I am all for Christian Groups and Atheist groups working together to oppose Islamic Theocracies. I am all for Christian Groups and Atheist Groups standing up against Israel’s persecution of Palestinians in Israel.
How about Christian groups and Atheist groups working together in this country on tolerance for LGBTQ and for woman’s reproductive rights?
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Start with the common ground first, and build from there. Take it as a win. You just found real common ground with @Ashwin_s.
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That is a totally rational response from a person who wrote this:
I would probably be an atheist too had I not seen what I’ve seen. It is not aberrant imagination. There is just a reality you have not seen yet @Patrick.
Exactly what have you seen?
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How do you know?
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I am going to come to my friend @swamidass aide here. Josh has sincerely held beliefs, a faith. It is part of him. It makes him what he is. Each of us has beliefs/fictions that drives our purpose and creates meaning in our lives. Given a purposeless and meaningless universe, each of us need and want to create our own purpose and meaning in our lives. Are human rights real? or are they an abstraction each of us try to define and use to create purpose and meaning for doing something. Everything I have seen from Josh is good, positive and helpful to other human beings. Do I need to know why he believes what he believes - no I don’t. I just look at his actions and that’s good enough for me to call him a good and decent man who sees suffering/harm and tries to minimize it.
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Several lines of consilient evidence, both private and public.
I have no idea how any of this is relevant to the questions posed to Josh. For the record I believe all the things you say are true. And do I really need to know why he believes what he does? Depends on what you mean by need. I will certainly be able to live without knowing it, and asking him to expand upon it as a means of personal attack.
Asking someone to rationally justify or otherwise explain the basis of their beliefs is not a personal attack or somehow to impugn their character. Particularly when he has claimed his beliefs are not an “aberrant imagination”. The act of stating that in a public discussion board seems to me almost designed to invite further scrutiny. Why else state it? I believe all the theists who post here sincerely do believe.
Though I can’t help but suspect the unwillingness to just explain what the evidence is right out the gate is because he somehow recognizes the evidence is weak, and that he doesn’t really know he’s been contacted by God. He’s probably just interpreted a number of occurrences in his life as having been somehow orchestrated or ordained to occur by divine will. Some people were bad to each other, then stopped and became friends. Or someone in a terrible physical or mental state became well, or someone survived a car crash. These are real-world events given an interpretation of religious significance.
I’d be very surprised to be proven wrong here. Religious people interpret real-world events through the glasses of their beliefs, and then believe the events themselves are evidence for their interpretations.
That’s rather vague I’m afraid. On the topic of what spurred your earlier statement you seem to be saying that you are convinced you have had some sort of contact with God (you “sought” him out and he responded in some way?). And in response to Patrick you imply this contact is not just “aberrant imagination”.
Asking how you know, you give the above sentence in clarification, which clarifies nothing. I’d like to know what those lines of evidence actually are, at least the “public” ones if you don’t want to reveal the private ones.
When I have asked similar questions of theists before their answers generally all take this form. “I was thinking/praying, then some event outside of my control occurred which I greatly approved/desired and then I interpreted this to be an Act Of God™!”.
Though some times these events are also unwanted, and so interpreted to be punishments or “no” answers. I know because I used to think like that myself. I now understand that some times you really do just get a tax refund because someone made a miscalculation, and the wind really does blow because hot air expands. And people who used to hate each other some times change their minds without God having to mess with their neurophysiology.
6 posts were split to a new topic: Communism and Kerala
This is true as everyone has a filter. I have known you along time and see you doing the same thing except with a materialist filter. I also see Patrick using his materialist filter.
Evidence that might support theism gets filtered without consideration.
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What evidence would that be?
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