Conversations with God

It's not a rationalization. It's a rational conclusion, like concluding that Santa Claus doesn't bring your presents. Nonsense. That's like saying I swapped Santa for critical thinking and scientific standards. The critical thinking and scientific standards are there whether belief in God is there or not. YOU use critical thinking and scientific standards in practical areas of your life. You only compartmentalize God as immune to them. YOU told us what you experienced. According to YOUR description, I have had the same or similar experiences. YOU are the one who is trying to crawl inside MY head and claim that my experiences are less valid than yours. You're the one who's assuming. My conclusion is based on fact. We know that intellectual aberrations do occur. And your assumption is contradicted by the existence of other religions, which all make the same assumptions about their own gods. Nonsense. You can always be proven wrong if you are wrong. Well, I proved that YOUR belief is juvenile and simplistic. I'm not saying that ALL beliefs about God are necessarily juvenile and simplistic. It's the best process, period. As I have pointed out umpteen-squared times, YOU use the same process in 99% of your life - because it works best. You just keep your precious Sky-Daddy belief protected from scrutiny - likely because you know deep down that it can not pass any scrutiny. "If somebody told you to jump in the river, would you do it?"And now you're saying it's "premature" NOT to do it? You're the one who claims that Hell is a choice. Why would I trust your opinion about choices?

It's not an assertion. It's a conclusion based on the facts. Everyone DOES get their own god. That's why there are so many of them. Sez you. The Hindus disagree. The Romans disagreed. The Greeks disagreed. The Egyptians disagreed. Etc. I concluded it's a myth for the same reasons that you concluded leprechauns are a myth. Everyone can reach the same conclusion for themselves. I don't need to tell them what to conclude.And AGAIN, YOU have reached the same conclusion about leprechauns, for the same reasons. You have no basis for reaching a different conclusion about gods. If you can't provide facts, you can't reasonably make a conclusion. Take the word "never" out of there. When there is no evidence to support leprechauns, YOU conclude absence. As I have pointed out before, your interpretation of your experiences is wrong. As I have also pointed out before, my experiences are the same as yours or similar. It's your interpretation that's wrong. You have no basis for your conclusions except for presuppositions based on your beliefs. Your "reasoning" is circular.I have had experiences that can not be explained. So guess what - I don't explain them. I don't know what caused them - and neither do you. Of course it is.

You prove that conclusion every day. You've thrown out the Bible, which is the only basis for your God (Jesus in particular). Everything you believe about your God is made up in your head or somebody else's. Nonsense. If you had been born in India, you'd claim that Vishnu chose you. If you had been born a thousand years ago, you'd claim that Odin chose you. It's not a vote. Reality does not require majority assent. I'm not. The Hindus', Romans', etc. beliefs are as wrong as yours. The Apostle Paul was certainly wrong about a lot of things. Yes.You're assuming that there is a "correct" conclusion. If the question is, "What is the best flavour of ice cream?" you'll get a lot of different opinions. But the honest conclusion is that it's a matter of personal taste and there is no "right answer".The same applies to the question of gods. There is no right answer. Not at all. You embarrass yourself by never telling us what the difference is. Your only argument seems to be the fallacy of popularity. In which case, you lose anyway because your perverted vision of Jesus Christ is by no means the most popular version of God. Neither does ringo of Saskatchewan. It's not a personal conclusion. It's an objective conclusion. Now you're just being silly. I don't suggest that everyone else is wrong. Even YOU agree with me that most of the beliefs about gods are wrong. No, your presuppositions were based on belief in the Christian God and belief in other spooks including demons. I have heard scary things too. You are wrong in thinking you know the cause of those noises. I don't believe it. Four eyewitness accounts are unlikely to agree five minutes after the event, much less 27 years later. Your mistake there is in thinking, "Not coincidence, therefore the God that I have been told about since I was born." Think of a few other possibilities before you rubber-stamp your confirmation bias. Well, YOU'RE dishonest about them. You won't discuss them here, so we can't point out any discrepancies that you might have missed. I'm not interested in their human imperfections either. I'm only interested in the wrong things that they teach. But you refuse to discuss that. You could look for a cheap way to turn base metals into gold. Doesn't mean there is one to find. Because deep down you know there's something to what people ae telling you?

What? You're going to have to explain that. Explain that too. I have never fallen for any doctrines of demons. Your refusal to follow Biblical Jesus' instructions is just evidence that your "Jesus" is made up in your head. You forget that I respect characters in books. You can learn as much from a character in a book as you can from a carny barker on YouTube. It's not a PRATT. It has never been refuted. See? There you go, denying. That isn't refuting. We are definitely not in a war with spooks. There are no "signs" that spooks exist. And I tell YOU to look closer. Yes, God is missing from my phone and it still works. Non suquitur. Being wrong about gods has nothing to do with righteousness. Start a topic. Moral relativism is a fact. "Absolute truth" has always suffered from the fact that every denomination, sect and cult has its own mutually-exclusive "absolute truth". Rejecting what Jesus said in a "dusty old book" is not mainstream. How can you disagree with an objective conclusion? Your conclusion is not objective. If there is no evidence, how can there be objectivity? You quoted me and then you didn't respond to what I said.Try again:

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ringo writes:
I don't believe it. Four eyewitness accounts are unlikely to agree five minutes after the event, much less 27 years later. Your mistake there is in thinking, "Not coincidence, therefore the God that I have been told about since I was born." Think of a few other possibilities before you rubber-stamp your confirmation bias.

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Respond to that and keep your rants to yourself.

This is a discussion site. You can do your processing on your own time. You should always go out of your way to avoid confirmation bias. Not at all. Lack of confirmation for one idea is not automatic confirmation of the opposite (if there even is an opposite). I haven't concluded that a god or gods doesn't exist. I've concluded that there's no reason to think that they do exist, the same as there's no reason to conclude that leprechauns exist. Wrong. As I have told you before, I have heard strange noises, etc. I didn't make the same mistake that you make and assume an explanation. The onus is on you here to expalin how those scholarly explanations are wrong. Something that is not real can not "become unreal". Take out the word "merely". All books are a product of humans - and I respect the Bible as a book more than you do. Again, the onus is on you to explain why your particular doctrines come directly from God while those in the Qur'an and Book of Mormon do not. The same way that you willfully and actively choose to deny that leprechauns are real. And you yourself claim that you once believed in Santa Claus.

So you're infallible. Just out of curiosity, have you actually seen True Grit or are you just quoting somebody who quoted somebody who quoted somebody who quoted somebody who quoted somebody?

As I keep telling you, everybody has experiences. Christians interpret their experiences in Christian terms. Rational people interpret their experiences in rational terms. "God's character" is defined in your head, to fit the lack of evidence. "Everyone was never meant to accept God en masse," is a handy copout, made up in your head to fit the reality.

As I have pointed out to you before, you're the one who is looking for the easy broad path. I'm offering nothing but blood, sweat, toil and tears.

Nobody ever did. People can talk at whatever god they believe in and they can believe that they hear it talking to them - but there is no more reality in you "communing" with God than there is in somebody else communing with Quetzalcoatl. From your posts. The fact that it's "us guys" and not just me. Collective reality is usually more reliable than individual reality.Also the fact that you scoff at rationality and logic. The guy who thinks everybody is crazy but him is usually the crazy one. You said it yourself: rationality and logic. Read that again. Does it make sense to you?I don't believe that Long John Silver is real. How does that make me delusional? What advice do I give? All I advise you to do is use your head. And yes, I do follow that advice. And since my head is not infallible, I look for logical, rational agreement from other heads.

Phat writes: And I totally, emphatically, and passionately disagree with your assessments.

Your disagreement has no value unless you have an argument to back it up.

Phat writes: I would bet my life that you "guys" are incorrect...

Oh, come on, you won't even bet your spare change on your "faith", much less your life.

Phat writes: ... and unable...never mind unwilling...to see it or understand it from my perspective.

That's because your perspective is wrong. We know that because you draw your conclusions in defiance of the evidence.

Phat writes: Im not rich...im poorer than most of my high school class. I cant afford to give all that I have and throw myself on the altar of socialism.

It isn't the altar of socialism. It's the altar of Christianity. It's what Jesus said to do. Do you think all of the early Christians were rich?

Phat writes: You wouldnt want to be homeless either so you have no room to talk.

Stop it. You wouldn't be homeless.

Phat writes: ringo writes: That's because your perspective is wrong. We know that because you draw your conclusions in defiance of the evidence. Nonsense.

No. Fact. You have mocked the idea of evidence many times.

Phat writes: At worst, there is no evidence possible to disprove what I believe.

Again that's just a convenient copout. As AZPaul3 pointed out to you the other day, there is evidence for everything we know to be true. That's how we know something is true - evidence.

To say that there is "no evidence possible" is just egregious.

Phat writes: You guys simply want evidence and critical thinking to be the default method of determining reality...

It is the default. And you know it because it's the default for you in everything except your belief.

Phat writes: ... in fact, reality itself says that you can have no proof.

No it doesn't.

Phat writes: Where we differ after that is that I believe and you dont.

Then how do you differ from the person who believes in Shiva or the person who believes in Ahura Mazda? You use the same arguments against them as we use against you.

Phat writes: You with hold belief pending evidence.

And so do you, in every case but one.

Phat writes: I felt that I had enough subjective experience to take a leap of faith...

So you're infallible.

Phat writes: I could never be as coldly rational as you

Sure you could. Anybody can.

Not trusting rational people is a sure sign of mental illness.

The problem is that we're not labeling enough mentally unstable people as unstable. As long as they really, really, really believe, we wait for them to do something really unspeakable before we act. We should be fixing the little instabilities before they become big ones. Yup, they sure do. It's called "society".

Funny how you swallow the prophecies hook, line and sinker, yet you denigrate the words of the Master. No you don't.

And I keep telling you, you're misinterpreting what you see. You have no basis for reaching that conclusion - and there is certainly nothing "obvious" about it. People with different cultural backgrounds than yours will reach different conclusions and consider them "obvious" too. Eyewitness accounts are extremely unreliable.I'll give you an example: When I worked at the RCMP Training Academy, a bunch of us were accidentally involved in an experiment when we were having coffee with some cadets. What I saw was: A tall man in his mid-twenties wearing a dark ski jacket came into the room and took an appointment book out of somebody's gym bag and ran away. Then the instructor came in and asked for eyewitness accounts. The man was variously described as tall/average with dark/light hair, wearing a black/blue/red jacket and he took a book/camera.(By the way, he didn't take anything at all.)And what I describe to you today is not necessarily what I saw years ago. Every time I tell the story, it reinforces the "memory".I am not infallible, but you claim that you are.