Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
*giving a parade for jones-sy*! Yes! Yes!! YES!!! It DOES work, as you said!
I believe in God AND the bible for the same reason: Because it works. It makes sense.
It works? It makes sense? Not to me it doesn't - I have ashen proof that it does NOT work! And by implication, does not make sense. Would you like me to post a picture of the little white box next to my bed? It even has his name on it. Plus there is a photo of him taken three weeks before he died.
Then again, I suppose it depends on what you are saying works for you. Care to elaborate?
Mystic, it absolutely floors me that you, an otherwise seemingly extremely intelligent individual of some years (did I understand it to be 60+) can refuse to at least concede that, given these experiences of yours were done in deep trance/medication and not the result of some serious medical situation in which you lost all vital signs, it's possible they were not genuine OBE's but simply altered states of consciousness in which you imagined your spirit traveled to the spiritual world. I mean can't at least grant it's possible?
Make that 80+, thrill. If it was a one-off, you might be justified in thinking so, but it wasn't. I came to realize that I was actually perceiving an actual aspect of our Reality that is not accessible through our sensory system. By withdrawing from the sensory system, I encounter what the brain interprets directly from the EM spectrum (both measurable and unmeasurable - dark energy). It required sober concentration and discipline to parse what my subconscious created (as it does in a dream state) from what was actually separate from it. The content from my subconscious could be altered by me so I identified it that way. What I could NOT alter I knew was not created by my mind but is an actual aspect of our Reality. I have zero doubt about my experience of a conscious Reality which is the very definition of God. My quest to understand this startling truth intellectually took decades.
That you were an atheist is proof you perceived/had knowledge of a god.
But no conception of such an entity or its attributes as anything other than a fictional character. What I encountered fit NONE of the fictional attributes associated with the God concept extant. That was what prompted my decades-long quest to explain it to my intellect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea Your god lets down the blind, deaf, mentally retarded, amputees, the comatose, the vegetated and Billions of others on a daily basis.
I'm sure it's great fun for your god.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mink57
How do you know for certain that God has "let them down"?
There are plenty of blind, deaf, mentally retarded, amputees, comatose, vegetated and homeless people, even victims of crimes, who don't believe that "God let them down".
If *YOU* had any of those experiences, *YOU* may think that God let *YOU* down.
But you don't get to speak for ALL others in the same circumstances.
Would it surprise you to know that some of those "less fortunate" people do NOT see themselves as "less fortunate", but who actually THANK GOD for their disability?
Astonishing. I told Mink pretty much the same thing as Mircea but a little more pointedly:
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
Mink, I say to you with an oil tanker's worth of compassion which Jesus, being a myth, could never offer you: you are so out of touch with reality you don't know if you're coming or going.
SERIOUSLY!
You are so immersed in this dream world of Christian woo that you cannot see the forest for the trees. I did compliment you elsewhere that you are the most adept apologist at making excuses for God that I have ever encountered here on CD. Your virtuosity takes my breath away, SERIOUSLY! Every objection a skeptic raises about God's absence in the world you are johnny-on-the-spot with defenses of God that are so outrageously stupefying I am often left agape. My jaw shatters when it hits the ground.
When I say God doesn't help the defenseless, you don't proffer anything reasonably intelligent to counter my claim. You don't offer examples to show how God DOES help the defenseless. All you say is, "Why don't you go out and help defenseless people if you're so concerned about them??????
Oh my Gawwwwwwwwd....! Why in the hell should I, being 70 and not in great health, go out and do God's job? Why don't you--seeing as how you preach Jesus wants Christians to out into the world and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. YOU fly to Tanzania and minister to the poor. Unless you don't really care about them, that is. In that case I'd love to see you when you stand in front of the judgement throne of Jesus and he throws Matthew 25:31-46 at you. Ha! Try to duck that one! Then haul out your asbestos suit in case he prints you a one-way ticket to hell.
Pull out a pin, pop that bubble you live in and see the world as it really is. Here's my evidence God doesn't help anybody, least of all starving children. Where's your evidence He does??????
And asked her a direct question which reversed the exact same question she asked me: "where is your evidence God does [physically helps the poor, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the sick, the hungry, etc.] and I never got a "boo" from her. She probably put me me on ignore simply because my question was too tough for her to answer. Not surprising. I never knew Mink to be one to run from a question, having dubbed her the greatest "BS'ing for God" expert I have ever come across in all my years on this board.
Now jones comes along with essentially just an inspirational video demonstrating how a person with severe handicaps can overcome adversity and find meaning in life, which is something millions of atheists do every day. I don't see how God figures into this gentleman's unfortune in the least. If anything it clearly demonstrates God allows evil to grind us into the ground but yet a rare few are able to rise, on their own I might add, and lead "whole" lives.
A testament to the goodness of man, NOT an evil God.
Mystic, it absolutely floors me that you, an otherwise seemingly extremely intelligent individual of some years (did I understand it to be 60+) can refuse to at least concede that, given these experiences of yours were done in deep trance/medication and not the result of some serious medical situation in which you lost all vital signs, it's possible they were not genuine OBE's but simply altered states of consciousness in which you imagined your spirit traveled to the spiritual world. I mean can't at least grant it's possible?
You mean when we imagine a person is hot for us and they're not ---isn't that called delusion? Wishful thinking, thus, misreading signs?
Imagination is deliberate.
No, it doesn't, Arach. I did NOT perceive God by my mind first. I was truly an atheistwith zero expectations or interest in any God.
That is quite a statement. (I mean for this group of skeptics.)
I suppose at 5 and 8 yrs old ---I had no desire either...and yet...I was transported into altered states
of awareness, the Doors of Perception were opened wide as if on an hallucinogen...and wowsa...
both experiences on summer days in the sweet, quiet of my country home of many acres...
what was looking thru my eyes was not the consciousness of a child.
(I actually attribute these early insights to past lives sitting at the feet of some master.) *shrug*
I certainly was undeserving of such transcendent experiences as a child...I still figure that's
the reason for my dozens of Divine Visits to this day.
What can I say? Go figure.
*giving a parade for jones-sy*! Yes! Yes!! YES!!! It DOES work, as you said!
I believe in God AND the bible for the same reason: Because it works. It makes sense.
I can at least see where you come from. And in a way it does work. Whatever you get is good and so nothing to question.
I'm not dissing your pleasure in how you approach life. I just prefer to question than just believe. I just know the Bible is a crock and to say 'it works' is never going to be good enough for me. But if it's good enough for you, that's fine.
What conceivable reason would there be for a trickster to convince me to love God, Jesus, and everyone by pretending to be the God revealed by Jesus? It seems to me that love of God and each other is a superior reason to believe Jesus than a fear of God and Hell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle
For most. But we have some in our ranks some that just need to be told ... "Because we said so." Thats why the "control component" of being anti-god is one of the more weaker arguments. I don't speed because I don't want a ticket. Some people don't speed just because. Not most.
I did not say it's a more effective motivator, Arach. I said it is a superior reason or state of mind.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I told Mink pretty much the same thing as Mircea but a little more pointedly:
Wishful thinking, thus, misreading signs?
