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	<title>Comments on: Rise of the Gnostic Atheist: A Deconversion Story</title>
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	<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/</link>
	<description>Skeptical Freethought Atheist Musings to Dispel Ignorance and Enlighten the Mind</description>
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		<title>By: GMNightmare</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5832</link>
		<dc:creator>GMNightmare</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:19:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5832</guid>
		<description>Why thank you. Actually, I have almost finished a revised version that is put a little more eloquently, shorter, and a little less abrasive with the religious.

It&#039;s always nice to take a break from the usual comments for ones like these.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Why thank you. Actually, I have almost finished a revised version that is put a little more eloquently, shorter, and a little less abrasive with the religious.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s always nice to take a break from the usual comments for ones like these.</p>
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		<title>By: candy</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5829</link>
		<dc:creator>candy</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:44:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5829</guid>
		<description>Don&#039;t want to sound patronizing but I am impressed with your verbalization of these concepts at such a young age!  I guess I shouldn&#039;t be - my son (same age) knocks me out on occasion.  I just thank goodness (not GOD) that your generation shows so much promise!  The God Delusion seems to be slipping further and further away with each new crop of humans despite the fervor of their parents and teachers.  Go kids!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Don&#8217;t want to sound patronizing but I am impressed with your verbalization of these concepts at such a young age!  I guess I shouldn&#8217;t be &#8211; my son (same age) knocks me out on occasion.  I just thank goodness (not GOD) that your generation shows so much promise!  The God Delusion seems to be slipping further and further away with each new crop of humans despite the fervor of their parents and teachers.  Go kids!</p>
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		<title>By: GMNightmare</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5817</link>
		<dc:creator>GMNightmare</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:35:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5817</guid>
		<description>Another comment on the &quot;spatial&quot; time... if you had a god that could comprehend it, he couldn&#039;t change anything. If he changed something, it would change what he already knew was supposed to happen. Plus, then he&#039;s acting upon his own time scale... and then what about the next greater being that is aware of that time scale and so forth repeatably? The &quot;5th&quot; timescale... This is what I&#039;m talking about not considering the consequences. &quot;A firm grasp of this concept&quot; is impossible, as it is logical, and they couldn&#039;t even consider the above.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Another comment on the &#8220;spatial&#8221; time&#8230; if you had a god that could comprehend it, he couldn&#8217;t change anything. If he changed something, it would change what he already knew was supposed to happen. Plus, then he&#8217;s acting upon his own time scale&#8230; and then what about the next greater being that is aware of that time scale and so forth repeatably? The &#8220;5th&#8221; timescale&#8230; This is what I&#8217;m talking about not considering the consequences. &#8220;A firm grasp of this concept&#8221; is impossible, as it is logical, and they couldn&#8217;t even consider the above.</p>
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		<title>By: GMNightmare</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5816</link>
		<dc:creator>GMNightmare</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:23:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5816</guid>
		<description>Gnosticism is a religion, which is part of your problem. Being an gnostic atheist, is not a part of Gnosticism. So no, gnostic theism and gnostic atheism are not misnomers. If agnostic means not knowing whether there is a god or not, the gnostic means knowing whether there is a god or not. Furthermore, realization that I didn&#039;t capitalize gnostic would go far with you. If I was talking about you, a Gnostic, I would specify anyways. Your nearly dead religious branch doesn&#039;t own the word.

Time is not a spatial dimension, it is a measurement. Even kook theories of space-time understand that it is different from spatial dimension. I don&#039;t much care for pathetic philosophers that start out with a concept they like, god, and then try to manipulate thought in order to prove such in some way with little or no consideration to the reality of if their theories were true.

And no, even supposing such nonsense was true, it doesn&#039;t give any greater claims to religious nonsense. First off, if god had full view of this &quot;4th&quot; dimension, it wouldn&#039;t grant him omnipotence, it would grant omniscience, which is just as absolutely useless and illogical. Second, even if he could change things, we wouldn&#039;t comprehend any changes he makes anyways. Any changes would destroy the timeline from that point onward, we wouldn&#039;t see the change, so we would not regard such a being any higher or having any greater proof than any other religious claim.

Besides that, but there is no evidence of a god in the bloody first place! There is nothing that seems omnipotent, there are only religions that claim their god is omnipotent just because.

&quot;I argue that it is nearly impossible to prove that almost anything does not exist&quot;

Of course you do, because it&#039;s the only thing you can fall back on when you find it&#039;s impossible to prove the existence of your god. You&#039;re wrong. A square circle doesn&#039;t exist. Neither does Santa Claus. Oh wait, did I break your dreams there? Because by your logic Santa Claus must exist because you can&#039;t possibly prove something doesn&#039;t exist right?

Understand the point? If you make a bad claim, I can indeed prove your being doesn&#039;t exist. You haven&#039;t really made any claims to your god yet, but you didn&#039;t try the omniscient being with the &quot;4th&quot; dimension, so here, proof that your god doesn&#039;t exist:
http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/23/how-you-can-know-there-is-no-god/

Finally, maybe you need to reread this part, as you obviously didn&#039;t comprehend it at all if you&#039;re asking for proof (which I supplied anyways):
&quot;This brings us to the question, what is knowledge? Knowing does not mean truth; it means you regard it as true. Knowing is paradoxical in its nature, how can anything be known with exact certainty? It can’t, but for the sake of progress we have to start at some point.

I’ve argued against countless excuses for god. I’ve found fundamental flaws against any kind of omni-ability. I’ve argued against not only the existence but the uselessness of a creator. Essentially, I’ve argued if god cannot be known in this reality then god has no basis in this reality. I’ve even argued the word classification of the word god even.

All and all, perhaps it’s just more honest. I have found flaws and argued against all types of gods, how much more must it take to know? I’ve argued against the whole notion, reason, and existence of god… why can I not be certain there is no god?&quot;</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Gnosticism is a religion, which is part of your problem. Being an gnostic atheist, is not a part of Gnosticism. So no, gnostic theism and gnostic atheism are not misnomers. If agnostic means not knowing whether there is a god or not, the gnostic means knowing whether there is a god or not. Furthermore, realization that I didn&#8217;t capitalize gnostic would go far with you. If I was talking about you, a Gnostic, I would specify anyways. Your nearly dead religious branch doesn&#8217;t own the word.</p>
<p>Time is not a spatial dimension, it is a measurement. Even kook theories of space-time understand that it is different from spatial dimension. I don&#8217;t much care for pathetic philosophers that start out with a concept they like, god, and then try to manipulate thought in order to prove such in some way with little or no consideration to the reality of if their theories were true.</p>
<p>And no, even supposing such nonsense was true, it doesn&#8217;t give any greater claims to religious nonsense. First off, if god had full view of this &#8220;4th&#8221; dimension, it wouldn&#8217;t grant him omnipotence, it would grant omniscience, which is just as absolutely useless and illogical. Second, even if he could change things, we wouldn&#8217;t comprehend any changes he makes anyways. Any changes would destroy the timeline from that point onward, we wouldn&#8217;t see the change, so we would not regard such a being any higher or having any greater proof than any other religious claim.</p>
<p>Besides that, but there is no evidence of a god in the bloody first place! There is nothing that seems omnipotent, there are only religions that claim their god is omnipotent just because.</p>
<p>&#8220;I argue that it is nearly impossible to prove that almost anything does not exist&#8221;</p>
<p>Of course you do, because it&#8217;s the only thing you can fall back on when you find it&#8217;s impossible to prove the existence of your god. You&#8217;re wrong. A square circle doesn&#8217;t exist. Neither does Santa Claus. Oh wait, did I break your dreams there? Because by your logic Santa Claus must exist because you can&#8217;t possibly prove something doesn&#8217;t exist right?</p>
<p>Understand the point? If you make a bad claim, I can indeed prove your being doesn&#8217;t exist. You haven&#8217;t really made any claims to your god yet, but you didn&#8217;t try the omniscient being with the &#8220;4th&#8221; dimension, so here, proof that your god doesn&#8217;t exist:<br />
<a href="http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/23/how-you-can-know-there-is-no-god/" rel="nofollow">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/23/how-you-can-know-there-is-no-god/</a></p>
<p>Finally, maybe you need to reread this part, as you obviously didn&#8217;t comprehend it at all if you&#8217;re asking for proof (which I supplied anyways):<br />
&#8220;This brings us to the question, what is knowledge? Knowing does not mean truth; it means you regard it as true. Knowing is paradoxical in its nature, how can anything be known with exact certainty? It can’t, but for the sake of progress we have to start at some point.</p>
<p>I’ve argued against countless excuses for god. I’ve found fundamental flaws against any kind of omni-ability. I’ve argued against not only the existence but the uselessness of a creator. Essentially, I’ve argued if god cannot be known in this reality then god has no basis in this reality. I’ve even argued the word classification of the word god even.</p>
<p>All and all, perhaps it’s just more honest. I have found flaws and argued against all types of gods, how much more must it take to know? I’ve argued against the whole notion, reason, and existence of god… why can I not be certain there is no god?&#8221;</p>
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		<title>By: damon</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5814</link>
		<dc:creator>damon</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:49:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5814</guid>
		<description>Hello, I&#039;m going to most likely make several unpopular statements here, first I am somewhat Gnostic, but the terms Theist Gnostic and Atheistic Gnostic are really misnomers, Gnosticism actually is theistic by definition, I subscribe to the gnostic search for knowledge and understanding and do not &quot;believe&quot; in blind &quot;faith&quot; , I do understand that there are things that science has yet to explain that people term supernatural, and I understand given the churches view of how many people would discount the notion of a higher being altogether, but a higher being or multiple higher being do exist, not supernaturally but naturally, now understanding of a god or gods so to speak has to come with understandings of dimensional space and the true nature of time as a spatial dimension , the best guides through this knowledge minefield are the philosophers Gurdjieff or Ouspensky , with a firm grasp of this concept many &quot;religious&quot; beliefs start to become a lot less supernatural, for instance any being comprehending 4th dimensional space would seem omnipotent to those of us that can only perceive 3 dimensional space because it would be able to see the whole of time as we perceive it at once, I don&#039;t pretend to have all the answers but the &quot;gnosic atheist&quot; term implies that  you do have all the answers, I have yet to find any arguments with &quot;proof&quot; that god does not exist, it may be possible to prove logical inconsistencies within the judeo-christian beliefs, but I argue that it is nearly impossible to prove that almost anything does not exist, please prove me wrong...</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello, I&#8217;m going to most likely make several unpopular statements here, first I am somewhat Gnostic, but the terms Theist Gnostic and Atheistic Gnostic are really misnomers, Gnosticism actually is theistic by definition, I subscribe to the gnostic search for knowledge and understanding and do not &#8220;believe&#8221; in blind &#8220;faith&#8221; , I do understand that there are things that science has yet to explain that people term supernatural, and I understand given the churches view of how many people would discount the notion of a higher being altogether, but a higher being or multiple higher being do exist, not supernaturally but naturally, now understanding of a god or gods so to speak has to come with understandings of dimensional space and the true nature of time as a spatial dimension , the best guides through this knowledge minefield are the philosophers Gurdjieff or Ouspensky , with a firm grasp of this concept many &#8220;religious&#8221; beliefs start to become a lot less supernatural, for instance any being comprehending 4th dimensional space would seem omnipotent to those of us that can only perceive 3 dimensional space because it would be able to see the whole of time as we perceive it at once, I don&#8217;t pretend to have all the answers but the &#8220;gnosic atheist&#8221; term implies that  you do have all the answers, I have yet to find any arguments with &#8220;proof&#8221; that god does not exist, it may be possible to prove logical inconsistencies within the judeo-christian beliefs, but I argue that it is nearly impossible to prove that almost anything does not exist, please prove me wrong&#8230;</p>
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		<title>By: Angie D.</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5317</link>
		<dc:creator>Angie D.</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:04:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5317</guid>
		<description>Yes, I would agree with GMN that vast majority of Christians have not tried other religions.  They try various &quot;forms&quot; or &quot;denominations&quot; of Christianity that they call &quot;not Christian&quot; because it isn&#039;t their &quot;brand&quot;.  Going from Baptist to Catholic to Jehovah&#039;s Witness to Mormon isn&#039;t &quot;trying other religions&quot;, if that happens to come up as an example.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yes, I would agree with GMN that vast majority of Christians have not tried other religions.  They try various &#8220;forms&#8221; or &#8220;denominations&#8221; of Christianity that they call &#8220;not Christian&#8221; because it isn&#8217;t their &#8220;brand&#8221;.  Going from Baptist to Catholic to Jehovah&#8217;s Witness to Mormon isn&#8217;t &#8220;trying other religions&#8221;, if that happens to come up as an example.</p>
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		<title>By: Johnny</title>
		<link>http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/2009/07/03/rise-of-the-gnostic-atheist-a-deconversion-story/comment-page-1/#comment-5247</link>
		<dc:creator>Johnny</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:20:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/?p=1630#comment-5247</guid>
		<description>GMN has covered much of the same, but since I feel involved in this exchange, and just for some additional perspective, here&#039;s my response:

&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/allaboutscienceorg-is-a-fraud&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;I want to vehemently point out&lt;/a&gt; that AllAboutScience.org is &lt;b&gt;NOT&lt;/b&gt; an objective, reliable, or reputable source for scientific information. It is a creationist propaganda site.

&lt;blockquote&gt;I’ve read a little bit of the bible, and from what I’ve read, it seems like it says there is.&lt;/blockquote&gt;The word &#039;hell&#039; is found 14 times in the Bible (only in the NT); and 12 of the occurrences are in the teachings of Jesus. In the original Greek version, the word that was eventually translated to hell was &lt;i&gt;gehenna&lt;/i&gt;. Gehenna is an actual geographical location, a ravine on the south side of the city of Jerusalem. From Rob Bell&#039;s explanation: &quot;This valley was the site over the years of many violent and horrible deaths, and it came to be viewed as cursed. By Jesus&#039; day it had become the town dump. Garbage, trash, wild animals fighting over scraps of food, a fire burning-a place of waste and destruction. Some referred to it as the place with the gnashing of teeth where the fire never dies. So when Jesus uses gehenna, it is loaded with meaning and visual power-everybody knew what he was talking about.&quot;

&lt;blockquote&gt;What is your explanation of morality?&lt;/blockquote&gt;Morality at its deepest point really is driven by evolution. As a species we realized that to propagate and ensure the survival of our species, we couldn&#039;t constantly murder each other. Several studies have focused on this, and how &#039;normal&#039; people have a hardwired loyalty to their kin and tribe. Also numerous studies have found many other animals who have a sense of morality. The fact that we are self aware has allowed us to shape our morality further based on what is acceptable by society; this is easily illustrated by looking at the changes in moral acceptance for various things throughout history.

Additionally, a cursory look at the Bible finds many deeds deemed right, just, or moral that we would abhor today. Thus further illustrating that our society is and should be far more influential on our morality than a centuries old book.

&lt;blockquote&gt;And what about Jesus? I personally think there are enough non-biblical references to prove that he did exist. So, assuming he did exist, what exactly was he?&lt;/blockquote&gt;Many, if not most of the non-biblical references have been proved fraudulent, or are highly contested. Jewish apocalyptic prophets were fairly common in that era, so its quite possible that one named Yeshua existed; but there is no concrete historical evidence of the existence of this particular one.

&lt;blockquote&gt;He was either a complete nutjob, a cunning liar, or what he said he was; god.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?&lt;/i&gt; Love it when CS Lewis gets pulls out. This really is a logical fallacy of sorts: &quot;A does not equal B, and A does not equal C, so I conclude that A must equal D.&quot; Never mind considering E through Z, or a number of other possibilities.

Also, how do we know that is was Jesus who said all those things the Bible claims he said. The gospels were not even started until almost 60 years after he died. Plus they have been copied, tweaked, translated, and modified for almost 2000 years since. Its like the worst game of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;telephone&lt;/a&gt; ever.

&lt;blockquote&gt;Also, what was so special about him, that made his religion live on, and grow to an enormous size&lt;/blockquote&gt;It really was just one of dozens of Jewish schisms, and only barely took root because Paul/Saul pushed it, and opened it to gentiles (prior to that only Jews were allowed). It probably would have faded to obscurity and died if not for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_and_Christianity&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Constantine&lt;/a&gt;.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>GMN has covered much of the same, but since I feel involved in this exchange, and just for some additional perspective, here&#8217;s my response:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/allaboutscienceorg-is-a-fraud" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">I want to vehemently point out</a> that AllAboutScience.org is <b>NOT</b> an objective, reliable, or reputable source for scientific information. It is a creationist propaganda site.</p>
<blockquote><p>I’ve read a little bit of the bible, and from what I’ve read, it seems like it says there is.</p></blockquote>
<p>The word &#8216;hell&#8217; is found 14 times in the Bible (only in the NT); and 12 of the occurrences are in the teachings of Jesus. In the original Greek version, the word that was eventually translated to hell was <i>gehenna</i>. Gehenna is an actual geographical location, a ravine on the south side of the city of Jerusalem. From Rob Bell&#8217;s explanation: &#8220;This valley was the site over the years of many violent and horrible deaths, and it came to be viewed as cursed. By Jesus&#8217; day it had become the town dump. Garbage, trash, wild animals fighting over scraps of food, a fire burning-a place of waste and destruction. Some referred to it as the place with the gnashing of teeth where the fire never dies. So when Jesus uses gehenna, it is loaded with meaning and visual power-everybody knew what he was talking about.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>What is your explanation of morality?</p></blockquote>
<p>Morality at its deepest point really is driven by evolution. As a species we realized that to propagate and ensure the survival of our species, we couldn&#8217;t constantly murder each other. Several studies have focused on this, and how &#8216;normal&#8217; people have a hardwired loyalty to their kin and tribe. Also numerous studies have found many other animals who have a sense of morality. The fact that we are self aware has allowed us to shape our morality further based on what is acceptable by society; this is easily illustrated by looking at the changes in moral acceptance for various things throughout history.</p>
<p>Additionally, a cursory look at the Bible finds many deeds deemed right, just, or moral that we would abhor today. Thus further illustrating that our society is and should be far more influential on our morality than a centuries old book.</p>
<blockquote><p>And what about Jesus? I personally think there are enough non-biblical references to prove that he did exist. So, assuming he did exist, what exactly was he?</p></blockquote>
<p>Many, if not most of the non-biblical references have been proved fraudulent, or are highly contested. Jewish apocalyptic prophets were fairly common in that era, so its quite possible that one named Yeshua existed; but there is no concrete historical evidence of the existence of this particular one.</p>
<blockquote><p>He was either a complete nutjob, a cunning liar, or what he said he was; god.</p></blockquote>
<p><i>Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?</i> Love it when CS Lewis gets pulls out. This really is a logical fallacy of sorts: &#8220;A does not equal B, and A does not equal C, so I conclude that A must equal D.&#8221; Never mind considering E through Z, or a number of other possibilities.</p>
<p>Also, how do we know that is was Jesus who said all those things the Bible claims he said. The gospels were not even started until almost 60 years after he died. Plus they have been copied, tweaked, translated, and modified for almost 2000 years since. Its like the worst game of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">telephone</a> ever.</p>
<blockquote><p>Also, what was so special about him, that made his religion live on, and grow to an enormous size</p></blockquote>
<p>It really was just one of dozens of Jewish schisms, and only barely took root because Paul/Saul pushed it, and opened it to gentiles (prior to that only Jews were allowed). It probably would have faded to obscurity and died if not for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_and_Christianity" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Constantine</a>.</p>
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