I did NOT know that . . .

Sooooooo, any sources?

I think these two posts about sum up this thread. What is a true Christian, someone who puts effort into understand the Bible and believes Jesus is your savior and all that.

I hear it quite often that those of faith who put in the effort often see those that dont as too casual, or not "true".

I think it begs the question however what gods expects out of you, and this ultimate is what makes up a given denomination, what the leaders of that group think god expects of you.

To me that is very interesting and worthy of discussion.

I am an atheist who has read the bible about a half dozen times, and then probably more if you add up all the various references.

My motivation for reading it the first time was pure, and innocent without any preconceived notions going in (or at least as few as you can have at 12 and having been raised as a causal Baptist (Churchian)

The other times it was really just to get used to the language to help prepare for theater roles, and then MUCH later I read it a time or two when trying to understand my own place in spirituality, and a couple of times after having decided I am an agnostic atheist and just wanting to understand some verses being used to support others beliefs.

So many different motivations . . . so little time!

Not very clear what your point, nor your position is here.

Lets make this clear, becuase often times its in the best interest of politicians to make this as muddy as possible and I think the whole topic gets muddied by what we see as standard operating procedures when it comes to this topic.

Are you for banning abortions?
Are you for restricting the conditions under which a person can express the reproductive right of abortion? If so how?
Are you for defining when a fetus has its own rights? If so when?

I have, and laws exist to punish that kind of behavior already and to try to protect the children.

What is important to ask is if reproductive rights should be Rights, or privileges and if you think the latter then you have to ask yourself what is wrong with what China does?

Reproductive privileges: a very slippery slope.

Personally I see myself as an agnostic atheist.

Which means I do not hold a belief in god, I also do not hold a positive belief that god does not exist.

Basically no evidence exists which requires a god, I only believe in things which has positive evidence, therefor I do not believe in god.

Most of the time when I get into discussions it all comes down to what a person wants to call god.

I have very little to complain about for pantheists, it comes down to definitions, and we just dont agree on word usage, all other facets of reality we agree on. I think science often gets put into this category of you cant figure out this truth with science, but I disagree if the thing in question is a god interacting with the universe.

The Deist god is truly agnostic in terms of non-interaction. If it exists it no longer interacts and thus cannot be seen to exist but might exist.

Theist gods however are supposed to be involved in the universe, they set examples, and have desires and wants. They might provide you with free will but they want you to do things their way and interact at times in order make a positive or negative example.

Its my belief that a Theists god can be scrutinized with science, at least we should be able to see the affect this god has on the normal natural workings of the universe. Like the ripples on a pond vs the object that created the ripples. My problem with these kinds of gods is that if we find that the mechanisms for the reality respond universally the same as they would without a god being involved then we are left with no god, a trickster Theist god, a Deist god, or Pantheist god with no way to sort out which.

If the trickster Theist god likes to change things and then make it seem natural he could and you would only find the evidence he wanted you to find to hide his connection to reality.

I really dont know if thinking about this from this broad categorical level helps or not, but I sure find it interesting!

I used to think about belief as only a discrete value.

On, or off.

However the more I dig into fuzzy logic, the more I believe that beliefs are mostly based on fuzzy logic.

Sure some are on/off, but it seems all the hard questions that tend to make people think . . . "well heck I am not sure what I believe", are on for certain reasons, and off for other reasons and the totality is somewhere in the middle.

Very insightful, and really quite refreshing to see a person of faith use such as a reason to ask questions.

Most people do not intellectualize the reasons they believe things. Its all feelings, and "personal truth" whatever that means.

I have more respect for a religious person who can answer my questions, and who has shown an ability to be honest with regard to those questions and the various answers than the ones who get upset at the questions being asked in the first place.

If their belief comes back to a given source such as the bible with a given interpretation, or comes back to faith, well thats just fine, it took quite a journey for that person to back track that belief and ground it in something.

Its that effort that I applaud, its the lack of effort that I cajole.

I think placing burdens on the process, or setting up restrictions is just a way of subverting the rights/morals of the person in favor of you or the legislatures rights/morals who would come up with those specifics.

I think when we start trying to make something like abortions harder to get what we are really doing is saying human beings cannot be trusted with reproductive rights.

Its one of those aspects of philosophy that makes my head spin!

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/

Sure we do, matter has mass, mass warps space time to form the black holes, we know matter is in the center of black holes.

All radiation is either light of various wavelengths or particle decay from the weak force.

Most wavelengths of light cannot be seen with the human eye, the cells in our eyes are just not sensitive to most frequencies.

I work in radiology!

Light is awesome, it pays my bills.


Light is the energetic interaction between electric and magnetic fields.

If it were it would have vast ramifications which are just not seen . . . ie its not.

Removing access to abortions is bad for society. Statistics prove this point over and over again.

Never has existed a society without accidental births. No amount of ideology seems to change a persons behaviors when it comes to the very strong impulse to reproduce. I dont really blame a person for this either, evolution has made it impossible for many of us to abstain in the face of rational reasons to do so. Mileage may vary as does genetics.

It is soooooo amazing to me that this thread is entitled, "fake Christians".

Where an idealized image of a "real Christian" is placed against the backdrop of these so called fake Christians, but then an atheist comes in and questions all of the various faith based beliefs and the grounding for those beliefs and is seen as insulting, and accusatory.

That to me is precious irony.

I know most believers get mad when I use the term "magic thinking", I wonder if that makes them more or less mad then being called fake?

The health and well being of a society depends in large part on mothers being able to freely decide the right time to get pregnant.

This fundamental fact cannot be understated, and no appeal to emotion can override how detrimental to society taking away that right truly is.

OHHHH I keep asking, I do not often get replies, but I keep on a asking.

Not really, the difference between those extremes lives in the head of the person reading the question. . . so a difference of what 4-5 inches? lol

What insults you may not insult me, what insults me may not insult Ruhollah Khomeini. I can guarantee what I lack in belief would insult most of the religious, just on the fact that most religions teach them as early as possible to be insulted.

Many beliefs on science I find sad, not directly insulting, but some can reach that level, it takes some pretty epic magical beliefs to reach that level. What I might find insulting is walking someone through why some bit of science is true, having them understand each and every step to the conclusions, then have magic thinking override a perfectly demonstrable fact.

Yup, and it takes YEARS to build this structure of self image. Many times the actual effort involved is enormous, and often that is why even in the face of evidence to the contrary a belief will be held, its too much work to rebuild a self image from scratch.

I would settle for not adding motivations I have not myself made clear or you can ask, and I will honesty reply.

Doesn't matter as long as its one that would normally make you mad coming from me.


Why you believe X.

I am sure you can find examples were you think I am bashing someone's belief and then just use that . . .

The REAL reason people get angry at having their beliefs questioned is becuase they have built up a personal image based on those beliefs.

Human memory is based in large part on idealizations not the actual detailed data. We reassemble memories based on small amounts of data as it meets generic idealization of the core concepts of the memory. Not much memory is of the memorized form, most is conceptual re-assemblies.

We form conceptual, visual, and sensory impressions of what it means to be something, and we take that idealized self and hold it up as what it means to be this, or that ect. It FEELS real!

The wonderful thing about holding only objective truths (or at least for the important questions) is that any questions can be refereed back to the object itself.

However when the belief is based on faith then the only reference is the idealized image of self itself, it becomes personal.

You seem mad. (I think its all the bolded words that make you seen angry, if you are not then ignore the last question)

What interests me is that my opinion is seen as bashing, but yours is not?

What is the difference?

Is a relational statement which can be assessed for accuracy.

Right and wrong is no different unless you relate it to something not tangible, or to a subjective state, or if the form of the question is nonsensical.


Quick hypothetical question.
- A 6 year old child asks you the same exact question I ask you. Would that make you more or less angry? Why?

Interesting compilation here at wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations


Is this representative?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_churches

Seems reformed Churches is still pretty broad, any more specifics?