I have always felt that ANY philosophy or faith that fears examination or challenge, is simply not worth embracing. And that anything which actively instructs children not to exercise their curiosity and ability to reason is simply child abuse.
But that's just me.
You can find more of these very instructive, and in my mind, enlightening cartoons here.
I tried to look at the extra Christian cartoons, but couldn't. MY "mind" dog bolted, just like Seamus when he got to Canada and off the car roof.
ReplyDeletehahahaha! Don't be camping in sin forest when the judgment fire comes.
ReplyDeleteo/t -- the cee o'p is having a field day today -- Sarah and RAM both posting,(incognito), flattering each other, and mapping out their plan for Sudden and Relentless Reform (SRR, if you don't know their abbreviations). They think her speech next week will be a turn in the tide toward "Conservatives" taking on the GOP. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteRaised Catholic. Was told my intellectual curiosity was "of the devil".
ReplyDeleteSince the age of 7 I knew catholicism was a crock of crap, but I played along for a REALLY long time. Didn't break free til my 40's.
Gryphen, you are not alone. People are increasingly awakening to the manipulation being done in the guise of the divine.
ReplyDeleteMankind, not God or gods, create, control and maintain religion for the sake of power and wealth - mostly power, I suspect.
Though many people are helped by religious guidelines and many may need external influence to be the best they can be, more of us are realizing that we are not essentially evil, are capable of living productive and compassionate lives, and are able to achieve a deep sense of contentment within ourselves by simply using our minds to think things through.
Thank you for being a voice for those of us who feel as you do and who are grateful for the realization that we are enough in and of ourselves and have the innate ability to create a better world for ourselves and others simply by living simple and useful lives.
This is only a tad O/T, but I think it resonates enough with this post to be incorporated.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/intelligence-study-links-prejudice_n_1237796.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
Not to reflect on all people who embrace religion of course - just those who follow pastors like Jerry Prevo:
"The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood."
Oh, I thought that was a helpful guide for Right-Wing adults.
ReplyDeleteI read a post from a Mormon pal from high school (we were never friends, really regret agreeing to her friend request) and she posted things defending/glorifying Ayn Rand and such. Now she's asking her FB friends if she should just delete her account in light of the topics of the last week (Planned Parenthood and SGK.)
I LOL'd, she doesn't like the tone of the board so she's threatening to quit?
Just like a conservative. Lalalalalalala (fingers in the ears, eyes shut tight.)
If us Immoral Minorities can influence her life so much, why isn't she a progressive? Compassionate? No, she's just fine, still spine with her righteous convictions of moral superiority over the rest of us, but she wants to quit social networking because it offends her.
Whatever. No great loss.
Men are the creators of inventions, technology, industry, prosperity, dictatorships, war, peace, freedom, slavery. We can't deny there are good people and there are bad people. Why some choose the latter, that is a topic in itself.
ReplyDeleteBut, whether atheist or God-seeking, we are all at some time the targets of evil people. It's no fun.
The cartoons are made by men. We know that greedy evangelists without convictions will try to fool the masses. They market religion.
For those like me, who won't throw out the baby with the bathwater, God isn't the manipulator here. Humans are. That's why I feel peace that at least there's one that I can count on not to ever lie, distort, manipulate or bend, spin the truth. It's kind of nice to know that One never forsakes us.
Cartoons for simpletons.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Chick Tracts.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chick.com/default.asp
The Christianity I know has no fear of or objection to science. As I see it, science is "the language of God," to quote the book title of scientist Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and NIH.
ReplyDeleteI've said all along that these extremists have no sense of humor, ability to identify satire or irony. These 'Toons adequately prove my point. Pathetic and ignorance personified. The guy thinks he's a rock star. LMAO!
ReplyDeleteThere is the other side of that.
ReplyDeleteMedieval Catholics many of them Priests as well as Jewish people, as well as Arabs, Persians, the Moors in Spain, etc, becasue they accepted the universe and all it holds to be the work of God, and becasue they sought to under stand God better - basically invented what we now refer to as science, rational thought, logic, philosophy, physiology, calculus, etc.
Whatever ones feels about God, good comes from respecting others & the world around us. Those who are disrespectful & negative like Sarah Palin, in contrast, seem to tarnish most everything they touch. Maybe it goes back to the idea of Karma, what goes around eventually comes around.
ReplyDeleteGryphen, I can understand the concept of not wanting to restrict our minds. But the leash seems like an effective way, to show the merit of some discipline as part of life.
Indeed, discipline is something that seems to be lacking in the Palin household.
Oh, please, Anon 7:55. These intellectual arenas were all begun in the BC era, long before Christ and especially before Jesuits.
ReplyDeleteEver wonder why the word "algebra" is Arabic? Or how the merchant Leonardo Pisano got the idea of zero from his Islamic merchant friends?
Was Roger Bacon a scientific empiricist because he was Catholic, or in spite of it? Maybe Galileo could answer that one - it only took the Catholic Church 400 years to agree that maybe he was right.
Anon at 5:12 - same for me. I left in my early 20's, the day the bishop's letter about birth control was read in all the churches, but it took me almost as many years to truly undo the damage 12 yrs of Catholic schooling did to me. To this day my sisters and I all say the same thing: we were taught to memorize but not to think.
ReplyDeleteWhat 5:28 said.
ReplyDeleteNOT ALL churches require you to park your brain at the door.
ReplyDeleteOh, please, Anon 7:55. These intellectual arenas were all begun in the BC era, long before Christ and especially before Jesuits.
ReplyDeleteby Anon at 8:20
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That's a vague statement. Significant foundations and progress in some of those areas took place BCE, but beyond that you're on shaky ground. E.g., Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz are credited with the formulation of calculus. Both men were born in the 1600s.
Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre is called the father of the Big Bang theory, although he didn't use that term. Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, is known as the father of genetics. The logic principle of Occam's Razor is credited to Father William of Ockham, a Franciscan priest.
It's nice to see someone besides me point out that Dr. Francis Collins is a practicing Christian. Besides having directed the Human Genome Project, he is now Director of the National Institutes of Health. A recent study of academics found that a significant majority (around 40%) of scientists believe in God. That's roughly the same percentage as a similar study done in 1914.
As other posters noted, science and religion are not polarities. The portrayal of people of faith as credulous dimwits is easy and it's incorrect. Cartoons like those featured here reflect a narrow mind-set held by a minority of Christians, those who believe the Bible is the literal, inerrant word of God. These are the people pushing intelligent design and young earth theory, opposing gay rights and freedom of reproductive choice, and so on. Unfortunately, this group includes successful televangelists and some cynical politicians.
For anyone who experienced a miserable childhood in Catholic school, that's unfortunate. Some of us had miserable experiences in public schools. One poster used the metaphor of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That fits here, I think.
Consider that the Catholic church includes mystics such as Lady Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton, and Richard Rohr, as well as scientists like Dr. Richard Nowak, professor of biology and math at Harvard, and journalists like Andrew Sullivan.
To paraphrase what Anon @8:17, wrote, humans are the manipulators, not God. Some wield destructive power over gullible people under the guise of religion, but discerning people can tell the difference.
wow powerful stuff!
ReplyDeletehave a look at this: http://simplephotography23.blogspot.com/ might answer your questions! :D