do you believe in god? why...
Posted on: July 6, 2008 - 8:11pm
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do you believe in god? why...
I have a neural condition known as Asperger's Syndrome, because of that I think using symbolic logic. (not everyone with aspergers thinks like this I just happen to be wired this way) I can't understand how anyone can think that there is a "god".
this is my proposal "If there is a god and it created everything to have a choice of whether to believe in it or not then what created me? as i have no ability to "believe" in a god." Just so you know i sat through 18 years of church with a you gotta be kidding me look on my face.
bodhi
bodhi
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Signature ? How ?
Go GAWED / fuck GOD !
.....maybe I should correct my pen name !
Wow IAGAY I believe you may have found your Doppleganger . Ken G is your twin, right down to his addiction to emoticons and fractured sentence structure..... weird !
Go Ken G !
Go Prozac ! My Brothers .....
1. I can't eat chocolate. It makes me sick
2. ok, I'm trying to figure out how to word it.
bodhi
First you use the word "believe" I have very little understanding of this word.
I have observed that when any system becomes large enough it becomes very difficult for it to change even if it becomes "aware" of some "wrong" that it may be perpetrating. (This is a negative trait)
( my theory) In changing position the system has to admit fault, which apparently would lead to some perceived loss of standing.
My friends won't let me play "any" games with them any more. =(
bodhi
I really can't answer the question "What's that like?". I would have to know what it's like to be something other than what I am in order to have a median frame of reference. That's not possible, unless your god. ( He he, I made a joke.)
"Infallible"?
bodhi
Can someone help me with this, is it a question?
I'll take a stab at it.
GOD: 1. The one supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe. 2. The supreme Being considered with reverence to a particular attribute : the God of Islam. 3 (lowercase) one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding of some portion of worldly affairs. 4. (often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the god of mercy. 5. Christian Science. the supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principal. 6. (lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol. 7. (lowercase) any deified person or object. 8.(used to express disappointment , disbelief, weariness, frustration, annoyance, or the like) : God, do we have to listen to this nonsense? [origin: bef. 900;ME. OE;c.D god, G Gott, ON goth, Goth, Guth] att. dictionary.com edit me...
bodhi
On the contrary, you understand the word perfectly well. You seem to believe you can tell when a person is lying. When they lie, either you believe them or you do not. That's two meanings of the word available to you.
If you mean "believe" in the sense that someone can claim something untested to be true, then welcome to the club.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Yeah, I'm personally not buying bodhi smith's schtick.
Why not jmm, Will and bodhi are just "fine tuning" the word "believe" definition ?....
Atheism Books.
Hee hee bodhi, yeah, what a lame ass definition .... the simple definition, "god is everything" , is much wiser ..... The ancient Tao had it about right, god cannot be named ..... a name is irrelevant, void when god is everything ! Fix my words, god babel is a bitch ..... damn sick religious loons ....
Atheism Books.
Then replace chocolate with some other flavor of icecream--important part of the question wasn't really the flavor.
"1. When presented with a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream, how do you choose?" This is the original question.
Ok, changing chocolate to strawberry
It would depend on the quality of the ice cream. If it is cheap i would go with vanilla, as it's hard to screw up. If it's really good then strawberry especially Ben and Jerry's organic strawberry. yumm...
bodhi
bodhi
I do have some understanding of the word (as you observed). I was just wondering what that use of the word intended, as it has many definitions.
bodhi
In plain terms, he's suggesting that you may have formed this understanding of yourself as a coping mechanism, but it doesn't necessarily reflect a good understanding of your own internal mechanisms. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're delusional or something, it just may be that you prefer to understand your own mind in simpler terms than it actually functions. You wouldn't be alone in that. A person's understanding of how their own mind works is at best poetic, considering how ignorant we are of our own minds and how frequently we're surprised by how they actually work.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
The impression I got was that jmm was in doubt about the validity of bodhi's statements.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
I've gone through 27 years of psychological and neurological testing many brain scans and more testing. I spent 13 years essentially in a state of perpetual internal analysis. I've studied neuroscience chemistry psychology and philosophy.
In other words I know nothing.
p.s. I am also a student of Taoism.=)
bodhi
I understand that Jmm has doubt.
The thing that is confusing me is, what statements is he unsure of.
(why do I feel like I'm trying to explain calculus to a cat)
bodhi
Well, I was wondering if anyone was going to take a stab at the Question "If there is a god and it created everything to have a choice of whether to believe in it or not, then what created me? as i have no ability to "believe" in a god." I guess not. end of thread...
bodhi
Yep , gods of the desert dogmas never was .....
I'm sorry but this is gibberish to me.
bodhi
I think I agree, god of religion is gibberish, regardless of my poor grammar ....
The best way I can approach this silly god of theirs , is to ask what isn't gawed? Wish I was more clever. Got any serious advise, besides not drinking?
Atheism Books.
You haven't really defined what "believe" means. I "believe" that it has been settled in this thread that you "believe" in some sense of the word. So perhaps a more narrow definition of the word might be in order? Or perhaps I just missed it.
Good morning, I hope you are well. Up a bit late trying to figure it all out. I.e. normal.
I would appreciate it if you would describe some of this from a personal aspect. It would, at minimum, contribute to the understanding of at least one more person, eh?
I am not certain there is a relationship... but it sure looks like it, eh?
First note, btw, that not many humans can understand how you think like you do. Now turn that on it's head.
You have a version of the problem of evil. It's a big pain for Believer stuff.
It's a pain for you too. Eh? It's all over us every day, it's total cultural message. And you get it from more than one place and your wiring has given you plusses and minuses.
You will have to fake this one. That is, there is no rational outcome regarding how humans are and why they can believe in invisible buds. At least not yet.
Kuhl, eh?
Do you have a hard time understanding poetry? I found that line pretty easy to read, but my mind may have a different disfunction than yours (!) The Judeo-Christian and Islamic gods came from the desert, and so their teachings would be "desert dogmas". iGod is saying that those gods never were.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Actually, the grammar in the sentence "Yep , gods of the desert dogmas never was ....." is pretty messed up, and most people wouldn't understand it.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Go drink a bottle of rum ......the grammar problem will work itself out.
Poetry reads kind of like prose to me - nobody seems to know why, and it's not much of a party trick. I also apparently understand when psychotics and schizophrenics speak. Like I say, not much of a talent, but I figured maybe it was just my dysfunction. Guess I was right!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Oh gezz. I often do it on purpose. I intentionally use the word ain't, and odd phrasing. When I wrote the above, I latter added the letter s , to make plural, 'god' and 'dogma'. I knew it was bad grammar, especially with the word 'was', instead of 'were' .....
Hey, can ya understand young children ?
I don't try to go this far: "Jabberwocky" - the greatest nonsense poem ever written,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky
Here's one on bad spelling
,
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, bu t the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it
LOL , and a bottle of Rum.
Prozac said
Reality Sucks! We need a new GOD .... 
Atheism Books.
That just often happens when interacting with theists.
Back to your original question, I'm not a theist anymore, but was a hardcore believer until about age 18. I think your original comment of comfort was on track. If god is with you every second, then you always have a friend. And, even if that friend is sometimes a jerk, you still always have a friend. Bonus, that friend knows everything and can do magic. What "normal" person wouldn't want that? My mother has been royally screwed over by religion, but still clings to a belief in god due to this whole friend aspect.
Not everyone buys into this though. Dad has also been screwed over by religion. He still buys into belief because he thinks it makes him smarter than everyone else. It's the whole chosen people, exclusivity aspect of christian dogma. He's intelligent, but is not so great with analysis and has severe dyslexia. Being an integral part of a church gave him respect he would not have found elsewhere in the community. Having the "truth" at his fingertips makes him smarter than a nuclear physicist. Why would you give up that which validates your existence as you perceive yourself?
I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but the comfort of a friend and exclusivity seem to be high on the list of belief motivators from what I've seen.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
anniet. That is so true. Thanks.
This is why I "preach" atheism the way I do. Instead of bluntly saying "no god", I try to alter what god means to the traditional theist. Like introducing them to Pantheism, Buddhism, and eastern philosophy in the style of Allan Watts etc, as stepping stones, leading them on a path away from sky daddy god of abe, and separatism idol worship. I try to draw parallels between their jesus and buddha etc. Yeah, kind of sneaky on my part, but what more can I do ???
I might say, "You and everyone is the christ too .... I am an atheist for jesus, and god, the force by different definitions. The bible NT is mostly a poor representation of this jesus "buddha" philosophy with a simple message of ONE, in them superstitious times. I share your awe, g-awe-d , but lets be 21st century about it. Why invent idols, that is wrong"...... etc.
Often this at least gets them thinking about their separatist beliefs, rather than rejecting me out right.
Basically because that jesus is the hero idol of their worship, I go for their "heart", emotion, rather than logic first. "What would jesus do, was he superstitious, did he want to be an idol above you or an example, isn't being "saved" to have the mind set of jesus, the christ in you, and as he said one with the all the cosmos (father), did he really walk on water, why did the ancients write as they did, etc ???"
I much more careful and gentle in person, than in forum print, really I am.
I understand why so many fellow atheists don't get my drift, but I am basically presenting my method of dealing with religion pollution. Go atheism, spreading the "good word".
Atheism Books.
Dammit, IAGAY, you're being clear and rational again! Are you sick or something?
I don't know, but I think that's the 1st post of his I think I've pretty much understood since joining!
IAGAY, I do thank you for your explanation. Maybe I will be able to understand better what you're trying to get at from now on.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
Cool, so nice to hear friends. I think I've taken for granite that my underlying style, message was just obvious. Sorry about that. God is confusing !
Communicating in print is fairly new for me, but I'm really having fun with it. (usually) * RRS is super duper!
P.S. anniet. My reply in your thread, about raising your kids wise to religion didn't send and was lost, but I will get to posting how I was raised again soon. Thanks.
Atheism Books.
I choose the one which I can see with my eyes, taste with my tongue, and can trace back to its inception in the factory, rather than the one that seems to be strangely invisible but promises to taste really good after I die.
I'm not sure which one is chocolate.
Ian