Oh, You Talk to God, That’s Cool! I Need Some Answers

[Iroscato]

Did you ever consider the reason you don't hear a voice is because there is no God/Allah/Yaweh talking at all? And those who claim they do won't admit they either cop out to metaphor, or literally have a mental defect causing neurological missfire in the brain?

Well if there's not a God I don't want to know. It's something that has always been part of my life and would hate to lose it real or not. So no I do not want to admit anything cus I can't be sure.

Growing up is a real bitch, huh?

[80sChild]

Well if there's not a God I don't want to know. It's something that has always been part of my life and would hate to lose it real or not. So no I do not want to admit anything cus I can't be sure.

Growing up is a real bitch, huh?

Lol yeah really does ! [emoji111]️[emoji6]

[Thumpalumpacus]

Why does god think that when a woman gives birth to a girl that she is to be considered unclean for double the amount of time rather than if she gave birth to a boy? Why are women considered unclean after they’ve given birth?

Because the Israelites, like most other societies of the era, were misogynist?

[Salacious B. Crumb]

Why does god think that when a woman gives birth to a girl that she is to be considered unclean for double the amount of time rather than if she gave birth to a boy? Why are women considered unclean after they’ve given birth?

Because the Israelites, like most other societies of the era, were misogynist?

There's the truth of the matter. I'm trying to get the christians to see that as well, but we know how that goes 99%+ of the time.

[robvalue]

If God speak to them, clearly it won't tell them anything they don't already know. I've proved this point multiple times. I have an open challenge for any theist to tell me what four digit number I'm thinking of. God either can't or won't tell anyone this number, to provide some sort of vague evidence. Or if he has, the person hasn't dared to put forward the answer so they can't be confident in it.

As soon as religion and "God" is put to the test in reality, it fails. I have no problem with a deist belief as a kind of emotional reaction and a fundamental discomfort with uncertainty. I think it's pointless, but it's pretty harmless. But the idea that this God actually talks to individual people is completely absurd, I'm afraid.

No theist ever addresses this, so I'll bring it up again: how come God agrees with everyone individually, yet they disagree wildly with each other? This means God is disagreeing with himself, or else everyone has their own "personal God", right? Ironically that is a very good description of what is going on. God is incredibly personal.

All the "logical" defences for God are fallacious, and even then, they only account for a deist God. There is absolutely no justification for claiming to know loads of details about the God, such as it doesn't like people masturbating. I mean come on, how can you reconcile something so petty with the supreme being you put forward? Isn't that a giveaway that this is made up garbage?

I don't know if there's a "creator", but I am as absolutely certain as it is possible to be within my limitations that all religious portrayals are absolute nonsense.

[Salacious B. Crumb]

Did you ever consider the reason you don't hear a voice is because there is no God/Allah/Yaweh talking at all? And those who claim they do won't admit they either cop out to metaphor, or literally have a mental defect causing neurological missfire in the brain?

Well if there's not a God I don't want to know.

There's the problem, and I think, how many theists actually feel deep down. They don't want to look at all the logical questions because of reasons ranging from, being egotistical/narcissistic, all they way to, fear of finding that they've been believing in a lie the whole time. Why don't you want to seek the truth, look at all the arguments as much as you possibly can, then make an educated decision, based on the evidence? Why do theists want to suppress curiosity? You'd think people would want to know truth as best as they possibly can, and not believe in something just because they were raised with it, and never question it.. EVER. To me, it's quite a liberating experience coming to terms with reality. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am, even if that means the world will seem to be a slightly darker place for a temporary amount of time. If you were wasting a big portion of your life on something that wasn't true, wouldn't you want to know? I don't know why you wouldn't. More time to do other things, less crazy thinking, which will lead to better decision making, and a better life.

[Jenny A]

Did you ever consider the reason you don't hear a voice is because there is no God/Allah/Yaweh talking at all? And those who claim they do won't admit they either cop out to metaphor, or literally have a mental defect causing neurological missfire in the brain?

Well if there's not a God I don't want to know. It's something that has always been part of my life and would hate to lose it real or not. So no I do not want to admit anything cus I can't be sure.

That's a painfully honest reply. Part of me wants to say you really don't believe in god because you understand there is none. The other half says you don't steal crutches.

[80sChild]

No I'm saying I don't want to know because what difference will it actually make? If I am over all already a good person that treats other with compassion a love why change the way I think because who I am now I'm happy with, really I am. Don't think for a moment that I have not questioned my beliefs and yes I do know there is a chance i am wrong. But I like my life and I do make good decisions. I am happy I enjoy these kind of talks with people that think different than me cus I do respect that about people, and i love meeting people like yourself that has a wide open beautiful mind that believes totally opposite than me but still will respect me and my beliefs . I love life and I'm enjoying it as much as you! [emoji6]

[robvalue]

That's refreshing to hear 80s To be honest, you sound like an atheist too. But far be it from me to try and rake people in Being an atheist isn't about being certain, it's simply about being less than convinced.

My concerns about people carrying on with an irrational religious belief, not all of which will apply to everybody:

1) The more beliefs you hold for bad reasons, the more likely you are to believe more things for bad reasons.

2) The further away from reality your internal model is, the more likely you are to make suboptimal decisions which affect you and those around you.

3) Wasting time, energy and money on an imaginary belief system.

4) Devalueing this one and only life because of belief in a much better afterlife.

5) Indoctrinating children, teaching religious belief as fact. This is demonstrably potentially harmful, and takes away their ability to choose for themselves (at least through early childhood) when done early on.

6) Forcing beliefs onto others, treating others less well for not sharing your beliefs, all the way up to killing people.

Now I'm sure very few of those apply to you, 80s

[Salacious B. Crumb]

If God speak to them, clearly it won't tell them anything they don't already know. I've proved this point multiple times. I have an open challenge for any theist to tell me what four digit number I'm thinking of. God either can't or won't tell anyone this number, to provide some sort of vague evidence. Or if he has, the person hasn't dared to put forward the answer so they can't be confident in it.

This may be a time to address something I said in my OP, about me testing whether or not I was talking to god, because I'm a normal human being, who actually cared whether or not that I was talking to god. To the lurking theists, this isn't why I stopped believing in god, but something, on top of many many other tests I did, that gradually led to me realizing that I was talking to myself. It may sound stupid, but I try to lay out all my previous beliefs/actions out on here, so I can have constructive criticism, because I always try to learn by putting my beliefs out there, for people to question them, no matter how embarrassing they potentially are perceived.

Here's one little stupid experiment I did: I had thoughts that popped in my head that had absolutely no relevance to anything I was thinking about. These thoughts, at times, I thought had to have supernatural explanations. It really seemed as if I was getting information from an unknown source, which I believed to be a god, and that he was helping me out along my way (I of course, ignored all the information that didn't quite work out, and only noticed the information that helped me out). Anyways, I had a coin next to me in these conversations in which I felt I was having with god. The thoughts popped in my head so clearly, and definitely didn't seem to be my thoughts, they seemed that they just came to me from somewhere else. I decided while in this state, and in conversation with god, I'd flip the coin, and ask god what side it landed on. I did this multiple times, along with other testable experiments of that nature. The same thought (god's voice) popped in my head so clearly, that I still felt I was talking to god, but the thoughts/voices that I thought to be god's, actually turned out that I had to come to an honest conclusion, that it was just my thoughts. God got the coin tosses wrong at least 50% of the time. I then had other points where I thought I was talking to god randomly, and I tried it again. The same thoughts that would just pop in my head, turned out to be wrong. Sometimes they'd be right, but not always.

What do you know, I have the balls to be honest and say I was talking to myself for years, and I'm glad I don't do it anymore. I feel much more rational and skeptical than I used to be. However, I never actually realized this when I was a believer, I thought I was being rational, just like many other theists out there. Thankfully, there was some skepticism and logic in my brain, that I got out of that crazy habit of talking to my imaginary friend.