cont'd ...

Al,

I trust that you and yours are safe and well and that the rain did not do too much damage?

Why is "god" ?

"god" is a vestigialism.

Until recently, humans died young, of a variety of diseases. Exceptions became the old man or woman of the village, unreliable but yet the only memory of times gone.

Children cleave unto their parents, protesting at their absence. Most faced young adulthood with recently dead parents and responsibilities.

Many still find "what would dad (or mum) do?" a useful mental tool in loosening up the thought processes to deal with a problem.

Without the scope of present cultural capital, how easy to imagine a world where "dad" still watches and gives subtle advice as when still alive, carefully letting us learn by our supervised mistakes. How easy then to imagine a "bigger dad" to take care of the things that a "dad" manifestly cannot.

And so it goes.

The end of this is a contemptible condition of nominal "adults" unable to distinguish between things they can understand and either control or account for, and things they cannot, and hoping "bigger dad" will fix it, if only they "please" enough.

Notice that "bigger dad" is expected to overlook and excuse sophistry that a real living dad would be remiss in not correcting:
You are not allowed to do "x", (*nor* may you pay a mate to do it for you on sabbath, says a *real* dad). You will be punished for "y", (and *no* you may not elect a scapegoat, says a *real* dad). and so on. Trivial exceptions in mere dogma are a sure sign that religion is both invented and intended to simulate parental indulgence.

Rusty

falcopilot it is hard to see a reason for your posts here.
Why if you dislike the thread try to impose your will here?
Posted by Belly, Saturday, 5 February 2011 4:22:41 PM

As for imposing my will, i am fully aware that I cannot force anyone to do anything that they do not want to do, end of story.

As for the reason, I consider myself a polymath, and I am simply just passing on obvious truths.

By way of explanation, if you read The Emperor's New Clothes on wikipedia (just google it), you should be able to join all the dots, such that all will be revealed.

For those too lazy to look it up, the gist of the story is as follows:

The Emperor had been conned into believing that his courtiers had dressed him in magic clothes, that while invisible to him, would be visible to all his loyal subjects.
The king then paraded himself in front of his loyal subjects, who obviously could see he had no clothes on.

Now the dilemma, to tell the king or not to tell him?
If you tell him, you will obviously embarrass him, and probably make him feel foolish.

If don't tell him, he is going to keep on making an even bigger and bigger fool of himself, in front of more and more people, and in the end someone will eventually tell him anyway.

On balance, I think you will agree that it is better to tell him sooner rather than later, so as to minimize the damage.

Continued on next post!

Continuation from last post:

Then again, of course, if he is irrational and/or delusional, he won't believe you anyway, and he will just keep on wearing no clothes, and will go on to make an even bigger fool of himself. But that's life, and at least you have a clear conscience, and at least you tried.

In days gone by, whenever thiests stuck there heads above the radar and made fools of themselves, , athiests would simply say nothing, to avoid embarrassment.
But, like the the words of that well known song, The Times They Are A'Changing!

We now live in educated and enlightened times indeed, and if the Emperor is indeed wearing no clothes and deluding himself, it is about time that we at least started an education program to stop a perpetuation of of all this absolute silliness.

The catalyst for this mindset change, by the way, is the damage being done with all the religious extremism. Teaching creationism in science classes is absolute rubbish, and September 11 type acts, done in the name of religion is not on.

So, a line has to be drawn in the sand, to at least START educating people to wake up to themselves. It will take time, but a start has to be made somewhere.
After all, there is some light at the end of the tunnel, because at least witchcraft is a lot less common today than it used to be. So enlightenment is working, over time, slowly but surely.
I am perfectly aware that you can't talk to those, whose minds are closed, therefore,
I am not the least interested in trying to educating the ones with closed minds.
So to those of you, who do possess an open mind, this is actually being addressed to you!

Why state that exact date by the way Paul?

I have studied the bible in great detail and I have come to the conclusion that God died on 22nd November 1963. He did not leave a last will and testimony all he said was "Ever who's last to leave, turn off the lights!"
Posted by Paul1405, Saturday, 5 February 2011 12:55:38 PM

Paul that was the date President Kennedy was assassinated and a date close to my heart for a separate reason. Why state that date even in jest; am interested.