Posts by Perry

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Eden, the area in purple according to wikipedia is associated with :

planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behaviour.[3] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[4]

The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes). Frontal cortex supports concrete rule learning.

It is this area that when suppressed caused greater incidences of atheism. The clear suggestion is: Less regional brain function = More atheism.

What do you think of my examples of atheism being linked to and an absent father and emotional pain?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Since atheism is one of the most inconsistent and irrational worldviews that we have to choose from, what are its causes? Here are some thoughts on this:

Freud himself observed that young people tend to lose their religious faith as soon as they lose the authority of their earthly fathers. This can happen in several ways:
1. The father is present, but he is weak, cowardly, unworthy of respect.
2. The father is present, but is physically, psychologically or sexually abusive.
3. The father is absent, whether through death or abandonment.
Another example of a prominent atheist with a poor paternal relationship is Thomas Hobbes. His father was an Anglican clergyman. Although the exact circumstances are unknown, he got into a fight with another man in the churchyard, following which he abandoned his family.
- As for Ludwig von Feuerbach, his father abandoned the family and lived with a married woman in the same town, then returned after the woman died. Feuerbach was twenty at the time of his father’s return. It is also to be noted that his father’s nickname was “Vesuvius”.
- Schopenhauer was rejected by his mother, and his father committed suicide when Schopenhauer was sixteen.
- Nietsche’s father died when he was four. Camus and Hume also lost their father’s in early childhood.
- Our contemporary Madeleine Murray O’Hare also had an unhappy family life. She often fought with her father, and on one occasion tried to kill him with a butcher’s knife. We cannot know the reason for her hatred, but it probably was not without cause.

- Another well-known living atheist is Albert Ellis,...Ellis grew up in New York. His mother did not function well, and his father was a philanderer who abandoned the family when Ellis was twelve. He and his brother had to take care of their mother and themselves. As an adult Ellis is polite to his father, but we can only guess how great the pain of his childhood must have been.

- Dr. Antony Flew is another famous contemporary atheistic psychologist. Some while ago he was at a party and, having had too much to drink, ended up lying on the floor, hitting it and saying over and over, “I hate my father. I hate my father.” (Antony Flew recently changed his mind from Atheism to Intelligent Design.

Perhaps the most prominent bible critic today Bart Ehrman, can trace his hurt feelings to losing his father to cancer while a young church leader tried to get him to confess sins and then tried to anoint him with a bottle of shampoo in a motel room. He was pretty hurt about that.

We know that emotional trauma can shut down certain brain functions. At least one study suggests that when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result.

Does religious trauma and/or loss of a father figure (like shunning) predispose someone to embrace irrational atheist views?

I think there is evidence to suggest that personal pain and myopic, self-centered indulgence of is a major factor.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Are you demanding scientific evidence for a metaphysical discussion?
No I'm asking for reasonable responses to a few common sense observations.
But Cofty, your idea of what is reasonable repeatedly appeals to the scientific method. Your materialist worldview is not consistent, but arbitrary. You borrow from the Christian worldview in order to attack it. For instance, as I have repeatedly pointed out to you, a stable belief in what is reasonable is inappropriate where you claim that your reason (and existence) was born out of spontaneous appearance (a miracle), chance, disorder, mutation and social pressures alone.

Reason and logic are the same everywhere regardless of these conditions. Why? And, why would you accept them to be so if they are evolving, like you? And, if they are not evolving anymore, at what point did your reasoned logic "arrive" to where you are now and how do you know it wont evolve in the future making your current logic nonsense? Your position opens up a litany of more questions than satisfying answers.

Like it or not, the Christian worldview is consistent. I can trust the rules of logic and reason because I am made in the image of the eternal, unchanging First Cause. Since God "changeth not" I have a reasonable basis for logic & morals and not situational, arbitrary & inconsistent positions.

The one paltry attempt you did make to directly address the problem was truly pathetic.

Invective like this is a sign of fear & desperation. No need for that. Your belief system is duly noted and well documented on this forum.

I have been trying to think of an example to illustrate the absurdity of arbitrary treatment of evidence.

** If an orphan child presented himself, who would think that just because his father in unknown that the father MUST NOT exist?

Conversely, would only children where the father presented himself, be viewed as having a father?

28

Part of Growing Up - Saying Goodbye to Invisible Friends?

by doubtfull1799 in

i don’t remember having any invisible friends when i was a really little boy, i don’t know if such a thing actually exists, i’ve only ever seen it in movies?

of course it might have looked to others like i was talking to someone on occasions, but i’m sure it would have just been me talking to myself.

the thing is though, i got introduced to an invisible friend in my pre-teens, and i kept the relationship going well into adulthood.

Perry

For me, the jury is still out on that one. I am struggling to accept that a creator wants to be found and wants a relationship with individuals when he makes it so hard to find him and when so many organisations use mistruth, manipulation and deceit

God is easily found. You find him at the end of yourself. In Mt. 25: 26 & 27 Jesus offered everyone a deal. People have free will to accept or reject. Very easy to understand.

As far as organizations using manipulation; why blame God for that? Free will allows for this, otherwise how would you know people had free will?

And I find there to be no difference. I have experienced just as many successes and failures, rewards and setbacks, commendations and complaints as I did before. And what I have learned is that THE ONLY PERSON these experiences were dependent on was MYSELF!

The bible is clear that God has NOTHING TO DO with those that are not in Christ. Because we as JW's rejected Christ (the new covenant), we might as well have been Hindu or whatever.

Romans 8 : 9 "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"

Just sayin' that we didn't give God much of a chance by rejecting his Son, so prayers were definitely impeded by our disobedience as JW's,, not to mention our idolatry in reckoning the Wt as "the truth" the sole channel of communication, Ark of Salvation etc. etc., etc.... and other heretical boasting... ad nauseum.

The worthlessness of our prayers as JWs is powerful testimony.

50

Pharaoh tries to kill all male babies - later Moses orders the very same thing!

by George One Time in

so many things that i just discoved about the bible.. .

so from the book my book of bible stories, we all know how little moses was saved from a cruel pharaoh.

of course the king of egypt was afraid that those cute little babies would endanger his empire eventually.

Perry

Here's a well reasoned treatment of the subject.

This action/atrocity by the Midianites is an intensely sordid and depressing tale, of greater scale than even that of Sodom and Gomorrah, and of greater anti-Hebrew malice and calculating treachery than even that of the Amalekites…The removal of this exact sub-culture (without impacting the Moabites or the rest of the Midianites—for good or ill), while mercifully sparing a very large number of innocent young girls, yet without sparing the guilty Israelites, seems neither cruel nor unfair nor unwarranted, given the horrendously dehumanizing character of this crime, and given the unavoidable consequences of conflict upon children in the ancient world…

Article

29

Stephen Lett looks like a crazed maniac in the March JW broadcast

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

are people taking this man seriously?

.

he looks genuinely mentally ill. .

Perry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R5xDf61-8I

28

Part of Growing Up - Saying Goodbye to Invisible Friends?

by doubtfull1799 in

i don’t remember having any invisible friends when i was a really little boy, i don’t know if such a thing actually exists, i’ve only ever seen it in movies?

of course it might have looked to others like i was talking to someone on occasions, but i’m sure it would have just been me talking to myself.

the thing is though, i got introduced to an invisible friend in my pre-teens, and i kept the relationship going well into adulthood.

Perry

Good question!

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

As JW's, we did not believe God, but stubbornly clung to our families and man-made (WT) idols instead of believing God.

Abraham on the other hand left his family and his fathers' idols and believed that God had a plan for him when he was asked to separate himself from both of those and go to a different land.

It makes no difference as to the historical timing of Jesus sacrifice for the payment of the death penalty on each of our behalf, because without believing God, we wont accept it.

Had Abraham been alive after Jesus death, he would have believed God when he told him to "eat" and "drink" for the forgiveness of sins.

We all here disbelieved God in regards to his instructions concerning the forgiveness of our sins and refused the New Covenant, and hence could not be friends with God.

Belief is a prerequisite for friendship/obedience.

12

Idea and system of belief

by S K Ditta in

by way of a general question: can a system of belief outlive the disintegration of its core ideas?

how and why??.

urge you to reflect, and post freely.. your thoughts are appreciated without bias..

Perry

Some people state in their corporate bylaws or articles of incorporation, that if and when certain core ideals of the association are no longer adhered to, that the organization should be disbanded.

Otherwise, the system outlives it purpose.

28

Part of Growing Up - Saying Goodbye to Invisible Friends?

by doubtfull1799 in

i don’t remember having any invisible friends when i was a really little boy, i don’t know if such a thing actually exists, i’ve only ever seen it in movies?

of course it might have looked to others like i was talking to someone on occasions, but i’m sure it would have just been me talking to myself.

the thing is though, i got introduced to an invisible friend in my pre-teens, and i kept the relationship going well into adulthood.

Perry

If you think that you had an imaginary friendship with God as a JW, you are right. .

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Outside of the New Covenant (the one we were denied access to) there is no friendship with God, real or imagined.

he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink it, all of you;
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
- Mt 25:26 & 27

22

A major misadventure!

by Bungi Bill in

jw
friends

hi, everyone.. i haven't posted here much in quite a while, but having just been laid low by injury, i'll likely be a frequent visitor for some time to come!.

two weeks ago, i was involved in a workplace accident that left me with my lower l.h.

leg fractured in three places (the tibia and fibular both broken clean through, plus another crack in the "neck" of the fibular for good measure!

Perry

Oh dear! Well, looking forward to your contributions here.

Maybe time to watch Bob Ross episodes on Netflix and do those paintings many always wanted to do?

Speedy healing!