"spirits"... human, the Holy Spirit, ghosts and demons: is there such thing as a spirit?

[Brothermario]

Weezer, you revealed yourself to be not worth responding to a long time ago.

 

As Spongebob once said to Plankton, "How can you not see it?"

[◊ Weezer ◊]

46 minutes ago, florduh said:

Does anybody else want to ring in the new year with one less brother? 

 

Is there any reason to keep him around?  I will say that I have seen a lot of "different" people in my 79 years, but he is definitely one of a kind!

[sdelsolray]

This one chases endorphins.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

I suspect he has to keep himself pumped up, and "on top" of everything, and everybody, to avoid the pain, and stay alive.

[Brothermario]

Hey, where’s Redneck and his ad hominem stickers he picked up at the dollar store? He’s missed the chance to use quite a few.
 

Oh well, maybe he’s busy making a big pot of roadkill soup.

[WalterP]

Brothermario,

 

It seems that we genuinely do not understand each other.

 

 

So to "just accept" my claims is not something I'm even understanding.

 

 

 

Here is what I cannot understand about you and the position you seem to take regarding my scepticism.

 

As an ordinary member of this forum (like you) I have no special rights or privileges over any other ordinary member.

 

Nor should I ask for any special treatment from any other ordinary member.  

 

Therefore, my scepticism applies to all other members equally, without exception.

 

So when another member makes a claim, I treat that claim sceptically, regardless of who they are.

 

It therefore logically follows that I must treat your claims on the same basis as anyone else's.

 

 

Do you see that I am therefore being consistent in my approach to your claims?

 

That I am treating you on the same basis that I treat all other members?

 

That there is no other agenda involved?

 

That I bear no ill will towards you?

 

That I'm not fucking with you?

 

 

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

Hey, where’s Redneck and his ad hominem stickers he picked up at the dollar store? He’s missed the chance to use quite a few.
 

Oh well, maybe he’s busy making a big pot of roadkill soup.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your Mod; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

[freshstart]

14 hours ago, Brothermario said:

Walter and Orbit, do you see the company you keep here?

 

Today’s skeptics are sometimes society’s misfits, and humanity’s dregs.

 

But the hardcore atheist is almost always just a self-absorbed idiot.

 

Time to fuck with them ...

 

Yes. I have a Philosophy degree, magna cum laude, which I achieved in three years by carrying as many as 28 credit hours in a single semester. And I have a Graduate degree in English, Professional Writing. And I counseled troubled teenagers for 12 years, while running my painting company, joemellopainting.com, established in 1983. And I have about 100 stories to tell about God revealing himself to me over a seven year period, from 23 to 30 years old. And I had about 50 beautiful girlfriends before I got married.

 

That should do it.

 

I've been watching this thread a bit and by golly I think I see an observable pattern here!  When someone posts a well-articulated statement that contradicts what brotherblowhole asserts, he starts hurling insults (rather than focusing on the topic) and then - ironically - tries to excuse his nasty attacks with his "impressive" resume. (Not sure why he felt it necessary to add that he got dumped by "about 50 beautiful girlfriends" before marrying - but if he's always been this pompous, that's not surprising). This coming from a guy who believes god revealed himself.  Looks like God revealed how to be a narcissistic asshole and a troll!  LOL 

[Brothermario]

Yeah, freshstart, that’s who I am and what’s happening here. You and everyone here are all so articulate and I am just a braggart and an insulting troll. How convenient for you, too. You can continue on your merry way ignoring any possibility that you and the people around you were the screw ups and not Christianity. And it’s still happening to you.

 

You deserve a great big ad hominem sticker from Redneck for this one.

 

But in this tiny pool of needy groupthink you’ll probably get a shiny badge.

 

Your need to feel better is why you wrote the above, and judge God according to some religious experiences you had.

 

But God really does exist and gives to us amazing things when we desire to be amazing. Your mundane dullness isn’t hidden.

[Brothermario]

Walter, “we” is not the problem.

 

I provided “you” with the ways God is found, and “you” snapped back to talking about “me”.

 

You’ll never become aware of God because you’re always looking outside yourself at other people.

 

The Kingdom of God isn’t outside you in a chat room, but inside you in a conversation with God.

 

The claims I am making aren’t for you, but me. You must make the journey yourself.

 

God isn’t hiding from you.

 

You’re hiding from him.

[TABA]

15 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

God isn’t hiding from you.

 

You’re hiding from him.

I’ll grant you that God revealed himself to you.  Do you think it’s possible that the Calvinists are right and that God chooses who we will save and not save?  And that you are one he chose and the rest of us here are not?   I was raised in a devout home, spent the first twenty years of my life at church, drifted away, was baptized at 29, spent the next 20 years active in the church, then finally “fell away” into agnostic atheism.  Maybe it’s not that I wasn’t looking for God, but that instead I simply wasn’t chosen by him to be saved.   I’m no Calvinist, but does it not seem possible to you that those of us who reject God were created by him without the ability to accept him?  

[WalterP]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

Walter, “we” is not the problem.

 

I provided “you” with the ways God is found, and “you” snapped back to talking about “me”.

 

You’ll never become aware of God because you’re always looking outside yourself at other people.

 

The Kingdom of God isn’t outside you in a chat room, but inside you in a conversation with God.

 

The claims I am making aren’t for you, but me. You must make the journey yourself.

 

God isn’t hiding from you.

 

You’re hiding from him.

 

Thank you for this Brothermario.

 

But it looks like there is still a great gulf of misunderstanding between us.

 

I simply cannot treat what you claim to be true as any different to the truth claims made by any one else.

 

My default setting is across-the-board scepticism towards everyone.

 

You included.

 

This is in no way any more of a slight, a snub or an insult to you than it is to anyone else.

 

Everyone receives the same treatment from me, regardless of who they are or what they claim to be true.

 

There are excellent grounds for my stance of across-the-board scepticism.

 

This is the way science operates.

 

No scientist, no matter famous or revered, is permitted to have their work accepted just for who they are.

 

The process of peer-review is done using the double-blind method.

 

The scientist submitting their work for review doesn't know the identity of the reviewers.

 

Nor do the reviewers know the identity of the scientists who's work they are reviewing.

 

The default setting here is one of scepticism to all, regardless of what they claim to have observed or tested.

 

They must produce objective and independently - verifiable data.

 

Data that is accessible to all.

 

 

So, do you now see how and why I am sceptical of your claims?

 

There is no viable way that I can directly access your personal experiences.

 

Everything you claim lies within the realm of the subjective, not the objective.

 

Therefore, until you can produce some objective evidence to support your claims I must remain sceptical of them.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alreadyGone]

17 minutes ago, TABA said:

.... Maybe it’s not that I wasn’t looking for God, but that instead I simply wasn’t chosen by him to be saved.   I’m no Calvinist, but does it not seem possible to you that those of us who reject God were created by him without the ability to accept him?  

 

 

Thank you TABA.

This is a question which needed asking.

 

In my discussion with ministers and other Christian believers as my faith left me, I was of the impression that this is the secret belief of many... that they are 'the elect', among those really, truly special of God, those whose inner religious voice is favored by God because they themselves are so especially devout.

 

I suspect this a natural aspect of human ego, common to us all.

 

 

My chance meeting and discussions with a young member of the PCA earlier this year, my first real exposure to Calvinism in practice, was an eye-opener.

 

[WalterP]

Perhaps this will help, Brothermario.

 

Last year the neurologist Cristof Koch wrote an article about Near Death Experiences in Scientific American.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain/

 

I agree 100%  with what Koch says about NDE's. 

 

I accept the reality of these intensely felt experiences.  They are as authentic as any other subjective feeling or perception.  As a scientist, however, I operate under the hypothesis that all our thoughts, memories, percepts and experiences are an ineluctable consequence of the natural causal powers of our brain rather than of any supernatural ones. 

That premise has served science and its hand-maiden, technology, extremely well over the past few centuries.

Unless there is extraordinary, compelling objective evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to abandon this assumption.

The challenge, then, is to explain NDEs within a natural framework.

 

 

I accept that you have experienced something which you believe to be god. 

 

But since that experience was personal and unique to you, I cannot share in what you experienced.

 

Furthermore, even if I did experience something which I believe to be god, how could I ever share that with you?

 

The subjectivity cuts both ways Brothermario, cutting us off from each other.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

[Brothermario]

Taba, if I thought religion, any religion, was where I should spend my whole life being with God, I would have taken my solemn vows and moved into the bedroom that was being prepared for me in the monastery of Mount St. Sepulchre on the Jerusalem Wall.

 

Try to ponder this simple thing:

 

It is a great human error to think that God is primarily concerned with religion.

[Brothermario]

Walter, no great auto mechanic simply read books on fixing cars.

 

You’re treating the greatest accomplishment of any human being—to share your life with God—as an exercise in reading.

 

Strapping human beings to machines to find God is particularly stupid.

[alreadyGone]

34 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

...Try to ponder this simple thing: ....

 

 

Why do you find it necessary to phrase your words in this way?

Even in the heat of such a discussion as this one..

And as you have stated that this discussion elicits no strong emotions in you, it should not be necessary.

 

When I see/hear someone use such phrasing I can only assume that you wish to convey contempt, and do so in the strongest possible terms.

 

TABA has not insulted you in any manner, explicit or implied.

He does not lack education.

He will not be labored or challenged to understand a concept such as

"religion <> God".

 

I am not the guardian of civility here, and I am woefully, shamefully lacking in qualification for such a position.

 

My point in this and previous posts is, if knowing God so much more closely than we reprobates does not create in those so anointed with spiritual enlightenment a greater spirit of forbearance and grace , then what possibility did the remainder of us ever have, by the demanding standards of such a harsh God?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WalterP]

25 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Walter, no great auto mechanic simply read books on fixing cars.

 

You’re treating the greatest accomplishment of any human being—to share your life with God—as an exercise in reading.

 

Strapping human beings to machines to find God is particularly stupid.

 

Brothermario,

 

 

Auto mechanics operate in the real, objective world, dealing with what is physically accessible to all.

 

They don't deal with divine mysteries and deeply personal, subjective experiences that nobody else can share in.

 

 

I am not treating sharing my life with god as an exercise in reading.

 

I am waiting for you to substantiate your exclusively subjective claims with some objective evidence.

 

 

By your own words, I can't be stupid either, because at no point in our dialogue have I even suggested strapping anyone to anything to find god.

 

The god-related claims in our dialogue have come from you, not me.

 

 

Walter.

 

 

[alreadyGone]

2 minutes ago, WalterP said:

 

Brothermario,

 

 

Auto mechanics operate in the real, objective world, dealing with what is physically accessible to all.

 

They don't deal with divine mysteries and deeply personal, subjective experiences that nobody else can share in. ....

 

 

 

Spend time around auto mechanics as they deal with modern automotive electronics and often you will hear them angrily declare that there is nothing real or objective about it.

 

The sort of personality often drawn to the purely mechanical aspect of automobiles will often decry electricity as the domain of demons.

 

 

[Brothermario]

alreadyGone, your sensibilities and judgement of my tone conveniently serve your needs.

 

What I was asking Tabs to ponder, human beings do not ponder, especially on this.net dedicated to bashing religion.

 

Go pet your cat if you need support.

[alreadyGone]

19 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

alreadyGone, your sensibilities and judgement of my tone conveniently serve your needs.

Is there another purpose in one's personal sensibilities and judgements?

 

When you are born into this world, you (hopefully) have adult humans present in your life to provide that which is needed for your survival and well-being.

 

In every human culture on earth however, birth begins a process of instilling into the child an understanding that his/her first and primary responsibility is to learn as effectively as possible to attend to one's own needs for survival.

 

And that training is centered on learning to apply sensibilities and judgement.

 

Was your genesis in this life any different?

[Brothermario]

Yes

[alreadyGone]

18 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

...What I was asking Tabs to ponder, human beings do not ponder, especially on this.net dedicated to bashing religion...

 

God did not endow me or any others here the ability or inclination by our nature to ponder? What then do you suppose was His purpose in creating the human race?

 

Were you gifted by God with a nature which enables you to see that which is not see-able by other humans?

 

17 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

.... especially on this.net dedicated to bashing religion.

 

If true that "religion <> God", then why do you care the purpose of this site or our discussion?

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

He was born fully able to walk and talk; and lotus flowers grew in every place he stepped his foot...  Wait, no, that was Siddhartha Gautama. 

[WalterP]

Here's a simple enough question for you, Brothermario.

 

 

 

Is your behaviour in this thread the result of god's transformative spirituality enriching and illuminating your life?

 

 

 

Walter.