[NEOPO]

Dude are you high on pot er something!?!?

It is much more effective if we speak of them in the third person.

So, what do you suspect these fundies are "on" anyways?
Zanax? Valium? maybe zoloft or even oxycontin?

[lateStarter]

NEOPO,

Was this your own:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')eal faith is having some left once you have confronted the truth.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lateStarter', 'N')EOPO,

Was this your own:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')eal faith is having some left once you have confronted the truth.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', 'D')ude are you high on pot er something!?!?

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', 'D')ude are you high on pot er something!?!?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')Maybe she knows something that you do not.
Age does not = wisdom.

[Uninspired123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The Holocaust didn't make the Jews lose faith in a First Cause so why should Peak Oil?

[Uninspired123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jato', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')As strange as it sounds, Peak oil made me an atheist

[oowolf]

"If there is a God, he's crazy."
Marlene Dietrich

[Uninspired123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', 'I')f you are honest with yourself you'll realize the only rational position (not necessarily satisfactory) regarding the problem of human existence is agnosticism.

There is no conclusive evidence that God exists or not, and there will never be. It's all a matter of belief. You either believe God exists or God doesn't exist. Period.

[paimei01]

Take this :
http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html
And this :
http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/zenstory.html

Ha ha, now I got you !
I am not a chemical reaction talking here !

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')Maybe she knows something that you do not.
Age does not = wisdom.

[jboogy]

When I saw an illustration showing the different steps of man's evolution from little monkey into what we are now that pretty much put the nail in the coffin of any lingering hopes I'd had for GAWD. I was in grade school at the time . When they're diggen' up austeralo pithicus's and java men's and neanderthal's left and right doesn't that kinda stick a pin in the whole bible thing balloon ?

[eastbay]

When I first (well, in the 70's I suspected it, but pushed the thought aside, as did many) read about PO maybe three years ago I was without religion, without a guiding philosophy of life, and without God.

I believe PO playing a big part in changing things for me.

The basic tenets of Buddhism such as impermanence, egolessness, wisdom, The Five Precepts, The Four Truths, cessation of anger, etc... nicely explain the continuing unsatisfactoriness woven into the human condition, and will help prepare us for our coming common disaster.

PO has brought me into a study of The Dharma. I'm trying to work this study into my daily life. I seem to get a little closer each day. It's a wonderful way of living. After three years of Dharms study, I feel like I've barely begun. However, as time passes, my general sense of unsatisfactoriness has greatly diminished. Small improvements, such as no more swearing and no more anger make life so much nicer for me and for those with whom I interact.

I now quietly recommend Dharma study to everyone.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'S')ome of the greatest and most wonderful creations of humans have been done in the name of religion.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'W')hen they're diggen' up austeralo pithicus's and java men's and neanderthal's left and right doesn't that kinda stick a pin in the whole bible thing balloon ?

[Uninspired123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'W')hen they're diggen' up austeralo pithicus's and java men's and neanderthal's left and right doesn't that kinda stick a pin in the whole bible thing balloon ?

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Uninspired123', 'I') don't 'believe' anything, I have a lack of belief until evidence presents itself. To say there is no conclusive evidence is to say that we don't have a sense of the probabilities involving the existence of god. Again, we can make up any creature such as a unicorn, and we'd have to be agnostic to their existence as well since we don't have any evidence. But we know they PROBABLY don't exist based on the evidence shown. I don't rule out the existence of some God, it certainly isnt the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, of this I'm sure, but it could be out there. But I ascribe a VERY LOW probability to that.

[BigTex]

I think many discussions about religion are really discussions about whether you are going to wake up on the other side when you die and find that you have retained some form of consciousness.

Am I right?

Would people be as interested in validating whether there is a God if there wasn't that personal skin in the game of immortality?

The thought of living forever is quite comforting to beings as intelligent and insecure as us, whether or not it has any rational basis. For me, it was actually seeing someone die that seemed to make me realize the absurdity of the idea that the person's consciousness floated from their expired body into some ethereal place called Heaven. It almost seemed to trivialize death in a way that I found unsettling. It is true that sick people who die are in a better place, in that they are no longer suffering, but I don't think it is because they are in Heaven as a personality resort and harp school. As for Hell, don't get me started on what a mean-spirited prank that is.

Putting aside the question of whether there is life after death (there wasn't in the old testament--read Ecclesiastes--it's back to the dirt when you die), the question for me is whether there is anything to religion other than the "act good now and you get to be immortal." I think there is in some faiths the potential for a much deeper understanding of what spirituality means, what enlightened self-interest is and how it can be a good thing, and how to have a peaceful mind and spirit, no matter what you are facing. If you are an architect, religion can be especially inspiring.

Actually, if you JUST read the words of Jesus, as recorded in the new testament, he really has some very powerful things to say, and I think that a person can call himself a Christian by merely living by the principles that Jesus talked about. I don't think you have to buy the whole resurrection, son of God, holy ghost trinity package. You can just take the basic Jesus--his teachings--and get a lot of useful insights from that.

The connection between PO and religion is fascinating to me, because the parallels are striking. PO is to society what the loss of faith in religion is to an individual. It is an awakening to the reality that the Santa Claus-like happy ending you imagined is just that: imaginary. Many religions promise the individual immortality, and this is, in my view, misleading and creates false hope. Industrial capitalism promises society immortality in the form of a never-ending upward spiral of increasing standards of living and consumption. The idea that every generation will have more and better stuff and will live in greater comfort is simply irrational in a world of finite resources (notwithstanding the economists' casual replacement of one resource for another when one gets too expensive).

I think that as the PO story settles into your mind, and even if it doesn't create a Pigpen-like cloud of doom around you, it is a few short steps back to religion when you start asking "how many other things have I been counting on Santa Claus for?"

There is in the human mind the potential for great understanding, deep levels of peace and many forms of enlightenment, but I have concluded that all of these states exist in the MOMENT, not in the past or a future of never-ending life.

People want to be immortal, thus they believe in God and Heaven. Society wants endless economic growth to be possible, thus it doesn't trouble itself with realities like PO. The delusion continues until it is no longer possible to continue it. With Heaven, no one really knows what happens when you die, so the myth persists and grows. With PO, however, there will come a time when society will HAVE to say "you know what, this is bad; not only is endless growth no longer possible, but even maintaining our current level of consumption is no longer possible; if we had started addressing this a long time ago maybe we could have done something...."

I hate that not believing what people think you should believe can brand you as an atheist or an agnostic, when you really do have a very coherent set of beliefs, they are just the product of your own rational mind functioning as its creator intended, and not by placing blind faith in ANY institution, whether it be the Church of God or the Church of Endless Economic Growth.

You've probably heard the story of Thoreau on his deathbed being asked whether he had made peace with God, to which he replied: "I wasn't aware that we had quarreled."

[oswald622]

Peak oil helped make me a Christian. Long story.