I have not sought therapy for your specific problem, as I don't have it, so your analysis and conclusion is void and illogical. I don't need to defend that there is a God, as I am not telling atheists that they are wrong in their personal beliefs... Your personal beliefs are just dandy as far as I am concerned, as long as you don't use them to tell me that mine are wrong for me, as you really don't know that they are wrong for me personally. I support the concept of freedom of religion, which includes freedom of non religion...it is the American way, or at least it is supposed to be that way... I am not a Bible thumper, and if you don't like what people personally believe...you can just change the channel. After all, as long as they are just using words, and not force, mind control, or a political process to keep you from holding your own personal belief systems, I really fail to see why you have such an angry resentment filled problem that surfaces in nearly all these types of threads. My guess is that you and many of the other fundamentalist dogmatic atheists have never worked through your own issues, and childhood wounds in this particular area, and simply have a Pavlovian response when someone talks about the Bible and their personal beliefs...
What argument is possible when you are faced with someone who says "I believe in something I can't see, can't prove, something for which there is no evidence whatsoever. I believe that the best way for me to figure out how to make my way in life is to listen to other men, and do what they tell me to do. I believe that I am not the controller of my own destiny; that my creator is omniscient and knows exactly what will happen to me from birth to death. I believe that those who do not think the way I do will go to a place called hell for acting in a manner consistent with their beliefs. I believe that I can say what is 'sinful' and what is not, based on the given words of my creator God'. When faced with this, what argument do you expect? In insane asylums, there are people who believe all manner of things. We treat these people with a combination of medication and counseling. It is no coincidence that religious mystics like the ones in this thread are the most judgmental people on the planet. As for intellectual credibility, one need look no further than the Disgusting Troll, who is perhaps the worst hypocrite I have ever encountered.
It is no coincidence that religious mystics like the ones in this thread are the most judgmental people on the planet. traderNik ___________________________________________________ Are you not here making a rather severe judgement?
What argument is possible when you are faced with someone who says "It is impossible to see, to prove or to collect evidence for the existence of God. I believe that the best way for me to figure out how to make my way in life is to create my own truth and do what I damn well please. I believe that everything I do is based on concious choise and logic; that my knowledge is omniscient and I know everything there is to know about life and death. I believe that those who do not think the way I do will transfer into oblivion as is consistent with my believes. I believe that there is no right and wrong except that which is based on my confined morality" When faced with this, what argument can I expect? Well clearly, I can expect to be told I belong in an asylum where I will be treated with a combination of medication and counseling. You have concluded the wrong diagnosis brother, as you're quite judgmental yourself.
Yes, it will require a broader background to grasp the concept of forgiveness. I did not expect you to get it this time around...but you will eventually, and so will everyone. The story you described is problematic because its not really true. And because it is not true, it does not make sense and so cannot be understood. The story you described is actually a story of unforgivingness. You are saying that my Father held a grudge for some thousands of years against everyone for some small infraction that no one can prove or verify. The fact is, you don't know why you seem to die. Such stories are attempts to explain why. Being untrue, they visit death upon every generation that believes them. Only truth delivers you from what appears to die. Forgiveness is simply to allow what is true be true. What is true? You - and everyone - is innocent. So whatever you think they did to you...they did not do. You remain as you were Created. So your innocence can never be changed to guilt. Likewise, whatever you think Adam and Eve did to God, or to their progeny...they did not do. What you think you did to our Father, you did not do. The way to realize you've done nothing to God is to forgive his Son what you think he has done to you. His Son is appearing to you in disguise: as your neighbor. Adam and Eve are innocent. Adam and Eve are symbols, of course, like everything else that is perceived. As bodies, they symbolize the loss of innocence. As such, they could not have been created by my Father...because his Creation is unchangeable forever....and he does not Create in limited form, or limit his Creations. But our Father's creations can think themselves separated and therefore guilty of separating from our Creator. And when such thought is empowered with belief, the mind begins to play tricks on itself. Thinking it possible to separate from God, bodies were invented to actualize separation....but they are merely symbols of an idea that is ultimately not possible. Bodies were the result of a series of decisions to consider seriously the untrue...the impossible. Thus, bodies ARE evidence of a "fall". It is the Creation - the Son of God - that has fallen in thought process. "Man" is the evidence of the Son's mistaken decisions based on the erroneous idea of separation. . Man is a mistake. Man is a seriously insane notion [acronym: SIN] The prime mistake is that he thought he could separate from his Father. I have illustrated this clearly in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Atonement tells you that separation is impossible and that the will of the Father and the Son are the same. Because separation is impossible, it never happened. Accept this, and you've accepted the remedy for all your problems. You underestimate the power of the Son's mind. It is equal to his Father's...and he has will-power equal to his Father's. As I said, the Father gave the Son EVERYTHING. What else does the Father have to give but Himself? How then, can the Son be anything except equal to his Father? The world is an attack on God, and bodies are made to limit love. As such, they are a limit on God's Creation. Because you are God's Creation, you are love...so bodies are a limit on YOU. Adam and Eve are not the work of our Father. They symbolize shabby shelters erected by a wandering Son in a far-out land of make-believe. Because bodies are built on laws opposite and antithetical to the way our Father truly creates...what else can they do but die? As such, bodies were NEVER MEANT TO LIVE! Bodies are to give the impression of "life"...only to prove that death is master over life. Bodies are to "prove" the Son of God can be killed. And if the Son can be killed, then his Father can be killed and so God can be killed. This is where the logic of separation leads. What you call Adam and Eve are symbols of an attack. Because attack is ultimately impossible within the one mind of the Son, bodies are invented to give the impression that attack is possible. With bodies, the one Mind attacks itself. As it attacks itself, it weakens itself. "A house divided against itself cannot stand". This is the "fall". Bodies - ie.. Adam and Eve - are how the fall is perpetuated. With bodies, grievances are bound to multiply, binding the mind of the Son to tiny, bleak, weakened and separated existences. Forgiveness unbinds the mind, freeing you from this trap. To forgive, you must see things as they are, and let them be true. If you are seeing bodies, you are not forgiving the Son of God. To see bodies is to twist our Father's Creation into an idea of your own making. You are simply not allowing what is true to be true! In other words, to see bodies is evidence that you are still not forgiving. Bodies are the equivelent of a witch who turns you into a toad. So long as she deems to see you as a toad, she does not forgive you. This way, she binds herself and you to a limited existence. This is not God's way. Adam and Eve are symbols of unforgivingness...an unwillingness to see the Son of God as he is: innocent. When you have mastered forgiveness, you will have no more use for bodies because you have no more use for attack. Without bodies, you return to your natural state of innocence. Innocent, you discover that you have everything, and never lost anything the Father gave you. Having everything, you cannot "gain" anything (ie. "Gilbert + 1")...nor can you lose anything. You can lose sight of what you have...you can lose sight of your "soul"...but you can never lose it. Because you have sacrificed everything for the world, you think you have lost. So you think there must be something to gain. Brother, our Father has saved your inheritance for you. Merely return Home to your rightful place as the Son of God. You will never leave this world through death. You will only leave it through the truth. Forgiveness let's the truth be true. What else can it be? Death is a kind of indecision. Decide for truth and live. Jesus
I am making an observation. Religious zealots tell us 1. Certain kinds of sexual behaviour are wrong 2. Certain kinds of marriage are wrong 3. Certain forms of worship are wrong 4. Certain ways for women to control the fate of their own lives are wrong 5. Certain advancements in medical science art wrong 6. Certain avenues of scientific inquiry are wrong 6. Etc ect. Is it I who is saying these things are wrong? No. I say that scientific advancement is not a bad thing and women are in control of their own bodies and I do not care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms and that you can worship whatever or whomever you want . And you call me judgemental? A typical post from a believer. At least I get the joke you're making with your screen name. In truth, I kind of like it.
__________________________________________ Anyone makimg harsh judgements is by definition "judgemental". It really doesn't matter which side they are on and if they deny the obvious then they are lying.
Not sure who this is addressed to - I never said any of the above, other than the best way for me to make my life is to create my own truth and do as I damn well please. God damn right it is. It says a lot about you that you would look at someone who says this and condemn them. With regard to right and wrong... I have notice that the leading moral relativists on this site are all the religious mystics, with the Disgusting Troll pimping them on. I have argued from a position of moral absolutism for things like child rape and murder. Since you have been here for a couple of months, you wouldn't know this. Again, it says a lot about you that you would level this charge without knowing anything of my beliefs or my stated position. Once more, this is the kind of shallow analysis we have come to expect from the believers. After all, when one assumes that an unknowable, unseeable, unprovable God is truth, what proof does one need of anything? Assertion is all that is necessary (Disgusting Troll, are you listening?). But then the fundament of belief is obsequience.
I noticed you completely evaded the point of the post - that is, that the believers are the ones who stand in judgement and the rest of us are simply looking on, shaking our heads in disbelief. Again, typical of the believer - denial of the obvious. In this case, it's the obvious fact that religious mystics judge others according to their received moral teachings, whereas agnostics believe in the virtue of individual freedom to act in a manner 'consistent with humanist ideals'. Religious mystics have a remarkable ability to pretend that they can't hear or don't see evidence of their hypocrisy. I wish I knew then name of the one guy on here who came into the ID thread, a Christian, and openly said "This is all nonsense - my faith has no logical basis and it is absurd for me to think that I can morally censure others who do not believe in the same gods I do'. That guy was my idea of a cool Christian. One guy out of all the believers. What the hell was his screen name...
_____________________________________________ Thanks for pointing it out, I make judgements, you make observations.