Since we've gotten told to stop talking generally about religion twice in the Homosexuality and Religion thread and were told that, if we want to talk generally about religion, we need to make a new thread, I have made a new thread.
Full disclosure: I am an agnostic atheist and anti-theist, but I'm very interested in theology and religion.
Mod Edit: All right, there are a couple of ground rules here:
- This is not a thread for mindless bashing of religion or of atheism/agnosticism etc. All view points are welcome here. Let's have a civil debate.
- Religion is a volatile subject. Please don't post here if you can't manage a civil discussion with viewpoints you disagree with. There will be no tolerance for people who can't keep the tone light hearted.
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edited 9th Feb '14 1:01:31 PM by Madrugada
Got an idea for a weird Alan Moore-like story where God realises the inherent emptiness of all things (being all things, including emptiness itself) and achieves Nirvana, ending the Universe.
Edited by TerminusEst on May 2nd 2019 at 12:34:28 PM
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
That would achieve the ultimate goal of ending the cycle of samsara, actually.
It's been fun.
Random weirdness but during meditation I once had the vision of consciousness being a drop of water dissolving into an ocean.
Really unsettling given I'm a Judaeo-Christian sort of fellow.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
@Terminus Est: An idea I might go with in my own setting (which combines, among other things, western and eastern spirituality, though mostly focuses on the former due to Creator Provincialism) is that God is a being that could achieve Nirvana, but chooses not to in order to make it easier for humans to do so.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
See, in mine, God (who is also the universe. It's a pantheistic setting) used to be nothing. Sort of. Time is a part of it so technically the point before it existed never happened, but anyway, at some non-existent non-point a not-thing decided to stop not existing and become a thing. And since it was the only thing, it was everything.
This doesn't need to make sense, because logic hadn't been invented yet.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think that's called a bodhisatva in Buddhism, AKA someone who can achieve Nirvana but chooses not to in order to guide other to it.
You know, if Buddhists are just Hindus wanting to escape the cycle of reincarnation, and Nirvana is the extinction of all desire, what stopped them from cutting the middleman and just saying: "everyone achieves Nirvana when they die, it's called Death, there's only one life, and then it's all over and the yearning is gone forever, peace out".
@Soban
"upholds all things", only within one universe/dimension and makes no further references to other universes/dimensions existing. it's the same as having a Reality Maker character as the top dog. something it is far from alone in, though, sometimes in mythology, reality came from the reality maker's death
Edited by MABfan11 on May 2nd 2019 at 1:12:49 PM
Bumbleby is best ship. busy spending time on r/RWBY and r/anime. Unapologetic Socialist
Baby dango
Because belief can't change on a whim? Might as well ask why Christians just say they can go to heaven immediately through baptism.
@Oruka: You have to keep in mind that religions form around how people think reality works, not necessarily how they want reality to work. Religion might be influenced by heavy amounts of wishful thinking, but it isn't necessarily 100% wishful thinking (actually, many religions are somewhat cynical).
Religions also tend to want to encourage a code of morality, which is often a big limiting factor on the wishful thinking aspect. While it's a misconception that religion is all about seeking a reward in the afterlife (not all religions believe in an afterlife, or one that is directly correlated with morality), having some sort of cosmic reward in the afterlife is a common feature of religions.
Buddhism in particular is very much about your behavior in life effecting your afterlife; having the good afterlife be inevitable defeats half the premise of the religion.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
An interesting story on Alt-Right paganism from a larger article on a "reformed" member.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/katie-mchugh?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Here's the relevant section:
The Wolves placed a heavy emphasis on masculinity. The women would prepare food for the gatherings earlier in the day before the moot commenced, according to McHugh. The Wolves were into a “Centurion Method” of physical fitness; a video still on You Tube shows DeAnna and Paul Waggener, one of the founders of the group who used the pseudonym “Grimnir,” taking turns lifting up the trunk of a car filled with cement blocks, scrambling around on a bunch of debris, and squatting while holding logs. ADVERTISEMENT
One of the Wolves, Maurice Michaely (Wolf name Hjalti), was sentenced to two years in prison for trying to burn down a black church. (“Visiting with incarcerated Wolf,” Waggener wrote on Facebook in 2014 to caption a photo of himself visiting Michaely in jail, speaking to him on a phone across a transparent barrier. “Free Hjalti you fucking pricks.”)
There is a thread in white nationalist ideology that is essentially anti-Christian, viewing Christianity as a destructive force that compelled white people to be overly generous. “They, at best, view it as a necessary evil,” McHugh said. “Almost as a control mechanism for people, and they’ll eventually shed it to go back to their true Western roots of being Aryan.” Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism — to white nationalists, subversive at its core.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 2nd 2019 at 4:42:35 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I wanted to post something snappy, but the sheer idiocy is making me unable to articulate rational thoughts.
The neo-pagan alt-right was something I thought everyone knew about. If you are pagan and didn't know about these jerks, welcome to how every religion feels at times.
Oh I knew about them, alright, just never read too deeply because they're a bit outside my daily life and grneral areas of interest.
And I'm Catholic, btw.
Edited by HailMuffins on May 2nd 2019 at 11:28:17 AM
They are unsurprisingly exactly like I imagined them to be.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
I object to calling those people Alt-Right...
On the basis that they're outright goddamn (Neo-)Nazis and calling them Alt-Right distances them from the historical tradition of pagan Nazism that well pre-dates the angry, privileged white boy movement that is the Alt-Right.
Angry gets shit done.
To be fair, I believe this specific group was recently made up.
As are many.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 2nd 2019 at 8:33:47 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
There's nothing fair about that, because groups like that have existed for decades and the notion of linking White Supremacy to neopaganism is nothing new.
Angry gets shit done.
Okay.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 2nd 2019 at 11:45:06 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I'll give them this: unlike White Evangelicals, these jerks embrace their lack of charity, compassion, etc. Same thing about Randians, some Satanists, and some New Atheists. And Osho's cult, whatever that was.
@protagonist: that makes sense. I mean, I wonder why people go around making up after lives if so many of them are so awful. The Egyptian one is stunning in its mediocrity, and I don't think anyone could ever pass Sobek's trial. If your heart is lighter than a feather, you might as well be lighter than a duck.
Edited by Oruka on May 2nd 2019 at 11:40:59 AM
With the disclaimer that I'm not Buddhist, I always got the sense that the undesirability of the afterlife was the point. You can live your life pretty much as well as is humanly possible, but you'll still probably suffer at least a few thousand years before you get booted back out into the world to do it all over again. Even the good afterlives are temporary. Nirvana is the spiritual Take a Third Option where you walk away from the entire system instead of buying into it anymore.
It's been fun.
I know, but if the afterlife is so awful and needs escape from, why not just accept instead that escaping it is a done deal, and focus on improving the living conditions in this world?
Well the religion is about non-attachment.
Even paradise of awesome joy forever isn't a good thing because you're supposed to let go of your desires.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Buddhism is ultimately about letting go of all worldly snares. Even the desire for a paradise afterlife is itself a worldly snare.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Within the context of the Bible he is not only the creator of but everything that exists, but also the sustainer. (See Hebrews 1:3 "upholds all things") and the universe is sustained within the text. That's a feat, not a claim.
Edited by Soban on May 2nd 2019 at 3:19:04 PM