I don't recall mentioning Hitchens in none of the above dilemmas. Until you mentioned the guy, I have never heard his name. I can't see how he relates with anything said on this thread. GeorgeB is perfectly right. In the absense of evidence, the border between lunacy/cult/religion is just the amount of believers. Do you have a plausible idea that can settle the dilemmas? or, alternatively, would you like to tell us about the "footprints" of god? couple of more dilemmas are coming in couple of hours once I finish coding the business layer of my new website.... will they continue to stockpile without even a single believer of any kind of religion even trying to make up an explanation which is better than "god is greater than you and your little thinking"?
So you agree with everything I said. Basically any kook who can convince people he talks to God can be a religious leader and the only difference between them and someone we'd lock up in insane asylum is the amount of people they can get to follow them. Therefore you only answer is logically "but what about christopher hitchens!". Sorry friend but people don't go to church every week and be lead in worship by Christopher Hitchens while giving him their hard earned money. Complete apples and oranges. Please stop trying to make that comparison, you're embarrassing yourself. Nevermind the glaring reality I just pointed out to you, to which you had no rebuttal... Imagine if the creators of the bible were here today and tried to write a new bible. pingpong... do you ever wonder why new testaments stopped being written right about the time mankind started to enlighten himself and stop depending on religion for eveything?
George im sorry again, but it seems like your looking at one side of the coin. Hitchens has a following the borders on the lunitical. This kind of following is even worse then the most extreme religious cults. Did you now see the young man who went to war because of hitchens preaching. That poor young patriot is now not with us. Does hitchens cry for him? do his followers cry for him? People can have intuitions and have had them throughout history. Why do many police investigations use psychics on their squad? Granted there are many religious right wing kooks, but there is a very large number of aggressive atheistic ones. Just look at dp. I had to debunk stox and logic flux on many issues. I have never preached in my life. Some people like to preach and that is their right, and they have every right to do so. I prefer to let my actions speak of my faith. I used to have this teen that worked in our restaurant many years back and he used to always ask me questions on religion and how human beings are supposed to treat each other and what god is all about. Year later , he now runs his own little retreat where he teaches how to be moderate and religious and the 2 are supposed to coincide with each other, and how your supposed to respect the rights of all individuals to believe what they want without being rediculed for it. I never go on the offensive, I may sometimes go on the defensive, but when I believe in something, I try my best to get to the truth. If im wrong then im wrong and I admit it. If this person believes that god is speaking to him, and hes no threat to any human being, then what is your problem with him? Now if he starts to put down others, redicule people that dont share his beliefs (extremists atheists hint hint), then we should point this out and let everyone know about him or her. The neoatheist movement seems to want a world that only believes in atheism and if the person doesnt, they get put down and rediculed. Since when is being a mental or physical bully the right way to act with other people? I was the victim of bullies many times when I was a kid, and let me tell you its not a pleasant experience. Hitchens and his crazy followers are giving all atheists a bad name, and like it or not he and his followers (which are many)are delaring themselves your leaders.
pingpong that was another post of yours completely dedicated to anti-hitchens preaching, but GeorgeB did not say anything in favor of Hitchens nor Hitches is even remotely related with the topic of this thread. I think Hitchens has earned himself the doubtful honour to get his own thread, thanks to you, and a 2nd one would be unnecessary. Lets stick to the dilemmas the theists see and the "footprints" the believers see, related with the debate: "does god exists?" and "is the bible the word of god?". or if you think that this Hitchens guy is a footprint that god exists, let us know more about it ok?
I just ask simple questions and point out religious contradictions. As for Hitchens and crew being my leader, well, I suppose I'd have to be an atheist for that. Being an Agnostic for nearly all of my adult life and the founder/admin of agnosticforums.com, I can't say I fit your stereotype I'm afraid. I guess what I'm trying to say is, save your embarrassingly out of control Hitchens hatred for atheists and debunk my criticisms if you can. Slow down, you're confusing yourself. I merely pointed out that if a person claims to hear God's voice today we consider him a nutcase. And by we I don't mean just non-theists. Believers and non-believers alike would consider him just as crazy as someone who claims Santa Claus is real and they speak to him. I then tried to get you to take it a step further and imagine people calling themselves prophets and writing a bible today. Then trying to get us to believe it is the word of God. This has nothing to do with me "having an issue" with these people. I'm just pointing out absurdity. Care to debunk?
just spotted this post of yours. pingpong buddy, I thought we sorted that out already. However, THIS THREAD DOES NOT TREAT ANY RELIGION IN PARTICULAR. All dilemmas are valid to all 1000's of sorts of gods. so I really want to answer but I can't Please re-read our correspondence and if you have questions, start a new thread about israel/zionism/jews (feel free to address me and write about me), and I promise to spend long hours making long explanations there, zionism/israel/jews and their interrelations is not an easy subject. I just hope that the israel haters and various racists and verse quoters around will allow us to conduct a civilized discussion. Man. You are really obsessed with hitchens. I recommend you to swear to yourself: "I will never mention this guy's name again, because he is Zilch, nothing" . I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS GUY! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. wrong again. The MOST IMPORTANT difference between the "atheists" and "non-atheists" is: Atheists do not have a pope. there is no "atheist minister" in every congregation. No "atheist archebishop". No "atheist channel" on TV (well...except playboy). No "atheist churches". Atheism is not an institutional movement. Why is religion institutional whereas Atheism isn't? very simple. Atheists do not need this kind of control in order to think like one and maintain themselves as a single ideological group. Their unity originates INTERNALLY from each and every one: simply by worshiping logic, common sense, and intellectual honesty, instead of an invisible, imaginary god. On the other hand, as I bet you know perfectly well, non-atheists maintain they social structure by feeding one another EXTERNALLY, starting from father to son, and finishing with TV, church, social pressure, etc'. The center of the non-atheist world is "GOD". But "GOD" is undefined, meaningless entity. To translate it into some practice, they invented "holy books". But that isn't enough, as these books do not have a server from which regular updates can be downloaded. So, in order to translate it (=god) to practical everyday philosophies, practices, thoughts, and laws - human intervention is needed. This human intervention exerts also a degree of control, which varies between the specific religion under consideration (on average: tougher in Islam, less tough in christianity). If no centralized control is exerted EXTERNALLY on each and every believer forcing him to think in only one specific way ("the right path"), the group will self-dismantle. Naturally. As a result -----> Atheists will never accuse other atheists of "following the wrong path". Because the "right path" for atheists is straightfoward from their internal resources. They don't need reassurance or guidance, and they don't need to "debate" about it. Compare with religious people...if you need a starting point... go through the past threads of this forum..... (damn...my English is bad... If it were in Hebrew it would sound beautiful, but you get my point! which is in short: NO EMPEROR IN THIS CASE, BRO!) And another difference, not an important one, but very annoying one is: Non-atheists like to tell atheists that they wish they knew how miserable (and confused, see quote 1 above ) they are, and how happy they will become if they just believed in stuff that makes no sense and take part in bizarre rituals with them, simply because millions of others do. p.s. feel free to chat with me live in my (chaos)trivia website guys..... link , if i'm online, my nickname is mdubman.
pingpong123, your constant off-topic hatred towards Hitchens is getting a little more than annoying now. Please repent. add: chaos, in other words, religion is just like a multi-level marketing company. A+ preaching but mediocre products. hehe
Hey, cool forum man I think your users might be interested in my trivia website, and vice versa, both websites are for smart people. any ideas how we could cooperate?