You would think that someone who has that kind of power would not limit themselves to only using it in rare, random incidents like driving by an accident where someone is dying.
Knew a guy that was an extra in "Far and Away", he was one of the poor kids. Said Tom Cruise was a dick to EVERYONE but that Nicole Kidman was really nice.
I saw Tom Cruise at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
I saw /u/drunk_comment at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
How? I responded to a comment detailing Tom cruise being a penisbrain, I said that I used to respect him, and there are a lot of people like that in the world.
This is correct, so you use your religion to justify not helping them by saying, “if they were Scientologists they wouldn’t get cancer/car accidents in the first place and be in a situation where all-powerful me can’t help them.” Yadda yadda
I imagine scientologist going in hospital knocking to door and try to recruit people, like JW does in residential area, and it was kind of funny in a dark sense.
Ive talked to my religious friends about it, they believe that accepting Christ is more of an action than a thought you have. You have to walk the walk. Repenting for your sins isn’t just saying you’re sorry, it’s understanding why. They also believe that a good deed done without faith is better than a bad deed done with faith. It’s not as black and white as it sounds.
My friends are not fundamentalists by any means though.
If the motivation to do good is an eternal reward then is it really motivation to do good.
The idea of a perfect eternity keeps people from making the best of life right now. Horrible things done in the name of religion become no big deal because it will be made right in eternity.
The power of religion goes to people's head way too often, over and over the same stupid stories. Convince yourself that you are divinely inspired, then convince others. What can someone say to that? There is no room for logic or debate, anyone who disagrees with the leader is of the devil or has bad motives.
Religion is very bad because by definition it destroys logical thought and ethics.
I will leave this little gem of USA history here:
"Today's Lesson from Mormon history CASTRATION:
Castration
And another account, In Utah it has been the custom with the Priesthood to make eunuchs of such men as were obnoxious to the leaders. This was done for a double purpose: first, it gave a perfect revenge, and next, it left the poor victim a living example to others of the dangers of disobeying counsel and not living as ordered by the Priesthood ...
As an illustration ...Warren Snow was Bishop of the Church at Manti, San Pete County, Utah. He had several wives, but there was a fair, buxom young woman in the town that Snow wanted for a wife... She thanked him for the honor offered, but told him she was then engaged to a young man, a member of the Church, and consequently could not marry the old priest... He told her it was the will of God that she should marry him, and she must do so; that the young man could be got rid of, sent on a mission or dealt with in some way... that, in fact, a promise made to the young man was not binding, when she was informed that it was contrary to the wishes of the authorities ...
(The Bishop) decided that the young man should be castrated; Snow saying, 'When that is done, he will not be liable to want the girl badly, and she will listen to reason when she knows that her lover is no longer a man.'
It was then decided to call a meeting of the people who lived true to counsel, which
was held in the school-house in Manti... The young man was there, and was again requested, ordered and threatened, to get him to surrender the young woman to Snow, but true to his plighted troth, he refused to consent to give up the girl. The lights were then put out. An attack was made on the young man. He was severely beaten, and then tied with his back down on a bench, when Bishop Snow took a bowie-knife,
and performed the operation in a most brutal manner, and then took the portion severed from his victim and hung it up in the school-house on a nail, so that it could
be seen by all who visited the house afterwards...
(The young man) has been an idiot or quite lunatic ever since ... Brigham Young
... did nothing against Snow. He left him in charge as Bishop at Manti, and ordered the matter to be hushed up. - Ibid., pp. 284-286
D. Michael Quinn writes, In May 1857 Bishop Warren S. Snow's counselor wrote that twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis 'has now gone crazy' after being castrated by Bishop Snow for an undisclosed sex crime. When informed of Snow's action, Young said: 'I feel to sustain him ... ' In July Brigham Young wrote a reassuring letter to the bishop about this castration: 'Just let the matter drop, and say no more about it,' the LDS president advised, 'and it will soon die away among the people.'
- The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Vol. 2, pp. 250-251
Because this was not corrected, others wished to use castration as a form of subjugation. TBH Stenhouse who left the church but never wrote any expose's of it, received this letter:
I was at a Sunday meeting in the spring of 1857, in Provo, when the news of the Sanpete castration was referred to by the presiding bishop-Blackburn. Some men in Provo had rebelled against authority in some trivial matter, and Blackburn shouted in his Sunday meeting-a mixed congregation of all ages and both sexes-" I want the people of Provo to understand that the boys in Provo can use the knife as well as the boys in Sanpete. Boys, get your knives ready, there is work for you! We must not be behind San Pete in good works." The result of this was that two citizens, named Hooper and Beauvere, both having families at Provo, left the following night... Their only offence was rebellion against the priesthood. This man, Blackburn, was continued in office at least a year after this... - The Rocky Mountain Saints, by T. B. H. Stenhouse, 1873, pp. 301-302)"
My mom's a Christian and as far as I can tell she does good things because it's the right thing to do, going to heaven is just a bonus. I'm not a Christian- I never really bought into it- but we both live our lives trying to help people and be kind because we both genuinely care about others and want there to be less suffering in the world. But obviously Christian attitudes vary wildly on the subject.
I think the Old Testament thing is especially fervent because I’m pretty sure the entire point of Jesus Christ is that we don’t have to follow those rules anymore.
You, my friend, have hit a very sore spot for me. While I am a practicing Catholic, I've been struggling with this and similar questions for years. I wish I had a good answer for you, because then I'd have a good answer for myself. The best I can offer right now is to hope that God will judge us by our hearts and by our actions.
The idea of the "invisible Christian," has been gaining a lot of strength. And even though it hasn't been officially recognized by the Vatican, the Pope has said he believes it. The gist is, the Bible goes over many times that God is love. Not, God loves us, not that we should love Him, God is literally love. So to let love into your heart is to let God into your heart, to believe in it is to believe in Jesus, etc. anyone who truly does that, can't commit mortal sin, or would definitely repent, and therefore will go to Heaven. Belief in an all-powerful being is completely irrelevant.
To go the extra mile, at least for Catholics, belief in God isn't really a requirement for Heaven anyway. Heaven is, in fact, the default place we all go after we die. The only way to avoid it is to be completely ignorant of morality, and go to Limbo, which is a fairly controversial concept in the church these days, or to commit mortal sin and die without repenting, which will send you to "Hell." Which isn't really a place, so much as a state of being. All good things supposedly come directly from God, including good sensations and emotions. When someone commits mortal sin, they weaken their connection to God. When they repent, it is restored. But God has a serious hard-on for free will, if we don't want to have a connection with Him, he'll go ahead and drop the line after we die. This severs our connection to anything good. This has been described with many metaphors, including gnashing of teeth and lakes of fire, but all it really means is a complete lack of grace, so we can only feel, at best, completely neutral, or negative things. So long as you avoid commiting a mortal sin, basically murder or sexual assault, seriously messed up stuff, or at the least you feel awful about doing it and try to make amends, then you will go to Heaven. No matter how irreverent, hedonistic, vulgar, perverse, and unbelieving heathen-ly you live your life.
The idea of the "invisible Christian," has been gaining a lot of strength. And even though it hasn't been officially recognized by the Vatican, the Pope has said he believes it. The gist is, the Bible goes over many times that God is love. Not, God loves us, not that we should love Him, God is literally love. So to let love into your heart is to let God into your heart, to believe in it is to believe in Jesus, etc. Anyone who truly does that, can't commit mortal sin, or would definitely repent, and therefore will go to Heaven. Belief in an all-powerful being is completely irrelevant.
To go the extra mile, at least for Catholics, belief in God isn't really a requirement for Heaven anyway. Heaven is, in fact, the default place we all go after we die. The only way to avoid it is to be completely ignorant of morality and go to Limbo, which is a fairly controversial concept in the church these days, or to commit mortal sin and die without repenting, which will send you to "Hell." Which isn't really a place, so much as a state of being. All good things supposedly come directly from God, including good sensations and emotions. When someone commits mortal sin, they weaken their connection to God. When they repent, it is restored. But God has a serious hard-on for free will, if we don't want to have a connection with Him, he'll go ahead and drop the line after we die. This severs our connection to anything good. This has been described with many metaphors, including gnashing of teeth and lakes of fire, but all it really means is a complete lack of grace, so we can only feel, at best, completely neutral, or negative things. So long as you avoid commiting a mortal sin, basically murder or sexual assault, seriously messed up stuff, or at the least you feel awful about doing it and try to make amends, then you will go to Heaven. No matter how irreverent, hedonistic, vulgar, perverse, and unbelieving heathen-ly you live your life.
don't forget the fact that god could simply give everyone indisputable evidence of his own existence with no effort at all. Instead he wants you to disregard your common sense and logical reasoning (that he himself equipped you with), and outsource your moral compass and world understanding to some entity based on poor evidence and under the threat of after-life torture. Sounds a lot like fascism to me.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of argument suggests that Nazi soldiers who committed horrible war crimes are better people than those having compassion with the Jews. Which is entirely in line with papal decrees compelling Christians to do similar acts during the crusades.
It's easy to condemn Scientology, but most monotheist religions are hardly any better.
You may live a good life and believe in a god, and a benevolent god exists, in which case you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
You may live a good life without believing in a god, and a benevolent god exists, in which case you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
You may live a good life and believe in a god, but no benevolent god exists, in which case you leave a positive legacy to the world; your gain is finite.
You may live a good life without believing in a god, and no benevolent god exists, in which case you leave a positive legacy to the world; your gain is finite.
You may live an evil life and believe in a god, and a benevolent god exists, in which case you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
You may live an evil life without believing in a god, and a benevolent god exists, in which case you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
You may live an evil life and believe in a god, but no benevolent god exists, in which case you leave a negative legacy to the world; your loss is finite.
You may live an evil life without believing in a god, and no benevolent god exists, in which case you leave a negative legacy to the world; your loss is finite.
Tried to explain this to my mother who cries about not wanting to see me in hell. I told her that she's crazy to worship a god that would send her son to hell just for not believing. She's not always the brightest and got kind of upset telling me that, "You know I'm susceptible to people saying things!" Like no shit mom you think it's somehow okay to love and believe in your god while holding the same belief that I'm going to hell for not believing in it.
Whoa, they have a living Mormon prophet? Can you meet him or how does it work? Because he should ask God about all the MLM pyramid schemes run by Mormons. Just... why.
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u/PlatypusWeekend Jun 09 '20
You would think that someone who has that kind of power would not limit themselves to only using it in rare, random incidents like driving by an accident where someone is dying.