Soledad are children ( who are born without belief ) angry at God? As an atheist please point out which god I'm angry at. To be fair I may well be angry if there are any gods of nubile enticements who haven't bothered to make themselves known grrr.
Posts by Qcmbr
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553Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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553
Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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Qcmbr
Sab - what do atheists believe in?
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15
Why dont xians take oaths like Abraham and Jacob ?
by mP inhey if its good enough for someone who speaks to god then it should be good enuff for everybody else.. .
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/genesis/24.
28. now abraham was old, advanced in years; and jehovah had blessed abraham in everything.2hence abraham said to his servant, the oldest one of his household, who was managing all he had: put your hand, please, under my thigh,3as i must have you swear by jehovah, the god of the heavens and the god of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the ca'naan?ites in among whom i am dwelling,4but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and you will certainly take a wife for my son, for isaac.. .
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Qcmbr
Mormons do , including the inappropriate touching ( well they did until the recent change!)
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Will it ever be possible for this earth and it`s inhabitants to be free of any kind of religion ? Would you welcome it ?
by smiddy ini know it`s certainly not going to happen in our time or even our childrens ,childrens time , but surely eventually, it must come about.. religion , all religion has been nothing but a curse on this planet , and humans will never reach their full potential until they eradicate all forms of religion .. of course the theists will insist their have been great acheivments in science, astronomy, the arts etc.
,to a large part by the educated religionists of their day , however the masses were deprived of such education .if the masses had received the education of the priveledged few religous scholars ,we may well have been enjoying a new golden age of enlightenment already.. note : i am talking about all religions of the world not just xians ,judaism, muslim ,etc.
but all religious persuasions.. just my 2 cents worth.
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Qcmbr
I think that religion will be awesome once it's faithless. I miss the sociality, organisation and positive aspects of group belief. Remove god, faith, guilt, eternal rewards and punishments, prophecy and all forms of dogma and you could have a great positive force.
Secular humanists :)
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553
Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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Qcmbr
Believers are absolutely right. This is a function of perception as presented by the brain. As a believer I had a real relationship with god, I received information and said my prayers in return. I knew god existed, I had faith that future events would occur ( including my own resurrection) and I got frustrated when people would consistently refuse to even try to pray or contemplate that my experiences with divinity were real. I was Mormon. In my reality miracles happened but when they happened to people of other faiths there was always a certain amount of critical doubt attached ( Satan/they were fooled/God was somehow trying to help them to the correct path - Mormonism) , ditto for answers from God. When the answer they got from God coincided with what I knew about God then clearly that was the same source, anything else and it was made up or Satan inspired. Sometimes Satan would play a clever game and would reveal something right but with an embedded lie ( Christ is real and he is coming in 1975) and would divert many of god's children to false manmade paths like the JWs.
The man wearing glasses with blue filters really perceives the visual world as blue. The filters mean it is impossible to see red or green.
The believer wearing glasses with god/reptile/aliens/faeries/communist/Republican/the Secret filters really perceives the world as expected. It is impossible to see it as anything other. Everything they see confirms their perception.
Being challenged on a perception filter is deeply personal. It isn't just someone saying that you've got a fact here or there wrong. It is someone saying you have something wrong with your brain, your whole worldview is invalid, you are living a lie, their filters are better than yours. No one in their right mind would sacrifice their whole world view over a single argument. Each discussion and debate is therefore jarring, neither side can present sufficient critical momentum to overcome an entire , physically wired - neuron by neuron , worldview. It takes something truly critical and emotionally shattering to reject a worldview. It may be an accumulation of negative information breaking an internal dam or it may a slightly unrelated crisis like a death or betrayal. It is almost never a single debate, post or argument.
Being an atheist means removing a set of perception filters ( not all, I'm still carrying lots of family, culture , educational and peer induced biases and reality assumptions). For those who were former believers it hurts to take them off. It's similar to taking off the filter that you are in love with someone. Accepting that you are no longer in a relationship can hurt like buggery and leave scars. As a former 'lover' it is painful to be told ( by other 'lovers') that my state of lovelessness is actually just another form of love. Atheism is not a form of belief.
I totally understand the feeling of being told your beliefs are wrong. Continuing the lover analogy it is absolutely reprehensible to have not only your own love denigrated but to insult your lover as well is anger inducing. When an atheist confronts a god believer it is to doubt both parties god and devotee. Why then do I ( I won't speak for other atheists here ) stick my beak into others sacred , joy inducing and emotionally fulfilling relationships with their god? Simply because I can't idly watch abusive relationships. I was in a beautiful one for 35 years. I really loved it. I wish, in hindsight, someone had got me to confront the abuse earlier.
One last reason why I especially respond to post JW evangelicals is because they use this forum , to my mind, as a blind date service, offering a new lover to replace the old abusive JW one.
Just my thoughts.
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If you believe God exists, what are your thoughts on what pleases him most?
by Fernando inour family has come to believe that god really wants each individual to personally and independently seek, find and walk with him - quite apart from what other humans say, think, believe or do.. we believe we were created as semi-autonomous beings.
when our inner compass is recalibrated, and we then self-direct, the outcomes seem best.. when we are instead led by humans, their hierarchies, organisations and ideas, the outcomes on the whole seem unfavourable.
legalism (rules), moralism (a moral code), ethnocentrism (doctrine), and gnosticism (knowledge) may seem meritorious.. yet these do not seem to lead to the deep inner transformation needed.
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Qcmbr
He likes blood, penile tissue, nudity when he's the only one watching, he like determining what you wear, what you eat and what buildings you wear. He likes to think of himself as a priestly fashion designer , a boat builder and an architect. He really likes it when you give him money , especially when you are an old widow. He has a thing for widows as he kills men genetically and in wars much more than he kills women in childbirth. He likes to perform abortions but gets upset when we stop him overpopulating the earth by doing it ourselves. He likes mysteries and fables ( he has a marked avoidance of facts and figures.) He likes people to like him over and above anyone or anything else. He loves people to talk to him especially when he's not going to respond, he likes the ill, abused and downtrodden to pray. He likes to make vague promises that have no need of literal fulfillment. He really likes the middle east.
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149
Christ's 'silence' on slavery.
by tec inone of the accusations against christ that some people make to me from time to time is that christ never spoke out against slavery, and so he must condone it.. i would submit that slavery (the forcible enslaving of your fellow man)... is not the root problem.
it is merely a symptom of the root problem.
christ came to deal with the root.
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Qcmbr
Tec - you do realise that the definition of love is malleable? When you claim something is loving and something is not you are merely rehearsing your opinion rather than saying anything concrete. Let me give you an example. To you it is loving for your Christ to take part in a pre determined blood sacrifice that has involved millions (?) of preceding animal sacrifices akin to voodoo ( blood scattered around and wiped on things etc.) To me that 'loving' behaviour reminds me of the worst kinds of psychopathic human behaviour. My personal morality is appalled at a god who requires love of himself, who preaches the golden rule but doesn't live it, who takes the role of judge but is utterly unaccountable itself, who is atrocious at clear communication and requires faith ( blind obedience ) , who is displeased with the results of a garden fruit transgression such that he curses the earth and women for it such that childbirth is bloody, terrifying and painful, I am at odds with the love of a deity who avoids giving any useful facts , information, physics, medical or social guidance that works ( spit magic is all very 'amazing' but he could have saved billions if he'd explained germ theory) , I don't think a deity who kills and maims to get his point across ( flood and Armageddon) is very deserving of adoration - pant wetting fear maybe, love nope ; seems to like bronze age warfare with swords ( his chosen people were always off conquering and enslaving at his word ) and can't organise his teachings into a simple yet liveable set of rules leading to clear ways to live.
Christ is a disorganised, lazy, mumbling, bumbling concept of hate and guilt who is almost 2000 years late for a 6 billion corpse war he and his angels are straining at the leash to begin when big Daddy says 'go', he is a tyrant who allows no dissent, no freedom, no independent thought( reference our earlier discussion Tec , I hope you realise how scary and tragic it is when you speak about thought modification as you do ) and who uses the notion of eternal death/ hell or punishment as the price of his benevolence. Christ is not love and is a metaphor for staggering intellectual indulgence in fairytales and in modern days a super logic tool to allow rejection of the bible ( of course it took the scientists, atheists and heretics to point out the impossibility of the bible - god/ Christ never bothered to keep his manual up to date and clear of crap ) and to allow unsupportable arguments ( like Jesus is against slavery .)
When I look back through the vast numbers of belief v skeptic debates ( here and elsewhere ) I cannot find one useful, factual or intellectually enhancing moral teaching that is a preserve of Christ but I find page after page of careful, referenced, practical, life enhancing illustrations of man's achievements. Mankind's love has done more than Christ's love on every measurable count. If I wish to speak in grandiloquent phrases I would say this:
Christ has done less for mankind than the lowliest free thinker, the poorest paid lab technician, the Nazarene has done less for peace, equal rights and tolerance than a black girl on a bus, a parliament that banned slavery and a man standing arms raised against a line of tanks, the Lamb of Israel is a proxy for hate, patriarchalism, racism, genocide and slavery.
Apparently the real motivation for dying on the cross was not altruistic salvation ( only a few get that ), it was a power play to gain a crown.
You Tec are superior in every possible way to the icon you worship. If you wish to promote love then that is worthy of doing; look within not up, you have more intrinsic love than any external 'power' can inject into you. There is no need to sell yourself out, you, me, everyone has the capacity for love and greatness without the need of a puppeteer. Go be magnificent.
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553
Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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Qcmbr
Mind you it is hard not to be somewhat scornful of a belief that requires a blood sacrifice as its central belief.
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Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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Qcmbr
oh naff - KS got banne d? Hopefullu these are only temporary.
edit. this is ----- doh
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553
Why are atheists so intent on scorning "believers"?
by Chariklo inuntil recently, i had never encountered this word "believers" used as it is being used on this board, to describe pejoratively a group of people.
it's not clear to me whether they scorn all who have a faith of some sort.
do they include buddhists, hindus, followers of the baha'i faith, followers of the cargo cult, native americans along with christians, or is it just christians who are honoured with this epithet?.
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Qcmbr
Believers internalise their belief such that their personality is altered and their behaviour changes. When a believer makes a statemrnt re belief they are staking far more than simple truth or falsehood, they post themselves and a rejection or critique of those beliefs becomes a personal rejection. Likewise agreement or praise becomes personal validation. Non believers , by definition, cannot be altered by a belief and are much freerer to look at an opinion objectively. When a direct insult is goven to a non-believer (you are a <x> and your mother smells of <y>) they will react in the same affronted manner as the believer whose cherished belief in <z> just got dismantled in public.
As a former believer I understand what believing means and now as an atheist I dont care any less for people I care more. I care enough to invest mysf saying sometime harsh critical statements that by virtue of being anti belief will wound. The wound is never the desire. The desire is to expose why faith and beloef is detrimental to them and to all. I started this forum as a defender of god and I was shown ttrmendous respect by posters willing to walk me through my pwn personal faith crisis.
apols for all spelling garbage, yhis forum, my phpne,my fat fingers and the rocking train do not mix well
