Off Topic Generalities

I prefer professors who use profanity for dramatic effect. Believe me, my social psych prof is a master of this...and she's hilarious and amazing and mostly hilarious. She has this smile that she does, and it's kind of nice but it's also like 'oh okay whatever you want' and it's so funny because she just stares with that smile at students who are making stupid and silly comments/observations/defending the score they got on some test/scale we had to fill out and I just enjoy watching her be smarter than everyone in the class...

She debunked psychics so hard these past few class sessions. SO HARD. First she did a 'cold reading' right on the spot and it was accurate for some girl and so of course my prof was like 'hon, I made that all up just now' and then because people were so defensive, she brought a whole list of videos of people debunking psychics and we watched them for half a class. It was amazing. Amazing. I love it.

That's my one good class. And actually, I don't even like the material in the class all that much, I just like the prof.

Hehe, sounds awesome. My professor doesn't swear for dramatic effect though. He just swears in general. And he talks in circles a lot. He managed to get to the twelfth slide of a 32 slide presentation in two and a half hours. Worst of all, he hardly actually teaches anything... but I suppose everyone ends up with a prof like this at some point, heh.

Debunking psychics eh? Now I'm off to YouTube to watch some of this xP

Your prof sounds irritating. And yeah, just general swearing gets on my nerves too...

Debunking psychics is hilarious. I mean, I'm a spiritual and religious lady, but that doesn't mean I believe in psychics... One can keep an open mind and still be logical about things, I believe.

Oh, someday we need to have a brilliant discussion about why we're religious, haha. I'm religious and analytic, spiritual and pragmatic. One of my atheist friends has debated with me at length on the topic, and we've both been quite firm in our respective stances. He's always had trouble understanding how I can be scientifically minded and yet also believe in God. It's not something I can write about in a few lines, but suffice it to say (for now) that it's precisely because I'm scientifically minded that I believe in God.

Yes, exactly. Logic and God can both exist. Science and God can both exist. Why people think they can't is a mystery to me.

Suffice to say, however, I've never had too much of a good discussion with an atheist on the topic. Most of my atheist friends are really ignorant who still think all Christians hate gay people (I'll have them know that the Episcopal church just approved a liturgy for same-sex marriage. It's a liturgy in the works, but it's been approved.) Someone actually asked me once 'how religious are you?' as in how much. I told him quite specifically that I was really incredibly religious and my awesome Jewish friend, who was sitting next to me, was laughing her head off and going 'What? That's the stupidest question I've ever heard! What the hell do you mean anyway?'

It's funny because sometimes I feel like these friends (although honestly none of them are my very good friends) don't quite get what it means for me to be religious, and probably like to forget I am to make themselves more comfortable. Or they think of me as the 'one exception to the rule' which I really hate.

I do have some good atheist friends, though. But these people fall into the category of 'I don't really care' atheists. I prefer these friend's perspectives. They're genuinely open minded and simply aren't religious because it doesn't appeal to them, not because they associate it with propaganda and ignorance from the media.

I'm still glad I know so many religious people, though. Smart ones, too...

Regardless of media and such nonsense, I don't believe in a god because it is something that can never be proven or disproven. Well. Technically it could be proven, quite easily, but that would require the god and/or gods to show up/do something of some sort.

Since that hasn't happened I can only assume they don't exist.

Also the standard response of "everything we know about science says it couldn't happen", which can be met with the standard rebuttal of "it is a god, it can do whatever", is an ultimately pointless argument. All the science we know can just be blown off with "it is a god, it can do whatever", so I try not to argue against religion with science.

I generally don't care about religion, unless someone tries to shove it in my face or "save" me.

Science and religion aren't actually opposing sides in an argument, for exactly that reason, in my opinion. It's rather silly to pit them against each other when they can both exist without the other just fine. You know? It's not like one has to die for the other one to be real.

(Also, "proving" is rather a flawed concept. Even scientists don't like to use that word sometimes. My logic professor emphatically told us that things just don't work like that.)

I found both fields to have flaws in both their logic, so I choose to just slightly believe both. Evolution happened in some fashion, and then the bible was written from a certain point here on after.

My new job stresses me out ridiculously. I really like it, but I'm terrified of not doing well. And my first big thing is in less than a month...
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.........

You've mentioned your job a few times now. Might I inquire what it is?

My friend Zac works at a fruitcake factory. No joke. He makes fruitcakes. Well, actually he folds the boxes for the fruitcakes. It's an assembly-line sort of deal. The way he describes it makes it sound mind-numbingly dull.

Nom fruitcake...or rather, I hear it's good. I never developed a taste for it, myself. But lots of people I know like it so I can only assume it's good, my taste buds just don't like it.

My job is teaching software! To college students! I landed the job at not even the college I go to, it's kind of funny. I hope to transfer there eventually, but anyway. I'm just on a sort of team, all students, and we teach other students software...photoshop, powerpoint, etc. It's actually a kind of huge thing, because so many classes require some knowledge in some sort of software.
I don't know. It's pretty cool. But the first class I'm assisting is like, two weeks into October *dies of terror*

Areada wrote:Science and religion aren't actually opposing sides in an argument, for exactly that reason, in my opinion. It's rather silly to pit them against each other when they can both exist without the other just fine. You know? It's not like one has to die for the other one to be real.

(Also, "proving" is rather a flawed concept. Even scientists don't like to use that word sometimes. My logic professor emphatically told us that things just don't work like that.)

True. Proving something completely is impossible, but we can make assumptions based on observation.

But there is nothing anywhere that inclines me to believe in a god. I've seen no basis to it beyond to belief of the followers.

Everything you see, everything you touch, everything you smell, hear, and taste. You're biologically designed to view these things as if they are occurring outside of you, but in reality they are simply patterns in your brain. Someone with schizophrenia may hear voices that aren't there, but their brain displays the same patterns as if that voice really had been there. Similarly, honey bees see in a different spectrum of colours than humans do. Does that make the colours that the bee sees any more or less real than the colours humans see? Our senses create a virtual image in our mind based on the data they receive from the outside world, but as the schizophrenic shows, a damaged brain can change the virtual image.

There is no substantial proof that anything at all without you exists. Everything you sense is part of this virtual image your mind creates, and there is no way for certain to know that the virtual image in your mind is truly reflective of the outside world, or even to know whether the outside world actually exists.

How can the world be so consistent then? Dreamers change their dreams constantly. A page may read one thing, the dreamer looks away for a moment and when their gaze returns to the page the words have changed. This suggests that the world we perceive is very unlikely to be conjured by our own mind, or else consistency would be an issue.

I totally ran away from wherever I was going... this happens too often with me xD Or does it? Dun dun dun.... we all exist only in Draco's mind!

*sigh* I suspected as much. Think nice thoughts for us, Draco...

I swear I had a direction when I started that wall of text xP

Yes, you've discovered the truth. You are all merely a thought experiment.

A thought experiment in companionship for the lone dark overlord?

Oh yes! I've always wanted to get into a conversation with God about you guys because I've always been sort of fascinated about your beliefs. Or anyone's belief, really. That's what I really respond to. A really strong belief(or disbelief, y'know).

Ahh, ahh, okay.

To rather sum up my beliefs, I would consider myself "Culturally Christian," which essentially means I grew up Christian(the regular kind(I jest! I only say it because it's so awful)), but I've lately drifted off from the church in order to see other people's views. And to sort of see if I could find something for me. After this, I'm going to Italy to learn how to eat, and then to Indonesia to learn how to balance the two. Eat, Pray, Love? No? Okay.

What do you think about the process of losing your faith, guys?

I think for me it really started when I started picking and choosing parts of the theology, that I thought suited me, in a sort of buffet of Christianity, if you will.

"Love thy neighbor? Sure, okay."

"Gay people are an abomination? Uhh...uh..."

"If you don't follow a set of rather vague laws, or accept this rather wonderful, but kind of weird fellow, as your lord and savior, you're going to burn for eternity while this other abomination creeps up through your intestinal tract, and just as you can't take it anymore, you perish and then you regenerate and start the entire process over again." *

And so on, until all that's left on your plate is a fish and a loaf of bread.

That said, is there anything wrong about taking parts of a teaching, and not the others? I mean, who says religion has to be an insurance package? Lately, I've sort of compared organized religion to iTunes, I suppose?

"People who have found /Jesus/, have also considered /Crimbo!/"

Because, to take the Bible for example(because that's the only thing I'm relatively knowledgeable about), it's been edited and picked through for centuries , and it's always been used as a tool for people with less-than holy agendas. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, which had the idea of Christ being everywhere, and not just the church. That was cut out.

Anyone else freak out a little when they first read "King James version" or "New International version" on the cover? Version? What?

Who says faith can't evolve over time? Let's let modern science knock out a few things! Let's have our moral conscience knock out a few things! Why not? Why can't you cherry pick? Isn't that what happened before?

*It should be worth noting that I'm not a biblical scholar, and that I only know what they taught us in Sunday School. Which is awful. Because we were kids. We didn't even know what pomegranates were! And you're teaching us this!? Mother of Vot, I'd do anything to /not/ be in that! Also, when you consider it, there really is only one thing you can do if you believe in the fire and brimstone version of Hell. You'd had out tracks! You'd scream at people in their cars! You'd hold signs up on street corners saying to repent!

Some of those "Christian nutjobs" aren't crazy, they're doing the only thing possible with the rules they've chosen to follow. They wouldn't want that fate on /anyone/.

I've never really thought of it as a buffet....

I do believe that God is out there, and that he watches over us. I also believe that everyone will go to heaven. Not just Christians. Whether or not they will like it there is not my problem, because I believe it will be a wonderful place. I'm definitely not a 'fire and brimstone' type of Christian. I think it's less that I believe completely in what the Bible says, or what people say the Bible says, I just believe in God. I also believe science. Just 'cause I believe in God doesn't mean I don't believe in evolution, or the Big Bang. I'm an Episcopalian. The majority of us are fairly open minded about most things, and those who don't like Episcopalian views of the world just go and become Catholic. Not even joking.

You sound like a universalist, there Mozy.

Fascinating. So what exactly do Episcopalians believe?

Edit: Oh, another question for all of you. Do you guys need a God or a Higher Power to pray? Do you pray? For what? For whom? How?

I'm Muslim, and I go by the source material: that is the Qu'ran. Not the idiot rants of bearded mullahs that preach ignorance and hatred.

The Qu'ran warns that anal sex can lead to diseases, a problem which has been seriously mitigated by modern science. Nowhere in the Qu'ran is homosexuality condemned.

The Qu'ran says that both men and women should dress and act with modesty. I suppose modesty is relative to one's social environment. Nowhere does it say women must wear burkas or khimars. I found a translation of the verse for women, actually:

"And tell the believing women to subdue their eyes, and maintain their chastity. They shall not reveal any parts of their bodies, except that which is necessary. They shall cover their chests, and shall not relax this code in the presence of other than their husbands, their fathers, the fathers of their husbands, their sons, the sons of their husbands, their brothers, the sons of their brothers, the sons of their sisters, other women, the male servants or employees whose sexual drive has been nullified, or the children who have not reached puberty. They shall not strike their feet when they walk in order to shake and reveal certain details of their bodies. All of you shall repent to God, O you believers, that you may succeed."

Personally, I find that reasonable. Cover your chest. That's it. Nothing in there about arms, or ankles, or God forbid hair. That's all tradition that came later by those old bearded mullahs I was talking about earlier.

Is that what it's called? Universalist...hmm...

Episcopalians believe a lot of different things. I've heard a lot of different stuff from the different people I've talked to. Everyone sort of has their own individual beliefs, and thats why I really love being Episcopalian. We only really lose people to the Catholics over stuff like female priests and same-sex marriage. We also have Catholic priests become Episcopalian occasionally because our priests can get married. I'm not really good at describing stuff like that, though....Areada's much better at that than I am.

I do pray, in answer of that question. To God. Partially to keep me sane and because I just need to talk. I tend to just talk to God, unless I'm really tired. I like to talk through my life problems, and talking to God makes me feel better about said life problems. I do pray for help for other people when I know that they're having life problems. I like to help people, even when I can't really talk to them.

Areada cannot manage a religious discussion this morning, she is too busy being devastated and emotional in a corner of the cafeteria. But she does have some toast and a scone that tastes like a pop-tart, so all is not lost...

Is Areada going to be okay? What's upsetting her? Nayab would like to help if at all possible.

Sometimes Areada's friends are difficult. *sigh* But she watched some Dr. Who and is okay now.

Spoiler:

And I have to ask you all, I need your opinions on this, what kind of scone tastes like a pop tart? I mean, really!