You say that there is a god...

[ZoroKing]

I do not see the connection.

but as I said, i saw aliens talking to me, first it would be like Elon Musk regular video then he would turn to like super alien like a god or something like wow, so there must super aliens who are like super advanced so we call them god

 

[dybmh]

Straw man. Not my claim.

That's a lie. That is the claim you said was "close enough".

I don't think you know what my position is. I don't think you can paraphrase my argument or conclusion.

I did paraphrase it and you agreed. That is posted in the next section of the reply.

What is it you wished to continue to discuss? I've made my case, and you've given your counterargument and expressed your discontent with me at length. You've given me no reason to believe I'm wrong.

The simple reason, since you need one is: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your claim to know the nature of everyone's internal religious experiences without meeting each person or understanding what they're saying from their context. That is one of the most outrageous claims ever.

In order to gaurantee your success, anytime someone proves you wrong, you replace what they intend to say into something which matches your delusion.

Your denial that you made the claim is concession. Post#376.
Now you are saying, you don't know what's happening with everyone's spiritual experiences. Correct?

Your reasons are things like me not knowing what's happening with everyone everywhere, not having enough data points and not being a qualified therapist. You seem to think that that is refutation. It's not. It doesn't falsify the claim. It doesn't even contradict the claim. My claim and your comments in response can both be true at the same time. That's why it's not rebuttal. It's mere dissent.

The problem you seem to be having, is you do not understand how much evidence is needed to justify what you're claiming. I don't need to prove you wrong to show that you're being foolish, grandiose, and hypocritical.

But, technically, your argument is fallacious. That's why it's a failed argument and should be rejected on principle. As I pointed out to another poster yesterday, maybe, two days ago. This is the prosecutor's fallacy. Your metrics have been calibrated based on a sample which is not representative of the entire population. This skews the results producing not just 1 false positive, but many many false positives.

​

Base rate fallacy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

​

First sentence: The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect or base rate bias, is a type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the base rate (e.g., general prevalence) in favor of the individuating information (i.e., information pertaining only to a specific case).[3] Base rate neglect is a specific form of the more general extension neglect.​

Ignoring the general prevalence in favor of a specific case. This means your argument is fallacious and false.

1. Being in the military is a unique circumstance. Many people in the military describe it as "being a part of something much bigger than themself." This would explain, why, maybe, you did have a real experience with something "much bigger than yourself" while in the military. But when you left, you were not able to reproduce that same feeling... without drugs.
2. the pastor in the Military Church also is in a specific situation and circumstance which makes that a unique experience for them.
3. After the military you became indoctrinated with "Medical Narcissism", you admit to having a god complex, and you see no problem with it. This produces a need to dominate and control and always be right to the point of adjusting facts to fit their own narrative.
4. The way you are decribing the experience you had sounds a lot like someone who experiments with or uses marijuana. Your avatar choice supports this, the grateful-dead-bear. It is likely that you have concluded that your experience and all others cannot be god because you are able to regularly replicate the good feeling, as you remember it, by taking drugs.
5. Even though god-experiences vary, your own personality cannot tolerate that diversity because it is outside of your understanding and control.

Because those circumstances do not describe even a small percentage of the majority of the world's population, it is fallacious to apply the conclusions developed from those circumstances on the entire world's population.

Dybmh is not qualified to give me life advice.

You asked for advice on a public forum. You literally asked "What should I do if..." And you are rejecting it. That's fine. But you should know, this is very common in theraputic settings with people who are delusional. Even if the patient resists treatment, and rejects the diagnosis, the fact they made the appointment and showed up means they are asking for help. This justifies a bit of tough love with the treatment resistent patient. Even if the patient is only showing up to reinforce their own beliefs and battle with the evil-doctors, they are still showing up.

In this case, those "evil doctors" are the god-believers. And you are the delusional patient. And you keep showing up to the debate us.

I understand that you don't like it, but my attitude is fine. What you and others see is an opinion and evidenced argument to support it that offends you.

Hypocrisy offends almost anyone. And it's good to show that theists are at least as smart as the atheists who claim otherwise.

People object to being told their god belief is insufficiently supported, and they frequently have an emotional response. People don't like to be told that when they say that they experience a god, that somebody else believes they aren't.

No. You are not identifing that accurately. Honestly, sometimes I'm typing fast, because I'm in a hurry. And you misinterpret it as emotional. But your brain fills in the blanks with whatever reinforces your own beliefs. And even as I'm typing this, I expect you are rejecting it, because of the condition of your mind.

And you'll just be seeing more of it more often delivered more forcefully as time proceeds. The skeptics have been finding their voice for a few decades now. Remember that it was only a century ago that Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution. But with the wave of best selling atheist authors like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, and the rise of the Internet, atheism has become more socially acceptable. People who never heard atheists speak before are being confronted with arguments they haven't heard in church or anywhere else until recently, and it's a culture shock. It's understood as uppity, insolent, and god-hating consistent with the belief that atheists are inherently immoral.

Atheists are inherently amoral. There is nothing moral about atheism. Atheism is a non thing. There is nothing good or bad about it. Each individual atheist chooses whether or not they are hurting or helping on a case by case basis. Are they uppity? You are. Do they act smarter than everyone? online? The ones who scream the loudest are the most guilty of arrogance, hypocrisy, and religious thinking.

Anytime they demonize belief they're proving God exists.

Here's some life advice worth considering: I suggest that believers make an effort to stop having or at least expressing their emotions in these discussions. It adds nothing, and is often the end of discussion and the beginning of complaining. It's an off-putting choice that undermines the believer's ethos as we have seen in this thread when posters are accused of not being serious or not arguing in good faith.

It's true that people in this thread arguing for team-atheist do not engage honestly in the debate including yourself.

What you don't understand and @F1fan and @Sgt. Pepper don't understand is, God is not the buddhist-god named "void". Their god is nothingness which leads to annihilation of the self. It's an atheist-god. It produces nothing but oblivion. If you don't observe oblivion in my behavior, that only shows I don't worship the "void" that maybe you and they imagine and hope for someday.

God is much more than that, a person connecting to the tiniest fiber of its magnitude can over power almost anyone. That is what you're observing as my "ethos". Understandably, this means your imagined self-godliness is nothing. A void. Just like the buddhist god.

What you're observing is actually evidence of God. But again, you cannot comprehend anything that would undermine your greatness.

What I really recommend is for all believers to take the position that their god belief is not supported by argument or evidence, that it is believed by faith instead. All the believer's problems on RF vanish. Nobody will argue with him or call him dishonest. They still will reject belief by faith for themselves, but I doubt anybody minds people believing in gods except when it impacts the lives of unbelievers.

I recommend you take your own advice. Your argument is unsupported by evidence.

 

[dybmh]

I dnt take those questions as honest

What is dishonest about the questions? Here they are again:

Did theism betray you? God turned its back on you? Is "religion" your Satan?

More like the masturbatory fantasies that theists have about atheists.

Everything about your posts screams: "I was betrayed". Even someone calling you friend is rejected unless you are confident that their purposes are inline with yours. Someone befriended you and then betrayed you. That's how it sounds.

You seem to think I want something from you?

Let me be clear, I do not want anything from you. Nothing. I sincerely want for you: the absolute very best life on earth. Not OK, not surviving, but the best. That's it. If that incudes being left alone, then, don't post here. I hang out here. If you don't want to read what I write, ignore me.

I am not a Christian recruiting for Jesus. I don't get karma-credit points for rescuing an atheist. I receive everything I could ever want from a higher power. What on earth could I desire from you?

I am not being obligatory. That is how I see thse questions.

You asked what I wanted to discuss. You have the answer. you don't want to talk about it. Don't talk about it. There's absolutely nothing dishonest about those questions or me.

If you are triggered by that, too bad.

I don't care if you answer them or not. I think you would benefit from talking about it.

Regarding the accusation of dishonesty, it's coming from a person who was recently dishonest, you. So, naturally it's ignored. But also forgiven, you sound like you've been through something.

 

[dybmh]

No, I'm talking about this:

"And that is exactly what psychologists and psychiatrists do. They listen to the words of their patients and interpret them based in their own understanding and experience. Then, they correct the patient when appropriate, helping them reinterpret their thoughts."

I don't see any where that I objected to those words. What you quoted was not me objecting to that. I didn't even quote those words. My objection is to how that interpretation an understanding is produced.

The above is what works. The poster basically described Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It's a very effective tool to use in clinical practice. But you say it's "horrible." Okay.

No. I said it was horrible to project their own thoughts and experiences onto the other person. Instead of trying to understand what they are saying using the individuals context.

Is there some particular section you want to draw my attention to ... ?

This is what I quoted prevously which very clearly describes that projection onto the individual is a horrible clinical practice.

Rick Reinkraut

EdD, Harvard University
CAGS, Harvard University
PhD, University of Connecticut
MA, University of Connecticut
BA, Rutgers College

To understand another, in a contextually meaningful way, is a challenge to one's capacity for
empathic resonance and a decentering from one's own embeddedness in the service of
stepping into another's shoes with the goal of increasingly greater affective and conceptual
understanding of the experience of another. Chi-Ying Chung and Bemak (2002) commented,
in this regard, that ".... therapeutic empathy must take into account the cultural context so
that the same problem presented in two distinct cultures would warrant different, culturally
specific responses" (p. 156). The way experience is experienced is dependent upon the
culture that bounds and inspires the reality tales that inform and form the framing of what is
involved and expected in being a person. Christopher (1996) discussed what he calls 'moral
visions'. He maintained that we are each embedded in moral visions.

This leads to the recognition that we each find ourselves in relation to hermeneutic circles
which deepen and expand in varied realms of meaning and understanding. How I regard an
event at 20 years old versus how I regard it at 60 will in no small measure be affected by the
way in which that event is placed in a narrative context that reflects my view of experience
from a particular vantage point. The relationship of the part to the whole reflects the
emergent dialectic of the hermeneutic circle of my life. In this way we each are continuous
with the person whom we have been and will become. That continuity, however, is not
necessarily reflected in a sameness in the way events are regarded and given meaning at
varied temporal points in one's life journey.

A challenge for a therapist is achieving a receptivity in relation to the client that diminishes
the assumptions made about the client and increases the curiosity one has for the client:
assume nothing, be curious about everything. This is at once impossible and crucial. It is
impossible because, in addition to our personal lived experiences, we come to the work of
therapy with training experiences that are rooted in research, theory, and practice, each and
all of which lead us to draw conclusions about what helps and what hurts others. It is crucial
because then the client does not become just 'another client' but remains figural as a unique
person. Saying with humility and genuine interest to a client in the initial session "I would
appreciate hearing anything that you are willing to tell me that you believe would be helpful
for me to know" communicates a number of messages. It says that the client owns the
prerogative regarding disclosing information about her or himself. It says that I am interested
in knowing about the client. It says that I want to be helpful. It is an invitation extended, not a
demand made.

 

[Angelical]

From my own experience, I've seen aliens talking to me on youtube for like 50 seconds. it happened on youtube

Ok, so now, have you read Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Earths in the Starry Heavens and their Inhabitants”?

 

[ppp]

What is dishonest about the questions? Here they are again:

Thirteen year old boys who are interested in girls talk about girls and sex. I'll bet you knew that.

Here are some other things that you probably know. Those boys are usually inexperienced, imaginative and willing to believe any half truth or whole fabrication that fuels the fire of their adolescent sexual fantasies -- about how girls are, what girls like, and how a "man" should treat them. So willing to believe that when they finally come into contact with a real living and breathing girl they often make asses of themselves. They do and say all the stupid things that they told one another before running home to find a sock. And they get mad and derisive (and sometimes abusive) when the reality of "girl" does not match their hormone fueled fantasies.

Why, am I saying this? Because you and your church, study group, whatever are the boys, and atheists are the objects of your fantasies.

Did theism betray you? God turned its back on you? Is "religion" your Satan?

You disagree? Then warrant these questions from something more substantive than your feels.

Everything about your posts screams: "I was betrayed".

If we were on a date (your god forbid) this would this would be the equivalent of calling me a "sl*t" for not being or doing what you want.

 

[F1fan]

What you don't understand and @F1fan and @Sgt. Pepper don't understand is, God is not the buddhist-god named "void".

From what theists explain to us God doesn't seem to be anything more that a set of concepts that they believe is true. God is a set of abstract concepts that don't correlate to anything we humans can dicern as real. Me and most other atheists don't consider God (gods) as anything that has objective existence outside of human brains.

Their god is nothingness which leads to annihilation of the self.

This misrepresents Theravada Buddhism. There is no mention of any gods in this tradition.

It's an atheist-god.

Oxymoron.

It produces nothing but oblivion. If you don't observe oblivion in my behavior, that only shows I don't worship the "void" that maybe you and they imagine and hope for someday.

None of this is coherent.

 

[nPeace]

That only works for religions that recruit.

I recall a thread you started about some sort of car ride, and you were with a friend ( not a close friend ), and you picked a fight with them over their comments about a homeless person or something.

So, why was it OK for you to pick a fight with your aquaintence about the contradiction between calling themself a Christian and the comment they made, but, other people aren't allowed to vocalize their objections to the hypocrisy of the "so-called-critical-thinker-club"?

I don't think the Pharisees liked it when Jesus called them hypocrites. Why? They were hypocrites.

 

[ppp]

I don't think the Pharisees liked it when Jesus called them hypocrites. Why? They were hypocrites.

Or they weren't. People who are not being hypocritical dislike it when people call them that.

 

[nPeace]

Dybmh is not qualified to give me life advice.

I understand that you don't like it, but my attitude is fine. What you and others see is an opinion and evidenced argument to support it that offends you. People object to being told their god belief is insufficiently supported, and they frequently have an emotional response. People don't like to be told that when they say that they experience a god, that somebody else believes they aren't.

And you'll just be seeing more of it more often delivered more forcefully as time proceeds. The skeptics have been finding their voice for a few decades now. Remember that it was only a century ago that Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution. But with the wave of best selling atheist authors like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, and the rise of the Internet, atheism has become more socially acceptable. People who never heard atheists speak before are being confronted with arguments they haven't heard in church or anywhere else until recently, and it's a culture shock. It's understood as uppity, insolent, and god-hating consistent with the belief that atheists are inherently immoral.

Here's some life advice worth considering: I suggest that believers make an effort to stop having or at least expressing their emotions in these discussions. It adds nothing, and is often the end of discussion and the beginning of complaining. It's an off-putting choice that undermines the believer's ethos as we have seen in this thread when posters are accused of not being serious or not arguing in good faith.

What I really recommend is for all believers to take the position that their god belief is not supported by argument or evidence, that it is believed by faith instead. All the believer's problems on RF vanish. Nobody will argue with him or call him dishonest. They still will reject belief by faith for themselves, but I doubt anybody minds people believing in gods except when it impacts the lives of unbelievers.

I don't mind people not believing or caring about God. That is their prerogative - their choice, and I am happy when they make their choice clear. You have no idea how happy.
What I don't like is people lying or making up things about others.
I probably shouldn't pay it any mind, since Jesus said,..
(Matthew 5:11, 12) 11 “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against you for my sake. 12 Rejoice and be overjoyed, since your reward is great in the heavens, for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to you.

Actually, you know what. I have reasons for twofold joy. Take care.

 

[ppp]

I don't mind people not believing or caring about God. That is their prerogative - their choice, and I am happy when they make their choice clear.

Not really a choice. I am in able to believe claims that are so lacking in credibility.

I probably shouldn't pay it any mind, since Jesus said,..
(Matthew 5:11, 12)

When y'all act like jerks then claim persecution for being treated like jerks. There was a time when Christians were the persecuted. Now Christians have largely taken up the mantle of persecutor.

 

[dybmh]

Thirteen year old boys who are interested in girls talk about girls and sex. I'll bet you knew that.

Here are some other things that you probably know. Those boys are usually inexperienced, imaginative and willing to believe any half truth or whole fabrication that fuels the fire of their adolescent sexual fantasies -- about how girls are, what girls like, and how a "man" should treat them. So willing to believe that when they finally come into contact with a real living and breathing girl they often make asses of themselves. They do and say all the stupid things that they told one another before running home to find a sock. And they get mad and derisive (and sometimes abusive) when the reality of "girl" does not match their hormone fueled fantasies.

Why, am I saying this? Because you and your church, study group, whatever are the boys, and atheists are the objects of your fantasies.

Except I don't desire you nor do you excite me.

You disagree? Then warrant these questions from something more substantive than your feels.

I gave you the substance. Someone offers friendship and you say, {paraphrasing} "we're not friends because I only make friends with people who are in line with my goals and purposes" I think that was it. And I told you, those are the words of someone who had a friend that betrayed them.

If we were on a date (your god forbid) this would this would be the equivalent of calling me a "sl*t" for not being or doing what you want.

You're hallucinating. You might want to talk someone. Oh yeah... I already mentioned that, and that's what produced this chicken little the sky is falling routine.

 

[dybmh]

Not really a choice. I am in able to believe claims that are so lacking in credibility.

oh, you're a slave?

When y'all act like jerks then claim persecution for being treated like jerks. There was a time when Christians were the persecuted. Now Christians have largely taken up the mantle of persecutor.

Persecutory delusion - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[dybmh]

From what theists explain to us God doesn't seem to be anything more that a set of concepts that they believe is true. God is a set of abstract concepts that don't correlate to anything we humans can dicern as real. Me and most other atheists don't consider God (gods) as anything that has objective existence outside of human brains.

your god is void

This misrepresents Theravada Buddhism. There is no mention of any gods in this tradition.

no mention = void

Oxymoron.

the athiest god is void. it's literally true

None of this is coherent.

It's not incoherent, you don't understand what words mean or how they are put together into sentences.

Which confirms what I said. You don't understand that I do not worship the god "void" which produces the oblivion you seem to value and look forward to.

Let me make it stupid simple for you. You seem to want theists to sit down and shut up be "enlightened" per your imagined ideal. I'm telling you that your ideal of enlightenment is weak ineffective and pointless except for certain select circumstances. And when those circumstances arise, I will easily channel your buddhist-god's vacuous quality because I can. Until then, no thank you. I will not become oblivious per your ideal.

 

[ppp]

Except I don't desire you nor do you excite me.

And yet here you waving your...fantasy questions in my face.

You're hallucinating.

You're fallacious.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And yet here you waving your...fantasy questions in my face.

You're fallacious.

Yes, if he is that, then he is that. But as a skeptic, I am going to ask, how you know that and what your evidence is for that claim?
And if he is that, then how do you explain, that it is actually true and exists, that he is that.

 

[nPeace]

oh, you're a slave?

Persecutory delusion - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

How fitting a description.

 

[Audie]

Not really a choice. I am in able to believe claims that are so lacking in credibility.

When y'all act like jerks then claim persecution for being treated like jerks. There was a time when Christians were the persecuted. Now Christians have largely taken up the mantle of persecutor.

As soon as they got the power, which
was hundreds of years ago.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Why would there be a limit? Can there be too much evidence? No. And rationality is just following a set of rules. It's like asking if there is a limit to driving 90 kilometers per hour.

We understand the word limit differently.
a point or level beyond which something does not or may not extend or pass

If knowledge is a human behaviour, then that has a limit where it doesn't extend for what you can say you know.
Just as human moblitiy has a limit. Or any other human behavior.

 

[ZoroKing]

Ok, so now, have you read Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Earths in the Starry Heavens and their Inhabitants”?

No I haven't read the book, maybe I should buy it