George Aar

I can only conclude either me and mine are made a whole bunch differently than the "REAL" Christians are, OR, the "REAL Christians aren't being altogether honest with us poor heathens. I don't even know what the supposed "fellowship" we were having with Jesus even looked like. I'd try to study the Bible every morning. Try to think biblical type thoughts all day. Try to figure out what Jesus would do in any given circumstance. Pray, speak in tongues, go to church or twig. None of it ever connected with me. There was never any two-way communication going on. It was me talking into the ether. If I'd have ever had any sort of feedback, I'd probably still call myself a Christian. But I never did. Never. - NO, not ever. And it makes me wonder what people are talking about when they start going on about some sort of "fellowship" with the divine. Hey, I know lots of people pretty well. I can tell you what some of their likes and dislikes are. I know when I should and shouldn't try to contact them. Know where they might be hanging out and what they might be doing. I know what they look like, the sound of their voice, even their cadence when they're walking. I don't know ANY of those things about Jesus. Never did, likely never will. Not even sure if there ever even WAS a man named Jesus from Nazareth. And you know what? I don't think anybody else does either. Or else, like I've already mentioned, we live in VERY different worlds. Personally, I think that to believe in invisible God/men REQUIRES a good bit of self-delusion. When I got to the point where I finally tired of the game, I quit believing in the unveriafiable and went on with my life as best I could. And I've also come to the point where, when I look at the basic tenets of Christianity, I'm disgusted. The concept of human sacrifice is just so pointless, barbaric, primitive, and utterly unproductive - not to mention IMMORAL - that I find it remarkable that folks still find it so comforting. REALLY remarkable. Whatever would a man being put to death have to do with making up for MY shortcomings? It's illogical to the point of depravity. Look, if I punched Johnny in the nose, and then confess my sins to God, and He gets me BORN AGIN and then I'm all cleaned up from my unruly actions in the past, what the hell does Johnny get out of the deal anyway? "Sorry ya got two black eyes and a splint on yer nose, Johnny, but I'm all forgiven now!" Mighty white of the Almighty, I'd say. And so much of the rest of Christianity is at least as equally inane. I fail to see any appeal in it whatsoever anymore...

YID, meet Mike, Mike, YID There ya go!

Yeah, it sure worked swell in the crusades, the inquisitions, the 30-years war, the Crimean War, the Irish Rebellion, our own Civil War, and well, just about any war you'd care to mention.

I've been out a WayWorld longer than I was in now, but I remember something along that line being taught with regards to Moses' death. Moses laid down and died at age 120. He'd fought the good fight and was just tired, so he quietly passed away, yadda, yadda... And - naturally - that kind of life (and death) was available to all believers who stayed faithful. Just more unsubstantiated religious dogma... And A la, Mes sympathies de sincereist

And Mr. J. have you got a date for the New York Times article? The normal search engines aren't turning up the article you've noted...

He says as much in the very next line of his post Suda, as well as stating that non-theistic morals are lacking in standards and accountability in his previous post.

And yet again, how is it that you know what the hell this - likely mostly fictitious character - would or would not do? Kinda remarkable that you have to go back thousands of years to find some sort of example, isn't it? And even at that, it's as unsupported as your other points. I'd reiterate, saying it doesn't make it so.

Please Mr. J. straw is abundant, but it IS a finite resource, let's not waste it all in one post. Never mind that with The Bible, the likelyhood that it IS all manmade seems extremely high, I'll let that go entirely. But the idea that there are clearcut standards of conduct (that are somehow superior to "manmade" systems) is ludicrous. With somewhere in the tens of THOUSANDS of denominations - all claiming The Bible as their only rule for faith and practice - it seems that somehow a whole lot of folks are having more than a little trouble coming to the "clear" conclusions you claim are there. Also, from a strictly pragmatic point of view, no spirituality involved, would it be so hard to hammer out a pretty thorough system of rules of conduct by simply employing a little empathy? That, and knowing that whatever you do to another can come back to haunt you in kind, I think a few moderately intelligent god-rejectors could forge a fairly good set of guidelines before lunch. (Yes, I know this is basic "golden rule" stuff, but stuff that The Bible did not originate, and hardly has a monopoly on) And as for THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, uh, gee are they REALLY all that impressive? I mean 4 of 'em deal simply with religious tenets, nothing necessary for civil interactions between PEOPLE. And the other 6? Jeeze, no killing, stealing, murdering, bearing false witness, and some coveting stuff. Is this all that profound? We couldnt figure this out without Divine intervention? Nevermind that the Hammurabi code had this stuff covered centuries before. I Do follow some of The Lord's statutes, though. Like, I NEVER eat a goat that's been boiled in it's mother's milk...

I dunno, Bolshevik, it seems that you're maybe in a kinda delicate mental state right now, trying to make sense of a lot of years spent in blind obeisance to WayWorld, yet confronted by obvious contradictory information from real life. Yes, no? Anyway, been there, done that. But, though I haven't seen the movie, does presenting a non-theist view of life automatically mean "wrong"? Why should we give religiousity the moral highground and preferred status right out of the box? Does it really warrent it? What if life ISN"T all spelled out, neat and tidy like, within the pages of some writ deemed "holy"? What if it all really IS just superstition carried to a ridiculous degree? Shouldn't religion have to prove it's credibility BEFORE we going basing our lives and actions on it? Like I said, I dunno...

"Makes me wish I never had a son. It's cruel to bring someone into this craphole of a world." Oh, gawd, get a grip already...

I just couldn't let this one slide by either. I don't know what periodical you were reading this article in, but their research is lacking. I haven't "read" many articles about Japan. I've just lived there for a few weeks or a few months a year for the last 12 years or so. Maybe you'd be interested in knowing just how barbaric those heathen bastards are, huh? Fer instance, did you know that just about anywhere you go in Japan, any train station, any sidewalk, any stairway, there will be grooved tiles inset in the pavement to direct the blind as to which way the street runs, when an intersection is coming up, etc. and every handrail has a Braille notation at the bottom and top of the stairway to let the person know where the stairway leads. There's also government provided vocational training for the blind and mentally handicapped in virtually every city that I've lived in. As well as government housing for same. Also, during the recent meltdown of the economy, due to a real-estate bubble burst (uh, something we're just about to find out about ourselves) the homeless were provided with temporary housing in the parks in Tokyo. They set up house-tents, showers (and BATHS!) and provided phones for the homeless as well as laundry facitlities, and train vouchers, so those folks weren't trapped in their situation, but could actively go out and seek employment, without having to explain why they didn't have a contact #, etc. Another thing you'd notice in any Japanese town, would one care enough to look, is that there are not "bad" parts of town. They don't have a "good" side of the tracks and a "bad" side. The wealthy live in houses, the middle and upper-middle class live in condos or apartments. But any part of town is as well kept up as any other. No, the "Christian" ethic isn't a big part of culture, though Lord knows it doesn't stop the westerners from trying. No, they have a "Confuscian" mindset. Individual responsiblity to the group is stressed above all else. Their entire culture revolves around that. Hence, there is no litter. No graffitti. Everything is clean, and stays that way. And, to a great extent, there are no poor. People aren't given welfare maybe, I don't know, but they ARE given jobs. If you want a job, someone will see to it that you get one, for the most part. Maybe it's a jerk-off job, pointing out where the stairway is to the tourists in the airport, or manning an "information" booth in the train station, but you CAN get a job. Even people who were layed off from their jobs, often never know it. Why? Because the company notifies the government that they have employees who are no longer needed, the government pays the company to keep the employees on, and the government picks up the tab for the salary. The employee never even knows that he's been "rif-ed", so his honor can remain intact, even if his duties at work become rather repetitive. Yeah, it's a cruel, evil system those heathen S.O.B.s have got going, I'll say. And just FYI, Japan is sort of a "two-part" religion country. Everyone born in Japan is assumed to be part of the national religion - Shintoism, but they are also (usually) Buddhist as well. Shinto covers for things in the here and now. They have gods for abundance, longlife, wisdom, happiness, - all of that. Then Buddhism is for when you check out of this world, so you can spend your afterlife in Nervana, or whereever. Hey, makes as much sense to me as a religion based on human sacrifice and cannabalism. There are NUMEROUS things that I find fault with the country about, but how they take care of their less fortunate ISN"T one of 'em...

Well, I've got my crank-radio too. No, I don't listen to Limbaugh, it actually cranks up and plays for 45 minutes or so...

Interesting how you equate atheism with anarchy. I guess that's supposed to be a self-evident result? News to me. Likewise you assume that without a holy thunderer to keep us in line, the first thing we'll do is step out on our wives and maybe indulge in unbridled nose-picking? Funny, but I fail to see a connection between belief and morality. In fact, the most debauched bastards I've ever known personally were also the most ardent in their faith. Maybe I just knew the bad ones? Oh, and do tell me about how awful it is in Japan. Obviously, they worship the wrong god...

C'mon, you can tell us Paw, are you a Red Sox fan?

That would come as quite a surprise to anybody that knows me. I haven't thought anything through in a loooong time, and it's been years since I've gone to Agnostics' Fellowship International. Uh, so you became a Christian all on yer own? All of a sudden it dawned on you that there was this guy Jesus and he'd done some really neat stuff for you?

How about the theme for "One Step Beyond"? You know, that hokey, "Garsh, can you believe this REALLY happened?" show about vanishing hitchhikers and the like. I always thought the theme was well-suited for the show, though. It really was creepy, IIRC...

Well, I'm NOT an animal lover. Mostly I find them annoying. That being said, I get real skittish about people who are depraved enough to act like this. Something's not right with 'em, and they've proven they can be really dangerous. I wouldn't trust these jerks enough to ride in the same elevator with them. It DOES say something about how desensitized we become to HUMAN cruelty (cruelty done TO humans) that the fact that wars, famines, and plagues are raging around the world doesn't much get a rise out of us, but hurt a cute little doggy - OH MY!

I hear this often from the believer crowd, and I still can't get my brain around it. No, you don't need a preacher to NOT believe in something. We're all born agnostics...

I dunno. I'm having a tough time allowing for even the possibility of Christianity - or any other religion that I'm aware of - being true. It seems to be that you can't have it both ways. (Yeah, I'm gonna get real black-and-white here for a minute) EITHER you live in a world that obeys the known laws of physics or you don't. You can't have a world that conforms to the laws of motion one minute and is immune the next. How can we trust that the world will stay within it's well-greased grooves (to borrow a line from Steinbeck) if we also believe that God will allow us special dispensation if we pray to Him just right? I'm reminded of when the Grounds crew was praying for rain at HQ while the Way Builders were praying for sunshine to dry up the grounds for the ROA. Is this a reasonable way to think? We expect gravity to work all the time. We expect the sun to rise every morning, But we want God to override any of those sort of processes if it seems to fit our needs. Cancer should be able to be stopped by an effectual prayer. The hurricane should veer away from our town if enough believers beseech the Lord in the proper manner (and the poor S.O.B.s in the town it DOES hit? ah, f'em). The oft heard response to the concept of physical "laws" is that "Well, those are man-made laws!" Yeah, like religion ISN"T? Sorry to break the news to you, but MEN wrote down the books of the Bible, MEN translated it( a gazillion times and counting), and MEN have concocted the doctrines from it over the centuries. At least the writers were shrewd enough to have Moses get his 10 commandments down from the mountaintop where they were written by the very Finger of God - no P.I. or bad translation THERE! Such a great metaphor! Having the Bible written by the very hand of God! I think that says a great deal about what we'd like The Bible to be. An unquestionable authority to refer to for all of life's questions. If only it were so...

I came to Wayworld as an agnostic. I had spent some 20 years or so of my youth in either a Lutheran Church or the Methodist Reformed (now ask me if I could tell the difference) and was pretty much tired of empty platitudes and toothy grins on Sunday morning from people that hated my guts the rest of the week. I'd never seen much of anything in religion except the musty-smelling basements and some timid housewife trying to convince the kids in her group that "Religion is really fun!" So when I heard Wierwille talking about all the terrific signs and wonders and healings and all the other empty promises, somehow I paid attention (could it have anything to do with the fact that I was madly "in love" with the girl who witnessed to me?). Here was finally somebody saying that The Bible had REAL promises that would come to pass in your daily life - IF - you knew the secret code! So, all that was well and good. Life goes on. You speak in tongues, get together very regularly to reconvince yourselves that you're really onto something special, and you slowly get older. FINALLY, one day you unlease all those pent-up doubts and start looking at the whole concept a little more dispassionately. AND, the tenets of your faith don't tolerate real, in-depth scrutiny very well - at least mine didn't. And the light dawns on you that, lo and behold, the whole religion game is hardly anymore credible than a kid's book of fairy tales. There's lots of well-worn arguments to try to hold the game together, but those are hardly anymore believeable than the religion itself. So, you drop the facade and try to figure out life on your own. Mostly I realized that an inordinate amount of the true believer's time was spent doing spin-control for The Almighty. Making up excuses for why somebody didn't get healed, why the guy in your twig DIDN'T get the promotion, why evil unbeliever that's been taunting believer-person seems to continue prospering, why you don't have peace or joy in your life, why you don't seem to have any fellowship with "The Father", why everybody outside of your fellowship seems to be doing quite well, while you and yours are constantly struggling. Eventually the excuses just don't cut it anymore. "God HAD to let such-and-such happen or He wouldn't be a just God!", or "The Devil is still in control of the world!" (and just how the hell did THAT happen, anyway - nobody was watching?), or - the Wayworld favorite "It musta been YOUR believing!". Funny how you never read those excuses in The Bible, huh? Nope, there it's always set-in-stone verities. "Thus the LORD did such and such" "Ye SHALL receive all the good stuff you've been wanting", "Those that work iniquity will SURELY die" (gee, and nobody else does?). It all strikes me as a toxic game of mental gymnastics. I'm just tired of jumping through the hoops anymore...

"What are your thoughts for retirement?" Well, it seems like a quaint idea. But, like looking at the ads for the 600SL Mercedes, or the latest innovative features of the new Ocean Alexander, something I can only dream about. After leaving a promising, and lucrative position with a construction company to go "W.O.W." when I was younger, and now going through a divorce, about the only retirement option I'm considering is the Ernest Hemingway plan. I used to think that was awful, but lately I'm beginning to see the wisdom in it...

"Were you insulted George? " Well, I would have been, had I held any regard for your opinions. Sorry... ADan, Do I understand you? Well, damned if I know, fer sure that is. I think I have a feel for what you're about. You always strike me as a thoroughly gentle soul with possibly a hint of the "peacemaker" in his DNA, maybe? The kind of person that, when you're not around, the universal consensus is that you're a "really nice guy". Sorta how I picture you anyway. I'm still intrigued by your comment about "needing" God. That's one point where we seem to be on the same planet, but different worlds. I've always found God to be a quite useless accoutrement. Something one can pay obeisance to or not, but nothing's going to come of it one way or the other. Hardly the way one should regard the most powerful being in the universe, eh?

No, as per usual Cman, you understand me about as well as I do you - as in - not too very much...

Yes, as I've said many times, I don't claim to be an atheist, just an agnostic. It seems to me that atheism connotes a certainty that I just don't think it's possible to have. If there indeed was a being powerful enough to create all of the universe, would remaining anonymous be all that difficult for Him? But, I don't view myself as still "searching" either, as I think, as the classical definition goes, that resolving the "God question" is beyond our capabilities. And I don't know why one would be expected to offer up some sort of "proof" for his unbelief either. It would seem to me that a belief in God, or astrology, or rabbit's-foot-life-enhancement would certainly require some at least rudementary sort of proof, but should simple non-acceptance of these sort of tenets require any explanation at all? I don't have the a-priori mindset that any of that sort of stuff has any credibility whatsoever. Why should one have to explain non-belief other than to say, "I haven't seen any evidence to support such a notion"? And I understand - at least a bit - where you're coming from Socks. I know lots of folks who have really strong beliefs in all sorts of stuff, and they always have lots of reasons why. I had girlfriend in my twenties that was absolutely devoted to astrology, chart-making, and naturally, foretelling the future. She had all sorts of experiences with it that convinced her that it was the real deal. Things she claimed, just couldn't be explained any other way. Likewise with another friend who joined as ashram and practiced Yoga and Zen Buddhism and the like. I also knew a guy who was convinced of "Pyramid Power" and slept under a copper pyramid frame every night. All of it seems so entirely subjective, and hence, not worth much for anyone else. Me? I never had any of those. From my earliest recollections I remember HATING church. By the time I was a teenager in a Methodist Church, I was pretty well burned out on the whole concept. Then I got sweet on a Wayfer girl, and - well, you know how that story goes. And when it came to Speaking in Tongues, I thought I had finally found some evidence. But was it? I don't think so. What was it evidence OF anyway? Always seemed goofy to me, though I did buy it for awhile. And ADan, well the guy DOES have an English accent, but I didn't see much else in his story that was very compelling. Maybe it was an off day for him? I mean, all I got was that once he was an atheist, but now he knows that that was wrong. Uh, O.K. Could he elaborate a bit maybe? Maybe it was just the interviewer who was a dud?

The thing that surprises me the most is how some get so exorcised over Dawkin's in the first place. Everything I've heard him say, or read of him, seems almost self-evident, hardly controversial. I guess that's how far I've fallen from the TRUE WAY, huh? The doctrines of devils make sense to me? I was struck by what was said earlier in the thread about "needing" God. Do you really? For what? As a believer I know I was always conditioned to think that "The Ministry", "THE WORD", "GOD", and the promotion of same was of insurmountable importance. Now, it just strikes me as about as trivial an endeavor as is possible. Astrology, homeopathy, and crop-circles are of about the same relevance - as in - not much. I tried to play the good Christian game, I really did. It just never worked for me. The Bible is about as dubious in it's sources as any other "Holy" writ (and there's LOTS of them) so why do we pay it any mind? Cause it makes so much sense? Yeah, O.K. And as for the all-important "personal relationship" that we're supposed to have with Jesus, and God (and maybe Mary - depending on your brand-loyalty), are you sure you REALLY have one? I never was. I prayed, I tried to seek guidance, I put myself at God's disposal for whatever His needs may have been. And what did I get? Well, basically nothing. Is this how an All-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being operates? Apparently so. (Yes, I know, if it didn't work for me, it was OBVIOUSLY my fault - after all, GOD is always faithful -His WORD says so!) Just for a millisecond, imagine that religions really ARE ancient superstitions that are now simply memes - poisonous thoughts that distort, misguide us to pointless, empty and even distructive behavior. If that is what they are, how could we ever come to grips with that reality if we cling to the idea that "faith" is such a desireable and worthy attribute that it should be cultivated and nurtured at all costs? I don't think we come to our religious beliefs logically. Fear, longing, wishfulness, these are the types of things that push us towards a religion. Like Abi said, even if it isn't the truth, she'd prefer having it. Sorry, but that's a mindset that I couldn't tolerate for myself. There's so much to overlook with religion. The normal laws of the universe no longer apply. A being so powerful that he can create everything that is, yet has no mass, no way of being detected whatever. Miracles, healings, magical feats, all things that simply ignore the laws of physics - but wisely never occur at a time or place where they can be carefully observed, measured, or recorded. Doesn't it ever get to you? Why do the miracles happen to somebody else at someplace other than where YOU are? And it's all so capricious. This person gets healed, that person dies. If this is really the truth, is this the kind of God you'd even WANT? I guess it doesn't matter. The pot can't tell the potter anything, now can it?