Why not? It's my view, doesn't have to be yours. That's what agnosticism is all about -- not telling other people how to think about the unknown. Bullshit, because you take it a step further, telling others that their thoughts about what can't be explained are wrong. That means you have some position regarding what is right, even though it can't be explained. Not sure what you're saying here. Is it a criticism of my use of the term hard to beat, because science is the best that we have? If so, no argument. Don't get caught up in the margins of meaning. Let's stick with the overall -- both of us support the scientific process of inquiry. Ah, so here it is. Your particular dogma stems from a hatred for a different particular dogma. I don't hate Christians because some are like Dayton. I hate people for acting like Dayton, regardless of their rationale. We have Christians on this board, like Nova, who decidedly do not act like Dayton. Is Nova not a Christian? Or is she just as evil?
I've got no way to evaluate that, and only Async can do so for himself. However, having been brought up as a worshipper in the religion, it leads to the perception of institutional and formative bias - his mind related to it in the manner he was accustomed to when he was exposed to it as a child. Again, doesn't prove anything in of itself - but it sure seems likely that those world shaking (from his perspective) events that made Async believe in God would just as likely been attributed to Vishnu, Zeus or Aliens if those were the belief systems he was indoctrinated in from an early age. I speak of this not dismissively but in earnest empathy - my dad believed that the gods of myth were aliens, and he formed this idea in the 50s as a teenager long before the History channel perverted its name on the topic. Probably too much scifi reading. I had years of bad dreams of beings standing over my bed as I slept - most likely because I know that I sleep with my eyes open at times and I had a fan light over my bed that could be interpreted as a head/face. When I had a bad reaction to some drugs I had when I was fighting the cancer, the hallucination I had was of a Grey in my room - no doubt due to years of conditioning. I did learn that my preferred mode in flight or fight is fight - I was across the room attacking it before I realized it. There was nothing there physically. But I still saw the thing for another 30 seconds until it faded away. In a different context, a reaction like that might have drawn me to entirely different conclusions. And the God is love and heaven is eternal light construct is a hell of a lot more appealing than somebody has been probing me.
If you put your views up for public inspection on an uncensored board, I will take that opportunity to its fullest extent. Other venues, I make adjustments. Again I cite the measles outbreak example. Ignoring, even refusing evidenced based ways of thinking are demonstrably destructive. The Dayton-esque behaviors we share a dislike of stem from this as surely as measles. You see these things as separate things in little boxes, where as I see them as a tree with a trunk.
Very Dayton-esque, the way you mangled the quote tags! My whole point is that everybody sees things differently. However, when it comes to measles, there is a lot more evidence than there is for the great unresolved questions of the day.
What's this thing that can't be explained in this debate? Again, I see no gap there. You can always dream that there are dreamed, additional, unexplained things involved, but that's not the same thing as saying you are faced with the unexplained in the first place.
When the big 3 desert religions get navel gaze-y like Buddhism, I'll be onboard with your point of view. For now, they seek power, and the destruction of what gave us this modern civilization, and its releases from suffering.
I'm speaking on the overall framework of belief, not a specific element. There are things that can't be explained, some believe what others consider to be fairy tales, but since it can't be explained, any assertion about truth is a fairy tale, including a statement such as "your belief is wrong."
This looks a bit like you're reading from a different page to me. First of all, believers don't say they're dreaming; believers are by definitions those who believe that what they believe is true, otherwise they don't believe it. Secondly, the statements that triggered this weren't about anything that is unexplained, but about things that are very well explained, such as dead bodies staying dead, things either continuing to exist or being destroyed, and so on.
I'm the one who says they are dreaming, the noteworthy thing is that I point the finger at theists and atheists equally.
Indeed. Science will ultimately discover the truth, and then there will be a new unknown to capture our fancy. But that neatly avoids the point, which is that the middle ground (as you've called it) doesn't actually take a position on which to be right or wrong. I think that's the part you can't handle. You want there to be a right answer and you want it now and you want it to be the one that best suits your personal sentiments.
Theistic religion is wrong. It's very easy to demonstrate. Deistic religion, knock yourself out being agnostic about that. Although, I'll never understand why the God hypothesis is supposed to be compelling when it has so many logic problems.
Wait. If you already know that science will discover the truth, how is it currently unknowable whether science or religion are needed to discover the truth?
Drives me crazy how the unbeliever gets the damned scolding lecture. Muthafuckas, you KNOW your shit's hard to believe, your own damned Bible tells you to expect to be laughed at, and disbelieved. And what's all the faith for?? But still, I get this "ohhhh, how can this beee? How can there be atheists in this wooorrld? ", jive. If God belief were the default reasonable logical conclusion, what the fuck is all the "I struggled with my faith", and "my faith is restored", and "my faith wavered", stuff almost all of you go through? Kinda meaningless if it's so damned self-evident. Way to spit on the struggles of all your fellow travelers. "Ohhh, you're such a meanie, Dickyoo! ". It's the fucking Red Room.
There is no question that I exist. On a very basic level there is a human being behind these words. If I recall, your assertion that your have experienced God relates to this idea that he someone beamed messages to your consciousness. I put it to you that it's a much harder thing to define and that, becxause of what we know of medicine, it would easily just be a gut feeling or hallucination. In other words, there is a significant area of doubt that will inevitably raise questions over what you experienced. You don't seem to want to ask these questions. Simply not comparable. Iran is a physical country, Iranians are physical people. I have been there and have been immersed in it's culture for years through relationships and friendships. Therefore I can bring that to the table as support for what I have learned, just as it is likely that you are better versed on places like Madagascar than me. That gives rises to a much more credible argument than simply "I had an experience/hallucination/episode and I know it was God". How did you know it was God? Like I said above, your experiences could be any number of things and your comparator of real life, physically existing things just isn't right. So why aren't you prepared to ask questions over the times God is meant to have spoken to you?
