1987: #YayYoureInAGroup

[Latch]

Originally Posted by Keith

Then the speaker should be reading from The Ugly Duckling or Hansel and Gretal (Hansel and Gretal???) instead of talking about a character from a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and hateful book.

She might on other days. I'm not sure. I got the feeling Jesus wasn't an 'every-service' topic, so that's where I've been coming from... He could be, though, and then I'd start to agree with you on this.

Originally Posted by Keith

As for, "Judge not lest ye be judged," what do you think that second "judge" refers too? Other people judging you? No, it means, "don't judge others or GOD will judge you."

C'mon now...

Good point, I always took it as "don't judge, or you'll get judged back (by others)". Sort of the 'do unto others' bit, but said differently. Yeah if it'd god though, that's a dumb quote for me to make

[Keith]

Not for nothin', but you don't know much about this place for having gone there...

[Latch]

Only went once, so not a huge sample pool.

I saw the summary for today's episode (Atheists United). I'm still in the beginning of yesterday's ep in my playback queue, but think I'll grab this episode and listen as soon as it comes out. I knew as soon as I saw Michael on that there'd be some good stuff coming up on this...

[Keith]

That'll be up early tomorrow but please check it out. We discuss you loving the "church" that apparently you've only been at one time that isn't religious even though the one time you went there they happened to talk about Jesus Christ...

Again, all said with peace and love peace and love. (Unless that's a religious concept.)

[shoebootie]

I visited a UU church a few times because I was still trying to figure out religion, faith, etc and they seemed very liberal and humanist.

It was OK, I guess. I realized I like going to church for the sense of community, and singing hymns, which they had. They did good works, like had a lot of charitable and volunteer efforts. There were book clubs, sewing circles, coffee clubs, yoga classes and child care throughout the month. There's a big sense of togetherness which is great.

There's no real dogma for the UU church. You can believe what you want or who you want. They're welcoming of LGBT. They take what they want from the scriptures of several different religions and will discuss or have sermons about those topics without leaning on one religious text as the default handbook for their religion.

With all that being said, I never joined their church or continued to go because isn't one of the perks of being an atheist supposed to be not getting up on a Sunday morning to go to church??

[Sparrow]

Sundays serve the purpose of a dedicated time of reflection in your week. that's just good ol' fashioned human need. it can look like a lot of things.

[shoebootie]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Sundays serve the purpose of a dedicated time of reflection in your week. that's just good ol' fashioned human need. it can look like a lot of things.

for me it's the quiet time alone with my coffee on Sunday before anyone else wakes up. just the quiet... that's it really.

[iheartnihilism]

My landlady is awesome. She didn't raise the rent for the first 2 years I've lived here and only raised it when the water bill became out of hand. She doesn't care if I paint, or put shit up, or have loud parties in our shared backyard (she lives next door). She also doesn't care if I pay the rent 2 weeks late. The trade off is when stuff goes wrong with the 100 year old house we live in, it takes forever to get fixed. But she does bake me Chilean bread every once in a while so I love her.
I consider myself super lucky (especially considering my last landlord never fixed anything, let a mouse infestation get completely out of hand, and would let himself into our apartment whenever he wanted) and the only reason I'm ever leaving this place is when I save up enough to buy my own house. (For the record, I do not live in the suburbs.)

#humblebrag

Re: Toni Braxton, this is also insulting in the sense that you're saying to this person with Autism, "You're life doesn't really matter, you're only here, like this, as a lesson to someone else." The fuck?!

[littlp]

The main issue I have of the Bible (among the many) is the fact that humans wrote it...it was politically motivated. The Bible started off by only being read by priests...lowly peasants were not allowed to read it nor touch it (even if they did know how to read). So many people have had a hand in the creation/writing of the Bible. It is like a fucked up version of telephone. Some of the stuff in there is good, the majority of it is just plain wrong. I work with many older clients who swear by their religion and the Bible...I think times are changing though as more people are utilizing their critical thinking skills.

[Mattman]

Not only is the Bible anti-gay, it is anti-a-lot-of things. 2,000 years ago there was quite a lot of debauchery going around. I think that was more what Jesus was concerned about rather than loving, same sex unions of the 21st century.

He was also quite opposed to human sacrifice, particularly to false idols which was also quite prevalent in those days, even though in first book of the old testament Abraham is ordered by God Himself to sacrifice his son. Cynics will point out the false logic of this "fairy story" (even though an Angel stopped the sacrifice of Isaac), but it was a foreshadowing of God's sacrifice of Jesus, which, as the story goes, went ahead.

The list of "uncivilized" behaviour is quite long, and does focus quite a bit on the evils of casual sex. But it was said in a different time to ours, and most Christians have moved on from the strict adherence to the words in the bible (although the loonies are still vocal in their literal adherence to the book). One of the 10 commandments was "Thou shalt not covet their neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." — Exodus 20:17 (NIV) . My neighbor has a rather nice car that I would love to own. Although I would not trade his wife for mine any day, I just broke a commandment by thinking about his car!

Even Jesus knew the 10 commandments were a bit hack. He only had one - to Love one another.

The good thing is that although much of the teachings are about leading a "morally clean" life, nowhere does it ban the consumption of alcohol, and wine was definitely OK with the Son of the Lord ... so it can't be all bad.