Well, not as old as I coot, 1. NO ONE "Brain washed" into being an Atheist. It is just the natural progression of what happens when a person DE-PROGRAMMES themselves from the religious B.S. they were Force Fed as a Fetus, Baby, Young Child and a Teenager. 2. YOU seem to be on the same road as I read where you said you once KNEW there was a god and now you only BELIEVE there is. Like it or not, this MAKES YOU an Agnostic Theist! You should read Dan Barkers book: "Losing Faith in Faith, From Preacher to Atheist" (He is only one of the smartest people in the world with an IQ which puts him in the top .0098 %) And IF you have an OPEN mind you will! You can get it from: ---------------- http://www.ffrf.org/ 3. While I have tested to have beyond a Phd level vocabulary, using it decreases the communication between people. So have fun with all your big words which take up a lot of space and say little. 4. You should go to my "World" forum and read my post entitled: "ON LANGUAGE" I have not been to bed year and it is damn near 8 AM, so nite nite.

Hey "Old Coot" I've been thinking some more about your comments about "who programmed me" and I submit the following: 1. I have found that IF religious people are discussing anything OTHER than their OWN religion (& anything directly related there to) their ability to use logic, common sense and other critical thinking skills are at least as good as those of non-religious people. 2. And that how nearly every time I point out the provable fact nearly every single religious person in the world has been programmed into whatever religion they believe in, I get this response about me being somehow programmed into being an Atheist. 3. So this rather irrational response is most certainly expected to come from religious people extreamly frequently. 4. It is a totally illogical and irrational response because of the difference between how religious people were programmed in the first place and how those who became Atheists after they were religious is HUGE! (To be honest, the difference is so stupendous and astronomical it boggles my mind how anyone could ever even come up with it.) Religious people are: A. Programmed by others. B. Programmed as Fetuses, Babies, & as Young Children. A process which starts MANY, MANY years before a person is anywhere close to being able to use their own intellect to figure out the validity of what they are being taught. C. They are FORCE FED information by the authority figures in their lives. (Their parents, grand-parents, other relatives, their teachers, other religious people and by thier culture.) D. Like the prisoners of war (or others**) programmed as adults, they were under the direct control (24 hrs. a day) of those who were programming them. Compare that to people who were raised to be religious. A. NO other person programmed them. (And IF they are programmed, they programmed themselves.) B. For most, their DE-programming FROM religious belief was started years after their intellect and ability to decide for themselves was fully functional. And to know if what they were learning made any rational sense of not. If it is was valid or not. C. There is NO "Force Feeding" of any information. There are neither any authority figures telling them what to believe nor does their culture re-enforce their non-belief. D. They are totally under their own control. They can choose to spend time learning (De-Programming) them - selves or not. So when some religious person is so un-informed and illogical as to ask "if I am programmed" or "who programmed" me, I just chalk it up to their lack of knowledge & their in-ability to use either common sense or logic when ever they are discussing their own religion. Actually, I pity them as their minds are so messed up many of them are incapable of rational thought when it comes to their own religion. ------------- ** the others I referred to are those like Patty Hearst and the hostages who later suffer from the "Stockholm Syndrome" --------- Please, Take Care! Neil

Darn I wish we could edit our own posts as it seems no matter how many times I reread something before I post it, I never see my errors until after I have posted it! So sorry for them. Neil

Hi, Neil,

Don't worry too much about editing your posts - they are very inspiring.

I wasn't aware that I used 'big' words but I will take that as a compliment.

After a recent very bad attack I am now in the situation where I cannot remember how to do simple tasks. Because I use my keyboard a lot, once I have started to use it I can cope quite well but if I want to use a propelling pencil (which I did, recently when I was speaking to Peter Heavy), I simply can't make the darned thing work.

Even switching on a light can take me two or three minutes!

The knowledge of how it works is not diminished - simply the ability to put that knowledge to physical effect.

The same is true of just about everything at the moment - I certainly would hate to try to drive my van!

Why am I mentioning this?

Simply because when we learn something by repetition, we programme a part of our brain so that the action becomes almost autonomic - you do it without conscious thought.

My religious knowledge and beliefs have been brought to me through debate, reading, listening to the opinions of others and sifting and sorting what I accumulate.

I was an atheist for some years but then I started to feel that atheism was still leaving questions unanswered. Like all the other beliefs I had been through, it did not stand up by itself.

I would love to say that I had had an epiphany but that is not true. For a very short while I was absolutely convinced of the existence of God. I knew it as certainly as I know that I am typing at this moment.

MY beliefs have under-gone what has been a constant review and, like anything which is fluid and amorphous, it assumes a different proportion in what I consider to be my conscious existence.

You and many religious people are very fortunate because you actually KNOW the answers while I am still scrabbling around for the proper questions to ask - and I envy you.

If, unlike religious people, you were not programmed into atheism I congratulate you on finding your answers - I'm still looking.

Your response to my question about who programmed you into being an atheist has been very enlightening and I thank you for taking the time to post it.

Let's hope Dave doesn't mind us hogging his forum with something totally unrelated - or is it?

The Old Coot

    It is indeed a sad event, and my heart goes out to the families of the innocent victims. I find it more saddening that the people of the world wish to blame the gun and the firearm laws for crime. The crime was committed by a PERSON, the tool that he chose was a gun. He was allowed to purchase the wepon of choice because the law allowed him too, the law was made by the government that YOU elected.

    The U.S.A seems to have a love affair with firearms that I personally do not fully understand and find it difficult to accept. The reply always seems to be along the same lines, eg; ...constitutional right to bear arms...., I am bloody sure that when the founding fathers wrote the constitution, they had no intention of the right to bear arms being used to kill innocent kids.

    As for the gunman himself, he has learnt very well from the media how to blame every body except himself for all of his life problems, and then taken out his frustrations on those innocents around him.

    I am so very glad that here in my country {Australia} it is a lot more difficult to do something like this. We are not perfect here, but we are not as bad as the U.S.A..

    The saddest fact of all is that this event is being refered to as  "The worst school shooting in U.S. history",  bloody hell,  this type of thing has happened previously and it has been allowed to happen again!!