We're all pretty smart when you come down to it. We just have different training, skills, talents and ambitions.
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We're all pretty smart when you come down to it. We just have different training, skills, talents and ambitions.
Good discussion.
From a Zen Buddhist standpoint , I would only add...a bit of humor.
Thinking of have this tattoo done
That's an interesting graph , dderek123 ,thanks here's the link.
If you click on the Complete Report tab ,on the upper right ,there's a PDF file with an expanded discussion of the findings.
Two countries stand out as clear exceptions to the pattern :China and the US . " Americans are much more likely than their economic counterparts to say that belief in God is essential for morality ,while the Chinese are much less likely to do so.
Although since China is officially atheist , makes me wonder about the methods used to gather the data in China. America is no surprise !
http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/03/13/...03-13-2014-02/
The Moral Instinct.
Some interesting observations by Steven Pinker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/ma...anted=all&_r=0
New research shows the Internet could be making Americans lose faith
http://www.technologyreview.com/view...gion/#comments
Sure there are lots of reasons, but if you give the masses easy access to porn, this will happen!
I have to ask what unafiliated means in this context. I’ve had people tell me they’re unaffiliated when in fact they meant that they go to a non-denominational church (with a coffee shop, a TV room, a game room, a gym, several meeting rooms for various social events etc.); i.e. they’re unaffiliated with any particular denomination, even though they’re Christian, have a distinctly protestant outlook and prefer hanging out with like kind.
Though to be fair, I did lose my official affiliation card at about the same time the internets (a sucking series of evil tubes) lol’d me into the hot pink, frilly world of Hung Angels (you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy). Help! I’m trapped and doomed to eternal fire. I used to be such a nice girl (sob).
Actually this was a pretty crap paper. They selected answers from the General Social Survey (GSS) and did some iffy stats.
RELIG : “What is your religious preference?”
RELIG16 : “In what religion were you raised?”
AGE : Respondent’s age when surveyed.
YEAR : Year of survey.
EDUC : “What is the highest grade in elementary school or high school that you finished and got credit for?”
INCOME : “In which of these groups did your total family income, from all sources, fall last year before taxes, that is?”
SEI : Respondent socioeconomic index (computed by GSS based on re- spondent’s occupation).
SRCBELT : Classification of respondent’s metropolitan statistical area as urban, suburban or rural (coded by GSS based on location of interview and U.S. Census data).
WWWHR : “Not counting e-mail, about how many minutes or hours per week do you use the Web?”
COMPWT : Respondent’s computed sample weight. All statistics re- ported in this paper reflect these weights.
Don't ask me what "religious preference" means! " I would prefer to be a Hindu but I go to the Mormon Church"
Of course, correlation means nothing - an example attached.
Trish - I would not worry. I'm sure that you have brought more people pleasure in your new role. All this will be taken into account on the great day of judgement.
Ramen, and may the sauce be with you...
From today's Independent:
Pastafarians rejoice as Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is granted permission to register as a religion in Poland
A church that worships an invisible flying spaghetti monster can now apply to be registered as an official religion in Poland, after a 2013 court ruling was overturned on Tuesday. A Warsaw court rejected a ruling by the Regional Administrative Court because the it had not allowed the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) a two-month extension for submitting outstanding documents, Polskie Radio has reported.
A group of Pastafarians who gathered outside the court shouting "pasta" during the hearing on Tuesday welcomed the ruling.
In January, Pastafarian minister Christopher Schaeffer was sworn into the Pomfret New York Town Council this week with a colander on his head throughout the ceremony to represent his unique religious beliefs. As a movement, Pastafarianism parodies orthodox religion and opposes the teaching of creationism and intelligent design. For example, prayers end with the word ‘ramen’ instead of ‘amen’ – a nod to Japanese noodles.
According the FSM's website, the church existed in secrecy until 2005 when the publication of a letter, complete with a drawing of the spaghetti monster that had been sent to a school board in Kansas.
The website insists Pastafarianism is a real religion, whose followers believe that pirates were the original Pastafarians and "were peaceful explorers and it was due to Christian misinformation that they have an image of outcast criminals today."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/we...d-9248689.html
Images of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are everywhere - if you look
whatever the creative force (god) is - if it exists at all - I don't believe it needs humans to worship it or approve of it - the human created concepts of justice,fairness, etc... perhaps mean nothing to it. it does whatever it wishes to whomever it wishes whenever it wishes cause it can.
Quick! We need to influence what it wishes. Let's us bow our heads in obsequious prayer.
Or make another bowl of pasta...
I'll have the marinara sauce please.
any father ted fans here?
http://i.imgur.com/Dg5hytY.jpg
Little Mark... Fucking the world and his friends.
Interesting FaceBook shit.
If anyone fell for that, they're idiots.
Father Ted | An Ecumenical Matter - YouTubeQuote:
Originally Posted by dderek123
Tony Perkins: Christians forced to bake cakes for gays like forcing Jews into Nazi ovens
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/0...to-nazi-ovens/
Guess he really doesn't like cake.
God is dead.......long live the sinner..........Hail Satan!,,,,,
Every synthesis requires an antithesis. If the gods are dead, so are the demons. Hate to disappoint but there's just us ordinary mortals...nothing more...though there could've been and still could be less.
Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all fours, who, because of his " divine spiritual and intellectual development," has become the most vicious animal of all" Anton Szandor LaVey
'Divine spiritual' development' is gibberish. We learn nothing from obscure metaphors. We're animals. We don't need a story book character to represent us as one. We do that pretty well by ourselves.
The text I quoted is from the Satanic Bible, it is part of the nine Satanic Statements. It may seem gibberish to you, but it is a corner stone of my beliefs
Gotta respect peoples beliefs - providing they hurt no one else - even when dreamt up by utter charlatans like Anton Lavey
As John Lennon sang. "Whatever gets you through the night."
....
Gods and demons are truly alive... in the minds of men... who enact all manner of unspeakable things in their delusions of the divine will
How about this possibility, Prospero? :)
I don't believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation. But maybe we can be rebooted...
They asked Buddha why he wasted his time trying to get unbelievers with the program, and he said "some will understand"
The Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have lots of blood on their hands, but outside a few flaming suicides, Buddhism has managed to tally a pretty low deathcount. The Amish too. Even the Satanists.
Muhammad said you could be a businessman or soldier and still know the grace of God, as long as you had honor.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: (scent of a woman) . Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.