I Converted A Catholic To Atheism

reply to post by vethumanbeing

'trust me': I will not hurt you, (all false sincereity).

I was under the impression that he was using that expression to get out of jams and tight situations. That's what I meant by it.

reply to post by vethumanbeing

Similar to speaking about drought, railing against it , knowing there is such a thing as (rainfall--water) and hating it for not falling. There is no square one as you do not come close to enlightenning me to anything but your blatent contempt well hidden manipulations of the tuely sincere contributors to this thread, even those that have similar thoughtforms!

Well-hidden manipulations of the participants? Where is your evidence? I have been as courteous as I am able to be over the course of a 60+ page thread. I am not perfect, but none of us are. I feel your accusations are ill-founded.

Originally posted by pthena
reply to post by vethumanbeing

'trust me': I will not hurt you, (all false sincereity).

I was under the impression that he was using that expression to get out of jams and tight situations. That's what I meant by it.

You cannot possibly take that image and mean it to describe yourself, and even so, Puss-n-boots was different devious in its insererity, just as cats are predators, draw it in and pounce (no mercy).

reply to post by vethumanbeing


You seem very easily easily offended and on-guard. Why are you so sensitive to the discussion?

reply to post by wildtimes

And THEN, you attacked the views of
people who have a problem with ALL
of the 'religions' again, implying
(stating) that for someone to say
"none of them are true" was somehow bigoted or ignorant or
arrogant.

yes, how can anyone say that anything is not true??
You may say that you don't know the ANSWERS, but how can you also say that you know what the ANSWERS are not(by rejecting ideas of the abrahamic religions)
That would mean you already have a certain expectation.
If thats the case then you may not agree to what the answers are because they don't fit your "expectation"

i also object to you hinting that anyone who does follow any religion has a "limited" intellect!! If thats not arrogant then what it is?

Also do google Imam Ghazali and read who he was, he is in the same class as plato etc.

well for the sake of it, i can give you
that religion is not required for morals,

Well, that's very refreshing, and
reassuring!! Maybe I misread you.
Again.
That happens between you and me more often than not.

i didnt stop at that, i agreed that religion may not be required but i still say that belief in God is. Hope you read it fully.

reply to post by logical7

i also object to you hinting that anyone who does follow any religion has a "limited" intellect!! If thats not arrogant then what it is?

*sigh*
I am not "hinting" anything.

I am SAYING that IN MY OPINION to accept any other person's version of "Truth" without questioning it is lazy!

It is not "arrogant." It is "common sense." You are not God, and neither am I. Neither was Mohammed or your Imam guy or Plato or Thomas Paine or ANYONE ELSE!

i agreed that religion may not be required but i still say that belief in God is. Hope you read it fully.

Oh, so now you're going to retract what you just said that "I give you that religion is not necessary for morals" and put a 'disclaimer and qualifier' on it that "belief in God" is? I disagree. Atheists have just as much morality as Believers. I will NOT back down from that position, either. Because it's just not true that an Atheist is by definition "immoral." It isn't.

It is NOT TRUE.

reply to post by logical7

i didnt stop at that, i agreed that religion may not be required but i still say that belief in God is.

And why do you say that? Why is a god necessary?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by vethumanbeing

 

Similar to speaking about drought, railing against it , knowing there is such a thing as (rainfall--water) and hating it for not falling. There is no square one as you do not come close to enlightenning me to anything but your blatent contempt well hidden manipulations of the tuely sincere contributors to this thread, even those that have similar thoughtforms!

Well-hidden manipulations of the participants? Where is your evidence? I have been as courteous as I am able to be over the course of a 60+ page thread. I am not perfect, but none of us are. I feel your accusations are ill-founded.

Evidence; the length of the thread is evidence enough, well done, the garden party is ongoing probably because you are withholding the door prizes. Not capable of accusations, (seems negative) not in my nature, be aware this thread is important; it allows for many points of view (and so its length). Call me out as disengenuous on this observation (YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO).

originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by vethumanbeing

afterinfinity
You seem very easily easily offended and on-guard. Why are you so sensitive to the discussion?

We share the same parents.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

reply to post by wildtimes

I am SAYING that IN MY OPINION to accept any other person's version of "Truth" without questioning it is lazy!

accepting anything without questioning is wrong. Now that being said, it brings up the question of believing a person about something unseen, here its about "God and afterlife". If a person comes and claims to be a prophet and that he got a book from God. I have enough reason to doubt it and i can examine the claim by examining the Book. Thats what i did, i already believed in a Creator and i read the book and it gave me enough proof that its the TRUTH. Now you cannot deny it unless you examine it.
You are very correct that we cannot know the ANSWERS and that being true, if we have a Creator then "common sense" demands that we somehow should get informed about what we cannot know, by the Creator.
Otherwise each can just keep wandering blindly not knowing much and making up philosophies.

Oh, so now you're going to retract
what you just said that "I give you that
religion is not necessary for morals"
and put a 'disclaimer and qualifier' on
it that "belief in God" is? I disagree.
Atheists have just as much morality as Believers. I will NOT back down from
that position, either. Because it's just
not true that an Atheist is by definition
"immoral." It isn't. It is NOT TRUE.

i never just said that much, i continued and said the other part, i had to post it again because you misread again, just this time in your favour.

I never said that Atheist are immoral or all theist are moral.
I said that a belief in God is necessary to keep people moral or bring them back if they have drifted.
(@ AI reply for you too)
Its very simple, without a belief in God and Absolute Justice on Judgement day, the morality is completely relative as people fail to follow the golden rule or very few do it without believing in God as you suggest(too few to keep the society upright)
so my stand is that a Godless society cannot survive for long as a Godless society soon will give in to greed, corruption and injustice leading to its collapse ultimately.
Maybe a military state may exist if its people are enough dumbed down to make them believe that the military is actually protecting them and the cameras are for their safety!

reply to post by vethumanbeing

Okay, how about a dog who thought he had super powers, reduced to begging for a time, found out he didn't really have super powers, and yet still saved his girl.

Originally posted by pthena
reply to post by vethumanbeing

Okay, how about a dog who thought he had super powers, reduced to begging for a time, found out he didn't really have super powers, and yet still saved his girl.

edit on 24-6-2013 by pthena because: (no reason given)

The dog has more sense than the human (in at least having an imagination it put to some use failed or otherwise, the intent was there). It tryed, and in the act of failure there is a success because it believed in itself enough to take the risk to 'save the girl'. Begging is a brilliant way to take others off their guard, you have humbled yourself, and wait to see the reactions of those seeing you as what you are not but preferenced/presented yourself as. In reality you are Siddhartha pretending to be a dog. Begging bowl in hand.

reply to post by jmdewey60

If you were a New England Presbyterian and you had it pointed out that the Bible says Jesus would return in 1844, by the formula given in Daniel about the years, and you refused to believe it even though it seemed convincing that it really said that, then you would be sinning if you thought that your King James Bible was magically The Word of God as if He wrote it and translated it Himself.

But a New England Presbyterian minister would have had a greater education than Miller. Chances are he would have known enough Hebrew to translate the passages himself.

Yale University 1701-

If the question had arisen about whether people should believe the Baptist minister's theory, the Presbyterian minister could have quite easily quelled the unease of congregation members.

And for their unbelief they were numbered among the "wicked". As for the KJV, I don't think the idea of "Divinely Authored KJV" was even in vogue yet. I may be wrong though, about when it came into vogue.

reply to post by pthena

And for their unbelief they were numbered among the "wicked".

Probably my analogy doesn't really hold up well if those who had believed in Millers message judged those who didn't as wicked, because if you were following what Paul was saying, when you wouldn't do that.
But it might explain why the people who accepted it would have felt guilty if they would have stopped believing, even after it was proven wrong by not happening at the predicted time.
What I wanted to get to was how today, 169 years later, people brought up believing in an always imminent second coming, once they realize what a mess Daniel is with it being a conglomeration of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and what a mess the KJV is, that they can let go of that doctrine and feel guilt free. Then it wouldn't be a "sin" to not believe because the formula is not now very convincing.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Then it wouldn't be a "sin" to not believe because the formula is not now very convincing.

The only reason it was convincing then is because we knew less than we know now. And fear has always been a very effective tool...

reply to post by jmdewey60

that they can let go of that doctrine and feel guilt free. Then it wouldn't be a "sin" to not believe because the formula is not now very convincing.

In the 1980s it became public knowledge (maybe suppressed in some quarters) that none of the denominational leaders even believed in 1844 from as early as the 1950s.

And given the fact that 1844 as beginning of investigative judgment is the only unique characteristic of the denomination, then there really was no reason, since the 1950s to even continue as a separatist sect. There was, for a short time, in the 1950s a movement to rejoin the mainstream as a simple denomination among denominations. The movement got quashed. The only logical conclusion to be drawn is that the leadership saw some advantage in remaining cultish. Not a doctrinal reason, but rather a political or economic reason.

It gets a bit disturbing to look under the skirts of power.

But the heart of the issue boils down to how the people felt after the Great Disappointment. Those who admitted that they had deluded themselves were counted among the "wicked", and here's why:

The remnant "little flock" were so convinced in their own minds that God had given the message divine sanction through an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that it became a matter of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" to deny the message. Basically, to question your temporary delusion was to damn yourself eternally.

Over a 15(?) year period, many different theories were put forward to try to explain what did happen in 1844. Each theory in its turn was held as absolute defining truth, until another theory replaced it to become the absolute defining truth.

This book here, documents the changes, with extensive footnotes: Notice, it's been around since 1977, while I was in college.

Foundations of the Seventh-Day Adventist Message and Mission,P. Gerard. Damsteegt, 1977.

reply to post by pthena


...That's scary. See, these psychological tricks are dangerous and pervasive. I've said again and again that many of these miracles and experiences are more a product of ignorance and willingness to be convinced than anything else.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I've said again and again that many of these miracles and experiences are more a product of ignorance and willingness

I don't dispute miracles. I dispute the validity of one person "sharing" their personal miracle as a "proof" to someone else. A miracle is meaningful to those who witness it, no one else. Even miracles do not prove that miracles happen, as strange and contradictory as that may sound.

But yes, I concede that fake miracles abound, almost every one that you will ever hear or read about.

Different people have different methods of breaking free of delusion. For me, it was to put myself in the place of "the damned", in whatever context that is taken to be. From that perspective, I could evaluate the "justice" involved in my own damnation. If there is no justice then something surely is amiss with the categorization.

If we take the Christian doctrine of Jesus becoming "sin for us" as an example. Suppose he challenged the Moses and the Prophets paradigm of his day. What we see then is that the god of Moses and the Prophets saw fit that he die. The god, even if taken as the collective psychic force of the system in place, whether a conscious entity or not, is demonstrated as unjust. Jesus demonstrably comes out as more just than the god. Therefore, if Jesus was speaking of a just god as Father, then it was not the god who killed him.

I snuck in a plug for neo-Marcionism

reply to post by pthena

Over a 15(?) year period, many different theories were put forward to try to explain what did happen in 1844.

I recently sat in a Sabbath School class and listened to the teacher rattle off a rendition and it was pretty detailed while also being succinct, and it seemed to involve no thought process whatsoever other than reciting what seemed to be a prepared script.
I was at first impressed but gradually became less so as my thoughts on it made me conclude that at best he had only a superficial real understanding of what he had just said.
I didn't try to rebut any of it and realize now how foolish it would have been if I had.
To be on topic a bit, slavish service to cultish doctrines is more counterproductive than otherwise, probably contributing to more later cynicism by people who had witnessed the solemnity to how those things had been treated.