Anyone Else Find This Provocative?
 

From Ristocrats...

true spirituality
is not afraid of doubt

fundamentalists are afraid
it's their defining characteristic
a semi-conscious self-knowledge
is fuel for their fear

they are afraid of their doubts
so they deny them
retreat to the safety
of a sacred text

weak in their beliefs
so they insulate themselves
from contrary thought

weak in their beliefs, so they
embrace victimhood
as a shield and a bludgeon

seek to enshrine their rules in law
force them on others
punish dissent
before power slips away

certainty is their marketing tool
their willful delusion
but also
a prop that illustrates their weakness

'tis almost comical to watch them
so purposefully
miss the point

by a mile

*

doubt is to faith
as art is to life

It looks like truth.

Also explains justice and the American way. ;)

Mt. Shasta, California? Your cable company wouldn't happen to be Northland, would it?

I have Northland as my cable provider but i do not work for them. You near here?

now i believe in god but to be so blind and naive that they can't see what is in front of them is incredible. i don't see why science and religion can not co-exist. i am at the end of studying a science degree the more i learn and discover the more i am convinced that there must be a higher being then us because the more science tries to explain the less and less we truly know many situations things happen or work "just because it does"

My high school Physics teacher was like that. He was a very eccentric German with a pointy goatee - very out of place in a bad high school the deep south. A brilliant man who explained physics with incredible visual metaphors that became unforgettable and made it seem so simple and basic.

I understood Physics very well until my first college class when clarity gave way to obfuscation.

Absolutely. :thumb2:

No, but I provide cable internet tech support for their customers (we're the toll free number you call). Of course, that's only if you have cable internet service with Northland.

i'm in ft. worth, and i work just outside of dallas. i'm working on that seniority thing. i work for a television network, and i only have 6 years under my belt.

i admit, i know absolutely nothing about mt. shasta. looks like i've been missing out.

do you take those pix yourself? there's an artist's eye behind them. my wife is a painter, and i am a musician. the arts pretty much rule our brains. its a good thing.

The pics on my link are done by the local celebrity photographer Kevin Lahey.

It took me 25 years to get enough seniority to get here. Redding CA or Medford OR are near here and have their own tv stations :)

i saw that name, kevin lahey, when i was there. he's really a good photog.

i imagine that part of calif is gorgeous!!

It is very beautiful. Wwhen work calls for the need to rove I do not mind it at all. Beauty in all directions. :)

Definitions
 

I'd like to share three operative definitions -
Faith - basic tenants of your belief that govern your actions and interactions.
Religion - when you start insisting that others live by your faith.
Fanaticism - when you start killing people for not living by your beliefs.
The people in Waco haven't yet reached fanaticism and we pray they never will. As for science and faith coexisting, I don't have any problem. In fact, if you read Stephen Hawking's writing you find that he definitely believes in a supreme architect. It's only when people rely on ignorance and what other people tell them, instead of engaging in intelligent inquiry that we get incidents like Waco. But you already know that - I just thought you would find the definitions useful.

I believe in :fsm:!!! :::storms out of thread:::