Religion Tactics

[naralas]

Blah! I can’t think of anything to write without putting volumes and volumes down! I’m sick of filling pages and pages then having to go back to the previous pages and elaborating on them... can I just ask:

Why do you believe in God? Keep in mind that I will strike at everything you say unless you have what I deem to be a valid reason. If you “don’t care what I think” feel free to express that, but I will reply by expressing what you don’t care to hear.

If you hope that any of the following:
Pascals Wager
Intelligent Design
Origin of the Universe
Faith

or any other things like that are sufficient, feel free to bring them up, but be warned, to name a few, those are what can most be easily crushed.

And please, if you think I’m a beaver dam fool, I [b]beg[/b] of you to post here. I hate people who tell me I am wrong and then run and hide.

Edited July 3, 2007 by naralas

[jeffpugh]

Welcome, my friend to Phatmass. Glad you finally came on. I'm just going to say (since we've weathered these arguments in the past) that these people will be fine with you, as long as you don't end up Budging about things. Nuff said. Welcome again.

[rollingcatholic]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310413' date='Jul 2 2007, 11:46 PM']Blah! I can’t think of anything to write without putting volumes and volumes down! I’m sick of filling pages and pages then having to go back to the previous pages and elaborating on them... can I just ask:

Why do you believe in God? Keep in mind that I will strike at everything you say unless you have what I deem to be a valid reason. If you “don’t care what I think” feel free to express that, but I will reply by expressing what you don’t care to hear.

If you hope that any of the following:
Pascals Wager
Intelligent Design
Origin of the Universe
Faith

or any other things like that are sufficient, feel free to bring them up, but be warned, to name a few, those are what can most be easily crushed.

And please, if you think I’m a beaver dam fool, I [b]beg[/b] of you to post here. I hate people who tell me I am wrong and then run and hide.[/quote]

Nice first post.

Demeaning
Combative
Rude
Arrogant

[jeffpugh]

Dude, that was... weird...

edit: oh wait, those are your answers to the list...

Edited July 3, 2007 by Sacred Music Man

[naralas]

Heh, well, I was assured by Jeff that you were mature enough to understand that those with fundementally different beliefs don't need to waste time with pleasentries.

I can insult him all the way to his core, and he the same to me, and we are still cool with eachother.

Yes I am arrogant towards people who I think are wrong. Nobody noteworthy ever walked up and said "this smells of elderberries... carry on"

[hoosieranna]

Welcome. You'll probably get some interesting answers. I'll admit to being enough of a weenie that I'm not going to list my reasons for belief or disbelief. Sorry.

[gamesfanatic04]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310451' date='Jul 3 2007, 12:54 AM']Heh, well, I was assured by Jeff that you were mature enough to understand that those with fundementally different beliefs don't need to waste time with pleasentries.

I can insult him all the way to his core, and he the same to me, and we are still cool with eachother.

Yes I am arrogant towards people who I think are wrong. Nobody noteworthy ever walked up and said "this smells of elderberries... carry on"[/quote]

No apologies, tre chic!
This is how it went down for me. I was an atheist through all of high school, until I moved to Texas, also known as the promised land. When I moved down there I was ready for anything and when a Friend invited me to his Home Based Outreach program I came fully loaded. Only there was no proselytizing, no forcing me to argue my beliefs, they said a prayer before the meal that I was welcome to abstain from, we hung out and ate nachos. After awhile I started to examine atheism and religions and the more I studied the more I realized atheism is the most delightful kind of willful ignorance. The complete and total disavowment of religion or any supernatural experience or even a soul and afterlife is outside of human nature, and destroys a great part of what it means to be human.
I was still not yet a Christian, in all honestly i was actually drawn to paganism I guess it was my desire to be exotic, a hold over from atheisms self gratifying philosophy, but the more I studied and the more I read the more I was pulled toward Christianity. I became a Presbyterian and a Christian on December of 03. While most of my friends were protestant two of them weren't, and they were some of the biggest influences on my religious life, my friends Jennifer and Kate, Catholic and Orthodox respectivly. I was dating Jennifer at the time and while she indulged my growing faith she would always smile and say "Jon, you are a history fanatic, you'll be catholic eventually" Turns out she was right, I started moving to wards Catholicism almost as soon as I was confirmed presbyterian, logical decisions always seemed to evolve into what I learned was actually Catholic doctrine. I moved to the Vortex Florida in 04 and started RCIA.
I was hoping i could be confirmed in 05 so Jennifer could come and see me and I could propose to her. Unfortunately, she was taken from the world to young. This staggered me, i fell into despair, drinking and smoking myself to death. I stopped attending RCIA and church all together. My life was spiraling out of control until one night it came down to me holding a Colt .45 single action revolver to my temple. I still remember exactly what happened. I closed my eyes because they hurt from crying, I was out of booze and my memories of Jennifer came flooding back to me. I imagined her calling for me as she died but not being there. I wanted to die more than anything in this world. As I cocked the hammer I thought, I've lead a terrible life, and no one can forgive me.
But one thought entered my mind, unbidden and completely uncalled for. Jennifer's voice, clear as day said "Christ has, you have his forgiveness and you had it all along, this body is not yours to kill, you were baptized and that means your flesh belongs to God." I put down the gun, went to my car and drove to Holy Faith here in Vortexville. I spent the night on my knees in the rain and mud praying the rosary in front of the statue of our Blessed Mother. Fr. John found me in the morning passed out holding my rosary, he brought me into the rectory, gave me a hot meal and we talked. I re entered RCIA that Sunday and was confirmed on the Easter vigil 2006, after receiving Communion for the first time, kneeling in the pews I felt Jennifer next to me. Everything in my research of history and logic lead me to catholicism, but a revolver and a kind priest taught me what it truly meant. As I told my conformation class that Saturday, my faith had always been academic, but now, here, in this church it has become truly real. I was a stranger and they welcomed me, naked and they clothed me, hungry and they fed me.
Everyone knew why I fled the church before but no one cared, every last person in my parish looked on me with kind eyes, since then I have had the immense pleasure of watching two of my best friends go through RCIA at Holy Faith, and I can't wait to see my Fiancée Elizabeth do the same this year. wow, looking back on that I don't know if it was what you were looking for but thats it, thats why I'm catholic.

[jckinsman]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310413' date='Jul 2 2007, 11:46 PM']Blah! I can’t think of anything to write without putting volumes and volumes down! I’m sick of filling pages and pages then having to go back to the previous pages and elaborating on them... can I just ask:

Why do you believe in God? Keep in mind that I will strike at everything you say unless you have what I deem to be a valid reason. If you “don’t care what I think” feel free to express that, but I will reply by expressing what you don’t care to hear.

If you hope that any of the following:
Pascals Wager
Intelligent Design
Origin of the Universe
Faith

or any other things like that are sufficient, feel free to bring them up, but be warned, to name a few, those are what can most be easily crushed.

And please, if you think I’m a beaver dam fool, I [b]beg[/b] of you to post here. I hate people who tell me I am wrong and then run and hide.[/quote]
I believe in God because I choose to do so. If you do not want volumes and volumes of writing then simplify your question! You tell us up front you are ready to pounce. Then continue it with rejection of even ones own faith???? You are a hungry cougar! I have to wonder with an intro like that who would want to waste there time on just arguments?
I believe in God because of the Earth, how the human body works,my family,the man named Jesus,the way a dying child seems so content,a homeless man walking down the road, a man in prison taking his last walk towards his death. I believe in God because when I close my eyes at night,I now that if he wills it, I will open them again In the morning.
My brain can grasp that I don't have the mind of Our Maker. I don't have to know it all, before I know that He is real. I don't need to have the eyes of a blindman fumbling through life, angry, that I don't have the eyes too see!
I know I have a purpose in life, because he willed my exsistance and that He has a plan for me. For someone who understands this, arguments mean nothing. Hating people is very unintelligent. Maybe they are not hiding, they are just tired of the circles in the conversation. Certainly you can agree there is no point to that? Remarkably, you resemble and man I knew. A fool he was not. He just liked very much, to sound important.
I assured him he was important ,simply because God made him! Harness what He gave you for the good, my friend. Yes and Welcome to Phatmass.

[naralas]

Alright, the attempted suicide story:
I hope you don't fancy yourself a Christian and carry a firearm still? Jeez, you could shoot someone! Nothing food comes from that >_<

And to the reply following that, I may have made a tiny mistake: "I hate WHEN people" not "I hate people".

Now, you can stand there and tell me you feel God, or you feel some presence. Now I'm not saying your insane, but you can see and hear anything in the right (unfortunately, a better word might be "wrong") emotional state so that kind of foundation for belief really does not jive with me. People can be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt in a lot of really stupid things. Now it's easy to say "well what proof do YOU have" to me. But as much as Christians seem to dislike this point, the burden of proof lies 100% on you. You claim there is something that we cannot see or taste or touch or smell, and when people desperately turn to it, they will feel it. Sounds like Psych 101 to me.

Now also, I'm not sure your familiar with intelligent design theory, but you mentioned it in your post, about how your body is proof of God. Just FYI, that is what I meant when I said intelligent design. Our world, and the complexities of our being make it seem like we are purposeful. However I like to start with rain as a simple idea.

Rain sustains life. Without the rain we would die. The rains purpose seems to be to keep us here. However, without an environment with water and rain we would not be here to think about it. Our world is expiring, and self destructive, and human beings themselves are flawed and weak. We are not here because of some intelligent design scheme, we think up some design scheme because we are HERE to be thinking.

But then theres still the valid point: how are we here then? Well look around the universe. Not a whole lot of life is there? Why us? Why here? Simple. It's pretty frickin unlikely that life could evolve and sustain itself for millions of years and reach the point that humanity has! It's not that we are genetic lottery winners who happened to be on the right planet, as I said before, we are here thinking about it BECAUSE it just happened to work. We are on a funny little planet that grew weird little people, and they developed societies, and all sorts of silly explanations for what they could not understand.

Now we are here thinking everything has a purpose because it works. When in reality, it firstly does not have a purpose, we are assuming that BECAUSE it seems to be working

And secondly, it is not working very well. Our planet is dying... good work God.

[kujo]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 07:02 AM']Alright, the attempted suicide story:
I hope you don't fancy yourself a Christian and carry a firearm still? Jeez, you could shoot someone! Nothing food comes from that >_<

And to the reply following that, I may have made a tiny mistake: "I hate WHEN people" not "I hate people".

Now, you can stand there and tell me you feel God, or you feel some presence. Now I'm not saying your insane, but you can see and hear anything in the right (unfortunately, a better word might be "wrong") emotional state so that kind of foundation for belief really does not jive with me. People can be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt in a lot of really stupid things. Now it's easy to say "well what proof do YOU have" to me. But as much as Christians seem to dislike this point, the burden of proof lies 100% on you. You claim there is something that we cannot see or taste or touch or smell, and when people desperately turn to it, they will feel it. Sounds like Psych 101 to me.

Now also, I'm not sure your familiar with intelligent design theory, but you mentioned it in your post, about how your body is proof of God. Just FYI, that is what I meant when I said intelligent design. Our world, and the complexities of our being make it seem like we are purposeful. However I like to start with rain as a simple idea.

Rain sustains life. Without the rain we would die. The rains purpose seems to be to keep us here. However, without an environment with water and rain we would not be here to think about it. Our world is expiring, and self destructive, and human beings themselves are flawed and weak. We are not here because of some intelligent design scheme, we think up some design scheme because we are HERE to be thinking.

But then theres still the valid point: how are we here then? Well look around the universe. Not a whole lot of life is there? Why us? Why here? Simple. It's pretty frickin unlikely that life could evolve and sustain itself for millions of years and reach the point that humanity has! It's not that we are genetic lottery winners who happened to be on the right planet, as I said before, we are here thinking about it BECAUSE it just happened to work. We are on a funny little planet that grew weird little people, and they developed societies, and all sorts of silly explanations for what they could not understand.

Now we are here thinking everything has a purpose because it works. When in reality, it firstly does not have a purpose, we are assuming that BECAUSE it seems to be working

And secondly, it is not working very well. Our planet is dying... good work God.[/quote]

Unfortunately, I have to run out to work in a moment, so I don't have the time I'd like to devote to this thread...so I'll keep it short and sweet(ish....I can be just as vicious as you).

I believe in God because God is God. It seems rather logical to me that, no matter how far back to you trace something--to the origin of the universe!--that there has to be Something that started it all. Not that He is bound by such philosophical, scientific points, but wasn't it Sir Issac Newton who said that matter isn't simply created? So how did that first atom, that first minute particle, which started the chain reaction that lead to what we've got today...how did that get there?

The answer is God, my friend.

As for intelligent design, I think my belief on that goes pretty well with what I've already mentioned. I would like to comment on your post, though. It seems sad to me that you believe that everything "worked out" just by dumb-luck. I don't think so, pal. Too much room for error in the first moments of the creation of the universe. One electron more or less, and there would be nothing. If our planet was not perfectly-placed at this distance from the sun, life would be unsustainable.

I don't know what the rest of your stuff is.

Have at it...I'll be home at 3 p.m. EST.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310451' date='Jul 3 2007, 12:54 AM']Heh, well, I was assured by Jeff that you were mature enough to understand that those with fundementally different beliefs don't need to waste time with pleasentries.

I can insult him all the way to his core, and he the same to me, and we are still cool with eachother.

Yes I am arrogant towards people who I think are wrong. Nobody noteworthy ever walked up and said "this smells of elderberries... carry on"[/quote]

Welcome to phatmass.
We don't do arrogant and we don't do rude. Neither characteristic is related to maturity or intelligence or good internet conversation because you can't see the others facial expressions and it leads to generating more heat than light.
Versions of the f word are also banned, as we are a catholic site.

Enjoy the ride

[KnightofChrist]

If there is no God why not be "evil"?

If there is no God why not "hate"?

If there is no God does love exist?

Without God does life have purpose or meaning?

Edited July 3, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 05:02 AM']Now, you can stand there and tell me you feel God, or you feel some presence. Now I'm not saying your insane, but you can see and hear anything in the right (unfortunately, a better word might be "wrong") emotional state so that kind of foundation for belief really does not jive with me. People can be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt in a lot of really stupid things. Now it's easy to say "well what proof do YOU have" to me. But as much as Christians seem to dislike this point, the burden of proof lies 100% on you. You claim there is something that we cannot see or taste or touch or smell, and when people desperately turn to it, they will feel it. Sounds like Psych 101 to me.[/quote]

This argument is easily turned against you. You came to us you prove God does not exist, the burdens on you.

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 05:02 AM']Now also, I'm not sure your familiar with intelligent design theory, but you mentioned it in your post, about how your body is proof of God. Just FYI, that is what I meant when I said intelligent design. Our world, and the complexities of our being make it seem like we are purposeful. However I like to start with rain as a simple idea.

Rain sustains life. Without the rain we would die. The rains purpose seems to be to keep us here. However, without an environment with water and rain we would not be here to think about it. Our world is expiring, and self destructive, and human beings themselves are flawed and weak. We are not here because of some intelligent design scheme, we think up some design scheme because we are HERE to be thinking.[/quote]

Who or what has programed this "thinking", have you ever written code? Does that happen by mere chance? Nope. I takes intelligence to write intelligence. I recall a scientist once who was trying to prove with a computer program that there was no God. To begin with he had to create the program or his VR universe it did not come from nothing. Secondly, he ran into a huge problem none of the lifeforms or pre-lifeforms did anything. They too had to be programed to do something likewise they did nothing. The point being the "thinking" of his lifeforms did nothing until he the creator programed they're "minds."

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 05:02 AM']But then theres still the valid point: how are we here then? Well look around the universe. Not a whole lot of life is there? Why us? Why here? Simple. It's pretty frickin unlikely that life could evolve and sustain itself for millions of years and reach the point that humanity has! It's not that we are genetic lottery winners who happened to be on the right planet, as I said before, we are here thinking about it BECAUSE it just happened to work. We are on a funny little planet that grew weird little people, and they developed societies, and all sorts of silly explanations for what they could not understand.[/quote]

This argument seems to be in conflict with itself. We are not "genetic lottery winners", but it "just happened to work" that makes little sense.

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 05:02 AM']Now we are here thinking everything has a purpose because it works. When in reality, it firstly does not have a purpose, we are assuming that BECAUSE it seems to be working[/quote]

It has worked for billions of years, that is either by chance or by purpose. Considering all the trillions upon trillions of possibility's of every event that has taken place in reality that has brought forth our existence it would seem to argue purpose and an creator with intelligence. Why because you can't get more in the effect than you had in the cause.

[quote name='naralas' post='1310745' date='Jul 3 2007, 05:02 AM']And secondly, it is not working very well. Our planet is dying... good work God.[/quote]

Again it has worked for billions of years and since you believe whatever programed your mind was not an intelligence how can you trust it at all?

[naralas]

[quote]Too much room for error in the first moments of the creation of the universe.[/quote]
What's to say we are not the error? What do you mean too much room for error? Without God, without human beings being planned, we are simply the result of all that has come before us. We were never some distant ideal that fell perfectly into place. We happened. If not having purpose scares you, then your psychological state is exactly what makes me doubt your belief system.

I'm not trying madly to be rude. It seems that how I phrase things are the only ways I can truly express what I think. I find all religion to be born from limitations of man. I can't put that nicely.

Who said I came here to prove God does not exist? I said I don't believe, and wanted to know why you all do.

I will state this:

God is an exceptionally unlikely possibility for the origin of the Universe, and were he to exist it would be even more unlikely still that he is anything like what modern religion thinks. If you created the universe, do you really think YOU would have time to waste hating gays? or blacks? (Not saying that's all religion is, or even that all religion is that, but those are specific, and utterly stupid instances of it)

Oh and to whoever asked the question about code, I was going to write out a cute little C struct that would demonstrate the traits that lead people to fall for God, but then others might feel left out. So what I'll say is this: yes I am a programmer, and I've seen people fall ass-backwards into brilliance on a regular basis. I see the potential for what they write and all they want it to do is ... do something different?

[KnightofChrist]

So your agree your programs did not write themselves, they took your logic and intelligence to write... Before I contine I would like a more detail and logical response to post 12 and 13.