Death Thread I: No God => Death is God.

[Angst]

Who am I? The very same representative of human race as you are. With more or less same limitations as you have. The difference? You trust yourself, ordinary sinner, I trust Holy God.

No you trust a pile of processed tree bound together with ink splotches on it.

You speak about abomination and then you speak about saving neighbor (smile theory disappeared suddenly). How is it abomination? It is parroting God, dude . That's what He said and did.

If you don't want to parrot God, don't be a moral authority. You know. That which you attemp right now.

I'm not a moral authority myself. I say I recognize they exist. If something is not what God wills, that is not morally valid, it's what it is; I do not know God's morals and neither do you. What I do know is that if I rationally and emotionally believe I can save another man, if it is against God's will, I will do it and happily accept His punishment as I will of course accept his moral authority.

I will of course never accept yours.

God is not on your side, and he never has been.

He is not on mine either.

edit: Hatrick!

 

[Tigranes]

Wait, now you're telling us what God said and did? That's a heck of a leap.

Are you? Or are you trusting a book?

There are many ways God can chose to speak with you and every one in any time of human history.

To everyone -- through this objective reality we can all experience, regardless of our creeds. Topic of this thread -- death -- being one of them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

To those who came in touch with His written word -- through His Message. One can trust it or dismiss it, but cannot claim later Father never made any direct attempts to reach you.

Finally there is even more direct experience, which, for simplicity, can be called mystical experience. Some believers had it. If God exists, He can certainly chose anybody to speak with him directly in form of angels, His chosen spokesmen (prophets), dreams, visions, miracles, and even through a donkey that He enabled to speak as a man speaks. It is silly to take issue with the effect if you don't trust the original cause, in a first place. But I don't think a mind like you will take an issue with a talking donkey. Existence of God must be more incredible case, would you agree?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

You are incredibly closed minded and ignorant about atheism, and obviously from that too ignorant to be taken seriously on any discussion about what happens, if anything does, after death.

I was brought up as an atheist in mainly atheist country(Czechoslovakia). Whenever I have heard religious people talk it made my laugh, watch in disbelief or put me into rage. Nowadays I consider myself spiritual and when I come across religious person I watch with humility if he is sincere or not. Most of them are and I admire that.

Faith is close to obsolete in the developed world, you do know that only 22% of Swedes, and only 14% of Estonians still believe in religion right? Are you telling me that all the rest cannot wake up everyday and want to suicide?

You have misunderstood me. I wasnt talking of religious faith but of faith as mental-psychological state. For everyone its about as necessary as sleeping. True one day when we find out how to energise ourselves without need of going to sleep we may stop sleeping and similarly when at some point we become knowers of all the secrets of the universe we will not need faith any more so naturally we will drop it off but at the moment faith as an approach to life and as our mental outfit is a necessity. To give you an example you need to have faith in your future. If you didnt have an iota of this kind of faith any living for you beyond vegetative/animal state will be an impossible task.

Prove to me that you exist. I'm not convinced that you do.

If you can prove to yourself that you exist thats more then enough. Anything beyond that is a luxury.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

There are many ways God can chose to speak with you and every one in any time of human history.

To everyone -- through this objective reality we can all experience, regardless of our creeds. Topic of this thread -- death -- being one of them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

To those who came in touch with His written word through Message. One can trust it or dismiss it, but cannot claim later Father never made any direct attempts to reach you.

Finally there is even more direct experience, which for simplicity can be called mystical experience. Some believers have it. If God exists he can certainly chose anybody to speak with him directly. It is silly to take issue with the effect if you don't trust the original cause, in a first place.

So I take it all who came into contact in the way you described are in absolute agreement with each other.

And I can, have and will claim "Father" never reached out to me.

And I sure as peanuts don't trust the likes of you being it's spokesperson.

 

[El_Machinae]

There are many ways God can chose to speak with you and every one in any time of human history.

Right, I don't disagree. All of reality is arranged to tell me that the Bible is not God's word. From the numerous historical errors to the numerous moral errors.

Now, some people will disagree. They don't think that reality is communicating with us intentionally. I mean, I can see that point. I kinda subscribe to it myself.

So, in our own ways, we both trust God. I just trust Him when it's been arranged to show that the book is false. You trust that He'd not have a deceiving book out there, fooling sincere seekers. So, I don't believe in the book. I don't even need to believe in God to trust that the book is false.

Occasionally along comes a missionary to convince me otherwise, but time-and-again their arguments are not Inspired, the arguments are merely arranged to convince people dumber than they are. Truly, a message from God would be able to handle the fairly simple objections that I have. It shouldn't rely on gullibility to convince people.

 

[Borachio]

I'm getting the impression that Mr Tigranes is being very picky about which questions he answers. Not that he's answering any of them very well, mind you.

 

[onejayhawk]

Right, I don't disagree. All of reality is arranged to tell me that the Bible is not God's word. From the numerous historical errors to the numerous moral errors.

Now, some people will disagree. They don't think that reality is communicating with us intentionally. I mean, I can see that point. I kinda subscribe to it myself.

So, in our own ways, we both trust God. I just trust Him when it's been arranged to show that the book is false. You trust that He'd not have a deceiving book out there, fooling sincere seekers. So, I don't believe in the book. I don't even need to believe in God to trust that the book is false.

Occasionally along comes a missionary to convince me otherwise, but time-and-again their arguments are not Inspired, the arguments are merely arranged to convince people dumber than they are. Truly, a message from God would be able to handle the fairly simple objections that I have. It shouldn't rely on gullibility to convince people.

If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead.

Just sayin'

J

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

And you need to have been brought up in a (nominally) Christian country, by Christian parents, with your earliest memories consisting of Christian iconography, to appreciate my position, Mr Tigranes. Can you get near any appreciation, do you think?

I have to admit that first time I came across this feeling of divorce from ones root and family due to the fact that one rebels against the catechism of doctrinal learning by a church becouse of ones "healthy doubt" was here in CFC. I support this emancipation of thought becouse with it ones throws away bondage of unprogressivness. One needs to come to spiritual matters mainly through inner urge and aspiration not mechanically or by force otherwise its often worse then useless.

I'd not be surprised if there was some cognitive/emotion benefit to faith.

edit: suicide is hard to unpack, because some faiths crank up the guilt people feel about suicide. So, it doesn't improve their outlook on life.

Again it seems to me that faith is natural necessity of human state of affairs becouse mental faculty, great and usefull as it is, brings with itself good deal of uncertainty into ones life.

I think its very good people learn about suicide as a really bad thing for the conseqences of this act are, to my knowledge, extremely dire while the feeling of guilt about it compared to these consequences is next to nothing.

 

[El_Machinae]

If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead.

Fairly prescient. I don't believe Moses really existed. At least, certainly not the way he's portrayed.

In fairness to me, it's not unreasonable that I cannot easily be persuaded that someone rose from the dead. It's also a leap to suggest that resurrection is evidence of Divinity as well.

Let's just agree, if God wanted me to believe, I'd believe. I'm not totally unreasonable. I believe in atoms, though I've obviously never seem them. Asteroids, too.

 

[Angst]

To everyone -- through this objective reality we can all experience, regardless of our creeds.

Except we can't experience objective reality.

 

[Borachio]

I think we do experience objective reality. Or at least we experience the effects of objective reality. It's just that all our perceptions of it are necessarily subjective.

The naive realist that I am sees that there must be a real world "out there". Somewhere. Anywhere. Who knows where it is?

 

[Angst]

Hrm. Alrite. But I'll never take it into account with a serious face.

 

[Old Hippy]

If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead.

Just sayin'

J

always wonder on the meaning of that saying...
can't decide whether it's an excuse for not having more of them rise from the dead or if it's actually part of gods plan that I don't believe, and that he wants athiests about...

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Actually every human is born an atheist, as they do not possess the idea of god to consider if he is real (theism) or whether or not he is real (agnosicism). They simply do not believe in god or any deities (atheism), at least until the theistic majority brainwash most children into believing in god.

Er, no. For baby to be an atheist would require his rejection of an theist ideas - something which he isnt capable of. Rather on the contrary every baby is natural psychic/instinctive believer for on his connection with others his life fully depends.

I'm not fond of either atheism nor theism. Both seem divisive ideologies to me. I keep looking for an ideology which is all-inclusive, and universalist.

Actually what you probably need is an ideology which appeals to you strongly enough and through which you can eventually arrive at discovering of some universal principles. Ideologies are intelectual property and us such are not capable of universal realisations.

I don't see atheism as an ideology. It just seems to be the label stamped on people who do not believe in god / deities, a mere descriptive word of people who are not, i.e. a - theists.

Theism on the other hand is split heavily into many different ideologies and is not an ideology itself - each religion, each denomination of each religion, individualistic personal beliefs, and even deism.

Theres lots of other philosophical branches / beliefs as well not only agnosticism, but I'm not bothered about those, though you can look them up if you want.

So to have an individual personal beliefs excludes you from being an atheist?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So to have an individual personal beliefs excludes you from being an atheist?

There's no way to draw that conclusion from his statement.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, there is. If theism is split into many different parts, including individualistic personal beliefs, then it's quite possible that the implication is that atheism doesn't admit of individualistic personal beliefs. I see it.

I may not agree with it, but it seems a logical conclusion alright.

It is, though, being a bit picky. And relies heavily on the original, maybe not optimally structured, premise.

(Now I'm the one being picky. Forget I said anything.)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

2 things.

1. "It's quite possible" and "implication", doesn't warrant starting the sentence with "So" and then proceed with a positive statement. The logical conclusion of that statement can never be: So to have an individual personal beliefs excludes you from being an atheist.

2. How does it imply that when it talks solely about theism?

And please don't use the questionmark cop-out

 

[Borachio]

OK. Fine. I understand.

What's the question mark cop out?????

?????

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

OK. Fine. I understand.

Noooo! Don't agree. Where's the fun in that?

*kicks pebble*

What's the question mark cop out?????

?????

Putting a question mark at the end of the sentence which starts with so, and when countered going: it was just a question.

Which can be countered with: So are you that stupid you think I'd fall for that? At which the Space Time Discontinuum chuckles.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

There's no way to draw that conclusion from his statement.

Its not so much a definite conclusion as a question asking for further clarification. If you say that these are not exclusive my following question is: Does your personal beliefs include realities which are beyond you, your present capacity? To which the quick answer is: of course. And how do you know the limits of these realities? Well you dont but you are still proclaiming yourself to disbelief. Your disbelief is something based on probability - its a form of belief. So sure there is no way atheism and individual personal belief are exclusive. On the contrary atheism heavily depends on it...