Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

I'm not sure that is true. Religion affects us all whether we like it or not. It is part of our politics even though it shouldn't be. It is a huge part of our culture. Just because someone believes all religion is fiction doesn't mean they don't have something to say about the subject. Such opinions can be worth hearing if the person has considered them carefully. George Carlin questioned faith in a way that always made me think. I didn't agree with most of what he said, but I thought it was worth hearing.

Of course, some people are just going to troll, but questioning whether there is any real deity at all is a viable part of any discussion of religion.

 

Don't know if this is a response to my (very) small joke. FWIW, I'm a former verger who still has some faith, just not in organized religion. I get that sometimes jokes can misfire and apologize if this one has for you.

Does God have a sense of humor? (Bertie Einstein asked the wrong question.) I think s/he does. I also think s/he's an artist who continually changes. There's a scene in Time Bandits where David Warner's character is absolutely over quaking in fear at God. He rages at a deity who would devote time and energy to such foolishness as slugs or nipples on men.

That's when it hit me. That's when I saw my own 42, the answer to the question I'd been asking since I was barely in double digits. God does have a sense of humor. God is personified in our capacity for delight. It's the souls who refuse this impulse who are truly lost.

 

I've kind of come to the realization that faith isn't the place to look for answers, but a place to ask questions.

 

I'm fairly certain Inky was responding to 'yab.

 

What kind of deity allows his creations to go extinct at the hands of his other creation? What kind of deity allows infants to suffer with disease? 50% of the human population is actively suffering from lack of food, shelter and medicine. Great deity. Or lousy self delusions. Or fake deity and cruel self delusions.

 

The kind of deity who told his followers to go help others. God told us what to do. It's on us to do it.

 

That’s what your present belief of what your deity commanded. It’s objectively unclear if your deity is the only deity. Why do you have true insight and belief and the majority of humanity disagrees with you? And if God said it those that profess it to be true don’t follow it. And those that instruct others on what God told you have set no positive example of that.
BTW What you posted is not a deity, that’s a dead parent.

 

You are asking questions theologians and believers have wrestled with for centuries.

But you aren’t proving yourself to be intellectually superior, just a troll.

 

Someone who believes in magical forces that make snakes talk and virgins give birth and use that to enslave and kill millions over the last 2000 years is in no position to call anyone names

 

Yeah, I am. And you’d be guilty of it if you were telling MLB fans they were idiots for enjoying the sport. Or if you were shitting on NFL fans or whatever else.

 

Or telling parents that their dead baby is part of God’s plan?