All Blog Comments

Waldheri - Humanist hypocrisy

Waldheri — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 21:53:26 +0000

I see what you're trying to say better now, but indeed, its too bad I can't read Swedish. It would have been easier to see your point, and most probably I would have agreed with you if the website is really as fundamentally dogmatic as your post seems to imply. It just irked me that it seemed you condemned the whole of humanism based on that website. I've visited some humanism websites and read a bit into them, and in my experience they weren't as bad as the website you seem to have found. That's why I objected in my first reply. I know and agree that religion can't be delineated as belief systems that include gods, but most often they do offer some supernaturalism. Buddhism, for example, has the doctrine of reincarnation. And that's another reason why I do not see humanism as a religion - it has no supernatural precepts that I am aware of. Even though you did not write it explicitly, it did seem like you were condemning humanism on the grounds it was religious. Like I said: things fall under the same definition if they share the same properties; therefore comparing humanism (or this particular website's way of promoting it) to religon (or religion's way of promoting itself) makes them fall under the same moniker. This is just metalanguage though, and it can be safely ignored on the grounds of it not being very important. Thanks for elaborating, though!

LeaT - A pagan smile in a lake of Christian tears

LeaT — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 21:18:00 +0000

NeedleDee, I know it is off topic but you might want to sign up to IntenseDebate and get a real account! :)

LeaT - Humanist hypocrisy

LeaT — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 21:16:13 +0000

I think I forgot to mention the similarity why I dislike the word "feminist", it implies a similar meaning, as if the woman would be the ruler instead of the man. While I understand that many humanists may very well be nihilistic as well, that's not the impression I got from the site I linked anyway. You have to remember I base most of my impression on that site, and unfortunately I cannot help you since it's in Swedish... but suffice to say, while the site does seem neutral at first, I almost get a fundamental impression by it. I know what you mean with comparing organizations and religions; the point is that Buddhism is a religion, but it does not focus much on the metaphysical and there is no existence of god, and it supports the idea of environmentalism, you being a part of a greater whole. This is why the idea that religion alone is a religion because of a god-concept is flawed to me, because a lot of religions don't believe in god at all, they are in fact, quite a few once you start counting them and compare them to other religions, worldviews or cosmologies. Is humanism a worldview? I suppose it is for some, and in that warrant it is SIMILAR to, but not equal to religion. I don't think I ever openly said it is religion, but it is becoming a lot like a FUNDAMNETAL religious group. And this is what I disagree with.

Waldheri - A pagan smile in a lake of Christian tears

Waldheri — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 20:33:35 +0000

Bump! We talked about this in the Kriegphilosophie forums just recently.

Waldheri - Humanist hypocrisy

Waldheri — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 20:29:56 +0000

The royal opposition has arrived! It is true humanism places great importance on people, but I always thought this was meant as opposed to (half-)gods; not necessarily as opposed to the other life forms we know to exist. It puts the emphasis on human effort in our pursuits of knowledge and ethics - we can't rely on divine revelation or anything supernatural like that. We are the sentient beings who must deal with the problems we face in daily life, philosophy and science. It does not necessarily say: "Here we are, universe! Get used to us!" because that indeed is silly. I think many humanists realize only too well how insignificant they are in the grand scheme of the universe (as opposed to the religious of the Abrahamic religions, who think they have been given the main role in this universe by the creator god). And then I don't understand what's so bad about it being a group or organisation. I think you go out on a limb there a bit. A group is defined by the common properties the members have. Humanism is largely a philosophy, but it does have elements of an activist organisation, which due to managerial reasons have a hierarchy (and not unsurprisingly, a membership fee). However, I don't think you can compare a chairman of a humanist organisation to a leader figure like a pope or imam. Unlike religion which is largely based around one "divinely inspired" piece of literature, humanism as a philosophy has many books and articles, none of which enjoy a sanctity or absolute authority like a Bible or Qur'an. For these reasons, I think its unwarranted to draw a parallel between humanism and the typical religion.

NeedleDee - A pagan smile in a lake of Christian tears

NeedleDee — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 14:52:09 +0000

Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe and the tree are also pagan symbols used around Yule (winter solstice). The jolly, fat santa in a red and white suit was immortalised by the coca cola company, for an advertising campaign sometime around the 1930's. Before then he was shown in many guises. Interestingly that they chose red and white. Also that he is associate with flying reindeer. Reindeer love fly-agaric mushrooms. Also Nordic Shaman (which santa is based on ) used to eat fly-agaric mushrooms, pee and share the urine with others - apparently a very good way to enjoy the effects. For those who don't know, fly-agaric mushrooms are those red mushrooms with white spots.

NeedleDee - Confession

NeedleDee — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 14:38:33 +0000

Going to confession makes you sin. When I was a child I went to confession and felt pressured to confess stuff I hadn't even done. Then I used to steal a few pennies from my mother's purse so that I had something to confess.

NeedleDee - A pagan smile in a lake of Christian tears

NeedleDee — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 14:28:53 +0000

The easter bunny should be a hare. A hare is symbolic of fertility.

LeaT - We get email #2

LeaT — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:55:19 +0000

Of course, and I am aware of that. And I am aware that neither of you are proclaimed humanists :)

Michael Koenig - We get email #2

Michael Koenig — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:32:32 +0000

Testing.

Waldheri - We get email #2

Waldheri — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:26:09 +0000

True, but you're the one introducing humanism. I never mentioned that in my text, nor did Anath. Secularism does not entail humanism, although humanism often entails secularism. Therefore, I still stand by what I say.

LeaT - We get email #2

LeaT — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:37:59 +0000

I have to say though, that when you start looking at the humanist movement a bit at least, it seems just a tad like a religious institution, minus the faith. The creation of dogma is there, for example. You have an institution, and while there is not yet something akin to scripture, as it seems the humanist movement is mostly carried out by verbal means, many a humanist do share the same set of ethics. I suppose this is the part that I find just a bit scary. And it seems that many humanists find it their cause to push their non-theistic beliefs upon theists, something I believe none of us here would agree with (and this is one of the reasons why I would never call myself or consider myself a humanist). I wholly support the idea of secularism; what you believe in should have nothing to do with how to control a country, and it becomes even more evident if you got many different groups who believe in different religions in the same country. Which group should have the surpreme right then, in such a case, to say that OUR ethics are better in standard than the other groups' ethics? That is not fair to anyone, and should be one of the primary arguments why religion and state should be seperated as well.

Waldheri - We get email #2

Waldheri — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:19:00 +0000

I have to object to secularism being denoted as a religion. On the other hand, I do agree that freedom of religion should also include the freedom of non-religion.

LeaT - We get email #2

LeaT — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:47:59 +0000

Well, not much else to say than Waldheri already said :)

Anath - We get email #2

Anath — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:51:23 +0000

You beat me to it! : D I will edit in my replies later today.

db0 - We get email #2

db0 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:25:47 +0000

Cheers for respondign Waldheri. I saw the email but couldn't be bollocksed :)

LeaT - Christian arguments under siege, Part II : The nature of the Christian "faith" and the joke of free

LeaT — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:05:07 +0000

It should not, as I was just a "guest" for a long time as well before I became an author. ID is related to the Wordpress account.

Anath - Christian arguments under siege, Part II : The nature of the Christian "faith" and the joke of free

Anath — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:46:28 +0000

I'll cut in here. "Can you even conceive of what it might be like here if all of the good were gone?" Yes. I have actually given the concept of good and evil a great deal of thought and intensive study, and my conclusions are quite different from what you might expect. The concept does not exist in ANY objective state, so one could easily say that "the good IS all gone"--NOW. It was NEVER here. There is only what you PERCEIVE as "good" or "evil", nothing more. I don't really have time to explain the fine details of why I think this right now, but I wrote an essay on it a while back that will give some insight into my work on the issue: http://www.antichristian-phenomenon.com/anath/deb... I have developed a number of the points further since this was written, so please inquire about anything that confuses you or seems unusual. And please, try to step into the shoes of someone who does NOT view the world as black and white, good and evil, god and satan. You clearly misunderstood what Jorrizza meant with his reference to Lucifer (but that is his battle, not mine), which indicates that it would be in your best interest to take a step away from your dogma while engaging us. Otherwise, the attempt is futile.

angiebarna - Christian arguments under siege, Part II : The nature of the Christian "faith" and the joke of free

angiebarna — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:40:19 +0000

At that point, my mom shared that there were spirits haunting my apartment, which probably followed my son to her house and then to theirs. The spirits didn't stay with them though, they came back to haunt my place some more…I still wonder if my little guy (whose now 16) was the one they were most attracted to - it seemed that way. I can’t even express how hard it was seeing him go through this. After several exhausting months of these sorts of incidences, a woman from church told me she knew how to cast out demons. She said the Bible teaches us how to use God's word as our sword against demons and she offered to come over and help me. I was desperate for answers. We did a lot of praying, quoting scripture and commanded the demons to leave. She said they fear God and MUST obey his word - and they did!!! I never experienced another incident after telling them to leave and my son never had to suffer another night of their torment, which was a huge relief after living through months of their mental torture every single night. I no longer fear demons because I know that I have God on my side and his power is much greater than theirs - they HAVE to obey him. I put my faith in the Creator, the real ruler of everything in the universe. He is the ruler over Satan and his demons. That may be altruistic, but I experienced the truth in God’s word first hand. I have complete trust my personal experiences. I’ve had other experiences with demons, so if anyone is interested in hearing about them I’d be happy to share. After interacting with the evil ones, you don’t deny their reality. I’ve always wondered why God allowed these events in my life – why the fallen angels were revealed to me instead of heavenly angels. Still wondering about that, but I have gratitude that I no longer feel vulnerable to them. PS - I still couldn't get it all in one message, but I put in small chuncks at a time by clicking on the EDIT button.

angiebarna - Christian arguments under siege, Part II : The nature of the Christian "faith" and the joke of free

angiebarna — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:32:22 +0000

Since I'm on the subject of Satan and his demons, I mentioned earlier that I have faith that God has power over the realm of evil. I know this to be true because I've had several interactions with evil spirits. When I was 25 (I'm now 40), I had an apartment exercised after experiencing undeniable hauntings. I lived alone (well, with a 2 year old, but no other adults.) Anyway, my son started seeing things, waving hello at the ceiling, pointing and showing me things when nothing was there. At the very same time he began the “sightings,” he also started experiencing severe night terrors. One night during one of his episodes, I brought him into bed with me to calm him down. I laid him on my chest and he eventually quieted down and started to fall asleep. Just as he was getting ready to doze off, he rolled off of me and was now on his back next to me. He opened his eyes, got a terrified look on his face, pointed at the ceiling directly above our heads and began screaming. I didn’t know how to deal with this – the screaming, pointing, and terror happened nearly every night. I began to feel very frightened and vulnerable. I started sleeping with lots of lights on, but as you can imagine we weren’t getting a lot of sleep. One night, I went to bed with 3 night lights plugged in, my closet light on, the bathroom light on, the hall light on, my son's closet light on and the kitchen light on. I woke up in the middle of the night and every single one of them was burned out! That cannot happen by coincidence. When I went to work, my mom kept my son for me at her house. (I should mention she is a Christian.) One day while my son was with her, she was walking through her kitchen when the glass top stove shattered into a million pieces and flew out toward her. She wasn't even cooking anything, just walking through the kitchen. In the midsummer’s heat when the temperature was in the 90’s, my home and car air conditioners stopped working on the same day. That could have been coincidence, but with everything else going on, I chalked it up to another spiritual attack. Another day when my son was at her house, my grandparents stopped by to visit. My mom didn't share with them that we had been experiencing bizarre, supernatural things. When my grandparents got home, they called and said their house was haunted. Their garage door was going up and down on its own, lights were turning on and off on their own and the television was turning on and off by itself. They were terrified as nothing like this had ever happened before – or since.