Successful Conversions?
Has anyone here (theist or Atheist) actually managed to convince a member of the other side of the existance, or lack of, a "hands on" deity?
If so, what specifically did you use as your persuasive arguments?
Have you yourself converted from one side to the other? What made you do so, and why did this make you give up your previous assertions?
Ian
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you right i am pretty pathetic.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
its in the bible, and he's shown it to me to be true.
HE ? God is masculine ? I guess TIME is a grand daddy ? You should tell the scientists what MACHO HE MAN, your idol has revealed to you.
Atheism Books.
Take it up with him.
as for time,
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven–
A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1–8
i am theist and i dont know how to put it under my name
And it's time to say FUCK YOU idol worshiper, you godless evangelist. Do your 40 days alone and take that bible with you. I am god, I am Jesus, I am the Christ. I have no idol.
If you are not god , you are one of satans fools .... I love you MORE !
Atheism Books.
you love in a wicked way which is no love at all.
And in your vast wisdom and knowledge, what is time, what is dirt, what is consciousness ????, YEAH it is G AWE D , and what is that GOD young wise man? And how should the world dance around the fire? Pray ? How ? Beg ? Thank what and how ? Sure I love peace, I love nature, I love earth, I love people, I love my child. I say again , these are not gifts. How do I gift what I am , GOD ?
Love is my favorite thing, and so I tell you again , you are god, and no idol, no savior exists, but you, just as story jesus buddha said , who's dirt simple message was corrupted by the authority church for power and greed. The message of love my caring friend is you are god, you are condemned, born to be god, as there is no separate other, to worship. NO IDOL BEFORE YOU.
Hey , a love song for you my caring friend,
Born Free - Andy Williams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZHaQ3C3xQo
LOL .... thanks for caring .... be peace , and cuss at the devil ....
Atheism Books.
Love Songs
Shout (laugh) At The Devil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5NVJoesEvI&feature=related
RAGE againt the MACHINE - Killing in the name
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkuOAY-S6OY&feature=related
Rage Against The Machine - Testify Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JSBhI_0at0
Pantera - Revolution is my name
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzh8j2qF-WY
Rage Against The Machine - Take The Power Back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW_QgDXL65U&feature=related
Wake up - Rage Against The Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1T8xgHdMEM&feature=related
IRON BUTTERFLY THEME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qkcwBsKizU
RELIGION - "Cult" Slayer
It's propaganda shouts despair,
And sends this virus everywhere,
Religion is hate,
Religion is fear,
Religion is war.
Religion is rape,
Religion's obscene,
Religion's a whore. ~
LOVE KNOWS
1,000,000 million PLUS recently murdered by XIANS , times 10 injured, and how many heart aches ?
WTF , god of abraham, of mans invention is the cure. Such religion is the devil of wrong thinking. No, that doesn't work. Try science. What are we, and why are we killers ??? Get off your fucking knees you idol worshipers, followers of fantacy dellusion .... or stay on your knees and shut up ..... Yeah my love hates ....
Atheism Books.
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People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Do you really think so? I think that the sentiments that playwright James Goldman placed into the mouth of Eleanor of Aquitane in The Lion in Winter to be far more accurate:
"Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war: not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little - that's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children. We could change the world."
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
Nice that you are a being that conforms to the hive mind , we simply need to surround you with atheists and WOOO HOOO you turn in a atheist.
Ok maybe you answer my question that I posted in this post :
YEEE makes absolute sense now dose it. Answer my question or stop pretending a god believe makes sense especially that you admitted to believe everything the people surrounding you believe. Well I think I have seen my ultimate counter part I have arrived at my atheism via logic and someone claming to believe in god is so silly for me like someone that shit himself in public and is proud about it.
I dear you to respond to me , show some balls kid.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
Cool totus_tuus, Yes I do. Words are hard for me.
I like the appeal to love by Goldman We need examine our invented religions, and wrong ideas, governments and dividing patriotisms, because we are those things, and we are war, killers. Seems he has separated all what we need examine, as to stress looking first at ourselves individually inward, and not simply blame the outer world of others.
We could paraphrase his words for better clarity. Not yet a perfect metaphor for all.
Atheism Books.
I call bullshit.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Oh, and stupid too.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Because we get too many theists who claim they were once atheists. If you were ever rational enough to not believe it's hard to see how you could become a theist short of brain damage. As young as he is it's certainly possible he had no belief one way or another and converted.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Dude, atheism doesn't = rational, nor does it = skeptical, intelligent, or sexy. An atheist without a clear line of reasoning, or critical thinking, is wide open to the use of ass logic for possible conversion to the dark side. I'm sure there are plenty of atheists out there whose sole reason for atheism is because there's suffering in the world. Cue christian with the whole "it's because God gave us free will" line, and if the atheist is intellectually lazy enough, a new christian is born.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Well atheists can get converted however ex-theists/ex-deists atheists don’t get converted. Maybe his parents didn’t tell him about god and one day a nice Christian walk to him and sold him the bible truth .
We need to distinguish between ex-theist/ex-deist atheists and natural born atheists (they are simply fresh and often not experienced in religion like the ex-theists/ex-deists atheist).
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
Nah, you do just fine with words in an ee cumming/Dr Bronner sorta way.
By the way, if you've never seen the movie The Lion in Winter, check it out. An awesome cast, Peter O'Toole, Katherine Hepburn, a very young Timothy Dalton, along with a very young Anthony Hopkins.
Anyway...that seems to be exactly what Goldman is stressing. It is a theme that runs through Christian thought through the ages from the Beatitudes through Aquinas down through the years to Benedict XVI and Deus Caritas Est. First that holiness is an individual call, second that human difficulty and suffering is a human responisbility, third that it is through man and man's acceptance of God's love that God acts in the world, and finally that the realization of the gift of God's salvation is not a gift to individuals, but a gift offered to mankind as a whole.
While I do not hold what appears to be your view, ie that somehow humanity itself is a deity (please correct me if that is not your view), I do believe that in heeding God's call to holiness we become fully the agents of His will.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
Delgado, have you learned Hebrew and Greek? Since you admit there is figurative language in the Bible, you must admit that things are lost in the translation.
I just wonder: You sincerely believe in God, that God came to Earth to die for you and wrote a book.
Have you bothered reading what he wrote in the original language it was written in?
No!? *gasp*
You haven't bothered to read what God meant to say to you? YOu must hold a lower opinion of God than I!
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
totus_tuus , Now I see .... that Goldman paragraph is dialog in the movie, and a self reflective put down of themselves, the elite, but can apply to all. I had read it as a "spiritual", Wayne Dyer type message.
I don't believe in any deity in a sense of god separation. All is 100% connected. No master. Appealing to god is appealing to ourselves, the true nature of what we are.
About the movie,
http://www.bookrags.com/The_Lion_in_Winter
Are you familiar with this clever teacher? ( BTW, late Alan Watts is perhaps my favorite mentor, bridging eastern ideas with the west, and is in Youtube etc.
Neale Donald Walsch - Who is God - 5 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCeSlAvzvCQ
Neale Donald Walsch Discusses The Emotion Of Fear - 8 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA4HwFHiYyA&feature=related
I've been posting this a lot to the christians. Comment???
As cool Alan Watts wrote: "The religion of Jesus was that he knew he was a son of God, and the phrase "son of " means "of the nature of," so that a son of God is an individual who realizes that he is, and always has been, one with God. "I and the Father are one." .......... and, "Let this mind be in you." that is to say, let the same kind of [rational] consciousness be in you that was in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ knew he was God." [ you and all are christ too ]
"Wake up" [said a buddha] and find out eventually who you also really are [ god ]. In our culture of course, they'll say you're crazy or you're blasphemous, and they'll either put you in jail or in the nut house (which is the same thing). But if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, "My goodness, I've just discovered that I'm God," they'll laugh and say, "Oh, congratulations, at last you found out." ~ Alan Watts
Atheism Books.
Sorry if I wasn't clear about it being a quote from a screenplay.
Oh, if only it were so. Our worried would be over. We would long ago have achieved self enlightement and things'd be hunky-dory. But here we are, centuries, milennia, ages later and still something is seriously amiss. Isn't it?
Not a big fan of videos. I can't think that fast. Can you recommend a book or two?
But again, I have to ask, if it's that simple, why haven't we done it? If we are the source of the problem, the answer to the same, and the end all be all of our existence, why can't we execute our perfection?
I daresay, I don't see any culture, even as culture exists on the Indian subcontinent, to be the ideal culture. What is it now? Four to six thousand years of recorded human history and we're still thrashing about in the muck. I'm afraid it can't possibly be so simple. Goldman has Eleanor hit the nail square on the head, there is something inherently wrong with us that we cannot, of our own volition, repair.
I gotta git now. May be able to post more later. Great exchanging ideas with you.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
totus, lots of books from those guys. Watch those short vids man.
Yeah the whole world is messed up. The (g-o-d) truth, reality , is too simple and scary so people invent a loving master daddy (etc). Christian fearful ego; "the universe was made for me and human life is a special gift from an emotional creator."
Here some other short reading that hopefully will interest you,
"Nietzsche's The Antichrist"
by Travis J. Denneson
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/travis_denneson/antichrist.html
Part - IV. The Buddhistic Jesus ....
From a Sartre fan, about, "Condemned To Be Free"
http://www.nimbinaustralia.com/zenwatt/condemnedtobefree.html
"Why I Am Not A Christian", by Bertrand Russell , 1927
http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."
"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes....A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men."
More here,
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/13855
Atheism Books.
Hi there .
It seams that my posts are invisible for the theists .
Are you able to answer my little riddle my theist friend ?
Do I need to quote my self again ?
It seams all the theists run away is confronted with a Gnostic atheist like me.
The first one promised to answer and I think we are going to wait for the answer until the end of time.
Do you have what it takes to answer my question about god ?
PS: absurdist clams like you don’t have god that’s why you suffer are ironies. You know” if you have bad luck use luck bringing items” is a similar absurdist came both thus approaches don’t analyze the cases of the problem simply giving a magical cure them all if you substitute lucky charm for god your clams are still absurd now answer my question.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
If God pre-existed the universe He pre-existed time since, as I understand it, there was no time before there was matter.
I hope I understand your question corrrectly. It seems to have lost something in translation (no offense).
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
He knew a number 20% larger than infinity.
The most easterly point on the planet.
These, along with "He pre-existed time", all have one thing in common: They're meaningless.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Here is my path:
catholicism, evangelical christianity, reformed judaism, orthodox judaism, and finally,
atheism
What made me finally abandon religion? In my pursuit of God I saw that what I saw chasing was made up by men. The clues for that were obvious in all of the religions I was in but I kept insisting to myself that "there had to be more". I was trained to think that man would be unhappy without god and I was afraid to tread upon the unknown and unthinkable territory of atheism. I was conditioned to never even assume there could be no god.
Ironically, I became an atheist in Jerusalem. I remember shaving off my beard, and the first time I walked down the street without a head covering. Though at that very moment my atheism wasn't very clear and defined, I felt liberated.
What's the difference between Texas and Saudi Arabia? In Texas they execute you for murder, in Saudi Arabia they excecute you for having a Xmass tree.
Ah...now I see. No, wait a minute, not really.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
I just wonder if you'll be interested enough to figure it out. Or do you prefer to believe what you believe despite what any body has to say? (Except for a few of your favored Holy Men, that is)
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
God can not pre exist god-time. Note the connotation god-time no old stinking time ! god-time is simply a time axis for god (not the universe) if he lacks a time axis god is a les dimensional being then we humans , without a god-time axis you are defining your god for a crippled creature and if there is no god-time for god then he can not interact with us. Its like a 2D character expected to create a 3D space , without god-time god is eternally frozen and will never respond to more powerful more dimensional creatures then him , eliminating a god-time axis makes god is virtually nonexistent he is like 3D model unable to move or understand us , like a move with only one frame , like a program that can not execute the next line.
Are you cretin that you wont to define your god in this way?
Is it more clear now for you ?
Or answer me this what did god do before he created the universe ?
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
Without time I would think everything would be an eternal "now". Your analogy of a movie frame is somewhat apt, but with all the frames of the movie compressed into one frame.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I want to learn the the hebrew and greek, but i can hardly learn spanish as it is.
i am theist and i dont know how to put it under my name
Sounds like a great journey, mine was pretty much Presbyterian (Parents) to lapsed Presbyterian (Parents found better things to do on sundays), to compelled Presbyterian (school) to 'great now I don't have too', to "I hate psychics" to there is one big elephant in the corner. I can remember the around the dinner table discussions around "there must be something more in life, so it must be god " a few years ago, I wish I could revise it now.
In God I trust, all others bring data
BTW God, I think your excemption expired
Thanks everyone for their stories - looks like I sparked some lively debates here too.. long may they continue.
Ian