believing in an imaginary friend or god

[Goatboy]

That's great. That means that your faith is strong, since you have no doubts about God. Doesn't mean he's real though.

no im talking about being awake and having a vision and being removed from this earth and then being placed back there again

I respect your faith, but I think you need to seek psychological help.

But yea, the whole "i seen god 4 realz hurr durr" argument doesn't do it for me.

thats to bad
how often do you hear it?

About 7/10 religious arguments (mostly from Christians) people use in conversations with me involve some form of "personal experience" as evidence.

[sanddbox]

Sadly, it's not only the religious people who usually do use anecdotes. In practically every argument I always see the classic 'I went to a catholic school and they raped me!' argument.

Alright, let's wade through the illogical garbage that the majority of this thread is.

Neuromanta:

From what I've managed to perceive of your posts you apparently make your arguments while snorting cocaine. [Note: before you get mad, I'm kidding. Relax.] I'll admit your excessive comma use and statement that we are all One makes it quite hard to understand your post in the first place.

Let's start with the basics. First of all, you act as if "western people", despite being half of the world, do not hold opinions of value. You also make the assumption that all western people equate religion to church despite the fact that you haven't met every single western person that exists (a logical fallacy, namely, hasty generalization).

Second of all, you claim that religion is solely about learning to live life in the present:

Religion is about knowing, that you have to focus your mind on the present, to live your life, as if it would be your last day, and not let your ego tell you what to do. This is peace.

Besides the fact that that statement completely differs from the accepted definition of religion, it also uses far too many commas.

Shortly after, you state 'this is peace'.

Therefore, by the transitive property of i-am-totally-right-you-must-worship-me, religion is equivalent to peace.

I don't think anyone here would deny that the crusades, the spanish inquisition, the rampant pedophilia in the catholic church, etc serve as a great example of the chaos religion brings.

In keeping with your tradition of generalization, you also accuse Goatboy of being a 'hard atheist' and Dredric1 of being a catholic.

You also make the absurd claim that "the ancient americans were massacred".......I'm not even going to try to guess what delusions you believe in.

Dredric1:

The few arguments you have made have been completely composed of illogical nonsense. You claim that you and your family have experienced religious moments that made you believe - now, whatever you choose to get high off of is none of my business but this type of anecdotal evidence is a great example of yet another logical fallacy.

You also need to realize that the bible clearly states that God will send people to hell, among other things.

[Dredric1]

I respect your faith, but I think you need to seek psychological help.

well you see in one of the instances there was a man(?) standing through the roof in a full black robe and it woke my grandma up and my uncle was the one that this thing was after and so my grandma basically, with the help of God of course , spiritually fought it off.

so that was seen by two people

About 7/10 religious arguments (mostly from Christians) people use in conversations with me involve some form of "personal experience" as evidence.

so if seven out of ten people you met told you that they saw a dinosaur in New York when they were there what would you believe

[sanddbox]

I respect your faith, but I think you need to seek psychological help.

well you see in one of the instances there was a man(?) standing through the roof in a full black robe and it woke my grandma up and my uncle was the one that this thing was after and so my grandma basically, with the help of God of course , spiritually fought it off.

so that was seen by two people

The other day God came to me and PERSONALLY told me he didn't exist. At least one dog saw it and I'm pretty sure my imaginary friend saw it too. Counting me, that's THREE people.

[Dredric1]

Dredric1:

The few arguments you have made have been completely composed of illogical nonsense. You claim that you and your family have experienced religious moments that made you believe - now, whatever you choose to get high off of is none of my business but this type of anecdotal evidence is a great example of yet another logical fallacy.

You also need to realize that the bible clearly states that God will send people to hell, among other things.

im not on drugs we are Christians we don't believe that drugs are good

Revelation 20:7-10

7When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.


fire came down from heaven and devoured them
them as in the humans will be destroyed and not tortured

-- Sat Apr 10, 2010 5:01 pm --

I respect your faith, but I think you need to seek psychological help.

well you see in one of the instances there was a man(?) standing through the roof in a full black robe and it woke my grandma up and my uncle was the one that this thing was after and so my grandma basically, with the help of God of course , spiritually fought it off.

so that was seen by two people

The other day God came to me and PERSONALLY told me he didn't exist. At least one dog saw it and I'm pretty sure my imaginary friend saw it too. Counting me, that's THREE people.

i would be careful mocking experiences like that
you may regret it later if it happens to you
im not saying that it will but
saying things like that as you did may invoke some retribution
and can be downright dangerous

but i think that satan wants you in the blind so that you are lost
because most people if they had an experience like that go to GOD for protection

[sanddbox]

Oh, because now that I disagree with you I'm mocking you? That was a legitimate experience I had.

The bible passage you showed clearly demonstrates that the fire came down from heaven, not hell - thus, God [or his servants] was responsible.

If God was truly omnipotent and loving, he wouldn't let Satan deceive humans and then destroy them.

[Dredric1]

Oh, because now that I disagree with you I'm mocking you? That was a legitimate experience I had.

The bible passage you showed clearly demonstrates that the fire came down from heaven, not hell - thus, God [or his servants] was responsible.

If God was truly omnipotent and loving, he wouldn't let Satan deceive humans and then destroy them.

yes fire comes down from heaven and destroys the people not tortures them in hell

well GOD is fair and unfortunately for some people GOD is fair with satan too and allows him a level playing field called earth
to be used as an example to show all the other beings in the universe that GOD is fair

now we were not created for this purpose we were created perfect
but Adam and eve sinned and placed satan as the prince of this earth
but GOD wasnt about to let us be placed into slavery so he died on the cross for us

[lord_hondros]

Look, if god created us (Which I believe a 'Creater' did, not your Christain God), AND (Note the Boolean operator) cared about what happened to us, don't you think that he would not allow 'Satan' to corrupt us in the first place? Do not you think that 'God' would have known about 'Satan' trying to corrupt Adam and Eve? Your presumed argument: "If Adam and Eve had cared and listened to 'God', they would not have eaten the fruit". If 'God' knew and cared, would not he have stopped it?
Another thing: Do you realize that all of Christianity is basically borrowing from all religions that came before it? Do some research, you'll find out. Some of the people that Jesus Christ was actually based off of: 1.Chrishna of Hindostan. 2.Budha Sakia of India. 3.Salivahana of Bermuda. 4.Zulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus, of Egypt. 5.Odin of the Scaudinavians. 6.Crite of Chaldea. 7.Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia. 8.Baal and Taut, "the only Begotten of God," of Phenicia. 9.Indra of Thibet. 10.Bali of Afghanistan. 11.Jao of Nepaul. 12.Wittoba of the Bilingonese. 13.Thammuz of Syria. 14.Atys of Phrygia. 15.Xaniolxis of Thrace. 16.Zoar of the Bonzes. 17.Adad of Assyria. 18.Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam. 19.Alcides of Thebes. 20.Mikado of the Sintoos. 21.Beddru of Japan. 22.Hesus or Eros, and23.Bremrillah, of the Druids. 24.Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls. 25.Cadmus of Greece. 26.Hil and Feta of the Mandaites. 27.Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico. 28.Universal Monarch of the Sibyls. 29.Ischy of the Island of Formosa. 30.Divine Teacher of Plato. 31.Holy One of Xaca. 32.Fohi and Tien of China. 33.Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece. 34.IxiOn and Quirinus of Rome. 35.Prometheus of Caucasus. 36.Mohamud, or Mahomet, of Arabia.
Note that I never did state that Jesus never actually existed. While yes, he may have existed, but the people who talked to him wanted people to believe that he was the messiah, thus writing down stories that stretched the truth just a bit too much Also, the story of Jesus is based off of (Pagan/Wiccan; I can never remember) stories. I forget which one though :/ The cross is also stolen from either the Pagan or Wiccan religion.

[circuitboardsushi]

Out of body experiences are actually a wide-spread phenomenon. There are near death experiences as well and throughout history various supernormal visitors have been observed and documented. I don't believe there is any kind of psychological treatment for this sort of thing though I think there are support groups. To date none of the experiences have been proven "real" but that doesn't mean there isn't some kind of real force behind it all.

I actually had one.

On Saturdays I would go to this warehouse that would blast Christian Screamo (screaming emo, make fun of me now). We would dance and sign and at the end our ears would ring and we would leave beat but happy for loving god. Sometimes I see one of the more spiritual members lying on the floor. I got the distinct impression that they weren't sleeping. Someone would say they are "god-searching." There was speaking in tongues and all the stuff you might expect from a group of progressive young Christians.

One night after I had danced a very long time and worked myself into a kind of trance I now know is called gnosis. Gnosis is considered one step below an out body experience, the mental state is usually attained with meditation. Dance is considered a dangerous route to gnosis and is generally only practiced in primitive cultures. A medicine or rain dance gets the medicine man into the proper mental state.

As I moved in beat with the music I let my emotions flow. I dropped to my knees in worship of God's glory. I felt the agony of physicality and wanted nothing more than spiritual transcendence into the perfect final form. I felt like a beam of light exploding out of the top of my head. I was on a rocket-ride to a higher plane. I looked down and saw a thin cord connecting me to my physical body (this is a nearly universal to OBE's). What happened next I could never have been prepared for.

Now let me say that I have been having conversations with god since I was five. I have also had conversations with other spiritual beings booth good and bad. I never had a normal imaginary friend, just the spiritual kind. Some people thought I was a little crazy but it seemed natural to me, and I just figured that maybe some people weren't equipped with the same senses I was.

I had a face to face with the master of the universe. He/She was not happy. You see he made it vary clear to people not throw his name around for their causes. Yet people were consistently dragging his name through mud. The descendants of this or that brother claimed that they were the ones chosen by god and decided to wage millennia of holy war on each other until the other agreed or was exterminated. During a peaceful lull when polytheistic fascists dominated the planet his son decided to vacation here only to be crucified and turned into a scapegoat for the guilt complex that people cant seem to deal with, and that actually became the dominate religion of the world. The only earth religious philosophy that was making any sense anymore he told me was atheism. As for particular ethnic groups he couldn't care less.

He was going to be taking a leave of absence from this region of space for while and see how humanity does on its own for a billion years or so. He wanted to thank me for the nice conversations we had all those years. He also wanted me to speak to people on his behalf.

"Tell them that they need to make rational decisions and stop using unseen things to make excuses for their behavior. Tell them not to trust an ancient book or some authority figure but try to figure things out on their own. You cant expect some rapture to uplift you, you must uplift yourselves."

He told me that once the Olympians and various other deities realize that hes gone they will probably swoop in to exploit us again. Human civilization is really the result of a breach of first contact protocol. We never figured fire out on our own due to an interstellarly infamous bloke by the name of Prometheus. Since then its been a series of questionable decisions of the space faring parties involved. To their credit they didn't simply try to erase their mistake but instead tried protect the new intelligent life they "discovered."

Of course the situation quickly became a quagmire with various tribal humans now engaged in a technological arms race for survival and dominance. The supreme being stepped in latter to try to contain the situation but his efforts eventually led to more warfare.

"I need a break from you kids. There are other more promising civilizations out there that need my attention. Be careful of the other races, some of them could con you out of your carbon bodies if you are not careful. Once your civilization is stage I they could get away with it too if you let them. What humanity needs now is a large dose of healthy skepticism. Its a dangerous universe out there but I cant hold your hands to the end of time."

"About these other races...?" I asked.

"Don't worry to much. Light only travels at a measly 2.36x10^12 cubits per hour. The nearest ones are few systems away ,you have some time. I cant guarantee that you won't get wiped out by an asteroid or something. People seem to think I keep track of every giant rock in space.

"Look it's been nice but I am afraid you're out of time. Be my missionary for atheism will you?" God was fading out.

I guess Ill just follow this cord back. I reached for my spiritual naval. Something was very wrong. No cord. I'm in trouble.

The bottom fell out. It was like falling in high gravity. Then I was back on earth in my body. I wasn't moving. Hell I stopped breathing. The retarded music was so loud and the stupid light effects, no one realized that I was dying.

Come on breath dammit. Wake up. This is your consciousness. Remember me? I don't know how long it took for me to resume breathing and regain control of my body. It felt long but I survived.

I read Niche and study evolution now.

[Goatboy]

so if seven out of ten people you met told you that they saw a dinosaur in New York when they were there what would you believe

... Are you fucking serious? Are you truly asking me if I believe in dinosaurs? Alright, I'll bite. No, I would not believe them. They are LYING to me. It's a prank. This is not We're Back IRL. You do know what a lie is, don't you?

---

i would be careful mocking experiences like that

Why should your story be any more believable than his?

---

"them as in the humans will be destroyed and not tortured"

and

"yes fire comes down from heaven and destroys the people not tortures them in hell"

Please see:

"They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."