Also, any human knowledge could be considered “lost” if it wasn’t passed on or practiced for two generations. Of course, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be re-discovered.

Atheism frequently relies on circular logic and self-referentially incoherent ideas. I pointed out examples in Dawkins’ HuffPost piece last week. Not that I’m attacking anyone’s beliefs…

Okay, maybe a little.

Do you honestly think that if nobody in the world practiced or talked about a religion for two generations the religion would exist in the third generation?

I agree with your last sentence. We use religion to help us better understand the feeling most people have inside of themselves, but it does not make it true or right.

All religion would be gone if it wasn’t practiced for two generations. It isn’t an innate thing.

Nonfactor on November 19, 2006 at 1:10 AM

Hmmm. That is precisely what Marxist/Leninists thought in 1917. Communists were convinced that religion could be eliminated by forbidding people to practice it. They were only half right. The Russian Orthodox church has largely been eliminated in Russia (it has almost no following, and almost no influence). Reports that I have heard from missionaries that have been in Russia within that past year, however, indicate that faith in God is alive and well in the former Soviet Union. Methinks that your argument is so much Swiss cheese. Religion is simply one type of outward manifestation of an inner belief in God.

All religion would be gone if it wasn’t practiced for two generations. It isn’t an innate thing.

Clearly, this man despises self-delusion. /sarcasm

We’re not talking about people who suddenly became Christians, we’re talking about people who fooled for a short time but were otherwise unchanged. There’s a story in the Bible like that.

Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23

3″Behold, the sower went out to sow;

4and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up.

5″Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil.

6″But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

7″Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out.

8″And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a (E)hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

18″(N)Hear then the parable of the sower.

19″When anyone hears (O)the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, (P)the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.

20″The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;

21yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he (Q)falls away.

22″And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of (R)the world and the (S)deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

23″And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some (T)a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

Christianity is a choice one has to make. There is no magic word or magic touch. Things of that nature will only fade away.

Congratulations. A post with a single, lucid, directly presented thought. Who hypnotized you?

Joshua,

Never fear, you are right to have those concerns and thoughts about emotion-based worship services. Those are a mockery of the Scriptures command to be “filled with the Spirit”.

Imagine yourself as a being of unlimited scope and ability, in a place where your very word created reality. You could create a complete universe at a whim. And what would you fill it with? Every possible thing of beauty and interest to you? And then what? Do the things you created truly impress you, given that the effort required was insignificant? And that creation, does it have the ability to feel for you what you feel for it?

Ahh, create a being whom you can love, and who can love you in return. A being who will be impressed by and appreciative of the majesty of your creation. But how will that being love you without knowing you? And more importantly, if that being is created solely to love you, would that love be real and freely given, or intrinsic, and therefore of no true value?

Ok, the being must CHOOSE to love you, which means that the option of choosing NOT to love you must be included. Free will, hmm, that’s a huge can of worms, isn’t it? Is it worth it? You decide that to be loved by your creation simply because it wants to love you, is worth the risk.

Once Free Will is in play, the being has the option of disloyalty, disobedience, of completely ignoring that you exist. Not only that, but the option to do anything that comes into it’s mind to do, whether good or evil. Are you still sure it’s worth the risk, just to be loved?

Apparently God thinks it is worth the risk, for there is only one thing that He cannot create. A being which simultaneously loves Him freely, and is completely submitted to His will. A puppet does not love the puppet-master, a robot does not love its designer. Thank God we are so much more than robots. When a person asks the question of pain, “Why would a loving God allow so much evil in the world?”, the answer is in how much of His creation ignores Him and uses its Free Will for evil. God cannot be blamed that He wants to be loved. Every sentient creature in the universe craves love.

Shakespeare knows Hamlet. Hamlet does not know Shakespeare. How could Hamlet ever know Shakespeare?

Let me get this straight. This man wants to convert people AWAY from faith by showing them that it’s all bogus, that an athiest making believers of people is just tricks, and hypnosis.

The one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Are many people weak minded and able to be influenced in such a way? Apparently so. That neither denies real faith, nor the existence of God. His whole shtick becomes a massive bait-and-switch tactic to make people question their beliefs.

AP, you regularly post things which present a questioning view of Christianity, or of all religions, and that’s not a bad thing, since every rational person should keep their thoughts clear on such issues. But when are you going to come clean on your position? You’ve hinted at many things that you don’t believe, but I’ve not read a word identifying what you do believe.

Ha.

Okay, you know how I was talking about seeing a number of hypnotisms at things like the local fair and high school graduation events, etc.? Well I also forgot to mention that at least one of those times, I wanted to get hypnotized and have them make me do something like bark like a dog or whatever. I just wanted to have the feeling I’d seen the others have, when they come off the stage in to their seats sort of in a daze and not really understanding what just happened.

So the one time, that I specifically remember getting my chance, they brought up like 20 or 30 of us. Then within a few minutes, he’d sent me and a few others back to our seats in the audience to watch, because it wasn’t working. It sucked because I actually wanted to experience it.

But notice at the end of the first video/start of the second above half the room leaves? “… a bit of an interuption there, because I think some people got a little bit uncomfortable with that, and have left so if it’s alright I’ll just carry on with you guys, thank you for staying, it’s fair enough…”

That bitch just edited the part out where he sent all those who weren’t hypnotizable (like myself) out of the room! Busted! (Note that I’ve been questioning the heavy editing since the beginning).

Quick side note: My brother tried to get hypnotized to quit smoking once. Didn’t work. My great-uncle on the other hand did it when he was in his 60s, maybe close to 70, and quit without a problem after a life of smoking.

Now if he would have parted the Red Sea or brought someone back from the dead, then he would be onto something ! But gee… those things are really hard, especially when your an atheist, so Mr. Brown has taken a much easier path to stardom by joining himself with the leftist mantra that ridicules all things religious, especially, all things Christian. With his politically correct “values” firmly established, he is well on his way to becoming an instant media darling.

In case you missed it, this is what he said in the introduction of the first video:

I use to be a full-on happy-clappy Christian til my mid-20s. And then I started to realize that my belief was just as prone to circular logic and self fulfillment
as all the new-age nonsense which bugged me. And then reading the New Testament as a historical document finally rid me of any religious belief.

Really? Many an atheists has begun a trek to prove the inaccuracy of the Bible. Most of them come back Christians. And circular belief ? I pray to the JEHOVAH God that makes direct intervention in my life daily, how is that a circular belief?

But a predominate belief among atheists, is evolution, which is the perfect example of circular belief. It goes like this:

There is no God. Yet life began. Evolution is true, because there is no God.

I’ll pray for you Mr. Brown, it’s not too late for you.

Joshua P. Allem on November 18, 2006 at 11:42 AM

I don’t know, if as you were concerned about, anyone here will misinterpret your comments Joshua, but I totally agree, and basically said the same thing above (though maybe not as clearly, as I too was worried about a backlash).

yEAH, AND HOW COME WE NEVER SEE THIS HEADLINE:

“PHYSIC WINS LOTTERY”?????

auspatriotman on November 18, 2006 at 12:19 PM

HAha, so true. We’ve all heard that, but I had never really considered it more than in passing before.

In other words, it ain’t hypnotism, it ain’t magic, it’s flim-flam.

The content isn’t worth discussion, because it’s all made up.

“PHYSIC WINS LOTTERY”?????

C.S. Lewis said he was dragged “screaming and kicking” into the kingdom of God. Mr. Brown won’t find his answer chatting up beautiful women, but God is always speaking to those who’ll listen.

He clearly demonstrates why there are so many nutty cults out there. But what he is doing is so evil it is considered the ONLY unforgivable sin. Blasphamy against the works of the Holy Spirit is unforgivable and, though it is not mine to judge, scripture teaches us that he will burn in Hell for eternity and I would certainly applaud that.

To view this as anything more than the entertainment it is intended as suggests that you would probably make an EXCELLENT stooge for Browns performances.