I'm constantly amazed at posters who say they are over God but continue to devote so much time to him. I can't help but wonder if you spent more time figuring out your own life and less time trying to tell other people what they ought to believe you would be a lot happier. (Yes I know tell me how happy you are. )
Should we unbelievers respect your faith? Warning another video!
by 5go 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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nvrgnbk
I learned to mock deities from a guy named Jehovah and his posse.
If you read the Bible, you can learn how to do it too.
He was always bringing up controversy against false gods and calling them out.
When they did nothing, he ( and his posse) mocked them, saying that that proved they were impotent, non-existent even.
Well, now Jehovah's being called out.
Do you hear anything?
Silence?
So that means he's...?
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nvrgnbk
I'm constantly amazed at posters who say they are over God but continue to devote so much time to him. I can't help but wonder if you spent more time figuring out your own life and less time trying to tell other people what they ought to believe you would be a lot happier. (Yes I know tell me how happy you are. )
I'm over JWism, but not at all over God.
Where I live, there are billboards and church signs with messages all over the place, telling me, the reader, that I need to be saved.
I live in one of the most religious parts of the US.
Also, religion affects the way people vote and the way people treat those of other races and cultures.
I see this constantly.
I often hear good "Christian" men voicing their opinons that God's country, the United States of America, should blow all the "dot-heads" and "sand-*******" to hell. When I bought a house a few years ago, the seller told me proudly that the local police force does a remarkable job at keeping "them" out. Who do you think he was referring to? He and his wife were very "Christian".
So yes, religion bothers me, alot.
I gave 33 years to one.
I'm picking up the pieces, but it takes time.
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BurnTheShips
Indeed Elsewhere, but that does not change the basic premise of my comment that such your assertion (that 98% of humanity is mentally deranged and that you are not) is arrogant.
The question of whether God exists is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality and to merely dismiss the other side as deranged with a flippant wave of the hand is...deranged (and if there is no God, then God is the greatest creation of the human imagination)
After all we use arithmetic daily, and we cannot even prove its consistency , how are we so sure that God's existence or nonexistence is something easier for our intellects to deal with?
Burn
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nvrgnbk
The question of whether God exists is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality
Agreed.
I don't get the "it doesn't really matter" approach at all either.
and to merely dismiss the other side as deranged with a flippant wave of the hand is...deranged (and if there is no God, then God is the greatest creation of the human imagination)
Perhaps the attitude you perceive as flippant comes from an assuredness about God's non-existence.
This assuredness doesn't come from reading ancient Scripture, but rather from observing current reality.
And I'm not referring to the origin of the Universe and life.
I'm referring what many consider to be God's "silence" and "absence" at this moment in time.
Some see God in the natural world. Some see no God.
But what is He actively doing now?
Is He just watching and waiting?
Sincere questions, I assure you.
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BurnTheShips
I don't doubt your sincerity, nvrgnbk.
Burn
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nvrgnbk
I don't doubt your sincerity, nvrgnbk.
Burn
Nor do I doubt your sincerity, Burn.
I have great respect for your way of presenting your thoughts.
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Hellrider
Shazard. You have some good points, but I disagree with you on a lot:
he says, that he does not get it coz he has no calculatiosns, so... if he does not get it and there is no math for some part of reality, then it is discardable? This boils down to "If I am lame to understand it, it is lame thing"... exactly my position on Chemistry in School
Yes, it is discardable, in the sense that there is no argument to believe in the existence of God (becaus his existence cannot be demonstrated/proved). Your analogy to your attitude towards chemistry in school is no good, because the laws of chemistry are demonstrable! - God is not. Therefore, you are required to believe in the basic laws of chemistry and physics, because not believing in them would be insane (and dangerous). Whereas with god, there is no reason to believe in him, because his existence is just speculation with no logical arguments to support the theory whatsoever, and there is no data to support his existence either. In fact, all the data (pointing to evolution) indicates the opposite. Therefore, believing in God is not rational.
00:53 He argues against "unviersal morality" and still is talking from position of such a morality - if that is not doubletalk then what is?
Aha. Yes, this one is always tricky. The problem is that he did not elaborate enough on this point. First of all, he did not argue against a "universal morality", he argued against the religious peoples definition of universal morality! Personally, I would have first stressed the difference between what I would consider to be this "universal morality" from religious morality! - which actually isn`t very moral at all. After all, what does a "law" against homosexual sex (two consenting adult males) have to do with morality at all? No more than "laws" against eating shellfish, wearing clothes made of different fabrics, or stoning a girl for not having yelled loud enough while being raped. Such things have nothing to do with morality, although all the major religions, judaism, christianity and islam have such misunderstandings concerning morality. They are mixing up genuine moral laws (such as "thou shalt not kill" - at least not indiscriminately, ha ha) with particularly peculiar "dislikes", such as the dislike of homosexuality and...shellfish (lol). What the guy in the video is saying is that he detests religion for always insisting on shoving their version of morality (which, in reality, has absolutely nothing to do with genuine morality) down the throats of us unbelievers. And I agree totally with him. After all, I am not trying to shove my version of morality down the throats of neither christians nor moslems. Of course, if I tried, I would probably be either A) sued for religious discrimination, or B) killed.
01:13 His argumetn about faith being act of will. Let him (or you) try to believe in fairy tales, in christianity (assuming you are atheist) in Hinduism or Islam... DO IT and PROOVE that it is act of will and you will fail. So no arguments here! You can pretend you believe, pretention is act of will, but real faith and beleive is beyond will! REJECTION is act of will, acceptance is not! I reject atheism and all other forms of faith by will, but Christianity I do accept not by will but as Gift.
I agree, he`s wrong on that point. Faith is not an act of will, I couldn`t make myself believe in god, even if I tried. On the other hand, the fact that religious beliefs is not an act of will, makes the entire concept of religion even stupider! Because it is impossible for me to believe, then why should I be sentenced to eternal hellfire (by christians) or beheading and hellfire (by moslems)? However, I disagree with you when you claim that rejecting religion is an act of will. How can accepting religion not be an act of will, while rejecting it is an act of will? To me, it is impossible to accept religious beliefs. I therefore reject them. My rejection of them is the logical result from the impossibility for me to accept them. How then, is my rejection of religious beliefs an act of will?
One more thing: Yes, the guy in the video messed up on this point. After all, if accepting religious beliefs truly was an act of will, then it could (probably) not be considered a mental illness. It would have to be considered to be pure...retardation.
02:30 So we should protect our children from horrors of reality? Well how about shutting down Hollywod first?
Yes, we should. A childs mind is like a sponge, it sucks up all the data it is given. Children should not be allowed to see the real horrors of morality, flashing over our TV-screens with phootage from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they should certainly not be subjected to even more horrible things that doesn`t even exist (in reality!) - things such as hell and Satan. Concerning Hollywood, it is not necessary to shut down Hollywood to protect children. Just send them off to bed before 9 o`clock in the evening.
Atheism which lies out everything in perfectly simple way - do what you want to do and let others to do what they want to do! No morality, no standards...
You accused him of presenting a faulty definition of faith. Now you are doing the exact same thing with atheism. Atheism is not the same as nihilism - or even satanism. I am an atheist too - but I absolutely believe in the difference between right and wrong - and I most certainly don`t need any god or religious text written down 2000 years ago to tell me what right is, and what wrong is. I can figure these things out myself, by using my brain. So can everyone else. Ethics are actually pretty logical. Not everything, there definitely are grey areas, but as for most things concerning human interaction, it is not difficult to come up with a certain set of basic rules, a "universal morality"...
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startingover
Great video IMO. It especially hit me because I have been called mentally ill by a long time friend because I no longer have a belief in god.
I learned to mock deities from a guy named Jehovah and his posse.
If you read the Bible, you can learn how to do it too.
He was always bringing up controversy against false gods and calling them out.
When they did nothing, he ( and his posse) mocked them, saying that that proved they were impotent, non-existent even.
Well, now Jehovah's being called out.
Do you hear anything?
Silence?
So that means he's...?
Right on Nvr!
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mouthy
I have been called mentally ill by a long time friend because I no longer have a belief in god.
Well from my understanding of the video I thought he was calling ME metally ill Wasnt he?because I DO belive in God