AJ113

Samhain:
Seven-headed dragons and unicorns. Fallacial loaded question or no?

Samhain

Once again, I have reason to believe that I have been systematically ignored.

Samhain

It seems a fairly simple question to me. Any question can be "loaded" depending on the answer. There are correct ways to answer this question, at least one that is "correct" by my way of thinking, regardless if you think it is a loaded question or not.

So, the question still stands as I see it. Do you believe in seven-headed dragons and unicorns?

Gemma Therese

Darwin,

Thank you for your response.

You make a very good point. There was a movie that came out a few years ago called "Household Saints", which followed three generations of Italian women living in New York. Teresa, the granddaughter, has a vision of Christ one day while ironing shirts at her boyfriend's apartment. She is diagnosed as suffering from an accute psychotic episode and placed in a mental hospital, where she dies shortly thereafter.

The film never really answers the question : did she truly see Christ or not? There is a mystical element to it, which prevents the viewer from making up their mind too soon. The argument could also be make that she "hallucinated in the direction she wanted."

Logically speaking, one could make the argument that these men and women (Christian mystics) did not actually have visions, rather, they thought they had, or believed that they had. I can see easily how one could come to this conclusion.
However, at least for me, there is another angle to it, a spiritual angle which simply cannot be explained logically.

I have read "Siddhardtha" by Hesse, and I am fascinated by Buddhism. (As a sidenote, I think Western medicine can learn a lot from Buddhism from just a "biofeedback" standpoint). I have dabbled in anthropology (just a little reading; I'm no authority), and know that societies in every part of the world have universal similarities. For example, sustaining the young in an effort to keep the society "alive" is one trait shared by virtually all human populations.

I am very interesred in the customs, religion, and spirituality of the natives of the Amazon (especially the Yanomami). They take hallucinigens to induce "visions". Such intense religious experience is in common with Christian mystics, "whirling dervishes", Buddhist monks, Native Americans, and so one. Human beings have a craving for the supernatural, something outside themselves. Whether this is biologically or divinely motivated is subject to deabte. In an over-simplistic analogy, all humans have a craving for food, but this craving is "tamed" by different menus.

Thanks, Darwin, for your thought-provoking questions. I hope I have provided sound answers. Just tell me if you need me to elaborate.

Gemma Therese

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Gemma Therese ]</p>

AJ113

himynameisPwn:
Nope, the entire argument of the thread, if you are going by the opening post, is that something exists or does not exist regardless of how you feel.

himynameisPwn:
No tangible evidence for what? Do you disagree with the assertion that the existence of something is not dependent upon how one feels?

Gemma Therese

Typhon

As an atheist, I hold no positive belief in any god or gods.

Regarding the Christian god of Roman Catholicism, I am absolutely certain that such a being does not exist.

However, to answer your question:

If such a baleful force DID exist in the universe, I still would not worship it.

The god of the Bible is an evil despot whose crimes and petty nature make the pantheons of the Greeks and the Romans pale by comparison IMO.

Yahweh is brutal, small minded hill-god, a bully and a cheat. The softening of his message of tyranny by the later Gospels does little to weed this deplorable streak of cruelty and nastiness from the religion as a whole. This can be confirmed by the actual practice of his followers. Roman Catholicism in particular, has a heavy burden of historical and ongoing crimes to bear. Not that Martin Luther was any better, a violent, crazed monk who helped to drench Western Europe in unending bloodshed for hundreds of years.

I suppose the RCC is an appropriate organization for one dedicated to such an imaginary thug. Despite occasional high points and the unavoidable debt of much of Western Civilization, for good and for bad, the RCC has been a singularly evil institution IMO, full of small mindedness, fear, hate, intolerance, sanctified murder and bloodshed, grasping lust for power and secular control, and all in all, a pernicious and mettlesome entity. It has in its time, been a creator of beauty and a beacon to many wonderful people. Alas however, none of this can erase the negative side of its long and carmine shadow.

While such a faith may be well suited to a god whose nostrils have long been thick with the sweet smell of pain, death, and the burnt offerings of heretics, the unfaithful, and the foes of the blood-soaked chosen, it is not one whose ranks I would wish to enter.

.T.

Gemma Therese

Typhon,

After reading your "flattering" discription of God and the Catholic Church, I am sure we'd be relieved if you did not join.

Finally, we agree on something, albeit for different reasons.

Liquidrage

Well said Typhon.

"flattering" discription of God

Well Gemma, it's hard to argue about a god that choose to drown the world(children,animals et all) to cure it's wickedness. Or the one that choose to kill the firstborn children of every Egyptian. Or the one that demanded animal sacrifice until such time as he sent himself to die just so he could forgive others more easily.

There are many evils commited by God in the Bible. Far too many for me to care to list.

Of course a common response is that many Xians call the parts of the Bible they don't agree with "fable" or "parable". It allows them to keep their hope without conflicting beliefs.

AJ113

Typhon:
As a theist, I hold a positive belief in god.

Regarding the Christian god of Roman Catholicism, I am absolutely certain that such a being does exist.


Typhon:
The human race, historically, has a whole lot more to answer for than the Catholic Church. That puts us in a bit of predicament if we want to opt out, doesn't it?

Your heart appears to be harder than the god whom you accuse.

Typhon:
I thought that you did not believe in God?

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: AJ113 ]</p>