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No, I think it is the reality you desire, but not what actually is. If we examine the world we actually live in, there is a very clear link between the relative powerlessness of our religious fanatics, the lack of entanglement between religion and government, the tremendously wide range of religious beliefs, and the relative safety and freedom we enjoy and a history of bold men and women dissenting from the orthodoxy of the day, sometimes sacrificing their wealth, freedom, and lives to do so. Men like Martin Luther, John Tyndale, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, Tom Paine, and Thomas Jefferson all bucked the orthodoxy of their days, and by risking life, liberty, and fortune they among others have shaped a culture in which we can believe different things, or not believe at all.
It appears we have very clear evidence from history that people standing up for their principles, for rational discourse, and for a more humanistic approach within society can have a tremendous effect. Why then, having achieved as you pointed out, a much more tolerant, open, and free society, should we abandon the principles that got us here?
You would have us despair that religion is so vast and overwhelming that we ought to abandon our reason and principles and embrace what you freely admit is magical thinking and foolish fantasies out of fear. I rather think that history has shown that reason, secular governance, and a humanist society can influence religions that once slaughtered their way through Europe and the Americas to become influences for peace, tolerance, and religious freedom. It seems to we that we should keep doing what we are doing, even if there are people who wish to blow up buildings, shoot up clinics, or twist government into the service of religious persecution, in fact precisely because these things happen.
-NoCapo
Ya don't say. Wow! Go forth with this "tremendous effect"!!
But don't be half-stepping. If you are telling the truth...and what is being done here with Religion insulting and mocking thread after Religion insulting and mocking thread...is some sort of "bold dissent" to shed a light on, attempt to shield us from, and endeavor to have a "tremendous effect" to influence Religions that slaughter, to become influences for peace, tolerance, and freedom...then let's see the REAL "bold dissent". Y'all know where and who the real problem causing Religious actors are. Go tell them...openly, straight up, and directly (like all those people you listed did in their day ) and carry out this mission you all claim to be executing.
Spending hundreds of hours on this board busting on a few Fundie Bible Literalists, and "repping" back and forth with the handful that join in has a "boldness" and "effect" factor on a lowest to highest scale between 1 and 1,000,000,000 of about 3. So, let's see whatcha got!! You've spent lots of time doing next to squat so far as I've seen up to this point.
Nozz erroneously thinks you cannot compare Theists and Atheists to Sighted and Blind because there are perceptions some Theists have that cannot be objectively evidenced.
Nothing erroneous about it, but nice of you to dodge out of the conversation with me above and then engage in it third hand with someone else later on. Very honest. Not.
The simple fact is that you can prove a blind person IS blind, because you can evidence the existence of the things that blind person can not see. That is how we are able to label them blind.
But you asserting people like me to be blind is empty assertion. Because you can not evidence, even the tiniest bit it seems, the existence of the things I am supposedly blind to. So your rhetoric is empty and vacuous assertion and nothing more.
Nothing erroneous about it, but nice of you to dodge out of the conversation with me above and then engage in it third hand with someone else later on. Very honest. Not.
The simple fact is that you can prove a blind person IS blind, because you can evidence the existence of the things that blind person can not see. That is how we are able to label them blind.
But you asserting people like me to be blind is empty assertion. Because you can not evidence, even the tiniest bit it seems, the existence of the things I am supposedly blind to. So your rhetoric is empty and vacuous assertion and nothing more.
Wrong. Most people can perceive God. You cant...or you would.
See, God Perception is like sight for those who have it...you don't have to try to see, you just can.
Then there are the few like you that can't...you just simply are not able, like people who are blind simply can't see.
It has nothing to do with evidence for the actual existence of what is being seen, or what is being perceived. This is inconsequential to the abilities versus the inabilities.
It's like someone who can speak compared to someone who is mute. If you teach the one capable of speech sounds you claim are words to a language they don't know, but there really is no such language...as they speak those sounds they believe to be words, their lack of evidence of whether those sounds actually are words that exist, and the fact those sounds really do not exist as words, is irrelevant to them still demonstrating, as they vocalize, an ability they possess that the mute person lacks.
You erroneously think that because the person with God Perception abilities cannot evidence the God they perceive, that somehow negates their perception...and they don't really have an ability someone that can't perceive God(s) at all doesn't have. My analogy of the Speaker vs Mute explains where you go off the rails with your analysis of the issue.
Once you get hip to it...you will acheive greater understanding. But, hey...you may not be capable of that either. Most unfortunate. Again, Nozz...my condolences.
Wrong. Most people can perceive God. You cant...or you would.
Making my point for me then. You have not evidenced there is a god. At all. Anywhere. Ever. Which is exactly my point. In order to assert that I am blind, you merely assert that I am blind to things you have not even shown exist.
Which contrasts, as I said, massively with asserting the existence of sight blindness where we can show the things that the person can not perceive actually do exist. We can evidence the existence of sight to a blind person.
Oh, yes, the topic. And I have a lot to say about the topic.
How can you otherwise intelligent people (many with advanced degrees and extensive direct expertise)...get roped into wasting even a minute of your precious lives debating Instapoof or Young Earth Creationism? You have to know that anybody putting that out is either running some Poe game on you, or certainly too far gone to even try to have a reasonable exchange with.
Actually, I never want you to stop...it cracks me up. The best is the real scientists, taking their time to post up some highly technical explanation to some Bible infused individual, that always just comes back with snark or some stuff that relies on hocus-pocus. It took me a while to discover that it is typically that Atheism Religion that compels them to do it. It has to be...I couldn't see any other reason why. Only the Religious are that committed to talking about dumbstuff.
When I see the latest Evolution vs Creation threads...I think back to a member that went by "evofreaks"...his posts are legendary. You all must look them up and read them. They should make a book of some of those threads. They were really piling on him one day, hitting him from every angle, and he spoke of, "What an abomination that these self-professed apes, would criticize his God, his Bible, and him!!!". Oh man!!...it's hilarious.
Yes, and that's what I have to say, and have always said, about this absurd topic.
You are not stupid and you know the answer. If you don't - tough and we will will go on with the topic for the same reasons we always did.
I shall leave you in the capable hands of Nozz. Your views and beliefs are not a problem for me - like the Organized church is. So I am simply not concerned with your self important anti atheist needling.
Making my point for me then. You have not evidenced there is a god. At all. Anywhere. Ever. Which is exactly my point. In order to assert that I am blind, you merely assert that I am blind to things you have not even shown exist.
Which contrasts, as I said, massively with asserting the existence of sight blindness where we can show the things that the person can not perceive actually do exist. We can evidence the existence of sight to a blind person.
So once again, you got nothing.
As I explained, replete with analogies...what they perceive actually being real DOES NOT MATTER as to whether most have perceptive abilities that a few don't.
I also explained you might not be capable of understanding that concept. It is obvious you are lacking there as well.
This is the reason people have been able to put over Religion on people, and make up these Deity characters like Jehovah, Allah, Vishnu, etc. The masses that can perceive God don't really understand what it is they are perceiving...they are just fully aware of the perception. Enter those that look to exploit that, or look for some kind of answer to what the perception is. They are not like me who fully understands, and can objectively substantiate the existence, of what I perceive to be God to me.
There are a few people, like you, (very rare, thankfully) that never even get the perception...similar to people that are alive but not conscious like the vast majority of people. All those people really can perceive something you can't Nozz...your ignorance of, or willful refusal to accept your deficiency, notwithstanding.
As I explained, replete with analogies...what they perceive actually being real DOES NOT MATTER as to whether most have perceptive abilities that a few don't.
As I explained in return, if you are comparing the blindness of a blind person to the blindness you are merely inventing in me..... then the fact you can not evidence the existence of the thing I am supposedly blind to becomes entirely relevant.
The masses that can perceive God don't really understand what it is they are perceiving...they are just fully aware of the perception.
My thoughts on this are that what everyone who thinks that what they feel or perceive as "God" is nothing more than a natural energy that exists in our Universe as well as in peoples consciousness. We can tap into it and use it in a very positive or a very destructive way.
My thoughts on this are that what everyone who thinks that what they feel or perceive as "God" is nothing more than a natural energy that exists in our Universe as well as in peoples consciousness.
That is my feeling too. Unlike what we are being told above, such people are not perceiving anything that the rest of us are not perceiving. They are just parsing it differently, and using different words to describe it.
Gldn is flapping around trying to act like he or others are perceiving something that I am not. While trying, and as usual failing, to bait an emotional reaction out of me by pretending to offer things like "condolences" for my "failures" and "deficiencies". Yet he has failed not just slightly, but utterly to evidence any such thing so the failures lie with him, and the deficiencies in his vacuous rhetoric.
Rather, what is actually happening in reality, is that I am perceiving all the same things he is. But I am not parsing what I perceive through a feux theistic narrative about things like "gods". And the results of parsing it through that narrative are giving him the false impression that he is perceiving something that somehow people like me are not.
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