A Discussion about God

[leadchipmunk]

We could talk about pastafarianism. You know since it is has a food based deity

In an effort to save this thread before it catches fire, I shall second Bigm's post

We shall discuss Pastafarianism (and His Noodly Appendage), Discordianism (and Our Lady of Discord), and Jedi (and the Force).

I do agree that this forum may not have been the best place to discuss this, being a fitness based forum. I had not thought of that when it was started, I only thought of the open minded-ness and sense of community here would foster a civil discussion. I'd rather it ended or the discussion switches to a more light hearted style before I was proven wrong.

If anybody gets offended at this, I would like to make a recommendation to solve it. Instead of lashing out and causing harm here, just make a post saying "Please close this thread" and repeat it over multiple lines. Hopefully this will get everyone's attention and will allow the mods to end it before an all out brawl goes out.

As we know, an brawl of this size and with this many strong people would be more devastating than the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwBK31tC5QM

[Deanna]

We could talk about pastafarianism. You know since it is has a food based deity

I've always really wanted a flying spaghetti monster for my car but I would feel wrong about it because I don't eat pasta. Darnit. =/

[Korosia]

If anybody gets offended at this, I would like to make a recommendation to solve it. Instead of lashing out and causing harm here, just make a post saying "Please close this thread" and repeat it over multiple lines. Hopefully this will get everyone's attention and will allow the mods to end it before an all out brawl goes out.

Agreed. Also, if that doesn't work then just report my first post and we'll get the mod's attention pretty quick.

As we know, an brawl of this size and with this many strong people would be more devastating than the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

I now have visions of Steve coming down from the Heavens like Chuck Norris.

"Faster than a speeding bullet ... more powerful than a locomotive ... able to leap tall buildings in a single bound... yes, these are some of Steve Kamb's warm-up exercises."

"When Steve goes swimming, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Steve Kambed"

"Superman owns a pair of Steve Kamb pajamas."

[Artinum]

Why wouldn't you accept the good bits and the bad bits? Definitely not being accusatory here, just asking

Something of a moot point for me, as I don't believe in God in the first place (so he couldn't have written the bible!) but it's one of those things that irks me. It's a horrible case of double standards to point at one part of your holy book and say "this is truth", and then point at another part and say "this is just a metaphor". This isn't limited to Christianity, of course, and not all Christians do this - just the vocal minority that spoil it for everyone else.

While I'm not religious myself, I do find religion fascinating, just as I do most psychological aspects of humanity. Often, religions seem to form a strange dichotomy - on the one hand, they're all about bettering yourself and your community, full of love and forgiveness and generally making the world a better place. On the other hand, they often come with a whole gaggle of rules and menaces and seem more keyed to the destruction of individuality and freedom. Those that find great meaning and joy in their faith are usually those exposed more to the first kind; those that think religion is evil are more exposed to the latter. A truly effective holy book is one that can be interpreted in either direction - I'm not sure whether the "evil" side of religion is simply tenacious enough to hang on or the actual driving force behind getting a religion established.

I think anyone following the bible too closely is missing the point. Like so many philosophies, you can't really learn it verbatim. You can recite all the prayers and follow all the rituals and tithe your salary and it won't do a thing for you. There needs to be an "aha" moment when it all clicks into place, after which the exact words and deeds are fairly irrelevant. No God worth following will damn you to eternal torment for eating fish on a Friday.

[Silentplanet]

Actually all Christians do actually do that because if they didn't have the double standard they'd either believe it all... which would make them horrible people. Or consider the entire book to be metaphors which would make them agnostic.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[pixieopower]

Not trying to restart a dead thread or anything, but i wanted to chime in and I understand completely if this thread gets deleted.

I used to think the bible was confusing and churches were hypocritical groups of gossipy nonsense. then I started doing this set of REALLY cool bible study guides by John Bevere. my small group (aka my bestest friends who decided we should do a bible study after watching a bunch of zombie movies in a row) has done 3 or 4 of Bevere's books and they actually EXPLAIN the stuff and the why's and the how to put it in practice in real life without becoming one of "THOSE" church people. We started with Fear of the Lord and it was cool. Hard, but cool. I feel as long as I am living my life to the best of MY potential I am doing alright and to get through the bad days i remind myself that God made me and if I am important enough that God made me specifically, then I am important enough to give a rats butt about how I treat myself.

My small group besties still mock me once in a while when i relate a principle learned back to Frank Herbert, or Character Creation Generators, but it makes sense to me so its all good

[Naturally]

There is no point arguing about God , no one is going to change their mind .

But I don't think anybody IS arguing. All I see is people exchanging their beliefs in a perfectly pleasant way.

Of course this is a slippery slope discussion, but it doesn't need to be closed.

Agreed.

I've come across the idea before that no religion has it right, and that all of them are just attempts to describe some cosmic truth. This is pretty fair to me. The problem with religion is the human element - when people get so wrapped up in the rituals and the written word and don't realise these parts aren't important. Fundamentalists bring down any philosophy.

Agreed.

In general, I am a spiritual person, but I haven't found (nor would I particularly look for) a religion to affiliate to 100%. I like quite a lot of what I hear from Buddhism, for example, but not all of it. Same of Christianity.

My beliefs include multiple lives for us all, karma and that we are all one in spirit. With this in mind I try not to do harm to others, and to have a loving attitude towards more people than I do a hating one.

If I'm wrong about upstairs, no harm done.

[Ryan Sannar]

If this is a question about beliefs I can answer questions about Mormonism.

As for me. I believe God was once like us and that we are His children. He sent us down here to get a body and we are faced with temptation due to the gift of agency. He wants us to become as Him and thus the atonement, and a way to become pure and clean, was made possible. He sacrificed His son so we could be with him again.

[ZenGwen]

Guys, the continued existence of this thread is still making me kind of uncomfortable. Everyone has a right to believe what they believe, and I think that's great, and I can try to just ignore the thread, but it's hard as people keep posting in it. I really just don't like being confronted with people's religions in a forum I visit for completely unrelated reasons.

Notice the tagline on this board? "Talk about whatever the hell you want here. Well, almost anything."

[Barbarossa]

Guys, the continued existence of this thread is still making me kind of uncomfortable. Everyone has a right to believe what they believe, and I think that's great, and I can try to just ignore the thread, but it's hard as people keep posting in it. I really just don't like being confronted with people's religions in a forum I visit for completely unrelated reasons.

Notice the tagline on this board? "Talk about whatever the hell you want here. Well, almost anything."

I'm inclined to agree with Gwen here. Perhaps in this instance creating a new group to talk about faith/religion would be the way to go?

[Korosia]

Guys, the continued existence of this thread is still making me kind of uncomfortable. Everyone has a right to believe what they believe, and I think that's great, and I can try to just ignore the thread, but it's hard as people keep posting in it. I really just don't like being confronted with people's religions in a forum I visit for completely unrelated reasons.

Notice the tagline on this board? "Talk about whatever the hell you want here. Well, almost anything."

My apologies. This thread kind of grew from another discussion, and I will admit I didn't completely think of the consequences when I started it -- we moved to a new thread to avoid distrupting another one. Unfortuantly, as far as I'm aware now that its created the only people who can take it down are the mods (?). Feel free to report my first comment to get their attention -- I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

I'm inclined to agree with Gwen here. Perhaps in this instance creating a new group to talk about faith/religion would be the way to go?

It was generally agreed earlier in this thread that that would be a bad idea; it would actually increase the problem, and would be far more likely to lead to arguments and cause rifts in the community. In hindsight, even starting this thread was probably a mistake -- you can see from a few people's comments that its making them uncomfotable. Like I said above, feel free to report my first comment if you want to remove the thread

[aj_rock]

Wow. I saw this thread a couple days ago and then it disappeared. I figgered it would have been deleted by now

There have been three types of responses in this thread thus far:

- people genuinely discussing their spiritual beliefs, usually of the christian faith (thus far). They sound very similar to what I'd expect to hear walking into any christian church

- people shuffling their feet, vaguely uncomfortable at the idea of discussing religion on teh internets. Valid point as type 3

- people who are clearly barely restraining themselves from trolling and/or flame-baiting this thread. You know who you are.

Awesome people, every one of you. But teh wurld wide interwebz is NOT a choice spot for religious discussion.

As a type 3-er, I will bow out now...

[BarefootDawsy]

Hi All,

I just want to address the concerns of some members about this thread.

First of all, I just want to say that I'm proud that we have a community where people feel comfortable posting threads about personal topics like this. I'm also proud that it didn't deteriorate into a shouting match, which is a testament to the friendly nature of the Rebels on here.

That being said, religion is a very charged topic, and one that can bring out the best and worse in people.

I don't think this is the first topic on religion to come up here, and am sure that it won't be the last, but I think we can all agree that when the thread ends up becoming more a discussion of whether/when it should be taken down and less about the topic for which it was created, then it's time to take it down.

So, at the end of today, I'm going to remove this thead.

I'm leaving it up for now so that anyone interested can see the reasons. Nerd Fitness isn't anti-religious, but our mission here is to foster a community that encourages people to come together to get healthy and level up their lives. Posts that cause the community discomfort run counter to this mission, and are best discussed in other arenas.

I hope that all of you understand and agree with this decision, but if you have any questions, please feel free to PM me.

Dawsy

[Loren Wade]

Thanks, Dawsy.

[leadchipmunk]

Thank you Dawsy, that is probably in the best. When the discussion becomes more about the thread being here than the discussion, it is time to stop it. Will the thread be deleted completely, or will it just be locked down so nobody can post? Either way is fine with me, but I would prefer to have it locked as its early contents could be beneficial for some people, like it was for myself.

And I completely agree with Korosia's sentiments quoted below, my sincerest apologies to the community.

My apologies. This thread kind of grew from another discussion, and I will admit I didn't completely think of the consequences when I started it -- we moved to a new thread to avoid distrupting another one.

It was generally agreed earlier in this thread that that would be a bad idea; it would actually increase the problem, and would be far more likely to lead to arguments and cause rifts in the community. In hindsight, even starting this thread was probably a mistake -- you can see from a few people's comments that its making them uncomfotable.

[Artinum]

I have to say, this has been the most polite and welcoming religious discussion I've seen anywhere on the internet. Shame to see it go.

[Malnux]

I personally don't have a problem with this thread. It's a good discussion. Nobody is forced to participate or even read it and everybody seemed to be polite and understanding for the most part. I am glad to be part of such community It IS a shame to see it go and I hope it only gets locked instead of removed completely. I would love to reference back to it in the future for my studies.

[Korosia]

I personally don't have a problem with this thread. It's a good discussion. Nobody is forced to participate or even read it and everybody seemed to be polite and understanding for the most part. I am glad to be part of such community It IS a sham to see it go and I hope it only gets locked instead of removed completely. I would love to reference back to it in the future for my studies.

True I think the main problem is that the actual discussion ended on page 1, and everything since has been people saying that they don't really feel comfortable with it being discussed. As always, if it does go you can feel free to mesage me with any questions.

[So Late So Soon]

Thanks dawys. I'm glad this is getting taken down

[Ryan Sannar]

True.

[67alecto]

I want to thank everyone for keeping this civil, but we'll go ahead and close it since we're one troll from causing a meltdown.