Every day modern medicine makes the supposed miracles of a supposed god look trivial. Jesus gives sight to one man - big whoop - if that's the calibre of miracle then not only is he arbitrary ( he didn't heal all blind people across the world, just one who was lucky enough to be there) but has been superseded by human ingenuity. We can fly, feed billions of people, talk over vast distances, resuscitate the dying, eradicate god's inflicted diseases (like polio) , predict natural disasters with far greater accuracy than biblical generational vagaries ( and more importantly mitigate them) and of course restore the sight of many blind people. Remind me why we need this guy?
Posts by Qcmbr
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81What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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Sparlock is helping Mormons
by cedars incheck out this awesome video - part 7 in a series where a mormon uses the witnesses as a proxy to figure out why his own faith is wrong.. sparlock, hassan's bite model, and even the 2013 "human apostates" convention talk all make cameos.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmesmlhydru.
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cedars.
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Qcmbr
Ok - here :S
Everyone knows why they are right, everyone knows what proves their viewpoint, a particular problem of faith based beliefs however, is that very few know what would disprove that belief.
As a mormon I loved the church, it was fantastic. I was glad that I had a progressive worldview that was welcoming of science (indeed welcoming of all truth) and instead of feeling threatened by the success of other churches, worldviews or non-mormons I, and my church, had a very broad view (god gives light and knowledge to all his children.) To be a mormon was not to take away from others beliefs, it was to offer them additional info they hadn't come across before. As a missionary I wasn't converting people away from say catholicism I was acknowledging how important that organisation had been as a way for god to teach them things and was offering them the next stage, I offerred Catholicism upgraded, Bhuddism upgraded, Humanism upgraded etc. All along I welcomed information because I was so certain that we had the facts, we had real truth , we had an actual prophet and this was the only church actually managed and set up directly by Jesus.
That which I described above is what brainwashing does. From my earliest memory I was singing 'Follow the Prophet', I was given 'historical' reading books on the Book of Mormon,I was attending impresive media productions on South American archaelogy that proved the BoM and so on. I didn't so much as find my testimony (though at 14 I did have an incredible experience) as have it layered into my psyche day in and day out. My weekly schedule (prior to the consolidated meeting schedule) was :
Sunday morning Sacrament meeting, meal at church or church members house, Sunday Afternoon Priesthood/relief Society Meetings, Sunday Evening Fireside, Monday night Family Home Evening (Lesson, songs and - normally edible - treat) , Tuesday Adults meetings at church for various auxiliaries (so Mum was on Young Women's Presidency so I ended up wandering church corridors), Wednesday MIA (church members mixed adults and kids activity night), Thursday night Sunday School, Friday night church sports / fireside / special activity, Saturday infrequent Stake/ Regional activities like sports events, Roadshows, Bring and Buy sales etc. In short my entire life outside of school was church related. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but I was not exposed to any other influences nor was I ever taught how to think, everything was a black and white absolute of what to think.
The bookshelves of our home were loaded with church materials, my weekly 'comic' was the church publication 'The Friend' and then as I got older 'The New Era' filled with faith promoting stories, puzzles about the BoM and information on prominent church members or high achievers. On top of that we had missionaries over at our house regularly for meals and to teach people (female missionaries, my mum was single so males not allowed!)
This is what brainwashing is, this is what a cult does, this is what makes it so hard to freely think and evaluate. I have pondered long and hard about why I didn't see the problems, why I couldn't perceive the logical mistakes. The only conclusion I have is brainwashing. A person wearing blue shade glasses indeed sees the world as blue but the glasses must be removed in order to see that the world isn't all blue. I had to take off the glasses before I could recognise that the church was NOT true. Until that time every tiny bit of information (like that presented by Cold Steel) seemed like the most incredible proof and every negative bit of information was brushed aside with barely a flicker of recognition.
Only when you know what would invalidate your belief are you able to evaluate it - otherwise you are simply rote learning.
* No miracle stories of Mormonism happened as described in church lesson literature (Checked with primary sources.)
* No prophecies of Mormonism with general application have ever happened (Check them all!). Many personal prophecies were either easily fulfilled (you will go on a mission - said by the person who can send them on one - or you will have a child (doh - most people do) and so on) or simply forgotten and brushed aside when they didn't occur.
* No archaeology agrees with Mormon claims and almost all directly contradicts it (DNA proves no American Indian ancestry from Middle East, no animals of types mentioned in BoM native to Americas, No evidence of million man battles or sprawling huge civilisations matching BoM civilisations, flora and fauna not native to SA mentioned, native flora and fauna not mentioned and incorrect or anachronous technology such as glass windows, chariots, steel, concrete, silk etc.
* BoM contains various source material available to Joseph Smith and indicating human origin (Map of Cumoros Island with capital Moroni - key names in BoM, many names of places lifted from local towns, Indian place names and geographical regions, Swedenborgian spiritual philosophy, superstition and magic elements - treasure digging, seerstones, divining rods, rituals to collect buried artefacts, masonry, direct lifts from several books of the day (I can provide several hundred direct and paraphrased quotes from books of the day if needed - mind boggling) most notably the bible (lifts including known errors and puzzlingly things he corrected in his later bible 'translation'.)
* Joseph made several translation claims that failed (Greek Psalter, Kinderhook Plates and now we have a fragment of the original Book of Abraham papyrus, the Book of Abraham)
* Joseph committed several horrendous social abuses (cornering married and single women in back rooms, telling them that an angel had commanded them to marry him, if they would submit they and several generations would be guaranteed Celestialisation and if they rejected him they and those same generations would damned ), he had an affair with a 14 year old (culturally not that 'bad' but still unacceptable), he set himself up as the seller of property in each new territory he founded (so he always could make money), he set up a fraudulent bank and fleeced many members (the primary reason for a vast apostacy in the early days of the church), he made up doctrine on the fly to suit (Word of Wisdom to placate his wife and containing the instruction to drink beer but not spirits - unlike our latest incarnation of it, Celestial marriage and the whole temple to hide his affairs and so on.)
In the broad light of day only brainwashing can lead a sane, rational adult to accept this whole rotten lie. Even though the modern day church is very different now its history is mired in awfulness (Utah under Brigham Young was a terrible place where people disappeared, women lived under absolute male rule, polgamy plagued the people and saw old men picking and choosing young wives at will, castrations of men who wouldn't give up wives etc.) No matter how many flashy ads the LDS church puts out it will not beat its history and the internet.
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The Watchtower Writers need to answer this question "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history!"
by ÁrbolesdeArabia inhow come the watchtower will not side with christendom and address a topic like the following?
what if christendom had allowed islam to spread it's plunder into europe without a fight and great force?
i direct your attention to islam spreading not as a distraction, but to ask the question most atheist have asked me when we talk of this subject.
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Qcmbr
I can only conclude AA that you are being wilfully stupid on this. Atheism is not a belief it is a state. You are falsely equating the two. All babies are born into an atheistic state and are then subsequently taught beliefs. Marxism is a political belief, Christianity is a religious belief. Contextually Christianity is atheistic with regards to Greek gods. Do you understand now?
What you are trying to talk about seems to be ideologies that include a state of atheism to all gods as a tenet ( like Stalinism). If this is the case I'm sure all Stalinists here will be able to respond about their 'crazies' and their view on it.
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The Watchtower Writers need to answer this question "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history!"
by ÁrbolesdeArabia inhow come the watchtower will not side with christendom and address a topic like the following?
what if christendom had allowed islam to spread it's plunder into europe without a fight and great force?
i direct your attention to islam spreading not as a distraction, but to ask the question most atheist have asked me when we talk of this subject.
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Qcmbr
This whole topic rests upon the constant failure of believers to understand what atheism means. Atheism is not a force, it is not a belief, it is not a movement. It is simply a state of not believing someone's claim about a god. That's it. A regime may indeed be led by an atheist but it is simple stupidity that would lead to postulating a causative motive of disbelief for war. Now if we say that Marxist or Fascist or Democratic or Catholic political systems are more likely to tend to war we have something to work with. A disbelief in god is not a motivating factor for war, a lack of resources, a fear of attack, a political ideology, honouring a treaty are motives for war. Belief in god however, can be a motivating factor for war if that flavour of god happens to favour combat ( the biblical god loved it and uses military phraseology all the time) hence one frequent assertion that religion is a threat to peace.
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Do beleivers have a problem with GODS silence in this technological/communication age ? and if not why not ? ?
by smiddy inwhy would the creator of the universe ,according to the bible ,converse ,either by angels,prophets,or in one or two occassions personally with humans centuries ago , and lets face it they are nowhere near as educated and enlightened as the present generation , and not communicate with the present generation.?
shoudnt their be more reason for him to communicate with his creation today than ever before ?
and using the excuse that jesus life and experiences does not cover it.jesus never wrote anything down.the scriptures themselves say everything he said could not be recorded because it would fill volumes ???
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Qcmbr
AA sorry was away will respond to:
What's the difference between your beliefs Qcmr and Spontaneous generation when it comes to how life evolved on earth?
I am no authority on the beginning of life studies however, we observe in nature and without intervention from any measurable supernatural medium the following: 1/ complex chemistry in the presence of energy gradients, reactive molecules and mediums such as water or ammonia 2/ in some scenarios the spontaneous chemical generation of amino acids 3/ in some scenarios the spontaneous generation of cell like membrane structures ( basically tiny bubbles separating chemicals within from chemicals without but crucially, in the presence of an energy gradient, allowing chemical reactions to occur by passing material across the membrane - for example clay bubbles in solution with salts) 4/ many natural processes follow regular replication patterns ( crystals as a quick example) Given enough time, energy and chemicals ( say in vast oceans) and the unimaginable speed and number of resulting chemical reactions that occur every second is it really a stretch to conceive of a very, very simple replicative chemical process that happens to reach a stable state. Once you have a replicating mechanism ( all chemical, no 'life' ) and enough material and energy to sustain it and you have an opportunity for RNA to emerge as long as the chemistry that is occurring is generating amino acids and the replicative process is not 100% perfect ( I.e. you must have room to change). One thing that helped me to think about it is Lego. We all know you can build amazing machines in Lego and the idea that if we shook loose Lego together long enough it would somehow fall together as a vast machine is clearly wrong. However, if we add some chemical style rules ( certain bricks will try and fit with other bricks , certain structures are able and likely to always form if we have 5 blue, 2 red and 1 yellow 4 by 2 brick close by and so forth - lets call it. 'bobbleA' structure ) and now we don't have lots of loose single bricks we have clumps of bricks that are sticking together then breaking apart ( sure you won't get a beautiful colour coded millennium falcon - that would be design!) but given enough time and enough Lego structures and enough 'reactions' you will get some behaviour and state machines forming completely by chance. They won't be pretty, they will be complex( at the atomic brick Lego level) and they won't be alive but they will do stuff ( for example one made from a clump of bobbleA's might have a hole that only fits another unattached bobbleA and quite by chance starts to act as a sorting structure and increasing the likelihood of more bobbleA sorters occurring.) The long term result would / could eventually be organised into basic machines that copy themselves - don't get me wrong highly unlikely in a tiny scenario but given oceans of Lego and billions of years not so hard to imagine since we know that organised right Lego has the ability to act as a machine. Have a look at what proteins look like..chemical Lego. http://www.123rf.com/photo_16083493_chemical-structure-of-a-nerve-growth-factor-ngf-protein-molecule-this-signaling-protein-is-important.htmlLife is , IMO, an emergent property of chemical reactions that is not guaranteed (for example replicative chemical and physical reactions such as crystal formation haven't , as far as we know, spawned crystal life forms ) but the chemical machines that occurred somewhere billions of years ago happened to be right for ongoing replication. We see the end result today as very complex machines ( animal cells) and the relatively simpler viral machines. The organisation of cells with each other is a totally different topic but not too difficult to imagine - note this IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENS - one mud membrane protects our bobbleA sorters such that it fills with them, every now and then the bubble gets too big and splits carrying a few bobbleA sorters in each division, one such bobbleA sorter bubble happens to be near another membrane that has something gathering blue, red and yellow bricks ( a tribbleB sorter) and the two, quite by chance, begin to correspond and now wherever a bobbleA sorter population occurs it does so more generally near tribbleB sorters until the majority of instances of these two sorters are next to each other and the most successful are the accidentally conjoined membranes.
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Do beleivers have a problem with GODS silence in this technological/communication age ? and if not why not ? ?
by smiddy inwhy would the creator of the universe ,according to the bible ,converse ,either by angels,prophets,or in one or two occassions personally with humans centuries ago , and lets face it they are nowhere near as educated and enlightened as the present generation , and not communicate with the present generation.?
shoudnt their be more reason for him to communicate with his creation today than ever before ?
and using the excuse that jesus life and experiences does not cover it.jesus never wrote anything down.the scriptures themselves say everything he said could not be recorded because it would fill volumes ???
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Qcmbr
Gods of all kinds continue to chatter in the brains of certain people. They are so impressed by themselves and their subjective experiences that they cannot step back and see that these internal discourses never exceed their own intellect , never introduce actual novel knowledge ( useable, testable and worth adding to the human canon of information) and oddly enough always agree with the core aspirations and ideals of the believer ( this is why 'divine communication' feels so right, it is the expression of that which is already, deep down , decided upon and is now bubbling up to the conscious level.)
Any believer has a perfect opportunity, every day, on this forum to correct these assertions simply by providing some revealed information that is factually correct, generally useful and exceeds the intellect of the revealer ( for example a novel cure for dementia not involving magic rituals such as prayer or a revealed list of the next 5 scale 7 earthquake epicentres.) What we find instead is snake oil where unctuous believers use as much sophistication as possible to create wiggle room for the simple possibility of them being right. Using rigorous, critical, skeptical standards they decry and attempt to dismiss facts and non-magical explanations for their observed phenomenon and then apply to themselves and their personal god the widest possible latitude and scope for interpretation and meaning.
Then they try and convert you.
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Evolution is Crap, there I said it!
by Crazyguy inok i started another thread and every one jumped on me because i was trying to take the theory of evolution out of the mix and most here seem to believe in it so i will just say it.
the theory of major evolution is crap!
the theory is falling apart.
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Qcmbr
The god / designer that ignorant, religious fundamentalists believe in isn't a very good designer apparently. This being or force has had most of his designs binned. To add to this logically absurd premise this designer put these designed machines into scenarios with a high degree of danger ( the habitable zones in the universe are minuscule and this planet is highly hostile to life) and for what purpose ? The vast majority of earth's history has involved non-human life living short, brutish, pain and fear dominated scrambles for simple survival. This so called designer, beloved of the wilfully uneducated ends up a sadistict bumbling idiot who is everything mankind considers evil.
Just a few more generations and this silly fixation with creationism will be spent as a force overwhelmed by our understanding of reality and no more guided by the bronze age superstitions of the middle east.
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Anyone with a Mormon background? Wedding with a non-believer.
by jam inok here's the deal.
i posted previous about my son and his mormon girlfriend.
well they are now planning to get married.. can a mormon elder ( not sure what they are called) perform the marriage or will he.
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Qcmbr
Former mormon here.
The person who performs the wedding will depend on the law (for example in the UK they would need to be an authorised 'Celebrant' - religious - or an authorised 'Registrar' - civil.) The US will have its own set up for who can perform marriages. One important distinction is that in the UK a marriage must be public meaning that the US mormon practise of temple weddings (only 'worthy' church members can attend) as the sole recognition of marriage is not allowed leading to UK members taking the route of an offical legal marriage (normally in an LDS church and done by the Bishop) and then the same day going to the temple for an evening 'Eternal marriage' performed by a temple official.) Members who don't go straight to the temple ar enormally penalised by not then being allowed to eternally marry till 1 year later as determined by the local church leadership.
In the US the practise of recognising the secret temple ceremony as official has led to lots of angst for 'unworthy' or nevermo family members being excluded from this beautiful family moment. Stupid cult.
In your case it looks like they will be having a public marriage (phew) and in this case the positive aspect of mormonism will be on display. In general the members who attend will be lovely and you'll find that they won't have any great hangs ups. They'll integrate easily, shouldn't be too phased by alcohol, won't get rowdy themselves and will generally be lovely (though they may bunch up but that's normal for weddings anyway.) You may get the odd mormon loudly mentioning something but in general mormons find it rude to intrude their beliefs on someone else's public occasion (surprising but true) and so I wouldn't expect you to get any problems from the mixed nature of the event.
If the wedding is at an LDS meetinghouse then there is stricly no smoking in the building or on the grounds, ditto for drinking alcohol and tea and coffee (so if you are having a meal at the church afterwards don't expect to serve booze or coffee). It may be worth pre-warning nevermos so that the day isn't troubled by awkward moments and if they want to they can arrange a quick trip to a local bar. Also depending on the nature of the invites you may get loads of the local members attend (they have no restrictions with intermingling with worldy people at public events - mormon wards also see themselves as a large family so often feel they have an open invite !) If you ar eeating at the church be aware of moochers. After church events some members will feel entitled to walk off with leftovers. Control this heavily. Don't let people take stuff away unless they donated it in the first place (some people want their dishes back quite understandably). If you have cases of food/drinks police them to make sure they don't get acquired ! This will not likely be a problem if you are eating elsewhere.
Warn the speech givers of the churchy nature of a large part of the crowd. Rude jokes etc. will not go down well and will lead to an awkward atmosphere. Light hearted jokes will be taken well but rude ones will not.
It will be unlikley that there will be any overt proselyting.
Congrats.
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Did you see? Mormons to do less door to door, use technology instead
by carla ini wonder if jw's will ever catch on?.
http://news.yahoo.com/mormons-technology-missionary-151916141.html.
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Qcmbr
Missionaries pay their own way.
I am not looking forward to missionaries flooding forums and review sites if this is what they are planning.
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Evolution is Crap, there I said it!
by Crazyguy inok i started another thread and every one jumped on me because i was trying to take the theory of evolution out of the mix and most here seem to believe in it so i will just say it.
the theory of major evolution is crap!
the theory is falling apart.
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Qcmbr
ID isn't science so it has no place in the classroom. Time and time again we have to bang the drum that religion and faith are at best diversionary time wasters and at worst downright useless and b*****ks as means of determining how the natural world works. Who supports ID? The religious who wish to explain the natural world by supernatural means. Nothing in the observed world leads to a conclusion that supernatural beings created every species twice after magically flooding the earth and after making people from mud and breath. Breathtaking crapulence.
ID is a sophisticated (read corrupt) approach to preaching creationism that offers NO answers as to the mechanisms or processes by which life changes or came to be. It stands in direct contrast to evolution that is observed, predicted, is testable, is confirmed by ALL observed facts in all disciplines fom paleontology through to genetics. For the first time we have opportunities to cure genetic diseases and we have a bunch of well paid faithful ignoramuses trying to scupper the best and brightest children of the most powerful nation with bull****. The number of people who live with crippling diseases or who die of what will be curable illnesses is directly related to how much wasted effort is spent dealing with stupid believers wishing to slow down science with fairytales so they can enjoy church undiscomforted by facts and information.