For those of you who are always right...

[outhouse]

Atheism doesn't need its own books. Once you read all the science books, atheism becomes a natural and unavoidable conclusion.

Yes atheism is often a result of education and knowledge.

 

[`mud]

? If a pink unicorn and a blue fairy mated,
would you get a purple flying nymph or a stripped barber pole ?
They might not be wrong,
but they aren't right !
I think their bookcases are photo-shopped anyway !
I'll trust my gnosis, and my gut, and my mind, and 'I'.
I will always wonder about you !
~
'mud

 

[Willamena]

....and ask that you consider the alternative that, you are wrong.

If you are, IF you are... then what?

What happens if "unbelievers " are correct?

Now what?

That only makes her point, though. Allowing for such speculation supports that we each have possibly valid points to contribute.

Anything "provable" happens now.

"Eternal existence" is little more than a wish fulfilled by ancient texts that seek to affirm the claims of a self-professed messiah.

Is that all?

Really?

After existence in maybe 1/100000000 th years following a momentary mortal life, this is the best outcome to live an entire mortal life to achieve.?

Kobol?

Her point wasn't, "I'm right, you're wrong." It was just the opposite.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

..atheism is often a result of education and knowledge.

Its flaw is that it's based on just our 5 senses and a material world, so it's therefore a very narrow blinkered, primitive, boring outlook (yawn)
Religionists on the other hand expand their minds outwards to look BEYOND their 5 senses and acknowledge there might be things out there that our 5 senses can't pick up-

"For we look at things unseen rather than the seen,for the seen are temporary,but the unseen are eternal" (2 Cor 4:18)
"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col 3:2)
Report Mr Spock-

"There's something out there captain, source and origin unknown"

 

[Wirey]

Its flaw is that it's based on just our 5 senses and a material world, so it's therefore a very narrow blinkered, primitive, boring outlook (yawn)
Religionists on the other hand expand their minds outwards to look BEYOND their 5 senses and acknowledge there might be things out there that our 5 senses can't pick up-

Really? I can't sense an Invisible Jewish Zombie so I have a narrow outlook, while imagining a cloud-based wizard created the whole universe on a whim is reasonable?

It has been my experience that the most fervent believers in a god are the same people who kept failing math and science in high school. They have no other keystone to explain their world. I can't imagine a sadder fate than to base my existence on a 2,000 year old book written by people who thought the sun revolved around a flat earth and women who didn't do what they were told got turned into blocks of salt.

 

[Draka]

How long have I been gone? The topic of this thread...this right here...this is one big factor for that. Straight up annoying.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

..It has been my experience that the most fervent believers in a god are the same people who kept failing math and science in high school...
...and women who didn't do what they were told got turned into blocks of salt.

Steady on, I flunked maths but I was a hotshot at science!
As for Lot's wife, he did try to warn her..

1- "Don't look back!"
2- "Stop telling me what to do!"
3- Sodom/Gomorrah get toasted
4- and wifey becomes collateral damage

 

[Draka]

It has been my experience that the most fervent believers in a god are the same people who kept failing math and science in high school. They have no other keystone to explain their world.

Oh Wirey. How do you explain the ones of us that do not fit your mold? The ones of us who have extensive educations in the mathematic and scientific fields (avionics isn't exactly flippin' burgers you know)? The intelligent ones (not to toot my own horn, but I'm no slouch and there are many other intelligent theists here and elsewhere and you know that)? One can be intelligent and reach for something beyond the physical world. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Vinayaka]

Oh Wirey. How do you explain the ones of us that do not fit your mold? The ones of us who have extensive educations in the mathematic and scientific fields (avionics isn't exactly flippin' burgers you know)?

At any given festival at the temple I attend, there will be several doctors, a couple of project engineers, and more brains in other fields. There is a provincial court judge in the midst too.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

Matthew was a former tax-collector and must therefore have been a wizz at maths.
Mark was from a posh family
Luke was a doctor
John was from a wealthy family.

But let's not forget Jesus often mixed with ordinary people, and got in hot water with the snooty priests who wondered why he snubbed themselves, but he told them to get on their bikes..

 

[Revoltingest]

Its flaw is that it's based on just our 5 senses and a material world, so it's therefore a very narrow blinkered, primitive, boring outlook (yawn)
Religionists on the other hand expand their minds outwards to look BEYOND their 5 senses and acknowledge there might be things out there that our 5 senses can't pick up-

It's certainly possible that believers have some sense which we heathens lack.
But it's also possible that believers let their imagination become reality.
You might prefer the former, while I like the latter. But my reality is not so
boring...it's complicated & ever changing. Makes me feel ignorant.

 

[`mud]

There are a lot of intelligent people that believe in Christianity.
There are doctors, scientists, psysisists, educators, preachers, chiropractors, plumbers, and on and on.
They believe that there is a physical human body called Jesus occupying heaven.
They believe that there angels roaming around the world and heaven, a thousand to a pin point.
They believe that there is fire in the earth that is the world of hell and satan lives there and controls it.
They also believe that satan tries to warp the minds of all humans and tries to make them hate their god.
There's more, but you can get the point, and this is the adults !
~
I could believe in God, maybe even Jesus, maybe Jesus more, but the rest of it ?
~
I believe in the good will that these symbols represent for the most part,
but in the misfortune caused by the abject worship for these same idols, not !
~
Oh well.....I can't figure it out....maybe I'm not supposed to !
~
'mud

 

[Shuttlecraft]

It's certainly possible that believers have some sense which we heathens lack..

Yes, the famous Schmeidler ESP tests indicated that open-minded people scored much better than skeptics-
"This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology" Prof Gertrude Schmeidler
Gertrude Schmeidler

 

[Draka]

It's certainly possible that believers have some sense which we heathens lack.
But it's also possible that believers let their imagination become reality.
You might prefer the former, while I like the latter. But my reality is not so
boring...it's complicated & ever changing.

I believe you epitomize the purpose of the thread. To get people to merely entertain the simple idea that, "you know what, it's possible it's this way, and it's possible it's that way, you like this and I like that." Wow. Really people, must some be ever so foot-stomping and insist that it only be one way and that everyone that not agree with that one way are deficient in some manner? To be able to admit "hey, I don't know everything, so you know what, I could be wrong about something, you could have a point, I don't know" is actually admirable.

Hell, I'll say I don't know that what I believe is "right". You know what? That's why it's a belief. It's my stance. But it's what makes sense to me and that's why I hold to it. It's how the world and life make sense to me. Could I be wrong, yeah, I could, but I still believe what I believe until something changes those beliefs. That's how it works. And you know what else? It's the same for everyone else too. I'm not referring to scientific facts, or the like, I'm referring to stances about philosophical and theological ideas. Whether you have a belief in something, or claim a general non-belief in anything, you have a stance. That stance may or may not be right or wrong in the grand scheme of things and you don't know. You can't know. So don't claim you do, it is rather annoying.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes, the famous Schmeidler ESP tests indicated that open-minded people scored much better than skeptics-
"This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology" Prof Gertrude Schmeidler
Gertrude Schmeidler

I wonder if her work is replicated by others, specifically non-parapsychology types.

 

[Revoltingest]

I believe you epitomize the purpose of the thread.

Is that the good side or the bad side of the purpose?

 

[Draka]

Is that the good side or the bad side of the purpose?

I thought I had explained that. Being that the purpose appears to be to get people to stop acting as if they are always right.

 

[Revoltingest]

I thought I had explained that. Being that the purpose appears to be to get people to stop acting as if they are always right.

Good then?
(I'm not too perceptive.)

 

[Draka]

Good then?
(I'm not too perceptive.)

Must it be written in limerick for you? Yes, good.

 

[Revoltingest]

Oh....I can understand that!

Underneath my false veneer, I'm a fulminating didactic know-it-all.
But being wrong often has just made me reticent.