i really do not understand how any can be athiests from thinking real hard about it.
how can you think everything on this earth just happened?.
from my understanding, to be athiest, this is pretty much how it goes.
Appeal to authority and suspension of disbelief
It's like peanut butter and chocolate
'course one doesn't need the bible literally
perhaps even figuratively
perhaps one doesn't need the bible at all
or any derivatives of it's ideas
there's more than one path to the watering hole
and others have found these, were one to consider a broader spectrum
'course, I might be wrong
but I don't think so
i really do not understand how any can be athiests from thinking real hard about it.
how can you think everything on this earth just happened?.
from my understanding, to be athiest, this is pretty much how it goes.
You make the mistake of expecting Atheism to provide an answer for everything . . . only religion can do that. Atheism is not some sort of alternative faith . . . there are many unanswered questions. Atheism simply rejects religions' answers to those questions . . . hence the name.
Eloquent and sublime.
i'm desperately begging to the administrators of this website, to please modify the logic of the captchas used to validate the logins.. they were perfectly acceptable up to sometime in the last few days when they seem to have been modified.
the level of deciphering needed to read the captchas has gone up tremendously.
it took me about 30 attempts for this last login.. please revert the logic as it was before, where you had 2 words, one easy to read and another moderately hard to decipher..
This is just a test of the government trying to data mine how you think. Your efforts are contributing to pattern recognition algorithms and the evolution of AI. Upon your acceptance, you will be redirected to the most recent 911 conspiracy thread. Thank you for your cooperation.
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
I remember a music teacher who said another way to cover a mistake was to repeat it, as if to say, "I MEANT to do that!" Obviously a questionable strategy, depending on how obvious the mistake was!
A drummer I played with said to do it again next time 'round and change it up slightly. If the heads are up and everyone's on board, it works like a charm and only those on the inside track know the difference.
'course most times, somebody just flubbed a note, nobody looked and everyone just carried on...;)
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
Was that a (wise)crack aimed at moi?
Nein. Ain't throwing no rocks at you ;)
But it's kinda funny that one of my early online gaming logins was A Twitching Junkie. It humored me to read the Medal of Honor ticker read "A Twitching Junkie killed Major Pain" and variations on the theme. lmao, good times.
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
My point wasn't to present a comprehensive list of all possible substances of abuse (incredibly long list, BTW), but to point out the parallels in rationales offered. But sure, alcoholics of course use the same rationale ("I need it to get by", "it helps me to relax and calm myself", etc.)
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I guess this answers the question posed to you in the OP.
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
Talisan, didn't mean to insult, just a heads up.
I grow weary of the constant derision and argumentative nature of this place.
I hear ya. It's to be expected though given the nature of what peeps are going though. Realize that opinions of you aren't really about you.
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
Talesin,
What the Bleep was produced by followers of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a new age cult and the film has largely been regarded as pseudoscience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/reelscience/reviews/whatthe_bleep/
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/social/entertainment/128144/1/What-the-bleep-do-we-know
I'm all for positive thinking but let the buyer beware...
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
When I see comments like, "God helps people make it thru their lives" or "if it makes them happy, how could it be bad?" the first thing that comes to MY mind is recognizing that as the SAME RATIONALE used by substance abusers to defend their drug-of-choice. And much like with crystal meth (which makes people VERY HAPPY temporarily, by all accounts), the way it can be dangerous and harmful to the user is in the SIDE-EFFECTS that potentially can result when we use any coping strategies which depend on an altered mental state that is either chemically-modified via exogenous sources (i.e. pharmacological agents) or endogenous (fantasies and delusions).
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say believers are akin to junkies and meth heads. I don't know why alcoholics aren't in the list though; it seems a most obvious and prevalent drug that affects far more people either directly or indirectly, and one that would fit the assertion just as easily.
I admire those whose beliefs give them a serenity in this world. I aspire to not caring that others don't believe as I do or even like what I believe. One day...lol
i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
Is it possible that there is a part of us that reaches beyond our base natures, to reach for that which is bigger than ourselves?
I'd say there seems to be a psych need to know our place, within society and our place in the "big picture". We are social animals at a base level. Animals seem to both instintively know and learn their social status; fear of predators and knowing what to eat is innate, pecking order requires some challenge and contest. Perhaps taking on the god/father archetype is nothing more than challenging fate for dominance of our own destiny. Perhaps not.
However, not knowing if dolphins think about water, air and things beyond fish, I'd say most if not all of us confront the god question at some point or other. Where did we come from? What is my purpose? Is there something beyond this life? I think any sentient and rational being would have to derive an answer one way or another. It seems there is little question to the diversity of the answers and all are true it seems. Our nature is not absolute or universal, thus it may follow that neither are our beliefs and "truths".
Is believing in god helpful? If it gives someone peace, how could it not be? Of this there is ample testimony.
It can also be said that not believing in god is helpful and there is much evidence of this.
Is believing in god more helpful (or harmful) than not believing?
It's a divide by zero question, undefinable and has no answer ;)
