There is no God!

[Sephirstein]

My city is being invaded by Evangelical bigots. A Southern Baptist church will soon be opening. The people aren't very conservative, but tend to be easily swayed by social conservative propaganda against abortion and homosexuality.

Why the fuck do these wingnuts have to pollute Canada?
And why the Hell do they call themselves Southern Baptists outside of the Southern US?

[comradebillyboy]

1. yes you are correct, there is no god

n/t

[leftyandproud]

2. my GOD..

I know you Canucks aren't as religious as Americans, but man...it seems you have an unhealthy amount of HATRED of these people. A new church is opening...so? What's the problem? :shrug:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Why they are called "Southern Baptists"

The Baptist Church split at the outset of the Civil War. The Southern Baptists were pro-slavery, quoting the Bible to justify enslaving a people. The Northern Baptists were not. They are now called American Baptists, and are more liberal than their Southern cousins.

The best thing for you to do is to try your best to ignore the evangelicals in your midst. Hatred or disgust will only add energy to their cause. Give people in your town a viable alternative, and most will look elsewhere.

[Township75]

4. Free Speech Must End!

Only your speech must be allowed!

[Sephirstein]

9. They have the right to be here...

I'm just less than thrilled that they are.

[Submariner]

5. Why the fuck do these wingnuts have to pollute Canada?

MONEY. They want your donations and they do it by instilling a fear of their god in their converts. Don't give them tax-exempt status like those parasites get down here. If I recall correctly, the southern baptist assholes are more into keeping their women down more than the regular run of the mill baptist religion.

Just ignore them and maybe they will go away if no one attends. My apologies that some more U.S. bullshit has crossed your border.

[HEyHEY]

6. Where are you from in Canada?

I wager the Maritimes

[HEyHEY]

7. Also

I should ad that yes, Canadians maybe do hate these people. But if hating them means hating homophobia, racism, and people opposing the civil rights of other, then I'll burn a cross on their front lawn. Fuck em, we've never had a problem with such ignorant bastards up here, and I never want one.

[Sephirstein]

10. No...

I live in a tiny corner of South-Eastern Ontario surrounded by Ottawa, the Quebec border, and the NY border.

Economically, my city leans far to the left, but is fairly conservative about social issues, but vote to the left based on their views on fiscal issues (to the point where we even voted in the NDP the first year Lumley didn't run Liberal, but that was before my time. I'm glad Cleary's retiring on the provincial side. If I decide I want to go Liberal in the next provincial election, I don't have to put my check mark next to the name of a homophobe.). Conservative is a relative word, though. Upstate NY is (except the Ithica area, obviously) more conservative than Cornwall and we would be looked at as a cesspool of sin anywhere near the so-called Bible Belt (The name's pretty stupid...Many people who venerate the Bible are nothing like the wingnuts who live there.).

[Maple]

8. The last thing Canada needs

is any expansion of the Bible belt. And all the homophobia, racism, sexism, and general fantasyland outlook of these fundies.

Go away!

[Neoplatonist]

11. "That God Truly Exists"

"Well, then, Lord, You who give understanding to faith, grant me that I may understand as much as You see fit, that You exist as we believe You to be. Now we believe that You are something than which no greater can be thought. Or can it be that a thing of such a nature does not exist, since 'the Fool has said it in his heart, there is no God?' But surely, then this same Fool hears what I am speaking about, namely, 'something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought', he understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his mind, even if he does not understand that it actually exists. For it is one thing for an object to exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that an object actually exists. Thus, when a painter plans beforehand what he is going to execute, he has in his mind, but he does not think that it actually exists because he has not yet executed it. However, when he actually painted it, then he both has it in his mind and understands that it exists because he has now made it. Even the Fool, then, is forced to agree that something-that-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought exists in the mind, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood is in the mind. And surely that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought cannot exist in the mind alone. For if it exists solely in the mind, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is greater. If then that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists in the mind alone, this same that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought is that-than-which-a-greater-can-be-thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that something-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists both in the mind and in reality."

--Saint Anselm

[Twillig]

12. "What is really wrong here--

is the view that existence is a quality."

--Russell

[Neoplatonist]

14. Existence is the word of God

The Father's essense is the same as the Son's, who is the Father's Word (or logos), the Spirit is their mutal Love, which is also the same exact essense. The Holy Trinity is one and the same essence. The forms of existence are the ideas of the Word. That is the basis for my faith.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Bertrand Russell because he reminds me of David Hume, but Hume was an atheist and extrememly skeptical. Russell's paradox is a pivotal moment in modern philosophy, I agree. But he has his critics.

However, we idealists believe in what can be, not in what is. The ideas we have are what the art will become. Kennedy's vision of landing a man on the moon and safely returning him by the end of the 1960s would never have come to fruition had he not had his original, grand idea.

All we ultimately have is our faith. Just as materialists base measurements on appearances, Catholics base our faith on the Word. Anyway, just a thought.

[Submariner]

15. Saint Anselm is from the Flat Earth Society era

"If you lived two or three millennia ago, there was no shame in holding that the Universe was made for us. It was an appealing thesis consistent with everything we knew; it was what the most learned among us taught without qualification. But we have found out much since then. Defending such a position today amounts to willful disregard of the evidence, and a flight from self-knowledge." --Pale Blue Dot p.52 Carl Sagan

[Neoplatonist]

17. Sagan was Jewish

Jews don't believe in Jesus Christ. Even Einstein, a devoted Jew, believed in God.

I will leave this nice conversation with this:

We both know William James, the great Pragmatist, believed that a man possesses one of two types of mindsets:

THE TENDER-MINDED

Rationalistic (going by "principles")
Intellectualistic
Idealistic
Optimistic
Religious
Free-willist
Monistic
Dogmatical

or

THE TOUGH-MINDED

Empiricist (going by "facts)
Sensationalistic
Materialistic
Pessimistic
Irreligious
Fatalistic
Pluralistic
Sceptical

I know what era Saint Anselm was from. Moses Maimonides, as I'm sure you know, was Jewish and also believed in God. He was from the same era.

I am of THE-TENDER-MINDED opinion, which, of course, is transendentalism, and which, William James was opposed to in his "Radical Emperism." You are of the TOUGH-MINDED persuation. James tried to synthesis the two. He succeeded only partially, in my humble opinion.

I have studied Aristotelian philosophy indepthly, going so-far as to read and reread Porphyry's "Isogoge" over and over and also studying Averroes "Commentaries," especially Aristotle's "Categories." So when you quoted Bertrand Russell about "quality," I knew exactly where you were coming from. Qualities, like quantities, time, space, relatives, have variation of degree. They can be "more" or "less" one way or the other.

I, like Berkely, don't believe what we see is actual reality. Kant was correct that we cannot know the essense of a thing. So when we see reflections, those reflections, i.e. emperical so-called facts, are only conceptuals to their originals. In that sense, Nicholas Cusanas was hitting the nail on the head. And Hume was also correct in stating that "an effect is a distinct event from its cause." The univers was caused--by what? Obviously, God.

A secondary quality can never represent what it's primary is. Replicas are inferior in every case whatesoever to their originals. I don't care if it is a car or whether it is another quality. Qualities change always. Even evil is a quality.

Yes, there is a God. Muslems, Jews, Buddhists, Toaists, Zoroastrians, Mystics, Christians, and, I believe, even atheists like you, know deep down that God necessarily exists.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I also believe in String Theory. And, yes, I have read Hawkin's "A Brief History of Time." He two believes in God.

[HEyHEY]

19. Question

Can you think for yourself?
Not as an inslut but have you ever stepped back and just thought about some of this stuff?

[Kat45]

13. There is a God, but those wingnuts don't really know Him--

they only think they do.

edited for typo

[mkregel]

16. Yup :)

If i were good with bible verses I would quote that famous part where Christ says something to the effect of "many will come in my name but they will be decievers."

SIGH...If I would have just paid attention in church rather than lusting in my heart for Susie down the pew wearing that lacey madonnawannabe garb....

[opihimoimoi]

18. God is the ET Team here to inspect Earth for intelligence.They are due

here soon. What do we tell them when they ask "Take me to your leader!!"

[FEqualsMA]

20. There is no god!!!

...