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Confession is good for the soul?

Religion and Philosophy
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we are introducing this on a trial basis and that respect for other's views is important e.g. phrases like "your imaginary friend" or "you will go to hell" are not appropriate
paulmiller
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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145334

Postby paulmiller » June 13th, 2018, 12:30 am

You are still avoiding my question. I am not interested in your views about religion and I doubt that any person of faith will be interested in your views either.

You say you despise all religions.

So, I have looked through all of your previous posts on this topic and I can only see language from you that is anti-Christian. I see language from you that is clearly insulting to Christians, and clearly insulting to Catholics in particular.

So, I am interested to know why you seem to be so very comfortable on a public website with your condemnation and criticism of the Christian faith, and so very comfortable saying things that are extremely insulting to Christians on this website, but yet you do not say anything that is extremely insulting to Jews or muslims.

So I asked you why is it that you only feel comfortable insulting Christ and the Christian faith on a public website ? Why do you not feel so comfortable and relaxed about insulting Jews and muslims on a public website ?

Are you able to answer this question or not ?

beeswax
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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145341

Postby beeswax » June 13th, 2018, 1:24 am

paulmiller wrote:You are still avoiding my question. I am not interested in your views about religion and I doubt that any person of faith will be interested in your views either.

You say you despise all religions.

So, I have looked through all of your previous posts on this topic and I can only see language from you that is anti-Christian. I see language from you that is clearly insulting to Christians, and clearly insulting to Catholics in particular.

So, I am interested to know why you seem to be so very comfortable on a public website with your condemnation and criticism of the Christian faith, and so very comfortable saying things that are extremely insulting to Christians on this website, but yet you do not say anything that is extremely insulting to Jews or muslims.

So I asked you why is it that you only feel comfortable insulting Christ and the Christian faith on a public website ? Why do you not feel so comfortable and relaxed about insulting Jews and muslims on a public website ?

Are you able to answer this question or not ?


I have answered your question and you are absolutely right that virtually NOBODY is interested in my views on religion either in my discussions with old ex Christian friends and online and especially a forum like this where maybe a couple of Christians may just come across it and so hardly advertising my 'personal' views to the world. I do think people should be entitled to have a view on religion and to give some facts about Christianity or any other faith they are familiar with but Christianity is the only one that I am familiar with and so why do you ask me about Jews and Muslims. No doubt there will be plenty of internet discussion sites that will do just that. I don't want any credit for sharing what I know about Christianity over most of my life and how that has affected members of my own family in a detrimental way and the stuff I have said about that faith and the Catholic Church is absolutely true and so how can it be 'insulting' when I write about what Jesus reportedly said in the Gospels and what the CC say about homosexuals? Do you disown their beliefs on that or how the bible treats women and gay people? I'm interested. The Catholic Church never allowed divorced couples to remarry in their church all because what Jesus said and so discriminated against many women over centuries that had no where else to go. Its my opinion that having studied this religion far more than most Christians have ever done I can conclude by saying it is not been a force for good. Obviously others will have their own opinions and righty so...As rightly pointed out the Protestant faith only started because the Pope would not allow King Henry the 8th a divorce.

May I ask you a question. If a woman is mentally and physically abused maybe for years by her husband would you think she should be able to get a divorce and fall in love again with someone new and get married to them without condemnation and then what about children from such relationships? Jesus was a bachelor and so had no idea about such things and we have the same bachelor Priesthood ditto and yet we are expected to follow these rules? Do you think such women should be able to attend the Catholic Mass? Well they aren't until the Pope agreed with one divorced lady from Argentina that she could but he didn't alter the rules for anyone else and probably not allowed to...

Are abused divorced women 'sinners'?

Do you think an Angel appeared to Joseph Smith?

paulmiller
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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145343

Postby paulmiller » June 13th, 2018, 2:10 am

You are still avoiding the question. The Jewish and muslim faith both hold similar views about homosexuality to the Christian faith. The same things that are in the Bible are in their books. So when you publicly insult all Christians and when you publicly mock the Bible, are you also willing to mock the things and the people and the books that are sacred and important to Jews and muslims ? And if you are not willing to do that, then what is the reason for this ? You say you despise all religions but yet you only seem to publicly insult Christians and the Christian faith here on a public website. Why are you only comfortable with publicly insulting Christians and the Christian faith ? Are you able to answer the question or not ?

beeswax
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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145426

Postby beeswax » June 13th, 2018, 12:01 pm

paulmiller wrote:You are still avoiding the question. The Jewish and muslim faith both hold similar views about homosexuality to the Christian faith. The same things that are in the Bible are in their books. So when you publicly insult all Christians and when you publicly mock the Bible, are you also willing to mock the things and the people and the books that are sacred and important to Jews and muslims ? And if you are not willing to do that, then what is the reason for this ? You say you despise all religions but yet you only seem to publicly insult Christians and the Christian faith here on a public website. Why are you only comfortable with publicly insulting Christians and the Christian faith ? Are you able to answer the question or not ?


With respect I have answered your question and you have not answered my points which are ALL based on biblical text and the Church's stance on how they have interpreted or misinterpreted the text. You should know that being baptised is a strict requirement of the Catholic Church and some other Christian Churches and the CC at one time would not allow even unbaptised babies to be buried in what they called hallowed ground ie the Churchyard and so grieving mothers had to find somewhere else to bury their babies. How does that fit in with the love and compassion that Jesus spoke about?

I could post hundreds of this kind of stuff but it would fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. This is an investment website and the term DYOR is as valid in many things in life, especially when reading ancient religious texts written almost entirely by men.

Paul said that wives should obey their husbands and be silent in the Church and why the CC won't allow women to the Priesthood. Along with the fact that Jesus chose only male disciples....Is that sensible when women are more caring and more sympathetic then male Priests and can have an affinity with other women especially that men cannot?

I would almost guarantee that if the bible and the Quran was written today in Western Societies it would be banned or heavily censored and so what does that say about them?

Study the text, examine when it was all written and by whom and how many biblical manuscripts have been found, how they differ with each other by the thousands some very significantly and some not so at a time when each manuscript had to be copied by hand by authors who were not present at the time of Jesus who altered the text to suit their bias. Its not me saying this but very distinguished biblical scholars who have studied the ancient biblical text in its original form. Bart Erhman is such a person and I have recommended him to many Christians before but they won't go and do that for the very reasons I have given. He has written many books on the NT and gives lectures and has debates with Christian apologetics and Muslims actually. He was born again Christian and went to the same bible college as Billy Graham and was an ordained Minister for a while.

His style is witty and funny and just go listen to some debates and you will learn a great deal about the very faith millions of believers have and yet know so little about it...He also has a daily blog where there are hundreds of topics on the bible and the NT and I subscribed for a while in order to read them and learn more about them and to ask him questions directly via that blog.

I can say any decision that I took on renouncing my former faith was not taken lightly.

Go and have a look at his work and come back if you need to..

Did you know that NONE of the original ie initial manuscripts were in existence at the end of the first century apart one one little credit card size piece and all the ones we have now are copies of copies of copies of copies of copies well it goes on and all written at a time where there was no reproduction machines and all had to be copied by hand. Its great knowing a lot of this stuff whether you are a believer or not. None of those early manuscripts were written by eye witnesses although there are claims that the book of John was written by a disciple who would have been 90 odd years old at the time it was written about 60 years AFTER the death of Jesus. and surprisingly or not that book bears little resemblance to the synoptic gospels where NONE of them mentions that Jesus was God.....That has not stopped billions believing that he was and is and is in the Nicene Creed that is repeated at EVERY daily mass service of the Catholic Church as I have been to some along with going to ALL of my local Churches as part of my research even the Church of Latter Day Saints...ie the Mormon Church..

It was a great time to do all that but you do need time to do it too..

Some may argue what a waste!

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145427

Postby beeswax » June 13th, 2018, 12:30 pm

You asked about my views on Jews and the bible?

Well in essence, Jesus didn't start a NEW religion or faith and so Christians should be following the Jewish tradition and it was Paul who said that the Gentiles didn't need to be circumcised but try doing that to adult men and see how far you get....OK with babies without asking their permission though. I have also listened online to many debates by Jewish Rabbi's and very good they were too and basically rubbished all the claims by Christians about whom Jesus is including the very famous Isaiah 53 that was used by Christians as a prophesied suffering Messiah...

They give a very comprehensive rebuttal of that claim and the reasons why....How many Christians have bothered to research that though?

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145500

Postby paulmiller » June 13th, 2018, 8:00 pm

Well I have tried several times now to get a straight answer from you but you are either unable or unwilling to give a straight answer. So it is probably time to give up now. If you are not able to see that you are constantly using very anti-Christian language on this public website that is extremely offensive to any Christian on here who sees it then further discussion is pointless.

Why are you continuing to write long messages on a public website against Jesus Christ and against the Bible, saying things that are extremely insulting to all Christians, when you know very well that you would be far too scared and afraid to ever say similar things about people or things or books that are sacred to Jews or muslims ? Rather cowardly of you is it not ?

Like many liberal/socialist/Marxist/PC types you are very happy to publicly mock Christianity, mock Jesus Christ, and mock the Bible, and use very offensive anti-Christian language in public, but yet you would never dream of saying anything in public that may be offensive to Jews or muslims. You hide behind the PC/Marxist cloak of political correctness in order to mock Jesus Christ and mock the Christian faith because you know that it is only the Christian faith that you are “allowed” to publicly mock and offend now.

You have also already said yourself that you are wasting your time writing these long messages against the Christian faith and you are not going to change any minds so why are you wasting your time on here with using very anti-Christian language and insulting all Christians ?

Can you not find a more constructive way to fill your time rather than spending your time insulting all Christians on a public website ? For example, you say that you find infant male circumcision a barbaric form of child abuse, so would your time not be more usefully spent trying to start a public campaign against this ? Or would that be too risky for you ?

You also say you were a Christian for 50 years. Sadly though you made a very offensive and anti-Christian and blasphemous statement about Jesus Christ on this public website a few days ago for the whole world to see and read. I hope that you will one day be able to understand how very offensive this was to all Christians who saw it and read it.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145523

Postby beeswax » June 13th, 2018, 11:25 pm

paulmiller wrote:Well I have tried several times now to get a straight answer from you but you are either unable or unwilling to give a straight answer. So it is probably time to give up now. If you are not able to see that you are constantly using very anti-Christian language on this public website that is extremely offensive to any Christian on here who sees it then further discussion is pointless.

Why are you continuing to write long messages on a public website against Jesus Christ and against the Bible, saying things that are extremely insulting to all Christians, when you know very well that you would be far too scared and afraid to ever say similar things about people or things or books that are sacred to Jews or muslims ? Rather cowardly of you is it not ?

Like many liberal/socialist/Marxist/PC types you are very happy to publicly mock Christianity, mock Jesus Christ, and mock the Bible, and use very offensive anti-Christian language in public, but yet you would never dream of saying anything in public that may be offensive to Jews or muslims. You hide behind the PC/Marxist cloak of political correctness in order to mock Jesus Christ and mock the Christian faith because you know that it is only the Christian faith that you are “allowed” to publicly mock and offend now.

You have also already said yourself that you are wasting your time writing these long messages against the Christian faith and you are not going to change any minds so why are you wasting your time on here with using very anti-Christian language and insulting all Christians ?

Can you not find a more constructive way to fill your time rather than spending your time insulting all Christians on a public website ? For example, you say that you find infant male circumcision a barbaric form of child abuse, so would your time not be more usefully spent trying to start a public campaign against this ? Or would that be too risky for you ?

You also say you were a Christian for 50 years. Sadly though you made a very offensive and anti-Christian and blasphemous statement about Jesus Christ on this public website a few days ago for the whole world to see and read. I hope that you will one day be able to understand how very offensive this was to all Christians who saw it and read it.


I don't know what you want from me? I have pointed out to you what is in the bible and how that has been interpreted by the Church and how they used their power to control people, their minds and their money and did you know that the law on blasphemy was repealed in 2008 to their credit and so nobody in the UK can be charged with that offence and just reading about how the Church used blasphemy and burned heretics at the stake for just having a different opinion or religious belief and so do you think it should be brought back?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy ... ed_Kingdom

The more I read of what the Church has done over the last 2000 years, the more despicable they were and they had absolute control over many things in cannon law and held great sway over people's lives. Thomas Moore had people tortured because they wanted to reprint the bible in English. Are you sad or glad that most of that has been taken off them now?

Of course Christians defend their faith and most refuse to engage or read anything that contradicts what you may call 'insult' OR 'offensive' to their beliefs. I have indeed wasted many hours on my research into my former faith and it would have been more productive playing darts or bowls...Is that an insult to Christianity? All I ask of people of faith is to THINK about what they believe and go back to their religious text in a critical scholarship way and then reassess their beliefs. Isn't that a good thing to do?

I really implore you to read Dr Erhman's books and watch his online debates as here is a distinguished Professor and critical scholar who has spent all his life researching the New Testament manuscripts and then see if he puts some questions into your mind. Read and see what Jewish Rabbi's say about Isaiah 53 and see how Christians deceive themselves by using that extensively as a prophecy about Jesus as the suffering Messiah...

You see its ONLY by DYOR you can align your faith with your pre conceptions and IF at the end you are comfortable with that, then that's great, you made the effort but its just my own experience of having conversations with many Christians and some quite senior theologians over the last few years that most if not all of them refuse to engage after any initial contact and much prefer to walk away rather than challenge their core beliefs.

Why do I bother? Quite simple really. I was looking for God and didn't find him in Churches or religious text, I found him within myself and thinking what is best for my fellow human beings in the short time we are on this earth and all that is is to try and be kind, decent and tolerant, be compassionate, be as good as we can and give freely of our time and money to good causes and hope others do the same. Religion has twisted the minds of men and women and have much to answer for in all its guises.

I think it was Jesus who said that the Kingdom of God is 'within us' and so maybe, just maybe Jesus and me are on the same wavelength in that regard at least.

Another long reply sorry...

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145611

Postby jfgw » June 14th, 2018, 1:48 pm

paulmiller wrote:I am not interested in your views about religion and I doubt that any person of faith will be interested in your views either.


Regrettably, there lies a problem.

There are many belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Third-wave feminism, Atheism, Snowflakeism, Nazism... the list goes on. While it would seem logical to base one's beliefs upon the evidence, my observation is that the exact opposite occurs in practice; the evidence is based upon one's beliefs. Supportive evidence, however weak, is accepted (and may be cited as proof) but evidence against a belief is dismissed on the basis that, since it does not support one's accepted "truth", it must be wrong.

I put this to anyone of any belief:

Are you prepared to accept the possibility that you are wrong?

If the answer is "no", you cannot know that what you believe is true; It is just an assumption.

Are you prepared to question your belief? Do you think that it is ok to question your belief? If not, why not? If you are confident that your belief is true, you should have nothing to fear from questioning it.

Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145615

Postby ReformedCharacter » June 14th, 2018, 2:32 pm

jfgw wrote:Regrettably, there lies a problem.

There are many belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Third-wave feminism, Atheism, Snowflakeism, Nazism... the list goes on. While it would seem logical to base one's beliefs upon the evidence, my observation is that the exact opposite occurs in practice; the evidence is based upon one's beliefs. Supportive evidence, however weak, is accepted (and may be cited as proof) but evidence against a belief is dismissed on the basis that, since it does not support one's accepted "truth", it must be wrong.

I put this to anyone of any belief:

Are you prepared to accept the possibility that you are wrong?

If the answer is "no", you cannot know that what you believe is true; It is just an assumption.

Are you prepared to question your belief? Do you think that it is ok to question your belief? If not, why not? If you are confident that your belief is true, you should have nothing to fear from questioning it.



Interesting comment, but how are you defining 'belief'? I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't have some sort of belief and that includes atheists, of course. And if the above represents your 'belief' then do you accept that you may be wrong? ;)

RC

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145625

Postby jfgw » June 14th, 2018, 3:23 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:Interesting comment, but how are you defining 'belief'? I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't have some sort of belief and that includes atheists, of course. And if the above represents your 'belief' then do you accept that you may be wrong? ;)


You may note that I spelt "Atheist" with a capital "A" as this can be almost a religion, if not a true religion. Richard Dawkins, whose intelligence I admire, is, in my view, an Atheist with that capital "A".

I do not follow an established religion, nor am I an atheist (and certainly not an Atheist).

Try this experiment:

Assume that our thought processes reside entirely within the brain. (I am fairly certain that consciousness itself is non-physical but stay with me on this.) Now, using thought alone, look at the brain from the inside and tell me how it works. Ignore what you already know, look for something new. Tell me something about the physical structure or the chemistry of the brain that you didn't know before, something that you have just observed.

Well?

No, I didn't think you could. You may argue that the brain may not be entirely responsible for thought but, if so, what else is responsible? Can you look from the inside and find out?

We cannot know the nature of our existence. We cannot know how the physical universe works. We can conduct experiments to find out what it does (which is great) but, ultimately, we are limited to creating mathematical models for something beyond our reach. Likewise, we cannot explain consciousness.

Unless I got it wrong somewhere.


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145632

Postby ReformedCharacter » June 14th, 2018, 3:58 pm

jfgw wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:Interesting comment, but how are you defining 'belief'? I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't have some sort of belief and that includes atheists, of course. And if the above represents your 'belief' then do you accept that you may be wrong? ;)


You may note that I spelt "Atheist" with a capital "A" as this can be almost a religion, if not a true religion. Richard Dawkins, whose intelligence I admire, is, in my view, an Atheist with that capital "A".

I do not follow an established religion, nor am I an atheist (and certainly not an Atheist).

Try this experiment:

Assume that our thought processes reside entirely within the brain. (I am fairly certain that consciousness itself is non-physical but stay with me on this.) Now, using thought alone, look at the brain from the inside and tell me how it works. Ignore what you already know, look for something new. Tell me something about the physical structure or the chemistry of the brain that you didn't know before, something that you have just observed.

Well?

No, I didn't think you could. You may argue that the brain may not be entirely responsible for thought but, if so, what else is responsible? Can you look from the inside and find out?

We cannot know the nature of our existence. We cannot know how the physical universe works. We can conduct experiments to find out what it does (which is great) but, ultimately, we are limited to creating mathematical models for something beyond our reach. Likewise, we cannot explain consciousness.

Unless I got it wrong somewhere.

Julian F. G. W.

I agree with your conclusions but I'm not sure I quite understand the point of the thought experiment. Certainly the brain and at some level other bodily components do the thinking but I'm not sure whether 'responsible' is quite the right word. If someone steps on my toes and I feel pain and the inclination to remove my foot, I do not hold my brain responsible for the thoughts but the person who stood on my foot. Perhaps I'm missing your point. I quite agree that Atheism can be described as like a religion.

RC

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#145635

Postby GrandOiseau » June 14th, 2018, 4:33 pm

Can you two love birds explain to me how atheism is like "a religion"?

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146522

Postby jfgw » June 18th, 2018, 8:18 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:I agree with your conclusions but I'm not sure I quite understand the point of the thought experiment. Certainly the brain and at some level other bodily components do the thinking but I'm not sure whether 'responsible' is quite the right word. If someone steps on my toes and I feel pain and the inclination to remove my foot, I do not hold my brain responsible for the thoughts but the person who stood on my foot. Perhaps I'm missing your point. I quite agree that Atheism can be described as like a religion.


jfgw wrote:I do not follow an established religion, nor am I an atheist (and certainly not an Atheist).


The subsequent text was intended to say something about what I believe in and why.

The point of the experiment was to demonstrate that a system cannot explain how it can exist. Thought alone cannot determine how that thought can exist. Another example is that of computer software; if you were to write a program to determine the structure of a computer from the inside, the best it could do would be to discover the logical structure; the most in-depth description it could give would be a functional one. Any concept of a physical structure is entirely undiscoverable from within the software environment. The functionality of electronic circuitry and spinning disks are beyond the reach of any software running on that equipment.

A system cannot suggest any possible means for its own existence.

From my previous post,
We cannot know the nature of our existence. We cannot know how the physical universe works. We can conduct experiments to find out what it does (which is great) but, ultimately, we are limited to creating mathematical models for something beyond our reach. Likewise, we cannot explain consciousness.


When I said "You may argue that the brain may not be entirely responsible for thought but, if so, what else is responsible?" I used the word "responsible" to refer to whatever it is that does the thinking. There is strong evidence to suggest that that thought occurs in the brain (and other parts of the central nervous system); different parts of the brain have been mapped to different functions. However, is it that clear-cut? Where does consciousness fit into all of this? How would thought exist outside the body during a near-death experience (or do NDEs have another explanation)? One explanation (and I am not saying that it is the right one) is that our conscious selves control our bodies a bit like how a construction worker would control a JCB. The JCB is very limited in what it can do (its movements are much more limited than those of the human driver within) but it enables a driver to move tons of earth using very little of his or her own physical effort. The physical universe is not deterministic; it becomes very unpredictable at the quantum level. Such uncertainty does not mean that God plays dice, however; it provides a means by which God can still influence the game. If consciousness can influence the physical world at the quantum level, we still probably need a physical machine to amplify those effects in order to interact with the physical realm.


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146525

Postby jfgw » June 18th, 2018, 8:32 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:Can you two love birds explain to me how atheism is like "a religion"?


Atheists (capital "A") dismiss anything that does not agree with Atheism. Such things as near-death experiences, ghosts or anything-else non-physical is brushed off as being preposterous (irrespective of any evidence). Their creed is that there is a physical explanation for everything.

Richard Dawkins is to Atheism what Billy Graham was to Christianity.


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146622

Postby GrandOiseau » June 19th, 2018, 10:55 am

jfgw wrote:
GrandOiseau wrote:Can you two love birds explain to me how atheism is like "a religion"?


Atheists (capital "A") dismiss anything that does not agree with Atheism. Such things as near-death experiences, ghosts or anything-else non-physical is brushed off as being preposterous (irrespective of any evidence). Their creed is that there is a physical explanation for everything.

Richard Dawkins is to Atheism what Billy Graham was to Christianity.


Julian F. G. W.

You clearly don't know what an atheist or athesism is.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146637

Postby jfgw » June 19th, 2018, 11:45 am

GrandOiseau wrote:You clearly don't know what an atheist or athesism is.


Literally, one who does not believe in any type of God. I would normally use the word "nontheist" to refer to someone with spiritual beliefs who does not believe that God (or Gods) exist, however. There is probably a far better word for what I mean and am happy to be educated as to what it is. I could use "sceptic" but one can be sceptical of anything.

Christianity involves believing a lot more than just that Christ existed, and that that I refer to as Atheism (capital "A") (which I will use until a better word comes along) involves believing a lot more than just that there is no God.


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146642

Postby jfgw » June 19th, 2018, 11:57 am

jfgw wrote: One explanation (and I am not saying that it is the right one) is that our conscious selves control our bodies a bit like how a construction worker would control a JCB.


Via microtubules, maybe,
https://phys.org/news/2014-01-discovery ... rates.html

The question of whether consciousness causes these quantum vibrations or the quantum vibrations cause consciousness is left open (and it may be neither, or it may be a two-way interaction). Any evidence for consciousness existing outside of the body would support the former view.


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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146659

Postby GrandOiseau » June 19th, 2018, 12:54 pm

jfgw wrote:
GrandOiseau wrote:You clearly don't know what an atheist or athesism is.


Literally, one who does not believe in any type of God. I would normally use the word "nontheist" to refer to someone with spiritual beliefs who does not believe that God (or Gods) exist, however. There is probably a far better word for what I mean and am happy to be educated as to what it is. I could use "sceptic" but one can be sceptical of anything.

Christianity involves believing a lot more than just that Christ existed, and that that I refer to as Atheism (capital "A") (which I will use until a better word comes along) involves believing a lot more than just that there is no God.


Julian F. G. W.

You are saying is that the definition of atheism can be extended to say atheists do not believe in non-physical entities. As you say there is no separate definition that I know of. Is there a word for someone who does believe in the non-physical? Should we say all theists believe in ghosts?

As a broad definition I'm comfortable with the idea that atheists don't believe in non-physical entities and theists do. It, you might say, "goes with the territory"

Does that make atheism a religion? Not really. It's still just one shared principle that says I don't believe in something. I don't see how it can match up Christianity or Hinduism.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146676

Postby jfgw » June 19th, 2018, 1:56 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:You are saying is that the definition of atheism can be extended to say atheists do not believe in non-physical entities. As you say there is no separate definition that I know of. Is there a word for someone who does believe in the non-physical? Should we say all theists believe in ghosts?


Few words have one clear definition. I am currently using the word Atheism with a capital A to refer to a belief system which dismisses God(s) and anything-else of a spiritual nature. Not all theists believe in ghosts.

GrandOiseau wrote:Does that make atheism a religion? Not really. It's still just one shared principle that says I don't believe in something. I don't see how it can match up Christianity or Hinduism.


The belief that there is no God can be just as strong as the belief that a God exists or that several Gods exist. The relevant scriptures include the physics and other scientific text books that, in actual fact, say nothing to dismiss the existence of any God. Theists have faith that God exists or that Gods exist; Atheists have faith that God does not exist.

I could probably best describe myself as a theological noncognitivist. We have no access beyond the system within which we exist. Any human concept of God will be wrong.

Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Confession is good for the soul?

#146682

Postby GrandOiseau » June 19th, 2018, 2:38 pm

As an atheist I do not have "faith" that gods don't exist. I have no reason to believe they do exist or understanding of their existence. Theists overcome that by having "faith". I am happy to believe something that you give me reason to or give me an understanding of.


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