Bohm - I came up with my own justification - this is an age of instant sensory gratification where the skill to be learnt is to be led and taught by the spirit, the 'still, small voice' ,not to have immediate evidential proof which in former , simpler times was the way as people were much more spiritually attuned and mature and could correctly understand what they were seeing - which is of course non-scriptural, sophistry. In reality I was trapped in a social cage where my entire persona was subverted by my culture ( Mormon missionary), family expectation and the public role I had created, preached and lived ( zealous believer ) - I could not escape my own public pronouncements. So I finished my mission, I baptised and preached and my shelf got a little heavier. I was unable to understand the simple truth staring me in the face - all my spiritual experiences were self induced and no real supernatural / natural interactions ever occurred. Took me 15 years to confront that , 15 years of continued preaching and pretence.
Posts by Qcmbr
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15Conversation with a christian today or: How the holy spirit got it wrong.
by bohm ini had the oddest experience today.
i was walking down the street and there was a group of christians standing in front of a boxcar nicely painted with their logo and website.
they had brought loudspeakers and mixing system, and were playing some loud semi-techno stuff while they were dancing like crazy (literally, there was an old guy jumping around with an umbrella doing a rolling stones impersonation).. i did the only sensible thing and stopped to see what was going on and take a picture.
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Unconfirmed 2014 Year Book Numbers - Peak Pubs, Baptized, Hrs, Reg Pio & Studies
by OwnAccord ini bethelite sent this email out - can't really give out names.
we wrote these figures as quickly as possible, but could not keep up 100%).
you get to check these figures out when you get your 2014 yearbook.
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Qcmbr
Why do God's supposed people need to know this sort of information? Business yes, divine organisation no. Now if this was actually some god's book's - who got to Valhalla this year - then that would be fascinating.
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15
Conversation with a christian today or: How the holy spirit got it wrong.
by bohm ini had the oddest experience today.
i was walking down the street and there was a group of christians standing in front of a boxcar nicely painted with their logo and website.
they had brought loudspeakers and mixing system, and were playing some loud semi-techno stuff while they were dancing like crazy (literally, there was an old guy jumping around with an umbrella doing a rolling stones impersonation).. i did the only sensible thing and stopped to see what was going on and take a picture.
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Qcmbr
Great experience,it's always about the evidence and this is the crux of the whole debate. Believers get frustrated by constantly being asked for evidence they know they cannot provide while non-believers get frustrated that believers will not confront that. Once , as a missionary, I had a fairly long prayer where I asked god why he didn't back me up more, I pointed out that I was his servant seeking to do his will but that I felt very exposed door to door when challenged about practical things ( 'heal me then'.) If only I could have seen what that really meant. And before our resident xian apologists jump on any bandwagon I was having plenty of subjective experiences of bliss, love, light blah blah.
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111
How to prove God does not exist?
by UBM101 inmany times (almost all the time) atheists asking for proof of god's existence from those who believe that god exists.
perhaps at times they should prove he doesn't exist.
any taker?
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Qcmbr
I have yet to find anyone able to describe a god in any way remotely superior to mankind and more tellingly as anything other than physical - I will deal with both seperately below.
All gods described by human language, poetry, art, religious writing, thought and all other communication (i.e. the mind is the ONLY place where gods are described since the environment does not bear any recognised signature or message from of any deity) can easily be superceded by another thought process (Zeus loses to Xenu) and be outwitted by logical and rational enquiry (Christ loses to Gervais).
It does not take me long to dismiss the standards of OT bible god who happily allows murder (Jericho), causes genocide (flood), accepts slavery, encourages animal sacrifice and shows very human passions such as jealousy and anger. There are plenty of times when I (a rather unremarkable specimen and very average human) show far higher levels of moral reasoning and action. This is repeatable for all gods who by their lack of interaction with the world make no case for either their existence orteh possession of powers bestowed upon them by their believers. We have plenty of xians on this board absolutely convined their Christ can heal amputees despite there being no evidence of this ever occurring (in short they are making up a quality of their idol which is not suggested by reality.) Despite obvious evidence to the contrary they will continue to speak in universal terms ('if you just pray right and accept him he will answer you'). They at once make their god answer to their commands (how dare they make promises on behalf of this super being) and then use sophistry to ignore the failure of their god to make good on promises they made up for them. In short the only evidence for each and every god is the communication of very unreliable individuals most suffering demonstrable brainwashing,occassional illness and/or lack of critical thinking skills.
The old physical evidences for supernatural beings (lightning for example) have been found to be purely physical processes with no hint of supernatural direction or will. There are plenty of questions for which we do not have physical explanations for yet but so far we have been able to retire many previously impressive proofs of supernatural activity by simple natural laws (including proofs attributed to the Christian God such as the rainbow.) All things currently attributed to gods seem very trivial now as each gap closes (for example positing that god is the source of emotions such as love is rather childish and shows a complete lack of understanding behind the physiology, biology and chemistry that underpin emotional states.) Gods have been shown to have no influence over the weather (we never see a raincloud raining purely upon the head of one person as per movie cliche for example), the position of the sun (we can track its unerring position over millions of years and its relationship with its planets), plant life (crops grow according to well understood cycles, genetics, insect influences and nutrient availabilities) , the hydrological cycle(clearly prayer is no more able to evaporate water in one area and move it to another than Indian rain dances) and so on. The likelihood of a currently unexplained phenomenon requiring a divine causitive effect is diminishing with every discovery and is not predicted by any scientific model.
Science has no case to answer because the faithful are unable to make a case. Philosophy and discussion yes but nothing beyond this; no mountain, no storm, no child, no star is currently best explained by some invisible being.
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188
A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
by cofty ina manual for creating atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith--but for talking them out of it.
peter boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.
- amazon.... "boghossian has provided an indispensible chart book for all of us who must navigate the rising sea of magical thinking that is inundating america today.
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Qcmbr
Eden you sound just like I did when I joined this forum. You seek to personalise an imagined hurt from (unless addressed) generalised statements that do not have a purpose of simple pain - unless you wish to also categorise 'arrogant atheists' as maleovelant sociopaths who merely speak to inflict pain!
Now get a grip , one on one we'd laugh and talk about sport and share inappropriate jokes about nuns but this is a general public forum where I am not trying to play phatic communication games and have no overt aim to build up a rapport with you. Don't take that harshly, you just aren't on my radar and after this post will barely think of you again. I have no desire to send you squealing off into the darkness with your faith in tatters while I stand proudly , arms akimbo. What I want to do is share the importance of confronting faith based beliefs (religious or not) because they are demonstrably ineffectual means of evaluating reality and more worryingly have been show time and time permit and excuse anti-social behaviour. You personally may never condone genocide (in fact I'll go out on a limb and say of course you don't) but if you subscribe to a faith based belief that does (by indirectly supporting a divinely orchestrated genocidal event in a religious text for example ) then you have undermined your integrity by accepting a lower standard. Faith bypasses our moral and social filters and can be used to extract awful behaviour (the voice said take my son up the hill and kill him, I must obey the voice, the voice said I must circumcise babies etc.) This thread happens to be about a book explicitly about expressing the atheist position hence it is the main focus of my posts.
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19
So Frightened.. Extremely Afraid
by Caupon inas some of you may know, i'm a pretty troubled lad who was on the verge of getting baptised but stopped when i learned the shocking truth about the organization.
following that my own mother let me have it in anger to my decision.
since then, my life has been true hell.. .
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Qcmbr
Then let us all tread carefully, there are legal ramifications when engaging minors on the Internet.
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19
So Frightened.. Extremely Afraid
by Caupon inas some of you may know, i'm a pretty troubled lad who was on the verge of getting baptised but stopped when i learned the shocking truth about the organization.
following that my own mother let me have it in anger to my decision.
since then, my life has been true hell.. .
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Qcmbr
Forgive me if I'm wrong - this reads like a troll post. Minors do not refer to themselves as minors nor would they mention Russelites. This situation seems contrived and the response out of place ( terrified simply because some one acted like a dick?) I think this is an adult.
If I have made a gross error and you are a young person who writes like an adult but who is emotionally on the edge ( the situation described is nothing to do with JWs , it's just life and everywhere is the same) then Iwould strongly suggest you don't use Internet forums for advice and comfort unless you can first of all resolve why you are emotionally so fragile. You will experience far worse on public forums than people simply getting short with you. If your situation is real then you will get battered roving the Internet. Respect your family, honour the efforts they make to feed, clothe , protect and love you and know that as you get older you will be able to make difficult choices about relationships and beliefs much better when you have emotionally and mentally matured.
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188
A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
by cofty ina manual for creating atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith--but for talking them out of it.
peter boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.
- amazon.... "boghossian has provided an indispensible chart book for all of us who must navigate the rising sea of magical thinking that is inundating america today.
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Qcmbr
Tec- it is your standard response just as it is with most who have faith. It matters not when you do it, before or after a statement, it is enough that you fit the pattern. As a missionary at the door people would make a statement about god to explain an aspect of this being they disliked and I would expend all kinds of sophistry to explain just why Mormon god was not what they disliked but was in some way different but was just perfect for them and if they had a few minutes I'd like to explain it to them.
Sometimes Tec you have to accept you cannot avoid the point by constantly rephrasing so it isn't applicable to you or your god or pretending you dont understand what has been said as a way to dismiss it. The confident thing is to square up to a criticism or an observation and embrace it and try and see if the evidence fits but faith is rarely about solid confidence ( after all it has nothing to show, no faith believer in all the years of this forum has ever managed to provide any substantial evidence or new / novel information or provide a divine sourced theory with any predictive or explanatory power ) and becomes instead a series of ill defined mantras ( god is x, y , z ) and always invisible events occurring solely within individuals cranial space which traduce to no more than the intellectual worth and effect of endless Facebook pictorial memes.
Invisible friends / guides / masters can give great comfort, I had mine for 35 years so I get it but, being internal constructs they never exceed the mental and intellectual capacity of the one experiencing them no matter how our mind paints them ( as you know we've had examples of dragons, disembodied voices, leprous Christ, light , impression giver, telepathic god, filler of body with energy christ, helped me with depression god, feels like love being, pushed me out of way invisible angel, made me feel bad about dark alleyway guide and so on) This pattern is repeated across all religions with invisible supernatural entities and is ascribed to all manner of religious beings, ancestors, guiding spirits or aliens. The net result is never an increase of real knowledge but lots of interesting stories and , when a religion gets involved, architecture.
The desire for people to put aside childish notions and to understand that when they thought that some being was helping them through a tough time that it was their own fragile but magnificent , very physical but beautifully complex mind all along is born of human morality not arrogance. A person devoted to a made up god like mormon elohim is constantly acting a role on a mental stage and when they allow themselves to be coaxed from the play, take of the pious make up and look at themselves in the mirror then they can begin to act in a more authentic and self empowered way. I would love to see my mother reach a decision based upon her own experiences and inner wisdom rather than retreating to prayer, scripture reading and fasting - while visiting a temple to take part in cult rituals - before she hesitatingly reaches conclusions. It breaks my heart to see her so insecure in her abilities and desperate to have a divine confirmation of each choice she must make. I get saddened when Allah is praised when a bomb blows up people or Jehovah is credited with healing the car crash victim or the Holy Spirit is accredited with someone overcoming an addiction. In another time and place it is Wotan, Zeus and Ra being invoked and it was wrong then and it's wrong now.
We need atheism to free people from wasting time and resources worshipping Krishna, Allah, Elohim, Jehovah, Christ, Xenu, Brahma, Ganesh and all the other flavours of divinity and to be free to learn about how the universe really works by experience, awe and discovery. Atheism alone is not enough, nor does it destroy spirituality ( heck there are atheist religions ) but it is a first step is making a community more culturally open, where children are not taught that their sex determines their role in a divine plan, where genital mutilation is not a spiritual directive, avoiding blood is a divine mandate, prayer is not an effective substitute for action, where a persons sexual behaviour is not criticised because of bronze age superstitions , where science can be taught without fighting absurd mythical stories long proven false , a community where central places of exclusivity and division ( churches) are replaced with public schools, community centres and restaurants. If this dream is arrogance then so be it, call me arrogant. It's wrong but if this is not also your hope and you'd rather cling to teaching children fear and superstition and privileging mythical fairytales then I realise how important it is to reach the rising generation, to give them the tools of self actualisation denied to you their parents. Give them the choice for goodness sake.
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What Would a Country Run by Evangelical Christianity Look Like?
by cofty inon an earlier thread i made the statement that, "an evangelical christian government would look a lot like the taliban".. laika asked me incredulously, "do you really think your friends from your old church would govern like the taliban!?".
i thought it was a really interesting question and might work as a separate thread.. the people i worshipped with were mostly a nice bunch of people, but the thought of them having secular power would make me shudder.. christianity is mostly harmless because it lacks power.
christian politicians are restrained by secular laws and constitutions.
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Qcmbr
The Mormon one was tried in Utah. Result polyandry, polygamy ( young wives demaneed by old men , former husbands exiled), blood sacrifice ( death for those who were deemed too wicked to repent and be covered by Christ's atonement),Business monopoly, financial theft , fraud ( Kirtland Bank) , military posturing ( Mormon battalion plus prophecy of violent conquest of Missouri ), hatred of Gentiles ( Utah had oath to avenge death of JSmith against US for a long time), murder of others ( Mountain Meadows Massacre), repression of women, mandate on clothing, exclusion of non- believers, racism , religious taxation, education as religious tool,anti science ( where in conflict with dogma), prohibition of alcohol not owned by religious leaders, nepotism in government and business, vigilante militia ( Danities) , death penalty, censorship of the media , religious ownership of media, zero drug policy ( except to induce religious vision ! Ref LDS visionary stories, sacrament wine and JS usage of local plants) , mistrust of medical procedures, gay abuse ( modern day electro shock therapy), sexual control ( sex only for procreation through hole in sheet) and so on. Bloody madness.
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188
A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
by cofty ina manual for creating atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith--but for talking them out of it.
peter boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.
- amazon.... "boghossian has provided an indispensible chart book for all of us who must navigate the rising sea of magical thinking that is inundating america today.
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Qcmbr
tec - I credit you with above average reading skills and excellent sophistication ( the ability to consciouslyand selectively corrupt meaning). I refuse to accept that you cannot understand what it means to be atheist with regards to everyone elses' god but your own. I do not accept that you needed to search for some definition to aid your understanding. Either you or admitting an out of character low level of comprehension or this is part of a strategy i have seen before which you were taught by another and simply involves repeating back a deliberately 'misunderstood' reading to show why you are utterly exempt from anything said.
Shrugs. That which I have posted is sufficiently concise and precise and Im happy it needs no further explanation.
PS Your summing up comment re your god not having a hell and not being responsible for spewing out those who are not hot or cold is an exclent example of you looking for some small point if difference to show why your god is superior to ' other gods' . Brilliant.