Welcoming myself to the forum.
Offline Hello.
My name is Mitch, and I am from North Dakota. I came to this site after seeing a video on the www.whywontgodhealamputees.com website. The God vs. no God topic is not something at the forefront of my mind daily, but one that I am interested in deeply nevertheless. Why? Why not just keep on not thinking about it? Because identity is important to me. This is one area of my life in which I feel deeply torn.
I am an intelligent person. I have a technically demanding trade, and I pride myself on my ability to troubleshoot technical problems. Anyone else here in a technical field will agree, there is always a cause for a technical problem you experience. Whether it is a bad component in an electronic device, or a syntax error in a line of code, there is always a cause which must be found and corrected for optimal performance of the desired end. Having been raised in a Catholic environment, and then later subjecting myself to a non-denominational Christian one, I am doing exactly what Kelly indicated people do in the above mentioned video. That is, I am being rational in all aspects of my life, except for the God aspect. In that aspect lingers doubt, concern, and fear. So I am on a mission to find this technical error in my psyche, and hopefully, expel it. I do not want to exist as someone who is undefined or abstract in his beliefs. I don't want this to be an ongoing struggle between believing and not. Knowing what is rational does not automatically eliminate 20 + years of influence and the want to believe that something better exists...
...anyway, I hope I'm in the right place.
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Hello and welcome Mitch
R/
Lenny
www.kaosium.org
Big welcome, Mitch. We are always very glad to see anyone come who wants to seriously and critically examine their beliefs, especially someone as apparently reasonable and well-spoken as yourself.
Take some time to cruise around the forums and dip into any interesting arguments you find here. I'd also encourage you to make your own thread with any specific questions you are struggling with.
I'll caution you about one thing: we get a lot of theists on here pretending to ask questions but who are really only seeking to proselytize or make apologetic arguments. So when your question goes up, don't be put off if some people read into it that you are putting forth a particular theist viewpoint and go after you a little aggressively. Stay cool and address the content of what they say and everything will be fine. You'll find that rationality is pretty much always rewarded with rationality in return here.
I can assure you of this: you will find very knowledgable people here who will be able to give you thoughtful answers to all your questions.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Welcome to the hizzle!
For the Shizzle!
Welcome
Hello all.
Well, like mitch i saw the vid the other day and laughed ALOT. Its the sorta humor my lifes been lacking since the Jehovas Witness took me off their 'to convert' list...
Watching a human being that i know has no deeper insight into the origins of the universe than i or anyone else, claim that a book, on a tiny planet orbiting this particular sun, in a galaxy of 100,000,000 stars, written 2 millennia ago, before even a remotely practical understanding of the forces that control the galaxy/universe had been penned, has all the answers to a the infinate (tho you have to die first to find out if its true) is just the funniest imo.
Its like when kids say things that seem rational in their heads because they havent had the time/experience to think it thru, but to you and me its just hillarious and abstract.
So too, the religious folk have either been indoctrinated as a child, so faith in the brain is attached to the simplistic rules of a childs mind (not a scientific statement but i think we all have some irrationalites from our childhood), and taught not to question it, as thats the greatest sin, or chose that way of thinking to resolve a great and universal fear of death/mistrust of oneself, which wouldnt be a problem if they just left it at that, but to justify themselves they have to proove to other people that they too have this universal fear of death, which is true, but they have a convenient and simplistic solution to peoples fear... control and the promise that a books teachings are going to save your eternal life. There is humour in that i think, its the insulting humour of being slapped round the face with a big wet fish
So yeah, sorry if this is out of place in mitches thread but you just CANT get a good religious debate going in the UK because you would have to turn nearly every stone to find some1 that actually belivesIn the end, thiests would probably pity me, and i pity them back... Difference is no1 told me who to pity and who to pursecute so im assuming im right based on the fact that i have no agenda and arrived at my conclusion using only earthly reason.
gg
I assumed as much. Secularists who do the same thing to Christian organizations are called wolves in sheeps clothing. What should we call them here?
its probably most appropriate to just keep calling them sheep imo
Psymn nailed it.