Timmy Talk

[MarcBee]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Marc, as an atheist/unbeliever, you apparently believe it highly likely that a person who makes a public interruption in order to deliver a religious rebuke to the 'powers that be' is a mental case, a 'possible psycho'.

No, I'm not qualified to say if it's "highly likely" or not, and that is similarly why Congress called on a so-called mental health professional, not me, and not you. Any such strange interruption in Congress, religious or not, should be evaluated for the possibility--as she was, according to the story. Publicly-entrusted Congressional stenographers are NOT paid to offer a personal outburst or lecture, rather, they are paid to type and get the words down correctly.
BTW, In like manner, public school teachers are not paid to "witness for Christ" on the taxpayer's time, or on taxpayer's property.

Originally Posted by Esaias

This is the mentality that will not only allow, but support the persecution of Christians for 'mental illness', just as was done throughout the middle ages (they called it witchcraft or demon possession or having a familiar spirit back then) and in many

That's my mentality, eh? My "mentality" is that the Constitution of the USA upholds the principal of secular government. God is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution of USA for a good reason--the founding fathers didn't want it put there, even though some or many of them believed in a god! (PS, no need to quote the Declaration of Independence--it does not possess the force of law, but the Constitution does.)

Originally Posted by Esaias

just as was done throughout the middle ages

In the Middle Ages (and even later) it was religious people calling other religious people witches or demon possessed. A typical atheist doesn't believe witches or demons even exist. Nice conflating there, however.

Now please answer the question. Did you say, "Good for her!" in a normal, complimentary sense?

Should the next stenographer deserve a back-pat if he or she were to interrupt Congress in order to proclaim, "Santa Claus is not pleased with the behavior of Congress this year, and He never has been. You've all been bad, very, very bad, and he told me to tell you that."

Or change it to an Islamic message. Would it be "Good for her!" in that case? Doesn't everyone get the same religious freedom of expression you want for christians?

How 'bout a Wiccan lecture to Congress--wiccans are relatively benign with their chakras, auras, and earth goddesses--they don't hurt anyone. Can a stenographer stand up and interrupt to proclaim that message? Oh? "Good for her!"

The beauty of American secularism is that it ideally can protect you as well as me, as well and the Rastapharian. But the Majority Religion DOESN'T get to rule this arena. If you try to, then expect the push-back.

IOW, religious speech should not be publicly funded. Do it on your own time, with your own dime, and on your own ground. Or else let every other religious crack-pot do the same unto you.

Originally Posted by Esaias

Folks need to pay attention to this

Amen!

[MarcBee]

PAGE 2, cont.....

Reposted after page one, sorry.

[MarcBee]

Per request from Seekerman.
I could go a dozen different directions about my journey from Oneness to atheism, so this is just another angle, a quick summary, all true to best of my ability.


My First 15 years of Oneness Apostolic belief was basically without much critical thought or problems of faith, nor any abnormal christian behavior problems. I did what my pastors taught, and in some areas, did what they did, not necessarily taught. (Example, I never wore a short-sleeve shirt, not that I thought it deeply mattered, nor was I ever taught it greatly mattered.) I enjoyed the Christian life, including the normal process of learning, believing, praying, working for god, etc, etc., as well as the normal process of overcoming bad habits and establishing good habits, as most good Apostolics are taught (or were taught in the 80s.) My pastors and church trusted me, (as far as I could tell) and I never had an inkling anything was ever going to go wrong in my walk with Jesus (until it did, of course.) Oh, and preceding my apostolic revelation I enjoyed a few late teenage years as an ignorant, yet deep believer in "Jesus My Personal Savior" type Christianity. Of course, the JMPS experience can be correctly interpreted in light of Acts 8, (Ethiopian eunuch) or Acts 19, (disciples of John rebaptized) where believers led by HG need to simply hear the more complete message, and they will or should obey. That's how it happened for me. Although I received the HG in AoG church, upon the first or second time hearing an Acts 2:28 message, I was completely sold with how much better and more scriptural that message was, and I promptly (within one week) found a Oneness church to join. Sounds like the correct narrative, so far?

So, after about 15 years of belief in the whole package, I looked more deeply into the scriptures. Not that I wasn't "deep" before, since I had attended hundreds of Wednesday night bible studies, 100s of Sunday schools, 100s of Sunday nights, etc, but now I began to interpret things for myself after having acquired the aforementioned rudimentary biblical knowledge base. At some point, I fancied I was as able to interpret scripture as well as the average evangelist, or probably better. So I accepted scriptural phrases, chapters, and context for what it said, and not to try not to spin it all according to what typical American religio-cultural influence claimed a given bible verse was supposed to mean. IOW, decided I was secure enough and strong enough in my God to at least question "the narrative". (Yes, of course that narrative varies from church to church.) To interpret scripture according to what one's respected elders and pastor SAY is fairly easy and requires very little thought. Of course the Bible implies that's entirely expected--"Obey them that have the rule over you, for they watch for your soul!"

I began to notice some conundrums, or at least vagueness within the bible --never over Acts 2:38 issues--but about other issues where two books in bible simply had two different takes about something, (example, Paul vs James concerning faith v. works, where I discovered the likes of theologian Martin Luther fully agreed with me on that one. Sure, we can shoehorn the two teachings together if we torture the words enough, as the rest of Protestantism has done for 500 years since ML, at least to their own satisfaction.) I also learned a few facts about how we first acquired the bible in the early centuries. (PS, You will never hear such facts taught in a Wednesday night Apostolic Bible study, or at least I never did.) Anyhow, the story "how we got the Bible" did not appear too wonderful, rather was quite haphazard and not so perfect nor amazing, and contained fingerprints of human chicanery. I began to wonder what an Omnipotent, Omniscient god could have been thinking to deliver to us his holy, perfect, complete word by the agency of proto-catholics, as well as full-fledged Catholics, via uncertain documents, tattered documents, forged documents, and competing documents (mostly from 3rd Century and later.) But through all this (you are supposed to believe) God had his holy infallible hand upon the Catholics to do His Will. [But consider their record for "doing His Will" in any other arena of history.] Furthermore, His holy, perfect, complete Word was to basically remain in the control of those often corrupt Catholics for the next 1300 years. But no matter, God is in control of everything, right? So, to help me get over these (at this point just embryonic) doubts, maybe an Apostolic bible college education might be the answer! After all, in order to be used by God, and find the mininstry God had for my life, I didn't want to be a hypocrite and merely teach over top of my own doubts, nor to parrot someone's interpretation of God's word when I had questions about it myself. Therefore, I figured an apostolic bible school education should provide the answers or at least some spiritual and intellectual tools to work out my questions (in fear and trembling, at this point.) "Study to show thyself approved, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." I so deeply wanted that "RIGHTLY" word to be the foundation of my ministry, whatever that might turn out to be--didn't matter--wherever and whatever God wanted me. By this time, age 31, I had, by choice or by default, no legitimate career, no family, no nothing. And that was okay for the time. Why? Because as a teen, a new convert, I took to heart a message from the pulpit that "spoke to my heart" with the words of Jesus himself, from the Sermon on The Mount. In essence, Jesus asks us not to pursue the ambitions of this world because "your heavently Father knows what you need." Do the birds toil? (No!) Do the flowers try to beautify themselves? (No!) Therefore, Jesus words are pretty clear--RELINQUISH any ambitions of this world, and acquire heavenly ambitions instead, and your heavenly father will take care of you! The words seemed pretty clear. (But what a cruel joke that turned out to be for me, 25 years later. Nevertheless, I took Jesus teachings to heart, as best I could, or understood.)

My so-called Apostolic bible college education, instead of confirming my faith, and restoring the puppy zeal I had enjoyed in yesteryears, did nothing of the sort. Instead, the Bible began to make even less sense, at least when taken as a whole. Of course, it still made great sense if you're allowed to pick and choose the 10% of it that you prefer. This not to imply that my apostolic Bible teachers taught anything unconventional--they are of course paid and driven to teach just the opposite--to instill faith, to build the church, and to believe God, etc.

At the same time, I began to notice the almost universal emotional basis of so much that actually happened in church. I began to get suspicious of all shockamoo, especially from any Pentecostal choir. I committed my doubts to God as best I could--this was HIS church, not mine. Nevertheless, I began to not enjoy church so much, due (I think, "due," but not so sure) due to all the apparently orchestrated emotion and display that I began to notice all the time. After one year, I transferred credits to another UPC college on the opposite coast, one apparently having better academics and less of a preacher-mill atmosphere, and I finished their "associate degree" in Christian Education. My failure to do any schmoozing (aka networking) during bible college became apparent. Those young 'uns who were socially adept in bible college and understood how "opportunity" really worked seemed to find good direction afterward (naturally.) I had figured that God was supposed to be control of such things, because after all, "Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the Lord." (Ya, duh, I realize that the two concepts--schmoozing and trusting God--are not mutually exclusive, of course. But still, just an example of how I thought I was trusting God more than trusting "man's ways.". Alas, trusting man would been the better choice. Seems I had discovered another cruel joke.)

(continued..)

[MarcBee]

PAGE 2, cont.....

What about my original born-again experience? What about a supposed God who gave me the so-called victory to walk with Him for 20 years? How could any of that ever go away? Well, I didn't WANT it to go away, until there was no other honest alternative. The same honesty that led me to want to know truth wherever it might lead, and to therefore follow Jesus, is the same rigorous honesty that pulled me away from the delusion of faith, and the delusion of the supposed divinity of the Bible. This was of course difficult to accept, or to even consider, for a few years. (Emotional train tracks in the mind, laid down and traveled for 20 years, are difficult to reroute, but glad I finally did.) Anyhow, for the next 8-10 years (after Bible College) I went very slowly and carefully, praying for god to help me--any way He saw fit to help me. I had come to the POSSIBLE conclusion that all the effects of the Holy Ghost in my life were a product of normal "conversion" psychology, the kind that happens all over the world, to all kinds of people who believe all kinds of nonsense, including to people who believe the very opposite from what the Bible says to believe. I also suspected that prayer may be indistinguishable from talking to myself, only while imagining a god is listening. So, I prayed about THAT kind of doubt, too! Many times, asking Jesus to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING in my life that would be distinguishable from myself and distinguishable from nature--distinguishable from how things happen naturally everywhere with or without a belief in god. But nothing detectably "from god" happened, (and, in retrospect, has EVER happened.) This was not like putting out a fleece, because I didn't name any final terms-- I only wanted god to do something,--anything that would do the trick-- other than the same trick that already wasn't doing the trick, such as just believing without good evidence that the bible is true or that a god is paying any attention, or has ever paid attention. To repeat, I had already been doing that for 20 years--believing and buying it all, meaning "believing it" if the God seemed to have said it in his Holy Word. But there comes a time when you really can't "choose" what to believe. Either you do or you don't.

I also finally realized my inner HG feelings, or "the witness of the Holy Ghost" never really accomplished anything detectable, nor lead me to any verifiably correct decisions. I concluded that "HG information and feelings" came from my mind, just as many things come from our minds that we can cultivate if we choose to. For example, Love. First we feel it. Then we cultivate the feelings. Then we label it. Then we rationalize it to other parts of our mind. Then we work on creating more iterations of the same pleasure as often as practical. The process repeats for years, and becomes "a truth" to our deepest self. No god required! Likewise, no god is required to feel or hear from the so-called Holy Ghost. It's purely psychological--you are hearing an inner dialogue that any normal human can cultivate if they choose to. Emotions that are repeated and rehearsed for years and years do BECOME "The Truth" to our personal perceptions, and there exists little room to accept contrary evidence. That's why those who were not reasoned into their faith in the first place cannot be reasoned out of it, as it is (or very quickly becomes) so emotionally based. They have conflated and confused emotions to be "reasons." But interesting thing--the kind of "reasoning" we use to hold on to our faith is never used in other aspects of life--only in the religious faith part of the mind. Example, one day your child is missing from school. After calling the school, you call the police, because they are entrusted with such matters. You give all the relevant information. You then go searching for your child yourself, naturally. You receive a call four hours later. You are informed by an officer, "We are still here at the station praying for your child, and we know that God will not put anything upon you that you are not able to bear. So don't fret, God is able!" So, why not accept that? That's essentially the deal the Bible gives believers. Why do we not accept the same kind of "reasoning" in the real world? Answer--because it doesn't work. And since it doesn't work, Christians are forced to constantly push back any demonstrable verification, and instead imagine an afterlife where it will all make sense someday.

We're all in the same boat--this planet earth, and we all have short, often painful lives. We naturally resent the fact of death, and we prefer simple, pleasant answers. Therefore RELIGIONS evolve, and they have evolved very effectively and very cleverly. Some people are even arrogant enough to suppose a distinction between concept "religion" and their "faith," as if one only comes from man, and but the other (theirs, of course) only comes from god. Nope, faith is the problem, not the solution. PS, Don't pity me, the only regrets I have are the many years I wasted having caught and overcome a pernicious virus called faith in your god.

So indulge me to sing to you, or better yet, imagine Lee Greenwood singing to his melody of "Proud to be An American" except with my own lyric mutation, thus:

Key of G,
I'm Proud to be an Athiest,
Where at least I know I'm free.
Free to use my evolved brain,
Which nature gave to me,
And I'll gladly stand UP,
Next to you,
as superstition fails,
Life is good when you give up.....

On ma....gic ,

Fair.....y

Tales!

l

[seekerman]

Wow, quite a story of your religious life's journey, MarcBee. I truly appreciate you taking the time to share it. We all have our paths to walk in life and it's wonderful, liberating really, when we reach the place that we walk with a clear conscience and that seems to be where you are now.

Be blessed (is it ok to say that to an agnostic/atheist?)

[MarcBee]

Originally Posted by seekerman

...
Be blessed (is it ok to say that to an agnostic/atheist?)

Good question, and there's more to it than meets the eye! Consider how in the bible, in at least one story about two of our Patriarchs of the faith, a so-called blessing was instead a defacto documentation of immorality performed by both god's people and the god himself. Rebekah incited her son Jacob into a conspiracy to act out a lie toward his own father (and Rebekah's husband) Isaac. No condemnation of this deceit exists anywhere in the bible, in fact, the god presumably backed up Isaac's blessing as "His will", and presumably did confer the blessings that Isaac pronounced while both Jacob and his mother stood there happy about the successful deceit. It wasn't enough that Jacob had already acquired Esau's inheritance (family property) as a result of leveraging his brother's vulnerability while hungry and lusting for food. But now Jacob wants to receive his father's deathbed blessing via another performance of clever chicanery. Apostle Paul in Romans proves (at least to me) that god didn't care so much about any of the moral implications, because "Before either were born, neither having done anything good nor bad, as it is written 'Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated'; that the purposes of God should stand." So there we have a typical example where being in God's favor allows the suspension of otherwise applicable moral principles. Just as believers today are obligated to believe, "If our God did it, it's okay" even if that means genocide, lying, stealing, rape, slavery, whatever--none of that really matters in an objective moral sense as long as the god permits it or commands it. At the same time, believers suppose and claim that THEY possess the more "objective" morality than anyone else. Nope, the opposite is demonstrable! I and many critical thinkers try to apply moral principles to all intelligent life where even the gods do not deserve an automatic pass to be immoral when it suits them. If anything, a REAL God who really cared about righteousness-through-the-ages could EASILY spin ancient stories to reflect object lessons to teach universally applicable concepts of goodness in a consistent way for all people, for all centuries. Instead, we are handed primitive, petulant gods who think and act remarkably similar to the primitive petulant people who invented them (but with some creative variations, of course--gotta make the god appear very powerful, and a couple steps ahead of everyone else, naturally.)

So, to answer your question Seekerman, Yes, if your blessing is an expression of goodwill coming from you, I gladly accept your blessing, my brother. If however, your blessing is also connected to the same thought processes that also justify or create the yahweh diety, then I'll pass, as a moral decision or statement.

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by MarcBee

So, to answer your question Seekerman, Yes, if your blessing is an expression of goodwill coming from you, I gladly accept your blessing, my brother. If however, your blessing is also connected to the same thought processes that also justify or create the yahweh diety, then I'll pass, as a moral decision or statement.

I only meant it in a good, positive uplifting way.

[FlamingZword]

Originally Posted by MarcBee

PAGE 2, cont.....

I'm Proud to be an Athiest,
Where at least I know I'm free.
Free to use my evolved brain,
Which nature gave to me,
And I'll gladly stand UP,
Next to you,
as superstition fails,
Life is good when you give up.....

On ma....gic ,

Fair.....y

Tales!

l

How sad indeed that you have left the way, the truth and the life, now there is nothing for you but only falsehood and death.
how sad indeed.

[MarcBee]

Originally Posted by FlamingZword

How sad indeed that you have left the way, the truth and the life, now there is nothing for you but only falsehood and death.
how sad indeed.

"Sad" is to organize one's life around a set of fairy tales. I did so for many years--that's the sad part.

[Sasha]

There are a lot of things I once believed but no longer. Some of those I don't even voice to others because of the bad light I might be seen in. I just don't see those things as I once did.