Tropos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhlvdPCalXM

There's this common line of reasoning amongst believers in Yahweh, that we have "free-will" to choose him. They often say that direct evidence of his existence would restrict that choice. But if evidence would restrict choice, why are the stories, and attributes put forth for Yahweh, riddled with coercion and threats that hinder choice(less free)?

3 things that come to mind that would hinder one's choice in believing in Yahweh or not.

1) Belief in Hell(choose Yahweh or it's eternal torture for you).

2) Belief in Sin(avoid all things that Yahweh is purported as disliking or be punished).

3) Belief that Yahweh is omnipotent(the super powered strength of an overseer acts to coerce believers into choosing him, or face the consequences)

I'd say that if a god cared about honest choice, wanting to avoid any coercion being involved in conviction in itself, it would not put itself forth as a powerful being. It would put itself forth in a way that no one would interpret there as being any negative results from not following it. It would put forth its positions, without stating any consequences. And allow people to consider its positions based on their merits alone. Then all followers would have chosen it due to agreement with its positions.

After all, conviction develops through a process. A threat of hell put forth along with a god claim can develop into conviction in a god character that can later be perceived as being accepted for separate reasons. But the initial seeding of that conviction was still influenced by coercion. And no believer in Yahweh could avoid that in hindsight.

If they think it's going to be a meteor, wouldn't astronomy be the place? Or any other natural phenomena be in one of the science sections?

If it's about what the Mayans are purported as doing, wouldn't it be the history section?

And if it's supposed to be a supernatural force or a deity, wouldn't the folklore or religion section be best?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNtBkOXItqw

If the Dec. 25th celebration developed into something that more accurately paralleled the meaning behind His sacrifice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1nsEtjqPg8

Yes it may be enjoyable to contrive a sense of understanding about others with a horoscope, or with other human characteristic/type systems. But have you considered the social repercussions and shallowness that such assumptions lead to? Is the comfort of that contrived understanding really worth it? If so, have you considered how much that stifles your inquiry into the true state of mind of other individuals?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

http://www.alternet.org/belief/year-jail-not-belie...

What are some common methods that the religions teach for stifling inquiry into their propositions? And what would you say are some good ways of dealing with them? A large portion of these religious teachings seem to be equipping the believer with a Swiss Army knife of thought stopping memes.

They commonly take advantage of the ambiguous multiplicity of the term "god." It helps them avoid the absurdities of the specific Yahweh character. Sometimes they use that multiplicity to ask you to make a statement regarding all potential god characters, when all you really need to do is make a statement about their Yahweh character. Often the potential for inquiry is shrouded in ambiguous terms. It's more difficult to inquire into a huge category of characters, many members of which have never even been proposed to us. But much easier to inquire into the Yahweh character and it's proposed attributes specifically.

What specific factors in popular religions would you say contribute to early conversions, that are not as effective later?

In general it's going to have something to do with the variety of influences(wider in later life), the amount of information available about the world, and the desire/ability to think about it. But what specific mechanisms in which religions take advantage of this?

Is it that as the individual is developing an understanding of the world, religious expectations are established at the core? Like an afterlife, ultimate justice system, a code for human interaction that does not benefit from further consideration, and an overseeing super-being. Once lifted up into that fog it becomes hard to find one's way back down to reality without encountering a feeling of deprivation and depression. A dependency is created that the religion can then also fulfill.

Or is it more so teaching the individual to misattribute non-supernatural phenomena(the good, life, Earth, the universe in general, etc) to the god character. To where a lack of the god character would mean a lack of anything good or meaningful to them. Leaving them one god character away from nihilism. Does that happen right away, or is it more of a petrifying factor that comes into effect later, after years of misattributing those phenomena to the god character?

"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour." 1 John 2:18

It's now going on 1,900 years since that was purportedly said.

Why does the "last hour" receive such a self-serving interpretation with modern believers? As if it would apply to any generation recently, let alone this generation. What makes this generation any less wrong than all the previous generations since?

Is it that their premise is that they can't be wrong? And that since he hasn't been back yet, it just MUST still be going to happen? Seems desperate.

"Seeing" and "hearing" imply photons of light and sound waves. If the supernatural event/entity is emitting/reflecting said empirical evidence, why is that evidence lacking in all recordings? With our widely used capability for recording light/sound, and how desirous believers are for confirmation, why is there an utter lack of the claimed evidence? Do you realize that you are creating a piece of evidence suggesting that your particular God concept does not exist?

If you would suggest that some concepts of "hearing" and "seeing" do not imply sound waves or light, then you have just removed the normative evidence that makes seeing and hearing in any way reliable for discerning reality. At which point it is the equivalent of your imagination.

Image > http://www.flickr.com/photos/4saken4/5551977624

I think this may be 2 identical outer shells of something that have been attached together by hand. The segmented pattern and hard shell-like surface makes me think it could be some type of (marine?) arthropod. But I'm really unsure. It's quite light in weight, and hollow.

Any ideas about what this is and how it got to this state would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

In experiments with split brain patients the phenomenon where one side of the brain says it believes in god and the other side says it does not has been observed. Do both go to hell or do both go to heaven? If one side goes to hell and the other to heaven does that mean the person has 2 souls(or their soul splits in half)?

Could events like creating something happen before the universe existed?

If yes, and events do not necessitate being in the universe, what was the actual first event outside of it? Would there not need to be a prior event to cause the next if events happen outside of the universe? Or was there never a first event?

If so isn't that just the infinite regress you think is being avoided by believing in god?

If there is no state of affairs, events or moments before the universe, saying "before the universe existed" is just incoherent and nonsensical. And suggesting there was such a state would be completely unfounded.

Since the secular groups would normally not be based on unsubstantiated claims and a deity that has no evidence for it. Would it be a big enough plus to overcome any small loss from losing that theistic belief?

Would people get the same amount out of the time in those facilities? Why wouldn't they, when there is no empirical evidence for god?

When the equivalent to a church is a group who worships unicorns, why would it be a problem to remove that deity from it? Why would anything else gained through that group be any less?

Logical and rational answers only please. Do not use logical fallacies(appeal to populous, appeal to authority, begging the question, appeal to consequences, the bandwagon fallacy, etc)