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Re: Query to bananabrain (part 4) Where do we go from here? Well, that which is both original and good tends to have a strong influence. Apparently, that which is originally good has to be presented in an entirely new and original package as well in order to establish any foothold inside any...

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 3) It's time to finish this list with two of the earliest atheists of all, atypical atheists for whom both their self-started atheism and their own original creed of living seem equally independent of others. Does that creed fulfill the function of providing...

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 2) That's one list. Here's the other: This second list consists (primarily) of certain genuinely upright and courageous nonbelievers throughout history that historians rarely talk about -- A) Mathias Knutzen, who described himself as the first "Conscientist"...

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 1) I suppose it's possible he may have been referring in a more general way to a road that led to his acquiring belief in general rather than the road that led to his specifically adopting Judaism(?). Whichever, I do hope this monster multiple post of my own may...

I found it very interesting to read bananabrain's remark in a related thread -- -- in referring to the way he arrived at his belief. Since I also am under the ........... illusion ........... (?) :-) that I arrived at my belief in the same way, I'd be most interested in knowing if bananabrain...

-- through the whole nine yards of my own evaluation/analysis path, that is, as I've been invited to do here.

Oooooooooo.K................ But I'm not sure how many will feel up to slogging through it all -- it's loooong. Still, I hope it may spur on bananabrain to tell us his own evaluation path as well..........? I feel like asking special permission here first, because even after lots of cutting...

Both Tao and Banana have been having an eminently worthwhile exchange here. Thank you. I wanted to add something to what Banana says here: This is precisely how I arrived at the point where I'm now a believer, after having been a skeptic most of my life (my parents were agnostics). I don't...

Quite a while back, I came across an MP3 that some posters here may already know, but I admit I only had time to hear it all the way through -- finally! -- today. A fair number here may be familiar with Bart Ehrman? Well, in this interview in this MP3, Ehrman addresses -- among many other...

okieinexile, Thanks for a thoughtful post -- as always. I was especially struck by one thing here in particular: I once heard an amusing story about a physicist's arrival at the pearly gates. He is allowed in by Peter and when he finally receives God's blessing at the throne, he asks Her --...

Oh, but I think that 100 years is way too optimistic. To me, it's self-evident that, unless the whole global community quickly comes together on two chief things, cooperative speeded-up action on both free-lance WMDs and on impending ecological bootdown and polar melting, this species will have...

Actually, it happened for two or three generations in the Soviet Union. But that didn't seem to squelch worship. Still, the main reason why I would not depend on that "factoid" as evidence of deity's real existence is the simple fact that the culture that emerged out of the SU did not stress...

This is in reference to Shag-Egur of Lagash, a Sumerian principality. I meant to add that there are variant forms of his name: 1) Lugal-Shag-Egur 2) Lugal-Sha-Egur 3) Lugal-Shag-Engur 4) Lugal-Sha-Engur 5) Shag-Engur 6) Shag-Egur 7) Sha-Engur 8) Sha-Egur Also, apparently, Mesilim, the...

..........O.K. <shrug> -- I disagree, but at least that makes a little sense, if not much. It just strikes me that, at the least, the accounts we have of such figures are somewhat more detailed and circumstantial with a more identifiable historical milieu than anything purportedly...

You asked "If God wants me to believe then why wont he tell me[?] Why did he only give this message to patently corrupt churches?" Whether the early accounts of individual seekers having personally encountered deity are daft or not, there are at least those accounts. We're all perfectly free...

He initiated the worship of Ningirsu in Lagash as the deity who inspired a peace treaty between Lagash and Umma. Urukagina established new temples free of the corrupt priesthood of the time and designed to replace the temples then in "business" and was actually mourned by a reform priest in an...

This has not just been a stimulating but a highly rigorous debate from everyone. Hence I'm surprised and disappointed at the sudden sloppiness here. Lugal-Shag-Egur, Urukagina, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Christ, Mohammed and Bahá’u’lláh would all be exceedingly startled to find out that they...

Yes. Yes. Here, the answer is "not quite". I wouldn't probably change many of my life choices were I to find that deity is no longer a common denominator after all behind the most significant cultural breakthroughs in social/cultural altruism. However, if I were to determine that it indeed...

Actually, I don't really know of anyone else who arrived at belief the way I did. It's possible a few others have, but I don't know of any offhand, personally. This is a rather extensive account, and I hope it doesn't derail this thread. But you've asked an honest question and it deserves an...

Well, I'm a general theist who agrees that the existence of God is theoretically disprovable. Now, does that make me really an atheist instead of a theist even though I emphatically believe myself a theist? Aren't you yourself flirting with a certain degree of condescension here when you imply...