Searching for GOD...

[Gonnagle]

Dear enki,

how and when did you become a Christian? What were your early influences?

Its a two way street.

I walked into a Church a piece of shit, I walked out knowing I was a piece of shit, my late teens, no early influences, just a need to change and why, all the rest came later.

 If you want me to expand on this I will, Easterhouse, drugs, gangs, shoplifting, the list is endless

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

I walked into a Church a piece of shit, I walked out knowing I was a piece of shit

This latter state of affairs does not strike me as a drastic improvement on the prior state of affairs. Where's your self-respect, man? I have heard of some number of human beings I would regard as pieces of shit. To generalise, on the whole they tend to rape, torture, terrorise and kill children or other harmless, defenceless and innocent creatures, human or not; they terrorise harmless people on a Friday night out for a pizza and a few bevvies; they think people deserve to die for what they believe in a religious context or don't. That sort of thing. Possibly I have met a couple in my lifetime - not to that same extent, but generally ugly, poisonous and obnoxious people who are ill-fitted to say the least to live on this big ball of rock. None of those criteria apply to you; my main (not only - there are plenty more - but main) gripe against Christianity is that by definition it treats all humanity as pieces of shit. There's no getting away from or around this. Not in the modern idiom and the current vernacular, I concede; but the nub of the Christian worldview is that you're factory-damaged straight off the production line, sent out into the world inherently and innately flawed by the factory boss. Made that way if you follow theism to its (il)logical conclusion; not made that way but allowed to be that way by the entity that you regard as ultimately responsible for your creation if you're of a somewhat more liberal bent. Either way, it's a large pile of something warm and steaming.

Nevertheless, this is what Christianity states as the core of its worldview and that's why I despise it as I do. Not because, as the hard-of-thinking who don't understand the fallacy of the excluded middle always pipe up, to say that people are not inherently and innately bad means that they're inherently and innately good - some brain donor will nearly always chime up with that one. What it actually means is that humans beings are about five million years and half a chromosome away from being chimpanzees and are driven by evolutionary selection pressures and are pushed and pulled this way and that way by unconscious instinctual drives - what do you expect? Angels? Come off it.

No, you're not a piece of shit. You're not a piece of shit and you never have been. Some very few people are, but you're not one of them. 

[Rhiannon]

Dear enki,

Its a two way street.

I walked into a Church a piece of shit, I walked out knowing I was a piece of shit, my late teens, no early influences, just a need to change and why, all the rest came later.

 If you want me to expand on this I will, Easterhouse, drugs, gangs, shoplifting, the list is endless

Gonnagle.

I hope you'll take this is as it's meant, because I've been your side of the fence... But you walked in a decent human being who was in a shit situation doing shit things and came out believing yourself to be shit instead.

As Shaker says, that isn't an improvement.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I hope you'll take this is as it's meant, because I've been your side of the fence... But you walked in a decent human being who was in a shit situation doing shit things and came out believing yourself to be shit instead.

As Shaker says, that isn't an improvement.

Oh great Rhiannon discounting other people's take on the grounds of the superiority of her own. a fine state for somebody claiming that she doesn't impose her own views.

I bet right now she is thinking I'm a shit but will of course publicly call me a decent person in a shit situation.

[Shaker]

Oh great Rhiannon discounting other people's take on the grounds of the superiority of her own. a fine state for somebody claiming that she doesn't impose her own views.

I bet right now she is thinking I'm a shit but will of course publicly call me a decent person in a shit situation.

Up to her but I don't think she'll say that, Vlad.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This latter state of affairs does not strike me as a drastic improvement on the prior state of affairs. Where's your self-respect, man? I have heard of some number of human beings I would regard as pieces of shit. To generalise, on the whole they tend to rape, torture, terrorise and kill children or other harmless, defenceless and innocent creatures, human or not; they terrorise harmless people on a Friday night out for a pizza and a few bevvies; they think people deserve to die for what they believe in a religious context or don't. That sort of thing. Possibly I have met a couple in my lifetime - not to that same extent, but generally ugly, poisonous and obnoxious people who are ill-fitted to say the least to live on this big ball of rock. None of those criteria apply to you; my main (not only - there are plenty more - but main) gripe against Christianity is that by definition it treats all humanity as pieces of shit. There's no getting away from or around this. Not in the modern idiom and the current vernacular, I concede; but the nub of the Christian worldview is that you're factory-damaged straight off the production line, sent out into the world inherently and innately flawed by the factory boss. Made that way if you follow theism to its (il)logical conclusion; not made that way but allowed to be that way by the entity that you regard as ultimately responsible for your creation if you're of a somewhat more liberal bent. Either way, it's a large pile of something warm and steaming.

Nevertheless, this is what Christianity states as the core of its worldview and that's why I despise it as I do. Not because, as the hard-of-thinking who don't understand the fallacy of the excluded middle always pipe up, to say that people are not inherently and innately bad means that they're inherently and innately good - some brain donor will nearly always chime up with that one. What it actually means is that humans beings are about five million years and half a chromosome away from being chimpanzees and are driven by evolutionary selection pressures and are pushed and pulled this way and that way by unconscious instinctual drives - what do you expect? Angels? Come off it.

No, you're not a piece of shit. You're not a piece of shit and you never have been. Some very few people are, but you're not one of them.

The good bloke hypothesis writ large.

I'm afraid this is classic steam rolling of your own philosophy over other people's. Most of us here lived through a time of plenty and easy amusement.

The person who claims virtue therefore hasn't had it tested and let's face it virtue for a moral zeitgeist ear comprises of not getting caught.

Sorry to piss on your self righteous bonfires.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Up to her but I don't think she'll say that, Vlad.

Well, if she calls me a shit she contradicts her own viewpoint.

[Shaker]

Well, if she calls me a shit she contradicts her own viewpoint.

She may do, but not mine.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

She may do, but not mine.

God will not turn away the person who comes to him. You have virtually confessed that you would........therefore no contest I'm afraid.

[Shaker]

God will not turn away the person who comes to him. You have virtually confessed that you would........therefore no contest I'm afraid.

I'm particular about the company I keep.

[SusanDoris]

Shaker #8282

Super post. With news an communication spreading so rapidly, I think that that house of cards called religions is going to become more fragile at an increasing rate during this century.

[Leonard James]

Dear enki,

Its a two way street.

I walked into a Church a piece of shit, I walked out knowing I was a piece of shit, my late teens, no early influences, just a need to change and why, all the rest came later.

 If you want me to expand on this I will, Easterhouse, drugs, gangs, shoplifting, the list is endless

Gonnagle.

My dear Gonners,

Most of us have been tearaways at some time in our younger days, but usually we learn from someone or somewhere that life is better and more rewarding if we try to suppress our 'bad' side, and become better people.

Or we might even come to that conclusion by thinking how we would feel on the other end of the tearaway behaviour, and have the intelligence to admit that we wouldn't like it one bit.

Jesus, along with many other thinking people are often the light that penetrates our delinquent brains, and we should be grateful to them.

But once the Golden Rule takes over, we can stand on our own feet and live the best life we can.

[Rhiannon]

Oh great Rhiannon discounting other people's take on the grounds of the superiority of her own. a fine state for somebody claiming that she doesn't impose her own views.

I bet right now she is thinking I'm a shit but will of course publicly call me a decent person in a shit situation.

What a strange post. 

Why on earth would I think you were a shit?

[Bubbles]

There is no such thing as "good" and "bad" outside the human mind. Everything just IS.  The things we don't like we call bad and the things that suit us we call good.

 
For us, yes ... so we work to achieve it.

It is EXACTLY what any thinking person who understands evolution would expect.

 
Possibly, although everybody's view of "perfection" will not be the same. In any case it's only a vision ... we have no hope of achieving it.

Not really! He just told us about HIS idea of perfection, but as a Jew, he was handicapped by a false start.

What do you actually know about Judaism?
Could be you have never looked at it in isolation?

 

[Alan Burns]

Shaker #8282

Super post. With news an communication spreading so rapidly, I think that that house of cards called religions is going to become more fragile at an increasing rate during this century.

Susan,
The way you applaud any detailed arguments against Christianity makes it evident that you do not want God to exist.  In doing so you are providing substantial evidence for the existence of conscious free will eminating from your human soul. 

[Bubbles]

Susan,
The way you applaud any detailed arguments against Christianity makes it evident that you do not want God to exist.  In doing so you are providing substantial evidence for the existence of conscious free will eminating from your human soul.

No I think she thinks she was " set free" from it, and it's reasoning, so I think she wants other people to experience what she has.

I think in her eyes she doesn't want to see other people mentally bound by it.

But I could be wrong ( it's happened before   )

For some other people, their faith sets them free.

Different perspective.

🌹

[Alan Burns]

No, you're not a piece of shit. You're not a piece of shit and you never have been. Some very few people are, but you're not one of them.

You do not seem to recognise that many people's lives have changed for the better after embracing the Christian faith.  I know of many who can testify to this.

[Bubbles]

If the deity does exist, and is as described in the Bible, we should try to exterminate it as is a million times worse than ISIS!

Hello, Floo is doing her Dalek bit again!

 

Mornin Floo 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I see that you've decided to ignore my replies to your posts. Oh well, briefly then:

I may have come across as too assertive, but my aim is to get people to open the door to the possibility of God's existence, then see where it takes them

That's a lot to get wrong in just one sentence...

First, when you assert something without benefit of reason or evidence then yes, then you cannot expect to "open the door" to anything.

Second, if you want people to consider your conjecture "God" then it might help if you finally managed to provide a meaningful definition of the term.

Third, no-one denies the possibility of anything. Anything could be possible  - dragons, Jack Frost, even your god - if you set up the parameters appropriately. The door to possibility you think you need to open is already open - your problem rather is to suggest a reason for anyone to step through it. 

Fourth, where it "takes them" is exactly to the same place that any other un-defined, an-argued, un-evidenced asserted claim takes them - nowhere. Why would it when your approach here no more helpful for that purpose than would be my asserting "leprechauns" to get you to "open the door" to their existence so as to "see where it takes you"?

Incidentally, as you seem to have no interest in engaging with the arguments that undo your position, would you mind if from now on I just post "wrong" each time you fall into another logical mistake?

Ta everso.   


 

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlundererr,

God will not turn away the person who comes to him.

Looks like there's been a change of shift at the Assertotron. Watch out for that pressure gauge Vladdy, it's looking a bit high. Oh, and don't forget to shovel in more coal every ten minutes or so. OK then, good luck - Alan Burns will be along in eight hours or so to take over the next shift...

[Rhiannon]

You do not seem to recognise that many people's lives have changed for the better after embracing the Christian faith.  I know of many who can testify to this.

Changing your life by thinking you are a piece of shit isn't an improvement, Alan. How about changing your life because acquire some self-worth?

Eta the exchanges on this have made me think of this poem, which I have linked to on R&E before. I first came across it in a book by Jon Kabat Zinn.

http://m.poemhunter.com/poem/love-after-love/

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gonners,

I walked into a Church a piece of shit,...

Seems unlikely. Very few people are sociopathically "bad" - most who behave badly are responding so far as they are able to the circumstances of their lives.

I walked out knowing I was a piece of shit,...

Well, "believing" rather than "knowing" I'd suggest but sadly I believe you. I'm often struck by the initial abusiveness of the Christian method - terms like "worthless wretch" etc are bandied around freely, presumably to soften up the victim so as to make the great daddy figure in the sky all the more appealing. It's dehumanising and unpleasant in my view, but it creates a dependency relationship akin to Stockholm syndrome that seems to be very powerful.

...my late teens, no early influences, just a need to change and why, all the rest came later.

If you want me to expand on this I will, Easterhouse, drugs, gangs, shoplifting, the list is endless

Presumably you knew other teenagers who behaved as you did? Are they still into drugs, gangs, shoplifting etc or did they grow out of it in any case?

I don't mean to undermine you in any way - I just find the idea of someone thinking himself to be "a piece of shit" terribly sad.   

[ekim]

There's nothing wrong with shit, in the right place, anyway.  As Gonnagle knows, as an allotment grower, it has the potential to encourage the growth of, or transform into, highly prized produce.

[Leonard James]

What do you actually know about Judaism?

Nothing whatever apart from the fact that it involves "God" and they have some strange rules about diet.

Could be you have never looked at it in isolation?

I haven't, but what has that to do with the fact that god beliefs are misleading and handicapping?

 

[Gordon]

I was thinking about what Gonners was asking earlier, about whether atheists (here in the UK) see themselves as ‘cultural Christians’ and the extent to which atheism my influences my thinking in general, and I’d say that I can’t see that being an atheist has a similar type of effect on my overall outlook as it seems that being a Christian does.
 
I don’t see myself as a ‘cultural Christian’ at all. I wasn’t christened, so I’m not even a default member of Christianity and nor was greatly exposed to active Christianity during my education because my ‘unchristened’ status at the point of moving on to secondary school. This coincided with a move from Scotland to England (St Albans to be precise), and my not being christened seemed to freak the school out back then (1963) since they clearly applied a religious designation to all pupils and, presumably, I didn’t fit any of their then categories: the result was that I wasn’t expected to participate in anything religious, be it RE lessons or hymns/prayers during school assemblies: in effect religion in general, and not just Christianity, was something that happened to other people.

I’m obviously aware of the social and historical role of Christianity religion on the society/culture I live in but these days this really is negligible: at most I’m exposed to being told what various religious leaders think about matters, since it seems their pontifications are regarded as newsworthy by default, and I can either ignore them or listen to them as I please - but I’m not required to treat their musings as being in any sense profound or relevant by dint of their religious office: I can agree or disagree with them of course but I don't regard them as being authoritative, and they don’t in any sense speak for me.

Aside from the supernatural stuff like prophecies and miracles, which are just plain daft notions in this day and age, I also reject the idea that Christianity has any special merit in relation to morality, especially given its history and the stance of organised Christianity currently, such as on SSM legislation recently. Nor do I think that the Bible has any great merit when I hear Christians talk about what it ‘teaches’ – I can’t see that it 'teaches' a great deal since it is mix of anecdote, allegory, poetry and deepities, and especially given the subsequent dependence on translation and theological interpretation by those religious authorities who’ve seemingly decided what it all means. There are better alternatives, and in relation to morality my feeling is that the older approach of Aristotle (virtue ethics) is an example that is by far more useful and better thought-through: put simply I think the ‘Golden Mean’ is a better approach than the ‘Golden Rule’.

From what I can see Christians tend see their faith as some form of filter through which they see the world around them or pass through their own thoughts and reactions: so they see God in all that they think good or altruistic or life-enhancing, and also in everything that is bad (the ‘mysterious ways’ bit). I recall having an exchange with someone here (probably Hope or Alien) a while back during which they said along the lines of that their Christianity was something that was intrinsically part of ‘them’, in the sense that it pervaded everything they thought and did regarding all aspects of life, the universe and everything. For me atheism doesn’t have this type of function at all: it just means that I have no beliefs in gods and that I have rejected the current claims made by theists regarding the existence of the ‘divine’ as being arguments that seem fallacious in one way or another, so I can see no basis to even start to consider their idea of ‘God’ as being a serious proposition in reality. Other atheists may have different thoughts on how their absence of beliefs in Gods influences their views on other aspects of their life experience.

So in most aspects of my life to date the issue of 'God' hasn't been an issue at all, and in fact the only place it is relevant at all as a subject to be discussed is, ironically, here (and also in a certain Glasgow pub now and then with some of the most interesting and joyous people I've ever met, one of whom is a Christian).