How much do you stake on your opponent being wrong?

Rationalizer.
While your molars rot!

 

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think about a inanimate textbook and lessons imparted. or having a teacher expound on contents.

whence the fear?

this is about you and this fucking forum
your performance anxieties

it is opportunity for growth. operating at 50% capacity just got bumped to 70%. you of course rather not. self serving delusions are preferred cos feeling good about oneself is the whole of life

so?
so goddamn what? who the fuck indoctrinated you to think that life is indeed a bowl of cherries?

i weep for humanity

well
how are you holding up after that admission?
did the sky fall? suddenly overcast?

 

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what is the implication? that all rationale is ultimately self serving?
well, show me. my thoughts here and how it props up my fragile ego

 

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i'm complaining about the way you have and are treating me. that doesn't have anything to do with a religion if i'm not mistaken. i am not religious. i don't take religion seriously, but take what i experience seriously, mind YOU!

i apologize if the answer i gave to your question about why some experience god and others don't hurt your feelings or offended you. that was not what i intended to do. i was honestly trying to help. you either misunderstood me, or you just didn't like my answer. either way, i don't see that as a reason to treat me horribly. there is a vast difference between our intentions regarding each other. it seems that you want to hurt, disturb, and degrade me. why?

 

Everything, because they are always wrong...

 

OK. I can understand that. And that you are upset later in the thread. But if you go back to the post of yours I first responded to you agreed with Gustav. And Gustav said he did not understand the question. In other words he was critical of the wording. He did not like it. So when you agreed with him it seemed like you were agreeing that there was something wrong with the question. You don't have to explain yourself to me. I just want you to understand why I asked and in a challenging way. It seemed to me you were agreeing with someone who thinks Greenberg has a problem for even thinking it is a valid question or way to word it.

 

I would think you'd have read enough to realize that what is at stake in the issues is of critical importance to Greenberg. To read it as a simply or even primarily a performance issue for him seems not to have noticed him in a fundamental way. But perhaps I am wrong about that.

No. For most people it is about control. Even if they walk around thinking they are brave because they do not have this or that belief, they are very attached to the control of knowing what is and what is not going on and a solid trust in their intuition about what is likely and unlikely. Greenberg has had the guts to reveal the motivations behind his approach and even some of his beliefs and some of the contradictions therein. I rarely see that here. I haven't heard one other person here reveal that they had a belief they wish they did not have. Most people express their ideas as pat and clear. In fact they tend to present themselves as unified. As having no contradictory beliefs or feelings at all.

Are you trying to show that it is in fact better not to be honest about such things? Or even not to notice one's own motivations? Shall we be brave only outward, honestly appraising the data about soil samples and stars, but not looking inward and honestly appraising what is not simple, even those places in us that, horrors, wish that life was a bowl of cherries?

Is it better to be like a fascist government with one PR person and one official line on everything where all conveniences are simply coincidence?

There's an inward version of this and it is just as damaging. In fact it is the root of the outward one.

 

alright then
i am ignorant of green's foibles
it appears you are not
educate me
thanks

 

pardon
did i say foibles?
i really meant to say...... existential angst

/snicker

 

I don't think it's important that my opponent be wrong but it is important that they be an honest debater. I can not say the number of times I've had a person simply refuse to directly answer a question I posed. Or rephrase it and answer their question. Or begin dismantling the question by requiring that each work be defined and each word of the definition be defined or state that "we don't think like that in my country":bugeye:

You know what I thought would be fun? If we switched roles? The theist here attempt an honest defense of atheism and the atheist do likewise for theism.

Probably wouldn't work though,
Michael

 

Weird question?

I do not see the other person as being my opponent. They are primarily an opponent of themselves.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

This means that you have nothing to learn from other people. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

It would be good to announce this up front.

 

You have come forward declaring belief in a god who will condemn a large number of mankind to eternal hellfire.
Eternal hellfire, Lori, do you know what that is? Eternal hellfire.

And you said it is going to be our own choice to end up in eternal hellfire.


I've said this to someone else, and I'll say it to you too:

I don't think you realize the implications of believing in a creator god who will judge all people,
and then send some to eternal heaven and others to eternal hellfire.

If we believe you, where does this leave us? It leaves us believing that we are condemned to eternal hellfire.

This, if taken seriously, is an unspeakably terrifying prospect. Which all people wish to avoid.

If we are to take you seriously at all, you surely have to do better than present "opinions", "experiences" and want to have "discussions".

You can't just come forward with a belief that condemns a large number of mankind to eternal hellfire and think that people will treat your words as mere "opinion". You have as much as declared a war.


And you dare speak of me treating you horribly?!

 

At 4,949 posts, don't tell me that you are completely detached, impartial, independent, intelligent, dispassionate and objective about what goes on in a discussion forum.

You aren't here solely for intellectual masturbations, are you?

There is something in it for you in posting here, isn't it?

We might not be posting for the same reason, but we damn well post because there is something in it for us.

 

Interesting idea. Start a thread, give it a shot.

 

It's not about whether they are 'right' or 'wrong', but rather that I do not wish to have their ideas foisted upon me. If a religion thinks something is wrong, then it's membership should refrain from participating, but they should in no way seek to make their religious views law, and everybody should be free to voice their opinion of someone else's opinion, which all religion is, after all.

But, do I think religions are 'right'? No. There are to many schizms and there is too much disagreement, and mostly that is driven by very human desires and goals, I mean, avoiding taxation, multiple wives, forgiveness for sinning, all rather human, and hardly lofty, so the supposed 'do the right thing' aspirations of religion are rather tainted, and as there is no true altruism, and everything is driven by the need to satisfy the self, a religious viewpoint is a sign of a deeply selfish person.

 

um...could you say the words "eternal hellfire" one more time please? j/k

i'll be in touch...

 

how can people like adstar can be 100% sure that there is an eternal hell... when i am 100% sure that there isn't.

my only explanation is that he is wrong and his only explanation is that i am wrong.

there is nothing in the bible about an eternal hell, because the word eternal didn't mean eternal, it just meant a long undefined time.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/heaven.htm

 

I've had that argument with a fundie before, and even though the bible clearly states that God never turns his back on anyone for ever, the myth of an eternal hell persists. Seems even those in the cult don't understand it's own teachings.

 

no greenberg, i can't say that i do know what that is. do you? and if you do then how do you know this? have you ever read the book of revelations? in it there are verses that say in the last days, there will be people who long for death, but it will elude them. first of all let me preclude that when i interpret scripture, this is my opinion, based upon what the holy spirit has explained to me, or led me to believe through experience, and this interpretation could be wrong, but it's what makes sense to me...it's how i think about things...and i am always open to other views or other "revelations". now then, i think that this scripture about men who long for death but can't die is referring to those who have taken the mark of the beast, which is a genetic manipulation, just like the fall of man in the garden was, that makes the life of this flesh of ours eternal. the choice to take the mark will be just that, a choice. or...you can be martyred. at that time, the world is basically blowing up. it sounds to me as if it will be destroyed by fire this time, primarily. so what does that sound like? if you're talking about the afterlife there's a great story i watched once about a guy who had a near death experience and went to hell. it was on a video that's called "to hell and back", that included other stories as well, but this guy's stood out to me. so much so that i wrote about it, and i'll post it if you want me too, but i can't now because i'm not at home. but anyway, this guy went to hell, and he called on jesus while he was there, and jesus came there and rescued him, healed him, and took him out. he described the other beings there and what they were doing to him before he called on jesus, and my first question to god after i heard the story was, "why didn't the others in there see what jesus did for this guy and call on him to save them too?" and he told me that when they saw the light of christ they ran and hid and didn't even see what jesus did for the man. so i asked why they ran and hid. they did because they were afraid. they were afraid to see the truth about what they were and what they had done to themselves and each other. and they were afraid of condemnation. they had been told lies about christ and didn't know him. they chose to believe those lies rather than find out the truth for themselves. so they cursed god, as they chose to continue to suffer at their own and each other's hands, in hell, the existence they chose to perpetuate.

yes, and my question to you is, why would you choose this for yourself?

i know this god that you pass judgement upon and assume things about even though you don't know him (but say you wish to and then turn around and in the same breath say you would never want to), and i trust him completely. i don't think you realize the implications of knowing him. there is nothing more consquential. that's why i say what i do about why many people choose not to know him. it's too consequential, and they don't want to deal with those, and in a way, i don't blame them. i understand because i've been there, and when i give you this opinion of mine, it's based upon my own behavior and it's consquences. but in another way, i do blame them, because it is our choice.

speak for yourself. we all have a choice, and i don't choose the same as you.

i would argue that it's not as terrifying to many as the prospect of knowing a god like the one i am devoted to, and those all-emcompassing consequences.

and what do you suggest then, specifically.

greenberg, certainly you are aware of the fact that i am not god, and i don't make the law, although i do think it's perfect. you don't have to know what i know, or choose to experience what i've experienced. you can't! it's mine. i will not condemn you, or degrade you, or insult you, or hurt you because you choose differently than i, and i can't control you. i wish you no ill will. don't you see that your decision to make war with me, and to hate me because of a difference in beliefs makes you no better than many religious people are? i am not that way. i know that i'm only responsible for myself in this regard. i will share anything with you as openly and honestly as i can, and i will not let your behavior towards me determine my behavior towards you. i love people.

this is how i think greenberg...

hell is not a place but a state of existence that is perpetuated by the results of our actions according to law. take a look around in this world and you see it everywhere. we are living in it...experiencing it. and it's getting worse. it isn't getting better, so if you extrapolate the bad, it's not hard to imagine hell.

and our judgement is merely the realization of the truth about the cumulative affects of our actions according the law. it's determined by cause and effect.

what problems do you have in facing the truth about the effects of a choice?

and to go further, repentence is merely making a choice to change what your actions are, in light of this judgement or realization of the truth. it's all good.