Monster Hurricane...

[BoSoxGal]

Exactly, RT.

[ex-khobar Andy]

My friend and his partner on Grand Bahama are OK. I sent a note to see if there was anything we could do from here. I'm sure he's trying to conserve his phone battery.

Appreciate the offer. If we think of something I'll let you know. We are prepared. There'll be no water, power, TV etc for a while.

Knowing John I'm pretty sure he didn't do a lot of praying.

[BoSoxGal]

Has anybody posted about sharpiegate and Trump’s continued insistence that the forecast included Alabama? (Sorry I lose track.)

Isn’t this evidence enough that he is descending into dementia?

[RayThom]

My friend and his partner on Grand Bahama are OK... Knowing John I'm pretty sure he didn't do a lot of praying.

That's a shame. Had he done so -- especially if he got down on his knees -- he probably could have prayed the storm away. I hope God doesn't decide his fate too harshly on Judgement Day for not trying hard enough. HE works in strange and wondrous ways, you know.

This artist rendering doesn't look like it's a process we want to go through, but the bible says we must. Yikes!

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm getting rather tired of these stupid and incessant attacks on a false version of Christianity made up in your head, RayT. Why not give it a rest?

[BoSoxGal]

The older I get, the angrier I am about the twisted shame-inducing, fear-inspiring garbage I was brainwashed with by the people meant to nurture and protect me. All religion is cult and kids should be protected from any exposure until they’re of legal majority; every child should have the fundamental human right to rational thought and science as the basis of their worldview until/unless as an adult they choose to engage with fantasy dependency instead.


Imagine.

[Crackpot]

Meade. It’s not false it exists. It’s just a very childish viewpoint and is effectively a strawman argument since no one within earshot is expounding such a belief.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm getting rather tired of these stupid and incessant attacks on a false version of Christianity made up in your head, RayT. Why not give it a rest?

We cross-posted, but I’d like to respond to this. You apparently aren’t paying attention to the many millions of adherents to Christianity who do, in fact, practice as RT posits. It’s nice if you and the Missus are true Jesus-type Christians, I admire any socialist running around serving the poor - but please don’t pretend you can’t see all the disgusting hypocrites lurking and sometimes frontlining for the Christian Church. Sorry, but it’s one of the lousiest most corrupt institutions ever created by men.

[RayThom]

I'm getting rather tired of these stupid and incessant attacks on a false version of Christianity made up in your head, RayT. Why not give it a rest?

What the fuck? "... a false version of Christianity made up in your head, RayT." In MY head? This is the religion I was taught throughout my life -- family, grade school, and high school. Me, and over one billion more Roman Catholics in this world, cannot be wrong.

Regardless, whatever domination your faith, and if it's as strong as you believe, nothing I say here should phase you in the least. If I'm going to Hell and you're going to Heaven, what does this all matter?

When we all die let God sort it out. Amen.

[Crackpot]

BSG what you need to realize is your experience with religion (although similar experiences are all too common) is not everyones experience.

[BoSoxGal]

My experience with religion was largely pleasant, I believed, until the blinders fell away from my eyes. That’s precisely my point, CP - people in cults very often think they’re happy because they know nothing else - they’re not choosing from an informed position. Children are brainwashed by their parents’ religious beliefs and very, very few children are blessed to have parents who encourage them to learn about other religions, about atheism, and to question and explore outside the faith tradition they’re being indoctrinated with.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm getting rather tired of these stupid and incessant attacks on a false version of Christianity made up in your head, RayT. Why not give it a rest?

Unfortunately it's not a false version of Christianity: or, more accurately, it's a 'version of Christianity' espoused by some adherents. If, for example, the Westboro Baptist Church say that they are Christians (and, for the record, they are unlike any Christians I ever grew up with, but that's how they define themselves) is that a 'false version of Christianity'? Who decides? There are all sorts of storefront Christian churches in the US - is there someone who assigns each franchise with the right to call themselves Christians?

Somehow we (I use that term very loosely) blame all Muslims for the actions of a very few. We hear, time and time again, the argument that the 'good' Muslims must do more to drive out the 'bad' ones. Having spent some of my working life in Muslim countries, I have known some very good Muslim men and a few women (that's only because in Saudi Arabia I had zero women Saudi friends unlike in Libya and Kuwait) whom I would trust with my life and my wallet. They were as appalled by 9/11 (for example) as I was, and as appalled as you are at the actions of the Westboro Baptists. I don't see Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or Jim Bakker or even, for that matter, Billy Graham as being all that different. There's a difference in degree and of course in slickness/polish: but the basic message (Believe as I do or you (a) are going to hell and (b) have no moral compass) is the same.

Maybe the Islamofascists adhere to a false version of Islam. But that false version isn't made up in any head but that of the asshole followers. Similarly, if you believe, Meade, that the 'false version of Christianity' Ray was talking about - which I don't believe that Ray or anyone else here attributes to you - is made up, then you weren't paying attention, in school or since.

[Bicycle Bill]

Why do some people believe God will divert the course of a hurricane, if enough people ask him nicely, or grovel to him? He's not done it before, why start now?

Holy shit!

Are you saying that I cannot petition the Lord with prayer?

Go ahead; it's always worth the effort.  I was taught that the Lord hears and answers all prayers.
It's just that sometimes His answer is "No."

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

Had he done so -- especially if he got down on his knees -- he probably could have prayed the storm away. I hope God doesn't decide his fate too harshly on Judgement Day for not trying hard enough.

To the Greek chorus: can anyone provide some evidence that any mainstream biblically-based religious group has the doctrine that a person can pray a storm away AND if he/she fails to move the storm, runs the risk of God deciding that person's fate harshly for "not trying hard enough"?

Ray claims this to be a Roman doctrine and not something he's making up.

[Crackpot]

You forget how religion is taught to children. While not actual doctrine these things are taught.

[ex-khobar Andy]

To the Greek chorus: can anyone provide some evidence that any mainstream biblically-based religious group has the doctrine that a person can pray a storm away AND if he/she fails to move the storm, runs the risk of God deciding that person's fate harshly for "not trying hard enough"?

Ray claims this to be a Roman doctrine and not something he's making up.

Well Jesus himself did the praying thing on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41) and apparently was successful.

The fact that his fishing buddies had to wake him up to do the praying implies, as he himself said, that they had too little faith to pray effectively; and Paul told us (Epistles, passim) that on Judgment Day every knee had to bow to Jesus. So faith is very much one of the criteria you will be marked on (yes, there will be a test); and it seems to me to be a pretty straight line of cause and effect.

Unsuccessful prayer = too little faith = demerits on that last day.

QED

And Meade - in case it needs saying - I don't think anyone here challenges your faith and what you have chosen to do with your life. It works well for you and those around you. More power to you. You are not (based on what you share with us) one of those Christians of which there are far too many who think that anyone who chooses to live his or her life without Christ has no moral compass. Those guys do piss me off.

[MajGenl.Meade]

With respect, the word AND was in big letters and asked about doctrinal positions of mainstream religious groups. Jesus's remark about having "little faith" was a comment on their fear, not in an inability to pray the waves into calm. "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”. Perhaps even though he'd done the wave-smoothing thing, they were still jittery. There is nothing in that passage (or any other)about God judging them for praying to no effect; for "not trying" hard enough.

". . . and every knee shall bow" is not on point, is it? Not that I understand, anyway. Rightly or wrongly, it indicates that all will come before the Lord and bow in submission; presumably some to have a jolly good time and others not so much.

Oh, I don't think my faith is challenged. But I can get tired of some things and then get over it anyway. Interesting (to me) that the Bible confirms what you wrote; that people without God can have a functioning moral compass. Romans 2:14 is very clear.

CP I don't know how religion is taught in school - is it still and what can you tell of it today?

We used to do RK, Divinity, RI - the name changed each year, I think. ex-kA probably knows those abbrevs. We never learned that God punishes people for not trying hard enough to divert storms. Ray's experience from all he's written was quite horrible, in more ways than one. It comes out sometimes in rather distorted ways.

[Crackpot]

From what my son is learning it still seems to be pretty similar. But at the same time actual theology is a heavy subject far beyond an eight year article old let alone the five year old he was when he started school. Catholics just drop the ball after confirmation not to mention they’ve never been big on personal interpretation.

[RayThom]

... Ray's experience from all he's written was quite horrible, in more ways than one. It comes out sometimes in rather distorted ways.

Distortion is a subjective term in my book. Those "other people" will always have distorted ways. I've learned to accept those difference, others have not.

Is there any wonder why I became so skeptical of organized religions -- especially the killer RC variety -- and subsequently made a sane and conscious effort to divest myself from all their life stifling beliefs, myths, and superstitions? One can only believe so much.

Chalk it up to my INFP personality. I'd be rocking back and forth in my own feces at the mental hospital by now had I blindly followed what was stridently drilled into my head during my development years.

DIXI

[Big RR]

CP--I don't know what your son is being taught, but when it comes to children most things are taught that way. We learn as children by rote memorization, and eventually get to the point where we get a full (or at least better) understanding of the subject. Science and math are pretty good examples of that, but if you study enough, you'll eventually come to an understanding of what you had previously learned without that understanding. I'm not sure there is a better way to teach complex subjects.