Priests fleeced Florida flock of millions

[red team]

Priests fleeced Florida flock of millions (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/28/priests.charged.ap/index.html)

[Clutch]

Comrade, they will never fucking learn. If they are weak willed enough to need religion, then they are weak willed enough to be cheated so easily.

[Jazzratt]

Well, they were stupid enough to believe in god.

[markofthebeats]

I don't need the support of "the left" in my conviction that God exists, or that because I am a part of infinite reality, that I am God. There are only parts to the universe, no compartments. To say that science could exist without a scientist renders us parasites mocking the meat on which we feed. Why is it in our natures to create if we were not created? Why is it that every human attempt to control nature ends in brutal catastrophy yet when the physics of interrelationships are left to their own devices, they flourish? I understand that organized religion is an oppressive thought-institution designed to control the masses. If the youth of today started congregating at the same place each week, dressed up in special clothes, saying the same chants, going through this ritual... it would be outlawed and called a cult. Cops and parents' groups would lobby strict laws to 'save the kids from the christians' haha. I think religion has prostituted itself for social smugness... but, I think real religion is personality. We are instruments of our philosophies, and we choose to harmonize the pitch of our manifestations to that which we see as the greatest good... for us. Because we view the world singularly... "I am the main character in this life" we don't often get the opportunity to view mankind as a siblinghood. World peace rests within taking siege of ourselves, not one another.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The "I am god" idea, espoused so often by vague, beardy spiritual types is such bullshit. When you say "I am god" any normal person will assume you are claiming to be an omnipotent creator of the universe. Then, every time you do this, you smugly inform us that we misunderstand the term god. You'll say things like "God is love", "God is energy", "God is the universal conscioussness". And other variants of the same tragically abstract shite. When pushed, none of you have a clue as to what you're saying precisely. And then inevitably the criticism comes, "Science has always pushed out new ideas. Look at Einstein, they said he was mad." which is obvious rubbish. Firstly, science does not always push out new ideas. It's the exceptions, not the rule that gets publicity. Remember that. Secondly, even if it did reject every slightly wacko idea that it came across, science would be right, what, 95 percent of the time? Who's your money on? :lol:


Second, every attempt we make to control nature blatantly doesn't end in brutal catastrophe, as you put (and incorrectly spelled) it. Did farming ever occur to you? If we never tried to harness nature in that sense, we wouldn't have had the agricultural revolution, and we'd still be wondering nomads having to visit the medicine man every time we got sick, and having him cure us by massaging us with sweat from his arm-pits. Now that is a brutal catastrophe.

-Alex