Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3898079 times)

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8325 on: January 19, 2016, 03:01:32 PM »
A priest once told me that there will be a crossroads opportunity in most people's lives where they will make the decision to turn to God, or turn away from Him.
Do you not see it as vastly more likely - in today's world more so than ever before - that in actual fact people have crossroads moments in their lives without ever even giving any god, godling or godlet a first thought? That's certainly my experience.

But as usual, you just won't see it Alan. The blinkers are on and the earplugs are in.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8326 on: January 19, 2016, 03:01:51 PM »
AB,

Quote
Yes, you are right.  God can come to people in many ways.  A priest once told me that there will be a crossroads opportunity in most people's lives where they will make the decision to turn to God, or turn away from Him.

Then he was overreaching. What people can turn to or away from is belief in god(s), which is a very different matter.
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8327 on: January 19, 2016, 03:01:56 PM »
A priest once told me if I bent over a bit further, it wouldn't hurt.
You're a bad lot.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8328 on: January 19, 2016, 03:04:29 PM »
NS,


PS I’m listening to Richard & Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” as I’m typing. Still sounds bloody brilliant after all these years  :)
What prompted the PS? Have we discussed how brilliant that album is previously and i've forgotten?
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 03:06:58 PM by Nearly Sane »

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8329 on: January 19, 2016, 03:07:28 PM »
NS,

Quote
What prompted the PS? Have we discussed how brilliant that album is previously and i've forgotten?

No - just felt like sharing is all. Just had one daughter home from travelling around Asia, and another one had an offer last week from Cambridge so feeling chipper just now. No doubt it'll wear off in due course...
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 03:08:59 PM by bluehillside »
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8330 on: January 19, 2016, 03:08:57 PM »
NS,

No - just felt like sharing is all. Just had one daughter home from travelling around Asia, and another one had an offer last week from Cambridge so feeling chipper just now. No doubt it'll wear off in due course...
Thanks, it's one of my favourites
 Good news about your kids.

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8331 on: January 19, 2016, 03:11:30 PM »
NS,

No - just felt like sharing is all. Just had one daughter home from travelling around Asia, and another one had an offer last week from Cambridge so feeling chipper just now. No doubt it'll wear off in due course...

Ah, that's good. I remember your daughter going - you had something in your eye IIRC.  :)

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8332 on: January 19, 2016, 03:12:37 PM »
You're a bad lot.

Strangely the priest said that frequently that day too.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8333 on: January 19, 2016, 03:17:21 PM »
Rhi,

Quote
Ah, that's good. I remember your daughter going - you had something in your eye IIRC.  :)

As the priest also sai...

...oh stop it now.

Thank you. Yup, back safe and sound - picked her up from H'row last week and managed to keep it a secret from her Mum & sisters so big surprises when she wandered into the kitchen unannounced! Could have gone badly wrong mind, but I think I got away with it  ;)
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8334 on: January 19, 2016, 03:24:32 PM »
Rhi,

As the priest also sai...

...oh stop it now.

Thank you. Yup, back safe and sound - picked her up from H'row last week and managed to keep it a secret from her Mum & sisters so big surprises when she wandered into the kitchen unannounced! Could have gone badly wrong mind, but I think I got away with it  ;)

Ah, lovely.  :)

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8335 on: January 19, 2016, 03:25:03 PM »
AB,

Then you would think wrongly, for reasons that have been explained to you now many, many, many times.

Any news by the way on how you think primary school children can "freely" make religious choices when they attend religious schools?
(A) I can't honestly recall any feasible explanation for what determines the events which drive our free thought processes.  I do not think we even managed to define what constitutes a "thought".

(B) They do not make a free choice in primary school.  They will have opportunities to make that choice when they have matured, and it will help if they have sufficient information to make a good choice.

The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8336 on: January 19, 2016, 03:30:40 PM »
(B) They do not make a free choice in primary school.  They will have opportunities to make that choice when they have matured, and it will help if they have sufficient information to make a good choice.
But you seem to want them to have the information at primary school, knowing full well that the ideas that implant themselves earliest are the most difficult to dislodge, especially given various methods of psychological reinforcement, but only make a choice about that information years later.

What constitutes a good choice in your view, anyway?
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 03:32:13 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8337 on: January 19, 2016, 03:35:11 PM »
How about: because it tells an awful lot of people exactly what they want to hear -
Such as:
Love your enemies
Do good to those who hate you
Turn the other cheek
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven.
Sell everything you have, give it to the poor and follow me


I could go on, but the point I am making is that much of the NT is quite clearly not what most people want to hear.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 03:39:19 PM by Alan Burns »
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8338 on: January 19, 2016, 03:37:10 PM »
Such as:
Love your enemies
Do good to those who hate you
Turn the other cheek
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven.


I could go on, but the point I am making is that much of the NT is quite clearly not what most people want to hear.
All of that pales into diaphanous insignificance up against: you're not going to die.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8339 on: January 19, 2016, 03:42:36 PM »
All of that pales into diaphanous insignificance up against: you're not going to die.

That and 'you are not alone'.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8340 on: January 19, 2016, 03:43:32 PM »

What constitutes a good choice in your view, anyway?
To choose the truth, for the truth sets you free.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8341 on: January 19, 2016, 03:44:55 PM »
That and 'you are not alone'.

"... and never will be."

I propose, Alan, that these sentiments are easily explained by some fundamentals of human nature - the way human brains work, basically. I think that this is demonstrably the case. I know the alternative explanation that you propose, but this has zero evidence to support it.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8342 on: January 19, 2016, 03:45:42 PM »
To choose the truth, for the truth sets you free.
Which means what? What is the truth? What does it set you free from?
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8343 on: January 19, 2016, 03:46:39 PM »
To choose the truth, for the truth sets you free.
Can I have another fortune cookie?

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8344 on: January 19, 2016, 03:47:56 PM »
Can I have another fortune cookie?
It did remind me of that old one about the Buddhist at the hot dog stand, I have to say :D
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8345 on: January 19, 2016, 04:23:01 PM »
AB,

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(A) I can't honestly recall any feasible explanation for what determines the events which drive our free thought processes.  I do not think we even managed to define what constitutes a "thought".

Then you memory fails you - partly because you still cling to your misunderstanding of the "free" of free will, partly because what "drives" things is the causal events that precede them, partly because you fail to grasp still the nature of emergence, and partly because the argument from personal incredulity is still a bad argument.

We can discuss what constitutes a thought if you like, but that's a separate matter to the string of errors on which your basic position rests. 

Quote
(B) They do not make a free choice in primary school.  They will have opportunities to make that choice when they have matured, and it will help if they have sufficient information to make a good choice.

First "sufficient information" and being told things as facts by authority figures who cannot possibly know them to be facts when you're too young to critique those statements with critical faculties are different things.

Second, it should at least give you pause I'd have thought to reflect on the fact that children at muslim schools tend to go on to be muslims; children at Jewish schools tend to go on to be religious Jews; children at christian schools tend to go on to be christians etc.  That's why their religions want them young - get them early and you get them for life, or at least you greatly increase your chances of doing so. 
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 04:36:32 PM by bluehillside »
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8346 on: January 19, 2016, 04:37:22 PM »
"... and never will be."

I propose, Alan, that these sentiments are easily explained by some fundamentals of human nature - the way human brains work, basically. I think that this is demonstrably the case. I know the alternative explanation that you propose, but this has zero evidence to support it.
I agree that the essence of the Gospels is what we ultimately wish to hear.  In these scriptures we recognise a natural yearning for God.  It is what God made us for.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8347 on: January 19, 2016, 04:45:46 PM »
I agree that the essence of the Gospels is what we ultimately wish to hear.  In these scriptures we recognise a natural yearning for God.  It is what God made us for.
That's simply assertion on your part yet again. Remember what I said about something being substantiated by observed fact? No, obviously not ::)
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8348 on: January 19, 2016, 04:50:16 PM »
AB,

Quote
I agree that the essence of the Gospels is what we ultimately wish to hear.

Who's "we"?

Quote
In these scriptures we recognise a natural yearning for God.

Do you? That's nice for you.

Quote
It is what God made us for.

Un-defined, un-argued and un-evidenced assertion noted, and circular reasoning to boot.
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8349 on: January 19, 2016, 05:15:39 PM »
I agree that the essence of the Gospels is what we ultimately wish to hear.  In these scriptures we recognise a natural yearning for God.  It is what God made us for.
Since that isn't at all what shaker wrote this is another misrepresentation by you, Alan. Why do you keep doing that?