Anonymous vs. Scientology

[SegNin]

Michael,
I'm editing my posts. I just figure my typing is low enough because my computer's so laggy, someone would have posted after me already, when I see they don't, I immediately delete the post, and copy the message to the old post and edit it. ;]

Click either the Quote button or the button that is a quotation mark, when you reply to someone to add their post to your as a quote.

That way we'll know who you're talking to.

And if you already knew this then...meh.

On the topic of healing through prayer I can't believe nobody has called in the placebo effect.

I mean, come on, if a sugar pill works to cure diseases just because somebody believes their problems will go away, does that mean god is sugar?

I was going to mention the placebo effect, but figured I better help people with their emulation problems first. Oh well, you beat me to it.

My mom took me with her when I was a kid to see Ernest Angely when he came to our city. I guess some of her religious friends recommended him or something. He's one of those faith-healer televangelist charlatan types and he did his whole "And be healed!" routine with various members of the audience.

My mom was impressed, but fortunately, never got into seriously following him or any other televangelist, so she didn't donate to his ministry or anything (I don't think, at least. If she did, it was just a few bucks.)

I, on the other hand, figured it was some kind of trick or scam, so I wasn't buying it, and I was like 10.

She also took me to the home of this reverend and he performed an "exorcism-lite" on me (get your minds out of the gutter: with my Mom and his whole family in their kitchen, he just asked me a bunch of questions designed to determine if I was possessed, then when I finally told him yes, I could hear a voice in my head--just so I could be done with that foolishness and finally get out of there--he, his family, and my Mom prayed for me to be purged of the demon that inhabited me. Or something...I dunno, I found the whole thing silly and annoying.)

My mom wanted me to go back and see those people again; I refused.















It's actually kind of sad when the child is smarter then the parent.

[Evans]

Religion is the group of beliefs a person has regarding Deities and the Supernatural. Religion != God, but God == Religion

Few definitions for that term, actually. Mine was the one involving practices, attitudes, and such.

So, again, you don't need religions to believe in God.

[Anonymous]

Few definitions for that term, actually. Mine was the one involving practices, attitudes, and such.

So, again, you don't need religions to believe in God.

But how can you define any divine being without a doctrine to follow? It's a Catch 22.

[Fury]

Probably not the best source for use in that case. The film took an absolute hammering for using unsourced, anecdotal and sometimes outright false information and runs heavily counter to most theories about the origins of Christianity.

It may not actually be wrong, but it's not solid enough to really count by itself

Yeah its not 100% legit, I definately admit, my focus were the paralells between horus and jesus are true, I agree they dont cite their information and its not 100% reliable, but being a like minded person, I'm sure you can understand why I posted it.

[Evans]

But how can you define any divine being without a doctrine to follow? It's a Catch 22.

Fuck if I know, I'm just saying. It's like those scientists who get tired of not being able to explain everything and, instead of living with their ignorance, start thinking that there's something out there that started it all, or is to credit for whatever else we can't explain at the moment.

[Dr Mario]

Few definitions for that term, actually. Mine was the one involving practices, attitudes, and such.

So, again, you don't need religions to believe in God.

I'll concede to the use of that definition.

But I don't think it invalidates my point about how hollow the god-beliefs of many people are. They never really formed ones for themselves, just adopted the trappings that were around them in their youth and put their faith in that. Lacking organised religion, they'd still just put their faith in whatever it was their parents practiced.

A sad state of affairs.

[Fury]

If you read the bible, you'll know we were meant to be here for a test.
To see if we'd choose jesus/god, or the world/devil.

He didn't make our bodies to live forever but our souls do.
It's the test to see where our souls go.

Oh man, you're going to reference the bible as a reputable source!? haha Typical christian, the old bait and switch, Tell us you're an agnostic first, then hit us with referencing the bible as true. Nice, you think I haven't had christians do that to me before. :eyeball:

[Evans]

I'll concede to the use of that definition.

But I don't think it invalidates my point about how hollow the god-beliefs of many people are. They never really formed ones for themselves, just adopted the trappings that were around them in their youth and put their faith in that. Lacking organised religion, they'd still just put their faith in whatever it was their parents practiced.

A sad state of affairs.

Of course it doesn't, just wanted to be clear about what I meant at first. And, I agree with you, but will extend it to basically anything that anyone does just because they were raised to.

[Dr Mario]

Yeah its not 100% legit, I definately admit, my focus were the paralells between horus and jesus are true, I agree they dont cite their information and its not 100% reliable, but being a like minded person, I'm sure you can understand why I posted it.

I can, but I think that you'd have a lot more success if you either used sourced material (I have no idea where they're getting a lot of their parallels from. They don't match up with anything I've run across in my studies of ancient religion. Not that I'm a bonafide religious scholar or anything) or went with the more commonly accepted parallels of Zoroastrianism, Mithraic worship and the general form of many Greek mystery cults.

[Anonymous]

Fuck if I know, I'm just saying. It's like those scientists who get tired of not being able to explain everything and, instead of living with their ignorance, start thinking that there's something out there that started it all, or is to credit for whatever else we can't explain at the moment.

[Fury]

I can, but I think that you'd have a lot more success if you either used sourced material (I have no idea where they're getting a lot of their parallels from. They don't match up with anything I've run across in my studies of ancient religion. Not that I'm a bonafide religious scholar or anything) or went with the more commonly accepted parallels of Zoroastrianism, Mithraic worship and the general form of many Greek mystery cults.

Yeah but i didn't have any sourced material on hand, and I didn't feel like looking for it, surely you can understand. Im doing this in between world of warcraft mind you

[Dr Mario]

Of course it doesn't, just wanted to be clear about what I meant at first. And, I agree with you, but will extend it to basically anything that anyone does just because they were raised to.

True enough. The religion part only stands out more because it's such a massive thing that have adopted without proper thought and it's fucking everywhere. Its easy enough to shrug off whichever sport team someone backs because that's quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Your position on deities, the afterlife and such? Not quite so inconsequential.

[Evans]

Your position on deities, the afterlife and such? Not quite so inconsequential.

If you were to ask me, it would be.

[Dr Mario]

If you were to ask me, it would be.

From an atheistic point of view? Yeah, it's pretty inconsequential. Except under the odd situation where people get in their heads to enshrine their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, into law.

From a theistic point of view (and I'm mainly coming from a Christian POV here)? Not so much. If the bible is correct, there's a hell of a lot riding on the believer having the correct, or at least an acceptable, interpretation and the actions to match.

It just strikes me as odd that people would accept the idea of a religion where you suffer for eternity if you don't follow it properly and then proceed to not even check what they're supposed to be following.

[Evans]

From an atheistic point of view? Yeah, it's pretty inconsequential. Except under the odd situation where people get in their heads to enshrine their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, into law.

From a theistic point of view (and I'm mainly coming from a Christian POV here)? Not so much. If the bible is correct, there's a hell of a lot riding on the believer having the correct, or at least an acceptable, interpretation and the actions to match.

It just strikes me as odd that people would accept the idea of a religion where you suffer for eternity if you don't follow it properly and then proceed to not even check what they're supposed to be following.

From my own little point of view, in fact. I just don't give a fuck. I'm not saying it's not important, because it's not my place to say so. It simply doesn't matter to me who or what people believe in.