Help! I NEED advice!
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Hello, this is my first post here. Well… I have just found out my kind of atheistic girlfriend just converted to christianity. It comes as a shock to me because, after six years of knowing her, it is the last thing I expected to hear. Hell, when I first met her she was Wiccan; then, she told me she did not think she could believe in a higher power.
When she told me about her conversion I was taken back. I asked her, “Why?” She told me that: I enjoy the feeling I get from being there; the music and being with people who love me. I then asked: What does being "saved" and "baptized" have to do with going to church? You can not go just to be there? I then added: I sometimes go to my old church to listen to our choir and pipe organ (which is the only one in the town I live) because I love music. I am also xenophobic, can not stand to be in large crowds with people I barely know. She said: It just felt like the right thing to do. I really did not say anything the rest of the ride back to her aunts.
The part that really got to me was when she tried using Pascal’s wager. I just stopped her and said, "No." I would rather be wrong than be subservient to a hypocritical, malicious, self-centered imaginary friend. She asked me: Are you angry with me? I said: No, just taken aback that is all.
I respect her decision and will not hold anything to it. I have heard many stories of an atheist converting and breaking the relationship. I want to know how to make it work or if it is doomed to fail. I want to know if I did the right thing and respected her decision or should have I tried to talk to her more. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
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"...that she may be removed from Earth at any moment."
The Rapture ? 
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Offline Quote:That is what happens when I forget to preview my comments before I post them. Damn, Microsoft Word.One of the RRS mods uses an Office-type program to spellcheck before posting. And, as I suggested in the post title, I was just using that as an excuse to
at someone.
Bah! Stuff like that does not bother me. I am a perfectionist and I usually check that stuff. It was just a small chip off of my pride.
Welcome.
Sounds like you are doing the right thing. Loving someone means to let them be who they are. She sounds like an explorer, trying different things. Going to church especially ones that are somewhat lively can give you warm and fuzzies. Everybody has got their happy faces on. Jesus is wonderful and he loves you, just like we do. But as you stay there if you are open you can see the fascades. It is atypical for Church people to be open and honest in my experience (including my own). The Church and the bible teaches members to judge in spite of the one or two texts to the contrary. They learn there is only ONE way. They learn something that is not love. So, if you care about her let her experience this. If you fight her she will most likely see you as "the enemy", controlled by the "evil one". Her church members will tell her "See it is just as the bible says you are being persecuted for Jesus sake". And it will strengthen her determination to stick with it to prove you wrong. Funny. I have been on both sides of this coin. Good luck.
I like this, I wouldn't write off this relationship by any means.......the only thing is, you should be aware that, given that her conversion is genuine, the more she loves you, the more she'll want you to believe.
Kapkao wrote:freeminer wrote:the more she loves you, the more she'll want you to believe.Not necessarily. A person can believe whatever holy psychobabble they want to, still be deeply attracted to an atheist, and keep the relationship almost entirely secular. It happens; I've already pointed out one example from RRS to you in another thread: Tarpan.
I don't disagree with the idea that belief is no bar to attraction, quite the opposite. However, "keeping the relationship secular" inevitably means that if such a thing as spiritual union exists..... it won't in this relationship. If you don't believe in such a thing that won't bother you but if someone hadn't believed in the principle of electrical generation I wouldn't have the unrestrained bliss of talking to you!
also let me suggest that since she [possibly/probably?] believes:
1] that belief has eternal consequences for him and her and
2] that she may be removed from Earth at any moment
3] that the occurrence of 2. above may not be far hence.
I suspect that her love may come with the feeling that she doesn't want to be without him attached thereto.
I thank everyone here for your input to my problem. I hope this thread will help other people when they have no one to turn to. When my girl told me this, I was knocked through a loop. I just could not wrap myself around it and talking to people who understand these things REALLY helped. Again I thank all of you.
Ex-minister: She knows how to deal with me. If I get out of line, she will put me back. I will not have a problem with her butting me if I say something against her. I have actually found a silver lining in all of this. A few years back I was a challenger. I would talk to christians and discuss religion and politics. I eventually fell out of it and kept my defenses up in case I was challenged. Her church welcomes non-believers to bible studies and debate these things. It got me excited and I pulled out: books, websites and videos. I even warned her, "My object is to get the people in that room to think. Or... "BLAH BLAH BLAH, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" I miss that. If anything her finding belief re-kindled my disbelief.
Freeminer: All three of your theories are wrong. She is not dying and she does not care about the end. I asked and she said, "It just felt like the right thing to do." I wish I could believe, it would make life so much easier. Something goes wrong and it is either satan or god is mad at you... just pass the blame. But, it is all just rabble and nonsense to me. If she actually found some way to understand it... more power to her. I truly never actually believed. I always went to church and knew and feared god. This lasted untill I was 14 and I realized... I am indoctrinated. I just followed what everyone told me like a sheep. Then, one of my ex's dumped me and I just told god to F*** off and I did not believe anymore. It felt good... like a load of bricks off my back. Since then I have studied: Wicca, Karma Sutra, Satanist, The FSM, and a little Muslim (It is hard to find a Qur'an in my town) because I have no belief. Not that I would convert, I like to learn and listen to new things.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
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Offline I wish I could believe, it would make life so much easier. Something goes wrong and it is either satan or god is mad at you... just pass the blame. But, it is all just rabble and nonsense to me. If she actually found some way to understand it... more power to her. I truly never actually believed. I always went to church and knew and feared god. This lasted untill I was 14 and I realized... I am indoctrinated. I just followed what everyone told me like a sheep. Then, one of my ex's dumped me and I just told god to F*** off and I did not believe anymore. It felt good... like a load of bricks off my back. Since then I have studied: Wicca, Karma Sutra, Satanist, The FSM, and a little Muslim (It is hard to find a Qur'an in my town) because I have no belief. Not that I would convert, I like to learn and listen to new things.
Sorry to pick out just what I'm interested in and not the rest of your post.
Think of it this way ..... blaming someone else doesn't fix anything. If shit happens - and it happens to everyone - what you need to do is deal with it. Not assign blame, not wait for some godly or ungodly intervention. Since the intervention will never happen, best to pick yourself up and deal with what you got handed by "the fickle finger of fate". (I hated that show, but watched it anyway - like picking at a scab.)
Try your local library for the Qur'an. They may not have it there, but they can do interlibrary loans. And in many cases, it won't cost you any money. Also, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a great first person account of what Islam is like in an Islamic country. Great religion if you like beating your wife and children.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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But the 'Triune God' is just an idea, with no epistemological status,
I think what you mean is that it has no epistemological status for you.......but I am and always was, aware of that.
in the absence of empirical evidence,
well we have just agreed that empiricism has no absolute "status"
so cannot be a reference point for anything, and personal conviction counts for nothing in the absence of external corroborating evidence.
yep, that's what I said, that's why a Christian's personal experience is useless to you.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline The only copy of the Qur,an our library has is behind the desk and cannot be checked out. Back in the late 90's early 2000's all of the Wicca books and other pagan literature was being stolen (I assume being burnt). After 9/11, the Muslim literature started to disappear. We have some crazy cults around town like: The New Covenant Worship Center who want the burning times back and petition Ohio for it. All with no belief or other beliefs should be destroyed. That comes from a former member I went to school with. He left because he was gay and they tried to "expel" the demons.
I say this to give people an understanding about the society I dwell within. It is kinda scary.
CJ: The problem with typing is: you cannot hear accents and I forget to put light hearted smileys at the end of sentences. Although, "Ignorance is bliss" as they say and people are to proud and misinformed to except that they messed up and press the blame on a higher power to get through the day. I constantly mess up and I take the two steps back recover and keep pressing on. (Without godly or ungodly intervention) =P.
P.S.-- Inter-library loans around here only last a week and require a security deposit of $5 to assure the book gets back on time. Lots of B/S.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
- Login to post comments
Offline The only copy of the Qur,an our library has is behind the desk and cannot be checked out. Back in the late 90's early 2000's all of the Wicca books and other pagan literature was being stolen (I assume being burnt). After 9/11, the Muslim literature started to disappear. We have some crazy cults around town like: The New Covenant Worship Center who want the burning times back and petition Ohio for it. All with no belief or other beliefs should be destroyed. That comes from a former member I went to school with. He left because he was gay and they tried to "expel" the demons.
I say this to give people an understanding about the society I dwell within. It is kinda scary.
CJ: The problem with typing is: you cannot hear accents and I forget to put light hearted smileys at the end of sentences. Although, "Ignorance is bliss" as they say and people are to proud and misinformed to except that they messed up and press the blame on a higher power to get through the day. I constantly mess up and I take the two steps back recover and keep pressing on. (Without godly or ungodly intervention) =P.
P.S.-- Inter-library loans around here only last a week and require a security deposit of $5 to assure the book gets back on time. Lots of B/S.
Try this for comfort:
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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But the 'Triune God' is just an idea, with no epistemological status, in the absence of empirical evidence, so cannot be a reference point for anything, and personal conviction counts for nothing in the absence of external corroborating evidence.
hi Bob, I would also say about this that "external corroberating evidence" is an issue we haven't touched yet. When everything is a faith issue, what would you accept as "evidence" and why?
I have nothing to argue against, since you have not provided anything more than ideas and beliefs and testimony of particular experiences.
I don't think I've provided my own beliefs, experiences and testimony explicitly. I have stated the Christian position where it seemed appropriate but I'm not aware that I've used even that as the basis for a Christian argument [?]
Where I think we've got to is common ground that everything is a question of faith and an elucidation of the human problem. [it that doesn't sound too portentous - which it probably does]
Decades of research into the human mind tell us that that introspection and intuition and conviction have little or no correlation with reality.
but all that "research" is easily dismissed........when you realise you've stepped off the pavement in front of a truck, your "conviction" that the truck correlates with reality is readily evinced by your reaction! On the other hand, how we could prove anything about reality without first having certainty about what it is, I don't know
You have nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I draw an inference from this that you feel I have stated a specific view. You haven't asked what I have and I haven't offered........it all seems a bit premature. At best all I think I may have done is challenge some atheist preconceptions.......probably over -optimistic!
Of course nothing is 100% verifiable. But we can establish degrees of likelihood that any given proposition corresponds usefully to 'the truth', how closely it corresponds to what actually is, and continually refine those assessments by empirical research. You are making the common error of assuming that we only have either 100% certainty or total illusion.
yes, of course I substantially agree with you, though I would point out that if you look carefully at this you will see that your acceptance of relativism sits alongside your statement of faith in empiricism! You can't have it both ways! Relativism infects empiricism too as Polanyi pointed out way back in the '50's. So empiricism is not a source of absolute truth any more than sense perception. To recap - my point was that everyone lives by faith, I think you accept this; so a faith position vis a vis the propositions of the Bible is inherently no more shaky than say, an atheist one........which I seem to remember is what you were asserting.
I said nothing about 'relativism'.
no you didn't.......I did. I used the term on the basis that since the Enlightenment we have two acceptations of the term "truth", the classical sense [ in which the Bible was written of course] and an Hegeliian dialectic. You and I have already agreed that, within our space-time framework, we see no source of absolute truth......as you put it, we don't have 100%. So absolutism is out the window. If we don't have 100% what % do we have?.......12?, 25,75? and how would we know?
well:
Statistically based empiricism needs little justification, since it is not assuming anything more than that things which occur with an observed frequency under given conditions are likely to occur with similar frequency under comparable conditions. Coupled with Bayes Theorem, which allows us to rigorously combine estimates of probability of different factors into an estimate of joint likelihood of some combination of observations/events, we can build theories which give us ever more close correspondence with observation. Keeping track of the success in terms of accurate predictions of what will be observed under new conditions allows us to build and maintain confidence in the utility if the process.
that's right, what we have is "statistical truth" ie. as you so ably describe above, our conclusions are always relative as opposed to absolute [don't misunderstand me here, I'm not knocking it as a methodology that would be ridiculous, we can't run the modern world without differential calculus. - Bayes is surely a realistic acceptance/example of what we've already agreed upon] I would take [pedantic?] issue with the notion that "Statistically based empiricism needs little justification" . Surely the whole point is that the model seeks to be self-justifying? ie it needs "justifying all down the line - which is what Polanyi spent 9yrs writing the book about. What I mean is that ok, it looks to mathematics as an external reference but to a form of mathematics which, by its nature doesn't supply absolutes......so it is analogous to the approximations of our sense perceptions. Thus it is relative.
No 'faith' required. Make a set of assumptions, repeatedly test the results of actions based on those assumptions which predict results not expected from alternate assumptions is how we increase our confidence in the usefulness of those assumptions. Other researchers are encouraged to challenge the current accepted theories if they can think of alternate frameworks of explanation.
there isn't a scientist alive whose conclusions aren't passed through the net of his own preconceptions. How do we know that our initial data is in fact data? Yes we make a set of assumptions within which lie all sorts of faith presuppositions. Basically what you've said here is that we test our assumptions against universal laws.........in which we put our faith! If you didn't -how d'you know the same aspirin you take for a headache today won't kill youi tomorrow. The fact the we presuppose the order of the universe begs a whole other set of questions.
I do NOT live by 'faith', more accurately I live by a current set of working assumptions which I adjust as necessary to accomodate new information and insights. The only 'faith' I have is the belief that this is reasonable way to approach the complexities of modern life, and so far it has got me through more than half-a-century of interesting life experience.
that's right, you put your 'faith' in your working assumptions......Man is forced to do this by the nature of what we call reality. The irony is that we deny the existence of absolutes, put our faith in our working assumptions but cannot avoid living as though absolutes do exist. You and I are constantly making statemennts in this conversation which we clearly intend to be accepted as true in an absolute sense.
Treating some 2000 year old collection of translated and re-translated writings of one of the less-informed peoples of the ancient world (compared to the Indians, Chinese, and Greeks, for example) as a basis for your fundamental world-view is purest folly.
this seems uncharacteristically irrational. What has the age got to do with it? We cheerfully put our faith in any number of ancient documents. You then proceed to compare Jewish knowledge with that of other cultures......on what basis and what is the relevance? Pre- Semitic knowledge was, according to the accounts, already well advanced but I don't understand why you raise this. Apart from the fact that I haven't referenced the Bible except by way of citing a Christian principle here and there, surely one does or does not put one's faith in a set of propositions based solely on their correlation with human experience?
All we can ever have, about anything, including religious ideas, including the existence and nature of God, are models of, approximations to, 'reality'.
this is not an unreasonable statement given where you're standing but a Christian would disagree based on that personal conviction of his. This is why Christian convictions are so frustrating to atheists and why atheists write them off as irrational. A Christian standing up and trying to convert an atheist on the basis of his personal experience is pissing in the wind.
It is indeed reasonable, period, since the Christian has only his belief in the validity of his belief, with nothing but his confidence that his confidence is not misplaced.
this is totally correct, his world view is based totally on his personal epistemology.......as is yours. The question [which you have no way of knowing the answer to] is whether his claim to an altered epistemology as a result of a new personal commitment, is true or not.
You need to acknowledge that the ideas of your particular creed are just as subject to this process as anything else. You did emphasise that NOTHING can be certain. So you must acknowledge that there is no dodge that allows you to bypass that.
but see above. If either of us had certainty, neither of us would need faith. We commit to propositions we accredit as "factual". That doesn't negate what I've written immediately above.
if you are not certain that God does not exist, you should join a forum for agnostics! What I mean is that we all accredit certain propositions as 'factual' and choose to commit to them - that is what belief is. Life is constituted in such a way that we can't avoid doing it and they become our "certainties". Everyone takes a leap of faith in one direction or another - it can't be avoided. Surely the trick is to ensure that it is taken on an entirely rational basis? For this, atheists tend to look to empiricism.......I was simply hoping to point out that not only does that leave them in a dichotomy because they are forced to live by sense perception but that they are 60 years out of date.
My uncertainty that God des not exist is vanishingly small, of lesser magnitude than the possibility that Russell's orbiting teapot actually could exist.
of course it is, why would it be otherwise?
"Leaps of Faith" can be avoided, just recognize that 100% proof of anything outside the tautologies of logic and math is not possible, so just make provisional assumptions instead. You really don't 'get it', do you?
no they can't. As we've seen, you trust the truck coming towards you is real even though you can't explain its materialiality........you make absolute statements even though you can't identify a source of any absolute basis for them [ie a source of classical truth] As far as I can discern, you make a leap of faith into empiricism even though objectivism has been a dead duck for 60yrs.........on the face of it you accept this by way of "provisional assumptions" You believe in "provisional assumptions", you commit to them, therefore you have faith in them........but to the atheist the term is anathema. Your semantic problem doesn't negate the case.
Introspection, intuition, personal assessment of the 'truth' of internal experience, etc, have been shown by massive amounts of evidence to be highly unreliable.
but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trick [setting aside the proven unreliability of sense perception]. So that brings us back to Hume's insistence that we can't trust anything . The problem is life forces us to trust . If you didn't you would die crossing the road. This dilemma is why 20th century philosophy concluded that everything is absurd........which makes the parading of this site as "rational" heavy with irony! We have no choice but to trust that rationality exists but why atheists presume it a priori mystifies me.
No, it is not a "trick". It is ultimately unknowable,
how depressingly pessimistic of you!!!!!! The only reason you don't like "trick" is that it implies a trickster! Whether or not it is an "unknowable" trick is entirely another issue.
but we can form progressively better models of it. Life forces us to make assumptions, but not 100% trust in their validity.
you correctly used the word "trust"
Most of philosophy itself is absurd. I long ago gave up on it. Rationality, the application of logic to observation, is the best we have.
those guys were the ultimate rationalists.........well rationality and philosophy are not entirely disconnected. Philosophy is inescapable - everyone has one. As a science freak you are fully aware that we have long been into conceptualisation first, then hope to observe.......it has been a matter of "belief" for a very long time. If it had come within the bounds of simple empiricism the passionate row between Heisenberg and Einstein for example would never have happened.
Founding your beliefs on a conviction of communication with an entity with no physical manifestation is pure hubris and folly. Even the writers of the Bible realized that, hence all the 'miracles'.
spoken as a true materialist. You believe in any number of things, "with no physical manifestation" Firstly, the Christian would argue that the entity did have a physical manifestation, but as I said, if the atheist is a man who doesn't believe in non-physical entities, why does he believe in rationality? Hack off a chunk of rationality and post up a picture. In fact just at the moment we have absolutely zilch idea what materiality is. So you place your faith in something you know less about than I know about God.
You apparently did not grasp my account of modern materialism'.
I don't recall seeing one.
The modern 'physicalist' (a more accurate term) recognizes that 'rationality' is an abstract description of an ideal form of reasoning,
which tells us nothing new but begs the question......what other forms are available.......why would we ever dispense with the ideal?
which is what happens in a conscious mind which is an emergent attribute of a particular category of complex structured matter.
a suitably mystical not to say nonsensical assertion - I trust it wasn't your own! Typical of the unsupported assertions which optimistic scientism commonly spews forth. What is it?.......well, it's "what happens"!! Either the laws of logic are material or they are not. If they are then the laws of logic are not universal since they would not extend beyond the brain. If the laws of logic are just electro-chemical connections in the brain, then they would differ from person to person because everyone has different connections in their brain.
We certainly do have an idea of what strict materiality is -
a bold assertion........come on then
it involves a particular subset of sub-atomic 'particles' (electrons, protons, etc), the remaining being manifestations of 'energy' (photons etc). It is anything capable of maintaining a persistent static structure, of which atoms are the most fundamental example.
which tells us nothing new.........is that it? Pleease! "maintaining a persistent static structure"......I'm devastated to think you presume I'm so stupid!
Obviously you appear to know zilch on this subject.
setting aside the fact that you've just told me you know zilch regarding the actual issue, I should point out that people have a wide variety of life experiences.......there will be things which you know which I don't and vice versa. You said it as though it should be a point of shame.......which I find odd. Incidentally, I can confirm that you didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Freeminer: All three of your theories are wrong. She is not dying and she does not care about the end. I asked and she said, "It just felt like the right thing to do."
someone put up a post re the Rapture. I confirm that that is what is what I was referring to - the Biblical assertion that the Church will be taken before the Millennium - commonly accepted amongst Evangelicals. I don't dismiss her "feelings".......I would reserve judgement......for the moment.
I wish I could believe, it would make life so much easier. Something goes wrong and it is either satan or god is mad at you... just pass the blame.
the Biblical position is that the world is not as God made it or intended it..........things go wrong.
But, it is all just rabble and nonsense to me. If she actually found some way to understand it... more power to her. I truly never actually believed. I always went to church and knew and feared god.
this may have some bearing on the issue.
This lasted untill I was 14 and I realized... I am indoctrinated. I just followed what everyone told me like a sheep.
in which case, yes, you were indoctrinated.......that doesn't confirm or negate the tenets of those who did it to you, it just suggests they were undiscerning/unwise.
Then, one of my ex's dumped me and I just told god to F*** off and I did not believe anymore.
I don't understand this.......you mean God suddenly took possession of your ex and forced her to dump you? Did it occur to you that he may have had someone more compatible around the corner? Btw, if you go around telling people that you told a non-existent sky-fairy to F off , the men in white coats may appear. The rage against a non-existent person always fascinates me! If he exists, getting to know him may be a better option than getting mad!
It felt good... like a load of bricks off my back. Since then I have studied: Wicca, Karma Sutra, Satanist, The FSM, and a little Muslim (It is hard to find a Qur'an in my town) because I have no belief. Not that I would convert, I like to learn and listen to new things.
any happier yet?.......I'm not just being fascetious, I in no way belittle your search, it's just that perhaps it may be an idea if you established some parameters. For example is a warm feeling or something you can accredit as truth, the priority?
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trick
Bollocks. It suggests no such thing.
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Offline The only downer about that date, if we actually think about it, is that the initial settlement was to establish a penal colony for the Brits to export criminals to...
Think of it this way: America got the puritans, Australia got the criminals. Conclusion: win for Australia!
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Offline freeminer wrote:but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trickBollocks. It suggests no such thing.
aaaah so you've sussed it! So you'll now explain the discrepancy between appearances and our [apparently totally misleading] conclusions vis a vis particle physics.......or were you just being cavalier?
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline Quote:But the 'Triune God' is just an idea, with no epistemological status, in the absence of empirical evidence, so cannot be a reference point for anything, and personal conviction counts for nothing in the absence of external corroborating evidence.hi Bob, I would also say about this that "external corroberating evidence" is an issue we haven't touched yet. When everything is a faith issue, what would you accept as "evidence" and why?
You know, something separate as far as possible from what you are trying to justify or validate, but is hard to explain unless what you think you experienced was actually something external to your internal mental experience, which encompasses your memory and what you can imagine, in particular.
Quote:I have nothing to argue against, since you have not provided anything more than ideas and beliefs and testimony of particular experiences.I don't think I've provided my own beliefs, experiences and testimony explicitly. I have stated the Christian position where it seemed appropriate but I'm not aware that I've used even that as the basis for a Christian argument [?]
Where I think we've got to is common ground that everything is a question of faith and an elucidation of the human problem. [it that doesn't sound too portentous - which it probably does]
You are simply and naively wrong there, but I understand why you would assume that, having immersed yourself in Christian thought. Your posts all reinforce the impression of someone who has little or no understanding of how many/most people outside the Christian or any other faith really see and understand the world.
I have little or no place for 'faith', just what I think of as 'working assumptions', subject to 'tweaking' whenever I encounter personal experiences or accounts from other people which 'strike a chord' with some great new insight or way of looking at something, or even challenge my ideas with hard-to-deny evidence. 'Faith', in the religious sense, as distinct from the everyday sense of extreme trust in a person, based on personal feeling toward them, is just so silly/naive at best, self-deceptive at worst.
My long-growing perception is that faith and religion, ideas of a 'God, definitely contribute to exacerbating, or at least get in the way of elucidating, the 'human problem'.
Quote:Decades of research into the human mind tell us that that introspection and intuition and conviction have little or no correlation with reality.but all that "research" is easily dismissed........when you realise you've stepped off the pavement in front of a truck, your "conviction" that the truck correlates with reality is readily evinced by your reaction! On the other hand, how we could prove anything about reality without first having certainty about what it is, I don't know.
<sigh> I agree, you really don't know... at least it appears so to me.
The truck scenario is precisely one of main categories of situations for which we have intuition, to allow us to react quickly in what will most likely be the best way to survive, without having to reason it out. Those intuitions are not guaranteed to be correct or accurate in all circumstances, just ones which most likely to serve us well in the range of situations we have experienced already. Some may be inherited, be wired in by evolution, based on scenarios which our ancestors encountered repeatedly over many generations, such as that certain perceptions were strongly correlated with the existence of a lurking predator. All formed from the cumulative effect of empirical sensory data either by us or indirectly by our ancestors.
The second part of that response makes little sense to me. I can only think of what I understand of how we acquire understanding of the world as we grow, and there is argument about just how much of it is due to our own accumulating experience of the world, and how much is 'pre-wired' by evolution. I incline to Stephen Pinker's views on this, that our brain is not a 'blank slate', but is to a significant extent 'pre-wired' for certain patterns of understanding, with the details being filled in by personal experience. He particularly studies language acquisition, where he sees that the basic building blocks of grammar are in our brains, but the precise way they connect up are determined by the speech we hear as we grow.
It is all based on what comes to us through our senses, processed by some basic mechanisms we inherit.
The only thing we need to understand anything about reality is a framework based on something like fundamental logic. Proof is not part of it. Particular ideas are reinforced by comparison of current experience with past experience, allowing consistent patterns to be recognised. Our brain is heavily based on pattern-recognition.
Discussion of proof is after-the-fact, as we try to analyse how we have arrived at our basic concepts, and then attempt to apply our reasoning faculties to extend that understanding and find higher-level correlations.
Quote:You have nothing. Nada. Zilch.I draw an inference from this that you feel I have stated a specific view. You haven't asked what I have and I haven't offered........it all seems a bit premature. At best all I think I may have done is challenge some atheist preconceptions.......probably over -optimistic!
You haven't challenged anything, if you mean by that that you may have raised any real questions in me about my position.
The only challenge I see before me is how to get thru your wall of misperceptions to get you to at least entertain soem doubts about your own position. So to that extent, we appear to have a common approach...
I will have to take a break at this point, I do have some other things to attend to.
I will attempt to go thru the rest of your long post here later, unless you respond before that with arguments which update what you have written here.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline KSMB wrote:freeminer wrote:but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trickBollocks. It suggests no such thing.
aaaah so you've sussed it! So you'll now explain the discrepancy between appearances and our [apparently totally misleading] conclusions vis a vis particle physics.......or were you just being cavalier?
KSMB is correct there; that's total bollocks.
Few subjects have been managed to be misunderstood by uneducated people and converted into woo as extensively as physics.
I doubt anybody here has the time or patience to give you free lessons (Except maybe Bob, who is too nice for his own good).
If you're really curious: do your own homework. If you would like, I'm sure either of us would be happy to provide you with links or references for further reading.
If you aren't curious: kindly "STFU" 
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Offline KSMB wrote:freeminer wrote:but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trickBollocks. It suggests no such thing.
aaaah so you've sussed it! So you'll now explain the discrepancy between appearances and our [apparently totally misleading] conclusions vis a vis particle physics.......or were you just being cavalier?
In case you're too dense to get it, these so called "conclusions" are bollocks. Particle physics doesn't suggest anything like it. Don't worry though, thinking that [insert field of] physics supports various flavors of woo/religion/other foolishness is very common among people who don't actually know anything about physics, particle or otherwise. You are not alone, sadly.
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Offline To the OP, be aware that the Bible says the following (II Cor. 6:14-16):
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
If she has joined an evangelistic, Bible believing baptist church they may pressure her to break it off if you don't convert because of this passage. If the two of you were married it would be different because the biblical prescription for marriage to an unbeliever is to stay together (I Cor. 7:12-14):
12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
My deconversion came long after we were married and my wife is a very committed Christian, but I'm fairly sure she seriously considered divorce when I told her I was an atheist. This ^ passage may have saved my marriage. It's frightening how much power people have let this out dated, mythological book have over their lives.
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Offline freeminer wrote:KSMB wrote:freeminer wrote:but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trickBollocks. It suggests no such thing.
aaaah so you've sussed it! So you'll now explain the discrepancy between appearances and our [apparently totally misleading] conclusions vis a vis particle physics.......or were you just being cavalier?
In case you're too dense to get it, these so called "conclusions" are bollocks. Particle physics doesn't suggest anything like it. Don't worry though, thinking that [insert field of] physics supports various flavors of woo/religion/other foolishness is very common among people who don't actually know anything about physics, particle or otherwise. You are not alone, sadly.
none of which blustering hot air even attempted to answer the question..........big surprise!!!!!!!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline freeminer wrote:Quote:But the 'Triune God' is just an idea, with no epistemological status, in the absence of empirical evidence, so cannot be a reference point for anything, and personal conviction counts for nothing in the absence of external corroborating evidence.hi Bob, I would also say about this that "external corroberating evidence" is an issue we haven't touched yet. When everything is a faith issue, what would you accept as "evidence" and why?
Quote:You know, something separate as far as possible from what you are trying to justify or validate, but is hard to explain unless what you think you experienced was actually something external to your internal mental experience, which encompasses your memory and what you can imagine, in particular.for example, a Christian would say that if the Bible suggests, "do 'x' and 'y' will happen, the doing of 'x' resulting in 'y' is, like any other cause and effect process, "external corroberating evidence".
Quote:Quote:I have nothing to argue against, since you have not provided anything more than ideas and beliefs and testimony of particular experiences.I don't think I've provided my own beliefs, experiences and testimony explicitly. I have stated the Christian position where it seemed appropriate but I'm not aware that I've used even that as the basis for a Christian argument [?]
Where I think we've got to is common ground that everything is a question of faith and an elucidation of the human problem. [it that doesn't sound too portentous - which it probably does]
Quote:You are simply and naively wrong there,in assuming our agreement?........ok that's fine, I'm very happy to respond to your counter argument when I see it.
Quote:but I understand why you would assume that, having immersed yourself in Christian thought. Your posts all reinforce the impression of someone who has little or no understanding of how many/most people outside the Christian or any other faith really see and understand the world.well, I'm very well aware that as a generality, people don't see themselves as living with a dichotomy, of course they don't analyse it in these terms. I'm simply pointing out that it is the case and why.
Quote:I have little or no place for 'faith', just what I think of as 'working assumptions', subject to 'tweaking' whenever I encounter personal experiences or accounts from other people which 'strike a chord' with some great new insight or way of looking at something, or even challenge my ideas with hard-to-deny evidence.as I've pointed out, you are committed to your 'working assumptions'. They are a fundamental component of your world-view, you trust them, therefore you have 'faith' in them. I suspect your required "evidence" is all of the empirical variety. I don't object to thar per se, [though we've agreed some of its limitations]. I'm still not quite clear on how you decide what constitutes 'evidence'. For example, the apostle Paul claimed the whole of creation as 'evidence' of God on the basis of common sense not just because of the OT assertions. What was evidence for him is clearly not evidence for you. I am assuming you consider conjecture regarding the existence of God as inherently irrational. When you've explained to me why your position is not a 'faith' position, would you care to explain why?
Quote:'Faith', in the religious sense, as distinct from the everyday sense of extreme trust in a person, based on personal feeling toward them, is just so silly/naive at best, self-deceptive at worst.Why? I wasn't aware I was using 'faith' in a religious sense. What do you see as the distinction? We commonly trust our fallible senses for all sorts of things every day.
Quote:My long-growing perception is that faith and religion, ideas of a 'God, definitely contribute to exacerbating, or at least get in the way of elucidating, the 'human problem'.Again, this doesn't surprise me but then our perceptions are fallible. Inversions of the truth are not unknown, even in science.
Quote:Quote:Decades of research into the human mind tell us that that introspection and intuition and conviction have little or no correlation with reality.but all that "research" is easily dismissed........when you realise you've stepped off the pavement in front of a truck, your "conviction" that the truck correlates with reality is readily evinced by your reaction! On the other hand, how we could prove anything about reality without first having certainty about what it is, I don't know.
Quote:<sigh> I agree, you really don't know... at least it appears so to me.The truck scenario is precisely one of main categories of situations for which we have intuition, to allow us to react quickly in what will most likely be the best way to survive, without having to reason it out. Those intuitions are not guaranteed to be correct or accurate in all circumstances, just ones which most likely to serve us well in the range of situations we have experienced already.
I think my choice of word was correct, when you see that truck, you have a conviction not an intuition! But ok, I seem to remember your point was that both were untrustworthy by reference to reality. Well, you are right of course, both I and Hume agree with you......as I said, you "trust" a conviction/intuition which you have no wish to test.
your quote:
intuition and conviction have little or no correlation with reality.
put it much stronger than I would. If you are convinced that your conviction regarding the non-existence of God has no correlation with reality........why do you hold to it?
Quote:Some may be inherited, be wired in by evolution, based on scenarios which our ancestors encountered repeatedly over many generations, such as that certain perceptions were strongly correlated with the existence of a lurking predator. All formed from the cumulative effect of empirical sensory data either by us or indirectly by our ancestors.This section contains a couple of assertions which I consider unsubstantiated. Shall we clear the outstanding issues first? I see no point in simply accumulating areas of disagreement.
Quote:The second part of that response makes little sense to me. I can only think of what I understand of how we acquire understanding of the world as we grow, and there is argument about just how much of it is due to our own accumulating experience of the world, and how much is 'pre-wired' by evolution. I incline to Stephen Pinker's views on this, that our brain is not a 'blank slate', but is to a significant extent 'pre-wired' for certain patterns of understanding, with the details being filled in by personal experience. He particularly studies language acquisition, where he sees that the basic building blocks of grammar are in our brains, but the precise way they connect up are determined by the speech we hear as we grow.It is all based on what comes to us through our senses, processed by some basic mechanisms we inherit.
I substantially agree with this.....in fact I would say it concurs with common parental experience though I suspect I would disagree with Pinker's understanding of what a human being is.
Quote:The only thing we need to understand anything about reality is a framework based on something like fundamental logic.
you'd better phone the Hadron collider and break the news they've wasted all that money. Atheists presuppose logic without justifiable basis. I assume you are not a materialist since the materialist atheist does not have immaterial laws of logic.
Quote:Proof is not part of it. Particular ideas are reinforced by comparison of current experience with past experience, allowing consistent patterns to be recognised. Our brain is heavily based on pattern-recognition.well, it's 'both/and' not 'either/or'. As I pointed out, our brains also insist that absolutes, therefore 'facts' therefore 'truth' exist. Without truth we have no proof of anything.
Quote:Discussion of proof is after-the-fact, as we try to analyse how we have arrived at our basic concepts, and then attempt to apply our reasoning faculties to extend that understanding and find higher-level correlations.you mean we accept the validity of concepts before proof is available........that's exactly how Christian conversion works....it's called faith....but they are critisized interminably for it. Incidentally, I thought you said intuition [which this represents] bore little relationship to reality.......so I'm surprised you espouse it as a strategy..
Quote:Quote:You have nothing. Nada. Zilch.I draw an inference from this that you feel I have stated a specific view. You haven't asked what I have and I haven't offered........it all seems a bit premature. At best all I think I may have done is challenge some atheist preconceptions.......probably over -optimistic!
Quote:You haven't challenged anything, if you mean by that that you may have raised any real questions in me about my position.ok, so your "working assumptions" are not a faith position because........?
Quote:The only challenge I see before me is how to get thru your wall of misperceptions to get you to at least entertain soem doubts about your own position. So to that extent, we appear to have a common approach...start by stating my misperceptions........I'll take a look at them.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline KSMB wrote:freeminer wrote:KSMB wrote:freeminer wrote:but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trickBollocks. It suggests no such thing.
aaaah so you've sussed it! So you'll now explain the discrepancy between appearances and our [apparently totally misleading] conclusions vis a vis particle physics.......or were you just being cavalier?
In case you're too dense to get it, these so called "conclusions" are bollocks. Particle physics doesn't suggest anything like it. Don't worry though, thinking that [insert field of] physics supports various flavors of woo/religion/other foolishness is very common among people who don't actually know anything about physics, particle or otherwise. You are not alone, sadly.
none of which blustering hot air even attempted to answer the question..........big surprise!!!!!!!
I see. So instead of actually explaining what these "conclusions" are, how they were reached and what supporting evidence you have, you whine about me not addressing some extremely vague and completely unsupported claim about particle physics? Well done, sir. You make an excellent christian.
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Offline
I see. So instead of actually explaining what these "conclusions" are
well, you stated that, "these so called "conclusions" are bollocks." which rather presupposed that you knew what they are! You compounded this with, ". Particle physics doesn't suggest anything like it."! Well if you don't know what you're talking about, why should anyone else?
how they were reached and what supporting evidence you have,
as your response implied it, I credited you with knowing, at least the basic findings of particle physics......do you always comment first and engage your brain afterwards?
you whine about me not addressing some extremely vague and completely unsupported claim about particle physics?
1] if the claim was so "vague" howcome you see fit to comment with such apparent certainty?
2] the fact that we don't know what materiality is, is not a "vague claim" but common knowledge [I thought!]
3] it wasn't a whine, it was a lightly veiled request for you to substantiate your "bollocks".
Well done, sir. You make an excellent christian.
what precisely is your complaint? You mean I should respond to "bollocks" by apologising to you for your own inattentiveness to the actual debate?
From my point of view you are more than welcome to join in.........just keep up!!!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Offline Freeminer, I hope there were at least one two other people who read through my response to you and found something helpful in it, because it was clearly a total waste of genuine effort as far as you are concerned.
You still doggedly refuse to, or perhaps are unable to grasp, simple statements of the way I organise my world-view. We can legitimately disagree on other matters at issue, but I am the prime authority in this discussion as what I mean and understand by when I make assertions about the way I see and think about things. If you bring along qualified psychologist with an fMRI machine, I may be prepared to consider what self-delusions I may have.
I use the term 'working assumption' precisely to make the point that I do not 'trust' them, I simply use them as a framework, as being the best I have at any given point in time. Any approach to making sense of our perceptions has to start from a minimal set of propositions. I try to understand which ones seem to fit the raw observations best.
The reaction to an approaching truck does NOT involve a 'conviction'! That is arrant nonsense!
Maybe you just have radically different understandings of the menings of so many common terms, that we are simply talking past each other. That is the most charitable interpretation I can think of.
I do not have enough time to waste on further such fruitless discussion. Sorry.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline well, you stated that, "these so called "conclusions" are bollocks." which rather presupposed that you knew what they are!
That the observations qualify an interpretation that reveals that it's all a "trick", as you so stated.
It's just about the most vague conclusion you could have alluded to without the risk of being even partially correct in some way- as it stands, *nothing* in physics suggests this or anything like it.
Concluding that something in physics is a "trick" is false, no matter what you're talking about; nothing supports that conclusion. It doesn't matter if you're talking about subatomic particles, optics, or acoustics- nothing in any field of material science is a trick- tricks are the domain of theology (and possibly as a subject of study- not a conclusion- in some fields of psychology).
However, it wouldn't help if you explained what you thought was a trick, because you aren't going to be willing to comprehend the correction anyway, and are most likely set in your mistaken beliefs.
You compounded this with, ". Particle physics doesn't suggest anything like it."! Well if you don't know what you're talking about, why should anyone else?
Because you're the one who said it. Unlike me, he apparently believes that you can actually be reasoned with- he's quite the optimist, it seems.
I don't care what you're talking about- you're wrong, and you can't be (won't allow yourself to be) corrected, so there's no point.
as your response implied it, I credited you with knowing, at least the basic findings of particle physics......do you always comment first and engage your brain afterwards?
He knows all of them; and moreover he understands the concepts of basic logic-- that's why he knows that none of them are "tricks".
If something was or implied a "trick", we'd well know about it, as it would kind of stand out in the face of all other science as somewhat bizarre.
1] if the claim was so "vague" howcome you see fit to comment with such apparent certainty?
Because you're wrong, no matter what in science you were talking about. You could have been talking about tube worm metabolism. Still not a trick.
2] the fact that we don't know what materiality is, is not a "vague claim" but common knowledge [I thought!]
Well, I guess you have another think coming. Or not, since you don't make a habit of critically re-evaluating your positions to adopt those which are less flawed.
You already think you know what it is, so you really can't be educated on that subject- your brain is already full of bollocks.
3] it wasn't a whine, it was a lightly veiled request for you to substantiate your "bollocks".
I'll agree here- it wasn't a whine.
It was a statement of smug, arrogant idiocy in the form of a rhetorical question that you don't even want the answer to, and won't listen to if it is given.
Quote:Well done, sir. You make an excellent christian.what precisely is your complaint? You mean I should respond to "bollocks" by apologising to you for your own inattentiveness to the actual debate?
It was an insult. He meant that you are good at being closed minded and not listening to reason, siding instead in favor of your preconceptions.
I wouldn't have put it so politely- I tend to just say what I think.
You aren't going to learn- you aren't here to learn- so just give it up already, eh?
If you'll read my post, I made it quite clear; even if you wanted to learn (which you don't), it would take either one of us more time than we have to educate you. We don't have the hours to devote to special ed to help you understand the concepts.
If you wanted to learn, I'd give you links. Since you don't, I'll refer back to the suggestion I gave at the end of my last post.
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Offline Freeminer, I hope there were at least one two other people who read through my response to you and found something helpful in it, because it was clearly a total waste of genuine effort as far as you are concerned.
[...]
I do not have enough time to waste on further such fruitless discussion. Sorry.
Wow Bob... you're almost turning into... me? You just need to be more sarcastic, and make more use of the word "idiot".
I used to argue with dogmatists- and I will on rare occasion if I think there might be spectators on the fence lurking in a thread- but it just feels like such a waste when they choose not to comprehend anything one says, so I don't argue with with them these days, I just spend the time telling them why I won't argue with them in various creative ways.
Much less stressful, since I know they won't comprehend the arguments anyway- I find it to be a sort of creative release- poetry, almost.
Live the poetry Bob! Be free!
I think I might start doing it in limerick... but nothing rhymes with "idiot"... hmm...
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Offline Freeminer, I hope there were at least one two other people who read through my response to you and found something helpful in it, because it was clearly a total waste of genuine effort as far as you are concerned.
I hope so but I doubt it.
You still doggedly refuse to, or perhaps are unable to grasp, simple statements of the way I organise my world-view.
No I understand perfectly well how you organise your world-view and I accept that you are totally entitled to organise it irrationally if you want to.
We can legitimately disagree on other matters at issue, but I am the prime authority in this discussion as what I mean and understand by when I make assertions about the way I see and think about things.
yes, I understand that you are a relativist with respect to your own world-view, that doesn't explain why you are a universalist with regard to atheism.......more irrationality I suppose.
If you bring along qualified psychologist with an fMRI machine, I may be prepared to consider what self-delusions I may have.
does your logic only operate when your head is inserted?
I use the term 'working assumption' precisely to make the point that I do not 'trust' them, I simply use them as a framework, as being the best I have at any given point in time. Any approach to making sense of our perceptions has to start from a minimal set of propositions. I try to understand which ones seem to fit the raw observations best.
you live your life according to the idea that your working assumption reasonably correlates with reality, there fore you commit to it therefore youi trust it. I'm well aware that you accept that it is not 100%, for you to trust it, it doesn't have to be.
The reaction to an approaching truck does NOT involve a 'conviction'! That is arrant nonsense!
you mean when you walk in front of a truck, you have no conviction that it is a truck.........how have you survived?
Maybe you just have radically different understandings of the menings of so many common terms, that we are simply talking past each other. That is the most charitable interpretation I can think of.
perhaps but I fail to see a fundamental misunderstanding, just a lot of unanswered questions.
I do not have enough time to waste on further such fruitless discussion. Sorry.
next!
.......... if all else fail claim misunderstanding?
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Wow Bob... you're almost turning into... me? You just need to be more sarcastic, and make more use of the word "idiot".
yes Bob, resort to mindless abuse
I used to argue with dogmatists-
you mean you're not a dogmatic atheist?......shouldn't you be with the agnostics?
Much less stressful, since I know they won't comprehend the arguments anyway- I find it to be a sort of creative release- poetry, almost.
I think I might start doing it in limerick... but nothing rhymes with "idiot"... hmm...
not so creative then!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
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Sounds like someone didn't really convert, just going with what seems fun or popular.
I hope so. I just do not see the point in converting just to sit in a church and listen to music with friends. We even had a discussion, which she agreed with me, that: You do not have to be in a church to worship, you just need a small, quiet corner in your house. Another thing she agreed on was: "You do not need to believe in a religion to be a moral person. If you are good to yourself and to others you will get to where you want to be." That surprising line came from my methodist minister grand-father. I just do not understand why she did it in the first place if she agreed to all of that and other conversations we had.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
Could be lots of things. What she does is beyond your control. Some people can make it work and respect each others choices. Some people have to have the other person give in and <join the church><be an atheist>. You have to decide how to respond and what you can live with.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
You don't say what denomination she's converted to. For example many atheists don't understand that Catholicism/ Orthodoxy is not Christianity. Secondly, if the basis of her "conversion" is a new bunch of friends and nice music, she's on an emotional trip and it won't last. If her conversion is Biblical your relationship, presuming you stay with atheism is gonna be a pain in the butt for both of you. When you say this:
"No." I would rather be wrong than be subservient to a hypocritical, malicious, self-centered imaginary friend.
I don't believe you - for a kick off it's highly irrational - why would anyone consciously choose to live with a dichotomy and why would her imaginary friend bother you anyway? The logic is that the hypocrisy, maliciousness and self- centredness are all imaginary too!!.........why get worked up about that?! I would remind you that this is a forum for the ratpack!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
Catholicism/ Orthodoxy is as much Christianity as any other denomination or sect. I am surprised to hear that from an atheist, which I presume you are , in referring to her "imaginary friend".
New friends, if they really 'bond', could well be a more solid basis than the Bible.
There is nothing inherently irrational about choosing to live with a dichotomy, it depends on the person's subjective evaluation of how well they could personally cope with that situation compared to what alternatives are available to them.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Dear Mr. Singultus...
You seem like a nice fella... and I don't want to come across as being calous...
But whether you realize it or not, you are being broken up with... and cowardly, I might add....
I agree with the person that said that "She hasn't really" converted... But subconciously this is her way of distancing herself from you... She is afraid of fully committing, so she is rationalizing it by provoking conflict, even if it of the passive/aggressive nature that Christians often do...
I can't tell you what to do... But unless you want Jesus thrown in your face every time you leave the toilet seat up... it might be time to move on...
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
hi Bob.....not so, the basis of conversion is different. Paedobaptism is not Biblical. Christians don't believe Christ is still being crucified.
I like the sentiment but she can't obey the Bible AND marry him [or stay with him and NOT marry him!]
I half agree ie people live with dichotomies all the time. Of itself that doesn't make them any less irrational - most people are irrational in their world view........ ie they are mystics of one sort or another. Btw, being aa Brit I'd forgotten it's July 4th!.........have a good day!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
If you follow some interpretation of Christ, you are a 'Christian' in ordinary (non-doctrinal) speech.
Since the Bible is riddled with contradictions, or at least passages that require subjective interpretation, no-one can be justifiably confident in not having some 'non-biblical' practices, so that would imply there are no 'true Christians'. There is no 'objectively' provable 'correct' position.
Like any theological idea, that is all subject to interpretation. Religion is ultimately purely subjective, since there is no way to objectively verify anything that is 'faith-based'. Even the deep conviction that your 'faith' is correct is ultimately just another personal feeling.
Actually I live in Australia, so I wish my American friends a happy July 4! The best equivalent we have is Australia Day, Jan 26.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
but that is your subjective view. What Christians claim, on the basis of Biblical propositions is that their understanding is not merely subjective but taught by the Holy Spirit....that's why Prots reject Papacy. Atheists are free to stand on the outside and dispute this but Christians claim an altered epistemology........it is at least consistent with the Bible however much atheists may shout "foul" on the grounds of circular argument.
but Hume would say NOTHING is rationally, objectively verifiable and secular 20th century philosophy agrees......thus EVERYONE lives by faith. We live by faith that our sense perceptions actually correspond to what we call "reality". All the empirical evidence suggests that 'reality' is just a brilliant illusion.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
is that the day everyone broke out of their cells?
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
There were no cells at Botany Bay, just labor camps.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Early Australian settlers must have been the best England could possibly send, after all each and everyone was personaly hand selected by a judge of the highest caliber.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Or there just wasn't enough room for rapists, murderers, lepers, harlots, pimps, thieves, and disgruntled subjects of the Crown in England...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Actually it was the reverse, it was the day the 'First Fleet' arrived to 'claim' the place for the British Crown in order to set up another penal colony after the loss of the American States.
We celebrate the establishment of the British colony, as being what lead to the current Nation, not so much the purpose of the original settlement.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
But even the conviction that you are being 'taught by the Holy Spirit' is a subjective personal judgement, which is inevitable fallible. You can claim what you like, you still are making an invalid circular argument.
Of course nothing is 100% verifiable. But we can establish degrees of likelihood that any given proposition corresponds usefully to 'the truth', how closely it corresponds to what actually is, and continually refine those assessments by empirical research. You are making the common error of assuming that we only have either 100% certainty or total illusion.
All we can ever have, about anything, including religious ideas, including the existence and nature of God, are models of, approximations to, 'reality'.
You need to acknowledge that the ideas of your particular creed are just as subject to this process as anything else. You did emphasise that NOTHING can be certain. So you must acknowledge that there is no dodge that allows you to bypass that. Introspection, intuition, personal assessment of the 'truth' of internal experience, etc, have been shown by massive amounts of evidence to be highly unreliable.
Founding your beliefs on a conviction of communication with an entity with no physical manifestation is pure hubris and folly. Even the writers of the Bible realized that, hence all the 'miracles'.
The only downer about that date, if we actually think about it, is that the initial settlement was to establish a penal colony for the Brits to export criminals to...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
That is what happens when I forget to preview my comments before I post them. Damn, Microsoft Word.
We have been together for 5 1/2 years. Three of which we lived together. We had our share of falling outs and I see this as another hurdle to see if the emotional bond we have is stronger than the ideological bond. We all have, at one time or another, had at least one christian friend. I live in southern Ohio and belief is a big thing. I can probably count all the Non-believers on my hands in my county. Most of the people I talk to are christians and they know if they do not push me I will not push back. They respect me and I respect them. We make quirks at our ideas but it is all in fun.
This is how one of my Atheist friends took it. He told me it was not going to last and it would put strain on the relationship. He will not admit it but he is more radical about it that I am. I do not push my ideas on people if they do not push their beliefs on me. One guy did it and the argument ended with his hands over his ears going,"Blah, blah, blah! I can't hear you!"
Off track and now back on... =P. She converted to her family's Baptist church. I do not think she is trying to get rid of me. I tested it: We were walking yesterday and i pulled her into the road with me and she pulled back. I said, "What is the matter? If you get hit at least you go somewhere. I am worm food." She smiled and called me an ass.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
DPs make Kapkao a sad panda
One of the RRS mods uses an Office-type program to spellcheck before posting. And, as I suggested in the post title, I was just using that as an excuse to
at someone.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Welcome.
Sounds like you are doing the right thing. Loving someone means to let them be who they are. She sounds like an explorer, trying different things. Going to church especially ones that are somewhat lively can give you warm and fuzzies. Everybody has got their happy faces on. Jesus is wonderful and he loves you, just like we do. But as you stay there if you are open you can see the fascades. It is atypical for Church people to be open and honest in my experience (including my own). The Church and the bible teaches members to judge in spite of the one or two texts to the contrary. They learn there is only ONE way. They learn something that is not love. So, if you care about her let her experience this. If you fight her she will most likely see you as "the enemy", controlled by the "evil one". Her church members will tell her "See it is just as the bible says you are being persecuted for Jesus sake". And it will strengthen her determination to stick with it to prove you wrong. Funny. I have been on both sides of this coin. Good luck.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Morning Bob [well it is here anyway] I think some respect is due.....Poms shouldn't join in jokes about penal colonies .......except, can we send some more?........this place is stuffed full of 'em
but philosophers spent the 20th century trying to "complete the circle" and ended up accepting a dichotomy........that's what existentialism IS! The Christian [if he understands his own position - which is rare] claims that his conviction [ stemming from that "altered epistemology] is objective precisely because he has a reference point external to himself ie the Triune God and that the "conviction" results directly from a personal encounter with that God. The problem for the atheist is that, since it's personal how can he argue against it? The problem for the Christian is, since it's personal, how can he communicate it?
yes, of course I substantially agree with you, though I would point out that if you look carefully at this you will see that your acceptance of relativism sits alongside your statement of faith in empiricism! You can't have it both ways! Relativism infects empiricism too as Polanyi pointed out way back in the '50's. So empiricism is not a source of absolute truth any more than sense perception. To recap - my point was that everyone lives by faith, I think you accept this; so a faith position vis a vis the propositions of the Bible is inherently no more shaky than say, an atheist one........which I seem to remember is what you were asserting.
this is not an unreasonable statement given where you're standing but a Christian would disagree based on that personal conviction of his. This is why Christian convictions are so frustrating to atheists and why atheists write them off as irrational. A Christian standing up and trying to convert an atheist on the basis of his personal experience is pissing in the wind.
if you are not certain that God does not exist, you should join a forum for agnostics! What I mean is that we all accredit certain propositions as 'factual' and choose to commit to them - that is what belief is. Life is constituted in such a way that we can't avoid doing it and they become our "certainties". Everyone takes a leap of faith in one direction or another - it can't be avoided. Surely the trick is to ensure that it is taken on an entirely rational basis? For this, atheists tend to look to empiricism.......I was simply hoping to point out that not only does that leave them in a dichotomy because they are forced to live by sense perception but that they are 60 years out of date.
but then particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trick [setting aside the proven unreliability of sense perception]. So that brings us back to Hume's insistence that we can't trust anything . The problem is life forces us to trust . If you didn't you would die crossing the road. This dilemma is why 20th century philosophy concluded that everything is absurd........which makes the parading of this site as "rational" heavy with irony! We have no choice but to trust that rationality exists but why atheists presume it a priori mystifies me.
spoken as a true materialist. Firstly, the Christian would argue that the entity did have a physical manifestation, but as I said, if the atheist is a man who doesn't believe in non-physical entities, why does he believe in rationality? Hack off a chunk of rationality and post up a picture. In fact just at the moment we have absolutely zilch idea what materiality is. So you place your faith in something you know less about than I know about God.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
I like this, I wouldn't write off this relationship by any means.......the only thing is, you should be aware that, given that her conversion is genuine, the more she loves you, the more she'll want you to believe.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
Not necessarily. A person can believe whatever holy psychobabble they want to, still be deeply attracted to an atheist, and keep the relationship almost entirely secular. It happens; I've already pointed out one example from RRS to you in another thread: Tarpan.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I don't disagree with the idea that belief is no bar to attraction, quite the opposite. However, "keeping the relationship secular" inevitably means that if such a thing as spiritual union exists..... it won't in this relationship. If you don't believe in such a thing that won't bother you but if someone hadn't believed in the principle of electrical generation I wouldn't have the unrestrained bliss of talking to you!
also let me suggest that since she [possibly/probably?] believes:
1] that belief has eternal consequences for him and her and
2] that she may be removed from Earth at any moment
3] that the occurrence of 2. above may not be far hence.
I suspect that her love may come with the feeling that she doesn't want to be without him attached thereto.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
But the 'Triune God' is just an idea, with no epistemological status, in the absence of empirical evidence, so cannot be a reference point for anything, and personal conviction counts for nothing in the absence of external corroborating evidence.
I have nothing to argue against, since you have not provided anything more than ideas and beliefs and testimony of particular experiences. Decades of research into the human mind tell us that that introspection and intuition and conviction have little or no correlation with reality. You have nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I said nothing about 'relativism'.
Statistically based empiricism needs little justification, since it is not assuming anything more than that things which occur with an observed frequency under given conditions are likely to occur with similar frequency under comparable conditions. Coupled with Bayes Theorem, which allows us to rigorously combine estimates of probability of different factors into an estimate of joint likelihood of some combination of observations/events, we can build theories which give us ever more close correspondence with observation. Keeping track of the success in terms of accurate predictions of what will be observed under new conditions allows us to build and maintain confidence in the utility if the process.
No 'faith' required. Make a set of assumptions, repeatedly test the results of actions based on those assumptions which predict results not expected from alternate assumptions is how we increase our confidence in the usefulness of those assumptions. Other researchers are encouraged to challenge the current accepted theories if they can think of alternate frameworks of explanation.
I do NOT live by 'faith', more accurately I live by a current set of working assumptions which I adjust as necessary to accomodate new information and insights. The only 'faith' I have is the belief that this is reasonable way to approach the complexities of modern life, and so far it has got me through more than half-a-century of interesting life experience.
Treating some 2000 year old collection of translated and re-translated writings of one of the less-informed peoples of the ancient world (compared to the Indians, Chinese, and Greeks, for example) as a basis for your fundamental world-view is purest folly.
It is indeed reasonable, period, since the Christian has only his belief in the validity of his belief, with nothing but his confidence that his confidence is not misplaced.
if you are not certain that God does not exist, you should join a forum for agnostics! What I mean is that we all accredit certain propositions as 'factual' and choose to commit to them - that is what belief is. Life is constituted in such a way that we can't avoid doing it and they become our "certainties". Everyone takes a leap of faith in one direction or another - it can't be avoided. Surely the trick is to ensure that it is taken on an entirely rational basis? For this, atheists tend to look to empiricism.......I was simply hoping to point out that not only does that leave them in a dichotomy because they are forced to live by sense perception but that they are 60 years out of date.
My uncertainty that God des not exist is vanishingly small, of lesser magnitude than the possibility that Russell's orbiting teapot actually could exist. "Leaps of Faith" can be avoided, just recognize that 100% proof of anything outside the tautologies of logic and math is not possible, so just make provisional assumptions instead. You really don't 'get it', do you?
No, it is not a "trick". It is ultimately unknowable, but we can form progressively better models of it. Life forces us to make assumptions, but not 100% trust in their validity.
Most of philosophy itself is absurd. I long ago gave up on it. Rationality, the application of logic to observation, is the best we have.
You apparently did not grasp my account of modern 'materialism'. The modern 'physicalist' (a more accurate term) recognizes that 'rationality' is an abstract description of an ideal form of reasoning, which is what happens in a conscious mind which is an emergent attribute of a particular category of complex structured matter.
We certainly do have an idea of what strict materiality is - it involves a particular subset of sub-atomic 'particles' (electrons, protons, etc), the remaining being manifestations of 'energy' (photons etc). It is anything capable of maintaining a persistent static structure, of which atoms are the most fundamental example.
Obviously you appear to know zilch on this subject.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology