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oldfart48
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61# |
Registered:
06/07/2003
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(Date Posted:08/11/2003 20:08:45)
Reply to : Stumpy
1. We all carry with us our life experience and heritage, and will do so until we die. It's a good idea to make peace with it, or reminders will always push your buttons.
2. It's more important where we are going than where we have been. While making peace with the past, spend time deciding what makes you happy and what beliefs work for you. Nothing irritates the authoritarian mentality more than a happy apostate. Pick your future and get there as fast as you can.
Jamie
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"The high places are within."
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GodfreyLife
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62# |
Rank:none
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Posts:134
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07/08/2001
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(Date Posted:08/11/2003 21:51:13)
Reply to : Stumpy
How/what helped you "get over it"?
this is a big one, and I'm not going to be able to do it justice without taking enough time to get it straight. I'll do a brain pop of a few stepping stones.
Comparitive religion - As a Catholic, I was taught that even protestant Christians were going to hell. This laid the idea for me that millions of people could be totally mistaken about their faith. Short step to concluding, "Hey, it's us!" It means that I'm not plagued with doubts about atheism. From the moment in my Christian teens when I realised that Christianity is just Thor worship with another shirt on, I've never looked back.
Study - I once read that the only book that you need to read to destroy your Christian faith is the Bible. I've certainly seen enough of other people's stories to conclude that people get into Christianity from a position of relative ignorance and get out of it from a position of information. I remember the day that I took the courage to look up the major arguments in favour of the existence of God, by way of knowing my enemy. I heaved a sigh and asked, "Is that it? Two thousand years of the best minds that the west could offer and that's it?..... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Debating believers - The day that I slew my first fundie dragon was a major healer for me. That 'bunny in headlights' look at the end of the conversation will never leave me. Priceless. A voice inside me said, "Is that all you've got, suckers?"
Reading debates with supposed major league theists - they are intellectual ants, who routinely engage in deception to maintain the tissue of their illusion. Their underhand conduct alone is sufficient to suggest that theirs is a hookey argument.
There are probably more, now that you've got me started.
Later.
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All the best,
livin' and lovin' the god-free life,
GodfreyLife
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Voltaire
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63# |
Rank:none
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Posts:1490
Registered:
07/08/2001
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 07:32:00)
Debating believers - The day that I slew my first fundie dragon was a major healer for me. That 'bunny in headlights' look at the end of the conversation will never leave me. Priceless. A voice inside me said, "Is that all you've got, suckers?"
I can remember a few times like that and you're right: it really is rewarding. I spent months arguing with one particularly bull headed person who at the same time actually is quite honest. I can stil remember they day when he finally did admit that his religion only consisted of what he had decided to believe and the traditiions of his faith. I was jazzed the whole day long! It sure took a lot of effort though, and it was irritating because this rather basic realization hit me very forcibly when I deconverted and I accepted it quite easily.
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Zombies, Unicorns, Devils, Sea Monsters, Satyrs, Dragons, Six Winged Angels, Gods, Demons, Witches, Astrologers, A walking & talking snake, Magical fruit, Talking donkeys, human headed six-winged beasts, Ghosts. All that stuff is in the Bible and yet they tell me it"s not mythology?
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GodfreyLife
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64# |
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Posts:134
Registered:
07/08/2001
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 10:18:29)
Reply to : Voltaire
I spent months arguing with one particularly bull headed person who at the same time actually is quite honest.
This is where bald assertion really comes into its own. During a mutually respectful email debate with a Muslim colleage, I asserted "You are just choosing to believe what makes you comfortable, because it's what you're accustomed to. Your faith is no more than a geographical accident. If you'd been born in Gujarat, you'd be trying to convince me of the truth of Hinduism."
Absolutely no comeback.
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All the best,
livin' and lovin' the god-free life,
GodfreyLife
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oldfart48
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65# |
Registered:
06/07/2003
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 17:04:52)
Reply to : GodfreyLife
During a career as a college debater, I quickly learned that just because you can win an argument doesn't make you right (in collegiate debate you alternate positions each round). For one, there must be mutually acceptable ground rules for the debate, which is almost always lacking in a religious discussion. My business partner of 20+ years is a fundamentalist and we have often traveled on long business trips together, so religion eventually had to come up. He had always been afraid of discussing religion with me because he was intimidated by my background and didn't want to get into an argument. What he didn't realize was that my basic beliefs require me to support the positive aspects in other people's faith. I also have a duty to resist evil, so certain kinds of intolerant comments must be responded to (although he is too gentle to ever stoop to the baser speech and behavior many fundamentalists exhibit). Needless to say, we have had a number of interesting discussions, and I have benefitted from the exchanges. I guess what I am saying is that there can be mutually rewarding conversations with fundamentalists about beliefs and values when there is mutual respect. But if somebody wants to proselytize me, I can bash away!
Jamie
PS I married my debate partner, half of the 1967 National Junior College Forensics Union Champions. We haven't had a logical argument since.
PPS If I grow tired of an argument over things like religion, when the other party is simply being an asshole, my usual response is "I consider it unsporting to engage in intellectual combat with an unarmed opponent."
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"The high places are within."
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Stumpy
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66# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:350
Registered:
12/21/2001
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 17:46:03)
Reply to : oldfart48 -----"I consider it unsporting to engage in intellectual combat with an unarmed opponent."
Too rich and how funny!!!!! 
Thanx for chuckle and advise.
PS my honey hails from the South and I one of them "Damn Yankees" We haven't been able to have intelligent discussion/debate re: the civil war. (He's still lovable inspite his erroneous thinking!)
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"Have mercy on my soul
I'll never let you know
Where my mind has been....."
Angels Would Fall/M. Etheridge
"Did you take it too far?
Did you forget who you are?
Did you stash your soul into
the closet forever.......?
Beth Hart
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Dok
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67# |
Rank:none
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Posts:584
Registered:
06/28/2001
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 18:57:42)
What has helped me get over, though not to the degree of Sir Godfrey I am sure...
Realizing and concentrating on my real issue. Parents, family, abuse, unloving cold and hurtful people who I hid out from under the cross of christ... Christ was supposed to rescue me from them. Now he has evaporated and they are still around. The whole reason I bought the idea that someone who loves you can annihilate you is touched on in the Spare the Rod thread that Nologo is ressurecting...
Christianity is not the main problem, it and the deconversion jitters, have in my mind been tagged as nothing but diversions from shit I cannot figure a way to put away.
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Every time you lay off an American worker you also lay off an American consumer.
When you export jobs you also export the ability to pay for goods manufactured for the American market.
Let's not vote for Bush again this year.
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Dok
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68# |
Rank:none
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Posts:584
Registered:
06/28/2001
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(Date Posted:08/12/2003 19:11:27)
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Every time you lay off an American worker you also lay off an American consumer.
When you export jobs you also export the ability to pay for goods manufactured for the American market.
Let's not vote for Bush again this year.
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GodfreyLife
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69# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:134
Registered:
07/08/2001
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(Date Posted:08/13/2003 11:35:46)
Reply to : oldfart48
I guess what I am saying is that there can be mutually rewarding conversations with fundamentalists about beliefs and values when there is mutual respect. But if somebody wants to proselytize me, I can bash away!
I couldn't fit a razor blade between that and my own view. My mother in law has a deal with me where we mostly just talk about other stuff. Whenever we discuss it, it's always with respect and care.
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All the best,
livin' and lovin' the god-free life,
GodfreyLife
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paginity2
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70# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:402
Registered:
03/23/2003
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(Date Posted:08/13/2003 21:36:09)
Reply to : GodfreyLife
Study - ?I once read that the only book that you need to read to destroy your Christian faith is the Bible.
Worked for me! I was very well versed in the bible thanks to the stringent fundy family values practiced in my home. Problem was, it made me uncomfortable how many things adults wouldn't answer and the answers I got from my study made god sound like a monster.
The whole "christians are so great, bringing morals to a virtueless world" didn't jibe with the stuff I read from other cultures. They taught the same virtues and a lot of their stories sounded like bible stories. But I was a kid and I needed for there to be a god that was this good kind skydaddy. Funny how constantly having to placate psychotic fathers can seem normal to a large group of people. But once I started to truly question and look at all those difficult passages, contradicting statements and pure violent behaviours presented as GODLY, I threw that off as fast as I could.
Not saying that being around xtians doesn't suck. You shoulda heard the conversation I heard about whether wearing a cross was scriptural or not. I could hear the gears grinding in their skulls. Me around a slew of fundamentalists of any stripe requires betting on how long before I explode. And how spectacular.
In the end though, unlike a fundy, I'm responsible for me, to me and if that's how they want to live their life, I can leave them alone. I'm not responsible for chewing up any that stumble into my path, though.
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Fermez ta bouche et mangez tes fritures de liberté.
"Unless we each conform,
Unless we obey orders,
Unless we follow our leaders blindly;
There is no possible way we can remain free."
Major Frank Burns
"People are like glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within."
-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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