Religion and scuba

[CuracaoJ]

Dfx, sheesh this is hard to do on a cell phone, please excuse typos.

I don't disagree with you too much about atrocities, although reference my first post in this thread that my opinion is they are really not religious, but religion is coopted for propoganda reasons. Perhaps I am making the same point as you, but in reverse. I've been to many countries in Asia and Africa, even working to place millions in tsunami relief in India, where there just was simply no mechanism for social welfare outside of religious institutions and religious people, whether Muslim, Hindu, Christian or what have you. I have seen and researched massive amounts of what can be called nothing short of amazing acts of kindness done daily in the name of religion. In my opinion far outweighing the atrocities caused by people using religious language to be schmucks of the highest order.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you in principle, I iust think the silent guy/gal (of which there are millions right this instant) that are hanging drywall in their spare time at the local battered women's shelter because they signed up from their mosque's newsletter deserve a little more respect then they are getting in this thread.

Heres the thing, blow some crap up in the name of religion and you're on every news channel. Meanwhile the 20,000 guys making soup for their churche's homeless shelter go unseen.

---------- Post added July 16th, 2015 at 04:44 PM ----------

Oh, and as for condoms. The Catholic Church teaches no sex before marriage and then no cheating after. We can certainly argue the practicality of that (ok no we can't, you win), but, you gotta admit it's hard to catch aids from sexual intercourse between two virgins.

 

[Freewillow]

I'm not to sure Rich is explaining this properly...

. That is what is in everybody, the ability to do good and the ability to do evil... constantly fighting... .

Don't criticize Rich, he is on your side, phoenix .

FYI, I am not a christian at all but I never fight between good and evil.

I do not need a god in order to try to do good. I have my own judgement and since I know that I have only one life in order to contribute to our race, I am trying to do good things for my familly and neibours.

To think that you can commit bad things and ask God to forgive you is just a very cowardly behaviour. I know of too many "catholics" that beat their wifes and kids while drunk and cheat on people and the governement taxes to know that a religion is not a "certification for honesty". But do not interpret this statement wrongly: I know of very commendable christians

 

[dfx]

I agree with some of what you said, but. As your example of people deciding to leave the church demonstrates it is a matter of choice.

Leaving a church is indeed a choice, but it's not the same thing as losing your faith. You can continue to believe but choose to stop going to church, or you can choose to go to church even if you don't believe. But you can't choose to believe or to stop believing.

You can try this yourself quite easily. Try to choose to believe that unicorns really exist. You won't be able to do it. You can pretend, you can tell other people that yeah, sure, unicorns really exist. You can even put food out at night, just in case a unicorn comes by and is hungry. (What do they eat, anyway?) But you won't actually believe it. You'll roll eyes at yourself for senselessly wasting food like this. Why? Because you need to be convinced somehow. Perhaps over time, if you keep doing this long enough, you'll forget that you're just pretending and then maybe start believing it yourself. But dementia is also not a choice.

---------- Post added July 16th, 2015 at 04:49 PM ----------

Oh, and as for condoms. The Catholic Church teaches no sex before marriage and then no cheating after. We can certainly argue the practicality of that (ok no we can't, you win), but, you gotta admit it's hard to catch aids from sexual intercourse between two virgins.

Well, there you go. Nice in principle but it doesn't work. Only the Catholic church doesn't see this, but instead sticks to its doctrine. For no good reason.

 

[lowviz]

...//... In the end, just like you can not hold Christianity responsible for American foreign policy, Ottoman politics are also far too complicated to be reduced to a simplistic "ISLAM VS CHRISTIANITY" affair.

In a "first order approximation", they most certainly are.

This is why I so enjoy the occasional off-topic (diving) potboiler.

We are a self-selected group with strong convictions. My simplistic view stood for decades as it just wasn't important enough to me to waste time exploring it further. I pride myself in the fact that I actually remembered some details of the First Crusade from high school. I enjoy both sides of the argument, allows me to refine my "understanding" of the subject and improve my stance.

 

[agilis]

It's very easy for two virgins to contract the Aids virus if one of them is a drug user who shares needles. By some accounts sharing needles is responsible for more cases of Aids than sex.

Reading through some of this material convinces me that dementia might be a matter of choice.

Protestant missionaries destroyed Polynesian culture and helped enslave them. I have always admired the Polynesian chief who was being berated by a missionary for eating people. "This is against God's will!" the missionary exclaimed.

"Then why did he make us out of meat?" asked the chief.

 

[CuracaoJ]

Hrmm, dfx, I don't think its the churches fault that people don't listen to their advice. By the by there are some religious affiliated institutions that do distribute condoms, but again if people choose not to use them....welp....

 

[galvanf]

Leaving a church is indeed a choice, but it's not the same thing as losing your faith. You can continue to believe but choose to stop going to church, or you can choose to go to church even if you don't believe. But you can't choose to believe or to stop believing.

I like to think that even though I was indoctrinated into the Catholic Church I made a conscious choice to believe that what they were saying wasn't true. That I chose to find something else to believe in.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

[xsurfer]

I am a Lutheran Christian and never feel the need to prove why I believe what I believe. I just believe. That's why it is called Faith. When it comes to scuba diving, before descending, I always pray to God to keep me safe within the inside realm of His planet. Upon surfacing I pray to God and give thanks for keeping me safe and for all that I was privileged to see beneath.

 

[dfx]

Hrmm, dfx, I don't think its the churches fault that people don't listen to their advice. By the by there are some religious affiliated institutions that do distribute condoms, but again if people choose not to use them....welp....

Perhaps they choose not to use them because the church told them that it was a sin and that they'd go to hell for it. So yeah, it is the church's fault.

 

[boulderjohn]

L
You can try this yourself quite easily. Try to choose to believe that unicorns really exist. You won't be able to do it. You can pretend, you can tell other people that yeah, sure, unicorns really exist. You can even put food out at night, just in case a unicorn comes by and is hungry. (What do they eat, anyway?)

Be careful! Such experiments can get you in real trouble!
The Unicorn in the Garden