Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

What did my parents tell me......

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zombor:
Religion is a decision more than a "brainwashing", I mean, here you all are, some taught different religions deeply and some not and you have made the decision to believe in those teachings or not. If someone truly believes that your life (and/or potential  afterlife) will be better if you believe in a religion, than are they not showing love for you by trying to teach you the religious teachings, in the hope that you will believe? Even if you do not like it or think that it is terrible, they are doing the best thing they can think of to make your life better in their eyes.
You do not have to like it, but I hope that you can understand what I am saying. People do not think they are "brainwashing" people, they think they are trying to help them, they are showing love for them. So the hatred and anger is unnecessary, you can just decline the teachings, if not now, then later. Fighting and namecalling is not going to help, it is just going to prove to the other people that they are right.

But on the topic of what my parents told me, they did not tell me anything, I just read a lot of books and attended church when I was younger, and decided for myself what I was going to believe in when i was old enough to make that decision. No one I cared about died (people and pets) until I was about 11, and until then, the fact that I would no longer be able to see them again did not matter to me so I never thought about it; death just happened, and there was no point in worrying about it, because I was unable to do anything about it. However, that practicality was useless when people I did care died. . . because I missed them.

I believe in God and Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and heaven after you die, and if nothing else (and there is so much more), it is much more preferable than the empty hopelessness and terrible nothingness of believing that you will never being able to see the people you love, being able to grow and interact with them after they and you die.

greatbritton:
I was raised Baptist, specifically Southern Baptist, but the church was more Catholic, oddly.  More to the point, even though I went to church, my parents taught me to question everything, as the best way to understand something was to question every facet of it.  Unfortunately for my mother that was the church's downfall, for me, and at 13 I quit church, tried a few other's, but inevitably decided the best choice of action was to sleep in on Sundays! 

Anyway, perhaps the best thing you can do for a child, when they ask that question, is tell them what other cultures and religions believe and encourage them to come up with their own answer, because in the end, none of us REALLY know.  Even if some have faith, it's not the same as knowledge, it's merely different. 

Besides, what happens if we're all wrong and when we die it's just an endless Pauly Shore comedy set?!


P.S.  I totally joined to be involved in this discussion...totally worth it! 

sofiabailote:
My parents are non-practicing catholics, but they never forced any religion or belief upon me as they believe one should find its own beliefs. As a result of this openness, I am an atheist. Not only don't I believe in the existence of "god" or a supreme being; I also loathe the idea of organized religion, doctrine and "faith".
I have a 8 year old daughter and she never asked that question ("what happens when you die"), mostly because she has figured it out herself. She's an avid reader and loves documentaries- nature, religion, science... She grasped the cycle of life and I guess she understands we are just one small part of it.
She asks a lot of questions and we always try to make her question ever further instead of settling for just one answer.
I think it's a good advice for parents of young children to have them watch documentaries instead of cartoons all the time- it will be great even for their school performance. The nature documentaries my daughter devoured gave her a perspective on life. then there was a BBC series about the human body- that one totally blew her mind, but it gave her yet another perspective of life and more importantly about the human condition.
I think basically ignorance is the mother of all fears- specially for children. Death should be looked upon as part of life. What I also tried to get through to my daughter is that it is healthy to accept that all things come to an end eventually.

HappyGrar:

--- Quote from: Auberon on 14 Dec 2008, 23:17 ---Joe bless you!

--- End quote ---

Am I the only one that got that?  :lol:

I was raised by my mom (Christian), then went to live with my dad (atheist) when I was nine. He told me right out, "When you die nothing happens! Cool, huh?" Screwed me right up for a long time, but it helped me to become able to think for myself, to consider matters and not shy away from them just because they're difficult or frightening. Which is nice.

Put it this way: I'm not going to be a pretentious ass and assume that I know precisely what happens when we die. I inherently have an intellectual distrust of anyone who thinks they've got it right, and that other people are wrong (on the basis of faith).

But what I find comforting is that even though we don't know, George Carlin knows. George Carlin knows what happens when we die. Or at least, what happens when he dies. A brilliant man has gone before us and is scouting out the territory.

Or perhaps not, I guess, if it so happens that there's nothing after death. But still...

Jeff7:

--- Quote from: tuna ketchup x on 15 Dec 2008, 10:03 ---
--- Quote from: Jeff7 on 14 Dec 2008, 21:46 ---And an eternity in Heaven - I'd think that after the first 200 trillion quadrillion millennia, it might start to get a bit dull.

--- End quote ---

I don't think I'd get bored with eternity on Earth, as long as I got a new body/identity every 100 years or so. There's so much to explore.
--- End quote ---
Do you have any idea how long a million years is? 200 trillion quadrillion thousand years. That's longer than the Universe has existed.
2 * 10^2 * 10^12 * 10^15 * 10^3 years = 2 * 10^32 years. By that time, a measurable # of the protons in Earth will have undergone radioactive decay. The sun's remnants would likely just be a super-dense sphere of carbon, quite possibly in the form of a huge diamond (yes, really).
And 2*10^32 years is just the first trillionth of a nanosecond of eternity.
It would keep going, even after the Universe either undergoes Heat Death, when every last particle reaches nearly absolute zero and then decays into EM radiation, or else if it is able to reverse the expansion and collapse on itself.
And after that, you'd still have a lot more eternity left to go. By that time, you'd start to be wondering, "Maybe I'm actually in Hell."
:)
Certain religions messed up when they started tinkering with infinite quantities. An infinitely powerful, infinitely knowing deity that's been around for an infinite amount of time. An afterlife where you stay for an infinite amount of time.
It's like hyped-up marketing. * ∞





--- Quote from: jtheory on 15 Dec 2008, 03:17 ---....
Last thought to Aurjay: Beware; Intelligent Design isn't what you think it is....  It's a trick cooked up by Creationists to get religion into schools -- it claims (with extremely shaky and unscientific foundations) that evolution isn't able to explain all of the diversity of life, so an "intelligent creator" (i.e., the Christian God, though they don't say it) must have been involved.  What you're probably looking for is the idea that God planned evolution, and knew beforehand how it would all go (but evolution still operates scientifically, without any supernatural tweaks needed along the way).  I'm not sure if there's a specific name for that idea, but that's the belief of many scientifically-educated Christians.

--- End quote ---
The fun part of that is, if you want to nicely lure someone into saying that the "intelligent creator" is actually God, a way that usually works is to ask, "Who designed the creator?"
Now, if it's God, ok, he's magically immune to time and causality. But if it's just an intelligent creator, then that could just be some super-smart alien race. And that's dandy. But those aliens would have come from somewhere, right? They're not infinitely powerful, right? They're just some really advanced species; they to us as we are to bacteria. Who created them?
Not long after that, it soon becomes evident that their anonymous creator is in fact God (and what a creative name it is).




--- Quote from: zombor on 15 Dec 2008, 17:06 ---...
I believe in God and Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and heaven after you die, and if nothing else (and there is so much more), it is much more preferable than the empty hopelessness and terrible nothingness of believing that you will never being able to see the people you love, being able to grow and interact with them after they and you die.

--- End quote ---
That's an issue for me though. My beliefs or preferences won't change reality. I can believe that I can run through walls, but reality would say otherwise. Sure, it would be nice to see people for awhile longer, and not just have this short lifespan that we've got. But if I really want it, it still won't happen.

I also find it odd that people get so darned upset when someone dies. There's always the "such-and-such is in a better place" bit. Fine, then why be upset? The dead person is in a place of eternal bliss, and you'll be joining that person eventually. What's all the fuss? Why all the crying? I don't cry when my parents go off on a vacation together. I know I'll (most likely) see them again.
So the dead relative left for vacation without you, and quite possibly did so in a gruesome or painful manner; car accident, heart attack, cancer, whatever the case may be.
That really sounds to me like the idea of Heaven is something that's hammered into you from a very young age, but your adult mind just can't quite accept it as a rational reality, yet at the same time, doesn't want to shake that notion, doesn't want to accept the permanence of death. So while you may say to yourself, "they're in a better place," it's also something just said to make you feel better, because you know that you've just said goodbye for the last time ever.

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