BS: Is the Rapture Underway???

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 02:04 PM

Bill, I realize it's pete you're talking to...and his position you're addressing, not mine.

What I keep noticing is that the hypothetical scenarios you suggest all involve God as if God were a big separate being of some kind, rather than something that's already existing inside all of us. If a deity was a separate being, then it could perhaps manifest as a big voice speaking to everyone out of the sky.

If it's within us, though, I suspect it would speak to us in a much more subtle way through our thoughts and our feelings and emotions...assuming we were inclined to pay proper attention and listen carefully. Usually we are not so inclined, because we're busy doing other stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 02:11 PM

Little Hawk, revisit this:

Ever notice, that in a dream, the person IN the dream goes through whatever 'adventure' the dream is about, but YOU, the observer of the dream, feels every emotion, that the character IN the dream is experiencing????? Does that mean the observer(dreamer) doesn't exist??..or maybe the 'Dreamer' is a Reality too close to be named...but if it walked among us................

Something to think about, huh?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 02:48 PM

i sort of know what you mean LH ,but as bill observed some posts back,something like your idea of the divine being so vague as to have little meaning,i broadly agree.
in a sense i agree in that we all spring from,and are sustained by him.paul quoted greek philosophers in that respect
   ".....he be not far from everyone of us,for in him we live and move and have our being...for we are also his offspring" acts 17 v 27f.
it is clear though from the conclusion of his address to the athenians that he wanted to move them beyond that.
i certainly think it a good thing to listen and meditate but at the end of the day your opnions of God are subjective,not having an objective point of reference.you may not believe it to be entirely reliable as a reference point but it does provide an objective ref point for its believers.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 03:46 PM

"If it's within us, though, I suspect it would speak to us in a much more subtle way through our thoughts and our feelings and emotions...assuming we were inclined to pay proper attention and listen carefully...."

So, L.H.... how would that be different from simple "thoughts feelings and emotions" that were merely our 'ID' and 'superego' as Freud said?.

Does a mystic (Zen & such) who meditates deeply channel some sort of 'godness' that careless little ME misses by merely acting on my...ummm... superficial thoughts, feeling and emotions?

Your concept is 'prettier' and better poetry, but as usual, it seems to like just semantic decoration. (I have pretty, poetic thoughts also at times, but I am aware of their aim & status.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 04:40 PM

LH part 2
it is certainly true that we have no record of Jesus itemizing the unfolding of his mission as far as scripture writing was concerned.
however we do have record of him commissioning the apostles to bear witness to him.matthew 28v19f.acts 1 v 8.
he promised that the Holy Spirit would teach them what they could not handle then john 16 v 12-14,and that the Spirit would bring to their memory what he had been teaching them while present with them .john claimed that what he wrote was their testimony of their time with Jesus.1 john 1 v 1-4.his purpose in writing was to advance belief in Christ.john 20 v 30f.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 04:55 PM

yeh bill,there are times when i wish he would do that as well.Hwill end it all one day but as 2 peter 3 v 9 assures us,he has'nt come back yet because he is giving oppotunity for repentance.
as i said in my previous post ,the bible teaching is that such a display by God does not guarantee that it will lead to repentance and faith.
we can assume what we think God might do but i try to be content that he knows best.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 05:49 PM

"...such a display by God does not guarantee that it will lead to repentance and faith."

Right... as opposed to not bothering... and letting his 'followers' threaten with hellfire & damnnation if we don't have faith & repent just based on 2000 years of hearsay.

If those are God's rules, I doubt I'd want to spend eternity with him. His logic doesn't follow MY rules. (You should have seen the Jehovah's Witnesses' faces when I told them essentially that a few years ago. They don't come 'round any more. I think I'm on a list.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 05:53 PM

What do you mean by 'repent'?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 06:35 PM

BillD - "So, L.H.... how would that be different from simple "thoughts feelings and emotions" that were merely our 'ID' and 'superego' as Freud said?.

My answer to that, Bill, is that each person must decide for himself where the difference lies...and if there is one. I can't decide for you. You can't decide for me.

What I am speaking about is, for me, far more than just poetic words.

pete - you quoted from Paul: "in him we live and move and have our being...for we are also his offspring"

Yes, I quite agree with that, although you could also say "in her we live and move and have our being"...if you wanted to say it that way. I think of God as omnipresent and beyond gender, but manifesting in and through both genders and also through genderless things...as the source of all that is.

pete, point #2 - "we do have record of him commissioning the apostles to bear witness to him"

Of course. All spiritual teachers advise their students to bear witness to the teachings they are given and to the source of the teachings. The question in my mind is, "Did Jesus want people to worship him as God? Or did he want them to learn from him and to follow his example and so become like him, thus bringing to actuality the Kingdom of God as a living experience?" I think it was probably the latter, not the former. I think he was attempting to awaken the Christ Spirit in each person, not get them to worship it solely in the form of his own identity. And, yes, I think it sleeps in a potential form in every human being, waiting to be awakened and brought into full expression.

That is one of the most essential teachings in the great Asian religions, and also in some of the more mystical wings of Christianity. To achieve enlightenment is to awaken the Christ within.

We can talk about it all we want, but the only way to make it real is to actually experience it...and that's something that usually takes either a great deal of hard work...or a great capacity to open the heart and surrender...or both. Both pride and fear stand in the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 11:16 AM

I've been looking thru my collection of quotations.... it often helps me put things into some perspective.


"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way." -Bertrand Russell

A wise man once said "If I could prove there was no God I would keep it a secret, lest the world destroy itself'" -R. A. Underwood

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos." - Stephen Jay Gould

"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance... logic can be happily tossed out the window."        Stephen King

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 11:23 AM

Pete, What do you mean by 'repent'?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 12:07 PM

""They have every right to assert that they do not believe. But they have no right to mock those who don't agree with them.""

It always intrigues me, that the religious (as opposed to the faithful who believe in a deity) are so exercised by their need to rebut the opinions of non believers.

Just how does anybody else's opinion diminish their status, and why should they give a tuppeny fuck what Steve, Ian, or for that matter Dawkins thinks of them?

The followers of just about every other religion on earth think pretty much the same as Steve about Christianity, and Christians largely have the same view as Steve about those others. But because they are religious their opinions are largely ignored, causing no uproar at all.

But just let anybody who doesn't believe in religion at all post an opinion and all hell breaks loose, in a concerted effort to prove that he belongs to some equal but opposite grouping.

NEWSFLASH: He doesn't, and neither do I. We have our independently arrived at opinions, he not believing in a Deity and I believing in one. What we share is non belief in the pontifications of groups of men purveying a controlling agenda.

Sorry about that, but for obvious reasons it isn't a religion!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 12:22 PM

""If it's within us, though, I suspect it would speak to us in a much more subtle way through our thoughts and our feelings and emotions...assuming we were inclined to pay proper attention and listen carefully. Usually we are not so inclined, because we're busy doing other stuff.""

If that were true (and I'm not saying it isn't), and it informed our moral compass, what on earth would be the use of a bunch of black frocked celebrants.

That is precisely why religions, all of them, are irrelevant to my life.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 01:08 PM

"They have every right to assert that they do not believe. But they have no right to mock those who don't agree with them."

And vice frickin' versa. They want to believe in fairytales, OK by me as long as they don't attempt to make others live by their delusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 01:09 PM

>>Therefore, I read the Bible with an eye to discernment to find what truth is there....not as a perfect instruction manual that will tell me everything I need to know.<<

If you already know the truth (and you have to to be able to pick it out of the bible verses) then what do you need to read the bible for? It can't tell you anything you don't already know.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 01:27 PM

Dawkins is a jerk who rudely mocks people. Obviously you don't see a problem with that because you, DonT, do the same. That's OK that is up to him if he is representing Dawkins. When he does so and claims to represent reason and science there is a problem.

I will comment on such things as a I choose, just as you choose to say unfounded condescending things.

I promise not to let your low opinion of me "diminish me" too much.

And please don't let my opinion that you are an ignorant arrogant blowhard diminish you.

LOL!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 01:47 PM

What amazes me, Don T, is how hard most people look around for ways to disagree, rather than looking for a means to reach an accord and a common understanding, and mutual respect.

(I'm not directing criticism at you personally in so saying, I'm just noting something that I see commonly happening, specially on the Net, which is that most people focus mainly on what they disagree about with others. They could instead focus on what they agree about, and they'd usually find that it outweighs the disagreements in a ratio of probably 100 to 1. This is also true in politics and relations between countries...the path of intelligence and wisdom lies in finding out what you have in common with other people and seeking solutions that benefit all parties rather than obsessing over the differences and fighting about them. We would be much better off seeking accord than seeking "victory", whether as nations or as individuals.)

It also gains nothing for us to pursue personal feuds, but you see that happening all the time on this forum. No one is going to "win" any of those feuds.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Musket sanctimonious as a sailor
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 01:56 PM

I wish I had such courage of conviction I could dismiss a professor of evolutionary biology and one of the world's leading geneticists as a jerk. Even better, coming from Jerk himself.

How do you reach such personal standards that you can dismiss reality and still demand that you are taken seriously by rational people? They don't perchance use snakes in your church do they? Apparently the venom can help sustain delusions, hence their popularity in shit kicking backwaters.

Have you noticed by the way that not all your detractors can be "taking the piss. " must be a little more to it eh? You said you recognise piss taking on account of visiting England. Either you don't notice it too well in general or you really ought to get out more. ...


LOL. (Does that mean laugh out loud or loss of love. Jerk seems to be using it and I am unsure what he is saying. I don't know what LOL means either.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 02:00 PM

Did you know the bicycle thread and this one are running neck and neck? Must have some significance.

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Poetry Bird
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 02:40 PM

""And please don't let my opinion that you are an ignorant arrogant blowhard diminish you.""

If you really had as little respect for my opinion as you claim, you wouldn't expend so much energy trying (unsuccessfully) to counter it.

And there isn't the slightest chance of a passive/aggressive wannabe victim diminishing me.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 03:16 PM

Did you know the bicycle thread and this one are running neck and neck? Must have some significance. M

Significance, Dave, is the same self-satisfied, delusional, ignorant assholes are posting on both.

I hope you recognize yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 03:42 PM

Dave wouldn't recognise it and neither would many others. What is an asshole?

You arsehole.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 03:49 PM

LOL is a common expression online and when texting, etc, Musket. It means "laughing out loud". Some other common ones are:

IMO - in my opinion
FWIW - for what it's worth
IMHO - in my humble opinion
IMNSHO - in my not so humble opinion
WTF - What the fuck?
OMG - Oh my God!

****

In regards to the Poetry Bird post...

There is no chance of ANY of the flame-warriors here diminishing anyone else with their passive-aggressive tactics, name-calling, insults, sneering sarcasm, preening bloviation, etc. But something in them enjoys it, at least in the brief moment of imaginary "victory" over whoever they are going after...sort of like a small boy enjoys torturing the dog with a straw while it's trying to sleep or bulling the smaller boy on the way home from school.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 03:52 PM

gfs-i looked up "repentance" in the greek just to make sure i replied to you accurately/accorded with my understanding.thankfully it did
gk-metanoia=a change of mode of thought and feeling,repentance,practical reformation;reversal of the past.
so the overal meaning implies a change of mind and behaviour.
btw and no added charge[!]believe-gk pistis;-also means commitment and not just assent to the truth ,which of itself might not lead to any change. pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 04:18 PM

well bill - the Almighty dont play to your rules,he makes the rules.
God in Christ reconciling through sufferring is hardly an image of a God "who cant be bothered"
i am sure that if you dont want to spend eternity with him,he will not force you to.
you come across as sarcastic about what i say [though print on screen can admittedly be misinterpreted] ,and rebellious against God.
but to be positive you do so without the foulmouthing of many posters here.
wishing you the best    pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 04:22 PM

" taken seriously by rational people"

I am taken seriously by rational people. If you think of yourself as a rational person, or DonT, for that matter, a recent review of your posting histories on this forum should disabuse you of that notion. Certainly you would be more humble if you actually remembered the drivel you post.


I don't know why the local mocking birds' are obsessed with the word "dismiss."

Describing someone as a jerk is not the same as dismissing them.
Nobody had brought up Dawkins as an expert or role model.


If you are asking how I can describe someone as a jerk even if they happen to hold a Phd. The answer is simple enough. It is when they abandon science and logic and stoop to bullying and ridicule.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 04:24 PM

"the overal meaning (of repentance) implies a change of mind and behaviour"

Exactly, pete! Why this shouldn't be obvious to people is a puzzlement to me, but I think they're more just reacting to the word as a "religious word" (therefore wrong in some way?) rather than giving it much real thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 04:55 PM

LH - despite your not givng the same status to scripture as i do, i am finding areas of agreement with you.
though i would not refer to GOD as "she",it is interesting that feminine images of him are found in the bible,and when he made man in his image ,genesis 1 records that it was as male and female "made he them".the personal pronoun however, is always in the muscular,-feminist translations notwithstanding!.
though i do not agree with your more impersonal force image of God [ if i read you right? ] it is true that he is omnipresent.christian theology sees this as being by his Spirit,cf psalm 139 v 7-9.

some insightful comments ,hawk,re some posters always trying to score points or intimidate. i find it sort of strange that people obviously better educated than i am, neverthe less feel the need to attack the person rather than tackle the argument!
regards   pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 05:35 PM

Still pretty much neck and neck. Even if Don has stopped posting as himself and Greg enjoys a quick sortee into the realms of trying to act intelligent :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 05:40 PM

sort of like a small boy enjoys torturing the dog with a straw

Bloody 'ell, Musket. Sounds like we have missed a trick in our new religion thread! What the heck is that about then?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 06:03 PM

Never done that, Dave? ;-) Poor lad! You missed a vital part of every growing boy's childhood experiences. Fortunately, we do outgrow them after awhile...or I hope we do. This is how it works: The dog is attempting to enjoy some "down time" on the rug or the front porch. The boy creeps up with a straw and starts gently tickling the dog's foot or his back or his ear. The poor beast gets more and more restless, his skin twitches, his little eye bumps shift around nervously under his closed eyelids, he suspect that there is a fly or some other such pest walking around on him. Presently the dog can't stand it any longer and makes a bunch of sudden snaps at the non-existent "fly", much to the boy's delight. The dog looks around in a weary way, groans or sighs, and attempts to return to dreamland. The boy starts stealthily tickling the dog again...and the whole process repeats itself.

Did I do this in my youth? Yes. And how that poor dog suffered! I have since repented of indulging in that evil habit, and I no longer torture the dog with a straw.

pete - I'm sure we'd find a great deal of common ground. Regarding God being spoken of as "he"...I think that was inevitable in the society that produced the books of the Old and New Testaments. It was a very patriarchal society. Men held all the important positions, they were the ones who ran the religion and the government, and they had the authority. Women were almost treated like property rather than like equal citizens (although some husbands, I'm sure, treated their wives with great love and respect...while some others did not). Anyway, it's almost inconceivable in the society of that time that the males who wrote all the books would have referred to the One God of Moses and Abraham as anything but "He". It wouldn't even have occurred to them to do otherwise.

Therefore I consider it merely indicative of the culture at the time that they did so...not of any innate characteristic of God. I think that a male and female humanity would have to come from a male and female source...that is, a source that either combined both genders...or superceded them in some sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 07:35 PM

Well bugger me sideways with a bent banana, a religion thread I didn't even know was here! Yummy! And I keep getting mentioned in it! Right, lads, let's go! You first, Wacko? Or pete, mayhap? Grand! I've been in civilised company all evening but they've all gone to bed and I feel the need for bullshit! Shoot, lads!

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 07:42 PM

"a religion thread I didn't even know was here! "

I don't think I want to know what you thought the title meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 09:02 PM

Wow - 333 posts. We're halfway to 666.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 09:40 PM

Well, it was a loaded question....the word 'repent' comes from the same Greek word as to 'revolve'...as in a 180...and what do you revolve? or better yet, what do you 'revolve' to?
Talk with me, Pete..I promise to give you some VERY overlooked goodies!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 10:13 PM

"...you come across as sarcastic about what i say [though print on screen can admittedly be misinterpreted] ,and rebellious against God."

I wasn't really intending sarcasm, Pete... just reacting to your increasing quoting of the Bible ... as if that proves anything to those who do not accept it as final authority.
The JWs I mentioned read bible verses to me, and I explained my position to them...that I did not accept the bible as an authority... so they said "We'll be back." They did come back in a few days with an older gentleman who had 'more experience'. Guess what HE did.

He read me MORE bible verses!! I had to shake my head in wonder at why they thought lots of verses would get thru to me... and so it is when you tell me things like ' I am sounding "rebellious against God."

No...I am not 'rebelling against God', for that would mean I accepted that a 'god' was in charge. I am rebelling.. or, more accurately, disputing ...certain patterns of reasoning that tell me that I should deem it as obvious that the Christian bible IS an authority.

Pete... the existence of an all-powerful god and the bible as authority IS what is at issue. YOU may believe these things, but for the umteenth time... you do not prove the authority OF the Bible by CITING the Bible. It is that sort of thing that draws remarks from me that may seem like sarcasm.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:32 AM

""In regards to the Poetry Bird post...""

The Potry Bird pst was me, using my wife's PC and forgetting to change cookies, while Spybot took two hours to wade through the backwaters of my own.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 09:14 AM

I don't think I want to know what you thought the title meant.

Well it's like this, Wacko. I didn't thought it at all. It failed to contain a trigger word that gets my clickin' finger a-clickin'. Instead, it contains that useless, pointless, pretentious word "rapture". I eventually looked at the thread because I was somewhat curious as to why it's been hanging around. And bingo! What do I find but Wacko talking about me in my absence!

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 09:22 AM

"Well bugger me sideways with a bent banana..."

I know places where that can definitely be arranged, Steve, but it'll cost ya.

Figger about $50 (or the UK equivalent) up front.

- Chongo

p.s. Be advised that this transaction is illegal in quite a few places, and use caution as to who you approach. There are some "sting" operations goin' on out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 09:27 AM

400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhh...   If I was a smoker, I think I'd have one right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 09:29 AM

Hmmm, that's odd... (?) What happened there?

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 11:14 AM

""Describing someone as a jerk is not the same as dismissing them.
Nobody had brought up Dawkins as an expert or role model.


If you are asking how I can describe someone as a jerk even if they happen to hold a Phd. The answer is simple enough. It is when they abandon science and logic and stoop to bullying and ridicule.""

Poor little Sailor boy whining about being laughed at and regarded as delusional, deliberately provoking a response from others, then complaining about being victimised.

"Delusional" is an opinion, not a religion, and no amount of crying and breast beating from you will make it anything else.

Dawkins is as entitled to an opinion as you.

Just man up and ignore him, then stop provoking responses that upset you so.

SIMPLES!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 05:47 PM

""What amazes me, Don T, is how hard most people look around for ways to disagree, rather than looking for a means to reach an accord and a common understanding, and mutual respect.""

Putting it on a purely personal basis, I don't really give a toss what Pete or Jack the Sailor choose to believe in, be it Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or the Cosmic Pixie, who gives a damn.

But taking your comment about looking for points of aggreement, that is exactly what I have done, and it has led me to the conclusion that, apart from belief in a Deity (I do and they don't) I find many more points of aggreement with Steve, Mike, Ian and yes, Dawkins too than with any of the Bible Literalists, Creationists, Evangelists and men who preach in Fez, Turban, skull cap, backward collar or black frock.

That might surprise some, as Dawkins would see me as subscribing to the God delusion, but you see what Dawkins thinks of me is his problem, not mine.

If that makes me a militant, it is as an individual, not a religion.

Ditto Dawkins, Steve, Ian and Mike. Individuals all!

I know that Jack feels victimised by those who don't believe in God and reject Jack's views.

His frustration with that situation is very plain, as is the extra animosity and name calling I receive as a believer who still rejects his and all other religious views.

I don't understand what it is about Atheists and non religious types like me, that is so insulting to him that he must keep picking at it like an itchy scab for months on end.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 05:53 PM

"I know that Jack feels victimised by those who don't believe in God and reject Jack's views."


You KNOW that do you?

You know how I feel?

A good approach to reasonable conversation is to stop pulling you arguments out of your ass. Why don't you try it?

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 06:19 PM

Actually, it pisses me off to be called a militant. I don't start threads about this stuff. I'm merely a shrugger of shoulders at the nonsense of religious belief. I can't understand how intelligent people (not you, pete - don't go getting excited now) can put all the logic and rationality they employ in the rest of their lives on hold in order to believe in an entity who breaks all the rules of nature, for whom there is no evidence and who raises a million more questions than he answers, and, above all, who is utterly unnecessary. That's all. Where I get cross is when people who espouse this delusion have such faith in it that they inflict it on their children by acquiescing in their religious "education" (which is actually the complete opposite of real education in that you're telling children what to believe rather than showing them how to find things out for themselves). If you make your child go to a Catholic school you are forcing them to accept evidence-innocent myth as truth. You might be the nicest bloke on the planet, but if you do that you are definitely deluded. And not being very nice to your kid. And it's you doing that who's the bloody militant, not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 06:32 PM

I have the same worries about people who inflict their unrealistic and bizarre political, social, and financial beliefs and prejudices on their children, Steve. What shall we do about it?

God knows, I've been trying to de-program myself from all that culturally acquired crap all my life, and I hope you have too. ;-) The way to genuine freedom is to question not just one set of jealously guarded assumptions, but all of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 06:41 PM

What shall we do about it?

How about keeping your yap shut, Hawk? That would certainly be a relief.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 06:44 PM

""I know that Jack feels victimised by those who don't believe in God and reject Jack's views."


You KNOW that do you?

You know how I feel?

A good approach to reasonable conversation is to stop pulling you arguments out of your ass. Why don't you try it?""

No mate. Pulled out of your own mouth, by reading what you have been whingeing about all the way through two threads.

If you don't want people to comment on what you write down, don't write it down!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:06 PM

I have the same worries about people who inflict their unrealistic and bizarre political, social, and financial beliefs and prejudices on their children, Steve. What shall we do about it?

This is an entirely disingenuous response. Political, social and financial matters are all the very stuff of humanity having to plough its way through a crowded and complex world in which truth and fair play are hard to find. Religious belief, on the other hand, is a bolt-on to humanity. Forced on people, generally speaking, by authoritarian and self-interested big religion. I can't manage my life without politics, society and finance, but millions of us do very nicely thank you without religious faith. We're called atheists, by the way, and we're unrecognisable as such unless we start talking about it. Or, more likely, unless we're hassled about it by idiots who seem to think that faith is the default position. And, if you ever walk into a building with a massive cross on it in order to pray, that's you.

Subject: RE: BS: Is the Rapture Underway???
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:41 PM

DonT you are full of shit.

If you can quote me expressing that emotion, you can show me to be a liar. I dare you! Try it! or you can continue to bevae as a blowhard and a clown. The choice is yours.