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Post by clusium on Feb 1, 2023 15:32:29 GMT
Just because you can`t see Vishnu, does not mean Vishnu does not exist. Would you call that a good argument, or is it only good when its about a God you believe in? It is a good argument for ANY deity. One begins off by explaining why they choose to believe in the Divine. Then they go on to explain their choice Of God or gods.
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Post by paulslaugh on Feb 1, 2023 23:26:54 GMT
Just because you can`t see Vishnu, does not mean Vishnu does not exist. Would you call that a good argument, or is it only good when its about a God you believe in? It is a good argument for ANY deity. One begins off by explaining why they choose to believe in the Divine. Then they go on to explain their choice Of God or gods. Narrowing down your likes is not evident of anything other than your personal preference.
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Post by clusium on Feb 1, 2023 23:47:32 GMT
It is a good argument for ANY deity. One begins off by explaining why they choose to believe in the Divine. Then they go on to explain their choice Of God or gods. Narrowing down your likes is not evident of anything other than your personal preference. Your point? This topic is about not seeing something does not exist. Feologild Oakes asked if this could be applied to Vishnu, & I said it could be applied for any deity.
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Post by paulslaugh on Feb 2, 2023 1:11:40 GMT
Narrowing down your likes is not evident of anything other than your personal preference. Your point? This topic is about not seeing something does not exist. Feologild Oakes asked if this could be applied to Vishnu, & I said it could be applied for any deity. You’re seeing something that does not exist.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 2, 2023 2:39:51 GMT
Maybe you would like to prove it to yourself. Trust me, I could not possibly be more convinced than I already am. ... I once started hallucinating from exhaustion and the hallucinations were ordinary things so I would never have known if someone else hadn't been there to tell me they didn't exist. A couple slaps to the face, opened my eyes, and they were gone. The problem with hallucinations is when you start to believe them and lose your grasp on what's real. That's the problem with schizophrenics, they treat the hallucinations and paranoia as real and act accordingly. I'm not suggesting you're schizo, it's ordinary for your mind to play tricks but you don't want to let it control you, and if you believe them, they do control you.
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Post by mystery on Feb 2, 2023 4:07:41 GMT
Trust me, I could not possibly be more convinced than I already am. ... I once started hallucinating from exhaustion and the hallucinations were ordinary things so I would never have known if someone else hadn't been there to tell me they didn't exist. A couple slaps to the face, opened my eyes, and they were gone. The problem with hallucinations is when you start to believe them and lose your grasp on what's real. That's the problem with schizophrenics, they treat the hallucinations and paranoia as real and act accordingly. I'm not suggesting you're schizo, it's ordinary for your mind to play tricks but you don't want to let it control you, and if you believe them, they do control you. Well, that is a very strange experience. You also once told me about a dream you had about your parents, and that you spent the next day thinking it was real. I've never had anything like that happen to me, but if I was acting delusional and losing touch with reality, then I'm pretty sure someone would have said something. I do have documented evidence for some of my premonitions. One minor one recently was Barbara Walters. She randomly popped into my head one day, and it was annoying me enough that I decided to Google her. A couple hours later, they announced that she had died, and my Google search was obviously still in my browser history. Coincidence? Eh. I'm not in the habit of Googling random celebrities, but I admit that this premonition was nothing extraordinary. I hadn't watched her since she was on 20/20 back in the Stone Age. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Did you become an atheist because of what happened to your parents? I lost a family member when I was a teenager, and that was what gave me the final push into atheism, too. I suspect that's pretty common, anger at God for allowing bad things to happen. I think most people who merely have no proof of God/s would be agnostic. And people who choose to be atheists usually have other reasons. Today, I have very different views about life and death and Divinity than I did back then. Sometimes I think mainstream religion doesn't do a very good job of answering those difficult questions.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 2, 2023 5:01:42 GMT
I once started hallucinating from exhaustion and the hallucinations were ordinary things so I would never have known if someone else hadn't been there to tell me they didn't exist. A couple slaps to the face, opened my eyes, and they were gone. The problem with hallucinations is when you start to believe them and lose your grasp on what's real. That's the problem with schizophrenics, they treat the hallucinations and paranoia as real and act accordingly. I'm not suggesting you're schizo, it's ordinary for your mind to play tricks but you don't want to let it control you, and if you believe them, they do control you. Well, that is a very strange experience. You also once told me about a dream you had about your parents, and that you spent the next day thinking it was real. I've never had anything like that happen to me, but if I was acting delusional and losing touch with reality, then I'm pretty sure someone would have said something. I do have documented evidence for some of my premonitions. One minor one recently was Barbara Walters. She randomly popped into my head one day, and it was annoying me enough that I decided to Google her. A couple hours later, they announced that she had died, and my Google search was obviously still in my browser history. Coincidence? Eh. I'm not in the habit of Googling random celebrities, but I admit that this premonition was nothing extraordinary. I hadn't watched her since she was on 20/20 back in the Stone Age. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Did you become an atheist because of what happened to your parents? I lost a family member when I was a teenager, and that was what gave me the final push into atheism, too. I suspect that's pretty common, anger at God for allowing bad things to happen. I think most people who merely have no proof of God/s would be agnostic. And people who choose to be atheists usually have other reasons. Today, I have very different views about life and death and Divinity than I did back then. Sometimes I think mainstream religion doesn't do a very good job of answering those difficult questions. Nothing to do with my parents, although they weren't religious in any meaningful sense although I suspect they were in the play it safe crowd. I became an atheist for a couple of reasons, first, I'm a contrarian and doubt everything. Second, I've always loved science and was attracted to logic. Third, I was raised in a Pentacostal church with strict beliefs, and teachings that didn't make any sense, so I was always questioning. And lastly, I never felt comfortable with religion, it was like a yoke around my neck, but I had been raised in fear that I would burn in eternal hellfire for questioning the Bible. Not gonna lie, it was a process to undo that brainwashing, fear is powerful because there that "what if" feeling that lingers for a long time. And everyone I knew IRL were believers, so I was really out on a limb by myself. The day I finally admitted to myself that I didn't believe any of it and it was all bullshit was what I imagine a butterfly feels like when it emerges from a cocoon. Free. That was my early 20s.
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Post by mystery on Feb 2, 2023 22:05:05 GMT
Well, that is a very strange experience. You also once told me about a dream you had about your parents, and that you spent the next day thinking it was real. I've never had anything like that happen to me, but if I was acting delusional and losing touch with reality, then I'm pretty sure someone would have said something. I do have documented evidence for some of my premonitions. One minor one recently was Barbara Walters. She randomly popped into my head one day, and it was annoying me enough that I decided to Google her. A couple hours later, they announced that she had died, and my Google search was obviously still in my browser history. Coincidence? Eh. I'm not in the habit of Googling random celebrities, but I admit that this premonition was nothing extraordinary. I hadn't watched her since she was on 20/20 back in the Stone Age. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Did you become an atheist because of what happened to your parents? I lost a family member when I was a teenager, and that was what gave me the final push into atheism, too. I suspect that's pretty common, anger at God for allowing bad things to happen. I think most people who merely have no proof of God/s would be agnostic. And people who choose to be atheists usually have other reasons. Today, I have very different views about life and death and Divinity than I did back then. Sometimes I think mainstream religion doesn't do a very good job of answering those difficult questions. Nothing to do with my parents, although they weren't religious in any meaningful sense although I suspect they were in the play it safe crowd. I became an atheist for a couple of reasons, first, I'm a contrarian and doubt everything. Second, I've always loved science and was attracted to logic. Third, I was raised in a Pentacostal church with strict beliefs, and teachings that didn't make any sense, so I was always questioning. And lastly, I never felt comfortable with religion, it was like a yoke around my neck, but I had been raised in fear that I would burn in eternal hellfire for questioning the Bible. Not gonna lie, it was a process to undo that brainwashing, fear is powerful because there that "what if" feeling that lingers for a long time. And everyone I knew IRL were believers, so I was really out on a limb by myself. The day I finally admitted to myself that I didn't believe any of it and it was all bullshit was what I imagine a butterfly feels like when it emerges from a cocoon. Free. That was my early 20s. Thanks for sharing that. I can definitely relate to your contrarian streak. I think that's why I don't like to read books about religion or philosophy, because I always just end up arguing with it. I've never been to a Pentecostal church, but I think it would be really interesting to see people speaking in tongues. I grew up in an Evangelical church, and we had nothing like that. It was a sort of church that boiled salvation down to one verse (John 3:16), and had grape juice and saltine crackers for communion. Not a whole lot of depth there. It seems like a lot of atheists see theism as a burden. I personally didn't see Christianity as a burden, but I was frustrated beyond words from trying to make any sense of it. But spirituality isn't any burden at all. That was my freedom, to live without fear, to become less judgmental of others and myself, to approach life as a journey of growth, and to explore my own potential. I think everyone needs to find what works for them, because we're not all at the same place. We all need to be true to ourselves.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 3, 2023 4:04:09 GMT
Nothing to do with my parents, although they weren't religious in any meaningful sense although I suspect they were in the play it safe crowd. I became an atheist for a couple of reasons, first, I'm a contrarian and doubt everything. Second, I've always loved science and was attracted to logic. Third, I was raised in a Pentacostal church with strict beliefs, and teachings that didn't make any sense, so I was always questioning. And lastly, I never felt comfortable with religion, it was like a yoke around my neck, but I had been raised in fear that I would burn in eternal hellfire for questioning the Bible. Not gonna lie, it was a process to undo that brainwashing, fear is powerful because there that "what if" feeling that lingers for a long time. And everyone I knew IRL were believers, so I was really out on a limb by myself. The day I finally admitted to myself that I didn't believe any of it and it was all bullshit was what I imagine a butterfly feels like when it emerges from a cocoon. Free. That was my early 20s. Thanks for sharing that. I can definitely relate to your contrarian streak. I think that's why I don't like to read books about religion or philosophy, because I always just end up arguing with it. I've never been to a Pentecostal church, but I think it would be really interesting to see people speaking in tongues. I grew up in an Evangelical church, and we had nothing like that. It was a sort of church that boiled salvation down to one verse (John 3:16), and had grape juice and saltine crackers for communion. Not a whole lot of depth there. It seems like a lot of atheists see theism as a burden. I personally didn't see Christianity as a burden, but I was frustrated beyond words from trying to make any sense of it. But spirituality isn't any burden at all. That was my freedom, to live without fear, to become less judgmental of others and myself, to approach life as a journey of growth, and to explore my own potential. I think everyone needs to find what works for them, because we're not all at the same place. We all need to be true to ourselves. Speaking in tongues is interesting to watch because it doesn't sound like language, it sounds like gibberish by people who are trying to force it. People feel it is expected of them so they begin babbling hoping it will happen for real, or that's what I believe. Basically, peer pressure. We also healed the sick, it never happened right away. If the person got worse it was because their faith wasn't strong enough, if they got better, it was the Lord's will.
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