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| Congenital Believer | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 6 2009, 09:05 PM (237 Views) | |
| Dewey | Apr 6 2009, 09:05 PM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I have always loved fairy tales and to this day read E. Nesbit and the Oz books, Andrew Lang and the Narnia books and Tolkien with more intensity than I read almost anything else. And I believe in magic or want to. I want flying saucers to be true, and I want life to exist on Mars, and I dream of a heaven where old friends meet and old enemies embrace on another and weep. And just at dawn in an eighteenth-century castle built of rose-colored stone in Dumfrieshire, I have reason to think I saw a ghost. All of which is to say I am a congenital believer, a helpless hungerer after the marvelous as solace and adventure and escape. I am also a fabricator, and I am willing to believe that the whole business of God in my life may be something I have fabricated out of my need for solace and adventure if not for escape because religion has never seemed escape to me. Escape would be for me to get out of religion with all its demands and promises rather than to get into religion. Maybe it is all just a dream. Maybe none of it is true except in some wispy sense true for me
But I did get mixed up with it, and I am mixed up with it and by it still, and as I stand here in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, waiting for the time to wake up the children, I must speak of this. Such faith as I have, where did it come from and why? Frederick Beuchner, The Alphabet of Grace |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Frank_W | Apr 7 2009, 04:12 AM Post #2 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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Sounds like a man who has come to terms with the question, "Hey, what if it's all bullsh*t?" (Which every believer has asked themselves at one point or another.) He's dared to ask that question, and come out the other side of it, stronger for it. I admire that kind of bravery and courage.
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| Kincaid | Apr 7 2009, 07:56 AM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Divine spark, I believe. |
| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
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| Horace | Apr 7 2009, 08:02 AM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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There is no question in my mind that there are certain personality types or genetic makeups that predispose people to belief in whatever religion they're exposed to. To me that's as compelling an argument against certain parts of certain religions as anything else (i.e. if you don't believe in X then you'll be eternally punished), but it's a tougher sell than the good ol' "what happens to people who are raised without exposure to religion X". People acknowledge that there's a cultural component, but it's more difficult for them to acknowledge the genetic component. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Horace | Apr 7 2009, 08:06 AM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Wasn't there a Time magazine article about "the religion region" of the brain that some scientist thought he'd pinpointed? Certainly an oversimplification, but I react to that sort of scientific "discovery" like I react to the various discoveries that men and women really are different - "duh". |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Mikhailoh | Apr 7 2009, 08:06 AM Post #6 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Well, if we disposed of all in our lives that could conceivably be termed bullsh!t, they'd be hollow shells. There is beauty in the cowpies of our lives. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| apple | Apr 7 2009, 08:13 AM Post #7 |
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one of the angels
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as my great aunt used to say. "nonbelievers are all lost or we are the biggest fools in the universe" she was a nun that ran an orphanage in the 30's to 50's. |
| it behooves me to behold | |
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| Renauda | Apr 7 2009, 08:35 AM Post #8 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I have absolutely no problem with belief and its companion faith, but nothing but disdain for the imagined need for dogma that enevitably smothers belief's intrinsic vitality for all humanity. |
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| Frank_W | Apr 7 2009, 09:05 AM Post #9 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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I think she's wrong on both counts. |
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| ivorythumper | Apr 7 2009, 09:45 AM Post #10 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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I agree with you, Frank. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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10:55 AM Jul 11