Curse

cataphract · Mar 04, 2009, 09:10 AM // 09:10

I find that incestuous copulation part far more offensive than the whole Balthazar-worship thing.

Engage · Mar 04, 2009, 09:40 AM // 09:40

Some people will inevitably deem stupidity offensive. I am one who mildly does. I do not believe that one should speak without merit in mind. This does not mean I am not jovial, rather I believe that there exists a great chasm between levity and outright ignorance. I would not of course take the time out of my day to rage at you, it ultimately eludes me as to how that would serve any purpose.

If you want to perpetuate that religion is drivel than you will need to come up with a little more than baseless slander.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

This thread is full of generalisation and tbh you're not going to have people of differing opinions here. Only people who think like you will contribute to this thread, because anyone with a little bit of faith will feel that it's going to be series of a flame. You have an opinion, and I utterly disagree with it, but I'm not thinking your opinion is stupid. It's almost as if the "over-religious" is here mirrored by "over-anti-religious" if you see what I mean. In a different atmosphere, you'd have a sincere discussion on the matter, but it seems that you have to make fun of religion in this thread. And I don't see the fun in this (exactly like I don't get the fun the OP is getting at behaving like this).

You might be surprised to see who might pop in for a visit. You probably don't remember me, we'll leave that for another time.

People are usually quite dismissive of faith but little do most know that it is rather a necessary part of everyday life.

Rational arguments cannot bridge the gap between the finite and infinite and they never will. This makes faith paramount to the belief in something greater than the individual.

"Reason can never prove the existence of God." - Kant

I also believe that if we willed it, we could have a discussion on this matter. I feel that both sides would find merit in the words of the other. We need to understand that life really never comes to fruition, we are in perpetual growth. It is in the journey that we outline that ultimately defines our existence.

thor hammerbane · Mar 04, 2009, 10:19 AM // 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Not at all offensive, religious people just get mad when you point out how stupid their beliefs are.

QFT...to the max.

Abedeus · Mar 04, 2009, 10:35 AM // 10:35

You know where would be our art if we didn't have any beliefs?

....Guess. NOWHERE. Because all would we do is paint battles. Most of which wouldn't happen. Or we would paint fruits.

There would be no art from Greece, Persia, Rome, Egypt... Hell, most of those civilizations wouldn't even exist. Because in those days, common religion was one of the important parts of their culture.

Quote:

"Reason can never proof the existence of God." - Kant

You know, if reason couldn't prove the existence of God, he would just change the world so it would prove. You know about the paradox of omnipotence?

Oh, and if you really don't believe in anything you don't see... Then I guess you don't believe that there is anything further than 14 billion light years away. Because we can't, at least for now, see anything past that point. It doesn't mean there's NOTHING there.

Not to mention that 99% of the world won't see what's 1 light year away.

Fril Estelin · Mar 04, 2009, 10:56 AM // 10:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Engage

Rational arguments cannot bridge the gap between the finite and infinite and they never will. This makes faith paramount to the belief in something greater than the individual.

Since the topic was mentioned, I thought I'd emphasize this idea even more: most of the important scientists of the age of Renaissance were deeply religious, and none of them would see a clash between religion and science (which is believed by many to be exclusively the owner of rationality). I can't express in words how much what you're saying is right, my job is about information and knowledge (pass it as a teacher, create/analyse/understand it as a researcher) and I'm fully committed to rationality, while acknowledging two important facts: 1) we are, whatever we say, irrational beings; 2) information is semantically empty (I can assign a lot of meanings to it via words). Even in the realm of finites, there are many things that we don't and even can't apprehend with our mind. As a computer scientist, I see the Matrix (and Allan Turing's work) as a more essential than Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, because it's about why we do stuff, not how. Science has provided us with such significant technical progress (which would have been merely believable 200 years ago) that it's blinding us from a simple truth: it's only the tool, an elaborate one, an impressive one, but what did we achieve with it? Did we rid of poverty? Misery? Death from common illnesses? Did we achieve greater justice?

To go back to information and knowledge, we're getting very good at that, very very good. But we're completely missing on the next step (this classification comes directly from research on Knowledge Management): wisdom.

Most important questions are spiritual and aren't answered by science or rationality (at least not the form that people consider nowadays), it's a matter of ethics, morale and will. Faith is a form of belief, albeit a dominant one, and as such guides us towards elements of answer, because curiosity is also what partly defines us as a species. But faith is not the only mean, people who have no faith still have opinions that guide them, or they simply accept non-answers and move on. It annoys many western people when faith gets out of the private sphere, into the public one, and some people make fun of that by creating farces of religion. (to their defense, some people really are over-religious, but most are reasonable people out of the 6billion people making humanity)

And I fully agree with Abedeus, art is such an important part of our nature, in all its forms, shapes, colors, names. I'm teaching maths and programming, but I also make sure to show how they're used to create, wha they mean to people and how they can make the world better, so to say (it'd be very, very arrogant of me to claim that). I behave the same on Guru or any other online forum.

Btw, I'm not a sad or depressed person, and I don't lack self-criticism or need to reassure myself (or I wouldn't last long as a scientist!). I think the part of the OP's last message that is very wrong is:

Quote:

no one starts to question themselves until someone says something derogatory towards them

Contrary to popular belief, our predecessors (long time ago, Greeks at the time of Socrates for example) never, ever needed anyone to question themselves. And I believe it's still the case, but we're more gregarious and social beings than we were before, as Guru can attest.

**cosyfiep** · Mar 04, 2009, 11:39 AM // 11:39

I find what the guy said back more offensive (especially if he used inappropriate language--eg stuff that gets filtered here on guru)...and hope you reported his sorry little butt for that.....so there.

Aera · Mar 04, 2009, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Internets: srs bznz

Tullzinski · Mar 04, 2009, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Fierce

*random guy adds self to party.. I say "hey, you're looking to do {insert mission of closest availability to current location}" They say "yeah" and then I ask them "well, first before we go, have you heard about our lord and savior balthazar?" generally they leave right then thinking I'm trying to form a video game cult, and we have a little chuckle on our ventrilo amongst guildies/allies. for the ones that play along i generally go on to saying something about how "balthazar saves you know, but thats mostly because he shops at his local wal mart." and then I go on to say that "Balthazar cleanses the unholy," and whatever other religious puns i can conjure at a time. and usually by then they nixx out thinking that I'm being serious.

But in this particular case, this guy continued to play along with it, until i said something along the lines of "you know, they say balthazar was sent to us by another world, and that sirens forewarned his mother of what was to come, then in an instance he said let there be light, and clicked on his bedroom light switch, and then, there was tyria" At which point in time the guy informs me that I'm an asshole, a sinner and that I probably (in much less nice words than I'm using) fornicate with my mother whilst my sister is lined up and ready to catch my ammo, and told me that he was reporting me.....yes, reporting me.

Pretty funny I think, people have no sense of humor anymore and take offense to anything. I could see being angry if you were pushing your actual beliefs on someone, but if you just state that you believe in X(even in parody) and they get mad, then that person has deeper issuses.

That person needs to get over it, I am interested what religon he prescibes to that it is OK to tell people you fornicate with your mom and sister. Let him report away sounds like it would backfire on him if it was ever looked at closely. Sounds like that person was not very secure in whatever he believed in in the first place.

Abedeus · Mar 04, 2009, 03:28 PM // 15:28

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein.

/thread.

Yang Whirlwind · Mar 04, 2009, 03:40 PM // 15:40

I don't take myself too seriously. So, if I am having fun at the expense of another person's beliefs, I am not doing anything to them that I would not do (or have others do) to myself.

I recall a quote attributed to some carpenter regarding that:
"Do not do unto others that which you would not have them do unto you" ... smart man

Dmitri3 · Mar 04, 2009, 04:01 PM // 16:01

How do I join your Bathazar video game cult? It sounds enticing.

Kattar · Mar 04, 2009, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Epic troll perhaps? Sounds like some ATC tactics to me...

Etta · Mar 04, 2009, 04:11 PM // 16:11

ATC is better than ATM, me think. ATM is just gross.

Kattar · Mar 04, 2009, 04:26 PM // 16:26

ATC = Aussie Trolling Crew.

Etta · Mar 04, 2009, 04:36 PM // 16:36

i know, i was just joking around, boss. Unless you found that Offensive?

Kattar · Mar 04, 2009, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Nah, lol. It's cool. Just didn't want to imply anything I wasn't implying.

fenix · Mar 04, 2009, 11:24 PM // 23:24

There is no ATC. Nothing to see here, move along.

Tyla · Mar 05, 2009, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Nope. Personally religeon is pretty dumb to me for the most part when it comes to some dude existing randomly and thinking "I feel creative!" And something can't come out of nothing, somebody existing that far down in time as some form of deity is a lot less believable than atoms colliding. Same thing with miracles, with all of the crap that's still going on in the world I'm surprised that in divinity there would be some form of proof shown out of it.

But meh, it all goes too far with "why, what?" questions.

DreamRunner · Mar 05, 2009, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Not at all offensive, religious people just get mad when you point out how stupid their beliefs are.

And yet, the western morals and ethics are based on Christian belief. The rise of individualism and pragmatic thought has only been around since early 20th century.

And if you go back further, humanism had a good relationship with Christianity and many humanists were churchmen, most notably Pope Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini Pius II. Humanist had also contributed to the history of science in the Renaissance by mostly studying natural philosophy and applied mathematics.

Halmyr · Mar 05, 2009, 04:40 AM // 04:40

"I know that I know nothing" - Socrates

I base a lot of my philosophie on this phrase. When you think about it, a lot of our ideas for religion, spirituality, good vs evil....ect...are base on nothing. So there is no saying who's right, and who wrong, we don't even know the truth, we base are morals and ethic by the people around us and our experience and they do change over time. Look at other parts of the world, we consider them savage and not civilize, but they are probably thinking the same thing of us.

Back to the original question, personaly no, I don't find it offensive, but there are others who do. "Do not do unto others what you would not have done on yourself" A good phrase to live on, but not enought.
Respect here is the key word, you don't have to like the guy, or agree with him on everything. But that does not mean you insult or assault the guy. Respect is views and go to some one else who more readily to receive your joke. Neither of you are right, but that does not mean your both wrong either