Searching for GOD...

[Rhiannon]

Much like commentary on the 'drug war', it's difficult to clarify sometimes which problems are due to 'promiscuity' and which are due to people's attitudes towards sexual activity and deeming it to be 'promiscuity' - case in point the vast difference in attitude between men having a varied sexual past and women in the same situation.

Beyond that, though, there's the reality that there's a broad space between chastity and promiscuity in which it's perfectly fine to explore sexual activity, and the equally important understanding that what constitutes chastity or promiscuity varies from person to person.

O.

Yes, Christianity cannot accommodate the variety of normal sexual behaviours. Not to mention the poisonous effects of its historical distaste over the female body and sexuality in particular.

[Alan Burns]

This is every bit as likely to happen to you as it did to Rhiannon, Alan. You are not immune. I know it suits your habitual arrogance to think of yourself as the one special little cupcake in the world whose faith is unshakeable, but you are not immune.

I do not wish to appear arrogant, but I know that as long as I remain sane I will never be able to doubt God's existence.

[Shaker]

I do not wish to appear arrogant, but I know that as long as I remain sane I will never be able to doubt God's existence.

Right. So you don't want to appear arrogant, but you only believe in God because you claim to be sane.

What is it exactly that makes your belief different from Rhiannon's, when she had it, or Lenny's when he had it back in the late seventeenth century?

(Sorry Len - only pulling one of your lallies    ).

[Leonard James]

I do not wish to appear arrogant, but I know that as long as I remain sane I will never be able to doubt God's existence.

That is what any believer who is completely indoctrinated by the Christian story will say.

It is nonsense, of course, because nobody can predict their future.

[Rhiannon]

Right. So you don't want to appear arrogant, but you only believe in God because you claim to be sane.

What is it exactly that makes your belief different from Rhiannon's, when she had it, or Lenny's when he had it back in the late seventeenth century?

(Sorry Len - only pulling one of your lallies    ).

Mine and Len's insanity, presumably.

[torridon]

I do not wish to appear arrogant, but I know that as long as I remain sane I will never be able to doubt God's existence.

People who don't harbour doubts have already lost the plot.  Doubt is part of the human condition, none of us are omniscient, we all need to recognise that we can and do get things wrong. A mind without doubts is a closed mind.

[Leonard James]

Right. So you don't want to appear arrogant, but you only believe in God because you claim to be sane.

What is it exactly that makes your belief different from Rhiannon's, when she had it, or Lenny's when he had it back in the late seventeenth century?

(Sorry Len - only pulling one of your lallies    ).

Cheeky young varmint!

ps. What's a lally? 

[Shaker]

Cheeky young varmint!

ps. What's a lally? 

Legs, Leonard, legs!

[Leonard James]

Legs, Leonard, legs!

Oh, thank you! I had a nasty feeling it referred to something else I have two of.

Now explain to me how you get from 'legs' to 'lallies'.

[ippy]

Perhaps why Sutcliffe used a claw hammer.

A hammer with a raking claw, they disappeared from the shelves at bout the time he was doing his work, coincidence maybe, but when you look at a tyler's hammer with it's spike?

ippy

[Gonnagle]

Dear Ekim,

Some religious practices are about aspiring to freedom from the past accumulation of instinctive and emotional drives (psyche) which operate below the threshold of consciousness.  They don't assume that free will or free choice is a given but more something to attain and is more about setting the consciousness free from its attachments to the psyche's contents (in the case of your teacher episode, it would have been about freedom from the desire for revenge rather than about fine tuning it).  The Christian psyche (soul) is often associated with or symbolised by the heart and so only the pure of heart can experience heaven, a 'heart' purified of its contents.  As regards your last sentence, biology is supposed to be the study of 'bios' ... life, another of those words which seems ill defined, and it appears to be more about the study of life forms.
A couple of Jesus sayings, to link it to this thread, ... 'I have come that you may have life more abundantly' and 'unless you become as a small child again' ... if you look at the liveliness of a small child (before mobile phones and computers) and then look at the parents, the difference in vitality could be related to their attachment to burdensome contents of the psyche.   Let go, for free flow.   

Thank you, nice post, free will, something to strive toward, more questions than answers, I also like when a non Christian can find a relevance, a message in the Gospels.

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

Oh, thank you! I had a nasty feeling it referred to something else I have two of.

Now explain to me how you get from 'legs' to 'lallies'.

I have no idea whatever Leonard - it was gaysexual gents of long ago who came up with that one!

[Leonard James]

I have no idea whatever Leonard - it was gaysexual gents of long ago who came up with that one!

I'd never heard it before ... but now I've googled it, it seems to have a myriad of sources.

[ippy]

Although none of us can achieve pure altruism mealy because whatever we do we hope to gain something out of doing good things but it's much easier to get much closer to pure altruism for non-religious people.

This is where all religionists make me laugh when it comes to altruism, they are unable to even start to compete with non-religious people because of that look at me god, look at how good I'm being, brownie pointisis, they can't separate themselves from, no matter how hard they try, it's still there. 

Let's see how you wriggle your way out of that one Alan, should be interesting, well moderately.

ippy

[ippy]

I'd never heard it before ... but now I've googled it, it seems to have a myriad of sources.

Try "Round the Horne", on YouTube Kenneth Williams", Lallies", Jewel & Sandy, always on about them.

(R t H an old BBC radio comedy programme, one of the best ever).

ippy

[Leonard James]

Try "Round the Horne", on YouTube Kenneth Williams", Lallies", Jewel & Sandy, always on about them.

(R t H an old BBC radio comedy programme, one of the best ever).

ippy

Thank you, Ippy. I remember them, of course, but I think I must have heard very few. After the war finished, I don't think I listened much to the wireless.

[Alan Burns]

Although none of us can achieve pure altruism mealy because whatever we do we hope to gain something out of doing good things but it's much easier to get much closer to pure altruism for non-religious people.

This is where all religionists make me laugh when it comes to altruism, they are unable to even start to compete with non-religious people because of that look at me god, look at how good I'm being, brownie pointisis, they can't separate themselves from, no matter how hard they try, it's still there. 

Let's see how you wriggle your way out of that one Alan, should be interesting, well moderately.

ippy

Hopefully you can get to the stage where you do things out of love, rather than for any expectation of reward.  I get tremendous satisfaction out of doing things which are pleasing to other people and to God.  I do not do them out of expectation of a reward, but when rewards do come it is a bonus.

[Gonnagle]

Dear ippy,

Try "Round the Horne", on YouTube Kenneth Williams", Lallies", Jewel & Sandy, always on about them.

Yes, wasn't there some kind of myth going round that gay people on the radio had there own language, sure I read or heard something like that

Our Leonard should know something about this, he was a TV superstar

Gonnagle.

[Alan Burns]

Just a correction to my earlier post on witness books

No Hiding Place should have been:
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

(It gets 129 five star reviews on Amazon out of 145)
(and Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger gets 76 five star reviews out of 85)

both well worth a read

[Nearly Sane]

Dear ippy,

Yes, wasn't there some kind of myth going round that gay people on the radio had there own language, sure I read or heard something like that

Our Leonard should know something about this, he was a TV superstar

Gonnagle.

Think you are thinking about Polari


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari

[Outrider]

Hopefully you can get to the stage where you do things out of love, rather than for any expectation of reward.  I get tremendous satisfaction out of doing things which are pleasing to other people and to God.  I do not do them out of expectation of a reward, but when rewards do come it is a bonus.

That sense of satisfaction itself could be considered a reward, if you think about it. It's an area I'm torn on - I'd like to think I'm good because it's the right thing to do, but I can't deny the possibility that I do what makes me feel good and that I've been raised to feel good about doing the right thing.

O.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Polari, yes ippy had it right with Kenneth Williams and Round the Horn.

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

Hopefully you can get to the stage where you do things out of love, rather than for any expectation of reward.  I get tremendous satisfaction out of doing things which are pleasing to other people

Yep, exactly the same here.

and to God.

... until we get to that bit. I don't see how a supposedly perfect and omniscient being can be pleased about anything at all. Being omniscient it would already know everything there is possibly to know - you can't surprise it with a nice gesture or a kind word because it already knows about it. To be pleased implies to have been put into a state of pleased-ness which is more than previously existed before that state of affairs came about (example: I was pleased to get a book yesterday morning to which I'd been really looking forward, so I was pleased when the postman delivered it more than before the postman delivered it), which is a nonsense given the traditional attributes of the god you say you believe in.

On the whole most humans operate on the basis that Outrider nailed a short time ago:

I'd like to think I'm good because it's the right thing to do, but I can't deny the possibility that I do what makes me feel good and that I've been raised to feel good about doing the right thing.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

This doing good nonsense, I think that Christianity is ( or should be ) a very inward looking religion, a check and balance religion, a Christian should always be practising, practise makes perfect, not pointing the finger, they should never say, I am a better person than you, rather they should be saying, how can I become a better person.

Alan is halfway right, a good Christian, a practising Christian has Jesus constantly on his/her shoulder, of course Christians are human just like atheists.

Gonnagle.

[floo]

Dear Shaker,

This doing good nonsense, I think that Christianity is ( or should be ) a very inward looking religion, a check and balance religion, a Christian should always be practising, practise makes perfect, not pointing the finger, they should never say, I am a better person than you, rather they should be saying, how can I become a better person.

Alan is halfway right, a good Christian, a practising Christian has Jesus constantly on his/her shoulder, of course Christians are human just like atheists.

Gonnagle.

Was Jesus a better person than the rest of us? Some of the sayings and deeds attributed to the guy make him out to be far from perfect!