Pretty much. I expect Heaven would be sparsely populated anyway. I don' t know many Christians who haven' t sinned...

...or can you just ask for forgiveness on your deathbed?

No no, you got it all wrong, Jesus already died for our sins, so we can do just about anything we want.

Atleast thats the protestant way of things.



Iv been to church a few times. Weddings, babetisms, funerals its boring no matter which i go to, if i could select a priest id have Rowan Atkinson preaching about the holy goat, and id like to praise Brian from Monty Pythons movie rather than Jesus.

Jesus, Mohammad, Moses they are all ***ed up. spoon fed their followers shrooms to make them see stuf.

Religion is the adults pacifier

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

Given the choice between Hell and Heaven I' d pick Hell. It suits me better. Look at the people in Church, I wouldn' t want to spend eternity with them.

So you want to miss out on the 72 virgins just waiting for you in heaven? Awwww, sad.

Anyway, I' ve never been to church...and I actually dont plan to go to a church, EVER. My children are not going to be baptized, no matter what my eventual girlfriend says and I would prefer not to marry in a Church, too. I simply don' t see the point in visiting a Church every week to listen to somebody for an hour. If it was at least something interesting like a political debate or a lecture about physics...

I actually dont plan to go to a church, EVER

The church iv been to, has cool murials of demons with pitchforks and stuff like that, it was built around year 600. i dont mind keeping all churches restorated and visiting them for historical value. If you havent seen Peters Church in Rome, its a most go.

Go to church twice a month (primarily for the children); that' s CofE for you, they don' t give a monkeys about being strict or anything.

Most fanatical or strict Christians are in my opinion a bunch of hypocritical nutters, who devolve their brain to someone else - they should learn to think for themselves and not say all the time ' what would god want me to do' .

Its worse for Muslims, I try to go to the mosque every Friday, and try to pray 5 times a day either at home or at the mosque.

Doesn' t take long however, the sermons are pretty interesting philosophising and the prayers are more meditation so they' re like a relaxing 5min break from reality.

As long as its a personal choice, and not a chore its not too bad. And it keeps me focused on what I believe life is all about.

...break from reality.

I know what you meant, but this is funny anyways.

i dont mind keeping all churches restorated and visiting them for historical value.

Of course, even the artistic value alone is worth keeping the older ones around.

So you want to miss out on the 72 virgins just waiting for you in heaven? Awwww, sad.

I don' t need to die to find virgins. Besides experienced women are better.

Send the virgins to me Agent. I' ll train them for you. Might even make a regiment for them to go thru before passing certification

Ill take one of each, a virgin and an expirienced woman, its like strawbery and vanilla.

Unfortunately those virgins stay virgins...forever. Their hymen regenerates. (Seriously, when I am thinking about this part, it seems like Islam is Christianity just adjusted to focus on the male target audience)

When I was a kid, I loved going to church. Mass was held in the grade school lunchroom of all places. I didn' t care, though, as there was live music performed by my aunt & uncle and free donuts for everyone! We also has " God School" after mass (I think it was called Caddy Cism or something like that) and my mom and grandmother were teachers. We were a big family of Catholic God lovers. Go God Go! Then we' d get home and my sister and I would watch professional wrestling on TV. It had Mean Gene who interviewed the wrestlers and was always acting fearful of them, Jesse Ventura, the Adorable Adrian Adonis, Hulk Hogan was just starting out... it was awesome.

Now I am the furthest thing from religious.

Virgins are overrated.

More of a pain in the fuc.king ass than anything.

Well damn. I took off last night & I figured this thing would still be as I left it. Maybe another post from NitroMajik or Ghost... Ah well. On to the conversation.

Isn' t the service itself like an hour long? I dunno, ...i' ve never been.

Either way it' s fuc.king demented.

Depends on the preist. The one I' ve had for the majority of my life is at least relatively sensable, he never pushes an hour. Every so often, our pastor has a board meeting (Happens to be on the board of directors at Delta Dental), and we get some crotchety old codger who doesn' t shut up for an hour and a half. My personal all-time favorites though are the guest preists who take the entire time they should be preaching, and plug their christian magazine, or webcast, or whatever. Talk about funny.

Plus... Christians believe that Star Wars is Evil So if i had my way they' d all be hanged.

No, the broken Christians believe that Star Wars is evil.

The real Christians recognize true evil when they see it, and believe that episodes I through III were delivered overnight-expedited from satan' s workshop.

Go on, disagree. I and II are debatable, but if you liked III I' ll have to disown you.

I' ll give them a fuc.king choice. Death by hanging or fuc.ked in the ass by monkeys???

" Y' know what? For a million? I' ll get f.ucked in the ass by a gorilla! And I' ll smile about it too. I' ll only get really pissed off when I find out Bobo over there' s making two!."

Pretty much. I expect Heaven would be sparsely populated anyway. I don' t know many Christians who haven' t sinned...

Heaven isn' t for perfect people. Nobody' s perfect, and anybody who says otherwise is mentally ill, or a bigot.

...or can you just ask for forgiveness on your deathbed?

There' s a catch 22 there though. If you' re an atheist, you couldn' t care less about what' s going to happen when you die. You figure you' re worm food.

If on your deathbed, you come to the conclusion that you should ask for forgiveness, you' re not the atheist you say you are, and are actually afraid of some higher power by covering your bases.

Anyway, I' ll tell you this much. There' s a few fundamental beliefs held by all Christians. Jesus is our Lord and savior. Love others as you love yourself. Try to live your life as best as possible.

Damn near everything else is open for interpretation. People will find a way to spin the bible around whatever it is they believe, which is why I find it hard to answer to human authority when it comes to my faith (the primary reason I left the Catholic Church). I decide what I believe, not some crotchety old folks half the world away, slowly losing touch with reality.

When they came out against Harry Potter and rock music, that was just it!

Jesus, Mohammad, Moses they are all ***ed up.

How so? I can certainly see how you can agree that their followers have flaws, but the men themselves weren' t all that bad. At least Jesus and Moses. I only have sectional understanding of specific bits of Islam, I don' t honestly know much about Muhammad.

When asked about Christianity, Ghandi said " I don' t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It' s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ." and that really is true. There are plenty of self proclaimed Christians who are total jerks, and that' s true of every religion; every society for that matter. Sadly, the majority of Christians I meet are either too afraid of repercussion to come out and speak their mind, especially in a situation like this, where I' m surrounded by primarily atheist and agnostic people, or they' re the fire and brimstone type that tell you that you' re a terrible person, and that if you don' t repent now, and buy their three-disk-set, you' ll burn in the fires of hell.

Neither is the right way to go about living your life, as far as I' m concerned. You can' t push faith on people. That' s why it' s called faith. The best thing I can do is to be the good I want to see in others. Leading by example is far more important to me than preaching about various people' s evils.

Take Ghost for example. Fundamental Christians would tell you that he' s a drunk, a godless heathen, and is the lowest of the low.

What they won' t tell you is that he has an amazing ability to debate, and is passionate in what he believes in, despite the fact that what he believes in is... well... nothing. I see a lot of good in him, despite disagreeing with him on damn near everything as far as our life choices go.

I don' t need to die to find virgins.

You would if you lived around here. Dunno what high-class neighborhood you live in.

(I think it was called Caddy Cism or something like that)

Ugh... Catechism... don' t even get me started on Catechism. I could seriously go on for days. That was 10 times worse than any number of days I had to spend in church.

Now I am the furthest thing from religious.

You have any sort of faith, sans-religion, or are you pretty generally apathetic?

I have faith that I won' t realize that I' m dead while I am busy being dead. I might realize I' m about to die or am in the process of dying, but after that... sleepy time (without the sleep). I' ve been able to reason out religion completely, but I won' t push that here.

RC here myself (Roman Catholic). Like others, I was dragged to church when I was younger by my parents every Sunday for an hour. With the combination of the incredibly nice hard wood pews to sit on for this hour, along with the constant sitting and standing up, culminating in our Priests ability to bore the hell outta me, I often had suicidal thoughts during Mass.

Anyway, I stopped going to church after I grew up and started realizing that a lot of what was being read from the Bible was rubbish, and full of contradictions. From God telling people to murder their own family members, to wondering as a child what ever happened to the giants who lived in the land of NOD (not talking Command and Conquer) a lot of it just didn' t make much sense. But the biggest one of all is Hell. I believe Hell was created by the Church to make sure that the common fold continued to pay the Tithe without question, as you would most certainly go to Hell if you didn' t pay the church taxes. I mean come on now, my RC teachings taught me that Jebus died for all man' s sins. During Jebus' final days, nowhere does it say that he was dying on the cross for all man' s sins except for the ones who sin. Christ, he even forgave 2 criminals who were next to him and they got into Heaven. Now this in itself is a contradiction to the story of Moses and the 10 Commandments. Supposedly these Commandments were from God theirself, telling us that if we did not follow these Commandments we would go to hell. But then the all forgiving God sends down his one and only child who' s only purpose is to die so that the gates of Heaven will be open to us so that we will all have eternal salvation.

And so here we are today. We will go to Hell if we don' t follow the 10 Commandments. But if you happen to break one of these Commandments, you need nothing more than to go see your Priest and through him God will forgive you of your sins so that you may enter Heaven. Even on your death bed you can receive Last Rights to have all of your sins washed away for your entry into Heaven. But even after all of this, the Church throws in Mortal Sins like suicide which supposedly cannot be forgiven even by the All Forgiving God.

So what exactly did Jebus die for again?

Church of Whale Penis

You would if you lived around here. Dunno what high-class neighborhood you live in.

Canada

...despite the fact that what he believes in is... well... nothing.

I don' t believe in nothing. I have faith in Science and to a lesser extent Humanity. Both of which are abused by religion.

If I wanted to rely on one method for discovering truth I' ll look towards the one without bias. Why should I trust criminal organizations like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc.?

I agree the organisations themselves are just as bad as our governments in terms of political agendas. But the religions themselves, y' know the actual fundamental philosophies are just as useful as science, and go hand in hand towards the same goal imo.

I dont believe they contradict each other at all. And moreso, they compliment each others deficiencies. ie Sure religion doesn' t explain to us why we can live and breathe on this blue ball of ours, but science will never be able to reach a conclusion about all the stuff we can' t see or sense, like whats outside the furthest point in our universe, or whats smaller than the smallest particle.

In fact if you look at where science is leading us in quantum physics, the universal theory of everything - thats pretty much what religion is trying to do too. But when will science ever get there... We live with science in a box we cant escape until perhaps we die.

The basic reasoning behind my beliefs is that for example say you want to know what things are made of, you say this thing is made of wood, which is made of carbon atoms, which are made of nuclei, protons and electrons, which are made of quarks and jaguars and all that quantam stuff (that I know very little about!), and of course they must be made of something too and them and them. Eventually all those relative particles must be bound by something absolute or infinite. But you can never prove that - therefore its a belief in something infinite.

Then again if logic itself is a quality that only exists in our reality then that whole argument fails, and religion is indeed bollocks.

Could i trade 72 virgins in for 10 good whores and a chipmunk?

What are you going to do to the chipmunk?? Poor little thing.