Answering Difficult Questions From Atheists

savage_carrot

Did someone call? Oh well, I'm here anyways.

This was getting really interesting and I liked where reel was going...SoA, don't you think you're being a wee bit melodramatic? You come on pretty strong yourself, didn't think one poster could make you run off.

In case the taunts worked, feel free to carry on the discussion, keeping it to the point and avoiding personal attacks. Thanks.

Student_of_Allah

Are you insulting the men of this forum? Aren't they evidence? Do you believe these men even after taking the Quranic path will rape?

No. I never said a word about the men on this forum. Please quote me where I did so.

What would they be evidence of? I never talked about anybody else BUT YOU.

I have no idea about which member of this forum will end up raping anyone. I have no reason to believe that joining this forum and following Qur'an alone makes anyone more or less likely to be a rapist than not joining this forum and not following your book. Bad people do bad things, irrespective of whatever label you put on them.

He did tell us there will be bad things. But from atheistic point of view, why don't you tell us why rape exists when people are naturally compassionate and hate to see the bad?
Yeah only if God was like human.

So God telling you that there will be bad things is reason enough to let him off the hook of responsibility? That's a very unreasonable thing to say. You think if I program robots who I know will kill your parents and then just say "There will be bad things", then I am no longer responsible after they go and butcher your family? No you don't. So don't have the double standard when it comes to God.

When did I say that people can only be compassionate and hate to see bad stuff? From this statement of yours alone, I can deduce that either you aren't reading what I am writing, or you are simply incapable of understanding. Let me quote what I said

That is not true. I don't know about the type of person you are. However, doesn't go around raping and murdering or abusing little kids because there are laws against those things. Our built in instincts nurtured by values that reflects the basic premises of well-being I discussed earlier (health being preferred over sickness,etc) is what makes us moral. The law is there to penalize the ones going against those things only.
Emanuel's writings are extremely polarized and focuses solely on the dark side. Which is NOT THE TRUE PICTURE. Yes I have been unkind at times, but just because I have been unkind at times doesn't mean that I am some kind of volcano oozing out unkindness. That is what Emanuel has done with his post. He absolutely ignored all pros of homosapiens and wrote solely about the cons. And modeled homosapiens only after that, making us look like the monsters that WE ARE NOT. It's like someone saying "Homosapiens can be forgiving. Therefore they are only able to forgive. They can't ever hold anything against anyone". It's just as flawed as that. Don't know why you can't see through his extremely polarised analysis of homosapiens. On top of that, why would you share his post to make the point? There have been countless peer reviewed journals and books published on the nature of Man. What makes Emanuel's polarized opinions trump all of that research? Your bias perhaps?

That is what I said and you twisted it to make it sound THE EXACT OPPOSITE! I never took a polarized position on the issue of us being good/evil. I CLEARLY STATED that it is not that black and white. I did state that we have the ability to do bad and good both. Whereas you were trying to promote the idea presented by Emanuel that it's only bad that we can do.

Please do not twist my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said.
The answer to your question is that bad people will do bad and it is our responsibility to do everything we can to make sure we can keep them from doing bad.

Your analogy is connected to separation between the bot and its creator. This does not apply to God.

Well then you just dug your God a deeper grave. Now he is all the more responsible as he presumably is connected to the criminals and victims. How does being connected make him not responsible? If you were connected to a women being raped and the rapist and you could stop that from happening, would you be like "Damn it! I am connected to them! Let's just let her get raped."?

True because it is beyond your reality. You are trying to know it through your limited knowledge you gained from today's scientific thinking.

I am your God. The reason you don't get it is because "You are trying to know it through your limited knowledge"

So convenient, isn't it?

Once again, you are applying your limited reality to understand God. He has his own rules which we still are not capable of understanding. However, we do know that he listens to us when we need something. I at least got surprising benefits despite not taking any steps. Now would you say it was sheer luck and not answer from God? If you choose luck then you know that there is no scientific proof that it exists. I posted a reply for you in another thread. I am pasting the link here. After reading it through, explain to us by using science why these things are happening
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9607936.20

Once again, you are applying your limited reality to understanding the fact that I am your God. I have my own rules which you still are not capable of understanding............................

Does saying that make it true? If not, you should understand why you explained NOTHING. You answered NOTHING.

Which question did I skip?

Ignore it. I have come to realize after thousands of words (my bad) that you are not here for that. You will just make big claims and always avoid providing evidence. You will refuse to explain how you resolve any dilemma I present to you beyond saying things like "your human mind can't understand it". If that is a good explanation for why you are correct, then me claiming to be your God and saying "your human mind can't understand it" should equally be a good explanation for me actually being your God.

GERMAN SCIENTISTS PROVE THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH
http//worldnewsdailyreport.com/german-scientists-prove-there-is-life-after-death/

Can you please link me to the peer reviewed scientific journal where this was published? It is not a matter which should go unnoticed by the scientific community at large. Therefore I am astonished to see no Nobel Prize being awarded to that team. Forget Nobel Prize, didn't even hear about this despite being a geek in this field. If they indeed published their findings in a reputed peer reviewed scientific journal and got their works double checked by others and validated, I HAVE NO PROBLEM in accepting that there is life after death. However, I must first verify that it's a legitimate thing. One doesn't and shouldn't conclude factual matters of scientific inquiry from articles on news sites like that. So please link me to that paper and I will come back and tell you what I think and also let the entire scientific world know that someone deserves a Nobel prize.

In his hands??? He isn't a human. However, if you are pointing to quranic term "hand" then do note that it means ability. I can't speak about a God who is human like!

http//media2.theranking.com/card/12247/image/5e56343dada029d40a90b44e1ca3d495/resize_image.jpg

Really? When someone says a sentence like "Donna took matters into her own hands", you think that they are talking about Donna actually carrying stuff around in her hands? If not, why are you making a big deal out of this? Do I also have to tell you from now on that when I say Thursday, it has nothing to do with Thor?

You say you can't speak about a God who is human like. The last time I checked, humans were the only species known to author books/ keep records. I won't even get into the fact that your model of God possesses many of the the traits that evolution drilled into animals over the years. It's a total anthropomorphic character.

Don't you think you are contradicting? When you talk about God you see rape and murder, but when it comes to atheism you claim that humans are naturally moral. Don't you think this is a bias? I don't know where you live, but what Emanuel wrote is something we see in the west a lot.

Again! You've done it again! Since it's from the same post, I won't count this as a repeated offence. However, please scroll up and read what I've said about you twisting my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said. I never ever implied that we are only capable of being moral naturally. Please scroll up and read what I am writing before strawmaning me.

What is diff between belief in a religion versus God? Just because I did not mention atheism as the other religion does not mean that is not true.

Again! No clue what you are talking about.

What I was trying to explain to you is that saying something is a phenomenon is different than saying something is a belief. My emphasis wasn't on the word God or religion. If you now ask how a phenomenon is different than a belief, then maybe this will help

A phenomenon is a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.

A belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

I provided. I saw God. The description given above is the evidence of it. Feel free to start researching to know what I said is true. Don't wait for other researchers. Also I have actually told you in another thread to do something so you may find your own result without spending a dime. I am pasting it here
Try that test in yourself and see how you react. Try adding in your signature "I wish God would kill my parents" and stay with it for a while with the notion that since God doesn't exist me praying for their harm won't matter.

You provided evidence??????????? hypno

How in the world is you seeing God the same as providing me with evidence? I beg your pardon but how old are you? Just let me know if you are a minor, young adult or just older.

Your TEST is not such a good one given that everybody's parents die from all sorts of reasons all the time. How would I tell the difference from them just dying accidentally or from medical issues as opposed to by my prayers being answered? I have a rock solid way. ) Here it is

Why don't you pray to your God to give my another extra arm. Pray in whichever method you think your God responds the best. If I grew an extra arm, that would be one rock solid evidence that prayers do work. Or does your God get shy when there are no random chances or natural causes to help him out? Is he like that person who can disappear when nobody is looking?

Generalization? Doesn't China exist anymore?

Now I am confident that you are not capable of comprehending what I am writing. Let me break it down for you so that you can understand why I wasn't generalizing. This is what I said verbatim

I, along with virtually all atheists I know do live like there is no tomorrow. Guess what? None of us rape,murder, rob, etc. I understand that if you didn't have someone watching you all the time, you'd probably do all that. Please just don't project them onto us. Ask us first about what we feel like doing instead of projecting your feelings onto us.

So, in context, I was talking about the atheists I know and myself. Not about every damn person who doesn't believe in a God!! That would be an absurd thing to say after writing essays about how atheists are no more criminal than theists.

It just means humans are capable of doing evil, but some who have fear of God would choose to stay on the right track.

Why are you ignoring my kind of people? The complete picture is like this

Humans are capable of doing evil, but some who have fear of God would choose to stay on the right track while there are those who'd choose to stay on the right track because that is the right thing to do, not because of fear of punishment.

Much like I told you before, unlike you, the reason I am not a child molester is not because I was afraid God is watching me. It's because I ON MY OWN don't have the urge to be that evil. So does the bulk of humanity not have that urge. Only a tiny minority of messed up people do. But I can understand if you are naturally that evil.

I did not see anywhere you mentioned that prison population coming from religions did their crimes in the name of God. I told you all the reasons for which we cannot use prison population to understand who commits the most crimes.

What the hell are you talking about? What has in the name of God got to do with anything we are talking about? Did I ever say that the God believers go to prison because they do crimes in the name of God? What are you talking about? Are you even capable of holding a rational discourse?
No, you did not give a single valid reason for why we cannot use the only thing that will tell us about the end result of people's beliefs to society. All you did was to indirectly imply and accuse all of them to be faking beliefs in God and thereby also indirectly saying that only Atheists can commit crime. That is not a valid reason. That is known as a bigoted statement.

But it looks like even atheists agree with me
Scientific research yields inconsistent and contradictory evidence relating religion to moral judgments and outcomes, yet most people on earth nonetheless view belief in God (or gods) as central to morality, and many view atheists with suspicion and scorn. To evaluate intuitions regarding a causal link between religion and morality, this paper tested intuitive moral judgments of atheists and other groups. Across five experiments (N=1,152), American participants intuitively judged a wide variety of immoral acts (e.g., serial murder, consensual incest, necrobestiality, cannibalism) as representative of atheists, but not of eleven other religious, ethnic, and cultural groups. Even atheist participants judged immoral acts as more representative of atheists than of other groups. These findings demonstrate a prevalent intuition that belief in God serves a necessary function in inhibiting immoral conduct, and may help explain persistent negative perceptions of atheists. http//journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0092302

http//www.lindsaydoeslanguages.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/thatfaceicantstoplaughing_0a3b441c09cc3bcd59fc5eee414b263b.gif

So, finally, conclusive evidence that you actually seriously lack in comprehension skills. Did you even bother to read what it says from the start? The study is NOT ABOUT WHETHER ATHEIST COMMIT MORE CRIME OR ARE MORE IMMORAL. The study was about the NEGATIVE PERCEPTION OF ATHEISTS BY OTHERS which CONTRADICTS WHAT WE KNOW FROM WHAT WE HAVE LEARNT SO FAR THROUGH STUDIES. For you, I will make it easier by highlighting this obvious bit you missed out on

Scientific research yields inconsistent and contradictory evidence relating religion to moral judgments and outcomes, yet most people on earth nonetheless view belief in God (or gods) as central to morality, and many view atheists with suspicion and scorn. To evaluate intuitions regarding a causal link between religion and morality, this paper tested intuitive moral judgments of atheists and other groups. Across five experiments (N=1,152), American participants intuitively judged a wide variety of immoral acts (e.g., serial murder, consensual incest, necrobestiality, cannibalism) as representative of atheists, but not of eleven other religious, ethnic, and cultural groups. Even atheist participants judged immoral acts as more representative of atheists than of other groups. These findings demonstrate a prevalent intuition that belief in God serves a necessary function in inhibiting immoral conduct, and may help explain persistent negative perceptions of atheists.

RED Science has already demonstrated that having a religion in no way guarantees moral behavior either through outcome or the judgement.

BLUE Even after science proving that, people still think that religion is necessary for morality and therefore gives atheists a hard time about it!

Green The study demonstrates that in our society people tends to BELIEVE that religion is necessary for morality. THEREFORE, people ends up thinking that atheists are immoral.

It is beyond hilarious that you ended up pasting a study here which absolutely destroys your argument. And remember, who agrees or disagrees with you is irrelevant as long as all the scientific data suggests that what you believe is a load of crap.

Show me where I claimed majority in the jail are atheist.

Go read the part where you tried to imply that the prison population are pretending to be theists.

I already told you about the environment of jail. Any psychopath can lie. Even a Muslim, hindu or Buddhist criminal can claim to be Christian just so he become free or feel that he has got God in christ.

See? This is what I was talking about. Do you also have a memory loss issue? You just asked me to point out where you said any such thing and right after that you go on to state that what is likely is that prison inmates around the globe are all liers who could just be pretending to be believing in Gods.

Bombing can't be humanitarian because it does sometimes kill civilians.

Of course intentionally and unreasonably going around bombing civilians is messed up. However, that doesn't mean that bombing itself because anti-humanity.

He isn't the only one. I just gave one example of intolerance.

& Yeah right! Please tell me more about how the world is dominated by evil atheists who are persecuting religious people on every front.

They surely aren't doing now....but people do have bizarre feeling that they should get rid of those who don't agree with them. That is why, we God alone people are supposed to be killed if found in Afghanistan.

Yes! Please tell us more about how throughout human history, it was always atheists killing religious people for their beliefs. And also tell us more about how atheists are killing God alone folks in Afghanistan as we speak. Right? It can't be other god believers killing them. Right? How could that be?

You say that other atheists can be unlike me. So could other God believers. I know God believers who are murderers and rapists and corrupt traitors. Now what? Should I start having a panic attack about anything who believes in a God just because someone else could be less peaceful person than you are?

Try arguing with an atheist about sexual liberation.

If you want to be afraid of atheists/secular people being criminals, first show us the evidence. I have been asking for it for a long time now. Have written chapter books on it in this thread. Yet you refuse to bring any evidence. All you do is keep asserting or implying that prison population throughout the entire world, which is a very good source to prove your case, is full of 100% liars who are all atheists pretending to believe in Gods.

Answered above.

I will just leave it there for people to see just how crazy and irrelevant your responses are. That is why I made sure what you were responding to can be seen in the quotes so that people can tell for a certainty that you aren't even reading before responding.

Call the mods. I wholeheartedly welcome you to do it. Don't let the urge go unsatisfied. I am taken by your tolerance

I'll leave it up to the mods. If they decide that portraying atheists like that counts as hate speech, they can warn you. In a weird way, I don't want them to delete anything you've written. The reason being that there are many rational people here who will read all these exchanges and will get to see why I will stop responding to you here from now on. The following are just a few ones I will point out

You lack basic comprehension skills of written words at least. That means that it's a waste of time responding to you.
You respond with total non-sequitur. I could be asking you about thermodynamics and you'd respond back saying "Potatoes are tasty".
You demonize atheists and sound like those Mullahs that managed to make sure that a lot of Muslims hold an unwarranted grudge against jews and a very skewed perception of them.
Also that you try to quote mine scientific papers while embarrassingly not realizing how the paper is about your argument being wrong. When that's the way you skim through scientific papers, there is no way anyone with any self respect will ever want to discuss matters of truth with you.

May peace be with you.

Peace
------------------ Student of Allah

Student_of_Allah

Shalom Aleikhem SC,

Did someone call? Oh well, I'm here anyways.

This was getting really interesting and I liked where reel was going...SoA, don't you think you're being a wee bit melodramatic? You come on pretty strong yourself, didn't think one poster could make you run off.

In case the taunts worked, feel free to carry on the discussion, keeping it to the point and avoiding personal attacks. Thanks.

I ACTUALLY do think I was being a bit melodramatic.

It isn't about my strength. I was just a bit put off by the hypocrisy of the whole thing. I am pretty sure that if a new guy came in here trash talking about all Muslims and trying to demonize them to the point reel was trying to demonize atheist, people would say something to that d*ck. And when moderators later come in to see the drama, I'm sure they wouldn't ask the Muslims on here to be strong. They'd go after the bigot.

But hey! Not everyone believes in fairness, equality and justice for all (irrespective of them arguing for or against your side). And no, I am not asking any mods to do anything about it. I've changed my mind. It'd be a petty thing to be upset over. I mean it's not like someone repetitively tried to portray all Muslims as evil.

Peace
--------------- Student of Allah

savage_carrot

If I was going to be put off by all the hypocrites/hypocrisy I see online or offline, I'd probably just stay a hermit. It would appear that being engaged on different fronts may be a factor in the exasperation and melodrama, I'd suggest just keeping it to one discussion.

People trash talk and demonize almost every conceivable group of people on here at one point or another even if they can't discern it themselves and even if it's cleverly disguised or just your run of the mill snide comments what have you...when it gets to the point that that is all they ever do, that's probably the right time for the mods to step in. Unless they're just one big troll from the get go. No one wants to keep enforcing playground rules for adults every little time something flares up, and we shouldn't have to either. Sometimes what seems like a big deal to the participants is not the way a third party sees it, even if they believe in fairness, equality and justice for all. But hey, feel free to keep doing what you do, mi casa es su casa.

Further discussion should be on topic, please. PM otherwise.

reel

Did someone call? Oh well, I'm here anyways.

This was getting really interesting and I liked where reel was going...SoA, don't you think you're being a wee bit melodramatic? You come on pretty strong yourself, didn't think one poster could make you run off.

In case the taunts worked, feel free to carry on the discussion, keeping it to the point and avoiding personal attacks. Thanks.

Thanks for liking it

No. I never said a word about the men on this forum. Please quote me where I did so.

What would they be evidence of? I never talked about anybody else BUT YOU.

I am a rapist?

I have no idea about which member of this forum will end up raping anyone. I have no reason to believe that joining this forum and following Qur'an alone makes anyone more or less likely to be a rapist than not joining this forum and not following your book. Bad people do bad things, irrespective of whatever label you put on them.

Now you are getting it.

So God telling you that there will be bad things is reason enough to let him off the hook of responsibility? That's a very unreasonable thing to say. You think if I program robots who I know will kill your parents and then just say "There will be bad things", then I am no longer responsible after they go and butcher your family? No you don't. So don't have the double standard when it comes to God.

Make him "responsible" then

When did I say that people can only be compassionate and hate to see bad stuff? From this statement of yours alone, I can deduce that either you aren't reading what I am writing, or you are simply incapable of understanding. Let me quote what I said

Your words Imagine taking a knife and shoving it into the eye socket of a baby while using a drilling machine to brutalize the anus of the baby.
Did that thought disturb you? Was there a discomfort involved in your head when you were visualizing doing that? Or did it feel just like being asked to read a newspaper? If it felt horrible, then you, like 99.99% of human beings have a built in sense for this. That built in sense is what guides you. It is not perfect but works. If it felt just as normal as reading a newspaper, please see a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon ASAP!

That is what I said and you twisted it to make it sound THE EXACT OPPOSITE! I never took a polarized position on the issue of us being good/evil. I CLEARLY STATED that it is not that black and white. I did state that we have the ability to do bad and good both. Whereas you were trying to promote the idea presented by Emanuel that it's only bad that we can do.

Please do not twist my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said.
The answer to your question is that bad people will do bad and it is our responsibility to do everything we can to make sure we can keep them from doing bad.

In that sense, why don't you show us a strategic plan on how to make people moral without the use of any scriptures.

Well then you just dug your God a deeper grave. Now he is all the more responsible as he presumably is connected to the criminals and victims. How does being connected make him not responsible? If you were connected to a women being raped and the rapist and you could stop that from happening, would you be like "Damn it! I am connected to them! Let's just let her get raped."?

I told you to test the concept of God not being separate from us. Maybe it will help you get to your answers?

I am your God. The reason you don't get it is because "You are trying to know it through your limited knowledge"

So convenient, isn't it?

Once again, you are applying your limited reality to understanding the fact that I am your God. I have my own rules which you still are not capable of understanding............................

Does saying that make it true? If not, you should understand why you explained NOTHING. You answered NOTHING.

Do you really really feel you know everything because I don't. Humans are limited by their bounded rationality. I saw God and got totally confused because my reality did not prepare me for it. How convenient of me, right? But hey you have the full freedom to test my claim in the lab.

I am your God.

Once again, you are applying your limited reality to understanding the fact that I am your God. I have my own rules which you still are not capable of understanding............................

Does saying that make it true? If not, you should understand why you explained NOTHING. You answered NOTHING.

Nope, we are within God, but we are not God. We die, he lives. Test it.

Ignore it. I have come to realize after thousands of words (my bad) that you are not here for that. You will just make big claims and always avoid providing evidence. You will refuse to explain how you resolve any dilemma I present to you beyond saying things like "your human mind can't understand it". If that is a good explanation for why you are correct, then me claiming to be your God and saying "your human mind can't understand it" should equally be a good explanation for me actually being your God.

I am pasting here what I gave you in another thread

About the evidence thing, worldwide, plenty of people reported that God listened to their prayer, cured them, made them rich, etc. I am not sure how this isn't an evidence of his existence and why it is hard to believe them when we are ready to buy other studies based on people's opinions.That said, Clinical studies similar to it are also available

Believers have thicker brain cortex than others and that makes them stronger in fighting depression.
http//www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2531622/People-religious-spiritual-thicker-brains-Those-believe-god-deeper-outer-layer.html

Let me give some more. Found one article which has most of it. But if you are in university you may find hundreds of journal articles on this topic.

In 1990, the American Journal of Psychiatry discovered believers with broken hips were less depressed, had shorter hospital stays and could even walk further when they were discharged compared to their similarly broken-hipped and hospitalised, but comparatively heathen peers.
In 2006, the American Society of Hypertension established that church-goers have lower blood pressure than the non-faithful.
Likewise, in 2004, scholars at the University of California, Los Angeles, suggested that college students involved in religious activities are more likely to have better mental and emotional health than those who do not.
research in 2002 showed that believers have more success with IVF than non-believers.
A 1999 study found that going to a religious service or saying a few prayers actively strengthened your immune system.
In 1998, the American Journal of Public Health found that depressed patients with a strong ?intrinsic faith? (a deep personal belief, not just a social inclination to go to a place of worship) recovered 70 per cent faster than those who did not have strong faith.
Another study, in 2002, showed that prayer reduced ?adverse outcomes in heart patients?.
In 2008, Professor Andrew Clark of the Paris School of Economics and Doctor Orsolya Lelkes of the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research conducted a vast survey of Europeans. They found that religious believers, compared to non-believers, record less stress, are better able to cope with losing jobs and divorce, are less prone to suicide, report higher levels of self-esteem, enjoy greater ?life purpose? and report being more happy overall.
a study of nearly 4,000 older adults for the U.S. Journal of Gerontology revealed that atheists had a notably increased chance of dying over a six-year period than the faithful.Crucially, religious people lived longer than atheists even if they didn?t go regularly to a place of worship. This study clearly suggests there is a benefit in pure faith alone ? perhaps this religiousness works by affording a greater sense of inner purpose and solace in grief.
twin studies (research on identical siblings who are separated at birth) show that religion is a heritable characteristic if one twin is religious, the other is likely to be a believer as well, even when raised by different parents.
source http//www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1358421/The-tantalising-proof-belief-God-makes-happier-healthier.html
I have always found the one below interesting.

The findings of Bruce Hood, professor of developmental psychology at Bristol University, suggest that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force.His work is supported by other researchers who have found evidence linking religious feelings and experience to particular regions of the brain.
They suggest people are programmed to receive a feeling of spirituality from electrical activity in these areas.
The findings challenge atheists such as Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, who has long argued that religious beliefs result from poor education and childhood 'indoctrination'.
Professor Hood believes it is futile to try to get people to abandon their beliefs because these come from such a 'fundamental level'.
'Our research shows children have a natural, intuitive way of reasoning that leads them to all kinds of supernatural beliefs about how the world works,' he said.
'As they grow up they overlay these beliefs with more rational approaches but the tendency to illogical supernatural beliefs remains as religion.'
The professor, who will present his findings at the British Science Association's annual meeting this week, sees organised religion as just part of a spectrum of supernatural beliefs.

In one study he found even ardent atheists balked at the idea of accepting an organ transplant from a murderer, because of a superstitious belief that an individual's personality could be stored in his or her organs.
To reinforce his point, Professor Hood produced a blue cardigan during a lecture and invited the audience to put it on, for a ?10 reward. This prompted a sea of raised hands to volunteer.
He then said that the notorious murderer Fred West wore the cardigan, causing most to put their hand down.
Although it was merely a stunt - the cardigan was not West's - the professor said this showed that even the most rational of people can be irrationally made to feel uncomfortable.
Another experiment involved asking subjects to cut up a treasured photograph. When his team then measured their sweat production - which is what lie-detector tests monitor - there was a jump in the reading. This did not occur when destroying an object of less sentimental significance.
'This shows how superstition is hardwired into our brains,' he added.

sourcehttp//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211511/Why-born-believe-God-Its-wired-brain-says-psychologist.html

The heads and hearts of atheists may not be on precisely the same page. That?s the implication of recently published research from Finland, which finds avowed non-believers become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things.

?The results imply that atheists? attitudes toward God are ambivalent, in that their explicit beliefs conflict with their affective response,? concludes a research team led by University of Helsinki psychologist Marjaana Lindeman. Its study is published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.

Lindeman and her colleagues describe two small-scale experiments. The first featured 17 Finns, recruited online, who expressed high levels of belief, or disbelief, in God. They read out loud a series of statements while skin conductance data was collected via electrodes placed on two of their fingers.

Some of the statements were direct dares to a deity (?I dare God to make my parents drown?). Others were similarly disturbing, but did not reference God (?It?s OK to kick a puppy in the face?). Still others were bland and neutral (?I hope it?s not raining today?).
The arousal levels of the believers and non-believers followed precisely the same pattern Higher for both the God dares and otherwise unpleasant statements, and lower for the neutral ones. source http//www.salon.com/2013/04/27/do_atheists_secretly_believe_in_god_partner/

Try that test in yourself and see how you react. Try adding in your signature "I wish God would kill my parents" and stay with it for a while with the notion that since God doesn't exist me praying for their harm won't matter.

Can you please link me to the peer reviewed scientific journal where this was published? It is not a matter which should go unnoticed by the scientific community at large. Therefore I am astonished to see no Nobel Prize being awarded to that team. Forget Nobel Prize, didn't even hear about this despite being a geek in this field. If they indeed published their findings in a reputed peer reviewed scientific journal and got their works double checked by others and validated, I HAVE NO PROBLEM in accepting that there is life after death. However, I must first verify that it's a legitimate thing. One doesn't and shouldn't conclude factual matters of scientific inquiry from articles on news sites like that. So please link me to that paper and I will come back and tell you what I think and also let the entire scientific world know that someone deserves a Nobel prize.

Don't worry, peer reviewed scientific journal will come one day. Meanwhile, enjoy this
Scientist Quantum physics can prove there's an afterlife
http//www.cnet.com/news/scientist-quantum-physics-can-prove-theres-an-afterlife/

Really? When someone says a sentence like "Donna took matters into her own hands", you think that they are talking about Donna actually carrying stuff around in her hands? If not, why are you making a big deal out of this? Do I also have to tell you from now on that when I say Thursday, it has nothing to do with Thor?

What I meant God doesn't have hands and legs the way you are describing him.

You say you can't speak about a God who is human like. The last time I checked, humans were the only species known to author books/ keep records. I won't even get into the fact that your model of God possesses many of the the traits that evolution drilled into animals over the years. It's a total anthropomorphic character.

Tie the concept of God I gave you with your total anthropomorphic character

Again! You've done it again! Since it's from the same post, I won't count this as a repeated offence. However, please scroll up and read what I've said about you twisting my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said. I never ever implied that we are only capable of being moral naturally. Please scroll up and read what I am writing before strawmaning me.

The para in question has been given above.

A phenomenon is a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.

A belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

For humans, both go hand in hand.
Example Why is it that so many people around the world believe in God?

How in the world is you seeing God the same as providing me with evidence?

Evidence of what I saw....true meaning The Concept of God.

Your TEST is not such a good one given that everybody's parents die from all sorts of reasons all the time. How would I tell the difference from them just dying accidentally or from medical issues as opposed to by my prayers being answered? I have a rock solid way. Here it is

Then do the signature thing.

Why don't you pray to your God to give my another extra arm. Pray in whichever method you think your God responds the best. If I grew an extra arm, that would be one rock solid evidence that prayers do work. Or does your God get shy when there are no random chances or natural causes to help him out? Is he like that person who can disappear when nobody is looking?

I wouldn't because I accept that I would be nervous about doing such prayer. Also I don't have any wish to participate in freak shows.

Now I am confident that you are not capable of comprehending what I am writing. Let me break it down for you so that you can understand why I wasn't generalizing. This is what I said verbatim

So your "all atheists" are limited to your friends? You don't know richard dawkins, bill maher and the atheist government of china and (earlier) russia?

Humans are capable of doing evil, but some who have fear of God would choose to stay on the right track while there are those who'd choose to stay on the right track because that is the right thing to do, not because of fear of punishment.

Much like I told you before, unlike you, the reason I am not a child molester is not because I was afraid God is watching me. It's because I ON MY OWN don't have the urge to be that evil. So does the bulk of humanity not have that urge. Only a tiny minority of messed up people do. But I can understand if you are naturally that evil.

This discussion is not about you, but atheistic view about morals in general. I am not saying they are child molester. My point is that in a godless society, it is possible to come up with artificial morals to justify ill acts.
Example Richard Dawkins defends ?mild pedophilia,? says it does not cause ?lasting harm?
http//www.salon.com/2013/09/10/richard_dawkins_defends_mild_pedophilia_says_it_does_not_cause_lasting_harm/

Even though words like "sinful" and "evil" come naturally to the tongue as say a description of child molesting. They do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal G0d?nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality?yet we human beings can still discover plenty of completely naturally explainable resources for motivating certain preferences. Thus enough of us are sufficiently averse to the molestation of children and would likely continue to be

from Ethics Without Morals In Defence of Amorality- Joel Marks

Where do we draw the line with consequentialists?

What the hell are you talking about? What has in the name of God got to do with anything we are talking about? Did I ever say that the God believers go to prison because they do crimes in the name of God? What are you talking about? Are you even capable of holding a rational discourse?

Your own words
You are the one who wrote that and is making it seem like God believers are all like that or mostly like that and Atheists are are all mostly like that. THAT IS NOT CORRECT. I have told you before and I will demand from you again, please show me a statistics of crime based on people's religious beliefs.

So, finally, conclusive evidence that you actually seriously lack in comprehension skills. Did you even bother to read what it says from the start? The study is NOT ABOUT WHETHER ATHEIST COMMIT MORE CRIME OR ARE MORE IMMORAL. The study was about the NEGATIVE PERCEPTION OF ATHEISTS BY OTHERS which CONTRADICTS WHAT WE KNOW FROM WHAT WE HAVE LEARNT SO FAR THROUGH STUDIES. For you, I will make it easier by highlighting this obvious bit you missed out on

RED Science has already demonstrated that having a religion in no way guarantees moral behavior either through outcome or the judgement.

BLUE Even after science proving that, people still think that religion is necessary for morality and therefore gives atheists a hard time about it!

Green The study demonstrates that in our society people tends to BELIEVE that religion is necessary for morality. THEREFORE, people ends up thinking that atheists are immoral.

I did not mention anything except that even atheists agree with me. This isn't the first time I am reading it. The underlined thing was what I told you to see. So could you explain why even atheists seem to link atheists to immoral acts?

Go read the part where you tried to imply that the prison population are pretending to be theists.

Duh! It is known. My friend works in jail.

See? This is what I was talking about. Do you also have a memory loss issue? You just asked me to point out where you said any such thing and right after that you go on to state that what is likely is that prison inmates around the globe are all liers who could just be pretending to be believing in Gods.

So every country collects the religion data of inmates? And you are sure that an atheist inmate will get away by talking about his belief in places like Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Kuwait and the list goes on?

Of course intentionally and unreasonably going around bombing civilians is messed up. However, that doesn't mean that bombing itself because anti-humanity.

No, many conflicts can be solved through discussion. But the policy designed for the world is force.

Please tell me more about how the world is dominated by evil atheists who are persecuting religious people on every front.

China?

The mostly Muslim Uighur population of China?s far-western province of Xinjiang has never had it particularly easy when it comes to practicing its faith. Under Mao Zedong, when religion was essentially forbidden throughout China, the state would go to extremes to suppress Islam?like force-feeding candy to Muslim school children to make them break their Ramadan fasts.
source http//www.the-american-interest.com/2012/08/05/beijing-steps-up-persecution-of-muslims-in-xinjiang/

Chinese government urges ABC not to broadcast expose about Beijing's brutal crackdown on Muslim minority Uighurs
The Chinese Government has threatened ramifications if the ABC tonight airs its planned Foreign Correspondent programme
The edition is about China's brutal crackdown on Muslim ethnic minority, the Uighurs
The ABC filmed Uighurs in the far-western Chinese province of Xinjiang
Uighurs wearing veils, beards or Muslim dress are banned from travelling
Activists say Chinese government crackdown has provoked Uighur unrest
China says Uighur activists are 'terrorists'

source http//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774478/Chinese-government-threat-Australia-ABC-airs-TV-programme-tonight-brutal-treatment-ethnic-Muslim-minority-Uighurs.html#ixzz3qvR2KyzV
Not so different from Saudi Arabia

Yes! Please tell us more about how throughout human history, it was always atheists killing religious people for their beliefs. And also tell us more about how atheists are killing God alone folks in Afghanistan as we speak. Right? It can't be other god believers killing them. Right? How could that be?

Where did I say atheists are killing God alone folks in Afghanistan.

What you are not getting is that when something is taken to an extreme problems occur. We are currently feeling the heat in the form of sexual liberation. Much of the atheist philosophies made to mainstream culture can be found in the book called Unification Ethics of True Love.

I'll leave it up to the mods. If they decide that portraying atheists like that counts as hate speech, they can warn you. In a weird way, I don't want them to delete anything you've written. The reason being that there are many rational people here who will read all these exchanges and will get to see why I will stop responding to you here from now on. The following are just a few ones I will point out

You lack basic comprehension skills of written words at least. That means that it's a waste of time responding to you.
You respond with total non-sequitur. I could be asking you about thermodynamics and you'd respond back saying "Potatoes are tasty".
You demonize atheists and sound like those Mullahs that managed to make sure that a lot of Muslims hold an unwarranted grudge against jews and a very skewed perception of them.
Also that you try to quote mine scientific papers while embarrassingly not realizing how the paper is about your argument being wrong. When that's the way you skim through scientific papers, there is no way anyone with any self respect will ever want to discuss matters of truth with you.

May peace be with you.

Sorry, your personal attack cannot make me forget that once again you avoided making comment on the paragraphs I gave from Protocols of Zion. I hope the next time you will do it. Now before you go around doing more attacks like this let me give a short summary of my belief about this topic.

Any ideology and belief can be twisted to disintegrate a society or call for wars. Only thing needed is a wolf. So just like Abrahamic religions, atheism is vulnerable and as history and present situation of China show it has done damages too.
As I said in one of the earlier posts, it is wrong to consider all atheists to be immoral currently. In fact, for a long time, even I didn't understand the correlation between moral and atheism. But guess what? An ATHEIST came to my rescue. My example of ABC and XYZ is pretty much crafted from her. These are her words

And you know what? I would never vote for an atheist president. Ever? Because I do not think that someone who represents 5 to 10 percent of the population should be representing and thinking that everyone else in the world is crazy, but me.
?
I like that there is a check, OK? That there?s a person in the office that doesn?t think he?s bigger than the state? I like religion being a check and knowing that my president goes home every night addressing someone above him and not thinking all the power resides right here? Atheists don?t have that. by Atheist S.E. Cupp
source http//news.yahoo.com/atheist-e-cupp-never-vote-atheist-president-025658535.html
3. If atheism becomes the most popular thing it will be used for some kind of destruction. It is already "written" and things are going as planned. As I keep saying, we are already experiencing the consequences of sexual liberation which came mainly from atheists like Kinsey and Freud. There are now kids without father, hike in divorce rates and STD's, sexual depiction of women from which they cannot seem to escape, inability to understand the difference between rape and sex based on consent. So although we may not be fighting with one another we are destroying whatever is left of us. This was simply an example of how artificially created moral is working in our country.

Now that I have explained my points, I hope by using your scientific knowledge you would focus on

Why belief in God has positive effect on people and how atheism can provide similar insurance?
If you try to reverse it at me I would say I don't have any answer except that people can reach God through various means. One doesn't necessarily have to be Muslim.
Protocols of Learned Elders of Zion para which seems to be reflection of you and their claim that atheists would turn into a warning for others.
My answer Already planned. But I would like to know from you about the paragraphs.
The concept of God using lab. I don't have access to NASA. Hence, I am unable to provide you my test result. But I am sure you would be able to perform it because you are so scientific!
The signature thing Oh God, I wish you would kill my parents. Your reaction to it.

Feel free to reply to my all the stuffs above, but do note if this time you fail to comment mainly on protocols of zion and report us about your reaction to a signature like "Oh God, I wish you would kill my parents" you know where you stand.

savage_carrot

If atheism becomes the most popular thing it will be used for some kind of destruction. It is already "written" and things are going as planned. As I keep saying, we are already experiencing the consequences of sexual liberation which came mainly from atheists like Kinsey and Freud. There are now kids without father, hike in divorce rates and STD's, sexual depiction of women from which they cannot seem to escape, inability to understand the difference between rape and sex based on consent. So although we may not be fighting with one another we are destroying whatever is left of us. This was simply an example of how artificially created moral is working in our country.
I'm actually interested in the stuff regarding the protocols and the whole atheism connection...sort of came across it before somewhere in passing. The bit above caught my eye though... I get that you're trying to say as a system it will be destructive, but the consequences mentioned have been around in one way or another and more widespread in certain times than others due to different factors. E.g. kids without fathers due to wars/mortality rates/abandonment - illegitimacy, stds prevalent due to prostitution/different cultural norms, women thought of as property and even a lot of them didn't think they could or should refuse much of what was considered normal at the time as opposed to now, they've pretty much been objectified in any era though...not just atheism can cause these, so the consequences in and of themselves don't say much. The unnatural aspect however is what would tell us a lot more though. Was there some other connection perhaps in regards to atheists like Kinsey and Freud bringing the sexual liberation about?

Also would depend on what kind of popularity...and what, if any, kind of system is enforced. Is it popular because circumstances naturally led to such and such evolution or if it's something that you have to espouse or be in an uncomfortable situation, staying power of such etc. I read The Ugly Wife is a Treasure at Home, apparently it was big back in the day but at the same time, people were 'forced' to marry and maintain a family unit. They'd tell you how and when but it was the done thing. That may have changed over time but I guess one can't say that just atheism is what's going to cause it. A person identifying as an atheist and a group of atheists controlling state policy could have different dynamics and ramifications.

We've seen state enforcement of 'religious' policies and state enforcement of 'non-religious' polices and anywhere in between, at the end of the day, it's a mixed bag. Some are awful, some good comparatively, most fall in the middling area. Same for popular concepts. I'd opine that human nature is more to blame than any other thing we can try to lay the blame on. Oh it's God, no it's your heathen ways...nah, it's probably just all you. It's very tempting to absolve ourselves of responsibility and strangely enough, we all do it...whether we say we are believers or not. ?We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.?
Stephen King, Duma Key, one of my favorite quotes from the same book is ?God always punishes us for what we can't imagine.? but that's neither here nor there at the moment )

There is probably a connection psychologically though between people throwing off their shackles/traditions and any ideas of a higher power as a chain reaction of sorts. Possibly because any higher power believed to exist previously was due to being told what to believe rather than coming to it on ones own, so it's all pretty connected up there. Throw it all out and it's liberating, gives a heady sense of power and relief? No accountability, I am in control, I will not be beholden to anyone or anything and to thine own self be true and so on. I felt that way when I moved out of my parents house but sadly found myself thrown back into the pan at some point. Would this have an effect on people and their morals? Sure it can. Likewise it could have an effect on those controlling state policy if atheists, but in order to maintain stability and not drop axes on their feet...if they're smart, they'll know how to go about it without inciting destructive ramifications on a mass scale. And not many would be fans of chaos statewide if they want to stay in power. Then again, so many are into short term thinking and self preservation...

There may be overriding factors for causing widespread instability and chaos but I guess it would depend to what end, really. I don't however buy into long term plans of senseless destruction put into place ages ago (like someone mentioned on the forum at one point or two) or yesterday even because it's not like life is a dungeons and dragons game with chaotic-evil immortal cult figures that can only ever justify their existence as long as someone is suffering.

Anyhow, sexual liberation, or let's say for example a particular/popular strain (?) in the US (Jezebel for demonstrative purposes) is unbalanced in areas, but can it be considered a reaction to centuries of repression? Different groups can now be heard and change their circumstances in a better (easier?) way than previously. Normally, these things take their time to settle into a balance and there are fluctuations/extremes in the meanwhile. It's not been that long in the grand scheme of things that women in developed nations actually got more or less equal rights and so on, it's still an ongoing fight in certain areas to change outdated modes of thought. As for the rest of the revolution/liberation, part of it again may stem from reaction which would make it popular...but the other part, that it has unnaturally evolved in a way/been deliberately put into motion is what I'd like to look into.

What do you think about it being a forgery?

reel

I'm actually interested in the stuff regarding the protocols and the whole atheism connection...sort of came across it before somewhere in passing. The bit above caught my eye though

The book deserves a read. Its available all across the internet. Its very eye opening and disturbing, but there is no way to get angry at it because the roadmap is being brought to fruition by generations of people including us all. Majority on the earth never question even the most absurd and false stuffs thrown at them. Even if the thing is false no one is here to fix it. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is an example. It was debunked long time ago but still makes it to even master's level textbooks as truth. It seems only a few professors tell their students that it was a wrong theory.

I get that you're trying to say as a system it will be destructive, but the consequences mentioned have been around in one way or another and more widespread in certain times than others due to different factors. E.g. kids without fathers due to wars/mortality rates/abandonment - illegitimacy, stds prevalent due to prostitution/different cultural norms, women thought of as property and even a lot of them didn't think they could or should refuse much of what was considered normal at the time as opposed to now, they've pretty much been objectified in any era though...not just atheism can cause these, so the consequences in and of themselves don't say much.

The problem is that not the majority of the kids in the nation experience such abandonment.

The unnatural aspect however is what would tell us a lot more though.

Sexual liberation kills love and the diff between what is right and wrong.In the end, we get a bunch of selfish and depressed people. If the world ever becomes completely atheist, majority of the women will still be seen like objects.

Was there some other connection perhaps in regards to atheists like Kinsey and Freud bringing the sexual liberation about?

Yep, Kinsey is know as the father of sexual liberation https//www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/reviews/971102.02rhodest.html
Freud contributed the ideas http//www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article850819.ece

Also would depend on what kind of popularity...and what, if any, kind of system is enforced. Is it popular because circumstances naturally led to such and such evolution or if it's something that you have to espouse or be in an uncomfortable situation, staying power of such etc. I read The Ugly Wife is a Treasure at Home, apparently it was big back in the day but at the same time, people were 'forced' to marry and maintain a family unit. They'd tell you how and when but it was the done thing. That may have changed over time but I guess one can't say that just atheism is what's going to cause it. A person identifying as an atheist and a group of atheists controlling state policy could have different dynamics and ramifications.

Depends. The book mentioned that it would serve as the warning for the future generation. From history, we do know that when a group of men is given the right to make up morals humans suffer. I actually don't see much difference between hadith and atheist scholars.

We've seen state enforcement of 'religious' policies and state enforcement of 'non-religious' polices and anywhere in between, at the end of the day, it's a mixed bag. Some are awful, some good comparatively, most fall in the middling area. Same for popular concepts. I'd opine that human nature is more to blame than any other thing we can try to lay the blame on. Oh it's God, no it's your heathen ways...nah, it's probably just all you. It's very tempting to absolve ourselves of responsibility and strangely enough, we all do it...whether we say we are believers or not. ?We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.?

That's the reason why I could not be angry with those who wrote the protocols.

Stephen King, Duma Key, one of my favorite quotes from the same book is ?God always punishes us for what we can't imagine.? but that's neither here nor there at the moment

That was nice quote

There is probably a connection psychologically though between people throwing off their shackles/traditions and any ideas of a higher power as a chain reaction of sorts. Possibly because any higher power believed to exist previously was due to being told what to believe rather than coming to it on ones own, so it's all pretty connected up there. Throw it all out and it's liberating, gives a heady sense of power and relief? No accountability, I am in control, I will not be beholden to anyone or anything and to thine own self be true and so on. I felt that way when I moved out of my parents house but sadly found myself thrown back into the pan at some point. Would this have an effect on people and their morals? Sure it can. Likewise it could have an effect on those controlling state policy if atheists, but in order to maintain stability and not drop axes on their feet...if they're smart, they'll know how to go about it without inciting destructive ramifications on a mass scale. And not many would be fans of chaos statewide if they want to stay in power. Then again, so many are into short term thinking and self preservation...

I am scared of intolerance, loss of trust and humanitarian bombing.

There may be overriding factors for causing widespread instability and chaos but I guess it would depend to what end, really. I don't however buy into long term plans of senseless destruction put into place ages ago (like someone mentioned on the forum at one point or two) or yesterday even because it's not like life is a dungeons and dragons game with chaotic-evil immortal cult figures that can only ever justify their existence as long as someone is suffering.

True. It seems their plan is to make atheism a transition. They believe that at one point, people will end up going back to religion, but theirs only.

Anyhow, sexual liberation, or let's say for example a particular/popular strain (?) in the US (Jezebel for demonstrative purposes) is unbalanced in areas, but can it be considered a reaction to centuries of repression? Different groups can now be heard and change their circumstances in a better (easier?) way than previously. Normally, these things take their time to settle into a balance and there are fluctuations/extremes in the meanwhile. It's not been that long in the grand scheme of things that women in developed nations actually got more or less equal rights and so on, it's still an ongoing fight in certain areas to change outdated modes of thought. As for the rest of the revolution/liberation, part of it again may stem from reaction which would make it popular...but the other part, that it has unnaturally evolved in a way/been deliberately put into motion is what I'd like to look into.

After reading the book, I have become very interested in the concept of rights. But what bothers me is that much of how the rights bloomed was already planned. The formula I am seeing is that most of the agenda promotions start in an honest manner. Later they are manipulated.

What do you think about it being a forgery?

That's what the mainstream media has been trying to make us think because you know who controls it. But the more you will read it and look at your surrounding the more you will find yourself baffled. The book is so old, but seems to just describe everything happening in this world. Its like a strategic plan on how to rule. Pretty creepy. Yet I will not blame the authors.

savage_carrot

The book deserves a read. Its available all across the internet. Its very eye opening and disturbing, but there is no way to get angry at it because the roadmap is being brought to fruition by generations of people including us all. Majority on the earth never question even the most absurd and false stuffs thrown at them. Even if the thing is false no one is here to fix it. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is an example. It was debunked long time ago but still makes it to even master's level textbooks as truth. It seems only a few professors tell their students that it was a wrong theory.

Good points.

The problem is that not the majority of the kids in the nation experience such abandonment.
Can you elaborate?

Sexual liberation kills love and the diff between what is right and wrong.In the end, we get a bunch of selfish and depressed people. If the world ever becomes completely atheist, majority of the women will still be seen like objects.
I'd say it would/does cause a lot of confusion before things settle down. Maybe I'm an optimist. I do tend towards the belief that patterns within humanity ebb and flow in a cyclical way, perhaps on different levels, some would argue otherwise but fair enough.

Yep, Kinsey is know as the father of sexual liberation https//www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/reviews/971102.02rhodest.html
Freud contributed the ideas http//www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article850819.ece
Thanks for the links, that Kinsey scale reminds me of certain text games...

Depends. The book mentioned that it would serve as the warning for the future generation. From history, we do know that when a group of men is given the right to make up morals humans suffer. I actually don't see much difference between hadith and atheist scholars.
The book being the protocols? Well, there is leeway in the grey areas to make laws and stuff as long as we're keeping the basic principles/morals in place which are pretty universal. The issue in my view arises when the laws we end up making and/or enforcing have detrimental consequences due to a whole host of factors, primarily lack of forethought/ignorance, self serving agendas basically we screw up more often than not but it's a learning process. I agree with you that bringing about an artificial morality system at odds with the basics would be problematic.

That was nice quote
Oh I have another! Reminds me of the threads on here sometimes

Principal Brown How long have you been standing there?
Gumball Long enough for curiosity to turn into regret.

I am scared of intolerance, loss of trust and humanitarian bombing.
Yep, those are things to be scared of tbh.

True. It seems their plan is to make atheism a transition. They believe that at one point, people will end up going back to religion, but theirs only.
There are some really twisted people out there.

After reading the book, I have become very interested in the concept of rights. But what bothers me is that much of how the rights bloomed was already planned. The formula I am seeing is that most of the agenda promotions start in an honest manner. Later they are manipulated.
well they do say the best lies have some truth to them.

That's what the mainstream media has been trying to make us think because you know who controls it. But the more you will read it and look at your surrounding the more you will find yourself baffled. The book is so old, but seems to just describe everything happening in this world. Its like a strategic plan on how to rule. Pretty creepy. Yet I will not blame the authors.
Will definitely give it a read now.

unknownuser

Well then you just dug your God a deeper grave. Now he is all the more responsible as he presumably is connected to the criminals and victims. How does being connected make him not responsible? If you were connected to a women being raped and the rapist and you could stop that from happening, would you be like "Damn it! I am connected to them! Let's just let her get raped."?

I am your God. The reason you don't get it is because "You are trying to know it through your limited knowledge"

So convenient, isn't it?

I wrote this somewhere else but is more relevant here

Greetings in peace everyone!

We can save ourselves a great deal of trouble, Ill explain the problem for you. I'll be assuming reference to the Quran for God and related issues.

Apparently Athiests operate and think in terms of Matter that is to say, some form of observable phenomenon. If you can see it, measure it and even replicate something as it were, this becomes fact and a part of reality. I therefore can appreciate their position that indeed, no diety or god exists simply because there is a dearth of objective, verifiable and observable evidence. There is simply none.

But the Quran already acknowledges this. God and Its Divinity, are among the "unseen". So if you are going to use a book to search for a visible "God" when it clearly implies that God and related phenomenon are not measurable or observable - such an undertaking is imposiible, it simply cannot be done. I do wonder after this, what athiests and gnostics alike try to prove, because that same book already makes it clear that God is not measurable, is unseen, cannot be observed. You can either believe it, or dismiss it of course.

Allah is not a human, therefore neither male nor female and logically neither a collection of males or females, neither is It an imaginable being or creature that can be illustrated. To perceive the One who cannot be perceived but grasps both, perception and non-perception is completely impossible.

As depicted in Christian lore..The father with the white beard up in the sky and clouds, reaching out to uhh "his so called son jesus" or adam, and aiming and throwing thunderbolt darts at those he doesnt like - no. This is inherent nonsense.

Believing does not end with "I believe in the Lord and initiator of the worlds". No. This alone will never mark you as eligible for "reward or punishment", but you have not really believed unless you have followed more of God's commandments than not, and asked for forgiveness for those you have not or have broken for that matter. For belief, this goes altogether, incomplete one without the other.

So, you dont believe if you merely say "I believe in the Lord and initiator of the worlds" and ignore the rest. And likewise, you also dont believe if you adopt the commandments but dismiss "why" (God's commandment) you are doing it.

Then there is the citing of the undeserved misfortunes in our lives as evidence of a lack of a God. The innocent child who was killed, the decent woman who was raped and tortured, the corporate criminals and sinners who enjoy publicly respectable and luxurious lives?

But if you are going to cite these as evidence, what happened to the flip side? There are as many examples in the opposite too. What about the only child to survive a fatal airplane crash, unharmed? What about the woman who escaped from the fiends who were going to subject her to their lustful atrocities? What about the honest and hard working people, who started out working at a junkyard or as toilet cleaners or labourers and proceeded to become well respected and wealthy business owners?

You see, using any of these different contrasting examples is completely irrelevant to the existence of God. It's like having two sheets of paper, one completely black and one completely white, then using these to justify the existence or lack of a printer!

So finally we turn to "science". Science without doubt has advanced information and has some very good observations. But science never acknowledges what it cannot explain. Take for example, the nuclear bomb. Science can tell us HOW to make a nuclear bomb, but it cannot tell you NOT to make it.

Science can tell you "HOW" that child from the planecrash survived where all of the rest died, but NOT tell you WHY he/she survived.

The difference between how and why is subtle but contrasts starkly if you have good understanding. Science does a marvellous job at blurring this subtle line to the point where the "why" and the "how" are interchangeable. How it does this, is a combination of ridiculously poor phrasing of questions and asking the why question within a nested loop of "How". For example, "why do planets revolve around the sun?" Science answers by citing the gravitational pull of the sun. Yet, if you think about it, this is not the answer at all. This is an answer within a nested loop of HOW. So the gravitational pull of the sun explains HOW planets orbit, not WHY they orbit.

To recognise and find God , you have to understand what you DONT understand as a start, then start to look for and understand the signs.

Is this life a test? Not at all. Life is rather a game where people often have what they dont deserve and dont have what they truly deserve. The opposite is true as well but generally speaking, all have more or less of both - Of course I refer to humans who have reasonably normal lives, the majority's understanding of what "normal" is. I dont go into the child born dead etc because I acknowledge and understand what I dont understand. Applying logic, the child born dead has already attained the greatest victory, it was innocent, so spared hell. It really depends on your perspective. If you decide that there is only this life and nothing beyond, then the child was most unfortunate and God was ruthless and not Merciful at all. But the God as revealed by the Quran clearly implies that this life has not meaning at all, for all intents and purposes this isnt life at all. From this perspective the child born dead has attained a great mercy! Spared the trials and hurdles of this life and directly to bliss. And rightly so, the child was innocent, didnt do anything wrong. The end of the game is always fair!

Anyway for the average, normal life spanned human, the test is about following the rules of the game while acknowledging the Creator and Master of it, it's about the end winning of the game and avoiding the great loss, NOT short term achievements AND short term losses, however big or small they are.

I can safely say that the idea of an all knowing God is gravely misunderstood. Most thick skulls think it means that it is God merely playing everything like puppets. So God has already predestined some for hell and some for heaven without any input from the concerned stakeholders at all. Yet that is not what the Quran depicts and such a situation detracts from a God capable of creating such a marvel and infinitely complex situation where the human has no power nor control is completely dependent on its Creator and yet can still independently choose whatever its Creator makes available to it. You see people doing what they want regardless of what God wants, this is apparent in Quranic stories. You would have to be exceptionally unfocused and dumb like, not to see it, it's that obvious.

It is my opinion, that by an all knowing God, with regards to the choice a human being will make, God already knows all the choices you can possibly make. Which one we make is completely irrelevant because God already knows all of them! Rather when a choice is made is when God is Watcher, Observer, Recorder and still Knower.

Now this is where in my understanding of the Ruuh - the Spirit comes in. This is what gives us the ability to choose God's way over the wrong way. And I deduce this from the above evidence. It is especially mentioned in the Quran with regards to the creation and evolution of the human - that when God incorporates or blows from Its Spirit into the human...

You can see within the book itself that God wants people to do something yet they do quite the opposite. It is also outlined that if God had willed, no one would have been able to reject and if God had willed, everyone would have accepted guidance (making us all puppets). Yet that's clearly not how it is.

I also hypothesize that evil and wickedness is a by-product of the human being with the spirit resulting from the misuse of this ability. I can hear more thick-skulled arguments "BUT THE QURAN SAYS ALL IS FROM GOD INCLUDING EVIL!". It most undeniably is, but not the way thick skulls understand it. Evil comes from God in so far as that God created the human being from which this by-product "evil" comes from.
The example of evil being actively created by God is like saying that God built a high rise building like God built the universe...or a better example would be - that God created all of us like God created Jesus (pbuh) or Adam (pbuh). Yet we know from the Quran that the creation of Adam (buh) and Jesus (pbuh) is not indirect as our creation is! And while the statement is still true that everything is from God, including our cars and buildings etc, it is correct in so much that God created all there is from which these things came to be!

And secondly, the context of that statement "All is from God" in 478 is different as well. Even if it is taken out of context then the following verse 479 still clarifies it when it implies that all that God does or whatever comes from God is good and whatever evil, comes from ourselves.

Athiests have an ego and esteem problem. The same problem Iblees had in the story where humans and jinns are all outcast.

Arrogance, ego and esteem also breeds both a thick skulled mindset, where on the one hand you have a God playing around with creation and on the other an ignorant mindset where a God does not exist at all with the human as the foremost and only intelligence at the centre.

savage_carrot

+1 for using nested loop laugh

Yosemite

compare an atheistic society with a non atheistic one

atheists hide behind scientists and researchers, but these people do not make a society

atheism essentially satisfies itself with moral relativism

when you debate an atheist you waste your time, the atheist will pester you with details like "why god doesn't cure cancer, why god doesn't give me a ferrari, why doesn't god stop all wars"

i don't remember reading in the quran that this is how the world works

you are taken down a path by the atheist which isn't even described in the quran, the premise of all these questions are based on the concept of religion, in which saying a word or doing a gesture will have some sort of magical effect on you

i don't remember anywhere in the quran where it says that uttering words will make you avoid sickness or an accident

so when an atheist approaches you with questions, understand that you are playing a game by the atheist's rules, and he made these rules himself

there's no way you can win in the atheist's game because he will create questions on the fly that originate from different religions, sects and cults which are unrelated to the quran

atheists in the west have a conception of god that's typically western and christian, that is jesus a man who can make miracles come true, to the atheist it's like magic in a video game, so he will make questions based on this understanding

hawk99

compare an atheistic society with a non atheistic one

atheists hide behind scientists and researchers, but these people do not make a society

atheism essentially satisfies itself with moral relativism

when you debate an atheist you waste your time, the atheist will pester you with details like "why god doesn't cure cancer, why god doesn't give me a ferrari, why doesn't god stop all wars"

i don't remember reading in the quran that this is how the world works

you are taken down a path by the atheist which isn't even described in the quran, the premise of all these questions are based on the concept of religion, in which saying a word or doing a gesture will have some sort of magical effect on you

i don't remember anywhere in the quran where it says that uttering words will make you avoid sickness or an accident

so when an atheist approaches you with questions, understand that you are playing a game by the atheist's rules, and he made these rules himself

there's no way you can win in the atheist's game because he will create questions on the fly that originate from different religions, sects and cults which are unrelated to the quran

atheists in the west have a conception of god that's typically western and christian, that is jesus a man who can make miracles come true, to the atheist it's like magic in a video game, so he will make questions based on this understanding

Well said Yosemite, you have stated what believers must understand,
If Allah wanted them to believe (by what's in their heart) they would do so, end of story.

God bless you

peace

Peace, the problem with discussing with "others" is the misunderstanding
of the deen by the Muslim or the believer, let us look at what Allah says
in this regard

And had your Lord willed, those on earth would have believed, all of them together.
So, will you then compel mankind, until they become believers. (1099) nope

We believers must come to understand that disbelief is necessary and is part of
the balance of creation.

Belief Disbelief
Acceptance https//encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbnANd9GcQykkR-n5XjaHwzWx3o4RkC0YeGnMCEoMao8qrfxvotWvg515oMmA Rejection

God bless

reel

Good points.

Thank you )

Can you elaborate?

I meant that it is not usual for all fathers to go to war or abandon their kids unless of course the society is promoting unwanted divorce through reasons like ?I don?t love my spouse anymore?. This one is common among American wives though.

I'd say it would/does cause a lot of confusion before things settle down. Maybe I'm an optimist. I do tend towards the belief that patterns within humanity ebb and flow in a cyclical way, perhaps on different levels, some would argue otherwise but fair enough.

I am an optimist too. I see power in those who are independent thinkers, but what bothers me is that the masses feel the enlightenment only after the damage is done.

Thanks for the links, that Kinsey scale reminds me of certain text games...

You?re welcome. Hehehe, the case of kinsey does match what I said above. Many scholars are now suspicious of his research.

The book being the protocols?

Yep.

Well, there is leeway in the grey areas to make laws and stuff as long as we're keeping the basic principles/morals in place which are pretty universal. The issue in my view arises when the laws we end up making and/or enforcing have detrimental consequences due to a whole host of factors, primarily lack of forethought/ignorance, self serving agendas basically we screw up more often than not but it's a learning process. I agree with you that bringing about an artificial morality system at odds with the basics would be problematic.

Sometimes I feel the world gets the idea of consent wrong. Morality used to understand it is pretty silly. I feel it is heavily abused all across the world. Think about this simple divine command O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness, that you may take away part of the dowry you have given them - except when they have become guilty of open lewdness. On the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them, it may be that you dislike something and Allah will bring about through it a great deal of good 419
The consent according to the world Verbal yes or signed paper. Fair enough until we find out that the former was derived through either manipulation or force. It happens a lot in the sexual matters of relationships. But of course, the world shuns anyone who said yes out of pressure and got burned. But I must say it is very confusing even for women. But quran just seems to make things simpler with that one verse which happens to be respect the decision of the woman.
Oh I have another! Reminds me of the threads on here sometimes

Principal Brown How long have you been standing there?
Gumball Long enough for curiosity to turn into regret.

That was funny, but full of truth about the society. Just matches what I said above. I feel people understand it, but they are too much into whims and desires.

Will definitely give it a read now.

You won?t be disappointed. http//www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm

Although it is available all across the internet, I found the content arrangement of the above link more useful.

phoenix1

Student of Allah raises some good points. Good job asking the tough questions.

I guess I would consider myself an atheist at this point. I would love to believe in a benevolent God, but I just don't see any real reason to. I would love to think that I never actually die, just move to a better, nicer place, but that just seems like wishful thinking. Hope I'm wrong.

But I think the discussions about free-will and suffering are sort of irrelevant. I think the first step is to prove that there is actually a god, or that there might actually be a decent chance of a god existing. At the moment there is no proper evidence of either god or an afterlife.

But I suppose you could get around that by arguing that it's not possible to "see" god, you have to "feel" god, if you will. You can't prove it, but you know it's there. It's an esoteric thing.

Then we can argue whether this god is good or bad. And I think with everything considered, the idea of a god that needs to test its creations, that will punish people for ETERNITY for not following his rules - that god sounds pretty awful. Any god that would put anyone in hell for eternity is not to be trusted with anything.

But of course, not everyone's idea of god conforms to that. People have different ideas of God.

I would suggest people really think about the hard questions that atheist ask in an honest way. Instead of looking at clever ways to deflect or turn their argument against them. Because if you believe in God then it should be a good God.

reel

Student of Allah raises some good points. Good job asking the tough questions.

I guess I would consider myself an atheist at this point. I would love to believe in a benevolent God, but I just don't see any real reason to. I would love to think that I never actually die, just move to a better, nicer place, but that just seems like wishful thinking. Hope I'm wrong.

But I think the discussions about free-will and suffering are sort of irrelevant. I think the first step is to prove that there is actually a god, or that there might actually be a decent chance of a god existing. At the moment there is no proper evidence of either god or an afterlife.

But I suppose you could get around that by arguing that it's not possible to "see" god, you have to "feel" god, if you will. You can't prove it, but you know it's there. It's an esoteric thing.

Then we can argue whether this god is good or bad. And I think with everything considered, the idea of a god that needs to test its creations, that will punish people for ETERNITY for not following his rules - that god sounds pretty awful. Any god that would put anyone in hell for eternity is not to be trusted with anything.

But of course, not everyone's idea of god conforms to that. People have different ideas of God.

I would suggest people really think about the hard questions that atheist ask in an honest way. Instead of looking at clever ways to deflect or turn their argument against them. Because if you believe in God then it should be a good God.

Bro, follow the entire discussion of this thread to know how it all ended.