What do you Believe??? (Religion)

[China]

I'll just leave this here.

 

Britain’s first Flat Earth conference hears final, definite proof that gravity doesn’t exist

 

This weekend, 200 believers gathered in a hotel near Birmingham to debate the big question – is the Earth a sphere, as millennia of scientific research have shown it is?

 

Or is it a sort of magic pancake thing floating in space, as maniacs on weird YouTube channels claim? Britain’s first-ever Flat Earth Convention was held in a Jury’s Inn hotel in Birmingham – attended by IT and NHS workers as well as ‘off grid’ eco types, the Telegraph reports. Convention organiser Gary John said, ‘People are waking up. We’re seeing an explosion of interest in flat earth theories and increasing mistrust of governments.’

 

In a speech, NHS worker David Marsh claims he has disproved planetary motion, using a Nikon camera and an app from his back garden. Marsh says, ‘My research destroys big bang cosmology. It supports the idea that gravity doesn’t exist and the only true force in nature is electromagnetism.’ Some Flat Earthers claim that Earth is in fact moving upwards, and that’s what keeps us ‘pinned down’, rather than gravity.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Bang]

In a way, flat Earthers argue for creationism.

Because if evolution truly did weed out the weak from the gene pool, none of this flat earth nonsense would ever be a question. Those morons should have eaten some poisonous berries and been gone by now.

 

Stupidity and ignorance are well on the rise. what kills me is the pride people take in being as ****ing dumb and ignorant as they can be.

 

~Bang

Edited April 30, 2018 by Bang

[mcsluggo]

http://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/

Quote

.

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When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean?

Nine-in-ten Americans believe in a higher power, but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible

 

Previous Pew Research Center studies have shown that the share of Americans who believe in God with absolute certainty has declined in recent years, while the share saying they have doubts about God’s existence – or that they do not believe in God at all – has grown.

 

These trends raise a series of questions: When respondents say they don’t believe in God, what are they rejecting? Are they rejecting belief in any higher power or spiritual force in the universe? Or are they rejecting only a traditional Christian idea of God – perhaps recalling images of a bearded man in the sky? Conversely, when respondents say they dobelieve in God, what do they believe in – God as described in the Bible, or some other spiritual force or supreme being?

.

<more at link>.

.

 

 

People believe in God.... but more and more the believe in THEIR God

[China]

On 4/30/2018 at 12:36 PM, Bang said:

In a way, flat Earthers argue for creationism.

Because if evolution truly did weed out the weak from the gene pool, none of this flat earth nonsense would ever be a question. Those morons should have eaten some poisonous berries and been gone by now.

 

Stupidity and ignorance are well on the rise. what kills me is the pride people take in being as ****ing dumb and ignorant as they can be.

 

~Bang

 

Apparently now they are arguing that the world is like a video game, because teleportation is somehow a more logical reasonable alternative to a spherical planet:

 

FLAT-EARTHERS THINK 'PAC-MAN EFFECT' STOPS US FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE PLANET

 

Sailors never had anything to fear from the edges of a flat Earth, say conspiracy theorists at the first U.K. Flat Earth convention. Instead, objects will zap to the other side of the planet when they reach the very edge, some proponents argue.

 

The convention saw flat-Earthers, skeptics, and the flat Earth-curious gather in the city of Birmingham, U.K. At the event, conference speaker Darren Nesbit sought to address one of the most obvious problems with flat Earth claims—why people don’t just fall off the edge of the planet if they travel too far in one direction.

 

“We know that continuous east-west travel is a reality,” he said, according to the Telegraph. “No one has ever come to, or crossed a physical boundary.”

 

The best explanation isn't a curved, globe-shaped Earth, Nesbit thinks. Instead, it could be something more like teleportation. Yes, you read that right. Teleportation. 

Like Pac-Man himself, who reappears on one side of the game screen having exited on the other, objects would be transported from one edge of the flat Earth to the opposite edge. Describing this as a “logical possibility” for “truly free thinkers,” Nesbit explained, “Space-time wraps around and we get a Pac-Man effect.”

 

 

I think they put their finger in the ear and it went clean across to the other side, just like pac-man.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

"So how do eclipses happen?"

 

*crickets

 

"That's what I thought."

[Renegade7]

59 minutes ago, mcsluggo said:

http://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/

 

 

People believe in God.... but more and more the believe in THEIR God

I need to finish the article, but I can see in the future where the number of denominations begin to drop as we begin to get serious about whether we're all talking about the same God (and I'm not just talking about the Christian interpretation) or not and just different perspectives from different civilizations in different time periods.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Renegade7

[China]

2 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

"So how do eclipses happen?"

 

*crickets

 

"That's what I thought."

 

[twa]

12 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

 

 

 

People believe in God.... but more and more the believe in THEIR God

 

Hasn't that been true since...Creation? 

 

Humans are human.

[China]

Jesse Duplantis says he's not asking followers to buy him a private jet. He just wants them to 'believe'

 

(CNN)Jesse Duplantis still wants that snazzy new private jet. But he wants to make it clear he's not asking anybody for money for it.

 

He just wants his followers to "believe" the aircraft into existence.

"I'm not asking you to pay for my plane," the televangelist says in a new video posted to his ministry's website. "The Lord said, 'I didn't ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.' That is what I said. So I'm believing, and I want you to believe with me."

Duplantis caused a stir last week after word got out he was asking his followers to chip in so his ministry could purchase a brand new Dassault Falcon 7X, which costs about $54 million. He said Jesus told him to do it.

But now Duplantis, a prosperity gospel televangelist from Louisiana, is backtracking.

 

...

 

In the earlier video, Duplantis says the planes get him closer to the Lord -- both literally and figuratively -- and he had a divine conversation in which Jesus asked for the new aircraft by name.

"It was one of the greatest statements the Lord ever told me. He said, 'Jesse do you want to come up where I'm at?'" the minister said.

Duplantis' ministry reaches more than two billion people worldwide, he claims, so the private jets are needed to help him do the Lord's work around the globe.

So why the change of explanation on who should pay for the jet? Duplantis said the uproar had something to do with it and suggested the media was embellishing the story.

He also said lots of his followers were still interested in making a donation for the plane.

"A lot of people have called me and said 'I want to get involved in that new plane,'" he said. Duplantis said that's fine with him, but just remember -- he didn't ask them for it.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Elessar78]

I went to my second Jewish service this past weekend and, again, really liked it. Maybe I'm Jewish at heart. I've been both in the Protestant Church as a child (non-denominational) and as an adult chose Catholicism. But I've never really identified completely with Catholicism. 

 

The old testament (Judaism) seems pretty clear on who/what God is and expects. Catholicism seems to be on a 2000-year-long campaign to justify what they believe is the real version of things. 

[China]

6 hours ago, Elessar78 said:

I went to my second Jewish service this past weekend and, again, really liked it. Maybe I'm Jewish at heart. I've been both in the Protestant Church as a child (non-denominational) and as an adult chose Catholicism. But I've never really identified completely with Catholicism. 

 

The old testament (Judaism) seems pretty clear on who/what God is and expects. Catholicism seems to be on a 2000-year-long campaign to justify what they believe is the real version of things. 

 

But Protestants taste the best.

[Mr. Sinister]

On 5/2/2018 at 11:09 AM, Renegade7 said:

"So how do eclipses happen?"

 

*crickets

 

"That's what I thought."

 

Hologram

[Renegade7]

14 hours ago, China said:

Jesse Duplantis says he's not asking followers to buy him a private jet. He just wants them to 'believe'

 

(CNN)Jesse Duplantis still wants that snazzy new private jet. But he wants to make it clear he's not asking anybody for money for it.

 

Is there anyway to charge people with fraud for something like this?  I'm sure both sides of the aisle haven't wanted to touch this issue in fear of losing evangelicals, but this has gotten completely out of control.

[Renegade7]

6 hours ago, Mr. Sinister said:

 

Hologram

You're giving them too much credit, there are people that think we've been using Photoshop since the 70s

 

 

 

[Zguy28]

6 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Is there anyway to charge people with fraud for something like this?  I'm sure both sides of the aisle haven't wanted to touch this issue in fear of losing evangelicals, but this has gotten completely out of control.

Jesse Duplaintis is NOT an evangelical, even though I'm sure he thinks that. He's a heretic Word of Faith in the same lineage as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, and Creflo Dollar. They take "positive thoughts" theology and mix it with a little gospel.

 

This article is more generous and gentle than I would be.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Word-Faith.html

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Well, here's a story with all of the things that can be wrong with a church wrapped into one.  This church is in my hometown, approximately a one mile walk from the house I grew up in.  

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2018/06/25/feature/former-members-say-calvary-temple-splits-families-what-happens-to-those-who-leave/?utm_term=.7461e2b470c8

 

Quote

In the early 1980s, membership was at its peak of more than 1,000, former congregants estimate, and Calvary’s annual income exceeded $1 million, according to a 1983 church newsletter written by Scott. The church built a new sanctuary and school buildings. And Scott started a racecar ministry that, to this day, holds shows to display his collection of expensive cars and motorcycles. Around the same time, he led the church leadership to vote for independence from Assemblies of God, which had required that pastors tithe to the umbrella organization. Scott then rewrote the Calvary constitution to eliminate the traditional voting process and end financial transparency, according to several former members. “The church constitution was changed to meet Biblical standards,” Scott wrote in the newsletter. Congregants were still expected to tithe 10 percent of their income. But Scott began to request additional donations, for instance for a building project that never materialized.

 

Under Scott’s leadership, former members say, Calvary Temple also began requiring that they send their children to the church school, a non-accredited K-12 institution in a brown building attached to the church. Virginia banned corporal punishment in public schools in 1989. But at Calvary, “spare the rod and spoil the child” ruled. Cynthia said she started there in third grade and was beaten regularly by her teachers. In accounts that closely match others from more than 20 school alumni, volunteer staff and parents, Cynthia described being taken into a storage room “where there was a paddle as well as a metal folding chair,” then told to hold the chair and bend over for three to five spankings. “If you moved at all, you’d get additional spanks,” she said. By some accounts, nearly all the families at Calvary owned a paddle like this, carving it themselves or obtaining one from a member with carpentry skills. They were wooden, about two feet long, and some were drilled with holes to minimize air resistance. Former students reported being hit with the paddle as young as 6 years old and as many as nine times in succession, sometimes on the same buttock to increase the pain. Kids were hit for missing homework, talking in class, getting poor grades and, in one case reported by two former teachers’ aides, for symptoms later diagnosed as autism. I asked Cynthia, now 34, what the beatings felt like, and she was momentarily at a loss for words. “I don’t — I can’t, I can’t,” she said. “It’s degrading, I can tell you that much. … We were told we were absolutely worthless. Half the time I didn’t even know why I was being punished.”

 

Quote

A year later, Sarah found out that a deacon’s wife had questioned her younger daughter: How was Cynthia behaving? Was she causing trouble? Sarah knew, from the experiences of others, that these questions often preceded a church attempt to divide a family. She was conflicted, but that night she told Cynthia she had to leave. “My heart was breaking,” Sarah told me. “I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like I had no choice.”

 

Former members estimate that over the past 20 years, hundreds of children and adults have left Calvary Temple — either kicked out, like Cynthia, or by quitting. After someone left or was “put out” (in church jargon), family members were often expected to shun them: ignore phone calls, turn away if they met in the grocery store, treat them “as if they were dead,” as one former member put it. Because of this practice, the costs of leaving are steep. Marsha Foster says she has never met her three grandchildren because her daughter still belongs and won’t let her speak to them. Patty Simoneau says she has barely spoken to one of her sons in 10 years, since she left the church. Her two grandchildren live three miles away from her in Sterling, but she says she has met them only a few times. The four of Molly Fitch’s five children who remain at Calvary ignore the cards she leaves and the messages she writes in chalk on their driveways, Fitch says.

 

Much more at the link.

 

TL;DR:  A church in Sterling demands such fealty from it's congregation that it will forcibly tear families apart and beat children with bats, primarily so that its leader can get money (much of which it uses to buy expensive cars for display).  

[TheGreatBuzz]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

and some were drilled with holes to minimize air resistance.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for spankings as a form of discipline.  But where you start to take air resistance into consideration for the paddle, you should probably ask if you are using that punishment correctly.

[Corcaigh]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

TL;DR:  A church in Sterling demands such fealty from it's congregation that it will forcibly tear families apart and beat children with bats, primarily so that its leader can get money (much of which it uses to buy expensive cars for display).  

 

This probably deserves its own thread so that it shows up in search results and current and former church members who are likely Redskins fans can join in. 

 

This has been under investigation for three years. ATF has removed weapons, including assault rifles, from a property owned by the church. WTF is going on there. Sterling, VA is a little removed from some compound in Utah.

 

Although if it was Purcellville, I could understand. 

 

[Renegade7]

Stuff like seed faith is straight up fraud and millionaire pastors should be getting taxed.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Renegade7

[China]

I believe the charlatans that are promoting this should be shot:

 

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wU10/peter-popoff-ministries-miracle-spring-water

[Zguy28]

5 hours ago, China said:

I believe the charlatans that are promoting this should be shot:

 

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wU10/peter-popoff-ministries-miracle-spring-water

I don't know about shot... all life is sacred. But I wouldn't be opposed to an old fashioned public flogging.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

“drink the spring water, or do what ever you need to do with the spring water” #holyenema

[Chew]

I just don't feel like religion has a place in this world anymore.  Science has caught up and leapfrogged religion, so we no longer need our centuries old stories about angry and jealous gods to explain droughts, floods, disease, and famine. 

When the bible was written thousands of years ago, it was meant to be taken literally.  People did believe that a man walked on water, they truly believed a man parted the sea with a wooden staff.  But today, now that we realize how silly and ridiculous those stories are,,I've heard people say "well the Bible was meant as more of a guide" route, which I think is blasphemous.  

I also don't care for the convenience of religion.  When something bad happens, I hear "it's part of God's plan" or "God won't give you anything you can't handle."  Huh?  So that lady from the Branson, Missouri duck boat tragedy in which 8 of her family members died, including ALL of her kids....is that "God's love" or "part of God's plan?"  Did god kill all of her children because he was "testing her faith?"  Are you ****ing serious?  And the only explanation religion has is "it's not for us to understand."  Yeah, I'm gonna pass. 

I think the idea of religion is a beautiful thing.  And to be completely honest, I wish I could believe.  I wish I could be hypnotized and wake up tomorrow believing that God exists and that if I follow the teachings of the bible, I will spend eternity in heaven with everybody I've ever loved.  That sounds amazing.  It would make life SO much easier knowing that there's an eternity of joy on the other side of death.  Which I think is one of the main reasons why religion was created by man in the first place, to explain the unexplainable and to help ease the fear of death. 

But science has blown past religion over the last 100 years, and will continue to forever widen the gap.  Mankind will keep advancing and make the next big discovery, while the bible stands still, unchanged, the same bible it was nearly 2,000 years ago.  It's obsolete.  I think religion is holding us back as a species.  I don't need a book or a god to tell me that I should be kind to people, help those in need, and to not kill my fellow man. 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Chew

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Chew said:

But science has blown past religion over the last 100 years, and will continue to forever widen the gap.  Mankind will keep advancing and make the next big discovery, while the bible stands still, unchanged, the same bible it was nearly 2,000 years ago.  It's obsolete.  I think religion is holding us back as a species.  I don't need a book or a god to tell me that I should be kind to people, help those in need, and to not kill my fellow man. 

 

For the most part, they deal with separate issues (certainly, if you look at Genesis it appears to be partly explanatory, but if you look at the New Testament or the Koran, you don't see much of that at all).

 

There is what is called the is-ought problem.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/05/04/126504492/you-can-t-derive-ought-from-is

 

In that context, science can not "blow by" religion.  You might not need a book to tell you those things, but those things do not come science either.

 

Also, the idea that not all parts of the Bible should be read literally pre-dates modern science (Somewhere relatively recently, I believe in this thread, there was a big discussion on what is science so I've used the word modern science here to indicate what we'd consider science as in an intentional adherence to the scientific method) and the wide spread belief that it should be read literally is historically pretty recent.  In fact, modern science comes from people (e.g. Galileo) who are trying to better interpret the Bible and understand which parts are literal.  

 

My understanding is even the ancient Jewish people did not believe in a literal interpretation of the entire Torah.

 

https://rabbidaniellapin.com/do-orthodox-jews-interpret-the-bible-literally/

 

(Though, I think the parts you have cited have been widely interpreted literally in both Jewish and Christian traditions.  But just that even people before science was a powerful explainer of is it was understood the Bible (even the Old Testament)  wasn't really about is, but about ought.  The (more) wide spread idea that the Bible is a good explainer of both is and ought is relatively recent.)

Edited July 26, 2018 by PeterMP

[Fresh8686]

I kind of agree with the above. I don't have much use for past religions, but spirituality needs to be a part of humanity to counter-balance the sometimes overly mechanical nature of science. To protect from a reductionism that could bleed the vibrancy and mystery from life.

Personally, I feel no conflict with the synergy between science and spirituality. I see science in the elements of that make up the sum of our parts, but spirit in the way they all dance and come together. It blows my mind and comforts me that nothing is ever absolutely created or destroyed, but instead all things shift and change or combine and separate into different shapes of life with varying levels of complexity.

God, Jesus, Horus, Osiris, Shiva... they're all different vehicles holding similar spiritual patterns at their core. I feel my spirit like a mother****er, but at the same time I hold the view that the expansion of my spirit works much like increasing electric capacitance does. I hold to the possibility of spirits and wonder if they operate on the same plane as potentiality fields, with all the limitations that occur with the varying degrees of separation that need to be bridged in order to go from potentiality to tangible physical reality (spirits housed or interconnected/enmeshed within physical form).

I don't know about whether "god has a plan" but I do know that a lot of the things people wish a God would do, won't happen because it would violate the structural integrity of the universe, the delicate balance of way more interconnected layers than humans can even conceive of. And it sucks, but those layers are way more important to keep safe than the temporal shape of a human in some given time or place.

People cry out against brutality and it can indeed be horrible, but conflict and destruction have a place in the greater harmony of life. It's just that they're healthy versions and really, really ****ty versions of it and there is a reason for that as well. The universe has to keep the potential for the full range of things like brutality or pleasure, so that the dynamics of the universe aren't limited. Difference/contrast/conflict create volatility and dynamicism, they propel and push things, creating pressure and combustion.

There is an interaction between every spectrum of life that is vital to the integrity of the universe, even if they seem really horrible at times and even if it marginalizes the importance of our current shape in the greater universe to insultingly low levels. We are both precious and not all that important at the same time and touching both sides of that truth and feeling it viscerally, rather than as an intellectual exercise can be a hard, but vital cross to bear.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Fresh8686