cuchulain

just another label friend, marcus aurelius said...stop talking about what a good man is. just be one. probably poorly paraphrased as I don't have access to the quote right now. i think i have never seen a label that reduced division or reaction.

I know we have had differences in the past. I wanted to say that I respect your opinion, and certainly do not think it should be excluded from the thread simply because it's based on Atheism. That would be a lot like NEO in the other thread saying non Christians shouldn't have responded. I think this is an open forum, and we have been conducting it as such more lately. And I will say, I do not see anything wrong with what you had to say, but that's simply my perspective. Perhaps Pete had a different view, but that would be between you and him, I think. And I do not believe that those who hold beliefs of a religious nature fall into the category of unable to think.

I wondered...does humanism necessarily mean non belief? So I looked it up. That is a great thing about these thread, I get a little more educated. humanism: an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems. I like that definition, from the dictionary. It doesn't necessitate that the person be a non believer entirely, but it does sort of exclude Christianity in most forms I am aware of, since Christians place primary importance on deity. Many other religions do as well, so I suppose those would be left out. But there are perhaps many pagan religions, and many philosophies that might be considered close to religions, that embrace this ideology as well. Just some thoughts. I have been reading the Dalai Lama recently, and he seems to be a proponent of humanism. Might be my interpretation.

Written is not immune to change. Some call it scribal error, some admit that it amounts to change. My favorite example of late, 1 Corinthians 13 13(kjv): And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. Or, 1 Corinthians 13 13(niv): And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Charity with Love. There is a significant difference, both in interpretation and literal meaning. And, it's a written difference. Now, a person could claim to follow the original manuscripts of the bible, having painstakingly gone through the effort of learning the original language, idiom, context of the times, and so forth...except...all that survives, are copies of copies. SO much for accountability.

Outside force does not necessitate divine force. You are conflating the two. Gravity is an outside force, and I do not(nor does anyone else I know of) consider gravity to be divine. Also, the term outside is relative. For instance, light is an outside force as well, to anyone observing it. However, to the star producing the light, it is not.

i dont disagree friend. its a lot like someone who is power hungry. they start by telling you to do things that you are already going to do just to get you in the habit of doing things that they want you to. then introduce minor things that some disagree with but that a majority don't, to solidify that they have support. then change the supporters minds about bigger things because they won't want to back pedal their support. then comes the rain.

Or in other words..."pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"

Is that like baby oil...made with real babies? The most troublesome part of the pledge of allegiance, to me, was always that it most prominently came up in childhood before school started. I do not believe a person at the age of 5 has the understanding to make an educated choice about whether to recite a pledge of allegiance, whether to god to secular. So far as the pledge being changed...I have no problem with changing it within it's same context but altering it to include religion takes away that context. That's obviously just my opinion. I don't have evidence to back up that it is indeed my opinion, other than this first hand account that it is truly my opinion, and so I understand if stating my opinion in such a fashion without evidence negates it entirely for those who simply cannot believe me ...

the worst part of indoctrination to me is that tendency to still attempt to be politically correct, even so far as to include phrases like 'to me' after acknowledging the Christian god is rubbish. it's like saying Santa is rubbish...'to me'. but it's a statement of how I view reality and shouldn't need a qualifier. but still I catch myself doing it too.

1 Corinthians 13 13: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. So I ask. If the greatest is charity, don't we need to be able to accept charity for charity to work?

And sometimes, the blueprint is at fault. Sometimes that one chief just gets the directions wrong, and everyone follows them accurately.

I recognize in my life that I have no control over what others think of me, nor should they have control over what I think of me. An example, and kind of a crummy happening recently. As many know I moved to Georgia. What many may not know is that I also moved my in-laws with me. I haven't really gotten along with them throughout my marriage, but I have always been civil at the least. It seemed to me that they had a lot of misconceptions about me. They lived with me 7 months rent and bill free, I simply considered this hospitality to be honest. My father in law helped out around the house considerably while we were reconstructing certain aspects, adding in a bedroom, things along this nature. We talked freely, we communicated amicably and it really seemed like we were getting along nicely. They moved out, and less than a week went by before the mother in law starts telling my wife how I did nothing but sit around the entire time they lived here(keep in mind, my wife watched me do a lot of the work on the house). This caught me off guard, and my first reactions were harsh. Fortunately they were also internal. I decided upon further introspection about the situation that I needed to remember I have no control over what others think or do. No matter what I did, and I did try while they were here, I simply didn't make them happy with me. They only appeared to be happy, I don't know if they feared getting thrown out if they showed their true colors or if they are simply two faced. I tend to think the latter, because they were often two faced before we moved(and yes, I am aware I was asking for trouble). In the end however, nothing I did was going to be enough to put them in a position to respect me any more than they did already, which apparently was very little. I have often been naïve in life, and I think I might have learned from this. But one thing that constantly needs updating in my head computer is that I don't control anyone else in any way, only myself and how I respond. I certainly don't seek the forgiveness of others if I think I have done nothing wrong and they do, unless they can convince me I was wrong anyway. And I think that boils down this topic a great deal: perceptions. I don't seek to forgive others unless they seek it, and even then there is always the caveat, forgive but never forget.

different strokes for different folks sums it up for me.

i think many define themselves through the auspices of others. but then others determine your self worth.

I took a world religion class in college and the professor said this was the only thing that really mattered in choosing a religion.

Sure. If they want to call themselves followers of Christ, they should certainly live up to his example as they see it. Didn't mean to give any offense, if I did. Just pointing out some problems with scribal errors and the bible, and how small errors in copying can alter what the book says, or at the least our interpretation of it.

i sure hope the example above didn't contain a scribal error where the word if is...

disagreed, but happily.

the argument isn't i don't believe you, it's i don't believe in god. this is indeed first person testimony which is enough evidence for the claim made. if you disagree that's fine but this line of debate is exhausted.

i can prove that statement. it's a first person testimony, which for meeting a level of proof on a claim this small is sufficient. i wonder that you take my statement under other circumstances as believed but not these. also, you changed the argument into one you can defeat. i did not say 'i don't believe you', but i did say 'atheism'. there's a difference, making your claim a straw man.

Is that the actual definition of atheism?

Atheism is falsifiable. All that need be done to falsify it is present proof of any deities existence. Until such time, I will call myself Atheist.

Misunderstandings happen. But here's the thing, we all control how we react or respond to those misunderstandings. No matter how big the misunderstanding, or message that we haven't figured out is a misunderstanding, we can all take a second or three and think about our best response to it.

It seems to me the article didn't really so much provide proof of the existence of the soul as show a possibility that information in our heads are contained physically...in our brains...and even then the article claims this as a theory, but doesn't really cite any of the data or experiments. And information we contain doesn't really die, just transforms into a different state? But, how does that information get processed in the future? And DOES it get processed in the future? If not...isn't it as good as one of those old floppy disks that nobody uses anymore? I dunno...I guess I just don't see the evidence for a soul in the first place from this information. And it comes from a website that seems a little hinky to me personally, like it is trying to push an agenda, although I suppose the same could be said for many websites that are considered reputable.