Do you want to be saved from the urges you have?
Yes or no.
I am not certain. I have never experienced life without them and I fear it might be excessively boring.
Some are more important to me than others, some I am sure are the root of my continued drive to live. To see a problem solved with an elegant machine or algorithm gives me the most profound pleasure.
If I had never felt it, I could not miss it; but if I was transformed now into someone who remembered it but could not feel it, that would be a tragedy.
Some urges, such as my love for dairy and sugar are clearly unhealthy. They are shortening my life and my other aims to some degree. Even my joy in engineering can hurt other parts of my life, I get frustrated with clients and employers who insist on stupid solutions.
Yet if we speak of magic cures why not speak of magic solutions? Cheese and pies that do not make one fat?
What exactly does your notion of heaven look like?
For many it is a place where every pleasure is provided without a negative consequence. A place where the discipline in life is rewarded by being free of the need for discipline. The 72 virgins of the muslim.
Others have claimed that when one is worthy of paradise "righteousness" (self-discipline?) is no longer a burden. The only thing you are freed of in heaven are sinners.
Urges which can be indulged, urges that can be resisted effortlessly, and the third option: no urges at all. Is heaven freedom from urges? If so then it has a lot in common with the nirvana of the buddha.
My theory is that all of these options are the shadows of urges and instincts and self-reflection of man. An animal on the planet Earth whose genes and cultures have undergone selection events. Events where hope, self-discipline, and resilience to truama were great assets.
You people have literal demons possessing you.
Right...
we have a method to make any desire sexual depravity gradually lose any hold on us.
Something has a hold on your mind, was that the cost?
Those sex scandal people failed to adhere to it properly.
They probably weren't true scottsmen either.
You need HS in you, not just to resist the urge.
I need the holy spirit to be real first.
Reality is that which exists before you believe in it and continues to exist even after you stop.
It isnt easy
It isn't right.
The essence of humanity is abstract reason. It is the only thing we do that no other creature on this planet does. If I give that up, I'm choosing to be something less than human.
...and for what? A mirage created by imperfect reasoning mixing with primal instincts (urges)?
Love is an urge. Fear of death is an urge. A desire to be protected by a parent is an urge. A desire for fairness (justice) is an urge.
Faith isn't a way out of urges, it's a house constructed of urges.
The only thing I have ever encountered that isn't rooted in the hind-brain is logic.
It is a road no weak coward can walk down without admitting he is both first.
At what point does the admitted weak coward feel entitled to speak for god? Is that phase two? Do you have to be sinless to start throwing stones?
Courage is the ability to take risks that are necessary. Begging the question, necessary for what end (what value), and necessary by what measure?
What determines when a risk is necessary? Reason.
For you who fear atheism, would it take courage to become an atheist? I know in your mind you recoil, because you think your fear is justified and there is no need to tread down that path.
So now understand: I do not start down that path, for though I have acted weak and cowardly in my life at times, I see a danger to my soul that way.
I've seen what you would call perverts who believe in god. They make excuses, as you make excuses for the set of urges you want to believe in.
Q: If the spirit guides you when you surrender your reason, then why does it not guide them?
A: It's not the spirit, its their subconscious. It is your subconscious.
The subconscious is not reliable. The subconscious of 'perverts' is perverted.
It's not quite a demon, but I won't willingly let it possess me.
