Posts by serotonin

42

Godless souls

by Aleman in

hello again!.

i never thought that so many are believers of a godless life.

i would like to know, because i just don't understand, how anyone can live life feeling god does not and can not exist?

serotonin_wraith

I do believe in God because he has proven to me that every thing he has said has come true.

Cool. Like what?

19

I was angry at God. Burn's experiences.

by BurnTheShips in

jw
friends

about 9 years ago, i had some personal setbacks.

bad financial and marriage problems.

debt issues.

serotonin_wraith

Ah, I'd always wondered about your age.

62

God and Evolution

by BurnTheShips in

during the second half of the nineteenth century, it became common to speak of a war between science and religion.

but over the course of the twentieth century, that hostility gradually subsided.

science should not try to become religion, nor should religion seek to take the place of science.

serotonin_wraith

I'll just respond to a few things in the first post, there's quite a lot there.

The evolution of human beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality, which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator." In this connection, the pope said that to ascribe human evolution to sheer chance would be an abdication of human intelligence.

Two misconceptions about evolution here. Evolution is blind, not directed. It is also not chance, and nobody said it was.

It insisted that faith is and must be in harmony with reason.

I really don't see any reason to believe in a god. It always comes down to faith.

Far from being able to replace religion, it cannot begin to tell us what brought the world into existence, nor why the world exists, nor what our ultimate destiny is, nor how we should act in order to be the kind of persons we ought to be.

We do know how our planet came to exist. As for destiny, how to act, science doesn't claim to have these answers, and just because religion has come up with a few, it doesn't make them true.

An important school of scientists supports a theory known as Intelligent Design

Creationism in disguise. The end.

Atheistic scientists often write as though the only valid manner of reasoning is that current in modern science: to make precise observations and measurements of phenomena, to frame hypotheses to account for the evidence, and to confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses by experiments. I find it hard to imagine anyone coming to belief in God by this route.

I couldn't agree more.

As Terry Eagleton wrote in his review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge is The Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. . .

And how much knowledge do we need to have of the inner workings, relationships, habitats and powers of different kinds of faries before we dismiss them?

Some evolutionists contend that morality and religion arise, evolve, and persist according to Darwinian principles. Religion, they say, has survival value for individuals and communities.

As seen by religion accepting evolution. If it doesn't, I can see it dying out.

It's the fall of man and therefore Jesus' sacrifice that I can't join up with evolution. I've spoken about it before, it just leaves too many questions. The whole point of evolution is that it doesn't 'design' so there is no need for a 'designer' to guide evolution either.

It was also mentioned that we have a desire to find God, but all I can say is 'speak for yourself'. Many people don't.

I get the feeling there are perfectly rational things one could ask about the designer even theists may reject. Complex things often need many designers, so does that mean there are many gods working behind the scenes? Makes sense if we're designed, or if the almighty force of evolution is somehow being controlled. You can't have a building without many many builders.

19

I was angry at God. Burn's experiences.

by BurnTheShips in

jw
friends

about 9 years ago, i had some personal setbacks.

bad financial and marriage problems.

debt issues.

serotonin_wraith

Ah, I'd always wondered about your age. Thanks for adding that to your details.

I'm glad you had the freedom to discover what to believe yourself. Remember: Don't mould your kids too much (your words, though I agree 100%). See you in our next battle! Muhaha...

42

Godless souls

by Aleman in

hello again!.

i never thought that so many are believers of a godless life.

i would like to know, because i just don't understand, how anyone can live life feeling god does not and can not exist?

serotonin_wraith

Same reason you reject the thousands of other gods without a second thought, Aleman.

We still have ups and downs like theists, we still have our own purposes, we still have morals, we still know what love is, we still appreciate the beauty around us. We just don't need to believe in a god in order to have any of this.

67

Advocating Destruction of Religion Hate Speech?

by writetoknow in

introduction.

in 1942, the supreme court sustained the conviction of a jehovah's witness who addressed a police officer as a "god dammed racketeer" and "a damned facist" (chaplinksy v. new hampshire).

the court's opinion in the case stated that there was a category of face-to-face epithets, or "fighting words," that was wholly outside of the protection of the first amendment: those words "which by their very utterance inflict injury" and which "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas.".

serotonin_wraith

I hate religion.

I don't hate the religious.

It's like hating a disease but not the person infected, or hating the sin but not the sinner.

125

I'm converting again.

by reneeisorym in

2 years ago i left jws.

i went to a baptist church because it was what my husband was.

i knew i wanted to go to church but which one i really didn't know yet.. two years later, i think i have made up my mind: presbyterian.. anyone have anything they want to share?

serotonin_wraith

thats a gross oversimplification

I made it simple so that maybe people would understand.

Xena,

Hi. I was never a JW, my parents were. I would have said the same thing years ago. Give the child the freedom to explore what makes sense to them. I'm not talking about scarring a child for life, just giving it unbiased options. Let's not forget I'm not the one forcing anyone to believe anything or listen to anything I say... Renee is.

You seem to take a dislike to my unforced views, which can easily be dismissed if nobody likes them. Yet at the same time you think it's fine for children to have their beliefs forced on them. You, and everyone else who doesn't want me to 'force my opinion' here is a hypocrite. I think I've said all I can on the matter now, which will be a relief to many I'm sure.

You don't like to be told what to believe... do you? ;)

125

I'm converting again.

by reneeisorym in

2 years ago i left jws.

i went to a baptist church because it was what my husband was.

i knew i wanted to go to church but which one i really didn't know yet.. two years later, i think i have made up my mind: presbyterian.. anyone have anything they want to share?

serotonin_wraith

Renee,

I'll allow you to examine the differences between the evidence supporting the Bible vs. the evidence supporting the book of Mormon yourself. No need to even get into that conversation.

Well myself, I don't see scientific data backing up either book. You think it backs the Bible up. Mormons think it backs the book of mormon up. Point is, none of us can agree so why not let the child decide on their own?

To do that would be denying the means God has used to reach people.

If you tell your child the tooth fairy is real or Santa is real, watch them believe you. See the power you have over their minds. And keep that in mind when you tell them Yahweh is real. If your god is all powerful, I can't see him using childhood indoctrination to spread his message myself. Anyone can do that, even other humans.

I've been thinking and I can't seem to think of anything similar we shield from children to this extent. Things like violence and porn, sure. Children are too young. But general knowledge about the world, like what billions of people believe. I just don't see it. I see holding back knowledge deliberately as a very unfair thing to do. What's wrong with children learning about other religions? Are Christians afraid the child will see there are millions of people who believe in some strange things depending on where they live, and start to observe the same thing about what their parents believe? Can anyone imagine this conversation in a sane family? :

Johnny, what colour is this?

Purple.

Well done! Now... what's this colour?

Purple.

That's right!

Mummy, what colour is this?

Well it's not purple, so that colour doesn't matter.

But what is it?

Johnny, as soon as you're old enough to use the internet you can look it all up.

I see lots of colours around me.

Yes, but those are not Mummy's favourite colour. They are colours other people prefer.

Which is the bestest colour ever?

Why Johnny, purple of course! All the other colours don't matter.

Mummy, my friend said purple is a mixture of other colours.

Well yes, but they were mixed together long ago and now everyone knows purple is a colour all on its own.

I want to learn about the other colours.

Yes Johnny, you will. I won't stop you going to a library and getting out a book on colours. But don't forget what the best colour is.

Purple.

That's right. My favourite colour is purple, what's your favourite colour Johnny?

Purple.

Ah I'm glad to hear that. Lots of people like purple. We are right and other people are wrong.

125

I'm converting again.

by reneeisorym in

2 years ago i left jws.

i went to a baptist church because it was what my husband was.

i knew i wanted to go to church but which one i really didn't know yet.. two years later, i think i have made up my mind: presbyterian.. anyone have anything they want to share?

serotonin_wraith

Renee,

My children will not have a choice but it is not because of me. It is up to God to choose them.

In that case, why don't you refrain from teaching them Christianity is true, and let God reach out to them in his own way? If that's what you believe happens, of course.

For example, imagine if the Mormons consequences sounded better if they were right and worse if they were wrong. They get to be gods one day and their hell was described as worse than the Baptists. So you figure that it would be better to be a Mormon because you don't want to go to the Mormon hell. (I hope this makes sense!) Thing is, you don't make this decision based on consequences for each religion. You examine the Bible and Book of Mormon and decide which is true. You follow the Bible because of it's history instead of the book of Mormon. I do truely believe that God gives us the gift of faith and it is not near as much choice as we want to believe. But I was trying to reason on a human level and not one of theology.

The thing is, children of Mormon parents usually choose to follow Mormonism over other religions. To them, it makes perfect sense for the book of mormon to be true. For you, it makes sense that it isn't. Doesn't it seem to be less about studying it (or any other religion), and more about who your parents are? It looks that way to me.

Junction-Guy,

No, the child need not be raised a Muslim, in fact since the parent went over there to christianize the country, they need to still raise their children as christians. If they are going to convert other people to their beliefs, why must they be willing to sacrifice their own childs salvation.

Okay, so you're stripping out your 'fitting in with the country' argument and making up new rules. That's all I wanted to know.

...get the heck back home before their child is converted to Islam.

Sweet Jesus, now the real attitude comes out! No wonder you want American children raised as Christians, one reason is you can't seem to stand Islam! Ironically, if your parents happened to be Muslim, chances are you would actually be a Muslim now! Imagine that! The very thing you don't seem to like now could have been exactly what you turned out to be, had you been born elsewhere! How horrible it would have been to have been indoctrinated from birth in a religion not of your choosing. How I wish the penny would drop.

Here is another point, Parents with children shouldnt force their kids to go to muslim countries, christian or not. Parents are free to make martyrs of themselves, but dont drag the kids into it.

Well the scenario had the child born there, not taken there. Plenty of Christians live in predominently Muslim areas.

One more further thought, since they had the child while they were over there, they should move back to the USA, raise their child here, and then when the child is old enough allow him/her to decide if they want to live in a Muslim country?

So now the child should be raised in a certain religion because of its genes?

Im just at my wits end dealing with some of these Atheists

You could read some of Jesus' words and find the patience deep within yourself to cope with some honest concerns about the forming minds of children which you mistakenly seem to perceive as scathing attacks on your personal relationship with God, or you could stop looking at my posts if I bother you so much.

8

Islams Silent Moderates

by serotonin_wraith in

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07ali.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

islams silent moderates .

by ayaan hirsi alipublished: december 7, 2007 the woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by allah, if you believe in allah and the last day.

serotonin_wraith

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07ali.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Islam’s Silent Moderates

By AYAAN HIRSI ALI Published: December 7, 2007 The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)

IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.

A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.

Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor.

We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Ms. Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.

Then there’s Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head. In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?

When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Infidel.”

serotonin_wraith

Posts by serotonin_wraith