I respected that Graham, at least, tried to maintain an a-political stance as opposed to being completely in the bag for the right- e.g., like Jerry Falwell.
It's cute that you think this.
Why does someone who lived their life genuinely righteous 99% of the time shame you?
We all do. It's what we do in that 1%, when the decisions are hard, when doing the right thing might not be the easy thing, that separate decent people from lousy assholes.
The man amassed wealth and influence acting as a purveyor of spiritual snake oil, and he laid the groundwork for others, including his own spawn, to use the religious right as a political force for shitty policy over the last four decades.
?
Chinteresting... so natural selection. the tribal collective and opposable thumbs. However your ancestors worshipped something and/or somebody besides the bearded Zeus in the Sky throughout their history. All of our ancestors did. For some it did bring peace. For others bondage as it was twisted by man himself.
Look I don't buy the bearded guy story myself. But I feel the creator of the Universe is a thing and the peace that it brings to the created comes in many forms. And to deny that is pretty short sighted imo. While your DNA is the result of evolution, It was indeed created by something.
As Hitchens used to say, religion is humanity's first attempt to make sense of the larger world, and because it was the first, it was the worst. People who were technologically and organizationally primitive and who didn't know much about how the world works outside of their own limited environment and experiences used their limited abilities of pattern-recognition to conjure up frameworks whereby they could improve their outcomes. Those frameworks were drawn from their own experiences (Indians had their cobra god, Egyptians had Ra and their crocodile god, and the Norse had the Fenris Wolf), and they set about trying to figure out what they could do that would please these deities, so that those deities would give them good fortune. Lo and behold, what works, in terms of social order, is cooperative behavior that had already evolved in us. So they codified their pre-existing cooperative behavior into their sets of social rules, slapped some cool creation myths and stories along with it, and voila, they got religion and all the non-evidentiary dogma that goes with it. As far a the Judeo-Christian framework is concerned, look at any thou shalt not in the Commandments or any deadly sin, and you can make an argument that it's an attempt to promote tribal cooperation and limit discord, which can be detrimental or fatal to the collective. The acts aren't evil or sinful in themselves; they're manifestations of the natural individual desire to act in one's own self-interest. What makes them evil or sinful is the context in which we want to exercise those impulses.
So it's the rules that are imposed by Judeo/Christian religions that you have the main problem with NO*. And that breaking some of the Commandments doesn't necessary make you a bad guy NO**. Some of that I agree with in context. But really most of what you're saying is I shall plunder and take whatever I want and some fake deity will never make me feel bad for doing so NO***. But all throughout history it's been more the tribal leaders that dictate what you can and can't do and were the ones you had to answer to and dictated what you had. And individuality and freedom to do what you want, when you want, weren't real common place in less you were at the top of the food chain. And the leaders religion molded some of that I agree. But the ability for the common man to do what He wanted when He wanted is a new thing. So to say that religion, chiefly is what holds people in a sort of bondage to the tribal elders doesn't hold water for me.
But it's not just religion that teaches or dictates what's right or wrong or what brings peace to oneself at the end of one's day. We all have a soul that is guided by who and what we covet. Most people want to live their life so that they can sleep well at night. But during the course of that day you may have to do some things that you're not proud of to survive or move forward. There is an innate sense of right or wrong in most peoples. It wasn't formed by their surroundings or the religion that is told they should follow. It's built into them. It's what separates Humans. It's what help them find the balance. And in this world today, it has becomes less commonplace. Life doesn't have the value that it used to in this Country. Is it because of the things people have to do to survive? In some parts of the world maybe. But in this Country... not at all, I'd say it's more that people have lost their way spiritually. The spirituality that was installed at birth in every single one of us but gets slowly stripped away as the years roll on if not nurtured.
* The rules of Judeo-Christianity are co-opted from pre-existing moral codes that humans acquired as they evolved to be more tribal and cooperative. They are rules to maintain trust and cohesiveness within the tribe, because trust and cohesion in a tribe are more likely to make it thrive. They're pretty good and effective rules. But morality was co-opted by religion; morality doesn't flow from religion, as many religious types would have you believe. My best man once told me that I couldn't lead a moral life but by accident, because I could have no concept of what a moral life was because I hadn't accepted Jesus into my heart. For them, morality is defined by religion; for me, morality was co-opted by religion. It's the religious dogma that's problematic, not the essential morality.
** The Commandments and Deadly Sins describe behavior in a context, which makes the action "evil" or "sinful." The action itself isn't inherently evil of sinful; it's the context in which we act that makes the action evil or sinful. Thou shalt not kill - killing in defense of the tribe is OK, killing to help feed the tribe is OK. Killing somebody in the tribe is NOT OK; it makes the dead person's family angry with you, want revenge, yada yada, and it also precludes any future cooperation with the dead person and precludes any contributions that that person could have made to the tribe. Want to destroy a tribe from within? Kill somebody and see what happens. That's why it's a sin. Not the general act of killing, but killing within the tribe. Thou shalt not steal- taking things is OK, we need things to survive. But taking things from somebody else erodes trust and cooperation. Thou shalt not bear false witness - deceiving for the sake of the tribe is OK, deceiving a fish with a baited hook or deceiving a rabbit with a snare is OK, but lying within the tribe creates distrust and erodes cooperation. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife - fucking is good, try the unattached daughter, the DNA wants reproduction and the tribe needs new contributors, but find somebody who isn't taken. You fuck Og's woman, and Og might not have your back on the next mammoth hunt, leaving you gored and the tribe perhaps without meat. Gluttony? Eating is fine, feating when you might not know when your next meal is fine, but eating more than you should in an environment where calories are scarce means that somebody else isn't getting what they need. Somebody else isn't getting the food that they need, and they can't contribute to the tribe the way they should, and it's your fault. Erodes trust and cooperation. I could go on, but I think you get the poont. The action isn't inherently sinful; the context of the action makes it sinful. Giving in to one's self-interest when one should cooperate erodes trust and cooperation in the tribe, and lessens that chances that the tribe will survive/thrive.
*** I really don't know what you're trying to ascribe to my argument here, but I think it's some form of moral relativism. But humans do have innate morality, as I think you allude to in your next paragraph. We do know, generally the moral things to do, because we've evolved to be cooperative with each other. But we still need those self-interested impulses that religion would have us call evil or sinful. We just need to channel them correctly in the cooperative context so that we can all get along.
And I don't know that we have a soul. We are meat sacks, supporting a marginally self-aware nerve bundle that is tasked with propelling our DNA into the future. That marginally self-aware nerve bundle is packed with basic instructions and the potential for shell programs to be laid on top, largely determined by the DNA that it inherited from its parents, but soul? Something that exists outside the physical realm? I don't see it. Do people with dementia or Alzheimers have an eternal soul that remains intact while their brains and cognitive abilities erode? Do schizophrenics have multiple souls? What about elephants and whales, whose brains are larger and possibly more complex than ours, but they don't have opposable thumbs and a language that we recognize? It would seem to me that if you believe in the concept of a soul, you pretty much have to believe in a God of some sort.
Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Oh, and Race, honey, you know as well as I do that evangelicals voted for Trump because their news feed convinced them that Hillary enjoyed performing partial-birth abortions herself every day between afternoon tea and supper, and that the white-haired cretin on the ticket would advance their agenda with the ideologically malleable 30-sec.-attention-span-In-Chief.
Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Oh, and Race, honey, you know as well as I do that evangelicals voted for Trump because their news feed convinced them that Hillary enjoyed performing partial-birth abortions herself every day between afternoon tea and supper, and that the white-haired cretin on the ticket would advance their agenda with the ideologically malleable 30-sec.-attention-span-In-Chief.
Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Oh, and Race, honey, you know as well as I do that evangelicals voted for Trump because their news feed convinced them that Hillary enjoyed performing partial-birth abortions herself every day between afternoon tea and supper, and that the white-haired cretin on the ticket would advance their agenda with the ideologically malleable 30-sec.-attention-span-In-Chief.
Jesus
Jesus doesn't care. But why else would they put milquetoasty Mr. "Gay Conversion-therapy-works and we should make mothers hold funerals for their aborted fetuses" on this ticket if not to counter a pussy-grabbing serial philandering 5-kids-by-3-wives guy who couldn't quote a Bible verse to save his life?
Wife has a young-earther uncle who is a single issue voter. Proclaimed several times on social media that Trump is a horrible human being and not fit for office, but he'd vote for him because Hillary is a babykiller.
Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Oh, and Race, honey, you know as well as I do that evangelicals voted for Trump because their news feed convinced them that Hillary enjoyed performing partial-birth abortions herself every day between afternoon tea and supper, and that the white-haired cretin on the ticket would advance their agenda with the ideologically malleable 30-sec.-attention-span-In-Chief.
Jesus
Jesus doesn't care. But why else would they put milquetoasty Mr. "Gay Conversion-therapy-works and we should make mothers hold funerals for their aborted fetuses" on this ticket if not to counter a pussy-grabbing serial philandering 5-kids-by-3-wives guy who couldn't quote a Bible verse to save his life?
Wife has a young-earther uncle who is a single issue voter. Proclaimed several times on social media that Trump is a horrible human being and not fit for office, but he'd vote for him because Hillary is a babykiller.
Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Oh, and Race, honey, you know as well as I do that evangelicals voted for Trump because their news feed convinced them that Hillary enjoyed performing partial-birth abortions herself every day between afternoon tea and supper, and that the white-haired cretin on the ticket would advance their agenda with the ideologically malleable 30-sec.-attention-span-In-Chief.
Jesus
Jesus doesn't care. But why else would they put milquetoasty Mr. "Gay Conversion-therapy-works and we should make mothers hold funerals for their aborted fetuses" on this ticket if not to counter a pussy-grabbing serial philandering 5-kids-by-3-wives guy who couldn't quote a Bible verse to save his life?
Wife has a young-earther uncle who is a single issue voter. Proclaimed several times on social media that Trump is a horrible human being and not fit for office, but he'd vote for him because Hillary is a babykiller.
I respected that Graham, at least, tried to maintain an a-political stance as opposed to being completely in the bag for the right- e.g., like Jerry Falwell.
It's cute that you think this.
Why does someone who lived their life genuinely righteous 99% of the time shame you?
We all do. It's what we do in that 1%, when the decisions are hard, when doing the right thing might not be the easy thing, that separate decent people from lousy assholes.
The man amassed wealth and influence acting as a purveyor of spiritual snake oil, and he laid the groundwork for others, including his own spawn, to use the religious right as a political force for shitty policy over the last four decades.
Was Billy a charlatan?
I'm crushed.
Btw, Salem isn't even close to 99%. Frankly, none of us are. I'll bet Billy wasn't either.
We're evolved to be cooperative; it conveys a huge survival advantage, and we do it so much that we don't even think about it most of the time. We don't need Christ in our hearts to act nicely to each other.
But you need something bigger than yourself... No???
My DNA needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Cooperation conveys a huge survival advantage, so my self-interested impulses need to be channeled within the larger cooperative context; morality arises from our need to cooperate. "Needing" something bigger than myself is merely a shell program on top of the basic instructions, in order to help me survive in the cooperative social environment and propel my DNA into the future. To my mind, it's waay cooler to understnad that my DNA is the result of 3.5 billion years of trial and error in a changing and usually hostile natural environment, rather than that there's some omnipotent bearded guy in the sky who gives a shit about how many times I've had filthy thoughts about Dana Delany.
Chinteresting... so natural selection. the tribal collective and opposable thumbs. However your ancestors worshipped something and/or somebody besides the bearded Zeus in the Sky throughout their history. All of our ancestors did. For some it did bring peace. For others bondage as it was twisted by man himself.
Look I don't buy the bearded guy story myself. But I feel the creator of the Universe is a thing and the peace that it brings to the created comes in many forms. And to deny that is pretty short sighted imo. While your DNA is the result of evolution, It was indeed created by something.
So we'll put @salemcoog in the Jeffersonian Deismretard camp. I can respek that.
Get back to poasting shit that's not obvious.
Look Mrs. Snow is from Salem and one of the greatest sports ballers that town ever produced. Out of respect for the Salemites, I have to abstain from your Crusade against Salem Kewg and let you Kewgs sort it out amongst yourselves.
"If you went for a walk in the woods, but then decided to wander off the path, and found yourself surrounded by a thicket of thorns and poison ivy, who would you blame? Would you blame the person who built the path? No, of course not. Instead you’d blame yourself if you were honest, because you alone were responsible for wandering from the path. In a far deeper way, this is what happens when we decide to leave God out of our lives. For a time, it may seem like wandering away from Him doesn’t make any difference; it may even seem easier and freer. But eventually it catches up with us—just as wandering off that path and into the thicket caught up with you." —Billy Graham #BG100
To the Throbber's way of thinking, it takes way more faith to definitely dismiss the existence of a higher power than to contemplate the possible existence thereof.
Science and shit is pretty persuasive - but even those fuckers thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the Earth's position as the center of the universe for centuries....
The Throbber actually believes there's a bit of science and a bit of spirituality that got us to this fucked up place in history. And generally give zero fucks to plant the flag in either camp in order to change someone else's mind.
To the Throbber's way of thinking, it takes way more faith to definitely dismiss the existence of a higher power than to contemplate the possible existence thereof.
Science and shit is pretty persuasive - but even those fuckers thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the Earth's position as the center of the universe for centuries....
The Throbber actually believes there's a bit of science and a bit of spirituality that got us to this fucked up place in history. And generally give zero fucks to plant the flag in either camp in order to change someone else's mind.
Comments
Also, therefore, I'm a giant pussy.
Or was. Whatever.
** The Commandments and Deadly Sins describe behavior in a context, which makes the action "evil" or "sinful." The action itself isn't inherently evil of sinful; it's the context in which we act that makes the action evil or sinful. Thou shalt not kill - killing in defense of the tribe is OK, killing to help feed the tribe is OK. Killing somebody in the tribe is NOT OK; it makes the dead person's family angry with you, want revenge, yada yada, and it also precludes any future cooperation with the dead person and precludes any contributions that that person could have made to the tribe. Want to destroy a tribe from within? Kill somebody and see what happens. That's why it's a sin. Not the general act of killing, but killing within the tribe. Thou shalt not steal- taking things is OK, we need things to survive. But taking things from somebody else erodes trust and cooperation. Thou shalt not bear false witness - deceiving for the sake of the tribe is OK, deceiving a fish with a baited hook or deceiving a rabbit with a snare is OK, but lying within the tribe creates distrust and erodes cooperation. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife - fucking is good, try the unattached daughter, the DNA wants reproduction and the tribe needs new contributors, but find somebody who isn't taken. You fuck Og's woman, and Og might not have your back on the next mammoth hunt, leaving you gored and the tribe perhaps without meat. Gluttony? Eating is fine, feating when you might not know when your next meal is fine, but eating more than you should in an environment where calories are scarce means that somebody else isn't getting what they need. Somebody else isn't getting the food that they need, and they can't contribute to the tribe the way they should, and it's your fault. Erodes trust and cooperation. I could go on, but I think you get the poont. The action isn't inherently sinful; the context of the action makes it sinful. Giving in to one's self-interest when one should cooperate erodes trust and cooperation in the tribe, and lessens that chances that the tribe will survive/thrive.
*** I really don't know what you're trying to ascribe to my argument here, but I think it's some form of moral relativism. But humans do have innate morality, as I think you allude to in your next paragraph. We do know, generally the moral things to do, because we've evolved to be cooperative with each other. But we still need those self-interested impulses that religion would have us call evil or sinful. We just need to channel them correctly in the cooperative context so that we can all get along.
Wife has a young-earther uncle who is a single issue voter. Proclaimed several times on social media that Trump is a horrible human being and not fit for office, but he'd vote for him because Hillary is a babykiller.
Just what it sounds like. Don't twist.
In a far deeper way, this is what happens when we decide to leave God out of our lives. For a time, it may seem like wandering away from Him doesn’t make any difference; it may even seem easier and freer. But eventually it catches up with us—just as wandering off that path and into the thicket caught up with you." —Billy Graham #BG100
Science and shit is pretty persuasive - but even those fuckers thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the Earth's position as the center of the universe for centuries....
The Throbber actually believes there's a bit of science and a bit of spirituality that got us to this fucked up place in history. And generally give zero fucks to plant the flag in either camp in order to change someone else's mind.
So, in other words, FYFMFE.