Okay. I just watched on the news where the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth
Smart (name?) had some other charges on him. He killed a woman and her
daughter and made an excuse, saying, "God told me to do so." Well, he's
not the only excommunicated Mormon out there that made the claim.
If anyone asks me, there is no reason that saying, "The Devil made me do
it," is any different from saying "God made me do it." No offense to the
Christians out there, just think a lot of people are failing to take
responsibility for their problems.
RavensSoul
Member
Posts: 63 Registered: 27/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 17/7/2003 at 02:20 PM
When I was a little kid, like 7 or 8, I used to have a friend named Gabriel
who was about 2 years younger than me. She came from a really religious
family and they had taught her that every experience in life is either an
act of god or the devil... I remember one time, she fell in a hole in my
backyard, one the dogs had dug... and when she got up and I asked if she
was ok, she told me, " The devil made me fall."
You're post just made me think of that.
____________________ In my eyes, to be human is not to be able to live and die, but it is to
feel pain, love, happiness, and all other things that keep our hearts from
freezing over into the bloody ice that distinguishes man from the beasts of
night.
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 17/7/2003 at 02:47 PM
Lol. I grew up in a Catholic family and my mom never told me that
everything in life was governed by God and the Devil. Honestly, I do not
see the logic of teaching people to blame deities for your actions. That's
kind of a contradiction to free will, don't you think? Heh.
Nicholas
Member
Posts: 74 Registered: 17/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 17/7/2003 at 03:06 PM
lol, that's my problem with religions: People using it as an excuse for
their actions... to me it's like blaming your imaginary friend..
That just reminded me. A friend of mine named was once barred entry from
another friends house because of his name... the family was really
religious, and well, being named Kane (Kane and Abel were the children of
Adam and Eve, Kane was evil and killed Abel, or something like that) they
figured he'd probably kill them or bring satan upon them.
____________________ "Be neither a master nor a slave to pudding, for there is a time to gather,
and a time to cast pudding away"
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 17/7/2003 at 03:16 PM
Being a little superstitious, okay, I give myself credit for that a lot.
But gawddamn... *shakes head*
I agree - saying things like that is not only a contradiction to free will,
but also like saying it was your evil twin or something. Why can't some
people just admit that they have a problem and quit hiding behind a dogma
or something for it? Ah well.
Side note: Personally, I never perceived Cain as "evil." He was just human
(and humans err from time to time), got jealous, and didn't fight that
little temptation thing that beckoned for him to kill Abel. Some people
will perceive it as "evil," probably...but a lot of people (including me)
have fell to envy at some point in their life...though not to that extreme.
It's positively absurd. You want to know what makes people think that?
Growing up in a society/church/community/family with emphasis on passing
the buck. It's a way to free yourself of responsibility from personal
actions. It's called disasociation. A lot of destructive or ignorant
people have that. Murderers have that too, but oddly enough the really
GOOD ones own up to the fact that they simply like to kill people.
When a child dies it's "god's will" or "god works in mysterious ways" or
"god has a plan for that child" and I guess you could say that yes, he
does. He has a plan, and obviously it was to kill someone's kid. "he" is
teaching the family the brutal truth that we're all mortal, teaching greif,
loss, anger, heartbreak and all the things that go with it. In other words
they're using a book to soften the blow that the cold hard real world dealt
their fantasy life. I figure hey, why not, whatever helps you get up in
the morning and make it through your commute.
I have a serious issue with this whole celestial or burning pit finger
pointing because it's just one more way for people to deny responsibility
for their lives, actions, successes and failures. To me (and I"m sure
someone might get angry at this) it's WEAK. It's childish, like when your
mother asks who broke her lamp and you stare at the floor and say "I dunno"
when YOU were the one playing living room baseball. It's just a tad more
believeable to some.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 17/7/2003 at 06:04 PM
Agreed. And I'm not offended Bettie (almost typed Battie there for a
second, lmfao). I consider it somewhat weak too. I mean I can somewhat cut
a -little- slack for someone bursting out at me then coming back to say
they weren't in the best moods or something (though they still likely need
to take responsibility), but all that other stuff, it's just outright
running away. Heh.
Xaoswolf
Fanatic
Posts: 463 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/7/2003 at 09:06 AM
Nicholas:
Kane wasn't evil, just jealous. He believed that God loved Able more than
him when they both laid their sacrifices before Him. In a fit of rage,
Kane killed his brother and was then cast out by God.
____________________ Sometimes I dream about dinosaurs shopping for cargo shorts at the Gap.
Does that make me a bad person?
Nicholas
Member
Posts: 74 Registered: 17/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 18/7/2003 at 11:26 AM
Thank you for the knowledge. I've never been forced to learn anything about
any religion, so all I know is what others have told me or what little I
managed to read before in a hotel room before falling asleep.
____________________ "Be neither a master nor a slave to pudding, for there is a time to
gather,
and a time to cast pudding away"
RavensSoul
Member
Posts: 63 Registered: 27/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 18/7/2003 at 01:09 PM
I've never been able to get myself into the whole religion thing. I think a
lot of it is self-contradictory bullshit and I just don't want a part of
that. I also don't like the idea that some unknown power is controlling my
existance, and this power doesn't even have the balls to prove that he does
exist and that we are right for following him or choosing not to. And I
dunno, but I just have a really hard time believing and respecting what the
bible has to say * and I've heard this somewhere before, but I agree with
it and am going to repeat it* The bible is a collection of stories passed
down for over 2 thousand years, and then one day someone just decided to
write it all down, saying it was gods will... God TOLD him to do this..
just as gold TOLD several of the people in the bible to do things. In this
day in age if "God" TELLS someone to do something.. That person is called
schizophrenic and is either given medicine or locked away in a padded cell.
I'm a kid, and I don't have any kids of my own, but I'm just gonna say this
as an example: If god told me to kill my first born son as a sacrifice,
just as god told Abraham to sacrifice his son.. I would be called an insane
murderer and end up dying of lethal injection.
Yea... I forgot the point I was going to make so I'm just gonna stop
now.... OHHH
The point is, I don't understand why so many people put so much faith into
the Bible, when, under the same circumstances today, you'd just be
considered insane.
____________________ In my eyes, to be human is not to be able to live and die, but it is to
feel pain, love, happiness, and all other things that keep our hearts
from
freezing over into the bloody ice that distinguishes man from the beasts
of
night.
Alugarde
Member
Posts: 185 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/7/2003 at 01:53 PM
I don't really have a problem with religon. It's the fanatics of a given
religion that I can't stand.
I could list several reasons why I'm not really into religion, but most of
them have already been said, if not here then elsewhere. Instead, I'll
simply list the reason that I came up with on my own, before ever being
exposed to the religious fanatics or the people that can't stand those
fanatics: I have trouble getting enthusiastic about Someone I've never
met.
No offense meant towards those of a religious bent.
[Edited on 7/19/2003 by Alugarde]
____________________ l33t is the bastard cousin of contractions.
AloneSoul
Fanatic
Posts: 522 Registered: 6/7/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2003 at 03:18 PM
And they say entertainment corrupts children.
They also say that adults are children in big cloths.
They're children in big clothes that want so badly to be children again
that they resort to the most childish of behavior: if I can't have fun,
neither can you.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2003 at 07:56 AM
Lol. I think those who are trying so hard to convert others are just not
confident enough about their own faith. But that's my opinion.
I'm just wondering what the mother and child did to "have God tell the guy
to kill them."
I do know though that they pissed him off somehow. *mutteR*
Exactly, who are you trying to convince here pal? Me or yourself?
I read a short story about this subject once, about "god's plan" involving
a little girl and some kittens. She lived in an abusive and ultra
religious family, and every time her cat has kittens they "disapear" and
her father says that "god took them". She gets angrier and angrier, and
she questions her father on god's right to take her kittens and he beats
her and sends her to bed, then he and her mother go and spoil and play with
her (now hated) twin siblings. So her cat has kittens again and she hides
and waits to see god "taking" them and discovers it's her father who's
putting them in a sack and drowning them. She yells at her father, and he
beats her again and sends her to her room, and she's yelling against god
and her father and how "god will show YOU to take my kittens!". Later that
night she hasn't come down for dinner and the father is explaining to the
mother what their horrid girl did today, about how she caught him drowning
the kittens and that 'god would show HIM". The mother then tells him to be
quiet, and they both hear bathwater running and the infants crying.
MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.
Whenever I hear "god's will" it just sounds like a big fat copout, ie: "I
dunno, I just wanna sound philosophical instead of like a dumbass".
I was also diggin through my t shirts yesterday and found a band shirt I
almost forgot about. It's got a big picture of a fluffy kittens face on
the back and it says "Every time you masturbate, god kills a kitten". I
forgot how much I loved that shirt.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2003 at 03:17 PM
Wasn't really trying to convince anyone of anything. I just thought that
those who tried to convert others are just not secure enough about their
own faith...that or were raised to do so. For example:
Susey is going out with Bobby. But Bobby knows that Susie is not a
<insert religion here>. So Bobby tries to make Susie into a
<insert religion here>. Susie refuses so Bobby ditches her, giving
her the guilt trip that she's going to go to Hell for she isn't a
<insert religion here>.
The most I can figure out about people using "God's will" to kill people is
that they either:
-Feel justified for it might be that the more gullible members of the
religious masses will sympathize for him (the least gullible will probably
think he's a laughing stock).
-More dramatic and/or shocking.
-An excuse to hate someone or an excuse to gain control.
Those are my opinions, though. I'm probably not that religious, but at
least I have the guts to say that I did something for it was MY will.
Then again...maybe they have some psychological problems that make them
hear those type of voices.
"Humans are very contradictory creatures, claiming to want peace while
waging war, saying they love you while they break your heart, stealing from
people while they condemn thieves and dishonesty, it goes on and on."
--Sean Brennan, Lead Singer of London After Midnight
Off topic, but thought it would appeal to you (and maybe some others).
f">
HREF="http://www.pathetic.org/library.php?i_memberid=2042">
size=1> but at least you know, just how much pain there is in living
Starlight
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 618 Registered: 27/9/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 22/7/2003 at 10:52 PM
I've seen many more acts of hate done in the name of religion than acts of
love.
When a person uses religious beliefs as an excuse for a criminal act, they
are only declaring to the public that they are incapable of thinking for
themselves.
____________________ "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never
tried before." ~Mae West