Religion has had it's time.

[hillbilly]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Dave we don't have to fear Hell, it is right here now. Go into any supermarket and watch the young women mistreat older folk. Any possibility that people today possess any social graces is remote in the extreme. Drive your car a few miles and observe your fellow motorists, and you don't dare admonish them as they may be armed.

Rob, things must be very different where you live. It's nothing like that here. Elderly get the upmost respect here. You walk in a store, old or young and you'll hardly need to grab the door as someone will hold it open for you. That is no joke. And when I go to the store, it's hard to get out of there because the folks will talk your ears off. You pass a car on any country road out here and they'll wave at you, and only look at you puzzled if you pretentend you didn't see them or to good to say hi back. Out of honesty, I was thrown in culture shock when I drove up north to the fest. Had a pizza guy at a redlight scream shit at us when I didn't ''floor it'' soon as the light turned green. They had no respect for people finding their way through a place we were only traveling through. Stopped for gas and folks didn't speak, just walked past bumping shoulders like they had a chip on theirs. You will not find that in my area. And garages do not ask you to wait in no office. People bullshit with the mechanic's while the work is being done. There are stools and chairs ''in the mechanic area'' if you want to go watch. In fact, if a local was to be told to stay in the office, they'd feel they were going to get screwed and take it somewhere else.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Rob, things must be very different where you live. It's nothing like that here. Elderly get the upmost respect here. You walk in a store, old or young and you'll hardly need to grab the door as someone will hold it open for you. That is no joke. And when I go to the store, it's hard to get out of there because the folks will talk your ears off. You pass a car on any country road out here and they'll wave at you, and only look at you puzzled if you pretentend you didn't see them or to good to say hi back. Out of honesty, I was thrown in culture shock when I drove up north to the fest. Had a pizza guy at a redlight scream shit at us when I didn't ''floor it'' soon as the light turned green. They had no respect for people finding their way through a place we were only traveling through. Stopped for gas and folks didn't speak, just walked past bumping shoulders like they had a chip on theirs. You will not find that in my area. And garages do not ask you to wait in no office. People bullshit with the mechanic's while the work is being done. There are stools and chairs ''in the mechanic area'' if you want to go watch. In fact, if a local was to be told to stay in the office, they'd feel they were going to get screwed and take it somewhere else.

I have never seen an auto shop allow customers in the work area, here in Virginia. I don't know if that's a law or an insurance thing. Or maybe it's just my experience? At any rate, I'm thinking it might be the same in some other states.

Dave

[JJIII]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Rob, things must be very different where you live. It's nothing like that here. Elderly get the upmost respect here. You walk in a store, old or young and you'll hardly need to grab the door as someone will hold it open for you. That is no joke. And when I go to the store, it's hard to get out of there because the folks will talk your ears off. You pass a car on any country road out here and they'll wave at you, and only look at you puzzled if you pretentend you didn't see them or to good to say hi back. Out of honesty, I was thrown in culture shock when I drove up north to the fest. Had a pizza guy at a redlight scream shit at us when I didn't ''floor it'' soon as the light turned green. They had no respect for people finding their way through a place we were only traveling through. Stopped for gas and folks didn't speak, just walked past bumping shoulders like they had a chip on theirs. You will not find that in my area. And garages do not ask you to wait in no office. People bullshit with the mechanic's while the work is being done. There are stools and chairs ''in the mechanic area'' if you want to go watch. In fact, if a local was to be told to stay in the office, they'd feel they were going to get screwed and take it somewhere else.

You have described the way it is here too.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Rob, things must be very different where you live. It's nothing like that here. Elderly get the upmost respect here. You walk in a store, old or young and you'll hardly need to grab the door as someone will hold it open for you. That is no joke. And when I go to the store, it's hard to get out of there because the folks will talk your ears off. You pass a car on any country road out here and they'll wave at you, and only look at you puzzled if you pretentend you didn't see them or to good to say hi back. Out of honesty, I was thrown in culture shock when I drove up north to the fest. Had a pizza guy at a redlight scream shit at us when I didn't ''floor it'' soon as the light turned green. They had no respect for people finding their way through a place we were only traveling through. Stopped for gas and folks didn't speak, just walked past bumping shoulders like they had a chip on theirs. You will not find that in my area. And garages do not ask you to wait in no office. People bullshit with the mechanic's while the work is being done. There are stools and chairs ''in the mechanic area'' if you want to go watch. In fact, if a local was to be told to stay in the office, they'd feel they were going to get screwed and take it somewhere else.

Rural vs urban. There are just too many people around in the big city to say 'hi' to everyone. And all that implies.

But there are advantages to the city culture, of course. There are a lot more opportunities. And not only can you not find 'different' in a small burg, you may not be allowed to 'be' different.

Basically, it's good to have both, and the ability to move around.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

If not for the Bible, and as many people fearing burning in hell as there are, how many people would go out and kill others rather than let the law handle it if they knew for a fact there was no God to answer to? Hell, just look how bad some groups act from the middle east .. they act out much different than Christians. Would you want to take it all away, and everyone live in a free for all world where nobody feared any consequence for their actions?

Yes, without religious brainwashing how would we keep people under control?

(Or convince them that killing is what "God" wants them to do?)

I think you get the picture, Dave. You just don't get the whole picture.

Dave

[icenine]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

If not for the Bible, and as many people fearing burning in hell as there are, how many people would go out and kill others rather than let the law handle it if they knew for a fact there was no God to answer to? Hell, just look how bad some groups act from the middle east .. they act out much different than Christians. Would you want to take it all away, and everyone live in a free for all world where nobody feared any consequence for their actions?

You are not serious are you? I mean the Holocaust and terrorism are just two arguments out of millions that disprove this theory. Then there is the other side of the coin where man commits atrocities believing God is on their side, or more cynically, victims are apostates so their lives do not matter, religion being an justification for almost any form of inhumanity. ISIS is just one example.

Perhaps on an individual level fear of hell probably influences millions. Get a few people together and a political or financial motive however and that fear goes out the window. Plus in an extreme Calvinist idea of pre-destination it would not matter what one did on Earth if God has already decided your fate in the afterlife. I think there was a sect of this offshoot of Calvinism either in early colonial America or early modern Europe who practiced a sort of hedonism based on this but I could be confusing these with the ancient Hedonists. It is early.

[merrylander]

So the Bible is bunk is it, let's see first book of John chapter 4 verse 8 - "He that knows not love knows not God, for God is love." Hmm, that does not sound so terrible. Then what Paul wrote to the people in Corinth - "And though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love I am as a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing."

Strikes me that someone who loves would make a better neighbor than one who hates or is indifferent,

YMMV

[sanford12]

Originally Posted by merrylander

I have no plans on going anytime soon since no one could possibly love my Florence as well as I do. We have had 32 blissfully happy years and I want a few more.

An example of why I seem cynical, Florence and I met in a hotel lobby in the east coast blizzard of Feb 11/12 1983. She was a widow I was divorced. Some guy who claimed to be a friend of her late husband tried to hit on her. I simply offered her my protection for the rest of the night. So I got the night clerk to find us two chairs and we sat and talked throughout the night. In the morning we had breakfast exchanged addresses, shook hands and parted, she for home me for the airport and Canada. We wrote to each other, found love and married - all over a handshake. She later told me in a letter that she could not get over the fact that I protected her all that night and did not ask anything in return, that had never been her experience up until that night. That was simply the way I was raised, but I find few men like that these days. So I am just an old fashioned individual.

I fell for my wife the first time I saw her. After we were together there were guys I knew and former boy friends that wanted to break us up and date her. I didn't let that shape me in a negative way but it's my nature to let things roll off my back. 6 months later we were married by a judge with a secretary who was typing the whole time as a witness. Both of us non-believers and married 40 years with 3 great kids that had no problem without religion. One even had one of his christain friends ask how he could be do moral and not religious. There's a problem lot's of religious people have is they think they have the moral high ground just because of a belief they have that some one else doesn't hold. Anyway. Sounds like we both found happiness and that's a great thing. Many happy years to you and your wife sir.

[Oerets]

My experiences with religion is a simple one. It has little effect on a strong willed persons ability to do the right or wrong thing. Just the easily swayed.

So will always be around in one shape or another to control the masses. Even the Nazis came up with a mythology to confuse and use.



Barney

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Oerets

My experiences with religion is a simple one. It has little effect on a strong willed persons ability to do the right or wrong thing. Just the easily swayed.

So will always be around in one shape or another to control the masses. Even the Nazis came up with a mythology to confuse and use.



Barney

Exactly. I've met committed Atheists in strong, long term relationships and so-called church-going "Christians" who can't keep their pants up. I've know and still know quite a few people who are deeply religious and it's a good thing.......because every time they "fall out of grace", they fall hard. Drugs, sex, crime, you name it........Without the threat of eternal damnation and the promise of heavenly reward, these morons simply lose control of themselves.

IMO, religion is only good if you need it and it isn't being used to brainwash you into doing horrible things. I'm taking a wild guess that most people don't really need it for much. Unless it's their way of attributing the good and bad things in their lives to a "higher power".

I personally believe;

1). Shit happens. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but I don't believe for a second that it's part of any divine or sinister "plan". And whatever doesn't just happen, is caused either by good people, assholes or the wind, water, heat or gravity.

2). If there is a God, he obviously doesn't care. Look at what good waiting for "Gods" rescue did to save millions of people buried in mass graves by tyrants around the world or all of those praying for salvation during natural catastrophes.......... None, Zip, Zero, Zilch, Nada. Dead as a door nail, many suffering horribly in the process.

3). Smart people rarely do stupid things, not because some holy book told them not to, but because doing stupid things is stupid.

But, that's just my viewpoint.

Dave