Atheism - Paradox

[humble_in_doubt]

Do you remember this post you wrote?

****Not only did I often question my faith when I was Catholic, but even now I often question my lack of faith. Certainly there is the problem of thinking that nature created itself – for which I have no easy answer for. ****Inversely there is the fact that all the god’s depicted by the various world religions refuse to reveal themselves to modern man. I’ve heard some Catholic posters say he does – through the church. As if that’s an adequate rebuttal to my objection (quite frankly it’s ludicrous, since it’s obvious what I mean). When I say god doesn’t show himself today I mean in the way he allegedly showed himself to the ancients (as depicted in scripture). We can hardly say there’s been any documented cases of people being raised from death (particularly after being dead for several days). There’s no more prophets or apostles who have called on the power of god to split an ocean, turn rivers into blood, destroy cities, cause floods, etc. The reasonable side of me understands religion is ancient mythology built on mans lack of understanding of our own physical universe and biology. **However, I still find the bible to be a fascinating book & I still can’t conclusively say there is no grand architect of the universe. **

So do you still doubt at times? And what goes on in your head when you do? How do you feel?

nothing in that statement I would change … however, I don’t doubt my disbelief in the bible; I simply wonder whether anything else could exist that we don’t know about.

 

[Lilyflower]

because from a human standpoint it’s important that we remain in control.

Stepford wives maybe?

I have no sin nature … so how can I beat something that doesn’t exist? Conquering nature means figuring out our biology, extending our lives, curing disease, controlling our atmosphere, and so on.

it’s holy paranoia batman … get it right dang it

Anyway it’s the same fear theists express toward us … i.e. we’re bent on ending religion and all that sort of rhetoric. Indeed it’s no secret that religion actively seeks to promote its agenda using the political machine here in the US (religious groups do this quite openly). From our perspective we believe we need to defend ourselves against the potential encroachment of theocracy.

My dear brother,

You do not enter debate. Therfore I assume that you know the truth really and it is all a bit of a wind up.

You certainly got me going. Thanks, I enjoyed the discussion. I note you did not reply to any of my postings. That is ok as I now know that actually you are the same as me.

It is good to keep our fellows on their toes.

Praise be to God.

Bless you and as I pray for you, ask you to pray to the Savour for me.

Jesus bless you now and forever

Blessings and peace.

 

[josie_L]

when is the last time you heard about an ocean being split in half or a river turned to blood?

Why is it necessary for a sea to split for you to believe? Can’t you see the miraculous in things less grandiose (and if something like this should occur like the dancing sun it will be chalked down to something other than supernatural)?

P.S. I could cite a couple more incidents that happened to me if you would like, do you want to here of it?

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Dear humble in doubt,

If it never happened then how do you explain the witness testimony of those who said ‘it did?’

fiction (at least insofar as witnessing any supernatural events)

What sensible man [or woman] would be willing to die let alone suffer the most horrendous tortures before and during death for something they knew was a lie?

ever heard of a Muslim suicide bomber?

Most of His Apostles including the last Apostle Paul, all suffered imprisonment, torture and death. Why would they if the cause for which they suffered was not true?

we have no verifiable accounts of the lives of these men.

What man would willingly be nailed to a cruciform to suffer countless hours of agonising cramps, thirst from dehydration, hunger, intense sunburn for upto 5-days before release by death, for a lie?

for this we have to take the word of a church who for centuries oppressed western Europe. I don’t believe these events ever happened.

How do you account for the testimony of Elijah 1 Kings 19:1-21 Key Verse: 12

“After the earthquake came a fire, after the fire came a gentle breeze.”

The passage is about the time when Elijah met the LORD God personally and found a clear life direction.

I don’t account for it … I believe its mythology & untrue.

I too have had the SAME experience.

and all sorts of people on earth have bizarre experiences every day. Yet an invisible god has never manifested himself in an objectively verifiable way to humanity even a single time in recorded history. The truth is easy enough to discern.

I must confess that the language used does not accurately describe what took place. Language has its limitations. Beyond natural phenomena, it is useless as it cannot describe the indescribable!. I have come to realise there is no language to describe what I experienced but Elijah’s description is perhaps as near to it while paradoxically about as far away as is possible.

psychological delusion

But of course, I cannot prove to you what I experienced, nor can I describe it. But what I can say is that in the presence of Almighty God, there is an intense peace I have never experienced anything of the like or remotely near to it.

again … psychological delusion that manifests because you feed yourself with this stuff.

In the presence of Almighty God, we simply lose all interest in earthly existence. Everything pales into insignificance. Nothing else matters, all that counts is the intense desire to be with the Eternal Spirit we call God, drawn like iron filings to a very powerful magnet.

I don’t believe in a god who answers prayers or involves himself (or itself or whatever) in human affairs.

To speak of both the power, the peace and the love of God, there is no language, sorry, language just completely fails.

you’re speaking in platitudes … there’s nothing substantive here for me to go on. Again, I believe these personal experiences are merely psychological delusion.

Disbelieve if you wish Brother [or Sister], I can only witness to what I have seen, heard and experienced. Call me a liar too if you wish. It makes no difference nor diminishes by one single iota that experience. It will remain with me as vividly as the day it happened.

there’s no wishing to believe or disbelieve. I disbelieve because I conclude it never happened.

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Why is it necessary for a sea to split for you to believe? Can’t you see the miraculous in things less grandiose (and if something like this should occur like the dancing sun it will be chalked down to something other than supernatural)?

P.S. I could cite a couple more incidents that happened to me if you would like, do you want to here of it?

It’s been the same pattern throughout all of history. The purveyors of theism always use events with no definite explanation to prop up their religion. If someone is cured from an illness, a child is rescued during a natural disaster, etc. religion will always attribute it to a god of some sort.

Thousands of years ago we didn’t know why solar eclipses or earthquakes happened, and the ancients attributed these sort of events to a god or gods. Today we don’t well understand the relationship between psychological and physical health … so religion exploits every little incident they can find to advance their agenda.

Eventually there won’t be many things we don’t understand. They’ll run out of things they can call a miracle and attribute to a deity.

 

[Lilyflower]

fiction (at least insofar as witnessing any supernatural events)

ever heard of a Muslim suicide bomber?

we have no verifiable accounts of the lives of these men.

for this we have to take the word of a church who for centuries oppressed western Europe. I don’t believe these events ever happened.

I don’t account for it … I believe its mythology & untrue.

and all sorts of people on earth have bizarre experiences every day. Yet an invisible god has never manifested himself in an objectively verifiable way to humanity even a single time in recorded history. The truth is easy enough to discern.

psychological delusion

again … psychological delusion that manifests because you feed yourself with this stuff.

I don’t believe in a god who answers prayers or involves himself (or itself or whatever) in human affairs.

you’re speaking in platitudes … there’s nothing substantive here for me to go on. Again, I believe these personal experiences are merely psychological delusion.

there’s no wishing to believe or disbelieve. I disbelieve because I conclude it never happened.

Ahh at last your arguement fails. At last your arguements are nailed you so that you have no escape. You are by your own admission finally beaten.

Jesus bless you, I shall pray for you

Blessings and peace.

 

[josie_L]

because from a human standpoint it’s important that we remain in control.

You can’t remain in control when scientists are creating advancements that are potentially dangerous to our humanity (chips in the brain, nanobots injected into humans, artificial wombs, extreme eugenics, hybrid embryos, human clones . . . ). Do you want to get into the particulars of these scientific endeavors, please lets?

Stepford wives maybe?

No it was a movie with Melanie Griffiths (it was actually good) although I can’t remember the title of the movie.

I have no sin nature … so how can I beat something that doesn’t exist? Conquering nature means figuring out our biology, extending our lives, curing disease, controlling our atmosphere, and so on.

Oh, so you don’t commit any wrong doing whatsoever? And furthermore it wouldn’t be beneficial to us all if you improved on your social/personality skills? Biology cannot fix a warped morality.

it’s holy paranoia batman … get it right dang it

Dang it, I like my version better.

Anyway it’s the same fear theists express toward us … i.e. we’re bent on ending religion and all that sort of rhetoric. Indeed it’s no secret that religion actively seeks to promote its agenda using the political machine here in the US (religious groups do this quite openly). From our perspective we believe we need to defend ourselves against the potential encroachment of theocracy.

There you go again showing your prejudices and paronoia. We only want certain moral issues to be addressed and there are not anathema to democracy so your continuous litany of “the Christians are out to get us” is ridiculous.

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Ahh at last your arguement fails. At last your arguements are nailed you so that you have no escape. You are by your own admission finally beaten.

Jesus bless you, I shall pray for you

Blessings and peace.

OK

 

[humble_in_doubt]

You can’t remain in control when scientists are creating advancements that are potentially dangerous to our humanity (chips in the brain, nanobots injected into humans, artificial wombs, extreme eugenics, hybrid embryos, human clones . . . ). Do you want to get into the particulars of these scientific endeavors, please lets?

most of those potential developments can be (and hopefully will be) wonderful. Imagine a nanobot that can enter a cancer cell (targeting only that defective cell or set of cells) and safely remove it from the body?

Religion has always been the same. Whether it was vitamin c, aspirin, or antibiotics … religious zealotry has always stood on the fringes with a scornful eye towards science.

Oh, so you don’t commit any wrong doing whatsoever? And furthermore it wouldn’t be beneficial to us all if you improved on your social/personality skills? Biology cannot fix a warped morality.

nope I don’t do anything wrong. Sin free is me (but of course I don’t define wrongful conduct using a primitive book) …

There you go again showing your prejudices and paronoia. We only want certain moral issues to be addressed and there are not anathema to democracy so your continuous litany of “the Christians are out to get us” is ridiculous.

you guys only moderate your message so you’re not ridiculed. However, if you guys were in control the world would become a horrible place where progress ceased.

 

[Lilyflower]

fiction (at least insofar as witnessing any supernatural events)

ever heard of a Muslim suicide bomber?

You are clutching at straws here, I have never heard of a muslim suicide bomber [willingly suffering for days on end in extreme agony for what he bleives as the truth[/COLOR]

we have no verifiable accounts of the lives of these men.

You have no verifiable accounts because you have a closed mind

for this we have to take the word of a church who for centuries oppressed western Europe. I don’t believe these events ever happened.

Again, you do not believe therefore it never happened. You see yourself as s velchenstein. Only your conception of reality is real, everyone elses is a delusion. I suggest that is because you yourself are deluded by your own delusions

I don’t account for it … I believe its mythology & untrue.

Ditto above, you are deluded by your own belief that reality is a dulusion and your owon delusions are reality

and all sorts of people on earth have bizarre experiences every day. Yet an invisible god has never manifested himself in an objectively verifiable way to humanity even a single time in recorded history. The truth is easy enough to discern.

You are absolutely RIGHT! Almighty God does not allow Himself to be put under the microscope for man to observe. Rightly so. Who is mortal man to attempt to interrogate Almighty God?

psychological delusion

How can something that one does not expect to happen and for which one is looking for logic explanations, to be a delusion. When one refuses to believe in it, how can one be deluded by delusion?

again … psychological delusion that manifests because you feed yourself with this stuff.

A presumption on your part. You have failed in that I DID NOT feed myself with anything. I was not expecting anything to happen. I really was not expecting anything at all. So how could I feed myself iwth this stuff when there was ‘no stuff’ to feed myself with?

I don’t believe in a god who answers prayers or involves himself (or itself or whatever) in human affairs.

I do not believe in a god period.

i blieve in the Infinite Almighty God who is so involved with His creation that He involves Himself with every human action, emotion and prayer

you’re speaking in platitudes … there’s nothing substantive here for me to go on. Again, I believe these personal experiences are merely psychological delusion.

How can you be deluded when one is not expecting anything to happen? How can experience when you are not expecting it and you are looking for rational explainations, be dulusional?

there’s no wishing to believe or disbelieve. I disbelieve because I conclude it never happened.

You did not experience it so you take the arrogance of assumeing that all other human experience contrary to what you believe, never happened.

All very convenient to support your view point. If you do not believe in rain then when it rains it is not rain but some other wet phenomena that is not rain. I suggest there is only one who is deluded and that is you deluded by your own delusions.

Or again, perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are the only person in the universe. Perhaps everyone else are just delusions.

Jesus bless you

 

[josie_L]

It’s been the same pattern throughout all of history. The purveyors of theism always use events with no definite explanation to prop up their religion. If someone is cured from an illness, a child is rescued during a natural disaster, etc. religion will always attribute it to a god of some sort.

Thousands of years ago we didn’t know why solar eclipses or earthquakes happened, and the ancients attributed these sort of events to a god or gods. Today we don’t well understand the relationship between psychological and physical health … so religion exploits every little incident they can find to advance their agenda.

Eventually there won’t be many things we don’t understand. They’ll run out of things they can call a miracle and attribute to a deity.

Do you see what I mean? It’s a no win situation.

 

[Lilyflower]

Do you see what I mean? It’s a no win situation.

Solar eclipses attributed to religions. What else do you attribute to religions?

On the Outrage Scale, your fairy tales about Christianity are surpassed only by your fairy tales about your ignorance of Sacred Scripture.

Perhaps you can explain to me the Star of Bethlehem? Let me guess: it was an illusion due to all the stuff they fed themselves!!!

Futher you conclude that you do not blieve in it therefore it did not happen!!!

I guess it is ‘no win’ for you as time will tell and no doubt in time you will also be able to tell.

Jesus bless you.

PS Whats your religious explanation to the problem of the carbon footprint or havent you worked this one out yet!!!

Blessings and peace.

 

[josie_L]

most of those potential developments can be (and hopefully will be) wonderful. Imagine a nanobot that can enter a cancer cell (targeting only that defective cell or set of cells) and safely remove it from the body?

Religion has always been the same. Whether it was vitamin c, aspirin, or antibiotics … religious zealotry has always stood on the fringes with a scornful eye towards science.

nope I don’t do anything wrong. Sin free is me (but of course I don’t define wrongful conduct using a primitive book) …

you guys only moderate your message so you’re not ridiculed. However, if you guys were in control the world would become a horrible place where progress ceased.

Let’s see you say that we hinder progress:

The original Enlightenment led directly to the French Revolution,
and only 349 days after the citoyens sans-culottes established the
French Republic, the bloody Reign of Terror began. On 20 Brumaire
An II,28 the cathedral of Notre Dame was renamed the Temple of Reason
and a dancer named Mademoiselle Maillard was enthroned upon
the altar as Reason’s goddess. Like a lethal virus transmitted from
corpse to living carrier, Enlightenment ideals survived the collapse
of the First Republic and were preserved by utopian socialists such
as de Rouvroy, Fourier, and Cabet. De Rouvroy, who died in 1825,
anticipated the Actually Not So New Atheists by nearly two centuries
in arguing that a new religion purged of divisive Christian dogma,
with scientists serving as priests, was required for the good of society.
Twenty-three years after de Rouvroy’s death, Marx and Engels put a
scientific spin on their socialism, which inspired the Russian Revolution
of 1917 and all the humane joys inherent in seventy-four years
of Communist rule. . . .

irrationalatheist.com/files/TheIrrationalAtheist.pdf

Now if you can make me understand how in the age of reason we were able to create such a muck of evil more repressive and debilitating than any “theocracy” is beyond me?

 

[josie_L]

most of those potential developments can be (and hopefully will be) wonderful. Imagine a nanobot that can enter a cancer cell (targeting only that defective cell or set of cells) and safely remove it from the body?

Why do we need human cloning, hybrid embryos (human/animal) and artificial wombs. . . .etc.? I want an explanation. I mean you act as if these endeavors are akin to saving the world?

Religion has always been the same. Whether it was vitamin c, aspirin, or antibiotics … religious zealotry has always stood on the fringes with a scornful eye towards science.

The idea that religion is the enemy of science is a remarkably silly
one when examined in scientific terms. Consider that Christian nation
and the hostility to science that it supposedly harbors due to its
extraordinary religiosity. And yet the United States of America accounts
for more than one-third of the global scientific output despite
representing only 4.5 percent of the global population. The scientific
overperformance of religious America is a factor of 7.89, representing
28.7 percent more scientific output per capita than the most atheistic
nation in Europe, France.

irrationalatheist.com/files/TheIrrationalAtheist.pdf

nope I don’t do anything wrong. Sin free is me (but of course I don’t define wrongful conduct using a primitive book) …

So you have nothing you would change about yourself whether it be arrogance, pride, rudeness, bigotry, self-centeredness? I would be really worried if you said no.

you guys only moderate your message so you’re not ridiculed. However, if you guys were in control the world would become a horrible place where progress ceased.

Francis, I think you’re letting your experiences with religious extremism jade your view of Christianity. There is no other way to explain your animosity towards religion.

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Why do we need human cloning, hybrid embryos (human/animal) and artificial wombs. . . .etc.? I want an explanation. I mean you act as if these endeavors are akin to saving the world?

who said I was in favor of hybrid embryos using human and animal genes? That’s preposterous for goodness sake. I’m not sure if such experiments should be banned though (as long as it’s goal isn’t cloning).

The idea that religion is the enemy of science is a remarkably silly
one when examined in scientific terms. Consider that Christian nation
and the hostility to science that it supposedly harbors due to its
extraordinary religiosity. And yet the United States of America accounts
for more than one-third of the global scientific output despite
representing only 4.5 percent of the global population. The scientific
overperformance of religious America is a factor of 7.89, representing
28.7 percent more scientific output per capita than the most atheistic
nation in Europe, France.

irrationalatheist.com/files/TheIrrationalAtheist.pdf

France is probably not the most atheistic country in Europe; but that’s an aside. America’s secret is it’s style of capitalism (since our scientific community attracts global talent for one reason only … money).

So you have nothing you would change about yourself whether it be arrogance, pride, rudeness, bigotry, self-centeredness? I would be really worried if you said no.

then worry

Francis, I think you’re letting your experiences with religious extremism jade your view of Christianity. There is no other way to explain your animosity towards religion.

I don’t have any bad religious experiences … so I’m not sure what you’re referring to?

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Let’s see you say that we hinder progress:

The original Enlightenment led directly to the French Revolution,
and only 349 days after the citoyens sans-culottes established the
French Republic, the bloody Reign of Terror began. On 20 Brumaire
An II,28 the cathedral of Notre Dame was renamed the Temple of Reason
and a dancer named Mademoiselle Maillard was enthroned upon
the altar as Reason’s goddess. Like a lethal virus transmitted from
corpse to living carrier, Enlightenment ideals survived the collapse
of the First Republic and were preserved by utopian socialists such
as de Rouvroy, Fourier, and Cabet. De Rouvroy, who died in 1825,
anticipated the Actually Not So New Atheists by nearly two centuries
in arguing that a new religion purged of divisive Christian dogma,
with scientists serving as priests, was required for the good of society.
Twenty-three years after de Rouvroy’s death, Marx and Engels put a
scientific spin on their socialism, which inspired the Russian Revolution
of 1917 and all the humane joys inherent in seventy-four years
of Communist rule. . . .

irrationalatheist.com/files/TheIrrationalAtheist.pdf

Now if you can make me understand how in the age of reason we were able to create such a muck of evil more repressive and debilitating than any “theocracy” is beyond me?

wow … you pick on France more than I do … cool

 

[humble_in_doubt]

Solar eclipses attributed to religions. What else do you attribute to religions?

On the Outrage Scale, your fairy tales about Christianity are surpassed only by your fairy tales about your ignorance of Sacred Scripture.

let’s have a scripture competition?

Perhaps you can explain to me the Star of Bethlehem? Let me guess: it was an illusion due to all the stuff they fed themselves!!!

again … tales from the bible. No more compelling than Greek fables of Zeus.

I guess it is ‘no win’ for you as time will tell and no doubt in time you will also be able to tell.

it’s only no win because you believe there’s something that must be won?

PS Whats your religious explanation to the problem of the carbon footprint or havent you worked this one out yet!!!

Blessings and peace.

are you saying the earth really is 6,000 years old? Oh golly

 

[humble_in_doubt]

You did not experience it so you take the arrogance of assumeing that all other human experience contrary to what you believe, never happened.

All very convenient to support your view point. If you do not believe in rain then when it rains it is not rain but some other wet phenomena that is not rain. I suggest there is only one who is deluded and that is you deluded by your own delusions.

Or again, perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are the only person in the universe. Perhaps everyone else are just delusions.

Jesus bless you

how do you know whether or not I was ever religious; and if I was whether or not I had experiences I attributed to god?

 

[josie_L]

who said I was in favor of hybrid embryos using human and animal genes? That’s preposterous for goodness sake.

I never said you were in favor but please explain to me why hybrid embryos, human cloning and artificial wombs are necessary for our society? I would rather think that those ethical boundaries of which I spoke about would have curbed science from even thinking about fusing human and animal genes together.

France is probably not the most atheist country in Europe; but that’s an aside. America’s secret is it’s style of capitalism (since our scientific community attracts global talent for one reason only … money).

Based on the protestant work ethic.

then worry

I’ll pray instead. You need it.

I don’t have any bad religious experiences … so I’m not sure what you’re referring to?

You were there helping out when the twin towers fell, no? You went to Iraq and I assume you saw things that were done in the name of religion that must have completely turned you off, correct? Moreover, I don’t think you were an atheist during the war, it was after you left and went to school that you lost your faith?

 

[josie_L]

wow … you pick on France more than I do … cool

Tu n’as pas repondu a la question, si te plait essayer d’etre plus serieux?