I did NOT skirt the issue, I gave you an answer, you just didn't like the one I gave you.

With that I think I'm done here, cause this is going nowhere.

You were "done" when you called Cerise insane...

Peter_Pan69

I answered your question quite reasonably, yet you have not commented on my answer. Is it that you just want to argue with Kleisto.

Is that what you want to do? Argue?

I don't argue...

You already answered the question, proving yourself a hypocrite when you called Cerise's post "insane ramblings".

"If we were created, then without a creator we would not exist"
Which of course would = POWERLESS.

I like how you said "if" there, it kinda leaves things open for denial. However, I have read your other posts and know that you strongly believe that we live in a holographic universe as a result of "conciousness" or something like that, I.E. God...

Actually, Kleisto said pretty much the same thing, but I was hoping for him to have an epiphany and appologise for his insult. Instead, he skirted the issue...

Now, if you want to argue about "insane ramblings", I suggest your look back over your own posts. Did you not admit that most people would call you insane for your beliefs?

No, you can't argue because you have no case.



My answer to your question has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion that certain Christians are insane.



That goes without saying. If you don't exist, you can't have any power. DUH!!



Denial of what? I'm not going to assume that we were created by a God when that can't be proven. God can't even be proven. The IF was simply naming the premise. You are right, you don't argue. You don't know how.



I don't strongly believe anything of the sort. I may have mentioned it as a possibility in another thread. But that is totally irrelevant to this particular discussion. Try to stay on topic and stop applying what you think you know about me or what I might believe to the conversation. It does not apply.



So what if I did? Are we slinging mud now? I am not going to get all insulted if someone calls me insane or nuts. I am confident enough about what I know. I just consider the source.

Like I said, I don't argue. I'll let you make my case for me...



"just let it go..."

Now that I know your method of communication, .... I will not engage you in discussion again. Case closed.

LoL!!!

I thought I didn't have a case...

"I'd ask you the same question.

I believe God needs us as much as we need Him. We complete the paradox, this whole universe would not exist as it is without us. So in that sense we need each other to make it all work. And I also believe we have a lot more power than we are told we have, far from powerless or worthless apart from God."

We did not exist. (Yet the universe was)
We did not exist. (Yet the earth was)
We did not exist. (Yet great beasts roamed the earth)

As it is now, yes, the universe is different because we are in it...

but it did exist (and we were not yet in it).

God needs us not.

He simply preferes that we be.

and we are.

Peter_Pan69

You don't have a case. I simply closed my case on you.

JeannieBean, are you starting trouble again? Sheesh.

Here's today's question: If there is no God, where does guilt come from?

Guilt come from religions like Christianity and societies in general.

Are you feelingly guilty about something?

I'm certainly not feeling guilty about anything.

Although I confess that I used to feel guilty because of idiots who were trying to make me feel guilty about things I should have never felt guilty about in the first place.

In fact, any modern day psychologist will tell you that feelings of "guilt" are nothing more than a feeling that you have not lived up to someone's expectations of you. (possibly even your own expectations of yourself)

You cannot have feelings of "guilt" without feelings of "expectations". After all, if there are no "expectations" placed on you then why would you feel guilty about anything?

In fact, it has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that feelings of guilt are indeed relative to who it is you believe you are attempting to please.

There is no such thing as a "absolute" feelings of guilt that everyone would agree too. In fact, in different cultures people feel guilty about different things depending on what they have been taught to feel guilty about.

So guilt comes from social expectations.

It clearly cannot possibly come from any supreme God, because if that were the case then all Cultures would feel guilty about precisely the same things, which clearly they don't.

So where do you think guilt comes from? A God?

Clearly you're wrong. That cannot possibly be true.

contrary to popular belief

people learn right from wrong, also known as wise from unwise

from many sources other than a Bible,,whether all those sources lead back to God is not a provable concept and would incite more endless debate in this thread,,,lol


Guilt means
1: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty; broadly : guilty conduct

2a : the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously b : feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy : self-reproach

3: a feeling of culpability for offenses



Guilt is something we feel regardless of our religious background or lack of. IT is simply TAKING responsibility(emotionally) which is something all sides seem to promote endlessly in support of their views. Where there are customs and expectations, there is culpability when we step outside of them or fall short. There is an emotional component that is attached to that culpability...called guilt.

Exactly, which is precisely why a God is not required for feelings of "guilt". Every society decides to feel "guilty" about different things. If feelings of "guilt" came from a single "God-source" then all humans would feel guilty about precisely the same things.

Thus to answer Freaky's question:


Well, clearly from what we know about 'guilt feelings' no single God can possibly be associated with those feelings since humans from different cultures and beliefs feel 'guilty' about different things.

So the pure secular psychological explanation of "guilt" is perfectly sufficient without any need to bring in a "god-concept" that clearly wouldn't work anyway.

So feelings of "guilt" clearly do not come from God. And that very assumption makes no sense. It does not stand up to rational investigation. It can be nothing more than a misguided notion to begin with.

I agree. I don't think you necessarily need God to cause guilt.

I see people in court on the news, they cry and say how sorry they are. That's guilt. If they were christian their Fruit (For those more ignorant than the rest of us the fruit is the works in their life) would show it. They would not have killed, raped, stole whatever.

They have guilt. It's in the brain.

I think once you know right from wrong, you have a harder time living with the sin in your life. HOWEVER If you do enough of it. Your conscience will die. The guilt will end.

Now if your spirit filled. The holy ghost I think will convict you of certain things. But that's not really guilt. Is it?

ShiningArmour writes:

"Now if your spirit filled. The holy ghost I think will convict you of certain things. But that's not really guilt. Is it?"

Wow, great point. This is why I write what I write. To see intriguing posts like this. No sarcasm here, I'm being really serious.

You made my day.

Thanks, again.

Shiki

Actually, it seems more like you pleaded "no contest" or invoked your 5th Amendment rights...

Happen to be reading a little philosopy and it just happens to fit in nicely here (I think anyway). What do you think?

Sǿren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard was quite feisty when it came to opinions. He wrote about what he believed to be the offence that has been perpetrated, by many millions of people for millennia “…under the guise of perfecting Christianity, sought little by little to cheat God out of Christianity, and have succeeded in making Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament” He would not agree with any of the religious fundamentalist thought of today. He came to existentialism naturally through his intense desire to behave in accordance with the will of God through his strong faith. Faith, for him, was an internalization of the external power of God; therefore, convention as well as the establishment of the church, depersonalized that which can only be experienced between the individual and the absolute, (God) . He was, perhaps, one the most devout Christians of any notoriety. I think his personal strength of character is one to admire, but his existential philosophy is short sighted and underdeveloped as are the religious philosophies of many people.


Not to be disrespectful of Kierkegaard, or anyone else, as there is much to admire in those who develop a values based on faith and devoutly hold to those values on a personal level. The reason I considered his (and some other’s) philosophy ‘short sighted and underdeveloped’, has to do with limitations. Kierkegaard believed that humans fear their own freedom and that faith was the way to alleviate those fears. Long before I had ever read Kierkegaard, I recognized that faith rests within the individual. Faith that seeks justification (substantiation through knowledge) is not devotional faith, which is what Kierkegaard supports. Furthermore, Kierkegaard had little regard for anyone, especially Christians who claimed to have some supporting justification of their faith, as in rituals, church hierarchy and EVEN the Bible. By definition, faith can no longer be faith if there is justification supporting the belief behind the faith. Rather it should be faith that is behind the belief. Those who claimed justification of their faith, Kierkegaard called the fundamentalists and the definition still holds today.

Now the problem: Fundamentalist thinking does not allow for any knowledge that is not supportive of the fundamentalist belief. This is obviously a severe limitation to the thought process and to advancement. What does it require to have an utter devotion to a faith? First, it takes a belief, in something metaphysical; that which must be believed on faith alone. So what happens when one develops a personal belief system with a steadfast devotional faith to that belief system? >>> How about fundamentalist thinking?

The Faults: So, I find the reasoning of Kierkegaard, and many religious people, to be circular in nature, and underdeveloped and short sighted. To get away from the fundamentalism that manifests objectively in society, they simply seeks to replace it with something less perceptible and instead of being object fundamentalism it becomes subject fundamentalism. At least object fundamentalism is in plain sight and the limitations it imposes on a persons thoughts are understood. (That happens here in these forums often as when the bible is offered as substantiation of absolute knowledge).

To make the fundamentalism subjective is not just a self imposed limitation, but it would also succeed in creating a greater gulf in understanding between people, cultures, and societies. What we need is greater understanding of each other and a greater ability to be open to new knowledge and flexible enough to the change, within ourselves, and therefore relationally to others.

Kierkegaard made the first batch of existential sour dough bread batter (we call it Amish bread in the U.S.). He gave it away, as we do all philosophy, and others took pieces of it, added their ingredients, and today some part of the original recipe goes on. There truly are some Christians and other devout religious persons who contend that what they believe are their own beliefs and others must find their own path – at the same time there are the subjective believers who stick to their beliefs as absolute for ALL and there are other fundamentalists who cannot believe without objective signs to support the reason for their devotion.

TRULY – if there were no bible – how many people would have faith in an absolute (god) without definition of what that absolute is? How many people would beliefs similar enough to want to create an OBJECTIVE reality – a church, synagogue, any place of worship, with books and hymnals and creeds – all to serve as justification for their one true and valid devotional faith?

Wherein lay the greatest value – in the objective words of a book or the individual personal faith that causes individual devotion to what one values? What devotion is more significant, devotion of self to self-sacrifice or devotion whose objective is to form an Earthly alliance rather than to concentrate on the relationship between the devoted and the absolute of their devotion?

I just came from a thread where a fundamental Christian zealot was basically renouncing everything that we have ample independent evidence to support. Like fairly recent modern day historical events and the results of scientific observation such as the world is truly a globe, etc.

He expects that we should toss all of that out as being nothing more than "faith-based" guesses, and instead we should embrace the Bible as the absolute truth. A book that tells stories and events that have virtually no independent evidence at all, especially when it comes to their supernatural claims.

I have personally come to the conclusion that Fundamentalist Thinking, requires a person to totally refute anything that is rational or logical, and instead just jump to the most absurd conclusions possible and claim that they must be the absolute truth.

Probably because they are based on the least evidence of all.

It's scary to think that such irrational people are actually walking among us to be quite honest about it. It makes a person believe in miracles, because it is indeed a miracle that these people aren't hurting themselves or others with their extremely irrational way of thinking.

Ditto about extremists in the anti-Christ area.