Cromwell is part of the history of Protestant / Catholic violence on that island.If Cromwell himself had been Irish, then your mention of him would've been more valid.
When did your ancestors leave Ireland then? (I always get a little bit jealous of people with interesting family tree stories)
Yes but Cromwell was an English military ruler, or dictator in modern terms.
Have you ever been 'back'?
I’m aware. What I said was: “Religion has been a great unifying force there for sure.”
Yes but I think your mention of Cromwell in that context was in serious error for obvious reasons.
Whereabouts in Ireland were they from btw?
I cannot for the life of me ever recall an atheist knocking on my home door to discuss their religion and/or dive into where I attend church.
Quite possibly. I'm a little unique, certainly among my peers and friend group. My parents were brought up Catholic by my very religious grandparents (well 3 of 4 were) but didn't have much time for organised religion so I didn't go to Church or really get indoctrinated by my parents as a child. If I ever asked my Mother always told me some believe and some don't and it's up to you to decide. My Da never pushed his beliefs on us but told us in simplistic terms as I was quite young when I asked that what he believed was that we live and we die and the energy that drives us when we're alive comes from the World/Universe and goes back into it. I suppose he was Agnostic in that he couldn't definitely say one way or the other if there was a God but he certainly didn't believe in the Christian one. I really first remember being told about God when I went to the local school at age 4 which was Catholic. There were no non-denominational schools in country at the time as far as I know. My grandmother would also talk about Christianity as she went to Mass every day of her life. I actually came home crying from my first day at school as my parents forgot to warn me everyone would start blessing themselves and praying and I hadn't a clue what was going on!
Okay.
They were from Armagh.
Ahh right...City* or County? I'm in the latter at present and about 8 or 9 miles from the former.
The County.
What the Bible may or not say is irrelevant because I'm not talking specifically about the Christian concept of God.
Indeed.
Considering it allows evil to exist, yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.
There are many explanations for the existence of evil which do not have to mean that God doesn't or can't exist.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I have had my own doubts concerning perceived inconsistencies and contradictions but after researching about these, I always ended up convinced they weren't actually what they seemed initially (maybe due to my existing faith I was already predisposed to be convinced and so any form of justification or explanation was sufficient for meQuite possibly. I'm a little unique, certainly among my peers and friend group. My parents were brought up Catholic by my very religious grandparents (well 3 of 4 were) but didn't have much time for organised religion so I didn't go to Church or really get indoctrinated by my parents as a child. If I ever asked my Mother always told me some believe and some don't and it's up to you to decide. My Da never pushed his beliefs on us but told us in simplistic terms as I was quite young when I asked that what he believed was that we live and we die and the energy that drives us when we're alive comes from the World/Universe and goes back into it. I suppose he was Agnostic in that he couldn't definitely say one way or the other if there was a God but he certainly didn't believe in the Christian one. I really first remember being told about God when I went to the local school at age 4 which was Catholic. There were no non-denominational schools in country at the time as far as I know. My grandmother would also talk about Christianity as she went to Mass every day of her life. I actually came home crying from my first day at school as my parents forgot to warn me everyone would start blessing themselves and praying and I hadn't a clue what was going on!
I still did my Communion and Confirmation and all that because everyone else did, my Grandparents wouldn't have been happy and my parents didn't want me to feel left out. Although, I really wouldn't have minded so much. So I suppose my default position was probably agnostic growing up with that influence around me. In or around the times of those sacraments when the priest was coming into the school and the focus was all about that, I suppose you could say my atheism waivered a little and at one point I think I was around 12 I told my Mother I'd like to go to Church and she said 'yeah no problem I'll bring you'. But really as soon as I said it out loud I knew I was only really fooling myself. There were far to many inconsistencies/contradictions for me to see it as anything other than a product of the minds of men and without trying to be insulting what I'd consider a bit narcissist and ego-driven. I believe in people and the capacity for goodness in them and I'm also very much aware of the capacity for evil deeds but there's far too much of that evil/inexplicably horrific diseases and downright randomness in the World for me to believe that any of this was intentional.
).You’re missing my point.
Right. All powerful or all loving: pick one.
It doesn't. And I listed in my previous post several reasons why.
You forgot all-knowing ... which means knowing things that you and I might not know about why evil exists.
And I think you’re wrong.
And this is just a fancy way of hiding behind the “god works in mysterious ways” mantra.
It's not a question of hiding. I've already given many possible explanations as to why evil exists - one of which included the impossibility of humans fully understanding the motives, mind and purposes of a God (if we assume God exists, which I am for the purposes of this discussion) that has created a Universe that contains more stars than there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth.
When humans have the answers for everything ever, only then we'll have the authority to come to a conclusion. Right now we know next to nothing.
So you haven’t made a decision about whether you believe in a god?
I don't follow any organised religion, most of which peddle childish and/or superficial beliefs for the masses of people who have never had a genuine transcendent experience of their own and so don't know any better.
Oh I do believe. I think we've been given just enough intelligence to to appreciate how wonderful the Universe is, but denied further insights as to why.
Okay, but why though? At least organized religions have scripture to explain their very specific beliefs. Christians belive that life continues after physical death because the Bible says it does, and it goes all the way back to Jesus (and potentially further than that). But at every step of the way, you have scripture to explain that it is the way it is. What evidence do you have of life after physical death? What evidence for God? Particularly a God with purpose. And what about your specific belief that God needs us just as much as we need God? Unless you've directly spoken to this God, how else would you have figured it out? In the cases of organized religion, there's almost always someone who has chatted with God and figured these things out.
That's a lot of questions. I can only say that my beliefs/perceptions stem from a combination of some personal experiences, intuition, some study of the writings of various philosophers and "spiritual" figures, and the application of rational thinking (or at least what I consider to be rational).
Yeah I realize I threw a lot at you
You don’t need to have free will, and assuming you do, to paraphrase Elie Wiesel, god’s indifference is worse than his approval or disapproval.
We wouldn’t need to if a perfect god’s creation was actually perfect.
That sounds nice if you’re writing a novel.
Again - unnecessary if a perfect god actually made a perfect creation.
You’ve started to repeat yourself.
Again - “mysterious ways” is a cop out.
A god doesn’t need to exist at all for this to work.
You seem to assume that any God worthy of the name would only want an already-perfect world, populated by pre--programmed biological robots who don't have free will.
So instead this god created a world in which he chose to let people destroy one another and suffer all forms of suffering, just so we can “evolve”? That doesn’t make this god sound any better whatsoever.
Quite right
You’ve retained the fervency though.
Kinda the point of the thread…
It's a common quote taken out of context. An all knowing God would know more than we as people is from that stand point common sense. Considering everything people know is learnt, there's no preface for the human mind to gain knowledge without the need of being informed.
It’s an interesting thing to note though. I’ve often found that many atheists display a fervency not dissimilar to evangelicals.
