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Seeing the dark


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I just felt a need to reveal it and give folks an opportunity to question me. You guys have known me for years. It seemed right.

That said, anyone not interested in discussing the topic is free to ignore it and me.

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  • 3 weeks later...

quote: I will not hold that book's words against you, but I will defend myself against that book's words. They have NOT stood the test of time. They are rather obviously a product of their time, offering no indication that they were written by anyone with a knowledge of science, history, geology, geography, meteorology or (most certainly) astronomy.

So you believe that "science, history, geology, geography, meteorology, and (most certainly) astronomy" are truth, or, at least, more credible than anything else?

Rev, 12:9 - ...called the devil and satan which deceiveth the whole world... (not just the "smart" people)

Take a number. You're just one person.

btw I live in Ferguson. Devil's been really busy here lately.

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No he hasn't. Just people, buddy.

But clearly your presence there hasn't inspired God to jump in and make anything better. You must be slacking.

Edited by Raf
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You know, I have to get this off my chest:

Having been on both sides of this, I can say confidently that there are few things that drive people away from Christianity as much as the approach taken by johniam and others who think they are so in tune with God that it absolves them of the responsibility to make an ounce of sense.

Edited by Raf
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One thing that about believers who "know" that their beliefs are true - and this includes believers of every stripe, not just Christians - is a pretty fuzzy definition of "to know"

From what I have seen, unexplained feelings, coincidences and things just going right are interpreted in light of the preferred belief system

Somebody prays and gets a warm feeling and they "know" it's Jesus

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quote: No he hasn't. Just people, buddy.

Prove it! See, you CAN'T. You have just as much faith as me. So does anyone who has had any impact on science, history, geology, geography, meteorology or (most certainly) astronomy.

So what has your holy presence done to stop crime in Miami? You got some juicy crime down there St. Louis never thought of.

quote: I will not hold that book's words against you,

See? You are not only are a person of faith, you are "morally superior". "I'm better than all you Christians because I don't hide behind a book that calls someone a fool". You have all the smelly characteristics of religion, but somehow you're better than they are. Good for you.

BTW, I'm not attacking Raf, just criticizing his approach.

Edited by johniam
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Hey Raf, I always enjoy reading your posts and still think a lot of you; I appreciate your thoughtfulness, how articulate you are, and how much you bring to Grease Spot. Thanks for sharing some of the details of your journey.

For what it’s worth I think I fall into # 2 on the scale you referenced:

“2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption he is there and has something to say to us. (aka, Your Average Theist)”

…that being said I’m giving it one more week and if I don’t get some more answers I’m switching to Scientology.

…my back up plan is to join the First Shrine of the Divine Sargent Phil Fish.

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quote: No he hasn't. Just people, buddy.

Prove it! See, you CAN'T. You have just as much faith as me. So does anyone who has had any impact on science, history, geology, geography, meteorology or (most certainly) astronomy.

So much falsehood in that one sentence. Prove it's not Loki or Pandora or the ghost of Patrick Swayze behind all that's taking place in Ferguson. You can't! You have faith!

Nonsense.

So what has your holy presence done to stop crime in Miami? You got some juicy crime down there St. Louis never thought of.

Pretty stupid point right there. Key difference: I no longer claim a connection to a supernatural omnipotent omnibenevolent force who can do something about Miami if I pray with faith. So one would expect the results one sees in Miami. In the same way, one would expect the results you're seeing in Ferguson if you were praying to an omnipotent, omnibenevolent supernatural force-- that did not exist. So my point is made on both fronts.

quote: I will not hold that book's words against you,

See? You are not only are a person of faith, you are "morally superior". "I'm better than all you Christians because I don't hide behind a book that calls someone a fool". You have all the smelly characteristics of religion, but somehow you're better than they are. Good for you.

BTW, I'm not attacking Raf, just criticizing his approach.

I have no problem with you critiquing me or my approach. Frankly, I just wish you were a little better at it.

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quote: Key difference: I no longer claim a connection to a supernatural omnipotent omnibenevolent force who can do something about Miami if I pray with faith

You don't CLAIM it, but you still do it. You accuse Christians of calling you a fool if you disagree with them, yet you aren't any more kind to those who disagree with you. You think you're morally superior to me, but you're just another dime a dozen arrogant blowhard who thinks your unbelieving position makes you superior to those who disagree with you. Really, you're no different than me.

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Oh, I am SO different from you, John. For one thing, I make an ounce of sense, unlike your last post.

But we are the same in one respect: we both now lead people away from the God of the Bible. Only difference is, I do it on purpose. ;)

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By the way, I do not accuse Christians of calling me a fool if I disagree with them. Johniam is lying there. Hopefully, decent people caught him lying about that. And I have had no problem with anyone who disagrees with me on issues. Let's discuss the issues. But if you want to make it about ME, then brace yourself, because I will call you out, as I am doing with Johniam.

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I try not to submit lengthy posts from my phone or tablet, because it's not as easy. I'm in front of a keyboard now.

So I want to address a few things johniam said.

So you believe that "science, history, geology, geography, meteorology, and (most certainly) astronomy" are truth, or, at least, more credible than anything else?

That's not what I said. What I said was that the Bible is rather obviously a product of its time, offering no indication that they were written by anyone with a knowledge of science, history, geology, geography, meteorology or (most certainly) astronomy. Period. So if I had a book in front of me that told me the moon is made of green cheese, I would conclude that the book was written by someone who had no understanding of what the moon is made of. It's that simple, and misrepresenting what I said to fit your own preconceived narrative of what I'm trying to say is fundamentally dishonest. Not in error, dishonest. As Bob Dole once said, "Stop lying about my record."

I would like to know what definition of "faith" johniam is working with. I ask this because there's a common definition, and there's the various definitions we all worked with and under in (and out) of TWI. So before I challenge what johniam says about me having "faith," I'd like to know what he means.

That said, the notion that it takes faith NOT to believe something is incorrect by definition, given that faith is believing. By definition, it takes the absence of faith NOT to believe something. If you believe the devil is behind what's happening in Ferguson, that takes faith (namely, faith that there is a devil who is capable of such results). I lack that faith. I believe it's people, and that belief is based on the evidence: people are behind every action we see coming from Ferguson. So it's not "faith" in the sense johniam appears to be using that word (again, I need his definition to be sure).

I don't believe I am morally superior to any of you. Nor do I believe I am more intelligent. I do believe I am morally superior to the Bible, and I believe most of you are as well. The fact that you don't go around stoning Sabbath breakers is enough evidence of that for me.

I do not accept the authority or moral superiority of the Bible. If you'd like to have that discussion, I'm game. But it is not a reflection on what I think of YOU. Quite the opposite. As I said, I believe you share the quality of being morally superior to the Bible. I know this offends, and that's unavoidable. It is my personal opinion about the Bible which I will gladly defend if asked.

I do not think I am morally superior to johniam or anyone else. I do think we are all morally superior to the writers of the Bible [by current standards]. We would never tolerate the barbarism of the Old Testament law, and as believers, we resorted to some pretty healthy mental gymnastics to explain that barbarism away. I reached the point where I could not do that anymore. I am not asking ANYONE to take that journey with me. But if you're going to go around making FALSE ACCUSATIONS about how I consider myself above you, then you are kind of forcing my hand.

Just saying.

Edited by Raf
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Hey Raf, I always enjoy reading your posts and still think a lot of you; I appreciate your thoughtfulness, how articulate you are, and how much you bring to Grease Spot. Thanks for sharing some of the details of your journey.

For what it’s worth I think I fall into # 2 on the scale you referenced:

“2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption he is there and has something to say to us. (aka, Your Average Theist)”

…that being said I’m giving it one more week and if I don’t get some more answers I’m switching to Scientology.

…my back up plan is to join the First Shrine of the Divine Sargent Phil Fish.

Appreciate those kind words, sir.

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quote:

Somebody prays and gets a warm feeling and they "know" it's Jesus

But you can't prove it's not Jesus. Neither can Raf. You're just as faith based as johnIAM.

Well no, because you can't prove a negative. And maybe it is Jesus behind all those warm feelings and prayers, although I doubt it and I see no treason to believe that it is. I'll not address the "faith based" comment because Raf, who actually gets paid to string words together coherently, did it quite adequately.
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I can't prove the warmth in the bosom felt by Mormons isn't what they claim it is.

I can't prove that when a bus turns the corner, it doesn't cease to exist as soon as it is out of my sight.

I can't disprove that Oakspear has an invisible dragon in his garage.

But the evidence is against all those prospects. The existence of a natural explanation overrides the insistence that there is a supernatural explanation, unless you have some further evidence that the natural explanation is insufficient.

If we define "faith" as accepting something even though the evidence for it is not sufficient, then it does NOT take faith to disbelieve in the supernatural when it comes to Ferguson. The natural explanations are sufficient.

If we define "faith" as a strict synonym for "believing," then it's irrelevant to say I have faith, because of course I do. Everyone does. But you have defined faith in such a way that it is meaningless as its own word, and you have also countered an assertion I never made. In other words, you're wasting your breath. And it wouldn't be the first time.

Wierwille (in the PFAL class) falsely defined atheism as "not believing" and surmised that no one could really be an atheist, because they believe they don't believe. Therefore they believe. It was a cute quip, but it started on a false premise. An atheist is not someone who doesn't believe. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God. Of course people can be atheist. Duh!

But when you start saying things like "atheists have faith, too," then you are playing word games, and it is incumbent upon you to define what you mean by the word "faith." Otherwise, the discussion is meaningless.

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Faith is believing in something you can't prove. You (or anybody else) can selectively reason all the way to Pluto and back. Then you can call it science or legitimate or anything else you want to call it. I don't make sense? So. You can't make sense out of God. Why should you make sense out of anything else?

I gotta recall something here that sort of relates. In Sept. of 1976 I went to a friend's house. He was at the time a jazz musician. He did not smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or do drugs, even though, being a jazz musician, he certainly hung with people who did all those things. He also did not believe in God. Neither did I at the time, so we got along. We were in his kitchen. He was going to drink tea and I was going to smoke a joint. Then the doorbell rang. It was a jesus freak. Now, even though my friend didn't believe in God, he wasn't afraid to talk to people about religion. So he lets this guy come in his house and sit on the sofa.

Pause that! I've gone door to door witnessing a lot. NOBODY ever let me come in their house and sit on the couch. I got some people who would lean out the door and talk to me, but NOBODY actually let me into their house. So, in retrospect, I'm guessing this jesus freak, who I would later learn was a WOW Ambassador, was sure that God was opening a door of utterance for him.

I was still in the kitchen thinking, "Why did he let this guy in his house?" I waited and waited and finally I lit up the joint and walked into the living room and sat down next to my friend. I did some theatre too, I looked at the guy like "What a weirdo!" The guy looked at me like he thought the devil himself had materialized in human form right in this guy's kitchen and walked into the room just to screw up his witness. He finally left.

Two weeks later (totally separate from the wow) I went to my first twig fellowship. Four months later I was a new student in pfal and went somewhere for the orientation meeting and GUESS who was there helping out? Yep. The WOW ambassador. He looked at me and did an OMG! I don't think he ever expected ME to be a new student in pfal. Maybe God was trying to show the wow that, NO, it wasn't the guy who let you into his house...it was the guy smoking the joint...THAT was the guy who wanted the word.

The jazz musician wasn't ever going to believe anything. Nice guy though. The last time I saw him was 20 years ago. He was doing OK. Still didn't believe in God.

I guess I'm just curious. Raf, when you took pfal, did you just hear about twi and go in deceitfully on purpose, or did you go out of natural curiosity and take it one fellowship at a time? Cause you sound like you have held your true beliefs since childhood.I'm not totally surprised, but I wondered about that after you posted that thread about faking SIT. Like I said, my friend the jazz musician didn't believe in God but he would bait people into conversing about religion just to be able to express his views contradicting it and he wasn't mean spirited about it either that I ever saw. You're right about one thing. Discussion about specific beliefs is probably meaningless. We both have our minds made up.

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Two quick points, with the right to comment further tomorrow when I'm at a keyboard:

If faith is believing in something you can't prove, then refusing to believe something you can't prove, by definition, is not faith. It takes faith to believe there is something spiritual at work in Ferguson. Natural explanations cover the situation quite adequately. If you assert something on faith, it takes "not faith" to deny it.

Does it take faith to deny Zeus, Thor and Odin? No. Nor does it take faith to deny Satan. He doesn't exist. It takes faith to say he does. I reject that, and it does not take faith to do so.

Second, there seems to be a defense mechanism built into some Christians that requires them to slander those who once embrace and later leave the faith as never having truly been believers. I guess it terrifies you to the core of your being to recognize that a true believer can truly evaluate what he truly believes and come to the realization that it's a bunch of ancient made up superstitious nonsense. Well, hate to burst your bubble, but that's what happened here. I truly believed, and anyone who implies the opposite, subtly or directly, is a despicable bald faced liar who should be ashamed of himself for bearing falsewitness against his neighbor. Period. If you want to believe that about me, you're entitled, and I can't stop you. But the moment you articulate that belief about me, you will have engaged me on a personal level, and I will respond to you on that level. I hope I've made myself exceedingly abundantly clear.

Edited by Raf
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