't a reasoned choice, but rather a defect because I just needed some witnessin! My hostility towards that is totally ridiculous, you're right. I should put up with it and live and let live, which is an entirely Christian thing to do, even though I can't recall any Christians actually behaving in that manner towards my lack of belief.

  On 3/16/2010 at 9:04 PM, asymmetrical head said:

i fuckin' love hamburgers.. but i always thought eating hamburgers would be a sin! at least that's what it feels like to me. it's almost like engaging in matters of the flesh!

you better add some bacon and cheese to that burger.

Fuck, I can't stop editing shit within a reasonable time.

Uh, just to add: I don't go around attacking anyone's beliefs or nonbelief (unless pressed by someone who sees my nonbelief as a direct slap in the face to them, and a hostile act in itself. Sadly, a lot of people seem to feel that way.)

richard dawkins is such a d00sh

nobody ever taunts me for being christian because they know i would knock 'em out da box

interestingi topic, but yes one of the reasons i cling to christianity is just out of spite for watmm

  On 3/16/2010 at 10:10 PM, tht tne said:

nobody ever taunts me for being christian because they know i would knock 'em out da box

That's exactly how organised religion works.

spite is a wonderful thing. very refreshing on a hot summers day.

edit: *sprite

  On 3/16/2010 at 10:20 PM, Fred McGriff said:

interestingi topic, but yes one of the reasons i cling to christianity is just out of spite for watmm

Fred what denomination do you/did you practice