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.
