(March 22, 2013 at 1:28 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

(March 22, 2013 at 1:27 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote: This is a direct quote from Strudel:

I was involved in a demonic ritual in which I told an evil spirit that it could rule over me. I gave the evil spirit dominion over me through a sexual ritual. During this time, I would spend long periods of time communicating with evil spirits, who would move and influence the world around me. I would feel the spirits touch me and talk to me.

For 3 years I did not have control over my body. I would walk around, and try and move my arms and hands and try as hard as I could to stop myself from moving around and I could not do so. I have felt many evil spirits try and hold on to me. They possessed my body for several years, like I said. I collected disability because I could not work. I could feel the spirits inside of me.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about schizophrenia:

Schizophrenia (/ˌskɪtsɵˈfrɛniə/ or /ˌskɪtsɵˈfriːniə/) is a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by a deficit of typical emotional responses.[1] Common symptoms include auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction. The onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood, with a global lifetime prevalence of about 0.3–0.7%.[2] Diagnosis is based on observed behavior and the patient's reported experiences.

How does anything I wrote relate to that? I said I didn't have control of my body for around 3 years. You posted that I had hallucinations. How are the two related?

Are you serious? You don't think that saying you didn't have control of your body for three years is neither a bizarre delusion nor disorganized thinking?

If you truly believe that you were possessed by a demon, then you are clinically IN-FUCKING-SANE. If you believe that you talk to god, you are clinically IN-FUCKING-SANE.

Your refusal to believe that you are suffering from mental illness in no way diminishes the fact that you are, indeed, suffering from mental illness.

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(March 22, 2013 at 1:28 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

(March 22, 2013 at 1:28 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Would you listen to them, or would you just dismiss anyone that views things differently as being closed-minded and biased as you have done repeatedly?

There is not one true belief that I am aware of that I have rejected without deeply considering its merits and relating it as best as I can to everything else I know in the last 6 or 7 years. This is not necessarily the best way to approach everything, to believe that you know better than everyone else, but this is the way that I have lived for years and years.

So, in other words, you are saying that yo interpret what others are saying through your own experience and bias and form your opinions and beliefs based on your interpretation of what they are saying?

(March 22, 2013 at 1:28 pm)jstrodel Wrote: There is not one true belief that I am aware of that I have rejected without deeply considering its merits and relating it as best as I can to everything else I know in the last 6 or 7 years. This is not necessarily the best way to approach everything, to believe that you know better than everyone else, but this is the way that I have lived for years and years.

Your problem lies in that you claim to know that others do not hold beliefs to the same rigorous standards that you believe you do.

You are begging the question to a very deep and very dishonest degree. You are arguing that I am delusional by assuming that it is impossible to be possessed by demons. Then you are further arguing from this that I must be mental ill, so that invalidates my testimony.

You did not even match my experience against a strict criteria of schizophrenia.

If you had an open mind, and did not believe things you had no evidence for, you would not out of your faith in atheism declare me schizophrenic by appealing to the fact that what you are attempting to prove is false.

If you can't see why this is fallacious, I don't know if there is much more I can say to you. You are just brainwashed.

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(March 22, 2013 at 1:39 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote: So, in other words, you are saying that yo interpret what others are saying through your own experience and bias and form your opinions and beliefs based on your interpretation of what they are saying?

I try and assess whether the things are true and what relationship that has to things that I already believe, like everyone else.

The question of whether they are true is separate from my acceptance of their truth value, but at another level they are related.

(March 22, 2013 at 1:44 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you had an open mind, and did not believe things you had no evidence for, you would not out of your faith in atheism declare me schizophrenic by appealing to the fact that what you are attempting to prove is false.

Are you seriously accusing ME of believing in things without evidence????????????

Irony much?

By the way, my atheism has NOTHING to do with my opinion that you are mentally ill. It is the fact that you display a great number of the indicators of mental illness that inform my opinion.

You didn't even respond to the substance of what I wrote. How is what you did not fallacious reasoning? How are you not begging the question?

What indicators? You slander religious people in your cheap culture war in order to discredit them because you can't disprove what they say.

(March 22, 2013 at 1:44 pm)jstrodel Wrote: I try and assess whether the things are true and what relationship that has to things that I already believe, like everyone else.

The question of whether they are true is separate from my acceptance of their truth value, but at another level they are related.

"Do you believe it is possible to listen to someone and just hear what they have to say, without passing any judgement or making any theory about their mental state or creating some new "hypothesis" to justify your theist position?"

(March 22, 2013 at 1:51 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You slander religious people in your cheap culture war in order to discredit them because you can't disprove what they say.

You cannot even prove what you say.

(March 22, 2013 at 1:51 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You slander religious people in your cheap culture war in order to discredit them because you can't disprove what they say.

Disprove what they say?!?!
We don't spend time trying to disprove magical fairies on the moon either. What halfwit would spend a moment's time trying to disprove something that doesn't exist??

(March 22, 2013 at 1:53 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote:

(March 22, 2013 at 1:44 pm)jstrodel Wrote: I try and assess whether the things are true and what relationship that has to things that I already believe, like everyone else.

The question of whether they are true is separate from my acceptance of their truth value, but at another level they are related.

"Do you believe it is possible to listen to someone and just hear what they have to say, without passing any judgement or making any theory about their mental state or creating some new "hypothesis" to justify your theist position?"

That is what I said. "The question of whether they are true is separate from my acceptance of their truth value". You brain seems to lack the capacity to make nuanced distinctions. Obviously knowledge presupposes some sort of dialectical relationship between past experience and sense experience, but the nature of this is important, how it takes place.

I am sorry that you were not able to recognize the tension in me as I wrote what I did, that represents the tension that exists as learning itself is contradictory and presupposes learning for it to function properly or for discernment and verification to be possible, itself also requiring verification.

Do you think it is possible there are people in the world who have thought about things longer than you have, who are not atheists?

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(March 22, 2013 at 1:58 pm)Cinjin Wrote:

(March 22, 2013 at 1:51 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You slander religious people in your cheap culture war in order to discredit them because you can't disprove what they say.

Disprove what they say?!?!
We don't spend time trying to disprove magical fairies on the moon either. What halfwit would spend a moment's time trying to disprove something that doesn't exist??

It is not like all the atheist authors that you read aren't teaching at formerly Christian universities or the entire society that you live in was not based on Christian values.

I can see that you are an honest, clear minded person when you say that Christianity has the same evidential standards as believing there are fairies on the moon. That proves to me that you aren't just a propangadist, that you have a real serious commitment to learning, and that you are fully informed of the role that Christianity has played in your own appreciation of atheism (which is significant).

Any reasonable person can see that putting Christianity on the same evidential plane as fairies on the moon is nothing other than pure atheist honesty.

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(March 22, 2013 at 1:54 pm)Mr Infidel Wrote:

(March 22, 2013 at 1:51 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You slander religious people in your cheap culture war in order to discredit them because you can't disprove what they say.

You cannot even prove what you say.

You fail to distinguish between "proving" something and "proving it to you over the internet".

(March 22, 2013 at 1:24 pm)jstrodel Wrote: I challenge you right now to prove definitively that you are from the place where you are from. --- Of course you can't prove any of this.

It's actually easy, but I'm not as stupid as you to put out that kind of sensitive data on the net.

Quote:But if you want to learn about God

Why on earth would I? I have no desire whatsoever to know anything about your imaginary friend.

Quote:Don't try and prove or disprove anything, just talk to people and try and understand what is going on.

Oh, I understand perfectly well, I don't need to talk to more cuckoos in order to see what's going on.