Taking a Breath

Posted Monday, February 14, 2011, at 4:52 PM
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    I'm curious why your using man made medicines to treat your son? Wouldn't leaving everything up to the lord be the better way?

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 7:08 PM
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    If you were any kind of Christian you wouldn't celebrate valentines day either.

    http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=36853

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:18 PM
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    Also, how is leaving a life in the Lords hands septic? Isn't that how Christianity works? The main tenants behind it? It's all the in the Lords plan isn't it?

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:19 PM
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    Ocho you so silly!

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:30 PM
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    Isn't tap dancing around the answers to questions the way to play? Isn't this all a game my Spaniard friend?

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:33 PM
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    You must be a pretty weak skinned individual. There's no insults above, simple questions. I'm curios what the rationality behind those actions are.

    Ocho we are all the Lords children, we are by default friends.

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:47 PM
  • Omg, u all need to get a life....what does this conversation have to do with Mrs. Hinzes blog? I am very happy for them....they were able to help their son without a lot of medical Intervention!

    -- Posted by businessX2 on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:48 PM
  • You did the right thing Lori. You did exactly what the Lord told you to do. We are in no way healthier than our ancestors, no thanks to stress. With each generation, we need medicines to cure what used to be common ailments. Medicines, and medical practices, that work with the designs of our bodies, which, undeniably designed by our Lord, have long lasting benefits. Medicines and procedures that do not, fail, leaving us even more unhealthy than before. History proves it. There is no place in the Holy Bible that prohibits doctors and their care. So yes Damu, we do have faith in our doctors, we pray their minds and hands are guided by the Lord, who cannot fail.

    Again, great job Lori!

    -- Posted by Hugh Jassle on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:51 PM
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    BusinessX2 Ocho is that you as well?

    -- Posted by Damu on Mon, Feb 14, 2011, at 9:51 PM
  • I have comments! I'm just tickled someone's actually reading my blog!

    Thank you, Chunky Peanut Butter! You said it far better than I could.

    Damu, your comments remind me of a great quote by Paula Poundstone, who I still find funny, despite our different beliefs: "I go to an atheist church. We have crippled guys who stand up and testify that they were crippled, and they still are." Does spreading your views of atheism fill your life with purpose? Does it give you peace? Perhaps you could find an atheist church and hang out with like-minded folks rather than waste your time commenting on my humble, small-town mom blog.

    Here's another quote I just read that I thought was so profound. It's by Dr. Kenneth Bock, author of Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: "There is no one in the world who feels more alone than the parent of a sick child." Sums up what I went through, and I hope it helps moms of sick children to know they are not alone.

    -- Posted by shoma74 on Tue, Feb 15, 2011, at 10:06 AM
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    @Savery You know how people feel spreading Christianity to places? I'm willing to bet the feeling is similar. Sadly an atheistic church in town would be tough to drum up, there are only a handful of us here, and I know the majority already.

    I checked out some of your other writing, the hyphenated last name makes it easy to find. Not to bad, I'll continue reading.

    -- Posted by Damu on Tue, Feb 15, 2011, at 1:00 PM
  • The dyslexic atheist, there is no doG.

    -- Posted by Keda46 on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 12:43 AM
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    @keda Not really sure what your talking about there...

    -- Posted by Damu on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 10:47 AM
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    @Ochco Isn't the picture "in" the upper "right" lololol

    -- Posted by Damu on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 2:23 PM
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    Tricky stuff this English is.

    -- Posted by Damu on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 2:53 PM
  • You know what dyslexic is right? There is no God, they might see it as there is no doG. Some people can tell jokes, others can't. I guess I fall in the last category. My bad.

    -- Posted by Keda46 on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 3:52 PM
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    Aww, Damu you found a new harmless person to vent your spleen and hatred for (Christian)religion. I love to see how you like to tell people how to think. Very openminded of you. I noticed that you didn't thank CPB for clarifying the issue for you. Or are you looking the argument for that up on some athiest websites?

    -- Posted by Sir Didymus on Wed, Feb 16, 2011, at 9:05 PM
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    @SirD The funny thing is you think I need the answers to these questions. I already know what the correct response is for them to give according to the tenants of their "faith". Hilarity ensues however when they give something counter to what the response should be.

    Now lets get the to main reasoning of this argument. With the story above you can take away 50% of what is allocated to the recovery and still be okay. Take away another half, and the story isn't the same. Lets see would taking doctors or prayer out of the equation cause the less than desired outcome? I'll leave that up to you, I'm sure you can figure it out.

    Praying for anything is an exercise in futility, factually because it does nothing. Your own faith lets you know it does nothing. God already has a plan for you, praying isn't going to change the course or direction of said plan. If you don't believe me, look it up they have a number of scientific studies done on the "power" of prayer. Guess what they found?

    I'm not telling anyone how to think. Merely trying to get them to think. Critically, about what they may or may not believe in, and the rationality for said beliefs.

    Why would I thank CPB for his response above? It's pretty silly if you break it down. Taken from his quote directly above. "We are in no way healthier than our ancestors, no thanks to stress." If you honestly believe that we are less healthy and more stressed in this day and age than even a few hundred years ago, you are sadly mistaken. You can thank science for that.

    Lets take a look at the second portion of his statement. "we do have faith in our doctors, we pray their minds and hands are guided by the Lord, who cannot fail." Why do we send doctors to school for so long then? If this is all it takes for a person to do excellent work as a doctor we should be able to have anyone do procedures without any sort of ill consequences. This also leads to another interesting point, what if the doctor practices a different faith than yourself? Does the christian God still have sway on a Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Atheistic doctor? Wouldn't helping said doctors simply be enforcing the doctors own view on their "incorrect" faith choices?

    Although I must agree. If I was able to use torture and fear like the Christians did to spread Atheism I would guess I would be as successful as they were. We live in a bit more civilized time however, so such antics are generally frowned upon.

    I'll leave with two quotes you can perhaps ponder on.

    "The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." -- Mark Twain

    "Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it."

    -Dan Barker

    You are probably familiar with Dan Barker, more than likely without even realizing it!

    -- Posted by Damu on Thu, Feb 17, 2011, at 12:52 PM
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    Damu,

    I find it interesting when so called freethinkers state that say science has nothing to do with religion or faith when they are taking as faith that any scientific experiment happened without performing it themself. How can you be sure that any scientist anywhere got the results you swallow whole heartedly? Can you prove that the night sky isn't just a black shell with small lights embedded in it? I know I can't. That is not to say I believe it is, but I have never gone outside the atmosphere. And even if I had, how am I to be sure that someone didn't drug me? Or I could be a brain in a jar somewhere? Who knows? That is why all your rude remarks irritate me. For every copied wiseacre remarks you are falling into the same trap with all the other zealots. Let people believe what they find as true. At the very least, it does no damage to you. Or does it?

    The whole Dan Barker quote? I dont know too many religious people that don't believe gravity is real. That is a how not why statment. It is a flawed argument made by someone with less understanding and too much arrogance. Can you tell me why there is gravity? I can pull the 4 year old "why" trick until you run out of answers. You can tell me how it works (maybe) You can prove to me that it is there (maybe). But I am willing to bet you dont have an answer why. I am willing to guess that most scientists can't tell me why anything is. They can give me some theories that they came up with while they weren't singing on sunday. But when you boil that down, it is just opinions. Sometimes backed up with some observations, but I can observe that the night sky is black with some lights shining out of it too.

    I am amused that you try and pull out the old hoary "religion tortures and kills" example. It is easy for someone that just wants to agitate to do that. It is a nice strawman argument. If you are honest, quite a few of the examples were about something else that people in power tried to cloak in religion. Are you going to tell me that no follower of any religion anywhere helped or saved someone else because of their religion? People are people. Some good, some bad. Are you telling me that you can't think of any examples when someone used torture or death to spread atheism? I sure can. See how this works? If you respect the individuality of people you are a moral person. If you don't? You are just a jerk.

    You should re-read the quote from Mark Twain. He was a wise man. Does it apply to you? I should hope so. I know it applies to me.

    -- Posted by Sir Didymus on Thu, Feb 17, 2011, at 5:19 PM
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    SirD

    While I agree to a point that one has to have faith in science. I assume you realize that there are different types of faith. My faith is rooted in the scientific method, which brings with it other concepts such as evidence, demonstrability, testability, and repeatability.

    This differs considerably from the Blind faith religious doctrine teaches. With science if you have questions about something, there are numerous examples of experiments that have been undertaken to ascertain the facts. You can read through journals of said experiments, or in many cases carry out the experiments yourself.

    Actually, SirD it does damage to many people. Take for instance the multiple people opposed to gay marriage. The majority of these people are avid practicer's of various faiths. Supporters of prohibition are mainly religious as well. This hurts us all, you want to talk about outrageous freedom killing and spending, look no further than the drug war. What about looking no further than a persons religious views during election time. Look no further than the two terms bush was somehow able to wrangle out of the American people.

    I had to look hoary up, it wasn't a term I was familiar with. I've had numerous people, (not specifically on these boards) mention the spread as some kind of miracle in itself. You can think what you want of peoples motivations behind torturing and killing people in religions name. I don't believe however you can deny the accelerated spread of it because of those factors. I'm also curious what your thoughts are on the suppression of science during these periods of time by the same tortuous means?

    Actually, I can't think of anyone that was spreading atheism with torturous means. The majority of the atheistic dictators cared about power. They probably made the wrong decision in hindsight, its much easier to control people with religion than without.

    Mr. Twains quote rings quite true with me actually. Everyone is an atheist to some degree. I simply take it a step further and dismiss all deities. While the majority dismiss all but one.

    -- Posted by Damu on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 10:50 AM
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    "Actually, I can't think of anyone that was spreading atheism with torturous means. The majority of the atheistic dictators cared about power."

    So Damu,

    Atheist regimes such as the communists of the 20th Century weren't concerned with atheism but with power, yet regimes who have a faith are only concerned about spreading the faith by torture and murder? Do you see how ridiculous your argument is? It's not that there are power hungry people who also have religious beliefs?

    With your vast knowledge of religion, can you point out where in the religious teachings it calls for people to torture and murder? I'm not talking about humans who can abuse power, because you just conceeded that atheists can abuse power as well. I mean where in the specific teachings does a religion call for faith to be spread by the sword?

    As for Twains quote, does it cause you to rethink your atheism?

    -- Posted by SWNebr Transplant on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 11:51 AM
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    @SWNEB Read the old testament. It's pretty easy to come up with that kind of rationalization for violence in the spread of religion. Matter of fact, the first commandment, though shalt have no other Gods before me is fairly explicit in the punishments that should be doled out. Mass Genocide, well in some instances you were allowed to keep the females alive for raping. I'm not sure how an early, non-learned Christian would take that any other way.

    Twains Quote actually helped me break away from the mass delusion. He has quite a few interesting ones, a very interesting man to say the least.

    -- Posted by Damu on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 1:53 PM
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    Damu,

    So why do you rail against Christians not Jews? According to Christians, as I understand it, Jesus overturned the laws of Moses. I've never heard of the teachings of Christ urging mass genocide.

    However, I will allow you some old testament stories. What genocides are you referring to? God didn't tell the Israelites to spread faith by the sword. He told them that they were to have no other God and that He would favor them. He didn't say invade Egypt and convert them all by the sword or fire because they worshipped other Gods did he? Or did I miss something?

    I'm still waiting for your explanation why religious oppressive regimes are worse than non-religious ones.

    So Twain taught you to question Christianity but not to question your new religion? I think maybe you should read your quote again. What I get from that quote is that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, yet here you are throwing all the stones you want. Why is that?

    -- Posted by SWNebr Transplant on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 2:18 PM
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    @SWNEBR Christianity makes up 80% of the US population. In our region I would gauge it is even higher than that. These groups are also the most prolific in speaking out against individual rights. Gay marriage, prohibition, science, ect. When one of the others becomes the majority in our nation/region I will gladly allocate my time to dispelling the nonsense contained within them as well.

    Deuteronomy 2:33-34, Numbers 21:34-35, 1 Samuel 15:2-3, Joshua 6:21, Joshua 10:40. With your question, no he did not order them to go forth and destroy with the sword. Although, wouldn't you say the order could be implicitly taken from the previous stories? Deciphering Gods word can be a tricky undertaking. Look no further than the changes in catholic law over the course of the last few centuries, as it tries to stay in accordance with current societal thinking.

    Personally, I think religious oppressive regimes are worse because the regime can utilize faith in many instances to create a sense that activities they are carrying out have some kind of divine providence. Don't get me wrong though, I don't agree with oppressive regimes in any shape or form. I think its worse however when stupid people can be convinced with mythology that what is happening to them is in their best interest or the will of their particular god. North korea is a pretty reasonable example of this.

    Atheism isn't a religion. Atheism is by definition absence of a belief in any god. Fairly simply and straight forward. In fact I'm sure you practice a bit of it yourself. I assume you don't believe in the Roman or Greek gods, or any of the Egyptian ones either.

    There is no burden of proof on disbelief only in belief.

    -- Posted by Damu on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 2:53 PM
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    But your disbelief is a belief system that you blindly adhere to, just as you mock Christians for doing. Do you have proof there is no God? If not isn't it just your belief?

    I don't think there can be a burden of proof in matters of belief. If there was proof it would not be belief, it would be fact. Facts cannot be called into question, beliefs can.

    So you don't have any problem with Atheists who are opposed to gay marriage? What about people who are opposed to gay marriage but not for religious reasons?

    I have no problem with people countering a comment that was directed at them, but when you go off on people for being Christian rather than what they have done specifically, you show your close-mindedness. When someone tells you that you specifically Damu, are wrong or going to hell or whatever feel free to argue but to rail against culture at large smacks of juvenile rebellion.

    Why do you care if people are Christian or not?

    -- Posted by SWNebr Transplant on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 3:51 PM
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    I don't have tangible proof there is no god. Just as anyone who practices any religion has no tangible proof there is a god. That being said, if one looks at the "evidence" for gods existence its extremely disappointing. Christianity is especially suspect, taking myths and traditions from various other "pagan" religions makes the entire thing overly suspect.

    How many Atheistic organizations do you see on TV rallying against gay marriage? I have yet to hear any of the ones I know say anything negative about it. I and the atheists I know practice more of a live and let live mantra. Opposed to gay marriage but not for religious reasons, does such a group of people even exist? The whole thing is reminiscent of not allowing mixed races marry years ago. Which group was tantamount in trying to keep the status quo as it was there as well?

    I care about people being any kind of denomination. Religious beliefs are one of the larger separating issues we have as a society. Until people are able to see through the mass delusions, and are forced to believe that their way is right an all others are wrong. We have a large stage for global conflict. Look to the number of wars waged in any religions name for simple verification of this.

    -- Posted by Damu on Fri, Feb 18, 2011, at 6:10 PM
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