Searching for GOD...

[Sassy]

Take you own advice dear.

I wasn't the one making the statement. I wasn't giving advice, divvy, I was merely showing what he said to be totally unfounded.
Based on his feeling and not fact. As useless as your statement, in fact.

[ippy]

It is simple logic:
Parents need to have faith before they can teach their children.
You cannot spread faith through children.

Fortunately it's only a percentage of these vulnerable young children like you were, that are susceptible to people that think they are spreading this,wonderful word, (the irony of it), to the next lot of gullible, through no fault of their own, victims.

What an honourable thing it must be to do your best to get these baseless ideas into the minds of children when you really do know they are at their most vulnerable age to do so successfully, (more irony), it must make you feel so proud of yourselves.

"You cannot spread faith through children"; Alan you have put a lot of crazy rubbish on this thread, I didn't expect it would be possible for you to be able to excel the total stupidity of the things you have already written here on this thread, congratulations!   

As for the rest of your post:  "It is simple logic:Parents need to have faith before they can teach their children", what's that got to do with anything? More nonsense.

ippy
 

[floo]

I wasn't the one making the statement. I wasn't giving advice, divvy, I was merely showing what he said to be totally unfounded.
Based on his feeling and not fact. As useless as your statement, in fact.

Poor Sass, even though many of your posts are quite amusing as they are so very silly, I do feel sorry for you.

[ippy]

I wasn't the one making the statement. I wasn't giving advice, divvy, I was merely showing what he said to be totally unfounded.
Based on his feeling and not fact. As useless as your statement, in fact.

If these facts as you call them are definitive, how come there are still a load of what you refer to as atheists about.

The moment you come up with viable evidence = no more non-believers, you must know it's not going to happen Sass.

You're very welcome to believe in this religious stuff it must it must be annoying for you and yours that you are unable to substantiate, well, the greatest majority of it.

It's the magical, mystical and superstition that really hasn't got a shred of credibility about it, any of it, why don't you give it up and try to become normal like the rest of us Sass? 

You don't need religion, any religion to live a purposeful full and decent life and think, in your case think of all of the time you would be saving, none of the bended knee stuff any more and that's just for starters.

ippy 

[Stranger]

It is simple logic:
Parents need to have faith before they can teach their children.
You cannot spread faith through children.

This rests on the assumptions that they only indoctrinate their own and that they have less than three...

[Alan Burns]

This rests on the assumptions that they only indoctrinate their own and that they have less than three...

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

[BeRational]

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

As did all other religions.

So what?

Does that make all other religions true as well?

[wigginhall]

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

Along with bumping off people who would not go along with it, and also making it compulsory. 

[Stranger]

This rests on the assumptions that they only indoctrinate their own and that they have less than three...

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

...as did other religions and superstitions.

My comment was supposed to tongue-in-cheek pedantry about your logic...

In what way is your unjust god's silly games of hide and seek good news?
(that was serious)

[wigginhall]

One of the oldest ideas about God is that he is an I not an it.   This means, that God can only be found subjectively, since there is no third person God.  For example, in the Jewish Bible, 'I am that I am' is given as a description of God, and in the NT, we have 'before Abraham was, I am'. 

In fact, 'I am' has sometimes been given as a definition of God.  For example, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, you find this: "In the beginning this [universe] was the Self alone… He [the Self] reflected and saw nothing but the Self. He first said, 'I am He'. Therefore He came to be known by the name aham ['I']."
 
However, for various reason, Christianity has not taken to this, with the exception of various mystics, and they have persevered with a kind of objective set of proofs or arguments, which to my mind, is doomed.   So they are forced to argue for God as an object, or in the third person, as if God was located in Alpha Centauri. 

Hinduism offers an interesting comparison, since Brahman (ultimate reality), is distinguished from Atman, (soul or self), but in some schools, Brahman is Atman.   This is more like God as I or Self. 

[ippy]

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

And I suppose the last thing any religioso would do would be to impose their, highly suspect, beliefs on their offspring as soon as?

ippy

[SqueakyVoice]

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

Well, that explains the old Jesuit saying "Give me the man of twenty one." then.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I enjoy discussing religion. I dislike deeply and intensely the bare assertions and panoply of fallacies that it inevitably gives rise to that its acolytes depend upon, not to mention the ugly, illiberal, anti-human, divisive attitudes that accrue to it, but I enjoy the discussion.

Shaker is Blofeld in Ian Flemings ''SwivelEye''.

[Brownie]

I found Wigginhall's post very interesting indeed.
The Quakers believe that God is within all of us (I believe that too), and we can connect with God in silence.  Centreing meditation is a way of reaching down inside ourselves to be aware of God within us.

[Khatru]

Adults who indoctrinate their children, who persuade and convince themthat there is a God, in spite of the fact that the child cannot use any of its senses to perceive this god, are perpetuating the myth, turning another generation of children into credulous, gullible adults, instead of teaching them proper critical thinking, teaching them to question, look for evidence, which, if not found, becomes a don't know, teaching them to be confident of saying, 'I don't know'..

And that's all wasted on you, isn't it? It is, as others have said, really sad.

Depending on your age, you may have had to endure years of compulsory Christian worship during your school years.  Assemblies consisting of sermons and hymns.  As a young child I was inclined to believe that it must be true or they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Thankfully, as I got older my critical reasoning improved and I could see it for the nonsense it was.

[Khatru]

And yes, I do believe in the virgin birth.

So by your reckoning when the baby Jesus busted his way through his mother's hymen that was his first miracle?

[Khatru]

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ was documented by Luke, a physician and world-class historian who interviewed eyewitnesses, probably including Mary herself, for his detailed account of this world-changing event. In addition to the birth of Christ, he also gives special attention to the birth of John the Baptist and many see his gynecological interests to be a result of his training as a physician.

Of course, Mary may have been lying.

[Khatru]

But human thinking has proved to be far less reliable than the divine revelations of the Christian Gospels.  Had the Gospels been based on myth they would have been discredited long ago, but many intelligent critics have recognised the historical truth which the Gospel writers portray.

"divine revelation"?

That's another of those phrases/words believers like to use  that doesn't actually refer to anything real.

[Khatru]

The growth of Christianity came about by adults spreading the good news to other adults.

Often accompanied with copious amounts of violence.

Especially when converting people in far off lands.

[ippy]

I found Wigginhall's post very interesting indeed.
The Quakers believe that God is within all of us (I believe that too), and we can connect with God in silence.  Centreing meditation is a way of reaching down inside ourselves to be aware of God within us.

Since there is no evidence that would or could support the idea that there is a god of any kind in the first place, I really can't see any sense in believing anything of the sort, wherever you think this god thing might be hiding, why do you people bother with this god idea?

ippy

[Brownie]

There are those who have a sense of the divine but that could mean more than one thing.  Why not try a bit of centreing meditation and see what you find?  It can't hurt.

[ippy]

There are those who have a sense of the divine but that could mean more than one thing.  Why not try a bit of centreing meditation and see what you find?  It can't hurt.

There are those that think they have a sense of something they call the divine and that's a fact.

ippy

[wigginhall]

I found Wigginhall's post very interesting indeed.
The Quakers believe that God is within all of us (I believe that too), and we can connect with God in silence.  Centreing meditation is a way of reaching down inside ourselves to be aware of God within us.

Good point about Quakers, I hadn't thought of them.  But you can see why Christianity has steered clear of the 'God within' stuff, as Quakers have given up a lot of ritual and doctrine, and in some ways, are non-Christian.   Well, I used to know Buddhists and atheists who went along, and why not, but religion starts to disintegrate.

Well, you can see this huge split between God as I and God as object.   In Islam, the Sufis are much more mystical, and into subjectivity, and they have been persecuted intensely at times, or even banned. 

I think religions fear this stuff as there is no need for churches really, if everyone is their own mystic. 

But Christianity has mainly accepted the post-Enlightenment split between subject and object, and hence all the arguments about evidence and so on.   This has doomed them, in my view.  They are trying to be scientificalistic, and it doesn't work.

[wigginhall]

I wonder what AB thinks of the news that a paralyzed man can play a video game, via his own thoughts.   It seems to be strong evidence of a close brain/mind connection.   His thoughts are registered as signals in his brain, which an implant sends to a computer, which sends electrical impulses to a sleeve around his arm, triggering motion. 

It's getting really hard to deny the brain/mind link.

http://www.itv.com/news/2016-04-13/thought-control-technology-helps-paralysed-man-move-fingers/

[floo]

If they manage to do a human brain transplant it will be interesting to see how the mind functions then.