Dear Believer
by Dan Barker
Dear Believer, — You asked me to consider Christianity as the answer for my life. I have done that. I consider it untrue, repugnant, and harmful.
You expect me to believe Jesus was born of a virgin impregnated by a ghost? Do you believe all the crazy tales of ancient religions? Julius Caesar was reportedly born of a virgin; Roman historian Seutonius said Augustus bodily rose to heaven when he died; and Buddha was supposedly born speaking. You don’t believe all that, do you? Why do you expect me to swallow the fables of Christianity?
I find it incredible that you ask me to believe that the earth was created in six literal days; women come from a man’s rib; a snake, a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; the entire world was flooded, covering the mountains to drown evil; all animal species, millions of them, rode on one boat; language variations stem from the tower of Babel; Moses had a magic wand; the Nile turned to blood; a stick turned into a snake; witches, wizards, and sorcerers really exist; food rained from the sky for 40 years; people were cured by the sight of a brass serpent; the sun stood still to help Joshua win a battle, and it went backward for King Hezekiah; men survived unaided in a fiery furnace; a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall; men followed a star which directed them to a particular house; Jesus walked on water unaided; fish and bread magically multiplied to feed the hungry; water instantly turned into wine; mental illness is caused by demons; a “devil” with wings exists who causes evil; people were healed by stepping into a pool agitated by angels; disembodied voiced spoke from the sky; Jesus vanished and later materialized from thin air; people were healed by Peter’s shadow; angels broke people out of jail; a fiery lake of eternal torment awaits unbelievers under the earth ... while there is life-after-death in a city which is 1,500 miles cubed, with mansions and food, for Christians only.
If you believe these stories, then you are the one with the problem, not me. These myths violate natural law, contradict science, and fail to correspond with reality or logic. If you can’t see that, then you can’t separate truth from fantasy. It doesn’t matter how many people accept delusions inflicted by “holy” men; a widely held lie is still a lie. If you are so gullible, then you are like the child who believes the older brother who says there is a monster in the hallway. But there is nothing to be afraid of; go turn on the light and look for yourself.
If Christianity were simply untrue I would not be too concerned. Santa is untrue, but it is a harmless myth which people outgrow. But Christianity, besides being false, is also abhorrent. It amazes me that you claim to love the god of the bible, a hateful, arrogant, sexist, cruel being who can’t tolerate criticism. I would not want to live in the same neighborhood with such a creature!
The biblical god is a macho male warrior. Though he said “Thou shalt not kill,” he ordered death for all opposition, wholesale drowning and mass exterminations; punishes offspring to the fourth generation (Ex. 20:5); ordered pregnant women and children to be ripped up (Hos. 13:16); demands animal and human blood to appease his angry vanity; is partial to one race of people; judges women to be inferior to men; is a sadist who created a hell to torture unbelievers; created evil (Is. 45:7); discriminated against the handicapped (Lev. 21:18-23); ordered virgins to be kept as spoils of war (Num. 31:15-18, Deut. 21:11-14); spread dung on people’s faces (Mal. 2:3); sent bears to devour 42 children who teased a prophet (II Kings 2:23-24); punishes people with snakes, dogs, dragons, drunkenness, swords, arrows, axes, fire, famine, and infanticide; and said fathers should eat their sons (Ez. 5:10). Is that nice? Would you want to live next door to such a person?
And Jesus is a chip off the old block. He said, “I and my father are one,” and he upheld “every jot and tittle” of the Old Testament law. Mt. 5:18 He preached the same old judgment: vengeance and death, wrath and distress, hell and torture for all nonconformists. He believed in demons, angels and spirits. He never denounced the subjugation of slaves or women. Women were excluded as disciples and as guests at his heavenly table. Except for hell he introduced nothing new to ethics or philosophy. He was disrespectful of his mother and brothers; he said we should hate our parents and desert our families. Mt. 10:35-36, Lk. 14:26 (So much for “Christian family life.”) He denounced anger, but was often angry himself. Mt. 5:22, Mk. 3:5 He called people “fools” (Mt. 23:17,19), “serpents,” and “white sepulchers,” though he warned that such language puts you in danger of hellfire. Mt. 5:22 He said “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword." Mt. 10:34 (So much for “Peace on Earth.”) He irrationally cursed and withered a fig tree for being barren out of season. Mt. 21:19 He mandated burning unbelievers. Jn. 15:6 (The Church has complied with relish.) He stole a horse. Lk. 19:30-33 He told people to cut off hands, feet, eyes and sexual organs. Mt. 5:29-30, 19:12 You want me to accept Jesus, but I think I’ll pick my own friend, thank you.
One of Jesus’s many contradictions was saying good works should be seen, and not seen. Mt. 5:16, 6:1-4 One of his mistakes was saying that the mustard plant has the smallest seed. Mt. 13:31-32 The writers of Matthew and Luke could not even get his genealogy straight, contradicting the Old Testament, and giving Jesus two discrepant lines through Joseph, his non-father!
I also find Christianity to be morally repugnant. The concepts of original sin, depravity, substitutionary forgiveness, intolerance, eternal punishment, and humble worship are all beneath the dignity of intelligent human beings and conflict with the values of kindness and reason. They are barbaric ideas for primitive cultures cowering in fear and ignorance.
Finally, Christianity is harmful. More people have been killed in the name of a god than for any other reason. The Church has a shameful, bloody history of Crusades, Inquisitions, witch-burnings, heresy trials, American colonial intolerance, disrespect of indigenous traditions (such as American Indians), support of slavery, and oppression of women. Modern “fruits” of religion include the Jonestown massacre, the callous fraud of “faith healers,” recent wars and ethnic cleansing, and fighting in Northern Ireland. Religion also poses a danger to mental health, damaging self-respect, personal responsibility, and clarity of thought.
Do you see why I do not respect the biblical message? It is an insulting bag of nonsense. You have every right to torment yourself with such insanity — but leave me out of it. I have better things to do with my life.
Dear Believer, — You asked me to consider Christianity as the answer for my life. I have done that. I consider it untrue, repugnant, and harmful.
You expect me to believe Jesus was born of a virgin impregnated by a ghost? Do you believe all the crazy tales of ancient religions? Julius Caesar was reportedly born of a virgin; Roman historian Seutonius said Augustus bodily rose to heaven when he died; and Buddha was supposedly born speaking. You don’t believe all that, do you? Why do you expect me to swallow the fables of Christianity?
I find it incredible that you ask me to believe that the earth was created in six literal days; women come from a man’s rib; a snake, a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; the entire world was flooded, covering the mountains to drown evil; all animal species, millions of them, rode on one boat; language variations stem from the tower of Babel; Moses had a magic wand; the Nile turned to blood; a stick turned into a snake; witches, wizards, and sorcerers really exist; food rained from the sky for 40 years; people were cured by the sight of a brass serpent; the sun stood still to help Joshua win a battle, and it went backward for King Hezekiah; men survived unaided in a fiery furnace; a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall; men followed a star which directed them to a particular house; Jesus walked on water unaided; fish and bread magically multiplied to feed the hungry; water instantly turned into wine; mental illness is caused by demons; a “devil” with wings exists who causes evil; people were healed by stepping into a pool agitated by angels; disembodied voiced spoke from the sky; Jesus vanished and later materialized from thin air; people were healed by Peter’s shadow; angels broke people out of jail; a fiery lake of eternal torment awaits unbelievers under the earth ... while there is life-after-death in a city which is 1,500 miles cubed, with mansions and food, for Christians only.
If you believe these stories, then you are the one with the problem, not me. These myths violate natural law, contradict science, and fail to correspond with reality or logic. If you can’t see that, then you can’t separate truth from fantasy. It doesn’t matter how many people accept delusions inflicted by “holy” men; a widely held lie is still a lie. If you are so gullible, then you are like the child who believes the older brother who says there is a monster in the hallway. But there is nothing to be afraid of; go turn on the light and look for yourself.
If Christianity were simply untrue I would not be too concerned. Santa is untrue, but it is a harmless myth which people outgrow. But Christianity, besides being false, is also abhorrent. It amazes me that you claim to love the god of the bible, a hateful, arrogant, sexist, cruel being who can’t tolerate criticism. I would not want to live in the same neighborhood with such a creature!
The biblical god is a macho male warrior. Though he said “Thou shalt not kill,” he ordered death for all opposition, wholesale drowning and mass exterminations; punishes offspring to the fourth generation (Ex. 20:5); ordered pregnant women and children to be ripped up (Hos. 13:16); demands animal and human blood to appease his angry vanity; is partial to one race of people; judges women to be inferior to men; is a sadist who created a hell to torture unbelievers; created evil (Is. 45:7); discriminated against the handicapped (Lev. 21:18-23); ordered virgins to be kept as spoils of war (Num. 31:15-18, Deut. 21:11-14); spread dung on people’s faces (Mal. 2:3); sent bears to devour 42 children who teased a prophet (II Kings 2:23-24); punishes people with snakes, dogs, dragons, drunkenness, swords, arrows, axes, fire, famine, and infanticide; and said fathers should eat their sons (Ez. 5:10). Is that nice? Would you want to live next door to such a person?
And Jesus is a chip off the old block. He said, “I and my father are one,” and he upheld “every jot and tittle” of the Old Testament law. Mt. 5:18 He preached the same old judgment: vengeance and death, wrath and distress, hell and torture for all nonconformists. He believed in demons, angels and spirits. He never denounced the subjugation of slaves or women. Women were excluded as disciples and as guests at his heavenly table. Except for hell he introduced nothing new to ethics or philosophy. He was disrespectful of his mother and brothers; he said we should hate our parents and desert our families. Mt. 10:35-36, Lk. 14:26 (So much for “Christian family life.”) He denounced anger, but was often angry himself. Mt. 5:22, Mk. 3:5 He called people “fools” (Mt. 23:17,19), “serpents,” and “white sepulchers,” though he warned that such language puts you in danger of hellfire. Mt. 5:22 He said “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword." Mt. 10:34 (So much for “Peace on Earth.”) He irrationally cursed and withered a fig tree for being barren out of season. Mt. 21:19 He mandated burning unbelievers. Jn. 15:6 (The Church has complied with relish.) He stole a horse. Lk. 19:30-33 He told people to cut off hands, feet, eyes and sexual organs. Mt. 5:29-30, 19:12 You want me to accept Jesus, but I think I’ll pick my own friend, thank you.
One of Jesus’s many contradictions was saying good works should be seen, and not seen. Mt. 5:16, 6:1-4 One of his mistakes was saying that the mustard plant has the smallest seed. Mt. 13:31-32 The writers of Matthew and Luke could not even get his genealogy straight, contradicting the Old Testament, and giving Jesus two discrepant lines through Joseph, his non-father!
I also find Christianity to be morally repugnant. The concepts of original sin, depravity, substitutionary forgiveness, intolerance, eternal punishment, and humble worship are all beneath the dignity of intelligent human beings and conflict with the values of kindness and reason. They are barbaric ideas for primitive cultures cowering in fear and ignorance.
Finally, Christianity is harmful. More people have been killed in the name of a god than for any other reason. The Church has a shameful, bloody history of Crusades, Inquisitions, witch-burnings, heresy trials, American colonial intolerance, disrespect of indigenous traditions (such as American Indians), support of slavery, and oppression of women. Modern “fruits” of religion include the Jonestown massacre, the callous fraud of “faith healers,” recent wars and ethnic cleansing, and fighting in Northern Ireland. Religion also poses a danger to mental health, damaging self-respect, personal responsibility, and clarity of thought.
Do you see why I do not respect the biblical message? It is an insulting bag of nonsense. You have every right to torment yourself with such insanity — but leave me out of it. I have better things to do with my life.
Comments
You didn't strike a chord....you struck out, period. Yes, you, like most of the fundamentalists who stumble in here, have an argument that amounts to "I believe"...oh, and of course, toppped off with a few of the more common apologetic soundbites...i.e..you're mad at God..blah, blah, blah. Nothing new.
So, if I read you correctly underneath all the argumentum ad hominem, (though there is almost nothing left of your "responses" once you take that out)
You called us "skeptics"--I simply pointed out that you are a skeptic too. That's "ad hominem"?
your objection is that the message of Christianity is foolishness to you. Did you know that the Bible says exactly the same thing about itself?
1 Corinthians 1:18 gives the conditions in which this is true; look it up if you're interested.
WHAT "message"? Love Jesus.... or BURN? Uh, been there. BTW, did you know that referencing bilical scripture to us is as useless as a Muslim referencing the Holy Q'ran to you? News flash: It is.
As to who said you have better things to do, your own original post did.
That's funny, I looked for where I specifically said I have better things to do, and I don't see that post...?...? If I did say that, I stand corrected, as I'm not one to defend my oversights in perpetuity = )
Buh-bye, now.
Wow--that is it exactly! I wouldn't have posted again but I'm impressed that you've gone directly to the heart of the matter with these questions. It is not a reductio ad absurdum as you seem to think, but a line of thought that can be made logically consistent by only one thing. When you know what that thing is, you'll know the answer.
(Hint: John 9.)
--Your friendly neighborhood skeptic: Just trying to get you to question your faith! ;-)
Consider some people sensitive to lies, and many of us can look past you being a self-indulged liar, as long as you keep it to yourself.
EMP(ty): "Too bad you folks can be so sensitive;"
Lying isn't a trait I find appealing. Perhaps, you would get a better reception from little children whom don't have enough knowledge to know you are a liar. Oh, that's right, the strategy has been employed by religions for a few thousand years.
EMP(ty): "...we could have a lot of fun if you could take it as well as you can dish it out."
Sorry, most of us are not up to exchanging lies for entertainment. I enjoy exposing liars though, so, if you want to present something you call a universal "truth", then throw it out there.
If you want to compare and contrast lies with other lies, because you find that entertaining and it makes your life more valuable, may I suggest you find your way to a religious web site.
While there, you can witness the hypocrisy of liars calling other people liars.
EMP(ty): "But if I tried your kind of lines on you, you'd doubtless call me intolerant, small-minded and arrogant. Oh well."
If you tried the lines on many here, they would challenge you to support your comment(s). If you could not support your comment(s), you'd be called a liar in the most universal of senses.
Many here were forced as young children/adults to live a life of contradiction - living a lie/life of hypocrisy. It set the stage for many, to seek "truth", in order to rid themselves of contradiction and disharmony.
If you don't have a universal truth, then, don't attempt to propose a "universal" belief system - that's arrogant to say the least.
Completely missing Webmaster's point, EMP is back, and STILL quoting scripture.
EMP, okay, you read somewhere that your Jesus smeared mud in a blind man's eyes, and THEN HE COULD SEE! Okay, fair enough--when your Jesus shows up and smears mud in my eyes, and then I can actually "see" him, then I'll reconvert. I swear on the bible! But until then, you may as well be smearing chicken shit on all of our door handles---in other words, quoting scripture on this EX-christian website is USLESS, and will continute to be uselss, until you, or Jesus himself, provides objective evidence for his supernatural existance.
Your friendly neighborhood skeptic: Just trying to get you to question your faith!
'Finally got the skeptic part right. However, it requires about as much "Faith" to not believe in your Jesus, as it does for you to not believe in Allah. In other words--NONE.
I no longer believe in the myth of Christianity. During the last five years of my Christian delusion I took to voraciously studying history and theology. Instead of just believing because I believed, I decided to do exactly what Jim Arvo suggests on this site: study everything -- find out all sides of the argument.
You are preaching and preaching and preaching, to the choir. Nearly everyone on this site has been a Christian and left the cult. You are railing on us to come to your Jesus, but your Bible clearly says that unless Jesus does the calling, ain't no one coming. He also said no one can take those who are his from his hand. Get it? You're wasting your time. If we were real Christians, then we couldn't leave. If we were never real Christians, then we can't just arbitrarily choose to become real Christians. Jesus does the calling. Jesus does the keeping. That's the gospel of grace. You seem to have a lesser gospel of works. You think people have to do something to receive their salvation. You think your salvation depended on some act on your part.
Now, don't get me wrong. For me, this entire subject is complete nonsense. I am conversant in it, but I disbelieve it. Oh, I'm also somewhat familiar with Greek mythology. I disbelieve that too.
Now, I agree with many of the sentiments of your post. People often talk past each other for the simple reason that they immediately descend into attacks and visceral arguments. Rarely do people with diametrically opposed views on religion offer one another the respect they deserve, at least on discussion boards. As Plato observed, once you leave the realm of respect and reason, and are driven instead by anger, the ensuing dialog is of little value. So, I think we can agree that without civility, we get nowhere. (However, I still maintain that allowing exchristians a forum in which they can vent their frustration serves a legitimate role as well; but that's another issue.)
I disagree quite strongly with some of your other remarks, however, and feel that they ought not go unchallenged. For example, you said "The obvious lack of self-control in these matters would only lead an objective observer to conclude that the anti-Christians here need desperately to adhere to 'Christian' principles in their dealings with others,..."
First, you speak for a hypothetical "objective" observer. Is that a position you can legitimately claim for yourself? Are you not in fact offering an opinion, along with the rest of us? Second, your remark is aimed quite forcefully at a group you refer to as "anti-Christians", which is a label that seems rather unnecessary given that "ex-Christian" would be clearly understood and accepted by all. Moreover, it seems quite arbitrary to me that such a rebuke would be aimed at the exchristians and not the Christian visitors to this site. The Christian visitors here are quite often ill-mannered if not outright belligerent. But an even more disturbing and pervasive tendency is their lack of preparation (and, presumably, their lack of desire) for any kind of meaningful dialog. Let me be specific. The vast majority of Christian visitors here have virtually no idea what positions we hold, why we hold them, or what the purpose of this site is. Very few exhibit any interest at all in learning about our views, and sadly, are not even equipped with the most basic tools of critical thinking. I can provide dozens of examples, but I trust you can observe this for yourself. As one example, I go out of my way to provide direct and honest answers to all questions that are put to me (and often others as well), yet my questions are very frequently ignored (not always, but frequently).
I ask you this: Are you willing to state that it is incumbent upon ALL participants (who wish to enter into a meaningful dialog) to 1) attempt to grasp and fairly characterize the position of the other side, 2) answer questions that are put to them, and 3) refrain from leveling disparaging remarks simply because an opponent holds a different view?
If you can agree to this with no qualifiers, and no suggestion that one set of values or another is the exclusive domain of Christians, then we've taken a step in a positive direction. What say you?
One more remark I must take issue with. You said "Those so hasty to discard the entire Bible (what other conclusion can be drawn?) should first consider that truth can be shown to abound therein,..." This is an excellent example of where fairly characterizing an opposing view would be an enormous step toward having a meaningful dialog. As it stands, your question contains within it the assertion that some of us (who exactly?) are hastily "discarding" the Bible without even considering that it may contain "truth". Do you think that is a fair characterization? Have you not laid the first stone on the path to verbal warfare with that remark? Let me offer this rephrasing for your consideration: "In my opinion, the Bible contains some verifiable truths that ought not be overlooked, such as.... I claim these are verifiable because..." I, for one, would have no quarrel at all with such a statement, as it is offered as an opinion (not absolute truth), it offers something concrete to discuss, and it provides some rationale. In fact, I'd be eager to provide some examples of my own if presented with such an argument.
Just some food for thought. The ball is now in your court.
Objectivity is a difficult position to prove, let alone the concept of “complete objectivity,” (not that you had asserted anyone to be claiming such, but it follows by natural implication) although some significant signs of non-objectivity can more easily be identified. These would include the oversimplification or complete ignorance of the best points present within the opposition’s argument, evasive maneuvering of speech, including indirect or incomplete answering of the questions of the other, strawmen, etc. However, the most telling signs of non-objectivity, or bias, are found in emotionally charged responses to a direct challenge. It shows a deep attachment and self-identification present to the subject matter itself, and thus to disagree with the truthfulness and/ or accuracy of particular points is, to that one who holds them, a direct attack upon the actual inherent worth of that individual. Now, it is evident that no one can escape completely from this connection, especially when dealing with controversial issues, but the more objective observer is able to detach his ego, to large extent, from the concepts that he/ she finds to be most probable. Therefore, based on this criteria, I do consider myself an objective observer regarding this particular issue. I do not, however, based on this criteria, consider almost any of the individuals who have posted comments which I have read here to be objective observers. I have randomly read perhaps thirty or more of these, and certainly enough to provoke my action to reply to what I have observed.
The concept of opinion is still more vague, and in fact, nothing “known” is not an opinion only. True fact is almost certainly incomplete truth at best. For example, it can be argued that there is no such thing as “one.” Such a simple and widely held idea is only an approximate, however close to actuality, and is still not completely accurate. Therefore, maintaining a disposition of humility, especially when engaging another in controversial issues, is most wise. Hence, although there is strong reason to believe that the theology of Christianity is errant, it would be immature and arrogant to take such an absolutist and condescending approach when refuting its concepts. My statement, which you disagreed strongly with, was as follows:
"The obvious lack of self-control in these matters would only lead an objective observer to conclude that the anti-Christians here need desperately to adhere to 'Christian' principles in their dealings with others,..."
After reconsidering my words, and what I have observed here, I still must maintain the conclusion that this is sound advise, and a solid admonition. The label, “ex-Christian,” although much more sensitive to the feelings of those who fall under it, I find to be an inaccurate depiction of the character, at least, of those who have commented here. “Anti-Christian” appears more accurate to me, as the stance taken by these is mostly offensive, antagonistic, that is, and as it is quite active, whereas “ex” is quite passive, I view it to be the more accurate of the two. However, to avoid unnecessary offense, unless it is essential for a particular point to be made to label these as such, I will refrain henceforth from using it, and instead, and at your indirect request, use “ex-Christian.”
Now, I have no objection to believing it is truthful to claim, as you did, that:
“The Christian visitors here are quite often ill-mannered if not outright belligerent. But an even more disturbing and pervasive tendency is their lack of preparation (and, presumably, their lack of desire) for any kind of meaningful dialog.”
However, this does not, as I see it, make my previous comments unjust or inaccurate, simply because I had directed them mostly towards the ex-Christians, although you are right to assert they were arbitrary, that is, within the boundaries of my own judgment I had decided to direct them thus. The reasons for this are several, and were stated in part already in my previous post. Firstly, those who hold to the Christian perspective are on the defensive altogether, and that of the ex-Christian’s, offensive, therefore the greater responsibility lies with the latter to take care as to the psychological implications their words will have upon the former, especially when considering the fact that all of these came from the same background of sorts, and so these ought the more to show the utmost empathy for their opponent’s current state-of-mind. Unfortunately, I have not found such maturity in their words, such maturity which the Bible often advocates, for example, “The servant of our Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle, apt at teaching, patient; with humility correcting those in opposition.” Oh, what inroads would be made into the minds of those who adhere to this faith, and what avoidance of so common a defense mechanism, which naturally springs forth when one’s core beliefs are attacked with proud condescension, if only those who hold a closer semblance to the truth were also wise enough to attain to Socratic humility…
“I ask you this: Are you willing to state that it is incumbent upon ALL participants (who wish to enter into a meaningful dialog) to 1) attempt to grasp and fairly characterize the position of the other side, 2) answer questions that are put to them, and 3) refrain from leveling disparaging remarks simply because an opponent holds a different view? If you can agree to this with no qualifiers, and no suggestion that one set of values or another is the exclusive domain of Christians, then we've taken a step in a positive direction. What say you?”
Instead of going into detail of the arguments which complicate each of these prerequisites, I will only state that, yes, I believe it is incumbent upon all participants, although I would ask, are you implying that these are held more often by the ex-Christians than by the Christians? Let us assume it is true, although I am sure I could argue that it is not, however, even if it is, it is still the responsibility of the teacher to abstain from any form of derision or condescension or harsh, undiplomatic rebuttal of any kind. The Bible admonishes, as well as any authoritative document on argumentation, to seek to bring the other with you towards the truth, to present your ideas and contradictions of the other’s beliefs with temerity and care, and to speak with empathy and compassion, or else give way to one who can. The onus lies altogether with the ex-Christians in this regard.
“One more remark I must take issue with. You said, "Those so hasty to discard the entire Bible (what other conclusion can be drawn?) should first consider that truth can be shown to abound therein,..."…As it stands, your question contains within it the assertion that some of us (who exactly?) are hastily "discarding" the Bible without even considering that it may contain "truth". Do you think that is a fair characterization? Have you not laid the first stone on the path to verbal warfare with that remark?”
I thoroughly understand your position on my statement, although, as asked parenthetically before, what other conclusion can be drawn? I have not seen one position advocated on this site which holds that the Bible does contain some very excellent wisdom, especially regarding human interaction and “balance” in life. If I had, even one, I would not have asserted such. I am left by default to assume that the antagonists here, those who have provoked the entire discussion initially, do not view this book but full of fables and cruelty and contradictions and unethical treatments advocated by God. Truly, cases could and have been made for each of these and more, however, the exclusive treatment of the Bible in this way only reveals an ignorant disposition. Calling this verbal warfare, however, in my opinion is perhaps an exaggeration.
Thank you again for your care, attention, and thorough handling of this discussion! I look forward to reading your reply.
Kind Regards,
Steven
Per the Bible---some Christians think that being anti-gay is "excellent wisdom". Some think that a "flat earth" is "excellent wisdom". Some think that the oppression of women is "excellent wisdom". Some Christians think that telling non-christians that they're going to "burn in hell" is "excellent wisdom".
Case and point---Christians use the Holy Bible to justify their OWN bias/prejudice. They "cherry-pick" the verses that they like, and dismiss or "reconstruct" the verses they don't. As far as "morals", there is no such objective/universal truth in the Holy Bible, or any other religious document, for that matter. The "Golden rule" is common sense; common curtiosy....along with cultural relativity playing a large role. Personally, I don't need to read from a book to know that murder is "wrong", or that treating my neighbor as I wish to be treated is "right". I don't need the bible for "balance" in my life.
Moreover, while most, if not all of us are ex-christian---or if it lets one feel better---"formerly" christian, not all are Atheists. Speaking only for myself, I am Atheist; anti-theist; non-theist...so yeah, that technically makes me "anti-christianity"...not necessarily anti-person who is Christian.
I have no qualms about my non-belief. A Christian is person who has a belief. I may disagree with that belief, but I support their right to believe it. I don't get the same feeling from the other side, though. The president's father says he doesn't know if I should even be considered a citizen of the United States--- more "wisdom"? Well, I find it disturbing. Also, I don't appreciate the implication that because I don't "see" the "good" that another subjectively chooses to see in the bible, that I'm "ignorant".
Thanks.
“Per the Bible---some Christians think that being anti-gay is "excellent wisdom". Some think that a "flat earth" is "excellent wisdom". Some think that the oppression of women is "excellent wisdom". Some Christians think that telling non-christians that they're going to "burn in hell" is "excellent wisdom".”
It seems that by implication, you are attempting to refute the idea (correct me if I am wrong) that the Bible contains excellent wisdom, based upon the biases held by the majority (perhaps arguable) of those who label themselves as “Christian.” It is illogical to do so, and is a common faulty device used in argumentation which ignores the points of another, and instead builds a “strawman” to attack. These statements do nothing to prove my statements about the Bible false and so I must ask you to please try a more direct approach if you desire to do so.
You then stated:
“As far as "morals", there is no such objective/universal truth in the Holy Bible, or any other religious document, for that matter. The "Golden rule" is common sense; common curtiosy....along with cultural relativity playing a large role. Personally, I don't need to read from a book to know that murder is "wrong", or that treating my neighbor as I wish to be treated is "right". I don't need the bible for "balance" in my life.”
Firstly, are you saying by such reasoning that “common sense” and “common courtesy” are not “objective/ universal truth?” It seems an obvious contradiction, and so I must ask you to please clarify your position. Further, my statement that the handling of so delicate a subject matter, and its subject’s mind-set, is often done so here with arrogance and immaturity is not refutable; I could easily cite many instances, as I am sure you realize, and so, the logical conclusion could be drawn that the “golden rule,” which you say is such common sense, and which you also have proven time and again to ignore, is not being applied, and therefore, those who are not applying it are either ignorant of its value, or by choice have decided to discard it as not useful, thus moving backwards from maturity to immaturity, in regard to dealing with the particulars of the discussion of controversial ideas/ beliefs. The concept of balance is another issue, and as I cannot know the details of your life and relationships with others, your personal ambitions, etc., I cannot know whether your statement about not needing the Bible’s wise sayings about such things is accurate or not, and have never stated that I knew. I merely stated that it contained such excellent wisdom, and I am yet to be refuted on it.
“Moreover, while most, if not all of us are ex-christian---or if it lets one feel better---"formerly" christian, not all are Atheists. Speaking only for myself, I am Atheist; anti-theist; non-theist...so yeah, that technically makes me "anti-christianity"...not necessarily anti-person who is Christian.”
Atheism is an altogether different issue, which I am happy to discuss, however I had not inferred anything about it one way or the other. To say that being "anti-Christianity" does not make you "anti-person-who-is-Christian," necessarily, is of course incontestable, however, the choice of speech directed at these Christians says much to the contrary.
“I have no qualms about my non-belief. A Christian is person who has a belief. I may disagree with that belief, but I support their right to believe it. I don't get the same feeling from the other side, though. The president's father says he doesn't know if I should even be considered a citizen of the United States--- more "wisdom"? Well, I find it disturbing. Also, I don't appreciate the implication that because I don't "see" the "good" that another subjectively chooses to see in the bible, that I'm "ignorant".”
I am sure you do not have any qualms about your non-belief, and neither do I, concerning yours, that is. If you supported their right to believe it, and were in actuality as diplomatic as you seem to infer here, then you would not direct such slanderous speech towards them, but instead would show kindness, humility, and empathy in your wording. Concerning the president’s father’s words, which I have not heard myself, but even if assuming he had said them, still does not justify your consistently crude handling of the subject matter, and obvious ill-regard for the psychological state of any religion’s adherents. This, of course, is only a defensive response to your feeling that your position is being attacked by me, and I can appreciate that, as it is in fact, as you have shown yourself to be without care for aiding others into a closer semblance of the truth, but instead only railing them for their biased views, and therefore do more to harm the cause of truth and constructive dialogue, than you do to support it, and further, aid in closing the channels of oconversation which may be beginning within the minds of fundamentalist religious adherents. Lastly, your decision to ignore any wisdom which the Bible may contain, but choose not to ignore the faults therein, and instead to actively seek them out, does in fact make you yourself “ignorant.” Whether you appreciate this or not is of little concern to me, especially when considering your rude treatment of others.
Moving on---we're discussing whether there is objective truth in the "bible"--- NOT whether you "think" boomslang follows it, or not....so, it seems that in that regard, you attack a "strawman". BTW, is there no "truth" in what I say, simply because you personally don't like my demeanor and/or debate ethic? I hope not, because you just accused me of doing the same regarding the "wisdom" in the bible. The difference is---is there are no "conditions" attached to my Atheism and/or debate ethic; you won't "burn in hellfire" for not adopting Atheism. Furthermore, as one poster said--you can skip over whatever you so choose.
Back to the subject--- because Steven finds verses in the bible that he thinks are "wise", it doesn't mean that everyone finds them equally wise, and even IF we did all agree, it doesn't negate the stuff that is not-so-wise...stuff like killing all non-believers, hating your parents, dashing little kids against rocks, and that vegetation speaks the human language.
So, my point was, again, that the bible--and all other religious documentation--is purely subjective. Face it, we have opposing worldviews, so let's try and stick to the facts.
Thanks.
“You are correct that the Bible contains truth and wisdom, but because it contains some truth, it does not necessarily follow that it is all truth. We have no scientific evidence to corroborate a Biblical worldview (personal psychological events are not adequate evidence,) and dismissing science altogether is convenient but not very convincing.”
I am happy to see that you agree with my assertion that the Bible contains truth and wisdom, simply because it is easy to construct evidence for this assertion, and this tells me that you are not, at least in this regard, a biased individual. However, it appears you are suggesting that because I view it to contain such, like you, then I therefore am extending perfection to it. Reading through the entirety of my posts above would correct this error of presumption all on its own, and I encourage you to please do so, especially before casting such a judgment, however indirectly you did it. Now, I agree that there are portions of the Bible that are scientifically inaccurate and should be discarded, however, when you suggest there is no scientific evidence to corroborate a “Biblical worldview,” you are mistaken. A “worldview” is simply a way in which you view the world to be, and to have come about the conclusion that design is inherent in DNA and the laws of nature, based upon perception and the concept of there existing a Creator, is fully in line with scientific evidence. There is no scientific evidence to support the rejection of this idea, so why should the Christian not hold to it? Especially when considering that there is less “evidence” to support the idea of atheism. I had in no way advocated, or even implied, the dismissal of science in any way. Of course it is then not “convenient” for me to have done what I never did. On what, then, do you base your assertion?
Concerning the rest of what you wrote, I agree, however, I do not see how it applies to this discussion on the manner and stance that one should take when contending with a religious adherent. Are you suggesting that because of the difficulty, which lies in their irrationality, then it is therefore acceptable to attack them through condescending discourse? I hope not.
Boomslang, thank you for replying. Yes, I am that same person, and no, I am not a Christian, and am quite surprised by your insistence that I might be, based on the false assumption that I am defending the faith of Christianity, especially when considering the statements I have already made on the injustice and scientific error found in certain of the Bible’s passages. It seems to me that your bias against this faith is affecting how you view anyone who finds truth in much of its foundational writings. As I have stated before in the post you are referring to, my beliefs, as I have tested and weighed the various philosophical arguments and scientific evidence regarding this topic, fall most closely in line with deism. In fact, I do not know of one instant wherein I defended the religion known as Christianity. Perhaps you could show me when I did this?
“Moving on---we're discussing whether there is objective truth in the "bible"--- NOT whether you "think" boomslang follows it, or not....so, it seems that in that regard, you attack a "strawman".”
Your insistence on diversion is striking. Firstly, we were discussing the presence of a “reverse-bias” of sorts found in the writings of most ex-Christians here, which I believe to be highly counter-productive. Secondly, I had made a clear statement which was not building a “strawman” at all, which was:
“Thank you, Boomslang, for taking some time to reply. You stated:
“Per the Bible---some Christians think that being anti-gay is "excellent wisdom". Some think that a "flat earth" is "excellent wisdom". Some think that the oppression of women is "excellent wisdom". Some Christians think that telling non-christians that they're going to "burn in hell" is "excellent wisdom".”
It seems that by implication, you are attempting to refute the idea (correct me if I am wrong) that the Bible contains excellent wisdom, based upon the biases held by the majority (perhaps arguable) of those who label themselves as “Christian.” It is illogical to do so, and is a common faulty device used in argumentation which ignores the points of another, and instead builds a “strawman” to attack. These statements do nothing to prove my statements about the Bible false and so I must ask you to please try a more direct approach if you desire to do so.”
To this, I am still awaiting a direct reply.
“BTW, is there no "truth" in what I say, simply because you personally don't like my demeanor and/or debate ethic? I hope not, because you just accused me of doing the same regarding the "wisdom" in the bible. The difference is---is there are no "conditions" attached to my Atheism and/or debate ethic; you won't "burn in hellfire" for not adopting Atheism. Furthermore, as one poster said--you can skip over whatever you so choose.”
Of course, I had never suggested there is no truth in what you or others here have said, and in fact, and a point to which you seemingly have given no attention, I have concurred with the points made by ex-Christian here repeated times. Concerning whether or not I accused you of rejecting there being wisdom in the Bible, I will simply quote your words: “there is no such objective/universal truth in the Holy Bible, or any other religious document, for that matter.
“Back to the subject--- because Steven finds verses in the bible that he thinks are "wise", it doesn't mean that everyone finds them equally wise, and even IF we did all agree, it doesn't negate the stuff that is not-so-wise...stuff like killing all non-believers, hating your parents, dashing little kids against rocks, and that vegetation speaks the human language.”
Of course, once again, I had never suggested anything of the sort, and I am truly in wonder as to how you concluded that this was what I had asserted. It seems to me that the one who is dodging the points and creating diversion is only you. Furthermore, you grossly misrepresented what the Bible condones in such a statement. Where does it advocate killing all non-believers? Or where can you prove Jesus was saying to “hate your parents,” and instead, and according to another excerpt from that passage in a different gospel, he was not using a common euphemism, and so never condoned hatred of any kind? When did Christian theology ever condone dashing children against rocks? And that vegetation speaks human language? These are taken from passages which clearly express an altogether different connotation when read in context, and so you are quite wrong, and in addition to not being factual, you only prove further my statement that you and others here are acting out of anger and a reverse-bias, instead of clear logic and reason, combined with empathy. The latter would serve much better for all.
“So, my point was, again, that the bible--and all other religious documentation--is purely subjective. Face it, we have opposing worldviews, so let's try and stick to the facts.”
Such a sweeping generalization can only be described as ignorance. The “facts” are the only things I am eager to adhere to, for sure, and by saying what you have above, you are clearly asserting that I continually, and apparently, quite exhaustingly and irritatingly to your own temperament, drift out of fact and into fiction. Now, I must ask you, please state clearly where and how I have done so. Furthermore, I take contention with the idea that all religious documentation is purely subjective, as it very often describes the best pathway to peace and understanding in interpersonal relationships. How is this subjective? I am looking forward to your reply.
Steven
Steven,
"Insistence" that "I might be"??? Isn't that a contradiction?.... "Insistance"/"might be"? Nonetheless, I am not "insisting" that you are Christian--please don't put words in my mouth from now on, okay? Thanks. I said that you sure are "defending" the Holy Bible, which is the doctrine, of Christianity, in which case, it seems odd, for someone who is "not Christian". Am I way off in left field because I do so? I don't think so. Nonetheless, if you are "not a Christian", then why do you even care if there is "wisdom" in the bible? Steven....WHAT is your underlying point? THAT is a "direct" question. Shit, we can arbitrarily find "wisdom" in the Holy "Q'ran too, if we look hard enough---so why aren't you defending the passages in that Holy book, too? Also, please refrain from saying "correct me if I'm wrong"..it's annoying....and actually, YOU are annoying, but this has nothing to do with my worldview = )
Steven, in your argument, you are no different than any fundamentalist who strolls in here. Actually, if your argument is any different from any Christian argument----what IS the difference, other than your insistance that you are in fact NOT Christian?
Steven said: "There is wisdom in the Bible". So?...is that it? I'm sorry, but I'm sticking to the facts, which you seem to not want to do. So AGAIN...my point is that the Holy Bible, whether it contains "bits" of wisdom, or not, is purely subjective.
It seems to me that the one who is dodging the points and creating diversion is only you. Furthermore, you grossly misrepresented what the Bible condones in such a statement. Where does it advocate killing all non-believers?
"Gross misrepresentation": And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn [you] away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
Deu 13:6 ¶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
Deu 13:7 [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth;
Deu 13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
Deu 13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
Deu 13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Steven, there it is, in plain language.....all that "wisdom". Oh, let me guess...I'm taking it "out of context", right? Yeah, sure...we know the song and dance.
But you're not a Christian anyway, so what does it matter, right?
Or where can you prove Jesus was saying to “hate your parents,”
Um, I'm using the same exact reference to "prove" Jesus said what he said, as YOU use to "prove" he said he said. The "Holy Bible". All that "wisdom"?...remember?
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
How will you spin it, Steven? Waiting.
Furthermore, I take contention with the idea that all religious documentation is purely subjective, as it very often describes the best pathway to peace and understanding in interpersonal relationships.
Then why is that no two "religions" see eye-to-eye on "peace and understanding"? Are people killing each other as we f%cking speak, because there is "peace and understanding" between them? Get real Steven. Religious belief IS subjective...get over yourself.
Psalms 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Steves spin, I said the Christian religion, not the Jewish religion, OT!
“I am not "insisting" that you are Christian--please don't put words in my mouth from now on, okay? Thanks. I said that you sure are "defending" the Holy Bible, which is the doctrine, of Christianity, in which case, it seems odd, for someone who is "not Christian". Am I way off in left field because I do so? I don't think so. Nonetheless, if you are "not a Christian", then why do you even care if there is "wisdom" in the bible? Steven....WHAT is your underlying point? THAT is a "direct" question.”
I must mention something here, and that something may offend you. I am sure you are surprised. But, by your choices of wording I can tell two things. At least, they are almost certain to me. One, you are a woman, and two, you have a strong bend towards feminism. Am I accurate? Now, does this mean that I, being a man, am somehow superior to you? No. But does it mean perhaps that you, being a woman, and able to reach a deeper level of compassion than most men, should be superior to me in extending that compassion towards those Christians with whom you are disputing? I would think, definitely. Now, you may be calling me some very negative names right now, and I suppose our culture even requires you to do so, but is it rational and within the bounds of reason, or have you not trumped good reason with emotion? I must conclude that this happens frequently in your posts, at least the ones I have read. Your use of italics, all caps, quotes when uncalled for, and bold print appear nearly hysterical, and I fear for you, whether or not I am giving you a migraine. But to answer your above questions directly (something you have done almost not at all), I “care” to assert that there is wisdom in the Bible in response to the obvious perception that this book is very much hated by most ex-Christians here. As I have said before, no one here is bothering to show the positive aspects of Christianity, nor the very many passages in the Bible that exude excellent wisdom, but instead are painted it black entirely. If someone is to contend with a particular point of view, they ought to do so objectively, and be willing and able to accept that the point of view they disagree with will almost certainly have good points and logical conclusions found within it, otherwise it would have no or very few adherents. I have yet to see this done here, and can therefore claim accurately that willing ignorance and an emotional furor occupy those person’s motivations, instead of a drive to bring the ill-informed, the deceived, closer to the truth. The idea to consistently attack is foolish and counter-productive. That is why, because it is obviously completely overlooked by those anti-Christians here.
“Shit, we can arbitrarily find "wisdom" in the Holy "Q'ran too, if we look hard enough---so why aren't you defending the passages in that Holy book, too?”
Actually, I would be if this were an “ex-Moslem” site, and there was the same overarching negative sentiment and absolutist mentality regarding the Qur’an like that which I have found to be in abundance here concerning the Bible.
“Also, please refrain from saying "correct me if I'm wrong"..it's annoying...”
As you request. Of course, annoying you is only a very minor part of my motivation in responding to your writes.
“Steven, in your argument, you are no different than any fundamentalist who strolls in here. Actually, if your argument is any different from any Christian argument----what IS the difference, other than your insistance that you are in fact NOT Christian?”
I believe this is quite unfair and oversimplifying both who I am and what I consider “truth.” Especially in contradiction to your opinion are the statements I have already made which show that I agree to the various flaws present in the Bible. I do not believe it is inerrant, nor do I believe that any part of it which can be shown to be false or unjust is inspired by God. However, I do believe truth is in unity with God’s design, and therefore to find truth is to find an aspect of God. Hence, because I find many parts of the Bible to be in accordance with principles of truth, I also view these portions to be in line with how God has brought to us the conceptualization of a functional system. This means not that God Himself had inspired the writers of the Bible, but that they discovered portions of truth, and large portions at that, which convey high ideas and wise paths, intended by God to be realized and applied by man through the natural process of societal evolution. Lastly, if you state that I am no different than any other fundamentalist who “strolls in here,” which of course is simply an erroneous, emotionally changed sentiment, then you should be happy to present me with the verification of such a claim. Please show me how I am “no different,” as I have all along shown many ways in which I am different.
“Steven said: "There is wisdom in the Bible". So?...is that it? I'm sorry, but I'm sticking to the facts, which you seem to not want to do. So AGAIN...my point is that the Holy Bible, whether it contains "bits" of wisdom, or not, is purely subjective.”
Perhaps my confusion is coming from my concept of what is meant by “subjective.” For one, this term to me means, “not objective.” Now, before you stated that what wisdom the Bible does have is mere “common sense,” and so, do you see common sense as not being objective? I think your point is that you hate the Bible, and wish you could burn every one and erase its trace from any mind that may hold its semblance. If you do not, then why? It can only be because you agree with me, that it has, with its errors (similar to that found in The Iliad), a wealth of wisdom profitable for humanity.
Regarding your quotations, the first group found in Deut. 13 say nothing of “killing all unbelievers,” which is exactly what you asserted the Bible purported. It does not, and neither do these verses.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
See now this same quotation stated differently in another gospel:
“He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matt. 10:37)
The idea that any Christian will say is being presented here is not hatred (which, as I said before, was a common idiom), but rather having a greater love for anything or anyone than Christ. Every other teaching in the Bible eschews the idea of hating your family, and so to assume that this is anything other than an idiomatic expression is groundless.
“…why is that no two "religions" see eye-to-eye on "peace and understanding"? Are people killing each other as we f%cking speak, because there is "peace and understanding" between them? Get real Steven. Religious belief IS subjective...get over yourself.”
How, may I ask, should I proceed with “getting over myself?” It is an interesting idea. However, your other comments are unfortunately another diversion. I am not so sure it would be of benefit to show you, again, how you are doing this and why it is counter-productive, misses the mark, and only displays ignorance… The idea that all religion is purely subjective because a vast—a very vast minority are engaging in warfare or actual fighting of some kind over it, is a grossly illogical conclusion. As far as seeing eye to eye on “peace and understanding,” particularly regarding interpersonal relationships, and the wisdom of balance, they usually flow quite harmoniously. The various teachings on respecting the elder, loving the stranger, helping the less fortunate, eschewing vain ambitions, seeking the benefit of the whole, loving your family, showing the utmost faithfulness and respect for the covenants and promises you make, are found in every major faith, and are the most consistent teachings directed towards its adherents.
To Bentley, I am aware of this quotation, however it does not in any way advocate such behavior, but states that those who do this which has already been done to the Hebrews by the Babylonians will be blessed, happy, in that they will have wrought justice. It does not advocate randomly committing such acts, not even against her enemies. Do I agree with such sentiments? Certainly not, however, this does not paint the whole book black for me. And by the way, I said the Christian religion, not the Jewish religion.
In some instances that is clearly so, but an emotional response does not necessarily imply a lack of reasoning or objectivity. It is sometimes a sign of pure irritation at having been asked the same question so many times, or having been asked a "complex question" that contains one or more unfounded assertions, or a question whose very phrasing exhibits deep hostility. In fact, there are many reasons that one may react emotionally to a question, only one of which is that one feels threatened, so I think it's misleading to say that it is the "most telling" sign.
Steven: "...based on this criteria, I do consider myself an objective observer regarding this particular issue."
I think that is very far from being the case, for reasons I cite below.
Steven: "...I do not, however, based on this criteria, consider almost any of the individuals who have posted comments which I have read here to be objective observers. I have randomly read perhaps thirty or more of these,..."
That's a very small sample. This thread alone has hundreds of posts, and there are hundreds of threads. Furthermore, I really don't think you're in a position to judge the level of objectivity in anybody's post.
Steven: "The concept of opinion is still more vague,..."
I don't think it's vague at all. On opinion is a belief with support that is tenuous, or not well formulated, or not easy to articulate. If the belief is backed by sound evidence and/or rigorous reasoning, it may then be referred to as "knowledge".
Steven: "...although there is strong reason to believe that the theology of Christianity is errant, it would be immature and arrogant to take such an absolutist and condescending approach when refuting its concepts."
There's a lot of emotionally charged language in that sentence, and I simply cannot agree with it as stated. If there is "strong reason to believe" something errant, then stating those reasons and taking a position is warranted. I'm not sure where the "absolutism" or "condescension" comes into this; it seems you are asserting something else in addition to providing evidence and taking a position. (But I do not follow you.)
Let's be concrete. I assert that the Bible is filled with mythical motifs, some very likely adapted from more ancient religions (e.g. slaughter of the innocents, turning water into wine, human-divine unions). It also contains copyist errors, copyist redactions, midrash, forgeries, and interpolations. Each of these I can support with rational argument. I think they are sufficiently established that it is rational to use them as premises in a larger argument, such as asserting that the Bible is not the inerrant word of anyone, let alone an omnipotent being. Is that being absolutist or condescending?
I have said numerous times, in many threads here, that the Bible also contains some superlative poetry, and some outstanding wisdom; one of my personal favorites is Matthew 7:5: "...First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye." I truly wish that more people would heed that advice. However, the passages I find to be of value are of no use to me when I wish to explain why I do not believe the Bible to be inerrant, or the inspired "word of god," which is a common topic around here. In fact, I'd wager that that is the number one reason that the valuable grains of wisdom in the Bible are not discussed much here; they simply serve no purpose in most discussions. As Thomas Paine said, those passages are as pearls in dung. If the point one is trying to make is that the Bible exudes an unpleasant odor (metaphorically), then one points to the dung, not the pearls.
Steven: "After reconsidering my words, and what I have observed here, I still must maintain the conclusion that this is sound advise, and a solid admonition."
But you completely evaded my criticism, which was that your remark was inexplicably one-sided, and therefore misleading. In addition to that, you've chosen very inflammatory language to raise your objection, as you have done on a number of occasions. There is no need to label it as a "lack of self-control" (which is merely a conjecture on your part anyway), you needn't have used the prefix "anti-", and there is little justification to label the principles as "Christian," as the golden rule, for example, long predates Christianity and is not its sole property. These are all unnecessary and inflammatory barbs that add nothing to your argument. Despite all your overt calls for decorum, it seems you too are given to hurling unwarranted accusations and thinly veiled insults.
Steven: "“Anti-Christian” appears more accurate to me,...."
That speaks to a mental state that you are not privy to, and it conflates opposing a philosophical position (Christianity) with opposing its adherents (Christians).
Steven: "...as the stance taken by these is mostly offensive, antagonistic, that is, and as it is quite active, whereas “ex” is quite passive,..."
The point that you seem to continually miss is that the Christians who draw fire here are the ones who COME TO THIS SITE, which has the name "ExChristian", and feel it's appropriate to proselytize, often without any attempt to understand the positions taken here or the purpose of the site. (As I've stated before.) I see that as being rude, as do many of the regulars here. Yes, there is quite a bit of antagonism exhibited when such a person posts here. I have tried many different srtategies in dealing with such posters and, frankly, nothing seems to get through to them. I support the right of people to adhere to whatever religion they wish; but I also exert my right to voice my disagreement, especially at a site like this, which is expressly set up for like-minded folks who have deliberately left Christianity. More on this point below.
Steven: "...those who hold to the Christian perspective are on the defensive altogether, and that of the ex-Christian’s, offensive,..."
If by "defensive" you mean that they have the burden of proof, then to a first approximation you are correct.The Christians assert the truth of their doctrine; being a positive claim, they bear the initial burden of proof. But you go on to say that "the greater responsibility lies with the latter [non-Christians] to take care as to the psychological implications their words will have upon the former [Christians],..." which is clearly asserting something well beyond the burden of proof. Here I partly agree with your conclusion, but strongly disagree with your reasoning. I do not think I bear any responsibility for someone's mental state simply because they hold a belief about which I an skeptical, which they find disturbing.
If someone claims that we will be invaded by aliens at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning, am I obliged to treat their claim gingerly so as not to upset them? (Indeed I might, but that's another issue.) If they further assert that we must immediately summon the police and the national guard, am I not acting responsibly to place the needs of the community above any psychological inconvenience caused to the person? This is all the more so if the claim is not backed by credible evidence, or has been asserted time and again by the same individual, or the person has been shown ad nauseum why their claim is specious, etc.
So, it seems to me, your statement above is granting some special status to Christians; and to some extent, I will even agree with that for the following reason: Christianity is generally not a self-contained belief, but an all-consuming one. That is, it tends to influence a wide spectrum of thinking, dictates the company one keeps, and is well-known to be a deeply emotional state of mind. Attacking one's religious convictions is therefore likely to be far more upsetting than, say, attacking one's political opinions or taste in art.
For this reason, when a Christian posts here in a manner that is reasonably polite, and they show the slightest interest in actually discussing rather than proselytizing, I go out of my way to be polite in return. To me, that is an opportunity to glimpse another world view, and possibly to learn something. It's also a way to lessen the divide that separates the religious and the non-religious. However, my patience has often been worn thin, and the limits of my tolerance tested by people who simply cannot grant that decent people might disagree with them on matters of theology. In those cases, I feel no compunction in being less polite.
Steven: "Instead of going into detail [about my list of three principles to adhere to] of the arguments which complicate each of these prerequisites, I will only state that, yes, I believe it is incumbent upon all participants, although I would ask, are you implying that these are held more often by the ex-Christians than by the Christians?"
I chose the three least controversial guidelines I could imagine, thinking that you would be quite willing to affirm them. So I'm rather surprised that you think there are any "complicating" factors. Are there cases in which one need not attempt to understand what the other side is saying, or need not fairly characterize it? Please enlighten me. As for whether these principles are adhered to more by non-Christians than Christians, I did not imply one way or the other. As for the general question, I prefer not to extrapolate so extravagantly from my own limited experience. When it comes to visitors to this site, however, then I would say absolutely, the regulars here are far more apt to follow the at least the first two principles I listed (i.e. understanding the opponent's position, and answering questions). I will not hazard a guess as to who is more likely to first level insults, because there is a lot of that going in both directions.
Steven: "I thoroughly understand your position on my statement, although, as asked parenthetically before, what other conclusion can be drawn?"
I can't help but ask "Is that a trick question?" Put plainly, your sweeping conclusion about people here being hasty in dismissing everything in the Bible is unwarranted, so you needn't draw it at all. If you were really interested in whether that was true (rather than casting aspersions), you could have tried posing the question "Do you believe everything in the Bible is wrong?" I, for one, would have quickly answered "No." Even if you did not wish to pose that question, for some reason, I don't see how you can make the inference that you did based on what people have written here. First, the "hasty" part of your assertion is absurd on the face of it. Do you realize how many years people here have invested in earnestly studying and believing in the Bible? Many decades in some cases. Secondly, no matter how many errors people point out, it does not imply that they think everything is an error. That generalization is blatantly fallacious.
Steven: "I have not seen one position advocated on this site which holds that the Bible does contain some very excellent wisdom..."
Then you've not looked very hard. And even if it were true that no such statements are posted here, it still does not follow that we have dismissed everything, hastily or otherwise.
Steven to BoomSLANG: "...you have shown yourself to be without care for aiding others into a closer semblance of the truth, but instead only railing them for their biased views, and therefore do more to harm the cause of truth and constructive dialogue..."
That's extremely presumptuous of you, and even rude. How can you possibly claim that BoomSLANG does not care about helping others to gain a better understanding? Please explain your reasoning. Is it based on one or two posts? If so, that alone is grounds for dismissing your comment as nothing but an unwarranted ad hominem attack. Such a hasty and inflammatory assertion is not a sign of "objectivity", by the way.
Steven to BoomSLANG: "...your decision to ignore any wisdom which the Bible may contain,..."
That again is fallacious, not only because you have NO IDEA what decisions BoomSLANG has or has not made regarding this, but because, once again, focusing on the errors does not imply that everything is an error. Finally, your quip about BoomSLANG being "ignorant" is more inflammatory rhetoric based on absolutely nothing.
In summary, there is very little we agree upon, even (apparently) some very basic guidelines for how to conduct a civil and meaningful discussion. Frankly, I'm extremely put off by your thinly-veiled attacks; I see them as being no more honorable than blatant name-calling. In fact, in some ways I find it more loathsome, as it purports to be something it is not; i.e. civil. Finally, I see no reason to think you are any more objective than anybody else here; your assertion that you are seems to be contradicted at every turn.
(My apologies to all for the length of this post, despite leaving out many quotes that would have made it more self-contained. I've attempted to be less longwinded than others here, but unsuccessfully.)
Therefore in your mind, you're satisfied that you have a declaration of superior knowledge that only you can decipher and justify as being your wisdom.
Much as you try to appear superiorly intelligent, above a Christian, you come off as a Hell scared little Christian Choir Boy, this makes all Christians predictable to their premeditated apololgetic answers.
And thanks for unknowingly proving my point!
My only comment or question to Steven would be, "What's the point?"
What message are you trying to get across, Steven? Succinct transparency generally expedites discussion, whatever the topic.
Yeah, I readily admit I need some work in the patience dept. Hmmm......maybe I'll submit my anti-testimony?....yeah, yeah... so that way I can just refer Christians...or wait, so that way I can refer *pro-Christian-doctrine people who are non-Christian to my anti-testimony whenever they come in here and try to lovingly win me back to the Holy Bible.
Gosh, I'm feeling a bit timid right now---but if I might be so bold as to ask---wouldn't it be erroneous to think of an alleged universal/objective Truth™ as only partially true?(this is a question to anybody, BTW) Nonetheless, even considering my "ignorance" and whatever "bias" I may have---I think it would be erroneous to think that way. I mean, we're talking about a document "inspired" by an "all-knowing", "omnipresent", and "just" being. And just to be crystal clear---I certainly hope no one gets this confused with me saying that because not all of said Holy document is "truth", that people can't subjectively find things that are good and apply it to humanity. I'm saying that not even Christians can agree on what verses are "wisdom", and which are not, so why should we even begin to think of said document as a universal Truth™? In conjunction with that---I'm also saying that whatever "wisdom" can be found and agreed upon, is very basic and is no astonishing disclosure to humanity. Thanks for listening.
*whoops!...I didn't ask for permission to use "bold", I hope I haven't upset the gods. lol
Thank you again, Jim, for your careful and complete reply. For the purpose of saving time and space (of course, perhaps this is scientifically impossible), I would like to summarize each point you had made as point 1, 2, etc. instead of pasting its entirety.
Point 1: I agree with your assertions, however where bias is perceived in any response, there is always found with it, an emotionally charged sentiment. These are not found to ever be inseparable when examining the arguments of those who hold to one biased view or another, and especially those who hold to a religious system, as you assert. Therefore, when confronted with this, it is logical to conclude some form of bias, even if only in that moment of impatience. And yes, I still assert this to be a “most telling sign.”
Point 2: An objective observer could also be one who neither holds to one or the other views of two conflicting parties, and therefore can assess the facts more easily than one who does. As I do not have any negative sentiments towards those who uphold or repudiate Christianity, nor regarding the tenants found within the system itself (however illogical many of them are), and because I neither can label myself among the “ex-Christians,” nor among the “Christians,” I have decided myself most likely to be the more objective in my stance concerning these issues. I suppose you may regard this as impropriety, to which I can only offer the sentiment that I sincerely hope not. Although, it is true that at one point in my life I had viewed the Christian religion to offer the most logical worldview, it did not last so very long, and I harbor no feelings of resentment at all for it.
Point 3: Concerning whether or not I had grounds for basing my conclusion on some 30 replies made by various ex-Christians here, instead of on, I assume you would think, hundreds, is neither here nor there. The point is that those so accused should have provided ample proof to the contrary, but instead attacked me for what they thought I was promulgating, namely Christian theology. Furthermore, now that I have had the time to read many more posts, I still find my initial perception to be accurate, and so must repeat:
“It is my opinion that whoever is commenting against another's religious perspective should do so with the utmost respect and even with a sense of temerity, not so much for the subject matter, proofs, etc. of the proponent of such a system, but for the psychological state of that individual. The recklessness I have observed through reading these posts is excessive. Arrogance, slander, absolute incredulity, and an overall presence of biased determination to "shoot full of holes" another's perspective, is hardly the presence of maturity required for such a discussion. The obvious lack of self-control in these matters would only lead an objective observer to conclude that the anti-Christians here need desperately to adhere to "Christian" principles in their dealings with others, and especially those of another "faith." The Bible states that, "Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy." Good diplomacy, such as that stated above, yields the most gain in any discussion.”
Perhaps one of the more recent articles entitled, “Jesus… F*** you!” proves my point more directly.
Point 4: Truly, the concept of opinion is quite vague, and in reality, there is no such thing as “absolute fact,” as there are so many variables which go into a proof, as to at some point render it imperfect and incomplete, although certainly not unreliable. The common opinion that one and one is two, can be argued to be only a theoretical approximate, and that nothing in nature has such a semblance; the opinion that ice is frozen water is an oversimplification, and at the atomic level, we are still uncertain as to what exactly is happening. Is this absurdly skeptical reasoning? Yes! If I were to hold to the disparity to such an extent as to contend with anyone who uses the terms “one” and “ice.” However I use this to illustrate the point that when arriving at any conclusion, we ought to still maintain some sense of incredulity, and not use our most probable conclusions to belittle the conclusions of others, but rather, that we should with empathy, sound reason, and even indefatigable patience (especially when you are given any space of time to consider a written reply), contend for the truth. Is this not the point I have been making from the outset? How then has this subject gotten so convoluted, but by those unwilling to accept this as a sound admonition?
Point 5: I believe you assertion that this statement is “emotionally charged,” lies in the use of several terms. These include, “immature,” “arrogant,” “absolutist,” and “condescending.” Now, by implication, are you then saying that by my use of these four, I was being “emotional,” and so biased? I must disagree, as I have a very logical basis for drawing these conclusions. There was no more, “emotion,” attached to these terms than any other that I believed to accurately depict someone’s stance when arguing a point. These terms best describe those who habitually use sarcasm and insults, as well as those who ignore anything good that the opposing side has to offer.
“Let's be concrete. I assert that the Bible is filled with mythical motifs, some very likely adapted from more ancient religions (e.g. slaughter of the innocents, turning water into wine, human-divine unions). It also contains copyist errors, copyist redactions, midrash, forgeries, and interpolations. Each of these I can support with rational argument. I think they are sufficiently established that it is rational to use them as premises in a larger argument, such as asserting that the Bible is not the inerrant word of anyone, let alone an omnipotent being. Is that being absolutist or condescending?”
I agree with your conclusion and your criteria for arriving there, but yes, it is being absolutist and condescending to present this idea to religious adherents in such a way as to insult their intelligence, often sarcastically, and further not advocating the positive aspects of the Bible’s teachings. However, one area of error on my part was in casting a generalization on all of those posting messages as not advocating any of the sound wisdom which the Bible provides. Thank you for this correction, and I admit that a more accurate statement would be to say “most all.” But tell me something, would you be willing to post an article here which expounds the great wisdom found in the Bible, and advocates adhering to it, as to any wisdom? Or is, “Jesus, F*** you!” the only type of ridiculous article you would want to allow?
Points 6 and 8: Even Boomslang appears to agree that her particular disposition is more closely in line with the term “anti-Christian,” and I am still waiting to hear why you believe most of those here do not fall more accurately under such a label. “Ex” is passive, and “anti,” is active, which is precisely what all of the rhetoric here contains, and active stance and attack on the principles of Christianity. Furthermore, I certainly did respond to your direct criticism, as follows:
“However, this does not, as I see it, make my previous comments unjust or inaccurate, simply because I had directed them mostly towards the ex-Christians, although you are right to assert they were arbitrary, that is, within the boundaries of my own judgment I had decided to direct them thus. The reasons for this are several, and were stated in part already in my previous post. Firstly, those who hold to the Christian perspective are on the defensive altogether, and that of the ex-Christian’s, offensive, therefore the greater responsibility lies with the latter to take care as to the psychological implications their words will have upon the former, especially when considering the fact that all of these came from the same background of sorts, and so these ought the more to show the utmost empathy for their opponent’s current state-of-mind. Unfortunately, I have not found such maturity in their words, such maturity which the Bible often advocates, for example, “The servant of our Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle, apt at teaching, patient; with humility correcting those in opposition.” Oh, what inroads would be made into the minds of those who adhere to this faith, and what avoidance of so common a defense mechanism, which naturally springs forth when one’s core beliefs are attacked with proud condescension, if only those who hold a closer semblance to the truth were also wise enough to attain to Socratic humility…”
You initiated the conflict by setting up a site which attempts to refute the religious system of Christianity, and at that, with the use of words and images that you knew would incite them. Saying then that because they came to your site and began defending their views and proselytizing makes them the aggressors here is to me an erroneous conclusion. Such bias is inherent in this perspective.
Whether or not I am “hurling unwarranted accusations and thinly veiled insults,” is your welcomed opinion, although I believe false.
Point 7: Steven: "“Anti-Christian” appears more accurate to me,...."
That speaks to a mental state that you are not privy to, and it conflates opposing a philosophical position (Christianity) with opposing its adherents (Christians).
Actually, such mental state becomes evident through discourse, as the webmaster has so eloquently noted above, “Succinct transparency generally expedites discussion, whatever the topic.”
Point 9: I find that we agree here, except in regards to this statement: “I do not think I bear any responsibility for someone's mental state simply because they hold a belief about which I an skeptical, which they find disturbing.”
This would be true, except for the active stance which the “ex-Christians” take in actively attacking the views of the above. Here, where active rebuttal is submitted to another’s religious adherence, it must be done so with utmost care, not only for the sake of the one (who was like yourselves), but also for the sake of the argument, that it not be brought down to the level of base name calling and sarcasm.
I am confused, however, as to how your parable of the aliens refutes my above assertion. Perhaps you could clarify this for me.
“For this reason, when a Christian posts here in a manner that is reasonably polite, and they show the slightest interest in actually discussing rather than proselytizing, I go out of my way to be polite in return. To me, that is an opportunity to glimpse another world view, and possibly to learn something. It's also a way to lessen the divide that separates the religious and the non-religious.”
Excellent. I hope this becomes the norm here.
“However, my patience has often been worn thin, and the limits of my tolerance tested by people who simply cannot grant that decent people might disagree with them on matters of theology. In those cases, I feel no compunction in being less polite.”
What a shame! Then you will only continue to receive the same in return.
Point 10: I still do not believe it would be good to entertain all of the tangents we might take regarding your three assertions. I have agreed with them, and do not wish to overcomplicate an already complicated discussion. If you still insist, ask me please once more and I will. Also, I accept your decline to answer my question, and understand your reasoning for such.
Point 11: Steven: “I thoroughly understand your position on my statement, although, as asked parenthetically before, what other conclusion can be drawn?"
I can't help but ask "Is that a trick question?" Put plainly, your sweeping conclusion about people here being hasty in dismissing everything in the Bible is unwarranted, so you needn't draw it at all. If you were really interested in whether that was true (rather than casting aspersions), you could have tried posing the question "Do you believe everything in the Bible is wrong?" I, for one, would have quickly answered "No."
I must say that my position is not altogether unwarranted, in that I have encountered perhaps some of the most hostile persons I have ever met regarding their contention with Christianity, which of course, only clouds the issues. Although, I agree that your suggestion of a better question is correct, and that would have been a wiser path to take.
Point 12: Steven: "I have not seen one position advocated on this site which holds that the Bible does contain some very excellent wisdom..."
”Then you've not looked very hard. And even if it were true that no such statements are posted here, it still does not follow that we have dismissed everything, hastily or otherwise.”
Whether or not you believe I have “looked very hard,” is irrelevant to what I consistently found, and continue to find, concerning scores of posts, all of which are impugnable in nature, and which ignore any idea of the Bible containing excellent wisdom (except, by your admission some of yours, which I have yet to read. The ones by you that I have read, have only followed the same train of argumentation and slander as others, though I admit to a lesser degree).
Point 13: I have read perhaps a dozen or more of Boomslang’s posts, and although I appreciate your defense of her, I can, at your request (although I would also require her’s), provide numerous examples which validate my claims.
Point 14: Again, I have never read anything by Boomslang that would lead me to think otherwise, nor did she ever affirm to have done so, thus correcting me, in her direct dialogue with me above. Although I do admit she has brought some excellent points to the table.
“In summary, there is very little we agree upon, even (apparently) some very basic guidelines for how to conduct a civil and meaningful discussion. Frankly, I'm extremely put off by your thinly-veiled attacks; I see them as being no more honorable than blatant name-calling. In fact, in some ways I find it more loathsome, as it purports to be something it is not; i.e. civil. Finally, I see no reason to think you are any more objective than anybody else here; your assertion that you are seems to be contradicted at every turn.”
I am indeed sorry that you have so soon arrived at such a conclusion; however, I respect your opinion thus. Your repugnance of my statements and me has all along been evident, and I certainly will not hold it against you if you choose to cease any direct dialogue. You are welcome, and shall receive no resistance on my part, to classify me as an “uncivil” critic.
Not that it's relevant, Steve..... but keeping in line with the wisdom in the bible, I'm the same gender as that disembodied self-existant spirit known as the "the first cause". And just so we're on the same page---Jesus' dad does have "male" anatomy, right? I mean, if we look to the Holy Bible for answers, "G_D" is continually refered to as a "He", so I'm sure you're prepared to give me "kudos" for doing what you required of me---that is, finding wisdom in the Bible.(Your welcome, in advance)
BTW, I thought I conceded to being anti-Christianity, not "anti-Christian", no? Nonetheless, I don't think they are always mutually inclusive, are they?...I mean, certainly you wouldn't generalize by asserting that all ex-wives are anti-male, right? 'Hope not = )
I just thought I'd complement you on your consistent even-handedness. It's something I strive for, but often do not achieve (contrary to your kind remarks above). Yet, you seem to hit the mark each time.
This reminds me of a comparison I can't help but make, almost daily, between apologetics and "rationalism", for want of a better term. I read a lot of Christian apologetics (for reasons I won't try to articulate here), which is frequently a taxing mental exercise as it requires a bit of "gymnastics" to temporarily overlook the unsupported assertions and the circular reasoning. When I then switch to reading something without the all dogmatic baggage, it's like plopping into an easy chair. When you don't fight logic, but use it as a guide, everything flows nicely and seems to fall into place with comparatively little effort; you needn't be constantly looking over your shoulder or patching up embarrassing bits with ever-widening apologetics. Anyway, that's all by way of saying that your posts have an "naturalness" that comes from respecting reason while disregarding, or at least downplaying, all the inflammatory stuff. Well done.
I am learning life, whether anybody would like to prove to me with their extreme intelligence that their point is right then by all means rip me to shreds.
It seems like more a question of what is the most amazing way to live life. It experience and enjoy it.
What?
Asking questions is a very good thing and I will never stop in my questions.
And I think this Jesus fellow has something quite interesting to say.
So test it, test what He says, look at the original translation of what He actually said and the possibilites of what He says are very different than how they are usually interpreted.
I am still searching, I DON"T KNOW everything about life, but I'm gonna find out.
Maybe if we stopped spending our lives in argument about who has the right way to live and instead live and invite people to live that way by their own desire, than I will.
Go ahead, please.
Let me know how I am wrong.
But I would rather live to enjoy life and let others experience the same than live in a retreat of a wall of beliefs I'm defending.
I am human, which means I want to be right.
But because I am human also means I am usually wrong.
And so I will learn.
And if I decide to not take what I have learned and apply it to my life, than I could be restricting myself to more pain.
If I look outside of myself, than I have done more than what many have not.
Enjoy life.
lets use common sense...The stories of the Bible evolved slowly over centuries before the existence of orthodox religions. Many belief cults spread stories and myths handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation before people wrote them down.Many of the stories originally came from Egyptian and Sumerian cults. All of these early religions practiced polytheism, including the early Hebrews. Some of the oldest records of the stories that later entered the Old Testament came from thousands of small cylinder seals depicting creation stories, excavated from the Mesopotamia period. These early artifacts and artworks (dated as early as 2500 B.C.E.) established the basis for the Garden of Eden stories a least a thousand years before it impacted Hebrew mythology.
Virtually every human civilization in the Middle East, before and through Biblical times, practiced some form of female goddess worship. Archeologists have confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language had initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the northern invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods.
So why doesn't the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times "Gods" in the Bible refers to goddesses. Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn't even have a word for Goddess. The goddesses, sometimes, refers to the Hebrew word "Elohim" (masculine plural form) which later religionists mistranslated into the singular "God."
The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day.
The Old Testament consists of a body of literature spread over a period from approximately 1450 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. There exists NO ORIGINAL writings of the Old Testament.ONLY COPIES OF COPIES.
The New Testament has even fewer surviving texts. Scholars think that not until years after Jesus' alleged death that its authors wrote the Gospels. There exists no evidence that the New Testament came from the purported original apostles or anyone else that had seen the alleged Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts came from Paul(SAUL), he had never seen the earthly Jesus.
Many other Christians also wrote mystical stories and by the second century there existed more than a dozen Gospels, along with a whole library of other texts. These include letters of Jesus to foreign kings, letters of Paul to Aristotle, and histories of the disciples. In one of these secret Gospels, it describes Jesus taking naked young men off to secret initiation rites in the Garden of Gethsemene.
There lived Christian Gnostics (knowers) who believed that the church itself derived from the Devil to keep man from God and from realizing his true nature. In those first centuries of Christianity orthodoxy did not exist and when an organized orthodox church finally came, it got defined, almost inadvertently, in argument against many of the Gnostic sects.
So the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred unalterable corpus of texts began in heresy and later extended and used by churchmen in their efforts to define orthodoxy. One of the Bible's most influential editors, Irenaeus of Lyon, decided that there should only exist four Gospels like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures - the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. In a single stroke, Irenaeus had delineated the sacred book of the Christian church and left out the other Gospels. Irenaeus also wrote what Christianity did not include, and in this way Christianity became an orthodox faith. A work of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, became the starting point for later inquisitions.
The salvation doctrines of Christianity survived and flourished because they afforded the priesthood considerable power. The priests alone held the keys to salvation and could threaten the unbelievers with eternal punishment. Hence, in the evolution of Christianity in the last two thousand years with priests preying on human fears, the religion has demonstrated extraordinary powers of survival. Even without the priests, the various versions of the Bible have had more influence on the history of the world, in the minds of men than any other literature.
Unfortunately, the beliefs in Scripture produced the most violent actions against man in the history of humanity up to that time. The burning of competing Christian cults (called heretics) by early Christian churches acted as the seeds of violent atrocities against man. There later followed the destruction of Rome by the Christian Goths, and the secret pagan sacrifices consented by the Pope, the Vandals that had the Bible with them as they destroyed imperial North Africa, the crusades in the eleventh century fighting in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine and Syria, capturing Jerusalem and setting kingdoms from Anatolia to the Egyptian border. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople the most holy city at that time, with Christians fighting Christians. And the slaughters continued (and continues to this day). According to Romer, More heretics and scholars were burned in the Middle Ages(((BY THE CHURCH))) than were ever killed in Carolingian times. For at this time the Inquisition came into its own, and torture, largely unused as an instrument of government since Roman days, was reintroduced.
We have little reason to think that violence inspired by Bibles and other religious texts will ever cease. One only has to look at the religious wars around the world to see belief's everlasting destructive potential. One only has to look at the Protestant-Catholic uprising in Ireland, the conflicts in the middle east with Jews fighting Moslems & Christians, the Gulf war, Sudan's civil war between Christians and Islamics, the Bosnia conflicts, and the war in Iraq. The desperate acts of fanatical individuals who have killed for their beliefs of Jesus, Mohammed, God or Satan would create a death list unmatched by any other method in history. The "Holy" Bible supports the notion of war and destruction, not only as a prophesy but as a moral necessity. If we wish to become a peaceful species, it may well serve us to understand the forces of belief that keep us in continual conflict and why the Bible has such a stronghold on the minds of people around the world.
THE CREATOR IS REAL,BUT YOUR INTERPRETATION IS FALSE...
I am a Christian. But before you go, I have one question to answer ALL of your questions. How can you believe that all the material in the universe was compacted into a dot smaller than one on this blog?or, how come Venus is spinning backwards in our solar system. Either would be great to have an answer to.
I am a Christian. But before you go, I have one question to answer ALL of your questions. How can you believe that all the material in the universe was compacted into a dot smaller than one on this blog?or, how come Venus is spinning backwards in our solar system. Either would be great to have an answer to.
To Anonymous: I am a not a Christian. But before you go, I have one question to answer ALL of your questions. How can you believe that all the material in the universe was compacted into a dot smaller than one on this blog... so small, that it actually disappeared into the supernatural/immaterial realm of non-existence? or, how come the Earth is spinning backwards in our solar system. Either would be great to have an answer to.
I'm sure you realize that Dan Barker is not frequenting this thread, so I'd like to step in and answer your questions.
1) You asked "How can you believe that all the material in the universe was compacted into a dot..."
The short answer is that it's predicted by a mathematical model that accords with myriad observations. Colliders have been used to simulate extraordinarily high energies (think of it as high temperature & pressure), and it appears that the fundamental forces unify at sufficiently high energies, and matter assumes a very different state, which is even more compressed than that of a neutron star or a black hole. Let me put it another way: It's a reasonable theory based on solid evidence. If it happens to conflict with your intuition about how matter behaves, then I suggest you first make some observations of matter at a few billion electron volts. Things are a little different that what you're accustomed to.
2) You also asked "...how come Venus is spinning backwards in our solar system."
This is a very common creationist "puzzle." It is sometimes claimed that this state of affairs contradicts conservation of angular momentum, and therefore indicates a supernatural force. But that's rather like claiming that finding an extra dollar bill in your wallet is evidence of a supreme being; that is, it posits a fantastic explanation for something that is completely mundane. In fact, retrograde rotations and "tilted" planes of rotation are quite trivial to explain. Different planetary systems spin in different planes and rotate in different directions, as one would expect by conservation of angular momentum. When a star explodes, or otherwise loses a planet by some other means, that planet can be caught by the gravitational pull of another star. It would be quite remarkable if the orbit of the newly-captured planet always matched those of the existing planets. Hence, "anomalies" such as Venus are to be expected.
I hope that helps.
1-How can you believe that all the material in the universe was compacted into a dot smaller than one on this blog?
The same way I can believe the question you ask unveils your most tyros understanding of physics. The invariant mass of a photon is "zero", and doesn't exist as matter. Does that mean it doesn't exist? No, it does exist; else you wouldn't be able to observe this comment.
2-Why does Venus rotate in reverse?
Orbital mechanics:
--Venus originally rotated in an anticlockwise direction like most other planets in this solar system, less Uranus.
--Venus' rotation speed was decreased over a billion years, as it sledged through its dense atmospheric viscosity.
--Venus lost rotational speed, as it lost rotational speed the core magnetosphere weakened.
--Venus was then hit with a major impact event.
--Venus, in its slowed rotational state and weakened magnetosphere, was hit at an angle that altered its rotational spin.
--Venus to this day, has the slowest rotational rate per any major planet.
Anony, you pose the questions, to attempt to make a point - that all unanswerable questions are equal. Your facile point ignores the difference between an answerable question, and an unanswerable question.
Religions create questions that can't be answered, and if they were ever answered, there would be less the need for religion.
Therefore, you worship and relish in your ignorance, and the plethora of unanswerable questions.
Science, attempts to provide answers, to answerable questions. Its not a matter of rhetoric, its a matter of intent. The "intent" of religion is to remove the ability of a person to find answers; the "intent" of science is to equip a person with the tools to find answers.
We model reality, there anony, we create the outline of a jigsaw puzzle, and then we watch to see if the pieces that come by, fit, if pieces start to fall into place, and we start to see a picture form, we can call that design a useful tool that can be used in this material existence.
Religion doesn’t create such a tool, it creates a pattern, where nothing in this universe can fit, the picture can never be started, all you have is a "shell", without any color or starting point.
Here is a test for you, close your eyes and forget about your religion, what do you have left - nothing, right - you are religion. However, there are those who believe they are "more" that just a religious pawn/minion, and thus life becomes more.
Really? Please quote the Bible verse that says Christianity is not a religion, but is a relationship with Jesus.
I'll wager you can't find anything in the Bible that says that.
Hey, Webmaster! Have you ever really been a christian?
Christianity isn´s and can be an answer for any life. Christ IS the answer. Man, you have a lot of free time to waste.
I want something more for my life, namely reason and sanity.
As for your comment "Webmaster, were you ever really, really, reeeeally a Christian?" all I have to say is "How fucking dare you." If you had read WM's ex-timonies you would already know that he spent an enormous chunk of his life (30 years, IIRC) as a believer.
May you follow the same path as us, and come to realize that your religion is both harmful and a complete waste of precious living time.
kls
Here's where I stand on the whole matter.
I know that I exist, inasomuch as one is capable of "knowing" anything.
However, I have never experienced anything that pointed uniquely to this "Jesus" that you speak of.
I think that gods are possible. Heck, over the past twenty years or so, at least half a dozen people have called *Me* one. And it accords with my ancestors' beliefs that we are the descendants of the gods (and therefore gods Ourselves).
However, even if it were proven to exist, I doubt that I could bring myself to worship the god of the bible. The Bible portrays this being as a jealous, egotistical, bloodthirsty maniac who likes to kill, kill, kill.
I also know that many of the stories in the Bible are reworkings of older stories from Eastern Mesopotamia. The Flood story is an older story with "Atrahasis" scratched out and "Noah" written in in crayon. And somehow the god El (a rather decent chap, IMO) got squished together with his not-so-nice son Yahweh to create a thoroughly unpalatable entity with a severe split personality.
Enjoy your belief in Jesus, whoever or whatever that is to you. But be aware that it is indeed a religion and not a "relationship". And for many people, including most of the regulars at this site, we have found Christianity to be harmful in our lives. Your results may vary, but I hope it isn't because you're wilfully deluding yourself.
1 John 1:3b "..our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
fellowship = companionship = relationship
In ephesians it says, "for it is by grace you have been saved through faith...not by works."
God shows us grace and love by saving us - he wants to be in fellowship with us. we are not saved by anything else, apart from our faith:
"That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9
so, God shows he wants a relationship with us by saving us, and if we accept this then we enter into a relationship with God/Jesus. The Ephesians verse shows us that Christianity (simply believing in Jesus and thus being saved, seen in the Romans verse) is not defined by rituals, rules and "works" (which is basically what "religion" means). All it is is being in loving fellowship with God.
I see that everyone on this website is intelligent. Too intelligent. I would like you give me a prove Jesus is not God. Jesus is not the one he claims to be. And well, forgive my English, it´s not my mother´s tongue.
Can´t remember the bloodthirsty, "egotistical" (see you aren´t perfect too :)Jesus killed anyone.
I´m waiting for meaningful prove Jesus is not the one he claims to be. And please do NOT tell me you haven´t seen him therefore he doesn´t exist or you don´t believe the Bible therefore the Bible doesn´t convey the truth.
Unless I'm mistaken, it seems you advocate belief in everything that cannot be disproved. If so, I wish you luck worshiping Allah, Zeus, Mithra, Attis, Adonis, Isis, Osiris, Krishna, Ganesh, etc. etc. That's quite a pantheon you've got there. As for me, I'll stick to those things with credible supporting evidence; it results in a much more manageable pantheon (at present, it has zero members), which leaves more time to do productive things.
Take care.
Later the writer of 1 John says: 2:4 "The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
Further, the writer of the book of James, purportedly Jesus' physical brother, says: " 1:26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
So, without works, faith is dead. And really, faith is a work. If I don't drum up some faith, whatever that is, then I'll be horrifically tortured for all eternity. I have to present a gift of faith in exchange for your god's love. I have to take action. I have to do something. I have to perform. If I don't present this little package of faith, I won't earn salvation.
Besides that, do you have any verifiable evidence that such a being as your god even exists? And, keep in mind that the people who wrote your sacred tome were already believers when they wrote. The entire collection of writings is nothing but a religious apologetic anthology. Why should I invest my "faith" in this religious apologetic anthology over any other religion's apologetic anthology? Why should I accept their propaganda over the propaganda of any other religion?
Back to the point. Christianity is most assuredly a religion. What I took issue with was the poster who claimed that it is NOT a religion, but a relationship. It is most assuredly a religion. And the relational verse you quoted, you quoted out of context. The writer of 1 John is admonishing his readers to have fellowship with him, not Jesus.
"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us." He then adds that his fellowship is with HIM and the readers are supposed to get in fellowship with the writer and other leaders. The writer of 1 John appears to me to be setting himself and other leaders up as priests.
okay, so, i think that good works are an important part of the christian life because they should be our response to God saving us. works will not save you, the ephesians vs i quoted makes that clear. Hebrews 12:28 says, "therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (ie eternal life in heaven), let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverance and awe" and i think part of this worship includes good works, to show how thankful we are that God has saved us.
The person who says that they are a christian but does not let this fact show in their day-to-day lives i dont think has truly understood God's grace. To truly understand his grace and his mercy and how much he sacrificed so that we could have hope, this would show in how a person responds to the gospel. a christian should be doing works (although these are not ESSENTIAL for salvation). s/he should want to being doing works.
that issue is a bit tricky though, i remember talking to a guy about a year ago who said he was a christian - he said he believed in God and trusted in him and believed that Jesus died for his sins, etc. but i never would have guessed that from the way he lived. so he is saved? i guess he is.....i dont know everything about God. sometimes i get stumped on an issue and dont really know what to think about it. i'm sorry if i havent asnwered your question!
and about the 1 john verse, you are right, i took it out of context, sorry!! hmmm, it was quite late when i was posting that comment...
and about what you said, christianity being a religious apologetic anthology, i had to look that up. and i'm still a little unsure.....would you be able to explain what you mean by that??
and about the religion vs relationship thing, and also the other faith stuff, i will try to get back to you on that soon. i will have to think some more about what to write!
I see that everyone on this website is intelligent. Too intelligent.
Personally, I don't think there is such a thing as "too" intelligent.
Can´t remember the bloodthirsty, "egotistical" (see you aren´t perfect too :) Jesus killed anyone.
Well, for the sake of simplicity we won't count the fig tree as a "kill". However, if Jesus and the Biblical god are the same being, then Jesus would be responsible for such atrocities as the Noachide flood and the murder of Amakelite infants.
I´m waiting for meaningful prove Jesus is not the one he claims to be. And please do NOT tell me you haven´t seen him therefore he doesn´t exist or you don´t believe the Bible therefore the Bible doesn´t convey the truth.
kls, I don't know if such proof is available. Proving the nonexistence of something is not as neat and tidy as proving that something does exist. If a unicorn walks into the room and starts talking to you, you would probably believe that unicorns exist. However, if you've never seen one, and nobody you know has ever seen one, it's not unreasonable to withhold belief in unicorns till one shows up and says "Hi".
This is the critical difference between "unproven" (no proof yet, but some might show up later) and "disproven" (something has been shown to be false).
For the great majority of people, unicorns are unproven.
For me, the god of the Bible is also unproven. It might actually be out there, but I have no personal experience or objective evidence to push me in the direction of belief.
Not that it matters... I rather don't like the Bible's description of what a god is like, and feel no urge to worship such a being.
There are many collections of religious writings. Check out the Nag Hammadi library sometime. After you've read from those early Christian writings, explain to me why you believe the works collected in 325 and bound together in the Bible are God's word, but the writings rejected by the Council of Nicaea are not God's word?
I hope you realize that the only reason you think the collected works in the New Testament are divinely inspirited is because a bunch of priests and bishops, at the order of the Emperor of Rome, held a big meeting and voted on what version of Christianity would become the "TRUE" version of Christianity. They voted on what books to include in the New Testament and issued edicts to wipe out and destroy every other competing version of Christianity. And, by the way, there were many other versions, versions which had completely different ideas about who Jesus was and what his role was in Christianity.
Seriously, if you want to keep your faith, avoid studying Christian history or theology. Just stick to the 3rd-grade felt-board version of Christianity, and you'll do just fine. Should you ever deign to educate yourself, you'll find yourself with some hard questions to answer.
Here is the classic “bait and switch” of Christianity. This is where the whole “it is a ‘free gift’” crap falls apart. Ultimately, a person who has this supposed “relationship” with Jesus is given something that is quite conditional – and in return they are asked to basically give away every part of who they are.
And the Bible is caught in its most vile lie.
Let me give you a couple of scenarios, Kez, and you tell me what you think:
1. Let’s pretend that I have never been a Christian – or that I am one who has “back-slidden” and is now wanting to get that gift again. It is a “free gift” right? So – while it may be nice of me to do certain things – I am certainly not required to. So, I choose not to. I am not going to do anything. I am going to simply say, “cool! It is a ‘free gift’ so I will take this offer of salvation.”
Easy enough, right? After all, didn’t Jesus pay it all?
So I get to continue to live my life exactly as I am currently. How is that you ask? My wife and I are non-monogamous (swingers, to the layman), I enjoy beer for the very reason that it makes me drunk now and then, I cuss when I am angry, watch whatever I want on TV, listen to whatever I want on the radio and every now and then I look at unseemly things on the internet.
I am not going to read the Bible because I simply don’t want to. I prefer Stephen King. I am not going to go to church because Sunday morning just doesn’t work for me – and those contemporary churches, with convenient Saturday night services… Well – those don’t really work either since Saturday night is usually the reason why I am sleeping in on Sunday.
I am not going to fellowship with Christians because I think most of them are stiff and boring. I am not going to listen to Christian music because most of it is pathetic – and the stuff that isn’t is extremely repetitive. I am simply not going to change my life. Not one bit.
And when I am lying in bed with three women (happens from time to time) with a good buzz going and Nine Inch Nails playing the perfect song for the occasion – guess what… I am going to reject all forms of “conviction” because, frankly, this stuff is fun.
Let me ask you – how free is that gift?
2. Of course, I was a Christian once – and by that I mean I was part of a great mass of people looking for something that wasn’t there; hoping beyond all hope that there really was a God who cared about us. But you know what I found out? He doesn’t care at all.
I’ll admit – I am the stereotypical “bitter” exChristian. Mostly because my “deconversion” is fairly new. I had no idea that this was an option! But I am thankful to whatever force there is to be thankful for that I discovered the option to walk away. How amazingly liberating to realize that my life is my own – that I can truly enjoy and explore the person I am – whether created or not – without shame or fear or second thoughts!
I am not really an atheist, per se, but I am certainly of the mind that God is simply an apathetic force – a mostly positive force that we are all a part of – but not really “on my side”. And he/she/it really doesn’t give whit about what I think or believe. In fact, what I think or believe is not something this God force is cognizant of at all. In fact, I doubt that this “God” is sentient beyond individual.
But here is the riddle: Am I someone who was once, but is not now? If so – what did I do to lose this “free gift” you speak of?
Or am I someone who once was, doesn’t think he is now, but since it IS a “free gift” still am whether I want it or not? And if so, why the worry? If I die without thinking I am a Christian, that shouldn’t matter at all.
Or am I someone who thinks he was, but never was? Now, be careful, because I am willing to bet that my “Christian” path was very similar to most that you have seen. I was saved at 19, entered Bible college and upon graduation spent twelve years in full time ministry. I sought God with everything I am – my heart, soul, mind and strength. I saw incredible things – just like I have seen incredible things since walking away. In the end, it wasn’t me who wasn’t reaching out, it was God. He simply wasn’t there. Ever. And that is just as much “proof” as anyone can present for the existence of the Christian God, right? Experience?
And, if I “never was” then what exactly did I do wrong in reaching out for that “free gift”?
If God is real, he is a selfish, childish, needy, ego-centric creature who is no more worthy of worship than Alec Baldwin… And at least Mr. Baldwin calls his kids now and then…
Free gift?
A lie. Not even Paul believed it.
A relationship?
Completely conditional to one also accepting a religion. Even Jesus taught that.
I want to take a second to say that after reading every word of this discussion… WOW! What an interesting thread! There is a part of me – that part still tied to my “cult” that feels sorry for the showing that Christians have made here. Uninformed, unprepared, unable to carry on a decent discussion with some folks who seemed more than willing to civilly discuss their beliefs. Dave8, Jim Arvo, and a number more (I forgot more than I remembered – LOL!)
I will be joining the forums to work out some questions I have of my own. I am eager to get the opinions and insights of some of you. I have learned a ton just reading through – and I am already a fairly bright guy! This is a great site and a wonderful resource for those of us who are still smouldering wicks…
Spoomonkey
your thread, it made me cry. i'm serious. when you said, "There is a part of me – that part still tied to my “cult” that feels sorry for the showing that Christians have made here. Uninformed, unprepared, unable to carry on a decent discussion with some folks who seemed more than willing to civilly discuss their beliefs."
this made me realise that the person you're talking about is me. i am the unprepared christian. i thought i could come here and use my words to reconvert people...but that was so arrogant of me and i feel truly humbled. there is nothing really that i can say to convert people. i know only god can do that. i have read so many questions in these forums about proof for god's existence, difficult questions about the validity of the bible, etc. and i feel so pathetic because i know i can't answer all of them. maybe its because im 19. maybe its because im a crappy christian. i dont know. i just want to apoligise to you spoomonkey, because i cant answer your questions. i can try, but i know my answers will be shut down by something else tricky that someone will say, and i will be stumped again. and because this website is making me confused and lost and a little overwhelmed by being completely shut down all the time with sarcasm, i think im gonna stop coming here.
this site has shown me that being a christian is not just about putting on a show of knowing all the answers and thwarting people with difficult arguments and acting more holy than anyone else. in fact, its really about none of those things. its about being humbled when you screw up, or you can't explain something about the bible or about god to someone. its about praying to Him every day, telling him everything you've done, every worry you have, every question you have, and knowing that he will look after you no matter how difficult things are. its about being forgiven when you doubt. all the questions that i've read here, especially on this thread, i've asked myself at some point or another in my life. i think probably every christian has. but these doubts have made me hold onto God even more. and really, when it comes down to it, all that matters to me is my raw, no frills relationship with god. i might from time to time wonder, how can god send people to hell? or why is god letting wars happen?. in the end, im just gonna cling to the fact that i will cling to for the rest of my life - that God loves me and wants to know me.
feel free to shoot this down. im not gonna be here to read it. if anything this site has made me a stonger christian. i dont want to preach in this comment. i just wanted to say how i felt. and that was it.
"...spoomonkey, ... i cant answer your questions. i can try, but i know my answers will be shut down by something else tricky that someone will say, and i will be stumped again..."
keziah, don't go away mad. In fact, don't go away at all.
This is not a community of hotshot lawyers who will just as happily argue the pro or the con position in the interest of whichever side happened to walk into the office waving a cheque. You say they will come up with "something else tricky" that will leave your message in tatters as if that's their goal in life.
They weren't looking for exit loopholes in the bible when they deconverted from the cult. Many of them made a last-ditch careful reading of the bible in a desperate effort to _remain_ Christians[!] and finally had to face the fact that they'd been clinging to an untenable position out of loyalty or fear or some other psychological reality.
It's not that they're trying to reduce your belief system (Christianity) to tatters as some sort of sadistic intellectual game; it's that they think your belief system (which was once their own closely held and precious to them belief system) is _already_ in tatters, all on its own, with no help from anyone. They don't have to look long and hard to find "technicalities" to discredit Christianity; no, there are great gaping holes in the core concepts of Christianity that they don't even _have to_ seek out. It would be harder to ignore them than to discover them.
And I might lastly point out that not everyone here disbelieves in a god; it's just Christianity that they concluded didn't hold water.
Isn't it possible that you're seeing and feeling what you've decided you're going to see and feel, both in your religion and at this site?
"As far as I know God does not require the universe to change, it changes because of sin. for example, there wasn't even rain on the Earth until the time of Noah(Gen 2:5), that means that something like rain which is a neccessity for us is actually the result of man's sin."
I realize that Kevin's post is a couple of years old, but I still wanted to reply to it.
First of all it was "The Earth" that was supposedly subjected to a curse because of man's sin. Not the universe.
Christianity is dying, and their god isn't doing a damn thing to stop it. These poor christians are fighting the good fight, and their god refuses to even help them. Yet they continue to fight the so called good fight. How pitiful.
I would say by the end of the century that christianity will be almost obsolete. It will by known as a religion of the past, and Jesus will be catogorized with Zeus and Apollo as a "Mythical God".
Their precious Jesus has not returned, and they are getting scared. Their precious faith and security is dying, and it scares the hell out of them.
Christians are weak minded fools who cannot handle or deal with reality. They are scared of reality, and they need a crutch named Jesus in order to deal with reality.
I'm sure that sooner or later, some idiot christian will come on here and try to debate me, and they will say that Jesus is coming soon, and that I am going to be sorry and that I am going to burn in hell.....blah blah blah.
I would be willing to bet that an asteroid or a comet hitting the earth will happen before their precious saviour ever returns. I also guarantee that God won't do a damn thing to save these poor fools either.
Before any christian asks "Why are you so mad Poltergoost"?
I'm mad as hell because of the lies and deciet that christians use to enslave and oppress others, and I'm mad as hell that I was stupid enough at one time to listen to these "Cult Members". I wasted years serving god and going to church.
The thing that really makes me mad is that there are still people who are buying into the all these lies and the biblical propoganda that preachers and other ignorant christians spread.
I will continue to fight against this oppression.
"The reason why christians get so mad over "Anti-Christian Statements", or why they choose to post on this website in order to try to defend what they believe is because they know that deep down inside they are losing the battle."
Well, dang, I'm glad you know the big 'why' answer. I've never actually met anyone before who could accurately discern another's motives. They'd try, and then get mad because of the 'why' they ascribed to someone else; humorous if pointless. Most conflicts of intellect are easily pursued profitably as long as the parties don't presume to know things they don't.
Putting Christians in a box and calling them 'they' presumes they think alike, believe the same things, act alike, all somewhere down at the lowest repulsive standard. Christians aren't all fools, afraid of science or of social and cultural change. Perhaps it's just the fanatics on both sides that confuse the discussion. Emotional diatribe vs. reasonable exchange.
Meanwhile, since this is the 'last century of Christianity' again; again; again; what are we to do? Oh my, will my hope disappear under the fury of the 20-somethings? Or might there be profit in my years of careful objectivity pursuing God?
I'm not overly fond of the spooky-pooky wierdos in the church, nor am I impressed with the narrow-minded fundamentalists, but I've met God's friends on four continents; they aren't anything like you describe. You'd like them, and what's more revealing, they'd like you even with your beliefs.
Best of luck, pal.
So what was your motive in posting that little rant? Was it to edify? Were your motives driven out of pure heart? Did you hope to extend "True Christian™" love?
I don't know how old Polter is, but I'm 48. And I was a full-blown, evangelical, missionary-zeal Christian for 30 years. Funny how assumptions go both ways, huh?
You said rebukingly, "Putting Christians in a box and calling them 'they'..."
Then you said, "I've met God's friends on four continents; they aren't anything like you describe. You'd like them, and what's more revealing, they'd like you even with your beliefs."
Hmm. So it's okay for you to put Christians in a box, but Polter shouldn't EVER do anything so silly. I guess as long as the box is pretty, then a box is okay, right?
Have a nice day, BUDDY.
What was my motive? Thanks for asking. Just thought I'd point out that having met one objectionable person who claimed to be a representative Christian doesn't support a categorization of all Christians as being like the one. Or having met one group claiming..., and so on. I've met all kinds over the years. Christians old and young, idealistic and realistic, silly and wise. With the small percentage of chaotic thinkers and compulsive haranguers removed from the mix of those I've known, the remaining (and quite diverse) adherents are neither fearful of the changes in culture around them nor concerned over the fact that science causes regular upheaval in traditional interpretations of historical understanding. My observation, my analysis.
I personally enjoy the play of history against a backdrop of faith in God. As often as one discovery or theory threatens to undermine the faith of many, another discovery or theory reverses the process. I think there is genuine nobility and benefit in the pursuit of objective truth by scientists and philosophers; it causes me no particular distress, nor does it cause more than a ripple in the world of Christian belief. The exceptions are minor. Evolution, for example, is a wonderful subject for discussion, but poses no particular threat to the church in spite of all the publicity and knee-jerk confrontation. A non-emotional, multi-lateral inquiry is useful; a confrontational debate obscures the issue and is perceived as threatening by both sides. A generally useless activity.
No great rebuke intended in my comments beyond perhaps pointing out the fundamental attribution error* in the referenced post. It was intended to provoke thought rather than recrimination. The logical follow-on to my comments might be, "What if there is more to know than I know? What if my understanding of the 'church' is biased? What if my experience with Christians is off-center? What if my opinions, so strongly embedded in my mind, aren't as soundly formed as I think? What if I'm one of those emphatic but unwise younger minds who haven't quite seen the larger picture? What if the 'body of believers' isn't anything like I've thought?" Those sorts of things.
I'm aware that my experience isn't precisely the same as anyone else's. I'm aware that a bad experience in a given context can predispose a person's mind for decades. Sometimes it's helpful to point out that our contextual presuppositions should be challenged from time to time. Someone said to our benefit, "The unobserved life isn't worth living." Or something along that line.
For a more personal example, what if your 30 years in the church weren't very much like what God intended for you or for those with whom you fellowshipped? What if those years were well-intended human attempts to do what they thought they found in scripture?
So there you have my motive, at least as clearly as I'm aware of it. Thanks again for asking, pal.
Buddy
P.S. It's Sunday, and I'm off to be with some fine folks at church. Some are searching, most are strong-minded believers, every profession from test pilot to school-kid, all imperfect. You should visit someday. You'd be welcome.
* "In attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) is the tendency for an observer to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based, explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations."
Buddy
I agree with you, if what your verbose post is intended to convey is that stereotyping any group is a mistake. In other words, if you are saying Christians are no different than anyone else on the planet, then I completely agree. If, however, you are trying to say that Christians are somehow superior to other people, or smarter, or of more value, or bound for everlasting bliss while everyone else is bound for horrific doom, then I disagree with your stereotype.
Now, as to this: "What if there is more to know than I know? What if my understanding of the 'church' is biased? What if my experience with Christians is off-center? What if my opinions, so strongly embedded in my mind, aren't as soundly formed as I think? What if I'm one of those emphatic but unwise younger minds who haven't quite seen the larger picture? What if the 'body of believers' isn't anything like I've thought?"
To a large extent, that is the purpose of this site. The stereotypical presenting face of Christianity is that Christians are "new creatures," "Christ lives in me," "transformed by the renewing...," but the reality is that Christians are absolutely indistinguishable from the general population. No magic there at all.
You continued, "Sometimes it's helpful to point out that our contextual presuppositions should be challenged from time to time."
Yes, that's exactly what I finally did in middle age. It didn't lead where I expected, but thanks for confirming that it was the best course of action. Reality is so much more fulfilling than is delusional mythology.
And more from you: "If your 30 years in the church weren't very much like what God intended for you or for those with whom you fellowshipped? What if those years were well-intended human attempts to do what they thought they found in scripture?"
Huh? I guess you missed the point. My years in "the church" had nothing to do with my de-conversion ; honest intellectual inquiry was the culprit. Any and all experiences I may have had only came under scrutiny in retrospect of my realization that Christianity is nothing more than a complex mythology.
Socrates also said (or rather asked) this: "Is the pious (good, moral, right action, etc.) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (Euthyphro 10 a) In other words, if right actions are pious only because the gods love or command those actions, then moral rightness is entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims or commands of the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods love right actions because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of values, which we might come to know independently of the gods, and I would add, to which the gods must answer.
That's a bit off topic, I suppose. The point is, if you are going to quote Socrates as an authority, I'm all for it.
As often as one discovery or theory threatens to undermine the faith of many, another discovery or theory reverses the process.
That's an interesting statement, leaving theory aside for the moment, can you provide some examples of recent discoveries that support Christianity? There are a few positive studies of intercessory prayer, but the majority of the research in that area shows no significant effect.
My apologies for verbosity. You dodged my question, though, so perhaps I didn't state it well. I hoped to broaden the frame of reference to include the possibility of being heard objectively. Perhaps we might approach the matter again on another occasion. Meanwhile, no offense intended or taken here.
Your testimony is quite well formed, by the way. There is much that provokes thought. I can relate to some of your history, having been through similar times with similarly flawed people.
For AdamH,
On examples of scientific theory that both threaten and support the Christian faith:
One that comes to mind is the coalescence of scientific opinion regarding the Big Bang and the origins of everything. The journals read like a modern paraphrase of the creation story. The difficulty a Christian might have is that it doesn't sound like scripture; it requires him to study a little and see this incredible universe traced back to the moment of beginning; an infinitely small, near infinitely dense point, preceded by... nothing, if the science is correct. Then, BANG! Light and darkness, matter and emptiness, stars and planets, water and land, plants and animals, and us. The earlier theories regarding the origin of the cosmos were much more inimical to a Christian's belief structure; now, Hawking-Turok could qualify for Papal approval.
Thanks for the inquiry, guys.
Buddy
Thanks.
"The earlier theories regarding the origin of the cosmos were much more inimical to a Christian's belief structure; now, Hawking-Turok could qualify for Papal approval."
Ah huh. Right.
How so? Statements like sound pedantic, yet actually convey nothing. Please qualify and quantify your point with documented and referenced explanation.
Again, thank.
Hypothesize with me. What if you're mostly right? Suppose your analysis of your 30 years revealed wishful myth, hypocrisy, and flawed thinking. You'd be consistent with the objective critics of the 'church' throughout history, but not original. Might there be more than you know?
I don't deny you the right to have firmly held opinions, nor do I suggest you're unjustified in lamenting the years spent in off-truth. Have you left room for a larger perspective?
In my earlier years, I knew enough to lecture my father about things he obviously didn't understand. He endured it graciously. We laughed together years later. My subject matter was similar to yours, positions developed by rational, objective analysis of available evidence. Accurate but incomplete.
I can't help but commend you for your aggressive pursuit of reasonable answers in the mountain of literature available in the field. I've done similarly, if not so extensively, and like you, I've seen much to dissatisfy and disappoint me there.
I've been pleased, in spite of the above, to discover a larger view than the either/or you describe. I was curious if you'd left room for being only mostly right.
Buddy
That's not what you are asking me. You are asking me if I have left room to return to Christianity. That is NOT a larger perspective. That is a return to mystical, magical, mental masturbation. Calling that a "larger perspective" is ridiculous. It certainly is a different perspective; a perspective that says donkeys sometimes talk, chariots of fire rocket into space, undead zombies stroll about on occasion, a person can take a weekend break in the belly of a fish without difficulty, invisible creatures of all description inhabit the "firmament," whatever that is...
You get the point. It's clearly mythology. Only brainwashing could possibly convince a person otherwise.
Again, if your "larger view" includes adopting the position that magical power is available to those who believe this or that, well... I think I'll just stick with reality. When I want fantasy, I'll read a novel or watch a movie.
"My subject matter was similar to yours, positions developed by rational, objective analysis of available evidence. Accurate but incomplete."
Since your subject matter, positions, or analysis was incomplete (hard to say from the sentence construction to which thing you are referring), perhaps you should spend a bit more time in the pursuit of reason.
But you weren't talking about yourself, were you? You were attempting to point a gnarled, wizened finger at me, right? If you really expect to convince me of anything, you'll have to provide a bit more of an argument than "I'm older and wiser than you." Age is evidence of only one thing: age.
The journals read like a modern paraphrase of the creation story.
Well that's a little bit of a stretch, to put it mildly. The concept of a deity is absent (and not required) in physics and cosmology, although there are gaps, and god usually gets inserted into those gaps. You also have a Bible that needs to be interpreted in order to bring it into line with current knowledge, which raises a number of problems. After rewriting Genesis, it might end up sounding like this:
"In the beginning God created three dimensions of space and one of time as a four dimensional pseudo-riemannian manifold with signature. And the manifold had a scalar curvature approaching infinity asymptotically as time approaches the beginning. The mass-energy it contained was without form, and the inflaton moved upon the face of the spacetime. And God began to divide the fundamental forces. First He separated that which controls the geometry of spacetime and named it gravity. Next He separated the strong force from the rest, which He named the electroweak force. Then God saw that the quantum vacuum of the inflaton was false, so lo he smote it with a second order phase transition, and that did drive cosmic inflation of spacetime from the negative energy density of the quantum field. And the universe became vast. And He said, "Let there be quarks in the midst of the quark-gluon plasma," and he divided the quarks from the antiquarks. And He saw that matter was good, so He caused then CP violation to make more matter than antimatter, so that all might not be annihilated. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light, for quark-antiquark annihilation created photons. And so ended the grand unification epoch."
Nope. No finger pointing intended although I might gently point out that presuming to know my motive and taking offense because of it is the subject of earlier correspondence.
Greater intellects than mine (and perhaps your as well) have debated the existence of God and the validity of the Christian faith over the centuries, and they've come to a variety of conclusions.
Some of them agree with you; for example, the 'higher criticism' era is probably familiar to you; a period when the underpinnings of faith (of some) were challenged by historical analysis.
Another viewer might suggest that the period was helpful, and undermined only the less useful dogmas over which various groups had fought without adequate reason.
My inquiry wasn't toward the question of whether or not you might return to Christianity; it was more toward your willingness to consider the possibility of being less than absolutely correct in each particular.
Yep, I was talking about myself. I'm old, experienced, and perhaps wise in some things. Maybe just a few.
For AlanH,
Not bad. Bump it up to the 9 (or 11) dimensions required, and you're on a roll.
My point was simpler, though; current scholarship on cosmology causes me no distress. It doesn't shatter my religious beliefs; it doesn't cause me to struggle with the Bible.
Current scholarship would, however, drive the classic church theologian of decades past absolutely bonkers. Seems it's always been that way. Fundamental change in understanding is hard to grasp and adapt to our perceived world and concepts.
Buddy
I was an absolutely convinced Christian for three decades. I've admitted numerous times on this site that I was considerably less than absolutely correct in each particular while in the cult.
Now, if you have evidence in support that reality includes something I'm missing, then please present that evidence.
To restate: I would say that my abandonment of Christianity after so long a time of devoted committment clearly demonstrates my ability to admit error.
Thanks for the clear answer, and I'll concede your point for the moment. Before the detail of evidence, though, could we generalize a couple of things? For instance, to what do you attribute the persistence through the centuries of great minds who hold to their faith?
I'm aware as are you that some of the great intellects of history were Christians. From your point of view, each of them was in error in both detail and in total. How might the many great minds be so agreeably in error, in general?
Note that here we're not quibbling over the number of years since creation or the proper form of baptism; just the surprising persistence of great minds that hold the same central beliefs.
Buddy
Here's an entertaining side-note: The Catholic Church has been on board with the Big Bang since 1951. Continuing refinement by researchers since then hasn't raised a ripple of concern.
Hawking-Turok* follows in the same vein.
Buddy
*... So in essence, Hawking and Turok proposed that the universe began from virtually nothing. The two physicists believe that the instanton does not exist "inside" of anything, nor was there anything existing "before" the instanton. The instanton was a combination of gravity, space, time, and matter packed into a rounded miniscule object. They believe the existence and subsequent actions of this object produced the big bang, and subsequently, the universe we live in today.
I thought you were opposed to lumping together groups of people under "they" or the equivalent. I sincerely doubt there is one concise answer that would apply equally to each of those who might be so labeled by you as "great minds" and who hold (or held) to "their faith." A better way to get a proper answer might be to directly ask each of those individuals of whom you are thinking. Barring the ability to do so, because the person has passed on or is unavailable, then reading what they've written on the matter might be helpful. If that too impossible, then all that is left is personal conjecture, which is probably worthless. In other words, your question, the way you've asked it, leaves me with no reasonable way to specifically answer.
Instead of asking about "great minds," which you haven't defined, by the way, a better question might be "Why do human beings seem to have the compulsion to create gods and religions. Since there are thousands of gods and thousands of religions, and all have a vast variety of adherents of all stripes, from all walks of life, an inclination toward religion appears endemic to our species. From my vantage point the question seems to be "Why do human beings have an inclination toward creating gods and religions?"
This, in fact, is a topic that greatly interests me, of which I am exploring as best I'm able by reading the works of scientific men and women who are studying this phenomenon. I think you will agree that people (all kinds of people) believe and have believed all sorts of strange things. Though I do posses a good dose of curiosity on this subject, I must admit a great deal of personal ignorance on the topic. Of course other mysteries abound such as, why we as a species feel compelled to create music, art, books, movies, hair and clothes styles, myriads of machines, and on and on and on. So, my most honest answer to your question is this: Our minds are complexly evolved and the full understanding of what makes us all tick has not yet been fully ferreted out.
"Great minds that hold the same central beliefs."
Again, great minds still needs defining, as does "same central beliefs." I'm not sure what beliefs you consider "central," and would like to have a list of these "great minds" who held or do hold to these "beliefs" and how you know they would all feel comfortable under the same umbrella.
Now, if you are trying to imply that various forms of Christianity were accepted as true by some intelligent people in history, then I will concede that point. That they would have been able to get along as friends, however, has not been shown, as Christianity has been fractured into an ungodly number of splinter groups since its appearance in history, most of which view competing groups as heretical or at least in error. Regardless, those intelligent people who built the pyramids thought RA and others were gods. The development of what became modern mathematics is frequently attributed to the Arabic Islamic nations. The pagan religions were also followed by numerous intelligent people. Socrates, for instance, whom you thought worthy of quoting, was a pagan, right?
Now, about that evidence you are prepared to present...
Though I did quote him, it was purely inadvertent. He wrote nothing, he espoused little, and he is best remembered for dictating both sides of a discussion, putting things in his opponent's mouth that no sensible person would propose. While I personally find the tenuous records we have of his life barely readable, he remains one of the most influential contributors to Western philosophy.
Given a choice of abandoning his philosophical inquiry or facing death, Plato's Socrates embraced death with impressive nobility. Perhaps few of us are presented with the same stark choice between philosophy and death, but all of us are daily faced with opportunities to decide between convenient conventionality and our devotion to truth and reason. How we choose determines whether we, like Socrates, deserve to call our truthful.
Your pursuit of the truth has led you across difficult and painful terrain, yet you persist. For that, you are to be commended. I certainly don't fault you in it.
I am genuinely curious, though, as to how you've managed to discount the surprising body of literature you cite. Reasonable men, most of them, who wrote with clarity and sound reason where needed.
I know you have specific disagreements with their interpretation of this or that, but I know you must have some thoughts on why so many reasonable men walked that path.
You raise the question of why it might be that we humans are wont to create our gods. I suppose we might suggest that it is logically an extension of our general creativity. You might with equal logic inquire what it might be that evokes the god-hunger in most generations and most civilizations. An answer to either question is suspect unless it answers both. Inside one? Inside all? Outside?
Later,
Buddy
"He is best remembered for dictating both sides of a discussion, putting things in his opponent's mouth that no sensible person would propose."
I'd be genuinely interested in the titles to the books that you've read that brought you to your listed conclusions, and at least one example of the information Socrates presented that "no sensible person would propose."
"I am genuinely curious, though, as to how you've managed to discount the surprising body of literature you cite. Reasonable men, most of them, who wrote with clarity and sound reason where needed.
I know you have specific disagreements with their interpretation of this or that, but I know you must have some thoughts on why so many reasonable men walked that path."
Here we go again with them and their. Why not add, "those guys?" Sweeping generalizations are unproductive -- isn't that what you've been saying? You really need to be pointedly specific if you expect a succinct conversation. You could, for instance, drag out a quote from one of these "thems" and explain why you agree with it and ask me if my thoughts reflect something different. Lumping together nameless individuals who said "lots of stuff" that I supposedly have discounted...
Well, hopefully you get the point.
"An answer to either question is suspect unless it answers both."
And that dogmatic statement is true because... why? All you are doing is presenting a supposition with the childish implication that if an full and complete answer is not readily available, then GODDIDIT! But, you're jumping ahead of yourself. You haven't established that there even is a god. Then, you haven't established that this god is your god, the one who inseminated a human virgin so He could have a son who was really Him and who will one day horrifically torture for all eternity every human being who fails to discover, submit, and faithfully adhere for life to the correct version of the right religion. (Take breath.) Then, having established this god, we would have to discuss the processes this god used to implant various characteristics into her pet humans. Perhaps she simply used evolution! Or maybe, it was a magic frog!
Now, setting aside all this empty banter which leads nowhere, I would now appreciate being provided with the evidence you implied possessing. Unless, that is, you were just bluffing.
I should have said, if we get bogged down with non-belief in Christ. Because surely there's nothing to get bogged down about concerning non-belief in those "other gods", right?
The Catholic Church has been on board with the Big Bang since 1951.
Buddy, the irony here is the big bang theory has nothing to do with any god or gods; any deity has to be fit into the ever-diminishing gaps. Current scholarship would probably drive a classic church theologian crazy, but why should we assume contemporary theologians are any more grounded in reality than their predecessors? The Catholic church wants to appear friendly to science, but at the same time they claim the "ultimate" truth for themselves. After 2,000 years we still have no evidence to support their beliefs. Science keeps moving forward while theologians keep adjusting their "ultimate" truths in an effort to keep up.
I'm not saying always go with the majority, but alot of you ex-christians seem like typical, westerners. I don't care if you have visited other countries, you obviously don't understand. Even in a Hindu country, I feel the relation and truth that there is a spiritual realm, like a mental realm, that is entwined with the physical.
Do you believe in Quetzalcoatl? No? Boy, that's SO typical of non-westerners.
And I'm glad you're not saying to go with the majority, because at one time, the "majority" of the world's population believed the sun revolved around the earth. They believed that a "firmament" held up the sky(which they thought was "water" because it was blue).
So, yes, "popular vote" is a horrible reason to believe something.
Emma 4 jc: Even in a Hindu country, I feel the relation and truth that there is a spiritual realm, like a mental realm, that is entwined with the physical.
So, since being in a country where Hindū Dharma is practiced makes you "feel" that there exists a transcendent reality, maybe reincarnation is "Truth", and Christianity's "Heaven and Hell" is a lie, huh? Naah.
I willingly agree with you as you wrote, "Buddy, the irony here is the big bang theory has nothing to do with any god...".
Absolutely true, although the irony isn't as poignant as it might be. What might a theoretical physicist do with an non-quantifiable event? Seriously.
Imagine for a moment that 'God is'; how might our theory authors discover this? According to their 'proofs', the instant before the bang just doesn't exist; there was no gravity, matter, space, or time. Literally nothing existed before the bang as far as they know.
Won't it be intriguing when their theory is replaced by another, as has every such 'theory of everything' so far.
My favorite pratfall was Darwin's postulation that women as a species were inferior to men.
Buddy
P.S. Was it you commending Voltaire to me in earlier correspondence? Voltaire, atheist, French author, humanist, rationalist (1694 - 1778), held up a copy of the Bible in the air and smugly proclaimed, "In 100 years this book will be forgotten and eliminated...". Shortly after his dead, Voltaire’s private residence became the headquarters of the Geneva Bible Society and became a major distribution hub for the very Bible he assigned to extinction.
I know you'd like to move from the 'sweeping generalizations' to specifics, but can't we avoid the simpler dichotomies and pursue some subject about which you might entertain a point-counterpoint?
Or we can just throw mutually-exclusive statements at each other to no particular end.
I'm persuaded God is; you're persuaded God isn't. There, that's settled. I'm persuaded that Christianity's true believers are enlightened; you're persuaded they're deceived. OK, that's settled too. You're a rationalist; I'm one too, though I doubt you'd agree. Enough?
Any open subjects that don't close with the first rebuttal?
How about the soul? Thoughts?
Buddy
P.S. Don't presume my motives are evangelical. I'm actually interested in your reasoning.
Presenting your evidence for an invisible, immaterial, super-being with whom you commune would be a tremendous place to start.
Thanks.
Ok, last comment for the night.
You asked for a citation showing Socrates being unreasonable (my word); see Laches by Plato for the dialog on courage. It proceeds something like this:
1. Socrates' opponent, Laches, begins the game with his thesis, 'Courage is endurance of the soul'. Socrates takes the polar opposite position and refutes the premise.
2. Socrates (as Plato writes, of course) engages his opponent and extracts agreement to some simple things such as, 'Courage is a fine thing' and 'Ignorant endurance is not a fine thing'.
3. Socrates then pounces upon these peripheral elements and insists that they obviate the original. It follows then, according to Socrates, that 'courage is not endurance of the soul'.
4. Here Plato's account has Laches say wonderful things about Socrates' cleverness.
5. Socrates claims that his opponent's premise has been proven false and that he has proven its' converse to be true. Applause by all.
Perhaps, I think to myself, except that 'A+B=C' disproven cannot be support for 'A==C'. A high school debate class knows better, yet Plato's account treats the logical fallacy (the undistributed middle) as though it were reasonable.
Many, if not most, of his dialogs follow a similar form.
That said, his impact on Western philosophy and our subsequent rationalist societies gives Socrates a well deserved place in our history. I intend no disrespect, I only find it tedious to read the historical works.
Buddy
At the Gutenberg project, you can see the text of Plato's Laches for this particular dialog. His more frequently cited works, The Republic and Apology are structured similarly.
Courage IS endurance of the soul.
My only real point with pursuing the Socrates "stuff" was because of the apparent duplicitous way you quoted him on the one hand and disparaged him on the other. In reality, however, it is Plato we are both talking about. We can't even be absolutely sure that Socrates ever said anything ascribed to him, or for that matter, whether Socrates was ever more than a literary vehicle.
But all this is irrelevant and off topic.
Now, once again: your evidence! Are you prepared to throw it on the table to be examined? If not, then further discussion on non-essential rabbit trails would appear counterproductive.
I'm taking it that the "that's settled" part was facetious?... nonetheless, let's examine a variation of the above statement:
Christian Theists are persuaded Christ "is"; Muslims Theists are persuaded Christ "isn't".
There, that's settled, too. Right?
No. Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as "I believe in leprechauns; you don't....big deal."
As long as there are people turning each other into red confetti over whether their particular deity "is", or "isn't", the issue is certainly NOT settled. As long as Theists go door-to-door soliciting their particular brand of "God", the issue is NOT settled. As long as Theists fly jet liners into buildings, it's NOT settled.
So, no, Mr. Ferris....if you want to "settle" it?... present your objective evidence that your personal creator deity, "Christ", exists, and all other known creator deities are false. You are making a fantastic claim---prove it. To the non-believer, "god" is a generic term; to the Christian, it's an exclusive term. Prove that Jesus Christ "is", exclusively.
B. Ferris: I'm persuaded that Christianity's true believers are enlightened; you're persuaded they're deceived. OK, that's settled too.
What on earth is a "true believer"? Is that opposed to false-believer? Are you suggesting that some Christians are actually deceived in what they believe?? Hmm....hopefully you see the problem with that, if true.
B. Ferris: You're a rationalist; I'm one too, though I doubt you'd agree. Enough?
You have belief. You either, A) "know" that your belief is universally true and have the evidence to support it; or B) have "faith" that your belief is universally true, and thus, reasonable evidence doesn't matter, because "faith" is to believe without reasonable evidence.
If "A", like the Webmaster said, let's have a look at your objective evidence. If "B", then you're right, I disagree that you are a "rationalist", because believing without reasonable evidence is not rational.
Courage IS accepting reality...the good, the bad, the ugly.
Webmaster, I answered your request for a citation because you asked. Nothing more.
On the 'that's settled' comments, I was describing the field as it has unfolded in our conversations. You hold one position, I hold another; they are mutually exclusive, separate paradigms (yuck) without identifiable middle ground. Fine. Leave those battlefields for the moment and consider other venues of discourse. Are there relevant subjects that don't raise the rancor associated with 'Christian' topics? Or are we doomed to sneer at one another without actually having discoursed?
For instance, Emma4 raised an interesting line of inquiry with her comment regarding the common opinion on the existence of the soul. Without implying anything too spiritual for the moment, a discourse on the soul might inquire as to its' definition...
mind, will, emotions? Life force?
...its' supporting evidence...
near-death narratives, psychic phenomena?
...its' location...
tied to the body? vice versa? not?
...its' activity...
thought, expression, communication?
... and its' substance...
material/elemental/ethereal?
In such a dialog, we needn't be opponents.
I realize that this forum attracts some who want naively to change your mind and feel obliged to do so by tender words or by picking a fight; your harsh response to them is understandable.
I don't pick fights; at least not intentionally. I do appreciate sound thinking. You've been clear about what you don't believe, and about what you're opposed to, and about how you feel on those issues. What I haven't heard is about what you do believe. I thought it might be interesting to discuss a middle-ground, non-theological issue like the existence of a soul, or why some superstitions persist in the face of science and literacy. Must I be your adversary to do so?
Buddy
Lest we over-use the 'objective evidence' argument, let me pose for us a similar request.
Last Sunday afternoon, where were you and with whom? Provide as many details as you like. Corandum rules of evidence apply.
Buddy
The thing is, it's a false analogy. There is NO equal standing between those kinds of statements. You say "There is a GOD!" I say, "Show me!"
You say, "There is a UFO!" I say, "Show me!"
You say, "I have regular communion with a magical man in the sky!" I say, "Show me the door!"
All your questions about various mental states and subjective so-called ethereal experiences have no concrete answers. We simply do not know enough about the human brain. Studies into all those topics are underway, but the conclusions thus far are in the infancy stage.
So, I'll just say to all that stuff, I don't know. My opinion is that they are all natural processes of our minds in a natural world. I doubt there is something magical going on. I could be wrong though. Do you have any EVIDENCE that your magic is real?
Inferring stuff from a base of ignorance is not intelligent -- it is presuppositional. You presume your god and your religion are the correct ones and then you go out searching for unanswerable, or interesting, or leading questions to which you assign YOUR answer: GODIDIT!
To say, GODIDIT may be a reasonable answer, once we establish that such a creature exists. But is it the most likely answer? So many parts of nature have been directly credited to one god or another in our species' history, only to have later discoveries de-mystify and assign the credit to natural forces. God keeps retreating, and is now the God of the Gaps in evolution.
That trend tells me that it is quite likely that all the issues you mentioned will eventually be discovered to be natural processes that only exist in our brains.
Again, I could be wrong in my assumption, but until I get evidence to the contrary, I feel no compulsion to retreat into mythology.
I hope you see the point?
If you cannot present any evidence for your god beyond "But what about BLANK that hasn't been answered yet," I don't think you are any different from all the rest of the religiously inflamed minds out there.
If you want to assert that a deity created the big bang, that's fine. That's a gap that may always be with us, just bear in mind Allah, Yahweh and Vahiguru can comfortably fit in that gap as well. On the other hand if you assert that there is a deity that is involved in mankind's affairs, as Christians often do (even to the point of claiming daily interaction with this entity,) then some evidence would be helpful. The typical claims made by believers are perfectly suitable for scientific study, however when believers start saying their claims are somehow exempt from examination that raises an enormous red flag. We can detect the presence of a planet by examining the orbit and light of a star, we may not find out much about the planet, but at least we know its there. Similarly we can look for the presence of a deity by examining its effects on people and things. That's why I mentioned studies of intercessory prayer, if prayer actually worked the data would support that claim.
Lest we over-use the 'objective evidence' argument, let me pose for us a similar request.
Last Sunday afternoon, where were you and with whom? Provide as many details as you like. Corandum rules of evidence apply.
Buddy"
Dear "Buddy",
Heavens-to-betsy!... didn't we beat this horse to a bloody pulp in that "other thread"?? Why in Hades are you asking such a question? If I tell you what I did, that I spear-headed a sit-down dinner for 200 people at a fine arts museum, I'm NOT telling you CONDITIONALLY. Repeat--I'm NOT telling you with conditions attached. You are FREE to reject whatever "evidence" I put forth, whether it be eyewitness testimony, video footage, receipts(all of which I can produce)....OR some drunk fisherman in the middle East who had a vision that I did it.
Furthermore, I don't claim to have done anything out of the ordinary, Bud'. I don't claim to have worked any "magic", or anything else that defies physics. For instance, I didn't run out of the client's wine, and then turn the Voss sparkling water into merlot. Nor did I "zAp" the cow into existance from which I prepared the chateau. Are you with me so far?
Additionally, Bud', if you don't believe me?...you can go on your merry way, unharmed. I will not track you down and set you on fire if you should be skeptical of my claims. Do you see the difference(s) yet? Gosh, I hope so.
PS: BTW, I'd like to thank all Christians for not pelting me with rocks for the divine transgression of earning a living on the Sabbath. Again, thanks guys.
Good thinking. Okay, if this hypothetical "thing" known as a "soul" is not a spiritual "thing", then is this an admission that it is at least partially a physical "thing"? Yes?..or no?
On the other hand, it seems that "God" can have a "mind" without a body, yes?...yes, of course, so it seems to me that this is one of the first issues that needs to be addressed. The "soul": material/tangible?..or immaterial/intangible?
Meanwhile, in an attempt to define the "soul", B. Ferris, offered:
mind, will, emotions? Life force?
...its' supporting evidence...
You say "soul"....I say brain. I posit that one cannot have a "mind", "will", or "emotions" without a healthy functioning brain. I argue that there is more credible evidence that a "mind" is dependent on a brain, than there is that a "mind" can exist independent of a "brain".
Additionally, if, as some theists/dualists claim, a "soul" can exist independently of a "brain", then by that definition, a paper weight can have a "soul", and for all we know, perhaps paper weights can be banished to paper weight purgatory for not being heavy enough? But seriously, all facetiousness aside--it raises a good and valid point, IMO. If a "soul" can exist independently of a brain, then why can't inanimate objects have "souls"? If one arues that only living organisms can have a "soul", then does an opossum, which is quite possibly one of the world's dumbest animals, have a "soul"???? If so, does it spend eternity as "stupid" roadkill?
About "life force"---while I agree that the human body is resilient, it is due, again, to specific parts of the brain. For instance, a stroke victim might have complete loss of identity; be blind; be deaf; be unable to eat and/or swallow on their own, but "seemingly" have a "will" to live. I would argue that it is in fact the brain stem keeping the person alive....not some unseen intangible "life force".
B. Ferris: near-death narratives, psychic phenomena?
...its' location...
Ah, yes, "near-death" experiences. Okay, what about people who come close to death but "experience" nothing? Would you accept that as evidence for the non-existance of the "soul"? Or is it that those people don't have souls?
What about about people on the other side of the planet who have NDEs and claim to see "Muhammad"? Would you then accept that as evidence that "Allah" is the "Lord of Lords...King of Kings"??? Somehow, I don't think so.
Regarding the location of the "soul". Good, 'glad you raised this issue. So?....WHERE is it? In what part of the human body does it reside? Surely, not the "heart", because people get transplanted donor hearts and they don't become someone else. This one always leaves me curious. Listening.
"Psychic phenomena"? Where?
B. Ferris: tied to the body? vice versa? not?
...its' activity...
The "soul" and it's activity. Okay, is the "soul" active during sleep? Does it, too, need rest? If so, how will it "rest" in an atemporal existance? OR..it doesn't need rest, and one will remain self-aware in a perpetual state of consciousness? Again, seems like a living "hell"(pun intended)
B. Ferris: You've been clear about what you don't believe, and about what you're opposed to, and about how you feel on those issues.
And unless I've missed something, you ignore these issues. For example, how about this:
B. Ferris stated: "I'm persuaded that Christianity's true believers are enlightened; you're persuaded they're deceived. OK, that's settled too."
I responded: What on earth is a "true believer"? Is that opposed to false-believer? Are you suggesting that some Christians are actually deceived in what they believe??
I'd like an answer, please. Can Christian believers be deceived into thinking they're "True believers", when if fact, they are really in error?
And BTW, then there's the umpteen times you've been ask to put forth evidence to support your claim. 'Got any? And for the time being, we won't haggle over the word "objective", how's that?
B. Ferris: What I haven't heard is about what you do believe. I thought it might be interesting to discuss a middle-ground, non-theological issue like the existence of a soul, or why some superstitions persist in the face of science and literacy. Must I be your adversary to do so?
Is this an admission that Christianity is a "superstition"? Or are you implying that all Theists other than Christians are superstitious? Which?
I say that some superstitions persist in the face of science and literacy because it's not only the ignorant who want to live forever.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. On the issue of gaps left for God as science advances, well, that's a defensible view. I'm inclined to give God credit for orchestrating the whole thing right down to the sub-atomic particle level. It looks to me like the pea-sized object from which everything was born in the bang was created on the spot from nothing. The physical laws with which we are familiar that support all our theories didn't apply at the beginning of that instant. Then bang, everything begins to follow the rules right down to the scientist who examines the evidence. Now I realize that you probably see the event differently. You may, of course.
While we might speculate on what preceded Hawking's instanton, you're correct in that it is just speculation by any of us from a scientific point of reference.
You raise valid questions regarding evidence, and the 'studies on prayer being inconclusive' is a useful data point.
Nothing is exempt from examination (at least that's my opinion); but not everything is by nature easily examined.
I've examined prayer with mixed results. When I was 5, I prayed for a Boy Scout knife; no knife. When I prayed with a dying old man and gently agreed with him that it was time to go, others and I lovingly released him to God; he recovered anyway. Go figure.
Some difficulty arises in the matter of what evidence is available and what evidence we're willing to accept. For instance, if one fellow claims to have seen a UFO, no one pays much attention. If dozens see the same UFO at the same time, it's news. If the FAA and Air Force track the thing, it's approaching real if still unidentified.
If I'm told by a fellow I know that he prayed and a young girl (who had been dead some number of days and had begun to decay and smell) was brought back to life, hmm. But if it was done in front of a crowd of thousands with a couple dozen family members there to affirm the tale to the doctor, well, you file that one away under 'I don't know what to do with it.'
If you see such things personally, you make up your own mind as to the veracity of the attributed cause. You may assume it's all just a fraud perpetrated by charlatans. Unless you know the folks personally and you're around when it happens with some regularity.
So, what evidence might we both accept? Tough one.
That was actually the point of my 'Last Sunday, where were you...' illustration to our Webmaster. What evidence is acceptable?
Repeatability is another tough hurdle. Science works every time or it isn't science, it's busted theory. Troublingly, prayer isn't supposed to work like magic. A failed repeatability test is a flawed approach from the premise.
What if it works, but not often in the manner we expect, and then only sometimes do we 'see' any answer? Does that mean anything at all?
Buddy
Thanks for the 'I don't know' explanation. You're correct in avoiding supposition from a position of ignorance as well. There certainly is a mythology associated with Christianity, or at least a long list of misinterpretations of scripture. My pet peeve is the Western insistence that the purpose of the "Church" has anything to do with Sunday morning.
If you don't mind, take a run through my response to AlanH above; that will avoid repetition. Then help me out with some rules of evidence we can work with. If we lay a little ground work, we can avoid the bi-directional misunderstanding that is so common.
Thanks,
Buddy
After all, Socrates suggests by his example that we move on to less volitile issues, there to build the surprisingly crushing counterpoint.
Courage IS accepting reality...the good, the bad, the ugly. At least boomslang thinks so.
To which I responded: What on earth is a "true believer"? Is that opposed to false-believer? Are you suggesting that some Christians are actually deceived in what they believe??
I further stated in a later post: I'd like an answer, please. Can Christian believers be deceived into thinking they're "True believers", when if fact, they are really in error?
Waiting.
Buddy Ferris(most recently): "Nothing is exempt from examination (at least that's my opinion); but not everything is by nature easily examined."
No, Bud ', nothing is exempt from examination......well, of course, except for whatever evidence you have that supports your belief that a self-existing disembodied supernatural man-god is responsible for the Universe and all in it; and the belief that this "being" is still hangin' around "somewhere", answering earthling's prayers(when he/she/it feels like it)
Which leads us to....
Buddy Ferris: Troublingly, prayer isn't supposed to work like magic. A failed repeatability test is a flawed approach from the premise.
Oh looky!...how convenient! You cannot test prayer, because it works when works, and it doesn't work, when it doesn't work.
You'll note that I don't answer each of your questions, and that I may not rise to the bait you dangle. Do I therefor not exist? Must I say yes to each thing you ask in order to prove my existence? Please
Surely your specious argument is offered more as an offensive gambit than a serious rebuttal.
Buddy
Dear Buddy,
Yeah, I noticed, nonetheless, my questions are not "bait"; it's merely honest inquirey based on statements that YOU have made in this thread. If you don't have answers, and/or, if you feel "trapped" in having to answer such questions, then maybe you should re-examine certain aspects of your beliefs, no? The "True believer" part comes immediately to mind. If you made a faux pas and want to retract that term?... then just say so.
Additionally, it was YOUR idea to bring "souls" into the discussion. Again, my questions and statements concerning the "soul" are honest questions that arise when I try to reconcile such an "idea". And frankly, I think it's a bit one-sided if it's going to be solely up to Buddy Ferris to determine if the participants of this discussion are giving "serious rebuttals", or not. In fact, let's throw "mutually-exclusive statemements" at each other:
You say my argument isn't a serious rebuttal; I say my argument is a serious rebuttal. There, that's settled.
Will that work?
Remember, I'm just an heathen who's here by "chance", biding my time before the "abyss". In the mean time, I get meaning out of trying to understand Theists, in part, because I used to be a Theist. The difference is, like the average Theist, I never actually thought about my believe; I just believed it because I was taught to believe it----of course, not discounting the "fear" struck into me should I NOT believe it.
On the other hand, Buddy, you surely seem like a person who has thought about your belief, and from what I can tell, it's causing some cognitive dissonance, no? If I'm wrong, then I apologize in advance, yet, I don't quite know what else I'm to think about this, since you address so little of what's asked of you, and/or conclude that it's all "specious".
Peace.
You asked what a true believer might be. In the context of my comment, here are some points.
The difference between 'hope' and 'faith', and perhaps the reason the two concepts are offered separately, might be likened somewhat to the difference between 'wish' and 'know'.
Those who profess to be Christians might therefore be divided (for this discussion only, please) into those who hope they are on the right track and those who know so with a reasonable and adequate measure of certainty.
My point in using the term 'true believer' was to differentiate those who know (and behave accordingly) from those who only hope so(and are easily provoked to fear by secular inquiry).
You went on to ask if a Christian could be deceived into thinking themselves 'true believer'. Of course; no serious Christian would continue if they thought they were otherwise.
It might be helpful to differentiate between those deceived and those encumbered. The former implies something done to them deliberately; the latter suggests baggage associated with non-central issues.
Leaving the issue of deliberate deception aside, Western Christianity has baggage that wasn't picked up from either Judaism or the early church. Much of the pain evidenced on this site originates in the artificial trappings (baggage) of church, ministry, dogmatic teachings, and so on.
The context of my comment regarding the 'true believer' was intended to make those distinctions only.
Granted, I wasn't particularly gracious regarding your commentary on how conveniently I excluded prayer from the issues of test by repeatability. Let me state it politely. Prayer is conversation by definition, conversation is bi-directional and therefore dependent on both parties. A test of results based on one party's activity with repeatability being the criteria suggests a misunderstanding of the subject being tested.
In life, of course, it isn't convenient at all. Many would prefer magic; push the button, get the stuff. It's easier than conversation; it's also a bit childish.
Buddy
If it is dependant on both parties then It's not really prayer(conversation) if one party is fictional, imaginary, or non-responsive. Even if one gets an "answer" it could still be an imagined response.
Usually a person can logically determine if they are having an actual conversation.
"Hey bill. How are you"
response:"Just fine stronger now. How are you?"
Lets try that with god shall we?
Stronger now: "Hey god can you help me with a problem that I know you can help me with? I know you can because I've read the bible and truly believe it to be your word. Your word says You can heal my heart and give me peace. Could you do that for me please?"
god:
Stronger now: "God, can you help me I'm still not feeling your love and I'm starting to go crazy so could you please help me keep my sanity?"
god:
Stronger now: "God I need you. could you give me a sign that you are helping me?"
god:
Stronger now: "God I'm really going nuts here and my wife is thinking about putting me away for a while and I'm starting to think that might be o.k. but I just need some strenght from you, some sign, some peace, anything. I love you, please please help me."
god:
Stronger now: "God I am truly sorry for anything I said or did to make you angry and I submit to your will cause mine is stupid and dangerous and wrong and I'm so sorry. Please help me."
god:
Stronger now: "God it's been a long time now and I'm not getting any better here so could you please help me now cause I don't think I can hold on any longer?"
god:
Stronger now: "O.k. I think I'm starting to understand. If you're there god please give me a sign or help me or something anything cause I've had enough now and really can't take any of this any more.So any little thing will do. so would you please help me?"
god:
Stronger now: "O.k.last chance to keep me near you cause it's been too long now for me and I have stepped to the edge of mental stability and can't do this any longer so now after all this time it would be nice to hear from you before I go and do things MY way and I know you don't want me to do that. So last chance big daddy!"
god:
Stronger now: "Well that answers that! I guess I was stupid for thinking god was real and wanted me to turn to him for guidence and peace and help and hope and stuff. I think I'll just say FUCK IT! and do this my own self! At least Soemething will get done even if it's the wrong thing."
god:
---------------------------------
Do you see my point? There never was an answer. It's not a conversation.
I appreciate your description of your experience; it's not an uncommon one, but it's by no means universal. You'll forgive me for not being overwhelmed by your rebuttal, I hope.
Not knowing your story, I wouldn't presume to offer any answer. I would encourage you in this one thing, though; don't allow your experience so far to persuade you that all of creation must be like you. Surely some is; certainly much is not.
Buddy
Dear Buddy,
Okay, if I understand correctly--those believers who have "hope", only wish that a god exists, and that they have chosen to worship the right "God". Compared to---those believers who have "faith", and thus, know that a god exists, as well as know that they have chosen the right "God".
'Good so far? Actually, I don't see how this could be inaccurate considering the terms that you just put forth.
Okay, fairly assuming that you are of the latter group---and to eliminate the chance of equivocation on the word "know" by all parties involved---let's look at this:
Know: vb
1) To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.
2) To regard as true beyond doubt: I know she won't fail.
3) To have a practical understanding of, as through experience; be skilled in: knows how to cook.
4) To have fixed in the mind: knows her Latin verbs.
To have experience of: "a black stubble that had known no razor" (William Faulkner).
6) a) To perceive as familiar; recognize: I know that face.
b) To be acquainted with: He doesn't know his neighbors.
7) To be able to distinguish; recognize as distinct: knows right from wrong.
Ref: (American Heritage)[bold added]
B. Ferris: Those who profess to be Christians might therefore be divided (for this discussion only, please) into those who hope they are on the right track and those who know so with a reasonable and adequate measure of certainty.
There's a problem, Buddy. Those who "profess to be Christian"? Is there any other way to "be" a "Christian"?... or Muslim; or Buddhist; or Red Sox fan; or pizza lover? No, there isn't. Once again, there is no quiz; you don't win a certificate at a bingo match. It's entirely up to the individual if they "profess" to be a proponent and/or believer in "something", in this case, "Christianity".
Let's examine this:
Buddy Ferris "professes" to be a True believer; Shirley Phelps "professes" to be a "True believer".
Are you telling me that the Phelps' clan only "hope" that they are right? Please.
I hope that you see that this renders your "hope it's true"/"know it's true" hypothesis moot. The only way it's not moot, is if some "believers" believe erroneously. And I'm sure you see the dilemma with that, right? Let's see:
Shirely Phelps is not persuaded that Buddy Ferris is enlightened; Buddy Ferris is not persuaded that Shirely Phelps is enlightened.
It's not settled, is it?
Back to the words "know" and "faith". If you, Buddy, the "True believer", e.g. the "True" Christian, "know" that a god exists, and that this god is "Christ", then why do you need "faith"? If "faith" is to believe without empirical evidence(as it is implied throughtout the bible), then it seems to me that to be cock-sure that Christianity is a Universal Truth, and all other religions and their respective personal creator-gods false, would render "faith" obsolete. If not, tell me where your "faith" applies, and kindly define it for me.
Even, if for a moment, we were to veer off the more common meaning of "faith", and use the pop-Theist definition, which is, to "trust" this, or that.... isn't that a totally redundant aspect if we(you) claim to "know" something? I think so, Buddy.
B. Buddy: My point in using the term 'true believer' was to differentiate those who know (and behave accordingly) from those who only hope so(and are easily provoked to fear by secular inquiry).
Speaking of "fear", you speak of fear allegedly caused be secularists, but for some reason leave out the fear that's instilled into the believer should they NOT "hope" that Christianity is true.
Seriously now, is to be "scared" into believing something a good reason to believe it, in your opinion? Is this "freewill" that we keep hearing about really "free" if there's threats for not making the right choice? If "God" is "love", where does "fear" fit in??? Why does a presumabley "ALL-loving" creator need to strike fear into it's creation? Can you explain that for me, please?
B. Ferris: You went on to ask if a Christian could be deceived into thinking themselves 'true believer'. Of course; no serious Christian would continue if they thought they were otherwise.[bold added]
Yikes! This, again, creates a big problem for me, because if they are "deceived", then OF COURSE, they wouldn't know that what they think they know is not consistent with being "serious", thus, they wouldn't know to NOT "continue". Actually, I'm surprised a man of your intelligence doesn't see the problem with that.
On another point, so those who only "hope" Christianity is true, aren't "serious" Christians??? So those who only "hope" that Christianity is true are no better off than those who deny it? Woah, that's harsh.
So, let me make sure I have a clear understanding of what you've put forth so far.
- One has to "KNOW" that Christ exists, in order to be a serious and True Christian.
- The myriads of self-professed Christians who stroll through here telling us "to just have Faith" and "don't give up hope" are deceived.
- Any Christian, 'serious' or not/'True' or not, can be deceived into thinking that what they "know" is true, and thus, this is why they erroneously continue in their belief, because they are deceived.
B. Ferris: It might be helpful to differentiate between those deceived and those encumbered. The former implies something done to them deliberately; the latter suggests baggage associated with non-central issues.
Of course, from my perspective, the religion itself "deliberately" deceives--similar to how you probably think Islam "deliberately" deceives. Nonetheless, one can be both deceived AND encumbered, I suppose.
B. Ferris: Prayer is conversation by definition, conversation is bi-directional and therefore dependent on both parties. A test of results based on one party's activity with repeatability being the criteria suggests a misunderstanding of the subject being tested.
Buddy, would you agree that the results of "prayer" are limited to one of following:
1) "Yes"
2) "No"
3 ) "Be patient"
If so, I might point out that you could get the same results from "praying" to a cookie jar. Nonetheless, you seem to be saying that you cannot "test" this aspect of a "God" that you "know" exists. True? Okay, then how CAN one test it? In other words, it seems that out of all these Theists who "know" their god exists, that one would be able to put forth an applicable 'test', yet, from what I see, "God" is always "affirmed" by what can't happen, or what "God" can't, or "won't" do. This is a red flag, I'm sorry.
Buddy Ferris, last try---can you change the trend? Can you back your "knowledge" that a god exists? Can you substantiate your claims that there is a "God", and that this "God" is "Yahweh/Jesus/Ghost"? Can you produce evidence that your belief is a Universal Truth, and that all other religious belief is categorically false? Can you prove that you are not one of the deceived believers that you claim do exist, they just don't know it?
BTW, Can you PLEASE not turn the subject into whether "boomslang" exists; or what he did last Sunday; or what Socrates said, or some other irrelevant tangent? I sure hope so. If not---if you cannot/will not simply back your belief with evidence--then you leave me, and I'm sure many others here, no choice but to believe that your are deceived.
Peace.
I appreciate your description of your experience; it's not an uncommon one, but it's by no means universal. You'll forgive me for not being overwhelmed by your rebuttal, I hope.
Not knowing your story, I wouldn't presume to offer any answer. I would encourage you in this one thing, though; don't allow your experience so far to persuade you that all of creation must be like you. Surely some is; certainly much is not.
I'm curious about something; is the above suggesting/implying that this alleged "creator" shows favoritism towards some of it's creation? It allegedly "created" all humankind in it's image, yet, only chooses to engage "conversation"("answer prayer") at it's descretion with "some" of it's alleged "creation".
And furthermore, I see the word "encourage". Are the above comments to Stonger Now supposed to be "encourgement"?...that not all creation is "like you"? That seems like a really cruel thing to say, unless I've "misunderstood".... and I probably have.
Why can't I rely on my own experience? How am I supposed to know that some of "creation" is not like me? What do you mean by "like me" anyway? Do you mean logical like me? Or perhaps, undesirable to god like me? Mabey, crazy like me? Demon posessed like me? All of the above? Oh right, you don't know.
I mentioned earlier that deliberate deception wasn't included in my comments. We might pick up the issue, if you like.
Just a minor continuance on the true believer topic; you're correct, of course. Frightened people do things in hope of avoiding pain or loss. A minister, politician or parent using that fear as a prod is unwise, and perhaps immoral. Children raised in an atmosphere of fear find most of adult life a difficult adaptation.
Your proferred answers to prayer (yes, no, be patient) are taught in some venues, I guess, but they're inadequate, don't you think?
If I limited my conversation with my precious daughter (whom I love more than life itself) to those one-word responses, I'd have no relationship at all.
The list suggests that prayer is viewed as an acquisition process; we pray when we want/need something. More a vending machine relationship than one involving love and respect.
You ask if the creator might show favoritism. What should we call it when we give our high school graduate a car and our first grade graduate a bicycle? Surely, responding in relationship according to need, ability, and maturity has some justification. An observer might say it is just favoritism, particularly if they didn't even get a bicycle.
On your question of cruelty, I intend no harm or distress. My encouragement to the poster was in hope that they might view their experience as a subset of what is rather than the totality. I recall seasons of tremendous difficulty and discouragement in my life; times of anger, bitterness, even rage. Those who were cooler, clearer, wiser than I encouraged me along. Those days are past, probably more will come. Seasons.
Buddy
I intended no offense with the comment. The balance between what I know and have experienced against that which I don't know and have yet to experience is quite one sided. My tendency, naturally, is to view what I don't know and haven't experienced with expectation that nothing will me much different. It will. Much. Or at least, that seems to be the trend so far. Perhaps for you as well; I hope so.
Buddy
Am I missing something? We were/are discussing whether or not there is a possibilty that "True believers"(your term) can be "deceived" in their belief(s). Obviously, one will not "deliberately" deceive themselves. Whether someone else, or some "thing" else, is "deliberately" deceiving them is irrelevant, as the point is, they believe erroneously.
You, yourself, have now opened the door to the possibility that even "True believers" can be "deceived". When asked if this was a possibility, I believe your answer was, "of course". Thank you for that honesty, BTW.
B. Ferris: Frightened people do things in hope of avoiding pain or loss.
Obviously. And anyway, this is consistant with how I inquired about it; many people "believe", because they are SCARED not to believe. I asked you if that's a good reason to believe something.
B. Ferris: A minister, politician or parent using that fear as a prod is unwise, and perhaps immoral. Children raised in an atmosphere of fear find most of adult life a difficult adaptation.
Yes, "unwise". So if you would--- what makes threats of being tortured in eternal damnation "Wise"????
B. Ferris: Your proferred answers to prayer (yes, no, be patient) are taught in some venues, I guess, but they're inadequate, don't you think?
I think they're consistant with a "god" who's not there.
B. Ferris: If I limited my conversation with my precious daughter (whom I love more than life itself) to those one-word responses, I'd have no relationship at all.
True. So then I bet that since you love her so much, that when you are communicating with her, you are sure to do it in such way as to be fully understood. In other words, even if your answer is "no", and she asked, "but why?"....you wouldn't leave vague "traces" of an explanation lying around the house, and have it be incumbent upon her to deceifer the "hints", would you?
Furthermore, if you had four daughters, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you wouldn't show favoritism by concisely communicating with one, two, or three..and not the other(s) true? 'Thought so. I don't mean to offend, but I think your analogy fails.
B. Ferris: The list suggests that prayer is viewed as an acquisition process; we pray when we want/need something. More a vending machine relationship than one involving love and respect.
If you'd like, I can provide the bible verses that delineate concisely how prayer "works". Nonetheless, I agree that "prayer" boils down to "divine begging". Although, whether a child is either asking, or "begging, that his or her sibling be cured of leukemia, I can see how they wouldn't quite understand a "no" answer, especially coming from the only "Doctor" who is "omnipotent".
B. Ferris: You ask if the creator might show favoritism. What should we call it when we give our high school graduate a car and our first grade graduate a bicycle?
Smart? I mean, at least concerning a first grader behind the wheel of a 5.0 Mustang.
B. Ferris: Surely, responding in relationship according to need, ability, and maturity has some justification. An observer might say it is just favoritism, particularly if they didn't even get a bicycle.
Then again, there is "want"..and then there is "need". Children "NEED" their parents....so I can't see there being "justification" in a "NO" answer if a child prays for an ill parent. Can you? Can you tell me how that is a good "plan"?
B. Ferris: On your question of cruelty, I intend no harm or distress. My encouragement to the poster was in hope that they might view their experience as a subset of what is rather than the totality.
Obviously, there's a great deal of disageement on "what is". You claim a specific supernatural god "is". But again, until you can substantiate(if you even care to) such a god and/or such a realm exists, then I say "nature" is "what is", and the poster's experiences with prayer reflect that. Coincidence?
Peace.
I wish I had easy answers for questions like your last. I don't know why some are healed in response to prayer and some are not. I spent time sitting with a 10-year old in the hospital with leukemia, giving his mom and dad a break after weeks of chemo, bone marrow transplant, and the long decline after it failed. Sweat kid; he treated me like his granddad. We prayed together in the time before he died. He told me he was OK with dying; his faith was quite clear in his heart and mind. He knew.
My own experience with talking to God over the years has been a checkered one, perhaps rising and falling due to my own willingness or lack thereof. It's been rich lately.
Buddy
You've written a couple of times about 'professing' to be a Christian as the means to becoming one, and about 'believing' because one might be afraid not to do so. A fellowship I attended as a teen leaned that way, if I remember correctly. Was that your experience?
Personally, I don't think anyone actually believes out of fear. Perhaps they may say they do and put on the appearance they think is expected, but do they believe? Or do they just hope they're getting it right, acting the right way?
Similarly with profession, if someone professes (affirms) they're a Christian, does that make them one truly? If I profess to be a Hegelian, does that make me one? Or does it mean something more to actually believe and know.
Complaints regarding faith requirements in the Bible miss the fact that more is said about knowing. 'You can know' is the summary premise of many portions of the new testament.
Buddy
Oh, but there IS an easy answer, Buddy. The easiest and most likely of answers. Albeit, the least comforting. Nonetheless, it's a terrible injustice, isn't it?....that a child is robbed of life so young? It would be hard to be a parent in that position and not believe that justice is done in a "next life". Of course, that justice is only extended to one group of people, sadly. Right?
If you answer only one thing---to what do you attribute the "hits"(answered prayers) in a Muslim children's hospital? "Luck"? Or is it really Jesus somehow "pinch-hitting" for Muhammad? It's a legit' question that deserves a reasonable answer( if you're up for it)
B. Ferris: I spent time sitting with a 10-year old in the hospital with leukemia, giving his mom and dad a break after weeks of chemo, bone marrow transplant, and the long decline after it failed. Sweat kid; he treated me like his granddad. We prayed together in the time before he died. He told me he was OK with dying;
It's commendable that you offer compassion in that regard. 'Seems like the humane thing to do. But I must ask, what if he wasn't "OK with dying"? Surely, if you gave any terminally ill child a "choice", they'd choose to live, over die, don't you think? In other words, there's a difference between accepting the inevitable, and being "OK" with it.
...his faith was quite clear in his heart and mind. He knew.
Yes, the same way the passed-down family-faith of a Muslim or Buddhist child is "clear" in their "heart and mind". Nonetheless, the children are at peace....every one of them.
Peace.
You answer mine, I'll answer yours.
Good question: Haven't any idea. Let's speculate anyway; I presume Muslims pray to Allah regarding their children just like we do. Perhaps God is, as the scripture says, no respecter of persons. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust, even Arabs. C.S. Lewis was not averse to an Arab pursuing Allah and finding God. I wont be offended if God listens to every voice on earth and answers as He chooses.
Buddy
Buddy,
Are you now saying that there's a difference in general, and/or, in consequences, between a Christian who "gets it right" genuinely(because it feels "right"), and one who is only, as you put it, "acting the right way"? I assume you would tell me that the word of God/Son/Ghost is intrinsically "right", correct?....that regardless of what we believe is "right" and "wrong", God's word trumps it, correct?...we couldn't possibly know "right" from "wrong" without "God"?
Again, so what difference does it make if a "Christian" is only "acting right"..i.e.. the way they're allegedly told to act? We've(you've) already established that "hope" is NOT enough to be considered a "serious" Christian. Nonetheless, the whole point of having "laws" bequeathed to us is because we allegedly don't "know" any better on our own---so it seems to me that if you label a Christian "not serious" because they are merely "acting" the part, that that defeats the premise for having and adhering to the alleged "Divine guidance" in the first place. That's like getting mad at a two yr-old for only "acting" in accordance with what you say, and not KNOWING that what you say is "right", before the fact.
B. Ferris: Similarly with profession, if someone professes (affirms) they're a Christian, does that make them one truly? If I profess to be a Hegelian, does that make me one? Or does it mean something more to actually believe and know.
I want to truly move past this issue.
If you are fully prepared to tell someone else that they are NOT a "True", or "real", or "serious" Christian--whether they think it's true, or not--then likewise, be prepared to have them tell YOU the same. See? It doesn't make a bit of flippin' difference to you, does it? No..because you, and ONLY you, determine if you hold to belief, or philosophy--it's not for someone else to decide.
Notwithstanding, Buddy, even though you've tried your heart out to make a distinction between "believers", and "True believers", it appears that either can be deceived. Anf it's not that you took my "bait", it's that the philosophy behind it is flawed.
__________________________________
Mr Ferris, this exchange, too, is becoming quite lengthy--could you specify which question you'd like addressed? Thanks.
You asked what difference does it make if a "Christian" is only "acting right"?
Doing right things is commendable of course, and we shouldn't disparage the effort anyone expends to do right, particularly when it suggests the higher motivations of concern for others, a commitment to justice, and so on.
Doing right things out of fear of penalty is understandable. Not speeding to avoid a ticket, not stealing to avoid arrest, both are lesser motivations but certainly acceptable to us.
Becoming a Christian has behavior implications, of course, but they aren't primary. Christianity isn't something you join by qualifying according to a performance standard.
The first to be called Christians were so identified because they believed in Jesus. It was and remains a question of belief.
Many here have had to come to grips with the fact that they honestly do not believe. Some are angry, a few are bitter after discovering that years were lost because of it.
So to answer your question directly, it makes all the difference in the world. If you believe, all the next things are relatively easy to discover. If you don't believe, 'acting like' you do will only sustain you a little ways.
Is that an adequate answer?
Buddy
Of course I was offended. For a while I felt god cared about some and not others, and I was one of the others. Then I came to my senses.
I am done with you sir, and you preconceptions.
My loss.
Your feelings are valid, by the way, and probably not uncommon.
SN: For a while I felt god cared about some and not others, and I was one of the others.
Bailing out is a reasonable response and undeserving of criticism. I offer none. Perhaps we'll cross paths again.
Buddy
Buddy,
I'd like to point out a previous distinction that you made concerning mere "belief" and being a "True believer". But first, obviously, one can still "believe" something to be true and not "know" it to be true, right? Right. And in my experience, this is the application of "belief" that most Christians adhere to....i.e..Member(s) of the Christian Faith.
On the other hand, you've basically gone on record to say that this "hope" type of "faith" does not a "serious Christian" make. The 'True Believer' "knows" Christanity to be FACT, thus, why they "believe" it.
That said, when you speak of the people here who've been hurt and who have bitterness, etc., bare in mind that these are people who simply surrendered to the fact that they could no longer pretend to "know" what they didn't "know". It is an honest stance, and you, yourself, went on further to even say that to "act" like you "know"..i.e.."hope" it's true, doesn't elevate one to any better of a position than one who never invesitgates it, and/or flat-out denies it.
Now, you can stop me here if I'm off mark, but I don't think you can, because I've been paying careful attention to the terms/explanations you've set forth.
On another note, you've also told one former believer, quote: "don't allow your experience[non-experience] so far to persuade you that all of creation must be like you. Surely some is; certainly much is not."
So, apparently, if what you've said thus far is true and correct, then it would seem that some people "like" him or her[or me], simply CANNOT "know". To review, you said, "If you believe, all the next things are relatively easy to discover." This is moot, because we've already established that merely to "believe" falls short. One MUST KNOW, then belief follows.
So firstly, can you explain why these people who cannot "know" would hypothetically be culpable on an alleged "judgement day"?
Secondly, and probably more importantly, if the "knowledge" you've aquired that Christianity is a Universal 'Truth'---one that Buddy Ferris claims is NOT of a "faith" in the "hope" sense of the word, but FACT---then these "facts" could theoretically be taught and/or demonstrated. Unless I've misunderstood, we are not talking about some "unseen" hypothetical.
Now, I know you probably tire of people asking how you "KNOW" that Christianity is not "hope", but "fact". But I don't tire of wondering how you, and other Theists know this, especially if it's something that can be taught to others; especially if there's threats of eternal torment for my lack of "knowlwedge".
If it's not something that can be taught; if "some" people "like" us simply cannot know what Buddy Ferris knows, then again, how are we culpable????????
i.e.....anxiously awaiting your evidence.
Peace.
Things pointed out as obviously this or that usually aren't; such is the case you describe. Our modern use of 'believe' is a weak version of 'know'. It's grammatically equivalent to 'I think so'; not a statement that will hold up in court or on which anyone will base significant action.
The biblical use is emphatic and implies acceptance, trust, irrevocable reliance upon the truth of that which is believed. The two uses are dissimilar.*
You persist in asking how one might know; what evidence is available. I've suggested to others here that we describe rules of evidence we're willing to accept. Here are some suggestions:
1. Personal experience counts, but should be objectively evaluated
2. Eyewitness testimony counts, but should be objectively evaluated
3. Historical records count, context is relevant for evaluation
4. Scientific description counts; speculation on what the description means is OK if identified as such
5.
Is that a reasonable starting place? Feel free to add or remove.
Buddy
*The development of belief is quite visible in teens. At some point, they are no longer able to accept their parents affirmations about God or truth or life but must have reasons of their own to believe (trust, act on). They pull back, regroup on their own terms, then move forward.
Most of us remember going through the process. My father's God is now my God. Or not.
If I said or implied something as "obvious" and a specific "idea" wasn't obvious, then I stand corrected. Okay, I'll try to refrain from that.
Nothwithstanding, I generally, when engaging Theists, use the more common definitions of "faith", "believe", "know", etc. You seem to be re-defining certain terms, and subsequently, I'm of the understanding that we are/were using YOUR definitions. Which, this is fine, because it leaves little room for equivocation. Nonetheless, there's apparently still some room for completely disregarding what I've pointed out.
Buddy Ferris: "The biblical use is emphatic and implies acceptance, trust, irrevocable reliance upon the truth of that which is believed."
Buddy?...I don't give a rat's hind-quarters what the bible's definition is at this point, okay? Again, I tried incorporating the more traditional biblical terms and definitions in this discussion early on, but those didn't seem to work for you, and/or, you ended up changing them. Let's review:
Buddy Ferris: "The difference between 'hope' and 'faith', and perhaps the reason the two concepts are offered separately, might be likened somewhat to the difference between 'wish' and 'know'.
Those who profess to be Christians might therefore be divided (for this discussion only, please) into those who hope they are on the right track and those who know so with a reasonable and adequate measure of certainty.
My point in using the term 'true believer' was to differentiate those who know (and behave accordingly) from those who only hope so(and are easily provoked to fear by secular inquiry)."
Those Christians who "KNOW" it's true; compared to those Christians who merely "hope" it's true. Repeat, you said, uneqivocally, that the "faith" of a "serious Chrisitian" means to "KNOW".
Then you said: You[boomSLANG] persist in asking how one might know; what evidence is available.
No, I'm not interested in how "one might know"; I'm interested in how YOU know...and you, likewise, "persist" in circumventing the request.
In any event, I think I'm done doing the goose chase, Buddy. It's fun and interesting, but only up to a point. And I think we're at that point--the point where you unceasingly refuse to demonstrate how you "KNOW" what you keep emphatically stating that you "KNOW", and we get nowhere.
If you want to keep playing, then here, I'll make it easy for you. Here is what I WILL NOT accept for one's evidence that Christianity is a Universal Truth, and ALL other religiously revealed Truths are false:
1) The Holy Bible(because you won't accept the Book of Mormon, or the Holy Qu'ran)
2) Personal experience(because you won't accept the personal experiences of a Mormon, or Muslim)
And also baring in mind, of course, that even "True Believers" can be "deceived"...i.e.."of course"(they can)
Best regards in the future.
I apologize for the biblical reference; it wasn't helpful. I hadn't intended to use the bible as an authority. Thanks for enduring my presence.
I've been looking for a way to avoid being your enemy.
I've not been specific about evidence yet as this site is understandably hostile to most offerings, regardless of merit. The hostility mixed with anger is sometimes transferred from issue to author. Being here is much like being in a minefield; I try not to offend or step on anything painful.
I suggested rules of evidence a few times; exchanges here seem quite cavalier on that point.
My thought in precisely defining 'belief' is the point you raise; some believe, others can't.
Might I suggest that we do include personal experience, objectively evaluated. I had more expected it to be limited to yours and mine in the course of conversation. You may include Mormons and Muslims if you like, under the same objective evaluation requirement.
What's next?
Buddy
The problem is that, like good chess players, we can reasonably predict the other's next move....
If you feel like this "evidence" issue puts you in a perpetual state of "checkmate", then maybe there's a reason for it. Maybe examine that reason before continuing on this particular website....... 'only a suggestion.
Nonetheless, before we delve too deeply into the qualifications of "evidence", I think it would be wise to FIRST agree on if there's more than one way for some-"thing" to "exist". Agreed? Nonetheless...your move, either way.
No problem at all. Feel free to elaborate on your 'exist' stipulation so we're both clear. Meanwhile...
Allow me to introduce myself. I'm almost 60, I've been a believer most of my life.
The normal events of life and death gave me opportunity to question my conclusions, much like some here have described. We lost our second child to miscarriage; we wept, it seems, for days. The trappings of religion fell away; I remember being reduced by it to just a few things I knew for certain. 'God is' headed the short list. I was sure of that much; perhaps I'll be able to describe why.
Some of the folks on this site have suffered loss and concluded there was therefore no God. A dying child, a parent lost way too early, abuse and suffering, unanswered prayer, all too much to bear for anyone. Some emerge believing with greater clarity, others disbelieving emphatically.
If any one event might yield two conclusions, I'm open to suggestions on how to proceed.
Buddy
60ish? You look much younger.
B. Ferris: Some of the folks on this site have suffered loss and concluded there was therefore no God. A dying child, a parent lost way too early, abuse and suffering, unanswered prayer, all too much to bear for anyone. Some emerge believing with greater clarity, others disbelieving emphatically.
True, "some" of the people on this site have suffered loss--i.e...loss of loved ones due to death. But untrue that this is why the bulk of them/us no longer believe. Sure, it may show clarity/reason to the non-believer in hindsight, but this after the fact. This is AFTER months, or even years, of careful deliberation; this is after careful examination of the nagging cognitive dissonance that "comes with the turf" of religious belief. So I'm pretty sure it's a rare case that a Christian would deconvert the day after a loved one passes.
Once more, Buddy, as commonly defined, we cannot "examine" a "god" with empirical/measurable means. Agreed?(I'm assuming "yes", 'else we'd have gotten something to examine by now, from you, or some other Theist)
That said, at some point we must rely, unfortunately, on the subjective attributes put forth by those who INSIST that a god exists; that this "God" is the "One True God", and that all other gods are figments of people's imaginations....i.e.."deceived" Fair so far?
Buddy, I've done my damndest to try to come to agreement with
you(for sake of discussion) as to these attributes, as well as, the other commonly used theological terms such as "faith", "true", "believer", "True Believer", and so on, and so on.
Thus far, you've 'customized' some of the broader more commonly used definitions. You've made distinctions, that in my mind, have raised some serious problems, conceptually and/or philosophically.
For instance, you've made the distinction between two meanings of the word "faith". According to you, there's the type of "faith" that means to "wish", or "hope"---and then there's the type that means to "know". You put yourself in the latter group, unless I've grossly misunderstood.
You went on further to say that it is you, the "serious Christian", e.g. the 'True Believer', who "knows" that Christianity is a universal truth; that "Christ" does, in fact, "exist".
Again, if we qualify your term, 'True Believer', then the implication is that there are "un-true" believers, or "lesser" believers---in any case, "believers" who do NOT "know" that "God"(biblegod) exists , but have "faith" that "He" exists in the traditional sense of the word. But of course, this distinction is moot, because when asked if one could be deceived into thinking they are a 'True Believer', you said:
"Of course; no serious Christian would continue if they thought they were otherwise."
I repeat; the problem is blatant. If they are "deceived", then whether they 'think' they are "serious" has no baring on anything if they are "continuing" erroneously, due to deception.
All that aside, even if one wishes to "continue" to "believe", deceived, or not, I could not care less. Seriously. If Tom Cruise has a "belief" that lizards from Mars are currently shape-shifting into "humans" and wander among us?(he does)...FABULOUS! I do NOT care. I guess I'm an Alizardist, then?
The problem, Buddy, is the types of "beliefs" that demand/promote that the entire world's population "must" conform to said belief. The problem is when said beliefs cannot be demonstrated to be objectively/universally true. Furthermore, it's the implicit threats for non-conformity of said belief; it's the unceasing insistance that something "exists" that cannot be substantiated.
Okay, fine, if you want to use "revelation" and personal testimony to substantiate?....if you insist that that is "evidence"? Then we must accept "other" revealed truths, and the testimonies of people from "other" religions/geographical locations, as well. But of course, the Christian does not qualify those things as "evidence" coming from others.
All that said, here you are, Buddy....still trying to convince us/me that your so-far-unproven-subjective-belief is a universal reality.
Exist:
1) To have actual being; be real.
2) To have life; live: one of the worst actors that ever existed.
3) To live at a minimal level; subsist: barely enough income on which to exist.
4) To continue to be; persist: old customs that still exist in rural areas.
Ref: American Heritage
I'm disheartened to hear your news about Tom. I had hoped, as I expect we all had hoped, that the lizard thing was finally behind him. Sad. It does point out, though, that there are useful areas of agreement we might discover. I apparently have been an unknowing alizardist for some time, and I owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing me to that awareness.
Back to earth.
I've offered some thoughts on faith and belief precisely to avoid the 'common use' to which you refer. Without intending criticism, I note that your use of the words and my use are different.
Early on, I thought both faith and belief to be imprecise and elusive. As 'commonly' presented, I felt I was mentally straining for something unreachable and undefined. The usage seemed to offer an approach to life that was about as useful as 'be cheerful, and it'll be fine!' I've paid my blood dues to arrive at what I consider to be a reasonable place among reasonable people.
To be fair on the question of personal experience, we should probably examine representative narratives from each milieu; what I envisioned, however, was more limited to my experience and yours, objectively evaluated to our mutual satisfaction.
Your definition of 'exist' works for me.
I suspect we think in similar fashion; your 'fair so far' milestones are not unreasonable, even though the exasperation shows a little.
Buddy
Is that an admission that "Scientology" is outlandish?..and/or, "out of this world"?
If so, that's remarkable, because since I'm no longer inside the "Christian bubble", I can see things about Christianity that are every bit as "outlandish" as the notion that shape-shifting reptilian beings live on a distant planet, and commute to earth as a conspiracy to overtake us, thus, being the downfall of humankind. Oh well.
Buddy: I've offered some thoughts on faith and belief precisely to avoid the 'common use' to which you refer. Without intending criticism, I note that your use of the words and my use are different.
Again, I'm happy to use YOUR definitions, which, in doing so, I've found some problems with those concepts...e.g.."True Believer", compared to "believer". Nonetheless, I'm apprehensive about covering those issues for a third, fourth, or fifth time, and would like to move on to the "meat 'n potatoes".
Correct me if I'm wrong: In order to be convinced that Tom's "Lizard-men" do in fact "exist", you'd need "evidence" that they "exist", correct?
Buddy: Your definition of 'exist' works for me.
Good. Progess. Okay, waiting.
boom'
Your summation is correct. In order to believe in alien lizards, I'd need good reason to do so. Should the two of us choose to discuss the alien lizards, we'd need some vocabulary and evidentiary standards.
Without straying too far from the heart of the matter, I offer that believing in God is a reasonable position. I'll grant you your rationalistic analysis of scientific evidence to the contrary without necessarily agreeing with your conclusions. What remains is the reasonableness of our positions. OK so far?
Need we include the positions others hold or the arguments others present? Or might the exchange be more honest if we limit it to those positions we hold personally.
I'd prefer to avoid the disconnected exchanges (kitchen sink arguments) where the participant's personal beliefs are mixed with content that they don't support personally. That which I hold as my own in good conscience should be able to stand on its' own.
I've acknowledged here the validity of a position held honestly. I've politely challenged the assumptions which to me appear to be held with more feeling than content. The emotionally charged issues of belief and faith lend themselves to honest consideration, but for many, it's a frightening place for honest inquiry; threatening to many who fear being wrong or right because of what is perhaps required of them thereafter.
That which we see and touch offers us an accumulation of information over a lifetime. We choose deliberately how we interpret the information. Thoughts on the choice?
Buddy
Buddy,
Yes, provided neither party puts forth terms that are open-ended, and/or, inconclusive. For example, if I'm "pro-Alien Lizard", and at the end of my list of terms I made a distinction between Lizardians, and True Lizardians, you might inquire as to who, and what, qualifies one, and disqualifies the other. Is that much reasonable?
Assuming so, say you asked me if even "True Lizardians" can be deceived, and I said something to the effect of, "of course; no serious Lizardian would continue if they thought they were otherwise."
Wouldn't that at least raise an eyebrow?
I just hope I've finally made my point of this. After all, I could rightfully disqualify the whole discussion on such a statement...i.e..if one is "deceived", by definition, obviously, they don't know it.(I hope it was appropriate to say "obviously" there)
Buddy Ferris: I offer that believing in God is a reasonable position. I'll grant you your rationalistic analysis of scientific evidence to the contrary without necessarily agreeing with your conclusions. What remains is the reasonableness of our positions. OK so far?
No, not OK---didn't you just basically define "faith"? In other words, if you have decided a priori, that you will continue to "believe" your position, even in light of the scientific evidence to the contrary, isn't that called "faith"?... in the traditional sense of the word?
I think so, Buddy..... so again, what's the point of all this, then? Couldn't I rightfully disqualify this debate on that ground, too? I think so. Yes, despite what I offer to support my case, scientific, or not, in the end Buddy Ferris says, "I believe anyway, because I know that what I believe is a Universal Truth"[hypothetically paraphrased to make the point]
Buddy: Need we include the positions others hold or the arguments others present? Or might the exchange be more honest if we limit it to those positions we hold personally.
Continuing from above---in the end, the "decision" cannot be based merely on the "reasonableness" of our(your and my) positions. Why?..because you are claiming your, thus far, subjective "truth" as a Universal "Truth". Don't you see the problem with this?
Buddy Ferris: I'd prefer to avoid the disconnected exchanges (kitchen sink arguments) where the participant's personal beliefs are mixed with content that they don't support personally. That which I hold as my own in good conscience should be able to stand on its' own.
Right, and forgive me if this sounds crass, but your position, thus far, doesn't stand on it's own. That's why I await credible evidence that your religious belief is a MORE than just a subjective belief; that's it a Universal Truth, as you claim, and all others are false(as you implicitly claim).
Buddy Ferris: I've acknowledged here the validity of a position held honestly. I've politely challenged the assumptions which to me appear to be held with more feeling than content. The emotionally charged issues of belief and faith lend themselves to honest consideration, but for many, it's a frightening place for honest inquiry; threatening to many who fear being wrong or right because of what is perhaps required of them thereafter.
Buddy?.... I'll READILY concede that my Atheist worldview is WRONG, once I detect, with my physical senses--the same senses that ANYONE uses to say they "KNOW" something---evidence for any god...and mind you, it doesn't have to be "Yahweh"; it's an equal opportunity for ALL known gods and their respective Theists, to SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE.
How's that for exasperation? = O
If I understand your response, you're concerned that I would ignore or reject evidence you might present, without adequate reason for doing so. Shall we continue and see if you're correct?
You've laid out ground rules to which I have no particular objections.
You've somewhat clarified your position on belief and faith. We can avoid those terms if you like.
I've made no universal truth claim, nor have I written regarding other religions with scientology being the lone exception.
You've heroically offered to concede that your atheistic world view is wrong if presented with some feel-see-touch-sense encounter with God.
Well begun.
Dear Buddy,
Actually, after reading that?.... no, we shouldn't continue....that is, unless there can be a mutual understanding that it is impossible for me to "present" scientific evidence, or otherwise, that a "God" does not/cannot exist. Much in the same way I cannot put forth scientific evidence that invisible green imps don't live on a distant planet in another galaxy.
Buddy, we must agree that the onus of substantiating a "God" falls in the lap of the one making the claim that there IS such a "thing". What I am asking, is that "science" be qualified as criteria for any positive claims put forth. Why?... because it's the most reliable, least biased, method we have. If I'm wrong, tell me what method is better for determining if something "exists", or not, preferably with references, and we'll go from there.
Buddy Ferris: You've somewhat clarified your position on belief and faith. We can avoid those terms if you like.
Frankly, I don't see how we will avoid these terms, since, from where I sit, your argument doesn't excede a "belief" until you provide adaquate evidence that it does.
Buddy Ferris: I've made no universal truth claim
Oops!...then there's a misunderstanding somewhere along the course of communication.
I was of the understanding that we were debating the existance of the "Christian" deity, because.....well, because you are a "True Believer" in "Christ", and because you "know" that said deity "exists", and is "real", and that all other gods and their respective religions are "not real". I await your corrections, if any.
Buddy Ferris: You've heroically offered to concede that your atheistic world view is wrong if presented with some feel-see-touch-sense encounter with God.
Yes, yes...once I experience a "god", first hand, with the same physical senses that you presumably use to detect your Jesus, I will HAPPILY renounce my Atheist world-view. 100% correct.(baring in mind that I won't necessarily accept the provided "plan")
Disclaimer: If you "detect" your deity with some sort of "meta" sensory perception?... I'll consider a disqualification, unless you can demonstrate this "extra-sensory" perception, thus, showing that you are not merely deceived into thinking you have this "extra-sensory" perception.
Let me know.
No problem at all. I'll gladly concede to science the ability to observe and describe the physical realm. I'll reserve judgment on what the description means, of course. Drawing conclusions from a description enters the realm of philosophy.
For example, Darwin concluded by observation and analysis that women are by nature, physiology, and character inferior to men. His observation and description were scientific; his conclusion was not. It appears to have been based on presuppositional error, biased by cultural prejudice against women in general. The roots are identifiable and irrelevant, but the event illustrates how an objective observation may be subjectively biased.
On the other hand, we can observe the chemical processes occurring at the cellular level during plant growth and 'conclude' several things about the process. CO2 is taken in, O2 is released, plants and animals are ecosystem impact elements; that sort of thing.
My allusion to true believers, since you raise the issue again, was solely for the purpose of differentiating between those who adhere to a religion for reasons other than belief and those who actually buy in to the whole. As yet, I've made no claims beyond that. Perhaps 'Christians more in name than in belief' would have been a useful distinction.
Otherwise, we're good. You needn't assume any responsibility for proving the non-existence of anything.
I hope you're enjoying the 4th. I'm at work, obviously goofing off for the moment. I need a brain-break from time to time.
Buddy
.....observe, describe, and test the physical realm. Is your alleged deity testable/falsifiable? If not, I'm leaning towards a disqualification, unless, again, if you can demonstrably reproduce the "extra-sensory" means by which you detect this untestable "being".
Buddy Ferris: For example, Darwin concluded by observation and analysis that women are by nature, physiology, and character inferior to men. His observation and description were scientific; his conclusion was not
Define "inferior". And did he test his hypothesis, I wonder(?)
Feel free to get the ball rolling, provided the above passes inspection. For the time being, I'll tentatively ask: Is your deity physical/material/tangible, or non-physical/immaterial/intangible?
As for my 4th...I've out-grown watching the local red-necks blow stuff up, but thanks.
But hey, how 'bout blowin' this thread up with some "evidence"?...wha'da ya say?
Since you seemed curious on the subject of Darwin's science, you'll enjoy this. In Descent of man Darwin wrote: "The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman - whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands"(Chapter 19, 1871 edition).
An observation by Vogt bears on this subject: he says, "It is a remarkable circumstance, that the difference between the sexes, as regards the cranial cavity, increases with the development of the race, so that the male European excels much more the female, than the negro the negress. Welcker confirms this statement of Huschke from his measurements of negro and German skulls."
Of course, it was all quite scientific. Read the references for yourself for his definition of inferior, if you like.
Much of the western world tried to justify expanded discrimination against women. Even some clerics got on the bandwagon.
As I said, science can observe and describe (alright, and test), but 'conclude'? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Buddy
How then shall we proceed? Shall we rehash arguments we've both heard? If I were to offer a classical defense for you to attack, would that do more than define our position as adversaries?
Webmaster recounts for us his encounter with God at age eleven; a life changing, mind changing experience that is still vivid in his memory. The emotional cleansing and reality of that moment has never left me, and as I write about it now, it comes alive once again.
So here we have a professed atheist's account of a personal, tangible, thoroughly persuasive encounter, one which has been experienced by many, observed by more, described in literature, and rejected in this case after years of dissuasive experience.
Webmaster describes his unfortunate exposure to church foolishness. There was the pastor who removed our friend and his wife from ministry because they weren't thoroughly persuaded to the dogma he (the pastor) felt was essential. Then there was the incredible church that insisted our friend was 'living in sin' with his 2nd wife, not having been adequately divorced from his 1st; he was actually advised to separate from his wife and live celibate. Their next encounter was with a group who would have fit well in the early Crusades, and our friend eventually left it all behind, understandably.
Similar experiences are not uncommon. In some churches, divorce is the only unforgivable sin. They can find a place for a repentant adulterer or murderer, but not for a divorced, single mom and her kids. I've seen it; dealt with it more than once.
I've never been badly treated by the church. Untold thousands have been. It's incredible what folks will think or do under the name of church and Christianity.
These actions which we observe and abhor have little if any legitimate connection to God or Christianity. They may call themselves what they will, but I doubt God will claim them.
Some pray, "God, bless this work." Perhaps God answers, "I can't bless that. It's wicked, and it stinks." Then they complain because He didn't help them do their wickedness.
I presume you have your own narrative. Care to hit the high points here?
Buddy
"
Buddy. I did not leave Christianity because of my experiences with Christians. You missed the point entirely. What those experiences showed me is that there is nothing magical going on in Christianity. It is all self-delusion. The feelings, the mystical ecstasy, the supposed encounters with God -- it's all a tribute to human imagination and our capacity to visualize into existence (in our minds) things that don't exist. It's story. It's myth. It's the spirit of invention.
Buddy: on every one of these threads, you've purposely derailed the thread topic and attempted to, or succeeding, leading the discussion down irrelevant rabbit trails, completely off topic. Your tone of writing comes off as sincere, but your approach is that of a typical, self-appointed evangelist.
Bud, Brian, or whatever: Let's, for the sake of discussion, agree that science is totally inadequate for determining anything whatsoever.
Ok, you're in computers, right? And science is meaningless now. So, how are you going to fix the network now?
Oh, never mind, that's not the same thing. We aren't talking about ALL science, just the science that seems to contradict Christianity. Ok, fine. All science that contradicts Christianity will be assumed false.
Feel good? It's all nonsense, and wrong.
Better?
Now, that's decided, so we can dismiss that discussion.
Now, provide some evidence that your permanently scarred, un-dead, flying, god-man-on-a-stick, who has a flaming sword and fire shooting out his eyes, ready to rain wrath down upon those like me who think he's just a made up character in a story book, and promises and eternal home for me in the bowels of HIS sadistic torture chamber.
This is the heart of this discussion, Buddy.
That some magical religion is the explanation for unsatisfactorily questions is certainly one possibility, but is that explanation likely? Based on the historic propensity for human beings to assign divine attributes to the various parts of nature not clearly understood (ex: lightning, thunder, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, sunrise, shooting stars, eclipses, etc.), it seems much more likely that those processes of nature (abiogenesis, evolution, etc.) of which we are in the early stages of understanding, are all natural, too. Magic has nothing to do with reality, except when used in a poetic way as in "the magic of life."
So, from here on out Buddy, please keep on topic in whatever post you take up residence. Go back to Dan Barker's article above, and comment on that. Please refrain from purposely derailing the conversation with your amateurish Baptist apologetics.
Thanks.
Feel freely obligated to address me by the pseudo' I've chosen for myself. (Don't feel bad, it's not that your attempt at humor wasn't unfunny)
Buddy Ferris: How then shall we proceed?
I've told you, let's see...quite possibly a dozen times, how "we" procede; it would be virtually impossible for me to make it ANY %$#@ing clearer to you without coming across in a manner that wouldn't exactly lend itself to keeping this discussion going. No offense, but to be quite honest, I'm losing interest.....fairly quickly.(not that you care, or I'd expect you to care)
Buddy Ferris: Shall we rehash arguments we've both heard? If I were to offer a classical defense for you to attack, would that do more than define our position as adversaries?
More time-buying, goose-chase tactics.
You make a claim that you know something; I ask: how do you "know" it. The request, itself, is very elementary. I'm sorry if you feel "trapped", and/or, that my questions are "bait", but that's not my problem. And again, perhaps it's a good indicator that the "truth" of your belief is limited to your own mind. Which, BTW, I will readily concede to that much any time you'd like.
Buddy Ferris: Webmaster recounts for us his encounter with God at age eleven; a life changing, mind changing experience that is still vivid in his memory. The emotional cleansing and reality of that moment has never left me, and as I write about it now, it comes alive once again.
I hope you'll forgive me, but I fail to see the point. He further "recounts" how he now realizes that that was a clear case of self-deception; he "believed" he was a 'True Believer', and now realizes he was a deceived believer. After all, there is THAT potential, right? Let's(again) review your previous answer to that question:
Buddy Ferris: "Of course; no serious Christian would continue if they thought they were otherwise."
Moreover, any adult can likely "recount" their days when on the 25th of every December, they'd awaken to the smell of holly, presents under the tree, and stuffed stockings. Just because one can recall such events vividly in their mind, says not one thing about the reality of whether Santa Claus actually "exists"/"existed".
Buddy Ferris: So here we have a professed atheist's account of a personal, tangible, thoroughly persuasive encounter, one which has been experienced by many, observed by more, described in literature, and rejected in this case after years of dissuasive experience.
I'm not sure, do I even need to address this one?... considering my response to the previous paragraph? "Thoroughly persuasive encounter"...? Would it help if I put the word "thoroughly" before "deceived"?
Buddy Ferris: Webmaster describes his unfortunate exposure to church foolishness. There was the pastor who removed our friend and his wife from ministry because they weren't thoroughly persuaded to the dogma he (the pastor) felt was essential.
Ah, yes, the ol' foolishness of the church. Or, "man has failed you, not God". I/we hear both, all the time, Buddy.
Your premise, unless I've misunderstood, is that just because people cause disruption and/or don't "act the part" in Sunday school, doesn't mean that that's a good reason to dismiss why you're there in the first place. True. Like, just because there's some foolishness or a disruption in geometry class, doesn't mean "geometry" doesn't "exist". Okay, I'll concede your premise.
Buddy Ferris: These actions which we observe and abhor have little if any legitimate connection to God or Christianity. They may call themselves what they will, but I doubt God will claim them.
Right, right. And Shirley Phelps doubts that God will claim you and your church, and so does "Abdul Muslim", on the other side of the planet.
Buddy, we've been over it a gazillion times; "belief", especially, religious belief, is all very subjective. In fact, it's one gigantic subjective grab-bag. Is there objective truth in any of it? Well, aside from the "common sense" it touts as "Divinely Inspired", I say an emphatic no, but I'm open for you, or any other Theist, to show me otherwise.
Of course, this leads us back to if you can substantiate whether or not your "belief" is anything more than a subjective belief. Due to non-evidence; due to the time-buying tactics, I'm left with little choice but to remain skeptical..i.e.."no".
Buddy Ferris: I presume you have your own narrative.
Yes. For a quick review, re-read my last dozen or so posts in this thread.
Buddy Ferris: Care to hit the high points here?
Gosh Buddy, I don't think my narrative has any "high points". But really, why would my narrative have, or even need, a "highpoint"?
What's the "high point" of your defense against those who claim Quetzacoatl exists? That's a direct question. Here's another: What's the "high point" of your defense against those who claim that Muhammad exists? Wouldn't your "narrative" essentially be a default position of neutrality? Wouldn't you remain skeptical until EVIDENCE was put forth for one, or the other?
Buddy, once you understand why you dismiss those "Gods", you'll fully understand why I dismiss your "God", and that my narrative doesn't NEED any "high points".
Have a great one.
The other boy replied, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It's probably just your Dad."
Sometimes, reason overcomes the ridiculous.
My sincere apologies for derailing the threads; although you malign me by suggesting it was purposeful, I'll take the reproof. I'm new to the blog world, obviously, and haven't mastered the nuances thereof. If the blog regulars prefer to have only those with whom they agree participating here, I'm ok with that.
I'm not sure if I should respond to the amateur Baptist apologetics ascription. The offering of: Let's, for the sake of discussion, agree that science is totally inadequate for determining anything whatsoever is inconsistent with what I've stated. Throwing that to me like a bone to a worrisome dog implies perhaps that you think I might agree; I don't.
Thanks for your gracious concession and honest continuing skepticism. Should you desire to discontinue, let me know. I appreciate the time and conversation you've given.
The legends of Quetzalcoatl and other such recountings have a particular place in my understanding of history; we'll go that road sometime, perhaps. Muhammad did exist, I'm moderately sure.
At some point, you would like me to offer the evidence which has persuaded me to the existence of God. It's as though a lion waited impatiently for the youngster to stray out on to the savanna. Is there no middle ground where the two of us might reason? Or must I be adequately bloodied first?
Why do I believe? Here's a fun starting place; I've seen two angels. The first was wide awake, eyes open, in a crowd; the event stunned me, being a pragmatic, engineer type. Not human or near human. The event is burned as a series of detailed images in my memory. The second such event scared me so badly that I turned away in a blind panic. Two events, five years apart.
More such events, no two particularly alike, all clearly and calmly considered, many with a precise element of information communicated, many in public with witnesses.
You can imagine how I might interpret such things. I can imagine how you might interpret such things. Lay on, McDuff, and ... we'll skip the tail of that quote.
Buddy
Buddy,
My first question---how can you be certain that "Quetzalcoatl" didn't actually "exist"? What method of deduction did you/do you use to reach that conclusion?
Secondly, if "Muhammad" actually existed, what is it that makes you certain that he wasn't the 'Son of Allah', like Islam claims? What evidence might you include/exclude to deny such a claim? Again, not trick questions, but honest inquiry.
Buddy Ferris: At some point, you would like me to offer the evidence which has persuaded me to the existence of God.
Not just "God"--"Yahweh/Son/ghost".
Buddy Ferris: It's as though a lion waited impatiently for the youngster to stray out on to the savanna. Is there no middle ground where the two of us might reason? Or must I be adequately bloodied first?
Yes, Buddy....I've already somewhat implied that there's acceptable middle ground. I would readily accept that what you believe you are experiencing is a personal truth; that you are convinced that what you experienced was/is real.(notice, no quotes on truth or real)
Moreover, I already hold a position of neutrality. I think that's as "middle ground" as anything. But, if you have something else in mind, I'll take a listen.
Budy Ferris: Why do I believe? Here's a fun starting place; I've seen two angels. The first was wide awake, eyes open, in a crowd; the event stunned me, being a pragmatic, engineer type. Not human or near human.
To my understanding, I thought "angels" were invisible, non-physical, "beings"? If not, and you detected these "beings" with your physical senses(eyes), how can you be sure they were "angelic" in nature, and not something else?.... like Aliens? Like something Tom Cruise might relate to?
Buddy Ferris: The event is burned as a series of detailed images in my memory. The second such event scared me so badly that I turned away in a blind panic. Two events, five years apart.
I can imagine(no pun intended). Again, Buddy, alien abductees claim the same frightening types of encounters. Even under "hypnosis". What distinguishing features/factors lead you to believe that these "beings" were/are "Divine" in nature?...or, "super"-nature? Furthermore, how do you know they weren't "Muslim" angels? I'm sure you know that Muslims claim such sightings, too...or, I would hope so. If so, how do you explain away a Muslim's experience?
Buddy Ferris: More such events, no two particularly alike, all clearly and calmly considered, many with a precise element of information communicated, many in public with witnesses.
What kind of information? And how was this info communicated between parties? If you don't mind sharing, of course.
Buddy Ferris: You can imagine how I might interpret such things. I can imagine how you might interpret such things. Lay on, McDuff, and ... we'll skip the tail of that quote.
It's exciting, the least. Tell me, though, were you a "Christian" before?... or was it after these experiences that made you a believer?' Just curious.
Pardon the amount of questions. On the other hand, it's no "every-day" claim.
Short questions, long answers. The last first, then.
I've been a Christian for most of 50+ years. I spent a few of my younger years off on a siding; I claimed agnosticism for a couple of years; in retrospect, the claim was more an intellectual preference than something I actually held genuinely. I was a believer when the events I described happened. They're fairly recent.
The first was at a musical performance. An older fellow was playing guitar and singing reasonably well; not remarkable music, but it was genuinely personal, from his heart to God in worship. His wife danced behind him on the stage, rather oddly, I thought. Strange movements, not drawn from any dance style I'd known. I asked, possibly out loud, "What in the world is she doing?" After several songs and her accompanying dance, I became slowly aware that I could see a creature behind her on the stage, visibly as though separated from her by a gauzy curtain, dancing in the same manner, not particularly in unison with her. Huge, easily 3 times her height. The creature was better at the dance than she; they danced while I watched for some time, I don't know how long. No shadows, no trick lighting, no disappearing when I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It didn't occur to me, lacking any frame of reference, to deduce anything from what I saw. As the dance ended and as worship drew to a close for the 1200 or so folks there, the creature faded from sight, and I heard quite loudly the words, "She dances with angels" spoken as though to me. OK, I had asked, but it was just a rhetorical question.
I was over 50 at the time, a science and engineering professional, decades past romantic suggestibility, a boringly realistic guy according to my family and friends. No art, no music, no theater in my soul; just science and math, and I'm the one that sees this thing. My wife next to me didn't see or hear anything unusual. A friend who was there described for me later having seen the same creature.
That was one experience that I'm satisfied was genuine above the 'it's a miracle; my headache is better!' level. It is generally consistent with biblical accounts of such encounters; I'll do the references for you if you like.
Although the creature wasn't human or particularly humanoid, there weren't any lizardy features I could see, so Tom won't be beating down my door. Anecdotal narratives from the bible suggest that angels are not necessarily unseen. If Christian thinking regarding angels is to be believed, angels are not divine, meaning like God. Angels are created beings, not particularly like us, and not likely to be golden haired young guys in white dresses. I'm satisfied that the creature was angelic rather than alien or other due to the context in which it was observed. It was dancing with a human female while she danced for her God accompanying her husbands offering of his music. I didn't think to ask if it was a Muslim angel.
Enough for the moment?
Raises more questions than it answers, I know.
Buddy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5u3eZvcUw
Can you explain, why you believe this "oddly" dance of a "woman", and entity/image/apparition is a real event or not? If you had no other information about the gentleman's life, surrounding this musical production, would you be able to conclusively deny what you experienced? If not, you must be highly tempted to assert that this production replicates a concrete or physical event, but... does it?
How do you tell the truth, from fantasy Buddy, just curious. It really matters not to me about your mental abstractions of reality, they are real, it's what you can pull out in concrete terms that allows your experience to be understood by others...
Now, your inability to display your expereience, may well, be a common "experience" or "plight" that you share with others, and becomes a "social" glue for a culture, but at least properly accept the root cause for your social adhesion to others whom you would share a similar title with.
Any belief/non-belief statement that makes a positive claim towards the "existence" of another persons' mental abstraction, is absurd.
The "inspiration" to bring a mental abstraction to "form" (bible, etc.), does not constitute "proof", for/of the mental abstraction, it is only proof of itself, if the bible, it is proof of a book's existence in concrete terms, nothing more. The bible, doesn't prove a mental abstraction to be "True".
I restrain from making positive claims about your mental abstraction/experience, but, your attempt to take your mental abstraction, a mentally perceived "only" vision of an angel, and link it in "concrete" terms - fails.
My recounting the experience was not offered as proof. It was offered in answer to a question.
You do raise interesting questions regarding our powers of observation and the legitimacy of our conclusions. How do you distinguish between truth and fantasy?
My impression from those who post here is that some semblance of rational analysis is considered reasonable.
For that which I saw, the following applies:
Observed by an impartial party?
Yes. I had no expectations of the event. It was not a thesis I was interested in proving. It was not a structured event which I controlled for some desired outcome. I was without a frame of reference at the time of the event. I had neither current curiosity nor recent conversations to pre-load my observation of the event.
Predisposed by social adhesion to others having or claiming similar experience?
No. I was, at the time of the event, skeptical of such things by carefully considered choice.
Witnessed?
Yes. A person in a different location observed and later described the event in recognizable terms to me and others.
Repeatable on command?
No. I did not cause the event, nor have I attempted to duplicate it. The event did withstand attempts to shake it off and not see it.
Likely to have been deliberately staged for the performance?
No. Only two of hundreds saw it. Only one heard it.
Visual anomaly from physical circumstances?
No. The event was clearly visible, easily examined, persistent, consistent over time, in a clearly understood physical environment.
Credible observer(s)?
Make your own decision, pal.
What's the most likely source or cause; simplest, therefore most likely?
Here, your bias will lead you one way or another.
(1) it was a mental abstraction, as you've suggested. It didn't happen and the observers didn't see anything.
(2) it was a creature, participating quite directly in a finite context.
(3) other.
You are able to consider reasonably those things which your intellectual bias allows you to consider as reasonable. Truth is found; bias is chosen. It is difficult to see and remove your own bias from discussions such as these.
Buddy
You believe you witnessed a supernatural event.
Did you witness this supernatural event with natural eyes, or were you given supernatural eyes in order to view the supernatural event?
Let me be clear. If you "saw" something, then that something must have been in the natural "realm," at least for a short time, right?
I was in Charismatic churches for many years, and heard many stories such as yours. Sincere people claimed many such visions, visions shared by one or two or three. However, these visions never happened to people who were not already Christians and predisposed toward interpreting their visions through Christian lenses.
Regardless, the vision is real to you, so you accept it as real. The thing about personal experiences such as you describe, is that only you can benefit by them. You cannot share your personal experience with anyone else. You can tell them about it, but you cannot share the actual experience. That experience is for you alone. It is not truth. It is not proof. It is not evidence. It is merely a personal experience that confirms the religion you have spent your entire life involved with. It is, to everyone outside your brain or your immediate circle of religious people, completely meaningless.
For instance, you yourself said you were skeptical of such things until it happened to you. Why would you expect anyone else to be less skeptical?
I saw many things as a Christian, and had my own experiences which I interpreted as supernatural. I no longer see those experiences that way any more. Our brains do some inexplicable things at times, and the propensity for waking hallucinations, mass hallucinations, hallucination by suggestion, and old fashioned lying are all possibilities in regards to fantastic stories.
You didn't give many details on this dancing "angel." Did he/she have wings? Was it wearing a white robe or was it naked? Did it have long hair? Did it have two arms and two legs? Did it shine like the sun? Did it have ten fingers and ten toes? Was it wearing shoes? Was it thin or fat? Was it Caucasian?
Your questions confuse me a little. For instance, I'm not sure what supernatural eyes might be. Yes, of course it was real to me and of no particular interest to you.
You may freely assume what you will from my account. I didn't expect much in the way of acceptance offering such an account on this forum.
Let me invite you to note your casual dismissal of my account with offhand suggestions of mass hallucination, and hallucination by suggestion. The account doesn't fit your solution. I've been castigated for less on this site.
You may decide I'm a liar, of course.
You believe what you choose. You choose what you believe; none are as objective and fair minded as they hope.
Buddy
Dear Buddy,
As Dave(Webmaster) and Dave(8) already pointed out--your personal experiences are yours. No one is here to tell you that they were NOT "real"....to you(key point)
The problem(also, as previously pointed out), is that if whatever you witnessed was unique to 2 individuals out of 200, then it would stand to reason that 198 people didn't merely "over-look" it; they didn't just "happen" to miss the phenomenoa.... nor is it likely that they all made a run for some Juju bunnies at the same time. Please chime in if you think this is an unreasonable assessment, thus far. In other words, if you think that there's more of a chance of 198 people having a proclivity to error than "two" people...I'd like to have a listen at how you arrive at those odds.
For the moment, if we can agree that those other 198 people weren't "out to lunch" or asleep in their seats during said event, then we should be able to conclude two things: 1) whatever you saw was NOT "physical" in nature, and 2) that you and the other "witness" must have some "extra-sensory" perception with which to detect the "super-natural", or, meta-physical realm.
Again, continuing for the sake of argument, let's say that this is the case, and instead of "angels", you sighted transparent purple leprechauns, or invisible pink angora imps. Well, in such hypothetical case, it would be of zero consequence to others, and we could end the discussion right here, this very instant. Right? "Yay!..enjoy your imps!", etc. Right?
Do you see where I'm going with this? The problem is that you are claiming that whatever you saw validates a particular religious doctrine..e.g.."Christianity". For economy of space, I'll say that the bottom line of this doctrine is, "Believe...or burn". In other words, it is implicit that your personal "angelic encounter" DEMANDS that we ALL believe your personal "truth", as a Universal "Truth", lest our "souls" be eternally incinerated.
In case you haven't picked up on it---I have a real problem with this. Especially, if you and a "privileged few" have the special means with which to detect this "supernatural" realm, and the rest of us are left saying, "Whaaaa?..hUH?..wHeRe?..I don't 'see' anything...where the heck is it?..point to it...what's it doing now, where'd it gO???"..etc., etc., etc. 'Follow?
In other words, if your "God" is going to "make available" this obviously very necessary "sense" of perception to ONLY two out of every two HUNDRED people, and then wants to hold me responsible for being skeptical? F%CK HIM.
(sorry, bro'... I get enraged just thinking about the absurdity of it)
Furthermore, and on a lighter note, you apparently at least had the "notion" of what an "angel" was, due in part to your pre-conceived theistic/dualistic belief, no? Sure, you can sit there and say that you were skeptical, yada, yada... but you cannot deny the fact that you knew what an "angel" allegedly was, prior to the "sighting"; that you had a pre-disposition. Not to mention, if I understood correctly, it was a religious performance?
Notwithstanding, by your own admission, you said it didn't fit the 'traditional' look of an "angel"? Okay...so how do you know it was an "angel"? Listening.
Have fun on your trip.....bring back some objective evidence!(j/k)
I'm sorry to have confused you with my questions. I take the blame for not clearly stating things.
You claim to have seen (with your eyes) an entity that is not part of this natural world. If I understand you correctly, you "saw" this being with your natural eyes, but the thing you saw was not natural. In fact, only you and another religionist of your acquaintance saw this thing. Since 198 people also there saw nothing, then this is not a natural event.
If your eyes, which are natural, could see this shadow dancer, then I am curious as to how other natural eyes missed it. I am also curious to know whether you thought to take a photo on your cellphone so you could show others your heavenly vision.
Since you appear to think that personal experiences of this sort validate your beliefs, I'd like to share a brief story with you.
My father-in-law believes God speaks to him on occasion with an audible voice. He doesn't believe the voice is in his head, but in the air, vibrating his eardrums and the little bones of his inner ear.
One story I've heard dozens of times from him is of the time he was struggling to repair the plumbing under his sink. He was not progressing well, since he has no talent for plumbing. He cried out to God in frustration and heard "an audible voice" that said, "I am a plumber." He immediately recognized the voice (somehow) as that of God, and he redoubled his efforts with the stubbornly leaking sink. He eventually stopped the leak and credited it all to God's audible voice and assistance.
Something more about my father-in-law: He is/was physically and verbally abusive to his children (including my wife) for years. He is loud, pushy, obnoxious, preaches constantly, and is convinced that that the words from his mouth are the very words of God. He inappropriately touched his younger siblings while growing up and did the same to his children as they entered puberty. He has obvious mental (possibly chemical) issues that have never been diagnosed, because he has spent his life in missionary service. In his version of Christianity, mental illness doesn't exist -- only demonic influence exists. He's been exorcised, so he is cured, he thinks. Still, his actions speak volumes and his experiences are wacky.
Now, why would you expect me to believe that you had actually seen a ghost, er... I mean angel when some goof ball was ecstatically dancing an awkward jig?
I don't claim to be objective if objective means believing an anonymous poster who states fantastic sounding nonsense without so much as an ounce of communicable evidence beyond a no-detail story.
To backtrack a bit, my point in the science comment is to say that whatever science says or doesn't say is totally irrelevant to your claim of extra-dimensional encounters of the third kind. I don't care what science says about non-relevant topics. Science is dismissed, for the sake of this conversation.
Now, please present me evidence that your flying zombie dude, that is really god, but not the father, and not the ghost, lives in your physical body and sends magical creatures to dance for you.
My language is sarcastic, the question is sincere. It sounds ridiculously superstitious. It sounds like the way people talked as they set fire to witches. It is Harry Potter land.
I am sincerely interested in reading exactly what this "non-traditional angel" looked like to you. Please draw out it's description in words.
Watch out for those mosquitoes. They are real.
Your's could very well be something similar. Why should I think they are not? Have any evidence to the contrary? Although this experience of yours is real to you, it is insanity to think ANYONE outside your religious social group would view your story as anything but kooky. Do you tell this story at work? I'll wager that you don't.
It would be inappropriate for me to dismiss your father-in-law story with a suggestion that it was deliberate misinformation, or worse perhaps, just a flat out lie, concocted to support your preferred position for which you lacked adequate grounds. I seriously considered doing so, so that you might experience the surprise your treatment brought me.
Of course, I expect you are an honorable man. I have no reason to believe you would lie. I have no reason to think the facts as you recounted them are untrue or inaccurate. Your narrative is careful enough and specific enough to warrant a respectful reading and consideration. So was the narrative I offered.
Note the gut wrench you experienced while reading the first paragraph.
I'm not whining. I note the dual standard.
Thoughts?
Buddy
From your offered middle ground and professed neutrality, we've slipped quickly through several very specific assertions which I'm sure I didn't make, but you attribute to me.
No problem. I'm not offended by your anger at the things you describe. I would be equally infuriated by such unfairness.
Picking up your last question; since it didn't look like a blond-haired guy in a white dress, how did I know it was an angel? I didn't know what I was watching until the end; I had zero frame of reference for what I was watching; no explanation came to mind as I observed, noting the details like a good engineer. I was told at the end.
Thanks for the friendly words. What shall I bring you from my travels? I'm told the choices are fish, other fish, and other fish. Preference?
Buddy
No problem, I'm just interested in the logic behind all of this.
Buddy: "You do raise interesting questions regarding our powers of observation and the legitimacy of our conclusions. How do you distinguish between truth and fantasy?"
That's the question I asked you :-) However, a few statements to frame a response. We are borne from Existence, consider it Objective Reality, by which there was no pre-conceived personal bias that we were privvy to.
What is "Truth" then? Once we enter Existence, as a sub-set of Objective Reality, we become cognizant and capable of recognizing our environment. In order to move to a state by which we can make sense of our reality, we inherently begin to apply reason to our environment.
The "organized" hierarchical structure of knowledge, as created by reason, axioms, and evidence provide a means to consciously conceptualize products and propositions. When one of these products corresponds to reality, then it is said to be true.
For instance, your angel scenario. Typically, most people move from a known concept, to grammatically reflective sentences, to produce a direct link to reality. For instance, you suggest you saw a "form"... how do you move from concept, to grammatical structure, to conclusion, unless you have the "concept" initially, of an angel. If you use someone elses' terms, then it's "their" concept, and "your" words to reflect "their" concept.
Your statement, that you experienced an event that you are not able to place into proper context until later on, proofs your reliance of others to bias your reality. The truth, is in your experience of the moment, and according to "your" ability to frame it based on well-reasoned knowledge.
Now, if you would like to proffer how you come to well-reasoned knowledge, then, I'd like to hear. Remember, your reason, your axioms, and your evidence, allow "you" to draw a proper conclusion, based on your conceptualized and experiential knowledge.
Fantasy? Proferring another persons' concepts, words, and knowledge that do not correspond directly to your experience. In a more abstract sense, the suggestion of knowledge, devoid of any physical attachment or link. For instance; Peter Pan, and Never, Never, Land, etc. is fantastical, there is no place and time that never land can exist, and is devoid of concrete meaning, and ability to become another persons' "evidence", by which they can broaden their knowledge base.
Buddy: "My impression from those who post here is that some semblance of rational analysis is considered reasonable."
I am amenable to rational analysis; but if I start inspecting too closely, I start noticing mathematical, logic and pattern errors. For instance, you suggest there were two that saw your apparition, yet, suggest that the dancing lady was dancing oddly. Dancing oddly, because she was attempting to dance in line with a better lead than herself, that makes her a "third" party.
Notwithstanding, minor broken links in your story, there is the huge gap of the origin of your knowledge of "angel", and how you are capable of mooring an abstraction, detached from this "reality", on a physical stage. You either built the abstraction of "angel" from natural elements and patterns, or you received naturally provided knowledge via communication from another person; in no form, can your "angel" be communicated in some "other" form than "natural".
To suggest you experienced an angel not of this world, is like saying; I always lie. It's a contradictory statement.
Buddy: "Here, your bias will lead you one way or another.
(1) it was a mental abstraction, as you've suggested. It didn't happen and the observers didn't see anything."
I don't need bias, I would like a logical explanation or account for your knowledge. Again, if you have borrowed knowledge, that you haven't personally "reasoned" out, then you are not speaking your "truth", you are speaking someone elses'.
If you would like to get your other buddy on the line, I'd like to find out how "they" learned of an "angel"... want to wager, they picked it up from a natural source, not based on a phsyical identity in the concrete realm?
When you borrow knowledge, and don't "reason" its veracity, by assigning your personal axioms, evidence thresholds, etc., you borrow risk and utter uncertainty...
Buddy: "You are able to consider reasonably those things which your intellectual bias allows you to consider as reasonable"
Wrong, my bias doesn't "control" me, as if it is an animal uncaged. I get to "reason" out my thoughts, seek diverse perspectives, cross-check it with known "facts", and ensure what I suggest... does align between my concept and reality, without assigning personal meaning subjectively.
It is when I am asked for my opinion on reality that my bias comes into play.
I may have very limited knowledge of the Universe, but as long as the knowledge I hold, corresponds to my experiences via grammatical exchange, etc., I would be considered "truthful" in my statements - we can only honestly describe our reality, based on previous experience. Well, unless we meet an angel, I suppose, there is always a first event to establish the identity of a form/object.
So, do all follow up angels, have to be as tall, or able to dance, or shine, or... be naturally-unnatural... or... other abstract notion that conflicts with reality.
Dave8
Oops. My bad. I hope that doesn't mean I "forfeit" my position of neutrality. No? yes? Nonetheless, what about the "very specific assertions" I made that are accurate? Buddy, here's what I'm asserting(for easy reference):
That....
1) Your personal belief/religious experience has no referant in objective reality until you provide objective/universal evidence that it does.
2) You have not.
3) If, hypothetically, 200 people are focused intently on a specific point, and 1% of the people sensed some-"thing" that 99% did not, then either the 1% were doing good drugs, thus, causing the 1% to experience a tandum hallucination...OR, the 1% "saw"(sensed) something not of the physical universe.
4) If one sensed something not of this physical universe, i.e.. meta-physical, then one MUST have "extra-sensory" capabilities.
5) If one has "extra-sensory" capabilities, until these "extra-sensory" capabilities can be methodically tested and verified, using the scientific method, and/or, made available universally, then the one claiming these capabilities cannot make universal claims based on those capabilities.
6) Christianity makes the claim that it is universally "True".
Buddy, if "A" = non-verifiable personal belief. And "Z" = objective/universal truth...where are " BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY "...???
Bring me back a wHaLe...I'm having the inlaws for three days and three nights, and I need a guest room.
Allow me to apologize and retract my complaint on the dual standard. Having re-read in the morning what I wrote last night, I find it uncharitable at best. It's the sort of commentary during which I would appreciate my wife tapping me on the shoulder and sweetly saying, "You're being an ass, dear."
You're correct, I shouldn't take it personally. Again, I apologize.
Buddy
What enjoyable clarity. I find little cause to fault your reasoned considerations down to but perhaps not including the conclusory statements. At this point, we are faced with what we might do to further our understanding, if anything.
We have a reasonable person who has had an unreasonable experience to which he has ascribed an understanding consistent with his belief structure. OK so far, I hope.
Your listed concerns:
a) How might one or two see among the 1200 who, as far as we know, uniformly did not? I don’t know how it might be done, even with a special effects team; I haven’t a clue how it might be accomplished within the physical and physiological context we understand. And the overlooked point, how at the conclusion of the visible portion, might one hear a precise statement sitting next to someone who heard nothing of it? No idea.
b) Was the observed creature part of the physical realm? I don’t know that I understand where the boundary might be, from an observational point of view. It appeared to be physically located in time and space, connected to and participating in the physical context.
c) Does the observer (me) therefore have some extra-sensory perception in a fashion different from or denied to others. Dear God, I hope not. I have a hard enough time being an engineer in a family of artists and composers. I’ve been a skeptic for decades regarding most claimed supernatural events. From TV evangelists (whom I can’t bear to watch) to personal prophecy, I generally file that stuff away as too odd or too off-in-left-field for use.
d) D8, I stand corrected on the point of entry for bias in your conclusions. I’ll grant you the objectivity you describe so well and seem to enforce in your considerations.
e) Does this event qualify as a first event to establish the identity of a form/object? Must subsequent events conform? This was the first of two encounters; the two were dissimilar in most particulars. Does that add to or detract from the usefulness of the event’s description? I’m open on that question.
Enough for today. How DO you guys keep up with multiple threads? Makes my brain tired.
Buddy
I received no "gut wrench" at reading anything you've written. I've had these discussions hundreds of times over the last five years.
Guess what? It doesn't make any difference to me if you believe me or not. And, if you think I'm lying, no one is harmed, and no one is going to hell. However, whose story is the more likely to be true. The one that tells of a mentally ill person who hears voices, or the story of the man who sees supernatural -- apparently indescribable -- creatures from another dimension that only he and a friend sees.
Frankly, your story would make a better movie. Mine is realistically dull.
Buddy, if you're going to take it personally when people doubt unconfirmed, undocumented, un-detailed and unsubstantiated stories of magical events..., well, you are going to be frequently offended.
And you were a Christian while being skeptical of claimed supernatural events. Yet, you somehow expect admitted unbelievers and apostates to accept your story without any confirmation beyond your words? Isn't that a bit contradictory? Aren't you expecting more of us than you do of yourself? Isn't this inconsistent with the reasonable logic you portray as possessing?
Your experience, whatever it is, needs analysis, but that would be for you to seek out on your own. Your interpretation of your visions, mental aberrations, waking dreams, encounters with extra-terrestrials, religious hypnosis, or mystical ecstasy..., whatever you want to label it, is absolute confirmation of nothing, except your predisposition to frame everything withing the religious mindset and life-long beliefs into which you were born and have never strayed far.
Accepted.
Buddy,
"OK" to what end?
I think it's crucial to point out, that the 'reasonable person' sub-scribed to his 'belief structure', prior to his 'unreasonable experience', which, "incidentally" happens to be a 'belief structure' that posits that unreasonable things are possible in the first place; that "meta-physical" events are a reality in a physical universe, and that such events were commonplace occurances only a few thousand years ago.
Those legendary fantastic stories would dwarf what we "see" in 2007 "AD". Why is that? Yes, I ask why---especially considering the population comparison---are such fantastic stories practically unheard of today, and the ones you DO hear of, are in third-world less technologically advanced countries? Why hasn't anyone from from New York, Washington D.C., or California ever witnessed a decaying 4 day-old dead body come back to life? Is it because people who populate those areas have the means to document/verify those types of events on the spot, so "God" doesn't let it happen there? I think it's a reasonable question.
BTW, I would think one of 200 people got video footage of this religious show, if not the production company, itself. 'Dollars to doughnuts, if such footage exists, there's nothing "extra-ordinary" about the footage; no guest appearance of an angelic creature gettin' it's groove on.
Your move Buddy.
Okay, a whale won't fit on your carry-on......how about a Hebrew speaking Cobra?
Well, no one is perfect, but I do make the attempt, nonetheless.
Buddy: "e) Does this event qualify as a first event to establish the identity of a form/object? Must subsequent events conform? This was the first of two encounters; the two were dissimilar in most particulars."
Again, the formula isn't that outrageous. You must "define" your terms, in order to understand your position. I will not make a positive claim towards your mental abstraction that "you" hold, only you know what you experienced.
However, if you are trying to convey your experience; I mean, that would be the reason you are giving the account, right?, we need your definition of the term "angel" and the "particulars" that are associated.
For instance, here are a few axioms that I seem to like...
--Our understanding of our Universe, can only be as great as our "knowledge" of "It".
Buddy, how do "you" build knowledge... you are an engineer, how do you build a building? From some structured foundation? And, what would that be in terms of building knowledge? What is that "foundation"?
You are a natural being, and therefore, all information you absorb and process into knowledge must in fact be natural products/by-products.
It's contradictory to suggest you experienced a supernatural being, which is "beyond" natural experience, while living in your "natural" body. All experiences you have, are natural, because "you" are the natural "interface" for all experiences in this "natural" Universe.
Buddy, I think we are getting to a point that is providing diminishing returns. Your objective, if it were to present an experience to others, is not adequate since others can not experience your event as you did.
As well, in order to communicate most effectively in order to bring about a more "common" platform for understanding, you must create a share point of knowledge, based on the axioms you have set forth - which have not been proferred so far.
Again, your experience is yours alone, and obviously not the same experience that others had sitting next to you, it would appear much more difficult to present your experience to others who were not on location; in time and space of the event.
The most I can do, is point out the conflict in your story, that's all. I can as well, point out a disparity between the natural universe and known facts, based on repeatable research experiment, and the literary and artistic expression of a persons' abstract thinking.
Knowledge is bound to an origin, if you process natural elements, and synthesize it in your mind to create a form of knowledge, to represent your experience, it may be reasonable to "you".
For me, and likely others, abstract thought, is only as cogent as its efficacy in concrete terms. And, the effect of a concrete term, becomes its identity, or at least... I would be open to such a view.
So, in order for you to establish an identity for your form/object, which must be stated in natural terms, based on your natural experience, there must be the expected "effect" that this form is to provide you... And, Buddy, what is the effect you expected from such an experience...
There is the effect that manifested the form/object in your mind, but then... there is the effect upon you.
Since, it is apparent that you are not capable of assigning "how" the form "angel" was manifested, you have to be at a loss as to how to explain it to others, who live by causal relationships.
That aside, and how an "angel" came to be, in cause-effect terms, there is "you", and the effect it brought "you". The most real part of your experience, is the effect it has/had upon you, to include personality changes, manner of thinking, etc.
I doubt, you will ever be able to "proffer" the causal relationship that manifested the form you believe you saw, therefore, it is abstract, not concrete to me... there is no way to examine the natural laws, or principles that would have caused it into being, there is no reproducibility of the even, lacking concrete terms... but isn't that what makes up mystery, the lack of understanding on a particular topic.
So, in essence, the best I can do, based on your lack of natural support is to say, your experience appears to be a mystery. A mystery, that can not be proven, or even explained beyond abstraction.
Now, let me cover by six (buttocks), because there are fields of study that thrive in the abstract... It is "no mystery", on how disciplines find themselves involved in the art and science of abstraction, no mystery whatsoever, unless some like toying with the Platonic field of dreams.
As well, I mean "mystery", not in the mystical term, but in the more modern term... as something that exists beyond current understanding... Yes, Buddy, I believe and conclude that your experience is as much a mystery to you as anyone else.
The thing about mysteries Buddy, the best you can do, is grammatically/syntactically express it logically... but in the end, we sit in a more defined state of mystery.
The closest truth you have Buddy, is the "effect" that your experience has had upon you as a being, that's it. Beyond mystery, there is "you". You may well describe the effects that this experience has had upon you, and even conclusively show empirical evidence at how your pattern of behavior has changed... and that would be "something". But, it may be more about your change of attitude, than the experience of a visual sighting.
A visual sighting, has no meaning Buddy, its just an "image"... what "you" assign to that image, in theory makes it more than it "Is", because you personified it.
You gave your mystery guest meaning, beyond its form. It's really all about you Buddy, and "why" you gave it certain meaning, and not other meaning. This form could as well be the devil in disguise, depending on how one wants to assign "meaning" to a form. There is mystery of the "form", which may never be known, but there is as well, the "mystery" of how you came to "assign" meaning to this form.
Buddy, do you agree, that the "form" can take on no more "meaning" than you "knew" at the time of your experience? Can you also agree, that you had to accept "new" information, and attribute it to your "form", to suggest you "know" of the event?
Logic doesn't suggest meaning, actually, in the most abstract, its devoid of meaning assignment. It's a mental tool that allows us to filter, collected information from our environment, in order to establish or test relational coherence, and Identity.
I nor you, have established an "Identity" to your form, with any type of rigor... yet, you have meaning.
Your unidentified form (unidentified by the other party/ies as well), holds meaning for you, therefore, you are the source of its relational context, and meaning.
Again, your mental abstraction is yours, I can not make positive claims about the existence of your experience, but I can suggest that you are the source that has given meaning to your experience, while holding no means to identify the objects within your experience.
With no "identity" Buddy, you can't possibly pass me, nor anyone else, something in concrete terms to relate to. We not only do not have a source, we have nothing to localize towards in our natural environment to inspect.
So, enjoy your mental abstraction, it's part of you, and something you need to explore. However, realize that without a proper "Identity" for your form, you have no way to make positive claims about it to yourself, nor to others... the best that you can suggest, is that you had a mysterious experience for which you have no ability to provide clear explanation - that would be the honest approach.
As well, you can extend that thought, with... but "I" feel, based on my personal belief (which doesn't require logical foundation) that it was an extraordinary experience that changed my life.
I would accept that, because I tend to assign Identity to forms by their effect(s), and that includes you and me.
Here's a topic for further discussion, if people in general assigned meaning without structure and logic in some form, can you predict their behavior as a person, or a group? People must take action based on some form of influence, when the influence holds no logical structure or framework, would you accept that such a person or group can be easily manipulated?
I think so... and if they are so easily manipulated, would you agree, that they are in essence a directed "effect", and "extension" thereof, the "source" of manipulation... Implication being a transferrence of some of their Identity from themselves towards a key source/leader.
Would you not agree, that the foundation of sanity, rests on the ability to understand Reality, based on Identity of objects/forms/combinations of the two, etc., etc...
If that is the case, then, could it be construed as mental abuse to train a child to "not" seek structured understanding through proper training because it conflicts with a belief, based on lets say... a nonidentifiable object and personafied meaning assignment.
Which, by the way, is just another form of transferrence from one who poses a need/desire/belief to another person without any direct support, other than themselves.
Yes, yes, Buddy, you have all the right in the world to enjoy your mental experience, and even give it personafied meaning... "BUT", the manner in which you attempt to persuade others as to the veracity of your claim, and the support you give towards such a manner of understanding reality, is the effect you bring to my reality.
I don't particularly like the "way" you have presented your case, and the vast potential you have to skew the spectacles of others, by championing an alternative manner by which to understand reality (if even indirectly based on your literary actions)...
I would prefer honesty, but here are a few moral thoughts I am having at the moment, and feel free to expound upon them...
--What is honesty?
--Can in insane person be honest?
--Is honesty just an ideal or is it an achievable state of a persons' reality?
--What does the statement; "To thine 'own' self be true", really mean?
--Do some people need to deceive in order to survive? Implication; is deception part of our human mechanism for survival, that is the great balancer between the haves and have nots in society?
--Is honesty always the "best" policy?
Such, great topical statements, which can be as applicable to our organic cellular structure with hidden or deceptive viral attacks, to our organic government...
Your modus operandi up to this point, and you have truly been civil, is to re-direct my questions back to me... And, in the most respectful way I can put this... it portrays your lack of knowledge or sincerity, to reach a common understanding which requires Identity.
Your stance has continued to be, "it's true because I say it's true", and that's that... if that is that, then there need be no further discussion. I believe we have all accepted your experience as being yours and only yours, and as real as you believe it to be.
Dave8
Perhaps we are approaching a central truth regarding the validity and usefulness of personal experience. I appreciate your concession to the existence of that which remains mystery.
An encounter such as I've described cannot be a foundational component in any systematic philosophy. Nor can a second hand description of such an event be particularly useful as a first tier element. It's utility, if any, is as an illustration of known truth. In the development of a personal belief system, one would be wise to file such an unusual event away, awaiting reason to discard of retrieve the event.
You have to admit, it's an interesting event. The second was less appealing; not something I sought or would want to repeat.
I offered the first account for it's more stimulating and controversial content. If I'd told the story of my friend preaching to a prairie dog, I'd get a laugh, but not a lot of thoughtful response.
Meanwhile, fella, how the heck to you produce so much verbiage in one day. Give me a while to figure out what you said; it isn't like I don't have anything else to do. Jim Arvo has me doing research so I can appreciate his position. I'm going to have to take a week off just so I can keep up with you guys.
Buddy
Honestly, it never occurred to me to ask about a video. The experience wasn't something that suggested we all stop for pictures when it happened, of course. I asked a question, I got an answer. It didn't occur to me to tell the story until I posted it here.
Only cobra available is mono-syllabic and has a bad lisp.
Buddy
"Intense sensory stimulation, such as dancing or chanting, also arouse the limbic system and assist in heightening ‘religious experience’. The deactivation of certain neuronal activity from reaching other areas of the brain by the hippocampus and extensive limbic stimulation can produce hallucinations. Newberg et al (2001, p42) describe such occurrence as “Hyperarousal with Quiescent Breakthrough” . Intense active stimulation can induce an “ecstatic rush of orgasmic-like energy”, assisting in the tagging of special significance to such action.
The concept of perception must also be regarded. Neuronal activity cannot always discriminate between real events and those one perceives to be real. Newberg suggest that although spiritual experience can be traced though neuronal activity, it does not necessarily mean that these experiences are due to “neurological illusion” alone (Ford 2002). There is little difference between how the brain processes the experiential, either real or supposed. The difference lies within how the individual perceives experience. It could be said that the only distinction between experiencing God and seeing a tree is that a tree is a tangible physical object we can all agree exists.
Does God exist? Newberg et al (2001 p37) believe yes, but only as a concept or ‘reality’ in the mind of the believer. Persinger expressed similar view, a position generated by the results of extensive work. Todd (1999) states, “there is no God separate from the believer.“"
http://www.clinicallypsyched.com/neurotheologywithgodinmind.htm
Buddy, neuroscience is speeding forward, it can reproduce the effect of "God", thus, the "Identity" of God is localized to space-time and physical matter located in the brain. When specific areas of the brain are stimulated, they produce euphoria and god encounters. I am inclined to believe that we are not born with a god door-bell, situated conveniently in our brain structure that is "externally" pressed when gods/angels/devils, etc, need to get our attention.
The trigger can be externally stimulated, but is typically the result of internal neural effects, biochemical releases, etc.
I only bring this up, because you suggest you are going to file away your experience. Still, eventually, at some point, you will have to give your experienced moment or form/object an Identity.
You aren't able to do it in the present, and as well, if you experience something in the future, and are capable of making an Identity, even if by a series of continuous "Identity States", or snapshots encoded in your memory, you will "still" not be able to take a current Identity and assign it to your past... without "some" attribute or common trait they share.
If your attachment of future unidentifiable objects will be lumped in with the others unidentified objects, well... you have a group of unidentifiable objects as their Identity. That may be the manner in which you cluster them mentally, but, they still have no identity beyond mystery.
What is the practicality or pragmatic utility of holding mysteries, if they aren't ever identified in a manner fit for "use"? Well, other than to assign personified meaning that is to unknowns :-)
If that be the case Buddy, I have a lot of unknowns you can add to your list, if mystery gives you a sense of peace :-) And, take your time with a response, no hurries here. I see you have been dog-legging around this site fervently :-) Peace.
Dave8
Of course, it appears, that analysis can always be more rigorous... So, in that effort, let me offer what experimental psychologists are always in tune with, during their research...
--"their" personal influence on the outcome of a study.
Now, since I have pointed to information on the topic of neurobiology, in a sense... it would be remiss if I didn't suggest a follow up criteria to be examined...
--Prove with some level of "rigor" that you were not the "causal" factor of your experience... either consciously or subconsciously...
Now, ruling yourself out of the scene, allows you to begin to seek an "Identity" for the form you experienced, but... I am quite confident that you are not going to easily rule yourself out as a causal factor for your experience with certainty, if you are capable of doing this, it would require unbiased (in theory) technology like a video-recording, etc, as boomSLANG mentioned...
And, your other buddy that had a similar experience... well, he would have to rule himself out as well... together you may have mutually influenced or enhanced the experiences as well... self-induced or generated visions/experiences aren't controlled by a quota system :-)
Dave8
Should the several of us meet in Atlantic City for a round-table? or three? I'll buy lunch.
OK, again, science offers us a description of the physiological components involved. Physically, therefore, we are presumed to have a finite set of receptors and associated physiological responses; e.g. the hair on the back of your neck stands up during a scene from an awe-inspiring film. It does the same in the night when you hear something unidentifiable outside your window. It does the same in the perceived presence of a other-worldly creature.
What you describe is the mechanics of feeling, not the substance of cause. The fact that you can stimulate a portion of the brain and elicit a feeling of peace or joy doesn't negate the legitimacy of the source experience. It only connects the body's response to the legitimate external stimulus.
Brain poking with either electrical or chemical stimulus describes our response, and perhaps does so adequately. The fact that certain activity can generate those feelings is reasonable. Isn't it a bit of a stretch to say that the reason you enjoy your grandchild is limited to the mechanical description of your pleasure. Some do espouse such a simplistic view; man and his thoughts are non-existent, what remains are bio-computers executing pre-programmed functions. Austere, even for science.
Buddy
Sure, I am always up for a natural lunch :-)
Buddy: "OK, again, science offers us a description of the physiological components involved."
Actually, it's a little more involved than that. The pieces are linked together, like logic threads (albeit with orphans and fuzziness at times), so, science is not only involved with using a process to define and categorize pieces parts, it's also involved in some interdisciplinary areas, as linking these pieces together in order to gain a broader perspective of the whole... implication; meaning is assigned to Identified parts of the whole, but lacks to breadth of meaning in a holistic sense... with linking the pieces together, meaning becomes more encompassing.
I tend to not like categorization drills, or the like, I am more fluent at piecing together the links, as it’s how I naturally process information. Inherently, however, we must understand taxonomy, form theory, etc., in order to make accurate links… nothing seems totally “separated” in life… or the Universe that I am “aware” of ;-)
Buddy: "Physically, therefore, we are presumed to have a finite set of receptors and associated physiological responses; e.g. the hair on the back of your neck stands up during a scene from an awe-inspiring film."
Pieces parts, defined and categorized... hair sticking up on back of neck, reflexive based on stimulus.
Buddy: "It does the same in the night when you hear something unidentifiable outside your window. It does the same in the perceived presence of a other-worldly creature."
Natural stimulus responses, some more autonomic than others.
Buddy: "What you describe is the mechanics of feeling, not the substance of cause."
Ah, here we go; I asked you to suggest a method to remove yourself as the "causal" factor in such sympathetic or parasympathetic responses to biological reflex.
In other words; how do you defend yourself against the proposition that you can induce biological states, from the coarsest functions, even down to the finest autonomic functions, given the proper methods of conditioning.
The short answer; is that you can't totally rule out your own biological influence or environmental influence to suggest that you were not the "sole" cause for such a vision, or response.
Buddy: "The fact that you can stimulate a portion of the brain and elicit a feeling of peace or joy doesn't negate the legitimacy of the source experience. It only connects the body's response to the legitimate external stimulus."
Buddy, it is precisely the "source" of this experience that you can not suggest you understand, and can not rule yourself out as a causal factor.
Sure, a link is made and traces of energy are mapped through the biological channels, but the causal factor(s)... you have to accept that you were part of the experience.
Buddy: "Brain poking with either electrical or chemical stimulus describes our response, and perhaps does so adequately. The fact that certain activity can generate those feelings is reasonable. Isn't it a bit of a stretch to say that the reason you enjoy your grandchild is limited to the mechanical description of your pleasure."
Buddy, the "source" for pleasure assignment, is present inherently in the grandfather, who can as well choose to not have pleasure... they are both subject and object in the relationship of pleasure, your causal influence on your grandchild and how your grandchild responds to such influence will in-turn amplify or dampen your bond with them... but... you can not suggest you are not a "causal" factor that generates the emotion of pleasure, nor causes your relationship and environmental factors to morph around you.
You can elicit a demeanor that creates disharmony or harmony, giving you displeasure or pleasure... You can take the same action your grandchild invokes, and believe it to be a good memory or a bad memory, "you" causally assign meaning - "you" are in charge of meaning assignment. Further, the action a child takes may make you sad immediately following an event, but then... after time, and through experience you may come to accept the act as part of human nature, and appreciate them even more...
The central "source" for this entire discourse, is "you" Buddy. You can not remove yourself in the process of life, as being a "direct" causal factor to elicit changes... uh, that would be perception about how you dote on your grandchild, or about the perception of a peaceful moment while watching a religion band play.
Buddy: "Some do espouse such a simplistic view; man and his thoughts are non-existent, what remains are bio-computers executing pre-programmed functions. Austere, even for science."
I lean towards a complexity theory, that suggests humans are more than mere bio-computers, we have the ability to "self-program" because we have neural feedback loops, and the ability to introspectively assess ourselves, our Identity, and its relationship with our environment.
Computers are not complex enough to self-generate awareness at this time... per se. Computers are logically linked, and materially the sum of its parts, humans have growth potential; with a permutable base of knowledge and ability to create abstract bonds in terms of social, political, etc., schemas. In short, we have a shared Identity on some level that exceeds the bounds of mere material form.
However, we do grow from a base of sequenced logic transactions, DNA, RNA, etc., and in that respect we may have some kinship to all logic based "forms".
Oh, I'd like a ham on rye, hold the mayo.
Dave8
Pardon the intrusion...
Okay, I'm going to get "crazy" and suggest that a "grandparent" may derive "pleasure" from their "grandchild", for some of the same reason(s) that ANY human being might enjoy another. Further, I'm going to get even "crazier" and suggest that one may enjoy one human being over another, i.e..Grandparent to grandchild, as opposed to Grandparent to neighbor, because they are, uh, biased. Of course, that bias is rooted in evolution, as well as "emotion".(that's another discussion)
Back to the point, Human beings(Grandparents) are natural beings; they exist in a natural universe. The processes by which one natural being might derive "pleasure" from another natural being takes place by, again, natural processes, which take place in a natural brain.
If I'm understanding correctly, the implication of the grandparent/grandchild analogy seeks to suggest that because one natural human being(Grandparent) may not be able to articulate the why, how, or "mechanics" of the "pleasure" they derive from another human being(grandchild), then the conclusion is that there MUST be "supernatural" processes at work by which they relate to said individual; that the physical processes involved in "attachment love" are not limited to the natural brain; that these processes are meta-physical.
If this is the case, or somehwere thereabouts?.. I strongly disagree(imagine that). Allow me to explain by counter-analogy.
If the theist is claiming a duality---that there is a "physical self", and "non-physcial self"; that there is something "supernatural" about the way human beings relate to one another(grandparent to grandchild); that there is a part of the "self" that is NON-material/NON-physical.... then damn it, PHYSICAL defects in the PHYSCIAL brain, WOULD NOT hamper, affect, limit, influence the ability to derive "pleasure" from another human being.
Buddy?...'got any elderly folks with Alzheimers in your immediate family? Yes? No?
Either way, if your claim is that there is a non-physical/immaterial aspect to how a "grandparent" derives "pleasure" from a "grandchild", then you are essentially saying that the relationship between an elderly person who doesn't even know their own name; who can't remember when they were born; who can't remember their parents names; who can't remember how to take a poop, etc., etc--essentially, a person who has lost their "self"; their dignity, is NOT affected in the least bit when the grandchild shows up at his or her bedside. Yes, the patient with the defective brain derives ALL the same "pleasure" they did back when they had a healthy brain. Yeah, sure.
Buddy, I'd love your input on this. Can you put "dualism" into terms that make sense? Or wait, do I lack the special "understanding" tool to understand this?.. similar to how I "lack" the "extra-sensory" tool to detect angelic dancing-creatures? I bet I do lack it, don't I? Darn it.
Buh bye for now.
I'll grant you both for the moment that I am an integral part of my observations, conclusions, and recollections. I'll grant you that the structure of my system of thought imposes a polarization on that which I see and consider to the end that I am inclined toward conclusions consistent therewith.
I suspect you'll resist granting me the same regarding your own position.
Do you then claim impartiality, and freedom from presuppositional influence?
We began with a reasonable account of an unreasonable event. On the anecdotal evidence available, it's a bit of a mystery. Do you have reason to believe I was hallucinating or fantasizing? Does it seem I was incautious or inattentive enough to just be mistaken. Does our conversation so far suggest that I'm unreasonable or unstable?
We come near the heart of the matter. Reasonable people have walked these paths before; it's not new ground.
Buddy
Rye! How apropos!
P.S. Did I suggest a supernatural explanation or did you?
Many people are conditioned to actually believe they are "separate" and "dissociated" from "reality", where there is a physically cold Universe, and the... more compassionate separated thread(s) that run through it.
Why is it so difficult for some to accept that there can be love and pleasure, and even euphoric moments without the need to carve their selves out of the Natural Universe ;-)
Dave8
Is that a natural mystery, or...
Yes, rye and toasted :-)
Dave8
"Existence exists"
How pervasive is "Existence", and can we escape it? If not, then, is it homogenous?
Dave8
Pretty much, yeah. And I think this underlying premise is avoided by the Theist/Dualist, because the notion of such a dual reality, itself, requires a dualistic, or "flexible", definition to be applicable in this reality. In other words, this "thing" called the "soul" is described as "physical" when it needs to be, and "non-physical" when it needs to be. In other words--it's "both".....similar to square circle. You're familiar with those, right? = )
Peace.
Peace
... can you please explain to me why Aristotle was right or wrong with his axiom...
"Existence exists"
Nope. But thanks for asking.
Buddy
Just thought I'd attempt to see how aware you were of the very reality you live within, since it is that which houses all entites that you can become consciously aware of, including, and not limited to by any means - a mystery image.
We are at our core, sentient, if we can't come to grips with what that is, and what it entails, then everything in life becomes a vague collage of mystery elements.
Buddy, I will concede there is much mystery in life, even my own, but... I will never accept that I am totally detached from it, or that I don't have the ability to influence my environment. In each of these cases, it would do nothing, except remove my ability to discern "truth" and place me in a position of constant unknowing -
mental instability.
You can't deny that what you experienced "exists", because to deny it, suggests it exists in some form. So, it's a matter of understanding to what "extent" your experience existed.
It's interesting; if someone would have pulled a flashlight out a few thousand years ago, it would have been a mystery to the folks living at that time. However, today it is not a mystery. Mystery is a matter of knowledge and perspective. Buddy, you can gain knowledge from others and assign it properly to your reality, but... the perspective piece is all you.
Dave8
I appreciate your claim of sentience; to presume otherwise would indeed lead to unresolvable ambiguity and mental instability. You correctly conclude, at least from my point of view, that the large labor we face is discerning to what extent our experience exists within the impartial reality in which we live.
Mystery is a matter of knowledge and perspective, as you state so succinctly. We're left, then, with the very human circumstance of discerning how our experience and the experiences of others can be reconciled in a single reality.
Both you and I have relegated accounts of supposed supernatural experiences from literature and the media to one of several categories. There are those we discount as deliberate exaggerations, those we conclude are mental aberrations, those we write off to the power of suggestion or mass delusion, and so on. I share your skepticism regarding what appears to be no more than splashy showmanship or orchestrated display. From our conversation, it seems that you are satisfied that all such things are thereby explained and that the mysteries to which you refer are trivial enough to not require further inquiry. I on the other hand, am left with non-trivial events to which I can assign no no simple dismissal. Are we left without available grounds for discussion at that point?
I am somewhat uncomfortable with things that appear to occur from outside the realms of physical and mathematical description. Perhaps simple faith escapes me. Fortunately, science has provided descriptions of many processes formerly unknown. It eases my mind to see and to some degree understand how things work even down to the cellular or molecular level. My perception, as you will point out, is enlarged by knowledge and the mystery recedes. Yet still, there are mysteries whose simplest likely cause points to a design which cannot be achieved within this universe by random mutation and natural selection. Our sentience is on that list, from my point of view.
Buddy
As one who has a BS in Biology with emphasis in Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry, I fail to see your point! Nature is extremely lazy in its design and how it works. To form complex structures, nature evolved methods to ensure that the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle remained the norm so that it could remain extremely lazy.
Would love to here your mysteries which points to a design!
Thunder and lightening used to be a "mystery" to primitive man. To them, the "likely cause" was an invisible man named "Thor". Of course, we now know they were deceived. Moreover, if these "mysteries" are "within this universe", then that rules out an explanation that is out of this universe.
continues: Our sentience is on that list, from my point of view.
From my natural point of view, the source from where "sentience" is generated is the human brain, which incidentally, is also "within this universe".
Additionally, I argue that a brain must be healthy and functioning properly in order to generate what's known as "sentience". If it is argued that said "sentience" can come from a disembodied mind; that it comes from some "mindful", yet, "brainless" super intelligence....then can any Theist---Christian, Muslim, or whatever---please explain to me why we, as sentient human beings, would need a "brain" in order to be "sentient" beings?(preferably, have it be consistantly logical)
boom'
The Superset Universe and all that remains within is conclusively Objective. To the extent, there exists; true & false, experience, and an impartial reality, is a challenge of expression.
Further, even though we sense this reality differently, in terms of physicality, it doesn't mean that dissimilar individuals can't come to understand a common meaning of a single individual's specific event. After all, even the individual is removed to some extent from physical sense to interpretive thought.
Knowledge gives context to meaning. Since, you apparently don't understand basic philosophy, it is quite obvious that we will not reach the consilience of a common meaning, even if only in terms of knowledge.
As well, denial of the self-efficacy variant is tart. We all have the ability to induce myriad effects within our reality.
Buddy: "Mystery is a matter of knowledge and perspective, as you state so succinctly."
There is no Mystery in an Objective Reality. Your perceived mystery, is the result of a self-discovery that has not been made manifest in terms of a common base of knowledge, or a knowledge that is consistent within your own frame of reference and prior experience(s).
Therefore, your "meaning" assignment, is still suspended within that physical moment in time. Until you are capable of deconflicting all internal inconsistency in your knowledge base, you haven't earned the right to project it on others.
Further, to suggest you had a supernatural experience, mocks your very natural life and experience, and insults my intelligence. You have effectively, removed my ability to assign any aspect of my natural life to your occassion; either by deliberate cunning or imaginative ignorance.
Without a common experience to draw from, and to "deny" me the opportunity to recall and synthesize myriad experiences I've had in my life, in order to find a "common" meaning, you have presented a case that could be construed by many as narcistic, leaning heavily towards solipsism.
Buddy: "We're left, then, with the very human circumstance of discerning how our experience and the experiences of others can be reconciled in a single reality."
Why the requisite to reconcile experiece? Why not knowledge?
Buddy: "Both you and I have relegated accounts of supposed supernatural experiences from literature and the media to one of several categories."
I don't recall that relegation, or taxonomical assignment... Can you explain what "media" or a "medium" is? Is it something that stores energy in a particular form? If that is the case, can you provide something that is not capable of storing energy, or not being a medium for information retrieval?
Buddy: "There are those we discount as deliberate exaggerations, those we conclude are mental aberrations, those we write off to the power of suggestion or mass delusion, and so on."
I don't discount the Objectivity of Existence. However, I can't "I"dentify when confronted with inconsistent information, I can only make an assessment on the individual's stability. Those I can't find to be stable, linguistically, intellectually, etc., I refrain from giving a high reliability rating.
A lack of reliability, should be interpreted here as; lack of trust. That is not to suggest that there wasn't an Objective state of the Universe, it's not to suggest that the individual is deliberately lying; it's to suggest that their lack of reliability in expression, prompts immediate distrust for me.
A lack of "trust" is "normal", psychiatrically speaking, when logically warranted. A parent doesn't rationally trust their children or things they hold valuable to someone who is unreliable; why should a rational person be expected to? Who/what is it that rates such a demanding position; as to be beyond inquiry or doubt?
Buddy: "I share your skepticism regarding what appears to be no more than splashy showmanship or orchestrated display. From our conversation, it seems that you are satisfied that all such things are thereby explained and that the mysteries to which you refer are trivial enough to not require further inquiry."
No Buddy, I find a lot of explanation, with such little internal consistency. Should I need to inquire? Why can't you just figure out how to be consistent in your expression, and "tell" me, obviously your experience was diachronic, from a point-to-point in time.
Do I write you off, without so much as a wonder? No, but we know what the good book says about those whom may give us a wonder or show us a sign, right.
Buddy: "I on the other hand, am left with non-trivial events to which I can assign no no simple dismissal. Are we left without available grounds for discussion at that point?"
Buddy, you have had an experience, it may have been a most beautiful of experiences to you. Only you, should vote on its dismissal. Do you not allow others the opportunity to not vote to accept your experience, until it is consistent with one's knowledge?
I am compassionate enough to allow you or anyone else, their time to heal or make sense out of their reality, especially if they are in trauma or bewilderment. However, I am not an advocate of mental euthanasia, nor one who glees at the reinforcement of expressionistic chaos.
Buddy: "I am somewhat uncomfortable with things that appear to occur from outside the realms of physical and mathematical description."
On physical description, how would one "ever" declare an experience beyond physicality, without having that non-physical standard to measure by. There is no such thing as non-physical experience, only physical phenomena that has yet to find a manner by which to be adequately expressed.
Regarding mathematics, there are others who are likely more capable of answering any questions you may have on the subject and how it relates to expressionism.
However, if you aren't willing to engage the mild topic of Aristotle and Existence, then I am not sure as to your prowess on the foundations of mathematical knowledge. Even the most abstract and theoretical mathematics hold internal rigor without conflict.
Here is a simple expression; A=A. Reality holds no conflict, period. Therefore, Buddy, if you perceive conflict, its not the conflict of the external reality coming to meet your senses, its your senses and how they perceive and assign meaning to the external reality.
Your experience obviously precedes your knowledge, and the lack of knowledge precedes your inability to express yourself without conflict. There is no need to find those "perfect" words, you have all the time in your current form, to find them.
Buddy: "Perhaps simple faith escapes me. Fortunately, science has provided descriptions of many processes formerly unknown. It eases my mind to see and to some degree understand how things work even down to the cellular or molecular level. My perception, as you will point out, is enlarged by knowledge and the mystery recedes. Yet still, there are mysteries whose simplest likely cause points to a design which cannot be achieved within this universe by random mutation and natural selection. Our sentience is on that list, from my point of view."
There is nothing "random" unless you have something to back that up. Regarding design; and how design is not a phenomenon capable of being found within "this" Universe... do you have another Universe you would like to present as an alternate example?
Again, you speak beyond your knowledge and experience. Why is it so difficult for you to accept Nature and natural laws as being the source of all that you can possibly "know"? Does all "meaning" need to be "external" to the Universe, or... the self?
What are you looking for out there Buddy, that you can't seem to find within yourself?
Perhaps you're correct; perhaps my participation in philosophical debate is limited by insight into the basics. The debate over the nature of existence is profitable for many but for me lacks utility beyond the foundational concerns. Does the chair on which I sit exist? Do I? Noting the lives of the great philosophers, we discover little profit in their pursuit. Beware those intellectuals whose words mask a purposeless life.
Nothing is random? Everything, therefore, is a process derivative? Are you sure, then that each physical manifestation follows a logical cause-effect sequence? It's an interesting but unsupportable premise.
My universe reference alluded to the emerging multi-universe discussions. It's been suggested there are either a finite number of universes or an infinite number, all beyond our own. The statistical possibilities which are limited within a single universe are therefore suggested to be available in the larger set of possible realms, each perhaps different in small or great detail from the one we know. The emerging theory fails the math test for the former and falls into a broken determinism for the latter.
Since it seems useful to you to disparage my abilities in math and philosophy, perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me this; how many representatives of a single life-form through how many generations should it take, statistically speaking, to evolve a new biological machine such as, say for example, an ear?
Buddy
...how many representatives of a single life-form through how many generations should it take, statistically speaking, to evolve a new biological machine such as, say for example, an ear?
Buddy, your question is a bit simplistic, it took millions of generations across many species for the mammalian ear, there is an interesting article here by David Watson that has some good information. Some examples of bacterial evolution here, typically adaptation occurs in hundreds or thousands of generations.
Then ontology, one of the basic fields of philosophy, would strike you as paramount in a discussion on multiverse theory, right?
Buddy: "The debate over the nature of existence is profitable for many but for me lacks utility beyond the foundational concerns. Does the chair on which I sit exist? Do I?"
Do multiple Universes? Same question, different noun... or perhaps that seems a little too foundational.
Buddy: "Noting the lives of the great philosophers, we discover little profit in their pursuit."
Is there such little profit in having a "love of wisdom" a.k.a. philosophy?
Buddy: "Beware those intellectuals whose words mask a purposeless life."
What does value mean? If you don't know, you can't assign purpose to action and your statement is sterile and unreliable.
Buddy: "Nothing is random? Everything, therefore, is a process derivative?"
I asked you to provide an example of something "not" process derivative, and you failed.
Change has been a constant, recognized and applied as a Universal variable in philosophic and applied research.
Process drives "Change", and change is pervasive, therefore, all that changes, is derivative of process.
Now, Buddy, if you want to proffer something that seems to evade change, I'm waiting for the Pulitzer draft example. If you fail to provide such an example; as you did this time, then... no surprise, your statement about my unsupportable claim is puerile, and again untenable and thus - unreliable.
But you would have known that, if you were educated in philosophy, in the most basic of principles.
Buddy: "Are you sure, then that each physical manifestation follows a logical cause-effect sequence? It's an interesting but unsupportable premise."
I'm only "sure" about my experiences in life that suport the claim of "change" and all derivative secondary effects. I'm "sure", because I have not found anything contrary to the notion of change. Lets just say, I'm as sure to the notion of process derivatives as I am to my very existence.
Buddy: "My universe reference alluded to the emerging multi-universe discussions. It's been suggested there are either a finite number of universes or an infinite number, all beyond our own."
Oh, and what would you get, if you had an "infinity" variable, to the exponential power (infinity * infinity)"? As well, can God commit suicide if he's omnipotent? How far ya' want to go with this Buddy? What is the point? To suggest that there are unanswerable questions?
How about, there are "baseless" questions, and the one about multiple universes is on my list.
Define Universe Buddy.
Buddy: "The statistical possibilities which are limited within a single universe are therefore suggested to be available in the larger set of possible realms, each perhaps different in small or great detail from the one we know."
...you know more than you know, and you know that for a fact? The mathematical possibility of amplified ignorance, is found by taking the variable "x", representing "ignorance", and exponentially magnifying it by the number of Universes added to the theoretical abstract. Further, this assumes that "what is known" of "this Universe", is commutable and relevant in all other combinations of multiple Universes.
Care to assign a metric or function to your "ignorance" so that it can be applied in this theoretic? I suppose, if you knew what you were ignorant of, you wouldn't really be all that "ignorant" then, or... so it would seem.
Buddy: "The emerging theory fails the math test for the former and falls into a broken determinism for the latter."
Yeah, please do tell, where this theory is emerging to... I seem to be ignorant as to its veracity beyond rhetoric.
Buddy: "Since it seems useful to you to disparage my abilities in math and philosophy, perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me this; how many representatives of a single life-form through how many generations should it take, statistically speaking, to evolve a new biological machine such as, say for example, an ear?"
Statistics, well.. I suppose that requires context. If a 2 cup glass, is filled with one cup of water, then, statistically speaking, is the cup 50% empy, or 50% full?
You see Buddy, statistics are limited to sample size, other variables, and typically states the error rate. Check out analysis of variant (ANOVA) testing if you are interested. As well, even if you could give the "exact" statistic with all variables taken into account, per my example; the description of the result, is obviously based on the perspective of the one making their argument.
If I said the glass were half-empty, you would say it was half-full, if you thought it would somehow support your argument; validating a deeply held need you hold.
Anyway, if you want to discuss semiotics and what can be construed as effable within the broad actions of communication, between organic life forms, then... at least we would be headed in a positive direction. Until then, it appears we are at an empasse... enjoy your life Buddy.
Both articles are appreciated; thanks. The ear article was one I hadn't seen.
Not addressed in either article is the interesting debate, and quite a heated one, which isn't along the lines of common descent, or speciation. The observed and examined evidence suggests that all life is related and probably derived from an unknown original source. Variation within species is generally understood and agreed upon. We force it routinely through selective breeding of livestock and domestic animals.
The weakest Darwinian argument suggests that random mutation and natural selection can account for significant changes in function. Cellular analysis reveals impressive machinery whose complexity is beginning to be understood in detail, including a map of the intervening steps between functional stages.
At the genetic level, random mutations occur frequently; most are inconsequential and are not natural selectable. Most consequential changes are destructive and are naturally de-selected. The remaining changes are available in the pool and may prove beneficial and subsequently selectable.
For the theory to be supported, it must not only be possible but reasonable. Our observation of genetic mutation leaves us with the statistical probability of one significant change to require on the order of 10^20 individual organism generations. Stepping through intermediate beneficial stages quickly raises the requirement to 10^40, or more individuals than there have been mammals (total, all) in the last 100 million years.
So, reasonably speaking, the randomness of change is suspect. If it cannot be shown that a change we observe might be expected in the sample set, or more to the point, that a long series of complex changes might be expected in the sample set, then we're stuck with non-random.
To indirectly answer my own question regarding how many generations a significant change might take, consider the single celled creature who becomes after mutation a multi-celled creature with different functionality in it's various parts. Number of generations required? One. Probability? Nearer zero than the likelihood of every person in New York hitting the powerball jackpot every year for 5 years. Then we have to deal with the likelihood of the multi-celled creature developing various organs through non-beneficial stages.
The fact that those changes occurred is generally accepted among the scientifically inclined. The reason for their occurrence is not, perhaps more for philosophical reasons than any other.
Buddy
Excellent observation, Freebird.
Yes, the premise is that only the Christian theist has an understanding of "God" and it's "supernatural" trimmings. So it goes---because we currently have gaps in our scientific understanding of the theory, and fact, of Evolution, the Christian creationist comes waltzing in and attempts to fill in every one of those gaps by claiming to have a gap-less understanding of an intangible supernatural creator-god, who resides over an intangible supernatural realm. They posit a "meta-physical" entity that is "self-existing"; "timeless"; "omnipotent"; "omniscient"; "all-loving" and "just", who, before time even existed, "decided" to "think" 125 billion gallaxies into existence, and then put two Caucasian humanoids, whom it made out of mud, at the center of it all.
Mind you, none of which is scientifically supported as fact, or theory, which leaves it merely a hypothesis---one that is based partially on personal "experience"; partially on "faith". Then to compound this arrogance many times over, the Christian theist is fully ready to dismiss any supernatural "experience", "claim", "hypothesis", or "holy text" that disagrees with their religious "faith". The Christian theist has monopoly on "Truth".
Gawd, I'm glad I'm not that "smart" anymore.
Although some of the biologists here would do a much better job, I'll try to respond. First of all, we're talking about the theory of evolution, "Darwinism" is a term used mainly by creationists to imply that the theory of evolution is an ideology or religion rather than a scientific theory. However Charles Darwin isn't worshiped and he didn't come down from a mountain with the Origin of Species inscribed on stone tablets. The theory of evolution does the best job of explaining the data, if it didn't it wouldn't have survived as long as it has.
Our observation of genetic mutation leaves us with the statistical probability of one significant change to require on the order of 10^20 individual organism generations.
I don't know where you got this, a cite would be helpful. You may be assuming that mutation happens consecutively, however multiple mutations can occur in parallel. Similarly, evolution does not occur in a straight line, but rather in a "tree" shape, with lineages diverging and starting new branches. We have seen bacteria mutate to consume nylon and naphthalene, which are pretty significant changes in function. We have also seen new species develop, for example the mosquito Culex molestus.
You also need to account for the fossil record, common structures across species, the presence of vestigial organs, "junk" DNA, various lab experiments that show evolution in action, and biogeography. One counterexample of unknown validity, especially something outside the field of biology, does not render the theory of evolution null and void. There is a massive body of literature that you will need to explain away. "God did it" could be a plausible hypothesis if there was some good evidence that this being actually exists. You might want to consider following the Catholic church's lead of grudgingly accepting the theory of evolution.
My son, who lives with his mother and evangelical family asked me what a Mormon was? I told him that they believe that jesus came to North America. He replied that they were stupid! My question to him then was, "Your god is all powerful, right?" He said, "Yes". I then asked, "With your god, all things are possible, right?" He said, "Yes". Then I asked, "Then it is completely within reason that your god visited North America, right?" He said nothing, but sat quietly! I then said, "maybe the Mormons are correct and you are wrong!"
Sooooo... Buddy, are you a Mormon?
You are correct. I'll say it again. Nature is extremely lazy and due to this fact, mistake are made quite often. To explain in detail is too much for the feeble minded. Unfortunately, christians are just as lazy as nature and it is so much easier to say "god did it". What is the point of learning for christians if they already have the answers? "GOD DID IT"!
I hate to use my son all the time, but he told me last year that he wanted to study astronomy. I asked why, because all those dots in the sky are holes in a black blanket with the light of heaven shinning through! Then I reminded him that the universe is only 6 thousand years old and therefore those "stars" are just an illusion!
In order, then; (1) you may assign beliefs to me if you like; you err in doing so. The point on the floor for discussion is the reasonableness of expecting randomness (the statistical model applies) to account for the changes we see. Feel free to contribute.
(2) No. (3) Your world may be a few thousand years old and covered with a blanket; mine isn't. The young earth theories are neither particularly widespread nor well received among the folks I've met, although the discussion between some fundamentalist groups and their local school boards makes the news from time to time.
You're the very first to suggest that I'm lazy. Congratulations.
Buddy
On the probability of significant change (affecting perhaps 2 or 3 genes), the following citation applies;
White, N. J., 2004. Antimalarial drug resistance. J. Clin. Invest. 113:1084-92
Extracted segment: “Chloroquine resistance in P. falciparum may be multigenic and is initially conferred by mutations in a gene encoding a transporter (PfCRT) (13). In the presence of PfCRT mutations, mutations in a second transporter (PfMDR1) modulate the level of resistance in vitro, but the role of PfMDR1 mutations in determining the therapeutic response following chloroquine treatment remains unclear (13). At least one other as-yet unidentified gene is thought to be involved. Resistance to chloroquine in P. falciparum has arisen spontaneously less than ten times in the past fifty years (14). This suggests that the per-parasite probability of developing resistance de novo is on the order of 1 in 10^20 parasite multiplications. “
2) Therefore, Jesus is REAL!
The fact is most christians have no idea what the bible really says, we have our pastors to tell us that.
Oh, they know verses and can quote them. But they are clueless really about what they are really saying in the greater context.
The biggest mistake is the hell mistake, the hell of the churches is not even in the bible. It is a doctrine glued together with spit and bubble gum, created from myths and misinterpretations of various greek words.
But churches do not teach about there translation problems in the bibles they preach from sunday after sunday.
What is the message?
You are a sinner, God will KILL YOU IN FIRE
Unless you join our church and pay us a part of your income.
That is what HELL is all about, scaring people into paying a tithe.
Remember that was my job, sad to say.
I still believe in God, but not the HELL God I was lied about. A loving God who will have us ALL with him in the after life, becuase he is bigger then our churches and our idiot pastors.
All tof religon was symbolism and myth based on the sky and astronomical objects. Some of the famous messiahs/buddhas etc, were myth some actually were people, but the bottom line is that religion came from people eating visionary plants and having visionary/psychedelic experiences, while practising a yogic concentration.
So although, on the surface, institutional religion bacame ridiculous in terms of how it portrays dogma-content, there really is a particular experience, that it is based on. This experience basically shows people what their ture identity is.....and then alas...they have to try to explain their experience to others and then the warpage begins.
Well, I do ... I know the bible very well and I was a christian, even a pastor for years. I know all the arguments made and made them myself.
What I would ask this Christian who says others dont know the bible, is how many times did God command the Isaeraltes to murder, plunder, rape and enslave other people?
And I would want an logical explaination as to how a God who so loved the world, is also the same one who killed at a whim.
Dear Unbeliever
Re:Mythmaking
Dr Vij Sodera wrote "Look at the particle of dust on the table in front of you. Is it possible for such a particle...after existing for a few billion years... to aquire consciousness-to ultimately peer down on another dust particle and to contemplate its origins?...Yet inherant....is the assumption that not only is it possible, but that it actually happened". One small Speck, Vija Sodera Productions, Bognor Regis UK 2003
(sorry to bring up a topic from so long a go)
I'd like to say our disagrement doesn't show christanity is false.
I beleive in the historical fact of jesus's resurection, everything else is extra detail, but useful for answering our friends' here's questions.
Christanty hinges on the resurection of Jesus. That is a varifiable fact. It can be tested and proved or disproved using historic method.
If jesus's life story is true, everything else about Christanity must be true for it to make sense.
Everything else is extra detail, and is baced on showing that the logic of it can work. Agreeing or disagreing is baced on if you belive God exists or not.
(sorry for any spelling mistakes)
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