Except I can now see that his little wee nose looks like a potato demon. That dog can't be trusted.

What, not trust Shecky?
You kid. You must.

Found his partner.

Image Indeed

Huh. To me she looks profoundly skeptical. Like someone who recently woke from a 4 year coma being told who the current president of the United States is.

People who hate on religion are funny. They don't like the fact that other people have core (unchangeable) beliefs, but they have their own core (unchangeable) beliefs that simply don't involve the word "God".

I never make fun of people for their beliefs. It's not the people in the church I have a problem with, it's the institution itself. Most religious people aren't concerned with the larger politics at hand that their church gets involved in, they just want to do right by themselves, their family, their friends and their specific god.

It's the things people do in the name of religion that i have issue with. Like the internment camp for Muslims that exists in Israel. The atrocities in Myanmar committed by Buddhists. Most things done in the name of "conversion." The torture committed against Jesuits that happened in Japan. The Westboro Baptist Churches "protests" during the funerary services of US soldiers killed in battle. The Crusades. The Muslim attacks on pilgrims that forced The Crusades to be "a thing." The Spanish Inquisition.

No religion is guilt free.

On a brighter note, Iran just reelected Khameni instead of the conservative/populist candidate. I was worried that our own shift toward a more Iran hostile government would reverberate over there but it looks like they want to keep working towards better relations with the west anyway. Yay!

Sixty, Flakey... good stuff guys.
We are a collection of intelligent, open minded individuals.

You see, we have no core "unchangeable" beliefs, because we can always be proven wrong.
Trying to prove a religious person is wrong is like ramming your head against a brick wall, you'll crack your skull open long before knocking it down.

I like the theory that religion is in fact a mnemonic verbal virus that infects minds through speech.
It would seem that intelligence is the only vaccine.

So much Control at the GP.

Have you read Snowcrash?

I enjoy talking with people about their beliefs but usually when the word religion is used it has a very negative connotation as has been expressed here. I wonder, do you hate all forms of spirituality or is it just formal organized religion? Is the belief in a non-random universe offensive to you?

I too generally strongly dislike (hate is the word I want to use but I don't hate the people in the group) religion that is involved with politics and preaches ideas that are contrary to the very texts they say is the basis for their stand. Historically they incite religious warfare and hatred/intolerance that is contrary to the written word they so proudly raise up and this continues today.

Spirituality can be the belief that there is more than just what we can see at work, to find a meaning to life or inner peace. “Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need.” -Matthew 5:3. I consider myself a spiritual man, but others may say I am very religious. In my profession (nurse) I deal with pain and suffering of others, I have dealt with death and the patient's family and communicating with them the facts of what is going on or has happened. At times I feel the pain of others as my own and I would quickly become toxic if I didn't have my beliefs to turn to.

Why would you want to take that away? Does "intelligence" cure me of this peace that I rely on? I believe intelligence is why I have my faith, because if I blindly believe without proving my beliefs to myself that isn't faith. That is credulity or a readiness to believe without a valid basis or reason. This often passes for faith but true faith is not credulity, and it is much more than just believing that God exists.

I know this isn't a popular subject for many on this board but it is one I care deeply about. I do like conversing and understanding other view points so please have at it.


Well at least you didn't use the other half of my user name, poor dog.

@Sl33p:

I get where you're coming from, I'm long past the "internet atheist" days of pointing out religion's inconsistencies and damaging impact on what I saw as the progress of society. Now however, whilst I still have no belief I'm any more than worm food when the candle goes out, I can see the appeal of hoping there's nothing once your thoughts stop. Its just a fear of mortality, the fear of nothingness, literal nothingness that we cannot comprehend because our brains naturally imagine a black empty space when we think of it. Because we think, we cannot comprehend NOT thinking, a lack of self or a lack of sensation. There have been experiments in dead-sound rooms with the lights out. There's next to no smell and all you have is the ability to touch the walls for any sensory feedback, and people absolutely hate it when their actions (even basic ones such as movement and speech) have no reaction. This is what I imagine to be as close as we can get to imagining literal-nothing. I know my idea of "hell" would be something like that over a demon burning my skin and yelling about sin forever.

I've also come to understand something from the kids I teach in a post-religious society (at least when religion is dominant). The behaviour is a lot worse. Its not a popular opinion, particularly from a loony-lefty like me, but I see very often from the kids and now in adults how bored they get of freedom. When you give them 2 choices of something to do, brilliant, they pick one and dedicate time to it. If you say "pick any subject you like to write/draw/talk about", they are far more likely to produce worse work, act out, or get distracted. I could just as easily apply this to single adults without kids (well, lets say adults with lots of free time). They can be anything they want, do anything they want if they really put their mind to it right? So how many of the population are astronauts? How many of them are brilliant scientists? Do you think your local trash collectors want to be trash collectors for the rest of their life? Do you think its more likely that they'd "settle" for lack of a better word, climb a ladder to a management position and maybe executive or start their own company where they can be executive? Sure, the world needs people to do these things, maybe some of them have always wanted to do that for life, but go down to a call centre near you and I guarantee more than half of them have seriously contemplated suicide from having a job that consists of being yelled at by someone with problems caused by someone who isn't you. This ties back to religion's impact on society. It gave people a hope that this mundane, awful little world had something more to it, something that made all the BS worth it like a reward at the end for doing so well. The fewer people who have that strict structure giving them purpose, the more apathetic and miserable day-to-day life appears. Medical depression numbers are at an all time high, something in the region of 30% of people in the UK diagnosed, with a suspected number of sufferers being closer to nearly half. Remember that notion in the first paragraph about people hating the idea of no feedback, no result of their actions, a "reward" for them as it were? Apply that to the literal end of peoples' lives and think about whether everything you've ever put effort into resulted in a reward, why would death be any different?

Okay, so I was reading this article over at Cracked (http://www.cracked.com/article_24783_7- ... brain.html), when I saw the following screenshot from Female Ninjas Magic Chronicles 3: Sacred Book of Sexual Position, which is somehow not a porno.



Please check out the article for the mostly SFW* gif that follows. I can't.... I just can't even... My mind is happily erupted now.

Now, is this a power exclusive to women ninjas? Can a male ninja learn a penis-equivalent skill?

*Don't read this article if your workplace is particularly picky, or in plain view of the public.

(Am I Off-Topicing correctly?)

Snort. Have you read American Gods? Early on there's a brilliantly disturbing scene.

I thought it would be patently evident by now that I clearly cannot read.

Yeah, how have some people not noticed that yet?? Idiots.

Sort of... I listened to the audio book.