converting back unto theism - yes it's true.

[Violet]

I would love to see other peoples dreams, would help give me a better perspective on things.

Going off topic slightly, I've always wondered if the ability to see others thoughts would lead to world peace or world destruction. That is, if everyone knew and could understand how everyone else felt, would it cause a greater understanding of humanity, or cause people to flip out and start killing each other.

I think the latter... there are many secrets that could kill. Knowledge of where nuclear weapons are stored... passwords... our thoughts would become our own enemies. The very tool that enabled us to progress... manifest as the catalyst of our destruction.

Also... what exactly is this 'peace'? It would be a very small step from understanding everything about each of us... to being the mighty and like minded 'we'. A hive mind is what we would get if taken to the intense extreme... as is explored in a number of media (some being Ayn Rand's Anthem and Bioware's Mass Effect 2). Must 'peace' come necessarily at our being able to fully understand one another or read thoughts... the only place we can keep knowledge of secret or private things so?

[tavarish]

The "I used to be an atheist" line gives them a certain amount of street cred and makes an appeal to authority and popularity, attempting to confirm beliefs and rationalizations.

I had a conversation with my girlfriend yesterday and she told me that doubting her faith is a sin. I'm waiting until she's honest enough with herself to either confirm her belief or reject it based on reason, not fear of hell. I can see that every time we have a discussion, she gets quite irate and doesn't want to talk on the subject any more, as it may put bad thoughts into her head. She's a great person, and it kind of saddens me that something that she claims to believe gives her so much strife - she actively believes she is a bad person, the church convinced her of this.

[leo-rcc]

The "I used to be an atheist" line gives them a certain amount of street cred and makes an appeal to authority and popularity, attempting to confirm beliefs and rationalizations.

(emphasis mine)
With some perhaps, not with me.

[Frank]

The "I used to be an atheist" line gives them a certain amount of street cred and makes an appeal to authority and popularity, attempting to confirm beliefs and rationalizations.

I had a conversation with my girlfriend yesterday and she told me that doubting her faith is a sin. I'm waiting until she's honest enough with herself to either confirm her belief or reject it based on reason, not fear of hell. I can see that every time we have a discussion, she gets quite irate and doesn't want to talk on the subject any more, as it may put bad thoughts into her head. She's a great person, and it kind of saddens me that something that she claims to believe gives her so much strife - she actively believes she is a bad person, the church convinced her of this.

Definitely, religion can damage our psychology. It does teach people they're naturally (and unavoidably) bad; and goodness can only come from submission to an invisible friend (and the degree of submission required is so obscurely defined, many run around constantly doubting themselves). Imagine believing that a god who likes to burn people in an eternal hell is probing your every thought. Not only that - but this moral cop inside our brain is supposedly so good and holy that we can never achieve his level of perfection, consequently even otherwise very good people (who don't have warped thoughts, like me, hahahahaaaa) run around constantly questioning the purity of their thoughts, apologizing to an invisible friend for thinking the wrong thing, and are deluded into thinking this sort of nonsense isn't a quintessential feature of superstition.

It's sad really.

[tackattack]

Actually frank that's typically the Christian God. Most other God's I'm aware of will take being good credits without the submission.

[Frank]

Actually frank that's typically the Christian God. Most other God's I'm aware of will take being good credits without the submission.

I'm only familiar with the Christian version (although being a New Yorker I do have several Jewish friends). My familiarity with other, more alien religions (like Buddhism) comes from a cursory review (Wikipedia sort of thing .... not exactly reliable if you know what I mean); but I am pretty sure Judaism requires faith (and god is definitely much more twisted in the old testament than he is in the NT), and I'm also pretty sure atheists have a hard time getting along in the Islamic world (I think they would saw off my head with a dull butter knife).

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I had a conversation with my girlfriend yesterday and she told me that doubting her faith is a sin.

How interesting. At the Catholic school I attended,in high school we were taught only a fool does not question his faith.


I'd be willing o bet our resident sophist *(Arcanus) has a somewhat different take from your girl friend.







*translation; I seldom understand what he's talking about. I think his mother may have been bitten by a rabid Jesuit while she was pregnant with him.

[tackattack]

It is a sin to go against God's nature willingly, which is written on your heart. That could be interpreted as doubt I guess. But doubt is a thought not a choice, similar to a feeling. It's reactionary not a force of will, IMO. I was always raised to question everything, belief, faith, science, etc. Questioning is not a force of will either. It takes focus to question, but it isn't a decision to act. Now determining that something you believe, through the spirit, is against God's will and doing it from a selfish want, that I would call a sin.

[theVOID]

congratulations on your return to thinking for yourself TW and release from that security blanket of limited horizons. Hope you stick around

Of course, because the absence of a ready-made reference manual for life is such a security blanket.

---

If you call remembering my own baptism IN LATIN vividly which happened as an infant, then ok.

Aww Truthworthy was convinced by his own brain fart. How cute.

[Frank]

It is a sin to go against God's nature willingly, which is written on your heart.

That leaves us quite a bit of flexibility though doesn't it? I still remember the old testament well enough to remember it's a horror show, filled with virtually every atrocity you can imagine.

My morals are much higher than god's.