i am making up a religion right now, very similar to christianity, except if you dont have faith you burn twice as hard in a a hell that is twice as bad. you should probably believe my religion, just to be safe. i mean, you dont really lose anything by believing, and if you dont believe, and are wrong, you get double-bad hell. man, that would suck.
This is where you are wrong and guilty of the same old martinesque egocentricity. Just because YOU have nothing to discuss about belief, doesn't mean that nobody does. Blah, blah, blah, Nothing to do with my point, which you still miss. The point is in the first paragraph, which you ignored. Belief in a deity is universal among all cultures throughout time. Why is this? Faith has not been dismissed as useless by the vast majority out there. Why is this? More specifically and directly related to SabanFan's post, which I was addressing, ///HERE IS THE POINT!\\\ oral traditions are deeply flawed but not necessarily meaningless ///THAT WAS THE POINT!\\\ . There are still questions here for a great many people. We do not dismiss them out of hand simply because some feller in Brooklyn thinks he has it all figured out.
that is exactly what it means. do you give theis same sort of credibility to every superstition or legend? do you give equal time to the lunatic with stories of anal probing by aliens? yunno thousands claim to have been abducted by aliens. just because you have no alien stories to discuss that doesnt mean theirs arent real. such an egomaniac you are. what kind of person favors evidence over nonsense? the point on your head? (i dunno what this means, but i have heard you say it alot) people always make up answers when they dont know something. obviously. religion serves a very clear purpose for humans, always has. that certainly doesnt make it true. your lack of understanding of basic anthropology is not my problem. read EO wilson's "the moral animal", or dan dennet's "breaking the spell", if you want to understand the evolutionary purpose of faith from the perspective of science and not whatever nonsense you are babbling about. people love faith. but faith isnt based on reality. it makes folks comfortable. the fact that people have faith is totally irrelevant to whether the thing they have faith in is true. oral traditions teach us about people, not the gods. they reveal to us things about humans nature, what people want to believe, and how they operate, what gets them through the day. not religious folks, they know the answers. they know how to live a life such that will have eternal bliss in heaven. i am the one without everything figured out. i simply reject the answers of religion the same way religious folks reject the other thousands of religions they do not beleive in. are you kidding me? how many thousands of religions and spirits and superstitions do you think you reject out of hand? seriously? think! again, you are not paying attention. i dont know who created the universe or why we are here. ask a religious man the same question. which of us has all the answers? "[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake"[/FONT] - mencken
You are really thick today. A child can understand this. That wasn't the argument, as usual you are trying to shift the discussion to a diatribe against religion. I was discussing oral traditions. Fine, so why is the explanation always a diety? Your answer to the question above will demonstrate just how much about anthropology that you know. I ain't expecting much. Your personal agenda prevents you from being objective or accepting that others may want to explore alternate explanations. Anthropology is not an exact science, didn't you know that? But it is a science and you don't learn anything by going in with pre-conceived notions. So what? I wasn't advocating religion despite your attempts to steer the conversation that way. If you paid better attention you would see that I'm suggesting that oral traditions have mixed attributes. People can find them worthwhile but also can be misled by them. Only I never suggested anything about faith being true or real. What I said was that people have not abandoned it as useless, so that it may have virtues as well as faults. FIne, but here you are also trying to reject the very notion that anybody dares to dispute your personal convictions. This is a classic insecurity defense. Your lack of understanding of psychology is not my problem. Many, but I don't reject discussion or exploration of the topic at all. Why do you? What do you fear? Nobody has all the answers. That ain't the issue here. Why do you object to people even discussing oral traditions in a balanced manner? Not all oral traditions are religious in nature, didn't you learn that in anthropology?
it isnt. many cultures believe animals and trees and whatever is god. what yhou mean to say is that people like to invent nonsense. nonsense which you are fully aware is nonsense, but you pretend to listen to because you are furthering your persona as the guy who hears all sides. hey thats great you are "moderate". obviously. religions makes stupid people behave, much of the time. it also makes stupid people kill. everything has virtues and faults. lets hold hands and congratulate ourselves on seeing an issue from all sides. which convictions? i dont have any on this topic. i am only pointing out that everyone elese's ideas are fantasy. i reject lies and unsupported hypotheses for what they are, equal to random noise. if we dont bother separating truth from lies then why bother thinking at all? i fear religion because it is a tool of violence and ignorance and oppression.
God=deity, amigo. Same thing. Inventing an issue to argue with yourself. :insane: Yes, I am reasonable and tolerant. Got a problem with that? Well, duuuh!! And there you have it. I'm pointing out the same thing. WE can do the separating if WE evaluate matters to reach conclusions. YOU do not get do impose your own preconditions, biases, and pronouncements on OUR behalf, thank you very much. By Odin, you inspire me, Lickspittle. KILL! KILL! Kill, to take my place in the halls of Valhalla where the brave may live forever.
sorry to interrupt a good derailment, but here is another flag flap.... Salinas Teacher Calls This Drawing "Offensive" | NBC Bay Area really? are you kidding me? why is the american flag suddenly so offensive? this just boggles my mind. wtf is in the water in cali?
