Seeing the Dark

[MauriceColgan]

Some of you guys take yourselves far too seriously.

Atheists are bombarded night and day by the religion infested media and you cannot take a thread or two from atheists.

Which you have to access voluntary, all by yourselves, by the way.

This dark little corner must be very illuminating.

[cry freedom]

I find that extraordinary. As a mater of interest what part of the country do you live in? Just general indications - province, urban/rural?
If the fears of these woman are indicative of the cultural milieu that you live in I think I have a clearer understanding of the point of many of your previous posts.

I live in the rural Irish midlands and my family is involved in the medical profession although I am not myself, directly involved.

I can assure you that what I claimed in my previous post is true and I have no reason to believe that it is exceptional.

On the male side there used to be a slight sprinkling of depressed, prematurely grey youths in the locality who were described as "religion mad".

This I would lay at the door of good old Catholic sexual guilt.

They are mostly dead now or in mental homes and fortunately we do not seem to be breeding a replacement crop.

Maybe I am misinterpreting your tone but I detect a slight hint of patronizing incredulity in your post.

If you are in a position to disprove the claim I made in my original post I would welcome your contribution.

[Didimus]

I cannot of course disprove your claim. My own experience is completely different, both in terms of my own family, and voluntary work I did for the best part of two decades.
I certainly came across people who were afraid of dying, for a host of reasons, but never one case of men or women who were afraid of the judgement of god. In fact those who did have an obvious faith were usually more reconciled to dying.
The prematurely grey youths who were religion mad and who are now dead or in mental homes - did you know them yourself?

[EvotingMachine0197]

Oh golly, this thread has evolved. Is evolution the solution ? think not, Must read pages . Back soon.

[Half Nelson]

They are, almost universally, anti-Catholic, when they appear on this site. As to what's ahistorical or not, all I know is that this site is a constant, I mean every single bloody day, spam-fest of threads full of the same people telling us how wonderful they think they are for believing/disbelieving something, and serve no purpose beyond that whatsoever. The idea that a single person of any stamp has been converted to or from anything by this sh1te would certainly be ahistorical...

+1.
I would add, I expected more substance to the atheism on this site but, probe a little and you meet with the same shallow arguments we all heard in early secondary school. It seems that it's not just many religious folk who suspend their learning of matters spiritual in the teenage years; the same disease also infects the, avowedly, non-believers.
Boring stuff!

[jdaly]

If only St Paul had had the ability to see the Dark we would have been saved a lot of time by not listening to his letters being read out by countless priests and bishops etc over the decades.

The ability to see the dark comes naturally to those of us with restless and questioning minds.

Often it's a Eureka moment for those of us brought up to believe in a religion. Especially a religion where children from birth are subjected to continuous misinformation from seemingly devout parents and teachers.

Jews believe a boy becomes a man at 13. Hence the Barmitzvah ceremony.

When do children actually begin to think for themselves though? When do they begin to question their parents, religion, politics, taste in music etc etc.

Why do so few begin to see the Dark? What's the trigger mechanism in the human brain that fires the first shot into the Dark.

Seeing the Light has always been easy, seeing the beautiful Darkness of the Cosmos is another matter altogether.

The dawn of penetrating thought came early yet here we are with most of the world's population, still in the Light!?

Darkness according to De Selby in the Third Policeman is nothing more than an accumulation of bad air easily burnt off by a match and I've always wondered about all those letters from Paul and no body ever wrote back to him.

[cry freedom]

I cannot of course disprove your claim. My own experience is completely different, both in terms of my own family, and voluntary work I did for the best part of two decades.
I certainly came across people who were afraid of dying, for a host of reasons, but never one case of men or women who were afraid of the judgement of god. In fact those who did have an obvious faith were usually more reconciled to dying.
The prematurely grey youths who were religion mad and who are now dead or in mental homes - did you know them yourself?

I knew two of them directly but as they were older than me I was not in a position to verify the locally accepted cause of their ailment.
I spent a night, sitting on my suitcase, on the Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire ferry talking to a young Tipperary man with similar problems. Very well educated but unable to forgive himself for not being perfect in the sight of God. The conversation only skirted around the reason for his feeling of "unworthiness".I suspect that they were sexually based but did not want to delve any deeper than he was prepared to go of his own accord. In both physique and manner he was the sort of lad any parent would be proud of,but fatally flawed in his perception of himself.
I parted company with him at Busáras in Dublin and never saw him again.
I often think of him.

[Lazarus]

this thread started out with maurice being afraid of the dark but has developed into another religion bashing thread , the writings of aging hippie dick dawkins, a sort of secular ian paisley, who has no toleration for any beliefs is preached here like a new age gospel. everyone has a right to believe or not believe and secular fascism as atheism appears to have become will send as many people back to church as its jackboot tries to stifle free thought.

I assumed this thread would be about people's beliefs, thoughts, on what if anything comes after life has ended. But as Charley so rightly says, it degenerates into another religion bashing thread, with the same people, saying the same thing, and the usual suspects responding only to each other. Which, although rather sweet, is terribly boring for others who would like to join the debate.

Last year I had the experience, over a 27 day period, of a complete failure of my heart and all my major organs, three times my family were told, that's it, I was effectively dead. Obviously, duh! But those awful experiences left me profoundly altered, in my religious beliefs.

But this thread is not really about seeing the dark, its about the usual suspects trying to outdo each other by showing off their considerable academic knowledge, which I do greatly admire, but which does not address the issue. Because if the OP was serious about this subject, religion should not really come into it at all. Should it? After all, death awaits us all. Its what comes after death that no one knows, or do they?

[cry freedom]

I assumed this thread would be about people's beliefs, thoughts, on what if anything comes after life has ended. But as Charley so rightly says, it degenerates into another religion bashing thread, with the same people, saying the same thing, and the usual suspects responding only to each other. Which, although rather sweet, is terribly boring for others who would like to join the debate.

Last year I had the experience, over a 27 day period, of a complete failure of my heart and all my major organs, three times my family were told, that's it, I was effectively dead. Obviously, duh! But those awful experiences left me profoundly altered, in my religious beliefs.

But this thread is not really about seeing the dark, its about the usual suspects trying to outdo each other by showing off their considerable academic knowledge, which I do greatly admire, but which does not address the issue. Because if the OP was serious about this subject, religion should not really come into it at all. Should it? After all, death awaits us all. Its what comes after death that no one knows, or do they?

Okay, no more talk of religion.
Instead we'll talk of death.
I believe that when I die there will be no eternal reward.
I will merely enter a dreamless sleep for all eternity.
I will be no more aware of my existence after I am dead than I was before I was born.
Now, over to you Sir, and remember ,no talk of religion.

[Telemachus]

I assumed this thread would be about people's beliefs, thoughts, on what if anything comes after life has ended. But as Charley so rightly says, it degenerates into another religion bashing thread, with the same people, saying the same thing, and the usual suspects responding only to each other. Which, although rather sweet, is terribly boring for others who would like to join the debate.

Last year I had the experience, over a 27 day period, of a complete failure of my heart and all my major organs, three times my family were told, that's it, I was effectively dead. Obviously, duh! But those awful experiences left me profoundly altered, in my religious beliefs.

But this thread is not really about seeing the dark, its about the usual suspects trying to outdo each other by showing off their considerable academic knowledge, which I do greatly admire, but which does not address the issue. Because if the OP was serious about this subject, religion should not really come into it at all. Should it? After all, death awaits us all. Its what comes after death that no one knows, or do they?

I'll have a stab, i'll be mostly wrong probably.

All i know is we exhibit individual atoms of being., we know reality in a unique way, we have unique minds..

There are things that are not explainable by our faculties.

1.Our own separateness from all other peoples individual experience of consciousness.

2. Form is an illusion. Why we perceive form at all considering matter is mostly empty space. In sn sthirdt universe nothing should exist at all.

3. There is things we cant explain also such as Truth. A scientific example would be why pi=3.14, golden ratios etc.

4. There does not seem to be overlap between our minds., we have individual minds that a computer cannot replicate. Self-awareness cannot be described in a material universe.

That must mean something, death may not be the end because the above indicate to me there may be something more than this life.