Posts by Abaddon

69

Final Thought About Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

final thought about atheismafter having reviewed the last thread about atheism, i have decided there.

exists a common theme among the postings.

the themes surrounding the .

Abaddon

Crumpet

Well, if one could prove there were non-corporeal entities, and they were subject to selection and could transfer uniquenes on to offspring, yes, they would evolve.

Also interesting is applying evolutionary biology to claimed paranormal abilities;

Attributes that have a positive value for survival increase their penetration into a population. In other words mind-reading, elephant levitators who can avoid danger by knowing about it beforehand will have lots of babies, and many of these babies will carry the same trait, until as many people can read mind, levitate elephants and see the future as can digest lactose.I

This is very much not the case. Therefore one can say that one of the following must be true;

Paranormal abilities do not exist; there is no evidence against this possibility
Paranormal abilities do exist, but are so tiny and uncontrollable they are of no survival benefit what-so-ever and only turn up on the off chance, and even then don't breed true. This is possible but doesn't explain how paranormal stuff works; we know how electricity works (simplification; pumping electrons), but we cannot point to paranormalons and show how they make tables float.
Paranormal abilities do exist and do provide a survival benefit but are a new thing (just as lactose tolerance was once a new thing) and haven't had time to develop properly in the population yet; same problem regarding explaining how it works as above.
Paranormal abilities are the result of humans being parasitised by non-corporeal entities (who hide from scientists and cameras) well; it is possible, but that's different from likely.
Paranormal abilities are the result of a divine gift and are not something related to one's genetics; I'd have to ask the fairies if this is true

69

Final Thought About Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

final thought about atheismafter having reviewed the last thread about atheism, i have decided there.

exists a common theme among the postings.

the themes surrounding the .

Abaddon

And now the fantasists have a nice little circle jerk...

Guys, it was made to sound like major Universities are ploughing major money into the paranormal. They are not. It is made to sound like there is a vast set of evidence supporting belief in the paranormal. There is not, at least not of the level of reliability that would secure a speeding ticket.

Now you mock those who've asked you to actually prove what you're talking about is more than credulous speculation.

Come on then. Where are the people levitating stuff with the power of their mind, sending messages from one mind to another mind, accurately foretelling the future or seeing things in their mind from beyond visual range?

ALL of these things are easy to prove if they exist. Your determined avoidance of this fact and the fact no one HAS proved such things speaks volumes about the etiology of belief.

69

Final Thought About Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

final thought about atheismafter having reviewed the last thread about atheism, i have decided there.

exists a common theme among the postings.

the themes surrounding the .

Abaddon

147

Merry Becomes A Muslim (a bit long)

by Merry Magdalene in

who is merry?

i was born in 1965, the same year that malcolm x was assassinated.

my father had committed suicide a few months into my mother's pregnancy so we lived with her parents until she married again when i was about 18 months old.

Abaddon

Tras

You never did really respond to me pointing out your claim that stoning for adultery is a Qur'anic law is totally false.

Be that as it may;

You can't stand before God while blood flows from your body. Using women hygienic products doesn't stop the blood from flownig, it simply absorbs the blood that does flow. I'm not trying to gross anyone out, but would any guy perform any sexual act on a woman that is menstruating? Why not if there is nothing wrong with? So you're saying it's gross for you, but it should be good for God? Don't you find this reasoning sick and twisted?

Tras, wake up and smell the hemoglobin. LOADS of men do, and LOADS of women want then to. Some women are too crampy to want to, others find sex during their period a relief. Others, sadly have been raised to think their own bodies are disgusting 1/4 of the time.

Allah supposedly made the human body; does Allah regret what he has done or find what he has done unclean? No. So how could Allah punish women for something natural and non-harmful. Your slavish literalism makes a fool of Allah as you swallow down absurdities that are shameful to believe of god.

Basically, Mary, Jelcat and others are happy being Musims, and this board insists on attacking them.

Get a grip and actually stop making false claims about your own holy scriptures before you falsely accuse others of attacking Muslims. Spirirted debate about beliefs is not attacking. I've stated clearly I have no problem with someone being a Muslim.

What I am trying to understand is why a convert would choose a more traditional form of the belief.

Islam has many varients, all the way from utter scum like the Taliban to people today who are looking at Islam in the way Christianity was examined in the 18th and 19th Century. I can list different sects if you like, and you can pretend like they're not so different they aren't at war with each other in Iraq.Again.

Oh, and don't worry, I think white-power Christian churches and Fundy Christians who bomb abortion clinic are scum to.

NONE of the varieties of Islam can prove their version is right. They might claim it, but claims mean nothing when everyone makes the same one.

So why go for one that clings to vestiges of primative patriarchal pastoralist traditions pre-dating Islam? Why go for traditional forms of the beliefs that, as the evidence around the world shows, give rise to societies where women suffer disadvantage?

Tell me, do you expect your wife/ves to stop working and raise your children, keep your home? Or would you be happy with her/they continuing in her/their careers? If you disagree with your wife/ves over something, do you expect your word to be final? Will you beat your wife/ves lightly so as not to make a mark (as allowed by Islamic Scripture) if she/they won't listen to you? If your daughter is an incredibly talented athlete, say a born gymnast, or gets a scholarship to ballet school, will you stop her? Would you stop a son with the same opportunites?

I'm not attacking you. I am trying to understand how SO many things that add up to inequality can be seen as equality. Trying to see how your background influences you (just as ours does us).

69

Final Thought About Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

final thought about atheismafter having reviewed the last thread about atheism, i have decided there.

exists a common theme among the postings.

the themes surrounding the .

Abaddon

The wanderer

Having asked you clearly for proof several times, specified a level of reliability of proof, and given examples of some claimed paranormal powers or entities you could supply proof on, your repeated questions asking me what I want are a result of terminal incomprehension on your part, deliberate or otherwise.

Unless you actually respond to clear and reasonable requests for information related to the validity of your speculations, there's no point in discussing this further.

61

Did God ever Exist?

by found-my-way in

reading so many posts on atheism which is the belief that there is no god, and reading comments from creationists made me ponder if there was an alternate reason for our existence.. if god is up there, why does he permit suffering?

if i were god, i wouldn't of let it happen in the first place, these are my children, why would i let them suffer?

maybe i am influenced by my creationist upbringing and beliefs while a jw, because i find it hard to wrap my brain around the idea that everything came from nothing.

Abaddon

I always wonder how you can get the spittle of the inside of my screen after I have read one of Perry's posts.

Cyber-pharasee, cut and paste Calvanist.

He is so much more interested in vindicating his self-rightous self than vindicating god.

Funny how someone who scorns atheists for setting themselves up as god does exactly the same thing (not that atheists actually do that, but he does).

He is blind to the fact that by selecting an interpretation of scripture as 'truth', when a thousand or more different shades of Christianity alone have their own 'truths', when none can show by their fruits or by proofs they are any more right in the specifics of Christian practise, he is making himself god by the conceit his opinon can be more right than the next sincere Christian.

He rants and raves when his limited understanding and vanity make him feel he can make some form of argument. And ignores or flees those that he cannot answer

61

Did God ever Exist?

by found-my-way in

reading so many posts on atheism which is the belief that there is no god, and reading comments from creationists made me ponder if there was an alternate reason for our existence.. if god is up there, why does he permit suffering?

if i were god, i wouldn't of let it happen in the first place, these are my children, why would i let them suffer?

maybe i am influenced by my creationist upbringing and beliefs while a jw, because i find it hard to wrap my brain around the idea that everything came from nothing.

Abaddon

Perry, do you still believe in the doctrine of the elect? (i.e. we are predestined to burn or go to heaven and there is nothing that we can do about it).

If you believe you are one of the elect it would explain something about the way you look down your nose at the rest of the world. You have made yourself your own god, pronounced yourself saved, and now can sit in complacency sneering at everyone else whilst you worship your own highly-elevated opinion of yourself.

If you have stopped believing in the doctrine of the elect, then you're obviously a butterfly mind flitting from one bunch of supersticion to the next, taking what you like and using it to make yourself feel less inadequate, and your latest set of beliefs are as of little interest as your last as they have the same order of reliability.

Be a good chap and clear up exactly what sort of person we are dealing with...

142

The Need To Question Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the need to question atheism this need to question atheism stems from the fact there are some individuals.

on this board that subscribe to such.

the questions stated are not for some.

Abaddon

vinny

Enough of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' routine. I know you're naked.

Please explain where god came from without using special pleading.

You are accusing atheists of exactly what you are doing; speculating on how something can come from nothing.

You call your something from nothing 'god'. Atheists call it 'the Universe'. Your hypothesis contradicts the very arguments you use against atheists.

Merry

I have heard many athiests claim that if only God would reveal God's self to humanity with obvious proof (also claiming this would be a very simple thing) they would no longer be athiests.

Are you saying it would be too complex for god to do this? Isn't that like, blasphemous?

But I have long disagreed, suspecting that many would still not believe in God but would sooner assume that someone was just pulling an elaborate trick, a grand illusion, or else that they themselves had gone insane and therefore could not trust their own perceptions. The Qur'an says the same thing.
In imagining this occuring, I think there would be some God-believers who would feel the same way about this manifestation as atheists and would not be certain if it could be trusted as real. There would be others, believer and non-believer, who would accept it.

To me this is a cop-out (English English for an evasion or failure to deal with an issue). It is a 'clever' argument put forward by theists over the years to explain why there is no proof of god. It blames humans for the absense of proof... and limits the power of god by saying god could not manifest in a convincing enough manner. It's a crock.

Rather than admit god is a concept not rooted in provable reality, a thing of a totally different paradigm, theists would rather limit the Almighty power (in one breath before claiming the power is unlimited in the next). How is it better to 'emasculate' god than admit god's apparent nature?

So much for faith.

There is no proof of god. Does this mean god does not exist?No.

Does it mean that god (if it exists) desires itself to be unprovable?Either that or god by its very nature is not something that can be proved.

If god desires that it is unprovable, when by definiton it could prove itself (to say otherwise is to limit god's power), then this INEVITABLY results in potential harm. A person can REASONABLY not believe in god, as there is no proof. This conclusion is the result of the human mind, supposedly designed by god, coming to the very supportable conclusion that things that are real can be proved, so something that cannot be proved is not real. Thus to accept that god willfully does not prove itself is to make god cruel monster, denying its children certain knowledge that they could easily have for their betterment.

If god by its very nature is not something that cannot be proved, it means that god is far from the all-too-human spite monster smiting left-right and centre as depicted by the goatherds who traditonally write about god. It means all that smiting has nothing to do with god, as if god HAD done all that smiting there would have been proof. It might also mean that god is a concept, an ideation, a grand metaphor, an abstract. But still real enough if you believe, and I did think it WAS meant to be about faith, yes?

To me it seems many lack the courage to see god as it might be.

They are lost in the valley of pitiful excuses, worshiping petty cruel gods cast in man's image, as such 'gods' can be dealt with on a transactional basis; loving your brother as yourself or fasing at Ramadan is just another form of killing a sheep to show god you like it.

The idea of god being far grander and greater than that, a way of thinking that unites everything, is everything, seems far too scarey for many, as such a god comes without a manual written by a goat herd telling us what to do.

69

Final Thought About Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

final thought about atheismafter having reviewed the last thread about atheism, i have decided there.

exists a common theme among the postings.

the themes surrounding the .

Abaddon

The wanderer

What kind of proof are you looking for?
Video?, Audio?, Thermal images?
Explain ...

Which part of 'evidence acceptable to a peer-review science journal or court of law' don't you get? I don;t care what orm th evidence comes in, I just want it to be robust and unquestionable.

As regards your exagerated claims, kid-A provided the data on that; your claims re. Oxford and Penn State are unfounded AND you miss the point that EVEN IF your claims about the level of research or credibility thereof were true there is still no PROOF.

We get this sttement on the website you quoted;

What is the state-of-the-evidence for psi?
To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.
With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets. Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations (as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be stronger yet.
Some PK effects have also been shown to exist. When individuals focus their intention on mechanical or electronic devices that fluctuate randomly, the fluctuations change in ways that conform to their mental intention. Under control conditions, when individuals direct their attention elsewhere, the fluctuations are in accordance with chance.
Note that we are using the terms ESP, telepathy and PK in the technical sense, not in the popular sense. See What do parapsychologists study?

Great. Where is the data supporting these claims?

147

Merry Becomes A Muslim (a bit long)

by Merry Magdalene in

who is merry?

i was born in 1965, the same year that malcolm x was assassinated.

my father had committed suicide a few months into my mother's pregnancy so we lived with her parents until she married again when i was about 18 months old.

Abaddon

jelcat

Any time blood flows outside of the body the person (whether male or female) is required to perform ablution.

So if you use tampons or those new plastic cup thingies and prevent menstral blood from leaving the body then you are clean enough to enter the mosque (albeit in a seperate secion to underline just how equal everyone is)? This is a rhetorical question, I know there is no such exception, which illustrates my entire point. The prohibition against menstrating women is NOTHING to do with uncleanliness as even if they are not suffering a bloodflow outside the body they STILL cannot enter a mosque because they are a menstrating woman.

Come on ladies. Think of how fervently JW women argue that NOT being allowed to teach, male 'headship' and having to wear a hanky on their head if they say a prayer in front of a baby boy is not discriminatory. We know how hollow that sounds. Listen to yourselves. Compare and contrast; maybe you can explain to me why your justifictions for differentiation in THIS instance are not as hollow; they sound it to me but obviously convince you.

Again, we aknowledge that women are being abused around the world but this is the case with every religion. It is not just Islam.

I am glad you acknowledge that Islam, as other religions, has practisoners who abuse women.

And regardless of the reasons or the justifications that are given by any of these extreme religionists, it does not make it right, no matter which holy book these justifications percievably come from.

So you are willing to acknowledge that in the countries or regions of countries where Sharia law holds sway (in practice) over secular law women demonstrably do suffer disadvantage over and above that of women in countries with secular legal systems?

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=28054

Re. your comments about Cyrus/Alexander; what Little Toe said - either way the Qur'an is WRONG.

Re. Samaritans, there is no trace of a seperate Samaritan community co-existing with the Jews at the time of the Exodus; indeed, if there were, they'd have been purged just as many Israelites were, as their beliefs were not orthodox. Nor is it possible that the Qur'an is referring to a Samarian, as the area known as Samaria dates to the reign of King Omri of Israel, about 870BC, hundreds of years after Moses. At the time of Moses the area would hve been occupied by one of the tribes the Israelites ethnically cleansed during the first Jewish invasion of the Levant. - either way the Qur'an is WRONG.

Another point is that the jews who heard this verse recited at the time did not dispute it as they had been eager to do in other instances.

You mean the text you trust in says the Jews did not despute it. This is like saying the Bible is accurate because it says 'all scriopture is inspired of god and beneficial'. You are using internal consistency as an argument for the Qur'an being accurate. One can say Lord of the Rings is internally consistent, but no one would ever argue it is accurate outside of its own narrative space.

Oh, and JW's have been known to claim that all the faithful men of old were Jehovah's Witnesses; Islam pactising such revisonism is not a surprise.

Merry

I am interested in exploring this more as it is a topic I know little about. From what I have been able to discern so far it seems to me that some creationists got drawn into a false debate against evolution due to claims made by both materialists (trying to use evolution to disprove God and creation)...

No materialist who knows anything worthwhile about evolutionary theory would claim evolution proved god was not possible, or that some form of creation was not possible.

One of Allah's names is translated "the Evolver" so I have no problem with the idea of creation through evolution.

Good!

My problem is with saying that everything came from nothing or was just always here, without a Creator that exists outside time and space and beyond our comprehension.

Yeah, you know that is 'special pleading'? Being a sensible person you are wary of claims about something coming from nothing or always having been there. However, this sensibleness evapourates if one talks about Allah, as you are willing to accept this is the case for Allah on the basis of an 'explanation' which is NOT an explanation ('that exists outside time and space'). It is someone SAYING it. That is not proof.

Why the double standard?

I recently was researching the entropy versus evolution debate and found that my own uninformed opinion may well have been quite mistaken on that. I am still reading.

Oh, the classic Creationist allegation that evolution is impossible due to the law of entropy? Which is derided both by evolutionits AND physicists as it is based on a willful ignorance of what the law actually is and its applicability in open and closed systems. I'm glad you have spotted it.

I am glad that Jelcat addressed her own experience with this as I have none of my own other than on-line. I don't recall the context of my above statement, but I don't think I meant that I feel valued equally by men (which is not of primary importance to me) but by God, as expressed through the Qur'an.

Oh, it is an important difference (god and men). But I remain to be convinced that god as expressed in the Qur'an really sees women as equal to men - like I say above, you guys might be convinced, but me... your explanation of how such demarkation and differentiation IS equality do not convince me.

I suppose the point I am making is that if one takes a literalistic approach towards the Qur'an as direct revealed truth, then one ends up with a societal structure where women are disadvantaged. I grew up and went to school with Muslims. I have worked with Muslims. I have taught Muslims (English) and spent time discussing topics like those we discuss hre to extend their knoweldge of English. I say what I see.

I know how men can be. I grew up around males who often made a point of letting me know that females are inferior to males, and none of them were Muslims and not all of them were religious in any way. I watched with great interest a documentary by a Muslim woman called The Mosque and Me (I think) that looked into some of the male prejudice against females in mosques throughout Canada and America. She also spoke to a Muslim scholar who showed that such mens' prejudice was not supported by the Qur'an or the Sunnah and should be corrected.

Errrr... as per previous point, that is just ONE bloke and his opinions. Want me to dig up some other Imam saying something nasty about women and using traditonal scripture of some sort to support it? Which of the two is right? They both THINK they are, they both claim their opinion are supported by scripture.

Thanks for the on-going discussion. Some people don't like to debate with me IRL, thinking I want them to immediately capitulate and agree with everything I say or else shut up. I don't. How can you ever get to the meat and marrow of things that way? Best wishes for a good week.

No worries. Capitulate isn't in my dictionary, although I can be convinced with the right evidence ;-)