The Growth of Atheism and What it Means for Our Future

Originally posted by MGSPhantom
People can think however they want, but when these diffrent communities discuss the things they hold dear. The closer we come to self-destruction.

Absolutely.

This is where the emotional awakening is needed. We must experience, with our whole being, the fact that even though our brothers hold dear things that are very different and even contradictory to what we hold dear, our brothers are still fully-fledged human beings.

This is the true meaning behind the commandment to love your enemies. It merely means to experience the truth. For if one experiences the truth about their enemies, they cannot fail to love them. If, by virtue of my knowing (in an experiential way) everything there is to know about you, your pain is my pain (since unless I feel it I don't truly know it), then I cannot not love you. Truth = Love. This is the great secret.

This emotional insight is the only way to avoid hatred under conditions of individual freedom. It's the "good destiny" (or "good NWO" you might say) of humanity: totally free individuals voluntarily learning to love each other. The other possible destiny of course is forced global communism. I am convinced humanity is heading toward one or the other (actually if I had to predict, it will be the "bad NWO" first, which will eventually fail miserably but give birth to the "good NWO").

Originally posted by MGSPhantom
But also, more free thinking leads to more hatred and tension between communities, eventually this hatred could cause massive hatred and possibly worse case scenario, a small scale civil war.

People can think however they want, but when these diffrent communities discuss the things they hold dear. The closer we come to self-destruction.

I disagree. How do you get free thinking=hate? The most important thing is for people to live and let live. If the things you hold dear are not in danger than why would you feel hate for another community?

Originally posted by daskakik

Originally posted by Doublemint
Can you show me these people he is influencing?

Living in latin america I have known many families who have more children than they can comfortably raise. When they are asked why they don't use birth control/family planning they will tell you that it is a sin. The church makes it quite clear that god will send you the children that he wants you to have. To interfere with this is to go against gods will. This is the catholic church under command of the pope of course.

But the question is did they stop using birth control because of what the pope says not what religion says. So, before the pope made his comment did they use birth control?

Sin is just another word for bad just with a religious twist to it. You can remove religion and people will still find birth control is bad.

And then maybe the pope does have influence, but using condoms as your lead arguement might have just been a bad idea.

Originally posted by dizzie_lizzie79

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by dizzie_lizzie79

 

Read "The Phenomenon of Man" by Pierre Tilliard de Chardin, and "The Nature and Destiny of Man" by Reinhold Neibhur, both modern day prophets of the early 20th century. Set aside any anti-religious bias, and probe these writings for a new synthesis. It's there just waiting in the wings now for reappropriation.

The word "noosphere" is from Chardin's book.

Thank you..i had already done a search and was thinking of ordering the first one you mentioned, but thank you for directing me to those specific ones!

I don't consider myself religious...never have really...i myself wasn't raised religious even though my family is of Catholic background...i have always felt like there is a creator of some sort, and that i didn't have to worship the creator for Him/her/them to Love me as long as i live my life by being true to myself and all that i come into contact with, and even though i am not religious i feel compelled to abide by the 10 commandments for some reason...so i don't think that being anti-religious is a problem....i seek out truth and what feels right inside through my intuition. I have always believed in some sense of reincarnation(and even more so most recently) and how humans have evolved (atheist) So i would say i am pretty open minded...

Do you think thats open minded enough?

Yes, absolutely that's open minded. Added to it, that inquisitiveness and sense of playful curiosity you seem to hold in relation to ALL and everything you encounter, yourself and your inner being included, and there it is, the quest, the great work of all ages, your personal "Magnum Opus", but there's no real work involved, because it's fun! I would go so far as to say that such an inquiry, as a state of mind and being as part of a growth process is the very meaning and purpose of life itself. It is both within and without (innerant and transcenant) and among us, since no man is an island unto himself, and we are truly social beings who each reflect part of that "Divine Milieu".

Therefore, when we come to the domain of the unconditioned ground of being, or to our essential nothingness in the absurdity of the injustice of life, and face our deepest fears, head on - we discover something else, and then if we can hang on and take this through to its supra or ultra-rational conclusion, we may find ourselves starting first to smile, and then to laugh out loud!!

We were thinking, many of us, from the entirely wrong frame of reference, which isn't truth and life, and isn't very insightful eighter, but hang in there with our brothers and sisters we must, until everyone finally "gets" the cosmic joke of all ages, which was always at the expense of our own ignorance to begin with!

Originally posted by Doublemint
But the question is did they stop using birth control because of what the pope says not what religion says. So, before the pope made his comment did they use birth control?

This has been the position of the catholic church since forever. The pope's comment was about the position remaning the same.

Here is a papal letter from 1968:

Letter of Pope Paul VI on the Regulation of Birth

It is also asked whether in view of the increased sense of responsibility of modern man, the moment has not come for him to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.

Also Clement of Alexandria (AD195) is known to have said:

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted".

Implying that the roman catholic church has always been against birth control.

The original statment was not made by me I was just giving an example. I think the idea of the original statement was that since birth control is bad then using a condom is bad even if their use is actually saving lives.

Originally posted by pplrnuts
The very foundation of the big three religions (Judaism, Christianity, & Islam) supports NOTHING concrete whatsoever when one researches it. In fact, what it reveals is that folks who believe in this nonsense are among the most ignorant around.

I just want to make a little point here that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the "Big Three". When you consider both Islam and Christianity are offshoots of Judaism, and that aside from some names and the principle of the trinity, Islam and Christianity are pretty much the same religion to objective outside viewers, you have to recalibrate your notion of the "Big Three".

Essentially #1 Abrahamic religions (that covers Judaism, Christianity AND Islam all under one banner) making it the largest by far. #2 would be Hinduism. #3 would be Chinese Ancestor Worship/patrolineal shamanism.

I know it's pedantic, but, you can't make a proper argument when you are so uninformed/ anglo centric. You aren't even considering the non abrahamic religious beliefs of the majority of the continent of Africa, or the traditional tribal systems of non muslim arabs, native americans, central and south americans. Shinto, Sikh or the enormous rush of the central European Neo-pagans and a return to simple shamanism across all continents.

reply to post by daskakik


No, my question was not about birth control being bad or good, but whether the pope has that much infulence. Since the church has had this believe for a while then I do not see how this is good way to show the the pope having alot of influence.

reply to post by nicolee123nd


hopefully in a few generations we can get rid of religion all together

i think more people doubt it partly because its so irrelevant today, it was thought up when we knew nothing about the world or extent of the universe..today its just to illogical

Originally posted by dilapidated
reply to post by nicolee123nd

 

hopefully in a few generations we can get rid of religion all together

i think more people doubt it partly because its so irrelevant today, it was thought up when we knew nothing about the world or extent of the universe..today its just to illogical

Well I guess that solves the whole debate. We already know all the answers of the universe.

reply to post by daskakik


The pope used to be a political figure. Birth control has only been effective in the last few years compared to the rest of human history where sexual diseases have always been prevalent. I'd say as a political figure and not religious (maybe using it to his advantage) telling people to abstain was more a social move.

Like it is today where in africa 200 million women don't have access to contraceptive of their choice, the church wants to help people to be more moral and selective in their choices about their sexual partners, that's what missionaries are for.

reply to post by kykweer

Well I guess that solves the whole debate. We already know all the answers of the universe.

No, but we are learning more and more every day.
The Kepler telescope uses the transit method to find planets, meaning it can't see the planet until it is "eclipsing" its star. For Kepler to see the planet, it has to be at the perfect line of sight between us and its star. Kepler is only capable of seeing a very small fraction of the planets that are near us.
This means that earth like planets could abundant in our galaxy and if you equate the billions of galaxies in the universe, well pufft goes religion.


On top of this we are finding that young protostars are be seeding the universe with water!

Seven hundred and fifty light-years from Earth, a young, sunlike star has been found with jets that blast epic quantities of water into interstellar space, shooting out droplets that move faster than a speeding bullet.

Link

Originally posted by kykweer
The pope used to be a political figure. Birth control has only been effective in the last few years compared to the rest of human history where sexual diseases have always been prevalent. I'd say as a political figure and not religious (maybe using it to his advantage) telling people to abstain was more a social move.

Well a political or religious figure saying something is wrong because it's against gods will is a religious message.

Condoms have been around for at least hundreds of years.

Oldest Surviving Condom

The reusable condom dates back to 1640 and is completely intact, as is its orginal users' manual, written in Latin.

reply to post by Doublemint


It shows a continued influence by the catholic church. If the pope had said condom use is allowed then many catholics would take it as an OK from god to use them.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by Doublemint

 

It shows a continued influence by the catholic church. If the pope had said condom use is allowed then many catholics would take it as an OK from god to use them.

Are you trying to tell me that you think the church equals the pope? Because I was really asking a question about the influnce of the pope not the church. How many times has the church split into differnt groups, that alone shows people see him holding no influnce. Yes, there are people that he has influnce over but what does it matter show me where they have done wrong by listening to a man in the present, the past is the past and leads to speculation. Do you know when the last time war was supported by the pope and how many people joined the war because the pope supported it?

reply to post by flyingfish


I agree that we are advancing at a great rate, its exciting times, but looking out into the distant future we learn more everyday that has changed the way that we thought how planets for for example, but there are still many un answered questions, we have come far in the last 50 years, but we still primitive.

reply to post by daskakik


Condoms have been around for over a thousand years, but we have no way to determine how effective they were in society and who could afford them and they weren't freely available.

To church, no wait, let me rephrase that... To any moral human being its not about people using condoms or not, its more about educating people about sex and the pleasures as well as the consequences. Telling them that its not ok to have sex JUST because there is a condom available which in africa it isn't.

The pope has no power over anyone. In my Bible no one is more or less important.

I feel so unheard and so misunderstood by all subsequent posts, like a voice crying out in the wilderness, ignored completely.

reply to post by Doublemint


You asked about the influence of the pope. I offered an example where people do in fact take both what the pope and the church say as the final word. Sure there are others who have gone against the church but it doesn't mean that they don't influence the actions of those who have, for whatever reason, placed their trust in them.

Originally posted by kykweer
reply to post by daskakik

 

The pope has no power over anyone. In my Bible no one is more or less important.

The pope has power over those who belive that he speaks the will of god.

That's not in your bible I understand but there are those who do believe this and they are the ones he has influence over.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
I feel so unheard and so misunderstood by all subsequent posts, like a voice crying out in the wilderness, ignored completely.

Probably because you posted:

Spirit and truth - the interior reality of being and of life, this is God. I am not referring to an anthropomorphized sky-genie, except perhaps to the degree that the human being, as a conscious being having a spiritual experience reflects the highest creative evolutionary impulse of this same intrinsic inner being or spirit of the universe intrinsic to all life and most fully expressed in human form.

You lost those that do believe in an "anthropomorphized sky-genie" as per the bible and you keep using the word god loosing those that don't.