Christians - who convinced you of the truth of god/jesus?

[pood]

Materialist monism is incapable of adequately managing the biosphere.

Evidence?

What is required is a spiritual approach.

Definition of spiritual?

Even biologist Stuart Kauffman recognizes this:

[A]gnostic and atheist “secular humanists” have been quietly taught that spirituality is foolish or, at best, questionable. Some secular humanists are spiritual but most are not. We are thus cut off from a deep aspect of our humanity. Humans have led intricate and meaningful spiritual lives for thousands of years, and many secular humanists are bereft of it.

Evidence? Definition of “spiritual” is needed.

The etymological root of “spiritual” is “breath,” so far as I know, so since secular humanists are all alive they obviously breathe and are therefore spiritual by definition.

Reinventing the sacred as our response to the emergent creativity in the universe can open secular humanists to the legitimacy of their own spirituality.--Breaking The Galilean Spell

What in god’s name is “The Galilean spell?”

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Materialist monism is incapable of adequately managing the biosphere.

Evidence?

What is required is a spiritual approach.

Definition of spiritual?

Even biologist Stuart Kauffman recognizes this:

[A]gnostic and atheist “secular humanists” have been quietly taught that spirituality is foolish or, at best, questionable. Some secular humanists are spiritual but most are not. We are thus cut off from a deep aspect of our humanity. Humans have led intricate and meaningful spiritual lives for thousands of years, and many secular humanists are bereft of it.

Evidence? Definition of “spiritual” is needed.

The etymological root of “spiritual” is “breath,” so far as I know, so since secular humanists are all alive they obviously breathe and are therefore spiritual by definition.

Reinventing the sacred as our response to the emergent creativity in the universe can open secular humanists to the legitimacy of their own spirituality.--Breaking The Galilean Spell

What in god’s name is “The Galilean spell?”

Music is also a deep part of our humanity. I'm guessing if a humanist simply enjoys music but doesn't consider themselves "spiritual" that's just not good enough.

 

[steve_bank]

Soul is the sum of feelings, culture, self identity, awareness and so on. Black American soul, the Italian soul.

Nothing supernatural. The historical question has been does that sense of self, awareness, and consciousness exist without the physical body. IOW the mind body problem.

Christians seem to think post mortem they will be walking and talking in a heaven.

The resurrection of Jesus.

watched a few reruns of Zena. Pretty funny camp humor. Gods winking in and out. Dying and going to another realty. Restriction from the dead,. Gods ghavngs with humans.

A goof on Greek mytholgy. There is Jesus figure in it.

 

[bilby]

The Bible contains the foundation for rational management of the biosphere.

The Bible doesn't even contain instructions on how to avoid having your latrines contaminate your drinking water.

You would think that an all-knowing and loving God might have included such simple instructions, which could have saved literally millions of his worshippers from shitting themselves to death in agony over the course of several days.

But apparently He couldn't be bothered. Despite taking the time to warn against eating pork.

It's almost as though the Bible was written by people who had no understanding of the causes of disease, and no all-knowing God(s) to provide them with inspiration or guidance. The whole thing looks like some guys were just making shit up as they went along.

Rational management of the biosphere? The books don't offer a foundation for the rational management of shit.

Literally.

 

[bilby]

Here is one of the biblical quotations from the link that No Robots gave:

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:26

Nah, they feed themselves.

Or they don't. Lots of them die of starvation each year, because they couldn't "store away in barns", but Matthew didn't see the dead ones flying around, and so didn't realise their lives were (and are) both precarious and miserable.

 

[bilby]

And yet the physicalists I know of would say the soul has not been demonstrated to exist, they don't simply hand-wave it away as you seem to be asserting they do. Where's the hard evidence that the soul exists?

It amounts to the same thing. If you assert that there is no proof of the existence of the soul, you will act as though the soul does not exist.

You have yet to establish that the soul does exist. Or to define what it is.

I suspect that slood is far more important than the soul.

If you assert that there is no proof of the existence of slood, you will act as though slood does not exist. Slood is essential to our humanity; How can you not be concerned about the condition of your slood? You will never understand deep reality until you grasp the importance of slood.

 

[bilby]

Everything that exists originates as an idea that then manifests itself materially.

That's arse-backwards. Ideas cannot exist until a material brain evolves to have them.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

And yet the physicalists I know of would say the soul has not been demonstrated to exist, they don't simply hand-wave it away as you seem to be asserting they do. Where's the hard evidence that the soul exists?

It amounts to the same thing. If you assert that there is no proof of the existence of the soul, you will act as though the soul does not exist.

You have yet to establish that the soul does exist. Or to define what it is.

I suspect that slood is far more important than the soul.

If you assert that there is no proof of the existence of slood, you will act as though slood does not exist. Slood is essential to our humanity; How can you not be concerned about the condition of your slood? You will never understand deep reality until you grasp the importance of slood.

I have never once heard a truth so profound as this.

 

[bilby]

I am not alone in my insanity.

The prevalence of insanity is not evidence that it is, in fact, sane.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I do not say that every skeptic needs to develop spiritually. Nor do I object to criticizing people's spirituality. What I do say is that to campaign against the very idea of spirituality is anti-humanist and ultimately inimical to the rational management of the biosphere.

The most spiritually-minded people in my world are my born-again cousins. They, like statistically most all of the conservative Christian community in this country, support Trump and Trumpism, with its crusade against renewable energy sources, a special hatred for windmills, a belief in the return of "clean coal" as a great American resource, and, most characteristically, a disbelief in climate change science. One of my cousins told me earlier this year that she knew climate change wasn't real because she remembered days in her childhood in the 1960s when the temps hit 100 F.
I've yet to meet an atheist who, when the subject came up, hadn't absorbed the grim science of CO2 levels, rising sea levels, extended heat waves, catastrophic storms and wildfires, the melting of the polar ice masses, and all the other phenomena we're already seeing. Materialists actually know something about the material world, and they don't have jackass confidence that "God won't let us destroy the world."

 

[pood]

.

I've yet to meet an atheist who, when the subject came up, hadn't absorbed the grim science of CO2 levels, rising sea levels, extended heat waves, catastrophic storms and wildfires, the melting of the polar ice masses, and all the other phenomena we're already seeing. Materialists actually know something about the material world, and they don't have jackass confidence that "God won't let us destroy the world."

Have you not spoken with Swizzle?

 

[pood]

It seems No Robots is doing his usual MO of not responding to rebuttals of his claims.

 

[No Robots]

It seems No Robots is doing his usual MO of not responding to rebuttals of his claims.

Dude, I just woke up.

 

[No Robots]

What I mean by spirituality is no more than what Spinoza calls "knowledge of the union of the human mind and the whole of nature." Just as nature is an extended thing, it is also a thinking thing. The infinite forms are each an expression of a thought of nature. The brain is the instrument through which thought is processed in us, just as the eye is the instrument through which light is processed in us. Just as light exists whether or not we have an eye, so does thought exist whether or not we have a brain.

 

[southernhybrid]

I got soul.

You got it, you got it
You got it, you got it

I know you got soul
If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here
I know you got soul
If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here

I know you got soul
If you didn't, you wouldn't shake that thing
Shake it with the beat
'Cause it make me sing

I know you got soul
If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here
I know you got the feeling
The way you move over there

I just needed a break from the stupid claims of Christians, so I'm going to go shake that thing while listening to some soul, the only soul I know. But, I do love how some Christians cherry pick the nicer parts of their book, while ignoring all the hateful, vengeful things that their pretend diety did, like turning a woman into a pillar of salt, trying to get some guy to kill his own son, and then saying, Just kidding, I wanted to see if you'd really do it. Then there's all those populations that were wiped out and threats of eternal torture. Nice god ya got there.

And all those miracles their Jesus did, like feeding lots of people with five loafs of bread and two fish. Do you take that stuff literally or what? Btw, I do donate food every week to a food pantry by that name, but it's only because I care about the poor and want to help them. Why not just believe in being a good person to the best of your ability without any silly supernatural fairy tales? Why is your belief so fucking important? Mine isn't as important as my behavior. I don't need any fairy tales to be a good person. I'm just lucky to be able to share what I have and love others, especially other animals. God doesn't feed the birds. I do and so my backyard is Bird Nation. My dogs are my little gods, the most loving, forgiving animals in the world. I'm lucky that my genetic and environmental influences allow me to do be kind and caring.

And, some of you need to learn more about the other animals. Dogs understand fairness. Birds have a lot in common with humans. Elephants grieve when they lose a member of their family or group. There are many animals who have moral values and I'd rather be a bonobo than a chimp. Matriarchies tend to be less violent and more loving. Humans are the worst species that ever evolved. We destroying our own habitats and the animals that we depend on, like bees and birds that pollinate some of the food we eat. Ok. Enough. Sorry for the long rant.

Look, if you need some mythology in your life, I don't judge you for that. I have lots of nice Christians friends and most know that I'm an atheist. I just don't understand how people believe in myths in the modern world. I have met 3 atheists who also identified as Methodists. I guess they were in it for the social contacts and opportunities to do charity work.

Have a good day! Have fun arguing.

 

[pood]

What I mean by spirituality is no more than what Spinoza calls "knowledge of the union of the human mind and the whole of nature."

What exactly is this supposed to mean? As it happens I have some somewhat sympathetic thoughts on this claim, provided it is clearly defined, but I await your own explication. I am not interested in what Spinoza thought, I am interested in what YOU think.

Just as nature is an extended thing, it is also a thinking thing.

How is nature a thinking thing? Evidence?

The infinite forms

What are forms? Platonic forms? How are they infinite? Evidence for their existence?

are each an expression of a thought of nature.

How does nature think?

The brain is the instrument through which thought is processed in us, just as the eye is the instrument through which light is processed in us. Just as light exists whether or not we have an eye, so does thought exist whether or not we have a brain.

This is a flawed analogy. Light exists whether there are eyes or brains anywhere in the universe, but sight does not. How do you propose to support the claim that thought exists in the universe even if no brains exist?

 

[No Robots]

^I'm afraid, pood, that, once again, you are indulging your penchant for sealioning. I have indicated, as per the OP, why I am devoted to the Bible. In support of my position, I have provided citations from texts that are freely available.

 

[steve_bank]

Not devotion NR, a childish infatuation.

Ritualism colloquially means to forgo material pursuits in favor of metaphysical states. Morality and purity over acquisition of material things. Rejecting material pleasures.

There are Christians over hear who do not celebrate commercial Christmas, do not dance, and do nor sing.

 

[pood]

^I'm afraid, pood, that, once again, you are indulging your penchant for sealioning.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I am asking you questions about your claims. This is a DISCUSSION board. If you don’t want to discuss and have an exchange of ideas, then all you are doing is preaching.

This baseless charge just tells me you can’t defend your ideas.

 

[Elixir]

There are Christians over hear who do not celebrate commercial Christmas, do not dance, and do nor sing.

Sounds like Jehovah’s Witlesses.
Gawd they bore me to tears.