Posts by Qcmbr

85

Dawkins Chapter 2 - Dogs, Cows and Cabbages

by KateWild in

i have to say, i am afraid i found this chapter labourious to read in most places.

imo i felt he just wasn't getting to the point.

i don't get why dawkins felt the need to teach me all about platoism, essentialism and rabbits.

Qcmbr

Kate - please describe how faith / religion investigates truth? My opening statement should inform you that I accept that religion can co-exist with a scientific viewpoint.

Inspiration to perform scientific study is great. Scientific study is not religious - it is a methodology - though it can study the religious (and the atheist for that matter). It involves no prayer nor worship and invokes no deity.

Dawkins certainly seems driven to explain himself over and over again because so many ill informed and faith based thinkers continually try and denigrate the knowledge that is staring them in the face. Sometimes the religios need to shut up and admit they haven't done the research necessary to discuss the topics but at every debate you'll always have some zealot thinking or asking some astonishingly poor questions born of bible / dogma based information (written thousands of years ago by uneducated people!) rather than listening to an expert in the field.

I cannot think of one useful scientific discovery given by the gods of the believers (loads of rules for controlling sex,eating food and giving money to priests though).

85

Dawkins Chapter 2 - Dogs, Cows and Cabbages

by KateWild in

i have to say, i am afraid i found this chapter labourious to read in most places.

imo i felt he just wasn't getting to the point.

i don't get why dawkins felt the need to teach me all about platoism, essentialism and rabbits.

Qcmbr

Science and religion need not be in conflict they just tend to be the moment a decision is made by an individual that religion/faith is a better way to achieve knowledge than the scientific method. There is a fundamental shift in the basis of what evidence is acceptable, what would invalidate that conclusions reached and what explanatory power those conclusions give. The moment you are convinced you are in contact with a supernatural being you have made a stance shift in reality, no matter what physical or material evidence or theories or conclusions are presented they will be rejected outright unless they support the supernatural demands.

As a believer I thought myself wonderfully open minded as I read the theories on evolution but all the while my reality filter was rejecting the information and re-explaning it in some form of christian timeframe / creation worldview. This is where the conflict exists -inside the head of the person who has chosen a sub-optimal path to truth.

Science will march on regardless of the debates and will continue to discover how this reality works. Faith and religion never will since they all lack a means to approach and evaluate knowledge but start from a given (deity / spirit / woo x exists) and then explains all competing information as part of that whole.

To really be open minded is hard because it normally means accepting that you do not know, that you were wrong and that cherished invisible friends are figments of your imagination. In 100 years the books written about evolution will be radically improved with massive strides made in understanding the implications and making use of them (we will be doing real genetic manipulation rather than praying for them which is the sum total of the faith based contribution.) Dawkins will be hailed as a great educator but many of his statements will have been improved and expanded. Science never stops doubting and never stops to say 'this is TRUTH' bow down and worship.

25

What have Jehovah's Witnesses copied from the Mormons

by konceptual99 in

have jws pinched anything other than family worship from the mormons?.

could we see jws implement a type of meeting structure similar to the mormons to try and engage different ages in different ways?.

could we ever see a jw feel free to do anything like...?.

Qcmbr

Tithing is used within the Mormon church to determine worthiness. If you want to take part in family religious events such as weddings you must pay the church for that privilege. Many heartbroken parents are denied access to their children's wedding based upon this cynical ploy. The church uses that money in a secret way which is a big indicator about what's really going on. A lie is allowed to persist within the organisation that no one gets paid ( a pass is given for secular roles such as lawyers where they are employed )but in reality the only people who don't get paid are the local workers, the bishops, sunday school teachers, youth leaders and leaders in the women's organisation and so on. Once you reach a sufficient level you hit the good time. For those at the top the rewards are ridiculous. Millions of dollars flow into the pockets of the top men and women both in direct payments but also in the form of fake jobs ( they sit on the boards of church owned businesses being paid handsomely for nothing ), they receive the best food, free travel, use of private jets, free accommodation in lavish style , free healthcare and so on. This privilege extends right down through their family with the children's scholarships being paid, family cruise style holidays and nepotism within well paid church jobs. Additional funds are extended to cover debts, pay for ghost writers to write the next cash making words of *cough* wisdom book and to make interest free loans.

The church as an organisation is moving heavily away from any pretence of being divine or a charity. Less than 1.5% of church income is expended on charitable work outside the church. A charity that makes billions a year it can afford to spend a few million here and there on obscure projects. The vast bulk of charitable payments in the church of course fall upon the already fleeced church members who having paid 10% then are asked for additional offerings. Back in the 70s you used to put a note on the tithing slip when the church was collecting for a special cause but now the instruction ( in the UK at least) is not to and of course this is because the church can siphon off the money as they desire without creating an accounting headache.

Why would the kingdom of heaven need hunting lodges, shopping malls, hotels, vast real estate holdings, a university , a communications company, life insurance holdings, book publishing firms and so on?

Will a man rob god? Presumably omniscient super beings are pretty hard to rob. The real question is will the church leaders rob the members? The answer is Of course obvious.

If you like epic orchestral music...

by Qcmbr in

how in heck i didn't know about these guys i will never know but i feel it my duty to make this knowledge available to other epic music fans.. brilliant if you want to get a job done... http://www.twostepsfromhell.com/.

"two steps from hell was formed back in 2006 when thomas bergersen and nick phoenix joined forces to write original music for movie trailers.

7 years later, they have been featured in hundreds of movie ads, including some of the biggest blockbustersof recent time.".

Qcmbr

How in heck I didn't know about these guys I will never know but I feel it my duty to make this knowledge available to other epic music fans.

Brilliant if you want to get a job done..

http://www.twostepsfromhell.com/

"Two Steps From Hell was formed back in 2006 when Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix joined forces to write original music for movie trailers. 7 years later, they have been featured in hundreds of movie ads, including some of the biggest blockbustersof recent time."

Two Steps From Hell - some personal favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRLdhFVzqt4&noredirect=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASj81daun5Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2RK6OGNMCY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxAUcgiCHvQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFn1cVnz_lE (my absolute fav)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwWU4tWV3w

There are lots more but you can find them yourself!

Lines in the sand

by Qcmbr in

still active mormon friend came round last sunday and we chewed the fat and he mentioned several reservations he had about the church.

long story short i asked him if he had a line in the sand , a limit to what he would accept beyond which he would admit the mormon church was false.

surprisingly he said yes.

Qcmbr

Still active Mormon friend came round last Sunday and we chewed the fat and he mentioned several reservations he had about the church. Long story short I asked him if he had a line in the sand , a limit to what he would accept beyond which he would admit the Mormon church was false. Surprisingly he said yes. I didn't ask him what it was but I was thinking myself about how , over the last few years of my atheism , I had been drawing the line further and further away from faith based story 'facts'. Looking back at my life I realised I had very weak personal lines, I had believed very silly things. The strength of my acceptance of information does not seem to waver , what's important, for me is the line itself. Until I learnt to draw my own lines I allowed my parents and my church draw them for me.

Now my line is simpler, less sophisticated , it's a probability based line, using the knowledge and skills I have is 'it' probably true. The natural,mechanical world is probably true as it presents itself consistently every day, the invisible , magical world of faith, probably not true. Simples. All the magical things ever described have always failed to work out (Ra never preserved the Egyptians, Jehovah never preserved the Israelites, Thor had a short lease on Valhalla and every person who hears voices is suffering perception issues either via illness, mental abnormality , chemical induced states, brain misfires or through self-trained will).

We also talked about jelly but that's another post :)

66

Waiting for the JWs to come to my door...

by Hortenzie in

i read about the new tract distribution and thought to myself how should i react, when they come to my door.

finally today, after finishing my morning coffee, i got an idea!

i'll take the tract, look at it, look at them, and with a nice smile rip it up and hand it back to them with :"have a great day!

Qcmbr

This doesn't need to be about the JWs at your door. One thing religion can rob you of is authentic passion. As a believer you live the religious life in a state of continual play acting, you must always be thrilled, excited and happy about the truth and you must never be angry, hurt or doubtful. Your emotions become lopsided and unnatural. You, in escaping the religion, won your freedom, you won the right to natural anger, justified frustration and well placed disgust. Tear up the tract if you wish and dont be shackled by concepts of respect or guilt for people or organisations , remember they are there to enslave you, they are handing out rat poison and they will destroy your life without a second thought if they can. If you want to free them then there are more effective tactics but nothing in this situation requires you to take that responsibility.

15

Conversation with a christian today or: How the holy spirit got it wrong.

by bohm in

jw
friends

i 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.

Qcmbr

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.

97

Unconfirmed 2014 Year Book Numbers - Peak Pubs, Baptized, Hrs, Reg Pio & Studies

by OwnAccord in

jw
friends

i 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.

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.

15

Conversation with a christian today or: How the holy spirit got it wrong.

by bohm in

jw
friends

i 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.

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.

111

How to prove God does not exist?

by UBM101 in

many 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?

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.