How much more, and in what units?
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Rhetoric
noun
- language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.
Same as when he claimed to be using a rational factual defence of Christianity, and then offered no facts and a string of logical fallacies.
I don’t get why people don’t get this. Communism is an economic system. It does not say anything at all about religion. Communism political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates.
The question is this. Why was religion a problem for communism? Here is a little tidbit for you to chew on:
Berdyaev (1933, 1937) argues that communism succeeded precisely in those countries with a strong Eastern Orthodox tradition. As he explains, “The best type of communist, that is to say, the man who is completely in the grip of the service of an idea and capable of enormous sacrifices and disinterested enthusiasm, is a possibility only as the result of the [Orthodox] Christian training of the human spirit, of the remaking of the natural man by the [Orthodox] Christian spirit” (Berdyaev 1937: 170).
So it was the well-prepared and indoctrinated Christian mind that made communism possible.
“At the same time, communist governments maintained those aspects of Orthodox theology – including the emphasis on tradition and communitarianism – which were useful for spreading and solidifying communist ideas. In this regard, Orthodoxy provided a useful condition for the growth of communist regimes. Communist policies and institutions – collectivization of agriculture, youth socialist organizations, a powerful Secret Service, and control over internal and external mobility – were highly compatible with pre-existing Orthodox norms, including communitarianism, less reliance on legal exchanges, and higher respect for authority. In many respects, communism can be seen as the second coming of Orthodoxy, which we argue is in line with Berdyaev’s (1933, 1937) hypothesis.”
This should scare the hell out of the theists… Communism in most of its forms was a religion.
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If God exists, then where does God come from?
So . . . if we decide that God has always existed, then why not skip a step and decide that the Universe has always existed?
Or, if we decide that God’s origin is an unanswerable question, then why not skip a step and decide that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question?
People say that the Universe is–somehow-- “fine-tuned” to permit life . . . but if this is true, then why is more than 99.9999% of it uninhabitable? We can’t exist inside stars, or in the empty, vast spaces between the galaxies.
People say that our “innate moral sense of right and wrong” comes from God . . . but if this moral sense exists, then how come it doesn’t kick in automatically when we kill whales for dog food, pollute the ocean, or buy things from Walmart that were made overseas with child labor? Our moral sense doesn’t kick in at all when it costs us money.
People say that life has no meaning without God . . . but why can’t we give our own existence meaning? I am an ex-paramedic and a future RN, and I save lives for a living. My life has meaning without resorting to God.
People buy into Pasquale’s Wager, which claims that if we worship God and God does not exist, then we lose nothing . . . but if God does exist, then we gain Paradise when we die, so there’s no way to lose if we believe in God. This seems logical on the surface, but there are hundreds of Christian sects that each claim to have the correct way to worship God, and almost each one claims that following a different version of the faith will cause you to lose out on Paradise. So, if I believe in and worship God . . . the odds are overwhelmingly against me, and I’ll pick the wrong faith and get screwed out of Paradise anyway. The situation is much worse if we add Islam, Buddhism, and all the other religions to the equation. This means that Atheism is actually the smart bet in Pasquale’s wager, as the anxiety of impending Hell would actually destroy my quality of life, while Atheism encourages me to do what I can now.
Besides, if I’m wrong, I have faith that an omniscent God would understand my reasons and give me a pass, since He created the Universe.
Everyone asks if the Atheist is arrogant, as 98% of the human race believes in God (in one form or another), so am I arrogant by claiming that I know better than almost all of humanity? Does the Atheist–by definition–lack common sense?
Well . . . I am not obligated to believe that the Earth is flat just because everyone else believes it. There are many widespread beliefs that are wrong. The idea that women are inferior to men is an example.
If you can give me reasonable, cognizant, well thought out answers to these questions, then I am listening.
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Then why is it the church has changed to meet modern moral expectations and not culture changed to meet religious morality, If we followed God’s morality, would we not still be killing witches, homosexuals, and anyone who disagreed with our religious views. How would we be different from Islam? LOL
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I can only assert that anyone who makes the claim that morality comes from the Christian god, has not read their own religious text. You can NOT read the bible and then assert the god thing described by that collection of books is in any way “MORAL.”
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Of course God is moral . . . as long as we look past the infanticide, the genocide, and general cold- bloodedness.
After all, these things prove that God loves us.
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Well yeah, isn’t that obvious?
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It’s all part of god’s plan, and god is mysterious.
For example Jupiter has 80 moons, and potatoes have more chromosomes than humans wtf is up with that, and there are over 40,000 species of slugs and snails…like I said, mysterious. Orrr batshit crazy.
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Original Buddhism was a movement started by one man who went by the name Siddartha Gautama in ancient India around 500 BCE.
Gautama Buddha rejected the Brahmanism which was the cultural religion of his home India. Brahmanism, at that time and to this day, worshipped and worships “Brahma”; the Indian equivalent of the Yahweh.
Gautama chose an ascetic life in what he understood to be a journey to find liberation from the cyclical suffering of existence. He’s understood to have believed in rebirth after death. Not in a good way. But in a very, very, very, very naughty way.
Gautama discipled under two advanced teachers. One taught liberation from suffering in a state of nothingness. The other taught liberation from suffering in a state of neither perception nor non-perception.
After advancing to these spiritual attainments, Gautama left those teachers to pursue strict asceticsm. After emaciating his body, Gautama gave up strict asceticism in search of a path to liberation between indulging in sense pleasures and adopting strict ascetic practices.
Gautama is known for establishing a path to liberation from suffering which followed a progressive series of spiritual attainments called “Jhanas”. The jhanas are marked by a bodily feeing of rapture and bliss.
After developing these “jhanas” Gautama had sufficiently calmed his body and made his mind imperturbable. Having attained to imperturbability, Gautama directed his mind towards the ending of lust, becoming, and ignorance.
After doing this he was enlightened and will therefore forever be known as the Buddha.
Gautama Buddha shunned the idea of a creator God. In fact, the being in the Universe with the greatest power and sovereignty was a somewhat sadistic and evil being known as “Mara” - the Buddhist equivalent of the Christian “Satan”.
Mara is a figurative and literal figure in early Buddhist texts. His existence is accepted in traditional Buddhist - as are the pantheon of gods in the various heavens which occupy our universe.
Yea, Buddhist cosmogony is a fanciful one to say the least. However the onus of the religion is one of self development and inner realization. Devotion to gods or a God is not a requirement or even a teaching (it just so happens that rebirths in higher planes seems to be “a thing” in the belief system of the Buddha).
So, if you were to believe in Buddhism, you would be required to practice introspection at all times, to develop the qualities of loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity; to search for the meditative bodily release of the four jhanas; and then apply your purified mind to the ending of the three defilements - lust; existential becoming; and spiritual ignorance.
No belief in God required by the teacher Gautama.
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Oh hell, you’re not pulling this “Original Buddhism” garbage again! Really? I can pay 25 cents and go on the merry-go-round at the local park. The difference between that and Buddhism is that the merry-go-round is a lot more fun and much more enlightening.
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This is also a subjective religious belief though, with or without a deity. Unless someone can demonstrate some objective evidence that the belief exists, outside of the imagination of those who hold the belief.
Welcome back…
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The near death experience offers ubiquitous results.
From Wikipedia
Common traits that have been reported by NDErs are:
- A sense/awareness of being dead.[6]
- A sense of peace, well-being, painlessness and other positive emotions. A sense of removal from the world.[6] An intense feeling of unconditional love and acceptance.[21]Experiencing euphoric environments.[22]
- An out-of-body experience (OBE). A perception of one’s body from an outside position, sometimes observing medical professionals performing resuscitation efforts.[6][23]
- A “tunnel experience” or entering a darkness. A sense of moving up, or through, a passageway or staircase.[6][23]
- A rapid movement toward and/or sudden immersion in a powerful light (or “Being(s) of Light” or “Being(s) dressed in white”) which communicate telepathically with the person.[24][6]
- Being reunited with deceased loved ones.[23]
- Receiving a life review, commonly referred to as “seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes”.[6]
- Approaching a border or a decision by oneself or others to return to one’s body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return.[6][23]
- Suddenly finding oneself back inside one’s body.[25]
- Connection to the cultural beliefs held by the individual, which seem to dictate some of the phenomena experienced in the NDE, but more so affects the later interpretation thereof.[19][page needed]
The implications of DMT in the NDE’s is also quite interesting as those who use DMT recreationally report “death” experiences. There’s even a level of consensus among DMT users as to the “magical” entities they meet on their trips (black spirit serpents; the Buddha; machine elves).
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RATTY RATTY RATTY (CONSENSUS DOES NOT MATTER).
It was once ‘consensus’ the earth was flat. ‘Consensus’ told us we were the center of the universe. If ‘consensus’ were true, man would have never reached for the stars or cured modern disease. After all, everyone knew man could not fly and diseases were caused by demons. Poor, poor, ratty and his consensus thinking brain. You have said “NOTHING.” All ‘consensus’ tells us is that people are telling a story. Consensus has aliens impregnating trailorpark women and then robbing them of their reptilian babies before delivery. Surely you have something else rattling around in that rat brain of yours besides ‘consensus.’
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I have some solid input that is relevant to the near death experience . . . which I actually wrote up, and had two (or possibly three) letters published in Skeptical Inquirer on the subject.
I was wheeling a terminally ill patient (a virulent form of pancreatic cancer) through the hospital, as we were taking him to Hospice.
He stopped talking when we entered the elevator, and laughed when we got off on the ground floor.
I asked him to share the joke, and he was convinced he died on my stretcher. He said he was “Floating above my body, looking down at myself . . . and I felt so peaceful.”
He was a retired attorney, so he was very articulate . . . and he made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
We returned later that night for another call, and that’s when I discovered that the elevator had a mirrored ceiling.
The combination of downward motion (which makes you feel lighter) combined with contemplating his own reflection in a mirrored ceiling created an extremely credible out of body experience . . . and I imagine that the morphine may have played a role as well.
I started looking out for mirrored ceilings in hospitals and nursing homes, and they are not rare.
I imagine that this explains at least some of the commonality of experiences with people who are approaching death.
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Hi Eli, I am a believer I just wanted to ask a question and anyone can answer out of curiosity. if the world was created by a big bang and the Earth formed itself, how did all the seas and oceans, rivers and waterfalls fill up with water?
LOL Fill up? Ha ha ha ha ha ha … (density = mass/volume), Therefore, the layering of Earth is a result of gravitational pull. The densest layer (inner core) is at the center and the least dense layer (crust) is the outermost layer. Can you guess where water falls in this mix? Why do you think valleys are full of air? Now, there is the real enigma! And, what do you imagine is gluing all this oxygen to the rocks? Wow! So many mysteries.
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Consensus sends people to the electric chair. When a certain amount of evidence is weighed and it’s up to a group of people to deliberate on the facts, it’s a consensus among the people which dictates the outcome.
Consensus was that the earth was flat. Now the consensus is that it’s round.
100 people eat a chicken fried rice dish and agree that it’s good. The consensus is that it’s good. It’s not a fact. It can’t be established as a fact. It’s a group shared opinion.
The opinion shared by the small number (relative to the masses) of those people who have died for a few minutes and come back is that death is not the end.
Would you rather believe the doctor who totes on that:
“Well the brain is the seat of consciousness and when brain activity ends, human experience ends with it.”
Or would you rather believe not one, but all of the people who have died for a short period of time and tell you:
“This happens.”
“You too!!!???”
“Ew! Ew! Yeah, me! When I died all of that happened to me too!”
“So, we all agree?”
“Yes!” They all say collectively.
You have eye witness accounts from formerly dead people who corroborate their stories with other formerly dead people to form the subjective collective opinion that life does not end the moment that we die.
I find such evidence compelling. You don’t have to. In spite of finding it compelling, I’m not convinced. Nor would I off my self just to verify.
That being said, during the OBE’s of patients who die on the table, the subjective experience of floating above one’s body is detailed (on their part) by a recounting of the life resuscitation interventions which the NDE’r sees from above. Some say their level of detail in recounting what they see goes beyond the possibility of hallucination.
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Yes, and this is very unfortunate.
The fallibility of eyewitness testimony is well documented.
The Fallibility of Eyewitness Testimony: An Examination of
memory and Its Role in Inaccurate Testimony
Tiffany Dawn Bryan
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
FINDINGS:
Conclusion
Memory is not absolute. Eyewitness testimony is fallible, yet courts still place a
lot of emphasis on eyewitness identifications. There are many psychological theories as
to how memory is affected and how it can be improved. Higher awareness of these
principles would lead to fewer wrongful convictions based on errors resulting from
inaccurate eyewitness testimony and identifications. Eyewitnesses can be accurate in
their identifications, but they can just as easily be wrong. It is imperative that the courts
have all the latest information about memory and eyewitnesses so that an informed,
intelligent decision can be made.
With the technological advances in recent years, DNA testing has been able to
exonerate numerous individuals wrongfully convicted. Hopefully, given the progress of
science, many cases that are tried will now have forensic evidence in addition to
eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony and identification is still an important aspect
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of the criminal justice system and should not be discarded as a viable avenue of
apprehending suspects and convicting them of crimes. However, courts should be aware
of both sides of the issue, of the factors that inhibit and improve memory. Expert
witnesses testify for both the prosecution and defense on a wide array of scientific
evidence and theories that are presented at trials. Eyewitness testimony should be subject
to the same scrutiny as are other aspects of the trial, with testimony from experts on both
sides of the issue to ensure a balanced and, hopefully, just decision.
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