Are you an atheist? (3 Viewers)

[Bladerunner]

It is no small wonder that ISIS, who also worships the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph, must use violent force to keep their people in line. The USA culture helped to insulate us from that level of violence for the most part, though we could talk about Waco or the perversions perpetrated on Matthew Shepard or several other religious groups whose thrust is based on continual threats of eternal isolation. (If you won't play ball by my rules I'll take my ball and go home...).

Doc, I am sorry that you associate Christianity with ISIS and the Islamic religion. It is plain to see the difference and the threat it presents to the world. A man of your intellect should separate these two religions from each other but alas,,,, you are grouping it with Christianity. Whose heads have we cut off in the last century.. that is when socialized civilization started instead of being barbarians , is it not?.

For all those out there, my idea of a liberal(s) are those people in this country that Hate this country in its present form, those that hate the people who do not agree with them. ( I'll call no names out here although that does not stop the liberals on these threads from doing so). and those people that want socialism (anything goes) and promotes a Big Nanny government, instead of Capitalism or entrepreneurship.

This will be my last posting on this forum. I simply have burnt out and really just don't care if any of the atheist on this water cooler makes the right choice or not. As far as the Agnostics such as yourself Doc, you should be able to separate those in the church from the right Choice. You know the difference and yet decide to forsake him. Your BAD!

I ask Rabbie (hope I spelled your name right this time) to remove my profile from the forum completely and immediately. Should I need the expert advice of the excellent moderators here, I will do so as a guest, if allowed.

One last thing, Good luck to all of you and I hope I have given you some food for thought in amongst all of the hatred that is present on this thread. I really do hope you make the right choice. To the moderators, I appreciate your help and appreciate even more your allowing me to bring a little bit of truth about Jesus and the eternal life that is available to all who ask to your Atheist thread.

"Say Good Night Gracie"


BLADE

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Blade, good luck as you go your separate way from us. (That is an honest wish.)

I actually DO know the difference between ISIS radicals and Christian radicals. It is a combination of two things called geography and the human rights recognized by the governments in those geographic areas.

In the Bible after the Exodus, wasn't it the sons of Ham who became the fathers of Islam? I compare the Muslims to Christians because Muslims were among the first schisms from the "Old Religion" of Moses and the Levites. Christianity is yet another schism from Judaism, slightly more recent than Islam, because of the advent of a young rabbi who rejected some of the outmoded attitudes of the Sanhedron in Jerusalem. (There is a certain level of irony there, that Jesus tried to evolve the way of thinking of the Jews, but nobody since then wants to evolve the thinking of Christians.) Islam is actually older but their religious leader came later in the form of the prophet Mohammed (and in respect to our Muslim friends, I add "praise be unto him").

Blade, though you might not choose to reply, I will state that I have known many good Muslims and many good Christians in my 65+ years on this Earth. I've also know some bad members of each group. You know what they have in common? Human nature, the tendency to form isolated groups for emotional comfort and to exclude others to increase a sense of security. Let's see, that tendency is ... about 6 million years old among Hominids and a bit older than that in other species.

 

[Vassago]

Doc, I am sorry that you associate Christianity with ISIS and the Islamic religion. It is plain to see the difference and the threat it presents to the world. A man of your intellect should separate these two religions from each other but alas,,,, you are grouping it with Christianity. Whose heads have we cut off in the last century.. that is when socialized civilization started instead of being barbarians , is it not?.

How do you associate the entire Islamic religion with ISIS? They are not even close to the same thing either. Do you not support American Muslims? What about the ones that were in the towers during 9/11? What about the ones who fight in the US military? Certainly they are worth something to you. I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate being compared to ISIS as they are fighting them.

Not to mention 1/4 of the world identify as Muslim. Can you imagine if they were all terrorists and extremists? The world would be a much more bleak place. Obviously, they are not.

Christian extremists still exist. They may not behead people, but they do still use their religion to commit crime.

For all those out there, my idea of a liberal(s) are those people in this country that Hate this country in its present form, those that hate the people who do not agree with them. ( I'll call no names out here although that does not stop the liberals on these threads from doing so). and those people that want socialism (anything goes) and promotes a Big Nanny government, instead of Capitalism or entrepreneurship.

Well, then by your definition, I'm certainly not a liberal. I don't hate this country. I hate some of the directions it's taken that have destroyed the values this country has held for centuries: The things that have made us go from a respected country to laughing stock in the face of much of the world.

I believe strongly in the principals of helping people. I believe in the Constitution, ALL of it, I don't nitpick. I believe in the Statue of Liberty, which certainly has a strong symbol of helping those in need, not turning them away and closing borders to the suffering like so many seem to want today, never mind what that would do to our economy. I believe in helping the suffering in our own country. Unlike what Faux news wants you to believe, very few people using government assistance are the drug-addicted/using, lazy, etc... Check the widening distribution of income. The middle class doesn't even exist anymore. Capitalism in its current form is failing, although it started wonderfully.

I don't think that is the definition of socialism...

This will be my last posting on this forum. I simply have burnt out and really just don't care if any of the atheist on this water cooler makes the right choice or not. As far as the Agnostics such as yourself Doc, you should be able to separate those in the church from the right Choice. You know the difference and yet decide to forsake him. Your BAD!

I'm agnostic. I just can't believe in the hypocricy of "The Holy Bible." God made Man, Man is imperfect, yet man wrote the Bible. How do we know they didn't get the message wrong? Then, they translated it many different times to suit their needs of the time. The book is hardly in it's original form and certainly has lost some clarity over time. Didn't you ever play telephone in school? Things always get changed the more something is rewritten, especially when translations occur where words could have more than one meaning or not even exist in the other language.

At any rate, I'm sorry to see you go.

I ask Rabbie (hope I spelled your name right this time) to remove my profile from the forum completely and immediately. Should I need the expert advice of the excellent moderators here, I will do so as a guest, if allowed.

Two things.

1. We will not remove your profile completely. We cannot.
2. You cannot post as a guest. You must create a profile to post.

One last thing, Good luck to all of you and I hope I have given you some food for thought in amongst all of the hatred that is present on this thread. I really do hope you make the right choice. To the moderators, I appreciate your help and appreciate even more your allowing me to bring a little bit of truth about Jesus and the eternal life that is available to all who ask to your Atheist thread.

"Say Good Night Gracie"


BLADE

You come into an "atheist" thread, you must have understood there would be some holes poked in what you post. I'm sure as frustrating as it has been for you, it's been equally frustrating to many on here.

In the end, just remember, it's only the internet. The internet cannot hurt you. Take a break! I've disappeared for over a year before. Sometimes we need it.

 

[ColinEssex]

This will be my last posting on this forum.


BLADE

Perhaps now we can have some discussions that don't turn to religion or guns. Plus maybe, we or I won't get any more creepy stalker like PM's telling me what to do with me, my life and my wife - like he knows.

It's all too easy to tell others how to live their life especially if you are a self righteous closed minded religious freak. That's the best way to alienate people against you.

Col

 

[spikepl]

OMG (!) I'd have loved to see this one battle it out with that other religious freak, Aziz-something, about whose imaginary friend's got the biggest dingeling, or whatever it is that seems significant to them.

Other than that, I'm still awaiting a signal from the Big Chicken in the Sky.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Spike - he did, to a point, but both of them reserved their venom primarily for the atheists and agnostics. The discussions were summer of last year, IIRC, so we're talking 50-75 pages back.

I'll try to remember to PM God on Facebook for you when I get home tonight.

 

[spikepl]

Ah OK - I missed all that fervour, apparently. Say hello to her on FB for me, thx.

 

[Frothingslosh]

The one on FB is definitely a guy. He's the one behind all the God Loves Gays billboards that keep popping up.

 

[spikepl]

That's another mystery for me. Guy or Gal or sexless Chicken? If neither is going to use their "equipment" then what exactly is the point having it?

 

[JoeyJoystick]

100% Atheist

Hi All,

Interesting reading on a sensitive subject. Here my opinion.

I would like to approach the whole issue from a completely different angle. I think that when we understand why we have religions that we also understand and agree that there is no god. Call it an opinion, a theory or anything you feel comfortable with, but this is how I feel about the subject. Alternatively, you can of course dismiss the whole idea also.

So here the big questions..

Where does religion come from?

Let's go back some 20,000-50,000 years ago. We were hunters and gatherers. We started to live in small tribes and settle. We started to communicate by voice. We started to live in a single place. A very dangerous move because we were not following the food supply anymore, but we started to create our own food supply. A lot of unknown variables.

At times people were scared and had reasons to be scared too. Some people in the community were smarter than others though and realised that fear could potentially break up the community. let's refer to them as the medicine men. People with respect from the community. For these communities to work there had to be unity. So when people were scared of the thunder and lightning the elderly would relax them by telling them that this was the god of thunder. And when a raft was lost at sea it was because the god of the sea was angry. Of course a good catch was also attributed to the god of the sea. These explanations were necessary to keep the village together and united.

At a later stage when the societies people lived in got larger and civilisation got more advanced the status of these medicine men also got elevated to a higher level. Something we can relate to today as prophets or even half-gods. Some examples; Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi and even the King of Thailand today can be referred to as a half-god I think. These people had good visions and ideas how to make our society better. How to make us better people. This was originally the idea and the intention.

I think we can all relate to dreams/visions we have had in the past about good or bad things that had happened or may happen in the future. We just did not write them down and did not tell the people around us about it.

Sadly, the none-violence approach of many of these people has quickly been misinterpreted. God has been used as an excuse to keep control over the people and this even goes as far as making sure that the masses simply did not get an education to make sure that they were easier to control.

The analogy I will make here is a bit odd, but; Just like unions and Greenpeace; religion has had the best of times, served its purpose, but is way outdated now and the people running it have lost track of the original purpose of what it was all about. Surely this has got nothing to do with a god as an entity that created us all and keeps a level of control over our past, present and future life.

The problem we are facing is that the nature of people is that we like to hold on to what we have and what we know because it makes us feel secure. Changes in our lives are scary and is something that the majority will try very hard to avoid.

Holding on to the past is what stops us from moving forward.

So for me no religion.

note: I have been raised as a catholic. And I do appreciate my education in norms and values which in my case is because of the catholic background of my parents. I am aware that this can of course also be done without a religious background and sadly we also see around us that many religious people do not live by the values and standards that their religion preaches.

Anyway, just my point of view. May be a bit odd, but I personally believe there is a lot of truth in the above.

Joost (Joey)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Joost,

Some of us have been trying to press this exact point home for a long time. Studying Man via Anthropology and our perceptions of Neolithic history would immediately lead to this point. The difficulty is always that the people of religion were brought up in a way that so strongly orients them to their beliefs that they CAN'T give up the ideas.

If you are familiar with Transactional Analysis and the tripartite mind theory, you would realize that religion, being a learned thing, is part of the Parent self and preys on the fears of the Child self. By the time we get old enough for the Adult self to kick in and start negating the lies told to us while we were still children, we run into an extreme case of cognitive dissonance - which only makes the Child self (the bearer of emotions) go bonkers. Which is why religious extremists get all worked up about it. The emotional turmoil of the Child self is so strong that they nearly panic at the idea that their parents, the persons they trusted most in this world, would have dared to lie to them.

I'll be honest - after 30 years of growing up in a Methodist household, it took me more than just a couple of years to get past that emotional barrier. I did, but don't doubt for a moment that it was painless. I forgive the extremely religious because they are victims. I just wish there could be a gentle way to keep this generation's victims from becoming the next generation's perpetrators and perpetuators.

 

[Brianwarnock]

Doc
You make appear that our parents deliberately lied to us, well I'm sure mine didn't. My parents would have been brainwashed just as the previous generations, and after rudimentary education both left school at 13 to spend the rest of their lives working long and hard with little or no time for reflection on their beliefs , hell my mother was refused communion by her church for marrying a Protestant but still remained a committed Catholic.
They knew no different, but the situation did force me to challenge the whole religious thing when I became old enough.

But I do not hold anything against my parents.

Brian

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Doc,

As you mentioned in your very first posting, interesting to discuss this with people that have a higher education. It mostly excludes the kind of language that normally stops me from entering such discussions. The difficulty always is of course that it tends to be an endless discussion. After all, it is pretty pointless to argue with 'A Believe' in general.

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you initially to move away from the way you have been brought up. I have seen this myself from close by several times. A bit like telling a child that Santa Claus is not real, only this is a lot easier for a child to deal with than an adult. Myself, I was about 12 years old when I realised myself that this was not for me. I clearly remember this time. I did used to go to church on Sundays with my Grandmother though. She used to live with us and she was too old to go alone. I guess I would do that again if needs be. But that is compassion for the needy more than anything else.

A real turning point was the following though. I must have been about 16-17 years old and went to a mass for a family member who had recently passed away. I was the youngest in the church with my brother in law being 12 years older the second youngest. The majority of people was in the age gap of 55-75 years old. Anyway, mass commenced. And at one point the priest went rabbling on in Latin and everybody stood up at the same time and started talking/praying/singing at the same time and the same thing. And I had a hard time not to burst out laughing when I realised that nobody actually knew what either the priest or themselves were actually saying. That is when I said I will never go to a church again. Not a statement I can hold, but the only exception is still today that I will go there out of respect for people that are dear to me. Being a little older I can control myself well enough to not make a fool out of myself, or anyone else for that matter.

I have recently started reading a book that you may find of interest. It is called Non-Violence, The History of a Dangerous Idea, by; Mark Kurlansky. I have not finished it yet, but especially the very beginning of the book is interesting in the context of this topic in the sense that it shows what religion was intended to do and how we made up excuses to distort the initial views in order to justify what we wanted to achieve. I say we because I do not think Atheism was much of a thing back in those days... If you read it, I would appreciate your opinion on it.

I am sitting here with my sister and we can openly talk about stuff like this. She is in the category of people that are not religious but believe that there is something. In Dutch we call something 'iets'. They now actually have an English word adapted from this called ietsism which is self explanatory when you know the translation. Initially in Holland, but now worldwide apparently this is the fastest growing religious group. A group of people who think that this wondrous world is so absolutely amazing that there must be a higher power.

What bugs me about religion as a nonbeliever is the following though. There is billions of people that believe and spend time, money and other resources on something that is not there. And all this has been going on for thousands of years. And in addition to this the believes are dictating to us to hold on to the past. Imagine where we could have been today if we had not had religion.

Anyway, back to the real world again and continue to respect the people around me. With all there opinions and ideas.

Best Regards,


Joost (Joey)

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Brian,

I hear what you're saying, but the problem with religion is of course that it is a believe. His parents, as well as mine, never thought for a second that that they lied to us and I am pretty sure that this is not what Doc meant, but that is for him to elaborate. Bottom line, they did deliberately say to us what they said and they did that with the best of intentions. If what's being said is not the truth, then by default it is a lie. However, this does not mean that our parent deliberately lied to us.

And this contradiction leaves us here with a bit of a dilemma. Not something worth arguing over though, since it was not done with bad intentions.


Best regards,

Joost (Joey)

 

[Frothingslosh]

Brian - I don't read it as Doc saying that your parents deliberately lied to you. I'm sure they very much believed what they taught you; it's just that a lie doesn't stop being a lie just because you believe it to be true. (Deeply-held beliefs, true or not, get so tied into one's concept of self that it makes self-delusion of ANY sort seemingly impossible to break - ask any Scientologist or battered spouse!)

Joey - What you're discussing sounds an AWFUL lot like Deism, which is hardly new.

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Frothingslosh,

English is not my first language, so I just learned a new word. Anyways, I think you are referring to my comments on 'Ietsism' when you say it looks an awful lot like Deism. After reading up on this a little I am getting the impression that indeed they have quite a bit in common, but I think there is a very important difference. Deism does believe in a creator whereas Ietsism simply believes in a higher 'something', but this is not necessarily a (single) creator.

Quote from Wikipedia describes what I want to say very well I see:

Ietsism (Dutch: ietsisme (pronounced [itsˈɪsmə]) – "somethingism") is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent force. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the material and that which can be seen” than we know about, but on the other hand do not necessarily accept or subscribe to the established belief system, dogma or view of the nature of God offered by any particular religion.

​

This pretty much explains the differences. But I agree that they have indeed quite a bit in common as well.

To me it sounds like, and I also get this feeling (feeling, they do not speak this out loud and clear...) from the people I speak to, that it is a safe and intermediate stage from religion to atheism. Not too many radical changes in your life and not too many people in your direct surroundings getting upset while having distantiated (does this word make sense in English??) yourself from the institutions, with which you conveniently do not have to deal with anymore either.

Anyway, ietsism is not for me either. I still am a devoted atheist.

Joost (Joey)

 

[Brianwarnock]

Yes distantiated is a good English word, even if spell check flags it up.

It's typical of the Dutch to speak better English than us.

Brian

 

[The_Doc_Man]

To clarify - my parents and many other parents unknowingly propagate a myth, for which I forgive them. There IS, however, a certain irony because in the process of healing from this situation, I have to say, "I forgive you, father, for you know not what you do."

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The farthest I will go in the Deism/Ietism path is that whatever is out there, to me, cannot be sentient. If there is anything out there, it is a force of Nature that follows certain laws of physics, chemistry, math, whatever else applies - but those forces are not based on something have created a program and started it running so that it eventually reached our existence (the "Intelligent Design" crowd, e.g.) This isn't "The Matrix" and there is nobody running the show - which in a sense means there IS no show, there is only natural scenery.

 

[ColinEssex]

Hi Frothingslosh,

English is not my first language, . . . .

Joost (Joey)

Don't worry, it's not Frothy's either, he's American.

Col