I am the younger brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

What do you mean the holy spirit is the devil's advocate? You mean the papacy?

You cannot serve two masters. The Holy Spirit is the Advocate. She advocates for the side that you deny and neglect.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. She keeps you honest by confronting you with the realization that you have not yet fulfilled truth and reality in your life.

Listen, anyone who cuts themselves off from her cuts themselves from the vine of life.

The younger brother becomes the older brother. Congratulations to the older brother that can lower himself and become the younger brother again.

I haven't heard the list of things that you dispense with rationality to get to the bottom of yet. Just religion, right?? Totally bogus. I tell you what, let's dispense with rationality to see which medications work for various illnesses. Sound like a good idea?? Jesus will tell you which ones work in a prayer. Of course he had a little problem with understanding that leprosy wasn't coming from demons ....

Fulfillment is greater than rationality. Even the uncertain pursuit of fulfillment is greater than rationality. Fulfillment is impossible without God. Do not be afraid. Your fear lies and betrays you.

Your fear owns you and that's why you are a zealot ... the same reason people are zealots in all manner of religions, obviously, regardless of the veracity of the religion, which is only a panacea fantasy.

I’m not the evangelist who knocks on your front door. I’m the snake in your basement who bites your heels. Projecting your frustrations on the evangelist is not a solution. How long are you going to put up with this from yourself?

Rationality is a tool, not a master. Non-rationality, or irrationality, is a manipulative, consciousness subverting con game. As in, "Well, this doesn't pass the reality test muster, so we recommend you suspend rationality on this one. Did you suspend it? Okay, so it's like with the vampires. You drink blood for eternal life ... and you just need to believe it."

The honest secularist will look at the current landscape in the U.S. and realize that when you carelessly undermine organized religion, you don’t get no religion, you get disorganized religion:

-Loss of hierarchy
-Increase in mob behavior
-Relatively unchecked scapegoat mechanism
-The victim becomes focus of worship
-Nonstop moral panics
-Incoherence
-No space for forgiveness
-Increased dehumanization

In an ideal society, secularism has as much of a hold as theism, but the secularists who aim for totality unknowingly create a bigger monster.

In an ideal society, religion does not exist and anyone who proposes the existence of a god is sent to a padded cell for life.

I welcome anyone clicking on my threads and reading my posts, even if it’s out of spite.

As John Lennon said 'and no religion too', following his rejection of many faiths, not least Christianity, and 'Paulism' ("I've seen religion from Jesus to Paul"). But of course, undermining Christianity was a tenet of Tavistock-Beatles-CIA-LSD nexus, partially contributing to the dismantling of civil society as observed above, this being a necessary prerequisite shock doctrine crisis for international government and therefore a wanted outcome on the part of Beatles handlers etc. And so, the secularist ideal does not appear to be order, but order from chaos. Secularism, as pointed out above, should coexist with, and as a, religious freedom as part of a necessary dialogue to the advantage of both groups.

People who don't appreciate that they are simply trapped within a belief system with all their doctrinal spiel are a blight to enlightenment (big "e" and little "e"). They are the same thing as Jim Jones and David Koresh, just usually a duller version.

Practical Metaphysics post: "Disobeyed by two people. Blames everyone that will ever exist. Now that's love."

As you can see, practicality and rationality are exactly what a true believer cannot have applied to their supernatural beliefs.

Who are you speaking to here? Me? Or are you still battling with your inner fundamentalist?

Anyone who ever got indoctrinated into the garbage.

So for the non-fundamentalist, who doesn't believe any of these stories are actual ... what rationale is offered for why these stories about a god of love involve killing, judgment, bigotry, genocide, etc?? Or is rationale a bad word? Is it actually a good idea to include tales of bigotry, slaughter, torture to teach about love when it isn't even actual, but just fables?

Did you?

I already know the answer because we’ve been here before.

You find the other “true believers” guilty which is how you can justify your disgust and condemnation, but you yourself are innocent. In your eyes.

You do this because you are able to rationalize your hypocrisy to yourself (when it gets uncovered), and since rationality is equal to truth and goodness, according to you, then all of this is justified.

The religion is guilty ... the people are just victims and then victimizers. There is nothing hypocritical about changing one's mind, and you know it .... but there is something dishonest about refusing the truth and lying and denying reality for apologetics.

Why do we need tales of killing, judgment, torture, bigotry, genocide as moral lessons, when according to non-fundamentalists like you, they aren't even literal? Do you find it odd that the religion couches its version of love in this kind of barbarianism? I'm perfectly willing to be swayed. All the barbarianism is not to be taken literally you say. Okay. Why is it introduced at all then?

"This is a moral tale ... none of it is literal so don't be offended. Okay, ready? Here it is: God killed every baby and fetus on earth .... yada, yada, yada. Your God of love is for genocide, for killing witches, for stoning homosexuals. Not actually, but just in this is a moral tale about love."

WTF ??

Translation:
Let me first rationalize how I am innocent, past and present.

Translation:
Now, let me rationalize how I can keep othering and projecting guilt onto the “true believers” so I can continue to trash them.


Translation:
I’m not sophisticated enough to understand why people pay money to watch movies and to understand why any movies or stories that depict violence aren’t censored.

1. I've not said one single word about being innocent ... it's just that I don't believe guilt has anything to do with supernaturalism or fallen humanity or some prototype woman made of ribs eating apples. You do, apparently. Unless that is more of the "not to be taken literally" category.

2. For the 18th time (which you refuse to hear, as a defense mechanism): I am not anti-religious people. I am anti-lying arse apologetics.

3. Oh. So god is very much of the world. In fact, he has the same values as Hollywood. And he needs a tale of murdering every child on earth along with inerrant claims to dramatize love. I'm sorry ... this is the reason you need to attack rationality instead of admit what the religion is.