I saw the realms of God a personal experience of life beyond life

[jocky]

Not to butt in, but don't you guys ever get bored of having the same conversations over and over? Is it a pride thing?

Absolutely, no seriously Juniper, sense of humour goes out the window in a God thread. If you are not spot on with your use of language, even people who agree with your basic proposition will be down your throat. Even me and athiest have disagreements about what athiesm means. I think it is simplistic non belief in the supernatural, while athiest thinks it is more complex but he puts up a better case for it than I ever could. Put it this way, on the God or Gods side you have wonderful texts, St Paul etc etc and it is hard to go against wonderful ideas and beautiful language, but look around you and you see a different reality. It is just that I feel religious certainty of any persuasion needs to be vigorously challenged.

[jocky]

Dude, take it easy - I hold nothing against you, I use such a term because, quite simply, three strikes and you're out - and I have 30 already, so I don't need the Banninator bringing down her hammer on me. Seriously, sorry if perhaps my language isn't clear, but I am deliberately bypassing saying anything that would get me banned, so you may perhaps have to read more closely, or ignore my comments - as for "Brutus is an Honorable Man" that is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and was chosen because, given its general familiarity, especially on a literary forum, serves its purposes of being a perfect ironic statement.

Relax - there is no need to personalize attacks.


As for Shakespeare never contemplating these issues though, perhaps one may need to reread him.

JBI , Pissing off Jocky will get us banned together. I was not aware that I made a personal attack on you, Just that I disagreed with some of the points you made. As for rereading Shakespeare that may take some time. My point about the Bard was though he maybe told it as he saw it he was never judgemental. Romeo and Juliet an incomparable love story, but they would have hated the sight of each other after a few years. Hamlet, my favourite play, but he was some F..k up. Lear was old , no further explanation needed. MacBeth, one of ours, end of story. Titus Andronicus......... needless to say the greatest writer of the age never commented on the God controversy. Wise old Willie.

[Jozanny]

Absolutely, no seriously Juniper, sense of humour goes out the window in a God thread. If you are not spot on with your use of language, even people who agree with your basic proposition will be down your throat. Even me and athiest have disagreements about what athiesm means. I think it is simplistic non belief in the supernatural, while athiest thinks it is more complex but he puts up a better case for it than I ever could. Put it this way, on the God or Gods side you have wonderful texts, St Paul etc etc and it is hard to go against wonderful ideas and beautiful language, but look around you and you see a different reality. It is just that I feel religious certainty of any persuasion needs to be vigorously challenged.

Vigorously challenged or taken too seriously? Susan Sontang's son claims his mother over-reacted to believers. Aside from which, this argument goes on and on in posting software. Perhaps Atheist and JBI both need to remember that actual, physical civic engagement can be a powerful thing, as opposed to typing the same points over and over electronically.

My professor once summed up Hegel for me as "We need to look at the things themselves." Without ever fully understanding Hegel, I adopt this assertion. I prefer to look at the things themselves and leave what I believe as what I believe, and not what I am going to impose on you.

***
My point is that this sub-forum is for religious texts, and though I am not one to play topic cop, and it would be hypocritical if I did, maybe we can all stop pontificating and post about the texts, like mature individuals? Anyone can search my posts and discover my dislike of Christianity--but it is not the primary goal of my life to shred its salvation-triumphalist themes on a daily basis, and there would probably be something wrong with me if I did, because it is merely a way to live, and probably eases the way we die, like other religions which have gone before it, surround it, and will come after it.

I joked with my guy the other day that Michael Jackson seems to be well on his way to deification, and so what? Religions are human systems, like any other, like materialism too, in fact.

[jocky]

Vigorously challenged or taken too seriously? Susan Sontang's son claims his mother over-reacted to believers. Aside from which, this argument goes on and on in posting software. Perhaps Atheist and JBI both need to remember that actual, physical civic engagement can be a powerful thing, as opposed to typing the same points over and over electronically.

My professor once summed up Hegel for me as "We need to look at the things themselves." Without ever fully understanding Hegel, I adopt this assertion. I prefer to look at the things themselves and leave what I believe as what I believe, and not what I am going to impose on you.

***
My point is that this sub-forum is for religious texts, and though I am not one to play topic cop, and it would be hypocritical if I did, maybe we can all stop pontificating and post about the texts, like mature individuals? Anyone can search my posts and discover my dislike of Christianity--but it is not the primary goal of my life to shred its salvation-triumphalist themes on a daily basis, and there would probably be something wrong with me if I did, because it is merely a way to live, and probably eases the way we die, like other religions which have gone before it, surround it, and will come after it.

I joked with my guy the other day that Michael Jackson seems to be well on his way to deification, and so what? Religions are human systems, like any other, like materialism too, in fact.

Hegel and Wacko mentioned on the same post, that took some doing! Point taken, Jocky will quietly retire from this debate. I would have happily continued, but the mere mention of materialism brought on a sudden headache.

[Jozanny]

I am not trying to silence anyone jockey, merely asking if it would not be more interesting to debate the material, rather than each other and our belief systems, that's all. Merely as a practical matter, the regulars already know each other's positions, and no doubt can reiterate them with a little effort with ease. I think JBI does have a valid point about the tit for tat. To get beyond that we could actually read and discuss texts, which seems to me to be a more useful exercise on a site which makes literary texts freely available.

Truth is, after all, a relative value with no absolute.

[JBI]

I am not trying to silence anyone jockey, merely asking if it would not be more interesting to debate the material, rather than each other and our belief systems, that's all. Merely as a practical matter, the regulars already know each other's positions, and no doubt can reiterate them with a little effort with ease. I think JBI does have a valid point about the tit for tat. To get beyond that we could actually read and discuss texts, which seems to me to be a more useful exercise on a site which makes literary texts freely available.

Truth is, after all, a relative value with no absolute.

What's the point really - copy and pasting is illegal, so I see no reason why this thread shouldn't have been locked in the first place - someone's near death experience that they are posting all over the web is not really much of a discussion now is it - the personal, the sublime experience is, by nature personal, therefore, in a sense the only real purpose of such a post would be to convince people to believe in said story - which is ridiculous, and silly, since this is a public forum, but there you have it. It's just a shame that people can't discuss anything besides their own egos.

[Jozanny]

I did not read the OP's post, and did not realize it was lifted, but I doubt those abuses ever stop. A few years ago, when I was active with New Mobility, I made the mistake of trying their forum, and it made my past sins in other places look real tame. A pair of trolls copied my posts and an old picture. At the end of the day, it was better to leave, and I've never returned, and engaging the board probably wasn't wise, given my publishing aspirations. But that might be my paranoia misjudging the importance of my mouth

[jocky]

I am not trying to silence anyone jockey, merely asking if it would not be more interesting to debate the material, rather than each other and our belief systems, that's all. Merely as a practical matter, the regulars already know each other's positions, and no doubt can reiterate them with a little effort with ease. I think JBI does have a valid point about the tit for tat. To get beyond that we could actually read and discuss texts, which seems to me to be a more useful exercise on a site which makes literary texts freely available.

Truth is, after all, a relative value with no absolute.

On the point of debating the material, Jocky will retain a dignified silence. Me and my pal GBH, sorry I mean JBI have one thing in common, at least we bothered to read the original post. Plagiarism aint what it used to be. Truth may be relative, but it helps if you actually read the original point. Apart from that you got me, love from the novice Jocky.

[The Atheist]

And you accuse me of generalizing or creating a straw man? Which religions exactly? One wouldn't want to accuse you of following the Dawkins bunch in only knowing of two religions, Islam and Christianity.

Come now, JBI, surely you don't think christianity and islam are the only two religions with an afterlife?

Aside from the obvious Hindu and Buddhist sects, yes there are odd folk religions in China, as well as Shinto. The ones I've looked at practice life-after-death-belief as part of their doctrine, so I'm pretty happy making that generalisation. Feel free to list those religions which do not believe in some kind of immortality or reincarnation and I'll make an exception for them.

The point is, in the end the job gets done - who cares what the motivation is - why should anyone care what other people choose to believe in, unless it begins to effect someone else?

Bingo!

You hit the nail on the head - religion does not just not affect its adherents. Surely, you've heard of Dover at least?

When religion stops challenging science, stops attempting to get creationism taught as fact, and all the other lunacy inspired by religion is finished, you won't find atheists saying a word.

Until then, I imagine most of us will reserve our right to challenge the irrational.

.... is to call them immature, annoying ignoramuses, with perhaps nothing to really offer besides some cheap jokes, fancily worded rhetoric, and downright boring pages of Onanist tripe, but They Are All Honorable men.

Two things:

Where have called anyone an ignoramus or immature?

For the thrid time in this thread you've made assertions about what I've said that are all fabrications.

Nice. Yet I'm the Onanist...

As to the loch Ness issue, I have never seen it but I nearly caught it. It can actually speak, it told me clearly I was a product of cold war paranoia, at that point I let it go.

Haha! It lied.

My dear old mum was actually in Loch Ness in the early 1930s when the plot was hatched to ressurrect the old legend. Any means, fair or foul...

How is Athiest minor doing, wont be long before I get booted of this thread also? It is all getting to clever for me. Hitchens is a brilliant orator and writer though, just shows you what a public school education can achieve. Thank God,(wrong word) I never recieved one.

Little one is fine!

You and me both on the public schools, too.

Athiest, you have done it again, I am Thick, Scottish, Unquoter, Motherless, I can forgive all that, but to hell with bringing up ex-wives that is unforgiveable.

They go to hell? Sounds right to me!

Not to butt in, but don't you guys ever get bored of having the same conversations over and over? Is it a pride thing?

Only to the extent that I said before - and you'll note that I haven't really argued religion or god/s that much here - that I won't allow assertions as to the meaning of "atheism" to stand unchallenged.

What I said to JBI applies as well. Religionistas have proven time and again that if they remain unchallenged, they'd have us back burning witches* in no time.

* just for the uninitiated, "burning witches" is a metaphor

My point is that this sub-forum is for religious texts, and though I am not one to play topic cop, and it would be hypocritical if I did, maybe we can all stop pontificating and post about the texts, like mature individuals?

Nope, that's long since been covered. Religion and religious, non-textual matters are free for discussion here.

Have you read the sticky thread at the top of the forum page?

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=15410

What's the point really - copy and pasting is illegal, ...

I think you'll find that's wrong as well in this case. The rule applies to someone else's work, and since the OP is the work of the poster, he's quite welcome to post it for discussion. That's he's posted it elsewhere as well is irrelevant.

[Jozanny]

On the point of debating the material, Jocky will retain a dignified silence. Me and my pal GBH, sorry I mean JBI have one thing in common, at least we bothered to read the original post. Plagiarism aint what it used to be. Truth may be relative, but it helps if you actually read the original point. Apart from that you got me, love from the novice Jocky.

Whoa. I meant maybe we should use this forum as was intended, rather than believers using it to write bad inspirational posts and non-believers constipating ourselves. I have no interest in the OP's sentiments, taken from another community, or whatever the violation.

Interacting on this forum has had an influence on me, to the extent that I have my doubts about seeing atheism as a legitimate advocacy issue. Relentlessness can be a double-edged sword, and being dogmatic to the point of nothing else has made me stop listening.

I refuse to deal in anymore deity/non-deity debates, and will use this forum as it was intended, to discuss religious texts.

[jocky]

Whoa. I meant maybe we should use this forum as was intended, rather than believers using it to write bad inspirational posts and non-believers constipating ourselves. I have no interest in the OP's sentiments, taken from another community, or whatever the violation.

Interacting on this forum has had an influence on me, to the extent that I have my doubts about seeing atheism as a legitimate advocacy issue. Relentlessness can be a double-edged sword, and being dogmatic to the point of nothing else has made me stop listening.

I refuse to deal in anymore deity/non-deity debates, and will use this forum as it was intended, to discuss religious texts.

No arguing with that Jozanny, I was not having a go rather a giggle. ' legitamate advocacy issue', sounds like lawyer speak to me. On the first day...... And your point is! Come on Jozanny I am only joshing, but the world has had more than enough religious texts! Are we not entitled to challenge religious discussions, which have caused a fair bit of suffering through the centuries?

[Jozanny]

No arguing with that Jozanny, I was not having a go rather a giggle. ' legitamate advocacy issue', sounds like lawyer speak to me. On the first day...... And your point is! Come on Jozanny I am only joshing, but the world has had more than enough religious texts! Are we not entitled to challenge religious discussions, which have caused a fair bit of suffering through the centuries?

I was going to go to law school actually But, serious question, what is your goal in challenging proselytizers here? In communities like this, it is counterproductive, in my estimation. I write articles, and save my thunder.

[jocky]

Well if you save your thunder, I would hate to see what your like when you dont! My point is that when I was younger, the God mob never left us alone, family, school, friends, activities, nothing was out of bounds. They were in charge of the agenda and had all the spiritual and intellectual weaponry at hand. Everything was measured against a morality which was unattainable. Perhaps it is just the freedom to fight back. It was like living in a moral hegemony. Dont get me wrong, people are entitled to their views, spiritual or intellectual, but dont be surprised when some of us deny the freedom to express oneselves unchallenged, when we were denied the same opportunity. now thats my useless explanation, whats yours?

[Judas130]

I had a few quotes by Michael Martin and Theodore M. Drange, but after talk of it being illegal to paste such, i've removed it.

The way language works, is it gives a name to a concept - without the concept, there is no name - without a concept of deity, there cannot be a disbelief in it - the term atheism then, is bound to the term theism - the term theism, is bound to religion, religion then, is bound to a tradition, which, in itself, is probably bound to a psychological condition. You cannot skip A B C to get to D, and then claim that A B C do not exist. Atheism is just as much a part of a discourse as theism - people aren't born atheist, and people aren't born amoral (and babies are hardly amoral, they merely function on a different value system) they are measured against other labels.

Atheism CAN be the other side of the coin to theism, but it doesn't have to be. If you view Atheism as a two-tier system of positive and negative thought then perhaps we might better understand what it is you and Atheist have been quarrelling over. The Positive atheist asserts that there is no God, having conceptualised it and having thus refuted it. The negative atheist, or Nontheist is without any belief in God - it would be better to call a baby a nontheist, for he hasn't reasoned the existence of God, he just doesn't know of the concept yet. What I am confused by, is what you are arguing for or against - is it for agnosticism and against atheism? Agnostics wait for proof or disproof before they conclude, atheists have concluded already. If the agnostic wants proof, then all he must do is look to theist texts and challenge and reason with the claims made and at the end of the day when all internally based ideals have withered apart, one comes down to arguments based on some external reality and the agnostic questions 'we do not know' and so does an atheist, but all the difference is is in what an atheist will say next: 'i have no experience of the external, neither does the theist nor the agnostic, there is no proof nor disproof, but I do not live there, and God is certainly not here, so why believe it?'.
Sure, an atheist needs to conceptualise a deity to wave it away, just as we conceptualise elves and unicorns (sorry), if an atheist does need a definition of a God to dismiss it, at least we can agree that God exists in our mind. Yet when an atheist comes to the question of what is real in the world, then concepts of deities are an irrelevant indulgence.

Think of it this way - you put all the people who believe in deities in one box, and then you proclaim yourself as outside the box - without the box, you cannot be outside of the box. But no, there is a self righteous association by some posters on this thread, of being somehow outside of the box, without acknowledging that others are inside the box, or that the box exists? How is that possible - how can you be outside of it, without it being there?

Perhaps atheism is what communism is for socialism. Perhaps atheism is the catalyst for nontheism - but if we are ignorant of religion, it will come back, and the cycle will continue. What you have said is really buggin me. Is agnosticism more rationally sound that atheism?
Theists argue cognitively, asserting that their religious statements are real and can be found in the world, and thus i assumed that atheists were the opposite, noncognitive, because they do not hold religious statements as true
but i've realised that an atheist is cognitive because he holds real that there is no God, and that evidence for this can be found in the world, so atheism and theism are of the same cognition. This is a grim thought for me personally.

Hume would say that to think of God in the mind is exactly the same as to think of God in reality. Because it is not possible to take an idea in one's mind, apply pure logic to that idea, and reach a conclusion that is based entirely in the external observable universe, eg 'God exists' (and 'God doesn't exist'). So all a theist or an atheist is doing, is thinking about God - not providing grounds for God existing or not existing.

How can atheism cover its back? I'd like Atheist to give me a hand hopefully.
peace

[The Atheist]

Dont get me wrong, people are entitled to their views, spiritual or intellectual, but dont be surprised when some of us deny the freedom to express oneselves unchallenged, when we were denied the same opportunity. now thats my useless explanation, whats yours?

Crikey, any more writing like that and we'll have to change you into the "literate" group!

I had a few quotes by Michael Martin and Theodore M. Drange, but after talk of it being illegal to paste such, i've removed it.

No, you're getting confused here because JBI isn't entirely right.

You cannot cut and paste whole articles, but this forum, like all others, works under "gair use" guidelines where parts can be copied as long as links to the whole are given. I do just this myself further down the page.

...- it would be better to call a baby a nontheist, for he hasn't reasoned the existence of God, he just doesn't know of the concept yet.

No, and I say no on two counts:

It's crumbling under pressure from theists and agnostics who refuse to accept the reality of what "atheist" actually means.

It's inventing a word unnecessarily. Refer to the George Orwell forum for clarification.

Sure, an atheist needs to conceptualise a deity to wave it away, just as we conceptualise elves and unicorns (sorry), if an atheist does need a definition of a God to dismiss it, at least we can agree that God exists in our mind. Yet when an atheist comes to the question of what is real in the world, then concepts of deities are an irrelevant indulgence.

I don't agree that we have to know what god/s are before saying we don't believe in them. Let's say we meet up with an alien race who are also theists. Before I've even heard of their god/s, I have a default position of not believing in them as to believe in them I would have to see evidence that they exist, so "I don't know" just doesn't do it.

This is a grim thought for me personally.

I just think you're wrong, but each to his own.

So all a theist or an atheist is doing, is thinking about God - not providing grounds for God existing or not existing.

How can atheism cover its back? I'd like Atheist to give me a hand hopefully.
peace

I don't think atheists think about god at all. That's kind of the whole point. We tend to think about claims made on some god's behalf, but no more.

__________________________________________________ ____________


Just an interesting one from today's news which emphasises why atheists attack christianity:

A Christian faith-healing clinic has opened in Christchurch offering to cure cancer, broken bones and mental illness through prayer.

The New Zealand Healing Rooms clinic in Worcester St, Linwood, is set up like a doctor's surgery, with a waiting room leading to treatment rooms, where two pastors and divine-healing technicians pray for patients.

Pastor Marie Rea said they used "aggressive" prayer techniques based on the teachings of Canadian evangelist John Lake.

link

Now, New Zealand has had several children die in recent years because their parents have chosen to pray rather than use science-based medicine. Some of those parents have rightly been imprisoned for their stupidity.

Without challenges from rational people, these disgraceful ideas would grow and become more popular than they already are and more children would die.

If we all sit back and smugly parrot "We don't know", it's as good as giving a free pass to the deluded scum who promulagte this kind of lunacy.

It reminds me of Edmund Burke's famous comment about those who sit and do nothing in the face of evil.