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About LinkBacksFuddam.. that's cheating!!!
Did you actually read through it before posting or just presumed that I've done what I've done previously and made lots of sense in little sense at all...
Fuddam.. that's cheating!!!
Did you actually read through it before posting or just presumed that I've done what I've done previously and made lots of sense in little sense at all...
Originally Posted by Fortune117
Kids are getting smarter, eventually no amount of parental controls will be able to stop themI guess we're expected to do quite well
Fuddam, this has me intrigued..
see my response to Stewart, at the end. If you *meet* with God, it kinda becomes clear
There is no grey area. We are on different sides of the fence. Until you have been on my side, it naturally appears to be little more than Jack & his beanstalk.
Could I ask how you have "met" your God? No problem if this is something you'd like to keep private I was just interested.
(There is no sarcasm in this post I am genuinely interested)
P.S Sorry if you've answered this already!
Not so. It's evolutionary psychology. A tribe with a common set of goals (and young men willing to lay down their lives thanks to the hope of life after death) has an advantage. You can see an excellent parrallel in the rise of the neo-conservative movement in America, and how the country is united by common goals and common enemies. The success of the evangelical church uniquely in America is a product of the Straussian idea that the people can becontrolled in this way.
Aside from that, cultures accross the globe have all invented their own gods, they have no interest in seeking yours. Where do you come up with this garbage?
TeePee - out of sheer interest, and a distaste of searching through 17 pages of various insuults and repeated arguments.... what are your beliefs?
Kids are getting smarter, eventually no amount of parental controls will be able to stop them
I lol'ed at this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl9ldtRFigw
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
MadduckUK (30-07-2008)
nice find, watched a few more off the linky thing as well.. all good stuff
Vodka
I believe in the trinity.
Evidence, logic and reasoned argument.
Science, naturally.
So what happens now if I call those views foolish because they don't include a God, which it just so happens that I know believe in for the duration of this post, and therefore not substantial so your viewpoints count for nothing?
Could you substantiate your beliefs, providing reasonable and reliable evidence for all of it?
Kids are getting smarter, eventually no amount of parental controls will be able to stop them
lol, no. that was a response to the previous post, but somehow yours slipped in between. Wasn't like that when I posted it, but mine not to reason why
what he means is that he's a materialist, with all its incumbent problems. And that he has a belief about God, namely that He doesn't exist. No proof, but a belief.I believe in the trinity.
Evidence, logic and reasoned argument.
Science, naturally.
Atheism is NOT the absence of belief, as many would have us believe. Sorry.
good question, and while I've answered it on other threads, that was way back.
Grew up in a Christian family. went to church / the whole thing, but didn't know Him personally. Used to sit in church, sometimes listening, sometimes reading / just thinking. A religious practice.
Aged 11 IIRC, went to a youth meeting that my older sister had been frequenting. At the end, we were asked who wanted to know Christ personally, who wanted to invite Him in, repent for one's sins, and give one's life to Him. I said yes.
The experience was immediate. Intense joy / crying / relief / praying in tongues. My brother (aged 10) did likewise / similar response. Went home different people.
For about a week afterwards I was floating on cloud nine. Crazy joy. Peace. Wanted to rush out and share the experience with all and sundry - 'share da love!'
After about a week, I knowingly sinned. Something small, i.e. was impatient or angry or something like that - I don't remember exact details - but it devastated me. Freaked out, more crying etc. As an 11yr old, wasn't aware that I would sin again, but equally, immediately knew Christ's forgiveness for that sin, in my repentance.
My friends knew there had been a change - in my attitude, behaviour etc. Since then, have been in RELATIONSHIP with Him, which includes the usual: laughter, arguments, debates, sulks, joy. Nothing negative from His side, only mine. Have been constantly amazed by His patience with me, and love for me despite my 'unfaithfulness'.
My conversion isn't the dramatic tale that many have, but then I wasn't coming from a dark, dark place (drugs/alcohol/violence/abuse). I was privileged to have grown up in a truly Christian family.
In a nutshell, I know Christ within me, in a way that didn't exist before I made the decision. He became REAL. I communicate to Him by simple prayer; He responds in many ways. Sometimes through the physical world (things I see, hear, read) and sometimes internally (dreams, ideas, speech). I can literally hear Him talk. He is not just a 'nice feeling'.
It sounds pretty loony to a non-Christian, but am not the first nor the last nor the best to describe the experience. More than anything, I have peace and joy from my relationship with Him, and that often in the face of extreme adversity. Can only describe it as awesome.
^ Typical story.
A female father told me about hers. Practically identical.
No, the Father wasn't a transvestite, it's just the peculiarites of Christianity that allow a female to become "Father [name]" instead of "Mother [name]" as Father be the correct form of address
Kids are getting smarter, eventually no amount of parental controls will be able to stop them
Do you seriously think you will be taken seriously by people when you make absurd comments like that?
Atheism is the absence of belief in a deity by any dictionary definition, you are trying (badly) to imply that Atheism is a belief system and you have been down this road before. I will say it clearly, Atheism is not a philosophy or a religion and if somebody tells you they are an atheist then the only possible assumption you can make about that person is they they do not believe in deities. its not a belief system, its not a club or a church, its a single trait which some individuals share but that is all.
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
Fuddam, its an interesting tale however you should know with your degree in psycology that you are displaying enough symptoms of Schitzophrenia right?
DSM IV-TR Criteria
To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a person must display:[4]
* Characteristic symptoms: Two or more of the following, each present for much of the time during a one-month period (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment)
o delusions
o hallucinations
o disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence; speaking in abstracts). See thought disorder.
o grossly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior
o negative symptoms, i.e., affective flattening (lack or decline in emotional response), alogia (lack or decline in speech), or avolition (lack or decline in motivation).
Note: If delusions are judged to be bizarre, or hallucinations consist of hearing one voice participating in a running commentary of the patient's actions or of hearing two or more voices conversing with each other, only that symptom is required above. The speech disorganization criterion is only met if it is severe enough to substantially impair communication.
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
Atheists have the belief that nothing exists, therefore they have a belief in something and a belief system.
Saying that it's not a belief doesn't mean it's not a belief, it just means that you don't understand your own philosophies, or are failing to see them from an objective viewpoint.
The abscence of belief, in itself, is belief. If atheists had no belief, then all atheists would be converted, as they would be like an empty jug waiting to be filled and the convertors would fill them with belief.
As they refuse to believe in anything, it can be presumed that they are either agnostic (and therefore may NOT be atheistic) or that they are stubborn atheists who fail to realise that to lack belief you must have belief in no belief.
And if you can follow that I'm amazed.
I didn't phrase it too well.
EDIT: You know that a vast majority of Atheists suffer from Ostrichhead?
Kids are getting smarter, eventually no amount of parental controls will be able to stop them
This thread is like a pool of molten gold: it might hurt but I can't stop myself from diving into it.
I have gone to church schools all of my life and believe me I have had the virtues of religion and faith solidly set into my mind. But ever since I was in the last years of primary school I have always found questions and gaps in my understanding of the world. Of course I assumed that there were things about God and my knowledge of His Kingdom that I didn't know about so I ignored them and carried on praying for presents and good exams results etc (while promising to be better lol).
Soon physics class filled these small gaps for me; and I was quite content with God sitting above my head somewhere while physics (and common sense) explained how things happened. I still prayed for presents and good exam results of course.
Then something funny happened. I found a copy of Simon Singh's "The Big Bang" in my physics classroom. I asked my teacher if I could borrow it and took to it during a particularly hot summer. I had always disregarded the big bang theory because it seemed impossible, never mind stupid, that our world could've come from a speck of dust. But I was interested to find out what the fuss was about. After reading the book, it managed to answer nearly (nearly) all of my questions and doubts about the big bang. But this caused a contradiction in my head. The evidence was out in front of me, I knew where the world came from... but where was God in all of this?
The simple answer was that God created the world using the big bang. But that wasn't enough for me anymore, I couldn't let God slip away again this time: I had to find out fully where God stands and I set about gathering all the knowledge I could to settle this fire in my head.
After reading several books on the cosmos, I came across "Origins" co-authored by Donald Goldsmith (can't remember main author); by this time God had been reduced to a tiny gremlin hiding in the darkest corner of my mind. It was like coming up for air after a very long time spent on a crowded underground train. I now understood the power of "survival of the fittest" and how it explains everything, and I mean why everything we see is the way it is. For the small part of the world that we can't see (i.e. the rest of the universe lol), Einstein's general theory of relativity fills in the gaps (that's gravity in simple terms lol).
I had a completely different change of perspective, and now it was easy to see where religion and the idea of gods came from. People couldn't explain strange happening around them so they used the idea of beings or powers to explain it (the Aztecs' "Sun" god for example). But soon we had the understanding to explain these things, so the "Sun" god was discarded. This has been happening throughout history when one way of explaining things gets replaced by another. We have been using "science" for a very long time now; it is not a new thing that some people seem to think. It is not a "thing" either, science is our curiosity: it is our desire to master the world we live in.
The thing that was hardest to grasp going from "god made a home for us" to "I'm standing on a lump of rock" was simply trying to place God somewhere (as we are accustomed to). You eventually realise you don't need to place God anywhere, God was made up by man and now you're mature enough to see that. It's very much like the devastation of finding out Santa doesn't exist, but it lets you appreciate what's really behind all this. I hope I have at least provoked some thought among those that have stayed with me so far.
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