"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote:
> "alphaQuad" <alp### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
> news:web.4a2c2e39d4479e563559bb670@news.povray.org...
>
> > An atheist has beliefs and doesn't know anything. I am particularly
> > interested
> > in these people, because of what I could show them. Call me vulnerable, or
> > just
> > crazy, but if you only KNEW!!!!!!
>
>      Then please tell.
>
>
> > LOVE LOVE LOVE
>
>
>    Love is good, and love is bad. Simple as that.
>
>
>      ~Steve~

Hey Steve!
If you honestly want to know, and to all others reading, repeat these words.

"I give permission to be shown in a dream".

No guarantees of course. Scientists would expect the experiment to repeatable
and the same result for everyone or it isn't true, as if conscious
self-awareness was no different to chemicals in the lab.

And of course with everyone NOT created equal, it just won't work for some. And
if "not working for them" it must be false. But now that isn't "proof" is it.


LOVE LOVE LOVE

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alphaQuad wrote:
> "gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>> "alphaQuad" <alp### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
>>
>> I think you miss some details:
>>> ... just so you can have a defining example ...
>> I don't think this is very high on the list of reasons Jesus had to die.
>>
>>
>>> ...a temper tantrum in the temple, the only case they had
>>> on him and only excuse for the nailing ...
>> Charges were blasphemy and treason.
> 
> Pilate said, (not word for word) something like, this is the same man that you
> welcomed just so many days ago and now you want him killed, explain this
> insanity to me. The one previously speaking didn't know what to say, another
> steps forward and says, you have not heard the worst of his crimes, he broke
> our Sabbath laws.

Pilate, even after all of the verbiage, was still all-go for setting 
Jesus free; not because Pilate was all that worked up about justice, but 
because like all politicians, keeping the appearance of honest courts is 
important.

Then Jesus' enemies said that Jesus had claimed to be a king, and that 
if Pilate didn't have him killed, they would inform Caesar that Pilate 
was doing nothing while a man was running around claiming to be king; at 
which point Pilate folded like a cheap tent.

Regards,
John

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"alphaQuad" <alp### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> "gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> >
> > Charges were blasphemy and treason.
>
> Pilate said, (not word for word) something like, this is the same man that you
> welcomed just so many days ago and now you want him killed, explain this
> insanity to me. The one previously speaking didn't know what to say, another
> steps forward and says, you have not heard the worst of his crimes, he broke
> our Sabbath laws.
>
> Now granted how vague that is, but coupled with the notion that no one wanted
> him until the temple incident occurred and he was arrested 3 days afterwards,
> it is an easy step to believe that if he just went on a picnic that day instead
> of ...
>


No one wanted him killed before that? The chief priests and Pharisees were out
to get him before the temple-cleansing.  We're asked to accept that the text
makes no philosophical sense because of details, the details being not actually
from the text but a parody of it.

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> alphaQuad wrote:
> > OK, on to the relevance then. Beliefs are just that, something you want to
> > believe but for which you have no personal experience that would justify it.
> >
> > What's greater then belief? When you KNOW from experience, you do in fact
> > actually know something. Belief is more like a faerie tale.
> >
> > An atheist has beliefs and doesn't know anything. I am particularly interested
> > in these people, because of what I could show them. Call me vulnerable, or just
> > crazy, but if you only KNEW!!!!!!
> >
> This is vastly ironic, coming from someone that, probably, like most,
> lump atheists into some homogeneous group that all agree with each other
> on "beliefs". Its also even more ironic in that you have
>
> a) Belief that the Bible actual describes something that happened.
> Evidence to support it - your belief that you experienced god. The
> evidence of any of it really happening though... Hmm..
>
> b) Belief that such belief makes you better. Ok.. then explain why it is
> that, other than a few exceptions, nearly all wars are religiously
> motivated, and some of the most vile evil people today "mask" themselves
> in your religion. There isn't a lot of evidence than believing in god
> does anything more than provide justification for those that are "sure"
> they are good, to do the things they want, certain in their own minds
> that everything they do is also what god wants. Too bad no one else
> would agree with all their choices, when made based on that criteria.
>
> c) And this one is part and parcel of the denial of science in this
> country. The abject refusal, despite diseases like Alzheimer's, despite
> nearly half the population having to have glasses, despite people losing
> their hearing, despite the known effects of drugs on the mind, despite
> blindingly obvious cases of people seeing things, despite the known
> effects of fasting, which includes hallucinations, despite head injuries
> changing people's personalities, despite "several diseases" that are
> known to induce false religious experiences, and none of which even
> "gets to" the neurological evidence we have now... despite "all" of
> these things, people like alphaQuad imagine that "religious" experiences
> are in some "special" category, for which their "personal" direct
> experiencing of them is 100% infallible, and always right, and
> constitutes 100% undeniable *evidence* of the existence of the main
> character of their favorite faerie tale.
>
> The argument holds about as much water, based on, "knowing from
> experience", as the fools looking for how DNA works by comparing it to
> Chinese language characters. Its pure gibberish. The brain is not
> reliable at telling if its "own" experiences are accurate, and even some
> *Christian* philosophers, and members of the church, over the last 2000
> years, including both Fancis Bacon, and St. Thomas Aquinas, managed to
> figure that out (or at least almost do so). Why is it that, especially
> in the US, there seems to be an absolute outbreak of people that *can't*?
>


I think the problem is that you WERE involved in a false religion, and
mistakenly presume it is THE responsible elucidation of the text.   There is
not anything that is so stupid or wacky or evil that it cannot be said, by some
idiot, to be taken from the bible or the life's work of ML King Jr., or Lincoln
or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

>
> I think the problem is that you WERE involved in a false religion, and
> mistakenly presume it is THE responsible elucidation of the text.   There is
> not anything that is so stupid or wacky or evil that it cannot be said, by some
> idiot, to be taken from the bible or the life's work of ML King Jr., or Lincoln
> or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.



Well that's what you get for trying to think with a cold dead heart. The
greatest thoughts come from loving people. I am involved in something you don't
have the capacity to understand. But some people here do. Try adding something
relevant to the conversation instead of letting you moronic ego ramble.

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>> Don't let the trolls bother you.
>> People that do good things are good, just like Jesus is good.
>> People that do bad things are evil, just like the devil who has
>> done bad things since the beginning.
>> That's why Jesus came: to destroy the devil's works.
>> When someone has love in his heart, he wants to do good
>> things, but when someone has angry hatred inside, he wants
>> to do evil things. That's why God sent Jesus, because he
>> loves us, and that love frees us from the bonds of hate and
>> death.
> 
> You should have left off with the first sentence. The rest is just 
> argument ad hominem. I.e., the, entirely unsupported, and false, 
> assertion, in contradiction, to all evidence, that people like Samuel 
> Clemens, lacking belief in a god, must, in nearly all cases, be "evil", 
> while the dozens of priests in Ireland, recently found to have beaten 
> and molested kids, but believing in god, must be automatically more 
> likely to be "good". Sorry, but... belief doesn't make people good. On 
> the contrary, it simply gives evil people a holy book they can quote 
> mine to find bits and pieces to use to "justify" being evil, while still 
> imagining that "god" wants them to do it. Non-believers have a much more 
> direct excuse, they tend to imagine themselves untouchable, too smart to 
> be stopped, and don't give a frack about other people. They don't try to 
> excuse their actions by claiming someone "else" told them to do it. It 
> is a whole hell of a lot easier to see the insanity and lack of 
> compassion in such people, without the mask of "religious conviction" to 
> hide the fact that it has jack to do with what any god or devil wants, 
> and ***everything*** to do with what *they* want.
> 
> After all, even in "good" people, god always seems to want them to do 
> "precisely" what they intended to do anyway, even when "other" good 
> people think what they chose to do was inappropriate, wrong, or less 
> godly that what "they" would have done. Odd how that works...

I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good
people do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.

The devil believes in God, why is it suprising that some evil people
believe? They are motivated by wrath and lust, and when caught
doing evil things they blame God, but they were doing what they 
wanted to do. They have no love in thier hearts.

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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:17:59 -0700, Tim Attwood wrote:

> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good people
> do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.

Well, I think Patrick might've been saying that the rest of you wrote 
just feeds the trolls.

But I don't think love motivates you to do good things.  I think 
selflessness does.  Love comes with the baggage of some sort of 
expectation for your efforts.

But I guess that also depends on how you define "love".

Jim

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Tim Attwood wrote:
> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good
> people do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
> 
> The devil believes in God, why is it suprising that some evil people
> believe? They are motivated by wrath and lust, and when caught
> doing evil things they blame God, but they were doing what they wanted 
> to do. They have no love in thier hearts.

Go back a little over 2,000 years and you will find people already 
shooting holes in this idea that "god" has anything to do with piety, 
love, or other such things. Even then "some" of them where able to 
figure out that either god's ideas where arbitrary, and therefor 
claiming that good came from them was absurd, or that good existed 
without them, and therefor all the gods where really doing was stealing 
it, then claiming that they made up the whole idea themselves. You are 
not proving to anyone by such assertions that love, never mind justice, 
or other similar concepts *only* exist do to any god, instead of all the 
other "reasonable" explanations that exist, most of which can be pointed 
out to exist in "any" social animal, simply because, well, its "social".

So, sorry, but if you are actually claiming that you "must" have a god 
for love to exist somehow, and that good derives from that, then you 
**are** in fact claiming on some level, that belief in something "godly" 
makes you good, even if you are willing to waffle a lot more than most 
theists about if you have to believe in Mr. Robes too.
-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:17:59 -0700, Tim Attwood wrote:
> 
>> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good people
>> do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
> 
> Well, I think Patrick might've been saying that the rest of you wrote 
> just feeds the trolls.
> 
> But I don't think love motivates you to do good things.  I think 
> selflessness does.  Love comes with the baggage of some sort of 
> expectation for your efforts.
> 
> But I guess that also depends on how you define "love".
> 
> Jim

Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones. The people that say otherwise are 
in denial, or have been taught to say otherwise, and almost manage to 
believe it. The difference between good and evil is how "inclusive" you 
are of others in your view of what serves "you" best. Those that find 
other people an inconvenience, want the world to give them everything, 
imagine they are owned for existing, and see other people as merely an 
ends to a means, are "evil", whether they are the nice church lady who 
never would hurt a fly physically, but is *always* managing to get 
people do fix her house, mow her yard, give her things, and looking to 
marry rich, because people are just "means" by which she gets the things 
she imagines she needs, or some insane political leader, who imagines 
themselves "saving the world" from capitalism, or otherwise making the 
world "better" for themselves, with no clue, conscience, or 
understanding of the people they step on to get there. Stalin or Pol Pot 
are what the poor church lady becomes when they "convince" themselves 
that they know what is right for the entire rest of the world, and they 
have both the political power, and the military strength, to kill people 
to get it.

That is what evil is. Blind need to serve "self", without regard for the 
rest of the tribe, or, to a lesser, but no less despicable degree, those 
"in the other tribe". Good is realizing that you need to give something 
up, sometimes, to get most of what you want, and that the cost of 
getting "everything" might lose you more in the long run than you either 
a) imagine, b) can predict, or c) can reasonably comprehend. It requires 
a willingness to look at *why* you make choices, not just what "seems" 
like the best one at the time, and, not confusing, "because its always 
been this way", with, "its right to keep doing it that way, even we you 
can 'see' some people are injured by it", which is one of the *biggest* 
problems many religious followers have when confronted with new things. 
They look at "past" solutions, even when they don't apply, or never did, 
but where easier to overlook, and commit evil anyway, because its 
"traditional".

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones. 

I disagree.  Talk to anyone who has gone into a burning building to save 
others - no amount of money compensates for that.

> The people that say otherwise are
> in denial, or have been taught to say otherwise, and almost manage to
> believe it. 

"Either you agree with me or you're stupid"?

Jim

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