The great and all powerful religion thread!

[cookiecutter]

I don't know if this is an actual study that exists, but I can see logically how, if it does, it could cause one to favor the placebo idea.... I do not think a sign is even close to enough to convince someone of something they don't want to believe, and I don't think God is interested in doing that anyway.

Fair enough, but if God is going to hide whenever people try to look for him in a rational way, then he can't blame them for not believing in him.

What about a man who prays for humility? A man who prays for his enemies? A man who is sick praying for healing, but adding in that he pray for God's will above all, regardless of what it is? I think you and Feuerbach are confused as to what Christianity teaches.

I think you took this to be more negative than it was meant. It's also not a direct quote, just what I remember. I think what Feuerbach meant is that prayer is just an objectification of what people want. This is not because people are praying for selfish reason all the time, because certainly they aren't as you have clearly demonstrated. By praying people express what they want, be it humility or whatever, to themselves. In this way they can influence their state of mind as Dodens was discussing earlier.

I've probably done a very bad job of explaining his views, but if you're interested I'd at least check out his wikipedia page. I find him pretty interesting and he was pretty influential to his contemporaries.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Damn, this is really getting too reasonable and not vehement or angry enough...

 

[Einherjar86]

I guess Cyth bailed. I wanted to see what he would say to my last post.

 

[AchrisK]

I will reply to it, though it won't be as special as if Cyth had replied. but I can't just now.

 

[cookiecutter]

I like the new(old) av

 

[Vimana]

One guy said something along the lines of "we should be finding God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Think about that christians.

 

[Zephyrus]

That's bending the very definition of God, which most Christians can't seem to pin down.

 

[Dak]

We should find God in what we know? That would be contradictory to even our most basic instincts. Not to mention to at any time assume we would have fully understood God is to denigrate the very concept.

Even science is constantly trying to find the unknown.

 

[cookiecutter]

That sounds like a pantheist way to believe in God while not actually believing in God.

 

[Zephyrus]

It's an Epicurean universe. The only immortal substances are atoms.

 

[Blind Guardian]

Isn't Abbath also an immortal substance? HAHAHA

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

kill yourself.

 

[Blind Guardian]

No seriously i won't, fuck you.

 

[mutantllama]

kill yourself.

I would feel bad if he actually did.

 

[Zephyrus]

Next topic:

How did some of you handle your conversion to atheism with regard to your family and friends? It's this fear of abandonment that is causing religion to be so prevalent even in a liberal society with free access to unadulterated science.

For example, I hear stories of preachers who, while becoming personally atheists, keep preaching Christianity because (1) it's their career and only means of a living and (2) they fear the loss of faithful friends and relatives.

I see it no different than how politicians feign faith to garner votes (as I suspect Obama did). It's just sad that so many people, who see the evils of religion poisoning this planet, remain silent because they fear isolation.

 

[AchrisK]

Next topic:

How did some of you handle your conversion to atheism with regard to your family and friends? It's this fear of abandonment that is causing religion to be so prevalent even in a liberal society with free access to unadulterated science.

...

...or it's that nagging feeling of the knowledge of some supernatural truth which one must now decide to try to ignore.

 

[seedofvengeance]

Come on Ack. Not every atheist has this "supernatural feeling..." otherwise we wouldn't be atheists. There are far more atheists around than you know of.

 

[Zephyrus]

...or it's that nagging feeling of the knowledge of some supernatural truth which one must now decide to try to ignore.

Obviously you were never put into my hypothetical scenario.

However, you are still useful.

How would you, AcK, a respectable Christian, handle the situation if your child one day went up to you and renounced their faith?

 

[Dak]

Probably with a lot of love and prayer.

 

[AchrisK]

Come on Ack. Not every atheist has this "supernatural feeling..." otherwise we wouldn't be atheists. There are far more atheists around than you know of.

You have to understand that peoples' views don't dictate the truth. Not mine, not a Muslim's and not an Atheist's. The truth is what it is, and either nobody is right, or some "religion" has the truth. I believe my beliefs. So, based on that, I feel that Atheists are wrong in their beliefs. Thus I feel that God is there and that he has placed the knowledge of himself into every human. Humans, to varying degrees, have suppressed or encouraged this inborn knowledge, but it is something that is just there. So that is the basis of my statement. I am not asking for agreement, but do you see the logic?