MadGiant

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Posts by MadGiant

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  3

  Good News: Is the Internet Killing Religion? (CNN article)

  by Oubliette in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just saw this interesting article on cnn, is the internet killing religion?

  by jessica ravitz.. it's good news for most of us.

  ms. ravitz discusses the strong "correlation between increased internet use and religious disaffiliation.".

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  MadGiant

  Thanks,

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  "Although I might have chosen a more positive title for the OP, in my experience this is indeed a viable recipe for those that are inclined to pursue faith (a higher level of consciousness and intelligence)." -

  With all due respect, Faith is trust in an idea, or a belief that is unsupported by evidence or lacks proof. Faith is set apart from reason in that the latter uses deductive reasoning from evidence to inform beliefs, while the former relies solely on assertion to state beliefs are true. Reason and faith are, therefore, polar opposites.

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  "Certainly if we can cut each other and ourselves slack, then a god could, too. Hopefully God would be as aware of these factors as you or I am. If I am intelligent enough to see there are extenuating circumstances to everyone's unique story, then we hope that God is, too." -

  Our gods always reflect our culture and never exceed our knowledge. What you called "cutting some slack", it just us humans using reason to help us act morally.

  Gods are thus externalized forms, magnified projections of the true nature of their creators, personifying aspects of the universe or personal temperaments.

  If it is a violent culture our god is violent. If we strive to live a decent life our concept of god is that he/she/it, is also decent.

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  "Ismael, only one God can be seen in history (tiny Israel, Empires like Babylon falling as His prophets predicted- and a TRUE Sacred Text that actually makes SENSE!)." -

  Ok, so the "real" deity is YHWH(s)/Yahweh(s) from the Abrahamic religions originating from the traditions of Iron Age proto-Judaism, good to know. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and every other deity from A to Z (and 0-9, !, ", #, $ or any other character), are imaginary.

  Can you disprove my previous post? Or you are not willing to follow your own advise?

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  "When it comes to religion- it's those that have REAL Faith (in the True God) or those with pretend faith (imaginary gods). Otherwise, you are simply faithless." -

  Will you help me discern between the "real gods" And the imaginary gods"? Their are literally 100,000 of them, all real, all true, all god(s)

  Respectfully,

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  Ok, like you subjected, I am gonna see the Bible (from non-religious sources), will discard church claims and dogma, read the book, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to. I will be critical about my findings. This is my conclusion.

  There are myriad problems to be found when attempting to reconcile the Bible’s account of ancient history with the known historical record. Again, these are inaccuracies which would not be expected from an omnipotent being, but would absolutely be expected from a 2,000 year old author with a limited historical and scientific frame of reference. Take, for example, the story of Noah and the Great Flood, a significant event that, even if it were not worldwide but localized to one region, would have made the historical records of many ancient civilizations. Many Christian scholars believe that it was localized, not a global flood, which explains its absence from the ancient record. The Bible itself says:“6 The LORD regretted that he had made mankind on the earth, and he felt highly offended. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-everything from mankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.” … 11 The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.”This clearly did not happen, but it was also far from the first “Great Flood” story of the ancient world, another mythological element that has echoed across cultures for millennia. And while it’s easy to argue for the validity of parables and metaphors as a means to understanding human nature and morality, the opposite case can also be made; that it has become unnecessary for us as a species. We have developed into civilized people that understand the concept of morality simply being good for our continued survival.

  It should be noted that the idea of a divine savior of the human race is practically as old as the human race itself, and has resurfaced continually, echoing throughout our culture for thousands of years. The virgin birth, significance of the solstices, the miracles, disciples, baptism, crucifixion, resurrection—along with many even more specific elements like heaven and hell, the soul, holy communion and others, were all seen before in multiple ancient pagan religions. An examination of the ancient pagan religions predating Jesus—those surrounding Horus, Mithra, Dionysus, Krishna and many others—yields an astounding number of similarities that cannot be explained away as coincidence. These stories seem to be a part of ancient Mediterranean culture.

  Greek, Roman, Norse and other mythologies that we studied in school, most of us probably consider them to have the same level of actual historical significance, or value to our modern culture, as The Lord Of The Rings. That is not to say that they have little or no value, these mythologies were an important part of the development of human intellect and understanding of the world, of which we had very little at the time of their inception. From an atheist point of view, it can be argued that we still had very little understanding of the the way our world works two thousand years ago, and that the application of different aspects of pagan myth to the Christian gospels makes sense, many ancient mythologies borrowed from each other, as we know from our study of the very similar Roman and Greek mythologies and all of their various analogues (Zeus and Jupiter, Venus and Aphrodite, etc.) of the same deity archetypes. These ancient mythologies weren’t myths to the people who created them, they were religion, their way of explaining the world and its mechanics. Mount Olympus was simply the highest mountain in Greece, and to the ancient Greeks it was their version of heaven, and Zeus their version of God.This holds true for all ancient and pagan belief systems, which also illustrates the point that Christianity did not bring religion, the concept of salvation, or even monotheism to the world, these things had been in place for centuries. Christianity, Islam and other such belief systems (and there are many similarities there as well) can be seen simply as the myths that have somehow survived to this day.

  The Bible is, obviously, an extremely old text with dozens of interpretations throughout the centuries. The term Christian itself is a rather a blanket term for a dizzying array of belief systems, very few of whom are in complete agreement as to how the Bible should be interpreted or even in what context specific passages should be taken. Atheists do have trouble reconciling that the Word Of God, infallible as it should be, would be so open to such wildly varying interpretations—but what they have more trouble with are the passages in the Bible that clearly have absolutely no bearing on any sane, modern system of beliefs and morals. Most are aware of the passages that provide for the keeping of slaves, the wanton murder of homosexuals and adulterers, the selling of children and other such things which have no place in civilized society, let alone in texts that are considered to be holy. Yes, these things were common 2,000 years ago, but that’s the point, that these do not appear to be the suggestions and guidance of an all-knowing and loving God, but rather of men, not prophets, just men, who were very much of their time. An omnipotent God would have demonstrated an understanding of basic human rights long before we humans got around to realizing, for instance, that slavery is wrong.

  Thanks, I am open to criticism, analysis and questioning.

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  "Whataya expect from a sci-fi writer?" -

  Fair enough. You are absolutely right. Let's see, if I use part of your criteria:

  Study the background about the Bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from

  Discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.

  READ it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to Be honestly critical- meaning not only looking for things that may be false- but also those that may be TRUE.

  Using the criteria mentioned above to study the bible, I predict one of the following outcomes:

  a) the person will be a deist, with means they might believe in a god, but he/she/it, does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature.

  b) atheist with reject the belief in the existence of deities.

  c) antitheist, like me, and I really really think that theism and religion are harmful to society and people, and that if theistic beliefs were true, they would be undesirable.

  d) people very, very dangerous to themselves and society, and when I say dangerous, I mean westboro baptist church, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Charles Manson.

  "6- NEVER let your faith rest on men, church or even orginization- but ONLY on your growing understanding of God...for it WILL take place if you REALLY want to know!" -

  Now this one is a contradiction to the prior four. If I use the criteria mention above, their is no way I can use the sixth one.

  Take care,

  Ismael
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  104

  How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.

  2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.

  3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.

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  MadGiant

  Completely agree:

  “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”

  ― Isaac Asimov

  Ismael
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  4

  Dark Matter's Latest Video - BRILLIANT

  by cantleave in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa5pljiqonk.

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  MadGiant

  Very interesting video. I agree, all Gods are thus externalized forms, magnified projections of the true nature of their creators (us), personifying aspects of the universe or personal temperaments which many of their followers find to be troubling. Worshipping any God is thus worshipping by proxy those who invented that God.

  Ismael
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  14

  Interesting article on Neanderthals if anyone is interested

  by Randomthoughts in

  1. social
  2. current

  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/neanderthals-lived-alongside-humans-for-centuries-latest-study-shows-9681740.html.

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  MadGiant

  Thanks