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the right religion

A Troubled Man

Active Member
I presume the same is true of the "Holy Spirit" while I'm not perceiving it.

So, what you're saying is that the Holy Spirit is equivalent to your family in regards to existence and reality? (Slippery Slope)

I think it best that a person rely mostly on what they've experienced for themselves and take what everyone else claims with a grain of salt.

That would be selfish and would have a counter effect of understanding the world around you. You have already misinterpreted some random feelings to be that of a Holy Spirit when in fact you did not observe a Holy Spirit. Hence, you are simply choosing to believe something that most likely wasn't true and are also choosing to ignore "what everyone else claims".

My beliefs come from the reality I perceive.

No, your beliefs come from a bronze age holy book and you are choosing to falsely align reality to suit those beliefs, that is very obvious.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
So, what you're saying is that the Holy Spirit is equivalent to your family in regards to existence and reality? (Slippery Slope)

Indeed, it is a dilemma when I'm asked such questions about a reality you take for granted. You assume to trust the reality that you perceive. I, because of what I've experience tend to question the truth of my perceptions.

That would be selfish and would have a counter effect of understanding the world around you. You have already misinterpreted some random feelings to be that of a Holy Spirit when in fact you did not observe a Holy Spirit. Hence, you are simply choosing to believe something that most likely wasn't true and are also choosing to ignore "what everyone else claims".

I'm not ignoring what anyone claims. I'm willing to accept their observations as as good as mine. Maybe better, but I need a reason to justify that. Not just because they happen to claim it.

No, your beliefs come from a bronze age holy book and you are choosing to falsely align reality to suit those beliefs, that is very obvious.

You are making a really foolish comment here. I can see no reason to justify your claim other then your belief in it to make you feel more comfortable.

If you are going to believe what you want to anyway, why ask me any more questions.
 

Oryonder

Active Member
I doubt that you are even in the same neigborhood but we are equal in terms of the fact that we are making claims that totally depend on our honesty.

This is the first proof (by your own statement) that you are not hearing from God. You say that you seak for God but that is not what God does. He has people speak His words. In my case God speaks through me not just to me. Now a preacher can be said to be speaking for God but it is not God's word that he speaks but his own and often his own ideas of God's word.

I think it is great that you can speak to God.

I have a few vexing questions for God. I would greatly appreciate it if you could get some answers from God to these questions and get back to me.
 

Oryonder

Active Member
All the ones I have researched can be explained by normal language usage at the time. Cultural factors not explicitly mentioned in the bible. Even a couple that they had traced to a scrible error in that particular bible version. Etc........ If you want lay one out and I will try to find the time to check it out.

Just go read the sermon on the mount and James. Both claim salvation through works/the law.

Paul claims the opposite.
 

Foghorn

New Member
I think all the major religions of God are correct that is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Baha'i etc. They have all been perfect for their time in history and for the capacity of mankind at that time. The idea of a progressive Revelation, that is, God at successive stages in history sends down a Manifestation to 'renew' the laws and ordinances and bring new teachings according to mans new capacity.
 

A Troubled Man

Active Member
You assume to trust the reality that you perceive. I, because of what I've experience tend to question the truth of my perceptions.

Incorrect, I trust the reality of evidence and understanding, not personal perceptions and what people want to believe.

I'm not ignoring what anyone claims. I'm willing to accept their observations as as good as mine. Maybe better, but I need a reason to justify that. Not just because they happen to claim it.

The evidence of what is claimed can be tested based on evidence. I too don't just readily accept what others claim.



You are making a really foolish comment here. I can see no reason to justify your claim other then your belief in it to make you feel more comfortable.

Not really, it's obvious based on your words and nothing more. Comfort has nothing to do with it.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
And yet you deny the inconsistencies of your own religious texts, and philosophical invalidations.. everything you claim you 'saw' in other faiths and their texts. When, in reality, it is highly likely you have absolutely no knowledge, whatsoever, of any other faith but your own, except, at best, a single cursory glance at Google. All your claims here are exaggerated or outright false in terms of historicity, claims repeated so many times they are taken as fact, though they are not. They are urban legend.
You are really something, you are unique in all the debates I have been in, seen, or have transcips from. You seem to overlook good points and arguments that other more capable debaters from your point of view have made. I appreciate a good point even if I disagree. You seem to instead seek out on purpose things for which you have no way to know and assert them as fact. On top of that many of them are judgements about me which I do happen to know about and they are utterly rediculous. All my claims are consistent with the leading theological philosophers and some of them came directly from them. I am fairly familiar with the Abrahamic faiths and some eastern philosophy, and religion. I have in front of me on my desk a book written by perhaps the most universally respected philosopher alive in which he critiques the major religions. I have even been to several countries overseas and talked religion with people there.

Your conversion story is very common. A person hits rock bottom, and suddenly have revelation. Yet this does not happen to everyone nor do normal successful people have it happen to them. Why is that? Why does your faith seem to have the highest percentage of converts who have addictive personalities?
Don't even begin to tell someone you have never even seen about his personal experience without documented justification. That is just pathetic and desperate.

There is some drive in such persons to wipe away their failings. They reach a nadir and cn go no farther; and no real help is coming. So you must create a clean slate artificially. You must become special. Somehow, God must like you personally. So to defend itself your own body pumps out endorphins and you feel an overwhelming liquid serenity flow over you; and because of your established tendencies you attribute this to personal attention by God, and fill in all the blanks yourself.
Is there nothing too rediculous that you won't cling to it too avoid the truth.

All of this is a psychological coping mechanism to save your own life. It could happen to anyone, and some people can actually induce it themselves voluntarily, through meditation and the like; there's nothing wrong with that... well, there's nothing wrong until you emerge into a public forum such as this, and begin using your failure-response as some kind of perverse, high-handed basis to decry other peoples' experiences, faiths, texts, etc. As you do.
All this is a bad theory based on in an unproven field.

When that happens it's time to tear your curtain asunder and let you know, you're not a special snowflake and most of the stuff you say condescendingly to others is flat-out wrong. You're not special, and God did not point his finger at you and give you a gold star. You're just like everyone else, at best. In fact, given what your faith teaches [in its later, contradictory books and musings], should you not in fact tread a lot more quietly, remembering how humbled you were by your own inadequacies, as compared to others?
For the love......

Either these faiths of the world all are of equal value, or all lack it completely. Yours is not special, and is in fact, one of the more problematic ones; if you had actual practical knowledge of the myriad other faiths, you'd realize it. This forum's DIR areas are an excellent source of actual education for you, in terms of how the other faiths actually operate, and it will surprise you how many of them lack the many pitfalls that your own is riddled with. Deal with it.
This mess besides just being silly is actually incapable of being true and there is no way you could no if they were all true. There is no possible way whatsoever that all faiths have equal value even if they were true. And there is no philisophical reason that your statement is even logical. Below is a partial list of the worlds experts who claim what you deny: I will go with them. The link will reveal the other 90% I had to leave out. Think up a fallacy for continuously stating things as fact when there is no way you would know even if they were.

The Testimony of History and Law
William Lyon Phelps, for more than 40 years Yale's distinguished professor of English literature, author of some 20 volumes of literary studies, public orator of Yale, says:
"In the whole story of Jesus Christ, the most important event is the resurrection. Christian faith depends on this. It is encouraging to know that it is explicitly given by all four evangelists and told also by Paul. The names of those who say Him after His triumph over death are recorded; and it may be said that the historical evidence for the resurrection is stronger than for any other miracle anywhere narrated; for as Paul said, if Christ is not risen from the dead then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also vain."
"Professor Ambrose Fleming, emeritus professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of London, honorary fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, receiver of the Faraday medal in 1928...one of England's outstanding scientists..." says of the New Testament documents:
"We must take this evidence of experts as to the age and authenticity of this writing, just as we take the facts of astronomy on the evidence of astronomers who do not contradict each other. This being so, we can ask ourselves whether it is probably that such book, describing events that occurred about thirty or forty years previously, could have been accepted and cherished if the stories of abnormal events in it were false or mythical. It is impossible, because the memory of all elderly persons regarding events of thirty or forty years before is perfectly clear.
A letter written by Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. to the Rev. E. L. Macassey:
"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."
Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:
"The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."
Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the REsurrection has never broken down yet."
"This statement of Lord Lyndhurst was sent to Mr. E. H. Blakeney, of Winchester College, by the late bishop H. C. G. Moule. References to the correspondence appeared in a British periodical, Dawn, some few years ago. I have since had it confirmed in a letter from Mr. Blakeney.Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2
 
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Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Incorrect, I trust the reality of evidence and understanding, not personal perceptions and what people want to believe.

How do you know of these things other then through what you personally perceive?


The evidence of what is claimed can be tested based on evidence. I too don't just readily accept what others claim.

No reason to right? Why do you think I would?


Not really, it's obvious based on your words and nothing more. Comfort has nothing to do with it.

Yes, but it remains wrong. Regardless of what seems to you obvious. Just trying to fathom your insistence on it.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Experimental results and peer review.

If I could figure out how to cause it on a consistent basis experimentation would definitely be enlightening. However it takes time to delve into some of the more methodical spiritual ideologies and there is no guarantee that their is going to be a payoff for the time spent.

For peer review you are still relying on the perception of others. My peers would be those who have had similar experiences. Which I've talked to many, like 1robin or read their analysis. There is enough constancy to be reasonable certain something is going on that bears further investigation.

Have you not accepted the claims of the Holy Spirit without a shred of evidence it exists?

No. As I mentioned before, I'm accepting the reality of what I've perceived for myself until I come across a good reason not to.
 

A Troubled Man

Active Member
If I could figure out how to cause it on a consistent basis experimentation would definitely be enlightening. However it takes time to delve into some of the more methodical spiritual ideologies and there is no guarantee that their is going to be a payoff for the time spent.

My peers would be those who have had similar experiences. There is enough constancy to be reasonable certain something is going on that bears further investigation.

What I see there is the first paragraph contradicting the second. First you say there is not consistency and then say there is enough constancy. Which is it?

As well, you say "something is going on the bears further investigation" yet you already claimed it was the Holy Spirit.

Notice how your argument is inconsistent and flawed?

I'm accepting the reality of what I've perceived for myself until I come across a good reason not to.

No, you are accepting a pseudo-reality you have created for yourself that does not align with reality.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
What I see there is the first paragraph contradicting the second. First you say there is not consistency and then say there is enough constancy. Which is it?

In one case it was in reference to experimentation, in the other peer review.

As well, you say "something is going on the bears further investigation" yet you already claimed it was the Holy Spirit.

I claimed it was something. I use the term because it is one Christians would be familiar with.

Notice how your argument is inconsistent and flawed?

I notice you are very persistent in trying to get others to see things your way.

No, you are accepting a pseudo-reality you have created for yourself that does not align with reality.

Since you don't really know me and haven't had similar experiences you don't get to make that determination with any credibility.

What are you looking for here? Are you trying to get others to acknowledge your perception of reality is the only one that could possibly exist?
 

A Troubled Man

Active Member
In one case it was in reference to experimentation, in the other peer review.

They still contradicted each other.

I claimed it was something. I use the term because it is one Christians would be familiar with.

Why not just use the terms familiar with everyone; feelings.

I notice you are very persistent in trying to get others to see things your way.

Notice that your personal perceptions are still flawed?

Since you don't really know me and haven't had similar experiences you don't get to make that determination with any credibility.

Sorry, but you are not special, you're a human like the rest of us. Knowing you personally has nothing to do with it.

What are you looking for here? Are you trying to get others to acknowledge your perception of reality is the only one that could possibly exist?

Once again, you err on the part of reality and the fact it has nothing to do with how I perceive it and entirely on how it presents itself. Yes, the reality we all share is in fact the only that really exists, unlike the one you've invented for yourself.
 

Heathen Hammer

Nope, you're still wrong
You are really something, you are unique in all the debates I have been in, seen, or have transcips from. You seem to overlook good points and arguments that other more capable debaters from your point of view have made. I appreciate a good point even if I disagree. You seem to instead seek out on purpose things for which you have no way to know and assert them as fact. On top of that many of them are judgements about me which I do happen to know about and they are utterly rediculous. All my claims are consistent with the leading theological philosophers and some of them came directly from them. I am fairly familiar with the Abrahamic faiths and some eastern philosophy, and religion. I have in front of me on my desk a book written by perhaps the most universally respected philosopher alive in which he critiques the major religions. I have even been to several countries overseas and talked religion with people there.
You cling tenaciously to this perfection fallacy, or in other words, you upbraid your opponents using the false saw that because we cannot know for certain everything in the universe, we cannot know anything. And it's really, really sad to watch. When you get to some good points, please highlight them, because your posts are simply emotional denials based on nothing else.
LOL, you know only the religions based on, or the predecessor of, your own. That's it. What 'eastern philosophies', specifically? What is 'religion', that you use as if it's somehow a specific subject, rather than an empty generalization? You might as well state 'I've read up on paganism' as if that is any indication of anything but your ignorance, precisely as I noted. I think my point is clearly made by you. You've done no comparisons, but claim a wide range of awareness.. which you are unable to demonstrate.


Don't even begin to tell someone you have never even seen about his personal experience without documented justification. That is just pathetic and desperate.
Again, a ridiculous [please note the correct spelling of that word] false requirement. You are putting your own experiences out there for us to read. From them, I am perfectly capable opf judging.. especially since they are faaaaar from unique. And human psychological patterns are what they are. And they are knowable. I know them.

Is there nothing too rediculous that you won't cling to it too avoid the truth.
All this is a bad theory based on in an unproven field.
That is hysterical

This mess besides just being silly is actually incapable of being true and there is no way you could no if they were all true.
Yes yes, throw another tantrum.
It is true.

There is no possible way whatsoever that all faiths have equal value even if they were true. And there is no philisophical reason that your statement is even logical. Below is a partial list of the worlds experts who claim what you deny: I will go with them. The link will reveal the other 90% I had to leave out. Think up a fallacy for continuously stating things as fact when there is no way you would know even if they were.
First, ingenue, all the fallacies I have named are legitimate. I realize in your desperation you throw away any established concept that disagrees with you, but it's beyond tiresome at this point, not to mention embarrassingly immature.
List of fallacies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You are only going with people who agree with you. This is called 'cherry picking' and it seems you live on it in your arguments. For the sake of saving space Im not going to waste all the readers' times playing quote wars with you, especially since it would be me, lowering myself to your same, weak, fallacious appeal to authority. There are just as many scholars whom I can find on Google to disagree. But, again,it would just be a game.

The Testimony of History and Law [yadda yadda]
Funny, all people who have no way of knowing for sure if it were true [ooh, your own words, how do they taste?]! just people who wish it to be true.
Aside this, I will also point out you are using quotes from people using the standards of the courtroom, not science, making statements about 'evidence'.. and British court rule evidence, on top of it. The difference is important. But it is, I ken, lost on you. All you see is someone agreeing with you, and using the word 'evidence' in their statements.
It's an irony though, since these people are not considering the FACT that the gospels are not written by eyewitnesses, and the authors are not for whom they are named.. except Luke, possibly [scholars agree] and he was NOT an eyewitness to any of Jesus' life, either. Gods, I don't know how may times this fact has been repeated and then ignored.. by the ignorant.
Tell me, how many of these early British barristers were addicts earlier in life? The correlation would be interesting to note. :D
 
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1robin

Christian/Baptist
.

Funny, all people who have no way of knowing for sure if it were true [ooh, your own words, how do they taste?]! just people who wish it to be true.
Aside this, I will also point out you are using quotes from people using the standards of the courtroom, not science, making statements about 'evidence'.. and British court rule evidence, on top of it. The difference is important. But it is, I ken, lost on you. All you see is someone agreeing with you, and using the word 'evidence' in their statements.
It's an irony though, since these people are not considering the FACT that the gospels are not written by eyewitnesses, and the authors are not for whom they are named.. except Luke, possibly [scholars agree] and he was NOT an eyewitness to any of Jesus' life, either. Gods, I don't know how may times this fact has been repeated and then ignored.. by the ignorant.
Tell me, how many of these early British barristers were addicts earlier in life? The correlation would be interesting to note. :D

I have become so bored that even this has become something I am willing to discuss. I have never claimed there is a way of knowing for sure in fact I believe I have emphatically stated that there can't be a way to prove the resurrection. However these are people who unlike you are specialists in the field of establishing the likely hood of truth based on evidence." [ooh, your own words, how do they taste?]" That doesn't even apply a little bit, Wow!!!. Is there a sarcastic boomerang fallacy? Yea everyone is well aware that in Britain there is no possible way of arriving at the probability of truth based on evidence especially since many systems around the world are based on their model. World class scholars who are making statements for the record couldn't possibly know the well-known issues surrounding the authorship of the Gospels. Amazing!!!. If you are willing to subscribe to the pseudo psychological addiction theory for religious faith then that sure reveals a lot about how far you will go to grasp anything to justify your disbelief. It never ceases to surprise.
 
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Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
They still contradicted each other.

How so?

Why not just use the terms familiar with everyone; feelings.

So you've had this experience?



Notice that your personal perceptions are still flawed?

Yes, that was the point, everyone's is.


Sorry, but you are not special, you're a human like the rest of us. Knowing you personally has nothing to do with it.

Neither are you. No one need agree with these claims you are making just because you make them.


Once again, you err on the part of reality and the fact it has nothing to do with how I perceive it and entirely on how it presents itself. Yes, the reality we all share is in fact the only that really exists, unlike the one you've invented for yourself.

Actually the reality you've invented and assume everyone else must adhere to.
 

A Troubled Man

Active Member

I already pointed that out.

So you've had this experience?

Of course, we all experience feelings.

Yes, that was the point, everyone's is.

Then, you contradict yourself again.

Neither are you. No one need agree with these claims you are making just because you make them.

Yes, we are not special nor so selfish and arrogant to believe supernatural entities have picked us out of the general populace to endow us with their miracles.

Actually the reality you've invented and assume everyone else must adhere to.

I don't assume anything, I completely understand that reality is shared by all equally. You cannot walk off the end of a cliff and not have gravity rule your world, unless you're a coyote chasing a road runner in a cartoon. YOU too, must adhere to that reality.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I already pointed that out.

Of course, we all experience feelings.

Then, you contradict yourself again.

Yes, we are not special nor so selfish and arrogant to believe supernatural entities have picked us out of the general populace to endow us with their miracles.

I don't assume anything, I completely understand that reality is shared by all equally. You cannot walk off the end of a cliff and not have gravity rule your world, unless you're a coyote chasing a road runner in a cartoon. YOU too, must adhere to that reality.

Sorry you just making claims for the sake of being argumentative.
You want you get a point across, fine, but your are not engaging in a conversation with me. You are not really paying attention to what's been said.

So if you're not going to respond to what is actually being said I see no benefit in continuing.
 
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