I’m sorry to hear about your wife. My wife had MD and I lost her recently. I hope she gets better soon. Y’all will be in my thoughts. Man that is a hard thing and it will test what you believe. I’ve had a hard life myself and have been a devout atheist at one time in my life, for several years in fact. I’m not gonna try to convert anyone here but…well, nevermind.
Your opinion about the abuses of religion are exactly right. I don’t deny it. As matter of fact, I think I already went there. That doesn’t exclude the possible existence of a greater power though. It just proves that men are sheep and their leaders are corrupt. It’s politics, pure and simple, always was and probably always will be. I suppose you can tell that I’m not exactly orthodox or fundamental? Yet make no mistakes…I know what I know, heh at least I know what I believe, and I believe what I know. It’s been a pleasure and if you’d like feel free to write sometime. My address is listed. Sometimes you just need to yack w/ a stranger. t/k
My point is that fundys are an inevitable result of all religions. (excepting Buddism) If you defend religion as a definite good then you must als be ready to live with some level of fundmentalism. I regret it if that offends you.
Is this in response to my post? Nowhere did I say that you have to give up you values to be an atheist. That was kind of the point. My point is that an atheist does not have to subscribe to any particular value system. Obviously that’s not the same thing as saying that no atheist subscribes to any value system.
You seem to be arguing (correct me if I’m wrong) that because you (and some other atheists) have a particular system of values, being an atheist requires that a person have a similar system of values. This is simply not true. The only requirement for being an atheist is not believing in a supreme being. Period.
Yes, I was just about to pick up you not being overly fundamental. I must admit that I sometimes wish I had a faith. My wife has invasive thymoma which keeps invading no matter how much surgery, chemo, and radiation we do. I’m dreading this with my whole being and am startled by her acceptance of her impending death. Not to say she won’t fight but she has a sort of “what-will-be” attitude.
Thanks for the invite to chat, I’ll take you up on that and likewise, “it’s been a pleasure.” Amazing the number of religious people I have as friends and how well we get along. I suppose we each have either a secret hope the other will “come around” or maybe it’s just an “he’s OK in spite of” attitude.
Being a atheist does not require any set of values.
I must admit I am a teensy bit relieved when crims find god in prison. For some reason the worse the place the more likely the finding of god (maybe that is why he is behind the fridge ). I like to think this may show something…or then again I don’t care.
Atheists dont HAVE to believe anything. No one HAS to believe anything. I just would like to think that oneday we all wish the best for everyone.
I believe Metacom was taking exception to an apparent process that tends to happen in these discussions, wherein the atheist side ignores that, dismisses all the moderate theists, and jumps all the way into casting the religious worldview as “creationism and using Scripture to describe the natural world”.
And Testy, as per the multigenerational persistence and “contagiousness” of religion, that may have something to do with something deeply embedded in the structure of the human psyche, that theistic religions happen to fill up with greater efficiency than mere political programs.
It’s been over 20 years since I read Durkheim but it seems that human societies will at some point develop a form of worship, or centered-around-ness, or exaltation, of something that is perceived as providing a purpose: can be gods, but can also be the Nation, or an ideology, or making money, or “honour”, or the pursuit of pleasure, or an aesthetic, etc., lest anomie set in. The best you can hope for is that the “something” be something sensible and humane and empowering.
Well, yes. And as nothing of the kind has actually happened in this thread, I feel justified in calling out Metacom as the one who set up the strawman.
This being the Pit and all, I should probably call Metacom a brain-dead loser, as well.
I’m sorry, I know everybody else is way past this, but this just burns my biscuits.
So a feeling you get from chemical reactions dosen’t exist? What on earth do you think “love” is, a “love” field made out of magical “love” particles? It irritates me when people think that the fact that your emotions have an organic, chemical origin makes them less valid or true in your experience. Just because it isn’t mystical dosen’t make it false or base.
Just for clarification, those threads were started quite far apart.
I don’t believe it is harmful to the individual, I believe it is harmfull to the human race. And I strongly believe God doesn’t exist. So I naturally want to argue that he doesn’t exist.
OK. That helps my belief about the end for Atheists. That it is also eternal peace. Because not being aware is kind of the ultimate peace isn’t it?
But it helps.
I apologise if I didn’t put much thought into that statement though (the one you are replying to there)
I guess you are right about me there. But as I said earlier, my strong belief in the non-existence of God makes me want to argue that case. That and the horrible effects of Fundemental Religion. I guess seeing hundreds of children murdered makes me kind of hate fundementalism, and yes, even less fundamentalist religion.
I don’t want to offend individuals. But I accept that my strong desire to argue against theism probably does.
I recognise that ‘It is the fact that’ and ‘I believe’ are not the same thing (heck, I’m trying to argue that very fact). My point is I recognise this even in my own case.
Finally. I will refrain from bringing up Atheism if I have no new ‘material’ or significant knowledge for the debate.
Aren’t Buddhists atheists? I seem to remember from my college class in Eastern religions that they were originally, at least. Perhaps that is the reason.
I’ve spent my whole life in a society which finds belief in God almost comical, almost as ‘silly’ as belief in santa or the tooth fairy. So yes, while I recognise that there are intelligent Theists, I have a hard time understanding how they can be theists.
Pardon?
There’s a massive shitload of compelling reasons to believe he doesn’t exist. And not a single good reason to believe he does in my experience.
By that rationale one cannot prove that a sausage the size of the moon, with a face, is hiding it’self from us behind the sun. But It’s a pretty far-fetched thing to believe. It is my opinion that the existence of God is also far-fetched. That his non-existence cannot be proven is not a very good argument to suggest he almost certainly does exist. It’s just an argument that there might be a giant sausage.
I am very tolerant except on this issue. I am sorry about that.
How many fundamentalist Shintoists are there? Radical Daoists haven’t caused much trouble up in my end of the woods, nor have crazed Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains, Unitarians, practitioners of Voodoo, or Baha’is.
Only certain religions have spawned fundamentalism, and while I’m not terribly inclined to blame the religion (since plenty of evil people are evil for reasons entirely unrelated to religion), plenty of religions are quite free of that sort of nonsense; I suspect only certain religions have the characteristics needed to lead to that kind of thing.
Actually, if you read Sam Harris’ new book, The End of Faith, he says that being “tolerant” of theism is a huge problem, one that leads to fundamentalism and theocracies. You can question—or even ridicule—someone’s political beliefs, their taste in clothing, even their weight, and it’s considered “discourse.”
But to question the validity or common sense of their religion? Except in a forum like the SDMB it is not done. This joint is the exception.
Rather than burning your biscuits or allowing yourself to be irritated from what you think I said. Try reading it again without blinders. Then show me exactly where you get the fairytale description that you put forth. BTW It may help you to know that I have an advanced degree in biological psychology. I never at any time said …well practically everything that you accused me of. Read it again.
If you’d like, I’ll interpret it for you as I am not always as precise with my wording as I sometimes should be.
What I was trying to say is that while love may be explained by science as a complex system of chemical reactions and electrical impulses in the brain. That does not deny the fact that the emotion we call love exists. It isn’t enough to claim something does NOT exist because you can explain the phenomenon scientifically. Love is more than a bunch of glial cells and neurotransmitters and chem/elect impulses. These things are true, there’s no denying that. So we must then agree that the human emotion love does exist, my first point. Is it just chemistry? Well of course we have feelings because of our chemical reactions but man has also combined a multitude of these feelings and added his own ideas and concepts to these base emotions. Love is more than JUST the feelings he derives from his initial impulses. It is NOT ONLY what he feels that defines his love for another. It is what HE DOES to express these feelings as well. I could go on and on about the concept of love. My point was simply this.Zsofia
Love exists and it is more than a simple feeling. Sorry if I confused you. I hope this wasn’t a waste of time.
Well, it might be “discourse” when the subject is politics, but ridiculing someone else’s taste in clothing or their weight is usually considered “being an asshole.”
I must admit that I sometimes wish I had a faith. My wife has invasive thymoma which keeps invading no matter how much surgery, chemo, and radiation we do. I’m dreading this with my whole being and am startled by her acceptance of her impending death. Not to say she won’t fight but she has a sort of “what-will-be” attitude.
). I like to think this may show something…or then again I don’t care.
