In reply to this comment by lurgee:
~hugz~
In reply to this comment by pumkinandstorm:
*promote


back atcha babe!

u might like dis.

Skip to the 1 minute mark if you don't care for typical ceremonial hullabaloo.

thank you kindly!
In reply to this comment by Stormsinger:
Damn, for this many promotes, if nothing else, this deserves to be sifted...

will you stop that!

In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
*promote this song again!!!

>> ^PalmliX:

Hi Shinyblurry,
I suppose everyone picks on you because you're one of few Christians on the sift who actually sticks around and defends his position. Are there any others? Not many stay I imagine...
Being such a representative of the faith I want to ask you an honest question that isn't designed to be sarcastic or make you look bad in any way but is just a simple question that I have wondered about for a long time and I'm curious to what your answer is because you seem to give fairly thorough answers.
Growing up I lived with a single mom who basically held the same view I held now, she didn't know if there was a God or not but she also encouraged me to experiment with any religious views that I felt like. I remember going to various church services on many different occasions, we had Jewish friends and took part in their ceremonies/festivities, same with Christian friends, even Muslim etc.. All this time my Mom was remarkable in the fact she neither dismissed or accepted any of these views, she/we simply took part with an open mind didn't try to impose any judgments. Did we give all religions equal time? No not necessarily but I don't think it would of been possible to live a more open and genuinely inquisitive childhood. My mother didn't stand in my way of finding a fulfilling religious path in life nor a none religious one.
Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this question too much, just wanted to give you some background as to where I'm coming from.
My question is this:
From this open point of view, I found that as a child, and later in life, all I saw around me were people telling me that their religion was the right one. They were all perfectly sincere and genuine in their beliefs, and they all seemed perfectly happy enough, but I personally found it odd that no God ever made an attempt to connect with me personally. From my point of view, everyone was genuine in their beliefs, but their beliefs were all different, so how was I supposed to know which one to choose? I attempted to pray to god when I was child because I was genuinely curious and wanted to know what I was missing, but I never received any indication that something was listening to me. Of course we could argue that I went about it in the wrong way, as I most likely did, but as a child (and as a grown up now) who grew up in a household where I was free to follow any path that I liked, how I was supposed to know that your God, i.e. the Christian God with Jesus in the mix was the right one to follow.
You mentioned in a previous comment that "God gives everyone enough information and opportunities to make the right choices" but personally all the information I see are 2 books and a whole bunch of HUMANS telling me that they are true. But the problem for me personally is that there are many many books with many many human supporters backing them up and from my point of view they are essentially all equal, i.e. I have never seen any indications that one group has more truth behind it than any other. Why does God then, rely on these imperfect human agents in order to spread the truth about it's existence, why didn't God attempt to make a personal connection with me?
Again please don't take this as any kind of personal attack, I'm generally interested in the answer to this question and I'd like to think that I have an open mind. In order to potentially make this question simpler to answer, here's an analogy that I think works well... say a human child was lost to his parents in the woods and he/she somehow managed to survive in the wilderness (not very likely I realize). This child would have no concept of human language or culture, would essentially be a wild animal but would still, for all intents and purposes, be human. Would this person ever come to find God/Jesus? If so how, with no bible or other people to tell him/her about it. Would God come to this person personally and inform them of everything they need to know? If so, why didn't God come to me to help me make a decision?
Cheers,
- Adam


It's like if you have a teddy bear. You believe that it's real and helps/comforts you in life. Other people have different teddy bears and you laugh at them because they believe their teddy bears are real and you know they aren't. Or you have people with the same teddy bear you have, but they treat it in ways you feel is wrong and not what your teddy bear would like, using it as a pillow maybe.

Then someone comes along without any teddy bear at all and tells you that you don't need one.

Suddenly the people with other teddy bears or teddy bear ways don't seem so bad. At least they have a teddy bear. You would even gang up with the false teddy bear people to go against this guy.

The non-believer is the real threat, ask yourself why.

Hi Shinyblurry,

I suppose everyone picks on you because you're one of few Christians on the sift who actually sticks around and defends his position. Are there any others? Not many stay I imagine...

Being such a representative of the faith I want to ask you an honest question that isn't designed to be sarcastic or make you look bad in any way but is just a simple question that I have wondered about for a long time and I'm curious to what your answer is because you seem to give fairly thorough answers.

Growing up I lived with a single mom who basically held the same view I held now, she didn't know if there was a God or not but she also encouraged me to experiment with any religious views that I felt like. I remember going to various church services on many different occasions, we had Jewish friends and took part in their ceremonies/festivities, same with Christian friends, even Muslim etc.. All this time my Mom was remarkable in the fact she neither dismissed or accepted any of these views, she/we simply took part with an open mind didn't try to impose any judgments. Did we give all religions equal time? No not necessarily but I don't think it would of been possible to live a more open and genuinely inquisitive childhood. My mother didn't stand in my way of finding a fulfilling religious path in life nor a none religious one.

Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this question too much, just wanted to give you some background as to where I'm coming from.

My question is this:

From this open point of view, I found that as a child, and later in life, all I saw around me were people telling me that their religion was the right one. They were all perfectly sincere and genuine in their beliefs, and they all seemed perfectly happy enough, but I personally found it odd that no God ever made an attempt to connect with me personally. From my point of view, everyone was genuine in their beliefs, but their beliefs were all different, so how was I supposed to know which one to choose? I attempted to pray to god when I was child because I was genuinely curious and wanted to know what I was missing, but I never received any indication that something was listening to me. Of course we could argue that I went about it in the wrong way, as I most likely did, but as a child (and as a grown up now) who grew up in a household where I was free to follow any path that I liked, how I was supposed to know that your God, i.e. the Christian God with Jesus in the mix was the right one to follow.

You mentioned in a previous comment that "God gives everyone enough information and opportunities to make the right choices" but personally all the information I see are 2 books and a whole bunch of HUMANS telling me that they are true. But the problem for me personally is that there are many many books with many many human supporters backing them up and from my point of view they are essentially all equal, i.e. I have never seen any indications that one group has more truth behind it than any other. Why does God then, rely on these imperfect human agents in order to spread the truth about it's existence, why didn't God attempt to make a personal connection with me?

Again please don't take this as any kind of personal attack, I'm generally interested in the answer to this question and I'd like to think that I have an open mind. In order to potentially make this question simpler to answer, here's an analogy that I think works well... say a human child was lost to his parents in the woods and he/she somehow managed to survive in the wilderness (not very likely I realize). This child would have no concept of human language or culture, would essentially be a wild animal but would still, for all intents and purposes, be human. Would this person ever come to find God/Jesus? If so how, with no bible or other people to tell him/her about it. Would God come to this person personally and inform them of everything they need to know? If so, why didn't God come to me to help me make a decision?

Cheers,

- Adam

<3
In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
*promote

thanks princess!
In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
*promote

WTF? Reminds me of the Olympics opening ceremonies LOL

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
*promote

Thank you sir!

I get so exhausted sharing and talking and fighting for/against causes that i care about like this. That's why politicians seem to frequently get their way; they have no other job, they mime bullshit for a living.

However, every time I hear someone talk about how they dont give a shit about politics it gets me fired up enough to keep going.
--
--
I attended a funeral this weekend and had a few cousins come up to me "what's up with your facebook page, is that like the government posting that on there or is that you doing it?"

"Oh it's me, I post a lot of things about politics"

"Why do you care so much about that stuff? I just dont even pay attention to any of it."

"Well, take what happened last week in the Supreme Court for example; Do you know what decision was handed down regarding strip searches?"

"No..."

"Well, the supreme court, as you obviously know, renders the final decisions on cases, and those decisions become law of the land. Basically what happened last week involved a man who was arrested for a traffic stop and was strip searched and held in jail for a solid week while the police were trying to figure out what the man had been telling htem all along; there was a computer error that led to a false warrant for his name."

"So?"

"So now, since they ruled against this man who sued the police from his city who arrested/strip searched him and lost, if you or I are taken into custody for ANY reason, we can be subject to a complete strip and body cavity search. Do you care about that?"

"WTF they can't do that!"

"They can and they are because people dont care about politics. Now fuck off!"



("Now fuck off!" added for dramatic emphasis and not actually spoken at the funeral viewing ceremony)

In short, yeah yeah, I'll help you fight your crazy cause you crazy kid.

EDIT: shared on social media and sent letters to my congress peoplez !

Explain what? There, does that help?

Sorry. I figured you could distinguish between the process of investigation and the pomp of a court trial.

If you comprehend that, you'll know exactly why I refer to trials as a ritual/ceremony.

If you don't, ask yourself how forcing both parties and 12 random people to sit in designated areas while some lawyer in a priest's gown hands out decrees has any bearing on the evidence.

So to reiterate, Evidence alone establishes "guilt". [or the level of obligation to repay suffering cause by one's actions.]

In this case, the evidence is overwhelming.



>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Evidence.
>> ^xxovercastxx:

How do you propose we determine guilt or innocence without a trial?

Evidence, context, circumstance, objective logic, and arbitration.

Explain to me how the rituals of a courtroom establish true justice, Overcast.

Troy Davis was "found guilty" of murdering a cop. Even tho all the evidence suggests otherwise.

Casey Anthony was "found innocent" of murdering her child. Even tho all the evidence suggests otherwise.

Trials are just ceremonies.

They don't determine anything but the conviction rates of lawyers.

>> ^xxovercastxx:


How do you propose we determine guilt or innocence without a trial?

You may be right as I couldn't find this linked ANYWHERE in their (the bands) official listings. This is only up at two places at the moment, but it was much better than a still. So maybe I'll change some wording above if I sincerely cannot find more information on it's origin.

Edit-I think I found enough to safely call this a well made fan piece. Hopefully we get the real one soon enough. Now, I'm off to find the most accurate lyrics: towards the end I think some of the lyrics may be wrong as they do seem a bit " out of place".
>> ^SWBStX:

>> ^alien_concept:
The entirety of Ceremonials is fucking amazing and everyone should have it, listen to it and LOVE it!!

What he said! This album is a must have!
I'm a little confused by this video though. I don't recognize all of the video clips, but a good number of them are just taken from other Florence and the Machine music videos. Since we never actually see her singing any of the lyrics of this song along with the music I must say I'm somewhat skeptical at the authenticity of it actually being done by the band. But I could very wrong about that as well.