(December 1, 2014 at 10:32 pm)Beccs Wrote: Technically, none, since fictional beings don't kill - their followers do.

Psychology is an easy thing to manipulate. The fictional wares of the conman... the invisible gun to rob the bank... and the ever more applicable for the insane: that fictional being is looking rather nonfictional at this moment in time.

Fictional beings inspire. Fear... morale... anger... sadness... a fictional being can accomplish much with a person. It can make someone understand something they didn't 'get', or provide courage for that last charge... or terrify into a mindless and irrationally erratic behavior set... or even kill, just because of an imaginary being.

They don't exist outside of people's heads... maybe. But inside: they are real, and they do things, and these things can have an effect. One of the most observable of this is Dissociative Identity Disorder... that splitting self full of "fake" (heh, all person is fake, perhaps) persons and sometimes these take control over the vessel the host/core would call their own. Sometimes... these people effectively kill the host, burying it so deep it may never be found.

Fictional beings are a little less fictional than one might like to think... though it probably is different by perspective. So much subjective nonsense... not a whole lot of point to go into, or care, about any of it.

(December 1, 2014 at 11:18 pm)JesusChristLover Wrote: God created a world, a wild and free world, to be the breeding ground for things God values in human beings — things like courage, devotion, loyalty, self-sacrifice, kindness, generosity, hope, trust. By anybody’s reckoning these are a few of the noblest features of humanity. Would such qualities exist in a world without risk, danger, calamity — and death?

Are you saying that it would be impossible for god to create a world where those bad things do not exist?

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(December 2, 2014 at 9:17 am)Alice Wrote: Fictional beings inspire. Fear... morale... anger... sadness... a fictional being can accomplish much with a person.

I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, and he explains how researchers have learned about the ways in which the face can form pretty much any expression. While two of them were mapping out the various combinations, they came to the realization that on those days when they spent hours practicing sad or angry expressions, they felt physically miserable. They conducted experiments with volunteers and found that simply expressing an emotion with your face would create the corresponding reactions in the body.

This isn't that difficult to test: most people who practice deliberately expressing the widest, silliest, goofiest smile they can manage will find it almost impossible not to feel an almost crazy sense of euphoria for a short moment, and may find themselves suppressing laughter. Practicing a scowl long enough will elevate heart rate and blood pressure to the extent that it may cause a pounding in the temples. We are what we express.

(December 1, 2014 at 10:32 pm)Beccs Wrote: Technically, none, since fictional beings don't kill - their followers do.

Flood? Job?

The better question to be asked would be, how many people have been killed in the name of one true god. Throughout history that would be a staggering number, even more outrageous if you compare it to the general number of people living in a particular region at the particular time of the massacres.

And I'm not only talking about the christian franchise, but the jewish and muslim brand too.

(December 1, 2014 at 11:59 pm)JesusChristLover Wrote: ... Remember, only learners go to Heaven.

Psychopath serial killers have learned a lot!

Everyone who has and ever will live save one soul. Moo ha ha ha!

(December 2, 2014 at 10:14 am)abaris Wrote: And I'm not only talking about the christian franchise, but the jewish and muslim brand too.

What about the atheist brand? I see you conveniently left that one out.

(December 6, 2014 at 11:08 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:

(December 2, 2014 at 10:14 am)abaris Wrote: And I'm not only talking about the christian franchise, but the jewish and muslim brand too.

What about the atheist brand? I see you conveniently left that one out.

It's inconvenient to include a non-existent brand.

(December 6, 2014 at 11:56 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote:

(December 6, 2014 at 11:08 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: What about the atheist brand? I see you conveniently left that one out.

It's inconvenient to include a non-existent brand.

It is a brand, Communism promoted atheism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

Quote:State atheism is the official promotion of atheism by a government, sometimes combined with active suppression of religious freedom and practice.

Like I said, you conveniently leave atheism out, when atheists killed more people in the shortest amount of time, than anything else, Hypocrites.

And don't get me started on atheist churches...

(December 7, 2014 at 12:33 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: It is a brand, Communism promoted atheism.

Might want to educate yourself on the difference between communism and atheism. Atheism one and only common claim is the absence of a divine being. Between that there are many different shades, ranging from some being communists to some adoring Ayn Rand. It's not a belief system, unless you attach some ideology to it.