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Post by faune on Nov 7, 2014 16:22:19 GMT -5
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Post by rational on Nov 8, 2014 0:54:36 GMT -5
These stories are interesting in the fact that the protagonist in both cases are able to get out of one situation but seemed oblivious to the fact they have just moved into a slightly less restrictive situations.
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 8, 2014 3:18:03 GMT -5
These stories are interesting in the fact that the protagonist in both cases are able to get out of one situation but seemed oblivious to the fact they have just moved into a slightly less restrictive situations. Ah, yes.
Just a bigger box & a larger envelope. Never-the-less, still in a box & still in an envelope with a dubious return address.
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Post by snow on Nov 8, 2014 11:19:09 GMT -5
These stories are interesting in the fact that the protagonist in both cases are able to get out of one situation but seemed oblivious to the fact they have just moved into a slightly less restrictive situations. Ah, yes.
Just a bigger box & a larger envelope. Never-the-less, still in a box & still in an envelope with a dubious return address.
True. But it is a move in the right direction maybe? I often have wondered about leaving the 2x2's but still remaining Christian. Just a bigger box. But not all people are comfortable taking that flying leap into the abyss right away. It seems to come in stages based on comfort zones. And that's okay I guess. It is what it is.
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Post by emy on Nov 8, 2014 18:17:59 GMT -5
But it is a move in the right direction maybe? I often have wondered about leaving the 2x2's but still remaining Christian. Just a bigger box. But not all people are comfortable taking that flying leap into the abyss right away. It seems to come in stages based on comfort zones. And that's okay I guess. It is what it is. "That leap into the abyss" Sorry - couldn't resist!
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Post by faune on Nov 8, 2014 21:48:45 GMT -5
But it is a move in the right direction maybe? I often have wondered about leaving the 2x2's but still remaining Christian. Just a bigger box. But not all people are comfortable taking that flying leap into the abyss right away. It seems to come in stages based on comfort zones. And that's okay I guess. It is what it is. "That leap into the abyss" Sorry - couldn't resist! Emy ~ You beat me to when it came to teasing Snow about that one!
The abyss?
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 9, 2014 0:28:12 GMT -5
Ah! but the abyss is not what you might think!
When you have that parachute called reason, you have the glorious bright blue sky, sunlight without shadows & for the first time in your life you float free of all the baggage you had collected for so long!
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Post by snow on Nov 9, 2014 10:35:55 GMT -5
But it is a move in the right direction maybe? I often have wondered about leaving the 2x2's but still remaining Christian. Just a bigger box. But not all people are comfortable taking that flying leap into the abyss right away. It seems to come in stages based on comfort zones. And that's okay I guess. It is what it is. "That leap into the abyss" Sorry - couldn't resist! What that means we can be comfortable in the unknown. I know, you are still thinking about hell and that I'm going there.
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Post by emy on Nov 9, 2014 13:38:48 GMT -5
"That leap into the abyss" Sorry - couldn't resist! What that means we can be comfortable in the unknown. I know, you are still thinking about hell and that I'm going there. Nope. I was thinking of the abyss of THIS life without a Guide. I need one; you don't. Just that the statement made me chuckle.
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Post by snow on Nov 9, 2014 13:44:25 GMT -5
What that means we can be comfortable in the unknown. I know, you are still thinking about hell and that I'm going there. Nope. I was thinking of the abyss of THIS life without a Guide. I need one; you don't. Just that the statement made me chuckle. ah I see. You mean like a 'Hitchhikers guide to the Universe'? jk, know what you mean. dmg describes the abyss pretty good in post though. For me I think the universe/worker gave me a kick in the butt out into that abyss. Did free fall for awhile before I realized I had the parachute dmg talks about lol.
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Post by matisse on Nov 9, 2014 13:49:24 GMT -5
Nope. I was thinking of the abyss of THIS life without a Guide. I need one; you don't. Just that the statement made me chuckle. ah I see. You mean like a 'Hitchhikers guide to the Universe'? jk, know what you mean. dmg describes the abyss pretty good in post though. For me I think the universe/worker gave me a kick in the butt out into that abyss. Did free fall for awhile before I realized I had the parachute dmg talks about lol. ;) Ditto on the free fall for awhile....that was no fun! But over time, I discovered that I have all of the resources that I ever did....they're just labeled differently now and are not attributed to a supernatural being.
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Post by snow on Nov 9, 2014 14:13:23 GMT -5
ah I see. You mean like a 'Hitchhikers guide to the Universe'? jk, know what you mean. dmg describes the abyss pretty good in post though. For me I think the universe/worker gave me a kick in the butt out into that abyss. Did free fall for awhile before I realized I had the parachute dmg talks about lol. Ditto on the free fall for awhile....that was no fun! But over time, I discovered that I have all of the resources that I ever did....they're just labeled differently now and are not attributed to a supernatural being. Yes, that's an excellent way of describing it. Still had all the resources, just labelled differently. Very freeing in any case.
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Post by kencoolidge on Nov 11, 2014 8:06:06 GMT -5
Ditto on the free fall for awhile....that was no fun! But over time, I discovered that I have all of the resources that I ever did....they're just labeled differently now and are not attributed to a supernatural being. Yes, that's an excellent way of describing it. Still had all the resources, just labelled differently. Very freeing in any case. DMG/snow/matisse Where will your parachute take you. Will you ever touch down? If so where? ken
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Post by matisse on Nov 11, 2014 8:55:01 GMT -5
DMG/snow/matisse Where will your parachute take you. Will you ever touch down? If so where? ken The free-fall was psychological....falling from a very effectively imagined place of being "Chosen" from among billions of human beings on Earth by a very effectively imagined "God", and touching down in the understanding that all along I was only ever an ordinary human engaging in a popular human fantasy. (A humbling experience, to be sure.) The "parachute", I suppose, was discovering that the fantasy (including the hope of "life beyond the grave") is not at all essential to finding meaning in life, or to living a fulfilled life.
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Post by snow on Nov 11, 2014 10:43:04 GMT -5
Yes, that's an excellent way of describing it. Still had all the resources, just labelled differently. Very freeing in any case. DMG/snow/matisse Where will your parachute take you. Will you ever touch down? If so where? ken I think the fact that you ask these questions is interesting. It points to the difference between you and me. You want to know where the parachute will take you, if you will every touch down and if you do, where. I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I am enjoying the journey and trusting that I have the resources to handle where ever I finally do touch down. It is a psychological analogy of course, but it tells me how our minds work. You need answers, safety and security to feel comfortable. I don't.
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Post by emy on Nov 11, 2014 15:47:08 GMT -5
DMG/snow/matisse Where will your parachute take you. Will you ever touch down? If so where? ken I think the fact that you ask these questions is interesting. It points to the difference between you and me. You want to know where the parachute will take you, if you will every touch down and if you do, where. I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I am enjoying the journey and trusting that I have the resources to handle where ever I finally do touch down. It is a psychological analogy of course, but it tells me how our minds work. You need answers, safety and security to feel comfortable. I don't. 1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
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Post by snow on Nov 11, 2014 16:44:37 GMT -5
True. But it is a move in the right direction maybe? I often have wondered about leaving the 2x2's but still remaining Christian. Just a bigger box. But not all people are comfortable taking that flying leap into the abyss right away. It seems to come in stages based on comfort zones. And that's okay I guess. It is what it is. I often wonder about those leaving a religion and becoming an atheist. It seems to me, the belief in a higher power is quite independent from the belief in the doctrine of any religion. However it also seems that so many people, once they see the flaws in religion, take the leap directly to atheist. Almost as if to say "well, this religion is clearly made up, so God (in any capacity) must be clearly made up too". Many may point to scientific reasons they don't believe. And again, science may contradict or disprove religious texts, but it doesn't seem to altogether contradict the belief of a higher power behind nature (and perhaps more, that we don't know about). Now, if you say you believe in God but really don't know anything about him...does that really do you any good? Probably not. I guess you just kind of end up in the unwanted section, where neither religious people nor atheists want to claim you. Well, I guess I'm kind of describing an agnostic. Except more toward the "there is a God" side, just not really making any other claims. When I first quit professing I still believed in the God of the 2x2's, but I did not think he was worthy of worship. After reading the bible and hearing the exclusive messages about everyone not 2x2 going to hell, I decided I couldn't worship that God. I did think for quite a few years that I would be going to hell. That had been driven into my psyche. As I got older I pretty much decided the whole concept of God made absolutely no sense, but then I was thinking of the Judeo/Christian God. I hadn't started my study of the world religions at that point in my life. I just knew that the God I had grown up with didn't exist. Then I started to get interested in religions such as Buddhism because some of my friends were Buddhists. This was an eye opener as I had never really thought about other religions and had just dismissed them without a lot of thought. Kind of what you are saying above. Buddhism appealed to me more than Christianity because it seemed so much more peaceful and loving. It didn't really have a God, at least not a personal one like Christianity. It had some very good ideas to live by that I agreed with, but again, it was a religion and I had no desire being part of a religion again. But what it did teach me was the difference between religion and spirituality. This got me thinking and curious. That started my journey of research and getting to know about many different Gods of different religions. It is an intriguing and interesting study. I started to see how much in common all the religions really had. It became apparent to me that they all seemed to try and make the world a better place by preaching love, compassion and forgiveness. All good qualities for humanity to get along and survive. But I also began to realize that we as humans had to make these Gods up in our psyche in order to feel safe, comforted and taken care of. As far as where I stand today, I am technically not an atheist, I am in no man's land of agnosticism. I don't believe in any of the Gods religions put out there to be worshiped. That I know for sure. I do not believe in God. However, I cannot say with 100% that there is not a higher consciousness or power or even an intelligence. I have not ever seen any evidence of it but I have not ruled it out completely. So, in my case, I really have given a lot of thought and study to what I believe and do not believe. When I professed I was quite zealous about it. I have taken the subject quite seriously, studied it, thought about it and have made an informed decision that there is no God. At least not like any of the ones I have read about. The closest I could come to believing in a higher being would be of Nature. But even that doesn't make sense to me. Science makes the most sense to me.
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Post by snow on Nov 11, 2014 16:54:31 GMT -5
I think the fact that you ask these questions is interesting. It points to the difference between you and me. You want to know where the parachute will take you, if you will every touch down and if you do, where. I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I am enjoying the journey and trusting that I have the resources to handle where ever I finally do touch down. It is a psychological analogy of course, but it tells me how our minds work. You need answers, safety and security to feel comfortable. I don't. 1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.That actually makes no sense to me. How can God be separate from the world he supposedly created? Why would he create an intelligent being then think it was foolish? So many contradictions in religions that tell me man had to have formed them. The best way of controlling people is to make them think they know nothing, they can never be as good and that they need to be guided. But people never give that aspect of religion any thought. They just accept being told they are sinners and have no hope but by grace for example. They don't question how anyone can be a sinner because someone else sinned. They throw out all the valid scientific understandings we have come to because one book written by a rather barbaric middle eastern tribe says something different. It baffles me how that can be understood as valid. Yet people of religion feel it is important to make me the delusional one when I can't buy into a supernatural being? Why is that? Why is it not okay for me to say I don't believe in a 6 day creation? Why is it not okay for me to not believe in a virgin birth? Or a god/human that rises from the dead. Or a whole world flood that could never physically be possible? Why is it that I am delusional and foolish because I don't believe you could fit every living thing in the world on the ark never mind feed them and keep them separate so the prey didn't get eaten? Why am I the delusional, foolish one?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 17:00:59 GMT -5
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. That actually makes no sense to me. How can God be separate from the world he supposedly created? Why would he create an intelligent being then think it was foolish? So many contradictions in religions that tell me man had to have formed them. The best way of controlling people is to make them think they know nothing, they can never be as good and that they need to be guided. But people never give that aspect of religion any thought. They just accept being told they are sinners and have no hope but by grace for example. They don't question how anyone can be a sinner because someone else sinned. They throw out all the valid scientific understandings we have come to because one book written by a rather barbaric middle eastern tribe says something different. It baffles me how that can be understood as valid. Yet people of religion feel it is important to make me the delusional one when I can't buy into a supernatural being? Why is that? Why is it not okay for me to say I don't believe in a 6 day creation? Why is it not okay for me to not believe in a virgin birth? Or a god/human that rises from the dead. Or a whole world flood that could never physically be possible? Why is it that I am delusional and foolish because I don't believe you could fit every living thing in the world on the ark never mind feed them and keep them separate so the prey didn't get eaten? Why am I the delusional, foolish one? because thats the way people are us christians get the "your delusional" bit all the time, welcome to the club...
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Post by snow on Nov 11, 2014 17:41:22 GMT -5
That actually makes no sense to me. How can God be separate from the world he supposedly created? Why would he create an intelligent being then think it was foolish? So many contradictions in religions that tell me man had to have formed them. The best way of controlling people is to make them think they know nothing, they can never be as good and that they need to be guided. But people never give that aspect of religion any thought. They just accept being told they are sinners and have no hope but by grace for example. They don't question how anyone can be a sinner because someone else sinned. They throw out all the valid scientific understandings we have come to because one book written by a rather barbaric middle eastern tribe says something different. It baffles me how that can be understood as valid. Yet people of religion feel it is important to make me the delusional one when I can't buy into a supernatural being? Why is that? Why is it not okay for me to say I don't believe in a 6 day creation? Why is it not okay for me to not believe in a virgin birth? Or a god/human that rises from the dead. Or a whole world flood that could never physically be possible? Why is it that I am delusional and foolish because I don't believe you could fit every living thing in the world on the ark never mind feed them and keep them separate so the prey didn't get eaten? Why am I the delusional, foolish one? because thats the way people are us christians get the "your delusional" bit all the time, welcome to the club... But Wally, it's Christians that are saying I'm delusional because I don't believe in their God. Why does a non belief in the supernatural make me delusional? It's a club I'm not sure I want to belong to btw.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 17:48:15 GMT -5
That actually makes no sense to me. How can God be separate from the world he supposedly created? Why would he create an intelligent being then think it was foolish? So many contradictions in religions that tell me man had to have formed them. The best way of controlling people is to make them think they know nothing, they can never be as good and that they need to be guided. But people never give that aspect of religion any thought. They just accept being told they are sinners and have no hope but by grace for example. They don't question how anyone can be a sinner because someone else sinned. They throw out all the valid scientific understandings we have come to because one book written by a rather barbaric middle eastern tribe says something different. It baffles me how that can be understood as valid. Yet people of religion feel it is important to make me the delusional one when I can't buy into a supernatural being? Why is that? Why is it not okay for me to say I don't believe in a 6 day creation? Why is it not okay for me to not believe in a virgin birth? Or a god/human that rises from the dead. Or a whole world flood that could never physically be possible? Why is it that I am delusional and foolish because I don't believe you could fit every living thing in the world on the ark never mind feed them and keep them separate so the prey didn't get eaten? Why am I the delusional, foolish one? because thats the way people are us christians get the "your delusional" bit all the time, welcome to the club... Hey! Wally, is You're delusional" the same thing as "you're a religious nutter?" Because that is what I was called on one accasion.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 18:06:18 GMT -5
because thats the way people are us christians get the "your delusional" bit all the time, welcome to the club... But Wally, it's Christians that are saying I'm delusional because I don't believe in their God. Why does a non belief in the supernatural make me delusional? It's a club I'm not sure I want to belong to btw. well the premise is your in denial...which could be a delusional state...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 18:06:59 GMT -5
because thats the way people are us christians get the "your delusional" bit all the time, welcome to the club... Hey! Wally, is You're delusional" the same thing as "you're a religious nutter?" Because that is what I was called on one accasion. yes i've heard that one before too
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Post by snow on Nov 11, 2014 18:15:43 GMT -5
But Wally, it's Christians that are saying I'm delusional because I don't believe in their God. Why does a non belief in the supernatural make me delusional? It's a club I'm not sure I want to belong to btw. well the premise is your in denial...which could be a delusional state... So which God should I believe in to eradicate this delusional state you say I'm in? Yours? Oh, and btw, are you delusional because you don't believe in Allah or Krishna or, or, or... The list is endless.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 18:18:50 GMT -5
well the premise is your in denial...which could be a delusional state... So which God should I believe in to eradicate this delusional state you say I'm in? Yours? Oh, and btw, are you delusional because you don't believe in Allah or Krishna or, or, or... The list is endless. mainly i am delusional because i dont believe in the big bang and evolution prior to the flood..at least that is what they tell me
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 11, 2014 18:19:43 GMT -5
I think the fact that you ask these questions is interesting. It points to the difference between you and me. You want to know where the parachute will take you, if you will every touch down and if you do, where. I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I am enjoying the journey and trusting that I have the resources to handle where ever I finally do touch down. It is a psychological analogy of course, but it tells me how our minds work. You need answers, safety and security to feel comfortable. I don't. 1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Emy, it really isn't about "foolishness or wisdom."
Let's talk about whether something is "foolish." Would you believe it is "foolish" to believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus? "Foolish" to believe in giants, maybe ghosts? Mermaids?
If you think they are "foolishness," why am I "foolish" if I add one more to those "foolish" paranormal beings?
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Post by xna on Nov 11, 2014 18:26:08 GMT -5
I often wonder about those leaving a religion and becoming an atheist. It seems to me, the belief in a higher power is quite independent from the belief in the doctrine of any religion. However it also seems that so many people, once they see the flaws in religion, take the leap directly to atheist. Almost as if to say "well, this religion is clearly made up, so God (in any capacity) must be clearly made up too". I have found many people who are now atheist were once religious because of a long time of bible study and seeking truth. They tend to be the christians who take the god question seriously & dig deeper. I see many christian are christian because they were just born into that religion and don't really seek to know truth but just follow the traditions and customs; i.e.. to get along - they go along. Many christians can easily see other non christian religions don't make sense, and clearly can't be true. Taken further the 2x2 see their form of christianity as is the one true way, and all the other christian sect are wrong. I would suggest reading a book by John Loftus "The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True ". He made the journey from a christian to an atheist and explains the journey. You might find this helps you understand the move from christian to atheist. John Loftus en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Loftus Bachelors degree (B.R.E.), from Great Lakes Christian College in 1977. Two masters degrees, M.A. & M.DiV., f Ordained as a minister in the Church of Christ and Taught apologetics, philosophy, and ethics Here is an sample youtu.be/xz-g3TX4alQ
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2014 18:42:14 GMT -5
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