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    Prayers love, hugs and kisses for wendythepooh!

    I'm not one much for prayer, but I have great faith and confidence in your strength and your wisdom. You know where to find me if you need a friend. Hugs -Lokmer
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    Atheists have no morals... prison populations

    The person holding it up for debate, I would expect. If you like. Although I think "misconception" is a bit inaccurate - inadequate characterization probably would be very accurate, similar to voicing an objection to Calvanism on the doctrine of predestination. Calvinism is far more than...
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    Atheists have no morals... prison populations

    Good heavens - there's no need to escalate this into rancor. "Successfully formulated" - as in actually systematized and held up for discussion and debate. Moved out of the larval stage. Whether I or anyone else thinks they hold water is hardly germaine to the point of whether the formulation...
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    Atheists have no morals... prison populations

    This is called begging the question. As soon as you admit that there is anything in the universe besides your own mind, you have admitted that there is objective truth. Whether that truth is breathed into existence by a being or simply "is" by another means is hardly material. Since you claim...
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    Atheists have no morals... prison populations

    Good point - atheism certainly does admit other formulations. But have any other formulations actually been successfully put forth? That's a more interesting question. Probably one of the best alternate non-social-contract oriented ethical systems is that of the Superman as elucidated in Thus...
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    Atheists have no morals... prison populations

    Methinks your are confusing atheism with nihilism (and a rather radical, existentialist form of it too). Non-theistic morality and ethics are built upon the same foundation that theistic morality and ethics are: Social contract. While it's true that, without any big daddy in the clouds ready to...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Yes, I did, and I really didn't understand them anymore now than I did then. I'm even related to a few of them - even that doesn't help. -Lokmer
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Thorazine is your friend. -Lokmer
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    Define God

    Probably the finest definition of the idea of "God" I have ever heard is expressed in the following quote. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside-- that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the Universe made...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    In that case, he surely screwed up majorly by creating people that would grow up, by putting the fruit in the garden that would convey adult reasoning, and then by putting a talking snake in there to tempt the humans to partake of it. -Lokmer
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Well, Rad, your endless badgering on this issue got me re-reading his autobiography. As expected, I found the one of the fiercest invectives against orthodox Christianity, against organized religion, against American Christian culture I have ever read. Words that surely no Christian would EVER...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    That makes perfect sense. -Lokmer
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Well, the idea that the soul exists and physically animates the body is one that most people still unconsciously hold to. But it is a *testable* hypothesis. Ancient peoples, even up through the enlightenment, believed that the spirit was the breath, and left the body at death (ruach in Hebrew...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    No, I didn't miss the point, rather I covered my bases. I posted both the lexicography of the word "sadistic" AND made a supporting argument based upon that, and I further offered contingent explainations that don't require God to be sadistic. You lie, sir. You are replying to a post which...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Um...there is. You see, there's this science called "lexicography" which is concerned with the definitions of words and the structure of langage. Lexicographers produce books called "dictionaries" which chronicle the common social contract by which certain words mean certain things. From...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Translation: "I lost that round, but I'm going to pretend that my loss is actually a win and showboat on it." He did not say we should worship Jesus. He did say that a primitivist version of Christianity was holy and good...you know, kind of like Thomas Jefferson did. Totally subjective...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    Well, at least you're honest. :) Unfortunately, you are - whether consciously or not - setting up a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation, where you get to pick what true Christianity is only after I've met another burden of proof. I'm not going to play that game. If you'd like to clearly...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    There's no paradox there. And "atheist logic" has nothing to do with matters of fact in history. :sigh: Exactly. He qualified the statement so that it could fit his antisupernaturalist worldview. Wrong again. "Christian" is a word that means something. That meaning is, admittedly...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    No, I actually have a rather small well of agapos and affection when it comes to people who deliberately misrepresent me and find it easier to construct straw men and twist my words. Hitler was a Christian from a long and distinguished Christian tradition running through the history of the...
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    What de-conversion feels like

    I that case, I won't carry on further. Thank you, however, for the vigorous debate. Intellectual exercise is always appreciated. -Lokmer