your friend.. God

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by johnny: Lonely fella , God. If he wanted a conversation so badly, then why didn't he just ask ?

Because Christians use guilt as a weapon of social control. Make people feel selfish and wicked and bad about themselves and tell them that the only way to be better is to be penitent and submissive to the church It's worked for 1700 odd years now: there are self-sufficient, self-adapting Christian franchises all over the world. [/QUOTE]I would trust that the Hierophant being card 5 would know this [img]smile.gif[/img] . I agree with ya 100% buddy. All of the established religions involve power-play.

[RevRuby]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: All of the established religions involve power-play.

i disagree with this sentence. it stereotypes every religion. unless you have personally studided in depth every single religion you are talking out your donkey. my church may indeed have power play involved but i have not seen evidence of this personally. i would appreciate if you retracted your statement and perhaps modified it to say the ppl in a religion/church play power games. the church itself is not corrupt. the ppl may be. and before you tell me the ppl make up the church, heavenly father gave us the church, he made it, we are simply imperfect peaople striving for perfection.

[Firestormalpha]

SpiritWarrior that is exactly the kind of statement I was cautioning against. I hope the mods are monitoring this thread. I'd hate to see it turn into a fire fight.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Harkoliar: gee i didnt know it would make this kind of debate .. i didnt think people would think about it (based on your post). if there will be flames here, i will delete this thread... of course the reason why i placed it is because i felt that once in a while it would be nice to talk to GOD (Allah, Budda, etc). I hope you guys did not put this off as an extreme.

Yes, and I find it personally very disappointing at how this thread has degenerated into pro- and anti-Christians when it was posted in good spirit, to try and spread some cheerful thoughts around, and ends up achieving the opposite effect. I know that we all have different opinions on religion, and we're entitled to express those opinions, but I'd hope that once in a while people would a) be tactful in expressing those opinions; and b) realise that there's a time and place to express them. Personally, I don't think this was it. I don't think Harks was promoting Christianity, dissing atheism or trying to engender debate when he posted this - he felt good about something and wanted to share that feeling with all of us. Embrace and trumpet your beliefs, by all means, no matter what they are - but try and be a bit more empathic as well, and pick your moment to do so.

[ 10-14-2003, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Cloudbringer]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by johnny: Lonely fella , God. If he wanted a conversation so badly, then why didn't he just ask ?

Because Christians use guilt as a weapon of social control. Make people feel selfish and wicked and bad about themselves and tell them that the only way to be better is to be penitent and submissive to the church It's worked for 1700 odd years now: there are self-sufficient, self-adapting Christian franchises all over the world. [/QUOTE]Well, THIS Christian would appreciate it if, in the future, you would show enough respect to avoid making blanket statements like the above post.

Such 'stereotypes' and generalizations are offensive and hardly the case for myself, my church or more than half the Christians I know and deal with. And like most generalizations of the kind, it is very insulting to those who don't conform to the narrow 'descriptions' put forth.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by RevRuby: quote: Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: All of the established religions involve power-play.

i disagree with this sentence. it stereotypes every religion. unless you have personally studided in depth every single religion you are talking out your donkey. my church may indeed have power play involved but i have not seen evidence of this personally. i would appreciate if you retracted your statement and perhaps modified it to say the ppl in a religion/church play power games. the church itself is not corrupt. the ppl may be. and before you tell me the ppl make up the church, heavenly father gave us the church, he made it, we are simply imperfect peaople striving for perfection. [/QUOTE]My apologies if you were personally offended but this was not some casual statement on my part. This is my personal opinion and this opinion is the reason I do not follow or practice any of the established religions because I do believe that they all involve power-play. No, not all the religions themselves (in theory) but if you look down upon world history, you'll see that wherever you have more than one human congregating in the same place for an extended period of time to perform acts of worship, religious ritual etc. you have power-games and ego-struggles. I have studied many religions and belief systems from the Catholic to the Zen-Buddhist. While I have not studied every religion, after 22 years I still have not found one that I would put my faith in wholheartedly so it ain't looking too good [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I will tell you that the people make up the church. The alternate statement you made "heavenly father gave us the church" is subject to opinion and may be disagreed with by anyone who does not believe in the "heavenly father". This is not a bash at you or any other religion but in fact, my own belief system. To avoid further public offense I would be more than happy to take this conversation into PM with you if you so wish.

[ 10-14-2003, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: SpiritWarrior ]

[Cloudbringer]

Originally posted by Firestormalpha: I may not be mod, but just a word of warning. Tread very very carefully in what you say on this topic. My personal intuition is to have this topic closed before anything even shows a sign of getting started, but that's not my decision. However, on that note I honestly side with Sir Taliesin. Donut in the event that you are somehow unaware of this. The author of this email would undoubtedly be human. Not that in my opinion God is incapable of sending an email should he choose to. [img]smile.gif[/img] Harkoliar on a grammatical note. The God in your topic title should be capitalized, if for no other reason than the fact that it refers to the deity of a monotheistic religion. In the case of a god being one of many gods or goddesses the g is lowercase. In the case of monotheism, it's God. So even if said God has a distinct name given by it's respective religion it would be referred to as their God not their god.

Nope, we usually do not close threads like this unless they are flamewars or completely against IW's rules. Things can sometimes get 'rough' but as long as they stay mature and focused on the topic, not the person and avoid flaming race/religion etc, they usually even out.

Memnoch posted:

Yes, and I find it personally very disappointing at how this thread has degenerated into pro- and anti-Christians when it was posted in good spirit, to try and spread some cheerful thoughts around, and ends up achieving the opposite effect. I know that we all have different opinions on religion, and we're entitled to express those opinions, but I'd hope that once in a while people would a) be tactful in expressing those opinions; and b) realise that there's a time and place to express them. Personally, I don't think this was it. I don't think Harks was promoting Christianity, dissing atheism or trying to engender debate when he posted this - he felt good about something and wanted to share that feeling with all of us. Embrace and trumpet your beliefs, by all means, no matter what they are - but try and be a bit more empathic as well, and pick your moment to do so

And I agree wholeheartedly! Just because someone posts about something you don't like or want to be part of, is no reason to spoil their 'feel good' or inspirational moment. If you don't like children, posting your unpleasant comments about 'rugrats' on a person's "new baby" thread would be rude. If you think people who drive gas powered cars are frivilous and wasteful, posting a "you ruin the environement and all car drivers suck" comment would be disruptive in a thread like Memnoch's happy piece on his new car. A little restraint could avoid the rain on fellow members' parades. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 10-14-2003, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]

[Cloudbringer]

SpiritWarrior, the same can be said of non-religious groupings. Power is power- you don't need to claim spiritual intervention to be aspiring toward it or seizing it.

Harkoliar- it was a nice try! I understood the point! I surely don't talk to God as much as I should or could. Thanks for posting!

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: SpiritWarrior, the same can be said of non-religious groupings. Power is power- you don't need to claim spiritual intervention to be aspiring toward it or seizing it. Harkoliar- it was a nice try! I understood the point! I surely don't talk to God as much as I should or could. Thanks for posting!

This is my point. This is not about religion, this is about human nature. People are killing each other in the name of their gods. What god commands that?

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Because Christians use guilt as a weapon of social control. Make people feel selfish and wicked and bad about themselves and tell them that the only way to be better is to be penitent and submissive to the church It's worked for 1700 odd years now: there are self-sufficient, self-adapting Christian franchises all over the world.

I see your point Heirophant and I don't think you actually meant to paint an entire religion with a broad brush. I too wonder what feelings this kind of letter is meant to inspire.

Replace the word "Christian" in your post with "some religions" and you have touched upon an excellent issue for discussion, that is the use of guilt as a control device.

Guilt for feeling/being sexual, Guilt for drinking, smoking, or cussing, guilt for wanting and having material possessions, heck, some go as far a as guilt for simply being born.

The other powerful form of control you forgot to mention is fear. This goes hand in hand with guilt. The things one would feel guilty about are also the things that would land them eternal damnation at worst or kad karma at least. Eternal damanation is certainly something that would inspire long agonizing torturous fear.

What does this have to do with God? Thats a good question, but lets ask some other questions first....

I ask myself... Does god want me to be fearful and full of guilt? Does God really not want me to enjoy my sexuality, the abundace of the earth, and the full realm of sensation? Will God actually punish me forever because I lived the life of a curious, feeling, wanting being?

Then it dawns on me... I believe that God is good, even as a hypothetical, and in no way would a good parental diety rig the game of life so enjoying a few pleasures or making a few temporal misteps would land me a sentence of eternal suffering. Thats just bad parenting IMHO.

Therefore these schemes of guilt and fear must have been concocted by...*drum roll*...People!