New study proves someones "god" is nothing more than one's own image! Religion crumbles...

Originally posted by semperfortis
I hate to break it to you OP, but you are a tool..

A tool of prophecy.

You are working for the very God you mock.

God believers like to make things up like this with absolutely no proof. And there goes free will according to this one.

You were foretold and you are expected and in many ways welcome.
Your very protestations and the very hilarious links you provide, all further substantiate the writings in the Bible. (Besides providing a great source of amusement)

Nothing substantiates the bible. Thats why you fall back on faith.

I for one, thank you for being here. Your presence solidifies and strengths my faith as only proof can. For you are proof.

More so called proof. Made up.

"Many will be called, few will answer"

“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”

Semper

Then to random quotations. This one is toast.

Originally posted by Republican08
reply to post by TheLaughingGod

 

Some would consider atheism some sort of religion, worshipping the five senses and a materialistic world.

Of course atheism being a religion is nonsense and you know it!

Plus, what makes understanding the five senses and materialistic world so wrong?

You make it sound like a bad thing

It's surely not.

There's nothing wrong with understanding the five senses, the problem to me is when society in whole starts discounting everything beyond the five senses.
I really think society is unbalanced in the way it thinks, most people are indoctrinated to only think with their left brain.

I know it isn't a religion.. it's just feels like it's the new god, people like to construct their worldview based on limited science and will discount things that are real because of it.
Now, when people experience things that can't happen according to our current science it is labelled crazy talk and fantasy, instead of sweeping all of that under the rug it should indicate to us that our current science isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I think there's a bunch of old conservative scientists in the scientific community holding further advance back.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”

- Max Planck.

I think that quote pretty much sums it up.

reply to post by TheLaughingGod


That's a little bit different. Scientists are tied into the theories they helped create. They are their meal tickets. When a new generation of scientists expands upon the groundwork laid by other scientists, the older generation pushes back, maintaining that the theories they postulated and understand are correct.

It's easier to say quantum mechanics is drivel than to learn it.

People who fall back on a book because they're afraid that when they die, their lives will have held no meaning are not analogous to scientists trying to hold onto tenure.

Ummm, duh? Thought we already sort of knew this.

And as for the OP, I'm not religious but you kinda come across as a jerk

Religion is not God. Religion is culture. Spirituality is God, and few seem to know what that is.

Edit: I don't mean to "name call" but I wonder why the tone is such, it does come across rather poorly.

[edit on 1-12-2009 by ghaleon12]

Reasonable, you're an idiot.


I think you're an idiot for thinking you're better than people because you're an athiest. Does that make me a bible thumper? Nah....I'm not even religious.


You're not teaching anyone anything, you're not changing anybody's mind, you're just making a fool out of yourself and other athiests.

reply to post by '___'eviant


I'm not talking about the scientists, I'm talking about the laymen that praise science without even understanding it themselves, the ones that is so adamant it's correct that they wont even entertain other possibilities.

Reasonable, I am sorry to say this, but you've been a bit of a troll lately. Nothing wrong with posting things that are anti christian, if that's your beliefs then go for it, but why so hostile lately? You've had some really good threads in the past man, but now-a-days all your threads seemed filled with resentment, hate, bitterness. Sorry bro, just call 'em like I see 'em.

Wow! It only took 3 pages before this thread broke down into name calling and personal attacks on peoples character and intellect.

So far the name calling includes:
God Squad
Punks
Ignorant
Religious Cabal
Tool
Ignorant Bunch
Gonner
Fool
Loser
Jerk
Idiot.......

If I left your particular insult out of my list I apologize.
Is this the new standard for discussion here on ATS? If so, it is very sad in my humble opinion.

As a religious person, I think the study mentioned in the OP is very interesting. I do not agree with the conclusion the researches reached. When a person asks WWJD for instance it is only natural that they put themselves into the situation discussed and determine the proper course of action. Very interesting.

Thanks for posting the article.


[edit on 12/1/2009 by Sparky63]

While personally neither religious nor beholden to a belief in a supreme being that acts, thinks, or looks like a human being, I have to say that logically, it doesn't seem to me that it must necessarily follow that what people call god must not or cannot exist based solely upon this study.

People can be inaccurate or deluded in terms of their perception of what they call god without disproving its existence. A good analogy would be to say: If I incorrectly divine my birth father's morals and intentions by viewing them through the lens of my own, does that prove that my father doesn't exist? Of course not. The same could be true of a god, if one exists.

What it does do though, at least in my personal opinion, is give us reason for pause with respect to our own egocentricity and self-orientation. If believers can, in essence, judge what they call god itself by their own moral compass, then surely we judge one another far too easily as well, right? Just food for thought and one person's opinion.

Originally posted by reasonable
[pointless rantings]

I was expecting you to address the perfectly reasonable questions posed by others that were not attacks at all... not having seen your avatar I mistakenly thought you were arguing from your head instead of your blackened heart. Black of course with all that hating on Christians. You weren't getting attacked at any point until you started off-topic ramblings.

The best question of the bunch was this:
What was the result that would have provided evidence that there was a God vs the result that allegedly suggested God does not exist.

So that is the topic. How do you respond to that on-topic posting to which you apparently prefer to respond by derailing your own thread rather than having to deal with the topic?

My own thoughts on the topic are this: I've never heard any Christian claim that asking oneself "what would Jesus do" initiated a supernatural process involving telepathic or mystical regions of the brain. While its certainly interesting to me that "what would Jesus do" is somehow converted to "what would I do" that is really not that much different from other similar studies. To suggest it is evidence for or against God makes little sense.

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned in life is that emotional reasoning is neither invalid nor inferior to logical reasoning. Hopefully you'll learn that lesson too at some point. You've used invalid *emotional* reasoning to arrive at your conclusion that Christians are thugs. While its good you are using faith-based reasoning to some extent, the logical side of you needs to logically come to an understanding of that fact.

Many religious people spend a great deal of time praying and meditating on what they perceive Gods will to be in various matters. While doing so they make a conscience effort to alter their own thoughts and behavior to match those of the God they believe in. (This obviously does not apply to all who believe in a God)

It seems reasonable to me that the same parts of the brain would be active when considering How God views a particular matter and how the individual view the same matter. The study said that the volunteers were primarily American Christians after all.

It would be interesting to see the brain scan results from a group of Atheists who were asked the same questions. I personally love experiments like this, but more often than not I disagree with the conclusions reached.


[edit on 12/1/2009 by Sparky63]

reply to post by reasonable


Interesting study - it reminds me of a quote from one of my all time favourite actors:

“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”

Richard Burton

thinkexist.com...

Cheers.

reply to post by reasonable


It's a belief, not an absolute. You cannot possibly think that you have an answer anymore than a believer thinks that.

Of course we project an image onto "god" we cannot comprehend god and so in order to not go insane trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, we project imagery and concepts onto it that we can be comfortable with the archetypal thought forms.

it's always interesting to see someone attacking an unknown for whatever it is in their agenda.

If you want to speak to the problems with religion, then speak around those things that can be comprehended, such as the church, the people who run it in it's various forms and what their agenda is in doing so.

To adamantly state there is no god is as foolish as stating that there is a god with sureness. lol there is no sureness. Only belief, or lack of it.

reply to post by reasonable


Science has not proved anything false. I see you never trumpet any time science is proved wrong, like global warming. Why is that?

Originally posted by Mr Headshot
Reasonable, you're an idiot.

I think you're an idiot for thinking you're better than people because you're an athiest. Does that make me a bible thumper? Nah....I'm not even religious.

I support this article in its' entirety. Yet another nail in the coffin of religion, and another reason to show the idiocy, stupidity and general arrogance of religious people demanding 'undue privilege'.

I KNOW I'm better than a religious person. I am free, and encourage others to be free. You religious fundamentalists have had it your way for too long, and you don't like it now that we atheists have the upper hand. You better get used to losing - LOSERS!

I am hostile, hateful and generally intolerant of religious people, because in the main, religious people have taught me to be that way. Religious people are hateful, hostile, intolerant, close-minded and generally fascist in their narrow little world - and I've experienced nothing else from them in my life.

I went to a faith school - i was brought up (not by my families influence) into a Christian community. I knew something was wrong at an early age and started asking questions. I found the answers. I have seen first hand the damage that religion can do - especially Christianity.

Do us a favour you religious nutjobs - go home, don't log on, live your life quietly, pass into history with dignity. The End.

The Para.

reply to post by reasonable


Well not sure this really was much of a study ...is the conclusion falsifiable?

Seems to me that being an atheist requires as much faith as any other religion.

I pretty much like Pascal's solution.

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by reasonable

 

I don't find it devastating at all. I don't even find it intriguing. We were made in His image and hence share similar qualities. Of course when thinking about God we normally reference our own opinions and point of view. What else are we going to do?

This doesn't effectively prove anything...

Well, it does lend much more credence to the observation that Man made god in his own image, so why not be that God yourself?

reply to post by Agree2Disagree


I wouldn't say it isn't intriguing. But it isn't devastating or ground breaking. It does bring up the question, "If God is indeed real, he either has NOTHING to do with humanity (hence no evidence for His existence) or He is a hopeless Multiple Personality Disorder sufferer , switching his personality based on who He is dealing with at the moment. This would explain why He seemed so malevolent in the Old Testament, and so oppositely benevolent in the New Testament.

Maybe this study is correct... I personally don't believe we (humans on earth) are here by chance. I think something/someone VERY powerful created us here, but It/He/She left us to be an experiment.

The bottom line is this: the God described in the bible cannot have the views and personality of EVERY single person that believes in Him. That is foolish to think so.

What intrigues me is the fact this researcher was able to change what their perception of what God thinks. THAT shouldnt happen if the person actually WAS a believer. Whether God is real or not is not what I am pointing out- It's the fact their convictions are so watered down, a passing breeze can change them. A person's belief's should NOT be changed in such a manner, unless their beliefs are weak.

Originally posted by IceDash
and I am not religion, i don't believe in the bible.

I am just disagree with your theory on how God is just one's own image....it's just doesn't....work.

try going to middle class america, england, australia and so on and tell them about Black Jesus.