i love it here.

the uptighties aqre fighting with uptighties now.

and rysie is drinking.


bring it on

scott wrote:

steve wrote:Were the churches fighting tooth-and-nail to end executions, to free prisoners, to feed the hungry, to teach the ignorant, to shelter the homeless, to support those who have fallen ill or destitute -- to break open the granaries, if you will, then I would be beside them helping them do it. As it is, they are on the other side: obsessed with punishment, they are imprisoning more, killing more, making the suffering of the poor and sick more profound and fostering ignorance. I see them as the enemies of civilization, and I am not ashamed of my distaste for them.

C'mon here, cheef, do you really believe what you say in this paragraph? If you'd like, I will provide you with a list of specific churches and specific church-based programs that are doing precisely what you claim no churches are doing. Do you really want that list, so you can give up recording and go fight, tooth-and-nail, alongside them?

http://www.jesuitvolunteers.org/

steve wrote: I am managing my personal life comfortably, and so I have no need for a God in it..

Damn right fucking straight on.

ali and steve:

i think the biggest problem you guys are experiencing is one of perspective. for both your arguments, you could find facts (numbers, even) to support them, but the material being addressed is so subjective that it can swing either way.

ali, what steve is getting at is the present religious-right movement in the U.S. that you really can't get a feel for unless you're here. in any major city you get approaced all the time to "find Jesus" or "answer to the will of the Lord." my thought is that perhaps this is not the case in the U.K., and so you feel steve's claims of religion as "political muscle" to be unfounded. i can assure you that they are not: this really is the primary feeling that the non-religious get of the religious in this country.

steve, i think ali is right in your "pruning" a view of religion to fit your arguments. as has been pointed out, there is plenty of good work that religious folks are doing. unfortunately, as i said earlier, they're not as visible as the folks that bomb abortion clinics, get killed trying to uproot age-old foriegn religions, and wage wars. there are plenty of religious people out there to fuel your opinion, but there are plenty that contradict it as well. just be realistic is all i'm saying.

personally, i'm not a terribly religious person (having read Jared Diamond's Collapse i've come to understand religion as largely social suicide), however i find a lot to like about it in terms of (as was discussed in another thread) aesthetics, plus utility as a venue for charitable work. the "carved in stone" ideals are not something i adhere to at all, and have found myself lately addressing--not just Christianity, but all religions--in kind of a "cafeteria style": take what you want, leave what you don't.

because really, it's all bullshit anyway. whether or not one can use said bullshit in a productive manner is up to the individual, as well as the religious community to which he belongs.

(also, i share scott's paranoia in being one of the reasons this thread was started. if people really do think i'm putting on an air in some cases, i can assure you that i really do talk like this, and i can't make myself sound dumber. a lot of people don't talk to me for this reason.)

Mr. Binary wrote:
I don't think in well-structured sentences. I get a 'feeling' in my head, an idea, and then a different part of my brain puts it into words. Sometimes I can be totally clear on what I am thinking in terms of an understanding of it in my own head, but I don't know the word for it.

Yes, but I think in the end you will always find the word, no? If it is clear to you, it can be clear to me and everyone else. To me, a thought is clear once I have found the words and put them in a sentence.

There is, ofcourse, also poetry, like the smell of my armpit or the sound of a lawn mower on a summer's day.

Oh well!

If my first language is Japanese, and I come on a forum where the first language is English, I may have some problems explaining ideas I have, even if I am certain of them in my own mind. I lack the vocabulary.

I know, so annoying at the times. But these communications here, so good to learn!

Salut, mr. Binary of Japan.

Steve:
I am aware that religion is a driving/ steering force in politics, but to dismiss religion due it's political arm doesnt make sense (when it's not always been bad), and to give it so much time when it has such a little day to day effect for it's followers.

As a religous person, from this side of the fense, I find i get alot out of it. It maybe the placebo effect so to speak, but I still feel better (hence my earlier comment about holistic medicine).

I'm not asking you to take god on, and if you're happy without god, then i respect your courage, as you are braver than i am.
I'm quite a grudgeful person, and I do tend to really hate people in real life, but i know not only is it logically a bad trait, I think that god would punish me for no being sympathetic to my fellow man.
I've contimplated suicide, and the main thing that kept me here was my faith, and it wasn't so I could act out a fatwa.

I think instantzen you have a point. There may be a cultural gulf. I would like to come over across the pond, and see how our odds cousins live.

Steve:
I am aware that religion is a driving/ steering force in politics, but to dismiss religion due it's political arm doesnt make sense (when it's not always been bad), and to give it so much time when it has such a little day to day effect on its followers.

As a religous person, from this side of the fense, I find i get alot out of it. It maybe the placebo effect so to speak, but I still feel better (hence my earlier comment about holistic medicine).

I'm not asking you to take god on, and if you're happy without god, then i respect your courage, as you are braver than i am.
I can be quite a grudgeful person, and I do tend to really hate people in real life, but i know not only is it logically a bad trait, I think that god would punish me for not being sympathetic to my fellow man.
I've contimplated suicide, and the main thing that kept me here was my faith, and it wasn't so I could act out a fatwa.

I think instantzen you have a point. There may be a cultural gulf. I would like to come over across the pond, and see how our odds cousins live.

To be honest the fact that the leaders of the civil rights for abused and oppressed races tend to be highly religious and pious people is usually due to the fact that the dominant religion of the oppressers oppresses their version of religion or their practices as a priority. Thus the 'righteous' and socially aware aspects of that religion are brought into the fore because they bring people together to confront the intolerable way that people can be treated.

aew wrote:Steve:

subtle.

I think instantzen you have a point. There may be a cultural gulf. I would like to come over across the pond, and see how our odds cousins live.

i can't find it, but there's an anecdote somewhere here about an encounter i had with a street-preacher who i lectured on Kirkegaard to get him to leave my friends alone. and i live in Madison, Wisconsin, a notoriously liberal city. Christian fundamentalism here is really bad. equally as bad is the anti-Muslim sentiment. both are largely purpotrated by people who take an "anti-intellectual" stance, and so people who are pro-thought have what may be an unnecessarily harsh prejudice towards religious folk.

okay, i have to go write a paper now. for an Afro-American Studies class, no less.