None taken The subject matter is difficult, for sure, if one is not familiar with the writings and arguments.
I would respectfully disagree. It is quite one matter to be familiar with ones own bias, it is another to be familiar, in depth, with the opposing point of view. Stu's reply made it evident that he was not familiar with mainstream christian theology, which is fine, but your failure to understand or be familiar with the subject matter, does not make me a "hippie" LOL
i spent the first 50 years of my life as a bible believing baptist. i know how believers delude themselves into rationalizing away the evidence against what they believe.
So you mind was deluded for 50 years, then that deluded mind concluded that you were deluded, and now you are as sure as you were then when you were a theist that atheism is is the "true" reality of life. Extremists when they snap, do tend to go 180 degrees in the opposite direction... You probably can't see it, but your faith and certainty in God were swapped for your current faith and certainty in non God. A neutral state would of course be more rational when going from one extreme, but the typical ET atheist who is a former sincere theist has a major axe to grind and deeply emotional resentments against theism, theists, and God.
I have often thought the most damaging place a seeker of Christ could be is in a church. I have not visited one in over 20 years. I would bet that your statement might have mirrored the thoughts of Caiaphas when pondering this Jesus fellow.
the church you attend does not change the fact that gods and religion are the product a primitive mind. "Ignorance of Nature gave birth to gods. Knowledge of Nature is calculated to destroy them."
Joy is the truth. Meanwhile, the religion masked as "the universe" can't be taken seriously. "The universe" is like a drug that the truth takes, to experience hallucinagenic fantasies. The drug of choice is...choice itself...judgement. Judgement fuels fantasy by declaring - grounglessly - that what is not true is true. It's like a choice to shoot yourself in the foot. Judgement has become so automatic - such a kneejerk response - that the "judges" have been imprisoned by their own judgements. Their pounding gavels have become hammers, pounding them down, nailing them down to earth. This is how "the universe" began, and still runs to this moment in time...which is over. Time is over. Those still "high" on choice choose not to believe it...living on in fantasy land...constructing concepts that make no sense. If it were not so tragic it would be comic. I choose to see the comedy in it, especially whenever stu says something about hippie culture. Christ has already judged the world: "it is finished". When the judges agree, there will come the "last judgement". The last judgement is the end of fantasy, so it is the end of the world. The end of the world is the end of time. Christ!
Just because I say things like, "The world is a hallucination inside your own mind", you say I am some kind of "hippie" "pseudo poetic flower child"? What have you been smoking? Christ!
To try and state the origin of everything in evolution, or in a god or in goldilocks, or gandalf or whatever tickles your pickle really doesn't matter and in the end comes down to a degree of faith. From an evolutionist perspective you're still left with the idea of why. Why would the big bang occur? Because there was a bunch of matter/energy under compression. Why was that there? Why does anything exist in the first place? Thats where a degree of faith comes in. You can believe a god created everything, or a god created a bunch of compressed matter or energy, or that gandalf the grey waved his staff and fought a balrog and the universe was created out of balrog remains (why was the balrog there in the first place?). In the end everything you try and justify through religion or science or whatever the fuck you wanna classify something as will come down to a degree of uncertainty. Im personaly in favour of religous belief. In a quantitative fashion its not a be all and end all of thought. But if thought through logically, and taking everythign with a grain of salt, i think it can help to provide a great deal of order, morality, purpose, etc. in someones life. To validate whether there's a god or not has little impact on some of the positive aspects of religious belief. Aside from the psychotics that bomb abortion clinics, or austricize(sp?) homosexuals or genocide etc. that occurs in the name of religious belief, i think there's alot of positive aspects of a faith base. Many people have reason to no longer abuse drugs, hurt others, they have a reason to wake up every morning. A faith base can help positively impact a person's life in alot of ways. It helps give people an absolute in a completely relative world. It gives people purpose and drive, and can oftentimes help bring people together to make this world a better place. Overall there's no quantitative way to prove of a gods existence, or of an evolved world of sheer matter, or whatever it is. But to take in the positive socialogical aspects of faith there can be alot of good that it can produce (relative to what your perspective on good is). I mean even on the off chance in the end a god existed in the fashion you believed, then i guess you win in the end too however IMO life in the meantime has a sense of purpose, and oftentimes a degree of fulfillment that can oftentimes be lacking.