Nonbelievers, how did you lose your religion?

[Chief Walkin Eagle]

All people should understand the standards of proof are universal, not subjective to each individual.

"I dont know, how the fuck do they know? they must be liars"

 

[Heisenberg]

I understand what he is saying. He says people are lying to themselves because what they consider proof, he considers to be a misunderstanding or a false meaning to an experience.

Pretty much yea. Even though I can demonstrate how unreliable personal experience is, I myself am not able to say another persons experience is invalid. I am okay with personal experience being convincing to the individual. But because of said possible mistakes, and for the very same reasons, I can't count your experience as invalid, I also can not find any value in your personal experience myself, nor should you expect me to.

 

[Padawanbater2]

"I dont know, how the fuck do they know? they must be liars"

"they don't know because they can't know, I know they can't know because knowing is impossible, they're liars"

 

[skunkd0c]

selling your "soul" to god for eternal life in exchange for obedience seems such a heavy price to pay
but then again, if you are submissive in nature i guess it's not so hard
someone to look after you

 

[Chief Walkin Eagle]

I understand our experiences mean nothing to everyone else, unless they experience the same thing. Im not trying to convince anyone of god, just that those who are confident god exists baste on there teachings, research and experiences are not lying to themselves. They obviously have a different standard of proof which I know you do not agree with at all, but it convinces them. I say you are only lying to yourself if you claim god exists yet still think "What if god doesnt exist?"

Based*...lol

 

[Padawanbater2]

The idea is to teach everyone the same standards for proof, and all the other philosophical concepts required to be able to answer lifes meaningful questions.

 

[Heisenberg]

I understand our experiences mean nothing to everyone else, unless they experience the same thing. Im not trying to convince anyone of god, just that those who are confident god exists baste on there teachings, research and experiences are not lying to themselves. They obviously have a different standard of proof which I know you do not agree with at all, but it convinces them. I say you are only lying to yourself if you claim god exists yet still think "What if god doesnt exist?"

Based*...lol

I agree with some of what you say. I don't think they are all lying to themselves, though a good many of them are, but then again I am not agnostic in the sense that I think we can't know. I believe Z is talking about disingenuousness, which is a slightly different concept than lying. "lying to themselves' is just the expression he chooses to convey the idea. You will have to ask Z for clarification but I believe he is speaking of times when people give answers to things no one can know. I don't think he is applying the concept to any belief that mentions a god. For example, when someone says God doesn't want you to drink on Sunday. How can they be sure of something so specific? These are the same people who will in the next breath say to you that the mind of God is too complicated for us to understand. When people say things that directly conflict with each other, they are lying either to you, or to themselves, or they are mental, or children.

We can take this view with many of the answers religions give us. 72 virgins? God hates fags? God forbids condoms? How can anyone be sure of things like these? Should we allow them to list personal experience? Should we look critically at the reasons they do offer? In situations like theses, which religion is full of, we can't simply accept "cos I have faith, personal experiences, misunderstanding of logic" as an excuse.

 

[Chief Walkin Eagle]

I agree with some of what you say. I don't think they are all lying to themselves, though a good many of them are, but then again I am not agnostic in the sense that I think we can't know. I believe Z is talking about disingenuousness, which is a slightly different concept than lying. "lying to themselves' is just the expression he chooses to convey the idea. You will have to ask Z for clarification but I believe he is speaking of times when people give answers to things no one can know. I don't think he is applying the concept to any belief that mentions a god. For example, when someone says God doesn't want you to drink on Sunday. How can they be sure of something so specific? These are the same people who will in the next breath say to you that the mind of God is too complicated for us to understand. When people say things that directly conflict with each other, they are lying either to you, or to themselves, or they are mental, or children.

We can take this view with many of the answers religions give us. 72 virgins? God hates fags? God forbids condoms? How can anyone be sure of things like these? Should we allow them to list personal experience? Should we look critically at the reasons they do offer? In situations like theses, which religion is full of, we can't simply accept "cos I have faith, personal experiences, misunderstanding of logic" as an excuse.

I get where your coming from, and I agree, those who strictly follow one religious text and claim it all to be true are lying to themselves. They dont put any thought into the teachings or compare it to other teachings that might be similar, they just accept it without question. I guess Im saying that those that put some serious thought into their beliefs and experiences and spend a good amount of time studying all walks of spirituality are not lying to themselves.

 

[Hepheastus420]

I get where your coming from, and I agree, those who strictly follow one religious text and claim it all to be true are lying to themselves. They dont put any thought into the teachings or compare it to other teachings that might be similar, they just accept it without question. I guess Im saying that those that put some serious thought into their beliefs and experiences and spend a good amount of time studying all walks of spirituality are not lying to themselves.

They're just under a false impression.. Well IMO at least.

 

[cannabineer]

I get where your coming from, and I agree, those who strictly follow one religious text and claim it all to be true are lying to themselves. They dont put any thought into the teachings or compare it to other teachings that might be similar, they just accept it without question. I guess Im saying that those that put some serious thought into their beliefs and experiences and spend a good amount of time studying all walks of spirituality are not lying to themselves.

So long as they maintain the combination of humility and flexibility to allow that they might still be wrong, be it about religion or spirit or our place in the cosmos or any number of items of intense human interest outside the purview of the provable. cn

 

[Doer]

What a minute, that's something, right? Nope, that's no thing.

Did you guys ever read any of the Carlos Constanda stuff? The tonal and the nhwal? A Yaqui's way of Knowledge.

What is and is manifest. What is and not manifest.

 

[cannabineer]

I prefer my Yanqui way of knowledge. Hasn't the Castañeda opus been found to be a fraud? cn

 

[Padawanbater2]

What a minute, that's something, right? Nope, that's no thing.

Did you guys ever read any of the Carlos Constanda stuff? The tonal and the nhwal? A Yaqui's way of Knowledge.

What is and is manifest. What is and not manifest.

All of that is confusing jargon, what does it mean?

Try to simplify that down to the easiest terms possible.

 

[iCanadianGrower]

I dont and never haved believed in God.. I can beleive in something that there is no evidence of.. And faith imo is what churches sell.. Being a beleiver would of been alot easiier years ago.. When we still thought the earth was flat.. Nd could somehow beleive that Noah was able to build an ark.. And keep the polar bears and the penguins cold with his awesome wooden refridgeration units.. And then there dinosaurs which are billions of years old, but somehow are earth is only a couple thousand years old.. As well as the evermore contreversial and revolutionary sciences of evolution.. I think its much more plausible we evolutionized from Primapes into homosapiens.. Then it is we were created in God's Easy Bake Oven, and that the earth was created in 7 days.. The bibles nothing but a book of qoutes in my opinion

 

[InCognition]

For every one of those I can provide 100 religious charities. This one is impossible for you to win. Give up and admit that religions do more to help ppl than anyone else.

While religion does help people, you also have to understand that religion is a source of fuel, responsible for many, very bloody, and useless wars. Wars don't help people.

Just as much as religion helps people, it harms people by exploiting it's ability to divide and conquer. Religions around the world have come to settle in many areas, not because of the moral/ethical codes they bestow on a people, but because those specific religions enacted in those areas, provided the most consolidation of power at a given time.

Another very damaging aspect of religion is the fact that they can convince a person, or group of people to hate. When a group of Christians hates a gay human being for their life style, it accomplishes nothing other than being a destructive force, on either or a physical or non-tangible level, or both. When a group of Christians condemns, and hates a married couple who practices being "swingers", they've accomplished nothing other than creating a negative energy, which is again, a destructive force in a non-physical sense, but that hatred can also manifest itself into a physical form of a destructive force.

The irony in religion is that, whatever it accomplishes, it meets or has met that accomplishment with the opposite.

 

[Doer]

All of that is confusing jargon, what does it mean?

Try to simplify that down to the easiest terms possible.

It's just this concept from these books about a Yaqui shaman. Along with that which "exists" to us there is otherworld of which does not "exist" as we know it. It was from a long time ago, the 70s. I've beeen thinking about quantum branes and Many Worlds in the context of socialogy, lately.
Just wondered if anyone had read about the Teachings of Don Juan.

 

[Doer]

I prefer my Yanqui way of knowledge. Hasn't the Castañeda opus been found to be a fraud? cn

Oh, undoubtedly. I was not aware of it however. Fraud? How so? He made the whole thing up? Would not suprise me. But, the concepts may be rehash but to me were interesting, at the time.

 

[PeyoteReligion]

I went to church. Logic and reason drove me to doubt many things in the bible. You can literally say the church made me an atheists when the youth group leader asked me if I really needed to be there. Nice way of saying that I was making the other kids doubt too. Nice enough guy, but I couldn't beleive in virgin birth, entirely killing off of earths population except Moses's family etc.

 

[Kaendar]

I dont and never haved believed in God.. I can beleive in something that there is no evidence of.. And faith imo is what churches sell.. Being a beleiver would of been alot easiier years ago.. When we still thought the earth was flat.. Nd could somehow beleive that Noah was able to build an ark.. And keep the polar bears and the penguins cold with his awesome wooden refridgeration units.. And then there dinosaurs which are billions of years old, but somehow are earth is only a couple thousand years old.. As well as the evermore contreversial and revolutionary sciences of evolution.. I think its much more plausible we evolutionized from Primapes into homosapiens.. Then it is we were created in God's Easy Bake Oven, and that the earth was created in 7 days.. The bibles nothing but a book of qoutes in my opinion

You must have been to some churches in the 1800s. Modern churches today accept the fact that the bible has alot of metaphors. Religion never said the earth was flat. Noah did build an ark, its not that hard to build a boat. It wasnt incredibly huge because the flood didnt encompass the entire earth, only the middle east, so he only needed to save the regional species and his family. No polar bears were on board. Also, the 7 days that god took to create the world was billion of years in our time, it was only 7 days in his time. Also, animals do evolve, but man is seperate, although the bible does say man was created from earth, which is true kinda. You should actually learn about stuff, including growing, before you go on spewing un truths and opinions about it.

 

[Kaendar]

I went to church. Logic and reason drove me to doubt many things in the bible. You can literally say the church made me an atheists when the youth group leader asked me if I really needed to be there. Nice way of saying that I was making the other kids doubt too. Nice enough guy, but I couldn't beleive in virgin birth, entirely killing off of earths population except Moses's family etc.

The earths population was very small back then.. a large regional flood like that could have killed off alot of ppl.