I hate people!

[onizuka17711]

If someone is truly lucky they also have faith.

I suppose I've never quite seen the benefits of faith, or how how having it would make me lucky...

[Blight]

I suppose I've never quite seen the benefits of faith, or how how having it would make me lucky...

Well, even though I myself took into a religious context, I have faith in my ideals since I lost my spiritual faith. Those who wonder about without faith at all are empty shells. On second thought, ever one has some form of faith or another, with varying degrees and potencies. I'm sure you have faith in something; you just don't realize it is in fact faith. However, what ever you have your faith placed in will probably affect the quality of your life. I could talk about this forever, but I need to get back to work?

[Homeless Joe]

faith can be a dangerous thing. having faith can be good, but letting that faith blind you to the truth of things is not. suicide bombers do it on faith. people kill themselves to catch a lift on a space ship hiding behind a comet on faith. some argue that the world, the universe even, is only a couple thousand years old becauses they have faith in their interpretation of their religion.

[Blight]

faith can be a dangerous thing. having faith can be good, but letting that faith blind you to the truth of things is not. suicide bombers do it on faith. people kill themselves to catch a lift on a space ship hiding behind a comet on faith. some argue that the world, the universe even, is only a couple thousand years old becauses they have faith in their interpretation of their religion.

That goes along with the quality of their faith. If it gives you peace then it is probably all right even if you hold what seem to be ridiculous beliefs to others. However, faith in something that makes you kill yourself and others for it, well that’s just not peaceful at all. If your faith brings death and destruction, then it has become something else entirely. It goes beyond faith, into a maniacal,razing form of fanaticism. If your faith tramples on the lives of others then it isn't faith, it is an excuse.

[Homeless Joe]

true, there are fanatics. but there are also people who hold fast to their beliefs, even if they are dead wrong and it is clear they are wrong. or they vote for a president because he claims to believe the same things they do and says he converses with the almighty. that is some messed up shit if you ask me. government and religion are supposed to be separat in the us so why did people vote for bush because he was going to ban gay marriage on religious grounds? i don't understand why the christian church is allowed to impose it's values on everyone in this country when we are supposed to have a seperation of state and church.

[Blight]

true, there are fanatics. but there are also people who hold fast to their beliefs, even if they are dead wrong and it is clear they are wrong. or they vote for a president because he claims to believe the same things they do and says he converses with the almighty. that is some messed up shit if you ask me. government and religion are supposed to be separat in the us so why did people vote for bush because he was going to ban gay marriage on religious grounds? i don't understand why the christian church is allowed to impose it's values on everyone in this country when we are supposed to have a seperation of state and church.

Two things, first off having faith and being an idiot AREN'T mutually exclusive lol. Second, because people will vote for those they identify with. The president is a person, and if he shares the same religious standings as yourself, that is an obvious reason to vote for him. You want to be able to identify with your leader after all. It isn't like there conspiracy behind the scenes where the church is controlling our government. It just so happens that some of these people have also learned the power of the excuse I was talking about before. This is the reason why it is important to keep your faith personal, so that others can't use it as a tool to manipulate you, like the Muslim extremists do to recruit suicide bombers.

[Homeless Joe]

faith can blind people into following whatever they are told. when i used to go to church i saw it, i see it today in people i know. they are manipulated and lead to beleive things because of their faith. don't get me wrong, faith can be a good thing. just believing that you will be healed is often times enough to make you truly healed. but it becomes dangerous often times. times such as when the church passes out a pamphlet telling them how to vote and the people follow that on faith. regardless, argueing matters of politics and religion are most often pointless, such frustrating topics, too troublesome.

[Blight]

faith can blind people into following whatever they are told. when i used to go to church i saw it, i see it today in people i know. they are manipulated and lead to beleive things because of their faith.

I see what you are talking about, my problem is that I have met very few people in this world that are truly faithful to their religion. Even when I went to church all the time, and I believed I was a Christian, I truly wasn't. I was a hypocrite. I hated people for retarded reasons, had sex all the time, and didn't give two shits about the church or god when I wasn't there. I didn't follow the faith right, but I did pretend and called myself a Christian all the same. It was people like me's fault for making non religious peoples view of Christians bad, because I was a liar and a fake. So where I am going with this is that it wouldn't be my faith that would make me believe what they had to say, but rather my yearning to up appearances that would make me hate gays (which, like going to church, I don?t anymore) or look down on thoughs that were of different faiths. True faith is broken where I come from, so I just want to defend those that posses it because it is so rare.

times such as when the church passes out a pamphlet telling them how to vote and the people follow that on faith. regardless, argueing matters of politics and religion are most often pointless, such frustrating topics, too troublesome.

Yes that is totally bullshit. Trying to play off someone?s spirituality to get them to vote them the way you want is butthole scrap. That happened during the last election. I remember some pastor in ST. Louis was telling his congregation if they didn't vote one way or the other they were going to hell. WTF? I would so tell that pastor to kiss my ass. This is obviously the kind of spiritual leadership that has educated our faithless fake Christians of today.

[Zagatto]

This is an amazing can of worms I fired up with a simple comment.
I think about faith all the time and I've pretty much divorced the idea of faith from religion at this point in my head. The part that I was referring to about it being a good thing is the peace of mind that comes with having faith in something that gives a person to live.

The idea of having faith in ones self is very important to me and am most depressed in life when I lose sight of that.

Having people using other peoples faith to manipulate society either through politics or terrorism (which is actually a form of politics) drives me crazy to no end. Seeing that I'm so full of sayings this brings up one of my core beliefs "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins". If someone believes that happiness lay in the act of smearing themselves with yellow paint and waving boiled pasta over their head then I envy their simple happiness (I also keep a good distance because I think they're freaks).

Reading this thread in more detail I realize that most of the negatives I've seen here have to do with people using blind faith as a tool to push their own agenda. It sounds like organized churches have become nothing more than giant tool boxes that preaches blind faith over thinking through what you believe. I'm sure there are exceptions to this but I'm afraid they are exceptions themselves rather than the rule.

[geo85]

I truly believe that it matters whats in you heart and not what you lable yourself, I hate how some people use the word tolerate, what bs is that, if you actually read your bible you would realize that the christian teachings are supposed to help you understand you fellow man, to want to make yourself a better person, to help those who can not help themselves, to be a person of compasion for your fellow man and try to understand eachother, and to pray for those in need or those whom you care for. Its not your place to tell someone else their beliefs are wrong when you have both been raised to believe a certain thing, if the people in this country who call themselves christian really were, then they would be trying to help and pray for one another, they would if they truly believe that being gay is wrong then they would pray for the souls of those whom are gay, they wouldnt hate them and pass laws against them. Thats just the twisted face of the church and its ignorance very much like some muslims believe they should blow up infadels to get to heaven.

It seems many christians like mel gibson have forgoten that their messiah Jesus christ did not die for the sake of dying or so that they would focus on his death but that he died to save humanity and that they would remember his teachings of widsom understanding and compasion. You cant just toss aside your religion when its not convienient.

[Andromeda18_]

To me faith has absolutely nothing to do with religion. I believe in the power of faith because it's the power of the mind. To me all those miracles we hear about are brought about by nothing more than the sheer power of belief. On a normal day we only use a small percentage of our brain's abilities, when one believes hard enough perhaps one uses other abilities...
Anyway, when a person believes in something it gives her strenght to accomplish whatever the person wants, which, to me, makes it a good thing. If a person wants to accomplish something evil it's not faith's fault, it doesn't turn having faith into a bad thing.

[babyeater0]

*tries thinking of a deep an meaningful thought*


poop

[Puppet Master]

*tries thinking of a deep an meaningful thought*


poop

And so ends another episode of the Pointless Remarks of BE

[babyeater0]

And so ends another episode of the Pointless Remarks of BE

It was almost as pointless as you trying to get laid!

[Homeless Joe]

....ignorance aside(points up), geo your right. the church is an organization. they decide what to teach and do, some of which may not be "what jesus would do". hell in the medieval times this church was so corrupt they would sell you notes to absolve your sins, if you weren't rich, you went to hell. church can be a good place to learn and grow in your faith, but you should read your bible too and have an open mind not just blindly follow what that man infront of you says. andromeda you are also right. there are a certain percentage of people in studies who receive the placebo and yet are cured because they believed they were receiving the real miracle cure and that it would heal them. i forgot what the name for it is but i know you can look it up in text books, we went over it not too long ago in my statistical psychology class. anyways the point is that if you believe that you will be healed, that something will work, it just might work. people have been cured of cancer by taking sugar pills (placebos) because they thought that pill would cure them.