A Question for Atheists

Gaznazdiak,,,,Please bear with me and a piece of philosophy I came up with back in 1983,,,"When it becomes necessary for an individual to challenge the basic ideas of his peers, he shall be labeled as Insane...This is not based upon empirical adjudicated evidence, but on the fear that hea may be correct."....It doesn't seem to matter if you are describing religion, cults, gangs, or a common themed brotherhood...
 
Men are prideful creatures.
Pride separates.
The truly powerful are humble.
A humble man can look about himself and behold what has been made and because he is humble he is not threatened but is in awe.
It is then that he starts to become strong and understands some things.He will also understand that there is things he will not be able to understand till later.

It's not like trying on a shirt. Pride of the wrong kind must leave him.It must be real or understanding does not come and he will turn away angry and resentful.

It's worth the journey.A man will never be perfection but he can do better and can find a peace that is found no other way.
 
Originally Posted By: OldTurtleGaznazdiak,,,,Please bear with me and a piece of philosophy I came up with back in 1983,,,"When it becomes necessary for an individual to challenge the basic ideas of his peers, he shall be labeled as Insane...This is not based upon empirical adjudicated evidence, but on the fear that hea may be correct."....It doesn't seem to matter if you are describing religion, cults, gangs, or a common themed brotherhood...

Hi OldTurtle,

Nicely put. I believe you and tnshootist may both be correct: fear and pride.
Fear of being wrong and too proud to admit the possibility.
 
Originally Posted By: NdIndyOriginally Posted By: swampwalkerOriginally Posted By: tnshootist
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762Originally Posted By: tnshootist
What color can a man come up with that is new. Never seen before. Not a composite of things known but new.

There are forbidden colors humans can't even perceive...

"Color" is an illusion. Light and its spectrum exist in the physical world, but color is all in your mind. Having said that, color can be measured quite accurately, for an illusion, under some common practical conditions, and its influence on people behavior is well understood for something that is not real'

LSD is a pretty simple way to alter the set perceptions of established colors, but they have all already been seen. It matters not so much as to the knowledge in your head, but rather the content of the heart...


OK.
But my point stays the same.
Man is so limited in what he can do he wouldn't know truth if he fell over it.
To think that all that there is is what we can prove by our standards is pretty small thinking in my opinion.

You truly have to have a lot of faith, if it is based off the experiences of other men, Something I’ve never been able to do.




Bs. You and every other breathing person deals with faith thousands of times a day.
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we do it from our first conscious thought and don't stop until we die.

To me, breathing is confidence;

Confidence – (1.)Trust that is based on knowledge or past experience.
(2.) a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

We are not born with that confidence, we do not even develop it until we are old enough to understand the necessity of breathing. That understanding gives us knowledge, but that knowledge should not be confused as some sort of blind faith. As soon as we develop our ability to reason, if we recognize that confidence, at that point it could be analyzed or processed as a belief. Belief is an opinion or judgement in which a person has to be persuaded, no one had to persuade me that I am and will continue to breath. On the other hand my belief of God was made from information that was presented to my mind, both good and bad.

My belief "of" God is knowledge, my belief "in" God is faith. Knowledge comes before belief and belief comes before faith. As such faith can not exist without knowledge. While the human mind can hold vast amounts of knowledge absent of faith. Knowledge and beliefs are subject to revision as well as indoctrination to the masses. My faith is personal and not subject to revision nor could it be indoctrinated into even the simplest of fools.
 
Originally Posted By: GaznazdiakThere is something that has always both intrigued and puzzled me about religious belief.

My opinion, as an outsider, is that there is a distinct difference between "faith" and "organised" religions, and this will no doubt draw further condemnation upon me, but I would be interested in the opinions of those of you who may belong to either group I will describe.

There are those who follow the philosophy espoused by Jesus, who are devout in their belief and never set foot in a church, temple or other place of worship and have developed their belief purely from their personal study of the bible. They found his teachings to resonate deeply and feel no need for the enforced interpretation or regimentation of others.

Then there are those who follow a religious philosophy as set down by an organised denominational church, and this is where the problems seem to begin. Even the most devout will agree there have been many problems brought about by denominationalism or sectarianism as it is now more commonly known. The Wars of the Reformation between Catholics and Protestants from 1522 to 1700 in Europe are one example, the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslim sects is another.

It seems to me, as an objective observer, that when we humans group together, for whatever reason, religion, sports, even in different clubs sharing a common interest like shooting, we tend to develop a kind of tribalism where we see our group as being the "right" group and the others as somehow wrong, misled or in the extreme, evil.

If, as all the mainstream religions are monotheistic, and there is only one true god, and they all believe in that same god, why the need to form "teams" and fight over minor theological interpretations?

Surely if there is only the one true god, and everyone believes in the same one, aren't they all right, removing the need for the different teams, and the infighting?



The bold text has got to be one of the most thought out and accurate statements made about organized religion today.

I know a lot of folks that have very deep faith in god/ religion and NEVER set foot into a church. When I have conversations and questions concerning faith with this type of person, I almost never end up in a heated debate with the "right and wrong" ideology. They give objective views of their beliefs, listen to mine with an open mind, and it's just a good conversation. For, I do have a lot of questions about religion and faith. I find faith in such things very intriguing to me and I am on kind of a "quest" to find answers as to why I do not possess such faith or if I am able to possess it.

When I used to have these same conversations with members of religious organizations and claim to be a follower of one sect of it, I found that more times than not, they were very closed minded, extremely judgmental, almost always completely one sided in their conversation. Lot's of "You will be sorry when you are in [beeep]", "Your souls is already damned","You are traveling through life blind ect. ect.

Breathing is not faith. It's a confidence thing based on the science of the human body. My brain operates on auto pilot when I sleep based on the chemical and electrical make up and science of it. My brain tells my body to breathe when I sleep based on that.
 
Breathing is a strange thing, since it can occur both involuntarily or voluntarily. I used it as an example as somethiing we have to have faith in occurring. otherwise, we’d constantly be in an anxious state, monitoring each breathe. To me, people who are fervent with religion are doing the spiritual equivalent of “monitoring each breath”. It seems they’re projecting their own ideas and wishes into a natural process, that will occur irregardless of belief system.

When we’re born into this existence, we are already equipped with knowledge. It is not knowledge based off intellect, but something that is gifted to us..How does the brain know exactly how to form a personality? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the system that has created it, is far stranger then what any person can conjure.
 
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