Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Then re-read your posts. And read my replies again.
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Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
So because God has not acceded to your demand for proof in growing back limbs you do not believe in Him. Is this where you are hung up?
I think you are operating out of bad faith here.
Atheists are people too.
Although I doubt that with your current outlook, you will make that experience.
Frankly, I don't think you understand much about atheism and atheists.
Whenever one operates out of bad faith, one gets self-fulflling prophecies.
You are the one here who acts as a representative of God.
You are telling people what is in line with God's desires and what isn't.
You are judging their position before God.
That, in principle, places you into a responsible position.
But it appears that you are not willing to take that responsibility.
I am calling you on it.
Here is a book for you to read: Healing spiritual abuse and religious addiction.
Growing back limbs?
I don't believe in god because the claims that he exists have not been shown to have any substance. It's that simple.
And again this isn't related to what I queried...
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
EDIT: Like this? And a lot of like this from the Atheist's mouth?
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What? Is UD not a person?
Replying to bad faith with more bad faith somehow evens things out?
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
You are right. I apologize, I am so embarrassed.What? Is UD not a person?
Replying to bad faith with more bad faith somehow evens things out?
But let me ask you... what do not not agree with?
1. God is absolutely perfect.
2. God is actually infinite in every perfection.
3. God is absolutely simple.
4. There is only One God.
5. The One God is, in the ontological sense, The True God.
6. God possesses an infinite power of cognition.
7. God is absolute Veracity.
8. God is absolutely faithful.
9. God is absolute ontological Goodness in Himself and in relation to others.
10. God is absolute Moral Goodness or Holiness.
11. God is absolute Benignity.
12. God is absolute Beauty
13. God is absolutely immutable.
14. God is eternal.
15. God is immense or absolutely immeasurable.
16. God is everywhere present in created space.
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Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
I'll have to deal with other aspects of these posts later. Good night. :wave:
Thank you for paying attention and calling a bad pitch.
Thank you for paying attention and calling a bad pitch.
Suppositions and pronouncements only get in the way of the search, as they have already been decided by fiat, making for no true search.
as much as i agree with the results of your conclusions,the fact remains that it can apply to ANY group of humans, not just christians.
i think it is more basic than that..i think it has to do with our sense of worth,we establish an idea that gives us personal worth and seek out others who agree that the idea is worthy,enough ppl get together that believe in that idea,then they try to enforce that idea on others, they think they are doing the other person good, whether they like it or not.
so back to your statement of
i would agree 100%,to organize it REQUIRES a definition for God.to define God is to limit him.
i rest my case..
(your argument applies to ANY ppl)
Personally, I do not find any of the statements you listed below to be problematic.
But what can become a tremendous problem is where, when, in what circumstances, and most of all, in relation to whom one agrees with those things.
For example, I am quite sure that if any of my old Christian "friends" asked me about my spirituality and God, I would pretend not to be interested or even pretend to be a hardcore atheist. I just don't trust them and don't feel safe around them. It's not like I can actually tell them that either. As far as I have come to know them, whatever personal insights and convictions I would share, they would just poke holes in them, look for flaws, find a way to demonize me. And I'm not into another round of that.
I have noticed how I lose touch with my convictions once I am under attack by such "well-meaning believers."
Bottomline, talking about God is often actually a very delicate matter and it is very easy to cross personal boundaries, upon which people tend to become defensive and neurotic and irrational and once this happens, it is very difficult to have any kind of reasonable conversation anytime soon.
We are people, not "opportunities for preaching" or "opportunities for religious experiments."
like i said..it is tied to our sense of worth, make them feel worthless (does not have to be intentional,just perceived) and the conversation is over, they will then seek to prove to you that they are not worthless ,meaning they ain't listening anymore to the topic, and focused on arguing that they are right.
case in point..
have you ever had a conversation with someone about your own worth?
pry not because it makes you feel worth-less to talk about it..
(lets not get into being worthless as a comfort zone..)
this is a two edged sword..
we are easily led..(do as your told is easier)
so if you do not want to be an 'opportunity' then either step up or step out..(question your pastor or find another church)
the more ppl that step up and question the pastors the more the pastors will get a clue and start caring about 'thinking for yourself'
your not gonna go to hell just because you pissed a pastor off..
he is human too...
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Religions needn't be mutually exclusive. Many religions make the same or similar claims, differing in some beliefs that are major and others that are minor.
Pascal himself spent a good part of Pensees examining the claims of different major religions around the world. He applied rational principles, and urged others to apply rational principles, when comparing religions. It is true that one might select the wrong religion, but it may be possible to select the right one. One does not sit safely on the fence refusing to choose any religion on the principle that God is going to favor those who refuse to gamble. And that's because you have already gambled ... on the notion that picking no religion is safer than picking the wrong one
K
keith1
Guest
God-belief is just as likely bad for your afterlife health.
After all, it's only proofs are not independently made, and cross-checked.
There is no operation manual for existence.
A sperm gets it right, and enters the kingdom.
The rest (of the sperms) do it wrong, and get rejected.
Natural selection has a louder voice than a god.
After all, it's only proofs are not independently made, and cross-checked.
There is no operation manual for existence.
A sperm gets it right, and enters the kingdom.
The rest (of the sperms) do it wrong, and get rejected.
Natural selection has a louder voice than a god.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
You're assuming that once you choose to wager that God exists, you would go through the rest of your life without genuine faith, without a growing, evolving faith. That position fails to recognize what the wager actually is. The wager doesn't infer that you have a solitary utterance or fleeting thought of believing, and that's it. The wager is to concede that God probably does exist, and then to live out the remainder of your life truly seeking Him. God takes care of the rest. It is your seeking that needs to be genuine. God rewards those who truly seek Him, and promises that you will find Him.
Some "religions" may indeed be about what feels right. But Christianity is about what God has revealed about Himself to us. It is about genuine revelation, about objective truth. Emotional reaction to this revelation is common, but unnecessary for the human will to ascent to it.
Paraphrasing Dr. Peter Kreeft: "If all the religions in the world are like paths on a mountain, and God is on top of the mountain, then why aren't all religions the same? Simple. One path comes down the mountain, all the others go up. Christianity isn't man's word about God...it is God's word about man"
I'm not emo, but I did have such conversations.
Generally, I agree. In fact, I am strongly against the current anti-bullying trends because I think they actually weaken people. And as a matter of private outlook, I think being bullied (in any way) is ultimately good for a person. One has to learn to survive in a dog-eat-dog world and this won't happen with all the pampering of the anti-bullying campaigns.
However, the danger of making such a view public is that many people tend to see it as a call to bullying, to saying "It's not that I hit him too much, it's that his bones are too soft."
And this is certainly not what I intend.
I certainly do not condone being harsh to people in the name of God.
But if someone is being harsh to one in the name of God, one needs to rise above that, for one's own sake, instead of enduring being a victim.
I think it takes quite a bit of experience and confidence to come to that conclusion and to act on it!
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Perhaps they needn't be, but many of them are. The problem with the idea that they are all true to some extent and that it doesn't strictly matter which one you adhere to is that you have to then concede that scripture is not the ultimate authority. Once it's integrity has been called into question you are left with the problem of trying to justify following one teaching at the expense of another in cases where all scripture is not in agreement. Ultimately you're left with a situation where you can't even be compelled to believe that Jesus died for our sins lest you be directly contradicting something like the Qur'an (which has equal claim to being the correct account of God's dealings with and what he expects from us).
Unlike many atheists you might engage on these forums, I've had an inside view of what religion is. I understand what it feels like to believe in God; to have faith that borders on certainty. I used to think that this was something that only God could bestow upon someone since it seemed like such a positive affirmation of his existence; a reward or sorts. That "communion" seemed very real, and the emotional and psychological rewards were easily recognizable. It had to be "something" right?
Of course it was something. We are understandably willing to slip back into the mindset that we had as children, where adults were beings of great power and influence that protected us (or were at least in a perceived position to be able to) both physically and emotionally from the harsh realities of the world. Believing something like that once again brings us comfort and confidence. But what about the obvious benefits of communion (prayer) with God? Essentially no different from writing down your deepest thoughts and fears in a diary, or confiding in a friend who offers a supportive ear. Personally I am lucky enough to have a great bunch of intellectual and open-minded friends and I have come away from many a conversation with a clearer perspective and often a new inspirational outlook. But as previously alluded to, sometimes you already know what you need to hear, or what is at the core of a particular problem, and all that is necessary is for you to say it out loud, or write it down.
Finally, I've witnessed just as many spooky coincidences that I would previously have (at least tentatively) characterized as examples of "divine intervention" since moving beyond my faith in God as compared to when I felt certain that God was real. Often, things just happen, and it is we who attach a significance to them (that is usually consistent with what we already want to believe of course).
Since I now understand something about the psychology behind what people may describe as the tangible benefits of faith, the experience of those benefits no longer has any bearing on the question of the existence of the object of that faith. In other words, faith cannot sustain itself if one realizes that faith itself is evidence of nothing, unless one's rationality is overwhelmed by the emotional need to sustain it.
In the end it does indeed mean that my faith wouldn't be genuine because I would need to sustain it artificially, and I would know that I was doing it.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Rav,
In the end it does indeed mean that my faith wouldn't be genuine because I would need to sustain it artificially, and I would know that I was doing it.
So I suppose, you think everyone who believes in God is delusional?
If that is your attitude, how do you know you are not delusional with a superiority complex?
Perhaps they needn't be, but many of them are. The problem with the idea that they are all true to some extent and that it doesn't strictly matter which one you adhere to is that you have to then concede that scripture is not the ultimate authority.
This is a non-sequitur fallacy. No such concession has to be made.
In the end it does indeed mean that my faith wouldn't be genuine because I would need to sustain it artificially, and I would know that I was doing it.
So I suppose, you think everyone who believes in God is delusional?
If that is your attitude, how do you know you are not delusional with a superiority complex?
Perhaps they needn't be, but many of them are. The problem with the idea that they are all true to some extent and that it doesn't strictly matter which one you adhere to is that you have to then concede that scripture is not the ultimate authority.
This is a non-sequitur fallacy. No such concession has to be made.
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There is a difference between being delusional and believing in God. I'm not one of those atheists who tries to suggest otherwise. Theists could only be classed as delusional if they continued to believe even after if it was proven beyond all reasonable doubt that God does not exist. But since that's not possible, it wouldn't be proper to classify them as such.
I do however think that some theists border on being delusional, but then again, so do some atheists.
We can clear this up pretty quickly with a single example. The Bible teaches that Jesus died for our sins on the cross. The Qur'an teaches that Jesus was definitely not crucified, but was instead taken up to be with Allah. How do you reconcile this rather significant inconsistency with the idea that scripture is an ultimate authority on such matters?