View Single Post
Unread 03-09-2010, 01:31 PM   #622 (permalink)
Mr. Blonde
Spice Master
 
Mr. Blonde's Avatar
 

Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 17,969
Internets: 278288
Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute Mr. Blonde has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BigDongedHoe View Post
I've for the most part respected all people and their beliefs so I never argued for one belief or another. As you guys know between drugs, drinking, and women I'm not short on life experience and have lived the life many of you live.
Why should religion warrant any respect? Or people, for that matter? I respect peoples basic human rights, but when their heavy beliefs are an affront to logic and reason, and consequently human progress, they absolutely do not deserve my respect. In the same vein other members have used fairy tale analogies, I would not respect an adult who still believed in the tooth fairy. I'd call them crazy or dumb, because that's what they would be.

Protip: There is more to life experience than drugs, drinking, women, camping and Dave Matthews Band. Some of the most important ones involve moving out of your hometown (or state, in the case of Indiana, except for a select few who are able to live outside the status quo), entering new and different and possibly unpleasant social circles, and living on your own.

I have that same gap you claim to have filled; everybody does. Instead of fill it with some hollow, non-explanation (and that's all god is), I'm trying my best to fill it with a deep understanding of science and the known facts of the Universe, and I can honestly say i've been happier than i've ever been, even with the ridiculous amount of things that science doesn't understand -- yet. And even if I never understand or find the answers to the questions, which is entirely likely, i'll be at peace as well...knowing that I at least tried. Unlike you.

Richard Dawkins quotes a blogger in The God Delusion, and it's one of my favorite quotes of all time:

Quote:
Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not –- it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an ‘I dunno’ dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generaly what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds are you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical reply about having always existed, or being outside nature. Which, of course, explains nothing.

Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing.

― Terence McKenna
Mr. Blonde is offline   Reply With Quote