Viewing 40 posts - 121 through 160 (of 209 total)
  • Bible bashers
  • RudeBoy
    Free Member

    Orgainsised religion is certainly NOT benign and exists solely to influence the lives of ALL of society in an attempt to swell their own ranks.

    I see it like this:

    You like mountain biking. You go out on your bike, and have a great time. Maybe even find it Spiritually Uplifting. It keeps you fit, healthy and happy. You enjoy doing it with others, who share your passion and enjoyment.

    So, you tell others about it, and hope that they too might try it, and get the same pleasure as you do. After all, it does you good, so why not them, too? And, you feel good if someone does get into it, and enjoy it. And maybe disappointed, if they don’t. And if some people don’t give it a go at all, yet slag you off for it, then you’d feel upset, maybe, angry, or maybe just pity them. Or just ignore them entirely.

    Because you enjoy this activity so much, you chose to publish a magazine about it. In order that you can do this, you need to make some money to keep it going, so you sell advertising space, merchandising, etc. This is all cool, because ultimately, what you are doing is, you believe, a Good Thing. Plus, it’s handy for paying the bills, as well. And in order that you can continue with what you believe to be a good thing, you need to get as many others as possible, interested too. So, you need to be, hmm, somewhat Evangelical, perhaps? Gotta keep the wheels turning…

    Make any sense?

    Is he the Messiah?

    Or just a Very Naughty Boy?

    Singlespeedpunk
    Free Member

    2 Reasons RudeBoy:

    1) Mountain bikes can be proven to exsist (and the benifits of exersise are well documented in medical journals)

    and

    2) No one ever killed in the name of mountain biking.

    No singlespeeders have ever blown up a bus full of DH’ers. No one makes their kids use only Campag stuff as Shimano is the route to the devil and eternal torment in the pits of hell*

    SSP

    *how f—ked up is it to scare kids with stuff like that? I would class it as mental torment and control by threats and thus abuse. But what do I know.

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    LOL!

    But you know what I mean. That quintessential ‘thingness’ of mountain biking, that some poor, sad deluded wastrels will never understand…

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    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    The other day I was looking at some of my photos and was so moved by the beauty depicted (and no, it wasn’t naked ladies this time), that I thought to myself, “Perhaps there is a god!”. Needless to say this did not influence me to behave differently, and I’m happy to admit that the number of gods lies somewhere in the range 0 to infinity…

    GNARGNAR
    Free Member

    RudeBoy – Member
    LOL!

    But you know what I mean. That quintessential ‘thingness’ of mountain biking, that some poor, sad deluded wastrels will never understand

    Elaborate please….Im keen to hear more of your thoughts on that. The “thingness” for me could be happy, relax, adrenalin, excercise, limits, facing fear etc etc etc…..

    Singlespeedpunk
    Free Member

    But you know what I mean.

    Sorry no I don’t. A bike is merely a collection of metallic, plastic and rubber parts. There is no inherant beauty, truth, right or wrong. Its just a thing that will rust, corrode and break. See it for what it really is.

    What it enables is a totally different thing; exploring places, meeting people, exersise and even meditation.

    Still no MTB religion that I know of unless I am a poor, sad deluded wastrel.

    SSP

    D0NK
    Full Member

    SSP rudeboy was talking about mountain biking not mountain bikes, I thought it was quite a good analogy.

    and to extend the idea I think that if enough people took it up and were passionate enough about it and a lot more money was involved then pretty soon someone would come along and get 1 group of people to blow up another group of people who didn’t believe in the one true way of mountain biking (the 32:16 group probably take out an uplift truck full of freeriders)

    Human nature……again nice idea badly executed.

    D0NK
    Full Member

    Oh and I cant name a source but I’m pretty sure there are studies that have proved the positive effects of religion/belief on individuals (i.e. belief in a higher power getting them through bad times in their life)

    oxym0r0n
    Full Member

    We are Believers On Mountain Bikes, our intent is to expand the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, through people who mountain bike. Thereby, bring the word to those who are not Christians, encouraging ongoing fellowship, and presenting the opportunity for all of us to develop a personal relationship with Christ.

    Anyone heard of this lot? Cant say I like the thought of this. On the one hand, everyone has the right to participate in the sport regardless of colour or creed but…..they are blatantly using mountain biking to convert people to their religion.

    For them, mountainbiking is just a tool so they can climb the ladder in their cult of respectability?

    I’d like to hope they wont become as vocal and obvious as christian surfers (bloody synonomous with the sport almost).

    Discuss…

    Referring to the OP
    If you read the original article it says presenting not indoctrinating!

    I am a Christian and I am a mountain biker. I enjoy mountain biking – it is not a “tool” I use other than to get out and enjoy the countryside with friends.

    The Bible says that it is God that does the converting ~ it’s nothing we can do as human beings. Therefore I aim to enjoy mountain biking and good company and if someone wants to discuss Christianity with me I am more than happy to do so, but that’s not the reason I ride, as anyone who has ridden/raced with me will agree with.

    Oh – I’m starting a new niche – Christian Singlespeeders 🙂

    Singlespeedpunk
    Free Member

    DONK,

    Thats why I separated the bike from the activity. Something that too few people do (me included)

    SSP

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    (i.e. belief in a higher power getting them through bad times in their life)

    that’s exactly why I don’t like religion. I think I’d prefer objective misery to having it supposedly mitigated by a vacuous fantasy

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    SSP rudeboy was talking about mountain biking not mountain bikes, I thought it was quite a good analogy.

    Thank you. Im glad somebody understood!

    It’s like, something brings you great joy. You want to share that joy with others. I think that’s where people who have faith are coming from. Sometimes, some people get too carried away trying to convince others to follow them in their pursuit of joy, to actually enjoy the thing itself.

    In this way, I see most religious people as just trying to spread the love, as it were; not trying to ‘brainwash’ you. Very few people are so twisted, they will try to ‘convert’ you to serve their own aims. I feel that fear of such zealotry is somewhat unfounded. Speshly in this country.

    Maybe I can’t ‘prove’ the existence of God, in any material sense, but that buzz I get, from having a nice bikey, being with lovely people, sex, good food, seeing something beautiful; that’s how I know there’s more to life than mere existence. Otherwise, I’d be a machine, simply carrying out a task for which I was designed, devoid of emotion or feelings.

    Works for me. Helps me through difficult times. Brings me happiness. I’m not asking anyone else to have to believe in the same way. You find your own path.

    Of course, if you don’t believe that singletrack is there, you may never find it.

    PS: I’m as cynical as they come, so don’t be frightened!

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    but that buzz I get, from having a nice etc

    I have to say that’s one of the weakest arguments for religion/god I’ve ever read. I feel just the same with complete disregard for the number of gods :o)

    Oggles
    Free Member

    There’s nowt wrong with christians riding bikes. Nothing wrong with em doing whatever they like, I don’t have a problem with people believing in fairies. But I keep my non-belief to myself. I won’t argue with anyone as to the existence of god. A polite ‘no thanks’ will do. It just pisses me off when they follow you round spouting bollocks that you don’t want to listen to!

    “I don’t do deities. Dalai Llama, that big bird from Dibley or bearded fanatics. I don’t do drugs, poetry or pixies either. I save my wild-eyed evangelism for the almost sickening fix of feedback, fear and hardwired reflexes from synapse to sticky-compound tread. Floated drops, the song of tree bark millimetres from your ear and the hallelujah spray of earth from a perfect power slide. **** the flock – find your own truth on a trail with a pearly gate at every corner.”

    Read that quote in a Howies catalogue (i think) a few years ago. It’s stuck in my head more than any of the christian values I was force fed as a child.

    stuartkendall
    Free Member

    If you have an ounce of intellect religion is obvious nonsense. Stories told to children or a tool used to control the masses. I pity their narrow mindedness. Science can be challenged, proved/disproved, debated by the keenest minds of the day but religion is set in stone (forgive the pun)

    Evoltuion may be wrong, the big bang may be a big cock up but it is this not knowing that drives us to investigate further. The ‘certainty’ inherent in the various religions stems aspiration and creative thinking regarding such monumental fundamental questions.

    While i’m at it… Why does an omnipotent being take 6 days to create the world and everything in it (and need to rest on the 7th lol) ? Could he just not click his ‘fingers’? Also.. as he is omniscient why did he not create a world that worked out perfectly. Surely at the start he should have known that Hitler would arise… that the jews would take their anger out on the palestinians all the quarrels and genocides that have happened he shouldve foreseen. Logic dictates therefore that if there is a god he is not this omnipotent, omniscient being that scripture would have us believe.

    C’est assez.

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    Also.. as he is omniscient why did he not create a world that worked out perfectly

    because it/they realised that such a world would be endless ghastly torment. Perfection or bliss can only be temporary to have significance!

    stuartkendall
    Free Member

    I’ve seen the matrix too 🙂 You have to remember though that this ‘god’/YHWH entity created everything. ‘He’ could create everything to be perfect and harmonious as ‘he’ can supposedly see all possible outcomes for any given action that he/she/it may take.

    MrNutt
    Free Member

    a mountain bike is not just for Christians

    Houns
    Full Member

    Stu_N
    Full Member

    Christ on a bike.

    Can’t believe no-one has said that on this thread.

    What is the difference between religious belief and mental illness? Discuss.

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    ‘He’ could create everything to be perfect and harmonious

    create us to enjoy boredom ? Perhaps that’s beyond even a god…

    surfer
    Free Member

    Oh and I cant name a source but I’m pretty sure there are studies that have proved the positive effects of religion/belief on individuals (i.e. belief in a higher power getting them through bad times in their life)

    I’ve no doubt there is however i doesnt make the existence of god true. if a doctor tells a dying man he will make a full recovery it doesnt make it true. It just makes him a bad doctor.
    Ficticious potential outcomes will of course raise peoples spirits but I would rather me miserable than deluded.

    Houns
    Full Member

    Christ on a bike.

    Can’t believe no-one has said that on this thread.

    What is the difference between religious belief and mental illness? Discuss.

    Agree, praying is very much like OCD

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    I have to say that’s one of the weakest arguments for religion/god I’ve ever read.

    It wasn’t an argument. It was a statement of my belief. I’m not asking you to agree with it. In fact, I honestly don’t really care what you think of it. It works for me, so I’m happy!

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    f you have an ounce of intellect religion is obvious nonsense

    Ignorance is bliss…

    mudshark
    Free Member

    If you have an ounce of intellect religion is obvious nonsense.

    Some of the most intelligent people I have met have been Christians, some of the most stupid not.

    As I’ve mentioned in may previous similar threads on this sort of topic the more I read and learn the more I get stuck in my agnosticism!

    surfer
    Free Member

    Works for me. Helps me through difficult times. Brings me happiness. I’m not asking anyone else to have to believe in the same way. You find your own path.

    If religion was simply individuals choosing their own way through life in a passive and harmless way we would not be having this discussion.

    Religion pervades and poisons everything. From the misguided and misinformed lobbying of politicians to ban stem cell research to the killing of millions in Africa by aids due to preaching the evil of Condom use. The dispropotionate respect it gets in every area of politics to the tax breaks that religious bodies receive. The cover provided by moderates to legitimise the treatment of women who choose to have abotions and are then imprisoned for life.
    Its not vicars on bicycles and cucumber sandwiches its more cynical than that despite what religious zealots tell us about “friendly chats”!

    stuartkendall
    Free Member

    Rudeboy – Ignorance is bliss is it. Well you would know wouldnt you.

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    If religion was simply individuals choosing their own way through life in a passive and harmless way we would not be having this discussion.

    Where did I say that I follow any particular religion?

    surfer
    Free Member

    If you have an ounce of intellect religion is obvious nonsense.

    Some of the most intelligent people I have met have been Christians, some of the most stupid not.

    As I’ve mentioned in may previous similar threads on this sort of topic the more I read and learn the more I get stuck in my agnosticism!

    I’m with Hemingway on this “all thinking men are atheists”

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    I honestly don’t really care what you think of it. It works for me,

    so why bother saying ?

    RudeBoy
    Free Member

    Rudeboy – Ignorance is bliss is it. Well you would know wouldnt you.

    Yes, because I’m thick and stupid!

    Swiftacular
    Free Member

    This thread is great, and i just want to add, Mark, you summed up everything i could ever say on this subject. Well said that man.

    myfinback
    Free Member

    Christ cant Jew lot get back to biking talk? Your confuciousing the beJesus out of me. Allah this Budda**** is nonsense. What you should be Sikhing is the real meaning of life! Islam better than beef? If I slice my chainring into my Shinto will it bleed? Whatever a shedo on a bike can a Himdu better? Don’t take things so seriously…you could end up like Tom Cruise…..God what are those bright lights outside the window…………………Beam me up Scotty!

    mudshark
    Free Member

    all thinking men are atheists

    Well, my problem is I think too much and stay agnostic. I suppose I’ll stop thinking when I have the answer – so atheists and the religious are the non-thinkers…perhaps.

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    all thinking men are atheists

    too dogmatic for me. There may be a god – I don’t envy it the task

    failedengineer
    Full Member

    Mark – I agree with more or less everything you say. Have you been watching thge series on TV about Christianity? Fascinating stuff. It just proves (to me)that the whole thing is a lie and a con. There seems little doubt that jesus existed but absolutely no proof that he was divine (or even claimed that he was) it was the early Christians who invented all the miracles etc and the Romans who made the new religion creditable. my partner is head of RE (named beliefs, philosophy and ethics now) at a large comprehensive school and has a degree in theology and she has always said that she believes in jesus – but as a teacher and maybe a proto-reveloutionary, but certainly not divine. He was a practicing Jew, by the way and never wanted to be anything else.
    Because I was not brought up with any religion or exposure to any, I have never been brainwashed and like to think that I can see all of them for waht they are. there are attrractive points to most of ’em I suppose, particularly Buddhism, Hinduism and maybe sufism. But there would have to be, wouldn’t there? If people want or feel the need to turn to supoerstition for whatever reason, fine – I wish they would just keep it to themselves and not involve themselves in education, politics or propaganda. Rant over.

    Mark
    Full Member

    I have to say I really do love watching documentaries on religion. The last one I watched was the Jesus the Jew programme a week or so ago that documented how Jesus was, as you say, a Jew and that’s all he aspired to be. The Christian Faith was a creation of Paul and came a long time after Jesus’s death. I particularly loved the part that argued that the baptism, that pillar of all Christian re-birth ceremonies, is actually purely a Jewish ceremony.

    I find that the more I open my mind to religious literature, philosophy and history, the more atheist I become.

    Oh and while I’m still trying to evade actually doing any proper work on issue 47 right now I’ll have one last mini rant..

    Religious children! ‘This is a school predominantly for children of Christian faith’… Aargh!

    No! It’s a school predominantly for children who have christian parents. Children are not born with any particular faith. They are given one before they can even crap solid poo by their indoctrinating parents!

    Now.. I’m going to do some work now.

    🙂

    miketually
    Free Member

    If you have an ounce of intellect religion is obvious nonsense

    That’s just a lazy argument and, ironicaly, ignores much evidence to the contrary.

    But do you not therefore get terribly frustrated that the leaders of your religion don’t hold the same philosophy?

    Prince Charles is the next head of the CofE; he’s pretty tolerant of other faiths. The Archbishop of Canterbury seem slike a very reasonable and tolerant man.

    It’s a school predominantly for children who have christian parents.

    Is this a Catholic school you keep going on about? Ignoring the fact that i can’t see why an atheist would want their kid to go to a Catholic school, you’ll find it’s not non-Christians who are prevented from getting in, it’s non-Catholics. Being a Catholic is rather different from being a Christan (for some) and seems almost more of a race than a religeon. You need Catholic parents (or an official conversion) to be a Catholic, not a belief in god or any sort of regulat church attendance.

    They are given one before they can even crap solid poo by their indoctrinating parents!

    As true for most things as for religeon.

    Religion makes wars, blah, blah, words to that effect that I can’t be bothered copying and pasting

    I’m sure other causes would have been found by the starters of war. The second Gulf war was in the cause of capitalism as far as I can see. Capitalism also prevent some people getting into certain schools, through house prices and/or fees. It also causes suffering in the third world through exploitation.

    It’s nice to see that atheism is getting as fundamentalist as some religions. Is the next step on from the bus adverts some bloke standing in the town centre with a placard shouting about the non-existence of god? 🙂

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    It’s nice to see that atheism is getting as fundamentalist as some religions

    I’m opting for what I’m going to call “indifferent pantheism”

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