Atheism

It does not. The indolent, good natured ne'er-do-well with his feet up side of human nature is not addressed under capitalism at all. And it may well be that such a nature is all that will save us from the mad rush over the edge of the cliff.

A whole bunch of imagination and analogies without so much as to explain when, why, and how.

Are you writing of fish and fowl? Certainly not the humans I wrote about.

Well ed--if the humans you wrote about are all capitalists you are bound to come to the conclusion you did because capitalists can't envisage idle, good-natured, don't give a ****, bonhomie. What capitalists mean by "addressing both sides of human nature" is to do with whether the workers or the fat cats are running capitalism. As if the capitalist's definitions of the sides of human nature are exhaustive.

Your observations about humans and capitalism is based solely on ignorance; humans are at this stage in our "development," because of capitalism. It's not about "both sides of human nature," it's about human nature - period.

And even if they did, what difference would it make? Communism itself is a religion for all practical purposes---a religion with its own saints, its own fanatics, and its own inquisition. It is this religious aspect of communism that caused the tremendous suffering in bolshevist countries. This was predictable from the beginning. Indeed, Bertrand Russel did predict it in the beginning, 1920, in his book The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. Your religion needn't worship a god to attract zealots and burn heretics at the stake.

Contrast this to countries like France and Italy, where communists competed as one party among many in a pluralist system. To be sure, communists had their flaws there as well. Which political party doesn't? But they were no more evil there than the rest of them. Democratic politics in open societies will do that to religions, whether they be theist or atheist.

No. Capitalists are at this stage of development because of capitalism. You're confusing your own nature with human nature. I'm a capitalist but I'm not so soft in the head as to embrace such a ridiculous conclusion.

Bedrock fundamentalism cannot be argued with. They have no common definition of words, even.

Well, all of you annoy me - this is a thread for atheists to talk.

The big poop and pals go on and on with fulgent spume, but why do the rest of you engage? You like it?

You have that backwards; capitalists are the ones who develop capitalism. No wonder you fail to understand simple economic principles.

I understand the economic implications of the missionary position and the whole caboodle of theology associated with it in climates not conducive to human nature properly understood in evolutionary terms. Which is a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing, gentle type of fellow gifted with a modicum of cunning and the capacity to exercise elementary chicaneries and who it is necessary to eradicate for the purposes of a dynamic, predatory imperialism.

That such a fellow has been eradicated from your nature by the brain zappers is a measure of how far you are from any idea of the ideal of evolved human nature which religion took by the scruff of the neck a mere 10,000 years ago and which was the result of 2 million years of selective adaptation along the Darwinian lines. That's 2ooo periods of 1ooo years duration. And despite not one single organism in such an unimaginable period of time ever having had the Darwinian line explained to it nor showed the slightest sign of it needing to be.

The Christian Church is what developed capitalism. Religion is what developed the Christian Church. Monotheism became logical. And the idle, good-for-nothing, gentle type of fellow gifted with a modicum of cunning and the capacity to exercise elementary chicaneries and who is utterly useless for the purposes of a dynamic, predatory imperialism made necessary by environmental pressures, is what invented Religion. Shagging in other words.

Irresponsible, promiscuous shagging is a feature of all evolution, including man up to the recent development of religion, and must be the sub-text of all discourse about evolution whether overtly or otherwise. And especially so in a society not distracted by getting food, keeping warm and safe from animals. That's why we are all sex mad. It's the only carnal appetite not adequately catered for. And Media is bent on whetting the edge of all the appetites to the point that the industrial capacity can satisfy them and possibly a little beyond that.

Economics is not concerned with Californian, retiree fat cats blubbering in a rocking chair about what they read in the papers and shouting stupid insults at anyone who has the temerity to suggest that they don't know their arse from their elbow.

You fail to understand all the research and findings on homo sapiens, and the conclusions drawn from them. You are one stupid, ignorant, asshole, filling these threads with nonsense. Your opinions doesn't even come close to reality or facts.

You can't even use the word "filling" properly.

What exactly is all this research and findings on homo sapiens that I fail to understand? How am I ever going to understand if you don't explain what you mean?

You seem to be responding to who wrote the post rather than the post itself. Take my post a sentence at a time and explain why they are "nonsense". As it stands you just have a long-winded thumb down.

Agreed....

clear? Bald, or not clear Athesim.....

Why add the burden of a meddlesome deity to the obvious pitfalls we already face? The shortest way to the goal is a straight line. Simplify, simplify.

I have always assumed that the blind forces of evolution, in the social sense, have produced a meddlesome Deity in order to reduce the number of pitfalls we face. It has never entered my head that the Entity would eradicate pitfalls altogether. And it never entered my head that the policy was to increase the number of pitfalls.

Bearing in mind the standard of living in Christian countries I really do think that the experiment has been worthwhile. A cursory study of societies without such an Entity cannot but conclude that they were a continuous, unmitigated nightmare. Wall-to-wall pitfalls such that contemplating the coming day must have been well nigh insupportable.

One might just as easily ask why add the burden of a meddlesome police force, or of schoolteachers, to the obvious pitfalls we already face.

The Official God FAQ.

Hehehehehehe . . .

It is very easy to see that a highly integrated, personified preternatural agency (God) is not very convenient for handling the trivial occurrences of life. But under exceptional provocations or perplexities the ordinary applications of the laws of cause and effect, which serve well enough in the trivial happenings of daily life, are often insufficient for many individuals. In the last analysis such provocations and perplexities can only be seen under the laws of cause and effect as being the individuals own fault, as Herman Cain pointed out so prophetically.

It may well be a weakness to reject such scarifying logic but the majority of people will do so nevertheless and seek some comfort in a preternatural agency (God) as a sort of solvent for such woes.

The extra-causal agency (God) has a very high utility as a recourse in perplexity or under duress but this utility is of a non-economic character. The efficiency of the utility as a refuge and source of comfort is considerably enhanced when the anthropomorphic divinity is refined into monotheism as an advance on the less specialised and less consistent pantheism of the preceeding phases of human development which were themselves an advance on primitive animism.

Such a utility affords the provoked or perplexed individual a means of escape from the difficulty of accounting for the suffering in terms of causal sequence which inevitable lead to the conclusion that it has been caused by himself or by others. Hence a litigation culture or a consciousness of personal guilt.

The Divinity may also afford utility in other directions. There are aesthetic (art), moral (education) and spiritual (escaping the oppression of the self's ego) considerations as also in relation to political, military and social policy.

The trivial events of daily life and the cause and effect sequences of industrial activity do not require such a refuge or such a comfort. And as Karl Marx was exclusively concerned with such trivial sequences it can be said, without fear of contradiction, that atheists are Marxists even if they are unaware of the fact.

Opining that religion is an opiate for the masses does not even think of addressing the problem of the withdrawal of the opiate and it is invariably the case that atheists fail to address the problems associated with the extermination of religion and, indeed, never seem to think there will be any problems. Such self-serving indulgence is akin to what might be seen in any play-pen.

Every atheist pronouncement is of a negative character asserting what is bad about religion and never daring to go near the advantages of atheism except maybe that of preventing a fundie disturbing the domestic peace once every 20 years for a minute or two.

Is that why god created the great flood to teach humanity about the menial. Aspects of human life?