[ExI] Religious Idiocy Triumphs Over Science Yet Again

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 12:14 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 3:39 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
>> I do retain much of what Jesus said re forgiveness and other moral
>> philosophies
>
> ​
> Forgiveness?
> ​ ​
> The God of the Old testament may be the most unpleasant character in all
> of fiction and He may have enjoyed
> ​ ​
> forcing
> ​ ​
> cannibalism and torture
> ​ ​
> on sentient creatures, but at least once you were dead you were dead and
> He was finished
> ​tormenting ​
> you; but in the New Testament of Jesus
> ​ ​
> after you're dead the Prince of Peace
> ​ ​
> really goes to work. Jesus is going to use all His infinite skill to
> torture you as horribly as He can if you take just one
> ​ ​
> tiny
>  ​
> step out of line, and he will continue to torture you not for a billion
> years but for an INFINITE number of years.
> ​He's a sadist, ​b
> ut
> ​ ​
> he loves you!
>
> ​  John K Clark​
>

​Church insiders pick and choose which of the OT or NT to believe in.  As
an outsider I can do it too.  Not that it matters, but some researchers
think that a lot of words were put in Jesus' mouth just to make him more
compatible with the OT - the fire and brimstone bits.  I would believe in
forgiveness no matter what any religious authority said.  Not 'turn the
other cheek' - no, definitely not that one.  Forgive but avenge.  Hope that
doesn't sound funny coming from a leftwinger.

The whole point of forgiveness is to heal your own heart, to calm your
amygdala down, and assure that you are not giving in to mere rage.  In
other words, it's best for your mental health.  I can tell you stories
about the physicians who killed both of my parents.

Is there a philosopher of any stripe, religious or not, whose teachings we
swallow whole, without picking and choosing?  I'd say no.  Everybody is
wrong about something - maybe even you and me.

bill w​


>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20151212/d41deebd/attachment.html>