Real Religion

[ForgottenTcklr]

Over the past six months or so since Scott has left, you may have notice the increase on topics of religion. People such as Scott,who means well but is slightly misguided, have posted threads. These treads are generally overly dogmatic, one-sided, and demeaning to all of us here. I really just wanted to write a post to appologize to all of the people on this forum. If you can believe it, not all Christians are truly that way. I have been a Christian almost ten years. I am currently in college studying to be a minister. I just thought that after hearing all the disdainment perspective artices from dogmatic zealots that you might like to hear from someone who understands the truth about the matter. In reality, God understands us. He knows our nature and our desire to serve the flesh. While for myself I may know that I shouldn't spend my days looking at tickling pictures, it is first understandable that I mess up and second it is not my place to tell you it's wrong. Thanks for listening, and I just wanted to clear this up with everyone.

 

[kurchatovium]

I consider myself Christian as well and I think I can understand Scott is just trying to find himself. Maybe the guilt he felt for all the tickling related stuff drove him to the other extreme. I wish him well and hope he is happy. As for me I think your right, God understands that we are not perfect that we all have our flaws and try to do the best we can with those flaws. I like to think that God is somewhat impressed that with all our imperfections we accomplish as much as we do. The seven deadly sins are only deadly if you are not aware of the path they might lead you. Everyone is envious of someone at somepoint that is human nature, but when envy leads you to steal or murder thats when you have gone down a destructive path. Be aware of where your life is heading, be the best person you can be, help whoever you can along the way, and be aware that whatever path your on it will have many bumps and potholes and you will be fine. Bottom Line: I think God grades on a curve.

Thats just my opinion though, hope it doesn't offend anyone.

 

[Quigley]

It's a battle

Well, it is to a lot of us. Scott is going through what I did about seven years ago (seems that way, at least). Basically, I tried to turn off my humanity, and that included my tickling/foot fetish. What a mistake that was. Have any of your seen Quills with Geoffery Rush and Kate Winslet? It's about the Maquis de Sade and the measures he took to write (bereft of all writing utinsils, he cut himself and wrote in blood upon his jacket). Now, I did nothing so extreme, but my obsession always found a way to break through constraints. After a year or two of misery, wrecked relationships, and sheer exhaustion, I finally said, "God, I am who I am, and I'm going to do a decent job when I can, but we have GOT to let some things slide." I feel better about things now, but I still have doubts, as we all do. I wonder why I spend so much time thinking about tickling, fantasizing, etc, and I still wonder if it's a "good" thing.

But as someone around here pointed out before, it's not like we're killing folks. We enjoy tickling. I hope God says, "Sheesh, quit worrying. You're weird folks, but I love you."

 

[TicklingDuo]

I think part of the difficulty that some people face when experiencing a conversion is that they feel that it has to be a one time shot and everything has to change immediately. For some, it does so quite naaturally. Those tend to be refered to as miraculous conversions.

If you picture conversion like peeling a banana, there's only one shot and you need to get it all. Actually, in most cases, conversion is ongoing...more like peeling an onion. There is layer after layer to deal with. None of us is perfect. The Lord is painfully aware of that fact.

While we must do our best to live a moral life, beating ourselves or others over the head is really an arrogant and ignorant denial of the fact that CHRIST is the savior and not us. I know. I've been there.

While we have no right to judge others, we are called to encourage them to live a good life. Though he may have stepped over the line a bit, I believe this is what Scott was trying to do. For that, I thank and congratulate him for having the testicular fortitude it took to do so. We all need encouragement. The problem is that we're such rebels. If the line is crossed, we tend to say scr** you and go the opposite direction.

Religion/Faith is a wonderful thing. But, it isn't something to be shoved down people's throats. It's something to be lived by the one who has it. THAT is the best encouragement and best sermon.

Ann

 

[dvnc]

I'm left wondering why I beat both Q and Strel t'this thread. We're the folks that tend to discuss and debate things religious and/or philosophical.

A perspective for you - If a man doesn't have believe in any form of Christian faith, this God reference you make, and the capitalization of the masculine pronoun, he, seem curious.

I know better, mind you. I'm just not Christian. Examined the faith, and decided that I liked the part about the love, and didn't dig other aspects, and don't "believe". Won't "believe" in fact. Get REALLY irritated with folks pushin' such.

There are various faiths on the planet. This board has an appropriate slice of most, as I've seen. Yours is as viable as mine. Welcome to the board. Christianity is as viable, here, as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Confusianism, Taoism, etc., including the tiny little church-less faiths practiced by the natives of the North and South American continents.

OTOH, what organized religion has to do with tickling has yet to be established.

Personally, I appreciate the sentiment of your apology, but you invoked religion, and thus this discussion will once again begin, as it did before, I suspect. Faith and politics are difficult topics anywhere, though.

Peace,

dvnc

 

[asutickler]

OTOH, what organized religion has to do with tickling has yet to be established.

If you live near a large, well-stocked library, check out The Sacred Fire; The Story of Sex in Religion by B. Z. Goldberg.

Therein lies a mention of an old Russian sect called "The Ticklers," whose services consisted of "the men tickling the women until they passed out from exhaustion."

Now THERE'S a religion in need of a revival. I'll have to get myself ordained, and then I'm gonna need a big, well "stocked" (pun intended) tent...


ASUTickler

 

[qjakal]

Q cometh...

Actually, d, I've been watching the thread with great interest, but i wanted to let it take its own shape so it doesn't mirror the old Tickling/Guilt/Religion/Evil one...can't speak for Strel,,maybe he's ...busy? Nah... Q

 

[Strelnikov]

A flash of light, a deafening report, a whiff of brimstone...

...and here I am. You're ALL wrong, and you'll ALL BURN IN HELL because of it!!!

Nah...I'm a Christian, but my views on the subject are much closer to DVNC than to Scott. My God has a sense of humor - He created us, did He not?

Strelnikov

 

[Ticklish9's]

We humans kill, cheat, rape, steal, philander, destroy, crush, impose force...and God still loves us, every one. I once wondered if God was okay with my sense for tickling. Now I find myself thinking that He Himself must have quite the fondness for it - He did make an awful lot of us ticklish and a smaller but still significant number of us are "ticklers" or "ticklees". Easier for me to rationalize, perhaps, since I don't correlate tickling and sexuality, but I don't believe it would matter. Certainly, with His capacity to forgive a wife beater or child killer, it seems he's got quite the soft spot for us ticklers who otherwise seem to avoid violence in all it's aspects. In point of fact, I've been much more worried about my being in the Army offending God than my tickling or anything else I do.
The trick is to remember that, when all is said and done, we aren't measuring up to a human standard. We're dealing with infinities - infinite power, infinite love, infinite capacity for forgiveness. Everyone of us has the smallest slice of that infinite creative force in us - and yes, even the smallest slice of infinity is still infinite. The love we give will be returned to us.


And to answer DVNC, "He" is a pronoun that has been de-masculanized over the centuries, and particularly when referring to a powerful God who doesn't even have a gender, per se, as He certainly doesn't need it.

Of course, don't take my word for it. I'm a 19 year old who's done a fair share of soul searching over the years, but all things considered I'm likely one of the least qualified to answer these questions. I'm not very religious, haven't been to church since my mom made me go, almost never pray in the proper, on-the-knees-before-bed sense of it. To me, God's just a really smart friend who helps me out when I really need it, even when I can't figure out I need help. Guess I lucked out in getting all this help I don't deserve, but what the heck, I'm not gonna say no, ya know? Hehe...anyway, enough of my rambling...I'll yield the floor back to the experts.


P.S. The God I know got a huge kick out of Dogma, too. And He's ticklish. 🙂

 

[shark]

I once saw an evangelist who basically said that God created us,so He knows we are screwups.It's all in how you live your life.
If this post does happen to offend anyone,well,they will just have to be offended. Similar to what dvnc just said,discussing religion and politics can turn friends into enemies, and how true it is.

 

[shark]

Speaking of offensive:
The town of Kensington,Maryland,has banned Santa Claus from city activities.There were 2 families who felt offended by this display of religious promotion.Any comments?

 

[Oblesklk]

Speaking of offensive:
The town of Kensington,Maryland,has banned Santa Claus from city activities.There were 2 families who felt offended by this display of religious promotion.Any comments?

I heard about this a while back. My first response is: what religion is Santa Clause espousing exactly? So you could have two kinds of people, really, that might object:

Far Left: Religion should have no public display, or any involvement with the city's holiday activites. Santa is a symbol of Christmas, which is a Christian holiday

Far Right: Jesus is the reason for the season. Santa Claus is a secular, godless invention to steer children away from the real meaning of the holidays.

And quite honestly, I'm not sure which side would have complained about this specific event this time *shrug* I do remember reading the story, but the details are lost on me. People sometimes just complain to the heavens just to hear the sound of their own voice. Can't speak for everyone, but the human voice sounds infinitely divine when its either singing or laughing, not when it's complaining.

 

[Oblesklk]

If you can believe it, not all Christians are truly that way. I have been a Christian almost ten years. I am currently in college studying to be a minister. I just thought that after hearing all the disdainment perspective artices from dogmatic zealots that you might like to hear from someone who understands the truth about the matter. In reality, God understands us.

For what it's worth, I believe you 🙂

The thing to remember is that for any given segment of a population, there's always going to be people on the far left or far right of the bell curve. I've never felt as though the moderate faithful EVER had to apologize for the actions of the zealots, because they simply don't represent the real tenets of the faith....bombing clinics, hanging homosexuals, or even flying passenger airliners into buildings. Well I'm sorry, but these people just missed the point entirely of what their religion was trying to get at.

A long time ago, I myself stopped putting any importance on labels. I am mostly Buddhist, but I don't let that define me. It's just a part of me. A way of looking at life. Like tickling...I love tickling, you could even say I'm a tickler (heh imagine that!). But it doesn't define who I am, it just makes up a part of me. So on that thought, you being a Christian doesn't put you in the same league with someone like Scott, and those who are more forceful in their beliefs. I will not label you "Christian" becaus it isn't, in itself, very helpful. But rather I'd try to understand you as a person, and your belief system.

I really do believe Christianity is a beautiful religion in its fundamental belief system (the new testament, at any rate), it's just that sometimes people miss the point of what Jesus was really trying to get across, which is too bad. But I certainly wouldn't hold it against humble, meek, and faithful Christians, who do honestly love their fellow man.

 

[dvnc]

Far Left: Religion should have no public display, or any involvement with the city's holiday activites. Santa is a symbol of Christmas, which is a Christian holiday

Far Right: Jesus is the reason for the season. Santa Claus is a secular, godless invention to steer children away from the real meaning of the holidays.

Tiresome, too. Not likin' stuff from other customs AIN'T a reason to oppress those customs. We still allow all KINDS of asinine stuff, like promotin' one religion over all others, and advertisin' ALONE would have to be stopped to appease THIS notion. 😉

Oh, and Santa ain't Christian. That's a pagan custom from a later-coverted culture. Ole Santa Claus chaffs the britches of a few hardcore Christian zealots I know. He's subvertin' us from recognizin' some birthday, so it's the devil's work, an' alla that.

After all, true myopic Christians (as opposed to the open-minded Christians I enjoy) get out the nativity scene, celebrate the birth of a prophet, and read a passage or three from the bible, eschewin' presents and skippin' the pagan tree trimmin' and commercialist stuff. Thank god for a country full of open minds.

yet again by Oblesklk, to shark

People sometimes just complain to the heavens just to hear the sound of their own voice. Can't speak for everyone, but the human voice sounds infinitely divine when its either singing or laughing, not when it's complaining.

Amen, brother.

ForgottenTcklr, I ain't railin' 'gainst you, either. Open minds and open hearts are all good, regardless of the names you give to what you believe. Love is love, after all.

dvnc

 

[qjakal]

dvnc=diplomacy

"Come out of the caves, fellas...it's all about love...we'll be givin' ya all a mighty big dose of happy thoughts and it'll all be fine...c'mon out and see your 'ol buddy dvnc! Osama...'bout time big guy! Stroll on over here and lemme take a look at ya! Yup..all about love!"

It's soooooo hard to pick on you while you're being noble and upright like this d...could you give me SOMETHING to work with here? A true situational comedian needs a bit of inspiration and fodder! When you stay true and straight like this I have to streeeetch the humor to the breaking point, and it gets thin! C'mon...cut a joker some slack! Q

 

[dvnc]

🙂 Sorry, q. Winter does this t'me. I get all cheery 'bout the fun, 'specially 'cause there's two major play parties this month, AND all the holiday romance and such. That, and I dig givin' presents.

Blame the Winter Equinox, yuletide, and that Santa Claus fellow. 😉 I'll give ya somethin' juicy eventually, brother. Nature o' the beastie.

dvnc

 

[JoBelle]

who knew I'd have a thought here?

So, there I was minding my own business, when someone said the G word. That being god. So here is my take.

The first part of my life I spent questioning and criticizing, worrying and debating. I didn't KNOW the answers. I had to KNOW. WHO was right? WHO was wrong? Surely one of those who claimed the highest chair at the meeting of the minds had to be right. SURELY someone knew which door I should choose.
"Jewish?" "Catholic?" "Buddhism?" "Hinduism?" "Taoism?" "Islam?" Any number of Native belief systems? "Jo-ism?" :wink:

WHO WAS RIGHT????? I didn't care too much about the specifics of what made the religion worth practicing. I could get the that eventually, but I wanted to know who had all the right answers. Ever learn your priorities were backwards the hard way?

Well, there is a saying something like, "You don't know what ya got, 'til it's gone." Cliches are true for a reason. Some of us folks get a 2nd chance at an earthly existence. Some of those "some" often figure out a few things that seemed very important and worthy of energy during the first round on the planet. I'm one of the 2nd "some." 😉

What did I learn? Well.....I figured out that no matter how sure you are, you just won't KNOW for fact positive until you're dead. It's all speculation beyond that. Even then, you may not know, but your chances are higher at truth than they are right now. 🙂 Unlike a lot of folks, I WANT to hear the sharing of the thoughts. TELL ME your story. Don't expect me to agree with your findings, but by all means, PLEASE share. I might not ever hear if you keep happies locked away in your own head. I might even change my mind and agree with you one day....then again I might not!! 😉 I can be thrilled for you and still have my own beliefs. I want to know what you think. WITH ONE EXCEPTION....If you're hateful, rude, disresepctful, intolerant, or downright pissy....you can walk on. Any religions behaving in this manner will NOT be included in next months deity luncheon. :hehe:

Be caring. Be helpful. Be steadfast. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be LOVING. If you can do all that, I figure that you're far beyond what is offered in any temple of worship or book of verse. I believe in what makes others feel comfortable, what makes me a fun and happy person to be with, what makes my child sleep safely and well at night. I believe in making the world better for the people with whom I share the dirt.If the deity(ies) is/are helping, guiding, watching or busy just being the earth itself is no matter to me. I have a life to live and I hope to live it well.

Jo

BTW, religion and tickling. Hmmm...isn't there a quote somewhere about making a joyful noise? 🙂

 

[BigJim]

How in hell did it take me so long to hear about this thread???

ForgottenTcklr, Ann and Joby-Wan have, as always, my deepest admiration. All three have grasped what Scott never managed to do and will drive himself into multiple stomach ulcers trying to disprove........

Humanity ISN'T meant to be perfect and never will even remotely come close to being such until it's collective soul rejoins God in heaven.

God/Allah/Spirit/Yahweh/The Force etc knows damn well how imperfect each human creation is and isn't likely to thrw a pissy-fit and chuck us into hell because we happen to find tickling sexual. It seems to me that Scott is so bogged down with negative emotions that he isn't likely to ever fuction freely again.
I almost laughed out loud when I saw him write the word "I believe tickling is against God's will". That sentence shows just how clearly he is being driven by his own feelings of guilt rather than anything even remotely resembling the holy spirit.
I think God has a lot more evil things to put on his "Against My will" list before he gets to tickling.

Good thread Forgotten, thanks muchly.🙂

 

[The Pianist]

Just a question...

There may have been threads before, but I havn't seen them... but most (all that I've seen) of the threads dealing with tickling and religion seem to involve mostly christians. Also, I've only noticed the presence of christans (myself being one), agnostics, atheist and one buddist.

Is this because there simply arn't a large number of other faiths... or is it because they don't have any problems with tickling? (3rd possibility being that I'm just not paying enough attention)

 

[BigJim]

Not being a member of any major religion, agnostiscism or atheism, I've always included stuff from other faiths when I've written about religion. I've gone into quite a lot of depth about it too.

 

[Deleted member 2452]

let's all remember; jesus was a jew!

another idea; no religion is correct! why? cause religion is man made! it's the height of mans arrogence, that he(we) think we KNOW what god wants!

please, if god didn't want tickling, he wouldn't have made us ticklish. if he didn't want us to have sex, he wouldn't have made it feel good, or would have made "man" like the rest of the animal kingdom, and had "seasons" for mating.

why is it that the "christians" feel it is their duty to preach to us all? i tell you, it chaps my hide at times.
steve

 

[Haltickling]

Like so many other folks here, I'm no follower of any organized religion. I was baptized and raised as a catholic, but I lost my faith when I started to think myself, at about 16. Some teacher tried to prove the existence of God with logic, and I found out that this isn't possible. In discussions with clerics and atheists, I encountered so much proselytizing and enmity that I had to find my own view of the world. It doesn't exclude the existence of a higher being, but it certainly doesn't include the views from organized religions, except a few aspects here and there.

Nevertheless, I highly respect people who are able to BELIEVE. My former wife was an active Christian, and my 2 daughters were brought up the same way. I never tried to talk them out of their religion, on the contrary. All I did was to show them that there are other religions in this world, too, and that they should be respected just as well.

But I don't respect people who shove their brand of religion down other people's throats.

So I applaud your attitude towards faith, ForgottenTickler. I wish all Christians behaved that way.

To Pianist: Christianity has a long history of instilling guilt about all aspects of bodily fun, including sex and related topics (e.g. tickling). So it's small wonder that some Christians consider tickling and faith as contradiction. But I think that there are a lot of open-minded Christians here, too. However, agnostics and atheists may have less of that guilt-ridden mumbo-jumbo on their minds, therefore it's easier for them to discuss such topics.

 

[BigJim]

Re: let's all remember; jesus was a jew!

another idea; no religion is correct! why? cause religion is man made!

Give that man a gold star!!! Agree with you 100% Steve. I see spirituality and religion as mutually exclusive opposites. One liberates, the other imprisons. Anyone who is religious but keeps their mind and conscience free is very admirable.

I think there's more to this deal with Scott than meets the eye. They say there's none so virtous as a reformed *****, but he went totally schizo on this subject. How, why or when he arrived at the conclusion that tickling was against God's will is beyond me, but that's just it. HE arrived at it. God didn't. Yet another sad case of someone being in a low-vibrationary emotion prison because of religion.

 

[dvnc]

Not all are Christians. Some of us are in the none-of-the-above category. There's several other caring folk not covered in the listed religions. No worries, though. No need to have a theology degree to jump into this one, brother. 😉

dvnc

 

[Amnesiac]

NO SPIN

Truth be told, here's the actual two cents I got on religion. Seeing as how this isn't an actual debate thread, there's not point in discussing the ultra-fine points.

I grew up with a very diluted religious backdrop...so when I got older and realized that this whole God deal meant the universe to some people I was concerned; because as crazy as I am on many issues, I felt like the only sane person on others when Christians got involved. After a while, ANY believer gave me that feeling.

At first I tried to be religious...and after 6 weeks of self-inflicted misery via statutory adherence, I basically said "fuck it". And to this day I say "fuck it". If God does exist, he's gonna do whatever the fuck he wants to do and nothing I say or do is gonna change it. I could TRY to be a certain way, but if he could see into my mind, he'd know I was full of shit and that wouldn't work. No good boy points there.

When it came to other people's beliefs, I didn't care if people prayed, stayed home on the Sabbath or held daily flaggellation rituals in their basement; still don't. But when they start having kids, THAT'S when I have a problem. Because to deliberately construct the belief system of another person to mirror your own is insidious to the point I cannot even vocalize: even if I were insane enough to HAVE children, I would do my damndest to keep their minds their own.

How can religious beliefs be "personal" beliefs when your parents have to teach them to you? That's not personal, that's programming!

So overall, I don't care about God. If he doesn't exist, I have nothing to worry about. If he DOES exist, screw him...I don't sign myself over to anybody, I don't care what they're selling.

Last but not least, I think about it like this. Recorded history goes back to 3,500 B.C.E.; primitive descriptions even further. God doesn't show up until 2,100 B.C.E. and when he does, its to a group of desert nomads who don't socialize very much, and who don't exactly have a very pleasant perspective on life. Not exactly the most reliable sources for a beginning. Dramatic, yes, but not reliable.
4,000 years later, we have two major spinoff religions, more rules than we can read in one lifetime, countless holy wars, cultures that oppress women, a laundry list of atrocities and to this day we still mutilate the genitals of small children.

Considering that the old ways used to celibrate belief with food, drink, sex and song instead of austerity, repression and deprivation...for my money it might have been better if God STAYED in that desert.

And so ends what may be the only non-polticial religious post I'll make. Toodles.