(April 21, 2018 at 3:50 am)robvalue Wrote:  while not explaining how he magically can't be being deceived himself.

You already got it.  Usually, I'm just teasing the afflicted when I laugh at their magic spells and cantrips...but with the cult MK is in, I'm not even smiling.  He really does believe that the recitation of these things..chanting, has power.  

That's why he chants it at us, but also, and more importantly...that's why he chants it at himself.

(April 21, 2018 at 3:59 am)Khemikal Wrote:

(April 21, 2018 at 3:50 am)robvalue Wrote:  while not explaining how he magically can't be being deceived himself.

You already got it.  Usually, I'm just teasing the afflicted when I laugh at their magic spells and cantrips...but with the cult MK is in, I'm not even smiling.  He really does believe that the recitation of these things..chanting, has power.  

That's why he chants it at us, but also, and more importantly...that's why he chants it at himself.

To be fair, the power of chanting has a long and storied tradition among the theistically insane.

Boru

It does, it does.  I'm not saying that he's exceptionally crazy.  Just normal, run of the mill religious crazy.  

That said, when some rando twelver goes from run of the mill religious crazy to radicalized crazy, it's a shorter hop and skip...and it's qualitatively more terrifying than the usual sunni/wahhabist fare of bloody minded martrydom.

When a religion has vicious lies about itself in its own religious books, it's time to go shopping elsewhere.

The fact that even Muslims can't agree on what is and isn't magically true shows that even those under its spell don't find them to be very special books.

If only there was a way to examine each particular book on its own merits, and be able to accept parts of it as true/useful but not all or nothing...

There's alot of that in every religion.

In the specific case of this twelver bullshit and "deceivers"......very few people act out or on the truth of their religious ideology.  MK doesn't do what a convinced, committed, and rational person would do confronted with demon locks or demons (suspend your disbelief, lol).  

In a perceptual reality where an absolute state holds divine right of kingship over all of mankind, and where demons are holding influence over men...and where some men are themselves, in truth, the demonic influence....having exhausted all of your magical cantrips and mantras to no effect.... what is the next logical, compassionate, and morally upright step...to the problem of all the demons in the world, running the states of earth, suppressing the goodness of your own hidden prince, and doing untold evil upon your fellow man in the process?   

This is the truly subversive effect of this type of religious ideology.  Setting up a situation where a good person begins to consider the unthinkable.

(April 21, 2018 at 3:35 am)Khemikal Wrote: You realize that the same process was used to create magic book...don't you.....?

I take the Quran to be a special case, and accept the "leap of faith". I publicly admit it: I believed in the book due to the design of the universe, then the deeds it advocates -including charity, respecting others and defend one's self, family and friends, prohibition of pedophilia...etc-.

I won't claim that there is an evidence but that. To me personally; that is enough for me to believe:

Quote:Sura 51, The Quran:
 ( 17 )   They used to sleep but little of the night,
( 18 )   And in the hours before dawn they would ask forgiveness,
( 19 )   And from their properties was [given] the right of the [needy] petitioner and the deprived.
( 20 )   And on the earth are signs for the certain [in faith]
( 21 )   And in yourselves. Then will you not see?

Heck; the universe is full of signs. If somebody saw the skies and what in the earth and still didn't think that there is an even slight chance that there is a God, then I will tell them to look again and again.

So the argument from design is what I favor when I speak about God. Nobody will see the angels in this life. There are already huge things out there; NASA's website is enough for us to see that God exists in my perspective. Even at ancient times, observing the environment -even today- is enough to see the hand of God shaping everything.

But that is not what humans usually want, usually humans want a show; they want headless knights with serpents and dragons flying above, and a huge monster with one-eye roaring. Outer space is boring. The Lord Of The Rings is exciting.

(April 21, 2018 at 6:35 am)AtlasS33 Wrote:

(April 21, 2018 at 3:35 am)Khemikal Wrote: You realize that the same process was used to create magic book...don't you.....?

I take the Quran to be a special case, and accept the "leap of faith". I publicly admit it: I believed in the book due to the design of the universe, then the deeds it advocates -including charity, respecting others and defend one's self, family and friends, prohibition of pedophilia...etc-.

I won't claim that there is an evidence but that. To me personally; that is enough for me to believe:

I didn't ask you about your beliefs and I already knew that you thought magic book was special.  I was asking whether or not you realized that the process you just criticized roundly as a game of desert phone tag was exactly the process used to cobble together magic book?

Quote:Heck; the universe is full of signs. If somebody saw the skies and what in the earth and still didn't think that there is an even slight chance that there is a God, then I will tell them to look again and again.

So the argument from design is what I favor when I speak about God. Nobody will see the angels or demons in this life. There are already huge things out there; NASA's website is enough for us to see that God exists in my perspective. Even at ancient times, observing the environment -even today- is enough to see the hand of God shaping everything.

But that is not what humans usually want, usually humans want a show; they want headless knights with serpents and dragons flying above, and a huge monster with one-eye roaring. Outer space is boring. The Lord Of The Rings is exciting.

Right, full of signs... that you can't or won't establish, and that you want to talk about now, instead of the above.  Looking at things implies a god?  NASA's website implies a god?  The weather...implies a god? 

People do want all of those things, and magic books too.  You'd understand that feeling better than I would, but I already knew that people wanted magic.  So what? I'm simply looking for acknowledgement that you understand the simplest and most basic facts about magic book, and how it came to contain what it does.

(April 21, 2018 at 5:02 am)Khemikal Wrote: There's alot of that in every religion.

In the specific case of this twelver bullshit and "deceivers"......very few people act out or on the truth of their religious ideology.  MK doesn't do what a convinced, committed, and rational person would do confronted with demon locks or demons (suspend your disbelief, lol).  

In a perceptual reality where an absolute state holds divine right of kingship over all of mankind, and where demons are holding influence over men...and where some men are themselves, in truth, the demonic influence....having exhausted all of your magical cantrips and mantras to no effect.... what is the next logical, compassionate, and morally upright step...to the problem of all the demons in the world, running the states of earth, suppressing the goodness of your own hidden prince, and doing untold evil upon your fellow man in the process?   

This is the truly subversive effect of this type of religious ideology.  Setting up a situation where a good person begins to consider the unthinkable.

Absolutely. It's amazing to me how each religious person doesn't notice that every other religion uses basically the same arguments as them to try and magicallify their books and dogma. I feel like if I'd been raised religious, this is the fact that would have shaken me out of it. But it's hard to know how different my thinking patterns would be if I was stifled as a kid and fed dogshit instead of encouraged to think critically.

Quote:So the argument from design is what I favor when I speak about God. 

How do you reconcile this in the face of numerous examples of poor 'design'?

Boru

Additionally, what use is a leap of faith if you have a credible argument, and what use is a credible argument if you're making a leap of faith?