Comments by "" (@dingokidneys) on "ReligionForBreakfast" channel.

I had an episode of speaking in tongues when, while running, I tore my hamstring and face-planted into the bitumen. The children nearby went quite white in the face and their eyes grew wide at the stream of language that came, quite unbidden, from me.
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I never had a slow influx of doubt so much as I could never bring myself to actually believe, even a little bit, as much as I tried. At eight years old, I told my mother that I didn't believe in god which shocked her. It kinda shocked me too that I would say it out loud but when I thought about it later I realised I'd said it because it was absolutely true.
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Fascinating video. I guess I've had a few indirect encounters with Zen over my life. I used to donate blood (plasma) every two weeks while holding a stressful job. I loved just sitting there, literally pinned down so I had no option but to stay still, letting my mind just wander away from the demands of work and family. One time when the attendant was getting me set up she asked if I'd like a magazine and I said "No thanks. I just like to sit and zen-out." She asked if I was Buddhist which I had to deny but I think she well may have been from the smile on her face when she asked and the fact that she was I think Vietnamese. I also used to write computer programs at home when the rest of the family had gone to bed and the focus I'd achieve solving very complex problems without urgency or anxiety, just letting myself dissolve into the flow state was profoundly satisfying. I also used to practise karate and many of the little rituals in the dojo are aimed at clearing your mind and setting you up to focus intently on only that which matters at that moment. The kumite or hand to hand, though superficially violent, is a way to draw focus, let all other cares go and free the mind to control the body in space and time. I always felt peaceful and relaxed after a training session, even if my muscles were sometimes tired and painful.
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@GiIgasmash I never asserted that I knew absolute truth. I just knew that there was insufficient evidence so support the extraordinary assertion that there was such a thing as a god. I just could not believe anything without sufficient legitimate evidence.
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@GiIgasmash And you think that makes a difference?
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As a child, my parents took me and my siblings to church every Sunday. However, when I stopped to think, even as a little kid, and tried to put myself into the mind of a person who really believed in a god, I found it unsettling and freaky. I always hated going to church as it was boring and tedious. However, as a kid, I didn't have a say in the matter. I did participate and actually become an alter server which was better because at least there was something to do. I also became involved in a christian group in high school again as something to do that most of my friends were involved with, however, when I stopped to think about if these people actually believed what they said they believed, it was still unsettling and weird. I eventually had to admit to myself that I was an atheist and there was no changing that. I didn't come to it through rationality although rational analysis always seemed to back up my feeling. The 'cred' factor didn't seem to play a part either because I simply could not bring myself to believe that significant people in my life truly "believed" what they said they did. I thought they were at best being self-delusional; the way double-think is described in George Orwell's 1984.
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I was told in preparation for my 'confirmation' to the Anglican church in 1973 that the bishop's mitre was a representation of the tongues of flame seen above the apostles heads on the day of Pentecost; i.e. representative of the Holy Spirit in that person. Maybe a case of retconning to ascribe a more satisfying/relevant meaning upon that occasion rather than a more mundane and awkward actual derivation of that kooky headgear.
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Fascinating take on an indigenous response to colonising christianity. It's always bothered me that so many Pacifika peoples have taken so strongly to christianity when it essentially did so much harm to their cultures and their societies.
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Having read about pentecost and that the purpose of the "speaking in tongues" was so that people who didn't understand the normal language of the apostles would hear the apostles preaching in the language of the listener, I've always been highly skeptical of glossolalia. The first time I heard someone do it in a church that I was attending, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and it gave me the creeps so bad I almost fled out the door. It still gives me the creeping horrors so sitting through this really interesting video was, in part, an excruciating experience. I'm happily an atheist these days.
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@GiIgasmash So by your definition, if you believe in a god, you are ignorant. Got it.
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