An Atheist view on life.

I never do, but that did not negate my need to say thank you.

 

I'm not sure I understand your question. Once an event happens in time, that time and event has expired. Certainly the event could happen again, even though it's the same type of event (like clapping hands), it's considered a different event in and of itself.

 

When I note suffering, it saddens me. When I experience suffering, I accept it as a part of life and attempt to end it. My understanding of death involves a possible afterlife of some kind, but I admit I do not and cannot know what it may or may not be. I do not live this life in anticipation or belief of that which is imagined...I find enough joy in the reality.
If indeed there is a God (no reason to believe I know there is not), it cannot be that which is portrayed in your Bible(s) as it has been shown to be impossible in a very many ways, has no evidence to represent it, and is quite obviously a human construct from ancient cultural needs.
I would not be considered Atheist, more Agnostic....but just because I am bright enough to see your God as fabricated (as you probably do everyone else's), does not mean I am dim enough to reject possibilities I cannot know one way or another.

 

As I mentioned before, devoid of any god, children are still starving people in remote, poor parts of the world while others are living well. What do YOU do with that information? I would like to think you would have pity on them, but also count your blessings. How do you come to realize how blessed you are except to see those who have less? Maybe not.

I don’t ever get the impression God would make it an easy world to live in. I think he put us here to learn how to deal with adversity. I honestly don’t know why some suffer more than others; but they do and that’s the way of the world. You want to call that a dark god? The darkness isn’t this God, the darkness is the rebellion of the people God created. “Then God shouldn’t have created man to rebel”. That would strip us of any opportunity to learn. Again, it goes against God’s nature to have created man in His own image and not have given them free will to rebel. God has free will, why shouldn’t the creatures He created have it? And in many dark places in the world, man decided to become corrupt and evil; thus making others under them suffer. This is not God’s doing.

 

Well, you can challenge my humility until the sun goes down. It’s nothing but a strawman that forces you to denigrate me rather than just still with your challenge of the existence of God. How can you, that knows nothing about me, come any sort of conclusion of my personality? We make choices in our lives. I made my choice based on thousands of experiences. I am the kind of person that once I’ve made a choice – that unless I have overwhelming compelling information to the contrary – I stick with it. This isn’t arrogance; it’s called principles. I happen to think wading in the water trying to decide whether it’s warm or cold, never being able to decide is the sign of your unwillingness to make a firm decision about things. Feeling you are right about something isn’t arrogance; therefor arrogance has nothing to do with it.

 

You’re not going to drag me into a personal discussion about who I am and my experiences in life. I’m at an age where I don’t need any in an anonymous forum to lecture me about the harshness of this world. It serves no purpose in any forum discussion, where none of us know each other on a personal level, to make such assumptions about people. We are having a debate, and we should leave the personal crap out of it.

 

But you don’t even know where I came from and what I’ve had to do to get where I am today. Do you even understand the arrogance you’re exhibiting by making assumptions about me? I am not suggesting I am suffering NOW. I am not. I am doing well. What makes you think I wasn’t there at any point in my life and don’t understand, full-well, what suffering really is? You really need to get off your judgmental high-horse and consider where you’re going with this.

 

god created everything but man created evil ?.......so why would god create something that could be evil.......and he doesn't care about those innocent people who the evil people harm ? How cruel. How dark.


Why don't you try thinking beyond the trite platitudes, you know, that LEARNING you went on about....

 

I agree with everything you say, but I don't see how it can be evidence of an objective time. Even if the original imagined thing comes to be, there is no way to link it back to the imagining. There is a reason the linear aspect of causality is considered inviolate.

 

How do you know they were referring to rockets and missiles and not lightning or meteorites? Both of these rain down fire from the heavens and would have been observed long ago.

 

I’m not going waste any more time with someone that has decided it serves you better to disparage people you are debating rather than remain within the constraints of respect.

Have a nice day.

 

Here ya go again, can't answer questions so it's the questioner's fault Well, it IS easier than having a new thought. That "thinking/freewill/learning thing you claim god gave you isn't working too well.

And I'm not going to get involved with your little tit-for-tat- posts...either address my posts or be ignored.

 

You keep bringing up God wants us to learn? Why would God want us to learn? And what, good vs evil?

And then in the 'next life', all will be gone to those who believe? Eternal bliss, no good or evil, no learning?
And to most others, only eternal torment and agony? No more learning?

 

I didn't make the rules. It's my estimation, as I've already stated twice, that when all this happens there will be no more learning about good and evil. The world will be full-well of it and have a choice which path to choose. You will go to 'eternal bliss' or 'eternal torment' with full knowledge of these things. Do I claim to know what this will look like or be like? Nope! All I know is I would rather be in the 'bliss' than the 'torment'.

 

So this earth experiment, for lack of a better term, is for teaching. Once humans know everything, then all will end and the good and evil will go separate ways.

 

Which begs the question :Why do they have to learn if they're going to die anyway....?

 

Sure there can be a way to link it back to the imagining. It is called a journal or diary or other recording wherein the imagining can be made. If one is concerned about an imagining or believe the imagining to be otherwise important, it should be recorded. Or If the person holding the imagining simply believes the imagining and desires a method of validating that the imagining actually took place before the manifestation of the imagining. Otherwise you end up with oral commentary that cannot be validated.

 

They who? And where did I say "they were referring to 'rockets'"? The passage of scripture stated (paraphrased) that an entity would cause fire to come from the heavens. Revelation chapter 13. It was speaking of the antiChrist and what power he would have. Metaphor? You tell me.

 

Then how would you know that the manifestation didn't come from the journal as opposed to the imagining coming from the manifestation? Doesn't the simple fact that we cannot move freely in time suggest that time itself doesn't really exist? What we call the past is simply our memories while what we call the future is nothing more than probabilities.

Why, the people who wrote the Old Testament of course. Who else did you think I could be referring to?

So, you were not trying to link the biblical phrase "fire from heaven" with modern nuclear missiles?

 

Date stamp of the journal vs the date of the manifestation.
Not really. Time exists as a concept.

Possibly because of the manner in which you wrote the statement. Not declaring who you were speaking about. Are the readers required to presume that you are speaking about a specific person or group of persons?

Not necessarily. There is also a movie out called "fire from below".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137455/ and another called 'heavens fire'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0194003/ Then there is the 'fan fiction' story called 'fire from heaven'
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10426595/1/Fire-from-Heaven

Of course I do believe that you would surely recognize the story of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as being recent historical events which clearly depict 'fire from the heavens'.

 

Date stamps simply confirm that the imagining preceded the manifestation. They cannot show that the imagining was caused by the manifestation.

But concepts and reality are not the same thing, agreed? Couldn't the linearity of time simply be an artifact of how we perceive change?

From my perspective, Nagasaki and Hiroshima could be called 'fire from the heavens', but I doubt that is what the people who wrote the Bible had in mind.

 

My point was the fact that the imagining preceded the manifestation. Thus conceivably being a cause of the manifestation.

Agreed. Well of course the linearity of time could be an artifact of how we perceive change... In fact, that is a re-worded version of the definition of 'time'.

Doubt and suspicions are strange bed-fellows. On the one hand it is seemingly unlikely and then on the other hand it is begging to be proven true. In other words, I can doubt something due to the strong possibility that it may not be true, while at the same time I highly suspect that it may be true. An awful dilemma in which to find oneself.

 

So your not saying that the manifestation somehow caused the imagining in the first place? Otherwise I don't see how this is an example of someone experiencing a different point in time. If I imagine a future manifestation, regardless of whether it comes to be or not, my imagining is completely in the present.

 

You are correct in understanding and we are both on the same page regarding what I previously stated.