Overwritten.net
Community => Serious Topics => Topic started by: idolminds on Monday, January 03, 2011, 11:00:35 AM
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RUN FOR YOUR LI....wait, run where? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885541/ns/us_news-life/)
Rapture predictions are so cute.
"If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.
Ah, fuck, what a cop out.
Someone needs to interview these people on the 22nd. The excuses will be great, I'm sure.
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That's actually a really good article. It pretty much says it like it is... these people believe what they believe, for whatever reason, but it isn't a fundamental part of Christianity, as most of us that may believe in the concept of God's followers being called out of the world at some point don't believe that it's the sort of thing you prepare for. That's missing the point. The point is to live the way you ought to regardless of whether you die of old age or in a car accident or being yanked out because it's time. You give, you try to love and understand people (this is something so many screw up, turning to judgments instead of explaining their viewpoint with compassion), and you try to live according to the principles you believe in. You do the best you can. That's it. It doesn't matter if the end of the world happens in your lifetime or doesn't.
But when it comes to Christianity, as it has always been when used as a political tool in ages past, or an excuse to wage war, or whatever, it's missing the point, and the modern church does an awful lot of that.
I don't pretend to be a great Christian. I know that I'm deficient in many ways, and even if I wasn't a religious person I'd feel the same way about a lot of my deficiencies, but that's not the point either. The point is to take care of those you love as best you can, to give to others, to uphold the ideals you have and be a source of compassion in the spirit you believe God has had compassion with you. There are plenty of entirely non-religious people who try to live up to those ideals as well. Most people would call it a conscience. And really, these people in all probability are trying to do the same thing. I don't agree with them, but at least give that chick enough credit to say that she's doing something unselfishly because she believes it and wants to help other people. That's not an easy thing to do in any capacity. Most of us don't have the balls to give up our lives for a cause, whether we believe it's our last one or the first of many.
Derision is an easy response. I'm all too familiar with it because I'm cynical and kind of a complete jerk more often than not, but sometimes I take a step back and realize that whether I believe in the core concept of any religion, sometimes the good things people do in the name of God can be pretty noble. I don't know the specifics of what these people are doing, mostly because I really don't care, but even if they were Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims, mockery doesn't seem a just response to an unselfish notion.
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My birthday is on the 22nd... fuck.
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/thread
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What is she really accomplishing here, and why is it considered good or noble? If your religion pushes you to be a better and more helpful person, someone that helps others when they can and tries to stop the bad things in life, thats awesome. But what is telling people the end of the world is in 5 months going to do, exactly? How is it helping?
You don't really think the end of the world is May 22nd, right? I don't either. I'll wake up that morning, grab a glass of water, and wish Pyro a happy birthday on IRC. Shouldn't it be our duty to stop giving crazy ideas like this credit?
I don't know the specifics of what these people are doing, mostly because I really don't care, but even if they were Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims, mockery doesn't seem a just response to an unselfish notion.
See, here is where I usually have a problem. Religious ideas seem to get special treatment that other ideas don't. You aren't supposed to mock religious ideas, you're supposed to respect them because thats what people believe and you're a dick if you make fun of them. But only if your religion has enough followers. The Heavens Gate cult was of course considered crazy. They believed the end of the world was coming so they got off and hitched a ride on that comet. Crazy! Because it was, what, 40 people? No one respects their beliefs. Should they? If not, why is that different from other beliefs? At what point should the rest of us step in and correct them?
Beliefs are powerful things. We just need to be wary of the dangerous ones, and I think seeing the end of the world as a good this is kinda scary. Thats something for super villains, not regular folk.
The point is to live the way you ought to regardless of whether you die of old age or in a car accident or being yanked out because it's time. You give, you try to love and understand people (this is something so many screw up, turning to judgments instead of explaining their viewpoint with compassion), and you try to live according to the principles you believe in. You do the best you can. That's it.
We are in 100% agreement, we just come at it from different angles and for different reasons.
EDIT
This turned into more of a discussion than I planned. I was hoping for more pointing and laughter.
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Maybe I'm just not in the mood today. But I know what you mean, I guess with this kind of stuff I just mostly ignore it and figure that if there's no call to kill yourself, they're just trying to get people to consider their own mortality, which is something I think more people should do. Would you live differently if you felt the world was ending? You probably would. And if we're honest about it, our worlds are always ending. Life is short. At this point in my own life, I feel like the world would be a lot better if people lived that way and admitted that it's better to help someone right now than to throw all your efforts at seeing how many pretty rocks you can grab by the end of your life.
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Yeah, live like it matters. Because it does.
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This just in: END OF WORLD APRIL 26TH! That's the day before my birthday so it'll mean I'll never have to turn 30! WIN!
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My birthday is on the 22nd... fuck.
You're looking at this the wrong way. Convince people to go all out with your presents. Why should they hold on to that money when they'll obviously be dead the next day?
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I don't understand why there are so many people looking forward to the end of the world? I guess it's the idea of "It'll be better because we'll get salvation." When in fact, they have no idea what salvation is.
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I think for me it's the idea that "the mundane will change" is what makes it appealing: it won't matter if I showed up late for work, it won't matter if I made a typo on a report, or if I missed a business opportunity. None of it will matter, I can stop pretending to participate in the grand "rate race." In the face of extinction we will realize how trivial most things we do really are; when threatened we focus on what really matters and our true nature comes to the surface.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not wishing for a catastrophe, it's just an observation that we, people, tend to get carried away in the banality of our lives and we reveal our colours under pressure.
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I actually wish for something like a zombie apocalypse..my life is so boring
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I can eat your brain if you want, keebs. Not the same thing, but kinda close. I hear asian brains are really good stir fried.
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Fuck! I bought a plane ticket to Florida for June 2nd. How irresponsible of me.
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http://i.imgur.com/ADJME.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/ADJME.jpg)
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NYC man spends life savings on doomsday ad campaign (http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/992600--nyc-man-spends-life-savings-on-doomsday-ad-campaign?bn=1)
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I want to hear what he has to say . . . on Sunday.
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A New York City man’s decision to spend his life savings on a transit-ad campaign warning riders that the world will end on Saturday has prompted a backlash from atheist groups, who say doomsday cults are nothing more than money-making scams.
Why specifically atheist groups? Doesn't everyone who's not in a doomsday cult think so? I'm no atheist and I think doomsday cults (perhaps cults in general) are manipulative, conniving schemes.
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Yeah I've seen basically everyone not involved with this thing saying that dude is making a terrible mistake. I guess they wanted a soundbite so they talked to David Silverman, hence the "atheist groups" thing.
As for non-believers, he says people’s traditional interpretation of hell is incorrect.
“When people die who are not saved, that’s it, they’re dead,” said Fitzpatrick, who is also the author of The Doomsday Code, a self-published book that purports to explain how the Bible reveals in numbers the future of humankind. “There is no conscious existence after death. There is no hell. Hell is the grave.”
So basically its going to work exactly the way I already think its going to work? Awesome, I win.
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The day is rapidly approaching!!
O0
Also:
http://xkcd.com/900/
Raptor jokes and religion jokes. What's not to love?
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Haha! Watch out for those velociraptures.
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Haha! Watch out for those velociraptures.
I almost choked on a sandwich when I read that. Thanks.
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Sandwich? Uh huh.
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Sandwich? Uh huh.
ahaha this is funny because i thought the exact same thing
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cause gpw likes penis
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a lot
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The only thing I really see here that's different from a normal Christian, is that his guy has claimed to know the date of the rapture. So hey, let's all run out and make fun of Christians! Wooo! What? Freedom of religion? Lol they're just Christians.
Just like racism against white people is acceptable. Call me a pasty, cracker, peckerwood, whatever, and it's mildly hostile. If I say nigger, it's a hate crime.
Live and let live guys, give peace a chance. But let's kill of all the whites and Christians, right?
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1) Freedom of religion doesn't mean we can't make fun of it. Actually it would be a pretty lousy "freedom" if we couldn't.
2) If we were making fun of a Scientology prediction in this thread would you have a similar reaction?
But let's kill of all the whites and Christians, right?
I am rolling my eyes so hard right now.
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Little Big Planet originally contained a song that had some lines from the Quran, and controversy about it caused the game to be delayed so that it could be removed. You could put raptor Jesus in a game and outcry from Christians would just be laughed at.
1) Was the LBP change understandable?
2) Do you think raptor Jesus jokes are funny?
Can you answer yes to both #1 and #2 without being a hypocrite?
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Huh? ...
I suppose I meant "freedom of speech" for that second part. Thing is, can you have a freedom of religion if you are not allowed to say certain things about other religions? They kind of blend together at that point. If you have freedom of religion with the stipulation that you can't question of make fun of another religion, how "free" are you?
EDIT: Scott had a post here that I was answering, but I'll leave this little clarification up because I thought my original post was a little off to begin with and he was right to pick up on it.
As for w7res post:
1) Understandable from a business perspective, not from an artistic one. (I see why Sony would want to change it, though I don't agree with the original complaint/reason behind the change)
2) Yes, Raptor Jesus is funny.
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Regarding LBP thing, I had the original and I heard the song. It was pretty cool and not offensive in any way. As a muslim I was not offended, in fact I was impressed. I have no idea who the F took issue with it and caused the whole fiasco.
Oddly enough, in university in Canada I found that for the most part it was white people who found certain phrases/slurs about other ethnicities offensive when the rest of us (Arabs, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, and various others) either ignored it or laughed it off. I began to see that racial sensitivity varied greatly between people who are essentially stationary and people who travel extensively and explore other cultures.
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So...
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What, you haven't seen Jesus yet? Maybe he hasn't been to the UK yet. Totally awesome guy.
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Jesus can't be bothered with Britain as He is not a fan of terrible food and worse weather.
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Don't talk to me about worse weather. We've had 4 times the normal amount of Spring rain here, and our Springs are normally rather wet. Fortunately, the last couple of days have been decidedly unapocalyptic.
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No kidding Cobra. The back half of my back yard has been a swamp this year.
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I love it. Just as long as it isn't snow. I fuckin hate snow.
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Either we're still here, or the afterlife looks exactly like yesterday.
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I thought we all died and heaven was more time on OWnet forums! God, you guys freaked me out for a while!
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Either we're still here, or the afterlife looks exactly like yesterday.
Hmmm, lemme check.
*stabs himself in the leg*
It appears we're still here. BRB, hospital.
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So I guess it did happen, and theres just a delay while the paperwork is being filed. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110524/ap_on_re_us/us_apocalypse_saturday)
Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, it dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ's judgment, he said.
The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said, when the apocalypse comes. But because God's judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.
Ok, judging is complete. If you're good you're all set. If you're bad, well...too late now. Not sure why the final destruction isn't until October.
Question: do the next 5 months "count"? Wont you need to be re-judged based on your actions between now and October? If so, why bother judging now instead of just doing it then? If not doesn't that leave us in a position to be total assholes and get away with it?
SO MANY QUESTIONS! Also I suggest we move Halloween up this year so we don't miss it.
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Oh, they weren't wrong. What a surprise. So let's predict how they're going to feed more coins into this meter in October. The number 5 is right, but it's years, not months?
Edit:
INSTALLING RAPTURE.
███████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 44% DONE.
Install delayed....please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Rapture not found.
EVENT "Rapture" cannot be located. The rapture you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.
;D
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Haha, that reminded me of this (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/rapture).
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Haha, jeez.
Yeah, this guy is a total crackpot. I feel bad for him. I mean, clearly he doesn't know he's crazy.