Sells, with you this thread is filled with lies and theological horse dung!

If you were born a thousand years ago, you wouldv'e been a real hit. You might have even started a new religion, bent the minds of millions.

You know that your words are false and all your promises are false.

Have you no conscience at all?

Dear David (AFA),

Sorry you take the inquisition analogy personally. It is not how you are in life, but only about that particular demand for religions to prove that their god exists, which you know very well, is impossible.

The inquisition asked its victims to prove their truth by withstanding their torture-machines without saying 'Ouch' - that was physical torture while trying to prove God's existence is a mental torture, both impossible.

<<I am not asking anyone to follow my idol at all, whoever or whatever that is in your mind.>>

Existence.

Only few people today (e.g. fundamental creationists and those who believe that the sun revolves around the earth because Joshua ordered it to stop) disagree with you on matters of existence and its contents: I am not among those, but while we agree on the contents of existence, we do differ on the IMPORTANCE of existence.

Myself and other people do base our life and values on things other than objective existence. Your demand that we must play on your home turf, by your own rules in order to gain the same privileges, is unfair.

AFA David:

You wrote: “The politicians that the public elect must use the opinions of the public and not only use their own religiously based (or Nazi based etc.) opinions in making decisions on behalf of us all.”

You have brought in the Nazis implicitly equating them with religion. I find that offensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputation and http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5226-disputations is one thing that leads me to reject your demand that theists justify their opinions.

When Christianity was dominant in Europe Christians would often force Jews into disputations. It boded ill for the Jews if they won or lost. The price of their victory might be exile, massacre or other unpleasantness. The price of their loss could be a demand to convert to Christianity. If they refused their refusal might result in exile, massacre or other unpleasantness.

You seem to me to have the same mindset that the medieval Christians had. You want to force politicians to make statements about their beliefs. Their record should be enough.

I do not want to behave towards Christians as they have behaved towards people who didn’t believe as they do.

JFK said, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

Other politicians may make similar statements and lie. However, I would rather not put people on the spot because of their religion.

Your idea sounds like the McCarthyite demand for loyalty oaths.

Sells:

Is the God Christians worship more meaningful than Thor or Apollo? Tradition? Theodosius made Christianity the official religion and forced the Romans to abandon their traditional gods. Those Gods are now irrelevant. Why shouldn’t Christianity also become irrelevant? Traditions become outworn.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

.

[Everything that exists is an object and every object is limited. God is not...........]
.

I think you meant to say that the apparent contradictions which I highlighted in your previous posts regarding the "existence" or non-existence" of "God", were caused by your sudden switch from scientific reasoning to the enunciation of esoteric doctrine.

As you gave no warning, I had no reason to believe you were no longer continuing to reason on the basis of your previous declaration that "existence (of "God") can be verified or refuted by science."
.

You also wrote:

["mumbo jumbo" is a plethora, or graveyard, of religious techniques that were employed at one time or another to help particular aspirants on their path to God ... it does not represent logical truth-statements.]

According to the World English Dictionary, "mumbo-jumbo" means:

1. foolish religious reverence, ritual, or incantation
2. meaningless or unnecessarily complicated language
3. an object of superstitious awe or reverence

As I indicated previously, I consider all major religions to be respectable (excluding their transgressions of course), also, that they are all faith based and, in the absence of scientific proof, do not represent reality or any so-called "truth" (revealed or otherwise).

I do not recognize in any of them a satisfactory explanation of what life is all about. I do recognize in them, however, a source of precious "nuggets" of wisdom, well worth the patient effort of prospecting, extracting and adopting.

For example, I am sure you are familiar with that very compelling exhortation of Mahatma Gandhi:

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

That, to me, is religion at its best. It is not esoteric or illusory.

It is factual, practicable and realistic

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Yuyutsu,

>>”Sorry you take the inquisition analogy personally.”<<

Who is taking it personally? You just have no idea what you are talking about which is exampled by this sentence.

>>”The inquisition asked its victims to prove their truth by withstanding their torture-machines without saying 'Ouch'”<<

The inquisitions were largely about making people confess to having an alliance with the devil. You obviously haven’t read the Malleus Maleficarum which was the Papal approved handbook for torturing witches, written by Dominicans Spenger and Kramer. This dark part of Christian history continued for about 600 years. Equating that with atheism or me is blind ignorance.

>>”Your demand that we must play on your home turf, by your own rules in order to gain the same privileges, is unfair.”<<

Now, you are totally making stuff up. It is the religious privilege existent that atheists are opposed to.

I think our conversation is over as you have gone into a state of utter confusion. It is too much to ask of me to un-muddle it.

David

Yuyutsu,

I think I am coming to understand and appreciate the insight you are trying to offer here. (By the way, this doesn’t seem to contradict what david f wrote in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14814#255967.)

You obviously have a different understanding of the meaning of the verb “exists” (so elementary that one cannot define it in a form acceptable to everybody) than most of us. Similarly about “God”, where one cannot even speak about an understanding shared by most people, including Sells, and our friendly or not-so-friendly atheists here. For instance, I would endorse the statement “God exists” being aware of its ambiguity, because the opposite would even more misrepresent what I believe on these matters.

One question, if I may: Had your posts contained references to Virgin Mary I would assume your worldview had a Catholic background. Well, that is obviously not the case, but would you agree that you are in some way trying to defend the Hindu or the Buddhist way of seeing life, existence and reality? I know practically nothing about Jewish (Kaballah) or Islamic (Sufism) mysticism, but I know there are points of contact between Christian mysticism and Buddhism. And what you are saying. Would you agree?