Were you once a Christian?

GET a grip Frank - you got ripped for this "Blind Faith" thing before, on the Faith discussion for your tone or lack thereof, my comment was directed at Lola - butt out "it didn't hey Frank" You want to be a thorn in a side or something? Lola was talking about reason and I gave "My" reason and well oops - faith popped right in there. Or maybe it's you just want to be hostile and stifle folks??? Let's hope not!
How tall are you? Napoleon-syndrome

ps - I have posted on the Faith discussion but decided to stop due to your manner over there. Thanks for your input here!

Before the invention of certain scientific equipment our very life experience would be based on "blind faith"
How long did folks this the world was flat?
Just give it some time.....

I wonder if that is over simplified...........

COMMENT:

I think my manner and conduct in A2K has been exemplary -- so I'm not sure what you have found wrong with it. Instead of running away -- why not simply discuss what you think is wrong with my take on things and we can discuss it. That is the purpose of these forums.

I have not been discourteous in any way that I know of.

I have never "gotten ripped" on my "blind faith" thing -- in fact, I now have people agreeing with my take on the matter in the other thread -- and quite honestly, nobody there is giving substantial counterarguments to what I proposed.

What on earth does how tall I am have to do with anything? What is that all about?

Why to suppose I have to "butt out" simply because your remarks were not directed specifically to me? Do you not understand how these forums work?

Why are you giving suggestions about how to properly conduct one's self in a discussion of this sort -- in a posting filled with very questionable conduct?

I respect your right to think and say what you will, Husker -- but the questions I asked here are appropriate. And the remarks I've posted in this thread are appropriate also.

Without getting too far off topic, I hope you address my questions.

issue
Frank, for what it's worth, I agree with you on every point you've made in your response to Husker. Husker, you are the one who is showing aggressive behavior. Frank has bent over backwards to couch his legitimate question in non-abusive terms. How frustrated he must be in the face of your persistent charges.

With a finite operation, theorems of arithmetic appear to have good models in experiences.
However modern arithmetic and modern math deal with infinite operations as basic procedures. The generation of the "real numbers" is an infinite operation, the "complex numbers", as a corollary, are product of infinite operation. You know without those concepts almost any of theories of mathematical science loses its main concepts.

blind faith
Husker, I made a comment about your statement that before science we were also dependent on blind faith, but I misplaced it; it's on the "faith" thread. I'm sorry that I misconstrued your "before the invention of certain scientific instruments" to mean "when we were primitive". Nevertheless, I enjoyed conjuring the comment.

Science is a modern myth, as it were.

myth
S_F. Yes, what a provocative--and evocative--statement. In terms of large cultural themes of societies, it sure is the dominant one of modern times, just as religion was that of the middle ages. By the way, would you agree that Modernity has been another dominant theme or Myth of the twentieth century?

Re: myth


I do not think modernity was a myth itself, but was a natural course of events based on a myth and reality of the epoch, the products/consequences of which must be evaluated later in history.

JLNobody

I want to acknowledge and thank you for your posts -- and for your kind comments.

I sometimes tend to focus on people with whom I disagree.

A bad habit.

Keep fighting the good fight.

modernith
S_F, you may be right--our definitions of myth may be very different, but given mine, it seems to me that all my life I've heard (and said) My, arn't we modern, the result of enlightened progress and the cause of future gains.

oh my
Frank, I'm only calling it as I see it. I hope not to offend Husker. If you read this Husker, know that your participation has been intelligent and interesting, and it would be a loss for us if you were to avoid threads in which Frank and I participate. That's for sure.

Let's think about the reason for having faith, a religious faith vs. on of the other venues of faith that been discussed, something I've seemed to notice about people of faith and the ones who lost it or never had it, it's more possible that there was some divine in intervention or revelation by God in one's life. In most discussions we've had there has been considerable jousting of a one being able or not able to prove it sort of mentality. God might show me something of Himself or for that matter it's very possible many other people who have come to some sort of religious faith had God revealed to them, then it is possible to have "faith", then we can believe. Unless God chooses to reveal or show Himself to us nothing we can do or think will qualify as real faith. Unless we see Him it is impossible to believe in Him. Saving faith, genuine faith, the kind of faith that saves us is the faith which results from God's revealing Himself. Same goes for seeing God revealed in scripture, as explained that faith is not of ourselves but a gift from God Eph 2:8. I suspect this is going to leave me open for a great deal of grief. Faith occurs when the human heart responds to God in a positive way. As I've said my Faith is trust. My trust is confident belief. When I believe in Jesus Christ, I'm saying that I have placed my eternal hope and trust in the work and life of Jesus and what he did on the cross. It is not my good works, ability, or merit, I simply trust Jesus and have faith in Jesus. In short God has been revealed to me, so in my understanding there is nothing blind in my faith. Now Frank might just pop in and tell me I'm posting in the wrong discussion, I did start this discussion and thought it appropriate to post something about faith when others are in discussion directly about having lack-of-faith or the opposite.

JL what if some are called to be enlightened by a higher power?

faith
Husker, I take note of the nature of faith for you and in you. And I respect it. But I'm a million miles a away, meaning that we cannot even begin to debate, unless I descend to a fundamentalist atheism which I find just as objectional or, better said, alien to my perspective. My brother is a fundamentalist baptist--was a minister for years, trained a Bob Jones. He used to send me "love letters" from Indiana, trying to save my soul. I took a position against his that was really no more sophisticated than his. And with time we grew a part, with his trying to save my soul and my tring to save his mind. But recently we've gotten back together again. He and I decided never to talk about religion again. And we're doing fine. I try to keep that experience as a model for my relations with my Christian neighbors. If I ever achieve enlightenment, I think it will be as a result of my way of living.

"his trying to save my soul and my tring to save his mind"
exactly

Husker, I haven't seen anyone here take objection to a person's individual faith unless it infringes on what we think are our rights. I understand the religious stance usually. I understand why many think abortion is wrong. But I very adamantly disagree.

I think the non-religious (certainly this would be true of me) have had spiritual experiences -- revelations among them. However, I know these to be spiritual experiences and that I live in a society which is rationally based -- that is to say, dependent on the provable and evident. We wouldn't accept an intervention in a court proceeding in which the judge announced that he'd had a revelation and that the accused was innocent and the trial over. In my own personal life, if someone told me he'd had a revelation that I was going to win the next lottery, I might buy a ticket but I'd take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Revelations aren't powerful and sometimes borne out in experience and we're free to follow them ourselves, but we should never be used to impose behaviors or attitudes or beliefs on others.

We also know that we have "accepted" religions (it's okay to say you're close to Jesus) and "unacceptable" ones (sacrificing live animals, etc.) and we think we know which is "truer" and "better." But these choices are based on the contemporary social needs and assumptions. We look goggle-eyed at what happened in Salem or the Inquisition or pre-Columbian Mexico... Just as those practices have passed into history, there's every reason to believe that Christianity and other major religions won't exist for all that much longer and for the same reasons -- they will be deemed by that future society to be based on superstition in much the same way. We are in a transitional period now, a period in which many think these religions are based on superstition. I believe quite strongly that's why there's such a struggle in the US between the two cultures -- the Christian culture senses its ultimate fate and is fighting to survive.

i am guessing here but its my experiece growing up in a muslim country and coming back to the US as a teen (born in the US) i experienced what is a religion dominate culture in the middle east only to find a religion dominate culture in the US with the difference being that in the middle east it was a known condition and in the US it remains a denied condition, there was no freedom of religion there and there is no freedom of religion here, there is only the facade of freedom in the US. as an atheist one is constantly bombarded with "chrisitanity" i assume that would be true for others as well that have other than christianity in their lives. we learn how to politely ignore it but it gets tiresome.

I'll say, Dys! However, I lived in a small village in a Catholic country for many years and found myself drawn into celebrating the same holidays, enjoying the priest's offer to bless the house or bless the new donkey and in return contributing what I could to his "poor fund." The old story. But there was no pressure to conform. The US is quite different -- much less free in many way (personal freedom, I mean). We also have (now) much more sophisticated methods of blanketing people with opinion (through the media) than my village did (then). We are much more urgent in our need for others to be like us -- to conform -- and to LIKE us -- to have enjoyed the same Seinfeld episode -- to celebrate Christmas (I don't) -- to ask for god's blessing (nuh-uh)... We are (contrary to the way we think of ourselves) much less independent and free than in any other country I've lived in (UK, NE, FR, IT, ES). (Uh-oh, apostasy...!)