Any other jealous agnostic/aetheists out there?

[smackaholic]

How many of you fukks look at religious belief and say to yourself, self, that is some batshit crazy bullshit that I just can't swallow, but, looking at those that do, think, Marx was right, it is one hell of an opiate and it must grease the skids of life pretty well, particularly for fukking losers who really need a good dose of opiatin'.

I admit to being a little jealous of those fukkers, but, I just can't do it. I can't jump in, because every last fukking bit of it don't make no g0d damn sense.

Any suggestions on other skygod fairy tales that I might be able to buy into? Maybe getting a little drunk first might help.

[poptart]

Did you go to church as a child?

[smackaholic]

rarely.

what's that got to do with the price of tea in china?

I have been to church. I have talked to plenty of Christians, but in the end, I pretty much think they are all batshit crazy and that if there is a god and he is truely omnipotent, then he is a fukking asshole.

[poptart]

what's that got to do with the price of tea in china?

My childhood church experience was negative.
Found absolutely no reason to go there, and hated it.
I was just wondering what kind of experience you had, if any.


Why do you think God is an asshole?

[Goober McTuber]

Why do you think God is an asshole?

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[smackaholic]

Why is g0d an asshole?

Look around you. The world is chock full of fukked up shit. This whole idea that he really wanted it to be a paradise, but, our great, great.........great grandma ate a piece of forbidden fruit, so now we are subject to toolio posts just doesn't make much sense. And hanging the "just keep believing, because I am going to unfukk it all......when i get around to it" carrot out there, is starting to get old.

God is lucy and we are Charlie Brown. When are you gonna stop trying to kick that fukking football?

[Screw_Michigan]

My childhood church experience was negative.
Found absolutely no reason to go there, and hated it.
I was just wondering what kind of experience you had, if any.

I was raised Catholic. My parents still attend the same parish on the NE side of GR near where they lived before they decamped us for the burbs. I would imagine that 90% of us who were raised in some religion had negative experiences.

Why? We were forced to do it. Every god damn Saturday at 5 pm. What would you rather do? Watch college football or attend fucking mass?

Though Catholics have it somewhat easy in that services are only an hour, the thing I really hated was religious education. Even worse was that it was on Thursday nights and I could not only not go to the bowling alley with my dad, but we missed the Simpsons. That was unacceptable.

Short Screwball story: Believe it or not, Screwball was a somewhat decently behaved young boy...except when it came to religious ed. I hated it so much and acted so poorly, I was booted from the religious ed at the parish my parents attend. They had to hire another woman to teach me and another little misbehaving a-hole. This didn't last very long as I'm sure they were paying $$$ to have this extra teacher. And my parents laid the law down.

I think what really bothered me was that I attended a parochial school from first through third grade, and my dreams were crushed because when we moved to the suburban public school, I thought I had got away from religious ed FOREVER. God and G0d I hated that shit.

[Jay in Phoenix]

Why is g0d an asshole?

"If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?"

Story of Job should ring some bells...

Fucked up story, but a good one with a great lesson.

(pssst...Bible = allegory.)

[poptart]

Much of what you wrote was familiar to me, S_M.
I was bored out of my mind and I never found that anything they were saying had any relevance to my life.

great grandma ate a piece of forbidden fruit

We have done the same thing.
We have left God.

We were created like this...

Genesis 1:27-28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.


We left it.
We made our own life, based on our own standards.
We became our own god.

Good luck with it.

[smackaholic]

Yeah, yeah, we're not worthy.

Whatever

I still say. If there is a g0d up there, he's a neglectful POS.

[poptart]

Jesus came as God in the flesh (John 1:1-14, and many others), and His behavior was the opposite of asshole piece of shit, imo.

He invited people to believe in Him, and that they would live.

He willingly went to a most savage and brutal death, despite being guilty of nothing.
He sacrificed His life for us all.


Extreme Gentleman.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Why do you think God is an asshole?

It doesn't get much more assholish than casting genuinely good humans into an eternal pit of fire for not worshiping you.

If God is this much of a dick while presiding over all of the known universe, imagine how bad he'd be on internet message boards.

[smackaholic]

mgooo has me thinking here. i think douchebag may just be a g0d troll.

[smackaholic]

Not sure if my brain functions properly, but, yeah, it is kind of the same for me, Sam. The whole fukking thing just does not make any g0d damn sense to me. And it has fukk all to do with whether or not any particular salesman...uhhh, I mean preacher didn't make the right sales pitch to me.

I really do think there are some true believers out there and as I said earlier, I kind of envy them on some level, but, I think the majority of alleged Christians just wanna be a member of the club.

[Shoalzie]

Simply my thoughts...take them or leave them:

I think true faith and belief comes from personal discovery and life experience and not having it presented to you early on in life when you're incapable of making the distinction between what you're being told is truth or fallacy. To me, if you're "raised religiously"...you're someone who was presented information at an impressionable and under-developed age and you're somehow expected to interpret or comprehend it when most of the world around you makes little or no sense. At that same young age, you're also being told the tooth fairy and Santa Claus are real.

It's even harder as an adult to be presented with that same information and to determine if it's real or fake because you develop more logic over time and you're more suited to make a conscious decision. Being presented information on faith and religion is the same thing as being given a cigarette or a beer for the first time. It's something new to you that you might have your preconceived ideas about but you don't know how to fully understand it until you try it.

The concept of a higher being is something I don't know if I'll ever wrap my head around unless we knew what all exists in our universe and is the universe truly never-ending. If it is never-ending or infinite, than how could it have been created or is it still in the creation process? I doubt that answer will come in my lifetime so that's something I need to either come to terms with or create my own theory or belief or just learn more as we all continue to learn more.

Every idea and theory comes from human thought. We're capable of thinking of logical and sensible ideas or something so far-fetched that it couldn't possibly be believed by someone else. The ability to believe or to not believe comes from within each of us. It shouldn't come from someone force-feeding you information or preaching to you why you should believe in the same thing they believe. You're either going to believe or not and others should respect that. And everyone will reach that point at different stages of their life.

I don't see someone having faith as being a better person than someone who doesn't. It's simply a choice to follow one school of thought over another. To be agnostic means that I don't feel any less fulfilled in my life than someone who is a devout Jew or Christian or Muslim and I would enjoy the rest my life on a continuous path of discovery. No single organized religion has clicked with me and I don't know if something ever will but that's the point of life experience and the path of discovery. I don't know any more know than I knew back then and I don't know if I'll ever know more in the future but I don't want to be close-minded either.

[Goober McTuber]

Not sure if my brain functions properly

Pretty sure it doesn't. Rack your self-reflection.

[Jay in Phoenix]

Shoalzie, very nice reflections on faith. Like you, I have not found a church or a religion that makes any sense, or is of greater merit than any other. It's all a big basket of fruit, one by which the various choices have been sitting around for a long time and they all contain a bit of rot. Faith and religion are of course two entirely different things and I will never be a part of any sort of religion.

The shape and dimensions of my own faith are a whole other matter, subject to a different discussion and day. I used to be agnostic, but that pendulum has drifted more towards faith, based on personal experiences.

As long as someone is peaceful and shows respect in their faith or lack thereof, then someones belief system is just as valid as mine.

At this point, it is mostly fairy tales and never-ending stories, insofar as religion is concerned.