What have we accomplished?

Not sure why I'm still here really. I haven't learned anything new for years. Mostly habit I guess.As far as I'm aware, nobody has changed their minds about anything; most have hardened.If you think god is speaking to you personally, why would anything change you? If god hasn't spoken to you, nothing those that feel that He has makes any sense at all - it sounds like embarrassing twaddle.From the rationalist's point of view it's irritating and inexplicable that the believer simply rejects proven facts and substitutes utter nonsense for them. Irl, I'd just think they're total nutters and walk away knowing that the situation is hopeless, so it's a mystery why I don't do the same here.

The USA can be a surprisingly parochial place, many of their beliefs seem to be about 50 years behind NorthernEurope and seem utterly bizarrely to most of us here.

That would be 200 years and the achievement would be secular humanism and the development social welfare systems and other secular institutions - health, education and criminal justice.Of course the USA has similar systems but they seem to be at the extremes of everything. Your primitive Christian beliefs are holding back real social progress. Most of Northern Europe has already dropped the more stupid beliefs and the rest are in decline or have become benign.

They're called progressive because they make social progress - they contribute positively to the well-being of humanity. Your guy has had 2,000 years to make a difference. I reckon that's long enough to demonstrate beyond all doubt that believing in fictional sky daddies doesn't get much done. The world has moved on Phat; we've grown up, get off your knees and do something useful.

So do I, nothing can change those determined to remain ignorant. We're not trying to 'reach out' to anyone here, we're just airing the arguments.As for "eventually no one will listen". Nobody IS listening. We're just a few rationalists talking to a few nutters. The rest of the world is quietly getting on with forgetting all about the rapidly declining group of creationists that still think like bronze age nomads.In a few generations there'll only be a handful of you left shouting "the end is nigh" on street corners in almost forgotten towns watching the tumbleweed roll past.I know you think you're very important and all knowing - it seems to be a trait of your kind, to possess knowledge that no-one has - but you're whistling in he wind; no-one is listening except your tiny band of fellow cranks.

My intellectual defences are very, very easily penetrated; the weakness of the rational mind is that it is open to reason and supporting evidence.Bring some of that instead of your "I believe", irrational pulpit blather and I'll change my mind.

Because it's meaningless waffle. "I believe that Jesus lives" - or some such nonsense - contains no meaningful content. It's useless religious gibberish. It's the stuff you chant at each other, that means a lot to you - emotionally - but is of no value to anyone outside your bubble. And yet you still quote it and I don't read it. So why do that when you know it's useless?Are you just trying to impress yourself? What do you hope to achieve copypasting stuff from a book I regard as pure myth? It's not evidence of anything Phat - it's just your belief.Would you be impressed if I quoted great chunks of the ruti at you? There's nothing special about your mythology, the world is full of them, they have no validity beyond what the believer believes about them.

How many times Phat? Beliefs, by definition, are not rational.If what you believe is rational, you would be able to demonstrate the verisimilitude to others. It would then no longer be a belief, it would be a fact. You are unable to do that. All you can do is say "I believe."

Not necessarily no, it's a matter of degree. It's the default if you want to actually know something reliably. Sadly it is not the default in most people. People can and do believe anything. Ooo get you you with you're fancy dialectic! Actually I get to frame the issue anyway I like and reason seems to be the best place to start. Everywhere else leads nowhere. You are.You are aware I guess that it's not just Christians that have these 'very real experiences'? How does that work if Jesus is the one true path? How can a Muslim and a Hindu feel the way you do about their experience if it doesn't involve Jesus?

I can because it's irrational and subjective. All that you can say is that you had a weird experience. We call those experiences, when maintained after the fact, delusions. I am not dismissing your experience according to my standards, I'm dismissing them according to rational, objective standards. Because my position is rational and yours isn't. An example. When asked how come other people of other religions have the same kind of experience as yours, you dismissed them with Apart from being laughably mediaeval, you just dismissed a huge tranche of different believers with the same experience as you as delusional. Yet your delusion is exactly the same! How do you know that you are not being misled by a false spirit? You can't know can you?

You really need to stop there and properly think about it not just try to deflect it.Your belief is contingent on a personal experience you had. But millions of others have it too in all denominations of belief. All these others you admit are deluded but you can't say why your experience is different to theirs. Theirs are evil spirits; yours are good spirits. But you can't demonstrate to yourself let alone us that they're any different.The rationalist says they're all the same pending any further information. And no further information is ever available - even to you.

I don't think you even know that you're deflecting do you?I didn't ask how you differed from me, I asked why you think you differ from those people in other religions that suffer from the same delusion? They have a delusion but you do not, but your experiences are the same?

Don't you see, you're just doing it again? - deflecting.You know that is not an answer, yet you bang it out anyway. It's so you don't actually have to think about it.Your experience is shared by millions of people with different gods as their belief. The delusion is the common element. You agree with me that they are deluded - in your terms, misled by false gods and demons - but you are still certain that your experience is the correct one. Despite the fact that the others would say exactly the same. Can you at least accept that that looks completely dumb to an objective outsider?

It's more than superficial logic isn't it? The fact that you can't actually refute it should tell you that. But you're obsessed with changing your belief. Nobody here seriously thinks you're even remotely likely to do that. All we're trying to do is get you to accept that your beliefs are irrational and self-serving. All you crack-pot fundies have thought that throughout time. You're really shit at predicting stuff from your religion and really excellent at predicting what we think will happen ... hence... The thing is Phat I can point to piles of evidence of your lot saying that down the centuries and you can't point to anything but prophetic failures. You guys all think that you and your time is special and the end-times are just around the corner. But they never ever are. That's simply a fact, proven true every day.I'd ask you to take a bet on it but that would be cruel.

And that, of course, is what your kind of people have said for 2,000 years. You all think that your time is special. It's all about you. What you have there is evidence of man's stupidity. Your god's creation. It's always possible that terrible things will happen. There is no evidence of anything supernatural. Crap. What will you do when these supernatural events do not happen? We can only hope so. But it won't come from some kind of organised global conspiracy that you nutters like to invent, it'll just be the continuation of what's been happening for the last 200 years. People understanding that your hocus pocus ideas are daft. Luckily for you neither of those things will happen. You won't be persecuted and god won't need to rescue you from it. You and your beliefs are just not as important as you think you and they are.