wow, that's impressive.
i used to sit next to the engineering department in a big bullpen type office area, and they kept me entertained all day with their banter. they were hilarious.
Does God make mistakes?
- Thread starter Alan McDougall
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wow, that's impressive.
i used to sit next to the engineering department in a big bullpen type office area, and they kept me entertained all day with their banter. they were hilarious.
It's the hypocrisy of your insane beliefs, Lori. There is meaning behind those words that you clearly have no idea.
Why is that we non-believers know so much more about your bible than the believers?
i use the term christian as 'someone who believes in god and jesus'
its base meaning is 'to be like christ'
so anyone wanting to be like christ, is a christian.
you don't have to be religious to be christian.
2 Corinthians 3:14
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
Christians also believe in the divinity of Jesus. I want to be like Christ too, but that doesn't make me a Christian.
carefull what you ask for..god has a sense of humor...
Fuck God. I hope he strikes me dead right n
But how do you transfer this sort of certainty/confidence in your own perception onto other areas?
For example, if someone doesn't keep their promises and you feel hurt, how do you decide whether that hurt is justified or not, real or not? Or, how do you know it is a reality that God exists?
For example, if someone calls you an idiot, do you believe it, or do you say no. When some people try to convince that there is no God, or that you do not properly understand scriptures, do you accept that and see them as knowing better than you.
Mostly the latter. There is a severe clash between the city and the country culture here.
Admittedly, I have never thought about it this way. I don't know.
It just does ...
Because they seem like that to me.
I am not sure where you are heading with this line of inquiry -?
Do you want to know why I experience someone as "grim", as opposed to "happy"?
House chores, reading, personal organization, sleeping, tv, visiting relatives, internet.
I am afraid to make the wrong decision. I don't know which decision would be the right one.
Officially, it is predominantly Catholic.
One line of the family, most of whose members are by now deceased, were wannabe aristocrats.
The other half, farmers/working class.
Really? And, you know that how?
"Wilder Penfield and Michael Persinger, both of whom have helped show that the brain can be readily and deliberately caused to experience things like well-being or even religious visions. It all centers around the right temporal lobe — the more sensitive a person's temporal lobe is, the more likely they are to report things like visions, mystical experiences, paranormal experiences, communication with God, feeling at one with God, stronger religious beliefs, and more.
Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that such experiences do not have an objective and external reality. It does, however, indicate that there is a biological basis for such experiences and experiments prove that it is very possible to have such experiences through wholly mechanical means. The burden then shifts to believers to explain why their experiences are different and what reason there might be to think that they reflect some external reality rather than simply the chemical process of their brain.
Also of interest is the fact that people with a sensitive right temporal lobe are not only more likely to have stronger religious experiences and beliefs, but they are also much more likely to act on those experiences and beliefs. This isn't a trivial observation because studies have shown a consistent percentage of people, most of whom have had sensitive temporal lobes, are willing to kill if they believe that God wants them to. "
Sure sounds like insanity to me, as defined "Mental derangement".
Dear Q,
I am quite familiar with all you said. But you really did not read what I wrote.
I responded to your idea of 'deciding to be insane.' None of the above has anything to do with deciding. Neurophysiologists are generally determinists, in relation to human behavior, etc. - since they don't consider QM processes relevent on that level - and the idea of choosing to be insane would find little support there. Nor would psychiatrists, except for marginal figures, support your idea of choosing to be insane. But I will back you up if you wish in discussions. just want you to know your idea is not supported, in general, by the camp you probably think you are a part of.
Further I note you have skipped the whole issue of children of atheists being sometimes religious. I'll take this as a tacit acknowledgement on your part you know you are wrong there.
Last, note what I bolded above in your quote. Your own quote supports agnosticism and is not support for derangement. Guess what happens if you stimulate portions of the brain related to olfaction. Or do you believe we only hallucinate smells, that these have nothing to do with the outside world?
Signal,
It has nothing to do with certainty/confidence, it just is.
Certainty/confindence are character traits in relation to other character traits.
That's something I've never knowingly had to contemplate.
From my perspective my endeavour to obtain knowledge would be to find out that God does not exist.
It depends.
Nobody has tried to convince me there is no God.
I don't think such an argument genuinely exists. Does it?
As regard scriptures, yes.
Why?
And which side do you favour?
For one so analytical, this answer surprises me.
Come on, I know you have more to offer.
That's a good place to start.
What type of programmes do you watch on the tv?
Do you feel ok about this position?
So it quite religious?
Is there a decadant side to the major cities?
Wannabe?
jan.
It has nothing to do with certainty/confidence, it just is.
Certainty/confindence are character traits in relation to other character traits.
That's something I've never knowingly had to contemplate.
From my perspective my endeavour to obtain knowledge would be to find out that God does not exist.
It depends.
Nobody has tried to convince me there is no God.
I don't think such an argument genuinely exists. Does it?
As regard scriptures, yes.
Why?
And which side do you favour?
For one so analytical, this answer surprises me.
Come on, I know you have more to offer.
That's a good place to start.
What type of programmes do you watch on the tv?
Do you feel ok about this position?
So it quite religious?
Is there a decadant side to the major cities?
Wannabe?
jan.
Yes, I did, thank you for presenting your personal opinions on subject matter you're not familiar with.
Again, I ask, why did you decide to become insane?
Wow, you mean there are actually small deviations from the norm? Who would have guessed.
Why not? All it states is that the brain can be stimulated to produce the same mental derangement the religious exhibit showing the religious are indeed mentally deranged.
Ah yes, believers speaking for their gods again, knowing what they're gods will think and do. Hilarious.
No Lori, it's because we take the time to read things and you don't.
Hm. Strange then that you responded then with a quote that had nothing to do with deciding to be insane.
Clearly not you.Wow, you mean there are actually small deviations from the norm? Who would have guessed.
Dear me Q, read what you cited yourself, the portion I bolded should help.
Your consdescension and diagnoses will carry more weight if you can respond to what's here rather than posts you imagine. If that is too much of a challenge at the very least you could read your own posts.
I think I will ignore you again for a while.
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Then I don't understand at all.
You must be enlightened or you are either the mind itself, or something of that magnitude.
But how can you separate them from cognition??
Certainty or confidence are a matter of cognition, a matter of being sure of your knowledge of "how things really are". Do you not think so?
Has it never happened to you that you felt hurt by someone's action, but the person insisted that they have done nothing wrong and that you should therefore not feel hurt?
But you do not take upon yourself such an endeavor? Why not?
It depends on what? And if you do believe it, how do you apply it to yourself? What does it mean to you to believe you are an idiot (or whatever else, good or bad someone might call you)?
Ha! Are you for real?!
Then what about all the discussions you have had with atheists here? They have tried to convince you there is no God.
Whether such an argument actually exists is different from people trying to convince others there is no God.
It is a fact that some people believe that there is no God and they want others to believe there is no God.
I wouldn't really know why there is such a clash - although now not so much, it was quite blatant when I was younger; a lot has changed in the last twenty years or so. There is a tendency that city people consider country people to be rednecks - uncivilized and uncultured. Country people tended to be very much reserved and polite around city people, and would not strike back. There is a general stereotype that city people are better people than country people, and both city people and country people had a tendency to believe this.
It was also the country that was quite old-fashioned and Catholic.
The country. Although this by now means the "old country".
And I am a mutt really, I never actually belonged in either the city or the country.
I really don't know for sure. Although I now remembered a study of IQ: The participants were yelled at and called names before taking the test, and they scored lower in comparison to taking the test without previously being yelled at and called names.
So this could suggest that if we connect our (intellectual) abilities with our sense of self, then when this sense of self is threatened, so is our execution of those abilities and we perform poorly.
Another explanation could be that because a person unconsciously mirrors emotions, this negatively affects their performance. Another term is "emotional contagion". Emotions can affect our performance, positively or negatively. When a person has a tendency to pick up the emotions of others, then the person feels whatever the other people feel, without there being any particular intentions or reasons involved. Small children have a phase where they tend to automatically mirror the emotions of those they are close to; typically, if the mother is sad, the child will be sad; if the mother is happy, the child will be happy. Some people retain this into adulthood.
Generally, I would expect that someone who claims to know the Absolute Truth, the "how things really are" would not have the same mood swings and negativity as run-of-the-mill people, but would instead be a lot more calm and composed.
I once witnessed something I felt was quite bizzare: At a meeting, a devotee exclaimed "We sing the holy names and we are happy!" but while he was saying that, he seemed anything but happy to me, he seemed like he was in pain and dissatisfaction; his statement looked more like that of a fired-up politican.
Mostly films or series about people going through rough times, or about demanding interpersonal situations.
Sitcoms, documentaries, comedies, most reality shows, action, thrillers, political stuff or soap operas are boring to me.
Not at all.
Well, that depends by what is meant by "religious".
I never understood why someone who claims to know God and who rests assured that he will inherit eternity in heaven (while the majority of others will burn in hell for all eternity), would need the same intoxications and distractions like run-of-the-mill people.
What do you mean by "decadent"? Do they eat meat, drink alcohol and such? Of course they do.
Yes. They tried to imitate the upper class. Of course, they had neither the money nor the education to qualify for the upper class, but they apparently liked to keep up the appearance of it, in words and manners.
There is something disturbingly revealing in, for example, discovering that the napkins for the dinner table are not freshly washed and have spots while the hostess is full of aristocratic-like manners.
It doesn't in the least help, there is nothing there supporting the claims of the deranged.
Okay. But, you still didn't tell me why you decided to become insane and embrace a psychotic belief system?
That's what I'm trying to find out. How does a self-proclaimed rational person suddenly embrace psychotic beliefs? Were they really rational to begin with?