RE: God Became a Mirage
March 21, 2009 at 4:54 pm
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2009 at 5:12 pm by Edward.)
(March 21, 2009 at 4:01 am)Demonaura Wrote: Point being, he was willing to support direct harm to people he new not one single damn thing about simply because his parents said god doesn't like these people. He was willing to hurt them, to supress an entire section of the population without knowing shit about anything.
I'm a prude when it comes to sex. I'm very conservative. I don't flirt with other women; I don't cheat on my wife; and I don't like being flirted with. It makes me uncomfortable. I have a lot of hang ups and I don't think people in glass houses should throw stones. Having said that, I couldn't care less about gays. People can be whatever the hell they want to be, so long as they don't touch me.
Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up for me.
(March 21, 2009 at 6:12 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Atheism is specifically about the absence of belief in "God" and by my definition: A Supernatural CREATOR of the universe.
Not to throw a monkey wrench in the works or anything, but if God exists as the creator of the universe, He would, by definition, be natural, not supernatural. Unless one is a dualist and separates God from nature, which is absurd in my opinion. Obviously something started the universe, if the big bang is to be believed, and if it isn't then something is the universe. But that says nothing about "God." Words have connotations and the connotation of God, pretty much worldwide, is not a being I believe exists. I don't even entertain concepts like supernatural. So, you and I are in agreement there.
But here's the rub: I know--I don't believe--I know I have had precognitive dreams. I have them fully documented. I don't have them often, and there have only been two that have been so startling as to make me feel almost insane. I don't like them at all. I don't want any form of precognition at all. There's nothing pleasant about it, in my opinion. Having said that. I don't consider it supernatural. I consider it a phenomenon we don't know how to explain at this time. But so what, there are many things about consciousness we don't quite fully understand. There are many things about sub-atomic particles we don't fully understand. It doesn't mean they are supernatural, they are natural. We just haven't developed a way to study them yet.
Now, you can't know if my experience was real or not. No matter how much you believe or disbelieve that I am telling you the truth, no matter how much you want to deny or believe in a phenomenon like precognition doesn't matter. You can't know it. However to actively believe it is in no way possible, is to be ignorant. And I would know that, but you wouldn't, because I could compare the experience against what you believe.
My point is just this: in general, we should be open-minded and in no way dogmatic about anything.
