Atheism

Why dont you read my post without prejudice, Im not theist.

Ive got my fairies Peps and Pan lives in the valley. On a misty summers morning you can just about hear his pipes.

Good 4 us to be believers but not in Theo. I am listening all day but I never get a clear answer so I sort of expect nothing. Very chilled...

Is Cornwall sub-tropical now ? We are getting fried with 30*C in Amsterdam

It was pleasantly warm but now its cloudy and rain is expected. Nature is my creator, it never lets me down, you can hear it, smell it and admire it.

I did not say that. You are off on your own maneuvers.

"Athiests that I know have now wanting of a god to dismiss?" Are your crazed? Have you ever met an athiest? Most of us don't give a ****.

That is the real argument. The only argument. That theists have crappy prejudices is the escape. It allows "boring" arguments to be endlessly repeated so that the delusion that jeepsie's remark needs no answer can be fondly embraced.

Kant rightly taught that an argument cannot be made unless those making it can defend everybody accepting it. An atheist arguing for atheism in a Christian world is not the same as arguing for an atheist world.

Atheists have a duty to argue positively for an atheist world instead of negatively arguing against a Christian world. Why do they never do that?

I can do it if I want as a sophist. Totalitarianism might well be the only answer to the problems of a scientific world of increasing mechanical complexity and interdependence. A survival strategy. Every problem has a plausably scientific solution.

Simply because it failed in the Soviet Union is no proof that it will fail in other places. It only suggests that it will and it might well provide lessons for new totalitarians.

No politician is allowed to promote policies without reference to their consequences. And atheists are presumably in favour of that. So why do they excuse themselves from that discipline? Cold feet is the only answer I can think of.

A2K to my knowledge has no positive atheist evangelists. They are all negative knockers. Like street furniture vandals who only get a kick because it is a minority sport and never allow that we might all take it up and render life intolerable.

Are you joking , have I met an atheist? Don't give a ****, what are you doing now..? what do you think the vast majority are doing on this thread? The pink unicorn has been mentioned at least twice in this short thread as if it defines an unassailable position. We see it time and time again this arogant dismissal and you say they dont give a ****,amazing. Jumping to conclusions without even reading my post, without even realising my position in the debate, amazing.

Do you read anything without a preconceived notion on what is being debated? I object to many christian damaging dogma but that is not the end of debate. Just because you object to religious certainty it does not entitle you to tar every theist with the same ignorance.

The Wittgensteinian point is that we don't use "existence" consistently. We might say that unicorns exist as an agreed visual concept but have no "materiality". The problem with "God" is that it has no visual attributes (excluding old men with flowing beards") any "conceptualization" of it at all involves minority variations. Yet unlike "unicorns", we all agree that the "God concept, affects some peoples lives, and in that sense it has an attribute of "existence" for them. The problem lies in the disambiguation of "existence".

I think you must have me mixed up with somebody else. I've been defending Christianity for six years on A2K and have been subjected to gross villifications for my trouble.

I invite you to read my post with more attention than you did the first time.

I agree. When I used to hang around on the Dawkins forum, I would sometimes suggest that their time might be better spent promoting knowledge of (for example) Stoicism, the Confucian Analects, existential psychology (Erich Fromm & Viktor Frankl) and so on - all non-theistic, ethical value systems which seek to provide a positive moral code.

But they're not really that interested. It is much harder to think this kind of thing through than to bash Christianity. It is an easy target - soft, large and slow-moving. (I banned myself of the Dawkins forum after a pretty short time. I have no interest in blood sports.)

i appologise bit paranoid Im afraid.

why not?

to begin with, because it's not about one god - it is about all the different gods out there

do you think belief in your one god has any more value than belief in any other god? do you have any good reason to support belief in any particular god over another?

and the christian god - definitely not the one I'd believe in if I believed in any of them. Many more intellectually attractive god options out there.

No need to apologize. And to answer your question: no, Spendius never reads anything without preconceived notions on what's being debated.

The simple point is that you argue to argue. You and Set are marvellously, if often annoyingly, similar.


Don't need a philosophy degree to point that out. The philosophy courses I took are more than enough to cover that off.

Come to think of it, Set hasn't annoyed me in a long time. Is everything alright with him?

Another stupid and self-reassuring assertion. I have no preconceived notions and I read carefully every post I respond to. Give me an example of one of my preconceived notions. Thomas can't answer the points I've raised so he makes up stuff like that to justify having me on ignore. And who is Thomas to tell xris that there's no need to apologise when xris obviously felt there was and then try to justify his authoritarian ignorance with a stupid assertion which you will soon see he can't back up.

Beth wrote--



Where have I said that I believe in any God? Show me. I haven't the faintest idea on the matter. I believe that there are consequences to a general belief in gods of all sorts and I believe that a general belief in the Christian God has been a fantastic success story and I want some answers from those who want to disturb that settled attitude before approving of us proceeding with disturbing it. And it surprises me that others don't. I want atheists to sell an atheist world. The obvious fact that they are not even prepared to try to do that and concentrate instead on negative demolition of the Christian mission tells me everything I need to know about them. They want to level it to the ground with no idea of what to replace it with. They don't even have an idea of how to level it to the ground either. They want revolution, and it is revolution, for revolution's sake.

jeepsie said he was warning that there's something nasty at the bottom of the atheist's garden. I don't go anywhere near that. But there is something at the bottom of the atheist's garden. That's a destiny. That it is not nasty is what we should be persuaded to think and these atheists won't even attempt to show us its sweet benefits which we have to presume they think it has.

Beth wrote--



I'll agree that I enjoy an argument but that has nothing to say about whether my arguments have validity. I would not argue a point I consider invalid. A philosophy course which didn't point out that crucial difference wasn't worth a blow on a ragman's trumpet.

A
R
The unicorn is purple, not pink, and you left out that it is invisible.

How to become an a-theïst ?

Interesting reading, these later posts, but nothing compelling - nothing not already covered.