Best Universities are Blue

I never once said the word Bible, you are assuming things (for shame ).

But you are correct I do believe in God that is spoken of in the Bible. God is not a book, that is silly and strange. How can a book control the universe? God is a living breathing, knowing, feeling, and very powerful being. Certainly not a book.

I do not find God in organized religion either. I don't care what Catholics, or Baptists, or Methodists, or Muslims, or Islamists say.

God is real to me, I do not need them to tell me about God or what to think about him. If all the organized religions changed their opinion of God, it wouldn't change me even slightly. If you rely only on what other people tell you about God then you are in sad shape.

Man is all those things you said, and that is why I put no faith in them except the ones that are truely lead by God (and few they are).

Embrace what you wish, I do not force my beliefs on anyone, I just state them as I believe them.

 

Actually, I would like to know what "name" I called you. I think you have already labeled yourself an "athiest." That, to me, is not a personal dig, but a label signifying your metaphysical and religious commitments.

What "morality" test is there without God?

The whole thing you said about morality basically avoids my argument. When you say that suicide bombers are bad, and imply that athiests are good, then you must have some system for moral judgment. At least, you have some idea for moral preferences. If morality is just an organic reflex, why do you make it the basis for your condemnation of Christians? We might just have a different, less "moral" (whatever that means) sputter going on in our brains when we shoot abortion doctors and the like--all the things you morally abhor. If there is no transcedent morality, why should you condemn Christians for being immoral?

Or you think those "Christians" are being inconsistent? That's fine. Jesus says they are too (Mat. 7). Jesus condemns the moralists of his day, and the moralists of our day, when you simply boil religion down to morality. That's a huge oversimplification. I'm sorry but your criticism has nothing to do with Christianity.

My guess is, for some reason, you expect everyone to intuitively understand that suicide bombers are "bad." How you get to that idea, based in your metaphysical system, I have no idea. I think you need a consistency check of your own.

What I just wrote was not my main argument. You still haven't responded to my main argument. Go back and read my post, please.

 

Yes, if you go to a Christain fundamentalist kindergarten.

I will agree that you are using kindergarten-type logic.

And Bigfoot exists unless you can scientifically prove otherwise. And the Loch Ness monster and the Boogie Man.

What nonsense.

I personally believe in God, but I understand that this is a matter of faith, not science or even logic.

That's priceless. Very nice. Thanks.

 

I have NEVER called myself an atheist. In fact, I said that I believe in God and that I am an active member of a church (not a Christian church, of course.)

So that makes me an athiest in your opinion. That is so typical.

You call me names. Say I said something I never said. And then you have the gall to tell me reread YOUR post. Once again, typical.

 

Grgrwll,

I apologize for getting it wrong on your statement that you are not an athiest. Because of some of the other things you said, I thought you were.

Here's my question for you. How is your whole "keep your beliefs to yourself" thing NOT atheism in practice?

My post above, that you still haven't responded to, explains why it is. Can you respond to that part, once again, please?

 

I don't know what you mean by "your whole keep your beliefs to yourself thing." If you could possibly point to the specific thing that I said, I will respond. Otherwise, I will assume this is just another lie, just as you lied when you said I called myself an atheist.

Uhhm.. What are you talking about? Your proposition that morality is derived from a belief in divinity? Well, I happen to agree.

The fact that you can't comprehend that a non-Christian could believe in God, and in a morality derived from that God, says nothing about me, but it says a great deal about you.

 

Man

grgwll, you sound really hatefull and angry. I am not going to think you are like that though becuase I do not know you and this is just a message board and I could be reading your emotion wrong.

You might want to try to be more sensative to others in what you type if you want them to listen to you and carry on a conversation. We all insult people sometimes when we do not realize it, but I feel you might be doing it intentionally to feel you have stood for your beliefs and won an argument.

Really in the end though, i feel like none of us were in an argument here, just explaining to eachother what we feel is right and wrong.

If we all try to tone down and try to be more sensitive to eachother we may be able to communicate more clearly and have a much more enlightened conversation.

I am sorry if I offended you, as that is not my intention, I just want to point out why a large majority of people on this thread (including myself) feel very insulted by you right now.

Some people may be a child of rape and feel almost like you are putting a death wish on them by you supporting abortion with rape victums. This very well might not be the proper reaction to have, but none the less they still have it. Many mothers keep children of rape because they know how much of that child is them and is their own DNA, and they could never ever think about killing that precious baby.

I appreciate you reading this and I want you to know I am really not trying to personally attack you at all, just come to an understanding.

Yours in Christ,

Me

 

Re: Man

Someone lied about what I said. Claimed I said I was an athiest. I took offense to this and corrected the record.

And for that, you say that *I* am hateful and angry. How quaint.

You obviously have no problem with the person who posted lies about me, only with my defending myself.

Got it.

I guess I have a lot of misconceptions about Christ. I didn't realize that he supported the spreading of lies.

 

Grgrwll,

I think I figured it out. Please go back to columnn "2" and look at my first post on this thread. I wrote a post immediately after yours, but wrote something general about "athiesm." You took offense at this and responded.

I thought that YOU thought I was writing about you. I was writing about a general attitude in our society, and you took issue with me calling "names" for some reason. So after that I identified you as an athiest, mistakenly.

Agingbetter responded to my post first, I think, and quoted something from an athiest website. So I just got you two mixed up. I already apologized for that. But what I said was hardly propagating lies. It was a mistake.

My first reaction to your defensiveness was confusion. I wasn't referring to you at all.... and wasn't intending to call you a name, or refer to you, specifically, as an athiest.

It didn't help, though, that you were saying some similar things as Agingbetter. For instance, on "keeping your beliefs to yourself," as I called it:

So, to some degree, my presumption that you "keep your beliefs to yourself" is valid. At least, that is how I interpreted this statement when I wrote the previous post about you being a supposed "athiest" in practice.

I didn't write on this forum to lodge an attack on you. I was trying to get you to think about how you live out your, apparently (now) theistic beliefs. I actually didn't know that you would take something so personally that didn't have anything to do with you.

Also, the mocking stuff about me being in Sunday School shows that you have a very adolescent sense of humor and a lack of patience for people with opposing viewpoints.

I'm going to sign off here because everytime I post, I get no substantial discourse or response, but only personal attacks, either in the form of saying that I'm deliberately propagating lies, or that I'm a "Sunday School" Christian.

 

Just one further support of my mistake, I was correcting your statements on the "suicide bombers" on the thread I labeled you an "athiest." That derives from the response of Agingbetter. So it was a mistake.

 

Actually, I did not think you were referring to me.

I was simply pointing out that you were calling "someone" an athiest with absolutely no evidence for that.

So, when you said that some on this thread were athiests, to whom were you referring?

Then to whom were you referring?

Again, where did *I* say anything about "keeping your beliefs to yourself."

Based on what? The fact that on *some other issues* with the person who said that? What nonsense.

What???? You claim that I called myself an athiest, and then you say that has nothing to do with me?

You lie and say that I called myself an athiest. And then, when I defend myself, you run away. Oh so typical.

 

How many of those universities are in blue COUNTIES?

http://freeconservatives.com/rhino/mandate.gif

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Best Universities are Blue

Perhaps I didn't state my opinion very well.

Yeah I agree, though I think that it's more psychological and sociological than philosophical.

I don't much like liberal and conservative in ths context. For one thing, members of the outsiders coalition have often been conservatives. The old-style Southern Democrats for example. What made them Democrats wasn't their liberalism, but their feeling that the South had been screwed by the victorious North in the Civil War. And many union voters who vote Democratic over labor issues are extreme social conservatives about issues like gay marriage. Reagan was very good at attracting those voters, hence the 'Reagan Democrats'.

I wasn't trying to be judgemental, but analytical instead. My intention was to try to highlight what makes blue and red voters different. In real life, there are good and bad aspects to each orientation.

I don't think that Democrats are bitter necessarily. I'd prefer to characterize them as those who tend to feel estranged. Bitterness may or may not be an emotional response to that.

The 'muckraking' remarks were intended to highlight a basic form of Democratic party politics.

Republicans tend to identify with the system. That means that they prefer political expressions of solidarity with it. They wave the flag. They cheer the military. They approve of business enterprise. They defend what they perceive as core values in the moral sphere.

Democrats tend to feel estrangment from the system, so they criticise it. They spotlight those left out. They champion minorities and social difference. They tell us that industry is dispoiling the environment. They emphasize the suffering that military action causes. Democrats constantly demand social change to make America into something morally greater than its present fallen state, more humane and more inclusive.

I mentioned him (us actually, since I am one) in an earlier post in this rapidly fraying thread. White Anglo males are Republicans by about two to one, nationally. That's pretty telling and it's easily explainable by my thesis. They are less likely to feel estranged and more likely to feel solidarity.

I never used the word 'pathological'. I did use the word 'disloyal', but only to point out how Republicans often perceive Democratic political rhetoric. What Democrats see as attempts to make America a better place, Republicans see as attempts to run America down. The Democrats really need to know how much damage people like Michael Moore do to their chances of winning elections.

I also wanted to suggest why so many Republicans see the news media as liberal dominated. It's because of the 'muckraking' style of journalism that's taught in all of the J-schools. Instead of saying that America is a nice place to live, the press is always telling us about the homeless, about prostitutes, about drug addiction, about pollution, about racism, about sexual harassment, about jobs being lost and so on. It's just one complaint after another after another, or at least that's how it looks to Republicans.

It looks to red voters like the big-city press is intentionally seeking out everything sordid and ugly, and then waving it in everyone's faces.

I'm not necessarily saying that muckraking journalism is a bad thing or that the press shouldn't do it. To some extent it's obviously necessary. I'm just trying to point out how it's received by a large portion of the country and why the red voters criticise the press so often. Again, it's easily explainable by my thesis.

I agree with you 100%.

Group solidarity can turn into chauvinism and destructive nationalism. Cheering the military can turn into uncritical support for crazy adventures. Feeling comfortable can turn into hard-heartedness towards those who continue to suffer. Defending mainstream morality can turn into judgementalism. Idealizing industry can cover up exploitation and pollution.

Nobody disputes that.

I'm not trying to attack Democrats, I'm trying to specify how red-sensibility differs from blue-sensibility. And I'm trying to show how a whole bunch of political data falls into a pattern when seen in this way.

 

grgwll...... did not know I was propogating lies, guess I misread above posts that you are referring to.

Why would you go and say that comment about Christ and him propogating lies when I was clearly trying not to offend you at all.

I really do not like talking with you. Don't take that as some hateful remark about "Christ hating to talk with people" etc. Just take it as I feel like everytime i try to talk about something with you I feel personally attacked. I see you do this to a lot of other people (and no I am not going to dig up all the threads and point out all the occurances) and I really do not think it is a contructive or productive way to carry out a conversation.

So I am just letting you know that I am not going to carry on conversations with you anymore. If there was a way to block all the posts you make so that I could try to read around them and read other peoples posts, I would block your posts.

Good night

 

Welcome to the club!

 

Perhaps because you were propagating lies and doing it in the name of Christ.

Let's see, you start your post by saying:

"grgwll, you sound really hatefull and angry."

And then you are baffled as to why I would feel personally attacked.

 

Nice one-liner, but you failed to refute or disprove anything I said. All you did was try to mock me.

What I said is basic, kindergarden knowledge and profound, solid, scientific logic.

Your comparision with what I'm saying to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness is foolishness.

It is a matter of faith (in who God is, NOT if he is), but it is also very scientific and highly logical.

I said you CAN prove God (the maker of this world) exists because with scientific laws and experiments it can be easily proven that NOTHING can be created (made) without a creator (or maker).

This world is, therefore it was created/made, therefore is has a creator/maker (God).

Now as for who created God or where he came from, well thats just too much for my tiny human mind to comprehend .

Why is that so hard for you to understand? And it is 100% scientific and can be proven.

Who God is cannot be scientificaly proven, but the fact that he does exist can be.

 

You clearly have absolutely no idea what science IS, much less what it can or can not prove.

I happen to believe in God, but to say that the existance of God is "100% scientific and can be proven" is simply rubbish.

 

Not rubbish at all.

From Dictionary.com

Main Entry: sci·ence
Pronunciation: 'sI-&n(t)s
Function: noun
: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method and concerned with the physical world and its phenomena

scientific method
n.
The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.


What in those two defintions proves that what I am saying is unscientific. Just because I am not a scientist by academic trade, does not mean I do not understand what science tries to do or is.

What I am saying is scientific:

I have a

1.) hypothosis: the world was created by a creator

2.) I can experiment: testing to see if matter/physical substance can be formed from abosolute nothingness or does it have to be created and/or formed by a being.

3.) I can prove my hypothosis correct. There is nothing that can be created from nothing.

Maybe I am a scientist after all .

 

And how, exactly, would you conduct this experiment? What is the experimental group and what is the control?

Are you going to exactly reproduce the circumstances that existed at the instant of the Big Bang (or, since you probably don't believe in the Big Bang, it would be more accurate to say the circumstances that scientists believed existed at that time)? If not, then how can you prove that in those exact circumstances, that it is not possible for matter to be created spontaneously?

And even if you could reproduce those circumstances and nothing happened, it would not prove that it is not possible. Simply that it didn't happen in this one specific instance. Maybe those exact circumstances would have to be reproduced a trillion trillion times before giving rise to one instance in which matter was created. How could you possibly prove otherwise?

Oh, I could go on and on, but really, this is such a joke that I don't want to waste the energy.