The Religion Discussion

[bluesclues]

@bluesclues...you make a very good point here, maybe if i saw this in action I would take it seriously. But since I've been following this thread I have seen you defend the most ridiculous things. Not once identifying a particular part of the Bible as being fiction, exaggeration, poetry or song. Even in our recent discussions here there are unanswered questions and half addressed issues.

Its too much for the forum. U will have to learn in stages because it is alot of information. Keep those unanswered questions with you. I will answer them sometime during the course of the discussion if u stick around. Some i might have even answered previously, before u were a member on the forum. But what im doing now is trying to prepare for u a crashcourse in interpretting bible prose. I have to think about the easiest and shortest way to convey quite alot of information that you would need to be able to make sense of religious texts. I studied mystical language for years to reach understanding. Now i have to 'upload' it to your brain in 5 minutes. But as i said ive touched on it here in this thread in posts made before u joined this discussion.

The reason again why there 'technically' is no fiction is because the fiction is about something that is true.. also the same with metaphors and allegory. U may be reading a part of the bible that is literally not true or innacurate, but metaphorically.. it is. And teaches one or more of the morals that are component requirements to achieve God blessing of eternal life. This is what the salvation is about. Is ur file going to be purged by the system, or is the system administrator going to 'save' it? Will your soul fizzle out and be extinguished when your body dies? or will it remain eternal, independently surviving without the requirement of a body carrying 'Mass'? The book provides you the components within yourself that you must develop to achieve this state of being. That is your salvation. Eternal life in the spirit. That is the objective of all religious texts, who say it in their own unique ways based on their cultural associations.

[brainchild]

Ok...well I await, I'm not one for shooting a man down without giving him an ear.

[bluesclues]

As you talk about allegory...are you familiar with the "allegory of the cave"? If not check it out. Also check out the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and lemme know what are your thoughts on it, seeing that he predates the Bible by about 10,000 yrs.

I am very familiar with both. The allegory of the cave applies to this very type of issue in the discussion. And it falls back to what i said earlier. If ur senses are limited to see only a certain spectrum. Then you wont see anything outside the spectrum of your sensors. But that doesnt mean nothing is there. So u cant see it, u cant interact with it, all attempts at detection using ur current equipment fail.. so u come up with the conclusion that 'nothing' is there. But is that true?

The epic of gilgamesh is a sumerian creation myth. It is also based in allegory, just as the story of creation in genesis in the bible adapted from that story, and in the ideas of the flood, the message is the same.

Sumerian culture has been a major point of study for me for about 15 years now. Yes as u can see, i know the bible's creation story includes elements taken from it. They were the first civilization after all. With a language, mathematics and farming systems. Even then symbolism was being used to teach man spirituality.

[brainchild]

@bluesclues Nice...this is what I'm talking about. This is the range that I'd like to see eitech have. We'll continue

[eitech]

@bluesclues Nice...this is what I'm talking about. This is the range that I'd like to see eitech have. We'll continue

Range? lol

1 Corinthians 2:2 KJVS
[2] For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

[brainchild]

Yup...thanks for the example.

[GRIM]

What u are talking about has no correlation to the free will i am speaking about. I am aware of those studies ur talking about. and they do not address free will.

Free will is the ability to make choices. If u can make choices then you have free will. Left or right, do the cool thing or the right thing? Do the honest thing or the make you rich quick thing? Serve God, or dont have time for that just want to live and enjoy ur life. All are choices made with free will.

U have the free will to speed on the highway. But the consequence is ull get a ticket. U even have the free will to disobey the commandments, cheat on your wife, murder, but just like the ticket on the highway, there will be consequences. God doh sleep like the police. He always patrolling and seeing everything once yuh cross 80 a ticket will appear on yuh dashboard. Lol.. U have the free will to take up false Gods, the consequence is u would be abandoned by the real God. Titt... tatt. Cant have ur cake and eat it. This isnt heaven where that is totally possible lol.

did u just have a brain fart?.... i just said its possible to predict the choice someone would make before they were conscious of their decision. be it simple choices (for now).
so would you murder someone for no reason if you believe there was no god regardless of being prosecuted by man-made laws?

bluescclues i would like to know what your choice would be in this scenario given your self-proclaimed connection with god:
there is a train speeding down a track where 5 people are unconscious on the track, you can press a button which will change the train onto another track but there is 1 person unconscious on that track.
so basically 2 "choices" kill 5 or kill 1. which would you choose?
[spoiler]most people would choose to kill 1 but here is the disturbing thing with people like bluseclues if "god" told them to let those 5 people die, they would. there is very little (if anything at all) separating that "choice" than a sociopath or psychopath saying voices in their head told them to let those 5 people die

U dont understand the depth of your setups. Wasnt one of your statements that 'free will may not really exist'?? No.. it really exists. Dont try to cop out.

Next, ur traintracks issue. I think ur crazy in ur assertion but nevertheless. Let us add some other peas to the pod.

What if i knew that the 1 on the traintrack, was the president of our country, or the only doctor/chemist in the world who could work on and solve the problem of a vaccine for some terrible disease threatening the world? Aids or zombie virus let's say. But you didnt know this. U would think i was mad for saving the 1 and letting the 5 die would you?

[/spoiler]
ah... but you see the difference between the two of us is that even if you knew it was the doctor/president and god told u to let the doctor/president die you would do it.

im not copping out of anything. if someone knew what you were thinking and what you would do how is that free will?
you said you are aware of the study lets say they implant a device that shocks when u think of murdering someone. the thing is that your brain makes that decision a few seconds before you are aware of it so they would now be controlling your "choice" before your consciousness could know what the choice your brain made.

[crock101]

These guys think the earth is 6000 years old, there are trees older than that....no amount of evidence will change their minds, this is a prime example of how dangerous these cults are...cause let's be real, you guys are just cult members,after all the only notable difference between religions and cults are the number of followers, what is a cult to day gets classed as a religion tomorrow based solely on congregation size......it's still a stupid bsdm death cult.

[bluesclues]

What u are talking about has no correlation to the free will i am speaking about. I am aware of those studies ur talking about. and they do not address free will.

Free will is the ability to make choices. If u can make choices then you have free will. Left or right, do the cool thing or the right thing? Do the honest thing or the make you rich quick thing? Serve God, or dont have time for that just want to live and enjoy ur life. All are choices made with free will.

U have the free will to speed on the highway. But the consequence is ull get a ticket. U even have the free will to disobey the commandments, cheat on your wife, murder, but just like the ticket on the highway, there will be consequences. God doh sleep like the police. He always patrolling and seeing everything once yuh cross 80 a ticket will appear on yuh dashboard. Lol.. U have the free will to take up false Gods, the consequence is u would be abandoned by the real God. Titt... tatt. Cant have ur cake and eat it. This isnt heaven where that is totally possible lol.

did u just have a brain fart?.... i just said its possible to predict the choice someone would make before they were conscious of their decision. be it simple choices (for now).
so would you murder someone for no reason if you believe there was no god regardless of being prosecuted by man-made laws?

bluescclues i would like to know what your choice would be in this scenario given your self-proclaimed connection with god:
there is a train speeding down a track where 5 people are unconscious on the track, you can press a button which will change the train onto another track but there is 1 person unconscious on that track.
so basically 2 "choices" kill 5 or kill 1. which would you choose?
[spoiler]most people would choose to kill 1 but here is the disturbing thing with people like bluseclues if "god" told them to let those 5 people die, they would. there is very little (if anything at all) separating that "choice" than a sociopath or psychopath saying voices in their head told them to let those 5 people die

U dont understand the depth of your setups. Wasnt one of your statements that 'free will may not really exist'?? No.. it really exists. Dont try to cop out.

Next, ur traintracks issue. I think ur crazy in ur assertion but nevertheless. Let us add some other peas to the pod.

What if i knew that the 1 on the traintrack, was the president of our country, or the only doctor/chemist in the world who could work on and solve the problem of a vaccine for some terrible disease threatening the world? Aids or zombie virus let's say. But you didnt know this. U would think i was mad for saving the 1 and letting the 5 die would you?

[bluesclues]

@grim

Let me show u something. And it is that you have given the experiment more clout than it deserves, you've also embelished the results in your mind to be conclusive. Whatever publication you read(probably just one of the media's misleading headlines) left you with a false sense of security about the conclusive nature of the results.

Now follow this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosc ... _free_will

The field remains highly controversial. There is no consensus among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may be drawn. The precise role of consciousness in decision making therefore remains unclear.

See, peer review is unable to reach a consensus because of the nature of the test and the recorded data. They are unable to formulate a definite conclusion. But u somehow have. This is because the test itself is not well formulated to test free will, and more generally, records free will in action through what areas of the brain illuminate before an action is carried out.

Next

The Libet experimentEdit

A pioneering experiment in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s, in which he asked each subject to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while he measured the associated activity in their brain (in particular, the build-up of electrical signal called the Bereitschaftspotential (BP), which was discovered byKornhuber & Deecke in 1965[28]). Although it was well known that theBereitschaftspotential (sometimes also termed "readiness potential") preceded the physical action, 

Did u read and understand that properly?

First of all the test is very basic, only measuring the brain's association with 'the flick of a wrist. this is verryyy easy for neuroscience because as you know, left-brain controls right side of body and right-brain controls left side. So any physical action you are about to perform is of course preceded by the illumination of the area of the brain that has to do with the hand you want to move(flick wrist). Of course, neuro pathways within the left brain will light up with energy in preparation to execute a physical action with the right hand.

This is not testing free will im sorry to say. Science has quite a few of these type of tests which were not properly formulated to test precisely what they were hoping to target. Its more of testing the scientific equipment's ability to detect the charging of neuro-pathways which occurs before a physical action. As u can see, they already knew this, and the test doesnt give them much more data than to identify an area in the brain being associated with 'flicking the wrist'.

But now then what do u do when you realize, that if u identified and damaged that specific part of the brain, that the test subject will still be able to flick their wrist, because the brain will just process the operation in a different location. Within the brain also, one area can light up in different tasks. That same area may light up for wiggling the left toe, flicking the left wrist, while choosing between peanut butter or cheese for ur sandwhich. Or while working out a math problem.

This is why the test is inconclusive. So let me rephrase things so it makes more sense to you and u are not misled by science.

An attempt was made to design an experiment to test free will. The attempt failed as the experiment designed produced results that were inconclusive and thus no conclusion could be made.

I.e - this test goes in the garbage. Only reason it is still documented science is because they havent got something better to replace it yet.

[bluesclues]

ah... but you see the difference between the two of us is that even if you knew it was the doctor/president and god told u to let the doctor/president die you would do it.

again if that was a direct instruction from God then it would be in all wisdom. Perhaps the 5 had natural immunity to the zombie virus. And after i save them and take them to the hospital the doctors there wouldve discovered it and beable to develop a vaccine from their blood. In either case, i too would argue about which is the more moral decision if i dont have all the facts. If i know its the president/doctor but dont know the 5 have natural immunity, yes, i will probably argue with God a bit if he was telling me to save the 5 but not explaining why. 'But that's the president!'.. or something to that effect at least. Would maybe even push for a full explanation. Depending on how that play out i might do what he asks/commands yes. But he would have to inhabit me with some logic about the situation or i can disobey him pleading ignorance. Later on i would learn the consequences of my decision as things play out and realize what he recommended wass really the better thing to do because the 5 i let pulverize were humanity's last hope. God is not supposed to instruct me to do an evil thing. So whatever he is instructing must be righteous. It will be the better thing.

Time and time again he will show you things to come, even among your doubt of him saying it. You will test the spirit not let it remotecontrol u around just like that. A trust relationship is built. U fail him in your doubt, and he still doesnt let you down and delivers every time until you really trust the guidance coming from the spirit. And still even then, you dont put aside your conscience. You will question God of things that are difficult for you believe or agree with. All the prophets did. And God always explained his actions to them. And even at times pleading with God to dissuade him from laying his wrath on a people. So free will isnt given up in that manner. It's not like GOD says and we do it instantly. Not all the time. But in every instance id have to say it is judged. And we have to agree that it is good before it is carried out.

Some people dont do that judging or 'testing of the spirit to see that it is good' and can get carried away by any spirit they assume is God and end up doing wicked and evil things in an evil way without recognizing it.

[kevin5211]

Found something. https://sites.google.com/site/mysteries ... s/the--eve

[desifemlove]

i get the feeling the major religions was just some king using his troops to enforce his view of what God is. Or he got some religious legend and turned it into a religion. I bet some Indian king like 4000 years ago invented Hinduism, or some Jewish king 5000 years ago invented Judaism, or some Roman Emperor heard of the story of Jesus and made it the state religion of his Empire. what makes people who are adherents to the bible/koran don't know if it's true or not.

[Daran]

i get the feeling the major religions was just some king using his troops to enforce his view of what God is. Or he got some religious legend and turned it into a religion. I bet some Indian king like 4000 years ago invented Hinduism, or some Jewish king 5000 years ago invented Judaism, or some Roman Emperor heard of the story of Jesus and made it the state religion of his Empire. what makes people who are adherents to the bible/koran don't know if it's true or not.

You'll probably find the book, A History of God, very interesting then.

http://www.2think.org/hii/god.shtml

[brainchild]

@bluesclues the thing you have to get with us non believers (classify us as you will) is that we think that a line must be drawn somewhere. While you're basically willing to let go and let your God kill as many ppl as he sees fit with you believing that he knows best. That's where we stand up and say no, that's wrong and if you want us to support you, praise you etc. then respect us enough to say why. Not in a questionable ancient book of parables, not through someone else, not even through a burning bush, but to our faces.
We live in a complicated world now with too many fraudsters, too much injustice, too much bad to buy into this invisible, silent God thing that basically boils down to which interpretation we agree with. Who would support superman if he tells us what he could do then just floated in the sky and watched bad sheit happen and did nothing? We live in a world with more rational thinkers now, we're no longer few in numbers and surrounded by religious nuts ready to kill us for speaking our minds. As I've said to you before, the thinking the bible promotes when it comes to violence, injustice and "don't question the boss" is what we're trying to rid the world of. With the aim being that one day we will all get along, appreciate our time here and accept that everything has an end.

[bluesclues]

U did see when i said we are allowed to question the boss and he will answer us right? I do it all the time.

Again, we learn that God knows best from our experiences in building a relationship with him. Trust is built and we get to learn of the greater wisdom of God. We learn that he is always right. We learn that things would be alot easier if we just listen to him because we have learned to trust his advice in our decisions. God knows his creation. He knows our ignorance, our intelligence, our being. He knows we are untrusting, and many of us untrustworthy. He knows that we have doubts. Even for the faithful. He knows that we have much to learn and he is willing to teach us.

[brainchild]

U did see when i said we are allowed to question the boss and he will answer us right? I do it all the time.

Again, we learn that God knows best from our experiences in building a relationship with him. Trust is built and we get to learn of the greater wisdom of God. We learn that he is always right. We learn that things would be alot easier if we just listen to him because we have learned to trust his advice in our decisions. God knows his creation. He knows our ignorance, our intelligence, our being. He knows we are untrusting, and many of us untrustworthy. He knows that we have doubts. Even for the faithful. He knows that we have much to learn and he is willing to teach us.

Answer you how? Listen to what? This is the madness I'm talking about. This is how alot of ppl justify the bad things they do. No one wants to hear what the voice in your head is saying, because how can that be differentiated from your own thoughts or some psychological issue? It's real easy to use the 'God had a plan' excuse for all kinds of atrocities, name any and I can put a God spin on it. But that's not God, that's just proof that life goes on no matter what happens, it applies across the cosmos. Imagine in a universe billions of years old, 5000 years ago, some insignificant beings like ourselves dream up another being with ridiculous rules and magical powers and wanna claim that he responsible for everything, no matter how we look at it. That is boldness! But I digress...my main point here is that we don't wanna hear that he provides private answers to a chosen few, but steps into the light and provides them to all our faces.
One full appearance is all it would take to change the world, not sending one man to a few small towns in the middle east to talk, then die. What? he didn't know about the mayans etc on the other side of the world? Or did they deserve to die for not following rules they never heard of, from a God they never heard of? Too many holes in the story man

[eitech]

I put forward a question before: For argument sake, If there was one true, powerful, wise, infinite being; the creator of the universe, God. Do you think, you, as a man, could understand the mind, or explain such a being with your finite knowledge?

[brainchild]

I put forward a question before: For argument sake, If there was one true, powerful, wise, infinite being; the creator of the universe, God. Do you think, you, as a man, could understand the mind, or explain such a being with your finite knowledge?

How much times you guys will come with this? Then if we're mindless idiots, pawns in some larger game. What's the point of anything? Don't you find it strange that all religions make grand promises that occur after you die? Eternal life...after death....answer to all questions...after death...big house...after death...free food...after death. So live like a slave, be ruled by the rich and don't complain, just pray and it will all be better when you die. In the meantime I'll send you a book that you can't understand unless you believe that you understand. It won't provide any actual information regarding why you're really here or how to live peacefully and pay no attention to all the other civilisations that had other gods for thousands of years, that was just me trying other stuff out. Come on man!

[brainchild]

@eitech Also, how is our knowledge finite? What we don't know is just what we haven't learnt yet. There may be things that we can't wrap our minds around yet from a technological standpoint but not philosophical. Ppl aren't asking God to show us how to create a star, just how to coexist peacefully and end some other morality arguments once and for all.

[eitech]

@eitech Also, how is our knowledge finite? What we don't know is just what we haven't learnt yet. There may be things that we can't wrap our minds around yet from a technological standpoint but not philosophical. Ppl aren't asking God to show us how to create a star, just how to coexist peacefully and end some other morality arguments once and for all.

So we don't know everything yet so our knowledge is finite?

[brainchild]

@eitech Also, how is our knowledge finite? What we don't know is just what we haven't learnt yet. There may be things that we can't wrap our minds around yet from a technological standpoint but not philosophical. Ppl aren't asking God to show us how to create a star, just how to coexist peacefully and end some other morality arguments once and for all.

So we don't know everything yet so our knowledge is finite?

So that's all you got from everything I said?...smh.

[eitech]

@eitech Also, how is our knowledge finite? What we don't know is just what we haven't learnt yet. There may be things that we can't wrap our minds around yet from a technological standpoint but not philosophical. Ppl aren't asking God to show us how to create a star, just how to coexist peacefully and end some other morality arguments once and for all.

So we don't know everything yet so our knowledge is finite?

So that's all you got from everything I said?...smh

it's a simple question. Do we as humans know everything? Yes or no?

[brainchild]

@ for you to ask me that nonsense means you didn't understand anything I just said.

[eitech]

@ for you to ask me that nonsense means you didn't understand anything I just said.

Thank you for answering my initial question sir. That's all i wanted to know.

[brainchild]

Imagine you asking a question and quoting the section that answering it right above...you not making yourself look to sharp.

[bluesclues]

I put forward a question before: For argument sake, If there was one true, powerful, wise, infinite being; the creator of the universe, God. Do you think, you, as a man, could understand the mind, or explain such a being with your finite knowledge?

How much times you guys will come with this? Then if we're mindless idiots, pawns in some larger game. What's the point of anything? Don't you find it strange that all religions make grand promises that occur after you die? Eternal life...after death....answer to all questions...after death...big house...after death...free food...after death. So live like a slave, be ruled by the rich and don't complain, just pray and it will all be better when you die. In the meantime I'll send you a book that you can't understand unless you believe that you understand. It won't provide any actual information regarding why you're really here or how to live peacefully and pay no attention to all the other civilisations that had other gods for thousands of years, that was just me trying other stuff out. Come on man!

So just because ur children are younger than you, have less experience than you means they are mindless idiots?

If they choose not to take ur direction as a parent, dont pay attention in school, dont do their homework, then fail their exams, well then probably. But not because there is a more superior being than you makes u a mindless idiot. But ur attitude towards that can make you be classified as one. Not because the teacher know more than the student mean the student stupid.

Also the promise as ive said previously is attainable in life. This is because there is a metaphoric symbolism attached to sprituality which gives it the associations of - death, otherworldliness, afterlife. Thus attaining enlightenment is akin to experiencing death but remaining with the living. I might not be explaining this very well cuz im not very settled and trying to keep it short. But God can also retain a soul who didnt attain enlightenment in life and grant it eternal life. All the religions promise this same thing and instruct u also on how to achieve it the same way is because they have all come from one root source. God. And was split up among the nations. Each carrying a unique are of specialized study.

I will answer your other question later, just got in so let me settle down.

[brainchild]

@bluesclues the difference here is that I am physically present and teaching my children, all while the world is advancing more and more daily. So in the end I expect them to surpass me. This is the complete opposite of what your God is doing. So I don't see how you're connecting the two.

[brainchild]

Read this...came across it and agree fully. Courtesy Matt Burwood- Quora user

First off, if there is a god - we can be certain that it's not one that likes to judge humans in the manner that religious texts describe. This type of god is demonstrably an anthropomorphised manifestation of the conscience of early humans.

There isn't a shred of evidence for anything that is claimed about these types of gods (we would expect evidence if they were sending their sons to earth and whatnot). On the other hand there is a mountain of evidence that humans are prone to ‘magical thinking’, noticing patterns where none exist, and anthropomorphising inanimate objects.

In addition to things like psychosis and other ‘tricks of the mind’ being a much simpler and more consistent explanation for personal experience of god/holy visions etc.

We can deduce that, if there is a ‘god’, it has seemingly had no interest in the universe since creation - that is unless someone can provide empirical evidence otherwise.

Secondly, the fact is that it's impossible to have some kind of set of ‘ultimate morals’ that are universally applicable, or to be exempt from moral judgement (as god is often claimed to be).

Morals are something we invented to navigate life in human society - they are only useful within a limited framework.

For example, some of us consider violence against humans to be somehow morereprehensible than violence towards other animals. But I wonder what the other animals would think? Would a rabbit care so much about the death of a human, who may well be out to kill and eat it?

How much would you care about the death of an intelligent alien on a distant planet?

Can we say that a black hole is ‘naughty’ for destroying entire planets and stars?

Like I say, morals are only of limited use. They are in no way universally applicable, and are also highly relative.

And yes, our ‘moral code’ has been improving over time to include being fair to a wider range of creatures both human and non human. I consider it to be ‘better’ than when religious texts were first written (by humans, not god).

Ultimately, we invented morals, morals are our thing, and we can apply them to god’s decisions or behaviour should we wish.

If a god presented itself I would judge for myself whether or not it was ‘good’, not simply defer to it’s own opinion of itself.

[bluesclues]

@bluesclues the difference here is that I am physically present and teaching my children, all while the world is advancing more and more daily. So in the end I expect them to surpass me. This is the complete opposite of what your God is doing. So I don't see how you're connecting the two.

You are saying that. But the billions of ppl that believe dont see it that way. They see God present and acting in their lives. Answering their prayers. Even saving their lives. To those who knows what its like when the spirit comes over you to protect you from whatever it is ur facing and escorts u to safety unscathed. They may not physically see him but they can see him talking to them through the universe. Using situations and signs.

So of course u would say he's absent, because uve rejected and have been ignoring him. That and u never learned about reading the signs probably. But you can talk to God, by acknowledging the possibility of a supreme infinite being being above you. Who knows all and all in your heart and your troubles. But if you dont ask it for help. If you dont ask for a sign. If you make no attempt to reach out to the universe for it to make clear your purpose, and assume that you are the most intelligent race that exists. And this reality is the only 'real' one. How will u know when it's talking to you?