Too tired for that even. But thanks all of you.Okay.
Pleseant dreams.
jan.
Any atheists here who were once believers?
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That's probably because you're so disrespectful.
Bells
Staff member
Probably because twats can't leave us well enough alone and we find solace in the peace of being an atheist. No one is hounding us trying to save us from what they believe in. That's what you don't get. You are trying to save people from what they don't even believe in.
Seriously though, what is it with people's need to interfere in the lives of others, trying to dictate how they live and trying to hide behind this religious wall of belief about how and where they should live their lives and trying to force them to believe, all under the guise of 'saving from damnation'?
Has it failed to escape your notice that as atheists, we don't even believe in damnation, hell, heaven, god or anything else?
Do you have nothing better to do with your time? You don't have families to look after, provide for and care for?
As a former Christian, I formally request that you cease and desist.
All former Christians in this thread have requested the same thing and you can't seem to get it through your skull that we aren't interested in your version of salvation or belief or anything else.
Is it so shocking that we aren't interested and want you to mind your own business and your own life and stop trying to ram your beliefs down our throats because you have an itch to save former Christians from damnation? You're worse than Jehovah's Witnesses. At least when they refuse to move off my property, turning the hose on makes them move faster. You latch on and won't stop or leave.
Please?
Pretty please?
How can I put this so that you understand...
WE DON'T BELIEVE IN DAMNATION, GOD, JESUS, SPIRITS, GUARDIAN ANGELS or anything else connected to what you believe in.
See, I even put it in big letters and in upper caps. So imagine I am screaming this in your face. You know how you used to strangely scream "stop" at Assad. Imagine all of us saying the same thing to you.
STOP!
What the hell, dude!?
Gone elsewhere for what? A dragon slayer?
Her beliefs and her atheism is none of your business.
Possibly because it has nothing to do with you?
Because it's none of your business and she was under no obligation to divulge anything like that to you?
She doesn't believe in anything.
She has said, she doesn't believe in it. What more do you want?
Jesus Mary Joseph..
She said no. She said she didn't believe.
How else can she make her feelings clearer? Smoke signals? Sky writing? Tattooed on your forehead?
What about Orbs?
What I don't understand is why you reply at all to hostile posters and ignore, did not read, or misunderstood me to be one, calling my question "mischievous."
I also think you need to know more about Bishop Berkeley's 300+ year old ideas.
You, he and I share the belief that the "physical laws" exist, many of which modern sciences has discovered, or at least very good approximations of.
In contrast to you and him, I believe they are never violated (no miracles). In agreement with him, but perhaps not fully with you, as I think "I" am completely non-material (not my physical body). This enables "me" to have genuine free will as all material things, certainly the nerves in my body, are controlled by the physical laws. More about that later in references* but first note that self referencing words in quotes refer to my psychological self and not to my body.
You and he agree with zero doubt than God exists and is fundamentally the cause of the physical laws we three agree exist, but I have strong doubts about the existence of your God.
You and I agree that the physical world / the universe / does exists but the good Bishop, with impeccable self consistence and logic thinks, that it does not. For him, all that is an illusion the "great spirit" gives to his "lesser spirit." For him, the illusion seem to be governed by the physical laws, most of the time, so God can work miracles, which are, by definition, violations of the natural laws. If the illusionary universe did not seem to be normally following some set of laws, God could not work miracles.
We three are like customers in the Chinese restaurant with a "belief menu" from which we can chose any two items form to be existing, or not, but all get the free dissert of the Physical Laws.
I have chosen: real universe without any god toping on it and "me" as not a physical part of it - just information being processed mainly in the parietal part of my body's brain.
You have chosen: God and universe exist but miracles do occur (I think. Why I asked you about like sun standing still to be sure with no malicious intent.) with a side order of "yourself" an eternal spirit or soul, not a body, soon to decay.
The good Bishop chose: Nothing material exists, but God (his "greater spirit") and his lesser one, "himself" do exist.
* full version here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...it-an-illusion&p=905778&viewfull=1#post905778
a shorter one here: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2757580&postcount=21
or medium sized: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...-an-illusion&p=2644660&viewfull=1#post2644660
"I'll mention two of the many medical facts supporting this strange POV that "We" are NOT physical bodies; “we” are: "illusion of continuity created by the brain." Or in my own terms, "We" only exist when the Real Time Simulation in parietal bran is executing, creating the world we perceive, our qualia and "us." "We" do not exist when our body is in dreamless sleep.
After a large parietal stroke, one side of their body is not recognized as being part of them. In one case, reported in the literature, the attending doctor picked up their hand, which for them was not their hand and asked: Who´s hand is this? "Yours" was the patient reply. Then the doctor showed his two hands and asked: How can I have three hands? The patient replied: "Because you have three arms."
Quite commonly when patient is first recovering from their stroke in the hospital bed they will call the nurse, and complain that someone´s leg has been left in the bed. It is disgusting! - Please remove it; or in a few cases try to throw their physical leg, which for them is not theirs, out of the bed.
People with "phantom limbs" are the exact opposite case - Their self, constructed in parietal brain, has four normal limbs despite their body having only three. They consciously learn the phantom is not "real" but for them it is real - just as real as their physically existing limbs.
This statement is not based on only their self reports, but also on their automatic (unthinking) behavior. For example, if the phantom arm rigidly extends out from the body, and they are asked to quickly run thru a maze with many narrow doors or passage ways, they automatically twist their body, as you would, to keep their non-existing arm from banging into the side of the door frame, etc. ..."
SUMMARY: "WE" ARE NOT BODIES, but information and there are dozens of confirmed facts supporting this POV from many different fields, even history.
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There are plenty of examples of Christian priests becoming atheists, although your bar maybe set so fuzzily that you may just argue "ah, but they weren't genuine believers to begin with".
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Nontheism and these are just high-profile "converts".
But my own position is that, as soon as I understood the question, I can't say that I believed. Before that it was very much "because my parents/school told me to be".
Most people do, obviously you don't. It's called knowledge.
Your dreams are just neurons firing in your brain randomly while you sleep. Prayer is utterly useless.
Just FYI - You appear to be a stalker who is coming unhinged.
No dude, you have a mental disorder and need to seek professional help. Do it soon and make sure you tell them exactly what you tell us here. They will not say that is normal.
No, your delusions have nothing to do with scientific theories, dude. They're just the rants of a nutter.
I understand that your were a Christian?
Did you believe in God, or did you believe in your idea of God?
jan.
Bells
Staff member
Only if they are gold and hanging delicately from my ears.
These are nice.
They also do
Very feminine and tasteful.
http://www.labyrintherock.com/earring-fuck-off-p26588/
They also do
Very feminine and tasteful.
http://www.labyrintherock.com/earring-fuck-off-p26588/
How about just "factual"? There certainly are plenty of facts given, right?
Just about anything. To narrow it down, you can look to the rules of evidence such as those used in legal proceedings. At some point you decide which evidence is admissible. In temperate judgment, hearsay would not be admissible. Beyond that a judicious mind would admit any competent evidence and dismiss the rest. Next is to weigh the evidence. This largely depends on which facts are corroborated in the evidence that passed the bar, and which are not.
Here we rely on the plain meaning of the word: information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor.
Myths are inherently untrue. Mythology involves the substitution of fantasy for fact, usually because the facts are unknown to the mythmakers, or else they simply can't comprehend certain facts, including the ones that offend their beliefs. For example, it's untrue that the Earth was covered in water or that Noah is the name of the person instructed to build a boat, or that Yahweh was the deity that instructed him to do so. The Bible is full of these myths, and of as many legends and fables. Legends usually have some shard of truth related to some incidental fact (the Jews were captives of a foreign enemy) scattered with evidence that the fact is so poorly narrated (the succession of kings in the era of Cyrus is wrong) that we know the story was not written in at the time the events were taking place, but long after. This leads to the evidence that the representation of prophecy (as in the legend of Daniel), are misrepresentations, if not disingenuous. In any case they are untrue. Fables are another genre which include talking animals (or bushes), flying chariots -- levitation in general -- from which some dramatic emphasis or moral tale arises. They are also untrue.
In common English usage, the mere belief in God is religion. The rest of what you're saying pertains to your reasons for choosing Yahweh/Jesus and/or Brahma/Krishna over Zeus/Heracles, Ea/Marduk, Ra/Horus, El/ Baal or Mithra/Zoroaster . . . or any of countless alternatives.
Bells
Staff member
Tacky..These are nice.
They also do
Very feminine and tasteful.
http://www.labyrintherock.com/earring-fuck-off-p26588/
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
We just have to disagree I guess. Adding "due to insufficient evidence" doesn't imply a belief system in any way. "Due to insufficient evidence" is implied even if not stated. Why else would you think something was true?
Faith means there isn't evidence otherwise you wouldn't have to take it on faith. Having a belief in religion (or God) requires faith to derive "truth".
Not believing doesn't require faith. It isn't deriving "truth" either. It's subjective. I don't "know" that there isn't a God. That would require evidence as well. Subjectively I don't think there is a God.
Regarding whether I came to these conclusion "in a flash" or not or how....it wasn't by joining some group or reading some "manifesto" as you put it. As a kid my family was religious and so I had to go to church and learn whatever there was to learn.
I can't say that I was ever a believer other than in the sense that a young child believes anything that you tell him (Santa, Easter Bunny). When I was old enough to express that I didn't want to go to church (and to have my mother agree to this) that was it.
I had to go to Sunday School until about age 15.
What evidence would be sufficient? The same evidence I would require of anything else that I consider to be real. I don't have any evidence that any supernatural concepts are real including God, ghosts, mind reading, etc.
If God appeared in body form from up in the clouds and said "how's it going?" and made it rain frogs I might start to think "he" was real. It wouldn't take "faith" just as it doesn't take faith to "believe in" the sun. It's just a fact. One doesn't have to strain credulity searching for evidence.
Prayer could be answered in a statistically significant way (but it's not). Evidence could be available but it doesn't seem to be.
The "catch" is that people generally say that God is "transcendent" or supernatural and any evidence of course will not be of the natural world (the world of science). Therefore all of the evidence is not evidence in any meaningful sense of that word.
Evidence in that case just becomes whatever you want it to be...some dream you have, some thought, God is in us, he is everywhere, I can see him as surely as I'm looking at you, etc.
That isn't evidence for unicorns and it isn't evidence for God or anything else.
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