OMG - he’s on the bundee and coke again - will someone put a bung in it?
yaaaaawn 
:roll:
Yeah Patsy yawn he doesn’t seem to know when to quit does he poor soul☺
Thank you Gummy, Patsy and Doc (sounds a bit like the Three Stooges)
for your thought-provoking, Deep and Meaningful contributions to the discussion.
I’ve just read this thread from the beginning, love it!
I’ve never seen a ghost but I’ve heard one coming up the stairs, and felt its presence as it sat on the bed behind my back. I turned around to see who was there but there was no one…
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
Tssk … and you were doing so well until I got to the Three Stooges bit. :shock:
Jeeeeeez, I didn’t ‘do well’ for long … lol
Only just spotted this post. Good stuff. I like it.
Refreshing change to see someone disagree - but with humour !
Particularly someone of this gender. AND, a Pom, to boot !
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Any time - we do our best
Ahem! You are not allowed to boot our Morticia - she is a protected species, just ask Roswell !!:-D:-D
Ok time for a further contribution to this thread.
Firstly I will to some extent support Pumicestone’s stance here that one should remain rational at all times and question everything. Real evidence is important and without it we are at the mercy of those seeking to manipulate our feelings, emotions and weaknesses.
Every religion, every creed, every man-made system of behavioural control, is in some way founded on the basic principle that it requires a person to believe in something that can not be proved. It requires people to put aside rational thinking, open scrutiny and to not use the brain we were born with. In these situations it is not any given religion that is the enemy here, it is the concept of FAITH itself. Faith denies simple evidential assessment. It denies rational thought and free-minds. It operates on the basis of guilt and preys upon the weak who need a crutch to lean on, who need someone else to do their thinking for them. In this latter respect there is a place in society for religions, to serve the needs of the vulnerable, to give them something to hold onto and to bring them to a place of human fellowship. The sadness (for me) is that the price of that human fellowship and mutual caring is often exploitation by wicked people. There is also the price we all pay for those who allow their beliefs to go to extremism and fundamentalism.
Unfortunately we are all programmed from birth and that programming depends on which part of the planet you grew up in. Your parents, who themselves were programmed and conditioned, believed they were doing the right thing in programming you as well. This is an insidious cycle that has prevailed for hundreds of years.
Breaking through your childhood and societal programming is probably one of the hardest things you will ever do in your lifetime. It requires one to be utterly truthful with oneself about everything. About religion, God, humanity, the universe and your own very nature. As your programming is founded on guilt, it is often extremely difficult for people to freely break that programming.
Let me demonstrate this. If any of you out there are Christians, let me ask you. . . .
Can you contemplate the possibility that Jesus was just a man who had access to better medicine and knowledge than most people? Can you contemplate the possibility that he was not God ?
If you are unable to even consider such things then, imo, you are conditioned and currently unable to think freely. Your thoughts are likely guided by the programmed guilt responses. Things like “to deny Jesus or God means I will go to hell” and so forth. We are not thinking rationally.
If there did exist a God as portrayed by religions then he would understand totally our doubts and fears and it would not matter whether we believed or not. When the time came he would surely smile at us and invite us in.
Our minds must remain open at all times and we absolutely should question and challenge everything, absolutely everything. That must be done with rational thought, free thinking, guiltless investigation. Then and only then will you be free.
Yep - I already said about having an open mind
I’m rational too
I am not a Christian nor any other religion
Good post again Realist but a bit too religious for me…I do have a very open mind to many things spiritual though
Aside from religion … I look at it this way.
It wasn’t so many centuries back when an astronomer was also an astrologer. When the Royal Court position of Royal Mathematicus held by people like Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler involved mathematics, early sciences and astrological predictions on when best to start wars . … when an alchemist considered himself a chemist, or as we’d say today, a scientist.
Then the Sciences split away and claimed to know, by scientific observation, how to explain the mysteries of the Universe … and looked down on their poor relations, and called that Magic and Superstition.
Science has brought us many advances but has also left a lot unanswered because so much is unquantifiable and has yet to be explained.
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Absolutely right - they don’t know all the answers yet - still a lot more exploring to do - they discover new things every day and of course make mistakes - time will provide the answer - we are confined by our current knowledge
Excellent posts Realist and Morticia !
Every now and then, I realize why I came here.
Thank you, Realist, for once again raising the bar.
I particularly like this bit -
If the most gung-ho, fundie, ‘born again’ Christians had been
born in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Yemen etc,
raised by loving, committed Muslim parents,
educated in Islamic schools,
attended the local mosque from an early age and
had only Muslim friends and mentors …
I have no doubt they’d be out there right now yelling "Allahu Akbarrrrrrrrrrr"!
Brainwashing small children, to my mind. is a form of child abuse and this includes Sunday Schools which should be illegal.
Religious schools - likewise.
By all means, impartial lessons in comparative religion.
But not flogging any one “ism”.
Respected authority figures manipulating vulnerable young minds, preaching as “fact” that which is hotly disputed and only one of a legion of possibilities is … evil.
oh no realist and pummie - ya on the wrong thread again - try “atheists; agnostics and hobgoblins”
they will all agree with you - this thread as become circular - someone is looking up the backside of someone else, so I’m removing mine post haste!
Yet another Deep and Meaningful, thought-provoking contribution, Gummy.
I don’t know how you do it.
I am in awe of such insight.
Maybe we did come from another planet ,which we strive to return to, a place we retain in our genes as Heaven etc.there is evidence that there has been an educated civilization long before stone age man
Some years ago I read a book written by a Doctor, of experiences all round the world of ‘Near death experiences’ All had the same experiences ,regardless of religion /belief, of looking down on themselvesof going through a tunnel towards a very bright light , a feeling of peace there ,of a great presence at the end , of meeting dead relatives, then returning to their bodies with a feeling of sadness,that they didnt want to return.There has also been uncanny experiences of some people who can relate exactly to living as another person in previous life