Fear not,,, EH is doing okay and as a matter of fact l heard he was " in the closet" reading 'The Bible' lol .

I got caught escaping. The brought me back. Wah!

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

We missed you , but it makes me think of Moses and if there was no God .

When l take all your stuff, evangelicalhumanist , l wonder just how so many people in our past being almost all , how coud all be so mis-led down a path of a kind of delusion and so much more . The Churches , the so many beliefs in God and the so many wars over beliefs and God .Each and every race has a God and a belief . Every path we see is Faith oriented whatever but so much and only now we see this and actually it remains the same in Faith .

Even you evangelicalhumanist must assume there are things we do not explain and that is much . Emotions are an example of something that is here yet is in the category of acceptable yet unknown in it's reality of application and purpose .

There is so much beauty here in life on Earth that there is explanation and purpose and we are so lucky , not unlucky but very lucky to be able to experience this wonderous mystery of our life here on Earth .

The prison Earth is a nice place to visit but as they say to us Earthlings way out in space,,,

" See ya , wouldn't wanna be ya"

Just kidding . We are the beginning and everything new is discovered etc by us for the first time . We are the beginning and setting the format for life ahead of us and we are the Warriors of Earth who through hard work created and manifested a way of life for our children and their children to expand into the great new world of curiosity in application and love and peace will thrive again as individually we all find God .

How little you understand me, and what I'm talking about. But you got closer in the above than usual.

The fact is, if you look around the faiths of the world, you will quickly come to realize just how easily humans can be lead down the wrong paths, towards delusion, towards complete and unshakeable belief in fantasy. How is it possible that I can say this?

2.1 billion people believe with all of their power that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, was crucified, died and buried and rose again -- not only in spirit but in body -- and all so that anybody who believed that could also be saved. 4.5 billion people believe nothing of the kind.

1.3 Billion people believe that Mohammed made a trip to Jerusalem on a flying horse named Burak. More than 5 billion people believe nothing of the kind.

In the United States, 166 million people believe that God created man just as he is, and a further 81 million believe that though some evolution was involved, God had a hand in it directly. Only about 39 million believe, as science has pretty much clearly demonstrated by science, that we came about by natural evolution.

That is, about 13% of Americans believe in evolution. Now, cross the pond to Europe, and you'll find that the number is nearly reversed. Almost 80% believe in evolution.

Now, I could certainly go on for pages with similar beliefs, but why bother. You get the idea. These are dichotomies: in every case, they cannot both be true, although both can be false! That's an important thing to remember!

So now, can you see how easily people can be brought to believe almost anything, how easy it is to lead them in large masses down the path of deception and delusion?

(By the way, are you one of the millions who believe that Elvis is still alive?)

When have I ever suggested that emotions are something that are unexplainable? I believe completely that our evolved nature can explain emotions with the greatest of ease, although not being a psychologist, I can't do it myself. However, here's a taste:

Love: Humans take more than a dozen years to become self-sufficient, prior to which they need the support of parents. Unfortunately, in a hard-scrabble world, parents need to have support, too, because they can't both care for several children and be out hunting and gathering and defending the tribe all at the same time. Therefore, if humans had not evolved the ability to care enough about each other to stay together, and to care enough about family to protect the family for a couple of dozen years, then humans would probably have died out. I'll leave the mechanisms of how that works to the psychologists. But there you have the evolutionary origins of "love."

We also have a range of psycho-physiological reactions to events in the world around us: uncontrollable responses to dangerous things, to loud noises, unknown threats, etc, physiological responses to hunger or thirst, cold or illness, or pleasurable responses to good things like warm breezes, sex, sweet food, and so on. These building blocks, and many more, are undoubtedly quite sufficient to explain the vast range of human emotions.
Has it ever occurred to you that your anthropocentric viewpoint is putting the cart before the horse. You assume that the world is so beautiful that it must have been created for us. I assume that we exist, and that therefore we would find the world beautiful (among other things).

And that "among other things" is the rub, isn't it? I mean, yes the world is beautiful, but it is also dangerous, and hurtful, and a whole lot of other much less pleasant stuff. I suspect that my non-anthropocentric viewpoint is much better at explaining our reactions to the world than trying to explain the world in terms of God, and than supposing that it was all created for man.
Now you've got it right -- except for the last 6 words. This world is indeed ours, and we have evolved to the point where we can make or break it. Whichever we do is completely up to us. What happens to future generations depends enormously on what the present generations do.

But God will have nothing to do with it. He hasn't so far.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

<<<The fact is, if you look around the faiths of the world, you will quickly come to realize just how easily humans can be lead down the wrong paths, towards delusion, towards complete and unshakeable belief in fantasy.>>>






Humans can lead down the wrong path in a lot of things. Not just religion. Boys in big cities are lead down the wrong path to join a gang, all the time, and thats only here in the US. I don't know about anywhere else. Men are lead to join the Mofia all the time. These things have nothing to do with religion. There are many more examples where people can go down the wrong path, even without religion. There are even athiest who can be lead down the wrong path of being very militant... There are men and women who are sexually confused, who might not really be gay, who go for the gay lifestyle just because they have been influenced that way. Yes, I am aware that gay people have been lead to be straight when they were not, as well, because of religion. It still doesn't excuse the way some people are led down the wrong way because of some non religious influence.

I don't know what your point is and so I will not try to figure it out. I might become enlightened and understand what your trying to get people to understand someday, but you keep forgeting that religions are not the only things that can be destructive in this world. I know you try to say it is the main thing. Here and now in the year 2007, no it isn't.

I did not say that religion is the only path along which we humans are led astray (my tongue-in-cheek reference to Elvis should have tipped you off )

I agree that we are easily fooled by other people, especially charismatic people, or those that we aspire to be like, or those that we want to be liked by. And I agree that often leads to kids (and adults) getting into trouble.

However, in this case, we were talking about faith, so the examples I used were about faith. And faith is one of those areas where, by its very nature, people are most easily led astray. After all, who would dare say "no" to God?

What's my point? That's a question I suppose a lot of people on this forum must ask. I can just hear them say, "Yeah, that old EH (my name's Allen, by the way), the dreadful atheist who's always trying to tear God apart! Wonder why he does it?"

Well, let's start with children, since you brought up how easily led they can be.

Of all the things that parents could teach their children, I honestly feel that the most important of all would be to like and respect themselves for who they are. Any person who can do that reliably is much less easy to lead, as they will make up their own mind, and be satisfied with the results of their decision -- because they will trust it. Having self-respect and liking yourself makes you strong against the worst that the deceivers can do.

And you know, that may be a major part of my whole point. We are constantly being led to believe things that may or may not be true, and then to base our behaviours on those things. That kind of thing has led to good things and bad things. Certainly, the people who flew planes into the World Trade Center believed some things completely that their religious leaders told them, and that belief enabled other, more sinister, people to lead them to do what they did.

I want everybody to think for themselves. I want everybody to respect themselves, and to like themselves, and to trust themselves. If you believe in God, make sure you know -- for yourself -- why you believe, and more importantly what you think that God wants from you.

A huge part of my point is that there is no such thing as a god who has entrusted just a few people (prophets or priests or imams or rabbis) with special secrets that they are supposed to use to control other people, or even to guide them.

My point is if your God wants something from you, you will know it without the pastor telling you. If your God expects you to behave some way, then you will know it all by yourself.

My point is that if you believe there is a God, then that God speaks to you as easily as He speaks to Billy Graham or Pope Benedict XVI or the head Imam of the Dome of the Rock.

And therefore, there is no need for you to listen to any of them.

That's my point.

Allen

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

I haven't ever thought any man on earth talked for God. When I was a child I used to be in awe of the Catholic church, and loved reading any subject I could find on it. However, my dad always gave me the warning of not getting caught up with their way of teaching too much. He always warned me never to let myself start to put a man in the place of God. Which for me that could be easy.

Actually, I ain't never been able to figure out what God wants from me. To tell you the truth nobodies ever tried/bothered to explain that to me either. Maybe thats a good thing considering how I can be sometimes.

I understand what you mean, though, that people shouldn't trust the powerful leaders of religions who get people to do crazy things for them, that people should think for themselves and not be led by them as being God only voices. Now that I think about it like this I realize the dangers of things like this happening.

I also personally know of other kinds of things, kinda like this but not as bad, that can happen. My grandma, whos a very shy and timid acting kinda lady, caught my grandpa having affairs with many women the first couple of months into their marriage. The preacher, where they went to church at, talked to her and told her all of the reasons she should not get a divorce. Whatever they were, I don't really know for sure but I can guess.

So yeah, I do know what your talking about.