"There is no one coming to save you" is one of the pillars of virtually every school of psychology. But much religion is directly the opposite of this, where we are waiting millennia for the savior.

How do we recover from religion? "Focus on reclaiming your agency" ... comes the answer again from psychology. And again this is the direct opposite of religion, where we sacrifice agency and live authoritarian lives to god.

Religion is one of the biggest problems in the world for many reasons. Was just reading about the Catholic church who, when slaughtering, burning, torturing heretics, also confiscated their money and possessions. Look at what it is, not at the magic propaganda story used to sell it. Psychological magic, physical magic, afterlife magic. It's snake oil for the superstitious and the easily led.

While I am certainly waiting for the Second Coming, I am saved right now! Jesus already came to save those who put their trust in Him. You (and anybody reading this) can be saved, too!

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved - Romans 10:9

Until now, the dominant teaching has been that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. The right side is the side of order. It’s the side that says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged”, and warns against eating the forbidden fruit of duality and taking full ownership over discernment. Simplicity has benefits but too much order results in blindness.

Who sits at the left of the Father then? It is unoccupied. The reason why it is unoccupied is because Christ moves back and forth from each side. The left side is the side of eros and gnosis - the side of intuition. The danger of excess left sidedness is madness.

Much of the left side teaching has been hidden or suppressed since it is associated with increased chaos and we bias toward order. Jesus himself was careful with it, often burying it in parables and metaphor. Two thousand years ago it was too dangerous to reveal it fully. Presently, it is too dangerous for it to remain hidden.

For someone to move Christ to the other side, they have to first reject the side he is currently on for them. The idea that if we believe in and follow Christ, then we will be saved - it is true. For those people, there will be a “Second Coming”. However, this requires brutal honesty about what it means and what is required to follow Christ.

Is this before or after it says rainbows are messages from god? There is a problem with quoting this stuff as if it corresponds to reality.

Somehow I'm not surprised that you are apparently unaware that the Book of Genesis was written long before Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

What is your argument that it does not correspond to reality?

I'm well aware that the rainbow claim is in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and that Paul wrote millennia later. Are you aware of literary devices that such as "Is that before or after?" that are mocking the seriousness of something?

I then argue that rainbows are not messages from Yahweh. Not in reality. Yes in religious stories. You got it?

It's a religion. Which pretty much means it is a belief system that is not actually/literally true.

Wow, you even know that Genesis is the first book in the Bible. I'm impressed!

Yes. But in context, your "literary device" made no sense to me.

Where is this argument? You made an assertion.

Please provide your argument for the claim "No religions are actually/literally true." Thanks.

Bump

^^
The Lisle article linked in the Evolution: The Anti-Science thread is such an argument, in my opinion.

I have another article that I will post in this thread. I have to find the link. It's an old article that may no longer be online. I have a "hard copy" of it.

The article is titled, The Futility of Non-Christian Thought (I think).

Here it is:

Is Non-Christian Thought Justifiable?

Christian apologist Doug Jones in a written debate versus Atheists Keith Parsons and Michael Martin:

https://reformed.org/apologetics/is-...nes-vs-parson/

Since you reject the central claim of the Lisle article that evolution is anti-science, can you please summarize the part of it that demonstrates the impossibility of naturalistic epistemology.

Doug Jones is wrong, as demonstrated in this article by philosophers Michael Bradie and William Harms:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

In the Evolution: The Anti-Science?, I wrote the following:

I believe that a "theistic" version of Darwinism (if that is even possible) COULD be consistent with biblical Christianity.

Since I don't believe that Darwin dealt with cosmogony, I believe that some version of theistic Darwinism could be consistent with biblical Christianity, although would not be consistent with a YEC literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2.

I don't see how my quote above (which I assume is the quote you're talking about) could be interpreted as my rejecting "the central claim of the Lisle article". Naturalistic Evolution is a by-product of a Naturalistic Cosmogony, and hence precludes the possibility of knowledge. Theistic Evolution could theoretically allow for the possibility of knowledge, since it would be the by-product of a Theistic Cosmogony. Note well in my quote above that I questioned whether or not it was even possible to have a theistic version of Darwinism.

Hi, OP.

I couldn't find any articles in that link by Michael Bradie and William Harms.

Could you please direct me to the specific article that refutes Presuppositionalism? Thanks.

1. If something is "theoretically" possible, it is possible. If you aren't sure that it is possible to have a theistic version of Darwinism, I guess we are back to you possibly contradicting yourself, which you should sort out. If you think it is possible to have a theistic version of Darwinism, then you can rely on God to provide the uniformity in nature Lisle thinks is otherwise missing and required to do evolution as science. As you say, theistic evolution allows for the possibility of knowledge, so presumably a theist could study evolution as science, contrary to Lisle's central claim.

2. Where is your argument? You frequently make grandiose and false claims about what follows from atheism and naturalism. Can you not defend these claims? You studied philosophy - make an argument. If you want to rely on an outside source for it, fine, do so, but put your argument down here where I can see it. You know: premise, premise, conclusion.

The Stanford article that link pointed to was written by Bradie and Harms.

Here is another article that refutes presuppositionalism.

If you want to listen to a kinda long but easily digestible (and you can mostly just listen rather than need to watch) discussion on presuppositionalism by a couple of atheist philosophers, and others, I'd recommend the following:



You bring up a lot of common presupp terminology, questions, and assertions, that they go over, and although I haven't watched this in quite a while, it's in my YouTube saved videos as a good source. They're all super nice folks as well.

Hi, OP.

Reading the article (slowly). A lot to take in, so might take a while. Thanks for sharing the article.

You completely ignore the fact that religion is a big part of creating and keeping together civilization. It's a historical fact that can't be ignored, then you went ahead and ignored it anyways.

He also ignored that the pillar of multiple schools of psychology he mentioned isn't a pillar of multiple schools of psychology.

It also isn't relevant. Sense of agency (or the more proper term, locus of control) is found (or lacking) in religious and non-religious people. For instance, some religious people do things like go to work (and expect this will cause a paycheck to appear), or smile at a neighbor (and expect this will cause the neighbor to have warm fuzzies). Hell, even doing a rain dance indicates an internal locus of control.

Religion is one of the primary motivators of war, rivalry, disinclusion, intolerance, bigotry, etc.

List the schools of psychology that don't include self-responsibility (as opposed to, say, magic saviors) as central to their doctrine. Oh, you can't? Hmm.

Yeah. Umm, first of all you are attempting to tell an ex-psychologist (me) about psychology.

Second, you are confusing quite a few concepts. Self-responsibility isn't the same as locus of control and neither is the same as sense of agency. You might want to pick one concept, or (if you prefer) make up an entirely new one.

Third, the concepts (pick one or all three) are directly antithetical to behaviorism, absent in nearly all of experimental psychology, virtually untouched in psychoanalysis and rarely mentioned in the various types of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Oh, and fourth, self-responsibility is a huge part of religion. Moral guilt requires a self-responsible agent

I actually agree with the above.


Do you agree with the following:

"Religion is one of the primary motivators of peace, friendship, inclusion, tolerance, love for all people, etc?"

How could it possibly be that if it was about love and god? It isn't about love and god. Lip service is lip service. We are left with the strange "reality" that inquisitions, fraud, countless scandals, war, crusades, judgment, torture ... come from love. And they don't.

No, I don't agree is a force for inclusion and tolerance ... or love.

One can hold a religion without sacrificing metaphysics and epistemology. Just drop the supernatural claims of superstitious, magic believing peoples.

Are you aware that in the 1950's and 1960's, that it was primarily religious folks like (Rev.) Martin Luther King, Jr. and (Rev.) Jesse Jackson that spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement?

It is pretty clear that anything that allows for group membership is a force for things (good and bad) that social groups entail. Religion often allows for larger groups than a city or a chess club.