Life without faith

[majordinkydau]

Hello I'm major dinky dau, dinky dau is slang for the Vietnamese word "very crazy." I'm 52 years old but didn't quite make it to Haight Asbury for the summer of love. Instead I was 50 miles east in Imola or more well known as Napa State Mental Hospital. After many different diagnoses my current lable is schizoaffective disorder, (its nice to know who you are) I have danced the Thorazine shuffle many times. When I got to Napa I met a fat pimple faced kid with a football helmet on. His name was Darel Bliss, he had Downs syndrom and severe epilepsy. He came up to me smiliing and showed me the most golden heart I had ever looked into. I thought every heart required a large cactus garden around it for protection. Nothing I'd ever seen scared me so much and I avoided him for the 6 months I was there. I was an athiest and believed it was up to me to pull my life together against a hostile world. I threw myself into each ideaolgy I thought held answers with every ounce of my effort. One by one they crumbled. I thought we hippies could make the world peacefull but found I was violent at heart. I spent one morning in Berkley singing peace songs and the afternoon throwing bricks at frightened national guard boys. "I love the smell of tear gas in the morning". I called out to God for help while peaking on LSD and very much affraid of losing all control. I tried Christian fundamentalisim and went into citys to convert the pagans. A plastic grin on my Jesus freak face, I threw scriptures instead of bricks. I joined th USMC in 1977, a place for psycotics to feel at home as long as you don't buck the system. I believed "the Marines cared for their own" until October 1983 when they murdered their own in Lebonon. I demonstrated my capacity for psycosis and was escorted to the gate at Camp Lejune NC and told my services were no longer required. I had just finished EOD training a great combo, crazy and knows about explosives. This won me a place on FBI lists with a star after my name. My love affair with anger and bitterness was entering a golden age and the love I heard God had seemed beyond my reach. In 1992 I sought help from mental health and by 1995 found some medications that controled my depression and rage. I wrote poetry when I felt suicidal. Much was dark and hopeless but when I read it I found my heart was starting to show. I had hidden my heart from the world so well I could not see into it myself. I started going back to church and read the bible daily. I knew it was true but I couldn't change myself. When I was 8 years old I jumped off the barn roof with tin wings, I knew something about the law of gravity and nothing about the laws of arodynamics. I plunged like a rock and landed on my head, that explains alot, I never tried this experiment again. Last year I went to a confrence for mental health clients and shared my poetry and songs about insanity. People came up to me and told me I was wonderful, I thought I had to manufacture humility but soon realized everyone is wonderful, every heart is golden but we heap loads of overburden on it trying to be someone we are not. No 2 snowflakes are alike and no 2 people are alike. My intelict gets in the way and I try to be clever instead of open because who would listen to a freak like me. Van Gogh painted with his heart, Da Vinci painted with his mind. I can walk by the Mona Lisa but I stare into Wheat Field With Crows. I see the laws of the spirit and don't understand them but my tin wings fail and I crash when I ignore them. As a diesel mechanic I know when a engine is low on oil when I hear the clatter it makes, an untrained ear must read the pressure gauge. If either of us ignore the warning the engine will sieze and stop working. The laws of science cannot be ignored but they can be overcome by another greater law. If I close my mind off to something because I don't believe it I'm in delusion. The church was upset at the theory the earth was not flat but round, they only limited themselves by holding this delusion. You are welcome to believe anything you want but don't force you belief on me. Is evolution a fact or a theory? Why did the courts say this is a religious issue? Rush Limbaugh and Mike Moore think if you disagree with them you are an itiot. I am learning to trust God and let him change me and am no longer threatened by someone disagreeing with me. I no longer use my Ford F350 male enhancement product to share a little road rage. I don;t need to defend God or the bible, the best scientist on earth have spent 150 years trying to disprove it and failed. Disprove one passage and the whole thing falls. "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" Paul Simon

[Tormod]

, the best scientist on earth have spent 150 years trying to disprove it and failed.

 

Wow...I never heard of anyone who worked for 150 years on anything. Who would this be?

 

Welcome. That was one very long religious rant, there. Hope you also have an interest in science.

[majordinkydau]

Wow...I never heard of anyone who worked for 150 years on anything. Who would this be?

 

I meant plural, many different scientists.

 

Welcome. That was one very long religious rant, there. Hope you also have an interest in science.

 

I'm looking for people willing to discuse these issues without closing their minds to evidence that contradicts what they believe. If society accepts a delusion it is concidered true but that does not make it true. If you send a rocket to the moon and your numbers are in error the rocket won't reach its destination. A court just handed down a decision to remove a note from school science books saying "evolution is a theory" because of seperation of church and state. I have met schizophrenics who get agitated when you say something challenging their delusions. Sane people more often cloak their agitation with insults or derogotory comments. A mind is like a parachute, it functions best when open.

Prove me wrong and I'm only a little embarassed, but if my whole life is a lie, I'd like to know before I destroy myself.

[Boerseun]

...I'm having a battle trying to get your point.

 

What do you want proven wrong? Your mind-parachute analogy?

 

"A post is like drinking water: it functions best when clear"

[majordinkydau]

...I'm having a battle trying to get your point.

 

What do you want proven wrong? Your mind-parachute analogy?

 

"A post is like drinking water: it functions best when clear"

 

I've seen clear water introduce a nasty case of Montazuma's revenge. Let's take a look beneath the surface.

 

I became an athiest at 8 years old because of the "facts" of evolution I was taught in school. today most of those facts have been abandoned by scholars. I will not be threatened by the possibility I'm deluded while I'm searching for truth. I'm looking for people with open minds to discuse the fallacys on both sides. Christian fundamentalists won't listen to evolutionist's ideas and many evolutionist's reject any mention of a creator. Polorization causes all of us to ignore evidence that might prove we are full of #$&%.

I think censorship is counterproductive, it gives power to something that might not deserve power. There is a 4 letter word that would disappear from the English language if we just ignored it, our indignation of it makes it precious to 11 year old boys who love to litter every sentence with it. True science is unbiased.

[adnaan]

Basically, i think evolution is mainly a theory which is unproven.. and if its unproven then why believe it.. just like believing in a God.. if that is unsure and unproven then.. people dont believe, just like how evolution is unsure and unprove.. theres no point in believing in it..

 

but then theres the other option in creationism.. well if you dont believe in God. then obviously you go straight into evolution.. because you dont want to believe in creationism..

 

well lemme say this.. if your inside a box.. and you have no idea what is outside the box.. and one guy says that a bird is outside the box.. and the other says that there is no bird.. you both cannot sound crazy right.. but your both unsure with no given evidence.. This is just an example for those who believe in a God and those who dont.. you both cannot say that each other is crazy without any given proof..

 

bAck to evoluation now.. evolution is a theory mainly.. i havent seen any proof for evolution.. and recently i heard that we didnt even derive from neanderthals.. and really scientists dont entirely know what we were before.. right now creationism doesnt sound that bad.. after there being to basis of the theory evolution...

[alexander]

I'm agnostic to the belef in God, and although i can not say that there might not be a force out there capable of controlling every kind energy, I am very skeptical as to whether it exists or not.

My story is such that i have lost faith in religion, for my long research of it proved only to show me how it gets abused into controlling people, how major wars are all due to it, and how one man can gain power over many that believe in him using it. However that does not make me not beleive in God, per say, I've done research on the most odd sites, news paper articles and books about the ability to control energy. If there is indeed an organism out there that can do such a thing, it would have tha ability to control everything, everywhere. I can not recall where I have read about this, but there is a scientist that proved the possibility of a point out in the universe where all energy collides. (thus he got a ring from the pope telling him that he might have just proven the possibility of gods existance)

 

just my opinion though....

[adnaan]

you seem to be a very smart person alexander... nice message..

 

you have lost all faith in religion.. yes i find that many religions are abusing... but also its the idea of religion which create morals for which the societies follow..

I really dont know where im getting with this.. but the idea of religion isnt entirely all that bad.. in some ways.. but in others its just really weird.

[Boerseun]

I've seen clear water introduce a nasty case of Montazuma's revenge. Let's take a look beneath the surface.

 

I became an athiest at 8 years old because of the "facts" of evolution I was taught in school. today most of those facts have been abandoned by scholars.

I beg to differ. You are under a wrong impression of you seriously believe that.

I will not be threatened by the possibility I'm deluded while I'm searching for truth.

So - now you're into Jesus "just in case..."?

I'm looking for people with open minds to discuse the fallacys on both sides. Christian fundamentalists won't listen to evolutionist's ideas and many evolutionist's reject any mention of a creator. Polorization causes all of us to ignore evidence that might prove we are full of #$&%.

Quite right. It would be nice to have a chat to people from both sides. Unfortunately, its impossible. Science is empirical, and due to the claims made by religion, unsupported by any evidence ("that feeling in my heart and soul when Jesus comes into my life" doesn't count as evidence. That's a case of self delusion) discounts religion from a scientific point of view.

Neither can believers listen unbiased to scientists, because they've got a completely incompatible point of departure. God created everything. QED. No scientist worth his NaCl will take that statement seriously, except maybe some in Kansas.

I think censorship is counterproductive, it gives power to something that might not deserve power. There is a 4 letter word that would disappear from the English language if we just ignored it, our indignation of it makes it precious to 11 year old boys who love to litter every sentence with it.

I must assume you're referring to the sticker-in-textbook issue in the States? In which case you're saying that censoring evolution gives the whole theory undeserved power - if we don't censor it it'll just "disappear"? If that's the case, you should get off your USMC-Vietnam-PTS-Jesus horse and go read some science. Go study up on evolution. It's not a "four letter word" about to disappear any time soon, and serious scientists of the non-Kansas type aren't 11-year old boys out to shock the church with their findings.

True science is unbiased.

Yes. And true science have taken a look at your premise, with open minds, and found that there is no plausible evidence to support the "God" hypothesis. Therefore, in all likelyhood, keeping open minds in mind, the unbiased conclusion was that God, Heaven, Hell, and Satan, in all likelyhood, doesn't exist - except in the minds of people who want to keep deluding themselves 'cause it gives comfort and hope etc. to those who don't want to face reality.

[Erasmus00]

Quite right. It would be nice to have a chat to people from both sides. Unfortunately, its impossible. Science is empirical, and due to the claims made by religion, unsupported by any evidence ("that feeling in my heart and soul when Jesus comes into my life" doesn't count as evidence. That's a case of self delusion) discounts religion from a scientific point of view.

Neither can believers listen unbiased to scientists, because they've got a completely incompatible point of departure. God created everything. QED. No scientist worth his NaCl will take that statement seriously, except maybe some in Kansas.

 

I disagree. Many of the greatest scientific minds were, in fact, quite religious. Indeed, it can be argued (though obviously not proven) that Newton's mysticism lead to his gravitational action at a distance, and that Einstein's notions of God and the universe lead to relativity. To me this indicates that the two perspectives are reconcilable.

 

Not all religious people are creationists, at least not in the anti-evolution mold. If the bible, or any other religious work is taken for what it was meant to be, a moral allegory or a parable, then the conflicts between science and religion begin to fade.

 

Religion and science are two seperate entities. One is about how to live your life, one is about how the world you live in works. There is no reason that the two shouldn't address each other, just as they both address philosophy.

 

And lastly, all scientists are biased, either by their religion or by their favorite theory, or what have you. Luckily, science is about testing for such bias and trying to remove it.

-Will

[majordinkydau]

Basically, i think evolution is mainly a theory which is unproven.. and if its unproven then why believe it.. just like believing in a God.. if that is unsure and unproven then.. people dont believe, just like how evolution is unsure and unprove.. theres no point in believing in it..

 

but then theres the other option in creationism.. well if you dont believe in God. then obviously you go straight into evolution.. because you dont want to believe in creationism..

 

well lemme say this.. if your inside a box.. and you have no idea what is outside the box.. and one guy says that a bird is outside the box.. and the other says that there is no bird.. you both cannot sound crazy right.. but your both unsure with no given evidence.. This is just an example for those who believe in a God and those who dont.. you both cannot say that each other is crazy without any given proof..

 

bAck to evoluation now.. evolution is a theory mainly.. i havent seen any proof for evolution.. and recently i heard that we didnt even derive from neanderthals.. and really scientists dont entirely know what we were before.. right now creationism doesnt sound that bad.. after there being to basis of the theory evolution...

 

I don't claim to know how we came to be "human" or how the world, universe started, and all these deep issues. What I do know is that evidence should not cause an agitated response in a scientist or it will cloud their judgement. If you fall into water and your response is panic you will die, maybe drowning the fool who tries to save you. The bodies reaction to fear, ie fight or flight can cause us to abandon reason. Study history and show me one athiestic government that has a good human rights record. Voltair said "the bible will not be remembered in 100 years. His estate is one of Europe's largest biblical libraries today. Voltair was the Ben Franklin of the French Revolution and the 3 governments that came shortly after their attempt to create a society without god. A warm and fuzzy time in world history. "except the Lord build the house they labor in vain" Ps 127

Then I see the christian who see's a bridge out up ahead and when cars ignore his frantic warnings feels compelled to fire a rocket propelled granade to save the poor fool.

Most have seen a courtroom drama where the wittness betrays his lies by an angry outburst.

I don't feel the need to prove how everything in the universe happened but I've seen no evidence supporting complex designs without a designer.

[Boerseun]

Then I see the christian who see's a bridge out up ahead and when cars ignore his frantic warnings feels compelled to fire a rocket propelled granade to save the poor fool.

This is a particularly silly parable, with no causal connection between the individual's purported Christianity, and the fact that they fired a rocket at him. Would they have fired a rocket if the guy was an Atheist/Muslim/Jew? And, what's more, there's no way to repeat the experiment.

Bollocks to that, then.

Most have seen a courtroom drama where the wittness betrays his lies by an angry outburst.

Yes. What's the point?

I don't feel the need to prove how everything in the universe happened but I've seen no evidence supporting complex designs without a designer.

Then, once again, I think you should get of your Ex-Vietnam-PTS disorder-psychotic dysfunction- delusional etc. high horse and go and read up on some science.

You should never go to a gunfight armed with a blunt knife. Get your weapons (scientific knowledge) together, and come back for another round of "Who's the Ignorant Fool?"

[Chacmool]

Study history and show me one athiestic government that has a good human rights record.

Uhm, show me one Catholic or Muslim country with a good human rights record. In fact, show me ANY country with a good human rights record. People simply suck at treating each other well, despite the large numbers of religious, love-thy-neighbour people in the world.

 

Voltair said "the bible will not be remembered in 100 years. His estate is one of Europe's largest biblical libraries today.

Fantastic. I'm sure Voltaire would have been delighted by this preservation of documents. One can't have a coherent argument without knowing both sides. I definitely wouldn't want to discard all religious documents simply because I am not religious - in fact, I find them very amusing and entertaining in most cases.

 

I don't feel the need to prove how everything in the universe happened but I've seen no evidence supporting complex designs without a designer.

There wouldn't be any evidence for anything at all of everyone had no interest in finding out the truth. You can spend your time simply believing, while others will keep on questioning and proving.

[Fishteacher73]

It always amazes me that when the "is there a god" issue comes up, it always seems to be the Christian god that "can't be proven to not exist". Under that ideology ANY religion has some claim to it's creation myth being paraded about as science in a class room. Should we mention gaia and chaos, the titans perhaps, maybe it was the thunderbird of some lost American Indian tribe?

It is philosophy and theology, not biological science, teach it there, there aren't footnotes in the Bible saying that there are other possibilities and there shouldn't, just as there shouldn't be some mystical mumbojumbo excuse for science introduced in a science class.

[alexander]

nice message..

thanks, i really have lost faith in religion, but basically because of human factor in control of things, I like to think that i understand religious people, but i also have problems with people trying to control my mind. It is basically the only thing that belongs to me in some part, and just about the only thing we can truly control, that is why I dont consume alcohol or any substance that would change the way my mind works at all. Similarly, i can not have any other human mind try to control mine, it wont happen unless i cant do anything about it, or rather i can, but i dont listen and follow blatantly, yes I'm not very succeptible to hypnosis...

Uhm, show me one Catholic or Muslim country with a good human rights record.

does an imaginary country count, but its neither catholic nor muslim? How about Luxemburg?

You can spend your time simply believing, while others will keep on questioning and proving.

You know, people used to get burned for that in the middle ages... but yeah, questioning is why we have all the things we have and know what we do.

You should never go to a gunfight armed with a blunt knife. Get your weapons (scientific knowledge) together, and come back for another round of "Who's the Ignorant Fool?"

I think that his ignorance of concidering science as explanation is wrong, but lets be friendly and not call people fools, everyone is entitled to an opinion...

[Southtown]

Uhm, show me one Catholic or Muslim country with a good human rights record. In fact, show me ANY country with a good human rights record. People simply suck at treating each other well, despite the large numbers of religious, love-thy-neighbour people in the world.

How 'bout America? Isn't it currently being accused of being too Christian if it's going to allow for religious freedom? The ten commandments cases in the Supreme Court last week for example? Isn't our record of human rights fairly decent?

[Erasmus00]

How 'bout America? Isn't it currently being accused of being too Christian if it's going to allow for religious freedom? The ten commandments cases in the Supreme Court last week for example? Isn't our record of human rights fairly decent?

 

It depends on how you look at it. I mean,in our early history we came very close to exterminating the native americans, handing out small pox infected blankets. Slavery and jim crow laws in effect held people back untill the 1970s. Japanese internment camps during world war 2. Our record might be decent, but we certainly have black spots.

-Will