Wisdom is just what your ancestors have learned and passed down to you as a gift so you can prosper and have a better life. – Mike
No God or religion required for that
We know what Jesus thought – Mike
There’s the problem. When history becomes religion. When knowledge is claimed without evidence.
CC – What do I know about God… Only what I have read and heard. The point being – there is a lot of information on the many pathways of religions. Depending on what pathway you chose to gather your data on will control the preponderance of your views.
When you say “bible”. Is that OT or NT or both? There is a difference in gods between the two. But most of my data comes from outside of the bible.
Mike Yohe said,When you say “bible”. Is that OT or NT or both? There is a difference in gods between the two. But most of my data comes from outside of the bible.
Blasphemy!
Mike, You said to Write4U,
“…Point being. You need religion. Religion is supposed to teach you how to use wisdom. Nature will not do that. The deity pathway you vote and think the way the church tells you. The knowledge pathway is to make your choices using wisdom. Wisdom is just what your ancestors have learned and passed down to you as a gift so you can prosper and have a better life…”.
I take issue with just about all of that. You are making several far-out assertions based on ??? I know not what. (Some kind of paradigm and narrative that you have come up with or learned from somewhere, maybe?)
Tim, yes there are far-out assertions.
What is religion?
What started religion?
Why do we have religion? Why not get rid of religion?
Has religion evolved?
Has religion branched out taking different pathways? What are the names of some of the main pathways if any were taken?
Are some religions controlled? And if so, by who or what?
It is agreed that Jesus was Jewish and a rabbi. And a Hellenistic Jew as a Sadducees. And part of the Christian Movement with his own Christian religion. What was the name of Jesus’s Christian religion?
Tim,
Answer the question – what is religion?
Religion has basically been the hospitals, schools, banks, post offices, the taxing authority, the police system, the court system. They fed the poor and took care of the homeless and the orphans. Just about everything that civilizations needed. For example, Germany until a few decades ago used religion to manage the housing authority, the school system and hospitals. The religions in Germany also had taxing authority over the people. And the authority to collect employee taxes directly from the employers. When those powers were taken away many people would not agree to payroll deductions. Today in the news the Churches are talking about baring people from church who do not pay for the church services.
There are hypotenuses that Jesus during the missing years worked for his uncle from Egypt who was a tin trader. He took Jesus to Spain and places to help with the trading. Point being, if you did not have religion in the area, you took religion with you. Jesus being a rabbi was versed in international banking methods and rules of laws and the items needed to close business deals.
So, do we need religion? According to Jefferson it is supposed to be part of the America system. Jefferson did not want the deity at all involved in the new American system. So, it is obvious that our founding fathers had no problem separating religions from god. Jefferson viewed all the systems of morals for civilizations and concluded that Jesus’s teachings of morals was the best system for teaching morals to the general public.
Answer the question – who is your best Atheist?
For me, it would be Jesus. And of course, when I say Jesus that includes the god Mary too. Jesus had Sadducees and Pharisees to deal with. The Sadducees were in charge and were deists. They could have gotten rid of religion. Jesus was a Sadducee and used god and wanted to improve religion and was in the process of taking governing powers and control the god had in religion out of the system by moving the god back to the system used by Kind David.
To answer your question.
Lausten is hinting around about the facts and details. And you are picking that up and asking the question. If you go down that path, then the session is over. Lausten won the debate many times before by using facts and details argument. He is letting it move a little further down the path this time.
The reason is that facts are driven by ??? Maybe a religious gene or the level of reason a person has. Explain to me why the Sadducees saw god a fiction and the Pharisees as fact. The Sadducees were the rich and educated but the Pharisees had facts on their side.
Einstein was looked at as a fool for not understanding the facts of aether. Aether Winds was how god communicated with people and it was understood as a fact. Today there is no such thing as aether. That only took a couple thousand years to solve. And the question we are dealing with today are on the Christianity being used today which is only 1,700 years old. Maybe we have three hundred more years to go before the facts are understood.
Tim, do you think that you could convince the people who see Jesus on toast, that it is not a miracle. What facts would you use to change the facts in their minds?
For me to get into more facts we need to establish perimeters and work within timelines. And that will no doubt get boring. And I would want no questions that have been asked before and not answered. If a question cannot be answered in 1700 years, it is time to move on. There are so many questions that have to do the data that has been made public in the last thirty years from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Library and other finds, that this is where we should concentrate.
Mike Yohe said,Are some religions controlled? And if so, by who or what?
For me to get into more facts we need to establish perimeters and work within timelines. And that will no doubt get boring. And I would want no questions that have been asked before and not answered. If a question cannot be answered in 1700 years, it is time to move on. There are so many questions that have to do the data that has been made public in the last thirty years from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Library and other finds, that this is where we should concentrate.
Are you kidding me? What facts? There are no facts, no evidence of anything. All available evidence is man-made and cannot count as objective evidence of a supernatural being.
All “miracles” once attributed to Gods have been debunked and properly identified as universal phenomena, based on Laws of Physics.
Are you kidding me? What facts? There are no facts, no evidence of anything. All available evidence is man-made and cannot count as objective evidence of a supernatural being.Write4U, that great reaction is the point of this thread.
Your threshold of evidence required to believe something that contradicts all available science is (justifiably) high. Mike’s is (sadly) almost zero.
There’s no bridging the gap in most cases. We are going to be stuck with his type of regressive thinking for the foreseeable future. All we can do is try to reduce the damage it does to society and the earth until it’s influence has diminished to the point of being a minor nuisance. I’m guessing that will be 60 to 70 years at least. Hopefully my children live to see it.
Mike, You clearly have something expansive to say. I just can’t follow it. You have your own definitions of broad concepts, (e.g., “religion”). Your paradigm is thus a mystery to me. It’s is a bit like you are speaking another language. Sometimes bits and pieces are coherent to me, but all in all, not.
It’s not hard to follow if you start from the core. I can see where it would be hard to follow for people who really have limited views of what god is, what religion is and what the rules of law are to follow my points of views.
Write4U does not seem to understand that there are a million miracles a day taking place in America alone. What does he want to do? Debunk every one of them with science? Can’t physically be done.
3point14rat seems to agree with Write4U. Yet, in my lifetime I have yet to see any facts debunk the supernatural thinking to the satisfaction of both parties.
All I am seeing is a lot of bitching and claims without any big picture logic.
Its like this. Civilization has been around for over 10,000 years. About 5,000 years ago mankind setout to establish a model for all civilizations to follow. The civilization system only works for short time periods because of greed and supernatural thinking. Therefore, the system is not yet complete. The system is simply knowledge being passed down and some of it written into stone for future generations to follow.
About 700 BC a change in protein levels and the advancement of metals, language and writing expanded the civilizations and opened wide the door of philosophy. Schools were formed and knowledge was studied and put into pathways to be used and tested. Then from the third to the fifth century AD some of these pathways were move to Neoplatonism for mankind to use an intellectual basis for a rational and humane life. And I believe Neoplatonism is what I am hearing from you guys now.
Again, Tim is right. I am speaking a different language. The language that people like Jefferson and Jesus talked in. As none of the questions asked were answered. I don’t see how you can understand how people like Jefferson and Jesus viewed the pathways. You don’t even know the name of Jesus’s Christian religion. You need to move outside of the Christian Bubble, if that is possible for you to do.
Overall the Jesus pathway changes to a good civilization system has been moving forward at a good pace when looked at in the big picture view.
My goal and objective are to shed some light on our pathway. Yes, our pathway. The progressive pathway America is supposed to be on. It seems to me that because of wars, the Christian Bubble and the move to the far-left, America has lost its direction and is trying to stray from our founding father’s pathway.
Take a look at the progressives and the accomplishments that have taken place in our pathway so far. You got Mary and Jesus who created the main Christian religion until it was destroyed by Paul’s Christianity. The pathway started by Mary and Jesus was picked up by Philo of Alexandria, also known as Philo Judaeus and brought into the religious philosophy for rethinking as a possible pathway. Which was then picked up by Montesquieu of France, who was known for Spirit of the laws.
Then it was picked up by a guy Write4U would agree with. Francis Bacon, who was known for his Laws of Science, reference as Natural Laws. And then you got Sir Thomas More a humanist and social philosopher praised by Marx and Engels helping move the pathway forward.
Then Lord Mansfield – Stewart vs Somerset really help move the pathway along. William Blackstone was a big jump forward for us. John Marshall with Marbury vs Madison, which challenges the thinking of the spirit of the law and made the movement known and talked about which helped make the Constitution more solid.
And let’s not forget Alexis de Tocqueville’s work on the pathway. Here are some of his quotes. May be off subject but I like his thinking.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
My point being. You can’t knock off god until you have a better god to replace it. Some people just need a god. The bubble is going to bust in about twenty years for next generations due to AI. The coming AI will be able to debunk a million miracles a day. And I bet the kids will trust AI more than any bible.
"3point14rat seems to agree with Write4U. Yet, in my lifetime I have yet to see any facts debunk the supernatural thinking to the satisfaction of both parties."Mike, your lack of minimum standards of evidence can't be used as an argument for the supernatural or anything else.
You might as well believe the earth is flat, we didn’t land on the moon, lizard people are real, Trump is smart, and vaccines cause autism, because every one of those false ideas is ‘supported’ by ‘evidence’ that can only be swallowed by those who don’t care what the truth really is and or don’t understand logic and/or science.
"My point being. You can’t knock off god until you have a better god to replace it."That quote is disproven by almost every post to you on this forum. We tell you over and over that we have dispensed with the concept of a god and all the false and morally bankrupt baggage required to believe in one.
I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell me that I can’t do what I’ve already done.
there are a million miracles a day taking place in America alone. What does he want to do? Debunk every one of them with science? Can’t physically be done.One person couldn’t, but that’s why we have education. With 327 million each person only needs to take on a little more than one miracle a year.
I believe Neoplatonism is what I am hearing from you guys now.You would need to know what that is to recognize it.
The language that people like Jefferson and Jesus talked in.Jefferson literally cut much of Jesus’ words and actions out of his Bible.
You don’t even know the name of Jesus’s Christian religion.It’s called Mike’s private religion. It’s what the story tellers and con men and guys in funny hats have been doing for 1,800 years; making up religions based on a set of myths that they were handed down.
3point - “My point being. You can’t knock off god until you have a better god to replace it.”
That quote is disproven by almost every post to you on this forum. We tell you over and over that we have dispensed with the concept of a god and all the false and morally bankrupt baggage required to believe in one.
Great, unity is good. And you are correct with dispensing with the concept of god the deity. I did that a long time ago and understanding religion was much easier for me after I switched pathways. So, when do you think that you will be able to get out of the Christian Bubble? Remember there are two pathways. The pathway of the deity and the pathway of knowledge.
You have the bible. What does the bible tell you about god? Or religion? Not enough for you to answer any of the questions I asked you anyway. You have dispensed with deity. Now you can replace a deity god with a god of knowledge. Isn’t that what Jesus was trying when he got in trouble with the Jewish priests for claiming he was part of god and had to back out of the effort? And the reason I believe it is possible to switch gods is because religion is not really about deity gods. Believers may say it is and claim it is, but their action says differently.
I don’t want to nit-pick, so I am sure you can give examples to the contrary. But any way you look at it the atheists are only at 2%. If you count China, it is 7%. So, the question should be. Have the atheists ever been more than 2% in America. And I think if you count deists they were in the beginning. And the numbers for Jesus’s religion was much bigger than Paul’s Christianity. I don’t remember the numbers but there was a big difference in the numbers for the first 3 hundred years of Christianity. Jesus’s religion was said to be larger than the Christianity that Paul was preaching. Four times Jesus’s religion almost became the Christianity of the Roman Empire. Jesus’s religion did not have a deity but had god.
We have between 8% to 10% of the worlds religion in Buddhism which has no deity. They have what we would call gods or sets of gods. But no deities.
Are you telling me that if god was looked at as knowledge and you had some knowledge in you and your knowledge and other people’s knowledge put together makes god that you would be morally bankrupt by that type of thinking? The easiest way to understand my point is just replace god with the word knowledge. I don’t understand what you have against science. Science is just part of knowledge. The word “god” for most of religion meant knowledge. The word “god” came about in the sixth century AD. Therefore, I may be saying this wrong. Maybe I should be saying the word knowledge became known to mean god mostly after the Catholic Trinity was put together.
So, you must decide. If god is only a deity or if god is a sub-branch of mankind’s civilization system, then “god” has several pathways. And the deity branches of “god” appear many times in the civilization tree. But the knowledge branches of god can be taken all the way to our constitution. And we should not forget to thank John Locke for the work he did to make that happen. Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said, are “life, liberty, and property.” Locke believed that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of mankind. … The purpose of government, Locke wrote, is to secure and protect the God-given inalienable natural rights of the people. Locke was a guide for Jefferson, Adam, Franklin and others in the making of our constitution on the pathway of Jesus, the man.
Point being. All the way from Jesus to Jefferson they were on the knowledge pathway of science and the learned. Not the pathway of deities and Paul’s religion.
I know this this seems like a lot to try and comprehend. But if people were able to understand the pathway from Jesus to Jefferson. You should be able to.
I don’t need god the deity replaced with another god. But Jesus thought it would be best that way and so did Jefferson. If you got a better system to teach morals, then great. I’m for that. If part of the population is driven by religious genes and you don’t offer them religion. Lookout, you are going to have a lot of trouble. China got rid of the deities and they found out that they had to bring religion back into their system. The same with Russia.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/way-more-americans-may-be-atheists-than-we-thought/
Here is an article from last year, referencing a study that says that as many as 26% of US may not believe in god.
Lausten,
Jefferson literally cut much of Jesus’ words and actions out of his Bible.
Are you talking about Jefferson Bible number two? Where he then pasted them into a works and sayings of Jesus. Any parts to do with the deity he discarded.
I can’t keep reading your ramblings Mike. I don’t know where you get your data, or your conclusions. Oh, right, from a dark place inside yourself.
But any way you look at it the atheists are only at 2%. If you count China, it is 7%.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist is 16%
And there are an awful lot of humanists going to church on Sundays in modern nations. Look at what people actually believe and it does not match up to any official doctrine.
Are you telling me that if god was looked at as knowledge and you had some knowledge in you and your knowledge and other people’s knowledge put together makes god that you would be morally bankrupt by that type of thinking?No. No one here said that. You are having a conversation with something inside your head.
I don’t understand what you have against science.Who the hell are you talking to?
TimB,
Here is an article from last year, referencing a study that says that as many as 26% of US may not believe in god.
Good point. It is probably more than 26%. Over the years we had the bond boxes and arc of the voice of god and many other items dealing directly with god. The people resisted all the new findings. It is as if people don’t want any new discoveries about their god. That’s when I realized that god’s power is only the power given by the people. The percentages can only be used as a talking point only.
Point being. Who did the people trust the most in the past? Kings or Churches. Today the churches are removed from the power of government. But it seems that a lot of people would like to see the churches have more government power again. We really need to have a government that the people can trust. And this Dark State stuff which is going to be hitting the news soon is not going to help. Maybe we should require all politicians to take a vow of poverty.
Lausten,
I don’t understand what you have against science.
Who the hell are you talking to?
Obvious 3point. And anyone else who thinks that our constitution was created by a bunch of guys here in America who sat down and thought up and wrote the constitution while having a beer.
There is a lot about history that we don’t yet know. Example estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition alone, which Sixtus IV authorised in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Some historians are convinced that millions died. So, we don’t know the numbers. But we are clear on the facts that a lot of people died working on our system.
All I am saying is we better get our ducks in a row before we f*** up what has taken a couple thousand years to accomplish at the cost of many lives. We should be thankful and happy that we have the opportunity to help finish the task that has been worked on for so long by so many wonderful people that given so much of their lives and energy to build our system.
Instead what I get is what is always given on this subject. Judgement without logic. And you wonder why nothing can ever get done. You ask – What Would I need to Convince me of God? You better start asking yourself what you understand about God. Get with the science. If you don’t see that America was not created upon your god, but in spite of actions taken in the name of your god. Then, my answer would have to be – a good education of history and maybe you can be convinced your god is in your mind only. The atheist goals should be to open the books on history and the people who got us to where we are today and pass that story from generation to generation.
Get out of the Christian Bubble and get into science. Realize that god did not create the human morals.
You ask – What Would I need to Convince me of God? You better start asking yourself what you understand about God. Get with the science.Did you read my post? You are not responding to what I said. It's quite clear that I'm referring to the natural world and the concept of gods as mythical creatures representing our aspirations.
Mike, you need to focus on what is said to you and respond to that. Your posts contain responses to questions by people who don’t exist in this forum. Here are some examples:
"Obvious 3point. And anyone else who thinks that our constitution was created by a bunch of guys here in America who sat down and thought up and wrote the constitution while having a beer."“Get out of the Christian Bubble and get into science. Realize that god did not create the human morals.”
“Instead what I get is what is always given on this subject. Judgement without logic.”“You have the bible. What does the bible tell you about god? Or religion?”
“Are you telling me that if god was looked at as knowledge and you had some knowledge in you and your knowledge and other people’s knowledge put together makes god that you would be morally bankrupt by that type of thinking?”
How on god’s green earth did you invent those statements as part of responses to anything I have ever written? You don’t strawman me, you create a fictional opponent who is nothing like me and paste my name on it. Is my writing that terrible that the message is the opposite of what I mean?
If your answers weren’t so rambling it might be possible to correct you, but you have 10 fabrications per post and it would take an hour to simply point out your mistakes and show you why and how you’re wrong.
They can be as long as you want, but keep your posts to one or two points. And please stop answering questions that weren’t asked and heading out on tangents (and tangents on those tangents.) If you need clarification about anything, ask rather than responding to something we didn’t ask or to a position we don’t hold.
- Here is some very basic information on me that you can hopefully use to understand my position:
- I am an atheist.
- I like to play board games.
- I am agnostic.
- Christmas is my favorite holiday by a mile and I listen to Christmas music now and then throughout the year.
- I am Canadian. I understand science and logic and reason (as much as a layperson who doesn't work in a scientific field can).
- I am pretty good a lots of sports but not great at any.
- I couldn't care less what the Bible has to say on any subject.