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Originally posted by Yobor@Dec 17 2005, 10:21 PM
The only thing I "Believe" in is facts, which to me looks like:
1(And only)) There is no divine.... anything. No supreme good or bad, no gods, no miracles, no magic. Just the facts.
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Facts can be proven, the existance of a devine being cannot just as it cannot be disproven. The "fact" is that the existance or non-existance of a greater being is unknowable, hence my earlier mention of agnosticism being the true non-religious classification.
As a minor aside, and while I agree that we really shouldn't get into the argument here, evolution isn't fact, it's theory. I'm not a creationist by any stretch of the imagination and I do believe in evolution, but it's far from perfect and there's a lot still to figure out about it.
Quote:
Originally posted by Evad
I'm starting to believe you may be Roman Catholic after all. You didn't quote enough to give context. That's fair I guess, but I'd just ask that anyone who is reading this with interest to go look at the source material, and see what it really says.
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First of all, that was really bigoted. I strongly suggest that you watch the ethnic stereotyping.
Second of all, I quoted out of context because I was emphasizing the language he was using rather than the points he was actually making. Notice the phases I bolded, such as "often regarded as." They're intentionally vague so as to side-step adressing the actual meaning of the word.
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Originally posted by Evad
If anything, this artical is attemting to eliminate vaugness in relation to the word cult and "the concerns generated by contemporary groups often regarded as cults".
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It's attempting to eliminate vagueness by redefining the meaning of a word which has existed for centuries. The reason I raised issue is because people intentionally do that frequently to serve their own purpose. In this instance, reclassifying cult to mean "organized lunacy" in the eyes of the general public is nice since that way any small religion -- a "cult" by the true definition of the word -- which a media outlet (for example) doesn't like can then enjoy the negative connotations.
"Cult" is vage by definition, just as "big" is vague by definition. Frankly, I'm at a loss here as to how to state the blatently obvious: that this is misleading and stupid.
Quote:
Originally posted by Evad
Saying people should open their mind to the word "satan" meaning open-mindedness and critical thinking, and then turning around and crying about the word "cult" changing sounds a little two faced too by the way.
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The etymology of "Satan" covered earlier is just that: the origin of the term. It's actually a very similar issue to this one as people associate the term only with the christian entity and have no idea that the term itself is rooted elsewhere.