[Radar]

Those are all things I discuss respectfully with believers, but nothing I'll be discussing with you if that's your attitude.

[Forge]

Radar, on 03 September 2022 - 08:42 AM, said:

Those are all things I discuss respectfully with believers, but nothing I'll be discussing with you if that's your attitude.

right.

It'd be a short discussion anyway.

I've questioned God's methods and his ultimate plan beyond what we've been told in the written word, but I haven't blasphemed or denied Him, so your self-righteous pedestal judgments are losing you crowns. It makes you come across as a know-it-all, and if anything, your mannerism is pushing people even farther away from the truth.

Most non-believers and doubters point out the design-flaw and don't understand why such a powerful and allegedly benevolent being would allow evil and suffering into the world. By design. Intentionally.
Humans were made to fail, then from a surface view He puts the blame of the human failure on the humans. It'd be like putting an ice cube outside in the summer heat and blaming it for melting.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Preach, brother.

[Radar]

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 09:05 AM, said:

I've questioned God's methods and his ultimate plan beyond what we've been told in the written word, but I haven't blasphemed or denied Him, so your self-righteous pedestal judgments are losing you crowns. It makes you come across as a know-it-all, and if anything, your mannerism is pushing people even farther away from the truth.

Just want to make it clear to you that you're not attracting anyone to Christianity more or less than I. You're getting upvotes and support from unbelievers simply because you are mocking the faith while purporting to be on the inside. Just want to make sure that's spelled out for you.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I'm not really an unbeliever in the sense of being an atheist. I never was. But especially not today. Forge's view strikes me as distinctly Gnostic, and although he might not go so far as to call the creator an evil demiurge, he at least has fucking eyes and a brain that can interpret "creation". That's the kind of person (Christian or otherwise) that I'd consider.... not insane, at least.

[Forge]

Radar, on 03 September 2022 - 12:19 PM, said:

you are mocking the faith

no. i'm not mocking the faith at all.

we have a guide book.
it was written by people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.
It was selectively curated by more people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.
It was interpreted and edited by even more people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.

It is a guide book. It it a very good guide book, but it isn't perfect, and it doesn't have all the answers. It has important answers and information, but a lot of the code is missing.
To pretend to have all the answers and be presumptuous enough to speak as if from a position of authoritative knowledge puts one in company of the pharisees and sadducees

[Radar]

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 04:13 PM, said:

no. i'm not mocking the faith at all.

we have a guide book.
it was written by people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.
It was selectively curated by more people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.
It was interpreted and edited by even more people that have the exact same flaws as you and I.

It is a guide book. It it a very good guide book, but it isn't perfect, and it doesn't have all the answers. It has important answers and information, but a lot of the code is missing.
To pretend to have all the answers and be presumptuous enough to speak as if from a position of authoritative knowledge puts one in company of the pharisees and sadducees

>denying the authority of scripture

That's where I step out of any religious discussion. I did the same thing with Jimmy in another thread, but at least he didn't include silly character attacks.


Side note: I'm quoting your entire posts from now on so that you stop editing them after I've already responded.

[Danukem]

It seems to me a very brittle faith that depends so utterly on the complete and unquestionable authority of a set of transcribed words. If, for some reason, any of the arguments pertaining to human error were to get some traction with you, then the faith would be shattered, no? Whereas it seems that Forge's faith is more resilient.

[Forge]

Thrice Cursed, on 03 September 2022 - 01:35 PM, said:

Forge's view strikes me as distinctly Gnostic

there is knowledge we don't have, but I don't think there is secret knowledge that we 'need'. At least not here, and not now.
We know enough with what we were given.
Be nice if we knew a lot more, but that's the quirkiness of a faith-based belief.
If you know, then the need for belief is removed.
God created Lucifer, and Lucifer denied God right to His face.
In some cases having faith is much more powerful than direct knowledge.
Your spouse/partner can tell you they love you, but if you don't believe it, then there is no relationship. (just a cuff example, not trying to write parables)

Radar, on 03 September 2022 - 04:30 PM, said:

>denying the authority of scripture

i never denied the authority, just the 'completeness' and 'perfection'. Divinely inspired as it is, it's still been subject to human pollution.

if it were so flawless, there wouldn't be thousands of different abrahamic based faiths with their thousands of interpretations. Not even including the ones that wrote their own special addendums so they could diddle kids and/or have 293 wives.

You can blame humans for that. I do.

[Radar]

Danukem, on 03 September 2022 - 04:47 PM, said:

It seems to me a very brittle faith that depends so utterly on the complete and unquestionable authority of a set of transcribed words. If, for some reason, any of the arguments pertaining to human error were to get some traction with you, then the faith would be shattered, no? Whereas it seems that Forge's faith is more resilient.

It depends on what you mean by "error". Typographical, transcriptional, or translational errors are certainly possible; I even believe they certainly exist. I would also agree that exact sentence structures and word placement are not necessarily authoritative. What is authoritative is the doctrine of the Bible, because the doctrine comes from God, not man. And on that note, it's important to recognize that there's no single authoritative piece of scripture that we get our bibles from. What exists instead, are dozens of ancient manuscripts and translations (Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Masoretic text, various NT codices, etc.), that when cross referenced with each other, are 99% identical. I personally believe this is God's intention, so that we don't idolize the text, but rather adhere to the doctrine of the Bible.

Edit: corrected "are" to "our".

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 06:01 PM, said:

there is knowledge we don't have, but I don't think there is secret knowledge that we 'need'. At least not here, and not now.
We know enough with what we were given.
Be nice if we knew a lot more, but that's the quirkiness of a faith-based belief.
If you know, then the need for belief is removed.
God created Lucifer, and Lucifer denied God right to His face.
In some cases having faith is a much more powerful than direct knowledge.
Your spouse/partner can tell you they love you, but if you don't believe it, then there is no relationship. (just a cuff example, not trying to write parables)

This paragraph is somewhat of a ramble so I'm not sure what your point is. I think you're trying to imply that my religion comes from self-proclaimed "knowledge", and not faith? If that's what you're saying then just wanna say you have no basis for that.

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 06:01 PM, said:

i never denied the authority, just the 'completeness' and 'perfection'. Divinely inspired as it is, it's still been subject to human pollution.

Sounds like you're very loose with words, and I don't want to have a semantic argument.

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 06:01 PM, said:

if it were so flawless, there wouldn't be thousands of different abrahamic based faiths with their thousands of interpretations. Not even including the ones that wrote their own special addendums so they could diddle kids and/or have 293 wives.

This doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. Other religions have their own texts.

[Forge]

Radar, on 03 September 2022 - 06:55 PM, said:

This paragraph is somewhat of a ramble so I'm not sure what your point is. I think you're trying to imply that my religion comes from self-proclaimed "knowledge", and not faith? If that's what you're saying then just wanna say you have no basis for that.

it wasn't that hard to interpret.
faith is powerful, and there are things that don't require a physical manifestation in order to know they exist.

Anyway, i was responding to the gnostic comment. Gnostics, among other things, think there is some secret knowledge you need in order to get into heaven. I don't subscribe to that. Not sure why you felt I was addressing you.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Forge, on 03 September 2022 - 06:01 PM, said:

Your spouse/partner can tell you they love you, but if you don't believe it, then there is no relationship. (just a cuff example, not trying to write parables)

I get your point, but that kind of thing gets reinforced or damaged all the time. People who live in damaging relationships "believe" in love. The rest still rely on evidence. Obviously I won't know for sure, I'm just making an educated guess in the final analysis. I guess you're saying your relationship with your god is like that? That it gets reinforced in your daily life somehow?

[Aristotle Gumball]

Radar, on 03 September 2022 - 06:55 PM, said:

What exists instead, are dozens of ancient manuscripts and translations (Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Masoretic text, various NT codices, etc.), that when cross referenced with each other, are 99% identical.

Lack of a physical resurrection of Christ in the earliest manuscripts would seem like a pretty big deal...

[Forge]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 12:27 AM, said:

I get your point, but that kind of thing gets reinforced or damaged all the time. People who live in damaging relationships "believe" in love. The rest still rely on evidence. Obviously I won't know for sure, I'm just making an educated guess in the final analysis. I guess you're saying your relationship with your god is like that? That it gets reinforced in your daily life somehow?

Humans are flawed by design. I don't have access to the operating manual, so I don't know why the machine was designed to run like this, but we have a backdoor trojan that allowed in sin and corruption.
Maybe we're being tested or trained for something outside the script we were given. Perhaps this is some kind of boot camp and God needs loyal soldiers for some weird war he's fighting. I don't know, but having a heaven full of mindless clockwork souls that bow at His feet eternally seems a bit shallow and short-sighted.
Anyway, being such a broken vessel myself, my relationship with God is as you describe - it gets damaged and repaired all the time. Love can still exist in a damaged relationship. God beats me down by leaving me in this cesspool, and I cheat on Him, but we still love each other.

I understand your need for proof and evidence. I can't give you any and I'm not going to try. You have to look for and find it yourself. If you try and can't find any, then I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Man, that's a completely valid and rational response. I didn't mean to put you on the spot and harass you about evidence. I was just genuinely curious and you satisfied that curiosity. I'm exactly in the same spot, as I wrote in another thread after my DMT trips. There are a lot of things I saw and felt, but much remains a mystery. I'm finally alright with that. We'll all find out eventually anyway.

[Radar]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 12:29 AM, said:

Lack of a physical resurrection of Christ in the earliest manuscripts would seem like a pretty big deal...

Good thing that's inaccurate. I think you may be referring to the hotly contested "longer ending of Mark"? Regardless, there are three other gospels that have no conflicts. There's absolutely no evidence that the early church was unaware of the resurrection. It's literally the basis of the faith.

[Aristotle Gumball]

"There's absolutely no evidence that the early church was unaware of the resurrection."

The church and some corrupted Romans concocted what you now know as Christianity, for the sake of population control. Adding stuff over time to make the story more attractive. Pimp My Religion essentially.

The rest is too annoying to argue with someone who is an actual true believer because you use logical fallacies, circular thinking and plain old delusions to justify your belief. It's in the genes even. There's a genetic component to religiosity and we actually know what those genes are. You have them in your body, Carlton. They make you think this shit.

Why are they there? Because of a random chance mutation that proved beneficial, by allowing its beholder to have divine inspiration for going forth and multiplying, ignoring in many cases danger and common sense. It worked out in enough cases that we still deal with people like this today.

Christians who do DMT and Ayahuasca (especially the latter, which also contains DMT) often have their faith shaken by the experience. They encounter things that seem completely believable to them, yet cannot be explained according to their religious doctrine. So they reject it, or fall into a deep depression.

I suppose for the sake of your mental health, since you really can't help your genes, it's best for you to ignore what I'm saying and go on with your life.

[Radar]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 09:32 AM, said:

"There's absolutely no evidence that the early church was unaware of the resurrection."

The church and some corrupted Romans concocted what you now know as Christianity, for the sake of population control. Adding stuff over time to make the story more attractive. Pimp My Religion essentially.

Sorry, but surviving writings of 2nd and 3rd century Christian theologians would disagree with you there. Church history is well documented. It's the research of non-believers that is often hilariously bad.

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 09:32 AM, said:

The rest is too annoying to argue with someone who is an actual true believer because you use logical fallacies, circular thinking and plain old delusions to justify your belief. It's in the genes even. There's a genetic component to religiosity and we actually know what those genes are. You have them in your body, Carlton. They make you think this shit.

Why are they there? Because of a random chance mutation that proved beneficial, by allowing its beholder to have divine inspiration for going forth and multiplying, ignoring in many cases danger and common sense. It worked out in enough cases that we still deal with people like this today.

Note that arguing from genetic superiority is just pathetic and certainly a logical fallacy.

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 09:32 AM, said:

Christians who do DMT and Ayahuasca (especially the latter, which also contains DMT) often have their faith shaken by the experience. They encounter things that seem completely believable to them, yet cannot be explained according to their religious doctrine. So they reject it, or fall into a deep depression.

Recommending drug use. Also pathetic.

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 09:32 AM, said:

I suppose for the sake of your mental health, since you really can't help your genes, it's best for you to ignore what I'm saying and go on with your life.

You have no reason to be concerned with my mental health.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Radar, on 04 September 2022 - 10:07 AM, said:

Note that arguing from genetic superiority is just pathetic and certainly a logical fallacy.

I pointed out here in this thread that I have my own questionable tendencies as much as anyone else. I'm just not so pompous and un-self aware. "Flamboyancy towards God". Dude, your god would think you're lame as hell. Jesus hung out with prostitutes. You live in a gated community.

Radar, on 04 September 2022 - 10:07 AM, said:

You have no reason to be concerned with my mental health.

It's not a concern. It's more like lamenting. Throwing my hands in the air and going "what can ya do". Nada. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Edit: Also.... YOU are the genetically superior specimen. Fuckheads who think God is on their side will take over the world as they have done in different periods of history. They have more kids. By comparison I am an anomaly. Multi ethnic weird guy that doesn't fit into anything. I have a high IQ and ability to work very hard, but I'm alienating for most people to be around. If I reproduce it certainly won't make a dent in the overall scheme of humanity.

I know I'm fucked, so I'm here just to do my own thing and be an occasional irritant that stirs things up. Much like your lord and savior.

[Radar]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 10:35 AM, said:

I pointed out here in this thread that I have my own questionable tendencies as much as anyone else. I'm just not so pompous and un-self aware. "Flamboyancy towards God". Dude, your god would think you're lame as hell. Jesus hung out with prostitutes. You live in a gated community.

Ironic, considering I also hang out on here. My friends are skeptics, drug users, trannies, and other misc degenerates. I just try to share the Good News wherever I can is all. Also, I'm never the one who initiates the theological discussion, though I admit I do carry it the farthest.

[Forge]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 09:32 AM, said:

The church and some corrupted Romans concocted what you now know as Christianity, for the sake of population control. Adding stuff over time to make the story more attractive. Pimp My Religion essentially.

the jewish religion already had christianity cooked into it.

the issue is that the pharisees and saddusces seen emanuel as a threat to their power and comfort level within roman society, so they tried to snuff Him, His followers, and His doctrine out of existence. Then the romans joined in on the fun since those pesky christians refused to worship the caesar as a god.
A lot of the original documentation was destroyed.
The churches became scattered, hidden, and insular. They ended up having to use whatever documentation they had on hand and couldn't really advertise their existence to get more, or share what they had. It wasn't until after 313 ad that it became safe to come out from under the rock and try to unify everything they had with the council of Nicaea. Of course the bigger, richer churches got the lion's portion of the say on what doctrine to keep and what to discard. It's the catholic way of doing things.

[Aristotle Gumball]

.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Radar, on 04 September 2022 - 10:53 AM, said:

Ironic, considering I also hang out on here. My friends are skeptics, drug users, trannies, and other misc degenerates.

Hahaha, my friends are TRANNIES and "other misc degenerates".

Yo my friends are niggers and faggots. I'd never invite them into my home but on an internet forum I can talk to them about the Good Word.

I mean, congrats dude. You're the perfect vessel to deliver the message of peace, love and acceptance.

[Radar]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 10:35 AM, said:

Edit: Also.... YOU are the genetically superior specimen. Fuckheads who think God is on their side will take over the world as they have done in different periods of history. They have more kids. By comparison I am an anomaly. Multi ethnic weird guy that doesn't fit into anything. I have a high IQ and ability to work very hard, but I'm alienating for most people to be around. If I reproduce it certainly won't make a dent in the overall scheme of humanity.

I know I'm fucked, so I'm here just to do my own thing and be an occasional irritant that stirs things up. Much like your lord and savior.

You know, if there is a genetic component relating to religiosity, you're probably not that far off considering your Jewish background.

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 11:07 AM, said:

Yeah, when I said the church and Romans I didn't necessarily mean at the same time.

For the record, Jesus was a top bloke. IDGAF about anything else in the Bible except the weird alien shit (wheel within a wheel, the Nephilim, etc).

And I'm not Catholic, so in that sense I probably have the same concerns you have with those "Romans" concocting a fake Christianity.

Also, I'm quoting the entirety of your post, just because I don't like it when people significantly edit their posts or just delete the whole thing outright.

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 11:12 AM, said:

Hahaha, my friends are TRANNIES and "other misc degenerates".

Yo my friends are niggers and faggots. I'd never invite them into my home but on an internet forum I can talk to them about the Good Word.

I mean, congrats dude. You're the perfect vessel to deliver the message of peace, love and acceptance.

I actually knew a tranny while I was in school, and a few others at a previous job. You know they're very rare to come across in occupational scenarios. They seem to solely exist in concentration on the Internet.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Radar, on 04 September 2022 - 11:45 AM, said:

You know, if there is a genetic component relating to religiosity, you're probably not that far off considering your Jewish background.

https://en.wikipedia.../Jewish_atheism

It is probably a spectrum. I mean, I have an inclination towards spirituality, but never just... sheer belief and dogmatism. It has to be rooted in something real that can be (even partly) verified or compared. I go back and forth on the DMT stuff a lot of the time too. And I seek these things from open mindedness and curiosity, not out of a desire to belong or submit to a higher being.

We're literally just meat while we're here, though. What I can't wrap my mind around, and DMT didn't help in that regard, is how much influence my soul has on anything. I kinda feel like it's a separate entity riding my meat vehicle for some unknown reason. Or it's imprisoned within it. I'm leaning towards the latter explanation lately. It contains all my thoughts and memories, also of previous incarnations, etc, so it is "me" in a sense, but while I exist here, I am governed by the laws of meat, and the environmental stressors upon it.

The nature of our souls might be something like this:



For some reason none of this stuff disturbs me anymore.

So yeah, we're probably similar levels of crazy in all honesty. I realize all this stuff seems esoteric and nonsensical to the average person.

[Danukem]

I have moved this thread into general discussion. It started as ugly bickering that had been split off and hidden from public view (that what not done by me btw), but there is no reason for it to remain that way imo.

[Radar]

My theory is that the soul exists outside of our dimensionality, and that the brain is the interface between the soul and our tangible world. Just my opinion though.

[Aristotle Gumball]

What struck me when I was trying to find scientific evidence for some of these things, was this video of one of the researchers at DOPS (at Uni of Virginia), giving a talk about reincarnation. Basically they find or are contacted by parents whose kid starts saying weird shit about a previous life, and try to verify the claims. I remember the trepidation/hesitation that the guy exhibited when answering some questions. As if he was himself concerned by the findings. I mean, they rely on donations, so you'd think the incentive would be there to just come up with some bullshit a la "everything is nice and dandy". Instead he seemed quite grim, relating stories of... amputees and suicide victims, being "reborn" with disfigurements signifying their previous life. A guy who blew his face off was reborn with a facial disfigurement. But it wasn't just people who did it to themselves, it was victims of genuine violent crimes, etc. Just marks on the body, sometimes debilitating. What's the fucking point of that? Most people forget their past life anyway, and then you just live with whatever shit you have to deal with, in a body that you have no conscious control over, because it's all about genes.

It doesn't make any sense to me. Like I'm no longer depressed or disturbed, because truly there is no control anyway (here or after), but I guess I'm curious to know.

To be honest you might not even get answers when you die. Some of these people, like an obscure actor from the 60s, was reborn and when the child was able to speak, he said "why did God kill me just to put me in the body of a child?". As if there was no intermediary place between death and rebirth.

As a somewhat technically minded person, I sometimes wonder also... (because the idea that this is punishment or a prison seems so silly. What would be the point? This game has been going for millions of years. Were the fucking dinosaurs being punished too?) if it's some kind of broken AI system that was left running with no one in charge really. Like whatever alien race created it all, long died or simply abandoned the project.

I think people should be ready for the idea that all this could be a giant mistake, or a joke, or anything as stupid and depressing as pure materialistic nihilism.

[Fox]

Thrice Cursed, on 04 September 2022 - 03:08 PM, said:

What's the fucking point of that?

People are weird.

What's the point of someone claiming to have been married to the Big Foot?

Reincarnated memories make no sense. The formation of memories is a complex process of the brain, which permanently rewires how your neurons operate. If a child had memories of war, why they don't have PTSD?

[Forge]

Fox, on 04 September 2022 - 05:47 PM, said:

If a child had memories of war, why they don't have PTSD?

possibly the same reason you don't get ptsd from watching a war movie