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#172 - Running with assumptions - Mar 19, 2006, 12:45 PM
#173 - Fear manipulation - Mar 25, 2006, 08:06 AM
#174 - Voodoo - Mar 25, 2006, 08:34 AM
#175 - Steven Hawking on God - Mar 25, 2006, 08:47 AM
#176 - Same old stuff - Mar 25, 2006, 08:55 AM
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#171 - How to define a moral code - March 19, 2006, 12:04 PM |
Mr. Wheatstart wrote back:
> I basically agree with the position of interpretation. I would like to point out that the Christian moral code is objective as it is based on the authority of the bible. We can discuss at length the authority of the bible vs. BetterHuman.org's view on morality if you like that would be very interesting I suspect.
I suspect that would be a short conversation. Fundamentally, we are reaching for two different goals, yours being to adhere to your religious definition of morality, and BetterHuman.org's being to apply logic and empathy to define our morality. I don't believe there's much to discuss as neither of us have any intention of budging from our positions, and neither of us are naïve enough to believe we can convince the other of the merits of our own. However, if you wish to contrast your tenets against ours, I'd be happy to engage this with you.
You previously stated:
> This is not 'hate' as I understand it - it is 'justice'. The sin is hated not the sinner.
To which I replied:
"My friend, I don't accept your approach at 'mincing words' here. Nobody loves a thief, even if they stop stealing, because it is perceived that these negative actions manifest from a deeper, intrinsic and always-present essence of a thief."
And your response:
> I am not mincing words at all. Either we don't understand one another's line of thought or you are twisting my words.
I'm not interested in how you can 'legally' vindicate your position by splitting hairs on specific terminology; I'm trying to expose your innate feelings towards homosexuals. I will attempt to justify this position further down.
> I believe somebody loves a thief even if it just Jesus Christ.
I also wasn't referring to all-forgiving definition of your mythological creature, I was referring specifically to 'you' and your fellow followers, for these are the people that homosexuals have to bear the judgment of in reality.
> I have a couple of cousins that are homosexual and I love them.
I'm also not referring to your homosexual relatives that you've become familiar with and built an established trust over a lifetime.
Let's put this into direct focus, how would you feel about a new neighbor that is openly homosexual? Would you let them babysit your kids after gaining the same familiarity with them as you would require before you'd similarly allow a new heterosexual neighbor to babysit your kids?
> Don't you have someone who is close to you but they are religious? Do you not condone their religious lifestyle but still love them?
Yes of course I still love them, but I don't condemn them (or write tenets that teach to kill them) because of their religious pursuits. I don't consider religious people evil or immoral; and I couldn't imagine comparing religious people (who are good people at heart but have misinformation in their heads) to a thief (who is utterly selfish and acts as if without conscience).
> Christianity would have us love a thief even though we may also believe that the thief be subjected to justice. He may be a thief but he can change.
Your continuing analogy of a thief being representative of the mentality of a homosexual rests solely upon your still unqualified presumption that homosexuality is a 'choice'. Therefore, this analogy is only as relevant as the accuracy of your assumptions.
> (I do not) condone the homosexual lifestyle but I have welcomed homosexuals into my home on a few occasions that are not family relations. Not to care for my children but for social events.
Again, it's not a redemption to use these 'safe' encounters with homosexuals as an example of countering any perception of your abhorrence to perhaps a much less familiar homosexual neighbor (as in the example above). You may still profess otherwise, but as you've repeatedly pointed out, verbal testimony has no credibility whatsoever, so perhaps the real test would be to 'actually' procure the services of a homosexual babysitter in order to fully demonstrate your ability to tolerate that paradigm.
> These specific people I would indeed trust to care for my children. I did not require that they denounce their homosexual behavior
Forgive me my friend, but based upon your writings, I don't believe you. From your perspective, this is exactly the same as telling me that you'd let a 'thief' care for your children, which I'm fairly certain you'd never allow. Feel free to prove me wrong.
> They are not permanently condemned in my mind there is always hope.
What you may never come to realize is that your statement above sadly does permanently condemn them.
> Saved by design - condemned by choice. There is also the foundation of all the scientific studies done. None of which prove genetic causation for homosexuality, therefore the logical position is that there is no genetic causation for homosexuality it is a lifestyle choice.
How does not having evidence for one position possibly justify holding the opposite position for which there is just as much absence of evidence? Where is this evidence that supports your 'choice' position? I myself have tried to find this 'evidence' you speak of but all I have found is an unbelievable number of websites in support of your position that also regurgitate your same religiously-motivated 'opposite' pseudo-logic over and over: "there's no proof of a genetic cause so they 'must' be choosing to be homosexual". The one massive failing in this 'logic' is that it doesn't leave room for the possibility that we don't currently have the biological technology to determine sexual orientation. By precluding that option, you have hastily closed the door on what could very well be the real answer.
To demonstrate the fallacy of this 'opposite' logic, imagine I flipped a coin and let it settle on the ground. I tell you that the result is 'not' tails. You immediately respond with, the answer is 'heads', and walk away without ever looking. Unfortunately, what you didn't see is that the coin landed on its edge and neither side is facing up. You may argue that the odds of that are extremely unlikely, but that's because you are making the 'assumption' that the coin is very thin. The coin in this scenario, however, isn't thin, it's actually quite thick (like a stack of coins would be), making this 'on its side' option quite relevant. The moral of the story is: there may be more possible solutions to a problem than immediately meets the eye.
Ultimately, my friend, I'm not asking you to prove you're right, because I know that's impossible. What I'm really trying to ask of you is to give yourself room for error, because the consequences of your being wrong are absolutely catastrophic; with millions upon millions of victims whose lives are ruined by this thoughtless casting of a draconian judgment of immorality. Your beliefs toward homosexuality are 'exactly' as senseless and prejudice as claiming that "all negroes are evil because they are black". The most unfortunate part about this disgusting analogy is that there is absolutely no exaggeration to its extremity.
> Here is my scientific and logical evidence which you claim I have none
I'm confused; you state the above, and yet I haven't read anything you've written that could be construed as more than regurgitated hearsay. Is this your 'evidence'?
> where is your scientific evidence?
This is a moot exercise since you can (and possibly will) rebut all my findings with an avalanche of pseudo-logic counter-studies, but these are very interesting articles:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus3.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus2.htm
I found especially compelling the statistic that if one identical twin is homosexual, then the other twin is more than 50% likely to also be homosexual. A very powerful indicator of genetic pretense.
Despite these resources, even I still don't give much merit to many scientific studies that claim to have identified the biological parameters that directly cause homosexuality. I personally haven't come across a compelling scientific process that can definitively describe the biological constituents that lead to homosexuality; but, there is no evidence 'either' to support a 'choice' perspective. This argument will (at least for quite some time) remain unprovable and hence either position held will be based upon circumstantial evidence, intuition, and possibly quite marred by agenda-driven interpretation.
Personally, my intuition leads me to believe that it must be genetic since I myself am absolutely incapable of 'choosing' which sex to find attractive. I was born heterosexual, and it is impossible for me to be sexually attracted to the male gender; I couldn't even fake it if I tried. I can only assume (reinforced by ubiquitous testimony of homosexuals themselves) that they did not 'choose' to find their own gender attractive, and that they have a deep instinctual impetus to that attraction.
> First, "inborn" and "normal" are not necessarily the same. Even if homosexuality is someday proven to be inborn, inborn does not necessarily mean normal. Any number of defects or handicaps, for example, may be inborn, but we'd hardly call them normal for that reason alone. Why should we be compelled to call homosexuality normal, just because it may be inborn?
Ok, continuing with your definition of 'normal' versus 'handicapped', and assuming then that someday we determine homosexuality to categorically be a handicap, should homosexuality still be considered immoral? I don't believe you consider other forms of handicap immoral, so why separate out homosexuality?
> Second, inborn tendencies towards certain behaviors do not make those behaviors moral.
Again, it comes down to the moral code being applied in each situation. Homosexuality is not immoral in a purely logical and empathic moral code; it is only your Bible that pollutes the interpretation of their harmless desires and actions into something immoral. Now, the only reason your Bible defines it as immoral in the first place is due to its assumption that homosexuals are 'choosing' their orientation. Should this orientation be proven to be a biological handicap, then by definition, they are no longer making a 'choice', and can no longer be considered 'immoral' in a biblical context since they are now clearly manifestations of your god and you must accept them for who they are.
> Interesting theory, I believe science has come to understand that our mental condition is part of a complex interplay between our biology and our environment. Not entirely biologically driven as some would theorize or entirely learned.
I do believe that the environment shapes the nature of how you mitigate and intelligently express your instinctual influences; however, the environment has absolutely no influence upon the nature of the base instincts. You are helplessly subject to their interpretations of reality, but once these reactions have entered your consciousness, you 'can' control how these reactions manifest from you. To give an example, if you see a chocolate cake on someone else's plate, your most primal instinctual reaction might be to grab some and eat it; but before your body fulfills this desire, your consciousness evaluates the ramifications of such an action and decides that the likely whooping you'll receive isn't worth the short-lived satiation of a palate fix, and hence the instinct's motivations are usurped by intelligence (but the instinct isn't happy about it as evidenced by the painful yearning feeling it induces for not giving it cake)
> So while each has a part to play in human behavior and someone may be more prone to behave specific ways in specific situations it is no way predetermined it is all a choice.
To make things really clear, the 'choice' you refer to is entirely in how you 'handle' the autonomic instinctual reaction to a given scenario. This instinctual 'reactions' that are injected into your consciousness for a given situation are 'out' of your control, but what you 'choose' to do with the instinct's reactions is 'in' your control.
> So, I believe it is clear that yes people are responsible and culpable for their actions and it is a choice whether someone hates a homosexual or is a homosexual.
No, you don't quite understand. It is not a choice to 'be' a homosexual, as this desire is manifested from the uncontrollable instincts; it is only a choice for them to 'act' upon these desires with homosexual behaviors. Likewise, it is impossible to prevent the typically negative reaction from the 'repulsion fringe' instinct toward homosexuality, but it 'is' a choice about how to handle that instinctual reaction.
In reference to:
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" [Leviticus 20:13]
I wrote:
"If you do not perceive this as the fulfillment of hate, my friend, then we'll have to agree to disagree."
To which you replied:
> I think we will have to disagree since you are representing this verse out of context. I have tried to explain the context of this Jewish Old Testament law and how it is viewed in light of the New Testament and Christianity.
I cannot imagine a context that could possibly vindicate this verse; especially in the light that it probably single-handedly represents the weapon of choice by so many anti-homosexual religious zealots. Even if the original intent was more metaphorical than literal, that would be small comfort to the countless homosexuals all throughout history that have suffered or been killed under its direction.
> The statement 'there's no such a thing as a fact' is illogical, it contradicts itself. You are stating a fact when you say there's no such thing as a fact.
Brilliant observation of that oxymoron. I suppose a lawyer would have written it, "The only fact is that there are no other facts besides this one", but that tends to be a bit confusing without really adding any more quality to the statement. In the interest of literary liberty, I will retain the more simplistic statement as it carries the essence of the underlying message quite well.
My friend, you may do well to point that scrutinizing talent more toward surfacing the phenomenal depths of hypocrisy contained in your Bible. Remember, I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I'm trying to get you to accept room for error in your beliefs.
> Without facts or an understanding of how human knowledge is obtained there can be no intellectual defense of any truth claim.
Well, I've said it many times, I do not claim fact (or absolute truth), but I do claim high-plausibility (always subject to error). It's downright ignorant to ever expect to be 100% certain about anything, so it's best to operate with a subjective 99% likelihood of a 'fact' being true. Part of being an atheist is necessarily letting go of the need for 'absolutes'. Religions teach absolutes, which is very congruent with the needs of the human ego, and so if one is indoctrinated into the notions of absolutes, it becomes quite difficult to step back and instead think in 'almost' certainties for everything. It only hurts the ego though, not the credibility of the work, since ultimately the assumed accuracy of the information has only been adjusted to more 'realistic' levels, allowing for error, but also still allowing for progress.
In regard to my statement:
"Considering your Bible is entirely a book of hearsay, does that then make your Bible poor evidence for a god?"
You replied:
> Not if you accept that the hearsay is from God -
The notion of which, quite literally, has just as much credibility as the Tooth Fairy.
> I must disagree that the bible is entirely a book of hearsay. The bible is based on many eyewitness accounts and testimonies of eyewitnesses
My friend, the above is the dictionary 'definition' of hearsay.
> (The Bible) is a proven historically accurate document, has a unity which is unparalleled and supernatural, and has manuscript evidence unlike any other book of antiquity.
Even if much of the information is founded in actual historical events, none of it proves an ethereal entity. You're using the 'credibility smearing' tactic in the attempt to share the credibility of historical events with the non-credible ethereal fables.
> I do believe that evidence to establish the existence of God is crucial and should be undertaken prior to establishing biblical authority.
I have never once seen 'evidence' for the existence of your god. All I've ever been shown is hearsay, creative interpretation, and a muddled pool of grossly exaggerated historical events that even 'if' mostly true, still do not add credibility to the notion of an ethereal creature. 'Real' evidence, in the 'scientific method' context, would mean defining how to directly sense its presence in a compelling (not subjective) means. If this evidence existed, then there wouldn't be any need for 'faith'. Ultimately 'faith' is all you can offer as 'proof', but faith alone is 'not' proof, no matter how badly you want it to be.
> I would love to able to discuss evidence for God and the biblical authority in a different correspondence if you are interested.
I would very much like to focus on your ability to produce 'true' evidence of your ethereal entity's existence, in a fashion that pursues the scientific method; not by hearsay, subjective interpretation, or 'opposite' pseudo-logic.
> Your choice to accept or reject information is solely premised upon fulfilling your materialistic worldview, and not based on the consistent application of logic or evidence.
I'm a little confused about where you drew the conclusion that we entertain a 'materialistic' worldview. Can you please explain? Also, if you could, can you please point out where our logic is inconsistent? Can you also find an example of where we have stated something as absolute 'fact' without the proper evidence to support it?
Before you throw the rather simplistic example of how I accept homosexual testimony and reject Christian testimony back at me as an example of inconsistency, I will validate this position by stating that Christian testimony is founded upon hearsay, whereas homosexual testimony is based upon intimate and self-measurable empirical evidence. Though the 'strength in numbers' notion may superficially appear to be hypocritically applied in my logic, a deeper understanding will reveal that my underlying acceptance or rejection was entirely based upon the caliber of the information purported, not the number of people that believed in it. It is irrelevant how many people believe in something if that something is solely founded in well-circulated hearsay.
> The hypocrisies abound: you reject all Christians' testimony, yet you believe all of the homosexuals';
Touché, except that I do not consider anybody's testimony to be 'fact', just supporting evidence, which is just as subject to error as every single other thing that I subscribe to. I believe this is one the primary differences between our positions, I allow for error.
> and you reject individual choice and culpability to homosexuality despite the evidence,
I still haven't seen one iota of your repeated references to evidence that homosexuality is a 'choice'; and I don't consider hearsay as evidence, or the misguided usage of 'opposite' pseudo-logic that claims one thing must be true because the opposite can't be proven.
> and yet unwaveringly accept the existence of your materialistic worldview upon 'faith' alone.
This statement is inaccurate on a few levels, my friend. I do not 'unwaveringly' accept my views (read the foreword again please) because my information is 'always' subject to being disproved. Also, I still can't understand your justification for using the term 'materialistic'; BetterHuman.org does not in any way endorse placating the greed and ego instincts with wealth or goods. And finally, I have no 'faith' in anything that doesn't have some degree of evidence to support it. I believe you are confusing my conditional acceptance of 'plausible theories' for 'blind faith'. I am willing to indicate a percentage of possible error on every single thing I 'believe'; are you willing to do the same? If not, then you alone are exercising 'faith'. (As a sidenote, I find it quite amazing that not a single religious person will ever categorize their god as a theory).
> This is a very 'convenient' manner in which to accept or reject information. It seems evidence only becomes important to you when you need to 'disprove' another's position, and never is it needed to support your own.
I believe I've done my part for evidence. This isn't necessarily a call for you to do the same since I believe you can surface much 'evidence' to support your position, but feel free to do so. Allow me to prophesize that in the end, you'll discredit all my evidence as subjective, and I'll discredit yours as agenda-driven hearsay.
In response to my prior statement:
"On a more personal note, did 'you' proactively choose to find the opposite sex attractive? Do you think you could choose 'not' to find the opposite sex attractive?"
You replied:
> I don't know. That is an excellent question. Let me take some time to think about that.
Please do, my friend. I eagerly await your response.
> It's quite a coincidence that your website's name BetterHuman.org, is but three letters away from what Christianity would consider being the embodiment of: BadderHuman.org.
Well that is most excellent, and quite true from your moral foundation.
> Sorry, couldn't come up with something that was one letter away.
I'm surprised you didn't throw 'BitterHuman' out there; I think that would have been a knockout.
As always, much respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 2.21, 3.32, 3.35, 3.41, 5.70, 10.136, 12.159, 12.165, 13.171, 13.175}
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#172 - Running with assumptions - March 19, 2006, 12:45 PM |
Mr. Loophost wrote back:
> I would say that you are " perfectly content as a non-Christian now and that you now don't believe in an afterlife and would never consider belonging to a religion again because it is restrictive."
I'll agree with almost everything except for the reason you state that I would never belong to a religion again. The reason really is that I cannot 'force' myself to believe in mythology, no more than 'you' can force yourself to believe in the Tooth Fairy. It would be impossible for you to become a member of a Tooth Fairy religion, and likewise it is impossible for me to become a member of your religion. It has nothing to do with the religion being too restrictive.
> You are now content with your new belief system, as you are -- fair enough. If contentment is what you are after, the Christian faith may not have much to say to you for a while.
I find it interesting that you chose to end that with 'for a while', as if there is some impending event that will eventually force me to find value in your beliefs. Care to elaborate on what that event could be? Impending death perhaps?
> We are told lots of things bring us contentment but are not true. Would you be willing to consider something if it disturbed your contentment, but though it may actually be true?
If you are referring to experiencing your religion, I have already had that experience as a fully indoctrinated ethereal junkie in my youth. I doubt there is anything you can expose me to that I haven't already experienced. But if this is a more generalized question, yes, I would be willing to consider just about anything. It's the scientific method.
> How do you know that there is no conscious existence after death?
Consciousness is supported by the active chemical and electrical activity of the brain. This activity ceases upon death (actually defines death) and the consciousness is no more. To state that consciousness persists beyond death fails in this basic understanding of what consciousness is. The mere desire to 'want' it to continue beyond death does absolutely nothing to make it possible.
> The main reason that people claim to not believe in an afterlife is that they think that the idea is a naïve and or wishful thinking
Correct
> But disbelief in an afterlife could have the same intellectual status. It could be the hopeful wish that there might be no accountability to anyone after we die,
Very interesting. This really exposes a great deal of your perspective in how you constantly focus on judgment. Atheists, however, do not have the concept of ethereal judgment, and so it never even enters our mind that we are 'avoiding' judgment with eternal death. We don't even perceive ethereal judgment when we are alive so how can it possibly motivate our perception of eternal death?
> And that as die we just simply vanish off the face of the earth.
Now of course, no atheist in the world desires to simply vanish off the face of the Earth. We are as equally afraid of death as the next person; it's simply human nature to fear death. We did not 'choose' to believe in permanent death, it's just the way nature is and we have to accept that.
> Have we become so self-assured from our science and technology? That we have grown out of our need of a God? Similar to a child growing up to be an adult. Is it a sign of our immaturity and our rush as a to grow up.
You've identified a very important challenge that we as humanity are about to embark upon, that of the 'weaning' process. Eons of religious dependency are going to make this transition quite painful for us, but there simply isn't a gentle solution to it. You either believe in mythology, or you don't; there is no gray-scale. This puts humanity at a radical juncture in evolution, and the fallout will be tremendous as huge swathes of power are wrangled back and forth between the camps of 'faith' and 'logic'. I anticipate it will be quite bloody as unreserved passions spill over and the notions of Armageddon fulfill itself. Sounds pessimistic, I know, but the religious meme-virus will not be extricated painlessly from humanity, and it will be quite messy, but, there is no other way. We eventually have to take this giant step out of the dark ages, and the sooner the better.
> These biblical principles that early society lived by have now been slowly eroded away by a new secular materialist thinking. These new views of course oppose Gods teachings and laws at every angle.
And rightly so; for example, do you believe we should be freely killing homosexuals like the Bible professes we should?
> It can be best seen in America with the separation of God and state. Their main aim is to refute that man should not live under a higher being. And that we should rather live for our selves singularly.
Not quite, my friend, though I can understand from your perspective how it may seem this way. The separation of church and state is fundamentally to prevent the oppression of other beliefs, including atheism. Anything that the general tax-payer's money pays for, should be free from religious orientation. I don't believe you would find it fair that your tax dollars go into building a Muslim mosque, so why should you expect Muslim (or anybody's) tax dollars to go into facilitating Christian objectives?
> Of course this idea still doesn't please everyone, as peoples perceived rights are challenged in some form of other.
People have a tendency to reach for the fullest extent of personal freedom, which usually is (perhaps unwittingly) at the expense of someone else's freedom. This is why some people feel oppressed, because they can't become conqueror's, or evil villains, or otherwise reckless, without some form of authority quashing that selfishness. But, for those that feel oppressed by the system because they can't be utterly selfish at other's expense, well, it's hard to feel sorry for them.
> I found this on an atheist web site to help me understand it. It states that Atheism is based upon a materialist philosophy, which holds that nothing exists but natural phenomena. There are no supernatural forces or entities, nor can there be any.
{note to reader: It is a common misperception that 'materialism' in the atheism context implies some form of wealth/commodity acquisition, but the historical definition simply implies that reality only contains things made of real 'material'. At this time of my writing, I was unaware of the historical definition, but both I and the submitter incorrectly assumed that materialist implied the 'wealth/luxury' definition. Thankfully, I am enlightened by another reader soon afterwards.}
My friend, this is a very agenda-driven definition of atheism. An atheist simply does not believe in ethereal beings; that's it. The above addition of 'materialistic' (in the wealth sense) is in no way related whatsoever to the position of being atheist. Being 'materialistic' is a personal affiliation that anybody can choose to hold, even religious people. Please refer to a dictionary when trying to define terminology, in order to prevent this type of bias-pollution as much as possible {ouch..stuck my neck out too far on that one} .
> The last part of the atheist statement claim "nor can there be any" is most interesting. This suggests to me that they are trying to re enforce their personal view on others that there can't possible be a God because if there were, it would unhinge their core values.
Not that I wish to further entertain this misguided definition of 'atheist', I find it amazing that religious people continue to perceive atheist motivations as somehow always meant to spite religion. Not believing in a god has absolutely nothing to do with trying to 'impose' this perception onto others. The fact that 'I' personally am pursuing this objective, is my decision alone and has nothing to do with the concept of atheism itself. There are millions of atheists out there that couldn't care less about 'spreading' their philosophies. But fundamentally you are correct, yes, if there was a god, then our value system would fall apart in exactly the same way that your value system would fall apart if there wasn't a god. I don't see how this obvious point deserves mention.
> The site also states: But Materialism liberates us,
I'll disagree entirely with this statement
> teaches us not to hope for happiness beyond the grave but to prize life on earth and strive always to improve it. Materialism restores to man his dignity and his intellectual integrity.
Wow, now that's just completely out there. Materialism (in the greed/luxury sense) is the tool of human enslavement, re-invented idolatry actually; and it is something that I'm currently working on creating a solution to.
> I know some people who are so rich and have every material thing. But for some reason lack that inner peace,
They lack that inner peace because, like religion, they focus on only the ego and greed instincts, leaving the other instincts (love, challenge, altruism, lust, adventure, curiosity, etc., etc.) to starve.
> which some say only God can fill.
Well, my friend, you can lie to yourself with mythology, or even use heroin for more immediate results, but ultimately, you are only anaesthetizing the real problem.
> I can see instead of having a materialistic outlook you have invented your Sean sin as a substitute goal, to strive for in you're reach for a better life.
Again, my friend, you are running for quite some way with the 'materialistic' misassumption. I am not replacing any materialism with Sean Sinjin, I am solely giving myself a direction and purpose to pursue.
> Anyone who diligently studies the Bible will continually find remarkable structural and mathematical patterns woven throughout its fabric, with an intricacy and symmetry incapable of explanation by chance or collusion.
I have never heard of this 'symmetry' you speak of, though I fail to see how human-originated symmetry could be something amazing, or even remotely evidentially supportive of the existence of an ethereal entity
> I am unsure how to gauge your relationship with God.
When I was an ethereal addict, I was about a committed as one can possibly be, in fact, I perpetually felt the warm gaze of my god upon me. It was a wonderful delusional high.
> I can only guess to how real your experience with God was and how long it lasted.
From the earliest that I can remember, our family was participating in the church, mostly driven by my father's conviction. Around the age of 12, I began to see the cracks in religion and started asking some very important questions that the priests perpetually avoided straight answers to. By 14, I would have to say that I finally (and quite fearfully) declared myself an atheist. That fear would stick with me for a decade before I finally had the strength of mind to look straight up into the sky and say without reservation, "you...do not...exist". I was of course speaking to the last remnants of the religious meme-virus in my head, but it seemed appropriate to face upwards when doing so. To this day, it amazes me how potent the programming was.
> I to can only guess what events occurred to you that would cause you to want to escape from God or church.
It's very simple, I discovered that your god is a lie. There was no 'escaping' in the sense that you describe, just an awakening. It would be the same thing as if you were standing in a long line in order to receive your free bag of goodies, only to figure out that the bag that everyone receives is actually empty, so, you just go home. There's nothing to 'escape'. If you are alluding toward perhaps a traumatic experience that prompted my departure from religion (raped by a priest?), I assure you, nothing of the sort occurred to me.
> You go on to describe a relationship with God as a narcotic high. As if Christians need a weekly fix to get them through life as an escape from reality.
Precisely.
> I would say that atheists must be strong to face life head on while at the same time clutching on to their reality of life through the eyes of evolution
Yes, absolutely it takes strength, in a way that you can't begin to understand. But what I 'need' you to know is that every single human has the strength to handle reality. The only thing that makes reality frightening is how it compares with the simplistic and safe perspective of religion, and how religion has wickedly exaggerated the consequences of leaving this safety shell. Please believe me, reality is a much better and more fulfilling perspective to behold than the perpetual high-chasing of a religious one.
> I would ask, does living a life as an atheist while holding on to evolution (in all it offers) leaves you fully content with your life (gives you purpose and meaning).
Not by themselves, for you are only identifying a portion of the BetterHuman.org perspective. Having theoretical answers (science) and a non-ethereal position (atheism) still doesn't provide purpose or define morality. This is why I created BetterHuman.org, to fill in the gaps that cold hard science misses. I assure you, the contents of Meme are quite complete in helping someone to determine a fulfilling and noble purpose in 'reality', much more satisfying than a religious perspective ever could. The thing about our reality versus your mythology, is that we do not have to continuously bury our 'doubt' under a veil of faith. You cannot imagine how taxing that exercise is until you finally release it. I 'literally' staggered the first time I briefly let go of my faith. Very disorienting, but that one peek inside taught me more about myself in an instant, than has ever been paralleled since.
My quality of life today is so beyond the fullest capacity that ethereal addiction can offer that it makes no sense to compare them, for you do not have the mental tools to evaluate my motivations. You are still locked into the limited scope of divine purpose and cannot yet value anything outside of that. My poor brother, how you unwittingly starve for fulfillment. Life is like a meal. A healthy meal is balanced with an assortment of nutritious foods and drinks. Your 'faith' meal is simply chocolate milk. Your mind may crave meats and vegetables, but having never tried these foods before, you instead confuse these needs as a need for yet more chocolate milk. You do not understand how unhealthy your mental diet is when you only feed it one thing, over and over and over.
> Does atheism and evolution fully answer all that you could ever want to know?
Of course not. The universe is a big puzzle, and as unfortunate as it is for our egos that we don't know everything, that's life, and we must accept it. Does religion answer all that you could ever want to know? Or do you just not ask those types of questions?
> Or are you willing to let some things slip by unanswered due to these restrictions of belief?
Not sure what you mean here, but it makes no sense to put answers into slots without proof. If the proof doesn't exist, well the best we can do is theorize. Theories are 'not' the same as facts or answers. Theories are best guesses. There is 'never' a reason 'not' to theorize, as long as they are recognized as only theories.
In regard to my statement:
"I suffered through much purposelessness for most of my life until I finally decided to attack this 'lost-soul' problem head-on. "
You replied:
> This is truly an amazing confession that you mention. You describe the "purposelessness and lost soul" as important because it comes from the Christian perspective and way of life. I guess you suffered this after you left God, An atheist can't suffer from a lost soul problem because you shouldn't have one?
I thought it would be obvious that I was speaking euphemistically (won't assume that again) to describe how I had been passively ostracized from everyone. There's no such thing as a 'soul' in the spiritual sense.
> So I can only gather that as you turned your back on God, you experienced this lost soul pain for real.
I experienced loneliness in a way that cannot be fully described. A good analogy perhaps for you could be for you to be at a party with all your friends, and this party just keeps going and going, for days, for weeks, and nobody gets tired, not even you. Finally it starts bothering you that this party never ends and you start asking how it is possible that everyone keeps going like this, and your friends inform you that they've been mixing cocaine in the drinks so nobody would ever get tired. You react with horror and then confront your friends saying how unconscionable this was without your knowledge, but they just laugh at you and tell you that it's perfectly fine; it won't hurt you. So you run out of the party into the night, only to find that every other house on the block is also having this perpetual party. You simply cannot allow yourself to indulge in the cocaine any further but nobody else seems to care, and as such you are left out in the streets, alone.
This is how I experienced my departure from religion.
Since this terrifying and lonely episode in my life, I have mentally journeyed far and wide, largely without direction, in the pursuit of meaning and purpose, and I have found both, far beyond your ability to comprehend from where you now currently reside at the 'party'. My book, Meme, is the result of that journey so that others who find themselves on this same lonely street at night, can follow the Sean Sinjin beacon to an utterly complete and fulfilling life, without virtual narcotics to buoy the experience.
> atheists hold on to materialism to fill the whole within their life.
This materialism (which has nothing intrinsically to do with atheism whatsoever) is an addiction, no less of an addiction than affiliation with the supernatural. It only appeals to 'one' instinct. The 'hole' you refer to in people's lives results from neglecting to placate their 'entire' range of instincts. By addressing 'all' of the instincts with placation (and not just ego or greed), you can reach a state of unbelievable contentment, far beyond what the obsessive placation of a single instinct could ever hope to accomplish.
> I would then say you went on to formulate this Sean sin to cover up your lost soul feelings.
It would be more accurate to say that it defines purpose for me. It doesn't cover up anything, it fills that slot that religion had previously defined for me with ethereal pursuits. Everyone needs purpose, I just redefined mine to match with reality.
> I find this truly amazing as you have described your created value system
Not exactly, I have taken the influences of the altruistic instincts, and the influences of my moral role models and formulated a very logic-founded approach at fulfilling this morality. I cannot take credit for the definition, only the compilation.
> but not only have you created these views you have also put a name to them and given it an identity or ownership as "His" as if it was real person.
My friend, I don't believe I'm betraying anyone by creating Sean Sinjin, nor am I trying to falsely claim he really exists, unlike many religions that lewdly attempt to with their figureheads. Sean Sinjin is no more than a role model that defines an ideal, and I attempt to speak on behalf of that ideal. I have made many published references to the fact that Sean Sinjin is not a real person, so why do you feel this manifestation is inappropriate if it never leaves the realm of fiction?
> It would seem that you have conjured up this persona to follow; you wouldn't do this unless you have faith in these Sean sin ideals in that it would help guide you through life.
Correct. That would be common sense.
> It would seem to be truer that you have created this persona due to the need to fill the whole left inside you when you left God.
Correct. I have transplanted the mythological notions of ethereal entities and their associated religious moral code and purpose, with a reality, logic, and empathy-based moral code and purpose. Took a while to scrape all that fantasy out of my mind too.
> There can be no other way to justify Sean sin but as a replacement of God.
Not exactly because the religious meme-virus is much more than just an ethereal entity. Sean Sinjin and BetterHuman.org is an entire perspective, complete with morals, purpose, tools for self-fulfillment, empathy, etc. The majority role that your god plays in your perspective is merely to placate the ego and soothe the fears of death, both of which are well-addressed in our perspective, but are merely a subset of the whole.
> If you follow Sean sin and put it before all else in your life I could say that you idolize it and could suggest that it has become a god for you.
No, though I know this is difficult to understand from your perspective, my friend, because you cannot imagine being godless; it is, however, a simple fact that we do not have a god. We worship nobody, not even Sean Sinjin. The entire notion of worship has no meaning because we merely live to make ourselves happy; there really doesn't need to be more to life than that.
> I thought that atheism in it's self was complete, self-existing?
Absolutely not, it's just one parameter of many that define a person. Again, atheism 'only' means to not believe in ethereal beings. It makes no provisions about how to live life, find purpose, define morals, enact punishment, etc., etc. It just means one does not subscribe to mythological solutions; that's it.
> This vehicle of Sean sin is it enough?
It's my best attempt. I will never claim it to be perfect.
> I would ask is the vehicle of Sean sin enough? I doubt it very much as the views, which you aim to follow and assimilate to. Cannot know everything about life and about death that follows it.
We do not declare otherwise. Also, I can easily say the same about your faith.
> Sean sin only presumes it knows the truth based on views of people who them selves are limited in knowing all things them selves.
We do not declare otherwise. Also, I can easily say the same about your faith.
> Sean sin is limited because it chooses to base its facts sou lie on seen "things" and wont except anything from outside these self-proclaimed boundaries.
Correct, and this is called the 'scientific method', a very significant pillar of atheism.
> You can't claim to know the truth of a subject, if you don't accept all the evidence how ever unacceptable it may appear to you.
We of course accept all evidence and attempt to assimilate a theory from said evidence. We do not accept hearsay purporting the existence of ethereal entities to be 'evidence'. Also, it is actually 'your' beliefs that conveniently preclude conflicting evidence (dinosaurs?) in order to maintain your perspective.
> My faith may not be viewed as perfect by other Christians, but from where I started out. Living my own life not knowing anything about God. I like you searched for meaning I didn't go to God at first I went after reincarnation and other forms or eastern religion. Then later I came to meet God through a personal encounter what the Bible states as being born again.
You were looking for something to fill the 'purpose' slot in your head, and your final choice seemed to fit the bill. There's nothing magical about this. It's unfortunate that your purpose had to be defined by fantasy.
> (To describe spiritual matters with a non believer would seem foolish) but as you state that you were a former believer in God, I guess that you had some sort of understanding of Christian beliefs even though now you choose to reject God.
Correct. I more than completely understand your points, for I have already traveled your path a long time ago.
> As a body of believers we have come to accept that there is a real living God that wants to know us personally. We have found evidence to back up that God exists through past history and Biblical accounts.
None of this is evidence for an ethereal being. You are a victim of 'credibility smearing' where the true credibility of actual historical events in the Bible is being smeared onto references of an ethereal experience. Please accept the rationale that the Bible cannot be considered wholly true simply because some historical parts of it are proven true.
> And with our personal experiences which back up the bibles examples.
I had many experiences as a religious youth that were quite easily explained as divine intervention. I now realize that these events were merely highly 'unlikely', making them appear 'divine'. Once my statistical-inferencing abilities matured, I was able to recognize that billion-to-one-odds events happen all the time because there's always a billion things going on. We just happen to notice when the billion-to-one events happen because they seem so unlikely. But, if it wasn't one particular event, it would just be another. Look at it this way, if a billion people each buy one of a billion raffle tickets, it doesn't matter that an individual's chances of winning are virtually nothing, someone is still going to win. The odds of at least 'someone' winning is exactly one. It's not amazing whatsoever, it just 'seems' impossible.
Of course your personal experiences may include some 'spiritual' connection on a human level. Well, you'll have to share those experiences before I can demonstrate how your interpretation was fuelled by your need to find divinity behind it.
> The bibles accounts of history including events, peoples and places are being discovered all the time.
The accuracy of historical events depicted in the Bible are not in question. What is in question is exactly how these events contribute to proving the existence of an ethereal being?
> Are we following God through wrong teaching, beliefs or doctrines? We believe not, over time scripture we have today has been proven to correct since the first writings of the manuscripts
Proven correct? Against which subjective moral criteria?
> you state that you haven't arrived to fully compass all that Sean is, as 'He' has become some elevated goal in life and that through him you will some how make you life fully complete in formulating Sean's perception of life in how it really should be.
Correct
> Your striving to reach what Sean claims life is and at the same time try to emulate what Christians to do by believing in God and following Gods teaching for a better life.
Somewhat correct; we all need role models to subscribe to; though, this is not solely a Christian notion, we are 'both' emulating the very ancient bond we naturally formulate with our parent figures.
> You though aim to live a life based on the physical.
No, reality.
> The theory of evolution was once excepted as "truth" without exception, but now all the errors lies, false claims, supposed ape man have been exposed.
What has actually happened is that 'credibility smearing' has been applied in reverse, such that a few bad scientific results are being utilized in the attempt to discredit the entire model of evolution. It is impossible to get everything right the first time, so why does it make sense to discard 'everything' when the theory might just need a little bit of work to get it right? This isn't an attempt at making excuses, it's simply working out the bugs. Your intolerance to evolution has nothing to do with its inaccuracy anyway because ultimately you are reacting to the 'threat' it poses to your faith and are seeking easy ways to 'make it go away'. I don't think you realize just how obvious your motivations are.
> Polls have shown that about 40% of scientists acknowledge a supernatural power.
Which is a far cry less than the average. It seems that scientists are less susceptible to ethereal addiction. What you've unwittingly identified here is that the more educated and intelligent you are, the less likely you are to believe in mythology.
> Atheism needs evolution to escape from any implications regarding a creator.
Again, the need to have a scientific explanation has absolutely 'nothing' to do with defeating religion. Religion doesn't even enter the equation. The theory of evolution does not exist solely to battle religion, it exists to seek the answers to questions of our origins. Any antagonism you perceive from science is entirely your own extrapolation because science is just doing its thing regardless of the religious ramifications.
> If one starts with Darwinism, it certainly is easy to escape from any obligation to God.
A very egocentric claim. Darwinism has absolutely nothing to do with escaping an 'obligation' to an ethereal entity, any more than it has to do with escaping your duties to the Easter Bunny. Darwinism is simply the pursuit of evolution theory, nothing more.
> Atheists believe that life started spontaneously from nothing
Incorrect, my friend; life started disassembled. Energy flow began the process of evolution (environmentally-directed assembly)
> with no purpose or direction.
This is correct only in the 'forethought' context. Design of life was 'passive' in that the environment selected the best-fit for reproduction.
> I could respond and say that as I have lived my life with my family, friends, work and social life including church life and my personal relationship with God make for a full and busy life. If I have wasted my life and at the end and God proves not to be real then what have I lost?
Lot of time, lots of money, wisdom, an uncountable number of religiously-forbidden experiences, true fulfillment (not to be confused with your 'high'), dignity, confidence, empathy, altruism, integrity, maturity, consistency, self-respect, mutual respect, challenge, success, failure, etc., etc., none of which have you ever experienced in their purity, outside of the narcotic effects of your soothing 'faith' opiate. The highs and lows in reality are magnificent.
There will be a day, my friend, that while everyone else continues the 'faith' party, the one immutable fleck of 'doubt' in your 'faith' will suddenly and unavoidably cast you onto the very same dark and lonely street that I walked so long ago. Only then will you realize how much of 'life' you have lost. You will desperately clamour for help to deal with the terror of being so utterly alone and dying, but the BetterHuman.org beacon is a long way off, and now you have run out of time.
> I have still leaded a full and busy life anyway regardless.
Heroin users would claim the same. You cannot begin to see your lost potential.
> But what if I am right and there is out side your boundaries a God what then?
I cannot give you a rational answer, for my answer would be the same as yours if I asked you, "What if there's a Tooth Fairy after all?"
> You will have struggles to come up with your Sean sin belief system and had strived to live by the values it promotes.
It's nowhere near a difficult as you describe. The difficult part for me is shedding all the pollution from decades of prior misinformation. My monster isn't to move forward, it's shackled to me from the past.
> At the end of your life you will end up with nothing but a tragic loss.
Perhaps, but only to the church's collection plate.
> Are you willing to take a chance on your Sean sin values based on mortal corrupt humans?
Yes I am. Do you believe your faith is better equipped to handle morally corrupt humans?
> You have been in touch I hope with the real God for your self (at a personal level) and have not been reliant on others for your relationship with God. To turn your back on God after truly knowing God is to say that you are now accountable for the knowledge that you posses and what you have done with it.
That's an excellent example of an 'intimidation' tactic, my friend, however, it's quite ineffective since I sincerely don't believe in your god. I do not wish to insult you, but I think it's important that you understand the message you are sending. Let me translate it for you so you know how the above was received by me:
"You once believed in the Tooth Fairy. To turn your back on the Tooth Fairy after having truly believed in the Tooth Fairy is to say that you are now accountable for doing so"
As you can see, your statement is quite nonsensical from my perspective.
> I could ask what keeps the fabric of life for an atheist together? It seems pretty shallow;
You couldn't possibly be more wrong, but there's no way that I can answer your question here because that is exactly why I wrote my book, Meme, in the first place. The answer to your question takes an entire book. If you truly want to understand BetterHuman.org, atheism, and Sean Sinjin, I would suggest giving Meme a read.
> I to would hope that your reality of life is true because from a Christian perspective life can offer so much more.
Unfortunately, like heroin addiction, your ethereal addiction focuses too much on the placation of very few instincts (ego, fear) and starves the remainder of the just-as-important other instincts. The most fulfilled feeling you can possibly imagine accomplishing in a religious context, won't begin to compare with the diverse and utterly satiating life of variety and broad instinctual placation from our perspective, and I know this from being both on your side, and now forever mine.
Much respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 6.73, 6.80, 7.86, 7.94, 8.103, 8.116, 9.124, 9.129, 10.139, 11.148, 11.157, 12.168, 13.172, 14.188, 15.192, 20.288}
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#173 - Fear manipulation - March 25, 2006, 08:06 AM |
Mr. Cardhome wrote back:
> having thought a great deal about many of the subjects you have addressed in your weblog I'd like now to unsubscribe.
I'm sorry to hear that. You have been unsubscribed.
> Given that many wars are fought for material/cultural reasons (the later comprising only partly of religion) and not always explcitly religious reasons and then subsequently dressed up as religious wars as a means of mass manipulation or as a self-propaganderising guilt-reducing manouver which 'gives' a war a more elevated 'reason' than they might otherwise have I don't think it's fair to dogmatically hold that religion per see is to be blamed.
I don't believe I've ever tried to exclusively blame wars on religion, much like you can't ultimately blame killing on guns. I think it's always been clear in my writing that religion is a 'tool' that tyrants and warlords utilize to manipulate the masses into enacting their wishes, though sometimes the disparities between religious ideologies themselves 'are' the cause of war. Religion's mutability as a weapon of war is but one reason of many that religion needs to be vanquished.
Please read this prior weblog entry: 7.90
> Religions serve to bring together shared ethical codes.
It's a very agenda-driven ethical code you speak of, that usually directly or indirectly serves the power-accumulation of the churches.
> Where people's expectations of conduct are mutually aligned outrage is reduced and outrage, being an unpleasant feeling, is something which is reduced by this process.
This 'reduction of outrage', of course, requires strict compliance to your religiously-ordained 'rules' by everyone in order for this benefit to be realized, but the simple fact that everyone 'gets along' by doing so, doesn't necessarily vindicate the 'rules' themselves. We could just as easily create a rule that states, "do not speak", and there certainly wouldn't be any more heated arguments between people, but does this justify not being able to speak?
Unfortunately, religious rules of 'conduct' forcefully preclude some very natural or intelligent behaviors (homosexuality, abortion, cloning, etc.), thereby unjustly and unavoidably oppressing a subset of people and inadvertently stifling our overall intellectual progress. Your 'rules' were formulated centuries ago and have little validity in today's modern world; we are no longer simple peasants. Do you not find it reasonable that rules of conduct should necessarily evolve alongside humanity?
> Furthermore, whilst frequently filled with polemic dogmatism many religions preach positive messages about co-existence and helping the poor.
This is their sales pitch for recruitment. They appeal to the 'altruistic' instincts of potential and existing members in order to falsely generate a pious portrayal and disposition, thereby 'procuring' people's commitment due to their belief that they are doing the 'right' thing. The 'big' picture is, the more members a church has, the more power it has, and this is the ultimate purpose for any and all religions. Tell me, why do you think it is necessary to belong to a religion in order to co-exist with your fellow humans, or to help those that need help (which is not always to be confused with the poor)?
> If the reasons for ethical moral behaviour are selfish (in the traditional sense, I am not talking about the egoistic sense) e.g. granting a place in heaven etc why should that matter?
It matters because the church is inappropriately benefiting from this behavior. There is no reason the church needs to be involved in any way when exercising the altruistic instincts, nor does an altruistic act need a false ethereal reward to generate that act, especially since the ethereal reward only serves to alter true altruistic intent into 'greed' for the ultimate prize. You cannot say, 'it doesn't matter because the result is acts of goodness', because it overlooks very real harm being done to the person that actually believes in this mythology. If I tell a small child that he will get a prize from the Earian god when they die if they help an old lady cross the street, does that make it 'right' to 'lie' to them simply because an act of goodness results? How about this question: knowing what you know now about Santa Claus, would you rather still be deeply immersed in believing that he exists, or do you think you're better off understanding that Santa Claus is just a myth?
> The fear that binds certain people who would otherwise go astray to better conduct is also conducive to an atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation.
I loathe what you are suggesting here. Extending this logic, if your child misbehaves, does it make sense to threaten them with physical abuse, even though you wouldn't? Have you ever threatened to throw them off a cliff if they don't listen to your commands? No? Why not? It's precisely the same policy of absurd psychological fear manipulation you propose above? So, exactly 'when' is it appropriate to 'make up' a false threat in order to control people with fear?
My friend, what you are suggesting is a very lewd and brutal approach to exercising control, especially in the arena in which you do not rightfully have any control, and that domain is other people's lives when they are in no way affecting yours (or hurting themselves). The perceived atmosphere of 'mutual trust and cooperation' you purport above is preposterous at best, simply because the 'only' people that are susceptible to your fear-based 'control' mechanism are quite harmless to begin with, whilst the real trouble-makers (television evangelists, criminals that become born-agains, etc.) utilize your tenets of unlimited 'forgiveness' and channels of 'charity' to their advantage, making a mockery of your beliefs. By attempting to cast a psychological fear net over those that refuse to be controlled, you inadvertently ensnare the innocent and open them up to victimization.
> Granted I see caveats in religious thinking and don't think it is entirely self-honest and see how this can reduce a person's authenticity and the attunement of their personal conflicts there are people who live desperately sad and lonely lives who might just end it all if they lost their religion.
And what an absolute shame too. Religion is such a colossal human disaster that there will be many people's lives completely destroyed by this narcotic; very similar to heroin junkies that have lost everything, with no further desire to live without their 'high'. However, the fact that some people will die without their religion, in no way justifies allowing it to persist. Does it make sense to legalize heroin for addicts simply because they have reduced their lives to the point where there is nothing else?
Humankind's inevitable transition to a reality perspective will not be without its costs. Thousands upon thousands of years of tyranny and lies have poised us for an extremely painful 'reality check'. Many people will make the transition, however, people that endeavor to relearn reality will have a very tough time adjusting, and they won't receive a lot of pity either. It's similar to a scenario where someone that was born into great wealth, suddenly lost that great wealth, and then complains to everyone else about how tough the real world is. It will be difficult to empathize with someone whose real-world challenges are no more difficult than your own.
> Why all this angry god bashing?
My friend, there are two things wrong with this statement: 1) There is no anger. Passion sure, but it's a passion of altruism, mercy, and humanity, not of rage. And 2) there is no such thing as a god so it makes no sense to say we are 'bashing' it, any more than it makes sense to say that 'you' are 'bashing' the Tooth Fairy because you consider it a 'fairy tale'.
> Many of the best people I've known/known of have been devoutly religious. I envy them of their illusion. I suspect you do also.
This is an excellent observation, and up until very recently, I believed I did envy them because I remember the ethereal 'high' all too well. In fact, I'm sure I've even expressed this envy in one way or another in prior weblog entries. Now that I've spent enough time thinking about it however, I realize that the envy for this 'high' was yet one last hidden and lingering flake of ethereal addiction left in my head from so long ago. I now wish to retract that position and state clearly that I 'no longer' envy them. I don't want to experience that drone-like 'high' ever again, for despite the unnatural magnitude of pleasure one experiences on an ethereal 'high', it is a state of utter insanity, and I now find more value in the fact that my 'integrity' can prevent me from deceiving myself with fantasy. I'm absolutely stunned that this painfully obvious point has evaded me until this very day.
> Apologies for causing any offense.
I assure you, my friend, offending me is not within anybody's capacity.
It will be a shame to lose you; your contributions are most excellent.
Kind regards,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 3.29, 10.141, 13.173, 14.180}
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#174 - Voodoo - March 25, 2006, 08:34 AM |
Mr. Writleap wrote:
> Letter of enquires, Pls kindly send me your membership registration form. I have a problem and I want you to pray for me, but I do not know whether I will register as a member or not? Thanks for your love and co-operations while hoping to hear from you. Your very sincerely in Christ
My dear lost friend,
I'm not sure if you've found the correct website. We are an anti-religion organization and your letter seems to indicate you are looking for a website of a religious nature, unfortunately, we will be unable to assist you. Best of luck in finding what you are looking for.
...next letter
> Dear brethen in Christ, This my main purpose of communicating you, I have a problem and I want your congregation to pray for me, Please if you can help me for prayer I shall be very greatful and I promise to send in some donations. I hope to hear from you. Yours in Christ love.
My friend. I cannot imagine what you must be suffering from, but I do know that the answers you seek are not to be found by praying. Please give thought to speaking with a close friend, or relative, or if serious enough, perhaps seeking professional counseling would be appropriate. 'Please' do not allow yourself to be taken advantage of; do 'not' give your money to any form of religious organization as this will do absolutely nothing to help you.
...next letter
> Thank you for ur e-mail, I am a Nigerian, from a village where the citizen use juju and other fetish things to kill each other daily. Infact they serve and sacrifice juju as their own God. My parents was killed by evil men with juju.
The most important thing that you must ever learn, my friend, is that there is no such thing as 'juju', or any other form of magic, or curses, or gods, or other. The people that claim to be able to use 'juju' are just trying to scare you, but I promise you, they cannot hurt you with something that does not exist. I cannot begin to relate to what must be a very challenging and fear-filled life, but after researching this art of African witchcraft, it's quite obvious that this belief in juju has the same origins as other, more matured religions, and therefore is nothing more than fantasy.
> I am looking for a reliable spiritual church, or spiritual organisation from any where in the world which I can register as a member for the protection of my life and my family from juju, evil spirits, witches and wizards, enemies attack, visible and invisible.
Relax. Take a deep breath. Now tell yourself the following:
"There's no such thing as magic, curses, spirits, or juju"
"There's no such thing as magic, curses, spirits, or juju"
"There's no such thing as magic, curses, spirits, or juju"
and keep saying it over and over and over until you finally understand it. Nobody has the power to hurt you with evil wishes; nobody. You are an intelligent person with a lot of potential so please don't let anybody scare you with these childish crazy ideas because they are simply not true. If someone says they are going to place a curse on you or your family, just laugh at them as loud and as long as you can, and then forget about them.
> Please help me for connection. I will pay for the services
Do 'not' give people your money for protection from magic because these people are just trying to trick you and scare you into giving them your money.
Remember, "There's no such thing as magic, curses, spirits, or juju"
Be strong my brother,
Sean Sinjin
{To my readers: I feel quite fortunate to have connected with this someone from a world that seems so lost in time. I especially wish to draw out the obvious point of how tortured and manipulated this poor fellow is with all the 'voodoo' nonsense that his mind has been poisoned with, and how sad it is that he is now desperately trying to throw his money in a direction that he perceives as protection from the evil 'magic'.
This person's perspective, though quite primeval, contains all the same basic components of religions today: the false 'magic' that controls with fear (hell, judgment), the perception that protection from this magic exists (heaven, faith), and of course, the willingness to part with money to procure this protection (the almighty collection plate). If anything, our friend from Nigeria has exposed that the racket of 'fantasy' is as old as humanity itself.
I can't imagine anyone, including the deeply religious, ever reading this story above and telling themselves, "He's entitled to his beliefs". How utterly evil, selfish, and inhumane it is to passively allow anyone to continue suffering in this delusional state. This is 'precisely' why BetterHuman.org exists, because no matter which magical 'faith' you subscribe to, you are being manipulated and exploited 'exactly' like our friend from Nigeria above is; and someday soon, we 'will' liberate humanity from all forms of this mental torture.}
{All letters from this contributor: 13.174, 14.185}
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#175 - Steven Hawking on God - March 25, 2006, 08:47 AM |
In a prior posting, Mr. Banechart wrote:
> Mind the randomness of this question but i was wandering if Steven Hawking believes in a god, maybe if you knew..
To which I replied:
"I believe his famous quote, "There is no place for a Creator" says it all."
To which Mr. Wheatstart responded:
> By the way you not only took it out of context you misrepresented his quote, it is not a statement it is a question.
Excellent work my friend; and believe it or not, I'm grateful when people point out my mistakes because I'm very concerned with accuracy. In this particular case, unfortunately, there are 'many' references to this misquote on the Internet and I unwittingly became a victim of the very vehicle of mythology, 'hearsay'. Thank you for the corrected quote below.
> I do not believe this does say it all. Here are some more quotes from Stephen Hawking including the one you took out of context.
> "The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"
> "One could imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"
> "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired."
From the above quotes, it would appear that Steven Hawking is undecided as to whether he believes in a creator or not. I stand corrected.
> "Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen."
> "All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion."
> "If we find the answer [the unified theory], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for we would know the mind of God."
I believe these quotes are merely metaphorical, but that of course is my interpretation.
That's a couple slip-ups this week. Hope I don't make a habit out of it...
With respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 2.21, 3.32, 3.35, 3.41, 5.70, 10.136, 12.159, 12.165, 13.171, 13.175}
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#176 - Same old stuff - March 25, 2006, 08:55 AM |
Mr. Crewmart wrote:
> Our fear is not of death but of the unknown.
That's only true from a faith perspective because from that context there really is no concept of death, only transition. From a reality perspective, however, I'll disagree with you because it is the 'unknown's' unquantifiable risk of death that makes it fearful.
> Belief that consciousness is annihilated after death is as much of a dogma as any other.
It's really more a matter of definition than dogma. If you understand the scientific definition of consciousness, you would realize that it cannot persist beyond the end of the brain's life. If you instead choose to believe in the mythological explanation of a metaphysical 'spirit' that embodies this consciousness, then your understanding will differ.
> Basically whether you're aware of it or not, you're creating a religion under the guise of freeing people from religion which anchors on people's fear of the unknown. Atheism is a much of a faith as theism.
BetterHuman.org considers itself a philosophy, and not a religion for many reasons that we have already outlined in many prior weblog entries. I would encourage you to visit the BetterHuman.org weblog in order to familiarize yourself with the topics that we have previously covered in great detail.
> Other than the origin of fear, however, I agree with your negative assessment of religion. However, all of the objections you discuss have passed through my mind many times and I have come to the conclusion that there are more options than religion and atheism. You've created a false dichotomy.
My friend, you can either subscribe to mythology, or not. It is a binary state. Can you offer an example of a perspective of the universe that isn't somehow encapsulated by either a belief in the ethereal, or a rejection of the ethereal? I trust you are not implying agnosticism, which simply means that one hasn't pursued a choice. Agnosticism itself is not a perspective, it's an indifference to the need to identify oneself with an atheism or faith perspective.
> You're connotative definition of religion is correct, but it's the denotative meanings to which you object.
This is rather vague. Can you elaborate on your soliloquy above?
> An argument being fancy and tightly-woven like yours doesn't make it correct,
Forgive the pun, but you are correct, and I would never claim otherwise. Please read the foreword excerpt.
> so I will conclude by saying despite the logical arguments that can be leveled against it, the religion the religion I believe your objecting to, Christianity, has compelling historical records supported by corroborative evidence as well as viable metaphysics. Research it. It might make you a better human.
My friend, your same argument that you use against me in my dismissal of Christianity, could as equally be leveled against yourself in 'your' dismissal of any other of the world's religions' credibility. You see, despite my prior experiences as an ethereal addict, I would never claim to be well-versed in the Bible, but that's ok, because I know enough to be certain that it is virtually worthless as a meaningful example of education or morality. A book of historically-based fables it may be, but that is all it is. Even if one has an incredible familiarity with the Bible and an accurate measure of its historical accuracy, this will 'still' in no way serve to improve the credibility of whether mythological creatures exist.
As well, we are not solely focusing on Christianity, we have our mission pointed at 'all' ethereally-founded 'faiths', from Astrology to Zen.
> Yes, I would like to beleive that there is a loving creator and all that Christianity entails, but that doesn't make me incapable of objectively weighing the evidence.
The litmus test for true objectivity comes in being able to identify the shortcomings of 'all' perspectives, especially your own, and not just in the perspectives that oppose yours.
With respect,
Sean Sinjin