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Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,
Till iniquity was found in you. Ezekiel 28:13-15 (NKJV)
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: seal of perfection    created cherub angel   precious stone   midst of fiery stones  
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Stars formed, planets coalesced, and on at least one of them life took root.
Through a long process of evolution this life developed into the human race.
Humans conquered fire, built complex societies and advanced technology .
All of that so we can argue about nothing.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: Satan    lot   Jesus    
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If Satan has some magical ability, it has to be that flame.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: old game    old kid   overpowered boss   continuous red flame  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: Jesus Christ    similar fate   spiritual father   mediation of your sins  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: gods angels    powers   deceit   minions  
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Do you ever get tired of constantly asserting your obvious prejudice against what others choose to believe?
While every religion seems to have claims in their doctrines that can not be proven or for that matter in some cases be disproven does not give you the right to constantly ridicule them.
Most religion seem to have a similar doctrine of an overall goodness required of it's members.
Yes. I think every religion seems to have it's radical elements but that isn't who you tend to attack. It seems you focus primarily on religion in general.
I don't understand people's problem with someones religious beliefs if it is not directly affecting them.
Faith brings alot of people peace, especially in times of strife. So why not leave them alone. Let them have their peace and believe whatever they want. As long as it is not harming others I just don't see what good comes from ridiculing those beliefs.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: religious beliefs    alot of people peace   similar doctrine of an overall goodness   them.Most religion  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: false belief    religious beliefs   show others   bottomless pit  
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“Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall [d]bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:14-15 (NASB)
Jesus was born of a virgin in order to bypass the corruption of Adam's seed which carries the curse of death via the sin-nature. The prophecy in Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled at the Crucifixion where Jesus was victorious over death and sin, both of which were instruments introduced via Lucifer's-Satan's deceit.
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You want to know my Christian beliefs.
I was raised Episcopalian but have had issues with some of the decisions made by the church in the past. I was also raised by a mother that believed we should have some knowledge of other religious beliefs so we were able to make our own choices of what to believe.
I believe in God and I pray but I don't believe I need a church or priest to do so. Although I don't have anything against someone who does believe otherwise.
I am also a fatalist.
I also believe that every person has a predestined purpose. What that purpose is may never be known but they do have a pupose.
I do believe there is evil. There is no better descrption for what some people do.
I believe as a Christian it is my responsibility to be kind and respectful of other, to live the best life I can while helping others along the way.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: Christian beliefs    knowledge of other religious beliefs   predestined purpose   better descrption  
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I am a staunch atheist, but even then I will support others being allowed to have their own personal beliefs.
However, as soon as it crosses the line into forcing beliefs on someone, that is too far.
Religion spreads in three ways, proselytizing, indoctrination of children, and threats of violence.
While it is clear that the last one is never acceptable,(and doesn't really work anyways) the first two are in a bit of a grey zone. It is acceptable for someone to stand on a street corner or use the internet to try and spread their faith, as it is just freedom of speech, but sometimes that spread comes with other unsavory tactics, namely the use of psychological, and sometimes even physical manipulation.
To explain this a little better, lets say you are standing on a street corner talking about god, and handing out booklets that contain scary pictures of hell and demons and the like, and explains that only people within your particular sect can go to heaven. If a child or someone with anxiety issues sees this, it could be very psychologically damaging, and this is one of the tactics used both to get people into a faith and keep people there. Whether or not this is ok is up for debate, being as it is morally ambiguous.
The second (and primary) method by which religion spreads is by indoctrinating children. This is also morally ambiguous, some would argue that it is necessary to instill values to their kids, and others would argue that this is a form of child abuse. sometimes the beliefs tend to press people to do things not necessarily in their best interest, (like blow themselves up) or change someones mindset enough to make them do a particular task not against their interest, but in the interests of religion itself (like having lots of children)
What is and isn't ok for religion to do is not the most clear, but for someone to speak against religion is acceptable so long as they don't do anything against their fellow man.
Stars formed, planets coalesced, and on at least one of them life took root.
Through a long process of evolution this life developed into the human race.
Humans conquered fire, built complex societies and advanced technology .
All of that so we can argue about nothing.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: powers    bible   post   nbsp  
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You said>>>aside from your false belief of me being non- tolerant to your religious beliefs and as you probably being non tolerant to other religions,
I will concede that I may have made a incorrect assumption of your intolerance to peoples religious faiths. To explain it was based on a previous discussion I have had with you challenging one of your statements. You then resorted to belittling me for believing anything in the Bible when my only point was that the Bible is a historical documentation written by many people of there views of what was happening in their time.
As for your assumption of me being intolerent of others beliefs or lack of them is incorrect I do not care what religion people prescribe to. If I ever ask a question about someone's beliefs it's because I honestly want to know their view or their religions views on the subject. I have not once ridiculed anyones religious beliefs on this site. The only time I have a problem with someone else's religion is when it is a radical perversion of the core beliefs of their stated religion and it is used to cause harm to others.
As far as the question of Satan and what "magical" powers he may have. Well that would depend on what religion subscripe to. The thoughts vary. There are those who believe that he is a fallen angel stuck down by God due to a rebellious act or an actual rebellion fighting to overthrow God's rule. Some also believe that he rules over hell and demons. There is the belief that he or his demons are able to posses the living causing all different sorts of problems. Then there are those who believe he wasn't an angel but a jinn who was cast down by God for his rebellion and retains the power of being able to put evil thoughts into peoples heads and influence them to do evil things. There are others who simply believe that Satan just means evil which describes the acts that are done by people that would be a sin in their religion. Yet others believe Satan is to be worshiped and is benevolent being of good. While others worship him as a their choice over God and embrace all that is evil. These people, amongst others, also believe he is capable of being able to do all kinds of supernatural acts.
I guess I don't really understand what you actually you want to get from this debate. Everything I stated is general knowledge or is able to be researched.
I do want to pose the same question to you as you did to me. What are your beliefs?
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@all4actt
On the contrary, sounds like a damn good reason to me, that is, to constantly ridicule religion. I have some sympathy for your statement that ridiculing people is wrong. But ridiculing religion can never be overdone. No force in history has done more to delude and lie to people more than religion. Its entire foundation rests on a belief for which there is absolutely no evidence, I mean none, as in zero! I don't even mean proof. I mean just one shred of credible testable evidence that any god, let alone their god exists. That's an astonishing fact. Religion's main deception used to perpetuate this global delusion (particularly in the west) is faith. Problem: you have no evidence to back up your claims. Answer: urge people not to question. In fact, make it nearly a sin to question God or his existence. Is there any evidence? Let's make sure followers don't ask the question! But religion does not just use faith to protect its dirty little secret. Some religious factions demonize secular education, don't support public schools, demonize higher-education, demonize liberal democratic values that promote inclusiveness and open inquiry, present mythology as science, deny science, present the Bible as history and generally speaking attempt to keep the population dumbed-down. They will promote obedience and demand acceptance of doctrine. They will belittle the arts to stunt creativity and encourage suspicion of anything different. You don't think this impacts everyone? Do you think this is just a private matter that doesn't effect anyone but the believer (which is bad enough)?
Here in America, religion has lead an assault on American values and principles particularly in its violations of the separation clause of the Constitution. Politicizing their religion has done great damage, here and around the world. It has hindered attempts to combat pollution and climate change. Their abstinence position and fight against birth control has spread disease and exacerbated overpopulation which has increased poverty, starvation, death and pushed resources to the limit. Their campaigns against government and social welfare have increased misery, their support here in my country for an elitist Republican Party has widened the income gap and stagnated upward mobility, divided people and opposed universal health care, all of which has increased suffering and increased the death rate. Their absurd insistence that a zygote is a human being has caused anxiety and hardship for thousands of women. Their wicked position on homosexuality has produced pain, fear, and death. And all of this because of some ancient superstitious nonsense and because moderate and liberal churches have remained relatively silent and allowed their extreme wing to become its mainstream voice. We have plenty of reason to continually attack the detriment caused by religion.
I agree that religion has done a great deal of good and provided comfort. But the above plus its bloody history, the division and conflict and massive death it has facilitated, plus the enormous amount of fear, anxiety, and guilt caused by its evil doctrine of damnation has for me tipped the balance against it. Especially since we don't need it. We don't need it for morality, for societal order or for comfort. There are other less damaging means that don't. Evolution has provided us a sense of right and wrong. People are rational creatures. Create a society based on facts, humanist education and reason and you will have your moral, orderly, equal, loving, less fearful, less stressful, more peaceful society without the side effects. And there will be plenty of comfort for individuals to go around.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: nbsp    public schools   social welfare   birth control  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: rhetorical question    Christian bible   question   belief  
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the hell fire God wraith is a type of preaching and learning method of it. Its normally used by baptist/southern baptist. im Methodist and we preach on the love and grace of God. when i think about my creator i think of what he did for me and what i owe him, not what he is going to do if i don't do this
now the topic of children and people with anxiety, i don't see these as legit reason considering its every day life. Glance at the new, you will see far more horrifying stuff. it is something you must get used to
also 90% of the time it is not a scare tactic, if you see a missile coming straight down at your city you are going to warn everyone around and in my belief that is what is going to happen so its not a scare tactic it is a warning. All tho i do not like the teaching style personally, i understand it.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: scare tactic    creator   hell fire God wraith   im Methodist  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: medieval days    alot of the times land   oil   religion  
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hope i was some what of help
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Frankly, the news is psychologically damaging for some children too. Creating a false comparison doesn't free religion from the fact that a child who doesn't know better can't defend themselves. Consider Greta Thunberg, she is autistic and just learning about global warming practically made her insane. That is what I am talking about.
Lets discuss this missile scenario, shall we? So if you were inside minding your own business when someone started pounding on your door and told you that a trans galactic hyper speed relativistic kill missile could strike the planet at any time and kill everyone, but we can't detect it yet because it is still too far away for the light to reach earth. This might be cause for concern. Now lets say that once at least once a week someone told you about the missile, and this continued for 2,000 years, even though there was never any hard evidence that such a missile ever existed.
It is more than possible that such a device could exist, and an angry alien race exterminating all life that it sees as a threat would certainly be able to build such a device. But that isn't the point. Are you really saving anyone anything by going around spreading this message? What if it also came with another message, that the aliens would be likely to spare us if they thought we were nice and decided we were no threat to them. How about now?
Religion is like that. There may or may not be a kill missile the same way there may or may not be a hell, but introducing it is a form of behavior control via fear and reward. You have to recognize that there is no hard repeatable evidence for heaven or hell, so until we know otherwise why should we assume that it does?
Stars formed, planets coalesced, and on at least one of them life took root.
Through a long process of evolution this life developed into the human race.
Humans conquered fire, built complex societies and advanced technology .
All of that so we can argue about nothing.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: little justice    third answer   little sense   bible satan  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: God of the material world    Gnostics   Satan    
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Satan's goal was to garnish worship for himself. So Satan challenged God as a bad ruler.
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: rhetorical qiuestion         
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My response was to a comment made by someone else @maxx
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@shamgurd I'm not sure that sounds very convincing. I would need to see scholarly support for the proposition that land and oil etc. are the main causes of these wars. Also, I don't think land and oil are always the fuel that sustains a war, what motivates soldiers to fight, and populations to support the effort. Protecting one's homeland as in repelling an invasion would motivate populations and soldiers. Possibly invading armies have been motivated by spoils or booty (oil), though the ordinary soldiers and citizens are rarely the direct beneficiaries of these spoils. But when facing death, how often has land or spoils motivated soldiers to hold their ground or advance? Is that really enough to provide the zeal needed to charge? The reasons could be many, but what soldier has thought, I'm terrified, but I'm going over this wall for land because the king or the politician wants that land or that treasure on the other side. I'm going over this wall in a hail of oncoming bullets so that general so and so or king so and so can get even richer and more powerful than they already are. What widow or mother opens her door to face the marines and says My husband is gone forever, but at least we got that patch of dirt he was defending, or he made our president or even our nation more wealthy. On the other hand, if a soldier in that situation thinks going over that wall is what an all-knowing all-seeing god wants him to do then he is much more likely to do it. If he fears eternal damnation or disfavor with an all-powerful deity or thinks he will be gaining favor with this deity, that is a much more powerful motivation. If the widow or mother believes that her husband or son's death was for god, and not a death wasted to acquire land of wealth, she and the citizenry are much more likely to continue supporting the war.
At any rate, this is almost a moot point. Whether wars are started in its name or sustained in its name, one could hardly argue that religion has not been an aggravating factor. And the fact remains, no war has ever been started or likely sustained by reason.
Besides, wars are not the only problems I mention that are created by religion. Thanks for your comment!
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: eternal damnation    main causes of these wars   ordinary soldiers   son's death  
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The real causes of World War I included politics, secret alliances, imperialism, and nationalistic pride. However, there was one single event, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, which started a chain of events leading to war.
World War 2
The real causes of World War 2:
Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles ended World War I between Germany and the Allied Powers, Japanese Expansion, Fascism, Hitler and the Nazi Party, Appeasement, and the Great Depression.
Vietnam
The causes of the Vietnam War revolve around the simple belief held by America that communism was threatening to expand all over south-east Asia.
Desert Storm
After the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Iraq was in debt to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, who had financed its war efforts. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein insisted both countries cancel that debt because he felt they owed him for protecting them against Iran.
Mongolian Conquests
To retain the loyalty of his ever-growing army, as the Mongols conquered and absorbed neighboring nomadic armies, Genghis Khan and his sons had to continue to sack cities. His followers were rewarded for their valor with luxury goods, horses, and slaves seized from the cities they conquered.
Napoleonic Wars
The causes are relatively simple, the Napoleonic Wars were caused by the French Revolution. After years of excesses caused by the French Revolution, Napoleon rose to establish some measure of peace and stability in France.
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I don't believe I originally said most wars are caused by religion. Whether that's true or not, there seems to be substantial evidence it has accounted for more than it's share. And again, I don't see how religion as, at the very least, an aggravating factor can not be included. I'm afraid that you've lost me with your marriage analogy. Feel free to explain that further. I believe I included the pursuit of wealth and booty in my original comment at any rate surely that is a relatively rare motivator. As I said likely most soldiers have not profited in this way from their fighting, especially in modern times. I don't think acts of zealotry are caused by money. I include not just overtly religious causes but also those that many would put under a secular heading. Mindless zealotry is in itself a religious condition no matter if it's motivated by fear, religion, a deified leader, nationalism, racism, anything that causes the suspension of rational faculties. So Kamikazies turning their planes into bombs was a religious act of blind devotion to the emperor, cult-like veneration of country, or absurdly disproportional fear of shame or damnation for not going through with it. Naziism had all the hallmarks of a religion, belief in an infallible god-like leader, strict doctrine, emblems, symbolism, rituals, revisionist history, expectations of blind unquestioned devotion, false belief in their possession of the truth and superiority. All of this unreasonable, not supported by a preponderance of facts and by use of reason. Mindless, religion-like unreason lead to monstrous acts (how would money fit in?)
Do soldiers sacrifice themselves, make suicidal charges, fly their planes into ships or buildings, blow themselves up for money? Money they will never use.
The present mayhem caused by radical Islam should be enough to warrant a desire for the removal of this destructive motivating force. And I do not confine all blame to extreme elements of religion as in that case. The mainstream moderate or liberal religions that are not directly militant, nevertheless, contain the seeds that enable the direct causes, superstition, blind devotion, faith and belief in the superiority of their world-view. And also in their lack of "zealotry" in condemning those radical elements.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml,
https://religiomag.com/the-top-religious-wars-in-history/
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But I don't believe you've countered the supposition that wars are motivated and impacted by religion to a significant degree and therefore its elimination would at least reduce conflict. Surely you do not assert that money is the main cause Do you really think the Northern Ireland conflict would have been as protracted had religion been eliminated as a factor? Do you really think all the conflict in the Middle East in the 20th and 21st centuries would have been as abundant and bloody without religion? Was all this about greed or oil? Do ISIS and Al Quida just use religion to mask its true ulterior ambitions, say power, control, influence, money? Well, those are contributors to most any war. But ISIS isn't using "enrich yourselves", "gain more influence", "gain more control over your personal life" as its main recruiting and inspirational tools. It uses religion. The inhuman acts of cruelty we've seen and heard about are not enabled by any ordinary desire for power or influence. The desire must be extreme, a kind of madness. And fanatical faith and blind devotion to anything is a kind of madness. Religion is a great way to disguise madness as normality and a great vehicle for creating it. I don't know, but perhaps people who commit wicked acts are, consciously or subconsciously, assisted by their culture's acceptance of religious belief (any belief in God is the belief in something for which there is no credible evidence), especially unquestioned religious belief as normal and even desirable. Something, in that attitude, allows them to rationalize their actions.
I think the better option is a society based on reason. Not one that worships reason. That in itself would be unreasonable. But one that has reason overtly as part of its foundation and supported by a culture that puts superstition (any belief in something for which there is no evidence is superstitious, so those who are religious to any degree are embracing superstition) in perspective and into its proper context. Not one that suppresses any sort of belief including superstition. But one that unashamedly and objectively calls a spade a spade.
There are several of your individual points I'd like to address but time dictates I settle for just one. You say "The military now bands all religious views, does it prevent people from enrolling and sacrificing themselves?" I assume you mean the US military. Well, of course, that is a policy that I support. But the Us military is only one military and I don't know how universal that approach is around the world. Also, we both know that pressures can be applied, discrimination enacted to silently persuade people to conform to unspoken traditions, God and country in this case, i.e. you are representing and fighting for both. Put another way, how much of the military's policy is enforced and how much is lip-service? Finally, even if the military is saying it out loud the culture certainly is. "God and Country" is embedded in the culture. Many potential young recruits will be literally or more subtly told this by their family, friends, etc. My point, making religious neutrality the policy does not eliminate it as a factor. Though I might call it a good start.
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#2 They condone war
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I don't believe I said there would be no war if there were no religion.
Rationalization (context?). There usually is no "after the fact" (your definition) on suicidal missions/actions.
Give an example of religion being the scapegoat for a decision already made.
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