Does Religion Have a Place in the Future of Humankind?

BOTT:


Not to be rude, but if that's your stance, then why are you posting?



Well...yeah..., since I can't really debate you if you refuse to tell me what your opinions are.



What "method of thought" do you suggest, then? If we're approaching "the issue of God", then, as an atheist, you should be willing to defend your position. Otherwise, what are we doing?

You strike me as an intelligent person, but I'm confused by this half-debate you seem to be pursuing.

"Not to be rude, but if that's your stance, then why are you posting?" Well, obviously, not to argue whether God exists or not. But, and more to the point, you asked me to clarify what I meant by what I originally posted, and I attempted to do that as carefully as I could. When I wrote what I did, it wasn't meant to be rude but to point out that by answering your question I would be putting myself in a place that I didn't want be, which I then tried to explain. Again, why should I "be willing to defend my position" when I've tried to show why having a position toward this question is essentially a corruption of thought. I have no position toward it. I have a condition in myself that I'm trying to make sense of. There is no more boring question in the world as whether God exists or not, because it can never be answered. I'd just as soon tackle the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. However, I'm glad I seem halfway intelligent to you.

Madeline Murray O'Hare, who really was an atheist, often use to assert, in what she apparently thought an appropriate and humorous insult, that agnostics were atheists who lacked guts.

Allow me to borrow that thought and revise it for this instance:

Soft atheist...atheists like this guy purports to be...are either agnostics who lack the guts to quit after acknowledging that they do not know the answers to Ultimate Questions...or are liars.

In my recent venture into an atheists forum, I discovered most were both.

The question with which we are ultimately dealing is:

How is it that all this happens to be?

My answer to that question is: I do not know...and there is not nearly enough unambiguous evidence available to me upon which I can base a reasonable guess.

That, in my opinion, is the most honest and ethical way of dealing with that question.

Theists deal with it differently. They make guesses...and call them beliefs. Then they insist their guesses are correct...and call that faith.

Atheists, or at least the honest ones with guts, deal with it differently also...but in a way so related to the way theists deal with it...I often, as most of you know, consider it a reverse side to theisms obverse.

Then there are the dancers and prancers who try to pretty up their silly guesses and who try to assert those guesses with even sillier conditionality.

If this toad doesn't want to argue the point and wants instead to use my in-your-face confrontation with him to run off and hide...no skin off my nose. But it does answer the question about guts!

Welcome to a2k BOTT... as long as you are on here, you must realize that everything you 'believe' will be put up to the utmost scrutiny, you must not take offense, but rather take advice. Frank makes good points, and he is the reason I have taken up a more 'agnostic christianity' Franks quote:"To acknowledge what you do not know - is a display of strength. To pretend you know what you truly don't - is a display of weakness. " Sums it up nicely. The only thing that we can honestly take claim in, is our own ignorance.

brainofthetoad
Not to be rude however, my comment regarding some of your analogies and mental meandering remind me that some people talk much but say nothing.

Regarding the existence of God. Frankly I do not know and neither does anyone else. However, as I reach the twilight of life I begin to more and more hope there is. I do not want to believe as the song goes "is that all there is."

Okay, okay. Clearly my way of thinking about these questions is of no interest or use to you and your way of thinking about these questions is of no interest or use to me. This is obviously because I'm a screaming pansy, a gutless coward, and a jerk, and as I slink off, flapping my wrists and wetting my pants, I wish you all the joy of listening to your guru rant in the confines of your airless closet. You all deserve each other.

Noone said that...you take way too much offense.

Brainofthetoad
If a little negative criticism has gotten your jockey shorts as twisted as they apparently have. I would agree with your decision to take leave of this forum. Because my friend you haven't seen nothing yet. That said however, I would suggest you stick around since I am sure it would be mutually productive to all. We may not agree and sometimes not to politely but opinions are opinions and worth expressing.
Your option.

Yeah, sometimes I get my butt kicked, but I'm glad I still am on here.

If we didn't get our butts kicked, it's because we think we know it all. LOL

Isn't that the truth!

BOTT: You do seem intelligent, but this "If I don't acknowledge it, it can't hurt me" attitude you're evincing is bewildering, and your insistence upon extrapolating insults which none of us(hopefully) are childish enough to make is, frankly, a bit ridiculous.
This is a debate forum...not a forum to say "don't ask me that question because I don't like it." If you truly don't wish to join us in a serious pursuit, then I wish you luck, and hope I run into you on a topic where you do have something to say.