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20th May 2018, 10:59 AM | #881 |
Penultimate Amazing
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But that is the weird doublethink of (in this case the Christian version of) religion: I sure as Hell wouldn't risk eternal damnation if I thought that stuff were true! Do you know how long eternal damnation lasts?! Why risk it if you actually believe "it's true"?!
On the one hand, they don't! But then again, on the other hand, it sure would be nice if ... It's the same thing when people cry at funerals while telling each other that he/she 'has gone to a better place.' It's a comforting belief, but hardly anybody thinks "it's true." What are firm believers? They're people trying very hard to convince themselves that what they believe is more than a fantasy. And the only reason why they have to try so hard is that they don't really believe that "it's true", but would very much like to think so. I don't have to convince myself that 2 + 2 makes 4. I know it does. It's true! End of story. No crisis of faith. No regular need to convince myself that it's true. (It also doesn't make me happy to know, it doesn't comfort me, but quite often it may come in handy.) I mentioned earlier that it's a pretty hard job to maintain the cognitive dissonance of faith versus reality, but people of faith find it worthwhile. For ye of little faith, however, the doublethink, the cognitive dissonance, is what results in the "feeling of relief" (Thor 2) when you give it up, but that usually doesn't happen until the need to believe has diminished to the extent where the believers feel that they can do quite alright without the belief. Having arrived at that point, the effort no longer seems worthwhile. |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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20th May 2018, 01:20 PM | #882 |
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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20th May 2018, 01:38 PM | #883 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Children also don't really think that it's true that stepping on a crack breaks their mother's back ...
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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20th May 2018, 02:06 PM | #884 |
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Humour is not your strong point perhaps?
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This is getting extremely tiresome. The topic of conversation here is reasoning people out of, and perhaps into religion, not about how dann is so astute in detecting the lack of astuteness of myself, in understanding all kinds stuff he can put on the table. Your post #871 is so full of obfuscation I can't begin to unravel it. |
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20th May 2018, 11:41 PM | #885 |
Penultimate Amazing
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There are many things you can't begin to unravel. Obfuscation has nothing to do with it.
That you are confused by catastrophes making people want and need to believe just goes to show that you are not at all interested in understanding what religion is. (Peddlers of religion, on the other hand, actually see catastrophes as an opportunity!) Most people aren't Voltaires or Rousseaus. (But Voltaire and Rousseau also weren't smack in the middle of it.) |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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21st May 2018, 12:28 AM | #886 |
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Being Reasoned Out Of Religion.
But you are missing a nuance: Why don’t they expect Allah to do it for them?
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In order to reason them out of their beliefs, you have to convince them that Allah as their religion describes them is not real. Not easy to do.
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I know this: I am not flying a plane into a building for something I know is not real! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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21st May 2018, 02:03 AM | #887 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Just this, for now:
So when the jihadists commit their suicide-(mass) murders it's because they think that the omniscient, omnipotent Allah and the 72 virgins are real, but when they **** prostitutes before the ultimate sacrifice, it's just human nature ... Yeah, right! 'I'll sacrifice everything for you, oh, My Lord, but before I do, I'll have a quickie!' (And we all know that omniscient gods can't unscramble digital porn anyway ...) |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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21st May 2018, 06:37 AM | #888 |
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For religions that are all about being allowed to sin and then forgiven, claiming that doing the first part means they don't believe it's real equals claiming that the second part doesn't count somehow. That's pretty absurd.
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21st May 2018, 08:15 AM | #889 |
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You are advocating the absurd position that jihadists don't think their God is real. You bizarrely argue that they murder/suicide for the same kinds of reasons that Catholics attend Mass - to get the comfort that they need to keep faith. That makes no sense.
You are skipping over the simple explanation for their dichotomous behavior: They murder/suicide because they believe Allah is real and that by making this supreme sacrifice in carrying out Allah's commands, Allah will forgive their earthly sins. Good ole rationalization/justification in action.
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21st May 2018, 03:50 PM | #890 |
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Well said xjx To argue that these fanatics would die for something they didn't really believe is preposterous. Also those that seem to think Islam is not really responsible and the fanatics are motivated by passions other than religious have their heads in the sand. Found an interesting web site: http://www.humanreligions.info/violence_and_crime.html
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23rd May 2018, 10:06 PM | #891 |
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Are you saying that the 9-11 hijackers were Catholics?! And they had time to go to confession before they got on the plane? It would be pretty absurd to not only sin, but to intentionally commit one of the major sins of Islam: Al-Kabirah like ”Zina (adultery)” if they had actually believed that it was true that they were going to meet Allah the next day. They behaved more like soldiers going on a suicide mission: 'I risk dying so I may as well have a quickie before I go.' Except that they didn't just risk dying, they knew that on this suicide mission they were definitely going to die. |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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23rd May 2018, 10:49 PM | #892 |
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Of course, it would make sense. For those jihadists who believed most firmly, it was not unlike what the Heaven's Gaters did: They would rather give up their lives than face the consequence that there was no UFO coming from Sirius to rescue them. That was the one thing they couldn't face: unequivocally facing reality without the comforting veil of religion. It would also be a pretty hard fall, considering what they'd already sacrificed for this belief: in the case of some of the men, even their balls. They would rather give up their lives than give up the comforting fantasy that enabled them to go on living their pretty miserable lives. That's the power of religion! (And even the bereaved were heard comforting themselves with the idea that their dearly departed had died for something they believed in.) The 9-11 perpetrators mostly died for revenge. Their murder/suicide was more like that of school shooters. Islam offered them the chance to become famous as heroes in the eyes of believers. (But they would still have looked much better in this respect without the prostitutes.)
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You are skipping the simple objection that if I think it's true that I'm actually going to meet Allah, I'll want to look my best, and this guy is omniscient - unlike his congregation. I won't go see a call girl five minutes before I meet him. Faith, religion, is very different from knowing that "it's true". Approximately the same way that drugs are different from happiness ...
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Yes, you can. And until a certain age, children think that Santa actually exists, in reality. Grown ups and gods are very different. Children don't have to go through the struggles of religious believers to keep faith. Santa also doesn't require worship. They just think that there's a Santa, they know it's true until they no longer do. It's much harder to be a believer, and it's much harder to lose faith, and you fear losing faith because you know that (and therefore fear) that it isn't true. |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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23rd May 2018, 10:55 PM | #893 |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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24th May 2018, 01:26 PM | #894 |
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Thinking is a faith hazard. |
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26th May 2018, 02:43 AM | #895 |
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Yes, it does. It clarifies the psychological difference between religion and knowledge, i.e. between faith and actually knowing that something is true. The need to believe in a god in spite of there being no empirical evidence whatsoever has much more in common with the current belief in Trump, for instance. The need to believe that he's the man is almost never rocked by evidence to the contrary. He can even pass a tax bill that benefits only the billionaires that he pretended to be running against, and the believers still prefer to believe.
That is also the logic of his continued rallies: When reality obviously contradicts your beliefs, you need the support of the whole congregation in order to stay firm in your faith. When you know that 2 + 2 makes 4, you don't really need that kind of support because there is no cognitive dissonance. That's also why it feels so good to proselytize. You confirm your own belief with every conversion. You don't need that if what you believe (= know) is true. The ones who think that 2 + 2 makes 5 don't become the enemy. There's nothing akin to "We renounce the devil and all his doings and all his beings". Instead, we just tend to say: "OK, let me explain that to you again." |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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26th May 2018, 02:12 PM | #896 |
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You seem to be trying very hard to make an obscure point here, and shoe horning Trump into the explanation,(yet again ), doesn't help.
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27th May 2018, 02:50 AM | #897 |
Penultimate Amazing
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And you're trying to make it much too easy - as always. No wonder you're "(yet again )."
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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27th May 2018, 02:56 PM | #898 |
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Centring more on the question at hand with another slant on it.
Many mass murderers take there own lives at the end but some do not. The recent school shooting in Texas was one of the later, where the young gunman claimed he did not have the courage to take his own life at the end. He, the gunman, was not religiously driven and I wonder of those that are, how many balk at the end. I also wonder about the success rate of those that talk would be suicide candidates out of taking the final step. Does religious motivation make the task harder? If the certainty of reward is vague, as dann seems to suggest, one would think the negotiator would stand a better chance. |
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28th May 2018, 04:29 AM | #899 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Most of them don't seem to get to the point where they're talking with a negotiator, but in general Christians appear to be more afraid of dying than the non-religious:
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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28th May 2018, 10:01 AM | #900 |
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OR: They really believed that dying would give them union with the aliens hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet. That's a much simpler explanation than the convoluted thinking you suggest.
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Religion is just the Santa myth on a bigger and more complex scale played out over the whole of human existence. Many of us have come to understand that it's a lie told by authority figures who were trusted many, many centuries ago as means to bribe/scare us into conforming to their ideas of good behavior. The problem is that no one ever explicitly told us that it was a lie and it was time to "grow up." The original lie became truth over the span of time. Therefore, many people are still like those kids, believing with all their heart that those ancient stories are true. Thus, you have people like Islamic plane crashers, abortion clinic bombers, Branch Davidians and even less extreme displays of religious faith like those who believe it's their mission to spread the gospel to places like Africa, the Middle East, Asia, etc. You simply can't credibly explain all that behavior with, "it's comforting." |
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28th May 2018, 02:23 PM | #901 |
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28th May 2018, 10:38 PM | #902 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Yes, that probably is the difference between you and me, Thor 2. (between is a preposition!) I read and find out what other people have observed and learn from that. You pride yourself on having made the amazing discovery that God doesn't actually exist and hold yourself tremendously superior to everybody who hasn't because that appears to be the only discovery you've ever accomplished.
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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28th May 2018, 10:56 PM | #903 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Yes, much too simple, because religion actually is "convoluted thinking".
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By this kind! In ordinary thinking, you don't have to make sacrifices. When you know the difference between red and green lights in traffic, for instance, you just have to wait when it's red and walk/drive when it's green. No need for any rituals or incantations. It's as simple as that. In religion/superstition, it isn't.
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And there's nothing "convoluted" at all about being willing to make the supreme unselfish sacrifice of your life (and those of thousands of others) but not being willing to give up on a little nookie hours before you (allegedly) meet your Maker (and 72 virgins), is there?! (By the way, you actually share the idea of what constitutes human flaws and selfishness with religious nuts.)
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Because that's how people reward themselves: 'I'm going on a suicide mission so before I go I might as well ...' There's nothing religious about that idea (by the way, there's nothing inherently religious about suicide missions either). There's a much simpler explanation, but in this case you're the one who insists on making it convoluted.
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Oh, the poor kids! Come on, xjx388, leave Santa alone! I don't know why, but maybe it's your religious upbringing that makes you treat the fairly innocent Santa story as an atrocious betrayal of children's trust. In my country, even the name of Santa is pagan: "julemanden", the yule man! I stopped believing in him when I was three or four and noticed that his beard was obviously fake. I said so out loud, which was a little embarrassing to the poor guy who'd been paid to play Santa, but I hope that he got over it. And that was it! I was in no way disappointed because I knew that it was just a trick my family had played on me like so many others. (Did the bad guys ever tell you that they got your nose?! I hope that there was a kid around to tell you that they didn't, actually!) The story about julemanden wasn't meant to harm me, and it didn't. So it was in no way the traumatic experience that you make it out to be with your "believe with all their hearts because they don't know any better." Come on, you are obviously the one who needs to grow up!
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Really?! There wasn't this naughty kid in your neighborhood to tell you that God was just a fairy tale made up by grown ups to make kids behave? Like with Santa? "maybe they hear rumors from other kids who already know the truth." Not at all?! I pity you if the bold kids you grew up with would only tell you about Santa but not about God! (What about where babies come from? No kid revealed that truth to you either? Nobody told you that it wasn't the stork?)
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Yes, the "original lie" blah, blah, blah! If grown ups still believe "with all their heart that those ancient stories are true," it's because they want to and probably need to believe. Even more so if you're not a child but an actual adult who goes and joins a cult. You still don't get it that people either make up their own beliefs or actively seek out a belief system of their own accord, even though cases like the Heaven's Gaters ought to convince you that your story of the poor innocent victims of religion ("with all their heart") is the lie that you have chosen to believe in! Not a single one of the Heaven's Gate congregation had been told as children about "The Evolutionary Level Above Human" and the extra-terrestrials and the UFO from Sirius! They were told as adults and chose to believe it. You really need to grow out of your fairytale about what constitutes religion, xjx388! |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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29th May 2018, 08:09 AM | #904 |
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Can you come up with a definition of non-convoluted, ordinary thinking that doesn't break down to, "thinks about things in the same way I do?" This is a very egocentric series of statements you've made here. I understand that you don't see the world through a religious prism. I don't either. But that does not mean that anyone who does is not thinking straight. That is just arrogance.
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ETA: To bring this back to the OP -part of reasoning people out of religion is seeing them as rational people capable of listening to reason. Approaching them with this kind of arrogance as the base of your arguments isn't likely to win any believers over. You must see them as equals, just with a different perspective and then you can approach them on a level playing field and not from a mountain-top silently mocking them for their irrationality. |
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29th May 2018, 02:06 PM | #905 |
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So dann thinks you need to grow up xjx388, and I hold myself tremendously superior to everybody who hasn't discovered the non existence of God, and that appears to be the only discovery I've ever accomplished.
Don't know how dann managed to "discover" the latter - must have spies all over the place. |
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