I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

Car loans could possibly be charming contributive verdict to run across a wonderful bad credit car loans endorser in the eletronic highway.

I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.

No, you are. I get you. I just disagree because I’m certain that I’ve studied it without a bias. I think you have biases that you cannot and will not overlook. (This is not judgment, just observation).

What’s important to note is that none of us would like to believe that love is nothing more than evolutionary processes driving us toward survival … we all (or most) want to believe that love is an expression … sometimes unexplainable (love at first sight) when two beings connect in a deep and fulfilling way.

I understand what you are saying, and it’s part of my problem with your religion. It takes all the really great stuff that humans create and gives it all away to a higher supernatural authority that does not exist. I think people are the source of all the stuff we value. Because we don’t give ourselves credit for that, we wind up with a Prozac Nation looking to gospels to define themselves and seek happiness. Why should it matter so much where it comes from rather than what you do with it? I don’t care where (though I know it’s a biochemical response necessary to survival of the species that evolved), but I care what… what we do with what we have. Because we have it. Regardless of it’s origin… cause if we were ignorant to the origin, we’d still be faced with teh same opportunity. I don’t like that religion takes away the best aspects of humanity and says that we are nothing without a saviour to give them to us. It’s why people are blowing themselves and others us. I know you don’t see it because you’re focused on the wrong aspect of it, and as a result are missing my point. And I can keep at this until I’m blue in the face, but you want there to be a God so desperately that you won’t consider anything that might take that away from you. And as a result I am and will continue to be an enigma to you. You think I gave up love and the sort when I gave up Christ. You don’t want to know that I actually, only just found it.

There are likely other explanations for the phenomenon of love, but these two seem to be the most popular. What do you personally believe in … “the biological impassionate one”, “the spiritual and purposeful one” or “other”?

Comment by Giacomo — January 9, 2006 @ 9:37 am

Biochemical evolutionary response to compatable mates… coupled with a neurological connectivity toward preferences. Know it’s not a romantic Valentine card, but it doesn’t mean I don’t value love any less. Or that I don’t enjoy it any less either. The source is unimportant to me. I can’t control where it comes from. But I can control what I do with it. That to me is the focus – the here and now.

And this may be the foundational difference between us. No doubt we are both responsible, compassionate, nice people who are ethical and kind. We just see the world from very different perspectives.

But if it’s the word of god…. (do you see that if you use that in your favor it also works against you?)

Given that (and again you quote nothing but the OT b/c Jesus didn’t really speak much about “fear” … I’ve already spoken with you about “progressive revelation” but whatever) the word fear often connotes “respect” or “deep reverance” or “humility” …

Giacomo, until they start printing the Bible WITHOUT the Old Testament, it counts!

since you were a Christian for 30 years (by the way, you said you were in your thirties and assuming that you’ve been an athiest for longer than a year or so … even if your were 39 that would make you a Christian from age 8 to 38 – certainly you’d admit that a belief system from 8 to 18/21 in a child/youth is that of their parents and not their own) you knew that already though.

I wasn’t born at 8 – where do you get 8? I officially severed myself from Christianity when I was 33. I’ve officially been an Atheist for a couple of years. Were a couple of years of evolution in between.

How old are your kids? Because there are several kids in my classes who are not their parents’ anything. Some of them already start thinking for themselves that young. They usually get labeled as trouble makers because they are just trying to understand why instead of swallowing hook, line and sinker. And I agree with them. In fact, I consider them to be my smartest students….

Quit trying to rationalize it. You can’t. I don’t disagree with the messages credited to Jesus because they were taken from Eastern philosophies that I personally uphold by choice. Where I have a problem with your religion is in its belief that it is morally superior, it’s the ‘right and only’ way, and that it does not teach people to be accountable. We’ve argued it to death now, let’s move on.

One explanation for love is within evolution and the survival of the species. It’s not, in fact, a higher order of love that drives relationships and parenting but a biological system that causes urges within us in order to keep our families safe (thus we survive). In this case, love is nothing more than biology and not really a willing nurturing and kind expression of tenderness from one to another … it’s humans responding in a biologically sound way … not very romantic but that theory would fit in with evolutionary theory.

Another explanation is the esoteric one that most of us adhere to … that love is free-expression and a giving of ourselves to another … this reality is much harder to scientifically support since many of the harshest and most hurtful experiences occur when humans misplace affection or love. This explanation would say that love is more of a spiritual concept … one perhaps “given” to mankind from a higher Deity.

What’s important to note is that none of us would like to believe that love is nothing more than evolutionary processes driving us toward survival … we all (or most) want to believe that love is an expression … sometimes unexplainable (love at first sight) when two beings connect in a deep and fulfilling way.

There are likely other explanations for the phenomenon of love, but these two seem to be the most popular. What do you personally believe in … “the biological impassionate one”, “the spiritual and purposeful one” or “other”?

Given that (and again you quote nothing but the OT b/c Jesus didn’t really speak much about “fear” … I’ve already spoken with you about “progressive revelation” but whatever) the word fear often connotes “respect” or “deep reverance” or “humility” … since you were a Christian for 30 years (by the way, you said you were in your thirties and assuming that you’ve been an athiest for longer than a year or so … even if your were 39 that would make you a Christian from age 8 to 38 – certainly you’d admit that a belief system from 8 to 18/21 in a child/youth is that of their parents and not their own) you knew that already though.

http://www.oxytocin.org/

http://whyfiles.org/033love/main3.html

So the Bible is wrong?

Leviticus 19:14
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD.

Genesis 9:2
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

Genesis 42:18
And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God.

Deuteronomy 4:10
Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.

Exodus 1:17
But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

Leviticus 25:17
Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God:for I am the LORD your God.

Exodus 18:21
Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

Leviticus 19:3
Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.

There’s much, much more on fearing God…

No, of course not. Your choice to believe in invisible idols rather than reason and reality is your choice. It does not impact my belief system or my conviction that Atheism is best for me. The choices you make with your life do not impact me. I don’t take them personally because I don’t control them, and I don’t live with them. It’s a personal choice that has nothing to dowith me, so for me to be effected by that choice would be assinine.

As for rebellous college years … I have the remnants of a skull fracture, punctured lung, broken jaw and 4 broken ribs to remind me (I got jumped in downtown New Haven and was so drunk, I couldn’t defend myeself … I got rocked). I wasn’t a hellion … but I purposely tried to act not like a Christian …

Comment by Giacomo — January 7, 2006 @ 9:29 am

But that kind of behavior doesn’t make you anything other than a self-destructive idiot. And as there are plenty of Christians who behave that way, it doesn’t make your behavior un-Christian. It just makes your behavior stupid. And to infer that that kind of behavior was in any regard associated with a lack of religion is highly ludicrious and ignorant. There aren’t more Atheists with concussions than Christians. You really are stretching at this point Giacomo. Anything to not for one second consider that anyone else has anything valid to say. You want us to be wrong so badly that you are throwing out anythng and everything. You’ve become irrational. And no rational person would ever buy what you are trying to sell here.

Comment by Giacomo — January 7, 2006 @ 9:24 am

Oh, I see, you say it can’t be done, so I’m just supposed to accept that… sorry, I don’t do blind faith, remember?

I think you are trying to convince me of something based on spinning semantics when I’ve already been convinced otherwise by evidence, science and reality. Love can be quantified. It’s already been done. You saying it can’t be doesn’t change the fact that it has.

I think religion is delusional and dangerous. In fact, let’s put it this way – I fear religion the way you fear that tiger…

Of course you don’t, because you do not accept that people can feel differently than you do. You do not accept anything but your persepective.

Look, fear is pointless. If there’s a tiger behind me, giving into fear will shut down the rest of my brain except for the cerebral cortex and I will be unable to do anything but either fight or flee. In that instance, neither fighting or fleeing would save my life. But, if I keep my wits about me, I can use my brain and actually try to think my way out of the situation. And I know this because I frequently leave my comfort zone and have been challeneged – not with a tiger, but with other scenarios that threatened my life or someone else. For instance, a friend of mine had fallen out of a raft in the middle of a class 4 rapid at the point that we were supposed to get off the river or we would go over a deadly water fall. They stressed this before we began the adventure that if we went over the falls, we would all die. As we were passing the ares in which we should exit the river, my friend was trailing the raft, and unable to stay above water except for a few seconds that one of the waves threw her forward. We had to react fast and get off the river or we would all die. Everyone in the boat froze. I stayed calm, didn’t give into my fear, and reacted. I was able to use my paddle to quickly get to her and brought her to the boat where I could pull her in, and we could get off the river before we all died. While three grown men (including her husband) just sat there and watched. I was not afraid, and that lack of fear probaly saved my friend’s life, and that of my own.

If you don’t understand that, then I don’t know what else to say. Not everyone is afraid.

Giacomo, this is exactly why people think you are a know it all, and why Ryan calls you Passive-Agressive. You aren’t willing to accept any answer except the one you would give. If you knew anything about Buddhism (which I studied for a while), you would understand that my answer is very valid and for you to insinuate otherwise is extremely naive, ignorant and condescending. I am not afraid. Pure and simple.

You are afraid of death, otherwise you wouldn’t have used a sample in which you thought I would fear death.

Stop assuming. Not everyone sees the world the way you do. Not everyone fears what you do. And not everyone wants what you want.

Imagine if I told you I was an atheist (I never was) but converted for Christianity … wouldn’t you feel sad that I had left, what you think to be, the enlightened path and chose something worse for me … anyone with an ounce of empathy would … perhaps you would even pity me. That’s all I was saying and I think you’d feel the same if it was the opposite.

As for rebellous college years … I have the remnants of a skull fracture, punctured lung, broken jaw and 4 broken ribs to remind me (I got jumped in downtown New Haven and was so drunk, I couldn’t defend myeself … I got rocked). I wasn’t a hellion … but I purposely tried to act not like a Christian …

I can’t have a debate with you if you’re not willing to cede simple things … what is there to fear from a tiger … ask Sigfried & Roy … Tiger’s maim … the point of my post was to bring you through a scenario … instead, you reject the scenario in a stupid way and then attack me for fearing death (which I never said, nor do). So, if there’s a tiger behind you, you’d turn around and smile as it possibly maimed you for life … fine … that means you lack a basic evolutionary instinct to survive. The difficulty is trying to debate a concept is when the other person just puts their fingers in the ears and says blah, blah, balh, blah.

I have an extreme wonder for this life that does not include fear of it. I gave up fear when I gave up religion. If you told me there was a ghost behind me, I would believe it was a natural phenominon and would want to experience it. I welcome experiences, I do not fear them.

Fear is a fraction of my life so small that I rarely consider it. There truly is nothing to fear but fear itself.

I don’t think you’re being honest with me (or maybe yourself). Fear has nothing to do with religion … it’s based on evolutionary survival (fight or flight). Your “welcoming of experiences aside” to say something supernatural is behind you, for most people, would be, at least at first, troubling. Most wouldn’t turn around and say, “bring it on” … maybe you’re one of the ones that does. My point was to show the difference bewteen fear of harm and fear of the unknown … humans innately know that the unknowable exists … and our emotions respond differently. Fear should not be pre-eminent in people’s lives or else it is crippling, but it is a necessary emotion to survive … why you would argue this instead of just ceding that part of the argument is beyond me … are you so interested in being right that you won’t even allow yourself to agree on the smallest of details (and instead challenge me in some weird way therein “religion makes people fearful ….?”)

Giacomo… I really wish, for your sake, that you would do some research before you post stuff that we can easily refute… Love is not a myth. And it can be empirically determined (blood pressure, dialated pupils, feelings of euphoria can all be measured quantitatively with modern technology). Also, if every person has experienced some form of love, then it doesn’t need to be proven to begin with, because it’s not in dispute… But the existence of a god is. And there is zero proof. Zero. Your opinion does not count as proof because it cannot be substantiated. Love can.

And you fell victim to your own argument … “love” cannot be quantified … biological change can, but love is uniquely personal. You say that love is an experience and thus not in dispute … I tell you that I’ve experienced God and you tell me that personal experience isn’t a valid indicator … which is it? Again, I’ll ask … prove that Love exists. I’m sure, if you hooked a Christian up to the same measuring instruments during prayer or worship … you’d also see a biological change. Does that prove anything other than the person believes their experience to be meaningful … nope. Love cannot be substantiated although we all would agree that it exists based upon our experience … again, don’t confuse a biological response with a “spiritual” or “emotional” feeling … we see how humans behave when they’re in love … but you can’t measure love or else we could compare different people’s love for others and rate that love … can’t be done. It is 100% individual experience. If you don’t understand this concept … then there’s nothing else I can say.

Giacomo… I really wish, for your sake, that you would do some research before you post stuff that we can easily refute… Love is not a myth. And it can be empirically determined (blood pressure, dialated pupils, feelings of euphoria can all be measured quantitatively with modern technology). Also, if every person has experienced some form of love, then it doesn’t need to be proven to begin with, because it’s not in dispute… But the existence of a god is. And there is zero proof. Zero. Your opinion does not count as proof because it cannot be substantiated. Love can.