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Have you gone from atheist to believer or....


ParaGirlsHauntedDiary

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2 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

?  I just get the message you don't pay very good attention to what is actually said but instead jump to your own conclusions.

Honestly, I'm feeling rather the same about you. 

 My mention of LBTQ was part of the comparison between the Buddhist Philosophy and Christian version, and I continied the metaphor to how Love the Sin/hate the sinner ends with lots of hating the sinner as well. 

 I went back over my post and I really don't see a way to make it more obvious. 

 For the dead children bit, to me the constant death of children, and the many manners it happens, undermines the concept of any sort of universal justice, outting aside the many excemptions that occur. The last time we discussed this you had to resort to speculating about the mental state of those who were not handed any sort of justice. 

 Are you alright, man? Usually you don't have this sort of trouble. 

 If there's something going on, and you need to talk, send me a message. 

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Yes but where did I say there was universal justice?  Sheesh!  The theoretical issue is whether or not justice is an aspect of existence, but I have made it clear I doubt that and think justice is more than likely a human contrivance, although I have pointed out that this renders some of our other notions, such as personal responsibility and even morality, in need of serious rethink.

As far as all the babies who did in infancy or are stillborn, so what has that to do with the discussion?  All sorts of work-arounds have been and are used to explain this.

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Just now, Frank Merton said:

Yes but where did I say there was universal justice?  Sheesh!  The theoretical issue is whether or not justice is an aspect of existence, but I have made it clear I doubt that and think justice is more than likely a human contrivance, although I have pointed out that this renders some of our other notions, such as personal responsibility and even morality, in need of serious rethink.

The last time we spoke of Universal Justice you very much defended it, it is not clear from your post you had changed your stance. 

 And it certainly does, which I am a big advocate for. 

Just now, Frank Merton said:

As far as all the babies who did in infancy or are stillborn, so what has that to do with the discussion?  All sorts of work-arounds have been and are used to explain this.

Who said infancy or stillborn? Heck, there are ways of killing people that keeps the body alive and healthy. 

 I stated I disagree funadamentally with the concept there is some sort of fundamental justice simply due to the number of dead children. It is one of the few areas that most people agree on, a child is to be protected. 

 We get into arguments over where the line is drawn, what is a child, how long does childhood last. 

 But children die from many, many things. There's no justice in it. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/29/2017 at 10:48 AM, ParaGirlsHauntedDiary said:

Vice versa?

 

When it comes to spirituality and ghosts/spirits, I guess I would always have been a believer, don't ask me why, but ever since I was a child I believed something else existed beyond this realm. So what about you?

Perhaps better late then never.... I grew up in a non-religious, almost anti-religious, household. I suspect it had to do with my dad growing up as part of the Anglican (Welsh) church, and having a bad experience. So, I was basically non-religious. I wouldn't say I was atheist, as I think that requires a cognitive choice, and I'd not say that I was agnostic, because, again that requires thinking about making a choice. I simply didn't care and had not opinion, or belief, on religion.

When I was older, 29 I think (1998?), I met up with some buddies from college, and one invited me to a Bible study. Being a single guy, and not a big fan of bar crawling, I decided to give it a go. Basically there was no Bible and no Studying. It was about Community and friendship and praying over each other. Caring. Love. So, then I decided to start going to church, to see what that was about. And again, I didn't run into Hellfire and damnation, I ran into Community, Caring, Loving one another. And despite having changed churches probably 5 times in the last 18 years, I've met only one hands worth of people who were not about Community, Sharing, Loving, Caring... And they were about Hate, and Rules, and Anger.... And they all eventually were forced to leave. 

It is this tiny handful of people whom a large number of the "Athiests" form their opinions about religion about. They see only Anger, Hatred and Rules. When perhaps 99.9% of Christians I've met completely don't act that way. 

People disliking religion, particularly Christianity, in the USA, are like those people who see a single accident, where a teenager drives into another car, and immediately wants driving ages to be raised. Or whom reads an article about a child accidentally shooting them self, and wants all guns banned from homes with kids. Not caring at all that 99.9% of guns are never used to hurt even a single person. All they see is a few kids who died. They care nothing for anything else related to guns, good or bad. 

The same applies to religion. Those who rant against it, usually only see a tiny percent of what is going on, but because they don't like maybe 1% of what is practiced, they want 100% of it banned. It is short sighted and ignorant in my opinion.

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If by God you mean "omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent" being... then yes, I absolutely have believed in such a thing in my life, though mostly because I wanted to believe that there was some kind of grand purpose for my physical suffering throughout my life. The more I read in terms of science/logic, however... I found the very idea of believing in such a thing to be completely irrational and dealt with it accordingly (apostasy).

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Guest MamaMia1981

I considered myself atheist for a while.

I tend to lean more agnostic these days.  I really don't know if I think there is a God, in the biblical sense, but I do think that there are entities out there that perhaps had a hand in the development of things.  I think that if primitive man had contact with such entities that we'd probably interpret them as Gods, and maybe that is where some of our ancient polytheistic religions come from...

But I'm a scientist at heart, so until I observe something directly, it neither exists, or doesn't exist.  I leave it open to future discovery.  No one has the monopoly on the truth when it comes to God, and I am suspect of anybody that speaks with certainty.  No one really knows.  Just my 2 cents.

 

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On 30/03/2017 at 11:15 AM, Frank Merton said:

I don't believe in belief and never have.  It's a cop-out to escape the responsibility we have to think things through.  Faith is a vice -- akin to mental laziness.

An opiate for the people, huh, Frank? 

Ps You just expressed a belief statement. :) 

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I believed in God as a little kid...I also believed in Santa Claus too so...

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  • 2 months later...
On 4/17/2017 at 4:38 PM, NightScreams said:

I believed in God as a little kid...I also believed in Santa Claus too so...

As a kid, I didn't believe in Santa Claus. 

Didn't believe in God either. It was all a fairytale they told me.

 

Then I grew up.

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