Originally posted by twhiteheadI agree with you on both accounts 🙂
Beliefs should never be imposed on others whether they are 'compatible' or not. Even imposing beliefs on your own children is wrong. Missionary work however is not necessarily imposing your beliefs on others - though it certainly has happened in some cases.
Beliefs also should not get preference simply because they are appealing or unappealing.
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Originally posted by sonhouseLand has been returned to Aborigines. The High Court of Australia ruled that native titles survived colonisation. Since then, Aborigines have been able to live in autonomous communities. The problem is that sexual abuse and drug-dependency is prevalent.
Ok, maybe I was wrong about the Abs, but why do white cultures think they need to 'save' Abs anyway? They had no trouble living for thousands of years without white man to ruin them, so why not just let them work out problems on their own, let them return to the land give them a couple million acres of their own to return to the life they knew thousands of years ago?
It is also a common fantasy to think that Aborigines live a serene life in the past. Mostly Aboriginal clans were oppressively patriarchal, with women regarded and treated as possessions. Genital mutilation was also a feature of some Aboriginal rituals. Aboriginal justice involved a bizarre logic of clan retribution. Aboriginal societies were far from perfect.
Originally posted by twhiteheadEven imposing beliefs on your own children is wrong.------------whitey-------------------
Beliefs should never be imposed on others whether they are 'compatible' or not. Even imposing beliefs on your own children is wrong. Missionary work however is not necessarily imposing your beliefs on others - though it certainly has happened in some cases.
Beliefs also should not get preference simply because they are appealing or unappealing.
I agree. If a belief is imposed then it's not really a belief , it's not what that person really subscribes to and they will shrug it off some time later.
I suspect many many Atheists are created by Christians attempting to impose belief on their children.
Originally posted by twhiteheadYou have to be a little more clear here, are you suggesting that we
Beliefs should never be imposed on others whether they are 'compatible' or not. Even imposing beliefs on your own children is wrong. Missionary work however is not necessarily imposing your beliefs on others - though it certainly has happened in some cases.
Beliefs also should not get preference simply because they are appealing or unappealing.
cannot or should not teach our kids our beliefs? You think others need
to do that?
Kelly
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'Imposing' beliefs upon children is unavoidable. As teachers of their children, parents have the right and responsibility to start somewhere. That's just the way it is. A responsible parent will provide the means for independent thought at some point in the child's life, and failure in that regard has zero to do with whether someone is a theist or not.
Originally posted by BadwaterAmish culture gives the child the right to reject at the age of 18, the choice of 'will you stay or will you go'. Of course to an 18 yo, the idea of leaving what home he had for all his live is intimidating in the extreme for them because of the isolation of the culture, casting the outside world as somehow evil and misguided, so not sure how much of a choice that would be in practice. Amish numbers are declining however, as more and more kids take them up on the offer to quit the faith. Personally I think the Amish have a great experiment going, I see them as surviving most any of the disasters of city folk, there would never be a bombing of them for instance. If there was a major disaster however, there would be survivors flooding in from the cities and would probably overwhelm them in that case but if left alone they could survive most cityfolk type disasters.
'Imposing' beliefs upon children is unavoidable. As teachers of their children, parents have the right and responsibility to start somewhere. That's just the way it is. A responsible parent will provide the means for independent thought at some point in the child's life, and failure in that regard has zero to do with whether someone is a theist or not.
Originally posted by sonhouseIt is the human condition that allows us to accept or reject our partents
Amish culture gives the child the right to reject at the age of 18, the choice of 'will you stay or will you go'. Of course to an 18 yo, the idea of leaving what home he had for all his live is intimidating in the extreme for them because of the isolation of the culture, casting the outside world as somehow evil and misguided, so not sure how much of a choi ...[text shortened]... overwhelm them in that case but if left alone they could survive most cityfolk type disasters.
teachings on all subjects it isn't as if the Amish are doing anything
out of the ordinary. How many here have rejected their partents beliefs
since they gotten older, and how many accepted them?
Kelly
Originally posted by kastwell i could call you names, but since you did such a fine job making an idiot of yourself, it would be redundant.
EDITED: I want to make sure the idiot knows this is for him/her so...
TO ZHALANZI
LOL. wow. you are so angry, little man. Look, can you disprove fairies? can you disprove zeus? how about a sun god? can you disprove any god? you're an idiot. the burden of proof of existence is on you, moron. I wasn't calling you stupid before, but seeing as how yo ...[text shortened]... el again. It's sad that I stooped to it, but I won't do it again...pinky promise.
i say there might be a god and nothing can disprove it.
you said there isn't a god and anyone religious is an idiot.
who made the more fair statement? i who admitted i have no proof and i may be wrong, or you who absolutely are sure there is no god. and insulted everyone in the world who believes in a higher power.
and yes, you cannot disprove fairies. i define fairy as a creature you can never observe but that sometimes shows itself to some people. and as such there might or might not be faeries. can you disprove it through logic? can you prove people seeing faeries are lying? so even if they are improbable, you cannot say for sure they don't exist.
we have a lot of theories that cannot be disproved or proven(yet). string theory for example. yet, you don't say that string theorists are insane.
Btw, learn to read you dyslexic pathetic little child, i am zahlanzi, get it right. now if you don't mind i would like to discuss with atheists or theists that have reached at least puberty. Run along now and let the grown-ups talk.
Originally posted by sonhouseWhy don't you relax and have a cup of tea, your starting to foam at the mouth! No matter how out of control things look to us mortals, God really is in control of everything, so set up your chess board and work on your endgames or something.
Just think of it, their god makes a whole universe, puts in billions of years or is it 8,000, this omnicient god who knows all about every quark in every atom of every cell in every life form in the universe, chooses to spend its time directing the very rocks to grow, the very air to come into being, the very oceans to come forth, the sun to light up the ea ...[text shortened]... ping this god will set things straight in the 'afterlife' a nice oxymoron if ever I heard one.
🙂
Originally posted by sonhouseit is a choice you make each moment. so if at 18 you choose to stay because you find the outside world scary, it is not like they will execute you mafia style if you choose to leave at 24
Amish culture gives the child the right to reject at the age of 18, the choice of 'will you stay or will you go'. Of course to an 18 yo, the idea of leaving what home he had for all his live is intimidating in the extreme for them because of the isolation of the culture, casting the outside world as somehow evil and misguided, so not sure how much of a choi ...[text shortened]... overwhelm them in that case but if left alone they could survive most cityfolk type disasters.
Originally posted by knightmeisterAnd I suspect that many theists have a serious psychological issue when it comes to atheists. Its amazing how many Theists on this forum either don't believe that atheists actually exist or try to come up with all sorts of explanations as to why atheists are atheists. Your pet theory it seems is childhood trauma at the hands of overly zealous religious parents. This is not the first time you have claimed it - and the last time you did, it was clearly demonstrated to you that you belief that it was the main cause was shown to be in error.
I suspect many many Atheists are created by Christians attempting to impose belief on their children.
Why can't you just accept that most atheists are atheist because they don't have reason to believe in God?
Originally posted by twhiteheadWell...I'm a Christian and I can accept your view with no problem. It's your choice after all.
And I suspect that many theists have a serious psychological issue when it comes to atheists. Its amazing how many Theists on this forum either don't believe that atheists actually exist or try to come up with all sorts of explanations as to why atheists are atheists. Your pet theory it seems is childhood trauma at the hands of overly zealous religious pa ...[text shortened]... just accept that most atheists are atheist because they don't have reason to believe in God?
😏
Originally posted by bill718Thank you. I certainly don't think that all Theists have a problem with atheists. I was just noting that a number of those on this forum do seem to, and they come up with their own pet theories about atheists and that is despite the evidence to the contrary.
Well...I'm a Christian and I can accept your view with no problem. It's your choice after all.
😏
There is even one who likes to dictate to me what I believe as an atheist and if I deny it, he says I don't even know what I believe. 🙂
Originally posted by twhiteheadyou are confused😀 Praise Jesus!
Thank you. I certainly don't think that all Theists have a problem with atheists. I was just noting that a number of those on this forum do seem to, and they come up with their own pet theories about atheists and that is despite the evidence to the contrary.
There is even one who likes to dictate to me what I believe as an atheist and if I deny it, he says I don't even know what I believe. 🙂
"Btw, learn to read you dyslexic pathetic little child, i am zahlanzi, get it right. now if you don't mind i would like to discuss with atheists or theists that have reached at least puberty. Run along now and let the grown-ups talk."
well. First, I am an adult. Possibly older than you. Maybe not, but that's irrelevant. The point is, I'm not a child. I did respond childishly to your comment that I simply make "stupid" statements (from the first post I made in this thread). I later apologized publicly on the forum for admittedly stooping to your level and in fact lower as I angrily called you stupid. I hope that you seriously consider that apology so that we can continue our discussion on this without succumbing to angry rants towards each other.
You admit that you cannot disprove fairies, yet you don't believe in them, do you?
You say that I'm absolutely sure there is no god. I am pretty certain there is no biblical type of god that cares at all about you or me or intervenes in our lives. If your done attacking me as I am done attacking you, I'll continue now and state my reasoning behind this thinking.
1) God can't possibly both love us infinitely and have the ability to intervene. If this was the case, he would not allow children around the world to be molested and raped though absolutely no fault of their own. I say children, because I want to be sure you don't say we have a chance to change things for ourselves. Children are quite helpless. If the child doesn't pray, someone can molest them and god's cool with it? If I pray for children not to be harmed, does god say my prayers aren't good enough?
continuing with this example, theists frequently give more credit to nurture than nature. Don't go off, zahlanzi, I didn't say all theists. But many do make that argument in order to keep homosexuals from adopting kids among other arguments. The reason I bring this up is that many children in abusive (mental, sexual, physical) households grow up and do similar things to hurt others in society, be it their own children or spouse or someone else. This is not entirely their fault. I know it's horrible...simply horrible for someone to do these things. But the truth is that if they didn't grow up in that environment, they would not be that way. So it's god's fault. He should have intervened.
2) If god in fact exists, which cannot (as you love to mention) be disproven, then he is a god that either:
a) does not have the power to intervene; or
b) does not care to intervene (hence, doesn't love any of us)
No priest, minister, or christian can adequately explain why a god would allow these things to happen in the world. Simply stating that "god works in mysterious ways" is inadequate to explain why the horrendous things that happen in the world continue to occur.
Intelligent design is also easily refuted by the fact that many parts of our "design" are not intelligent at all.
All in all, yes, I'm pretty damn sure god does not exist. If some form of a god does exist, he either sucks at creating stuff, created us for fun and left us there to fend for ourselves forever (no heaven - no hell), or is a complete [expletive]. Either way, I'm not wasting my time praying to something that doesn't exist or doesn't listen.
I might be wrong, and I admit that. If a clear expression of god or his (her) power was displayed for all to see and analyze, I would have no reason to doubt. But god has never done this. There is NOTHING that you or any other theist can present as proof for a god. There is absolutely no basis for believing in god other than the fact that you were taught this by someone else or that you simply don't understand some phenomenon at the current moment. God of the gaps. If you don't get it, god must've done it. Many of us laugh now at the idea of really believing in the mythical greek gods, but people have believed in many gods before simply for not understanding something.
Just in case you mention that I also only know what I know in evolution cause of all the books I've read or my biology education (my major), please don't confuse educational text books with bibles and other religious texts. The ideas expressed in science are first developed through hypotheses and tests of these to prove or disprove them. With enough education, you can repeat these experiments (and money...you might need money too). This is not a talk about evolution and I realize some of my statements may seem outside the scope of our discussion. As you well know, zahlanzi and other readers, this subject spans across many other topics.
My post is long. I know. I apologize for it's length.
Zahlanzi. I know you got pissed. So did I. I want to continue a civil conversation with you and others on these boards concerning faith, god, and science (I haven't even gotten to the political posts that I'm sure exist here). I hope that you read through my post and respond to what you find as errors with the same civility I'm trying to show you.
I would like to know, zahlanzi and other theists in this thread, how much you have read concerning god's existence from the atheist point of view. Have you read The God Delusion? I have read much of the bible...including parts that no one likes to talk about because god was such a jerk in it. I have also given a shot to an apologetics book (apologetics being the subject of protecting your faith and such). I found the apologetics book quite lacking in good reasoning and found that it relied too much on first accepting the bible as completely true and accurate. If you have recommended reading for me that might sway my thoughts on the existence of god, I will surely look them up at the university library (or elementary library if you still believe I'm a child) and read through it.
EDITED: went through and changed your name to zahlanzi...I'm not dyslexic.
good day!