I am an atheist thread 3

[phooney]

continued @ CalmDownWisWins

“This is the very unlovely thing about atheists: They are utterly arbitrary in what they will “allow” people to do, but it’s ALWAYS a “doing” which brings them “comfort”, such as the “comfort” to be free of people who disagree with them and bring them discomfort in as an unaccountable-as-possible way as possible.”

When has anybody, ever, been completely free of people who disagree with them? Never. What makes you think this is the ‘goal’ of atheism? For most atheists who bother with religion enough to consider it worthwhile re-examining the evidence, the goal is generally an increased mutual understanding, or a step towards the reduction of irrationality. Your last sentence here makes very little sense. If the unaccountable-as-possible way is simply trying to talk to people, well sorrrrrry for living.

“All prayers ARE answered, in the best and most wise way possible.”

i.e. No matter what happens, it is the best way. And no matter what happens, the results of any prayer, whether there are any results or not, are confirmations of god’s existence somehow, and not only that, of a specific god. Nice rationale, you can get proof for absolutely anything that way.

“Of course, having no idea what “God” means makes having an even VAGUE sense of what “prayer” means an utter impossibility.”

You could try to explain it, if you understood it well enough to communicate it. Instead we have been treated to a lengthy rant of textual vomit.

“Your ignorance is well demonstrated! Please keep up the good work of making the image of the “atheist” as foolish as many people STILL don’t realize it is! Thanks!”

As is yours! Of course, one could just walk down the main street and get offered stress tests by scientologists and listen to a raving lunatic trying to scare kids with hell if one wanted ‘typical’ examples of your ignorance.

“What does YOUR “jesus” do? Does he “lie”? Your “jesus” is that through which the universe was created which is the interface of this universe to that which created it. What do you call this “thing”?”

I don’t ‘have’ a ‘jesus’, I listen to various hypotheses of what came ‘before’ the big-bang, and I wait for evidence that confirms or refutes those hyptheses. Doing otherwise would show a reckless indifference to what I form beliefs about.

“In other words, is your “machine-like universe” a perpetual motion machine, which you inevitably would have to answer “yes”, and if so, how can anything you do be any more than an utter infinitesimal irelevancy, and of no meaning whatsoever?”

Current evidence seems to indicate “no”, as far as our universe is concerned, but since when have YOU been concerned about evidence? Not so far in this thread, that’s for sure. However, yes, as far as the universe is concerned, everything I do is an utter infinitesmal irrelevancy, and of no meaning whatsoever to the universe. From my perspective, things I do have a somewhat higher level of importance. You seem to be begging the question that the universe cares for you at all.

“And if of no real meaning, isn’t ANY action “good” which makes you “comfy”?”

To the universe? No, all you can expect is cold indifference. Not a helping hand, not a boot to the face, just indifference. To me? That’s a much more complex question. If I was a person living in complete isolation from everybody else, perhaps yes, any action would be ‘good’ that would make me ‘comfy’. However, we are a social animal, and sometimes what is good for others is good for us, or good for our genes. We evolved living in groups, and intentionally seeking to live without any company is rare even now when we carry technology with us that enables us to fend off most of our early evolutionary reasons for living together in the first place.

“Once again, the atheist reduces himself to 8 year-old schoolboy “philosophy”. The so-called mind of the atheist is such a pleasure to watch. Much like a goldfish in search of his own floating “poop” to eat.”

Meanwhile, you treat us to a display of somebody with some bizarre form of constant typing tourettes syndrome.

“This is quite so. And one of our instruments, which in fact is the instrument BEHIND all our other instruments, is our perception, which is internal.”

Indeed! It is certainly possible for two people to observe the same event and see different things. So, what methodology do we employ to verify whose perception was correct in that particular case? The answer is external evidence that can be internalised by other observers.

“Since God has created everything IN the universe, all “forces” within it ARE His “interfering” with it, such that any “locality” when “interfered with”, affected by, any other “locality” via “force”, that is evidence of God’s “prodding” the interfered with locality.”

So god isn’t an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity? He’s just some limited power, mindless, indifferent forces? Well, at least we have some verifiable evidence for them, but it hardly lives up to anybody’s expectations of a ‘god’ though, does it? It’s certainly not the god of the bible, if that is the case you were trying to make.

 

[phooney]

continued @ calmdownwiswins

“There is no “other sense” other than our perception, which is internal. All our instruments impinge on that one instrument.”

As mentioned, I agree with this somewhat.

“We each have the free will to accept that stimuli can originate from (what you would see as) “inside””

Is this some convoluted way of saying that we think?

“(which is not really inside but rather simply “from God” which is an unlocatable direction),”

shrug Just a bald assertion.

“and if you choose to attribute the internal perception of those stimuli to “not God”, then that is your free choice”

Thanks for the permission.

“One must “believe” a hypothesis to use it to search for truth. If that “belief” is confirmed by evidence received in response to that “belief” is the truth of that belief strengthened?”

I think I’ve already corrected you on what a hypothesis is, I disagree very much that a hypothesis is anything to be believed. There is no reason whatsoever that you must believe a hypothesis is true before you test it, only after it has been confirmed would this be the case.

Sure, I suppose if one were to already have a justified belief, and then more evidence was found, the belief might be strengthened. Kind of like a person who believes in evolution based on the overwhelming evidence of the fossil record, and then is presented with the overwhelming evidence of the science of molecular biology.

“You only find your lost keys where you look for them! If, because you are looking for them, as you “believe your keys MUST be somewhere”, you find them, do you not believe more so after that in “your keys”?”

hahaha! As if you could find your lost keys where you DON’T look for them. Again, understanding that keys are things which do not dissolve into thin air overnight, you are justified in beliving that your keys are SOMEWHERE. That being the case, I would believe in the existence of my keys at pretty much a constant level throughout my search.

“Now this is the interesting part! Why would we look for something which we don’t know we have lost? The answer is that we wouldn’t!”

I agree!

“But if many do, and they are so much like us, what are the odds that we simply don’t realise that we DO have keys that we’ve lost!?”

I think you’ve mixed up your analogy and your example, and also this seems to be some form of an appeal to popularity. It also reminds me of the adolescent defiance of “BUT ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT!”

“Atheists like to think that THEY are the majority population when it suits them, and the minority population when it otherwise suits them,”

Well, depending on what population you are sampling, atheists can be the majority or the minority, this has no relevance to whether it suits atheists or not, it’s just the way it is.

“but the fact is that sensing the “God shaped hole” within us as men is the overwhelmingly predominant “sense”,”

Actually, I don’t think atheists sense this hole you speak of. What we can easily sense and confirm with actual evidence is that we live with other people, many of which are theists, and whether we like it or not, we can all have an affect on each other in some way. As far as I’m concerned, I think I am probably just as wary of people who claim to get their morals and purpose from a barely definable, potentially ficticious, dictator in the sky, as many of you claim to be when you say you think an atheist has no way of discerning right from wrong.

“and the atheistic “pride of specialness” in claiming that they are the less deluded than their believing brothers is simply vanity.”

Who is more deluded than whom is perhaps something we may never figure out, but as far as vanity is concerned, I would think claiming that the creator of the universe has a personal interest in what you eat on a friday and do with your genitals is quite vain.

 

[phooney]

continued @ calmdownwiswins

“Since, as a typical atheist, you have no idea of what “God” (monotheistic as per Christianity) means, and posit that that definition is equivalent to “one of the gods” (polytheistic), you are not equiped to discuss why God is prefereable to follow over “gods””

shrug Again, if you think you understand the concept well enough to communicate it to other people better than anybody has ever done it before, by all means, do your best. When I said ‘why not go through all gods in alphabetical order’ I meant ‘why not go through all concepts of gods’ which I intended to include all the seperate gods of polytheistic beliefs, and all gods of various monotheistic beliefs. I guess that went under your hyper-intellectual radar.

“The “sense” which you would have described to you is called “revelation”, which is confirmed only by verification by the Church. It is (can be), essentially, the exact same perception as any “outwardly stimulated (initiated)” perception, but not attributable to any “outward stimuli”.”

So it is just like seeing flying pink elephants? Thanks.

“A “no” answer is NOT a “non” answer!”

Well, "no’ as defined in the post that I was originally responding to was simply the prayed for miracle not happening. In this sense it is synonymous with a non-answer. My point stands, and your assertion fails.

“Therefore, you are either a simpleton in not realizing that you can’t claim to know what you don’t know, or a liar in being self-contradictory in claiming to know something while knowing
that you don’t know it!”

Since your premise was false, this conclusion is unsound. And another worthless ad hominem

“I prefer to think you are a simpleton to that of being a liar. I’m feeling generous today, apparently.”

I need your charity like a swimmer needs concrete flippers.

“To prod them into responding by mere stated observation of their behavior, which invariably results in “emotionality”, which they “dogmatically” so decry as “irrational” unless it serves their purpose (yet another hypocracy of the atheist), is the way to show them themselves so that they might “buy a vowel” and start thinking like rational human beings.”

Ooohh, I see. Everything you post is merely a red herring. We were having a perfectly good conversation before you knuckle-dragged your way in here, I wish you would either contribute or spend some other time out of a church interacting with people, even for 10 minutes.

“The atheist believes that if he can run you around in circles without getting to “the cards”, without getting to the basic axiomatic propositions with which we can agree to disagree, then he’s “won”.”

Christians being nice and atheists being mocking and illogical are your cards of basic axiomatic propositions? lol

“I would rather “run off” that childish type of atheist off so that those (atheists) who remain are of at least enought sense as to actually not play that nonproductive silly game.”

Fair enough. I suppose your posts may have ‘run off’ several people on both sides. However, you haven’t actually made any serious arguments or produced any evidence, so I welcomed this as a quick sideshow. If you don’t up the ante somewhat in future posts, I think instead of treating you like a reasoning being, I’ll just use your post to help me practise picking out logical fallacies, and then list them for fun.

“If one is just yanked around by the tether of “nicey-nicey so-called communication” as a toy by the perverse and childish atheist for the ammusement of his equally as childish friends, then I’d rather cut the tether and get into their faces.”

Let me guess, when you grow up you want to be a diplomat?

“I DO love atheists, despite the hate I feel for their evil behavior, and hearing the truth will do them good. That they choose to see truth-telling as “insult” is not my problem.”

I hope you haven’t minded a few home truths sent back your way then.

 

[phooney]

continued @ calmdownwiswins

“Atheists love being enabled to play their little games, which folks like yourself do so well.”

I happen to think finding out if god exists or not to be quite important, you can call it little games if you like. And while, yes, it is true that if there were no theists there would not really be any atheists and in that sense we do need you to enable us, I think we’d be able to make much more progress if we could get this question behind us. That said, I think it is still important enough to take every precaution in arriving at a valid conclusion.

“Your goal is to “persuade” them to see truth, which they will do only when they are forced to, and I am not capable, nor is anyone other than they themselves with the grace of God capable of persuading OR forcing them to see truth.”

And it would be especially hard if you don’t know the truth, and/or don’t have any evidence of the truth.

“If they “run away”, what is the reason? Is it fear of being “damaged” by a bunch of pixles? No. It is fear of being shown the fools they are.”

So last post wins, and the other one is a fool? I don’t think so, it’s much easier to come up with gibberish like what you have done than to actually research and get evidence to back up any claims you make. What a poor methodology you employ for determining foolhood.

“No atheist CAN come to an actual conclusion about anything, because everything is “relative”, and to stop the masturbatory pleasure they call “conversation regarding anything non-materialistic” is to be “rude” to them, and we’ve SAID that we won’t be “rude” to them, as you would have it.”

It’s true, there is no conclusion I wouldn’t give up in light of sufficient contrary evidence. I also don’t neccesarily consider conversations regarding spirits, tarot cards, druidic spells, the loch ness monster, alien abductions and god as ‘rude’

“The reason is to placate the children, to not diminish their “self-esteem”, so that they will expect to get away with more “bad behavior” later, thus creating yet another crop of “little
monsters”.”

Wow, you fell off the indoctrination tree and hit every branch on the way down, didn’t you?

“All atheists are, by definition, fascists, as they are only interested in “power relationships”, via “gangs”, because they admit to no “higher authority” than “he who has the most power makes the rules”.”

I’m pretty sure this demonstrates you are not really interested in any discussion. There is no correct end to a sentence that starts with “All atheists” except “lack a belief in any gods”.

“Are fascists” just doesn’t follow. Again you seem to ignore that we are a social animal.

“God prohibits using physical coersion to “convert” people to a certain political thinking. Only persuasion is allowable.”

So a non-physical flood? Non-physical plagues of Egypt? And here I thought you’d said that trying to persuade people was an atheistic tactic with the goal of being unaccountable! I wonder if god is an atheist…

“Since atheists have no concept of hell per se and when they use the term they are refering to the Catholic concept, might you be interested in actually finding out what “hell” means, and avoid making statements devoid of relevance to any “valuation” of the so-called “myth of hell”?”

Are you saying that the catholic concept of hell is incorrect?

 

[phooney]

continued @ calmdownwiswins

“The hyper-intellectual (a disease which I suffer from)”

Introducing the self-proclaimed most modest person in the world.

“They CLAIM that “all is reason and evidence without faith”, then claim to KNOW that which by the method of science can only be claimed as true by faith!”

A fine strawman, but it is facing the wrong way.

“A good example is: Does God exist? No. Why? Because He hasn’t proven Himself to me. Why does He need to prove Himself to you? I don’t know. So God doesn’t exist because you don’t know why, or if, He needs to prove Himself to you? Yes. Shouldn’t you then, by your own rules, simple call God a “theoretical possibility”? No, certainly not! Why not? Because I’m an ATHEIST, not an agnostic! Oh, of course, how foolish of me.”

Does god exist? I don’t know. Why? Because he hasn’t proven himself to me. Why does he need to prove himself to me? Because it would be ridiculous to believe in him otherwise, if he wants me to believe in him, then it is within his power to give me evidence, that is all it would take. So god doesn’t exist because I don’t know why, or if, he needs to prove himself to me? No, that’s not a reason for why god doesn’t exist, it’s a reason for why I don’t believe in him. Shouldn’t I then, by my own rules, simply call God a “theoretical possibility”? Perhaps, but it would be a layman’s theoretical possibility, or a scientific hypothetical possibility, both of which also have such things as invisible unicorns, fairies and the celestial teapot in their set.

Not a set that involves things that should be believed in, if one is thinking rationally.

“Another: Does God exist? No. Why? Because everything can be explained by science. Does science explain the universe’s existence? Yes, eventually. Does science allow for the possibility of God? No. Why? Because God would “violate science axiomatically”. Is science “sure” of anything? No. Then how can it be sure about God’s non-existence? Because science simply precludes God. (( This is “scientism”, where an admittedly impossible certainty is nontheless claimed as certain. ))”

Does God exist? I don’t know. Why? Because there’s no verifiable evidence for such a thing. Does science explain the universe’s existence? Not entirely, yet, but whether it eventually does or not doesn’t constitute as a case for God, that is simply an argument from ignorance. Does science allow for the possibility of God? Some concepts of god of course can’t be falsified, so science would be unable to disprove them regardless of whether they existed or not, so the possibility must be allowed for, but without any observable effect on the universe, pretty much pointless as a concept. Some gods might have properties that could be disproved so modern science wouldn’t allow for them if they had already been falsified.

Hence god doesn’t “violate science axiomatically” I don’t think you have really thought about this very much. Is science “sure” of anything? No. Then how can it be sure about God’s non-existence? It isn’t sure about the non existence of every possible concept of god, but give a scientifically testable property of god and perhaps science can take a stance on it. That is one thing we can perhaps discuss.

“The scientific method states, clearly, that “faith precedes reason”, in that one holds a hypothesis in faith then observes reality to confirm or correct the held hypothesis.”

Where did you get this definition of the scientific method?

“The initial “reason”, which is not “a reasoning” but only a “seeming observational fact”, for holding a hypothesis is the “grace” (always from God) for the opportunity to observe something of “importance”. But we are then to “reason”, make a decision that this important thing is “probably re-occuring”, that faith in this “thing” is worth holding, until proven otherwise.”

First you’ll need to correct your thinking on what a hypothesis is, and then you’ll have to reword this jumble of quotation marks into coherent english.

“And that “slow drag to hell” starts well before our death.”

For somebody apparently so versed in the ways of the ‘typical atheist’ you would think you’d realise that this particular appeal to emotion (in this case ‘fear’), while having no argumentative value anyway, also will illicit none of the emotional responses you want from an Atheist. As if with your fear mongering I’ll suddenly say “whoa, I’ll go to hell? better start beleivin’!”

“…to the atheist evil is not evil[etc]”

Once again, you are clearly incapable of saying anything from an Atheist’s point of view, I’d suggest you leave the questions directed at atheists for the atheists if you have nothing of merit to say.

 

[lkddav]

Hello phoony

Excellent posts. I noticed You were responding to Calmdown. I thought maybe this person was having a bad day when they first posted. I reread their post and put them on my ignore list. I don’t associate with this type of person in my personal life and see no reason to on a forum.
I wish i had your conversational and debating skills.

les

 

[psyche23]

@psyche23

My apologies, the wording you used was VERY remeniscient of Pascal’s wager, as is your follow up wording here. In a nutshell, it postulates that believing in god is a more safe bet when you weigh up what you can gain and what you can lose, in terms of belief or lack thereof. It has the problems I mentioned before of placing the value of time spent in this life at 0, and the arrogance of ignoring the possibility of other gods. We are all throwing in the same number of chips when we take the afterlife gamble.

“And if somehow you’re correct and I die believing in an invisible nonexistent being, then at least I’ll die with hope and not think “well that was fun. I guess that’s all there is to it…””

Indeed. And again, I am not going to argue that I think people are lying about the comfort gained from the god-belief, I think many people demonstrate that comfort quite sufficiently for me. However, that comfort has no correlation to the truth, and certainly doesn’t constitute as an argument one way or the other for god’s existence or lack of. It is simply “believing in god makes me feel good”. Yes, death is a very scary thing, we are naturally afraid of it thanks to evolution by natural selection, but I am not without hope regardless. If I can sit on my deathbed and think to myself “well that was fun, I would recommend it to others. I love my family and friends” then that is something to hope for. I wouldn’t feel shortchanged by my single mortal life, as I don’t believe that anybody gets anymore, I am extraordinarily lucky to have lived in the first place.

Note I also don’t believe that they didn’t exist. I have a lot more reading to do about this particular topic before I make up my mind. However, I think a lot of credible historians may disagree with you too. Instead of making appeals to authority, let us try to do our best with the evidence we can present to each other. As I said before, I have not yet found or been presented with contemporary writings of any of the apostles besides Paul mentioning Peter (I need to look at this more closely as well), nor am I aware of archaelogical evidence for them either (but this is something I have looked even less at so far). If people want to direct me towards some books or sources, I would appreciate it.

“There’s also something called invincible ignorance where people truly think they’re doing the right thing and believing in the right people/gods but are still wrong because they refuse to seek out the full truth and will never accept anything other than what they know. I may be in that category, who knows.”

What methods would you recommend for seeking out the full truth, facts, etc? Consideration of verifiable evidence is the best method that I have ever come across. Personal revelations I find difficult to distinguish from Elvis sightings. Belief with a lack of evidence? Not if I can help it.

"But I have faith in all that history-yes history- , the Bible, my Church, tradition and the Church fathers (all of which are much smarter than I will ever be) that I am correct. If I’m wrong, then I die knowing I did my best. "

But other people have faith that you are wrong, and their faith is equally strong as yours. You can’t both be right, so surely you can see that faith isn’t a rational ‘tool’ to use for finding truth or avoiding error. By seeming to hand over so much of your rational faculty to others, do you really think this is ‘doing your best’? I agree that we do have to rely on the knowledge of others due to the fact that total human knowledge is beyond what one person could learn in a lifetime. Again, I want to hold on to my own thought process as much as possible, but when I do have to rely on the expertise of others, I want to know that their process for gaining knowledge and avoiding error were rational. As mentioned, I find relying on personal revelation to show a great indifference to those goals.

That is what Pascal meant as well, as far as I can tell. It’s still non-zero though in my books, though when divided by infinity, I agree we are forced to round this value to zero.

This just doesn’t apply to this post, but I am going to have to hold off responding for a bit. I have quite a bit going on right now. I’ll get to them as soon as I can though. I might make some small comments, but probably won’t be able to do much more than that…

As far as Pascal’s theory. I’ll take that as a compliment. If my own thoughts resemble some theory, I guess I should feel good I was able to get that far…

And about my faith and another’s faith aren’t compatible so at least one must be wrong. I definately agree with that. So how do I know I’m right? Because my Church was the one handed by Jesus down to us and other Christian denominations decided to pick and choose what they liked and didn’t like. Ours stuck to the truth of Christ’s words even if it made us feel uncomfortable at times.

And I don’t just forgo rationality to go with the authority of my Church, however rationality and reason are compatible with my faith so I have no real issue there. If for some reason they seemed to conflict, I’d go with my Church because that’s what Christ left for us to help guide us. I am no genius, so it’s nice to know my Church can help guide me.

To find truth I recommend looking to facts and evidence, but not stopping there. You can’t learn stuff just intellectually. Sometimes you just have to feel it. I might know my mom takes care of me and is a wonderful person, but I have to allow myself to feel love for her. You need both logic and emotions to help guide you. To have one and cut off the other would be like handiccapping yourself.

 

[_A]

How about you help us all out?

You can state that the clump of cells instantly has a soul(*transsubstantially injected? *) installed in it as *part *of conception. I am trying to understand your statement completely, and show how you might have allowed your learning to be steered in a direction by a belief. To be fair, this is quite a sensitive issue, considering how close this seems to the abortion discussion earlier.

I say that a soul can take weeks to install.

Some of those pregnancies have the cells split and form twins. I don’t know very much about biology, but the cells are just like single child cells, but they suddenly split up to 14 days later.

Not a big thing, but you were convinced that the soul is placed at the moment of conception only. This shows that there is one tossed in a little later.

 

[psyche23]

continued @psyche23

Thanks on behalf of Atheists, because for most of us this is the only life we believe in. I do the same.

**never said you didn’t… **

Agreed, this was a bad example. I am not surprised that science sometimes backs up the bible, the people who wrote it can’t have been completely ignorant about everything. Of course, sometimes science doesn’t back up the bible, spacetime isn’t ‘nothing’, there is no up/down in space, the first woman didn’t come from the rib of the first man, there was no global flood etc.

I also agree the article is interesting.

**I noticed later on in your posts that you say science never give certainty. So how can you be certain these things didnt’ happen. I do’t believe woman came directly from man’s rib, but that it was symbolic to mean woman was man’s equal. Taken from the side rather than the head which would infer woman was superior to man or his foot infering she would be inferior… The other examples could be used in the same way. I’m just reminding you that you can’t be certain of anything either… **

As I argued at great length with Ontologysue in the previous thread (you may not have had time to go over the whole thing) the differences between humans and animals is only differences in degrees rather than things completely unheard of in the animal kingdom. Morality, art, music, self-awareness, complex communication, use of tools are all examples that at one time or another, people thought were all entirely the realm of humans, but recorded, verifiable, observations prove otherwise. And there was no one time where man evolved from an ape, it was a gradual process. I agree, it is an interesting question nontheless.

**No I haven’t had time to go over the whole thing and to be honest, I’m not sure I will be able to. At least not anytime soon. These threads are taking up way too much of my time. **

Hmmmm… when did the exodus happen, or is this story just another metaphor?

We believe the Exodus happened historically yes. I’m no historian so I can’t tell you when it happened, but I bet if we both looked into it we could find a time period it is to have happened in.

Yes!!! Bring it on!

A hypothetical trickster god might be highly amused by such a thing, who knows? Besides, this is exactly what you claim happens when a ‘miracle’ occurs after prayer/requests to a deity in other religions.

**Also possible, but history, personal experience, tradition ect, ect ect tell me otherwise…The other part of this I’ve already answered. A asked me the same question. I don’t particularly like repeating myself. If I find the post I’ll refer you, but I’m not going to put much effort on this. Sorry. **

Oh… so you don’t hold your god up to the same standard of evidence as other gods?

Yes, if I remember what you’re referring to correctly. Forgive me but it’s been a long day….

I think this is probably about what lkddav would expect from the (jug of water? flower pot? I can’t remember) that he postulated you would get the same results from. Pray for something and get it, then the jug said yes, pray for something and it doesn’t happen then the jug says no, or it just hasn’t happened yet? And this is good enough proof for you? It has allowed no standard for measure, as ANYTHING that happens, no matter what, is seen as positive confirmation.

And I’ve answered this one already too…

I’m interested, how have they explained away that little ‘limbo’ issue? One pope says there’s a limbo, another one says there isn’t, presumably the same holy spirit… and all infallible. I haven’t heard much about this topic, so if you could point me in the right direction, that would be appreciated.

I’ll have to double check this and get back to you. I remember struggling with this same issue a long time ago and came to a satisfactory answer, but right now can’t remember what that was.

Do you think it is possible to live a good life regardless of trying to please the lord? If I was presented with that hypothetical choice you mention, I’d need to have the options defined better than just ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’.

I think it’s possible to live a good life regardless of trying to please the Lord yes. Good things can come from athiests. I do think though that these good things stem from selfish ideals rather than selfless. I’d rather be selfless…

How is any living person a big enough authority on ‘heaven’ to write a book about it?

**Only if divinely inspired. **

Sorry, I’d love to debate more. I’m just getting quite tired of having to go through endless amounts of posts. You really put on a good stretch of posts when you get going… It’s not just you though. There are just far too many. I’d really like others to chip in so I can take a breather if at all possible. I commend everyone who’s been able to stick it out this whole time. It’s incredible the stamina of the people here. I guess I’m just so satisfied in my beliefs that my thirst for winning any arguments is pretty nil. I’m glad if I’ve helped anyone come to some type of understanding about our beliefs though.

This isn’t to say I won’t be back, but I think at a lesser capacity. These threads are just so addicting I’m starting to neglect other more important things. Ooooops!!!

Anyway, I’ll still stick around but if I don’t reply immediately it’s not because I’m not interested or don’t care or don’t have any replies… just trying to prioritize here. Hope everyone understands.

 

[_A]

You’ve made this implication a number of times. Can you back it up? Give us an example of a teaching that has been changed to keep the money coming in. You make it sound like this happens all the time. I’m betting you can’t come up with a single example.

You’re accusing the clergy of some level of duplicity, to maintain their nice lifestyles, right? First off, I submit that most priests would have much more comfortable lives if they were not in the priesthood. Sure, they get a cozy rectory and maybe they can use the parish car when they go visit dying people in the hospital. But you have to remember, these guys have lots of education. Enough that they would be mid-to-high level professionals, and probably that much more comfortable, if they weren’t priests.

Secondly, if that were the case, where are the deathbed confessions? Can you find me a documented case where a dying priest admitted that the Church is a massive conspiracy to trick people into throwing a few bucks into the collection plate? Of course not.

You have no evidence for you conspiracy theory. By your own standard, you should stop believing it.

No, sorry you thought so…I just don’t see the people in the church as any more trustworthy than people outside the church.

 

[_A]

The organization that is qualified to authoritatively interpret the Bible is the organization that gave it to us - the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

I’m pretty sure they don’t take atheists. So yeah, I guess you have to believe it first.

Then the document is of no more use to me than any other fiction book.

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

unless you use “IS JESUS YOUR SAVIOUR???!!” Instead of “Hello”,

I’m digging through a few pages of responses, and probably won’t write much tonight. But I love this idea! I think I’m going to start using “IS JESUS YOUR SAVIOUR???!!” as my personal “Hello”, from now on.

It’s gonna take a lot of practice to get the exact ratio of interrogative to exclamation, but I think you’ll agree it will be well worth it.

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Gah - baby woke up right after I finished typing that post. I wonder if I really screamed “IS JESUS YOUR SAVIOUR???!!” inadvertently.

Maybe there’s a bigger downside to this method of communication than I realized.

 

[Armor_of_God]

No one needs to be qualified in anything to know what jesus meant by this…

Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Mat 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell.

10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Mat 18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Mat 23:33 [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Mar 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Mar 9:47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:

Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Jam 3:6 And the tongue [is] a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

Mat 8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Mat 13:42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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Mat 13:50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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Mat 22:13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast [him] into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Mat 24:51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint [him] his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Mat 25:30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Luk 13:28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you [yourselves] thrust out.

Thank you for posting so many words from my Lord, but what is your point?

 

[Armor_of_God]

You can state that the clump of cells instantly has a soul(*transsubstantially injected? *) installed in it as *part *of conception. I am trying to understand your statement completely, and show how you might have allowed your learning to be steered in a direction by a belief. To be fair, this is quite a sensitive issue, considering how close this seems to the abortion discussion earlier.

I say that a soul can take weeks to install.

Some of those pregnancies have the cells split and form twins. I don’t know very much about biology, but the cells are just like single child cells, but they suddenly split up to 14 days later.

Not a big thing, but you were convinced that the soul is placed at the moment of conception only. This shows that there is one tossed in a little later.

What’s this…you’re talking as if souls exist. ???

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Do you, or do you not, understand the mutually exclusive difference between “gods” and “God”?

Firstly, do you understand why a “god” cannot exist if “God” exists?

Your god is not named ‘god’. You see, gods are a group of characters in fiction which includes Apollo, Yahweh and Zeus. I use the specific names to avoid confusion.
There have been many gods…most of which are not believed now…

OK then. You DON’T understand how “God” precludes all “gods”!

Would you like to be informed, or is that of no interest to you?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

No, sorry you thought so…I just don’t see the people in the church as any more trustworthy than people outside the church.

In a sense, you’re right. Note that I never said anything about the people in the church not being sinners. They (we) certainly are. Throughout history, some people in the church have been among the worst people imaginable.

Again: the church is not protected against sin.

But in spite of that, the teachings have held firm for millenia. Isn’t that kind of interesting? If the people were that untrustworthy, why isn’t the message being tweaked? How about a new rule: Give 10% of your income or you go to hell.

That’d be a nice feather in the cap of the church, right? No more people plunking a buck or two in the plate.

Never happened. Never will. Because it’s not part of the core of church teachings. Scripture has not changed in almost two thousand years – we have the manuscript evidence to prove it. The manuscripts were all controlled by the church. Why didn’t a fourth or fifth century pope demand a rewrite?

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Oh, I understand your myth well enough…your god (is he calling himself Yahweh or Jehova these days?) created everything, and included everything he liked.
An all-powerful being gets things all his own way.
Suffering, pain and fetuses that self-abort more than half the time are all that way because that is what Yahweh wants.
Unless of course it is all made-up.

Prove the universe as it is is “made up”.

Prove that God didn’t do the creating.

Since you must readily admit that you can’t know that God isn’t God, and did what God did, isn’t it just a “theory” to you that God doesn’t exist?

If it’s MORE than a theory to you, there is some psychological motivation to make this particular theory into a FACT!

Why would you be actively motivated to want God to not exist?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

What’s this…you’re talking as if souls exist. ???

No, play nice. He’s making a rhetorical point. And it’s not bad. If, as was claimed, souls are created/inserted/whatever at conception, and if the zygote becomes two individuals at some time after conception, then either they only have one soul between them (I think this was believed in the middle ages – anyone remember that?), or something’s wrong.

But I don’t think anyone said that “ensoulment” can only occur at conception, merely that that is the normal time. Not exactly the death knell to the claim that A made it out to be.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

You have proved here that you are mistaken. Can you see it. It is a glaring error.

The first day, it is a person with a soul?

It is a Catholic axiom that all “things” that might through normal processes develop into a hman being are PERSONS, and all persons are a body and soul.

The body does not HAVE a soul. The body and soul are one,until death.

This is a revealed truth. Since you don’t accept revealed truths from what you call “religious organizations”, this axiom is nonsense to you.

It is funny though, that you do accept axioms which are just as true and just as undemonstrable, such as “the point”, “the plane”, “imaginary numbers”, “good times” and the like from elsewhere.

So, what IS your “pissy on” with religion?

Why do you actively hate the “All Good and All Love”?