Super Effective Argument Regarding Morality

[Keep The Reason]

Jim and KTR,
Simply put, I don't share such alleged patterns and beliefs as the ones that you accused me of practicing. For starters, I do not believe in gods, let alone the spirits of gods

Given that you use the exact same terminology as do the superstitious, I for one find it impossible to tell that you don't share exactly those same beliefs as the superstitious. You may want to reinvent your vocabulary. Indeed, apparently you are in desperate need of reinventing your vocabulary.

These perspectives/belief systems are a part of "religion." And "religion" is a part of human reality. Because our human nature is as it is, religion is just another duality for us to overcome. But that doesn't keep any of us from making "religious mistakes;" that's just part of being human and learning as we experience and journey through the dimensions of life.

I find myself hard pressed to care that you're inclined to add another kind of ideology that we humans can stumble over and "make mistakes about". We already have plenty of those, and secular ones are hard enough to adhere to cleanly-- and they've got something the religious ones will never have: you can test the claims of the secular ones; you cannot test the claims of the religious ones. Maybe you should lean away from these spiritual claims altogether, until of course you can manage to show us that your understanding of them has any applicable value.

KTR, my motive is not to oppose you merely because your beliefs tend to emphasize the lesser functions of human realities. The problem I'm having with it comes when your over-emphasis of this limited perspective can make it a bad place for your thinking to stay - because a man becomes as he thinks.

Ah, the ever evident arrogance of the theistic mind once more on display. Here we have someone who chastises me for some "limited perspective" because he embraces a fully conjured one. Your "wider perspective" is simply a non-existence; it's claims --particularly of resurrection, sin, messiahs, god's love, etc -- have no actual meaning, and you cannot demonstrate that it does. Worse still, you and someone utterly no different in terms of revealed or understood knowledge than you, other than having a differing belief of what the "spirit world" is -- will have a completely different "wider perspective" than would you. I'll go with my empirical "limited perspective" while you swirl in the chaos of your "wider" one. At least one of us swirls with bullshit.

Religion (the good side of it), can be studied and applied properly and constructively - in ways that are similar to how we learned our alphabet and have grown in applying it. Both systems are communication tools. In order for them to function effectively, we need to progress beyond the basic structural nature of either system.

Or leave it altogether. I do not need to be retaught the alphabet every time I read a book, nor do you, nor does any other sapient individual. religion insists we hold onto the tool of teaching of our childhood; it insists we forever relearn our ABCs under the tutelage of a stern ever-watchful schoolmarm; who is not at all hesitant about using a carrot or a switch on us. I have grown up. When will you?

[mitchellmckain]

When talking with people who stubbornly don't want to understand, you have to talk like a politician to avoid saying things that can be twisted to mean something entirely different than what you intend. No it is not as some creeps like to accuse, a matter of you not being able to communicate effectively, but the mere fact that unless there is effort on both sides, communication simply isn't possible -- and therefore we usually percieve that when a politician actually says anything of substance, then it was probably a goof on his part.

You see if you actually want to understand then you read what a person says in the context of everything else they say instead of looking for the one thing you can take out of context and twist into something contrary to everything else. People do the latter because all they really want to do is fabricate inconsistencies in order to denounce and dismiss what the person is saying -- that does not display any interest in actually understanding what the person is trying to communicate.

[cleve]

When talking with people who stubbornly don't want to understand, you have to talk like a politician to avoid saying things that can be twisted to mean something entirely different than what you intend. No it is not as some creeps like to accuse, a matter of you not being able to communicate effectively, but the mere fact that unless there is effort on both sides, communication simply isn't possible -- and therefore we usually percieve that when a politician actually says anything of substance, then it was probably a goof on his part.

You see if you actually want to understand then you read what a person says in the context of everything else they say instead of looking for the one thing you can take out of context and twist into something contrary to everything else. People do the latter because all they really want to do is fabricate inconsistencies in order to denounce and dismiss what the person is saying -- that does not display any interest in actually understanding what the person is trying to communicate.

Way to go Mitch!