The Religion/Spirituality Thread

[SoulMonster]

On 29.11.2018 at 6:54 PM, DieselDaisy said:

One term I know is ''extinction event(s)''.

Scientists are even more anal than historians at inventing pretentious academic terms. 

They are also called "mass extinctions". 

I don't find either pretentious. Short and descriptive. 

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

They are also called "mass extinctions". 

I don't find either pretentious. Short and descriptive. 

Why not just merely ''extinction''? Why the ''event''?

[SoulMonster]

5 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Why not just merely ''extinction''? Why the ''event''?

The term 'extinction event' doesn't refer to just any single species going extinct, but to one of the 5-6 times in natural history when there's been a collosal loss of species in a relatively short amount of time, often resulting in whole classes of animals disappearing abruptly (like the dinosaurs, or the trilobites). Hence the synonym 'mass extinction'. 

Extinctions are common and everyday in nature, but here we are talking about an extinction event. Something out of the ordinary. 

13 hours ago, soon said:

Blessed Advent!

You need to paint your miniatures. 

[soon]

7 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

You need to paint your miniatures. 

I feel like you probably have a full palette of miniatures paint on hand. You trying to plan a friend date with me?

 

[SoulMonster]

8 minutes ago, soon said:

I feel like you probably have a full palette of miniatures paint on hand. You trying to plan a friend date with me?

I am sure I can find some in my basement  

What game are those miniatures from?

[soon]

5 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I am sure I can find some in my basement  

What game are those miniatures from?

Awesome, bring the nerd paint. I will also have a gingerbread house for us to assemble. We'll listen to Dizzy's Christmas album in the background.

It's a Nativity! This one definitely has the miniatures look. Most don't, I don't think.

 

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, soon said:

It's a Nativity! This one definitely has the miniatures look. Most don't, I don't think.

That's cool and original. Haven't played that one before. What superpowers does Jesus have?

[soon]

11 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

That's cool and original. Haven't played that one before. What superpowers does Jesus have?

Jesus, the baby in the Nativity? The Game Creator will penalize you for story continuity error. Two more of those penalties and it's Conversion for you my Nativity neophyte.

[SoulMonster]

A muslim teacher was recently fired because he refused to shake hands with female colleagues on the grounds that he "didn't want to be tempted." He meant the dismissal was illegal and discriminating and protested the decision to the Norwegian state, asking to be re-instated. The verdict fell today, the firing was not illegal and he will now have to look for another job. The reasoning was that a person's freedom of religion does not trump the school's responsibility to ensure equality of the sexes.

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Oldest Goat said:

The guy sounds like a fucking fruitloop. 

"*heavy breathing* I won't shake your hand. I may be tempted."

Imagine being that fucked up in the head. 

But isn't that the overall reason why some muslims refuse to shake hands with females and why females have to hide their bodies and hair? It is discriminatory to women and it makes muslim men come across as primitive brutes.

[soon]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

But isn't that the overall reason why some muslims refuse to shake hands with females and why females have to hide their bodies and hair? It is discriminatory to women and it makes muslim men come across as primitive brutes.

Many women choose to cover. So in those cases your blanket statement makes you out to be the brute who dictates to women, speaks for them and undermines their ability to choose. All of which implies your desire to control their bodies.

[Len Cnut]

2 hours ago, soon said:

We'll listen to Dizzy's Christmas album in the background.

Dizzy has a Christmas album?

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, soon said:

Many women choose to cover. So in those cases your blanket statement makes you out to be the brute who dictates to women, speaks for them and undermines their ability to choose. All of which implies your desire to control their bodies.

Heh. I was obviously talking about the cases where men make females hide their bodies and hair and not those cases where females make this decision entirely without any male social control.

[soon]

3 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Dizzy has a Christmas album?

 

[Len Cnut]

8 minutes ago, soon said:

 

Well shit in my grandmothers mouth, he actually does!

[soon]

2 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Well shit in my grandmothers mouth, he actually does!

Yeah someone on here turned me onto it! I just googled and according to Discogs he released not one but 2 Christmas albums that year! And appeared on a compilation of Christmas music too!

So for those keeping tally; Reed has 3 solo albums, 2 of which are Christmas albums!

https://www.discogs.com/artist/556472-Dizzy-Reed

[SoulMonster]

@soon's reply confused me for a while there. At first I thought it was just him taking his feminism to an absurd place but then I remembered that many female anababtists wear bonnets so he might have considered my comment on the primitivity of male muslims demanding that muslim women cover their hair, as a criticism of his religion too. It wasn't.

[soon]

4 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

@soon's reply confused me for a while there. At first I thought it was just him taking his feminism to an absurd place but then I remembered that many female anababtists wear bonnets so he might have considered my comment on the primitivity of male muslims demanding that muslim women cover their hair, as a criticism of his religion too. It wasn't.

No, its just that you said a blanket statement. I took your post as you wrote it and as such pointed out that many Muslim women think and choose for themselves. Shouldn't be too confusing?

 

[soon]

36 minutes ago, Oldest Goat said:

Imagine being so conceited you choose to wear a black sack covering your whole body at all times, despite the heat, because you think everyone who sees you will get too turned on and maybe even rape you.

People in cults 'choose' to drink poisoned punch. People choose to be fucking idiots and believe in all kinds of crazy bullshit, it doesn't mean it's worth respecting. And the icing on the cake is in the Koran, the Tora, the Bible - they're the chosen ones and everyone else can go fuck themselves.

"Our belief is we are chosen by God and you are inferior. Respect our belief or you're a bigot." 

Where does it say that in the Bible? You list the Torah separately so you must mean Christian scriptures?

[SoulMonster]

@soon, do you identify as mennonite?

[Len Cnut]

Who do people say 'do you identify' these days instead of 'are you a...'?

[soon]

6 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

@soon, do you identify as mennonite?

No

[SoulMonster]

Quote

'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe

Figures show a majority of young adults in 12 countries have no faith, with Czechs least religious.

Europe’s march towards a post-Christian society has been starkly illustrated by research showing a majority of young people in a dozen countries do not follow a religion.

The survey of 16- to 29-year-olds found the Czech Republic is the least religious country in Europe, with 91% of that age group saying they have no religious affiliation. Between 70% and 80% of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands also categorise themselves as non-religious.

The most religious country is Poland, where 17% of young adults define themselves as non-religious, followed by Lithuania with 25%.

In the UK, only 7% of young adults identify as Anglican, fewer than the 10% who categorise themselves as Catholic. Young Muslims, at 6%, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church.

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The figures are published in a report, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion, by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London. They are based on data from the European social survey 2014-16.

Religion was “moribund”, he said. “With some notable exceptions, young adults increasingly are not identifying with or practising religion.”

The trajectory was likely to become more marked. “Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years,” Bullivant said.

But there were significant variations, he said. “Countries that are next door to one another, with similar cultural backgrounds and histories, have wildly different religious profiles.”

The two most religious countries, Poland and Lithuania, and the two least religious, the Czech Republic and Estonia, are post-communist states.

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The trend of religious affiliation was repeated when young people were asked about religious practice. Only in Poland, Portugal and Ireland did more than 10% of young people say they attend services at least once a week.

In the Czech Republic, 70% said they never went to church or any other place of worship, and 80% said they never pray. In the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, between 56% and 60% said they never go to church, and between 63% and 66% said they never pray.

Among those identifying as Catholic, there was wide variation in levels of commitment. More than 80% of young Poles say they are Catholic, with about half going to mass at least once a week. In Lithuania, where 70% of young adults say they are Catholic, only 5% go to mass weekly.

According to Bullivant, many young Europeans “will have been baptised and then never darken the door of a church again. Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them.”

The figures for the UK were partly explained by high immigration, he added. “One in five Catholics in the UK were not born in the UK.

“And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.”

In Ireland, there has been a significant decline in religiosity over the past 30 years, “but compared to anywhere else in western Europe, it still looks pretty religious”, Bullivant said.

“The new default setting is ‘no religion’, and the few who are religious see themselves as swimming against the tide,” he said.

“In 20 or 30 years’ time, mainstream churches will be smaller, but the few people left will be highly committed.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/christianity-non-christian-europe-young-people-survey-religion?mc_cid=78e2abfee3&mc_eid=b5f1c39cdf

This is great news

[soon]

A mere 2000 years ago there were no Christians at all. I wonder how these experts would calculate the probability of our Saviours appearance to begin with. Humans are cute that way.

Edited December 7, 2018 by soon

[SoulMonster]

9 minutes ago, soon said:

A mere 2000 years ago there were no Christians at all. I wonder how these experts would calculate the probability of our Saviours appearance to begin with. Humans are cute that way.

The probability of some Jewish religious reformer being crucified for causing disturbances? Quite high. He wasn't exactly the only one the Romans would kill off to try to secure peace in a volatile province.

Or the probability of a new religion emerging based on a charismatic person? Again, this seem to happen again and again, over and over. Religions come and go. With high probability we can expect new religions to be formed around individuals in the future, too.

Orr the probability of a God sending his Son to earth? That probability remains at zero.