Bay 12 Games Forum

A curious thought I just had;

Have any of you ever thought that maybe gods are humans that have ascended into the divine, that they broke free of the bonds of humanity and became something more?

Nope.

because our rights overlap on many occasions.

My personal opinion on this is that you have right up until those right infringe on another's rights.  You have the right to religion as long as it doesn't infringe on another person's right to their religion.  This means that door to door preaching, missionary work, and such marketing is illegal.  Your freedom to carry a weapon extends right up to the point of removing someone else's freedom of life and mobility...  overlaps in freedom would not be allowed.  Once your freedom infringes on another person's freedom, you are breaking the law.

Basically, all I've been trying to say is that you shouldn't give a shit what other people believe as long as it A) does not actively cause obvious harm as a direct result of the teachings of the religion, and B) they aren't actively trying to make you believe what they believe.

Some seem to hold issue with the idea of neutrality towards beliefs of others.

Andir, stop being a dick.  Death is the end.  There's no coming back from it.  If you did, then you were not really dead.  Just closer to it than most people get without dying.

My heart was stopped and I had no brain functionality.  How much more dead do you want?

Also, you keep telling everyone to stop trying to make everyone believe what they believe, but you want Atheists to accept your belief and believe that it's valid.  It's would be a violation of everything they believe.  If an Atheist accepts that someone else believes in "God" then they are defying their own belief to do so.  They would have to accept that religion has purpose when Atheism is pretty much anti-religion.

Lego... some questions:  (If you haven't left... and I know you haven't since you are reading this... I wonder how I would know that?)

How is it that you feel "God" is real?  What makes it real to you?

Quote from: MrWiggles on April 30, 2009, 06:08:27 pm

Quote from: Psyco Jelly on April 30, 2009, 05:50:25 pm

I was raised as a Southern Baptist, changed over to agnostic, and after a series of very revealing dreams and meditation sessions, I came to where I am now. I believe that divinity would reveal itself to you if it wanted to be known, and it revealed itself to me.

Now it could be a product of my subconscious, but I'm led to believe otherwise.

Self Reevaluation. This isn't an attack on you. This is my personal feeling towards this believing. It blaming the victim. You haven't done X enough and that why you aren't enlightened. And blaming the victim is just bad.

Wait, what? Who's the victim here? Who's blaming? Done X? Could you please elaborate?

Probably that divinity is the goal to obtain.  Anything less than divinity is not enlightened.  That's how I read your post.  As if anyone that doesn't find divinity is somehow inferior.  (Intentional or not)

Also, I have no idea how a new player is supposed to know what "Flux" is.

Heck I can't even identify Flux at all as it is.

Flux is that gooey stuff you use when you solder...

Sure, God could pop up next to you and do some magic and prove he exists (assuming he does), but would you believe in him?  Probably not.

If "God" wanted to prove that it exists, and it created us, it would know exactly how to prove it.

An idea (making sure that you don't mistake it as a single idea behind it) behind God is that you believe, not that you know.

That you believe means that you ignore explanation.

Now let's look at this hypothetical situation.  You are driving down the road.  A man is standing in the road up ahead, and so you stop.  He runs up to you, you roll down your windshield and you ask what's wrong.  He says that he had been lost in the woods during a hiking trip, had either lost or used up all his supplies and belongings, and had only just now found the road and was in desperate need of help.  He says he is very wealthy and will reward you when you get back to the city.

Why does wealth matter?  If he needs help there are multiple solutions:
1.  Let him in your car.  Take him to town.
2.  Tell him to wait here, you'll get help (or call for help if you have a phone on you...)
3.  Drive right on by in the first place.

I'd likely call.  If I didn't have a phone, I'd ask him to wait while I got help.  If it was a female or an elder, I'd likely give them a ride.  You weigh every situation different.  Saying that an Atheist or a religious person would do something specific is stereotyping.

You have no evidence either denying this or supporting this.  Sure, you have his story, and his clothes are ragged, as though he had been lost for quite sometime, but he could have roughed himself up just to get you to let your guard down, you may think.  Others may not; they may accept his story and help him out.  Now, see, the ones who, lacking any evidence and deny his story, completely rejecting any possibility that he may be telling the truth, those are the atheists that try too hard to prove religious people wrong.  Those who don't think for a second that he may be lying, those are religious people trying too hard to convert others to their religion.  People who would carefully consider his story and try to come up with a solution that would have little possibility of anyone dying or getting ripped off, those are the people in between, who can either be atheist or religious, and they are the good people.  They are the people who accept the fact that, since they have no solid evidence, they may be wrong.

An Atheist (in your situation) could find a solution to help the person without believing in them.  I think you are trying to hard to make Atheists out to be evil people.  You don't have to believe in someone or something to be a good person.  You could say that any truly nutty religious person would be more apt to leave him by the road because he's a heathen and is being punished.

Then someone blindfolds you and puts you in a random spot.  They tell you that if you step forward, you will go to paradise (which you don't really know), or you could step back and remain in the hellish world.  You don't know that stepping forward would actually be better.  Believing in religion is hoping that it might, which some people find comforting, and which you shouldn't say they are wrong for, whether or not they actually end up being right in the end.  Because you don't know, and you can't know.

For one thing... that wouldn't really happen seeing that there is no evidence of teleports, wormholes, or whatever transport mechanism is being used to make you take a step into paradise.  Most likely I'd see what was in front of me and behind me before I was blindfolded.  You say I was moved then?  Did I get moved into position from behind or was I pushed back into place?  This stuff matters if you want me to answer what I would do.  Trust and faith are different things.  Personally, I'd test both waters.  I'd probably put a foot forward and see what happened.  Maybe reach out to see if it "felt" like paradise.  If I felt nothing, I'd reach back and see if it "felt" like a bad place.  Just because I'm blindfolded doesn't mean I don't have other senses.  I wouldn't immediately jump forward trusting some stranger and I wouldn't jump back just to spite.  I'd probably drop to the floor and feel around.  I'd find a way to prove that one way was better without sight.  I'm very much a realist.  I require proof that something exists.  I do not assume that something does because someone tells me it does.

This is the point of the pink unicorn.  A religious person will believe what a person tells them, even more so if multiple people tell them.

There have been people who go into crime solely because they don't believe there will be any retribution by an omnipotent power after they die.

There are religious people who go into crime thinking they can be absolved of all crime by begging forgiveness.  What's your point?