How do the non-spiritual explain it?

[sealybobo]

You should void using Answers in Genesis for your science data.

It would take an infinite amount of energy to actually propel an object to the speed of light so it's best to think in terms of an object approaching the speed of light. Nothing in the above defies reality.

As far as science can make a determination, that is the reality so how can that possibly defy reality?

The physical laws that are operating in the universe are not "ever-changing". Our understanding of those laws is what changes as knowledge and technology expands our understanding.

What supernatural laws can you define for us that will explain the natural world?

I agree with the advice about avoiding Answers in Genesis. (I don't know about voiding it. ) Those explanations are so sort-of right as to be misleading.

While I think our search for an understanding is noble there seems to be nothing that man understands that they don't want to control. We tried to build the tower of Babel once before. Although he did not blow us all to bits he did scatter us far and wide. We will only listen to that which we learn 'scientifically' when there is so much more we could learn from listening to God. Job 38 21:23 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of they days is great? Has thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   
   
   

 

[emilynghiem]

I agree with the advice about avoiding Answers in Genesis. (I don't know about voiding it. ) Those explanations are so sort-of right as to be misleading.

While I think our search for an understanding is noble there seems to be nothing that man understands that they don't want to control. We tried to build the tower of Babel once before. Although he did not blow us all to bits he did scatter us far and wide. We will only listen to that which we learn 'scientifically' when there is so much more we could learn from listening to God. Job 38 21:23 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of they days is great? Has thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

sealybobo
If you define God to be Nature then that does exist and is not made up by man.
If you cannot forgive Christians theists or religions, then you stay obsessed with this
strawman argument that God has to be defined by those limited terms. If you forgive
and let go, then you can be at peace that God can mean Life, Universe, nature, collective truth,
universal laws governing all things. So what.

 

[sealybobo]

You are smarter than a whale or dolphin but they are smarter than tigers but tigers are smarter than pigs and pigs are smarter than chickens. How do you explain that one chicken can just look at another chicken and without being able to talk that chicken can alert the others that a fox is near. Must be supernatural. Must be a god.

We are just lucky to be the smartest animal on the planet and lucky the dinosaurs went extinct. Life is life. If you want to teach right and wrong go into criminal justice or law, not religion.

Ok sealybobo

1. no, it doesn't have to be supernatural/God to believe that animals and humans have a different purpose and design.
I do have a friend who believes that animals COULD evolve to be at the same level as humans.
the way my Buddhist mother explained it is humans have EGO which makes us different from animals.
And another atheist said it was the development of the human EGO that causes all man's problems,
so this is the equivalent of Christians talking of when the "original sin "got introduced or "awareness of SELF"

Do you agree that people have a skewed sense of self that is not like other animals?
that we battle with this sense of self vs. others and all religions and laws
come from trying to regulate SELF interest vs. public interest that the govt is supposed to protect

2. So for criminal justice and law, isn't this just a secular way of trying to regulate human behavior?
the secular civil laws are through the state
the spiritual scripture laws are through the church

why are you less afraid of state authority that is mandatory to enforce and follow
but more afraid of church and religious authority that is voluntary under free exercise of religion

Aren't both political abuses of state authority just as bad
as religious abuses of church authority?

Why are you afraid of one and not the other equally?

Going to church is like taking a dog to obedience training.

And have you ever tried arguing with a lawyer about how
imposing restrictive "civil codes and deadlines" on the right to petition violates Constitutional due process?

Law schools are little more than sending dog to obedience school to do what they're trained to do.

There are as many websites/organizations on legal abuses and judicial abuses
as there are on religious abuses and cult abuses.

Which authority is mandatory, where you can go to fail and lose freedom
if you disobey laws and rulings? Which authority -- church or state -- has
the power to sentence and put someone to death even if they may be innocent
or mentally ill?

And why aren't you more afraid of abuse of mandatory authority
than the abuse of religious authority that is voluntary to follow?

Peek here for correct answer:
[You have more faith in the secular system to follow laws of justice, despite abuses
you trust can be corrected, than you have faith in Christianity because you have forgiven one
for its abuses but haven't forgiven the other so your judgment is biased towards one and against the other.
Both systems have equal flaws and abuses to answer for, but you trust one more than the other.]

I don't trust state as much as you trust church. In fact who's to say the next US President doesn't take us to war with the middle east and declare America a Christian nation and anyone who isn't a Christian must go?

Church and state were once one and the same. That was the worst time in human history.

 

[PostmodernProph]

Here let's see if I can break it down:

Astral projection experiences - hallucination of the mind
Near-death experiences - hallucination of the mind
Transcendental meditation - just smoke weed. It's easier.
ESP and telepathy - as you put it... "hooey"
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences - also "hooey"
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon - more hooey
Spells, curses and black magic - a buttload of hooey
Edgar Cayce - see "Miss Cleo"
Nostradamus - hooey
Prophecy in general - hooey

hooey....I get all tingly when people talk sciency....

 

[RandomVariable]

I agree with the advice about avoiding Answers in Genesis. (I don't know about voiding it. ) Those explanations are so sort-of right as to be misleading.

While I think our search for an understanding is noble there seems to be nothing that man understands that they don't want to control. We tried to build the tower of Babel once before. Although he did not blow us all to bits he did scatter us far and wide. We will only listen to that which we learn 'scientifically' when there is so much more we could learn from listening to God. Job 38 21:23 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of they days is great? Has thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

 

[emilynghiem]

You are smarter than a whale or dolphin but they are smarter than tigers but tigers are smarter than pigs and pigs are smarter than chickens. How do you explain that one chicken can just look at another chicken and without being able to talk that chicken can alert the others that a fox is near. Must be supernatural. Must be a god.

We are just lucky to be the smartest animal on the planet and lucky the dinosaurs went extinct. Life is life. If you want to teach right and wrong go into criminal justice or law, not religion.

Ok sealybobo

1. no, it doesn't have to be supernatural/God to believe that animals and humans have a different purpose and design.
I do have a friend who believes that animals COULD evolve to be at the same level as humans.
the way my Buddhist mother explained it is humans have EGO which makes us different from animals.
And another atheist said it was the development of the human EGO that causes all man's problems,
so this is the equivalent of Christians talking of when the "original sin "got introduced or "awareness of SELF"

Do you agree that people have a skewed sense of self that is not like other animals?
that we battle with this sense of self vs. others and all religions and laws
come from trying to regulate SELF interest vs. public interest that the govt is supposed to protect

2. So for criminal justice and law, isn't this just a secular way of trying to regulate human behavior?
the secular civil laws are through the state
the spiritual scripture laws are through the church

why are you less afraid of state authority that is mandatory to enforce and follow
but more afraid of church and religious authority that is voluntary under free exercise of religion

Aren't both political abuses of state authority just as bad
as religious abuses of church authority?

Why are you afraid of one and not the other equally?

Going to church is like taking a dog to obedience training.

And have you ever tried arguing with a lawyer about how
imposing restrictive "civil codes and deadlines" on the right to petition violates Constitutional due process?

Law schools are little more than sending dog to obedience school to do what they're trained to do.

There are as many websites/organizations on legal abuses and judicial abuses
as there are on religious abuses and cult abuses.

Which authority is mandatory, where you can go to fail and lose freedom
if you disobey laws and rulings? Which authority -- church or state -- has
the power to sentence and put someone to death even if they may be innocent
or mentally ill?

And why aren't you more afraid of abuse of mandatory authority
than the abuse of religious authority that is voluntary to follow?

Peek here for correct answer:
[You have more faith in the secular system to follow laws of justice, despite abuses
you trust can be corrected, than you have faith in Christianity because you have forgiven one
for its abuses but haven't forgiven the other so your judgment is biased towards one and against the other.
Both systems have equal flaws and abuses to answer for, but you trust one more than the other.]

I don't trust state as much as you trust church. In fact who's to say the next US President doesn't take us to war with the middle east and declare America a Christian nation and anyone who isn't a Christian must go?

Church and state were once one and the same. That was the worst time in human history.

OK now we're getting somewhere
I trust that
* people who commit to church law receive and correct rebukes that way, where their heart is
* people who commit to natural laws or Constitutional laws, correct and receive rebukes that way where their conscience responds

If you speak and share with people using their own committed systems,
then they have motivation to correct it using that system.

So I trust and distrust these groups equally.
I seek whichever venue leads to resolution, and if it proves to work, then that's what I go by.
If it doesn't work I'll try the other avenues until problems are resolved.

P.S I am a little more biased AGAINST the legal system because
it is so unconstitutional, you have to dance around it to resolve conflicts
before using the system to correct itself. I am a little more favorable to the church
because I have had more success rebuking and correcting people that way
using their own laws and beliefs they are committed to in Christ, so this works
more often. The legal and political system is so overrun with imposing political
beliefs, consensus is more difficult. The abuses are more expensive to fix.
So I am harder on that system because I see the violations as worse.
the people trying to fix the Christian problems are generally more successful
because they can teach forgiveness by example and by spiritual healing.
Trying to teach this in the political world requires scientific proof not done yet.
so that path is harder to make the same corrections, it is so engrained politically!

 

[Iceweasel]

Maybe he's gone blind. From thinking about married coworkers too much late at night....

LOL Good one.

I don't trust state as much as you trust church. In fact who's to say the next US President doesn't take us to war with the middle east and declare America a Christian nation and anyone who isn't a Christian must go?

You don't know much about this country.

 

[emilynghiem]

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

sealybobo is biased but is open to reason and answering intelligently.

 

[sealybobo]

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

Joseph smith talked to god but this is not evidence for Jews Muslims and christians. They don't believe it.

The bible isn't real if you ask Jews. They don't believe Jesus was the son of god yet millions of christians believe it. And Muslims say god talked to Mohammed but this isn't proof for Jews christians or Mormons.

I attack your evidence the same way you doubt Joe and mos evidence.

 

[sealybobo]

When we found answers and cures it was science not god

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

I remember my childhood friends who were also religious very much believed in ghosts. One of them shit their pants when we handcuffed him in the basement closed the lights and left. He swears he saw a ghost down there.

I attack your evidence the same way. Do I believe he saw a ghost? Nope. Does he? Yes.

 

[sealybobo]

I went into the basement and told the ghost to suck my dick. I must not have believed enough

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

sealybobo is biased but is open to reason and answering intelligently.

Because you provide no proof or evidence. The only evidence we have are books full of lies.

Christians admit the Mormon and Muslim books are man made. So is theirs. So why do you believe when you know all religions are made up? Oh except yours of course. That ones real. I forgot.

 

[emilynghiem]

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

Joseph smith talked to god but this is not evidence for Jews Muslims and christians. They don't believe it.

The bible isn't real if you ask Jews. They don't believe Jesus was the son of god yet millions of christians believe it. And Muslims say god talked to Mohammed but this isn't proof for Jews christians or Mormons.

I attack your evidence the same way you doubt Joe and mos evidence.

sealybobo you are leaving out the forgiveness factor
1. the Jews who have received forgiveness can see that the Bible and Jesus as Christianity teaches is true
2. the secular gentiles who have received forgiveness do not reject Christians or Christianity
even if they don't believe the same things
3. the Christians who have forgiven Muslims and Muslims who have forgiven Christians
do see they worship the same God.

There is an explanation for the rejection besides just claiming "they don't exist"
and the difference is based on unforgiveness vs. forgiveness

 

[emilynghiem]

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

I remember my childhood friends who were also religious very much believed in ghosts. One of them shit their pants when we handcuffed him in the basement closed the lights and left. He swears he saw a ghost down there.

I attack your evidence the same way. Do I believe he saw a ghost? Nope. Does he? Yes.

RE: ghosts
I met someone at a Buddhist retreat who said that all her family witnessed the ghost of their father walk into the room after they were gathered for his funeral services.
The Buddhists teach that the soul is still on this plane after death but is outside the body.

You can question that until it is proven,
but "attacking" someone in a non-neutral fashion
biased AGAINST stories of ghosts being true, instead of open either way,
shows an emotional bias caused by not forgiving people in the past
and projecting this onto other people. How is that different from a religious bias
that judges and rejects people for having different beliefs?

If you reject people in a biased fashion against them, instead of being neutral,
they tend to respond to you in the same biased rejecting way. that is a natural
law. So if you don't like when religious people do this, why would you behave the same way?

 

[sealybobo]

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

Joseph smith talked to god but this is not evidence for Jews Muslims and christians. They don't believe it.

The bible isn't real if you ask Jews. They don't believe Jesus was the son of god yet millions of christians believe it. And Muslims say god talked to Mohammed but this isn't proof for Jews christians or Mormons.

I attack your evidence the same way you doubt Joe and mos evidence.

sealybobo you are leaving out the forgiveness factor
1. the Jews who have received forgiveness can see that the Bible and Jesus as Christianity teaches is true
2. the secular gentiles who have received forgiveness do not reject Christians or Christianity
even if they don't believe the same things
3. the Christians who have forgiven Muslims and Muslims who have forgiven Christians
do see they worship the same God.

There is an explanation for the rejection besides just claiming "they don't exist"
and the difference is based on unforgiveness vs. forgiveness

They worship the same god? Not what the bible says.

Do you even know the Mormon story? Do you believe it? Then its a man made up religion. A lie.

You can teach how forgiveness is good for your health and prevents wars. No god needed.

 

[chikenwing]

Here let's see if I can break it down:

Astral projection experiences - hallucination of the mind
Near-death experiences - hallucination of the mind
Transcendental meditation - just smoke weed. It's easier.
ESP and telepathy - as you put it... "hooey"
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences - also "hooey"
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon - more hooey
Spells, curses and black magic - a buttload of hooey
Edgar Cayce - see "Miss Cleo"
Nostradamus - hooey
Prophecy in general - hooey

Ya you nailed it LOL

 

[emilynghiem]

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

Joseph smith talked to god but this is not evidence for Jews Muslims and christians. They don't believe it.

The bible isn't real if you ask Jews. They don't believe Jesus was the son of god yet millions of christians believe it. And Muslims say god talked to Mohammed but this isn't proof for Jews christians or Mormons.

I attack your evidence the same way you doubt Joe and mos evidence.

sealybobo you are leaving out the forgiveness factor
1. the Jews who have received forgiveness can see that the Bible and Jesus as Christianity teaches is true
2. the secular gentiles who have received forgiveness do not reject Christians or Christianity
even if they don't believe the same things
3. the Christians who have forgiven Muslims and Muslims who have forgiven Christians
do see they worship the same God.

There is an explanation for the rejection besides just claiming "they don't exist"
and the difference is based on unforgiveness vs. forgiveness

They worship the same god? Not what the bible says.

Do you even know the Mormon story? Do you believe it? Then its a man made up religion. A lie.

You can teach how forgiveness is good for your health and prevents wars. No god needed.

sealybobo

If you are teaching there is more than one god that's you doing that here.

I am saying there is only one God or source of universal truths,
and all religions/laws are attempting to represent this in limited language.

Of course there are going to be flaws, biases and conflicts
because people aren't perfect.

As I pointed out before,
if there is any denial or bias going on, which you "unneutrally" call LYING,
it is because of fear and unforgiveness that skews people's judgments
including yours.

You do not mean to project out of denial, but you do.
If you are not intentionally lying, then neither are they.
If you call them "liars" that's why believers say you are "lying."

The reason I don't see this as intentional
is that I can forgive these biases and conflicts
so I can see they are not intentional.

Sorry that you do not forgive these so you see it as deliberately lying.

 

[emilynghiem]

Here let's see if I can break it down:

Astral projection experiences - hallucination of the mind
Near-death experiences - hallucination of the mind
Transcendental meditation - just smoke weed. It's easier.
ESP and telepathy - as you put it... "hooey"
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences - also "hooey"
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon - more hooey
Spells, curses and black magic - a buttload of hooey
Edgar Cayce - see "Miss Cleo"
Nostradamus - hooey
Prophecy in general - hooey

Ya you nailed it LOL

Dear @chikewing and TheOldSchool
adding Two Thumbs

the effects of both curses/occult as negative destructive energy
and the healing effects of forgiveness therapy and prayer for deliverance from these influences
CAN be demonstrated by medical science studies.
People HAVE been cured of mental and criminal illness from these types of sicknesses
using the spiritual healing methods in deliverance and exorcism.
Even Britain/UK health authorities were in process of looking into
these therapies as valid, and there are doctors who did adopt these methods
into their practices after it was demonstrated to them to work effectively in curing patients
who didn't respond to other treatments.

You are on the right track but haven't finished proving these scientifically yet.

After that, you are free to judge with fuller information.

Otherwise, don't be like the people who rejected heliocentric theories
because these weren't proven YET, or rejected the idea of microbes and bacteria
causing infections because they couldn't be seen until microscopes were invented YET.

 

[RandomVariable]

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

sealybobo is biased but is open to reason and answering intelligently.

You have ESP. I'm impressed, and only slightly postponed.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Astral projection experiences. that requires years, if not decades of practice
Near-death experiences. final memories or dreams, or.....
Transcendental meditation. that requires years, if not decades of practice
ESP and telepathy. doesn't exist
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences. people like freaking themselves out
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon.
Spells, curses and black magic.
Edgar Cayce.
Nostradamus.
Prophecy in general. give someone 2000 years to get it right and.....

 

[RandomVariable]

Your argument against religion seems to be that you do not like the way some people practice it.

Of course that's my problem with believing in god(s). I don't think we will ever solve the argument "does god exist". In fact I'm sure we won't. And when muslims and christians continue killing in the name of ____ and you ask if that's my problem? Of course it is.

Human behavior is also why I firmly believe that we made god up. And unless you believe in one of the nutty religions I guess it doesn't matter if I believe because god never came here and told anyone that believing he visited is the main requirement to get into heaven. That is clearly man made bullshit. Could I be wrong? I'll take my chances based on the evidence I feel pretty safe.

From the looks of it when you learn psychology, cosmology, quantum physics, human history, geology and the history of religion that god is nothing but a fairy tale we came up with.

I don't sit around worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems pointless or wishful thinking to believe you are going to live forever after you die. I spend more time wondering how we can get the human race to live forever. This planet is doomed. We need to build spaceships so that the human race's existence doesn't die when our sun expires. I know I'll be long dead by then but I care. It would be a shame to have come all this way for nothing like the dinosaurs & trilobites who once ruled this planet.

In fact when I look at Republicans who claim to be very religious and then I see how they don't want to educate or feed the poor or heal the sick, I realize they believe in 2 gods. Their main god is the god of capitalism. Second is Jesus.

I guess I was lucky to be raised atheist. Religion was not a joke, it was the abomination of the world. God, angel of God I am sure, revealed his presence when I was about 12. From day on I knew there was something outside of scientific explanation. He would show up every few years, at least where it left no doubt that something just happened. One method I used to try and figure out what was going on is by using D&D logic; OK, magic user, levitation, invisibility, teleportation maybe. Works out to between a level 7 and level 12 magic user depending on exactly what just happened. Mind reading would have been required on a couple occasions. What I knew of God and what I knew of religion sure did not mess though. Like I have mentioned things just changed last spring. It was no longer, "Well, that was interesting." It was, "Oh shit! That made sense." I'm not saying it always made perfect sense. I do not know what is going on. I sure do not know why religion does not seem to understand God. One theory I have is that sometimes in the Bible God will be nice to someone whose ancestor did right by the LORD. I really do not know but I am here to tell you: God is real.

Why there is no god

1. I feel a personal relationship with god OR I experienced god.
   Argument from personal experience.
   
   A result of our naturally evolved neurology, made hypersensitive to purpose (an ‘unseen actor’) because of the large social groups humans have and the way the brain associates pattern with intent.
   
   Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built on prior beliefs and past experiences, impart meaning to ambiguous input even when there is no real meaning behind it and infer causal relationships where none exist.
   
   Personal revelation cannot be independently verified. So-called ‘revelations’ never include information a recipient could not have known beforehand, such as the time and location of a rare event or answers to any number of unsolved problems in science. They are usually emotional or perceptual in content and therefore unremarkable among the many cognitive processes brains exhibit, including dreams and hallucinations. These experiences may even be artificially induced by narcotics or magnetic fields. Extreme cases may be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia or psychosis.
   
   Spiritual and religious experiences are not only inconsistent among individuals but are variably attributed to different gods, aliens, spirits, rituals, hallucinations, meditation etc. The fact that medical conditions and other natural processes can induce these experiences is evidence they are produced by our brain.
   
   See also: NPR Your brain on god?, Hardwired for religion?, Searching for God in the Brain, The Economist, BBC Doco, PBS Doco and Dawkins on the topic, Deconversion: Personal Relationship (a must watch), TED – How it feels to have a stroke (a must watch) and TED – Ramachandran on your mind.
   
   Papers: Religion and Hippocampal Atrophy.
   
   “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” – Anne Lamott
   
   
   

You are attacking my evidence. How can you say you are open minded?

I remember my childhood friends who were also religious very much believed in ghosts. One of them shit their pants when we handcuffed him in the basement closed the lights and left. He swears he saw a ghost down there.

I attack your evidence the same way. Do I believe he saw a ghost? Nope. Does he? Yes.

Do you believe you are better than God?