I'm an Ex Scn and Atheist - How many atheists are here at the board?
- Thread starter SuperPowers
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Anonycat
Crusader
That's why we say fuck and shit a lot.
programmer_guy
True Ex-Scientologist
The Atheist Experience thread
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?21659-The-Atheist-Experience
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?21659-The-Atheist-Experience
oneonewasaracecar
Gold Meritorious Patron
I reject the supernatural as it always involves contradiction.
I share your ire at delusional belief systems leading to real harm in the real world.
I also despise those that push pseudoscience as this is often as harmful as religion.
TheOriginalBigBlue
Gold Meritorious Patron
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programmer_guy
True Ex-Scientologist
Mimsey Borogrove
Crusader
OYG would be more appropriate or OTG ( Oh your God or Oh Their God) But why does it have to mean god? Oh my gosh? Oh my Gollum! works as well for you elfin types.Also, I shouldn't use "OMG!" on any posts anywhere (including Facebook).
Mimsey Borogrove
Crusader
Strat -
What I don't yet understand from his talks - is GMO. How you can gene splice two animals genes to get a variation. In a recent National Geographic they showed photographs of two salmon - one with modified genes ( which they plan to only use in land locked fish farms ) that is about half as big again as a normal one and grows faster, making it ideal for use as a food fish. How does his morphic fields account for that, I dunno. Kinda like using frog genes to fill in the missing dna in the Jurassic Park dinosaurs which gave them the ability to change sex like some frogs do, and thus they began reproducing on their own, not in a test tube.
I didn't say he has the answer to consciousness, or at least I haven't heard it on any of what I listened to so far, but I do like his basic message - there's more to awareness or consciousness than the brain accounts for.
Mimsey
Did he go into mophic genetic fields in the book? That's an interesting subject - it's on another of his interviews I am listening to. Basically, he is discussing the DNA genes make proteins but don't explain structure. He posits these fields that have patterns that organize how the organism grows into a complete organism, It is, I guess a theory that could explain how one gets an arm that mirrors the one on the other side of the body in reverse. It reminds me of Hubbard's Genetic Entity business - where a theta beingness regulates the body's growth.
What I don't yet understand from his talks - is GMO. How you can gene splice two animals genes to get a variation. In a recent National Geographic they showed photographs of two salmon - one with modified genes ( which they plan to only use in land locked fish farms ) that is about half as big again as a normal one and grows faster, making it ideal for use as a food fish. How does his morphic fields account for that, I dunno. Kinda like using frog genes to fill in the missing dna in the Jurassic Park dinosaurs which gave them the ability to change sex like some frogs do, and thus they began reproducing on their own, not in a test tube.
I didn't say he has the answer to consciousness, or at least I haven't heard it on any of what I listened to so far, but I do like his basic message - there's more to awareness or consciousness than the brain accounts for.
Mimsey
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SuperPowers
Patron with Honors
Great cover!
upstat
Patron
I am agnostic, I believe in evolution because it makes sense, it is logical and it does provide meaning to life. All I can say is all religion is based on made up lies presented as facts with pathetic promises that can not be proven such as going to heaven after you die. It is very much akin to someone offering you give you $1 million dollars tomorrow if you give them $100 dollars today, of course it is a scam but if tomorrow never happens the scammer can keep it running forever and it is these afterlife promises made to people which are the true scams.
Case in point, look at this nonsense.
[video=youtube;P8eihFlL4rs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8eihFlL4rs[/video]
Case in point, look at this nonsense.
[video=youtube;P8eihFlL4rs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8eihFlL4rs[/video]
strativarius
Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
Although Sheldrake wrote a book called 'Morphic Resonance', the one I read was called 'A New Science of Life'. Unfortunately, that was more than 25 years ago, and since I have big problems remembering what I had for breakfast, I can't tell you much about it. If you're interested, there's a Google page with vids and more links here.
Forgive me, I thought you were telling me Sheldrake had all the answers to the riddle of consciousness. It's difficult for me to accept that it's all down to a bunch of synapses in the brain, but in the absence of any other plausible explanation, I have to go with that one.
strativarius
Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
Thanks for posting that vid upstat. I'm also agnostic and I know very little about catholicism. My apologies to any catholics here, but what I have learned from that vid is that it is not only to scientology that the phrase 'it's always worse than you thought' applies.
Mimsey Borogrove
Crusader
Yes, I am reading the same book and I just got started on it. I will check out the videos. They keep away the tedium of balancing / reconciling my check book. Mimsey
TheOriginalBigBlue
Gold Meritorious Patron
I think this thread needs a little balance. Personally I don't care what someone's personal beliefs are as long as they don't cause harm to anybody else but Atheism is not without it's dark side. Both Religious and Atheist fanaticism have caused a lot of death and misery.
Communists routinely conduct pogroms to identify community leaders and intellectuals and if they don't support the regime they disappear in the night. More often than not priests are at the top of the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Eastern_Bloc
Communists routinely conduct pogroms to identify community leaders and intellectuals and if they don't support the regime they disappear in the night. More often than not priests are at the top of the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Eastern_Bloc
Mimsey Borogrove
Crusader
Luckily for us, Hubbard was never a priest, and thus never rubbed out in a pogrom. If they had, there would be no ESMB and no LOLs. How do you like this Monet? it's called Brouillard Parmi les Pierres Tombales
Mimsey
Hypatia
Pagan
My family was Christian They all believed in evolution. Many Christian churches accept it.
I hold lots of spiritual beliefs. I have no problem with still recognizing scientific truth. I think people have had such beliefs since the beginning of humanity and that clergy have often taken advantage of it, but that the beliefs were there first.
oneonewasaracecar
Gold Meritorious Patron
It is not their atheism that led them to perform these atrocities. Technically, it isn't even their communist beliefs that led them to do so.
What causes them to do these things is their anti-secularism. The most important western secular values are freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Essentially, secular values enable freedom of thought. An anti-secularist dictator will tell people what to think, what they are permitted to say and will attack people who think differently or speak differently.
In principal someone could be a communist and allow religious freedom, although in practice it has never happened and is not likely to.
I absolutely agree that anti-secularists such as Stalin, Hitler, Mohammed, the leaders of ISIS and Al Qaeda and are a thread to freedom. I think from this list, it is easy to see that anti-secularists totalitarian leaders are not limited to communists and obviously don't require atheism as many are religious in nature. You can see in the picture below that the real problem is anti-secularism.
Many atheists (and religious people) are secularists as am I. The belief in secular values is independent of religious beliefs.
Atheism is not a belief system. We don't worship Athea.
There are people who believe in a formal afterlife system. They are called theists. There are people who believe in some sort of informal God. We call these deists. Those who do not believe in either of these are called atheists.
Atheism isn't a belief system. It is the absence of a religious one.
WildKat
Gold Meritorious Patron
LOL. Good one.
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
Human Nature has a dark side and a powerful, corrupt evil person is capable of using any "ism" to wreak havoc. If what they have available is Catholicism then we get Torquemada, , Communism then we get Mao and the Politburo, Fascism we get the NAZIs, Islam we get ISIS. I am not aware of anyone who has ordered or inflicted "jihad" in the name of atheism though. I am not at all sure that a slogan of "we are going to force you to not believe anything" is enough to sweep opposition aside.
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