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As someone else said, the goal of atheism isn't to "get rid of God" or pluck the so-called Holy Spirit from people's hearts. However, the vast majority of atheists were once believers -- which means atheists HAVE been successful in surgically removing that dreaded Holy Spirit which likes to lodge itself in the left ventricular valve when the victim isn't looking.
In my experience, it isn't the atheists that have removed the Holy Spirit but the dogmatic adherents of the religion. Almost every person I know who became atheist in adulthood can describe in great detail the offenses committed by the church of their upbringing, its clergy, or other adherents, that contributed to plucking the Holy Spirit from them. Leagues of people just decided that they were no longer Mormon and anyone who blinds themselves to the specific acts of LDS church leadership that were the direct and specific cause of those folks departure from their church is fooling themselves. How many Mormons have been put on a path that may eventually lead them to atheism by these offensive positions the LDS church doggedly clings to?
So many members of our churches arrive as professed atheists, because our principles are such that our churches can provide them a religious home despite their lack of religion. Many who join our churches eventually reconsider matters of the spirit, and while they see the supernatural as the nonsense it is they do come to recognize the value of religion. The most universal call to worship among our churches is a hymn entitled Spirit of Life, the term used within our church almost interchangeably with the word God. Given how badly dogmatic religion damages the souls of those it harms, it is heartening to realize how many of those folks' souls have been healed so much that so many of them look forward to singing that hymn now.
What you say makes sense. Faith however is based on more than feelings. No it is not based on scientific facts, but for me it's based on my experience with God. We can argue opinions all day, but we cannot argue with what other people have experienced in their life.
Oh yes we can. Wanna bet on that?
I'm under no obligation to believe someone had Jesus over to their house for some grilled cheese sandwiches and a chat about eternity.
I'm under no obligation to believe that God helped some minister find is car keys.
Just like if someone told you that they were abducted by aliens and flown to Zeta Reticuli for a Reticulan bar mitzvah, you probably wouldn't believe that story any more than I would.
This is just the conceit of religion at play -- this idea that we are within our rights to dismiss ridiculous non-religious claims, but the moment someone says they're "seeing God" or that "God was the one who found my keys" or solved some other problem, we're supposed to just believe it without question.
Bull.
When you're not blinded by your own religion, your logic and reality filter would catch those religious claims and file them away with alien abductions, Bigfoot, Nessie, moon landing hoaxes, and the 9/11 Truther garbage. You only believe religious claims without a moment's hesitation because they reaffirm your own preconceived religions belief.
People have "personal experiences" with all kinds of gods. They always have and, I suspect, they always will. Does that mean we should believe that they're true? Should a person having a relationship with Allah be questioned but not someone claiming to have a relationship with Jehovah?
It reminds me of my friend's uncle while he was lying in his hospital death bed. He had no idea who anyone was in the room and instead thought he was a teenager again on base during WWII. He kept talking about how he had to jump the base fence so he could meet his girl at a bar.
Which just goes to show you just how real your mind can make things if your desire to believe in them is great. Obviously this uncle wasn't a teenager living his war years again, but his "personal experience" was obviously different than that of reality. Ergo, why should I believe in someone's religious experiences and not believe that this uncle, and by default the rest of us, isn't back in 1940 just before the war?
Personal experiences are perhaps the WORST form of evidence there is -- especially when no one else saw it happen, the experience wasn't shared, and there is no evidence to speak off even if people were standing there watching him have the experience.
In my experience, it isn't the atheists that have removed the Holy Spirit but the dogmatic adherents of the religion.
I wasn't suggesting that atheists are the ONLY reason people abandon their beliefs. Yet atheists do have their pokers in the fire when it comes to luring people away from blind faith. Our writings all over the internet, as well as the books that have been written, quite often plant the seeds of doubt that allows them to begin asking those all-important questions (which often cannot be answered by religion without a lot of fluff and intense rationalizing).
This extremist attempt to involve the establishment clause about establishing a religion has got to stop. It is beyond absurd! A place of lodging is a place of lodging and has NOTHING to do with establishing laws or religions. The single-minded prejudice against religion perpetuates these preposterous and egregiously iignorant campaigns to make any institution that receives government funds "The State." The only STATE we need to worry about with regard to establishing a religion is the one that legislates and regulates, NOT every institution that receives state funding!!
We are in COMPLETE agreement on this issue, Vizio. The campaign to pretend that ANY institution that exists on government funding is "the Government" and subject to the establishment clause is beyond preposterous!! It doesn't even rise to the level of sophomoric thinking (at a High school level)!! These ignorant campaigners need to grow up and get a life!! I couldn't agree more with Katz's assessment.
Absolute rubbish!!! Ownership has nothing to do with it. The Constitution restricts government POWER to enact and enforce a religion, period. These out-of-control PC anti-religionists have to be reigned in using common sense. I have no respect for extremists of ANY stripe. Those institutions that provide service or products in the marketplace will be subject to success or failure based on the free choice of its customers, REGARDLESS WHO owns it. There is no government coercion involved and no Constitutional issue.
Amen, Vizio. It is actually scary to agree with you on anything.
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Originally Posted by southernbored
I think you need to read up on the issue, as you obviously do not currently understand it. If a "place of lodging is a place of lodging", then why do YOU care if they are there or not? Why argue so hard to keep them if a "place of lodging is a place of lodging"? If WE shouldn't care, then YOU shouldn't care.
Clearly YOU are the one who doesn't understand. It is a matter of coercion and use of the POWER of the state. The only coercion I see is with those who want to use the power of the courts to remove material placed in a place of lodging by the owner of the lodging. There is no coercion involved in the presence of the Bibles in the rooms. No one is required to read them.
Clearly YOU are the one who doesn't understand. It is a matter of coercion and use of the POWER of the state. The only coercion I see is with those who want to use the power of the courts to remove material placed in a place of lodging by the owner of the lodging. There is no coercion involved in the presence of the Bibles in the rooms. No one is required to read them.
Again, since you don't seem capable of getting it on your own, the OWNER in this case is the state of Illinois. It isn't some guy/gal/family/corporation, it is a STATE. You are welcome to take it up with the Supreme Court, but your side is losing the majority of these battles.
So can you put porn in the drawer? After all, no one is required to look at it. What about the Satanic Bible? You aren't required to read it. Should we put the main holy book of every religion on a shelf in every room?
Again, since you don't seem capable of getting it on your own, the OWNER in this case is the state of Illinois. It isn't some guy/gal/family/corporation, it is a STATE. You are welcome to take it up with the Supreme Court, but your side is losing the majority of these battles.
Yeah it's a STATE, and guess what, they are not establishing or even endorsing a religion here. We are talking about a matter of physical space here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southernbored
So can you put porn in the drawer? After all, no one is required to look at it. What about the Satanic Bible? You aren't required to read it. Should we put the main holy book of every religion on a shelf in every room?
Can you put a instructional manual on bomb making? Cmon, how about being realistic here? There's a difference between a Bible and harmful material like porn.
As someone else said, the goal of atheism isn't to "get rid of God" or pluck the so-called Holy Spirit from people's hearts. However, the vast majority of atheists were once believers -- which means atheists HAVE been successful in surgically removing that dreaded Holy Spirit which likes to lodge itself in the left ventricular valve when the victim isn't looking. Some people, perhaps only 1 in 10 do eventually find their way out of the religious miasma they were trapped within and joins the rest of us in either a) atheism, b) a more liberal version of Christianity or c) one of the Far Eastern religions that doesn't center itself around sin and putting a non-existent god before everything else.
In the long run, we are incredibly powerful. That's why, over the long run, we have won some considerable victories. In case you haven't noticed, atheists -- with the help of many others -- won the gay marriage issue. Your religion has no business telling the entire country who can and can't marry.
And, like it or not, that victory WAS of lasting value.
So if it makes you feel better by shouting into the wind about our powerlessness and inability to accomplish things of lasting value, hey, be my guest. People like you rarely ever have an interest in being wrong or right which is why you can say things like your above quote and actually believe them.
You may have once been believers in your head, but not your heart. Gods Holy Spirit inhabits believers and does not leave- regardless of what we do or believe. I "feel better" due to my relationship with God thru Jesus Christ. You are deceived, and I'm thru with our conversation.
Clearly YOU are the one who doesn't understand. It is a matter of coercion and use of the POWER of the state. The only coercion I see is with those who want to use the power of the courts to remove material placed in a place of lodging by the owner of the lodging. There is no coercion involved in the presence of the Bibles in the rooms. No one is required to read them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southernbored
Again, since you don't seem capable of getting it on your own, the OWNER in this case is the state of Illinois. It isn't some guy/gal/family/corporation, it is a STATE. You are welcome to take it up with the Supreme Court, but your side is losing the majority of these battles.<removed absurditiy>
I get it. You want to be a dictator and determine what owners of lodgings can provide in their rooms. You and your ilk are eroding our freedoms with your asinine concerns. There is NO Constitutional issue here! NONE! No law is created, no religion is established, no coercion is involved, except with YOUR side!!! Get a clue!
In my experience, it isn't the atheists that have removed the Holy Spirit but the dogmatic adherents of the religion.
I wasn't suggesting that atheists are the ONLY reason people abandon their beliefs.
You misunderstood what I wrote. I was saying that the root cause of the abandonment of belief by atheists is generally not something the atheists did but something others did.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Yet atheists do have their pokers in the fire when it comes to luring people away from blind faith. Our writings all over the internet, as well as the books that have been written, quite often plant the seeds of doubt that allows them to begin asking those all-important questions (which often cannot be answered by religion without a lot of fluff and intense rationalizing).
I'm sure that y'all have some impact, but I meet a lot of atheists and none of them said, "I became atheist because of some atheists writings I read." Instead, they tell me that they left the Catholic church because (among other things) of how the church protected and hid priests that abused children; they tell me that they left Judaism because (among other things) of how a rabbi treated a gay sibling; they tell me that they could no longer be Protestant because of how their minister and fellow congregants insisted on believing fantasy nonsense, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southernbored
Again, since you don't seem capable of getting it on your own, the OWNER in this case is the state of Illinois. It isn't some guy/gal/family/corporation, it is a STATE.
How many times do we have to post it before the fundamentalists in the thread realize that they're only making themselves look foolish by failing to realize and acknowledge this? I've never seen so much concentrated obstinance in denial of the fact that state aren't allowed to support one religion and not support all other religions in the same way.
How many times do we have to post it before the fundamentalists in the thread realize that they're only making themselves look foolish by failing to realize and acknowledge this? I've never seen so much concentrated obstinance in denial of the fact that state aren't allowed to support one religion and not support all other religions in the same way.
You do realize that there is no law that states that the state can't distribute Bibles or allow someone to do so, right?
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