I will say that religions are militant, but faith is not. I am of Catholic faith. Faith is personal.

 

I think it is quite funny, seatlledave, that you are saying that reiligions brainwash people, but you will not take your child to church. That's a control...sounds like you are into brainwashing yourself. You are brainwashing your child to be a cynic.

 

Not really. He's letting his child decide for himself when he's old enough whether he wants to go to church or not, rather than taking him there from a newborn child and saying, "Here this is the life I am going to make you lead." *shrugs*

Control does not equal brainwash.

But everybody believes something different and you'll never be able to make everybody see it the way you do. It just doesn't work.

 

first, you probably agree that going to church has nothing to do with believing in god.
you're an idiot to think it goes both ways, by keeping children out of church, you are brainwashing them. That's like sayig if you don't take your child to satanic church, or muslim church, that you are brainwashing them into your beliefs.

I'd take my son to church if #1 i didn't have to leave him with some christian person who will brainwash my child with their doctrine and #2 the preacher told his stories as options, instead of unquestionable truths.

and i will tell my child "some people believe in a god, some don't"
I won't tell him what I believe in, until he's smart enough to tell me what he does.

but see, me and my 4 year old don't get into philosophical conversations, so i don't think that type of stuff should be brought up at such a young age, but i know most of you christians do, so you can "get'em while their young & impressionable".

So please, actually explain how I am brainwashing my child by not having him goto church at the age of 4.

 

brainwashing - n - any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, esp. one based on repetition or confusion.

He is systematically controlling what his child will/should encounter. Parenthood in itself is brainwashing.

 

Do you know the meaning of indoctrination? I don't teach my child this at all. He knows video games, spongebob and ice cream is the shiznite. that is not doctrine.

He doesn't know how i feel about religion or evolution.
You know, I guess I did teach him about the "myth" that dinosaurs existed.

so that's your excuse, because of what happened to you, because you don't want to think you were really brainwashed.
Did nothing i wrote actually make sense about brainwashing children into religion?

 

Seattledave - I hope you realize that you are debating with an individual who puts faith over logic. That makes for frustration in my experience.

Other than that.... I want to jump in but I don’t want things to go off track.

Keep it up.

 

I'm well aware. I have lots of crazy women in my family, so I'm used to logic and reason not working on people. But seriously, I guess I do have to admit, I have debated probably a hundred or more people on this topic. I know where each of these debates goes, how everyone loves to bring up "well the bible can be interpreted in so many ways" and how most everyone doesn't believe in denominations 100%. I went to church & christian school more than most christians. I know scripture and study history and religion for fun, while most christians just pick up their bible during sermons and "turn to 1st corthinians chapter 3, verse 1 and read along". That's the extent of most christians learning about their own faith. Do they know the bible says pigeons came before a stegosaurus or cochroaches? of course not. If they did, they'd probably not believe in it.

Truthfully I love religion, because of how it keeps the stupid and weak willed from going awol.
But what I don't get are people who consider intelligence above all, who strive to use logic and reason in all aspects in their life, except for the most important part.

No for that they throw away all logic and reason and say "sure whatever, i guess that makes sense." and quit learning and quit altering their views on life, because what they don't know, god knows and "that's good enough for me".

I do want to educate people in this, and though it makes me seem conceded, i too was brainwashed, I too used to pray and I swore I "felt something" (no, really, i swear, i do...lol)

 

Well, you lost any hope of credibility there...

 

How come people automatically think that because I have a faith basis that I put it before logic. Why can't they co-exist? seattledave, can we agree to disagree so we can get back on topic. I am sorry that I attacked you as a parent, but you attacked what I have faith in first. I am ot swearing I feel something when I pray. I do feel Him when I pray.

 

I think he's being facecious. The idea comming from some of the fundies who believe that the earth is <10k years old, and that dino bones were put there by God to test your faith.

 

Do you acknowledge you first heard about a god came from either you parent or priest, who formed their basis of that upon the bible?
if yes, then read genesis 1:20-30, which are just days 4&5 of creation. It's super short. http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/gen1.html

Now according to those verses, which are supposed to be the direct word of god as handed to moses, list out what order the bible says these animals were created in.

Pigeon, Turkey, Sperm Whale, Stegosaurus, Worm, Cochroach.

I'll fill you in:
1st comes Sperm Whales (know about it's vestigial legs?)
2nd comes Pigeon/Turkey
3rd comes Stegosaurus/Worm/Cochroach

Having something like a pigeon exist a day, a year or a billion years before a Stegosaurus, Worm, or Cochroach is wrong in so many ways. The bible says this is the order of creation explictly...the first page of the book that your entire religion is based on, says something that is beyond logic, common sense, biology, evolution and most peoples home-grown creationlism

Logic says no god exists. Logic, requires reason, so reason to me how god exists. Don't tell me about "look at the mountains, look at the sky, how can it exist without a god?" I know that b.s.

wanna get into the mere 76 generations between the first man ever created and jesus(lineage from adam to noah to david to jesus is written 5 times in the bible)? Do you believe that early man like kennewick existed? Homo erectus? CroMagnum? What would you say is the first man/adam? Anyway you put it, the bible has people believing in either the fastest evolving species science has ever known or that all early man skeletons are hoaxes. all of them.

Your faith is based on the bible. Whether you believe in it, or the people who you learned it from do, the bible has so many holes it's rediculous.

from the front or back?

 

Uncalled for.
Don't go there.
Argue the points all you like, don't mock.
You lose when you do.

 

sorry, but it's such a joke to feel some outside force when you pray. But you're right, it will be listened to, if immature jokes aren't applied.

 

Thanks for trying to belittle me to make yourself feel better. By the way, I feel Him in a calming sense...not a physical sense, but I guess that's a joke, too.

 

i apologize, it was bad. i had felt like it was pitched to me. I know exactly how prayer feels. I know the church teachs that it's impossible to "know god" and then fall from his grace, but i do know prayer. I know the feeling.

 

^Lol, then who told the first person?

God exists because there are too many unanswered questions in the world. If you can tell me how the world started using only phyics and math, then I will stop believing in God. How was the material for the big bang created by itself?? How was space created??

You can't answer these questions. How can you not believe in something? I mean aside from whatever church or whatever beliefs if you can't answer that question then how can you not believe in anything. Something must have created everything. To not believe that is incomprehendable to me.

So yea, although I was taught that there was a God, I cannot convinve myself to not believe because I cannot answer questions like that. If you want to not believe in Jesus, or the Bible, or if you believe abortion is right, then all that stuff I can somewhat see as being reasonable, but to deny the existence of God is rediculous.

We can't even comprehend the scope of the universe (probability strongly favors other life) and we can't even comprehend small scale quantum physics, and yet we are so smart to know that there is no God... Don't be so arrogant...

 

So tell me.. where did God come from? Hmmmm.

 

Some say that God didn't create man, but man created God...in a very literal sense. There are beliefs that if people believe in something enough that it becomes truth and can transubstantiate from nothing into existence. I think it is a very interesting belief.

 

ok y'all can flame me if you want on this one.

my ex and i were suppose to have kids a few years ago. she was pregnant by me 4 times.

the first one i did not know about untill her friend told me. i was devistated. her parents made her have an abortion. it was twins. my "first" child. her second abortion. about a month later she got pregnant again. her and i went to the clinic and had another abortion. then about 2 months past by and were in a bad fight.

i was driving and somehow we were arguing about some crap and she punched me in the face while i was driving @ 65mph on the garden state parkway. i pulled over called the cops and they took her away in an ambulance for her safety. she calls me a few hours later and says shes pregnant. unforinatel, i was in the process of moving to NC a few months from the event.

we wanted to keep this baby. she was tired of abortions as was i. after 3 months, she had a mischarrage. her and i were upset.

i came up for vacation the next year for my birthday. of course one thing lead to another and she was pregnant again.
Im excited cuse now we can finally have a child together and nobody would stop us. except her doctor and our fear of my ex dying

she was pregnant with triplets. no fertility drugs or anything. multiple births run in her family.

my ex was a small person. 5'4" 110-115 and im 5'7" 130. but tallness tuns in my family

her doctor told her she had a 50% chance of living if she was to go full term with the triplets pregnancy. we agreed that yet another abortion was going to have to happen.

if it was up to me. i would have never had those abortions done to her. its not a form of birth control. even though sometimes situations happen and.... well... for some its the only option for some girls.

im pro choice. im fully supportive of my partner if she was pregnant and wanted to make a decision.

i have a young daughter who is 7 months old and i have a son on the way in august.

things are good with my future wife and i. i have a good job and still have enough time and money to spend quality time with my gf and the xB :-P