@Zaza but you said "I can't imagine what it'd be like without Him." so which is it? Do you remember or do you not remember?
@Orathaic It differs from my view of truth :P I know a bit hypocritical of me defending that people should be more open yet closing my own mind, I'm only human though.
@Otto Yes

@ otto

Hi how've you been?

Obviously though, my answer to your question is .....No.

Even if I thought it were though, I'm not using that assumption as a basis for an attack the beliefs of others. In defending religion, I'm actually defending faiths that I personally do not follow.

@Orathaic I agree with most of what you said there (above my most recent post) I'm too tired to continue on with this argument.
@Everyone I'm going to bed, good discussion. Continue tomorrow or some other time (with me involved by all means continue on)?

@Crazy what do you follow if you dont mind me asking

I can't imagine how I could get by without him*

Sorry, I should've rephrased that.

@Zaza: I am glad you found a passion, something you could pour yourself into. I have moved from one to another. I know for many people God works well in many ways. It is nice to be able to put aside worries of this world or the future. Our stresses in life can generally be set aside as not important, or temporary. You can always know that heaven exists. It is the "Grand Solution". Sadly, I think I believe that the version of god in all of the current organized religions is a delusion. It is something I have come to slowly over time, but in many ways it makes me feel better; My life feel more worthwhile and whole. I think if I were to believe in any god right now, it would be the Deist version(or what I understand that as...god that does not interfere, but has a plan). The religion of many of the founding father's of the United States.

@ Ice

I'm a Christian (Anglican).

@Zaza but you did manage to get by without "Him" for however long it took for you to find him. I'm going to back off of this now because It's going to get very personal from here on in if I continue.

@Crazy That was my guess but I had to double check xD

Also @ Ice

Sleep well, I'll be ready to continue at another time as well.

@Ice:"what better way to control the people around you then to get them to follow a cause as binding as a religion? " the idea of religion as a method of control is much more recent, based on culture, requiring language. If that is taken as an attribute of religion it has not been around for so long.

People were caused to be violent before that due to ideas, like the idea of starvation, or of death. To avoid death they would be violent, that would mean figthing over food and water when resources were scarce - this may or may not qualify as war but i don't think the ideas qualify as religion - my point being you can fight over resources without having a complex language, but you can't bind a group together following and believing one creed without such a language.

You might be able to rally a group together and fight based on the idea that you're going to starve if you don't, but telling them it's Gods will requires considerably more concepts. Not that i am saying it's not possible that some Apes kill other Apes based on a superstitious idea that it would save their harvest, but i'm saying it's not neccessary because the idea of starving to death is more important.

(and oil is currently the limiting resource of our society, it is oil not religion that made Iraq a target of US expansion, since the UN economic sanctions meant we stopped trading with Iraq the price of oil went up, thus removing Saddam so the sanctions could be lifted made economic sense)

Hi,

Quite new at this, so not sure if this is normal, but I just entered a game that was due to start in 35 minutes with 5 minute turns. The counter showed a count down of 35 minutes, so I did something else, and came back, and the counter showed there was still ten minutes to go before the game started.

Anyway, on a seperate browser I navigated to my diplomacy home page, and it showed that I hadn't submitted any orders for the last two seasons.

The game had started and two 'seasons' had gone past without me submitting any orders, yet the countdown had showed that there was still ten minutes to start.

Naturally, I'd already lost one centre before I even knew I was in the game.

Is this normal?

I don't want to have to hit refresh every 30 seconds just to see if the game has started, surely the game should either start at the scheduled time, or some sort of notification be given if it is going to start early.

Murphy

That's what happened to me in my one (and only) live game. You might want to start with games with a longer phase. I play mostly games with a one day phase length & it works pretty well.

@Zaza but you did manage to get by without "Him" for however long it took for you to find him. I'm going to back off of this now because It's going to get very personal from here on in if I continue.

No, I was not managing without him.

@ Ice

also a funny quote from the author Vox Day

"Over the centuries, 671,070 Americans have died fighting in its
wars. Less than one-half of 1 percent of those deaths, or 3,302, can
be reasonably blamed on religious faith. Over the course of U.S. history,
that amounts to 14.2 American deaths per year attributable to
religion-inspired war, and while every American death is lamentable,
it should be noted that religious war is actually less lethal to Americans
than their dogs, as they annually suffer 15.7 fatalities due to dog
bites. And yet, I rather doubt that Dawkins and Harris will soon be
publishing books entitled "The Dog Delusion" and "Letter to a Canine
Nation" while angrily urging Americans to abandon their misguided
attachment to Man’s best friend."

@Orathaic I disagree with it being a more recent invention. Caste system is a great example, oh you want to overthrow me the king? Well you cant do that because my caste put me here and you're down there so clearly I deserve it and you do not. It worked for a very long time. Religion does not have to be complex at all, I can explain the rain falling in 5 words "Rain fall caused by superhuman"
Last post, had to check my myspace and popped back on to see what Orathaic would say.

@Crazy that made me giggle

Oops, sorry for posting a question in this thread...I was trying to post a new thread. Funny forum system!

Thanks for the reply Crazy Anglican.

On a side note people are preventing me from using my shower because this stupid party my father is having. So I intend to blast some good tunes (Blues Traveler) and wait it out

Sorry if this is off topic I haven't read the entire thread

ZaZa I think that yes god helps many people but the church is just a way to present good morals to people. I continue to go to church every sunday even though I don't believe in god or any of the stories in the bible. I simply believe that the church can be useful to people that have problems and that it teaches good morals.

1 Confesion is a way to talk to a person who won't be biast and you can spill out all your shit and they can't tell
2 10 commendments, basic laws of life even if not illegal in some cases

PS I would like to know if you live with God or for God?

Both.

why do you fear him?

He created me. With such power, I should fear him. A better word than fear-respect.

@ Ice

I'm glad you liked it. There is a serious argument behind it though, and I'll go further with that when I have more time. The same statistics when applied to a sizeable random sampling of wars throughout history show that fewer than 7% of wars can be attributable to religious causes, and nearly half of those involve Islam. Other factors economics, political ideology, empire building, etc. can easily be shown to be more of a factor in human conflict than religion.

For instance, in answer to your question "what better way to control large groups of people than by binding them to a religion". I'd point out that you're hero Karl found a better way, and it cost literally millions of people their lives over seventy years.

100% of wars relate to economics. Everything else is just pretext or context.

^ Not true.

Anyway.

116 Posts in 3 and a half hours. Nice.

Um. My view on God is that there is no way to tell for sure. Not one way. Thus........ the only way any side is going to get me to come on board is by convincing me that the way of life they espouse is right and true and just and best for everyone.

Since the secular way of life is just kind of Christian morality stripped of some of the more dated ultimatums (sex before marriage seems to stick out, but others things too, like not charging interest on loans), then I am going with the secular lifestyle for now, though I do attend Catholic church with a relatively high frequency.

Anyone have thoughts on my view?

Prove me wrong.

Zaza I respect that the church ( what church/ denomination) helped you through hard times but what about it? The morals, pricipals, the supernatural aspect or etc.

Okay.

Rwanda.