Why the hostility?
iamnotaparakeet
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Because the brain dies after 30 seconds without oxygen.
Not often, but when He has it is not in words or emotions but rather in complete thoughts.
Thanks, I wish I could live it better and more consistently.
I've seen the one about my dad and that's plenty for me. God still does miracles, it's just not a constant activity to uphold the normative order of things. I.e. superstitions are unnecessary. Even in the Old Testament God was not constantly confusing people with constant miracles. Indeed, if there was no order to go by, how could anything be determined to be of supernatural origin?
I've never heard a creationist say this.
I doubt God will show Himself to you in that manner either. But if he does show Himself to you in this way even, I hope you wont write it off.
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richardbenson
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I've never heard a creationist say this.
Haha. I think Richard got that one from Bill Hicks.
I rejected the Santa Claus belief a long time before I ever rejected Christianity. What I was trying to say was that my belief in Christianity always felt phony. It felt like wishful thinking, just like Santa Claus.
It's interesting that you mention studying the creation-evolution issue. I went the same route around the age of 13, yet I ended up coming to the exact opposite conclusion.
Why do people think there's a problem with wishful thinking when it comes to believing in god, (despite the fact that it need not lead you into any kind of illusions, delusions, error, etc, and is not in flagrant contradiction of anything that you know)? Why are people who believe in god so often accused of this?
It's only like a mathematician who has a problem and whatever they do with it, turn it around, examine it from every conceivable angle, it has no solution unless posit x. The existence of this whatever thing/x suddenly solves the problem. Are you going to say to the mathematician that their solution is no good, it's just wishful thinking?
My belief in god is like that.
It's true that certain information was helpful to me in accepting the proposition; the recent work on the psychology of religion for instance which suggests that a religious tendency, belief in god, may be a side-effect/by-product, of developments in the brain in the last 50,000 years in Fluid Intelligence, that is pattern recognition, finding meaning in confusion, attribution of cause etc.
The theory is that these mental functions, very good for our survival, created a "space" which in some/many humans is "satisfied" by only one thing, belief in god, without which they are always persistently, anxiously, obsessively, compulsively, looking for cause, meaning, and patterns such that life is like one long search with no rest. Like someone in enemy territory who has to stay awake all the time to process information in case is sign of danger.
Also recent work in theories of complexity/complex systems and "emergence". I looked up "emergence" on the net, and the descriptions sound like descriptions of god, just without using the word.
I think belief in god is like accepting "0" in maths. I'm intensely grateful for its existence, and regret all the years of not using it. You can imagine, what trying to do maths without 0 would be like.
techstepgenr8tion
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Because many people on both sides - Christians and persecutors alike, are dingleberries - which are usually the most outspoken group in any conflict of interests. They aren't exactly the majority, they just do a great job of making it sound as if they are through their own self-importance.
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iamnotaparakeet
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Because the brain dies after 30 seconds without oxygen.
how does that prove god? are you trying to say hes breathing or breath? and thats why he cant be proved? hm. well ok i think however thats just how our bodys function and really doesnt have anything to do with a supernatural being.
No, I'm referring to the fact that my dad was dead for a few minutes before he was brought back to life. Not by CPR, but with my mom and a friend from Church praying over him that he would come back so we could take him to the hospital. I was 13 at the time and he was not breathing and had no pulse as well as his eyes were wide open and had the white part of his eyes turn yellow (which may have been due to chemotherapy, but he was still dead.) That is the largest miracle I have seen although I have seen and experienced others more personal, this is why I remained a Christian.
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iamnotaparakeet
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Thanks. What's really bad is that the hospital stopped the chemotherapy short and the cancer grew back. If we had been a wealthy family they wouldn't have stopped. I hate the medical policies and supposed health benefits of this nation. People are all equally valuable and healthcare shouldn't cost. America sucks in this sense.
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i might get back on it, once i move out in less than a month
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iamnotaparakeet
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i might get back on it, once i move out in less than a month
richardbenson
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i am so sorry dude. even though you are a christian, i still like you and couldnt imagine what it would be like to live without knowing my biological dad wasnt alive. my real dad is alive but a loser
but he is alive/ and you saw your dad die! how freaking f'd up is that? i'd be a killer by now if i was you, seeing such
you have a tremendous resialliance about you and i like it
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There are two things. First people have used Christianity as an excuse to do horrible, horrible things, and while it may be wrong to blame Christianity for this, it can be easy to lose focus.
The other factor is that many people's de facto state is agnosticism or atheism, it would take some pretty strong evidence to have any rational reason to sway that view to theism, let alone any specific religion. In the absence of any evidence (personal or otherwise) there's no real way to honestly believe in God, and so the concept of sending non-believers to hell seems evil on an incomparable scale. Imagine if you were given a similar punishment for believing in God.
As far as this life is concerned religion is a tool, albeit an incredibly dangerous one. Possessing the tool doesn't make you good or evil, oppressive or easy going but people tend to categorise and it is the negative traits that always stand out.
To quote Josh McDowell, Christian speaker and author, "Rules without relationships equals rebellion."
He was talking about parenting, but I think his words could apply to the question, "Why the hostility?" Why the hostility? Because too many Christians, in my experience, are too busy trying to apply rules to the rest of us without first building relationships. When they do deal with others who do not think the way they do, they do not treat them as equals but as souls to be won, something I find just as objectionable as someone using another person as a object for sex. Either way, you are not looking at the whole person as a person of value in and of his or herself. I am not a pair of shoes to be tried on and discarded if not the right fit, I am not a latrine to discharge your bodily fluids in, and I am not another notch on your Bible. I am me, unique, and according to the BEST in Judeo-Christian tradition, a person worthy to be honored and respected because I am made in the image of God (and for Christians, whatever you do to me, you do to Jesus himself). That's pretty heavy stuff, and if those who believed it took it seriously you'd better believe there would be a big difference in how the world operates. It doesn't say in the Bible that I am of worth only if I adopt your beliefs, it says that I am of worth right here, right now, just the way I am, and how you treat me DOES matter.
There was a Native American leader who, upon reading the New Testament, said something like "It is strange that the white people aren't any better after having had this book for so long." Which is my next point. Yes, atheists have done and continue to do horrible things, but the reason that Christians are held MORE accountable is that they themselves have told the world that their morality is superior. You cannot do that, then turn around and hide behind the excuse that "we are not perfect." If you are running a business and you claim that your product or service is better than the competition's, and you list the ways that it is so, then you'd better be able to follow through on your customers' reasonable expectations that this is so. Because you have raised the standards. Last night I took a group of people to a local restaurant that I had been assured was one of the best in the area. Let me tell you, the service we received was the worst I have ever received anywhere. Abyssmal doesn't even begin to describe it. Will I go back? Not on your life! Will I recommend it? No! Yes, the manager came out with apologies, but the damage had already been done. Oh, they had a set of excuses why our experience was so bad, and they were all legitimate, but, and this is the point I am trying to make here with this comparison, once it had been pointed out to staff that we were not satisfied with the treatment we were receiving and why, they made NO attempt to improve the service! And so it is with a lot of Christian behavior. They acknowledge that yes, this kind of behavior alienates people, but they do not do anything to change it. It is business as usual. And just as the waitress felt I was being hostile to her by pointedly refusing to pay the tip that had been added to our bill (insult to injury), so do these Christians carry on about the world's hostility.