For former Mormons who became atheists

[_LittleNipper]

God is speaking of another Worldwide Flood. Of course there are area floods but there will never be another worldwide flood.

No.

Wrong again, and again, and again... You don't even understand your own scriptures.

V/R
Dr. Cam

You are wrong. How can a person who says there is no God ever be considered honest ---- when you are not even honest with yourself.
See the first part of Psalm 104. Do such verses have other implacations? Sure! But it is obvious that the Flood is being used to explain God's abilities and greatness.

Psalm 104
1 Praise the Lord, my soul.
Lord my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4 He makes winds his messengers,[a]
flames of fire his servants.

5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.

10

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Let's see.

You believe in an invisible being.

I do not.

Let's start there on a discussion about honesty.

V/R
Dr. Cam

[_LittleNipper]

Let's see.

You believe in an invisible being.

I do not.

Let's start there on a discussion about honesty.

V/R
Dr. Cam

Do you believe in the wind? Do you believe in gravity? Do you believe in air? They are invisible but clearly have an affect on us. God is invisable but clearly ignorance of Him has a marked affect on society and the people living there...

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Let's see.

You believe in an invisible being.

I do not.

Let's start there on a discussion about honesty.

V/R
Dr. Cam

Do you believe in the wind? Do you believe in gravity? Do you believe in air? They are invisible but clearly have an affect on us. God is invisable but clearly ignorance of Him has a marked affect on society and the people living there...

Of course I believe those things because they're measurable & exist regardless of how much I believe in them or not.

So. You're being dishonest with conflating your fantasy with real world, measurable phenomena.

Tell me how you can scientifically measure the existence of your god, and we can proceed. Otherwise, you'll simply be regarded as a buffoon who spouts nonsense.

V/R
Dr.Cam

[_son of Ishmael]

Let's see.

You believe in an invisible being.

I do not.

Let's start there on a discussion about honesty.

V/R
Dr. Cam

Do you believe in the wind? Do you believe in gravity? Do you believe in air? They are invisible but clearly have an affect on us. God is invisable but clearly ignorance of Him has a marked affect on society and the people living there...

Wind, gravity, and air all can be proven though sound scientific means. God on the other hand cannot. Nothing you can say or do can prove the existence of god.

True I can't disprove that there is an Abrahamic God, just like you can’t prove that Amun, Anubis, Aten, Atum. Bastet, Bes, Geb, Hapy. Hathor, Horus, Isis, Khepri. Khnum, Ma'at, Nephthys, Nun. Nut, Osiris, Ptah, Ra. Ra-Horakhty, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Hestia, Demeter, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Heracles, Eros, Orpheus, Pandora, Pegasus, Kerberos, Baldr, Borr, Bragi, Búri, Dagr, Delling, Eir, Forseti, Freya, Freyr, Frigg , Fulla, Gmot, Gefjun, Hel ,Heimdallr, Hermóðr, Hlín, Höðr, Hœnir, Iðunn, Jörð, Kvasir, Lofn, Loki, Máni, Mímir, Nanna , Nerþus, Njörðr, Nótt, Odin, Sága, Sif , Sjöfn, Skaði, Snotra, Sol, Thor, Tiki, Tree, Tyr, Ullr, Váli, Vár, Vé, Víðarr, Vör, Weth, Brahma, Ganesha ,Gauri ,Hanuman ,Kartikeya ,Krishna, Lakshmi, Parvati, Rama, Sarasvati, Shiva, Surya,Vishnu, and of course the great FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) do not exist.

(My apologies to all the thousands of other gods and goddesses that I left out)


Millions and Millions of real people seriously and honestly believed in all those gods and more (Ok maybe not in FSM) yet you are right and they are wrong.

I don’t believe in those gods either, so I guess the only thing different between you and me is that I believe in one false god less than you do.

[_subgenius]

Subgenius,

Let's not lie to each other. Of course you intend offense with your "in over your head" remarks. You use them as a put-down on anyone who asks you questions about your positions. At least have the honesty to admit that.

I have yet to lie to you - but, obviously that is for your opinion

Are you claiming that you are not in over your head? are you so educated about the doctrine of Christianity that you would presume to know more about it than one who subscribes to it? than one who studies it? than one who does not condemn it?

As you admit that you do not know much about the scriptures, how is it that you can find offense in someone agreeing with that?

This is a critical distinction to make ,and it is one that further illuminates why i state that you are in over your head.
You seem to be scientifically minded and likely adhere to the structure of the academic world...so why is it that that the school age child that has yet to learn basic Algebra would certainly be in over their head attending a Calculus lecture - without offense - but suddenly you are exempt from that reasoning?
Is it because you are, in fact, discerning something spiritually instead of temporally? can you make that concession or will you retreat back to Algebra class?

I am asking you questions, not because I don't understand the concepts, but because I've had discussions with hundreds of people over the years who understand these issues in completely different ways. I ask these questions of you because you appear to have given them a great deal of thought and have developed an explanatory framework that you believe makes sense out of the universe. It looks different to me than what I've encountered in doing reading and discussion, and so I'm curious about it. I think you have some very interesting ideas, and could communicate them effectively if you dropped the "smarter than thou" schtick.

Hundreds of people? and yet you make an inquiry about the Law as if you are unfamiliar? Aside from being rather nefarious it suggests that you have not discussed that with anyone - in fact - i would consider it a relatively new concept for you.
That being said - my response to you with regards to the Law was sincere and beyond that the resolution is your burden. If you have a question pertaining to that, then i would be happy to respond, but for you to take exception with a valid response is an issue for you, not for me.

My only goal is not to destroy and degrade religion. In fact,that's not even a goal for me. I'm interested in ideas -- especially ideas about how people make sense out of the universe. Mormon issues are especially interesting to me because it is the religion I was raised in. But I don't have to destroy the LDS church to validate my decision that it was not what it claimed to be. And I don't have to destroy religion to validate my non-belief.

I, obviously, do not have any issue with a "deconstructionism" approach - but surely you must agree that it requires some fundamental knowledge of the topic - or the approach is rather mundane - like a conversation with a toddler that simply asks "why" after every response (yes, it can be amusing and interesting - then just tedious).
well, then if it is by the philosophical strategy of "critique" that you are playing by then surely you must concede that as it would be performed on you is without offense as well...or for the sake of fairness, without any intention that you would not have.

So, when I ask questions, it generally means I've heard something that might be new or different. I want to understand the other person's thinking. Sometimes I'll want to destructively test the idea by throwing other ideas at it to see how they hold up.

Yet that has not occurred with the two simple examples i put forth about the Law and God....so, please, understand my skepticism at your response here.

In my opinion, the meat before milk line is simply a dodge -- nothing more, nothing less. The concepts you are presenting are not that intellectually difficult. In my opinion, it's disingenuous to say "I won't explain my beliefs because you won't understand the beliefs I haven't tried to explain to you."

again, i would remind you of the pre-Algebra student sitting in on a Calculus lecture....how is that any different?
And i am not saying that i wont explain my beliefs...in fact, that is what i am doing...but if you have no patience to learn algebra then why should i bother talking about calculus?

So, let me restate what I think you are saying so you can check my understanding. The answer to my question about God being subject to everything in the standard works is "yes, but in a holistic sense." The law that god is subject to is not like a traffic law that one can look up in a book. The law is the nature of god. If you read the standard works together in a sincere manner, you will come to an understanding of the nature of god. That understanding will be that God's nature the law are the same -- just like water is wet, god is truthful. To ask if god can lie is a nonsense question. Because understanding the nature of god flows from a synthesis of everything in the standard works, it is an illegitimate and meaningless form of argument to criticize god by referencing less than the entirety of the standard works.

Am I close?

yes
but i am not sure it is correct to consider God as being "subject to"....i believe that it is a perspective of "defined by"...or "brought forth from".
I have often leaned towards the position that the Law is manifest by God.

[_Res Ipsa]

Okay, let me recap. You spend several paragraphs telling me why I can't possibly understand, and then say my summary of your position is accurate with one nitpick. For the record, you first used the "subject to" language upthread:

God is subject to the Law, in other words God can not lie...can not be unjust, etc.

So, it seems, that despite not having completed algebra, I can understand calculus.

Again, you seem to not understand the purpose of asking questions. I'm asking them, not because I don't understand the subject, but because I've seen many different interpretations and I want to understand yours. Once I understand it, I'll decide whether to actually engage with you in a substantive manner.

I don't believe I have admitted I don't know much about the scriptures. I do believe, say, Little Nipper would be better at quickly finding a verse that says a particular thing. I've read the standard works, multiple times, back when I was LDS, so I'm familiar with the basic course material. And it is fallacious to equate not being able to understand a subject matter with acknowledging someone else may understand better in at least some ways. It's like saying, so, A- calculus student, because there is an A student in the class, you aren't qualified to do calculus.

I tutored calculus in college. It rapidly became clear that most students' problems with calculus was that they misunderstood something about algebra. But, I didn't throw thousands of pages of algebra textbooks at them and tell them to get back to me. I identified the "gap" in their algebra, explained what they were missing, and they almost always went on to do just fine with calculus.

So, based on our conversations, what specifically is it that you think I have wrong about the algebra? If you understand both the algebra and the calculus, it should be an easy task for you to explain what I'm not understanding. But, so far, all you are doing is repeating, ad nauseum, that you are doing calculus and I can't understand it, without any explanation. In fact, it seems you are confusing assertion with explanation. My suspicion, although I'd be delighted to be proven wrong, is that you don't explain because you can't. Or, while you are more than happy to deconstruct other's positions, you are afraid of having your own subjected to the same analysis. So, you avoid expressing exactly what it is you do believe or you simply assert it is out of bounds.

But I suspect our actual point of departure is here:

Is it because you are, in fact, discerning something spiritually instead of temporally? can you make that concession or will you retreat back to Algebra class?

I do not (yet) accept your premise that it is possible to discern something spiritually as opposed to temporally. Can you justify your premise, or do you see it as axiomatic?

[_Themis]

while you are more than happy to deconstruct other's positions, you are afraid of having your own subjected to the same analysis. So, you avoid expressing exactly what it is you do believe or you simply assert it is out of bounds.

Many have concluded the same thing about subby.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

You are wrong. How can a person who says there is no God ever be considered honest ---- when you are not even honest with yourself.
See the first part of Psalm 104. Do such verses have other implacations? Sure! But it is obvious that the Flood is being used to explain God's abilities and greatness.

Psalm 104
1 Praise the Lord, my soul.
Lord my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4 He makes winds his messengers,[a]
flames of fire his servants.

5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.

10

You stated, in response to the flood meme, which was quoting Jeremiah 5:22, that the quoted scripture was talking about another worldwide flood.

That scripture has nothing to do with that. Nada. Zilch.

God, you're so ignorant of your own scriptures it's stunning. Yet, here you and Sub-Genius are just perpetuating the reality that Christians are uneducated rubes spouting nonsense. Why would you continue to paint Christians in such a light?

V/R
Dr. Cam

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

while you are more than happy to deconstruct other's positions, you are afraid of having your own subjected to the same analysis. So, you avoid expressing exactly what it is you do believe or you simply assert it is out of bounds.

Many have concluded the same thing about subby.