In Reply to: Earth to OT posted by Zither on March 15, 2006 at 13:55:04:
Zither:
First of all, here, I want to establish that I wish only to comply with this board’s guidelines about:
•a safe, non-threatening environment for ex-members who still have faith—or are on a spiritual journey, unsure of what they believe..for those who, while de-toxing from the spiritual atmosphere of The Family, wish to discuss spiritual and Biblical issues, including comparing genuine Christianity to heresies and spiritual abuse.
•active dialogue…[with]… respect for those of different beliefs, while not preaching, but sharing my heart regarding our [mutual] journey out of TF experience.
• This board is [being] a space for dialogue between those who are of different spiritual persuasions.
•All of the above, WITHOUT endless repetition, prolongued discussions not crucial to understanding our cultic experience and recovery from it, and where
•Ex-members can feel comfortable discussing faith/spiritual journeying, seeking advice, receiving affirmation, and find healing from spiritual abuse, without
•Loss of courtesy, and [a] show [of] courtesy and respect to fellow posters, and their faith and beliefs.
So, Zither, I substantiated what I said about your use of circular argumentation--can you do the same with what I said--probably not--how about I challenge you to show what I said to be non-linear, as I proved your statements to be? You made a strong accusation there. Can you back it up?
Yes, logic is clear and sensible, regardless of point of view. So, similarly, is illogic unclear and unsensible, and even further wishful thinking on your part cannot change that, either. “Sense” means logically cogent. That’s where the rules of language come from—words have meanings, and it’s that way so people can accurately communicate.
So, exactly how did you “find” my reasoning to be circular? That has to be proven; you know. Otherwise your response is a non-statement—logical gibberish. Please substantiate this claim; OK? I am not attacking you. I am asking you to make sense; which you are demonstrably not doing.
You do realize that you are attacking my personal faith and showing me disrespect; don’t you? You don’t get to attack and mock Christians here, just because Christian-bashing is currently politically correct; you know. That’s just wrong, and is implied in the guidelines.
That’s OK: I forgive you. Please just communicate more honestly; please. You seem to imply an insistence on a double standard.
Perhaps you are against “all things Christian” because you have misidentified TF as Christian in the first place? Your anger and unfairness towards me is not justified. Your anger is justified; you have just misplaced it by insisting on directing it at me.
They do that at MovingOn; displaced bitterness is practically a doctrine, there. I suppose ti's a good place to vent, adnthat is necessary, at times.
This is ExFam/Journeys; OK?
I am sorry, for you, that hard logic is so easily converted in your mind to what you call “bullying” (that was not my intent!)—isn’t that just an oblique “ad hominem”, on your part, or a diverting of the conversation to a personal attack on me, by merely “claiming” that I am a bully, when, in fact, you’re just using that accusation on your part to divert attention from the fact that you cannot legitimately answer the question?
This is a discussion format, a chat board, Zither—that is what is done, here, if the above guidelines are kept, and I believe I have kept them.
As you are now apparently doing, I had the option of examining atheism at a young age, and rejected it, because, logically and scientifically, it is complete untenable crap; that’s not anything personal.
I thought that the presentation of the article was very poorly done; and I have seen many, many more, and MUCH BETTER PRESENTED arguments presenting and supporting atheism (like Sir Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am Not a Christian”, and others—which I would LOVE to rebut!).
I disagreed with your appraisal of the article Moonshiner quoted. That was an opinion. And, simply, this is an opinion-based chat board. Most people here will sympathize, and even empathise with you, but not all will agree with you, and some will challenge your logic.
I suggest that you should learn to deal with it,or just read for awhile, if it hurts your feelings—I’m really not trying to do that.
I take atheists, and everybody else, one person at a time, and try very hard to treat everyone with the same respect. You are apparently quite young—I am older, and my experiences with both atheists and agnostics are probably far more numerous than yours, I would guess. That would be a fair assessment; wouldn’t it? I am surely not going to patronize you, or talk to you like a child.
I have found a complete range of personalities and temperaments among both atheists and agnostics. I have encountered both the tolerant and non-proselytizing kind of atheists as well as working closely with followers of Madeleine Murray O’Hare, and had attempts actually made on my life, at work as an electrician, by them, because I protested their proselytization, especially on company time.
They literally threatened to kill me because of my Bible-based historic and orthodox Christianity.
I have also had physical threats made against me by some agnostics; whose “hippier-than-thou” self-righteousness apparently included threats of violence when not agreed with.
I conversed with other agnostics very cheerfully and enjoyably, at other times. Some were literally open agnostics (versus dogmatic agnostics), who used the term to mean that their mind was not yet made up, concerning ANY belief system, including atheism, which quite a few of them saw as simply a non-scientifically based anti-god religion, BECAUSE they were very careful and logical thinkers, trying to combine wisdom with their intelligence.
Another kind of agnostic just used the term to mean “ignorant”, and some, yes, were even “willfully ignorant” (a Bible term, actually), and were consistently intellectually lazy, and even fraudulently dishonest, and could not progress in a real conversation, if they were paid to do so; they had lost that ability, sad to say.
That’s what dogmatism and purposeful ignorance will get a person for those kinds of efforts, or, rather, a complete lack of effort --to think.
I very rarely encounter agnostics who know the term’s history and literal meaning. I know of two men who really did understand the word’s meaning. One was Aldous Huxley, who took hallucinogenics, or what was by then already called “psychotomimetics” (or “mimicking psychoses”), and wrote a famous book called “The Doors of Perception” as a result. He was, basically, an “early Hippie” of sorts, and probably “THE” earliest modern era “acid-head” of record.
He originated the word--made it up all by himself.
Huxley had examined as many of the world’s belief systems as he could (so did I), and had said, about Gnostic/Hinduism (BECAUSE it so closely resembled his drug trip experiences of “mind-expansion”) that he was not a Gnostic.
He also said that all of the world’s belief systems fell under the category of “Judeo-Christian” or “Hindu-Gnostic”. He admitted that he rejected Christianity out-of-hand, NOT because he could not accept it as true, but BECAUSE he would not, and that that was BECAUSE of his own sexuality, and BECAUSE of the belief system he had ALREADY chosen.
Oh, yeah—“agnostic” means “A-Gnostic”, or “NOT-Gnostic”. Huxley hated a lot of things done in the name of that religion, historically; like the treatment of “untouchables” in India, and he despised gnosticism in every way; especially intellectually--he thought it was the ultimate form of intellectual laziness and fraud.
Zither; I am interested to know WHY you are a Universalist. That has several meanings at different times in history as well.
Is it because of your very bad experience with a form of “sub-christianity” in TF? I had the same experience; or at least similar, as did thousands of other people, over the years.
I am not opposing you; personally. I actually care about you.
How do you define “tolerance between belief systems? By claiming that, universally, that “there are absolutely no absolutes”? That’s not logical; you know—the statement it is itself an absolute; obviously.
What if there is an absolute, and “it” is a Person, and that Person is NOT the Jesus Christ you were lied to about in TF, but the real one?
The other guy I mentioned was CS Lewis. He was professor at both Oxford and Cambridge, and was expert in about 14 dead languages, as well as all of the Greek and Latin classics, as well as other world religious literature, especially in extant manuscript form.
He observed, as had done Aldous Huxley, that all world belief systems could fairly be classed as basically Judeo-Christian or Hindu-Gnostic, or many combinations thereof.
He also had some early sex sin in his life, but, unlike Huxley, he said, “I was brought struggling and kicking into the Kingdom of God—the most reluctant convert in all of England”.
What a great guy—my absolute favorite author—have you seen (or read) “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”? I was brought up in South America, and attended a British school, and had that book read to me as a child, and fell in love with it. I rediscovered Lewis post-cult, and have read all of his work ofen over the years.
I did not know it was the work of a world class intellectual, and a former militant atheist; which is what I considered myself at around 19.
I then did what Aldous Huxley had done with the drugs and Eastern religious experiences, and that made me easy prey, and I was a very “unstable soul” (see 2 Peter ch. 2), when the COG came to my college town, and recruited me.
Over the years, I have found out a LOT of true stuff about a LOT of religions (including Universalism—interested?). I won’t try to preach or teach, but please do expect me to respond to silly or illogical stuff. That goes with the territory of chat boards; right? Leaving clouded thinking behind was and is part of my recovery. I have to assume it’s also part of yours.
Got to go! ‘Bye for now! Take care, Zither!
Sincerely,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)