Tantz Aerine
It appears that the ones putting the active effort are those who FEEL they must enforce what they think upon everyone else.

I'm just telling you what the words mean. You are the one trying to emote your way through this discussion. Sure, call me nasty things for defining the words you are using. We have to agree on basic definitions or else there is no way to rationally discuss anything.

Tantz Aerine
The beauty in people who are balanced and have peace is that they know the only way for everyone else to have the same is for them to work through in in their own lives and reach in on their own.

And what the heck does that hippie horse hockey have to do with the meaning of the words "Atheist" and "barefoot"?

Tantz Aerine
The only thing you can do is try to crush them into the ground for following their hearts in doing what makes them be better individuals.

Yeah, handing over a chunk of their income to charlatans makes people better...

Tantz Aerine
The primary scourge and vice of the world and civilization is not religion. It is the effort everyone puts on stepping on everyone else- and by belittling others, you are doing the same.

If you want to shuit off your rationality and let someone else tell you what to think go for it. I don't care and I'm not about to try and change you. However I will mock you for it.

Tantz Aerine
Even atheists say they cannot clearly display non existence.

Want proof on "non-existence" of the pantheon of invisible friends? Simply look at the number of people who live on welfare or in shabby old trailer parks. I'll bet you the number of them who are atheists are far under represented per capita. Meaning that if lets say 10% of the total population of America were atheists far less than 10% of the people in such destitution would be atheists.

Thus all the praying and begging to invisible friends not only fails to uplift you, it leads to being bigger screw ups. If their gods existed why would he/she/it leave them in such a sorry state of affairs? If prayer works then why aren't more atheists living in destitution than Christians?

Tantz Aerine
This is disrespectful, not to any human practice, but towards mature discussion and adult intellect and the common courtesy that is required for human interaction.

What, calling prayer what it is? A bunch of grown people begging a non-existent entity for help with their problems? I didn't even use nasty words, unless you are one of those prudes who think "butt" is a nasty word.

Tantz Aerine
It also shows that you are worked up and angry about things

Can the pop psych sister. The only thing that torques me off is your blatant abuse of the language. Words have meanings. Trying to use some wacky hippy philosophy to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

Mister Mxyzptlk
I'm just telling you what the words mean. You are the one trying to emote your way through this discussion. Sure, call me nasty things for defining the words you are using. We have to agree on basic definitions or else there is no way to rationally discuss anything.

The point of my discussion was not on atheism/theism, but that your use of witty language mottos/remarks/aphorisms was not a proper way to prove a point, since within a language there are many such little witty snippets for every taste- and even the same little snippet can be interpreted in different ways.

This is not abuse of the language. It is what people in society use every day to get their way- the primary example being lawyers.

Tantz Aerine
The beauty in people who are balanced and have peace is that they know the only way for everyone else to have the same is for them to work through in in their own lives and reach in on their own.

And what the heck does that hippie horse hockey have to do with the meaning of the words "Atheist" and "barefoot"?

Nothing. That was just another attempt to explain why I even bothered to write anything in this thread.

Tantz Aerine
The only thing you can do is try to crush them into the ground for following their hearts in doing what makes them be better individuals.

Yeah, handing over a chunk of their income to charlatans makes people better...

And here is another perfect example of you (and many others with you) confusing believing into any dogma with actually conforming to institutionalized religion. Oh, and lumping together in a sweeping comment several different cases of different people. Doesn't look favourable.

If you want to shuit off your rationality and let someone else tell you what to think go for it. I don't care and I'm not about to try and change you. However I will mock you for it.

The blatant sweeping judgement aside, mocking someone for something is wrong. You get mad when Theists do that to you, don't you? Or does being Atheist render you superior to all other humans and therefore above the general principle of not stepping on someone's toes if they do not step on yours?

Also, mocking is a form of aggression- a constant bullying when nothing else works. Still does not look favourable ;)

Want proof on "non-existence" of the pantheon of invisible friends? Simply look at the number of people who live on welfare or in shabby old trailer parks. I'll bet you the number of them who are atheists are far under represented per capita.

Until I see a reliable survey stating that, and until I see that the more priviledged classes are more atheist than theist, I will not even grace this as anything serious in terms of an argument. The P in WASP stands for Protestant, and I doubt that any of those chaps are on welfare.

Tantz Aerine
This is disrespectful, not to any human practice, but towards mature discussion and adult intellect and the common courtesy that is required for human interaction.

What, calling prayer what it is? A bunch of grown people begging a non-existent entity for help with their problems? I didn't even use nasty words, unless you are one of those prudes who think "butt" is a nasty word.

If you feel that it is an honour for you to kiss someone's butt, then I have nothing more to say to you. For most people though, kissing butts is a form of being demeaned, and so your using that clearly shows your intent.

Nice try side-stepping it though. Try again lol!

Tantz Aerine
It also shows that you are worked up and angry about things

Can the pop psych sister.

It is not pop psych. It is actual psychology and I am actually an education professional with a degree in psychology. I can back up what I said with some pretty strong names.

They are not imaginary, by the way ;)

The only thing that torques me off is your blatant abuse of the language. Words have meanings. Trying to use some wacky hippy philosophy to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

I guess you need to go back and read my point again, and you will see that you completely missed it.

And if you want to throw accusations around, better be able to defend them, after you have defined what you mean by them, or it only makes you look like you are ranting. Still not very favourable ;) lol!

Mister Mxyzptlk

Tantz Aerine
Even atheists say they cannot clearly display non existence.

Want proof on "non-existence" of the pantheon of invisible friends? Simply look at the number of people who live on welfare or in shabby old trailer parks. I'll bet you the number of them who are atheists are far under represented per capita. Meaning that if lets say 10% of the total population of America were atheists far less than 10% of the people in such destitution would be atheists.

Thus all the praying and begging to invisible friends not only fails to uplift you, it leads to being bigger screw ups. If their gods existed why would he/she/it leave them in such a sorry state of affairs? If prayer works then why aren't more atheists living in destitution than Christians?

Please don't argue in favor of atheists, it makes the rest of us look bad.

kyupol
What I believe though is a combination of evolution and the stuff in the bible. God made the world in "7 days" but that doesnt mean 7 days = 24 hours per day. Do not take the bible literally.

I thought I should respond to this here because its a religious question more than a evolutionist one.

I hear this don't take the bible literally thing a lot, and it just bugs me. When you read in a science text that opposite poles a magnet attract, you don't ever have to add the caveat that the information shouldn't be taken literally. It seems to me that this poetic, cryptic, almost DaVinci code aspect of the bible is the world's most collosal, elaborate dodge. It neatly makes it impossible to refute anything within.

Very convenient. You know if I said god appeared to me and said arsenic was a cure for cancer, you'd ask for proof. Conversely, if people started dying because they believed me, how popular would you imagine my defense would be if I said I shouldn't have been taken so literally?

This sounds like such a con, it further convinces me that people made up the bible independant of any god that may exist.

Nail soup anyone?

bobhhh

kyupol
What I believe though is a combination of evolution and the stuff in the bible. God made the world in "7 days" but that doesnt mean 7 days = 24 hours per day. Do not take the bible literally.

I thought I should respond to this here because its a religious question more than a evolutionist one.

I hear this don't take the bible literally thing a lot, and it just bugs me. When you read in a science text that opposite poles a magnet attract, you don't ever have to add the caveat that the information shouldn't be taken literally. It seems to me that this poetic, cryptic, almost DaVinci code aspect of the bible is the world's most colossal, elaborate dodge. It neatly makes it impossible to refute anything within.

Very convenient. You know if I said god appeared to me and said arsenic was a cure for cancer, you'd ask for proof. Conversely, if people started dying because they believed me, how popular would you imagine my defense would be if I said I shouldn't have been taken so literally?

This sounds like such a con, it further convinces me that people made up the bible independent of any god that may exist.

Nail soup anyone?

you do have a point, but the reasoning behind such a phrase of: "The bible is not meant to be taken literally", is that supposedly god and human sees things a lot differently. So say if a human got the chance to experience a vision from god itself, then in the vision the human would be seeing Time as God sees/experiences it... how it would feel like 7 days to the human when in reality it would be actually millions of years.
And well, Humans today often have difficulty grasping a lot of complex things, such as Time and space. So imagine how the ancient humans must had felt back then when trying to grasp the idea of time as it might be viewed by God.

So if a human was to write something based on his vision, and it was to eventually become part of the bible... then the same human who shared that vision with god, would probably think that it was all done in 7 days' time in terms of "earth time" instead of "god's time". Where other humans would recognize that since it was a vision of sorts, that it wasn't such a literal view of time.

hope that makes sense.

I'm not one for believing in the bible but I just felt like providing what was hopefully a rational explanation of why such a belief wasn't basically a cop-out for the "true believers".

My problem with "its not meant to be taken literally" is how often the group that says that does take the bible literally for issues of convenience. Gay marriage? Leviticus this, Soddom & Gomorrah that. 7 Days to create the universe? Interpretation, don't take it literally.

TnTComic
My problem with "its not meant to be taken literally" is how often the group that says that does take the bible literally for issues of convenience. Gay marriage? Leviticus this, Sodom & Gomorrah that. 7 Days to create the universe? Interpretation, don't take it literally.

Yeah, that's basically my problem too... one of the reasons why I stopped believing in the bible altogether, even though I believe there to be a possibility of god existing.

and not only that, that Sodom story was completely misinterpreted beyond belief. they assumed that because the "good guy" who offered up his daughters to the mob to make them go away, it had to be all about the mob wanting gay sex from the angels.
They fail to take notice that it wasn't just men in the mob.. it was women and children too. And you just don't bring women and children to a gay orgy, do you?

It's that whole cultural basis thing... the priests who translated that story was from a different time period and also from a different land too.
The priests failed to take into account the fact that it was very common for poor men to bather with other people using his daughters as one of the valuable things he had. Because back in those days, if a man was poor then having daughters were one of the useful things to have... could marry her off into well-off family in exchange for money, clothing, pigs, etc. He was just attempting to bribe the crowds with the only valuables he had, to make them go away. He wasn't offering his daughters up for rape.
Also, in many countries even today, people of the same sexes tend to express affections that, to our western eyes, might be interpreted as "homosexual behavior". But to them, it's not homosexual behavior. it's actually normal manners for two best friends to act. hand holding, hugging, and even laying together without anything sexual happening.
It's entirely possible that the priests was reading about the behavior of the people in that city and misinterpreted it to be homosexual behavior.

when reading the original thing, It appeared to me as basically a story about hospitality, not homosexuality. You see, back in those days, it was basically considered a sin to turn away people in need especially in places where deserts and hot weather could kill a man in less than a day. To deny him shelter and water for the day or even a night was akin to murdering him.
And during that time that takes place in the story, there was wars between cities going on. So when the men (angels) came, they mistrusted them so much that they turned them away... and got upset when that one "good guy" took them in because the people of Sodom believed them to be spies from a different warring city.
So the city of Sodom's sin was that while they treated each other like close friends and lived in harmony inside the city, they wouldn't treat two needy strangers in the same way just because they were from a different city.

So you see, for all it flowery text, it wasn't actually meant to be taken litterally... it was just a moral story about treating people with kindness, even if they were not from the same area as you were.

And there are MANY sites out there who has noticed and written the same thing down that I talked about just now... pointing out that maybe sodom wasn't the hotbed of homosexual activity that was popular belief for a while now.

Tantz Aerine
The blatant sweeping judgement aside, mocking someone for something is wrong.

But it's fun and what else, aside from porn, does the internet exist for?

Tantz Aerine
You get mad when Theists do that to you, don't you?

I don't get mad at theists for the silly things they do any more than I get mad at the retard who sacks my groceries when he puts the canned goods on top of the bread. They can't help it.

Tantz Aerine
Or does being Atheist render you superior to all other humans

Now you're getting it.

Tantz Aerine
Still does not look favourable

And I should care why?

You should care because you will burn in hell for eternity.

Or something like that.

mapaghimagsik
You should care because you will burn in hell for eternity.

I sold my soul for a pack of Camels and a half used lighter fifteen years ago. I've already got a lovely little cottage picked out on the eighth level of hell right next to the Hitlers.

Mister Mxyzptlk
I don't get mad at theists for the silly things they do any more than I get mad at the retard who sacks my groceries when he puts the canned goods on top of the bread. They can't help it.

Ohhhhh, I get it now, you think being insulting is cool!!! Well that explains a lot.

Tantz Aerine
The point of my discussion was not on atheism/theism, but that your use of witty language mottos/remarks/aphorisms was not a proper way to prove a point, since within a language there are many such little witty snippets for every taste- and even the same little snippet can be interpreted in different ways.

Now wait a minute, you take that back. Mxy is a lot of things, but he is most definitely not witty.

As I recall he didn't use the witty language. Other people did, bobhhh ;)

And since he can't help it, I won't bother with trying. After all, the help he needs is one people pay for- by the hour. lol!

Mister Mxyzptlk

Tantz Aerine
The blatant sweeping judgement aside, mocking someone for something is wrong.

But it's fun and what else, aside from porn, does the internet exist for?

I guess it's to babysit people like yourself ;)

I don't get mad at theists for the silly things they do any more than I get mad at the retard who sacks my groceries when he puts the canned goods on top of the bread. They can't help it.

Well, that seems to go around a lot. lol!

Tantz Aerine
Or does being Atheist render you superior to all other humans

Now you're getting it.

I am, actually. But unfortunately I cannot give you a referral to a good therapist as you obviously do not live in my country. But here, this may be useful: Help [apa.org] ;)

Tantz Aerine
Still does not look favourable

And I should care why?

Don't be. You can't help it. ;)

Tantz Aerine
But unfortunately I cannot give you a referral to a good therapist as you obviously do not live in my country.

Let me get this strait. You think a person who accepts that whatever happens to him is a result of his own actions and not the actions of supernatural forces needs the aid of a mental health professional yet you think people who believe in omnipotent and omniscient beings that care about them yet don't seem to do anything active for them are sane...

Tell me, if some guy told you he was Napoleon would you pat him on the head and say "go on then, that's fine if it makes you feel good, just watch yourself with Russia this time around!"? Is that what passes for good psychotherapy in your country?

I don't think you can get many things straight, as you are obviously more comfortable twisting things around. But let me just try to show you exactly WHERE you need the help:

The reason I offered the help, was because you explicitly displayed a pleasure in expressing overt aggression towards other people (when you said that mocking people is fun, and so on and so forth) and a conviction that for SOME REASON you are superior to other people , which, by the way, is your subjective evaluation and does equate to you feeling you are Napoleon. I would say the same thing to a Theist who believed he/she is superior to others simply because of their understanding of the cosmos and their contempt for any who don't share as much and dare to voice it.

Also, in content analysis, your words imply that you think a person believing in God (in any religion) is insane, while the one who does not is sane. If you truly want to stand by this premise, I think you will need some real hard evidence to the fact my friend. The link I gave you still qualifies, but I doubt you will come up with much.

But once more, good shot trying to attribute my response to something completely unconnected with the affair. Many people do that- politicians mostly, and it is a method that has been shown to intimidate chaps, so I can see why you favour it so much.

It doesn't hold very well with the written word though.

Tantz Aerine
your words imply that you think a person believing in God (in any religion) is insane, while the one who does not is sane. If you truly want to stand by this premise, I think you will need some real hard evidence to the fact my friend.

You think that someone who believes an omnipotent/omniscient being exists and cares about their pathetic little lives is sane? Religion is serious case of delusions of grandeur. The religious are pathetically desperate to think of themselves as special. They conceive of a non existent entity that is all powerful who created them and them alone to be special and wonderful. They deny all evidence that counters their superstitious scribblings and often become violent against those who do not share their ideas.

And this to you is sane? Wow, if I ever need to plead insanity in court I want you on my defense team.

Mister Mxyzptlk

Tantz Aerine
your words imply that you think a person believing in God (in any religion) is insane, while the one who does not is sane. If you truly want to stand by this premise, I think you will need some real hard evidence to the fact my friend.

You think that someone who believes an omnipotent/omniscient being exists and cares about their pathetic little lives is sane? Religion is serious case of delusions of grandeur. The religious are pathetically desperate to think of themselves as special. They conceive of a non existent entity that is all powerful who created them and them alone to be special and wonderful. They deny all evidence that counters their superstitious scribblings and often become violent against those who do not share their ideas.

And this to you is sane? Wow, if I ever need to plead insanity in court I want you on my defense team.

What you present is a usual human vice by which a group of humans decide to proclaim themselves special for some reason. This reason could be religion, but it has also been money, power, race, colour of the hair, colour of the eyes, way of jumping, etc, etc, etc. It has nothing to do with belief, it has everything to do with manipulation.

Just like you are trying to manipulate your way out of a position that has nothing to do with what I believe and what you believe, but with how you behave. That's all.

And as I have said before, irony has no effect on the one who in interested in objective, constructive talk, not impressive and/or flamboyant talk that appeals only to the ones who are emotionally charged.

I didn't want to create a new thread for this, but I did find it interesting. It looks like criticizing creationism can get you fired in Texas.

link

mapaghimagsik
I didn't want to create a new thread for this, but I did find it interesting. It looks like criticizing creationism can get you fired in Texas.

link

Actually there is a creationism thread on page two.

mapaghimagsik
You should care because you will burn in hell for eternity.

Yeah, about that, how exactly is that supposed to work? if your "soul" goes to burn in hell, how do you feel it? pain is your brain sending messages to the rest of your body or something like that, right? so then that also cancels out regret or sadness or even bordom in hell since those are just human emotions.

So what exactly is the down side to going to hell?

You don't need nerve endings to feel despair and misery.
Theoretically your mind and soul continue on. Thus the "emotions" still haunt you.

god?? .. what about the flying spaghetti monster ?! everyone believes in something, right? then why is GOD so much more superior to say FSM ?? I think it is because the curch tries to stay in the spotlight more than other religions and stuff ... I didn´t even know about the FSM but just a few months ago but I have always known that there is a thing called religion !!

Dr3wdub
So what exactly is the down side to going to hell?

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. -- Mark Twain

beautifully_demonic
god?? .. what about the flying spaghetti monster ?! everyone believes in something, right? then why is GOD so much more superior to say FSM ?? I think it is because the curch tries to stay in the spotlight more than other religions and stuff ... I didn´t even know about the FSM but just a few months ago but I have always known that there is a thing called religion !!

I'm a hardcore atheist, and even I don't think the FSM was amusing for more than 15 minutes.

imshard
You don't need nerve endings to feel despair and misery.
Theoretically your mind and soul continue on. Thus the "emotions" still haunt you.

actually, no, its all controlled by the brain. There are even people who literately cannot feel pain and some that don't feel emotions due to certoan mental disorders.

Of course feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

Dr3wdub

imshard
You don't need nerve endings to feel despair and misery.
Theoretically your mind and soul continue on. Thus the "emotions" still haunt you.

actually, no, its all controlled by the brain. There are even people who literately cannot feel pain and some that don't feel emotions due to certoan mental disorders.

Of course feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

Actually, what you're describing is actually genetic more than it is an mental disorder.

thanks to living in homogenous socities, where gene pools are very limited... this can create defects in the body, if you will. It doesn't mean this only came from interbred families though. it can mean having sex with somebody that although competely unrelated to you, had genetic traits that was too simlar to yours. This is a reason why this gene mutution is more often found in places like Japan than other places, even though it can easily happen anywhere else too.

example of this happening:
Gerenations of familes only keeps on marrying and having sex with people who are the "same" as they are. for instance-- Green-eyed blondes only have sex with each other. Gerenations later, this creates a very homogenous family gene pool which gives birth to this mutation.

This would create an baby who has this gene mutation. This gene mutation gives this rare inability to feel pain. So you see, people living with this condition can be easily free from being classifed as having a mental disorder. Because it was never a mental disorder to start with. Its actually genetic.

I don't know if it's the same for emitions, although that too is certainly possible.

Dr3wdub
actually, no, its all controlled by the brain. There are even people who literately cannot feel pain and some that don't feel emotions due to certoan mental disorders.

Are you trying to apply science to religion? Religion is all about superstition, scientific principles cannot explain how things function within the superstition because those things are not real. It's like my 6 year old asking exactly how the Gorgon turned people into stone. There is no "how" since it never really happened. Asking "how can a soul feel pain" is akin to that. The soul doesn't exist, hell doesn't exist and the pain and suffering don't exist. So how can one try to use science to explain it?

Mister Mxyzptlk
The soul doesn't exist

Actually, there's been evidence that the soul, or at least the human consciousness existing separately from the body, at least does exist. There's been a dozen documented cases of people recalling past lives that turned out to be verified.

it's often seen in a lot of young children who would recall every detail of a person that used to live on the other side of the world, etc. The family would actually have no knowledge of that said person at all, and therefore couldn't had influenced the children. The family of the decreased people would also have no contact with the other family at all. Yet, the children would somehow know details about certain individuals that not many could had known about.

The most detailed collections of personal reports in favor of reincarnation have been published by Professor Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia, in books such as "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation".

In a fairly typical case, a boy in Beirut spoke of being a 25-year-old mechanic, thrown to his death from a speeding car on a beach road. According to multiple witnesses, the boy provided the name of the driver, the exact location of the crash, the names of the mechanic's sisters and parents and cousins, and the people he went hunting with -- all of which turned out to match the life of a man who had died several years before the boy was born, and who had no apparent connection to the boy's family.

There are many people who have investigated reincarnation and come to the conclusion that it is a legitimate phenomenon, such as Peter Ramster, Dr. Brian Weiss, Dr. Walter Semkiw, and others, but their work is generally ignored by many.

Professor Stevenson, in contrast, published dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals. Stevenson believed that his strict methods ruled out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories. Stevenson spent over 40 years devoted to the study of children who have apparently spoken about a past life. In each case, Professor Stevenson methodically documented the child's statements. Then he identified the deceased person the child allegedly identified with, and verified the facts of the deceased person's life that matched the child's memory. He also matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records such as autopsy photographs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_research [en.wikipedia.org] more here.

There's more evidence in Reincarnation than there is a heaven and hell.

This is definitely an interesting question you have here. Simple, but interesting.

God is...

...my God. I'm a strong christain; which, of course, creates an image out of me that shows some fat girl in a floral dress going around with a bible in hand. Which is sad, really; because God deserves much more credit than that.

We all have mixed views, but I do believe that God created the Earth and everything in it. I don't think we grew from monkeys, from my own observations (but I won't go into that here). I also believe in miracles, since I've seen many for myself. Sometimes they're as little as praying with your family for a sore throat to go away, and it does just after you're done praying to something as complex as lifting a demon from a person's body.

I think the greatest cause of aetheism is because either they are severely left-brained (logical in thinking), or feel they don't want to take responsibility for certain actions. If you're an aethiest, then you can go get drunk or fornicate without feeling bad at all. But if you're a christain, catholic or any other religion; if you commit sins, you are guilty of them. Which, ultimately, can lead to passage to hell (if you believe in that.)

As for proof right now, I'd have to write a lot. If you'd like me to provide written and documented proof to a certain topic, please, reply to this and ask me. Let me forewarn you, however; some things can not be proven.