*Warning: May contain nuts, Christians and/or both

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Do you mean people who are believers now but before have never been outside looking in? I'm a born-again remember?

I've known people who discovered their religious fascination as adults. They naturally fell in with other adults who had the same fascination. Being born again is the same as not having grown up the first time. The disposition was already there, as it is in most people. Every seed needs the right conditions to germinate, grow and mature.

My point is that being "born again" is nothing more than a continuation of that process of pretending which was never outgrown. Don't misunderstand, adults certainly like to pretend, but those emotional urges and impulses are filtered through higher brain functions, those parts of the brain that came along most recently in human evolution. Personally I love to pretend, but I recognize when I'm pretending. I love enjoying a good movie. When it comes to religious obsession, however, religious people lack self awareness. And as others have said, when that self awareness does creep up it doesn't materialize. Something has stopped working in that brain that still works in a rational brain.

 

[Atheos]

Just because someone is a nominally rational adult does not mean that individual is immune to indoctrination. YouTuber TheraminTrees has a lot of video presentations about that very subject. One particularly intriguing one deals with the methods used to suck people into Scientology. While TheraminTrees often treats subjects that involve religion as a factor in dysfunctional relationships his emphasis is on abusive relationships in general and breaking the cycle of manipulation and abuse.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Just because someone is a nominally rational adult does not mean that individual is immune to indoctrination. YouTuber TheraminTrees has a lot of video presentations about that very subject. One particularly intriguing one deals with the methods used to suck people into Scientology. While TheraminTrees often treats subjects that involve religion as a factor in dysfunctional relationships his emphasis is on abusive relationships in general and breaking the cycle of manipulation and abuse.

Have you known people who just couldn't solve their own problems? They could tell you how everyone else should solve their problems but couldn't solve their own. In trying to solve a problem they inevitably create a larger one.

I think it has something to do with idealism and being an idealist. There is always an internal conflict, a struggle to attain the unattainable, to try to see reality in terms of the ideal, which of course is phony but always goes unrecognized as phony. Their world is upside down because what's real is denied and what's not real is glorified. Everything and everyone is perceived to exist as either perfect or flawed. What a weird way to live and sense reality.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So I can show a little more humility and compassion to others, my friend.

Just a little?

Regardless, whenever I hear the terms humility and theist together, it just feels rather hollow. I mean, how many theists that truly exhibit humility, say that they do?

 

[skepticalbip]

So I can show a little more humility and compassion to others, my friend.

Just a little?

Regardless, whenever I hear the terms humility and theist together, it just feels rather hollow. I mean, how many theists that truly exhibit humility, say that they do?

Sounds reasonable. I find it impossible to imagine that someone who believes that they have the ultimate answer to the universe, meaning of life, morality, where and why science is wrong, etc. could be described as humble.

They may, however, think of their condescension toward those they see as less enlightened as compassionate.

 

[Learner]

So I can show a little more humility and compassion to others, my friend.

Just a little?

Regardless, whenever I hear the terms humility and theist together, it just feels rather hollow.

I mean, how many theists that truly exhibit humility, say that they do?

I'm not in that league unfortunately, but hopefully just a little more each step of the way.

 

[Learner]

Sounds reasonable. I find it impossible to imagine that someone who believes that they have the ultimate answer to the universe, meaning of life, morality, where and why science is wrong, etc. could be described as humble.

I agree, humble is 'misplaced' here. Who would come up with such a thing?

 

[steve_bank]

When I was reborn into freethinking all my bad habit fell away. I felt a wondrous connection to humanity and the universe. I felt compelled to be nice to people. Ever since I just feel god all over all the time.

It is as if a spirit of the unversed dwells in me and speaks through me.

I feel a prophesy coming on...wait for it...nah not this time.

The born again experience is no mystery. It does not require religion. Spiritual and psychological renewal is an old human theme predating Christianity.

What I am wondering is if the real Jesus was a raving lunatic. We see them all time time. People who think they talk to spirits. Astral projection, levitation believers. Apocalyptic proclaimers of doom. Same with the of author of Revelations. From my perspective he was drunk or high on something. And believers try and twist it into a modern prophesy.

 

[Learner]

Do you mean people who are believers now but before have never been outside looking in? I'm a born-again remember?

I've known people who discovered their religious fascination as adults. They naturally fell in with other adults who had the same fascination. Being born again is the same as not having grown up the first time. The disposition was already there, as it is in most people. Every seed needs the right conditions to germinate, grow and mature.

Well, the underlined above, is in a way sort of similar to the Christian theology. Born-again by your explanation means to be grown up.

My point is that being "born again" is nothing more than a continuation of that process of pretending which was never outgrown. Don't misunderstand, adults certainly like to pretend, but those emotional urges and impulses are filtered through higher brain functions, those parts of the brain that came along most recently in human evolution. Personally I love to pretend, but I recognize when I'm pretending. I love enjoying a good movie. When it comes to religious obsession, however, religious people lack self awareness. And as others have said, when that self awareness does creep up it doesn't materialize. Something has stopped working in that brain that still works in a rational brain.

Its hard to tell of the supposedly mental illness you say above, for example: you can go into a busy part of the city and watch people going about there business. Bus drivers drivng buses, Taxi drivers driving taxis, people chatting and waving at recognised faces across the street, giving the gesture by raising their hand to their ear, "I'll phone you" and so on. Its-had-to-tell when you say that "something has stopped" i.e. non-rational "religious" brain when these people seem to act "normal" in the society. Do you record and include data differentiating people who wear chains with a cross who otherwise act like everyone else? What is so noticeable, what is the affect of this illness that you see of everyday people who are also religious? You wouldn't know they were religious unless they told you so i.e. no real noticeable affect (if at all) .

 

[Rhea]

If you promote that Jesus loves people, you do it expecting they'll find appeal in the idea of Jesus loving them, right?

I agree but there must be quite a few who won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures, whatever it is, depending.

I find the statement bolded above to be simultaneously insulting and vacuous.

It's insulting in that it seems to believe the lie that "quite a few" atheists are doing wrong things all the time at a higher rate than Christians and therefore there is something to repent or give up. Like Learner believes we're all bad people at heart and discovering love would be a burden that required change. Go soak your head, arrogant and judgmental christian. I have nothing at all to be ashamed of. That you are surprised by this is perhaps due to what exists in your heart, not mine. Christians say this all the time, you are hardly the first, and it is always an eyeroll, given the behavior of "quite a few" christians.

Indeed, it's that christian behavior that makes it vacuous. One could take for example the tens of millions of evangelical christians who support the greedy, wife-beating, slothful, gossiping, thieving adulterer in the white house. Or one could take for example the overwhelming concentration of porn-viewers and divorcees and the bible belt. Yeah, we can see what "repenting" does to the Christian. At least when an atheist repents something, they don't expect a get-out-of-jail-free card. They actually make changes in their lives.


Add disturbing to insulting and vacuous. Disturbing because over and over again when christians claim that jesus keeps them from doing bad things like they claim atheists are doing (even though we're not), they reveal that their belief in this myth is the only thing keeping them from being rapists and murderers and that they are indeed only one faith crisis away from acting out their monstrous inner desires. (Maybe that's what makes the religionists so intensely incurious about what atheism is really all about. They prefer their straw-man because it is all that stands between them and life in prison.)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Its hard to tell of the supposedly mental illness you say above, for example: you can go into a busy part of the city and watch people going about there business. Bus drivers drivng buses, Taxi drivers driving taxis, people chatting and waving at recognised faces across the street, giving the gesture by raising their hand to their ear, "I'll phone you" and so on. Its-had-to-tell when you say that "something has stopped" i.e. non-rational "religious" brain when these people seem to act "normal" in the society. Do you record and include data differentiating people who wear chains with a cross who otherwise act like everyone else? What is so noticeable, what is the affect of this illness that you see of everyday people who are also religious? You wouldn't know they were religious unless they told you so i.e. no real noticeable affect (if at all) .

If I called it an illness I apologize. Mars isn't broken, it's just Mars. There are proximate and ultimate causes for why Mars is the way Mars is.

Religious behavior is a symptom of an underlying condition. It's only an illness if it interferes with normal societal interaction. When you observe yourself from my perspective certainly you can appreciate my utter fascination with your behavior. An invisible person living in the sky that is really three people. You talk to it, sing to it, eat it, there's even a piece of it inside you so that you can go live with it after your dead. We do many of the same things, make food, brush our teeth, work, raise families, have friends, but you have an additional repertoire of behaviors that is nothing short of fascinating to observe. It really is like watching something falling up for someone as rational as me.

 

[Learner]

If you promote that Jesus loves people, you do it expecting they'll find appeal in the idea of Jesus loving them, right?

I agree but there must be quite a few who won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures, whatever it is, depending.

I find the statement bolded above to be simultaneously insulting and vacuous.

It's insulting in that it seems to believe the lie that "quite a few" atheists are doing wrong things all the time at a higher rate than Christians and therefore there is something to repent or give up.

Unfortunately thats a false statement. Its quite a few people in general ...anyone.. who do wrong things.

Like Learner believes we're all bad people at heart and discovering love would be a burden that required change. Go soak your head, arrogant and judgmental christian. I have nothing at all to be ashamed of. That you are surprised by this is perhaps due to what exists in your heart, not mine. Christians say this all the time, you are hardly the first, and it is always an eyeroll, given the behavior of "quite a few" christians.

Who is suggesting someone should be ashamed of love, Jesus is all for love? False statement no.2

Indeed, it's that christian behavior that makes it vacuous. One could take for example the tens of millions of evangelical christians who support the greedy, wife-beating, slothful, gossiping, thieving adulterer in the white house. Or one could take for example the overwhelming concentration of porn-viewers and divorcees and the bible belt. Yeah, we can see what "repenting" does to the Christian. At least when an atheist repents something, they don't expect a get-out-of-jail-free card. They actually make changes in their lives.

You seem to know what repenting is, according to the bible. So would you say that your above quote, those Christians were not really repenting, if you think about it clearly?

Add disturbing to insulting and vacuous. Disturbing because over and over again when christians claim that jesus keeps them from doing bad things like they claim atheists are doing (even though we're not), they reveal that their belief in this myth is the only thing keeping them from being rapists and murderers and that they are indeed only one faith crisis away from acting out their monstrous inner desires. (Maybe that's what makes the religionists so intensely incurious about what atheism is really all about. They prefer their straw-man because it is all that stands between them and life in prison.)

Yes we have fundamentalist "Christians" as you have fundamentalists "atheists".

 

[Learner]

If I called it an illness I apologize. Mars isn't broken, it's just Mars. There are proximate and ultimate causes for why Mars is the way Mars is.
Religious behavior is a symptom of an underlying condition.

What type of specific behaviour? There is a wide spectrum of behaviours that people like to attribute to the religous. From the pure kindness to the extreme-fundamentalists, That pretty much fits every anyone in-between, imo.

It's only an illness if it interferes with normal societal interaction.

Indeed, regardless of who you are or what you believe.

When you observe yourself from my perspective certainly you can appreciate my utter fascination with your behavior. An invisible person living in the sky that is really three people. 'You talk to it, sing to it, eat it, there's even a piece of it inside you so that you can go live with it after your dead. We do many of the same things, make food, brush our teeth, work, raise families, have friends, but you have an additional repertoire of behaviors that is nothing short of fascinating to observe. It really is like watching something falling up for someone as rational as me.

That an "interesting" way to phrase and put it, but yes I appreciate your fascination.

 

[Rhea]

Quote Originally Posted by Learner View Post

Quote Originally Posted by abbadon
If you promote that Jesus loves people, you do it expecting they'll find appeal in the idea of Jesus loving them, right?

I agree but there must be quite a few who won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures, whatever it is, depending

.
I find the statement bolded above to be simultaneously insulting and vacuous.

It's insulting in that it seems to believe the lie that "quite a few" atheists are doing wrong things all the time at a higher rate than Christians and therefore there is something to repent or give up.

Unfortunately thats a false statement. Its quite a few people in general ...anyone.. who do wrong things.

No. learner, you said in the context of those whom you were trying to convince about your Jesus story, i.e. atheists. Not any old people. The statement is ABOUT your evangelism. That's what this conversation is about. Whether your message appeals to non-believers.

No one believes you when you try to say now that, "oh, you weren't talking about atheists specifically !!!1!!!
Bullshit.
It was not a false statement. It was absolutely true that YOU claimed that quite a few of the people you were trying to evangelize to about your Jesus story " won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures," not "people in general." What a load of crap you just spewed.

Like Learner believes we're all bad people at heart and discovering love would be a burden that required change. Go soak your head, arrogant and judgmental christian. I have nothing at all to be ashamed of. That you are surprised by this is perhaps due to what exists in your heart, not mine. Christians say this all the time, you are hardly the first, and it is always an eyeroll, given the behavior of "quite a few" christians.

Who is suggesting someone should be ashamed of love, Jesus is all for love? False statement no.2

What are you talking about?


YOU said that quite a few of the people you were trying to evangelize to about your Jesus story " won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures," What, exactly would make it unappealing? Which pleasures do they have to give up? I have done nothing to repent and I have nothing to give up. Where did you pull this "ashamed of love" line from? Your rectum? Because it's full of crap again, and you use it to claim I am making a false statement? How about, I didn't say anything whatsoever about being ashamed of love and you just fabricated that and then called me a liar over it?


Wow.

Indeed, it's that christian behavior that makes it vacuous. One could take for example the tens of millions of evangelical christians who support the greedy, wife-beating, slothful, gossiping, thieving adulterer in the white house. Or one could take for example the overwhelming concentration of porn-viewers and divorcees and the bible belt. Yeah, we can see what "repenting" does to the Christian. At least when an atheist repents something, they don't expect a get-out-of-jail-free card. They actually make changes in their lives.

You seem to know what repenting is, according to the bible. So would you say that your above quote, those Christians were not really repenting, if you think about it clearly?

If you think about it clearly, repenting to a Christian is something they can do every single day and it still counts. They can do it one last time on their deathbed and it still counts. It's shallow and pointless and they still get to feel "saved" and heavenbound, even if they have to do it again the next day.

On the other hand, to an atheist, the only thing they get out of repenting is what they do with it. They don't feel some cosmic gift-bag magic, they just actually feel bad and regret it.

Add disturbing to insulting and vacuous. Disturbing because over and over again when christians claim that jesus keeps them from doing bad things like they claim atheists are doing (even though we're not), they reveal that their belief in this myth is the only thing keeping them from being rapists and murderers and that they are indeed only one faith crisis away from acting out their monstrous inner desires. (Maybe that's what makes the religionists so intensely incurious about what atheism is really all about. They prefer their straw-man because it is all that stands between them and life in prison.)

Yes we have fundamentalist "Christians" as you have fundamentalists "atheists".

Aaaah, the old "whatabout you" dodge. Declining to answer the really disturbing nature of your claim that your believe in a myth is what keeps you from committing crimes? Pretending that atheists somehow do it, too?

Naw, they don't. There is no atheist thought that threatens us to be good and will torture us for eternity if we don't. There's no whataboutism here - sorry dude. It's only the Christians who cheerfully admit that if they lost faith in their god they would immediate commence to crime - and then say this proves their god is good. Really it only proves their insides are disturbing and only barely held in check by belief in eternal torture. That's pretty sick stuff.

 

[Learner]

No. learner, you said in the context of those whom you were trying to convince about your Jesus story, i.e. atheists. Not any old people. The statement is ABOUT your evangelism. That's what this conversation is about. Whether your message appeals to non-believers.

No one believes you when you try to say now that, "oh, you weren't talking about atheists specifically !!!1!!!
Bullshit.
It was not a false statement. It was absolutely true that YOU claimed that quite a few of the people you were trying to evangelize to about your Jesus story " won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures," not "people in general." What a load of crap you just spewed.

Its false because you said It's insulting in that it seems to believe the lie that "quite a few" atheists are doing wrong things all the time at a higher rate than Christians. I discussed the appeal to atheists yes but you combined in a different argument (if you can call it that) underlined. Anyone in general(religious included) is in response to your "higher rate" bit.

 

[Learner]

YOU said that quite a few of the people you were trying to evangelize to about your Jesus story " won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures," What, exactly would make it unappealing? Which pleasures do they have to give up? I have done nothing to repent and I have nothing to give up. Where did you pull this "ashamed of love" line from? Your rectum? Because it's full of crap again, and you use it to claim I am making a false statement? How about, I didn't say anything whatsoever about being ashamed of love and you just fabricated that and then called me a liar over it?

Wow.

You didn't explain it clearly, do you mean in quote below, sexual urges or lusts, then just say so.

Like Learner believes we're all bad people at heart and discovering love would be a burden that required change

But yes in some cases need repenting. The not appealing bit to some.


(I haven't got my correct glasses, in need of a new pair, resting eyes now, later)

 

[abaddon]

If you promote that Jesus loves people, you do it expecting they'll find appeal in the idea of Jesus loving them, right?

I agree but there must be quite a few who won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures, whatever it is, depending.

I'm going to ask about this too. What are "those particular pleasures"? I see you said "depending", but give some examples.

After I was born again, they asked me to smash my rock albums. Cut my hair. Never dance. Never jack off. Never look at a girl's boobies or butt. Never to think of a girl "that way" because it's fornication.

So, they asked me to stop being a healthy human. I was 14. 'Thank Nature' that I backslid at 15. I wasn't so dull and easy-to-repress that I needed to think myself out of that one. I realized later I'd become the thing they told me was one of the most horrible things to be: an atheist. I remember feeling deep dread that I might ever be an atheist. Ironically, it was a huge step in my "spiritual" growth.

Jesus's "love" was more than onerous -- it was hateful. Those "sins" didn't need to be repented of. It's hatred of the body and a wish to control people, not just their behavior but their minds, that causes anyone to dream up that kind of oppressive moralizing.

Maybe you're going to say my church didn't reflect Jesus' love. If so, then I wonder: what are the sorts of wrong that one has to repent to get Jesus' love? Don't say "murder, rape, theft" and other things that everyone knows are wrong. What are some of "those particular pleasures" that don't jibe with Jesus' love?

 

[Learner]

If you think about it clearly, repenting to a Christian is something they can do every single day and it still counts. They can do it one last time on their deathbed and it still counts. It's shallow and pointless and they still get to feel "saved" and heavenbound, even if they have to do it again the next day.

On the other hand, to an atheist, the only thing they get out of repenting is what they do with it. They don't feel some cosmic gift-bag magic, they just actually feel bad and regret it.

You can't repent knowing you can do the sin again while repenting again even more in Christianity as in the phrase Repent and sin no more.


(Ok Im off)

A bit later Abaddon

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Its hard to tell of the supposedly mental illness you say above, for example: you can go into a busy part of the city and watch people going about there business. Bus drivers drivng buses, Taxi drivers driving taxis, people chatting and waving at recognised faces across the street, giving the gesture by raising their hand to their ear, "I'll phone you" and so on. Its-had-to-tell when you say that "something has stopped" i.e. non-rational "religious" brain when these people seem to act "normal" in the society. Do you record and include data differentiating people who wear chains with a cross who otherwise act like everyone else? What is so noticeable, what is the affect of this illness that you see of everyday people who are also religious? You wouldn't know they were religious unless they told you so i.e. no real noticeable affect (if at all) .

The same could be said of serial killers. "He seemed so normal." That's the thing about mental abberations: they don't always show up in everyday activities.

 

[Rhea]

YOU said that quite a few of the people you were trying to evangelize to about your Jesus story " won't find it appealing when they realise they would have to repent from certain things, give up those particular pleasures," What, exactly would make it unappealing? Which pleasures do they have to give up? I have done nothing to repent and I have nothing to give up. Where did you pull this "ashamed of love" line from? Your rectum? Because it's full of crap again, and you use it to claim I am making a false statement? How about, I didn't say anything whatsoever about being ashamed of love and you just fabricated that and then called me a liar over it?

Wow.

You didn't explain it clearly, do you mean in quote below, sexual urges or lusts, then just say so.

Like Learner believes we're all bad people at heart and discovering love would be a burden that required change

But yes in some cases need repenting. The not appealing bit to some.


(I haven't got my correct glasses, in need of a new pair, resting eyes now, later)

I meant the "Love of Jesus" that you are saying your evangelism leads to. Not human love. I'm talking about the things you're promising that you say atheists would not find appealing because you claim we would have to give stuff up for it that we wouldn't like to do.


Whatever you're selling...
That you say is about the love from some entity called Jesus that is supposedly a Great Thing (tm)
That you say we would not find appealing
because
of what we would have to give up to get it,
And how we would resent giving that up.



THAT is what is insulting.

Now, that assumes that what you are saying atheists would have to give up are bad behaviors.
But perhaps my assumption was all wrong,
...and what atheists would really have to give up to follow Jesus is compassion and altruism and philanthropy and kindness
so that we could be as mean and greedy and bigoted as all the christians are...

Well, if that's what you meant then I'm not insulted at all and I take it back.
And yeah I would resent giving up compassion and altruism and philanthropy and kindness - and your religion would not appeal to me.