151. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75644 by NormanDoering on October 3, 2007 at 7:49 am

Yorker wrote:

We label Intelligent Design supporters as Creationists with a new name. Religites will say:

"Those people (insert name here) are just atheists with a new name".

They will do so rightly, but only if your new name becomes well enough known to be talked about. The chances of that I estimate, are close to zero.

Not necessarily. Not if we come up with something more inclusive for political purposes only. If we can come up with a name that will include theists like Andrew Sullivan and such.

You have to think about where you want to draw the line. I'd suggest looking at the political candidates running for president and find a label expansive enough to at least include one of them, like Barack Obama.

You either include yourself in the political process or you exclude yourself.

152. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75636 by NormanDoering on October 3, 2007 at 7:22 am

I agreed with Sam on the idea that "atheism" is a bad label to stick a movement with before he wrote this. I liked "Bright" though. One of the things wrong with it, (and I wrote of it here):

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/thank-you-mother-teresa-youve-shown-me.html

is that it focuses attention on the least consequential part of the atheist arguments -- whether there is or isn't a god. It's not about whether something like God exists or doesn't exist so much as whether you can make any claims about knowing anything about God. It's those claims that screw up people's heads so badly when they believe them. For example, consider how much there is to agree with in the works of non-atheists like Thomas Paine and Voltaire in their criticism of religion. Much of what they had to say about religion is still relevant today and is still rejected by most religious people.

153. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75423 by NormanDoering on October 2, 2007 at 3:29 pm

revcort quotes Michael Grant:

Michael Grant, from his book, Jesus: An Historian's Review:

"...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. ... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

Let me get this straight, revcort, you actually believe that Jason, of Jason and the Argonauts, fought a giant many headed Hydra and stole a magical golden fleece? You think that Odysseus fought the Cyclops? You think that Alexander the Great was really a god? You think that the Buddha could really levitate, multiply his body and read people's minds?

154. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75321 by NormanDoering on October 2, 2007 at 10:15 am

gr8hands wrote:

NormanDoering, sorry, but the Josephus entry about jesus has been demonstrated continually over the centuries to be a forgery, ...

Did you bother to check out the link I provided?
http://www.jesus.com.au/html/page/josephus

It's all about "The 'Testimonium Flavianum'" probably being forged -- or rather altered. But I've never heard anyone say that Josephus' entry about the execution of Jesus' brother, James, was forged. Christians wouldn't have forged something that suggests James and Jesus were violent rebels. That part is different than the 'Testimonium Flavianum.'

155. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75300 by NormanDoering on October 2, 2007 at 9:14 am

brother john wrote:

Plenty of verifiable evidence or indicators for your 1) and 3).

Points 1 and 3 are:
1) Jesus actually existed.
3) The Bible is an accurate account of what he said.

I would say there is probable evidence that some man (not a god) named Jesus did exist and preach in the time and place attributed to him much the same way there really was an L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, living in the time and place attributed to him, but that real Hubbard wasn't the man Scientologists think he was.

However, it should be noted that Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish writer who lived in Jesus' time and place and who wrote extensively about the political and theological movements throughout the Mediterranean never once wrote anything about Jesus Christ. Not only this, but he actually wrote about political conflicts between the Jews and Pontius Pilate in Judea and his views foreshadowed Christian theology:

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/philo.html
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm#9

Jesus does show up curiously late in the historical texts, decades after he preached, in the writings of Flavious Josephus with some note of probable Christians in Tacitus and other places. Josephus wrote decades after Jesus allegedly died (dying about 30 or 40 AD/CE), while Josephus writes also of the battles of 70 AD/CE, after the destruction of the Jewish Temple, after Judea is sacked and turned into a Roman city, and even events beyond that time. Tacitus also includes much later events.

http://www.jesus.com.au/html/page/josephus

As to the Bible being "an accurate account of what he said" that is seriously doubtful. Are you aware, brother john, of the Gospels that are not in the Bible? The Gospel of Thomas? The Gospel of Judas? The documents concerning Jesus life are contradictory and only the editing out of some books makes the story coherent.

Also, Flavious Josephus writes not only (and briefly) about Jesus, but about the death of Jesus' brother James and what's there suggests there was another, purely Jewish and more violently rebellious and anti-Roman, "Christianity" that never made it into any of the Gospels or the New Testament. If you read the New Testament as a history of the beginnings of Christianity, you may not even notice James, who suddenly appears at verse 12, Chapter 17, of the Acts of the Apostles without introduction or explanation, as the head of the community of believers at Jerusalem.

Jesus brother in both Josephus and the NT may be one of the few good hints, from my view, that there really was a historical Jesus, but the historical Jesus is not the one we see in the NT. There are, as I said before, other Gospels than the 4 that have been included in the New Testament. Which ones got in and which ones were left out was not decided until about 300 years after Jesus' crucifixion. It was decided by people who had no real knowledge of which of them were more accurate.

It just suits your purposes to deny its existence. ...

You are right say "Most here would argue...no reliable extra-biblican evidence..." Of course you argue that. If you once admit that there is reliable evidence around - biblical or extra-biblical - then your case falls.

No, it doesn't. It's one of many theories. And the reason there are many theories is because no one really knows. You, brother john, do not have as much evidence as you think you do.

156. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75093 by NormanDoering on October 1, 2007 at 7:02 pm

revcort wrote:

When Jesus said, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," he was not saying than an adulteress is not worthy of death. He was simply saying that God was the only one in a position to condemn her. The purpose in the Old Testament of stoning the adulteress was the responsibility of the nation itself, not individuals within that nation. A nation has right to inflict judgments and punishments that individuals have no right to inflict. This is the way God has set it up. The purpose of this command was to keep the nation pure.

Yea, that's about what the Muslim theocrats say in societies like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan about God's law when they execute gays, adulterers and apostates.

Sharia law still has stoning verdicts against aldultering women in Islamic states, Google it. It's happened in Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In every case of adultery I've heard of, it is only the woman who is to be stoned to death, just like in Biblical times it seems. The man on the other hand does not get as much as a reprimand.

Doesn't adultery require two?

The Old Testament describes various adulterous acts and stipulates that those indulging in them should be "put to death" (Leviticus 20:10-21).

According to John 8:1-11, it was only for those who were free of sin themselves, resulting in that it did not take place.

Revcort would have us go back to Old Testament/Taliban rules as long as it's the "society" and not any individual who throws the rocks.

In Islam all three Abrahamic religions are viewed as a continuation of each other.

The Koran does not prescribe stoning as the punishment for adultery at all. It prescribes flogging, "(giving) a hundred stripes."

157. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #74983 by NormanDoering on October 1, 2007 at 9:32 am

Bonzai wrote:

I know someone working on a Ph.D. in theology. Her thesis is a comparison of some aspects of Christianity and Confucianism. To do so she has to acquire a reading knowledge of Latin and ancient Chinese. To me that sounds like a legitimate Ph.D.

So I am afraid I disagree with Dawkins on this one.

Did you miss the last paragraph?

Of course, university departments of theology house many excellent scholars of history, linguistics, literature, ecclesiastical art and music, archaeology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, iconology, and other worthwhile and important subjects. These academics would be welcomed into appropriate departments elsewhere in the university. But as for theology itself, defined as "the organised body of knowledge dealing with the nature, attributes, and governance of God", a positive case now needs to be made that it has any real content at all, and that it has any place in today's universities.

It sounds like your Ph.D. friend is really working on language, ancient literature, psychology and "conceptual archaeology." Studying people's different ideas about God is not a study of God, but of the human mind dancing with ideas and beliefs.

158. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74810 by NormanDoering on September 30, 2007 at 3:29 pm

walk wrote:

WE are not claiming ANYTHING.

Speak for yourself.

I'll make some claims:

1) Religions evolve. We have a fossil record of dead religions, Egyptian, Sumerian, the ancient Norse religion, Aztec, etc. etc.. Modern religions reflect on their memetic inheritance.

2) There are dead religions far older than Judaism, the root religion of Christianity, that are distinctly different in many respects.

3) Evidence wise, the believers in all other religions will make similar claims and none of them can beat the others on evidence (except maybe, today, Buddhism because of meditation effects).

4) The vast majority of believers in any religion inherit their belief from their parents and local culture. Conversions to and from local religions is rare -- conversion to atheism and agnosticism is more frequent.

5) These claims are facts and a part of the evidence against religion.

159. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74577 by NormanDoering on September 29, 2007 at 3:30 pm

brother john's evidence for the demonic:

I've read reliable accounts. I've had some experience of it. It happened in Jesus's day. It happens nowadays. Open to genuine research if someone took the trouble, beginning with an open mind – not so open that everything falls out. That's not an open mind. That's credulity.

A few quick questions for brother john:

What makes for a reliable account of anything?

How does one know that one is interpreting ones experience correctly?

What constitutes "genuine" research?

160. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74563 by NormanDoering on September 29, 2007 at 2:34 pm

brother john wrote:

I realise demon possession may be a big problem for many, but, it is factual.

There's a big problem with religion right there.

How exactly is demon possession factual? Because it's in the Bible? Because it's in the Bible and a few priests have supposedly performed exorcisms?

There's a lot of crazy shit in the Bible -- Christians are supposed to drink poison and handle snakes. If you have a mustard seed worth of faith you should be able to move mountains. I've heard theologians arguing for the bodily ascension of Jesus into the sky. I mean, dude, where did his body go? You think heaven is up in the sky? What's up there is 350,000 feet worth of atmosphere and then the vacuum of space and the Van Allen radiation belts. Where did Jesus' body go? To the Moon? Is Heaven hiding behind a cloud? If it all weren't so tragically insane it would be funny.

There's a lot of news stories like this about exorcisms:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0729exorcism0730.html
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17508/fatal-exorcism
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070220/ai_n18622668

Modern scientific evidence just doesn't support any claims for demons and demonic possession. Where is the evidence for this being factual?

161. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74413 by NormanDoering on September 28, 2007 at 4:07 pm

Brother John,

I asked before, here:
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1647,Do-you-have-to-read-up-on-leprechology-before-disbelieving-in-them,Richard-Dawkins-The-Independent,page17#74136

You say your Christianity is all about being good and nice:

It obviously DOES NOT MEAN that if you think it's fine to torture, kill, rape, abuse children and adults etc ...

But it seems to me the actual content of the Bible will undermine that belief because the Bible does torture, kill, abuse children and adults etc... Moses, supposedly by God's orders, had the Hebrews killing Golden Calf worshipers, Midianites and plenty others. Jesus started talking about hell, a place of eternal torture.

Don't such stories undermine "What our conscience tells us"?

What are the consequences of believing in God who damns people to hell, orders his followers to war, and tells you if you really had faith you could move mountains with it.

162. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74234 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 10:26 pm

CHeard wrote:

...and Hitchens makes several elementary errors when talking about the Bible (and I do mean just objectively false statements, never mind religious convictions or lack of same).

Oh, really? That sounds a bit like the stock criticism Dawkins was talking about in the leprechology article above. You assume your sources are more correct than Hitchens?

And revcort would assume that the "Answers in Genesis" web site is a more correct source on arguments about the age of the Earth than your average geologist.

Why be vague. What are these errors?

163. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74233 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 10:05 pm

BAEOZ wrote:

Do christian scholars (or did they) think that Plato was an honarary christian? His dialogue Crito talks about souls, heaven and hell (sort of) and immortality.

If my memory serves me right, Dante's Inferno put a pope in hell and in his The Divine Comedy he put some famous pre-Christian Greeks in heaven, I think Plato was among them. When the main character narrating the poem asks an angel "how could this be? They didn't know Christ -- how could they believe?" (badly paraphrased that) the angel just tells him that it's none of his business, he was told what he needed to "believe," not what others needed.
In some ways Christianity is more Greek than Jewish. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, not Hebrew, and the Jews had been under foreign rulers, sometimes puppet rulers (like Herod), since before Alexander the Great conquered Persia. The Romans inherited Judah/Judea/Israel from the Greeks.
In Greek history, the Jews hardly show up as a footnote in Alexander's conquests. When Alexander got the Jewish lands they were already a conquered state in some primitive backwater that needed civilizing.
The concepts of heaven and hell don't really show up in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament a few people got physically taken up into the sky (heaven) while they were still alive and a few got swallowed by the Earth, but it's not like the strange new concepts that show up in the New Testament after the Jews started hearing and incorporating Greek ideas, and Plato's ideas.
Religions evolve and cross breed.

164. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74185 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 3:21 pm

steve99 wrote, RE: "The Fabric of Reality," by David Deutsch :

... some of his ideas are definitely on the margins,...

I know. But the incredible scale of the universe he imagines -- take our already incredibly large universe and multiple that by trillions upon trillions upon trillions more parallel universes linked at the quantum realm.

He ties it to other theories well -- to evolution, for example -- no matter how improbable such an event is in Deutsch's universe it is inevitable.

It's a "wow!" theory whether it's true or not.

165. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74173 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Goatsbane J wrote:

James Gleick's Chaos is on my reading list! I'll look forward to it.

It's not on my list - yet - but I'd suggest "The Fabric of Reality," by David Deutsch for a good "WOW!" experience.

166. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74136 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 11:25 am

brother john, a priest of 70 years, wrote:

No wonder we Christians get on atheist nerves and some of them spit blood at the mention of us.

You don't get on my nerves as much as revcort. But I've got a few questions for you about problematic scriptural texts to mull over:

Some Christian individuals and groups have given enormous scandal over the centuries by their hatefilled, intolerant, un-Christlike behaviour...

... God is concerned about using the concept of CONSCIENCE. ... those parts of the Scriptures that give us the mind of God ... God wants us to follow our consciences: those feelings about right and wrong that we have in us. It is our moral duty to do this... He will judge us: on how well we have followed that inner light - even if it leads us to say: I can't believe in God... It obviously DOES NOT MEAN that if you think it's fine to torture, kill, rape, abuse children and adults etc - as the military junta in Burma do, to give just one present horrifying example - then God will accept you. HE MOST CERTAINLY WILL NOT.

But the god of the Bible does torture, kill, abuse children and adults etc... Moses, supposedly by God's orders, had the Hebrews killing Golden Calf worshipers, Midianites and plenty others. Jesus started talking about hell, a place of eternal torture. Don't such stories undermine "What our conscience tells us"?

What our conscience tells us is CRUCIAL as a guide to individual and social life.

Not all humans have the same sort of conscience. A certain segment of morality and conscience (such as sexual mores for example) is culturally determined. It's better to recognize these parts as cultural creations than attribute them to God.

God does expect us TO GIVE SERIOUS THOUGHT to our moral principles.

What about giving thought to the moral principles of God? A God who floods the Earth, fire bombs cities, tortures unbelievers in hell, etc..

... what we believe can have enormous consequences for our well being and that of others.

Indeed. So, what are the consequences of believing in God who damns people to hell, orders his followers to war, and tells you if you really had faith you could move mountains with it.

Those moral principles that we accept as our personal code must reflect, as best we know how, love, fairness, compassion, mutual respect, the inalienable right to freedom, commitment to truth and peaceful coexistence etc.

Does that really come from the Bible? Or does the Bible undermine that?

167. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74095 by NormanDoering on September 27, 2007 at 8:13 am

revcort wrote:

As I was praying this morning, God revealed something to me that is very important.

Like others have said -- I'd like to know how you know it was God who revealed this and not the people here.

... my arrogant attitude at times has been nothing short of blasphemous. So, I am sorry to all of you.

I realized this morning that I know almost nothing of God. I have no right to speak for Him in matters that are not clearly spelled out in the Scripture, and I have at times.

You now admit that you know almost nothing of God, so how far does that go? What matters are "clearly spelled out in the Scripture" and which are not?

Is the creation of the Earth 6,000 or so years ago spelled out? Is the sun standing still in the sky spelled out? Is the anti-abortion plank of the Republican party spelled out? Is no marriage for gays spelled out?

Are they spelled out any clearer than the fact that you're suppose to be able to handle snakes, drink poison, move mountains by faith and castrate yourself?

168. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73847 by NormanDoering on September 26, 2007 at 10:43 am

Trilobyterian quoted thusly:

I love Northern Bright's comment: "You have to show that God exists AT ALL before it can be a serious undertaking to analyse whether or not he takes sugar in his coffee."

Before you can show that God exists you have to define what you mean by God. People will say things like "math is God. Math exists. Therefore God exists," and stuff like that.

And I really don't think that's the best place to start. You are focusing on the wrong assertions. It's not about whether something like a God exists or doesn't exist so much as whether you can make any claims about knowing anything about God.

revcort makes his claims based on the supposed revelations in an ancient book and some sense that God has acted on him.

In the end there is a lot to agree with in the works of non-atheists like Thomas Paine and Voltaire in their criticism of religion. Much of what they had to say about religion is still relevant today and is still rejected by most religious people.

I made that point here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/thank-you-mother-teresa-youve-shown-me.html

I add more weight to that argument here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-religious-mindfuck-really-works.html

169. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73844 by NormanDoering on September 26, 2007 at 10:29 am

Would you guys help me with something?

revcort isn't the first fundy I've met on the net who has said ignorant crap like: "Do you realize that a person who claims with absolute certainty that there is no god must claim absolute knowledge? Atheism is intellectual suicide." Or believed in creationism, demons and that the sun once stood still in the sky.

There once was this guy, called himself AFdave, who said very similar stuff on another forum like this.

So, what I wanted to do was to collect website links where you could find these guys making these kind claims and compare.

If you know any others, drop by my blog and leave a link to the site where you found them. Here's the blog:

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/mindfucked.html

170. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73615 by NormanDoering on September 25, 2007 at 2:36 pm

This one is from Origen (lifetime c. 183–253 CE, writing in On First Principles, IV.iii.1). The great Jerome—you know, the one responsible for translating the Bible into Latin—called Origen "the greatest teacher of the Church since the apostles," in his preface to his Latin translation of Origen's Greek Homilies on Ezekiel

Origen--you know, the one who who took this passage literally and castrated himself:

Matthew 19:12
"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."

171. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73607 by NormanDoering on September 25, 2007 at 1:02 pm

God: "What should we do with this CHeard fellow?"

revcort: "Well, I was kind of upset with the way all the atheists kept complimenting him and deriding me, so I was kind of hoping you could, well, turn up the heat on him, if you like."

God: "I knew you'd say that, I'm omniscient you know. But I asked that because I wanted you to understand what's going to happen next... You apparently have never heard the Gospel According to Fred, 3:1 -- It states thusly: The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't."

God pulls a lever and revcort starts falling into hell.

revcort: "No fair! I never read this Gospel According to Fred."

God: "That's your fault. My Discordian followers had it all over the internet."

revcort: "But it's absurd!"

God: "Not as absurd as what you believed."

172. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73603 by NormanDoering on September 25, 2007 at 12:42 pm

Galactor wrote:

revcort (630)... You reel off a list of preposterous, laughable, derisable, contemptible biblical tenets in which you have absolute faith and belief. You clearly understand what it is that atheists and moderate Christians have trouble with - the plausibility of it all which has been highlighted to you in this whole thread - one ridiculous notion after the other.

Don't blame revcort, God reached into his mind and turned him into a loony. He knows no one can believe this crap until God induces the proper brain damage. You just have to pray to God until you're insane enough to be saved.

173. The Saudi connection that belittles Britain

Comment #73553 by NormanDoering on September 25, 2007 at 9:12 am

tieInterceptor asked:

Have you guys seen the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad pulling an Al-taquiyya move? He is asked about gay executions, and he starts rambling about drug trafficking, then he is asked again, he is cornered "why we execute homosexuals in Iran?"

Ahmadinejad is dangerous and religiously delusional, but keep something in mind: There may be radically different cultural concepts and translation problems going on when trying to talk about homosexuality. Ahmadinejad speaks Farsi, not English, and has to be translated. It sounds like "gay" got translated into something that means merely "sexual criminal" with the emphasis on the "criminal."

I don't think Ahmadinejad was able to understand the question due to an Orwellian distortion that's happening to the Farsi language.

I blogged on it:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-gays-in-iran.html

174. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73310 by NormanDoering on September 24, 2007 at 5:01 pm

CHeard wrote:

I have a friend, a Christian (well, a heretical outlier, like me) psychologist, who is really impressed with something he calls "the hard problem of consciousness." I need to learn more about that.

The first hard problem is defining what you mean by "consciousness." You think the word "omnipotent" is fuzzy? Try defining consciousness.

If you're interested in the atheistic side of that question a good place to start might be with Marvin Minsky describing consciousness as a "suitcase term." Like intelligence, it's not a singular thing, it's a collection of introspective abilities:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky/index.html

His book, "The Emotion Machine" is partially on his website:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky

The truth is that human beings are not as conscious as they like to think. People can't stop themselves from making up post-hoc explanations for whatever it was they had just done for unconscious reasons. Look into Michael Gazzaniga's research on split brains.

Consciousness is more the wagging tail, rather than the dog.

175. Religion advances despite science (and thanks to Dawkins)

Comment #73006 by NormanDoering on September 23, 2007 at 6:46 pm

Off topic -- Anyone who's able to organize research and interested in getting $700 from Jonathan Haidt? If so, click this link:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/who-wants-700-dollars-from-jonathan.html

I have 5 new moral categories.

176. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72780 by NormanDoering on September 23, 2007 at 12:02 am

ergaster wrote:

...it wouldn't take that much of a nudge to let go of that "inspired" stuff.

Oh, yes it would. Revcort has to look death and hell in the eye and overcome his fear before he can even begin to think clearly about his religion.

As long as he fears hell, he's trapped within the prison of his own imagined fears.

177. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72547 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 2:55 pm

walk wrote:

revcort said: "the only way to prove the Bible's reliability would [be] to study whether or not its claims are actually true".
Are you talking about the flat earth, the sun revolving around the earth, that kind of thing?

Flat Earth, mustard seed faith moving mountains, handling snakes and drinking poison, and so much more:

Joshua said that God would drive out the Jebusites and Canaanites, among others (Josh. 3:9-10). But those tribes were not driven out (Josh. 15:63, 17:12-13).

Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (29:10-14), and Nebuchadrezzar would plunder it (29:19-20). Neither happened.

Ezekiel chapter 26 predicts that during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar (Ez 26:7) that the city of Tyre will be UTTERLY DESTROYED, become a BARE ROCK (Ez 26:4; 26:14) and NEVER BE REBUILT (Ez 26:14; 26:21). The city was defeated in battle in 587 BC, during King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, but was NOT "utterly" destroyed and it was rebuilt. Today it has more than 20,000 inhabitants at the core of a metropolitan area of more than 100,000 people.

The original ruins were not even scraped clean and ancient ruins from all eras are preserved on both island and mainland portions and are popular tourist destinations. So the prophecy fails.

Even within Bible times, long after the battle described by Ezekiel, Tyre had already been rebuilt and, in New Testament times it is still portrayed as a CITY (Mark 3:8) and as a harbor where ships could unload (Acts 21:3,7).

In Matt 24:34 Jesus reportedly predicts that the end of the world and all the fantastic "signs" he describes will occur within the lifetimes of the "current generation" or those currently living at the time Jesus spoke those words. If there is any doubt, it is clarified with far greater specificity in I Thessalonians 4:15-17, that this refers to those contemporaneously living. Yet that generation died off and the second coming and all the signs and wonders of the end times have not been fulfilled and, like all previous generations, is still being waited for by our current generation.

Note: This isn't my research, it was hobbled to together from some other websites that I can't credit because I don't remember where I got it from. Try talkorigins and infidels for more.

178. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72512 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 11:03 am

Robert Maynard wrote:

Who is they? Fish? revcort said humans are like fish (which are described as moving in a medium of 'sin') who have to become birds (which move in a medium of 'virtue').

At this point in an analogy so bizarre I think it's clear we are not talking about the actual animal kingdom. :P

Dude, take a chill pill. It was just a silly visual joke.

Dr Benway wrote: "Swimming fish turning into flying birds. I'd like to see that." Well, I can't really show that -- but I can show you something that looks like that.

Of course, revcort is not talking about the actual animal kingdom. He's just making arrogant claims to having more 'virtue' than normal, un-Christian people. Everything we do is sin, everything he does is virtue -- even if we're doing exactly the same thing as him.

I'm not crediting his analogy with anything more than that.

179. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72507 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 10:35 am

Is a flying fish a bird, Norman?

No, not technically. But why would it need to be if it can fly without becoming a bird? revcort said they had to become birds -- obviously, they don't.

180. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72493 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 9:25 am

Dr Benway wrote:

Swimming fish turning into flying birds. I'd like to see that. Wonder why I never have.

Obviously that's because you never googled flying fish and found a page like this:

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/flying-fish.html

or this:
http://wings.avkids.com/Book/Animals/Images/flying_fish.gif

181. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72485 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 8:57 am

revcort wrote:

...but my experience tells me something completely different.

What experience? You haven't described much personal experience -- you've mostly talked dogma. For example, this is dogma:

Regarding conversion to other religions... Well, from my viewpoint, these are false religions, so the question is moot. However, theoretically, the answer should be that genuine faith can't result from force. I mean, seriously, just because a muslim holds a gun to your head and says, "Say that Allah is god!" would saying that truly indicate that you believe in Allah? Absolutely not. Faith can't be forced. Of course, in my view, these other religions are worshiping demons, masquerading as gods.

Well, those Muslims believe enough to fly planes into buildings and become suicide bombers.

You've swallowed your religion whole from childhood on, just like the Muslim. How can you be sure you're not the one worshiping demons? Your God is pretty vain, murderous, insane and f#@ked-up from our perspective.

182. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72457 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 6:54 am

revcort wrote:

It's all a part of God's plan- and His plan has to do with His glory.

And what do you know of God's plan? Just what you read in a flawed and contradictory old book?

And God is doing all this all for his own vanity (is there a difference between vanity and glory?)

183. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72455 by NormanDoering on September 21, 2007 at 6:43 am

revcort wrote:

It is IMPOSSIBLE to convert someone to Christianity by any human force that could be exerted.

So, you don't buy my explanation, that you're suckered in by hope and trapped by fear in world of emotionally loaded fantasy?

Would it also be impossible to convert someone to Islam by any human force that could be exerted? How about Buddhism? Hinduism? African tribal religions? Sikhism? Sufi? Jainism? Shinto? Zoroastrianism? Unitarian-Universalism? Scientology?

How do you explain all the other belief systems that are so similar to yours -- full of promise and threat. How did people get to believe them?

184. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72334 by NormanDoering on September 20, 2007 at 6:55 pm

revcort wrote:

Love the title of that blog, by the way. It's sure to draw in all the people that you want to read it. You know, the ones who could really be "helped" by understanding how their minds are f'd. Seriously, you need to change your tactics if you truly want to help "christians" become freed from the way they're being deceived. :D

You're being deceived and you read it.

What do you think, the word hell and a cartoonish skull will scare them off? You're going to have walk into more fear than that before you're free. You believe in hell and your imagination has been loaded with imagining its horror.


Hope is only the bait. Fear is the Trap.

God has literally had to drag me away from these things. Early in my Christian life, there was much emotion and mysticism involved. I would go to a conference or get hyped up at some meeting where there was some worldly, emotion-packed music, and I would get all emotional and pumped. Yet, the high wouldn't last.

Your conviction lasted. Your fear of hell lasted. Your belief in God lasted.

However, over the last few years, since I truly believe that God has been changing me, there has been much less emotion, more reflection, more thinking, and MUCH less mysticism involved in it. There haven't been these emotional roller coasters than I once road with regularity. Now, I'm not saying there is nothing supernatural involved here. On the contrary, the change that God has brought forth in my life is truly astounding! Before, I always looked at sin as something that I would "prefer" to do but simply had to make myself avoid. Now, I'm beginning to truly see it for what it is and hate it. It's a completely different experience.

The quality of the experience isn't the issue. The issue is if you can imagine, comfortably, a world view without your faith. Or does that scare you? The emotion attached to your religious ideas doesn't have to be a roller coaster ride, it just has to be stronger than the emotion attached to the concepts and ideas in a more rational mind.

You do believe in demons. And I assume angels too.
You do believe that God is working changes in you (and you've always wanted him to).
You do believe miracles are possible.
You do not believe in evolution and you wouldn't know good science if it bit you in the ass.

But you don't think that what I have said: "You want to believe in a supernatural realm where your deepest desires might be fulfilled" applies to you.

Here's a test. Without quoting the Bible, is there really any good, rational, evidence in your own life that God is changing you and you're not just dreaming that up? Is there any good evidence that there are demons, angels and/or miracles? Or is your life, in spite of all your beliefs, just as mundane and normal as every other life around you?

185. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72303 by NormanDoering on September 20, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Shaun, what you just said does not refute the possibility that people are healed. All it does, if I accept it all as true that is, is prove that medicine can often heal many of those same things. I have not denied that.

Yet, in the example I gave, no treatment had yet been given. The doctor offered only astonishment, and said he had no medical explanation. Call it what you will.

Let's call it your "god of the gaps theory."

A quote from my blog:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-religious-mindfuck-really-works.html
For some people, once the Biblical seed of unreal hope and uncertain fear has been sown, a process of desire, expectation, and imagination begins in the hidden workings of the unconscious mind, in a secret world of mystical ideas, a world of ignorance and enormous possibility. The Bible reader begins to develop a murky image of his supernatural expectations and he seeks to clarify that image with further study. Instead of having his murky ideas clarified he is instead drawn further and further in to the trap. In time those things merely imagined, but still either feared or desired, may become part of our potential believer's reality map. The ideas are no longer just possibilities and speculations he entertains in his mind but are now 'real' to him. But 'real' only in the sense that they are emotionally loaded concepts that influence his desire and aversion behavior. The believer can no longer imagine, comfortably, a world view without his faith, his illusions. The emotion attached to these religious ideas is stronger than the emotion attached to the concepts and ideas in a more rational mind.

186. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72275 by NormanDoering on September 20, 2007 at 3:56 pm

I asked revcort:

You think that if you have enough faith you can move a mountain or walk on water?

revcort answered:

Yes, but my faith is so small that I am not certain that would be possible for me- certainly not yet.

Why would your faith be so small?

What do you think faith is?

Is it like will power? Is it imagination? Is it trust?

Oh, and I can't think of any reason why God would want ME to walk on water,...

Maybe you just can't think.

I assume that when you say: "Anything is possible with God" that this would include things more practical than moving mountains or walking on water. It would include things like finding Osama bin Laden, curing cancer and maybe even talking with atheists and not sounding like a completely delusional nut-job while doing so.

I have a lot of "faith" in the fact that when we do find Osama it'll involve a lot of science, satellite imagery, spy-detectives in Pakistan and Afghanistan planting listening devices and all sorts of intelligence work. Same with cancer -- no faith caused miracles, just a lot of science that you'll never bother to understand.

How do you think we'll cure all the various forms of cancer - if we ever do?

187. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72220 by NormanDoering on September 20, 2007 at 2:41 pm

revcort,

You seriously believe the whole Bible?

You think there are demons and Jesus can cast them into pigs and they'll drown themselves?

You think that if you have enough faith you can move a mountain or walk on water?

188. VOTE on the 'Faith smackdown': Richard Dawkins vs Francis Collins

Comment #71752 by NormanDoering on September 19, 2007 at 3:13 pm

marshall1 wrote:

Atheism, from what I can tell claims that there is NO GOD. Am I wrong about that?

Yes. You are very wrong. We don't say there is no god(s), no one can know that, we say we don't believe in god(s).

You probably don't understand how the human brain works. Read this:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-religious-mindfuck-really-works.html

189. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #71403 by NormanDoering on September 18, 2007 at 5:28 pm

Most of you, as far as I can tell, seem to get how belief works -- but perhaps some of you might get some helpful insights from my new blog post:

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-religious-mindfuck-really-works.html

Here's a taste:

Another example, I once let my brother's young kids watch a horror movie marathon one Halloween night. Early on during the films they were cracking jokes about how improbable werewolves, demons and zombies were but by the time the films were over they were so terrified of the simplest things I could make them jump just by shouting "Boo!" I eventually found them hiding under the bed with trembling flashlights in their hands. It didn't matter how skeptical they were, the movies had loaded their imaginations with all sorts of frightening possibilities and those imagined possibilities trumped their skepticism. Loading your imagination is exactly what religious proselytizers are doing. Have you ever had one accuse you of lacking imagination? I have and I'm a professional artist working in fantasy and science fiction who relies on my imagination.

190. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #71356 by NormanDoering on September 18, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Well, John 1:18 has 496 syllables and John 21:1-23 has 496 words.

And 496 is a triangular number, and also a perfect number (like 6 and 28 are also perfect numbers)

Oh my God! Do you realize that 666, the number of the beast, is also a triangular number?

John is the beast!

191. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #71072 by NormanDoering on September 17, 2007 at 6:46 pm

revcort wrote:

God deserves our worship because He is God. He is not only Creator, He is Holy- transcendent, He is perfect, He is omnipotent, He is omniscient, and He has offered Christ on our behalf. That is why.

As a real, true Christian and Scott's man, revcort, can we please see you drink some hydrochloric acid and handle a cobra so we can be sure? According to Mark 16:17-18 believers will be given these signs of power: ...if they pick up snakes or drink any poison, they will not be harmed. You can put the video up on YouTube.

Also, when you burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, because it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev. 1:9, do your neighbors ever complain? Do you smite them when they do?

Surely you must obey these things since they are the words of your perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God.

192. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70298 by NormanDoering on September 14, 2007 at 7:20 pm

...after all, how DOES a drug addict capture the "glimpse of transcendence" bestowed by a healthy dose of crack?

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is about his experiences with mescaline. And there's more than a "glimpse of transcendence."

Crack is just not a good psychedelic. If you want a religious experience, try LSD

193. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69985 by NormanDoering on September 13, 2007 at 1:57 pm

cryinryan wrote:

People, don't get your hopes up too much about her as an "out" atheist.

I've got two links at the end of my blog post that source Kathy saying: "My parents sent me to Catholic school, which only made me the vehement militant atheist that I am today."

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/kathy-griffin-we-love-ya.html

Was that just a joke?

194. Bible Belter

Comment #69749 by NormanDoering on September 12, 2007 at 2:31 pm

Lord Asriel asked Northern Bright:

was it this one?

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1139,Hitchens-on-Falwell-Part-2,Hannity-and-Colmes-Fox-News

Hannity would probably turn me into a screaming asshole -- I cannot stand the guy. I'd forgive Hitch for going postal on Hannity.

195. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69699 by NormanDoering on September 12, 2007 at 8:56 am

Does anyone really believe that this kind of childish, petulant behaviour convinces anyone to be more rational?

Not all by itself. But what Kathy can do now is not buckle in to the Leagues intimidation. By standing up to them and in fact mocking them for trying to intimidate her she will show others they don't have to give in either.

And some comedians have done a lot to promote rational thought -- George Carlin for one.

196. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69690 by NormanDoering on September 12, 2007 at 8:04 am

Suck it, NormanDoering!

I read that, CJ22. Are you happy now?

197. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69615 by NormanDoering on September 11, 2007 at 11:47 pm

Yorker wrote:

Try some old-fashioned RBP Norman.

Read Before Posting sounds like good advice -- except generally only a few people here are worth reading, so I'll hit those first and maybe come back for more if I have time. If Robert Maynard and Celestial Teapot think Kathy Griffin is a waste of time then what is reading all this?

198. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69609 by NormanDoering on September 11, 2007 at 10:36 pm

js5535 asked:

Wasn't the Catholic League a military alliance from the 30 Years War?

Yes, it was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_League_(German)

Certainly not to be confused with the Justice League where Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Batman and the Green Lantern used to hang out.

199. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69569 by NormanDoering on September 11, 2007 at 6:25 pm

Russell Blackford wrote:

I sent a supportive note to Griffin's agent.

Her agent? All I could find is her website and her blog.

And I too sent a note and posted a bit on my blog:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/kathy-griffin-we-love-ya.html

200. Bible Belter

Comment #69462 by NormanDoering on September 11, 2007 at 10:29 am

North Bright wrote:

...he was invited onto a TV programme with an opponent, not for a full-scale debate but for an interview led by the anchorman. Hitchens refused to shut up, refused to let the other side be heard, refused to stop even when specifically requested to do by the anchorman, basically heckled everything the other guy was trying to say and, because he was talking over both his opponent and the anchorman for extended periods of time, made it absolutely impossible for anyone to make out what was actually being said by anyone. When the anchorman asked him to stop, Hitchens replied "You can't invite me to be interviewed and then expect me not to talk." ....

I've never seen Hitch behave that badly. In fact sometimes I find him too polite and agreeing with things he shouldn't agree with.

In fact, the two times I've criticized Hitch on my blog it was for letting the theist get away with things that Hitch should not have let the theist get away with.

Hitch let David Allen White define "high art" in religious terms:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-is-great-art-in-our-brave-new.html

Hitch let Al Sharpton weasle out of defending the Bible:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/07/al-sharpton-admits-bible-is-bunch-of.html