The corollary being, if they do know what they do, it’s okay to hold a grudge against them forever.
Now that’s a thought provoker. Does a person go further than this grudge and commence to taking vengeance on somebody, imitate Yahweh/Jehovah or shall they take one on the cheek and try to be more Christ-like, and keep taking it on the cheek? Of course, Jesus wasn’t always portrayed as meek, but he is a newer and improved version for his day, anyway. Is the story to be taken literally or metaphorically; what exactly can a person that follows scripture truly think he is supposed to do?
Lemmy is God? I knew it!
If you truely believe that you don’t filter your world view through the various lenses of your experiences and what you believe to be true, then you are simply mistaken. I know that my biggest filter is my religious belief. It is apparent that one of your filters is anti-religion. I’m not going to argue the validity of either filter, only their existance.
I turned to atheism in my early 30s, and part of what put a big crack in my faith was that I never felt the presence of god in my thoughts.
It is not from a lack of exposure to church or religion either. I take pride in the fact that I know more about the bible, and the history of Christianity than the vast majority of believers that I have spoken to in depth on the subject.
That little quiet voice in my head that helps me determine right from wrong, is my own.
I have one anecdote that many believers would consider a “god moment”, but I don’t feel it as any evidence of god speaking to me, despite the fact that it did make me reverse my stance.
I was gassing up my car when a junkie approached me with a story about needing money for a bus ticket. I knew he was bullshitting, but his eyes and face looked so sincere and in need. I thought, “What the fuck? I have a stack of twenties in my pocket, do I really care if he gets high? Maybe, he won’t ?”
I stuck my hand in my pocket and came out with a twenty, the moment I handed it to him, his face transformed into one of triumph. What really stung, was that he walked away and started celebrating with another nearby junkie.
I was pissed, and felt foolish. I later told the story to one of my friends, and declared, “I’ll every help another person on the street again!”
The very next time I was gassing up my car, I look down and see a twenty dollar bill at my feet.
It softened my stance, and though I no longer hand out cash to street people, I do carry business cards for free drug treatment centers and homeless shelters.
I’ve bought food for street people, and have done some volunteering work to educate myself on what is available in my city for people that need help.
I’m not a dedicated volunteer, but I do help out on occasion. More importantly, I’m not jaded and bitter about helping someone, including dope fiends.
Was that god speaking to me?
Not in my opinion, but so many of my family and friends say, “What more proof do you need?”
A lot more than that, I’m afraid, a lot more.
No, that wasn’t what was said…everybody filters their world view through something.
Saying that “God talks to me” isn’t filtering a world view…it’s fantasy.
Ok, dude, you win, I’ve changed my whole world view thanks to you. :rolleyes: Please wipe once you’re done crapping on the thread.
He’s right though. It is fantasy.
Or, perhaps slightly more to the point, it is indistinguishable from a fantasy.
That said, it still isn’t really relevant. The OP could be put as a conditional: “If God talks to you…how does he do it?”
I have friends who hold actual conversations with God. God talks, they listen; then they talk and God listens. They claim it’s a complete and fully meaningful dialogue.
I, of course, promptly ask if God has ever provided them any real information. Has God ever told them something that is true, and testable to be true, that they couldn’t have known already?
Lottery numbers… Or just, “Don’t take the I-8 today, because it’s all backed up due to an accident.”
But, no: God only utters platitudes, and zero-content messages. That’s why it’s indistinguishable from a fantasy.
I understand what you are saying, and I am in agreement with you.
However, I don’t think all believers claim to have two-way dialogs with god. Yes, I know you did not claim they all do that.
Many people think that their conscience is god speaking to them.
This happened to be one of the big reasons that I turned to atheism, I am convinced that my conscience is my own and not the “voice” of a deity.
I struggled with trying to maintain my faith for many years, and when someone said something like, “god spoke to my heart” I would ask them to describe what they meant.
Those who were sincere would describe it as that mental “voice” that questions your actions and leads you to make decisions.
In other words, your thought process.
Sure, I ran into more than a few people who would make dramatic claims of feeling “his presence” or even having active conversations with god. I always suspected those types of claims to be flat out lies, and that was even in my younger years when I still believed.
Not every believer is an idiot; I know plenty who are highly educated, articulate, and throughly honest, and the other attribute they tend to share is that they don’t go around claiming to have conversations with god.
Yeah, I think this about sums it up.
This is a very valid and important point, and I’m glad you emphasized it.
In fact, even my friend who does claim to hold lengthy conversations with God is…highly educated, articulate, and thoroughly honest, and just about the farthest thing imaginable from an idiot. She’s wise, clever, thoughtful, funny, bright, considerate, loving, and – well, hell, I’m halfway in love with her! If she were religiously compatible with me, I’d have asked her out long since!
I know this may come across as “Some of my best friends…” But it’s true; many of my best friends are religious, and, while their faith is as alien as can be to my way of thinking, it doesn’t make them bad people. (And…I hope it doesn’t make me a bad person either.)
This is one of those things where people can live together in the same society, even while holding absolutely incompatible beliefs. The key to it all is separation of church and state.
My husband works with a woman who truly believes that she once got an email from G-d. No kidding. She saved it, and showed it to him. It was a picture of a baby, no text.
She was pregnant at the time, so she was sure it had something to do with that, but it was a planned pregnancy, and she already knew about it, so it wasn’t like G-d was informing her of the pregnancy, or telling her to go ahead with it or anything. Maybe he was just congratulating her.
God is supposed to be mysterious. So that means his forms of communication can’t be crystal clear. They’ve got to be cryptic, open to multiple interpretations, and easily dismissed. If God spoke with a booming voice to any and everyone, then there would be no point in having faith. There would no point of going to church or reading the Bible.
It’s crazy to me too, but there is some logic to it.
What do you mean, they can’t be crystal clear, that they’ve got to be cryptic? He’s supposed to be god! He could do any damned thing he wants! There’s no god police making sure he conforms to any rules.
Statements like that remind me of Three Card Monte, a little bit of misdirection and confusion to keep you playing the game.
I especially like how prayers are answered, there are three options to the outcome of a prayer.
Yes, no, and wait.
Yes: God answers your prayer in a timely fashion. God is great!
No: God denies your prayer, you have to trust that he knows what is best, even if you are praying for something worthy, like for the life of a child. If he says no, it must be for the best, it’s part of his mysterious plan. Keep your faith strong.
Wait: You kept your faith strong, so God finally answered your prayer.
The Christian god, the Norse gods, Hindu gods, sprites, fairies, woodchucks, garden gnomes, and even the Moai of Easter Island, all answer prayers in the same manner.
Heck, I’ve even got a cactus in my living room that can do the exact same thing. All it takes is faith and a little apologetics if the going gets rough.
It’s only your own fault, you know, if the cactus in your living room attracts a cult of true believers.
Hey, why not? I prayed to it, and my backache eased up!
Ever play the game, AA? Or learn it? It was fun to learn it, and the two, sometimes three sleight of hand methods needed to achieve and pull this off only took a long day to learn well. Well worth it, especially the crimped card aspect of it. I eventually came up with another variation of doing it, simply watching their eyes to see if they were tracking the right card or not, that way I knew if I had to do another sleight to get them back off track. I could let them pick up the cards with this method, while most never let you pick up.
Enjoyed #65, a couple of times I thought God had communicated to me too when I was a little kid, but both involved coincidences as well, and just wasn’t much. I really haven’t heard back from him in, I dunno, 40 years or so. So we are not on speaking terms. Maybe I’m just not that good of a listener. 
If they won’t let you pick up, it’s because they’re cheating. They have a fourth card, so whether you picked right or not, they can choose whether to show you the queen. In fact, when he’s building your confidence, no matter which one you pick, he can show you a queen. So it doesn’t matter whether you are following the card that is supposed to be the queen-- you can’t lose on the first couple of rounds, when he’s only got you betting $5 or so. Then when he has you thinking you are good at it, he gets you to bet $20, and he has a shill who “wants in on the action,” and sometimes that will get another bystander to bet on your skills as well. That’s when he palms the queen.
I’ve seen so many people get taken, that I think even though people know it’s a trick, a lot of tourists play because it’s part of the “New York City” experience, and they don’t think of it as losing a bet so much as paying to be entertained. I’ve even seen some people stand around and watch several players without betting, then walk away, and leave five dollars, or something, like they’d been watcher a juggler or musician.
I know this, because some of the mentally retarded people I used to work with liked to watch, and there was even one guy who let one woman play a couple of times, without betting, and she always won. She had Down syndrome, so her disability was obvious.
Anyway, it’s kind of a funny thought that G-d might answer a few small prayers to keep you praying, but never answer the big ones.
I did go through a phase of learning card tricks and bar tricks, fun stuff!
Come to think of it, learning about guys like Houdini, James Randi, Penn & Teller might be tied to my atheism, but especially James Randi.
I was already on the road to atheism when I heard of him, but he might have inspired me to tug harder on the curtain of mysticism that surrounds religion.
All of that talk about not questioning god, and he is too mysterious and complex to understand is strikingly similar to the type of subterfuge one encounters at a carnival midway.
Isn’t it?
You know, I just might invite God to the pit so some of us can blow off a little steam.
I had a pretty good rant at him in that backwards masking Led Zeppelin thread in Cafe Society the other day, it felt good.
I’m guessing that God might have been to the pit already; I’ll have a look and get back to you guys.