Sorry Sam

I brain farted. I typed "first amendment" when i meant "first commandment".

I do that sometimes, just to prove i'm human.

https://youtu.be/7tScAyNaRdQ

wow, so that's what jesus would do!

The bible teaches a lot of great lessons. IMO, having the teachings in the bible is infinitely better than never having the bible. I learned a lot of things from reading the bible, things that I find solace in till this very day. Just the way I was even taught to read/study the bible alone, helped me understand how to study and take notes in school for example. A lot of people posting here have never read the bible. Just because you can quote a verse here and a verse there means nothing.

A lot of people have access to the bible, have heard about the bible, have read the bible. A lot of people do not know who Confucius is and saying that people should wait to hear that great message through a "never heard of" Confucius is dumb.

I don't know the statistics of the number of people that relate with Chopin, but his Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 for me is one of the greatest piano pieces (no disrespect to Beethoven's Appasionata sonata). It's portrayal in the movie, The Pianist, when Szpilman's encountered the Nazi officer was very powerful. The use of his music in the movie will reach people that watch the film for years to come. Of course Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner are represented in the movie (and therefore Classical music), but I wouldn't want to confuse you now, would I so I will limit this to Chopin?

Also, why do we teach our children anything? Why do we bother studying and learning and growing? We should just let them "figure this fluff out for themselves w/out wading through all the BS written by ancient, relatively ignorant peoples." You sound very ignorant my friend.

Interesting as that's more than the oath I swore when I worked in the federal government (technically had to do this twice), which was:

"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Meh I guess. The first one as I already said is bit of a stretch. It is not like most, nor do I think that even the pledges are meant to actually be treating the country like a god. Not saying that I dont see what you mean, just think it is bit of a stretch.
The second I still personally dont interpret it that way, but I guess one could make some arguments for it.

I just found whole idea interesting as had never heard of that. Especially considering that I was raised with idea of seperation of church and state as well as roman catholic which pretty much says its ok to defend your country and you had a duty to your country etc. Given how I was raised just makes me wonder how much of that influenced my interpretations so that I will have to go back now at some point and review it all. What I recall though, Jesus never had any issues with roman civilization, where everyone did have to pledge to the roman empire. Nor do I recall any issues regarding Moses during that whole Mt Sinai / worshipping idols thing. If anything God supposedly promised them their own country. Idk, maybe it was just land and maybe I interpreted things with a bias. But I still think when you make US pledges, which includes statements about God in them, that kinda implies that it is not meant to be placing country of US above God, at least to me anyway.

@SAM, obviously there is something wrong with anyone when you have to fulfill yourself with drugs (tobacco, caffeine, codeine, remembering to play this game but neglecting to have a quiet time with your creator, etc), that can be interpreted as a god to you. That's just me though. I find doing those 'bad habits' infinitely worse than reciting a pledge. What about the marriage pledge to your wife?

This is a good one for you Sam or those with addictions (everyone). Easily relatable with a human. A wise person will know what this means.

https://www.youtube.com/...ADgwfTrPor2C&index=46

Holy cow crest23, what happened to you? Have you joined the Moonies recently and repented? Welcome back pal, can we farm you now? :)

I'm not familiar with that term. Is that what the video reminds you of?

It wasn't the video, and I think its great that you read the bible and believe in God, I just find it not like your mean old self crest. You are the toughest hardass in the game that I've met, so its just sort of sort of funny to hear you talking about love and peace, and dog whisperers and stuff, thought maybe you'd been taken over by aliens, or, possibly had joined a cult :) The Moonies were a cult from way back, and they came to mind.

No offence meant crest! Its great to see you after so long

Infinitely better? Really? I am glad you prefaced that with an "IMO".
I had a really cool mom. She taught me to read when I was very young. Before I started school I was reading the Tarzan series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and writing and drawing my own 5 year old's version of Tarzan fables. I learned a lot of things because of my early discovery of books, both fiction and non. It was, I believe, my mother's superior parenting skills that gave me a thirst for knowledge that continues to this day.

And your insinuation that I have not read the bible is unfounded and means nothing.
Make you a deal. You don't assume I haven't read the bible, and I won't assume you haven't read Immanuel Kant.



Perhaps in your neighborhood, a lot of people do not know who Confucius is. Your town, city, state, country is not the center of all civilization on earth. Here's an idea. Go to China and survey it's 1.4b people, see if anyone there has heard of Confucius.
And who said people should wait to hear the great message through a 'never heard of' Confucius?
That statement is dumb.

My point was, that the basic message of what we know as The Golden Rule has resounded in human cultures throughout history. The bible does not own it any more than it owns the ideas that theft, adultery, lying and killing is bad. Morality did not originate in the bible, though that's what its most fervent followers would have you believe.
In fact it seems that a form of the golden rule seems to be a common 'morality' even in the higher primates.
It is not unusual that the concept would evolve in cooperative social species capable of even very limited forms of abstract thought. It's a great code of conduct and makes for a fantastic learning tool for young minds, but it's not rocket science. Nor does it exist solely and exclusively within the realm of religious faith.



Well this is an odd analogy to the subject at hand but ok i'll go with it.

I'm not a fan. My life is now neither enriched by any Lionel Richie songs nor diminished by their absence. It's fine with me that you really really like that song but you shouldn't expect me to.

I know the joy of music and I am glad that you do too. I am also glad that your appreciation of that song stands on its own merit and is not tarnished by the lawsuits against Richie, or by his new plagiarism lawsuit against Adele for her song of the same name, or by Richie being discovered by his first wife in a hotel room with a woman that he later married and divorced. You appreciate that song - apparently a LOT - for what it is and that's fine.

I do remember when that song was played on the radio for what seemed like 144 times a day. A coworker played a pop station on a radio at her desk just loud enough for me to hear. It was so overplayed that I hated that song then. I thought it was one of the sappiest dullest pieces of music of its day. I couldn't wait to go home and wash my brain out with some Stevie Ray, or ZZ Top, or some old Led Zep.

When i look at the context of when that song was written, along with the new information I have about Richie's marital infidelity just a couple years later, followed by a divorce, a marriage, and another divorce, I can't help but LOL a little bit, thinking that the creator of that song was really kind of a hypocrite when expressing views of love in that (imo still sappy) song. Damn you for making me listen to it as part of my Lionel Richie research. ;-)

Now, do you think less of me because I d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶a̶l̶l̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶r̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶n̶c̶i̶p̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶ don't find much of substance in that Lionel Richie song?
If you do, that's your deficiency, not mine.



Every segment of your gish gallop gets sillier.

I consider myself fortunate that I was not indoctrinated into a religious belief by my parents. I don't know what may have happened to me had I been taught at a very early age that I was a sinner from the moment of my birth, and that there is only one way to avoid 'infinite' punishment by some invisible entity with 'infinite' knowledge that loves me so much (infinitely?) that he would torture me forever and ever (again, infinitely) for something a couple of my supposed ancestors did countless generations before my birth.

I'm very appreciative that I don't hold the belief that no matter how badly I treat others in this life, I can p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶j̶a̶i̶l̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶d̶ confess my sins while on my deathbed to a guy wearing funny clothes, accept some zombie myth dude as my savior, and exist happily ever after, infinitely praising the very entity that made us all imperfect in the first place.

If I suddenly find myself in heaven, and learn that my dear mother had done (or not done) something in her life to earn her entrance into heaven, how could I ever be at peace knowing she is being tortured in hell for eternity? Would I have some kind of transformation in heaven that allows me to feel love and obedience toward the supernatural entity that not only created my imperfect mother, branded her a sinner at birth, then banished her to an eternity of suffering? Would I feel glee knowing that all the billions of dirty sinners (including my dear mother) are tortured forever and ever by the very being i'm expected to worship?

nah, no thanks. I'm just not into snuff flicks.

All that mess is still presumed by many to be the ultimate truth and that's precisely what I want my children to be shielded from until they are able to examine the evidence with a maturing mind. Very young minds are extremely open to the opinions of important adults in their lives. They trust. They have no reason to suspect what they are being told by caring smiling loving adults may not be true. It's accepted as - get ready for it - the 'gospel truth'.

Now don't get me wrong. There's a lot of treasured literature from history that have good ideas within but also contain passages I would not want my children to read until they are emotionally and psychologically mature enough to process the 'big picture' and yes, wade through the BS.

But very few of them claim to be the unerring word of the creator of the universe and threaten infinite torture to any reader that does not embrace its precepts. That claim sets a very high standard, and IMO it is a standard that the bible 'infinitely' fails to meet.

When you believe that the heaven waiting for you after death is 'infinite', our existence in this lifetime (the ONLY lifetime we have proof exists) is diminished. We're told there's a better, more important existence waiting for us when this lifetime ends. So you had better play by our rules. Or else.
Well hell yeah that sounds like a tale told by ancient relatively ignorant peoples.
You better not shout. You better not cry. You better not pout, I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees you ALL THE TIME so don't try to pull a fast one. Santa will throw you into the chimney and stoke the fire.



Wrong. On both counts.

Lol

"My mommy taught me to read when I was very young. Before I started school I was reading the Tarzan series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and writing and drawing my own 5 year old's version of Tarzan fables."

*golf claps*
We are all really impressed over here, i can tell you.

Closing with "santa is coming to town"



















fluffin killed it.

This is over your head, homeschool. Get back to the pit, the oil changes are stacking up.

Funny story, related to the original purpose of this thread in many ways. While I was a student at Texas A&M, the Aggie Libertarians, Aggie Republicans, and Aggie Democrats all had to change their names. Texas A&M decided that the use of the word Aggie in a student organization could be mistaken for an endorsement of their activities and beliefs. As such, we had to change our name to "College Libertarians." Other than to change the name, this policy had no tangible effect on our organization.

I never claimed that the Bible had a claim upon "inventing" the "golden rule", I'm also aware of Buddhism's 10 grave precepts, which are roughly equivalent to the ten commandments listed in the Bible.

As for whether you believe in a supernatural being or not is not what makes me interested in the Bible, nor is it the idea, which I strongly suspect is wrong that "sinners" will be tortured forever. It appears to me after spending as much time as I do reading the Bible that there isn't going to be infinite tortures and burnings for sinners, there will simply be "nothing" for them.

Let's assume that humans have a soul that is "immortal", thus it survives the death of the physical body, and has a life of it's own in heaven (for lack of another word that would illustrate the continuation of life in the presence of a supreme being) and that the way to get in, is by "faith", which is believing in something you cannot see with your eyes, nor prove with any logical argument, etc.

The events go down like this. You live here, and do whatever it is you were doing, or are going to do, or are preselected to do by this supreme being, at the end of this life, you go to "sleep". You die, and your soul sleeps until the end of days, whereupon everyone is resurrected to face judgement.

So, you face judgement for your sins, at this point, it is decided whether your soul is allowed to continue to live, or is "discontinued".

There is no eternal torment, you simply cease to exist.

You must read the New Testament, and pay particular attention to the words usually highlighted in red which are the words attributed to Jesus.

Those are what count. All the other stuff about the early Christian movement is simply the apostles trying to explain what Jesus said in words that everyone should be able to understand.

The biggest drawback to the Christian "religion" is that it was hijacked early on by the Roman Catholic Church, where it had gained the influence and power to be declared the "State" religion, and we can see how all that turned out.

The Roman Catholic Church is a political organization. It is a tyrannical religion that empowers men to sit in judgement of other men, and manipulate politics to obtain the goals of the "church", which has damned little to do with saving mens souls. It has much more to do with collecting money by the barrowful, and not having to pay any taxes on it, and being able to influence the governments of the earthly world to allow their "church" to continue to collect money in vast quantities.

And I know that the Catholics will all claim to be good "Christians", when they are really no different from the Pharisees of the New Testament. They have wrapped up the religion in the trappings of men, and have never been further from the truth.

In addition, did you know that you don't actually have to believe, or have faith to go to heaven? You can just buy dispensations from the Pope.

In addition, the pope has stated that "There are no free agent "Christians", and that no one can get to heaven with out the intercession of the priests of the Catholic Church.

Now, I KNOW for a FACT that that is a lie, big and bold and simply proves to me that Satan is sitting on Peter's Throne.

You can all laugh at my belief, and faith, and I don't really care, because I have every confidence that I've got the right idea, and it works for me. If it doesn't work for you, that's up to you to find out why, or why not.

"Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

Your right let me add to your discussion:

Pattty cake patty cake
Bakersman
Bake me a cake as fast as you can
https://youtu.be/LwEZmAl5WCU

Not all religious faiths nor do all religious people belief this. Granted their are lot of christian faiths and people that do, or some that believe parts of it, but not all. I am sure you know this and are just summarizing, but just in case. I personally always did find it odd about your last bit though. Anyway moving on to what I really wanted to post about...

I understand this to a point and in principle. However, that just seems flawed. Total shielding or sheltering is never good idea imho. To me it is better to let them experience life as long as you are there to explain things appropriately and make sure no absolute harm comes to them. Yes they are more open and more trusting, which is why it is important for the parents to be there and to explain things.

The bigger issue I have is that you are referring more to human professions and warped ideas / interpretations more so than the actual literature. Which yes I would agree with you fully that some of those things that human have added and preach. However, the actual literature itself, is not any worse than a lot of children's stories. In fact some child stories, even some watered down ones made into movies, are rather twisted and dark. That is IF the kid actually reads it, most dont, instead of just listening to some organizations beliefs and theories about it. I was one of the rare birds who actually did read it in my youth, among tons of other books.

I left your last bit in quotes for a reason. Yes, you are correct and do have a point. No, it isnt the same as a children's story. And yet.... it kinda is. It is for the most part a collection of stories with a moral behind it. Not that much different to most other child stories. True they dont profess to be the creator of the universe, but it isnt as different as you think. Now IF a kid actually reads it, most will prolly see it in a similar light, it is a story and although it is claimed to be unerring ultimate factual story by an inferior god, most kids will still treat it in same manner as another story. They know its not real or will know it is supposedly real, but it is not physically real to them nor same thing as something they experience first hand. So yes and no, I agree with you.

@cyref, I like how my point went right over your head and your went straight to christian bashing. Reading and writing at 5 years old and turned out to be just another grease monkey?
Don't you just hate your mother? I mean, father?

@Hawkster, fix your quote, lest people start attributing his garbage speak to me.

@Getafix, just passing through. You just made my day by the way. Haven't changed one bit, maybe a little wiser. I would be the one tearing Moonies a new one.

#OkthatwasfunbutseeyouallnextyearGodwilling

Hawkster posted something of real substance and i will engage in that conversation when I have a chance.

But crest23, no. Parents were cool. They're gone now.
Greasemonkey? Wrong again. Metallurgist, specializing in failure analysis. Prior to that, computer tech stationed at Pearl Harbor.

And your point didn't escape me. You really really like that 'hello" love song by lionel richie, no matter if he wrote it or not.

Sorry I don't come to AT much anymore, but here are a few answers/updates:

1. I don't consider "*sigh*" to be "worked up", it isn't like I went out to contact the ACLU for a lawsuit. I was surprised at what I saw, checked for consistency and found a school to be internally inconsistent with its own policies. Hence, *sigh*.

2. I didn't say I disagreed with the substance of the verses, or with the Bible, or that I hadn't read the Bible - so lots of assumptions in some replies.

More info:
The verses weren't "quoted", they were "cited".
It wasn't the "personal" email signature of the individual, these were actually incorporated into the graphic signature of the IT Department.
The verses were John 3:16 and Philipians 4:13.

For anyone who doesn't want to look them up, those are:

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Philipians 4:13 - "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

These aren't just verses about something as generic as the Golden Rule or "be kind to thy neighbor" or "don't kill people". These are much more specifically Christian.