God And Aurora

Good points.

I guess I haven't felt safe at school since Columbine, and work I relate more to driving there. So it takes a disaster to not feel safe somewhere, I guess?

As for "home", again I regard the state of mind while watching a movie to be as close to being home that you can get outside of home. A lot of the "I would have shot back" etc comments when it happened, I was just thinking "I would have been one of those who thought it was part of the movie". Maybe that's just me.

What makes you say that exactly? He's pretty much obligated to say such things right now.. Being silent or (in so many words) saying '***happens' is tantamount to career suicide. I mean if you know him in person and were like chilling in his living room when he got the news and you know that's how he feels, then by all means ignore me.. But if you don't and weren't, you have no idea how he feels.. You only know what he feels he's socially obligated to do.

There are no aliens

Imagine trying to tell God you believe there are gray little creatures flying around probing people.

Point taken.

I've heard countless responses to the tragedy. From people obligated to do so, like president Obama, and Christopher Nolan, and Warner Bros studio PR. From people not obligated to do so, from victims of the tragedy, those not involved, and members of my family.

Nolan says things that aren't required or even expected. He speaks on behalf of the art of cinema and the tragedy committed, not only against the victims but cinema itself.

That might even be considered gutsy being that it's his profession. So on a list of things not to say, perhaps we could chalk that one up there.

I don't know how he feels. I know what he wrote, I know how it resonated with me, and I can guess that there's more there than "just for show".

I'd prefer to ask him why the *** he/she created a universe so large....?

DHUR .... WUT!??!?!

To tuck us in a very ordinary, boring corner of a galaxy tucked away inside a very ordinary and boring corner of the universe because we're on time out due to some dumb *** with no self control doing the one thing he said NOT to do?

My best guess.

Or.... it's all CHAOS!!!!!

Seriously though. In the lab that I work in, if you tell me that you believe that God created the world in 6 days, I will question whether or not you have the intellectual capacity to perform the duties of your job.

After all the various belief systems and philosophies throughout history, you really believe THIS is the "right" one?

Like I said. Caveman/Cavewomen.

I don't believe ***.

Grand Design, I get it. No one on Earth can foresee the consequences or rewards of this or any action. Generally I think people killing other people is bad. If there's "just cause" in there, anywhere, I would still have heavy reservations.

As for freewill as a concept itself, as I'm a fatalist I can't really engage the thought without bias. And if you counter with quantum physics, I'm going to say that what seems to be random only gives the illusion of being random.
Yes, someone killed other people and that's all it boils down to. That's how I see it and presumably how most people see it. My question is mostly a matter of faith and whether or not this changes things for anyone. Rhetorical mostly it seems.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

Wait... here's the part where someone says:

"The only one who knows is God."

And you reply:

"So how do you know that God knows.....?"

The only way it could change anything is if they completely ignore the past.. As much as this is a tragedy (if you think it's not, then we have very different meanings of the word 'tragic') it's nothing compared to the other tragedies that happen all the time.. Planes go down, bombings happen, 9-11 happened and I really doubt anyone just slept through that..

There isn't something divine and pure about movie theaters (have you looked inside one? Hell I can be held directly responsible for one stain in mine) that makes this somehow worse than what it is or worse than the above mentioned tragedies.

Nothing changed, and why should it. The majority of religion you or I will come anywhere near on a day to day basis was born in blood and violence. Why should this be any different? Wasn't too long ago some dude basically did this in the middle of mass at a church. I'm not religious but even I would put that as a holier place and somewhere you just don't commit mass murder/assault than a movie theater.

Refer back to my original post if this doesn't answer your question. Let's just skip the *** and stop using this as a guise to attack a God or ask for believers to defend their God. Bad ***happens all the time, there is no reason to even involve the whole Aurora thing or tag it's name onto whatever argument you may have.

You'd think a god so cool and powerful could defend him/herself.....

You'd think a God wouldn't give people free will that would eventually put them in Hell, especially if they were created in his image. GOD LOGICCCCCCC

Dude, you seem determined to push off an atheistic agenda. Your time is wasted on me, as I'm not in any way, shape or form, religious. I don't believe in any Gods.

That said, what do you expect? Any person who claims to be speaking for God or that God is speaking through them, you'll label as crazy or stupid.. You expect some giant face to appear in the sky and start talking?

I'm going to go ahead and bold the top though, as it's the more important part. Well ***let me underline it too..

Good question.

I'm convinced all alien or ufo sightings are of either military air/space crafts or of spirits (demom, jinn, nephilim).

I can see the logic behind the assumption of there being life else where in the universe, I however am not convinced that modern science has explained existence in an objective way. Just as media/religion/government are used as control systems so is science. Scientist are the modern day priest class with school being the tool of indoctrination. It is not hard to prove, just apply the scientific method to the big bang theory. Assuming that it did happen then what preceded or caused it?

It is my belief that it was created. The obvious rebuttal is who or what created the creator. The best theory I can come up with is that God created himself through the will to exist. I know not the most convincing argument but its all my mortal mind can come up with. :P

BUT WAIT!!!!!!

OM!!!!!!! Maybe GOD is speaking through ME!!!!! He/she is telling you he/she DOESN'T EXIST but through me!!!!!!!

AM I CRAZY!?!?!?

....What?

I'm going to go ahead and specify.. The underlined, sure whatever. I can't come up with a better explanation of an all powerful being capable of creating the universe could be created except by himself..

The ....What? part is in reference to the bold. You see, in the old days religion thrived off science and school NOT existing or being available to the masses. When you try to apply logic to organized religion, it starts to fall the *** apart quickly, so you need a bunch of people who are either willing to ignore logic or just not know how to recognize it to begin with. Science teaches you to believe what can be tested and proved, it's far from what you describe, in fact it's the exact opposite. Science and school is the tool of emancipation. It gives people the power to make informed decisions and actually have a leg to stand on if they have to debate their stance.



Anyways, bed time for me.

8-balled!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8_ball#Origin


"While Magic 8 Ball did not exist in its current form until 1950, the functional component was invented by Albert C. Carter, who was inspired by a "spirit writing" device used by his mother, Mary, a Cincinnati clairvoyant."

A fine choice for images!!!!!!


Don't set your alarm clock. God will be sure to wake you up.

I guess I have to defend movie theatres again. How should I go about this differently than I have previously...

Honestly, they're shitholes. I in fact hate the movie theatre business as a whole and wish we'd all adopt digital distribution, like, yesterday. Some kid kicking your chair, some guy who forgot the ringer on his phone, some woman who didn't forget the ringer on her phone because she wanted to receive calls and talk.

Divine, sacred, pure: none of these are words I would use to define a movie theatre. It's merely a place to go to watch a movie.

That is where I differ. Imagine a shooting at an art gallery, a concert, or a symphony hall. The people around me are questionably bathed, and the chair I'm sitting in likely has had another occupant in it with unfavorable conditions. I don't care though because I'm captivated and mesmerized by someone's art form. I can't think of a single place where this result is reproducible other than one's home. This makes "the theatre is my home" particularly resounding.

Yet I agree. It's just more senseless violence committed on an increasingly desensitized world. I could speak volumes about 9/11 but I choose not to. And I suppose change shouldn't be expected from the deaths of 12 odd some people.

For the record this was not an excuse to attack God. I can do that easily on any day, at any time, for any reason, be it genocide or no reason at all. I precisely wanted a take on the wake of the Aurora event and the effect it has had on spiritual people, if any.

Is it page 9, yet?

Was I the only one reminded of Voltaire's poem on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake which is fundamentally the same question the OP asked?

257 years late OP, 257 years late.

I don't know why things like these happen and I'm not able to give a perfect answer that fully fulfills what you want to know that covers every angle of this situation. I'm only human.

Some random situations in life can be *** up and so can people and their choice to let themselves degenerate to an animal or plant or be more than human it's a set of choices that set the pace for a way of life and we make them constantly everyday.

I can't consider myself a strong Muslim as I've been in the past and leave it as something to catch up to because of my weakness of ego if you're wondering what stance I'm speaking from. I can say only a few things I find for facts and quotes that help me understand a lot of things in life that are complicated(about people).

1. Life is painful when we make the simple complicated and this comes from being unable to control what we want and having no repercussion everytime we become weak to our desires and possibly slaves.

2. Most people are humans before any titles they associate themselves with, those who are, act for themselves first and what benefits them first not many people would (truly) act for something they consider greater than themselves and it still be in their best interest to do so. I'm sure there are varying degrees of it and most people aren't horrible people but it's what most of us are in my opinion so far. I've been disgusted to call people that I've met the same race as me and by the same token I couldn't be more inspired to be a better person from another person of the same human race that is completely different from me in all respects.

3. As a believer of people are imperfect beings and that a perfect being being in control of this is letting this happen there is a reason. I can't quantify what this reason is nor *** you to that I understand the ulterior motive just because I've read the Qur'an but I can't. There are just some situations where human logic and rationale just flies out the window and you just have to trust your instinct; it's not the first time where I've read, heard, seen about situations and wondered where the gaps of logic come from, where the quantified data was there but we could still not understand, and regardless of how prepared people can be ***still happens.


Now specifically concerning this case of the shooting I would guess from hearing about this guy's background and schooling was that he lost Love somewhere along the lines or couldn't percieve it as well as important emotions from people. It's like when we see ants walking across the ground as we walk and we see them die and feel nothing or don't take note of their existence I think he felt this way because of his obvious superior intellect and cunning the world felt boring to him and unmotivating.

I would ask how is someone that loves and is loved feel this way about life? My instinct would say that he couldn't feel love of any multitude which caused him to separate mentally from society and treat them as ants.


I have an insensitive question(or three) to ask.

Do we care about this and we respond to this tragedy so strongly because the movie was the Dark Knight?

Why do we care about linking this to the Dark Knight when how haphazard and random and suprisingly well orchestrated this guy's plot was to roll into a movie theatre and shoot up as many people as possible then calmy exit the building to wait in his car to be carried off?

Why do people feel so unsafe about movie theatres or seeing the Dark Knight now? Even after 9/11 happened airplanes are still the safest mode of transportation out there; so many isolated and random reports given so much attention and screened make things sound more dangerous than they really are. Something like this can happen anywhere.


I guess it was suprising that it was a movie theatre and not a political, religious, war-related incident for CNN and every other media to show us and just filter through our minds because most of us are desensitized to almost anything concerning death?



I guess the above was a lot simpler in my head than when it came out but when I start talking or typing my mind keeps adding more and more to it. Hopefully that's clear since I can be vague

This is a pointless thread. God most likely doesn't exist, now shut up and enjoy your life.

Anyone who believes in god fortold in a holy book is a moron, or brainwashed.

/endthread

Yeah, no. That's only going to fuel the masses. People are going to believe in what they want to believe in, and making a generic statement isn't going to empower your argument at all.

Gotta remember to not feed the troll Mag :P

I don't even know what I'm doing in this thread. Isn't this Random Thoughts?

Oh, religion? Nothing to do here...

First... Why did i click this thread?...

second;

As people have so generously pointed out, People will believe in a god if they want to. There's no physical proof that 'god' exists, but there's no physical proof that he doesn't either. ***happens.

By physical proof, I'm not talking 'miracles/coincidences', I'm talking about no one dying, going to heaven, and coming back with proof of the big 'thing/guy/girl' upstairs, and anyone who tells stories of dying for "3 minutes and seeing 'the light'" are usually considered delusional/have had a traumatic experience.

As science has proven to us many of times, 'there's not a god in the sky'. We've been to outer space. We just consider 'god' as the ruler of the sky because 'up' is normally positive. Hell for all we know, 'he' could be the ruler of the earth/'underworld' and we'd have been wrong for thousands of years. The dead can't tell us what they see, if they could, they wouldn't be dead etc.

This 'god'(if there is one and if i remember correctly) is very jealous, vile, and vindictive. He will never tell you his 'grand scheme' as it is his own, and no one will take it from him, and he'll do anything to advance his "plan" as he sees fit.

As for opinion on the matter at hand, I'm glad the psycho is behind closed doors, unfortunately, those people died because the idiot lost his love of life, and liberty, and wanted to pursue what he thought would bring him the most happiness quickly... That does not make the 12 who died any less important that their deaths can't be mourned, even by people who don't know them. It opens eyes to people telling them they're not safe to go out to a movie theater any less then stepping outside their front door, and it scares people of death which can happen at any point in time.

It's natural to fear death. 'Fear' is a mind produced nervous reaction. "To show fear is to show weakness" People fear death because everyone is weak to it. No one can avoid death forever.