More bad news. Today we were informed that a friend lost a 20-year-old child this week of undisclosed cause. Losing a child must be the worst of all life experiences.I could not help but hear my old grandmother’s voice saying “death comes in threes”, because this is the third death in recent history for our extended group of friends. As logical as I am, her superstition still resonated in the back of my mind.Interesting dynamic. Somehow I know if there is a fourth, I’ll hear Nana warning me about two more to come. As silly and innane as those “bobbi-misers” are, they somehow still rear themselves when the circumstances permit.Infectious memes. Desperate attempts to feel control where there is none. Anything to make the unpredictable seem predictable. Why can’t our intelligent brains rid ourselves of our grandparents’ mythologies? Am I brainwashed, doomed forever to have this silliness in my head?
karen,
Well, their membership declined a lot after his death, but his wife apparently held it together and the really devout still followed. There was this one story of a couple that had actually had really good lives, steady jobs, money in their savings, money invested, happy marriage. Then they found Father Divine, gave him everything, weren’t allowed to see each other. Finally they left the movement when they realized it was a scam (DUH!) and tried to sue him but he fled the state. Asshole if you ask me.
Karen:
At the risk of appearing lazy, could you direct me to the specific passage on the web site you sent? I started at Chapter One, and so far it’s a bit rambling.
Anne Marie
Read the “Submission” . It more or less outlines what the chapters go into in depth.
Anne Marie
Hahaha… oh man I wish. I actually had a really hard time in school as a kid. A lot of emotional problems, probably as a result of some weird things happening at the time, but also because that’s just what I am – an emotional person (these days I prefer to say ‘passionate’.) Around fifth grade I was quarantined to the Behavioral Adjustment room where they pretty much did nothing but read stories to you all day. It was a very loud and distracting environment which made it almost impossible to concentrate on anything. I was pretty frail too and couldn’t get the hang of most sports. As a result I spent a lot of time alone in my thoughts and imagination. I also spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t get out of the B.A. ward until switching school districts three years later, and was pretty ill prepared for regular school work. Plenty smart enough to grasp everything being taught, but no organizational skills to speak of. I just couldn’t remember to get my assignments in… couldn’t even remember to write them down. So, yeah, my teachers found me very frustrating, and it was quite an uphill battle after High School.
I guess you could call me the quintessential late-bloomer.
Yeah, well, my father is the Southern Baptist choir soloist – deacon – sunday school teacher, my mother is completely secular (probably the most reasonable person I’ve ever met.) When they split I went to live with my Dad, while my sis stayed with my mom and stepfather who eventually moved out to Portland. My dad was pretty born again after prison (ha – you’re going to have to fill in a lot of gaps here) and of course tried to raise me in the church. I did try it on for size, for a while anyway. But when the teenage years hit it got kinda bad, and I split to finish High School in Oregon.
So basically the family was broken along West Coast (secular)/East Coast (religious) lines.
Yeah, but I don’t know if I would describe it as tension, at least not yet. More like a painful sadness. My dad is actually a great guy when it comes down to it, but we have become complete opposites philosophically. It sucks because he’s my father and I what him to be proud of me, but no matter what I accomplish in life he’s still going to consider me a lost soul. I feel like I can accept him for who he is, but his belief system denies him the capability of ever really accepting me for who I am.
I guess that’s the thing I dislike most about religion – the way it can just tear people apart from each other.
Aw, Man, r4d!
(cyberhug)
R4D:
Anne Marie
You simply do not seem capable of making rational arguments. Nobody has ever observed a god and the god idea is of no predictive value. If you have something too refute this by all means stop biting your tongue and out with it.
Anne Marie why do so many catholics engage in behavior that violates church rules,teaching.what use is catholic church if it can’t get its members to live a positive lifestyle.it seems to an outsider that catholic church is made up of pedophiles and whores.your church has apologized to jews,muslims what about protestants,atheists.
btw Anne Marie i am not anti-catholic
i am just curious why RC does not enforce its rules for members.
Reason:
The Church is a hospital for sinners not a museum for saints. Would it be good if more RC members knew and lived the faith? Yea it would. Why not enforce standards, it?s not a totalitarian regime, it?s a Kingdom. The King is kinder than his subjects. Should we, the subjects more clearly reflect the kindness of the King, yea we should. Do our failures minimize the Kings kindness, no, they simply reflect poorly on it. Does that suck? Pretty much.
The fact that the Church continues in spite of the pitiful state of it?s membership is one of the mysteries that points to it?s miraculous nature. I mean really an argument could easily be made that Christianity would be great if it weren?t for Christians, so how has the Church survived all these years? Not thru the efforts of it?s members. We can?t seam to kill it no matter how hard we try.
The Church is where pedophiles and sociopaths go to hide in the open. Your church has been on this earth for a mere drop in an extremely large bucket of time. It will effectively die in our lifetime.
What:
THAT would be the best possible outcome.
Oh look, there in the sky, it’s a bird, no it’s a plane, no it’s a dude on a big white horse.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleeeelllluuuuuiiiiaaa.
Dude, you take yourself entirely to seriously, ya big crank mister.
rainbows4dinosaurs:
Sorry to have to duck out just when the party just got started.
Oh, well, of course?
Which one?
Yes, only the weak-minded can be indoctrinated, right?
I wonder if Arthur Clarke (the good atheist that he is) would still heed his own first and third ?laws of prediction?? #1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. And #3) any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Given that science hasn?t dispensed with the existence of God?in fact it seems to be loosing ground in that area?I?d say maybe you need to revise your criterion for what qualifies as ?real.?
What?s that supposed to mean?
And you think you?re unique in that respect here?
My standards? When have I ever said I knew who was in hell?
You sure you really understand the concept enough to carry on an intelligent conversation about it??or do you always jump to erroneous conclusions, and arrogantly refuse to reconsider them under any circumstances?
Yeah, I know, and you don?t need forgiveness either?second verse, same as the first.
That?s a good one! I can?t tell you how many signs I?ve seen like ?Come join the Church of Keep Yer Mouth Shut About Jesus?
Somehow? ?… Oh yeah, we?re back to you not understanding the concept and being too arrogant to want to get it straight, again.
Yep. Those who?ve heard that message bear that responsibility. For those who haven?t, well, I think Christ answered that when Peter asked Him about John?s fate by saying, ?If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!?
Uh, no dude, you?re trying to evade the issue by twisting logic. My preference for a type of chocolate is true about me.
Interesting how you got that part right but deliberately distorted the part about subjective truth just to suit your purpose.
Huh? What? How so?
My ?verdict? on the world is, as you so often point out, based on reality. It?s all about the topic of this thread, ?Desperate attempts to feel control where there is none.? It?s inescapable that the only logical conclusion one can make in this life is that without acknowledging a higher power, life itself is hopeless. And I don?t ?make excuses? for what you perceive as God?s shortcomings. You either don?t understand, or have deliberately warped your perception of how our gift of free will interacts with His justice and righteousness into your ?cosmic good cop/bad cop? scenario. In the end, the cold, hard reality of life is that our triumphs and tragedies are utterly meaningless outside of the context of a Creator.
Explain please?
All I can say is you have a very interesting take on luck then. So, if it really was all attributed to ?luck? and not to blessings?and luck, by (common definition) is a truly random outcome of events then how do you suppose you got so ?lucky?? Shouldn?t you have had an equal number of ?bad? luck events over the course of your life? Did you do something to curry that string of ?good? luck or did you just win the cosmic lottery by being the recipient of that statistical fluke?
Funny, I would?ve expected you to have known that Post Modernism only acknowledges relative truth. I distinctly acknowledged both.
Yep.
Take it anyway you want. The fact is, other than the very tiny amount of personal details I?ve disclosed here, you have no clue what my life has been like and is like now. Unless you personally have witnessed how I?ve lived my life, then you have absolutely no credible basis on which to make such an audacious claim.
I never said I was.
Careful, sounds like you?re confusing ?preference? with relative personal truth there.
And which kind of truth would that be?
I’ll have what HE’s smoking.
I’d join that church!
Anne Marie
You are a coward so I will post this again just to show you have no rational response.
You simply do not seem capable of making rational arguments. Nobody has ever observed a god and the god idea is of no predictive value. If you have something too refute this by all means stop biting your tongue and out with it.
jcc:
And MY preference for a god-free life is true for me.
Come, o grain of sand, & crush me.
Empty vessel, empty mind.
Oh come on, jcc. You need me to could come up with a list of all the things you’ve causally rejected since we first started having these conversations? Why should your dualism get any special treatment? Haven’t we flogged that horse enough anyway? You know my position on spirituality and I know yours, so why don’t we just leave it at that?
Um… the one that makes you ashamed of being naked, of course.
I never said that. Or if I ever did, I recant. Minds are minds. We are all susceptible.
Just because we can neither entirely prove nor entirely disprove the existence of god does not mean that there is an equal likelihood of his existence or non-exstence. The same goes for fairies and goblins. And I fail to see where science is loosing ground against God. If by that you meant intelligent design, or Hugh Ross, or NDEs, then you really have built quite a cocoon for yourself. So no, I don’t have to revise my criterion.
Ghandi belonged to one of those dreaded ‘works’ religions, while Dahmer asked Jesus to be his personal savior while in prison. Sooooooo… according to the standards you appear to follow, the standards you have repeatedly outlined, Ghandi is in Hell and Dahmer is in Heaven. Simple equation.
I have had many such conversations with many Christians. I suppose my conclusions are largely based upon these conversations. No one’s really asked me to reconsider them, much less give me a good reason to.
Yeah I know, you’re just a humble servant of God trying your best to save me from my cold hearted atheist self.
I didn’t mean evangelicalism the act. I meant evangelicalism the sect.
Or maybe my particular understanding of the concept is what is true for me? (of course not, but we’ll get back to that later.) How can you be so sure that you’ve got it straight?
That is quite an extrapolation.
I wasn’t playing word games with you (actually, I thought that’s what you were doing with me.) I’m just trying to keep us on topic, and I fail to see how your point about chocolate has anything to do with what we’re talking about.
I did no such thing. I only stated my philosophical position. I do not associate the subjective with ‘truth’. At least not in the context that I thought we were using the word. I think of ‘truth’ as being an external absolute the we must strive for.
Okay, you got me there. Maybe there is a God and he’s simply a jerk. Again, the words of Epicuris ring in my head.
Does believing in God make you feel like you’re in control? Is God an antidote for such desperate attempts? No, of course not. The idea is to relinquish control – to “let go and let God.” Or you could just let go – accept that life has it’s ups and downs. We have to accept life on it’s own terms no matter what we believe.
Hopeless how? Why? Because we die? Because there are limits? Sorry, I didn’t make the rules.
How and why would I deliberately warp my perception? I understand the concepts as best I can. From a non-christian vantage point it is impossible to see these concepts for anything but the madness that they are.
That must be one of those subjective truths you’re talking about. I just don’t see things that way.
You seem to have it in your head that the rules and explanations for Christianity are finite and that you have a clear understanding of them, yet a great deal of these explanations appear to be extrapolated from verses that I’ve personally heard different interpretations of. But really, that’s what everybody does – we are all heretics.
Um… don’t know. Just lucky I guess. (what kind of a goofy question was that anyway?)
An equal number? Uh… I doubt it. Then again I try my best not to focus on the bad parts. Omelets out of broken eggs, and whatnot.
I’m just lucky, jcc. What’s the big friggin’ deal?
Why are some blessed while others are not? Let me guess, would it have something to do with clay pots?
(Romans 9:21)
Well, without knowing any details, you just don’t sound any more content in your life than I am. Keep in mind I’m not claiming any superiority either. The claim is not audacious – it’s a reasonable assumption.
No you didn’t, but you imply that I’m missing something. I have a hole in my heart, remember? Just take a few steps back for a moment. No better yet, try to put yourself in my shoes: You have a pretty joyful life that you feel lucky to have, and someone comes along and insists that you are incomplete. Funny, you didn’t feel incomplete. Yet this guy keeps telling you that you are. So you tell him ‘thanks but no thanks.’ So he then calls you arrogant. Now wouldn’t that kinda piss you off?
What I meant was that even if belief in God made you the most comforted, content, complete and happiest person in the world, that still wouldn’t amount to a proof for the actual existence of God.
That’s all I’m saying.
Rainbows
You are arguing with somebody that has a 16th century understanding of the human nervous system. You will get nowhere with JCC unless he takes it upon himself to catch up what he has missed these past five hundred years.
What:
I?m not a coward, I have simply been exercising discretion because I know that my response will incite you and I can see that you are in a great deal of pain already.
I am terribly sorry for your pain. My response to you is I know the One who can heal your pain. My rational argument to you is predicated on personal experience. I have observed God, I have been healed by Christ Jesus. Me individually, personally here living in the good old USA in this modern age. I am a living miracle, and what Jesus has done for me He will do for you if you but ask.
I really didn?t want to go there being on an Atheist web site and all, but there it is. I speak from personal experience with God. Everything else I have learned or read from the bible or elsewhere about God or Christianity or faith was driven first by a remarkable miracle of healing in my life.
It would appear however, that this healing does not come complete with Devine knowledge of the correct usage of the block quote feature despite the helpful direction, of which I am grateful by the way, of this site?s users.
Anne Marie:
If it helps, I first write my posts in a Microsoft Word document that is a ?template? of sorts. I created it containing only lines of:
<blockquote> </blockquote>
<blockquote> </blockquote>
<blockquote> </blockquote>
etc.
That way I can start at the top and cut & paste the comments I want to set-off in blockquotes in between the pre-existing tags, and I?m pretty much assured that each one I start also has a closing tag associated with it. Then just cut & paste the whole thing into the text entry block on the web page.
Anne Marie,
Please. Do tell. What does he look like?
Is that what your medical records say? Or perhaps that is what your preacher tells you?
What malady exactly was that he healed you of? I’m guessing he healed ‘the hole in your heart’? Tell me, did he have to split your sternum to get into your chest cavity, or did he use an endoscope and go in between your ribs?
Renny, your cute.
No preacher, I?m Catholic although I was not at the time I had no Priest other than the High Priest on the order of Melchizedek. Course I didn?t even know what that was or meant at the time.
Ren if you think I am going to give you any information that will identify me personally you have a hole in your head. It ain?t happening.
I?m not interested in convincing you, I?m just telling What of my personal experience.
Anne Marie,
I think the reason for Renny’s question about your healing was no tto identify you, but rather to establish the nature of the miracle.
It’s oft been said on this forum that it’s surprising how faith healings are always either some undefined malady such as back pain or a sore tooth, or some condition that is known to arbitrarily go into remission or disappear all by itself. Never do you hear of amputees for example regrowing their lost limb.
In other words faith healings can be classified as fraud, psychological/physiological palliative effects, self delusion, or mis-diagnosis (there might well be more classifications).
Krystalline Apostate:
I have, and so has God
I know this will break your heart but, nope. Once again, if you?ll recall, I do have a life outside of this blog and unfortunately for you my kids and job take priority over making timely replies to you. What you took as consent from my silence was simply a lack of time to respond at all.
You posited a feline ?mule? as proof of speciation when they?re clearly a sterile hybrid?nothing more.
You hardly refuted those 7 problems with your ?bounce? model that I posted, and had you shown that it is possible to retrieve physical?not hypothetical or mathematical?data that preceded the big bang, then you?d have my ear.
Well, given that there has yet to be an observation of it actually happening in the wild?not to mention the fact that there seems to be as many definitions for it as there are theories? and could you please point out where I said I ?once taught? evolution?
Funny how you apparently have license to call me whatever suits your fancy?including insulting my intelligence, but when I make an observation that your own words can verify, you start squealing ?poisoning the well! poisoning the well!? Really Krys, if you?re gonna dish it out, you?d better be prepared to take it.
jcc:
Which you usually tell people you?re busy?okay, I just don?t recall you saying that. Dropping off the map suddenly is easily misconstrued.
No, it doesn?t ?break my heart?, BTW.
Oh my ? you didn?t even bother looking it up, did you? They?re interfertile hybrids, not unfertile. Not mules.
That wasn?t ?my? bounce model ? that was from 3 astrophysicists. I asked a # of questions, which you clumsily dismissed.
http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/index.php/2006/11/10/title_15
?When I taught Historical Geology labs in grad school, I taught evolution as being factual?because I believed it to be true at the time.?
Your words, mein freund.
There?s myriad instances of it happening in the wild, as well as in labs. Claiming that there?s ?many definitions? ? there are different kinds of speciation, ranging from peripatric to allopatric. From the Galapagos finches (most folks don?t realize: these birds look so different from 1 another, that a taxonomist had to tell Darwin they were the same species, to ligers & tiglons (they?re still FERTILE).
Give me your definition of speciation, if you please: I?m curious if it matches the 1 provided by science.
I guess we both practice those double standards you?re always whining about. ?My own words can verify?? Which ones would those be?
& no, not squealing, & yes, I can take it.
So bring it.
jcc
Oh my gosh, are you kidding us?
Anne Marie,
Paranoid? They make med’s for that. Or, perhaps you can ask the lord to heal you.
Listen, I gotta tell you. That thought was the furthest thing from my mind. You could send me your full name, address, phone number, SSN, mother’s maiden name, CC numbers, and other than maybe showing my wife so she could enjoy a good laugh too, I would immediatly shred/delete all information.
You see, I simply don’t care.
What? Are you afraid I might mail you Atheist literature to your small conservative town? Gal at the post office might tell the gal at the hair boutique, and from there, well… you might even be subject to excomunication by association!
HeatheNZ:
In terms of faith healing, I got to tell you I was not seeking any sort of “supernatural” or “healing” experience. So the faith came after the healing. At the time I didn’t really have any type of faith upon which to seek a “healing”.
I can definitively state however, that I have not re-grown a limb.
Anne Marie
So god just chose to intervene in your life and heal something for you without you even asking? Or believing?
Krystalline Apostate:
Oh, so their ?interfertility? is sufficient to get them off the ground as a viable, new ?species??? I think not?not to mention this interesting little fact from liger.org:
i.e. it don?t happen in the wild ?cause lions want nothing to do with tigers and vise-versa.
Yes, but you defended it as though it was.
Hey, you?re good?and you?re starting to scare me a little?whadda ya do, print everything I write and tack it to your wall? But if you?ll note, I clearly stated that I taught Historical Geology which, though it draws on the basic tenets, it is nonetheless, a separate course from Evolution?which I did not teach.
Really? Then it musta been all over the news, right? I mean the liberal, Christian-hating media would?ve jumped at something like that and not dropped it for weeks?
Yeah, just like Chihuahua?s and Great Danes?simple expressions of morphological extremes?within the genetic confines of the species.
Sorry if I have to resort to memory on this (I don?t have the time to comb the archives for the exact quote), but the first thing that comes to mind was your irrational lamentation of not being able to walk down the street without having to run across a Christian church?
Then why don?t you take a cue from karen and rainbows4dinosaurs and try to stick to the topic instead of throwing in the gratuitous ad hominem?
karen:
That?s the nuts and bolts of it.
I had all the usual exposure to religion that many of us have as a kid, I didn?t really buy in, although I never opted out with a passion like some here seam to have. I just didn?t give the matter to much attention one way or the other, sort of an opting out by default. Which I guess is kind of an agnostic sort of view point, but again, not one based on any research or thinking on the matter, kind of humanism by default.
Although I really didn’t understand that I had a humanistic view point at the time either.
Krystalline Apostate:
Just wanted to give you and rainbows a heads-up; I have to go off line now?probably until Sunday evening (if I can carve out some time even then). God has a lot for me to do on His honey-do list this weekend.
Anne Marie
And how do you know goddidit?
jcc
That’s right. Just leave me out.
That’s okay. I’m waiting on a response from you but, *sniff* I guess I’ll get by.
karen:
A thousand pardons. You?re now first in my queue.
jcc
You’re forgiven.
You?re now first in my queue.
As an attention-whoring goddess should be!
karen:
Because I wasn’t on acid (or any other mind altering substance) at the time.
jcc:
Really? Because the answers.com has this to say:
?According to The Tiger, Symbol of Freedom rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild.[3] Under exceptional circumstances it has been known for a tiger to be forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion, Panthera leo persica, which is a different species as the tiger, Panthera tigris. This may have occurred in the Gir Forest in India where the ranges of Asiatic Lions and Bengal Tigers overlap. This combination of species in the wild however is considered improbable.?
I might also mention that you missed the mark by a country mile ? it qualifies as an interbreeding set of 2 species resulting in a 3rd species ? regardless of circumstance.
So boo-YA!
Here we go again: muddying the waters as usual.
Respond to the evidence, if you please.
Like yourself, I do have a life as well. I recalled that from memory, & there?s a new thing on the internet: it?s called GOOGLE, & I verified that my memory of it was correct.
Then you?ll have to explain that last part ? please.
Oh please. You make goofy comments like that, I don?t want to hear any whining about ad hominems.
Maybe if you spent more time at a site like the BBC, you?d find that there?s ample evidence of new species all the time.
Yeah, just like ligers & tiglons & ursids, oh my. Like wolves as opposed to dogs. Like chimps & gorillas.
I really, seriously, have my doubts about you.
No, no, no, no. You took that outta context ? as usual. That wasn?t a lament: you were playing the martyrdom card (again!), claiming there was an effort to ?strip religion from public life in the US?, I pointed out that no such effort was being made, & gave you oodles of evidence that that was a crock. Which you immediately responded, ?Then move!?
That wasn?t a complaint, I was proving a point, which you completely lost altogether.
Maybe I will, when you actually make an effort to listen to folks when confronted w/evidence. Maybe when the discussion is actually, how did you put it? ?Productive?, not proselytizing, as you always do.
I have a pretty good memory, & I don?t recall ever being ?countered? by any of your more extreme rants.
Anne Marie
Your mind is mush.
jcc:
Let’s see if I’ve got this straight:
1. I point to ligers/tiglons as evidence of new species.
A. You insist they’re mules.
2. I prove that they aren’t.
B. You say it doesn’t matter, they’re ‘man-made’(& then point me to a website obviously run by very young hobbyists)
3. I prove that they aren’t using actual scientific data (even if they were, it deflates the creationists’ canard that speciation isn’t observable anywhere).
Still waiting for ‘C’ – that is, unless you want to concede the point, & retract. Likelihood is that you’ll throw a pile rhetoric at it, in an effort to cover your oopsie.
Probably throw some ‘morphological extreme’ nonsense at it – even though it’s obviously allopatric speciation.
“or did rotten hocus-pocus crap slingers trying to dupe the people simply hit a few high notes?”
Ahhh, yes!