Just got banned from Christian Forums

[Baruch]

As I explained to the dotards in Christian Forums, I'm a Christian because I was brought up one. Even rocketman who we know is the stupidest man on earth should be able to see that. But people in CF were not happy when I said that. They wanted me to say 'Oh no. I'm a Christian not because of my family. Even if I had been born in the family of Osama bin Laden, I'd be a Christian' or some such rubbish that only dotards can believe in. So I am a Christian because of my family. I'd be a blooming suicide bomber if I were born in a family of extremist Muslims.

My religion is therefore my culture. But if I were born a Muslim, I'd be an atheist today. Islam is too harmful to humanity for me to have the conscience to be even a cultural Muslim. But I'm Church of England which is purely cultural and totally innocuous. If I were born in the Westboro Baptist Church, I'd also be an atheist today.

You ask if it's the ritual that matters to me. It's the culture / religion that I am identified with and show respect for. And it's a good religion; it's peaceful and non-terrorist. OK, maybe if I had been born in the Middle Ages in the RC church with its spanish inquisition, i'd be an atheist. But that's all ancient history and I'm not in any other church but the CofE. My church doesn't have priests who molest altar boys and choir boys. Our priests are happily married with kids of their own. Of course there may be paedophiles like in any institution but you don't find an unhealthy concentration of paedophiles like the RC model of enforced celibacy naturally attracts.

You are very bright and well spoken.  You are well educated too.  So definitely not a LARPing American ;-))  I wasn't raised religious, but came to it as an adult as part of marriage.  But I had always been curious.  Part of my family had been associated with Freemasonry.  Like any other living being I have continued to develop.  I went thru a brief atheism around 20 years old, but it didn't stick.  Marriage and parenting changed me, and I continued to change myself, to where I am now.  And I keep on going, but mostly refining what I am, I don't see any radical changes in my short future.

[St Truth]

So you are English?  We have some of those here too.  Some rabbis don't believe in God's existence.  Mine does, but we don't have the same definition for some of the words ... that makes me a heretic.  But we have some of the same experiences, because we worship together  ;-)  I am the Hebrew teacher sometimes.

You have mentioned experience many times. Experience is to me the worst gauge of the truth of something. That is because experience is capable of myriads of interpretations. Anything that is capable of myriads of interpretations is unreliable.  I would dismiss experience if it's the only test for the truth of something.

[Cavebear]

I am now in a different country where Christians are a minority. I live here because my dad moves around a bit. He's in the foreign service. The majority here worship some Buddhist deity but I don't change just because I live here. I'm still English and my religion and culture remain unchanged. It's not where I live.

But like I've said, if I had been born a Muslim, I'd be an atheist today. That's because I cannot reconcile a religion like Islam with human good. I would throw away a culture that is inherently bad. The same thing if I were born an RC during the time of the dark ages when the Spanish Inquisition was torturing and killing people.  I would be an atheist because my conscience wouldn't allow me to be in a culture that is murderous.

That depends on what you mean by 'belief'. Does God cognitively exist to me? Probably not. As I told people in CF, it's more likely for pixies to exist than for the Christian God because pixies don't purport to intervene in human affairs.

First, sorry, I didn't know you were a teen (I gather).  Second yes, you would have been the religion of whatever culture you grew up in.  You MIGHT have escaped it given extreme violence, but probably not.  You usually don't become an atheist by being offended by "what is normal around you". 

At best, such people are "angry atheists" and often re-convert to some theism or other.  Modern christianity is just as violent in many ways as islam or judaism or hindu.  Depends on the place more than the religion.

You probably don't want to hear examples of protestant violence, but there are many.

Best of seeking...

[St Truth]

You are very bright and well spoken.  You are well educated too.  So definitely not a LARPing American ;-))  I wasn't raised religious, but came to it as an adult as part of marriage.  But I had always been curious.  Part of my family had been associated with Freemasonry.  Like any other living being I have continued to develop.  I went thru a brief atheism around 20 years old, but it didn't stick.  Marriage and parenting changed me, and I continued to change myself, to where I am now.  And I keep on going, but mostly refining what I am, I don't see any radical changes in my short future.

It's very kind of you to draw that conclusion. But it's too early to be certain one way or another. I am careful because in CF, people who started out saying nice things of me changed their minds when they realised that my beliefs were not aligned to theirs. One of them even had nasty things to say about my dad which was peculiar since he never once made an appearance in CF or any internet forum. But I found out one thing from my short stay in CF. Christians can be malicious. The more particular they are about doctrines, the more venomous they are. I am more used to liberal or traditional Christians who don't bother about other people so I was surprised to see the kind of Christians that CF had. You will never believe the things they say. They believe in the kind of hell Muslims believe in and they seem quite pleased in a sadistic way that there was where people who disagree with them will end up in.

But it's not my intention to talk anyone out of whatever belief they have. If you really believe in God or any other supernatural entity, it doesn't bother me one bit. I know of many people who hold such a belief. But earlier, I was just talking about what I believe in and why I think truth is not a malleable commodity.

[Baruch]

You are moving too fast.  But I will try to keep up.  I am very well read in Buddhism ... so if you want to discuss some of the things the country you are visiting do ... I can follow and contribute.  My ex wife was a Christian pastor ... so of course I am very experienced in that as well as Judaism.  I understand your reliance on conscience, you seem very mature ... I have a hard time believing you are a teenager ;-)  I have studied comparative religion, because it is part of anthropology ... I study Islam because of anthropology (and I view my own religion the same way).  Religion is something people do, and some do not.  And of course in most cases, people absorb this as part of their upbringing.  Some of the posters here aren't like that ... they were atheists always, even if their family was religious.  They have a radically different experience of atheism than those who were steeped in Evangelical Christianity as children and young adults, and who have since left.  As I said, I was curious about religion as a child, but came to it as an adult.  So my experience is different from either of those kinds of people.

You have shifted the discussion to epistemology.  That is where most people argue theism/atheism ... including most people who are regulars here.  But philosophy has more divisions than that (though "how do you know what you know?" is an important question).  I tend to be nihilistic (see David Hume) regarding epistemology because I am dismissive of most human claims to knowledge (see Socrates).  You might have experienced a ghost, I have experienced ghost cats.  What that means as an experience, I can only accept as testimony, or my own memory.  It is subjective.  The present experience sinks into memory very quickly, and memory is very unreliable.  What we think we know, is what is persistent in our fallible memory, a meme.  What we agree on, and was experienced by multiple people, we consider objective ... even if it is the result of mass delusion (these happen too, in fact, advertising and politics is all about generating mass delusions).  We can discuss scientific method in practice, in the science section.  In my youth I was an aerospace engineer, so I know what science is, even if I dismiss science fiction and science fantasy.  If I did fiction or fantasy in my engineering job I would be fired!  What most people, including most atheists, think is science ... is magic (sufficiently advanced technology and all that).  We would call that Popular Science level science here in the US.

Today I am more interested in people than in things.  I have changed a lot over the decades.  So for me ... the basis of discussion is psychology, not physics.  I no longer need reductionism (it is a tool, not a panacea) much.  Synthesis is more important for me than analysis.  And human beings are irrational, regardless of what Greek philosophers tell you ;-)  So rationality isn't too important to me either.  I see theist or atheist as pretty much the same, at my level of humanistic analysis.  Materialistic analysis is good too .. if you are an engineer.

Yes, we apply many interpretations to our experience.  Not only do we have different, if related experiences, we impose our momentary individuality on it.  This is called perception when it happens unconsciously.  So I don't have to analyze in detail the letters on the screen ... I "know" them already.  In that case memory isn't entirely unreliable .. but as any psychology textbook can tell you, the human mind and heart (emotions) can be very troublesome.

We don't have the same definition of "Truth".  But your definition matches most posters here.  It is a T/F statement as in colloquial logic.  Though in actual mathematical logic, it has nothing to do with T or F at all.  It can be 1 or 0, and those values have no particular definitions, they just have to be used consistently.  Logic is like a board game, like chess, and it isn't cricket if you don't follow the rules.  For me, truth is a person, not a thing, not an idea.  That is typical of languages in general, and English in particular .. the ambiguity that comes from multiple usages (that is the reality that the dictionary is trying to capture, not some OED definition that is imposed from above, or a Language Institute like the French use.  This is why conversation is necessary, it isn't an ukase from above (see scriptural religions).  This way I come to know your usages and you come to know mine, and so on that trivial level we come to know each other better.  It starts with experience, but it doesn't end there.

As you develop, as we all must, your memory will not only be added to, it will change, what you think you remember, won't be the same.  And your personality, the particular individual choices you make as a human being, as to tools (rational/irrational, empirical/ideational) will change to.

[Baruch]

It's very kind of you to draw that conclusion. But it's too early to be certain one way or another. I am careful because in CF, people who started out saying nice things of me changed their minds when they realised that my beliefs were not aligned to theirs. One of them even had nasty things to say about my dad which was peculiar since he never once made an appearance in CF or any internet forum. But I found out one thing from my short stay in CF. Christians can be malicious. The more particular they are about doctrines, the more venomous they are. I am more used to liberal or traditional Christians who don't bother about other people so I was surprised to see the kind of Christians that CF had. You will never believe the things they say. They believe in the kind of hell Muslims believe in and they seem quite pleased in a sadistic way that there was where people who disagree with them will end up in.

But it's not my intention to talk anyone out of whatever belief they have. If you really believe in God or any other supernatural entity, it doesn't bother me one bit. I know of many people who hold such a belief. But earlier, I was just talking about what I believe in and why I think truth is not a malleable commodity.

We will have to disagree on our definitions of truth (differing power agendas that).  I also don't seek to impose my thinking and doing ... because that would, as you nicely point out, violate my conscience.  Jewish people don't seek to convert anyone, because we have been victimized by it.  Some Jews seek to convert cultural Jews to orthodoxy however.  I suspect you are safe from either.  Some atheists will try to convert theists, or more narrowly try to convert an atheist from one flavor to their own flavor.  Again, power agendas.

It is a strange thing that people will argue, die and even kill for their memes.  But ape men do apish things.  I am not disturbed at what people think, feel or do .. but it can be disturbing to people with sensitive stomachs.  In my own case I am shameless, because I am comfortable in my own skin.  This took decades of experiences to develop, and I still "rage at the machine" ... because in some cases, I can't be a disinterested observer.  So while I may not be disturbed by the bone in your nose, I will have personal discomfort if you invite me to the cannibalism feast.

On my usage ...
god = any particular polytheistic god, or idol in the case of atheists, a belief
God = a monotheistic god, a belief
G-d = my god, not a belief, an experience.  Other theists can say the same thing, but it isn't the same god, it is subjective.  Though theists try to convince people that their god is the one true god (see Pharaoh Akenaten).  Even in paganism, people have a favorite god (say Krishna in Hinduism) ... and will try to convert other polytheists to say ... yes, that will be my favorite god too ;-)

But yes, G-d originates in superstition/religious practice ... in Judaism.  I haven't ever seen Father Christmas (Santa Claus) except when I played him for my baby daughter or at the old folks home.  I know from my parents what the "Spirit of Christmas" is, even though they were cultural Christians, not religious ones.  My experience, even if a badly interpreted sensation, a delusion, a meme or a false memory ... is real in that sense.  We can achieve a degree of objectivity with something like "mass of the electron" .. but we don't actually know what mass is, or what an electron is.  Real science is about developing better questions, getting a better outline of our ignorance, not on developing better answers, getting a better outline of our arrogance.  But that is me channeling Socrates, not Archimedes.

[Baruch]

A heretic is just a person who does not believe in the orthodox position. It doesn't mean anything. Both the orthodox and the heretic may both be wrong. Why do you write G-d for God? Do you treat God as a dirty word? Just like some people will write F--- when they mean to use that socially unacceptable word.

Your answer is extremely hazy. When someone says rationalism is just one of the many methods to arrive at something, I have to disagree unless I misunderstand what you mean by rationalism. Reality = truth = objective. Either something is true or it is not. Seeing truth as multi-faceted is wrong. A lot of people in CF like to think of truth as flexible. As I told them, that is obviously an excuse for holding on to their positions regardless of its falsehood. Reality is not a flexible thing. Either God exists or he does not. Either the fairy exists or it does not. It's false to say the fairy exists if you look at truth from one perspective and it does not exist if you look at it from another perspective. If that were the case, one perspective has got to be true and the others false. From my short experience in CF, I know that those who try to make the truth appear flexible usually are just unable to accept that their cherished position is false. Truth is never flexible.

Your definitions are conventional, and that is to be expected, unless you get as crazy as I am, at a much younger age ;-)  I know both what is and how it developed; rationalism for example.  But that would be a long lecture.  But a few initial points ... Thales and Pythagoras, not Heraclitus and Xenophanes.  If you read David Hume, you will learn some very good skepticism, just don't trip and fall into nihilism.  Skepticism is related to rationalism, but doesn't have the same agenda.  Skepticism is polemic, rationalism is apologetic.  It really is scripture and theology all the way down, but the books and the thinking aren't limited to Church.

I am kind, but I do play Shrek down at the local amateur theater (not really).  Some people here think I am Shrek however.  I need to get on to breakfast ... but will return.  I hope you stay, though you are a bit too nice for any Internet forum.  Shiranu is a younger man, a bit older than you ... he is also very sharp.  I would miss either of you terribly.  Why?  Well you might not understand my English but ... young people are the humanistic incarnation of the future, and old people are the humanistic incarnation of the past (both relative to the present ... I was young once too).

[St Truth]

You are moving too fast.  But I will try to keep up.  I am very well read in Buddhism ... so if you want to discuss some of the things the country you are visiting do ... I can follow and contribute.  My ex wife was a Christian pastor ... so of course I am very experienced in that as well as Judaism.  I understand your reliance on conscience, you seem very mature ... I have a hard time believing you are a teenager ;-)  I have studied comparative religion, because it is part of anthropology ... I study Islam because of anthropology (and I view my own religion the same way).  Religion is something people do, and some do not.  And of course in most cases, people absorb this as part of their upbringing.  Some of the posters here aren't like that ... they were atheists always, even if their family was religious.  They have a radically different experience of atheism than those who were steeped in Evangelical Christianity as children and young adults, and who have since left.  As I said, I was curious about religion as a child, but came to it as an adult.  So my experience is different from either of those kinds of people.

You have shifted the discussion to epistemology.  That is where most people argue theism/atheism ... including most people who are regulars here.  But philosophy has more divisions than that (though "how do you know what you know?" is an important question).  I tend to be nihilistic (see David Hume) regarding epistemology because I am dismissive of most human claims to knowledge (see Socrates).  You might have experienced a ghost, I have experienced ghost cats.  What that means as an experience, I can only accept as testimony, or my own memory.  It is subjective.  The present experience sinks into memory very quickly, and memory is very unreliable.  What we think we know, is what is persistent in our fallible memory, a meme.  What we agree on, and was experienced by multiple people, we consider objective ... even if it is the result of mass delusion (these happen too, in fact, advertising and politics is all about generating mass delusions).  We can discuss scientific method in practice, in the science section.  In my youth I was an aerospace engineer, so I know what science is, even if I dismiss science fiction and science fantasy.  If I did fiction or fantasy in my engineering job I would be fired!  What most people, including most atheists, think is science ... is magic (sufficiently advanced technology and all that).  We would call that Popular Science level science here in the US.

Today I am more interested in people than in things.  I have changed a lot over the decades.  So for me ... the basis of discussion is psychology, not physics.  I no longer need reductionism (it is a tool, not a panacea) much.  Synthesis is more important for me than analysis.  And human beings are irrational, regardless of what Greek philosophers tell you ;-)  So rationality isn't too important to me either.  I see theist or atheist as pretty much the same, at my level of humanistic analysis.  Materialistic analysis is good too .. if you are an engineer.

Yes, we apply many interpretations to our experience.  Not only do we have different, if related experiences, we impose our momentary individuality on it.  This is called perception when it happens unconsciously.  So I don't have to analyze in detail the letters on the screen ... I "know" them already.  In that case memory isn't entirely unreliable .. but as any psychology textbook can tell you, the human mind and heart (emotions) can be very troublesome.

We don't have the same definition of "Truth".  But your definition matches most posters here.  It is a T/F statement as in colloquial logic.  Though in actual mathematical logic, it has nothing to do with T or F at all.  It can be 1 or 0, and those values have no particular definitions, they just have to be used consistently.  Logic is like a board game, like chess, and it isn't cricket if you don't follow the rules.  For me, truth is a person, not a thing, not an idea.  That is typical of languages in general, and English in particular .. the ambiguity that comes from multiple usages (that is the reality that the dictionary is trying to capture, not some OED definition that is imposed from above, or a Language Institute like the French use.  This is why conversation is necessary, it isn't an ukase from above (see scriptural religions).  This way I come to know your usages and you come to know mine, and so on that trivial level we come to know each other better.  It starts with experience, but it doesn't end there.

As you develop, as we all must, your memory will not only be added to, it will change, what you think you remember, won't be the same.  And your personality, the particular individual choices you make as a human being, as to tools (rational/irrational, empirical/ideational) will change to.

Thanks for your post. A lot of what you say may be applicable only in abstract thought. You mentioned Maths and we know Maths deals with concepts. For example 1+2=3. These things don't exist in reality. They are concepts. But teachers usually have to use an analogy with reality for kids to understand. So they say you add one orange to two oranges and you get three oranges. What you say about truth not having a meaning applies to concepts and not to real objects. But when we deal with real objects, truth is clear. It's either true or it's false. That is why I am wary about people who go into philosophy to show how logical God's existence is. I don't accept that because when you go into philosophy, you can practically manipulate everything including the goal posts. You play around with the premises and hey presto! God emerges. The same thing with Maths. There used to be someone who claimed to have proved God's existence with a mathematical equation. I read that somewhere. But I don't accept all this.

For me, God is not a concept or a mathematical equation. God, if he exists, has to exist as an entity, a being. I'm of course referring to the Christian God who isn't just a being but who purportedly intervenes in human affairs. Such an entity cannot take cover behind some mathematical concept to exempt him from the rigorous demand for some form of evidence for his existence. When thus scrutinised, I fear he evaporates into thin air. No disrespect intended if indeed you believe in such an entity.

[Baruch]

There are priests in my church who openly say they don't believe God exists. One Archbishop has said it too. He started out by denying the Virgin Birth which is of course sensible. Everyone knows the Virgin Birth is false and is a mistake from the Almah-parthenos mistranslation. Then he denied the historicity of Jesus. That's normal. Then he denied the existence of God. If Christianity is what you say it is, why didn't the church ask him to leave?

Yes, perhaps quite a few of your clergy are like Bishop John Shelby Spong.  I attended a lecture of his once, when my ex wife was in seminary.  A very nice man.  You are so nice, I would think your mother was the Vicar of Dibley ;-)

[Baruch]

Thanks for your post. A lot of what you say may be applicable only in abstract thought. You mentioned Maths and we know Maths deals with concepts. For example 1+2=3. These things don't exist in reality. They are concepts. But teachers usually have to use an analogy with reality for kids to understand. So they say you add one orange to two oranges and you get three oranges. What you say about truth not having a meaning applies to concepts and not to real objects. But when we deal with real objects, truth is clear. It's either true or it's false. That is why I am wary about people who go into philosophy to show how logical God's existence is. I don't accept that because when you go into philosophy, you can practically manipulate everything including the goal posts. You play around with the premises and hey presto! God emerges. The same thing with Maths. There used to be someone who claimed to have proved God's existence with a mathematical equation. I read that somewhere. But I don't accept all this.

For me, God is not a concept or a mathematical equation. God, if he exists, has to exist as an entity, a being. I'm of course referring to the Christian God who isn't just a being but who purportedly intervenes in human affairs. Such an entity cannot take cover behind some mathematical concept to exempt him from the rigorous demand for some form of evidence for his existence. When thus scrutinised, I fear he evaporates into thin air. No disrespect intended if indeed you believe in such an entity.

Yes, all very conventional and English (empiricism).  I prefer empiricism over rationalism too, when I am choosing a spanner from my tool box.  But what is empiricism?  It is where we take multiple individual experience, add a dash of objectivity, and apply a thin basting of rationality.  Rationalists are all gravy, no meat.  For me G-d, God or god don't exist, in the way you are using the word.  So how can I still be a theist?  So we are not as far apart as you imagine.  Definitely a heretic I am .. that is the comeuppance of my long experience.

Yes, maths (or math) is very interesting, particularly to rationalists.  A very powerful tool kit.  When I do mathematics, I channel Pythagoras or Euclid.  When I do engineering I channel Archimedes.  But when I channel religion I channel Heraclitus or Xenophanes.  If I cogitate about ToE ... then I channel Thales, but then I wake up and can't remember the answer or the question ;-)

[Baruch]

I don't profess to be a theist. Theism is a purely belief concept. I am a Christian. 'Christian' is more a culture. It's not a question of what I believe makes me a Christian. My vicar tells me I'm a Christian even though he knows my stand on everything. The best analogy is a club. A club has its sets of rules. You've got to be XYZ to be a member. But supposing there was someone who's been a club member for many generations just as one of my ancestors was an important churchman in the time of Henry VIII. Can someone say, 'Hey! You're not a club member because you don't really believe in XYZ'. You go to court. The question is whether you're a club member. What will the court do? It'll ask the club if you are on the register of members. It'll ask the club to decide if you're a member. If your name is on the register and the club says 'Yes, you are a member', will the court insist that you're not a member because some outsider says you don't believe in XYZ? Of course not. The club decides who is or is not a member. Same with the CHurch. The Church decides who is and who is not a member. It's not for outsiders to decide.

That's me - I embrace only the truth for I am...

St Truth

This is why England had to expel all the Puritans to New England ... they are just like you describe ;-(  Mostly E Anglians from what I have read.  Many of the ex-Christians here were of the fundamentalist kind .. and so is their atheism.  It is hard to get a leopard to change his spots.

[St Truth]

Yes, all very conventional and English (empiricism).  I prefer empiricism over rationalism too, when I am choosing a spanner from my tool box.  But what is empiricism?  It is where we take multiple individual experience, add a dash of objectivity, and apply a thin basting of rationality.  Rationalists are all gravy, no meat.  For me G-d, God or god don't exist, in the way you are using the word.  So how can I still be a theist?  So we are not as far apart as you imagine.  Definitely a heretic I am .. that is the comeuppance of my long experience.

Yes, maths (or math) is very interesting, particularly to rationalists.  A very powerful tool kit.  When I do mathematics, I channel Pythagoras or Euclid.  When I do engineering I channel Archimedes.  But when I channel religion I channel Heraclitus or Xenophanes.  If I cogitate about ToE ... then I channel Thales, but then I wake up and can't remember the answer or the question ;-)

You use the word 'channel'. What you mean is you are INSPIRED by so-and-so. You are confusing inspiration with reality just as you confuse feelings and emotion with substantial objects. I do not deny the power of emotion. In the course of our evolutionary history, emotion does play a very important role. The ability to be inspired by something spectacular or 'divine' is really written into our genetic code because it was essential for our survival. Today, we no longer need this emotion for our survival but like all evolutionary elements it remains a hangover from the time when we really had need of it.

You earlier mentioned 'experiencing' ghosts. That can of course be explained in many ways. Sceptics have shown that every 'sighting' of ghosts can in fact be explained away.

When we use our emotions to tell us if something exists, we are employing something which has no value today.

Oh I just realised that I didn't explain why such emotion that includes inspiration of the 'divine' played an important role in our earlier evolutionary journey. We are a social animal and one crucial ingredient for our survival is the cohesiveness within the human society. Unlike lions that can survive in small prides, humans couldn't. We like the baboons needed a large number of people to form a society in order to repel intrusion and to get enough food for our survival. The shaman was always the leader in such a group. The rest of us had to be 'inspired' by the shaman. If we didn't have that sense of the divine, we'd have broken away from our social group and died because the human animal couldn't survive on its own or in small groups.

But today, we no longer need this 'sense of the divine'. But we have it still, like all evolutionary baggage that we carry. I used to sing before my voice broke and some arias could bring out the goose pimples. That is the sense of the divine. A long time ago, the shaman would recite some poem in his loud voice and all of us would break into goose pimples and we just obeyed him and did what we were told and we became a really cohesive group that could withstand an attack by Neanderthals or some other groups.

This 'sense of the divine' today has no purpose. It however has the function of making people believe that there is a god or whatever word they choose to describe such a being.

[Cavebear]

Fascinating.  From the style, I would almost think you were arguing with yourself.

[Baruch]

Fascinating.  From the style, I would almost think you were arguing with yourself.

I used to be Shrek, then I became Zelig.

[Sal1981]

AF and the sister site .org are much more lenient than CF. Welcome to AF.