Religion

Resisting Religious Labels

/ Jim / Leave a comment

Does it really matter how we refer to one another concerning belief or non-belief? I was ticking about this recent post of mine and the more I consider, I really wonder if any of this makes any difference/ Why? The world as we know it is changing faster than most of us are able to keep up with today. Anyone aware there’s still a major European war raging in Eastern Europe? Not by any news feed. In fact it’s been fairly well covered up for several months now. What about the U.S. conflict in Iran? If it doesn’t bleed, there’s no lede. In other words, the world has become used to such tragedy to the extent that no one really cares anymore what’s going on outside of their neighborhood, much less their city, state, or country.

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Where Do Rights Originate?

/ Jim / 2 Comments

I’ve heard all my life, that it is god, not man that grants our unalienable rights. It’s in the Declaration of Independence, so it must be true, right? A single sentence in our founding document declares that god, not man, is responsible for the freedoms we enjoy as human beings. Where did these men get that idea? Many of them were students of the enlightenment that shaped the Declaration. Philosophers like John Locke were key influencers on how the founders viewed and understood the rights of man.

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Debate Any One? No Thanks.

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I almost never debate Christians about their faith or my lack thereof. Why? It’s because when I ask for objective proof of what they say, I receive the same old evidence: The Bible Tells Me So. Of course, some use other sources, but those sources they quote are mostly apologists, people paid to reconcile faith with fact (poorly) and for those that need to justify their faith. Other sources they use, to their benefit are scientific: archeology mainly, but then, non one is arguing that Babylon didn’t exist, or that Nazareth didn’t exist. what we’re discussing is the idea of a god, and in particular, Jesus.

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Is Death the End?

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“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” – Mark Twain

What happens to us after death? It’s a creepy question, isn’t it, but don’t most of us wonder if this life is it or if, depending on what religious belief followed, there’s some sort of afterlife whether it is reward or punishment, after this life ends? Everyone does, yea believer and non-believers. As a non-believer, I choose to not think about it because, like the quote above from Mark Twain, death is, well, nothingness to me. I think of it as having been in a deep sleep where I don’t remember dreaming, then waking up. I woke up from, well, nothing, in my mind. when I dies, I return to just that. Nothing.

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The Meaning of Life?

/ Jim / 1 Comment

A recent comment to a post and of course I began to think about what the commenter was getting at. I think it’s true that many believe that there is nothing to look forward to in this life; that this life is just pain and misery and in order to make it less so, humans invented the supernatural. Gods. They needed a way to explain the seasons, natural disasters, sickness and plague. It became either a blessing or a curse from these gods.

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