tec - atheists are always the majority - no one is a theist to all gods. I know what you are saying but I totally disagree. Atheism doesn't rely on faith and has no political motivation. Now when a worldview adopts atheism (such as Stalinist Communism) then all that happens is religious people join the ranks of those whom the ideology (Stalinism - NOT atheism which has no ideology) will destroy. Stalinist communism is faith without God. It is faith that I hate (Gods and faeries are not too important in the grand scheme of things - they come and go. )
Posts by Qcmbr
-
473How do I hear/feel God?
by doinmypart inthis is a serious question.. i know people that hear/feel god (and see postings about people's experiences), but i have not experienced this.
i have never heard anything audibly (or otherwise) nor "felt" anything inwardly.. i've prayed, read, quieted my thoughts, etc...but still nothing..
-
-
-
473
How do I hear/feel God?
by doinmypart inthis is a serious question.. i know people that hear/feel god (and see postings about people's experiences), but i have not experienced this.
i have never heard anything audibly (or otherwise) nor "felt" anything inwardly.. i've prayed, read, quieted my thoughts, etc...but still nothing..
-
-
Qcmbr
sab - did you see my own name on that list. There are two ideas here: faith and belief change and morph the more social power they obtain (and the more violent they become - no exceptions - religions when in the dominant position kill opposers and often by very torturous methods - history is a more powerful lesson than any modern day pretentions to free will.) The other idea is that we are NO DIFFERENT from any other human beings. Only a few years ago Jews put Jews in gas chambers, a few hundred years earlier Catholics burnt Protestants, more recently christians genocidally murdered muslims in Serbia and Christian militants massacred muslims in Karatina and had the favour returned in Damour. People of faith have an additional reason to kill and from the earliest sacrificial murders of pagans through the 80000 sacrifice temple opening ceremonies of the Aztecs onto the Mormon Danites religious groups in power kill. My prejudice against faith is honed over a bloody history of faith based crimes. Deep down humans have the ability to kill. Faith is a great enabler in that action.
That you personally are (I guess) a moral person who would not kill is fine. That you cannot accept that in different circumstances, with different cultural upbringing and different worldviews you wouldn't utterly change your moral stance and could well be found ripping out a sacrifices heart is , may I suggest , simply naive. You are who you are because your culture allows you certain cognitive luxuries and bestowes upon you the fruits of eons of human experimental thought (and yet still you choose the blood soaked bible but I digress). To imagine that somehow you are not a culturally shaped individual and that you would consistenly be the moral you of now regardless of time, place, culture or prevailing worldviews is a triumph of your self regard over blunt reality. The heart ripping priest of South America could potentially be the care home assistant and after hours animal rescue volunteer of today. What I'm saying is our culture evolves but we as humans are lttle different over recorded history. History tells me that faith is utterly dangerous. You may choose to be offended - I choose to see one cause of the darkness in man. The huge surprise for me is that my faith filled life was far less moral than my humanist secular life, my capability for evil acts has reduced now that I owe no allegience to a higher being who is unconstrained by morality.
-
473
How do I hear/feel God?
by doinmypart inthis is a serious question.. i know people that hear/feel god (and see postings about people's experiences), but i have not experienced this.
i have never heard anything audibly (or otherwise) nor "felt" anything inwardly.. i've prayed, read, quieted my thoughts, etc...but still nothing..
-
-
Qcmbr
I don't know what these symbols mean I just felt I needed to put them there. :)
Cantleave - Dawkins - I really like his way of thinking.
-
473
How do I hear/feel God?
by doinmypart inthis is a serious question.. i know people that hear/feel god (and see postings about people's experiences), but i have not experienced this.
i have never heard anything audibly (or otherwise) nor "felt" anything inwardly.. i've prayed, read, quieted my thoughts, etc...but still nothing..
-
-
Qcmbr
This is a painful car crash. So ultimately Tec you just don't know. You admit that you don't know the meaning of phrases central to your discussion. You trot out memes such as fire destroying people then dial it back saying you don't have a revelation to explain what that means exactly.
Christianity has been around for 2000+ years and still ,apparently, every xian has to stumble along utterly clueless about every single phrase in every single book of the bible having to deal with Semitic metaphor and literary styles while trying to extract basic truth from these statements but only on the end of a very tenuous personal phone line. Now of course somewhere , in the vast cornucopia of seeking Xians, there is an authentic correct dogma but no xian dare trust another xian ( unless a temporary truce is being called on an Internet forum or you've had a BBQ together ) and so when one xian describes a metaphor/ literal description all other Xians have to go and pray for revelation to see if they agree. Now when they all get different answers it all comes down to both sides merely claiming they aren't really asking the right person in the right way or with the right kind of faith.
Then they have the audacity to make statements in the form of absolutes. This is based upon their personal, subjective experience, which they deny is generated by their brain ( despite overwhelming evidence of the brains capacity to generate information to match expectation.) Then they play the ultimate doublespeak and claim that it isn't them, everything they say ( be it bilious, stupid, condescending , accusatory or disgustingly immoral) is from their personal divine guide, they aren't responsible for it, hell , as Tec shows, they don't even know what it means half the time but ultimately they show that beneath it all they truly are divinely embraced by love because they put little rose emoticons at the end.
Deep down we are genetically the same stuff, psychologically we have the same potential and all that separates any of us from a suicide bomber, an Aztec priest ripping someone's heart out, a mob baying for someone to get stoned or an inquisitional thumb screw operator is our birthplace, our culture and the lack of opportunity. When a believer is in the minority they are humble, downtrodden and persecuted, when they reach a sufficient size they become accusatory, bold , demanding of rights and social privileges and litigious and when they get to be a ruling majority they cast away any pretence of gentleness and kill and torture , censor opposing thought and rule by fear. All religions, all faiths, all people.
There was a Tec and a Qcmbr burning heretics at the stake a few hundred years ago.
-
160
Why I truly come in!
by justmom inhello everyone.... i would honestly like to share why i come to this site when i am able to.. i too, like many here spent my whole life inside the wt along with my husband who was born in.
(i was 6) we have raised three wonderful sons now 27, 23, 21 who the youngest was almost 7 when we left and we were disfellowshipped.
(for so-called apostacy of course)and since then all of us partake of the christ by eating and drinking the manna and his blood.
-
-
Qcmbr
LV - I think any group can have tremendous benefits to an individual depending on their need. I have no doubt that many people can be found in religions who have benefited from positive role models, new friends, structure and hope. I miss that myself. I like the approach of looking for positive results from empirical evidence but to show why this is a necessary outcome of Christ I think the test would need additional evidence ( for example what other things could be causing low repeat offences, did they get jobs, how does a similar set in a Muslim/ atheist/ buddhist country fare and so on.) Even then you still need to establish why a casual link between a real Christ and converted convicts must result in fewer offenses rather than a notional Christ and I have no idea how you could evidentially show that. There will always be a religious group that , for example , earns more / has fewer divorces/ takes less Prozac per member so it's very difficult to use this kind of statistical study.
-
160
Why I truly come in!
by justmom inhello everyone.... i would honestly like to share why i come to this site when i am able to.. i too, like many here spent my whole life inside the wt along with my husband who was born in.
(i was 6) we have raised three wonderful sons now 27, 23, 21 who the youngest was almost 7 when we left and we were disfellowshipped.
(for so-called apostacy of course)and since then all of us partake of the christ by eating and drinking the manna and his blood.
-
-
Qcmbr
Thx :)
-
160
Why I truly come in!
by justmom inhello everyone.... i would honestly like to share why i come to this site when i am able to.. i too, like many here spent my whole life inside the wt along with my husband who was born in.
(i was 6) we have raised three wonderful sons now 27, 23, 21 who the youngest was almost 7 when we left and we were disfellowshipped.
(for so-called apostacy of course)and since then all of us partake of the christ by eating and drinking the manna and his blood.
-
-
-
-
-
Qcmbr
while blank I vote the OP as genius.
-
160
Why I truly come in!
by justmom inhello everyone.... i would honestly like to share why i come to this site when i am able to.. i too, like many here spent my whole life inside the wt along with my husband who was born in.
(i was 6) we have raised three wonderful sons now 27, 23, 21 who the youngest was almost 7 when we left and we were disfellowshipped.
(for so-called apostacy of course)and since then all of us partake of the christ by eating and drinking the manna and his blood.
-
-
Qcmbr
fair enough. I cannot go with you to the idea that a God was ever holding my hand and that I am letting go. I find that idea simply unsupported by anything other than your assertion which for me is not enough.
Every believer argues for a store of knowledge which is bestowed upon them (they are chosen, a revelation is given, a voice is heard, a divine embrace is given etc.) This is the ego in action - information expressed and channelled through the I. Faith promotes an internal experience as evidence for a universal truth. This is exactly how the ego works, it promotes the personal experience as having universal meaning. I find the scientific method works the opposite way , it surprises the ego by explaining the phenomenon in an often counter intuitive way simply by experimentation and measurement and taking the I out of the picture.
Faith said mankind was the final creation in the image of God.
Science took mankind and said you are still changing and one ancestor was a worm.
Faith said the earth was the centre of the universe and everything revolved around it.
Science said that the earth orbits a singularly insignificant star on the tip of a common galaxy in a huge super cluster which isn't particularly significant.
Faith said that you could sin.
Science said that much of what we do is caused by genetic predispositions, fluctuating chemical situations, brain wiring , instinct and conditioning.
Faith said you could live forever if you bow the knee and reject the apple.
Science said you could live forever if they can fix our biological clock.
Faith says that you must walk without 100% knowledge
Science says you can walk any way you want but this is the physics that allows it.
Faith said some people are special , some people are chosen, some people will get to Heaven.
Science says everyone is special because you carry unique genetic material that took millions of years of recombination and mutation to make you.
Faith says keep trying regardless of results.
Science says you've got an incorrect hypothesis on your first failed experiment - go synthesise.
Faith says you can heal people by prayer.
Science says you can allow the body to heal by understanding pathogens, cells, drugs and medical procedure.
Faith says the moon is a divine sign.
Science says go and have a look.
I don't like faith very much.
-
78
God particle is 'found': Scientists at Cern expected to announce on Wednesday
by cantleave inhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167188/god-particle-scientists-cern-expected-announce-higgs-boson-particle-discovered-wednesday.html.
scientists 'will say they are 99.99% certain' the particle has been foundleading physicists have been invited to event - sparking speculation that higgs boson particle has been found'god particle' gives particles that make up atoms their mass.
by rob cooper.
-
-
Qcmbr
Too many leaps Sam - I'm still not certain why the Large Hadron collider isn't contaminated by virtual particles or incoming energy! I do get the equivalence of energy and matter but I don't think that's what Higgs is to do with (unless I've missed the point) - I'm fairly certain Higgs is all about explaining mass or to put it simplisticaly why do some particles behave as if they are travelling through a medium while others seem unencumbered. I don't get the seque to God is the source of all energy.
I think that there are plenty of atheists and theists at Cern and at the other research facilities across the world.
