Atheism

@Joe Nation,

Quote:

Yes, and those brains are liberal, secular and democratic.

They can afford to be because they haven't been entrusted with power yet to see if they remain that way if they got it. The other side have been entrusted with power and they are making progess. They don't dismiss action, or actualite as some call it, they balance knowledge and action.

Knowledge can know no balance. It cannot allow any actions that knowledge can't explain and control. They are all automaticially defined as irrational by the nature of knowledge. To do otherwise throws its entire position away. Action can use knowledge in proportion as it chooses which provides a vast number of choices for the species to proceed through but knowledge has no choices. Thus I would say that knowledge is contra-evolution when raised beyond the status of a tool. Faith, with all it's manifestations and bloodshed, is evolution's way of providing and perfecting choices ready to deal with cosmological changes and death is the powerhouse of evolution, despite bleatings to the contrary, whereas knowledge is a one shot bet from which there is no going back or even turning.

Which might justify the idea that our brains are hard-wired for faith as an evolutionary survival mechanism and therefore an evolutionist should accept it or admit that his evolutionism derives from the sort of sources I listed the other day and which was not exclusive.

Or dispute the case without resorting to assertions and insults which don't wash in serious company.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

To me the reason things are getting better is that religions of all types are slowly losing their holds on the mind of mankind.

Slowly losing its hold is a very long way from letting go altogether. And, as my last post should have made clear, the atheist must do just that.

A happily married man might slowly lose his hold on the proper way to behave in a low bar 500 miles from home after a few drinks but in the morning he has it back again and possibly with a tighter grip if his disgust and shame is sufficiently pronounced.

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@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

So, make it good again.

Joe(no more answers to the funny man.)Nation

It was not specifically my thoughts that made the thread a good one. It was K's vision of a thread by and for atheists that made it good. With spendius calling the shots, it devolves into another religion/atheism thread.

No hard feelings, and I loved your answers, Joe, but I feel we should ignore spendi on this thread.

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I agree with Edgar--this thread was about being an atheist, it wasn't about all those tired old, beating-a-dead-horse arguments about which is more evil, religion or irreligion. But with Bill and Spurious going at each other, this thread is trashed.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

Which might justify the idea that our brains are hard-wired for faith as an evolutionary survival mechanism and therefore an evolutionist should accept it or admit that his evolutionism derives from the sort of sources I listed the other day and which was not exclusive.

So it is your position that we should suppress our higher reasoning abilities and try our very to convince ourselves that supernatural worldview make some kind of sense?

This is because in someway looking at the world though this kind of filter must have some survival value to the human race?

May I point out that we now have nuclear weapons and the most likely people to used them against others are now the people most driven by this religion blindness you are claiming have some form of survival value?

The fools who flown the planes into our buildings shouting god is great and who had kill men and women and children with suicide bombings come from the same culture that is currently the most likely to begin a nuclear war as soon as they get the ability to do so?

I do not see the survival value you seem to find in believing in fairy tales far from it in fact.

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@Setanta,

I don't see how the thread is trashed. It is easy enough to conduct a posting conversation which is not about all those tired old, beating-a-dead-horse arguments about which is more evil, religion or irreligion with those who have more important and interesting things to discuss, and passing by and through and even beyond the posting conversations of others. I have often done it. It is happening all the time in the pub and in other social settings.

One assumes that "trashed" means not discussing what Setanta wants discussed and what he wants discussed can generally be assumed to be a vehicle for him to display his particular level of expertise.

If the thread is trashed it is because others are not doing their bit as posters who dont wish to discuss all those tired old, beating-a-dead-horse arguments about which is more evil, religion or irreligion. What Bill and I do has nothing to do with the matter. And both of us join in with the others from time to time as well as is the polite way of conducting multi-voiced conversations.

1 Reply

@spendius,

**** Spendius for once I agree with you and no one is force to read either my postings or your for that matter.

They could had set both of our accounts to ignore and carry on as if we both had never been born if they care to.

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I don't know guys...having a thread titled Atheism that's being maintained as a little club house for atheists and all those who agree with them isn't my idea of what A2K is all about.

I'm trying to imagine a thread titled Theism, Deism or Polytheism where those disciples would try to stop Atheists from posting. There'd be hell to pay.

If you disagree with spendius just do what Joe Nation did; take him on point by point.

Bottom line: Just as in real life, part of the atheistic experience is dealing with Christians and born-agains who try to patronize you for not sharing their mystical experience.

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@panzade,

Panzade with or without a god we all had free will and all of us know how to used the ignore function so this whining among my fellows atheists is strange.

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I am well aware that nobody can dictate what others post. I am just making a plea for civility.

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@edgarblythe,

nuttin wrong with that...

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

I am just making a plea for civility.

Like this Ed--

Quote:

You know, folks, so long as you respond to Spurious, he will attempt to make this thread about himself, and not about the experience of atheism. This is essentially the same kind of drivel he puked up in the "atheists your life is meaningless" thread, and it was shite like that, as well as his idiocy in general, that has lead me to stop reading his posts altogether.

Now i come back to a thread i've been enjoying, and it's just one post by Spurious after the other, or people here responding to him. Wake up, people, he's suckering you into trashing your own thread, because the only thing he ever wants to discuss is the excellence of his own mind (putative, undemonstrated).

Please, will people just ignore the gobshite?

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

because the only thing he ever wants to discuss is the excellence of his own mind[/quote

LOL I think that comment would cover everyone who post here on any of the threads.

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If you all are so interested in addressing each other point by point and laying blame for starting incivilities - go ahead and find the start to it all.

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@littlek,

We men are hard wired to fight with each other. That's the start. If we were turtle doves billing and cooing and getting the nits out of each other's feathers you probably wouldn't have chocolate ice-cream cornets with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on the top for 99 cents. You are more likely to be sitting shivering staring out of the mouth of a cave wondering when the boys were going to come back with the elk on their shoulders.

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@spendius,

And you and osso are game enough to be our groupies rather than going on the baby and dieayeper whiteness threads.

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@spendius,

Quote:

We men are hard wired to fight with each other

littlek is asking "us" to stop.
How bout it caveman?

1 Reply

@panzade,

She would hate it if we did.

One of the best tricks with ladies is never to leave them with nothing to nag about. They become lost and disoriented if you do that.

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@littlek,

littlek wrote:

If you all are so interested in addressing each other point by point and laying blame for starting incivilities - go ahead and find the start to it all.

... speaking of things that the general public often accuses atheists of doing, whether they actually do it all that much or not ...

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@spendius,

Quote:

One of the best tricks with ladies is never to leave them with nothing to nag about. They become lost and disoriented if you do that.

If you think that's cute or funny...it's not. It's condescending and patronizing with a hint of misogyny. Why would you want to present yourself that way? And what does it have to do with atheism?

1 Reply

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