Any atheists here who were once believers?

[Bells]

THIS IS MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!

Sorry, but your spiritual foot means nothing to me.

 

[Robittybob1]

Mazulu - Bells is a good moderator, but obviously biased toward atheism, so once she joins in the conversation can she moderate after that. I was used to forums where the moderators didn't get involved in the conversations so it will be interesting to see what she does now, for it seems over the top but it is still not too late for both of you to delete the posts.

 

[Seattle]

Yes we're talking about things like wars, twin towers, aircraft carriers being nuked, those really major world shattering events.
But it got difficult, for would we take any preventative action?
Like if i saw an aircraft being down by a rocket, would we warn the CIA or interpol? For the warning might prevent the event happening. Or would we just sit back and let it happen? How divorced from real life can we become?

Until you prove that you're the world's first real psychic we just sit back and let it happen. Otherwise we're moving carriers and aircraft anytime any psychic calls in with a "premonition".

 

[wynn]

Of course psychiatry is a science. As long as you are not on the receiving end of it. Then it's just plain old manipulation, brainwashing and oppressive mind control.

Yes but that could be said for anything. Like someone could firmly believe and proclaim that we need road laws and drink driving laws and then scream 'police brutality' when they are pulled over for speeding..

What's your point?

Dude is riding a donkey on his way to Damascus. Dude falls off donkey and starts to hear voices and hallucinates. Dude gets back on donkey and gets to Damascus and tells how Jesus spoke to him.

Now imagine if you are anywhere at all and someone comes up to you and tells you that they saw and heard Jesus speak and gave them instructions.

Which one is true? Which one is the real prophet? Or are both batshit insane?

Even kindergarden kids can figure out this one.

Gullibility is only a problem for the greedy.

 

[wynn]

Do you understand LG? The language is rather academic and surprisingly I do find wegs seems to pick up on what is being said, but I have basically no idea what he is saying until someone comments on it. So all I was saying to wegs is that to believe is not that complicated. You don't need a degree in Philosophy to believe.
She was a believer once and now tentatively an atheist. Some (on this forum) say I am also an atheist but that classification baffled me.

It is definitely not a dictate but simply a suggestion of an alternative method. Did you think it was a dictate? If it was I will modify the words.

PS: I will modify the words to "I suggest ....

A childish approach gives childish results ...

:shrug:

 

[wynn]

In any ideological battle ideas ultimately stand on their own merit.

How do you mean that?

It looks like you're deferring to an impersonal universe.

 

[Robittybob1]

So is telling someone that spirits had told you who you would have sex with in the future and who and when or what your children would be marrying.


Have I?

Have I told you that you have to become an atheist?


Which is not for you to determine or decide for anyone else. Everyone has their own path and their own choices. Respect it and back the hell off. If the path you chose is correct for you, then great for you. Does not mean everyone has to be just like you, believe just like you and make the same choices as you have done.

A lot of wishful thinking - I'm done for the night.

 

[Robittybob1]

A childish approach gives childish results ...

:shrug:

Hi wynn, our Master said we should come to him as a young child would. Who am I to say what the result might be?

 

[Bells]

Mod Note

Mazulu has been banned for 24 hours for abusive posts and for sending equally abusive and insulting and somewhat threatening PM.

 

[wynn]

Hi wynn, our Master said we should come to him as a young child would. Who am I to say what the result might be?

You're an adult. You cannot act the way a child would. You can only infantilize yourself in such an attempt.

 

[Robittybob1]

You're an adult. You cannot act the way a child would. You can only infantilize yourself in such an attempt.

I still like the Muppets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05jHfRVuKE

 

[wynn]

Isn't that all anyone could ever have of a god, though...just an idea?

I think this is something to explore further - this notion that nobody can know the truth about God.

How can you or any human possibly hope to verify this notion that nobody can know the truth about God?

I'll say this though...

When I believed, people still hurt me.
Now, that I don't ...people still hurt me.

At least now, I don't pretend like there's some 'after life' and that this is all worth it.

And in Christianity, I put up with a lot of crap from people. Let them step on me. Because Jesus said 'turn the other cheek.'

Now, I just walk away, and there's no more guilt in not trying to mend a fence. That part is freeing.

Having said that, I don't harbor resentment towards people...but, there's no more feelings of guilt that I'm somehow letting down ''God,'' by not trying to mend fences.

The idea of 'God' brought me guilt and shame, often, to answer your question.

Your particular idea of God brought you guilt and shame. Doesn't mean that all ideas of God bring only guilt and shame.

I need to not take any anger I have about theism, out on theists.

I think you need to further investigate the source of your anger. You might find it has nothing to do with theism, nor theists, but much more with you yourself acting and thinking in bad faith.

I think because the concept of a god or God varies from person to person,

It doesn't vary that much to make any kind of interpersonal communication on the topic of God impossible, though.

Individual religious traditions can be compared to languages: there are many of them, different ones; and there exist groups of people who all speak the same language, while all along, each speaker has a private, personal, subjective knowledge and experience of said language.

It isn't a good idea for religion to exert control in society. It should be allowed to be practiced freely, per individual.

For a religion to be "practiced freely, per individual", would be like each person using their own idiosyncratic, unique language in which they cannot communicate with anyone. It would be useless, it would be solipsism. People wouldn't do it.

It seems that you're having a problem with making sense of religious variety, and also a problem with making sense of religion being both objective and subjective.

So my question is this...do you not know any atheists who are good people who might give you their shirts off their backs, requiring nothing in return? Who are moral people? I know many. This tells me that religion isn't "required" to control anyone or any society. Not even loosely.

I'm not saying eradicate it...I'm saying it's only as useful of a mechanism as you believe it to be.

No, I get your point totally. In its purest form, however, it is safest to say that the depths of depravity or the heights of generosity...can be seen in both the atheist AND the theist, on any given day based on a host of particulars having nothing to do with the camp they find themselves in. Now, that is more of my point.

You're misusing the words "theist," "atheist," "religious," "non-religious."

Your criterion for an "atheist", like in the above examples, appears to be "not being a member of a church or other religio-spiritual organization." That's rather shallow.

Just because someone makes a point of identifying themselves as an "atheist," or just because a particular person is identified by particular people as an "atheist," doesn't cut said person off from religion.
And conversely, just because someone makes a point of identifying themselves as a "theist," or just because a particular person is identified by particular people as a "theist," doesn't make said person a member of religion.


Moreover, altruism isn't a defining characteristic of religiosity; not sure where you get the idea that it is. In fact, in secular terms, you'll find that Freudians class is as one of the higher ego defense mechanisms (!) - now how's that for the nobility of altruism from the secular perspective ...

If people don't share your theist beliefs, then your beliefs while objective truths to you, will be "merely" subjective to an atheist/agnostic.

Your point being?

I don't believe we have a soul. I believe we have a conscience...and in this life, how we live affects this life. Not an after life. I never liked the concept of how we lived and treated people here was a determinant of eternity for us.

If god exists...why would we suppose there is a need for an after life at all?
What is the purpose of a soul, you know?

The moment you use the phrase "have a soul" is the moment you reveal your mainstream Christian heritage, limitation and bias.
In other religions, the idea is that we are souls inhabiting bodies, not that we have a soul. Hence Jan has been asking you whether you believe you are your body.

 

[lightgigantic]

How do you mean that?

It looks like you're deferring to an impersonal universe.

I mean that if any group of people land themselves into ideological loggerheads its all about laying down ideas" to seek people out" for all parties involved ...IOW far from saying "hey look you have an idea and you are trying to convince me therefore you are wrong" its actually the name of the game

 

[wynn]

I mean that if any group of people land themselves into ideological loggerheads its all about laying down ideas" to seek people out" for all parties involved ...IOW far from saying "hey look you have an idea and you are trying to convince me therefore you are wrong" its actually the name of the game

I don't understand.

Are you saying that in a discussion/debate, words are the weapons, and being powerful in and of themselves because of the effect they have on a person's mind, the words determine who prevails?

 

[lightgigantic]

Religion, by definition, is closed since it already has all of the answers.

If you are advocating that there are no ontological categories beyond the material, so do you

:shrug:

If someone is basing their views on evidence of some sort they are open to such evidence rather than being wedded to a specific conclusion or result.

The problem with your claim is that there is no evidence for claims about the ultimate nature of reality.
In fact far from there being evidence, its not even clear how its even theoretically/logically tenable to dictate that empiricism has a monopoly on all knowable claims ....

This proves my point. It's an insincere comment that is being resorted to rather than dealing with real issues. "Rocks as brethren of atheists"..."those unbelieving rocks"...this is just stupid

The real issue is that you can barely so much as breathe a breath within the confines of atheism that is merely an absence of belief.
IOW you are stocked to the hilt with atheistic ideas beyond an absence of belief, yet for the sake of lodging a securer foundation for an argument, you pretend that this isn't the case with yourself.

Your writing style isn't very clear here. I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

The moment you started talking about the role religion plays in society is the moment you moved out of the secure ramparts of the "absence of belief" atheism that you are vainly trying to muster around you

Again, this is just non-sense..."reductionist world view" how do I know who I'm talking to...

I assumed that someone who begins their post by talking about the unacceptability of entertaining categories beyond the material would know what they are talking about ...

I guess, talking to "God" and talking to a person standing in front of me are "equivalent"? Both are just perceptions?

hardly, since even in terms of mundane communication you can't even encompass social intricacies (such as the consequences of who is doing the talking, who is being talked to and what is being talked about) within the confines of perception ....
If you don't believe me, just try and talk to your boss like you would talk to a 5 year old

Again, this is the insincere legalistic debating nonsense I was talking about.

The idea was that love is intangible as is God.

and the idea is that just as its impossible to talk of love bereft of the category of subject/object, so to it is impossible regarding god.

Theists try to equate the two as the same in kind.

You will notice when they do, they give the example of one particular person (ie the subject) loving another (ie the object)

Since everyone believes in love the argument goes why is God any different.

teh question is that since its quite clear that love can only meaningfully be experienced or explained in subject/object context, why do you drop this important context the moment you decide to talk about god?

I pointed out that it's different because people don't become unbelievers in the concept of love.

And I have pointed out that if you insist on discussing love bereft of the subject/object context it appears in, you don't even have the concept of it.

Your response is to bring up divorce or falling out of love.

sure, since its the common experience of everyone that love (or alternatively, its disintegration into animosity or weariness) can only be meaningful if it has a subject

What does that have to do with what we are talking about?

the necessity of discussing things in their natural context : namely subject (or the one who experiences something) and object (or the thing/individual that is the source of the experience)

We are talking about the concept of love.

and as mentioned already, the concept of love at its very basic level operates on a subject having an object

People don't have doubt regarding that concept.

they don't even have it at all unless they have an object

Funnily enough, the way you talk turns up quite a lot in buddhist cartoons

That is different in kind from the intangible concept of religion.

I already explained that even (intelligent) atheists resort to the same model: namely a doubt about who - ie the object- god is ... as opposed to trying to assert the philosophically hopeless position of god not existing

I won't continue to address point by point the rest of your remarks as it seems like wasted effort. You are proving my earlier points by the insincerely of your remarks.

will the irony never end?

 

[lightgigantic]

I don't understand.

Are you saying that in a discussion/debate, words are the weapons, and being powerful in and of themselves because of the effect they have on a person's mind, the words determine who prevails?

i am saying that when ideological discussion develops it boils down to a discussion on which ideas are more meritorious/valid/logical/authoritative/truthful (ie all the things about ideas that make them attractive) than others ... which of course naturally defaults to ideas convincing others

 

[wynn]

i am saying that when ideological discussion develops it boils down to a discussion on which ideas are more meritorious/valid/logical/authoritative/truthful (ie all the things about ideas that make them attractive) than others ... which of course naturally defaults to ideas convincing others

What then is an argument from institutional power?

For example, a forum moderator is convinced that you are a Nazi, accuses you of being a Nazi and punishes you accordingly. In all this, it is pretty much irrelevant whether you are indeed a Nazi or not, because it is only the moderator's word that counts. All this can happen while a smoke screen of "rational arguments that prove your guilt" is being presented.

In daily life, there is practically no situation where this kind of use of one person's institutional power of one kind or another would not be used against the other person, and this kind of use of one person's institutional power trumps any power that ideas might have.

In the end, it does come down to one-upmasnhip, not to ideas standing or falling on their own merit.

 

[wynn]

Sabda beats anumana.
Whether honestly, or simply because the person resorting to anumana is honest enough to acknowledge they don't have certainty whether something is sabda or not, so they back down.

 

[wynn]

The idea was that love is intangible as is God. Theists try to equate the two as the same in kind.

Which theists? Some mainstream Christians? Provide examples from other theistic religions.

I pointed out that it's different because people don't become unbelievers in the concept of love.

Lol. This demands a comment!

 

[Robittybob1]

Sabda beats anumana.
Whether honestly, or simply because the person resorting to anumana is honest enough to acknowledge they don't have certainty whether something is sabda or not, so they back down.

Fair enough. But that doesn't happen around here.