Does God Exist?

It is better to let yourself be wronged.

 

You say we got a glimpse of "the theistic mindset". What we got a glimpse of Olderwater Brother's mindset which is at loggerheads with mine. (Note that OWB and I, coming from radically different perspectives, agree that people of other religions aren't going to hell, because there is no such place--or, as I prefer, hell is a bad attitude.) This equation of religion with fundamentalism is such a recurrent theme in atheist posts that it seems like an almost insurmountable blind spot. My own views are much closer to Harris' than OWB's, but I still think Harris is overgeneralizing.

 

^^^ Yep, that's the way I feel too. I totally understand where Harris is coming from and I'm against many of the same things. But he's not representing what religions are actually for on the whole and using a few points to cause unneeded divisiveness. Hell for example it's not nearly as certain and straightforward as he makes it out to be.

 

Read again... carefully what I said.

 

So leaning on Harris' sports analogy, if domestic abuse is an issue particularly among professional football players, we shouldn't hold the culture of football responsible at all?

 

I think that it is not a matter of being allowed to happen, it does happen. I think it likely and fitting the violent are apt to violent destruction being violently engaged whatever their cause. I think the tit for tat game has no ending but we can learn to play an entirely different game. To have a future different from the past we make a different choice in the present.

An analogy of the way I view it as a body of water whose surface is roiled by wind bags and you really can't see who is responsible for what or how to undo the redundant chain of events. If you stop agitating the water the surface becomes smooth and accurately reflective. Non violence has a profoundly quieting effect on the psychic weather storms to the extent we practice it. We are dealing with energetic conditions.not unacceptable behaviors, the behaviors exist. How do we deal with those energetic conditions in a way that changes them rather than perpetuates them.

 

To guerillabedlam: I would be against any teaching which advocates hurting other people. But just because some violent people identify with a certain religion it doesn't mean that that religion teaches violence. I'm totally against holy jihad and religious wars. I'm also for live and let live and I'm against judging other people.

 

Any religion that advocates war is not the true religion.

 

Don't be afraid of those that can kill the body but rather be wary of those things that perpetuate your living misery.

 

Such a doctrine does not disqualify anything as a religion.

 

Any person that is willing to go to war and kill someone has no love of God or his fellowman.

 

As far as the dynamic of innocent victims and responsible perpetrators I think it is a perverse mindset in regarding the energetic phenomena that constitutes our lives. It is a fact that all of our lives are of indefinite dimensions, none are guaranteed by any measure a certain length of days or quality of life and we all produce temporary conditions for ourselves to the extent we are able. Our lives consist of a series of sensations some we may call pleasant and some not so. We experience catastrophe in many guises. We treat human on human catastrophe differently from every other natural disaster and I think this is a mistake and why the problem is pernicious.

 

I am sure some love their mom. Another judgmental stance.

 

So, it is not right to judge someone who murders?

 

Why would anything right, true, or real need defending?

 

What is your sentence?

 

Anyway i am not per say judging them but hating the activity. All people can turn around from doing bad things.

 

Have you even bothered to listen to the video?
The guy rambles on for 10 min and makes almost no points.
I just was being gracious just saying he made an argument and I only said it because you seemed so upset to be told your hero couldn’t argue his way out of a paper bag.
But if want, I’ll go back to my original statement, he made no argument.

 

I am debating whether to watch it

 

Did someone ask to remove a few of my posts? LOL What horsecrap