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Religion IS crazy!

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Chris45 said:
Hmmm, not one reaction to my post #1653 about reincarnation. I guess everyone's got me on "Ignore" .
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I did ignore the content and/or the validity of said post.
But I have no posters on ignore at the present.
 
Chris45 said:
Hmmm, not one reaction to my post #1653 about reincarnation. I guess everyone's got me on "Ignore" .
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More likely that they found your post largely agreeable as I did.

You'll have to work much, much harder at being controversial in order to graduate to my ignore list!
 


Yes GB, the church lied to me, but I don’t accept that they don’t know any better. They know alright, but they’re so much in love with the idea of this loving, powerful, compassionate friend which they call God, that they just push reality aside so they can go on believing what they want to believe.
People can be like that. Investment gurus are well aware of this quirk of human nature, and they take advantage of it by telling people how they can become wealthy by following some u-bute investment plan that the guru has put together. They reinforce the message with catchy phrases like ‘your journey to capitalism’ (as used by Storm Financial), and in their promotional material they put up photos of expensive boats and cars and happy, smiling people.
In other words they sell a dream, and people fall for it in their thousands, only to find sooner or later that dreams and reality can be very different.

I believe religions are using basically the same strategy to sell the idea of this all-powerful being called God who, if you believe in him and live the life he expects of you, will look after you, show you compassion throughout your life, and give you eternal life in paradise once you depart this world.
Who wouldn’t want a pal like that? It certainly appealed to me in my younger days when I believed in it all.
 
Chris45 said:
Hmmm, not one reaction to my post #1653 about reincarnation. I guess everyone's got me on "Ignore" .
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I wouldn’t think so, Chris. You state your views in a courteous and reasonable manner, so I don’t think anyone has reason to put you on ‘ignore’.

As for reincarnation, if it’s for real then I hope I come back as a rainbow lorikeet. My wife and I sit on our deck and watch them with great pleasure as they come into our bird feeder. They’re beautiful to look at, their feisty nature makes them more than a match for the other birds that try to share their feeding space, they sit around and chatter among themselves in the cool leafy branches in the heat of the day, and only come down to feed in the cool of the morning and afternoon. All in all they’ve got a perfect life with no worries about wars or politics or religion or finance.
Eat, drink, sleep, socialise, and breed.....sounds pretty good to me!
 
cynic said:
More likely that they found your post largely agreeable as I did.
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bunyip said:
I wouldn’t think so, Chris. You state your views in a courteous and reasonable manner, so I don’t think anyone has reason to put you on ‘ignore’.
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Thanks Cynic and Bunyip. I was starting to think I'd become invisible.

Bunyip, I largely agree with your view of churches. Like Ford and GM etc, they're businesses ... they own property, they employ people and they sell products and it's all a numbers game. Car salesmen (and priests) are naturally going to emphasise the upside of their products and put the finest gloss possible on them and are not going to dwell on the downsides of eg. depreciation and running costs, mechanical failures, accident injuries, etc... but would you abandon your car because it failed to live up to their hype? And would you dismiss an entire brand because one or two of the salesmen were inadequate?

After reading about Jim B. Tucker's research on reincarnation, I'm even more convinced there are two mysterious spiritual forces at work on us, God and Satan, and it's up to us to choose between them. Satan doesn't get mentioned much around here, I wonder why?

The murder of that Korean girl was an horrific crime, as were the recent king-hit killings of the guy in Maroochydore and the youth in Sydney, and I wonder what force drove those scumbag thugs to do what they did.

The rationalists argue that such violent behaviour is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, etc. but if it were that simple why haven't we developed pills to rebalance the chemicals and eliminate such behaviour? Surely such pills would be good earners for "big pharma" and we could save a fortune from being able to close down many of our prisons so wouldn't a pill to eliminate violent crime be a top priority?

Is it just a chemical imbalance, or is an evil force somehow urging these thugs to launch their vicious attacks on innocent people?

If a violent thug under Satan's control targets someone, I suppose God could intervene and vaporise him with a lightning bolt but that would be a bit obvious and simplistic, as would God intervening and saving people and their property every time nature performed one of its routine fire and flooding events.

If God answered everyone's prayers, we'd all be rich, fat and lazy ... and then we'd probably be praying to be made fit and healthy and other things. We'd never be happy, and I don't think that approach would work. Consequently, we're continually being tested and forced to choose between options, which is what I believe this grand experiment is all about.
 
trainspotter said:
Almost there Chris45 .... it would seem God is predominantly Anglo Saxon with a bit of Mexican and Chilean thrown in
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Well there you go! That's what happens when the false gods McDonalds and CocaCola step in and try to answer the prayers of the poor.
 
Probably because the religious mythology surrounding the concept of a Satan is one of the more ridiculous and ludicrous creations of human imagination. That tormentor of almighty God's creation whose most notable acts were becoming a serpent, tempting God "in the flesh" and of course leading a rebellion in the ether.

The illusion and delusion of a loving God is far more appealing as a concept to attract gullible believers into the cult of religious nonsense. Fear of Satan's influence is only taken seriously by the most blinkered, brainwashed and indoctrinated of religious drones these days. Stick to the infinite loving God theme, that will attract more gullible converts to the flock than any mention of Beelzebub or the magically conjured kingdom of hell.
 
 
Chris, I won’t put it quite as bluntly as FxTrader has done, but I have to agree with him that the lack of discussion about Satan is probably because most people regard the concept as just too far-fetched to be worthy of comment.
That’s certainly why I didn’t comment on it, but anyway, I’ll comment now since you’ve broached the topic again.

I believe that Satan is just another invention of religion to put fear into people for the purpose of keeping them in line. Much as some silly parents try to scare their kids into behaving by telling them the boogey man will come and get them if they don’t behave, religion somewhere along the line came up with the concept of Satan for pretty much the same purpose. And the gullible (no offence intended, Chris) have swallowed it as being true, and have passed it down through the ages in the teachings of Christianity.

This imaginary character Satan is conveniently blamed for everything that’s wrong in the world. People build in fire-prone areas – blame Satan. A Korean girl is killed in a park at 4am by someone who is clearly mentally unwell – blame Satan.
I could give you dozens of other examples, but there’s no need.
I suggest to you, Chris, that there’s not one shred of evidence, not a single one, of the existence of Satan. You think he causes people to build in high fire risk areas like the Blue Mountains. I think a more likely explanation is that people are well aware of the fire risk, but they consider the risk is worth it to live in a beautiful place surrounded by nature. They have fire insurance and they have an emergency plan in place to get them out of harms way if a fire comes through.

I spoke to a couple whose house went completely under water in the flood of January 2011. I asked them why they built right on the creek bank less than 40 meters from a creek that’s prone to flash floods.
They replied that they were at least thirty feet vertically above the creek, their study of flood history told them it would take a one in 100 year flood to reach them, they had insurance and an emergency evacuation plan. All things considered, they considered the risk was worthwhile to live in a beautiful serene setting overlooking the creek, surrounded by birdsong and prolific wildlife. I’m sure they would have burst out laughing if I’d suggested that Satan made them build there.
They could have taken their insurance money and built someone else, but they chose to rebuild their house right where it is, simply because they enjoy living in such a beautiful place.

Perhaps you think Satan’s evil influence was at play in the murder or that Korean girl in the park. I don’t. I think it more likely that the killer was mentally unhinged – his brain wasn’t functioning normally. Some people have hips or knees or feet that don’t function normally. Medical treatment is usually available to fix or at least alleviate the problem. But treatment can be more difficult when the problem is mental rather than physical.
You cast doubt on the theory that mental illness can be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and you suggest that if it was that simple we would have developed pills to restore the chemical balance and fix the mental illness.
Well Chris, you’ll be interested to know that we have in fact invented these pills, and yes, in many patients they do indeed fix up the chemical imbalance, thereby restoring them to people who can behave normally.
But just as you have to keep topping up your garden soil each season to keep a good nutrient balance, so do mentally ill people need chemical top ups to maintain the proper chemical balance in their brains.
That’s no problem when they’re constantly supervised by trained staff in a mental health hospital, but what happens once you let them out? Many of them forget to take their medication, some of them are of low intelligence and are just not capable of handling the responsibility of self-medication. And for some mentally unwell people, treatment just isn’t effective, just as a hip operation isn’t guaranteed to fix every dodgy hip.
Incidentally, I speak with a reasonable amount of knowledge on mental health issues, due to a close relative of mine having a mental health degree and having worked in psychiatric units in the past.
 
bunyip said:
I spoke to a couple whose house went completely under water in the flood of January 2011. I asked them why they built right on the creek bank less than 40 meters from a creek that’s prone to flash floods.
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Bunyip, I don't think I have ever suggested that Satan was responsible for people building their houses in fire or flood prone areas. The couple you spoke to made a considered decision that proved to be a bad one. People exercise their free will and make good and bad decisions all the time. I don't know what part, if any, God or Satan play in such decision making.

A while ago I walked to the shops to buy some food and got caught in a downpour and was thoroughly soaked. Was that Satan at work? No, it was my own bloody fault for making a stupid decision to ignore the dark clouds accumulating overhead and go for a walk without my umbrella or poncho. There's a vast difference between that and someone making an apparently random decision to brutally assault and kill an innocent person. You think that the Korean girl's killer was mentally unhinged – his brain wasn’t functioning normally. Rationalists like to think that there are logical explanations for everything, and that's one way of explaining it, I suppose.

Jim B. Tucker is the medical director of the Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He has a BA Degree in psychology and a medical degree and I presume he is a very intelligent and rational person and is well schooled in the scientific method.

Prof. Tucker is a board-certified child psychiatrist, and worked for several years on reincarnation research with Prof. Ian Stevenson, a Canadian American psychiatrist, who worked for the University of Virginia School of Medicine for 50 years, as chair of the department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007.

Prof. Tucker has spent the past ten-years documenting children who claim to have lived past-lives and has come to the conclusion that reincarnation is real, and after hundreds of case studies, both men believe that unusual birthmarks might match fatal wounds suffered by the deceased.

Read about these men here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_B._Tucker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson

Their work seriously conflicts with our simple neat rational explanations of life and death, so do you just dismiss these men as deluded and irrational nutters whose work is of no consequence?

If reincarnation is real then surely that must mean that spirits/souls/whatever are real and not just "one of the more ridiculous and ludicrous creations of human imagination".

If that's the case, then doesn't that open the possibility that all of the other "religious mythology surrounding the concept of a Satan" along with "the illusion and delusion of a loving God" which is "taken seriously by the most blinkered, brainwashed and indoctrinated of religious drones these days" might not be so ridiculous after all?

Don't forget that there are some very intelligent and rational astrophysicists who are hypothesizing about parallel universes which defy simple logical explanations. Are they all nutters as well?

Thirty years ago, a couple of nutters suggested that peptic ulcers were caused by bacteria, and not stress, spicy foods, and too much acid as everyone knew to be the simple rational explanation. What a lot of nonsense!

A few hundred years ago, some nutters suggested that the Earth was not flat and was not the center of the universe. How could any rational person possibly believe such rubbish when the evidence was plain to see?

My point here is that sometimes it's the "blinkered, brainwashed and indoctrinated" skeptic rationalists with closed minds who are ultimately proven to be the nutters.
 
Chris45 said:
Their work seriously conflicts with our simple neat rational explanations of life and death, so do you just dismiss these men as deluded and irrational nutters whose work is of no consequence?
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A specious argument that ends with a rhetorical question. These men, whatever their academic qualifications, are just another example of otherwise intelligent men pursuing metaphysical explanations for observations they can't currently otherwise explain.

If reincarnation is real then surely that must mean that spirits/souls/whatever are real and not just "one of the more ridiculous and ludicrous creations of human imagination".
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A conclusion based on a false premise. The subject was Satan, a particularly ugly and imaginary creation of religious mythology for which there is NO evidence for existence.

Yet another conclusion based on a false premise built upon a previous false premise.

Don't forget that there are some very intelligent and rational astrophysicists who are hypothesizing about parallel universes which defy simple logical explanations. Are they all nutters as well?
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Indoctrinated religious minds frequently equate scientific hypothesis about our universe, it's structure and genesis, with the anti-intellectual and fantastic supernatural claims embodied in religious dogma. The religious do not "hypothesize" about their beliefs, rather they are certain that they are in possession of absolute truth based on god inspired scribble in iron-age scrolls, a dangerous delusion.

And this bit of silly confused drivel concludes a cacophony of faulty logic and non sequiturs intended to cast doubt on rational thought in favor superstition. A good example of the flawed and simplistic reasoning deployed by a religious convert to deflect attention away from the absurd and fantastic religious beliefs he is certain must be true because they're written in a magic book.
 
FxTrader said:
These men, whatever their academic qualifications, are just another example of otherwise intelligent men pursuing metaphysical explanations for observations they can't currently otherwise explain.
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Well ... your mind is obviously firmly closed!
 
Agree Chris, I could never be so black and white, but then I have experienced much.
Our experiences are our logic.

There was an article in the paper the other day which I am sure people have seen similar through the years, of a father who lost his son. Four months later, he took a photo of his daughter, and with the highlights of the light, you could see his son behind her.

Dad sees dead son in photo
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/20038668/dad-sees-dead-son-in-photo/

Make of it what you will.
 
Chris45 said:
Well ... your mind is obviously firmly closed!
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LOL, and this accusation coming from a slave to religious superstition! My "mind" is open to evidenced based belief, the stronger the evidence the more likely I will take a view that something is true or correct. But let's suppose for a moment that reincarnation had a solid base of evidence supporting its existence (which is does not). How would Christian leaders respond to such evidence I wonder since it's not "biblical". Would they embrace it as a confirmation of the spirit world or condemn it as being of Satanic origin and a falsehood? The latter I suspect.

Even if reincarnation had validity this in itself would not validate ANY of the fantastic stories, claims and tales in the Bible and that should be self-evident to most believers. I am always amazed that the religious roll out such arguments thinking that they are actually making a valid point in favor of their particular superstitious, faith based beliefs.

The religious are susceptible to all manner of deception, falsehood and trickery due their willingness to be "open minded" about any supernatural or extraordinary claim as long as it does not overtly conflict with whatever religious doctrine they hold dear. My life experience has shown me that being sceptical of such claims frees one from a life of servitude to relgious superstition, manipulation by others and false convictions about eternity and the existence of a celestial dictator.
 
Chris45 said:
Bunyip, I don't think I have ever suggested that Satan was responsible for people building their houses in fire or flood prone areas.
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No?



Chris45 said:
The couple you spoke to made a considered decision that proved to be a bad one. People exercise their free will and make good and bad decisions all the time. I don't know what part, if any, God or Satan play in such decision making.
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I don't think they play any role at all, which is why I thought you were off track with your original suggestion that Satan may put thoughts into peoples minds about where is a nice place to build close to nature so that God gets the blame when they get wiped out by fire or flood.

Chris45 said:
You think that the Korean girl's killer was mentally unhinged – his brain wasn’t functioning normally. Rationalists like to think that there are logical explanations for everything, and that's one way of explaining it, I suppose.
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I can't say for sure, but I think it's a distinct possibility given that mental health issues are frequently involved in violent crimes.


I do hope you realise that the words 'blinkered, brainwashed and indoctrinated' were not used by me.

I may read the works of those men you mentioned - if I can develop enough interest.
 
bunyip said:
No?
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Ahhh ... mea culpa Bunyip. My humble apologies.

Upon reflection, that comment may have been off track as you say.

As with Tink, and I assume many others, my thinking is influenced by my life's experiences and I'm still learning about and trying to understand the mysteries of life and the forces, if any, that influence our decisions and experiences.

Maybe Profs Stevenson and Tucker are also off track with their reincarnation claims, I don't know. I just thought it was intriguing that two prominent psychiatrists would risk their reputations by publishing their research into such a controversial topic.

Yes, I know the words 'blinkered, brainwashed and indoctrinated' were not yours. You are clearly a much more courteous and reasonable person than the aggressive and intolerant individual who inserted them into the thread (and whom I quoted), along with his other insults, "silly confused drivel concludes a cacophony of faulty logic" and "flawed and simplistic reasoning deployed by a religious convert" plus others that I won't waste time on repeating, but I did find them quite amusing and I had a vision of him hunched over his keyboard grinding his teeth and with puffs of smoke emanating from his ears as he typed. .
 
True to a degree, the days of my being courteous to those who arrogantly peddle religious myth and poison as reasoned thought here and sermonize in a thread titled "Religion IS crazy" are over. What you call insults I call observations and a frank analysis of what you have written here. I happily wear the intolerant tag in the context of the fantastic, supernatural and faith-based claims made by the religious and religion in general without a shred of credible evidence. Finally, your thinking should be less influenced by pontification from the pulpit or claims made in magic books and more focussed on the pursuit of rational thought. Until then, enjoy your journey in the fantasy land of religious expression and dogma.
 
I too frequently give thanks for all the good things I enjoy in life. But not to God, because I don’t think it was God who provided them.
I thank myself and my wife and kids for all the hard work we put in planting 100 trees in our garden when we bought an acreage block without a single tree on it 16 years ago. Now people drive into our place and say ‘Gee you’ve got a lovely place here, it looks like a park’.
I think ‘Yes it does, but a lot of sweat and hard work went into making it that way’.
And I sure as heck didn’t see God out there raising a sweat with us.

I give thanks for more than 30 different bird species that inhabit our garden and bring us endless pleasure. Here again, I put it down to our hard work in planting lots of bird-attracting trees, and the fact that we feed them every day.
And I don’t go along with the religious view that God made the birds – there’s no evidence whatever to support that theory.

I give thanks that I’ve recovered from Leukemia, but not to God. I thank the medical researchers who developed the treatment that saved my life, and I thank the oncologist and nursing staff for their skill in administering it. And I thank myself for developing the positive attitude that made me hang a punching bag from a shady tree, draw a big ugly leukemia cell on the bag, and slam 5 thousand punches a day into it (yes, 5 thousand!) while I focused my mind on a mental picture of my illness getting hammered into submission at my hands.
I’d be dead by now if I refused medical treatment and relied on God to save me instead, just like many other people who’ve tried it.
When I was in the recovery phase there was one particularly religious relative who would ask me at least once a week how I was feeling. When I said ‘I’m feeling better all the time’, her response would invariably be ‘Thank God’.
I got so sick of it that one day I blew my top and said ‘Look, let’s get real here shall we – where do you think I’d be now if I’d refused medical treatment and relied on God to save me instead? I’d be dead, or close to it, and you and I both know it’!
But still she insisted ‘God played a part as well – you couldn’t have got better without his help’.
I got so sick of hearing her giving the credit to God, while giving none to the medical people, that I stopped telling her I was feeling better, and I started telling her ‘About the same’ whenever she asked me how I was feeling. At least that silenced her silly ‘Thank God’ responses.

I give thanks that my wife and I have children who have grown into mature and responsible young adults. It didn’t happen by accident – we put a lot of work and teaching into bringing up our kids. Without a decent upbringing they might have become junkies or hookers or no-hopers, and God if he exists would have stood by and done nothing to prevent it from happening.

I give thanks to the woman whose been married to me for more than 30 years, and for the way she’s stuck by me and helped us to build a good life together. A few blokes I grew up with chose the wrong woman for a partner, and God sure as heck didn’t tap them on the shoulder and warn them to choose someone else.

All in all, Chris, you or I or anyone else will usually be thankful for the good things in our lives, and whether or not we believe in God, the good things would still be there anyway because we made them happen.

Chris45 said:
As with Tink, and I assume many others, my thinking is influenced by my life's experiences and I'm still learning about and trying to understand the mysteries of life and the forces, if any, that influence our decisions and experiences.
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My thinking too has been influenced by my life experiences. But unlike you, I’m not searching for answers to explain the mysteries and the reasons behind it all. I’m not particularly interested, simply because I don’t think it’s important. As I’ve said previously, we’re here in this life regardless of how we or our world got here, and we might as well enjoy it and make the best of it while conducting ourselves as decent people. If we can manage to do that, then I think we can hold our heads up.

The interesting thing about their reincarnation theories is that if they’re correct, they contradict the Christian view that if we’re decent people we'll head off to some place called heaven after we die, to enjoy eternal life in paradise.
 
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