Religious discussion (continued from “Christianity and Chastity”)

Well in fact I do have an open mind, I’m not brainwashed. I have been persuaded of certain beliefs and have changed before. Although I think it unlikely that I’ll abandon my religious outlook, I was a stalwart atheist previously and don’t think that made me a wanker, so I don’t think atheists are wankers now. Also the way I conceived of Christianity, say 20 years ago when I was a junior god-botherer, was very different from how I understand things now - so change is possible with or without wholesale paradigm shift.
I would prefer it if these discussions were a bit less adversarial, however. I am genuinely interested in (and respectful of) how other people make sense of life, so when I ask one of you why you think x, y or z it’s not cos I want to go “aha well here’s why you’re an idiot to think that!”

 

I started as a baby, with no beliefs as such.
As a child I suppose I was a sort of agnostic - was open to the idea that there might be some sort of invisible powers afoot, whether God, gods, imps or aliens… as far as I can recall I strongly suspected that the mainstream religion as I encountered it in school assemblies and occasional church visits was just some sort of reactionary bullshit aimed at social control. At the age of about 11 I decided that all religion and indeed all civil laws and institutions were a load of crap, and was a wild, punk-rock anarchist through my teens and into my twenties. I was pretty strongly influenced by certain strands of Freudian analysis, radical Marxist and anarchist ideas, and read lots of “transgressive” literature.
My Christianity came about later, at around 30, and I’m happy to talk about that provided
a) anyone is interested, and
b) you realise I have absolutely no agenda to “convert” anyone or “win” a pissing contest.

 

Also, bringing it back somewhat to the topic of kink, part of my alienation from mainstream ideologies (including organised religion) was the fact that I was a total pervert from an extremely young age. I had masochistic desires and fantasies way before I knew anything about sex as such, and I knew I was deeply peculiar. So from very early on I thought of myself as an outsider, who would be judged and condemned if people knew what I carried inside. Since at that time I saw the church as a sort of nostalgia club for squeaky-clean straight conservatives, I felt nothing but enmity towards it. Very well summed up in a lyric from the Damned: “religion doesn’t mean a thing/its just another way of being right wing”

 

I'm going back to church tonight
Just like back when I was eight
But I don't mean to pray
I'm gonna nick the collection plate
I've got nothing against church
Only people who go there
and show they're
Plain ignorant and don't understand
a congregation at weekends won't change their behaviour
So many people are weak enough to have
to seek answers from the peddlers of hope
I should know
I had to go there myself
Not since the day I became antipope
Theres gonna be some fun tonight
Spead the news around the town
That the vicar's a transvestite
With a fetish for robes and gowns
I've got nothing against church
Only people who go there
and show they're
Plain ignorant and don't understand
a congregation at weekends won't change their behaviour
So many people are weak enough to have
to seek answers from the peddlers of hope
I should know
I had to go there myself
Not since the day I became antipope
Religion doesn't mean a thing
Its just another way of being right wing
I think sex films are okay
I don't dig that pope no way
I've got nothing against church
Only people who go there
and show they're
Plain ignorant and don't understand
a congregation at weekends won't change their behaviour
So many people are weak enough to have
to seek answers from the peddlers of hope
I should know
I had to go there myself
Not since the day I became antipope

 

Btw I still find that lyric to be a perfect denunciation of what passes for mainstream Christianity in the west.

 

I do respect the fact that Muslims appear actually to believe their religion and structure their lives by it. Where I live there are streams of Muslims going to mosque every Friday, and they greet each other with blessings. In most churches you get 20 people on a Sunday if lucky. Most people prefer shopping.
But I don’t subscribe to Muslim theology. Again, I could enlarge on that if asked.
I read a book about Jainism and found it attractive as a worldview. Hinduism is an amazing and sophisticated religion but I think people from the west who get into Hinduism are kidding themselves really. Same for western Buddhists.
I have deep respect for the Jews, they’re tough motherfuckers - and of course Jesus is a Jew.
Scientology is blatant horseshit.

 

I forgot which side of the argument you’re masturbating from. Or are you lying in the middle, masturbating into the air with your cum forming a puddle in your navel?
Incidentally, I generally find that if you don’t intend to offend, it’s not the best idea to suggest that people are masturbating and indulging in fruitless point scoring. Also, I’m no sportsman, but I don’t remember ping pong being played by masturbating. I don’t think my ejaculate has the propulsive force necessary to get a ball over the net… though maybe that’s because of my age. Hey @Jay Sub - you seem like someone interested in physics - do you think it’s theoretically possible for us to travel back to a time when our semen spurted out in powerful, copious jets, and attempt to play table tennis in the way @atxmtb envisages? For the sake of science, I mean.

 

so @atxmtb will have to be disappointed

 

I went through a phase when every time I got drunk, I became enthusiastic about Islam. But you see the paradox there.
Plus, you can’t really “try” Islam, because once you’re a Muslim, if you decide to quit they are entitled to kill you. In the words of the pal of a pissed wanker outside a bar, “it ain’t wurf it, mate”.
But more importantly still, Islam is quite obviously made up by a bloke who cobbled together bits of the Torah and Christian heresy to form an over-rated book far less appealing than its sources.
Finally, the essence of Christianity is the Incarnation, voluntary Crucifixion and bodily Resurrection of Our Lord, Who thus forms a physical bridge for us between space time and the Eternal World To Come. Islam is about rules. Boring and inadequate.
As a Christian, I can literally eat the Creator of the Universe any Sunday I choose. I don’t do it often because it takes a lot of preparation, but when I do, Divine Grace radiates out from me and causes little miracles everywhere I go, despite the fact that I’m a complete and utter twat. It’s indescribably fantastic.

 

As for purpose of life… each of us has different purposes, known to God, which we struggle to intuit and fulfil. It’s a mystery, innit?

 

I can see why people might not like various aspects of Christianity. The first thing I thought when I realised I believed it was (word for word): “oh fuck, I’m turning into one of those cunts!”. And I can sure as shit see why people might not like most of the heretical, piss-weak bullshit that passes for Christianity in much of the world. But let’s strip things down to one primary question: do consciousness, intentionality and love emerge from insensate matter as some kind of epiphenomenon? And a second one: if so, how?
Now, one might choose to be wedded to the conviction that they must - and work and work to solve the riddle. But another possible way to come at it is to consider that perhaps consciousness, intentionality and love precede matter and bring it into being…. I mean ffs, modern physics is able to assert that there is something called “dark matter” that can’t be detected but must be inferred from certain calculations so that the maths works. We still have no idea what gravity is. Why is so laughable to consider that this stuff which constitutes and surrounds us emanated from something like a mind?