The Case For Religulous
Wednesday October 1, 2008
In the spirit of forgiveness, let me start with a few compliments for Religulous. It was funnier than I expected. To be sure, some of it was shooting fish in a barrel. Run a clip of Muslim describing Islam as...
Filed Under: Religulous
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
Search This Blog
About Steven Waldman
Subscribe
Most Popular Posts
Hot Topics:
Righteous Posts:
Best Posts That No One Read:
- Our Patriotic Holy War
- Obama's White Family and Black Church
- Science & Religion Dispatched from Cambridge
Little Known Facts:
- The Rise of Prayerism
- Deism--It's Back!
- Abortion vs. Gays: The Evangelical Age Gap
- The Spiritual Atheists
Still Cracks Me Up:
Posts That Annoy Conservatives:
Posts That Annoy Liberals:
- Thomas Jefferson: Believer in Intelligent Design?
- Obama's White House Shouldn't Vet Prayers
- Agreeing with Values Voters
- Why the Catholic Bishops Matter on Health Care
- How to Defuse the Health Care Abortion Issue
- In Defense of Bloody Aborted Fetus Photos
Posts That Annoy Everyone:
Calendar
Tag Cloud
abortion, abortion health care, abortion reduction, barack obama, Barack Obama, casting stones, Catholic, Catholics, Christian, economy, election day '08, evangelicals, Founding Faith, Founding Fathers, gay marriage, health care, Islam, Jews, Judaism, mccain, national service, news, obama, Obama, politics, prayer, pro-life, republican convention, rick warren, sarah palin
1. He didn't
2. He will.
3. Because of hardened hearts.
But don't believe me. Read it in the Bible.
1. Yes he did.
2. Yeah, right.
3. Joseph Smith was right.
Why think?
1. Adam and Eve screwed things up because of the talking snake!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. HE WILL after...he decides to uh umm to well....hmm.........
3. If God spoke to someone directly with his awesome omnipotent presence...uhh...they would have a hardened heart...I...think?
But don't believe me. I'm a moron.
I don't skeptics struggle with these questions. They're really only a problem if you're trying to reconcile the world we can see with the idea of a personal that cares about humanity.
That should be "a personal God that cares about humanity". I had the keyboard in overstrike mode.
Who said religion makes sense?
The existence of evil, pain and suffering, and an allegedly benevolent God contradict each other.
The existence of evil, pain and suffering is not contradictory to a benevolent God. It is only contradictory if you insist on assuming that a benevolent God MUST eradicate such things RIGHT THIS VERY MOMEMT.
Why are we born imperfect?
IMO, life is about learning. In every major event in our life there is a gift of learning. You want God to take away all the pain? No way. That would be totally disrespectful on God's part. Enlightenment, true wisdom, comes from learning to deal the cards we are dealt in the best way we can. No pain, no gain sounds a bit harsh to me but there's a nugget of truth there. Stop denying the pain, learn the gift it has for you, and get on with your life.
"The Devil" as you say is the dispensor of the challenges to learn. Looked upon this way "The Devil" is really a teacher. "Good" and "evil" are but two sides of the same coin. As an electric motor can not turn with out both positive and negative energy, so our lives cannot turn without positive and negative energies. It's up to us how we use those energies for our benefit.
Why does God speaks to prophets in private? Well if you heard the words publically you'd think the "prophet" was making it all up. Faking it, trying to "con" us.
God speaks to us in private, so that we may hear them over the noisy din of life, and so that once we do hear the words we have time to quietly determine what they mean for us, gives us time to digest what's being said, to determine what we are going to do with the wisdom dispensed. Make sense?
Wow, Rich, You certainly are deluded. I think Maher would have loved to have you in the movie because you have definately gone to great lenths to rationalize some strange stuff. "That would be totally disrespectful on God's part." ????? The Devil is our teacher? Our lives cannot turn without equal postitive and negative? Tell that to someone born fatherless, legless and starving in a 30-year war-zone. Tell me if his life and Joe Six Pack are recieving equal blessings of God's love.
Your explaination for God speaking in private to us as well as to 'prophets' -- justifies Bill Maher's point exactly. Do you know how many people are in assylums with Christ Complexes? Today and throughout the ages? People who hear the voice of God speaking directly to them? When ANYONE takes their message public, it looks like they are "trying to con us".
pain is a gift? Tell that to someone born legless, starving,and fatherless in a 30-year war-zone. Is he recieving equal blessings of God's love as America's Joe Six Pack? I would argue that pain is not a gift.
Do you know how many people there are in assylums with Christ Complexes? Today and throughout the ages? People who swear they hear God speaking directly to them? So when ANYONE take their message publicly, we it appears that they are "trying to con us". It is impossible to tell who has a more trustworthy voice talking to them secretly inside their head.
This I think was Bill Maher's point. We can rationalize things away to a ridiculous point. But that doesn't make it true.
I agree. Sometimes I think that people who are filled with religion have a mild case of insanity (a literal break with reality).
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.