God damn you.

The fact is that a properly formed, mature, spiritually driven and fed faith and theology is the truest source of peace and joy and love; of Oneness, Truth, and Beauty. This is why, almost without reserve we are able to look to individuals who have lived truly beautiful, inspired, peace-filled lives and recognize them as such…because such a Truth exists and breaks into our lives in very real concrete ways.

You know what is most interesting, her views on the punishment/reward belief system have been echoed by mystics throughout the ages. From a wide variety of religions and backgrounds. Real love can never flow from a system like that and real peace will never be found within it. What both Christ and other spiritual mystics have been trying to say all along is just this, what we commonly term as love is nothing more than enlightened self-interest. It’s not real love. Real love is something different, something deeper. It is not the action that is seeking reward, is is acting because of love and love alone. Or as V so succinctly states;

“Ideally, people would be good because it’s the right thing to do. Not because they want good Karma to come back on them and not because they’re hoping for a personal cloud to lounge on in the sky, but because doing the right thing is its own reward. I’d like to live in a world where people aren’t secretly hoping for a payoff for every single good dead they’ve ever done.”

It is this kind of love Christ demonstrates and calls people to follow, all the while knowing (and hoping) that they will have to start with self-interest first, (as walking before they can run) and hoping they will have common sense enough to allow themselves to mature beyond that to something deeper and more truly beautiful. Is a kind of loving he calls ‘the kingdom’ and it was never meant to be thought of as a place in the sky filled with virgins at your beck and call. It is, ironically and rather humorously, the action of loving in exactly the way that V and other ‘atheists’ in the world wish for.

So can you really be an Atheist when what you really believe in is the very Kingdom Christ proclaimed?

I agree. Atheists and all other religious fanatics are quite scary. Few thoughts:

“And hey, I try my best not forget that sometimes we all need something to believe in.”
I think this is one of the scariest reasons to base your view of world and everything in.

“Jesus vs WoW, Bible vs. Vampires.”
Ok, Jesus was a cool guy. But what about the second and the third book of Moses? Exodus and Leviticus? WoW is for kids.
Or playing vampire games? How about Exodus 22:18? (And none of that bs about “But Jesus said that I am the new connection to above, forget about the past” as long as you believe in the Ten Commandments.)

But to the “all the wrong reasons to believe” part. I agree on that one. The main reason what everyone forgets in this world and the main teaching of Christianity for me (almost surrealisticly agnostic) is by the guy who refrased Confucius’ golden rule about 500+ years before. Check Matthew 2:17.

People just don’t understand that Karma does work already in this life. I may be annoying on the net, but in real life I’m the guy who helps friends, don’t look down on people, is always friendly and smiley, picks up the trash after him + couple other things laying around, talks nicely and listens carefully, etc.. I try to live my life how Confucius said. And it shows. Even when I have a bad day, I have always good luck. Not in a way that I find a fiver from the ground and think it was my Karma, but as in I always get helped and served, have friends I can trust, I have trust, and should I ever be in need I have the problem to choose from which source I might accept the help.

But as I might’ve ranted on this site as well about the reason why religions were very important, I try to keep it short: Religion was very very important. But CCTV, Einstein and Britney Spears - not Nietzsche - killed God. “Do bad and a great big fist from clouds is gonna smack you.” - We got CCTV, we don’t need to scare people with something that might or might not happen. We do know that the great big hammer is going to bang that great big table if you do bad. “How far is moon? What are those small dots in the sky at nights? How does all of this work?” - Yeah, well, for example simple energy is mass times the speed of light squared should explain quite a lot. No need to be scared and explain “it’s just God, don’t worry.” But maybe the biggest godkiller is lack of time. If you sow the seed and go home after dark and lay in your bed with no books you might think about stuff. But now we got something better! Britney helps you from your painful “thinking”.

Ugh, I have spoken.

isn’t the “NO BELIEF in Gods” just agnosticism though?