Atheists... Your life is pointless

OK. Just checking.

It is clear that you have a real problem with an inferiority complex. That doesn't mean that the same applies to others who criticize you. You gave a thoroughly bullshit answer to an ESL thread, and not only did i, but others told you you had no business answering such threads. Your response was this paranoid complaint that people hate your and follow you around voting down your posts.

Once again, just because you suffer from an inferiority complex is no evidence that others do.

As a general response, my criticism of what Matt had written was based on the content. It was a simple-minded categorization of atheists and theists, and worthy of criticism. It is also germane to the discussion in this thread. I am not responsible for his inability to deal with criticism.

You wrote,

Actually, it's the other way around; the hysterical, ignorant, moron, doesn't know s/he is one, and keeps repeating themselves.

Dear Setanta,

I appreciate your criticism.
Your criticism was of a solitary post.
When this criticism was first raised by you I gently placed a link to the subsequent post I made, in the series of responses (which I thought might show you that the point you were making was already addressed).
I did not mean for you to take this gentle gesture as an invitation to a fight.
You proceeded as though, I thought a "simple-minded categorization of atheists and theists" is NOT a valid point, in that it is acceptable in discourse on the subject at hand.
It is a valid point. I agree with THAT. This should be evident in the link I gently provided.
Now if you want to debate whether I should have raised your concern in the first post, rather than waiting all the way until the very next post. This is something I find trivial and more a matter of debating
My preference in engaging with Spade through
{through a dialectic } vs. {through a formalized debate }.

If you would like to debate the value in exchanging thoughts
via dialectic or via debate.
This is something worthy of debate.
It is off topic but we could start another thread for it.

I do have some concerns that your excessive nit-picking may have adverse consequences on your mental health.
If you like, we could debate how excessive interest in finding fault in others leads to negative states of mental health.
We could also start a thread for this.

I don't want you to mistake me for trying to censure your comments.
No matter how vitriolic I find them.
Censorship of even hate speech is an undecided issue in Europe.
Here is a dialectic (ie not a debate) regarding that subject:


To leave you with a closing thought Setanta,
Do you thank that perhaps your aggression may be disproportionate to your understanding?
Do you think that maybe your balls are too big for your brain?
(I actually don't know your gender, I am using a rather sexist idiom, by referring to "balls".)

Sexism in language.
Again another topic worthy of debate,
but off topic for a forum about the existence of God or gods.

----Love always Matt

What ever. ;-))

It is not my responsibility that you continue to see debate as a fight--that's your illusion, not mine. Your "gently placed link" lead to a post which had absolutely no relevance to the criticism i had made (and how the hell does one "gently" place a link in an online discussion board?--please). When i pointed that out, you started this "pick a fight" bullshit. That to me is clear evidence that you can't handle criticism. Equally, the vitriol is a figment of your imagination, and, to me, just more evidence that you can't handle criticism. Your snotty remark about my mental health is the sort of passive-aggressive insult we see around here commonly from people who then get all pope-holy about people being insulted. You don't know me, and you know nothing about me, so your comments about my mental health are just snide sideswipes with which to vent your aggression while pretending to be commendably civil.

It is not "nit-picking" to point out that you have made an idiotically simplistic generalization about two classes of people who can be numbered in the billions, and it is germane to the topic of this thread. Once again, if you can't handle the heat of debate, stay out of the kitchen. You respond with pejorative language (such as "vitriolic") and passive-aggressive insults (such as a phony concern for my mental health) and still try to portray yourself as some kind of long suffering saint. Your response is pathetic. I posted a criticism which was civil, and you have been trying ever since to make it look as though you were the victim of an attack. People in debate disagree with others, and that is not evidence of hostility, or of poor mental health.

You're as phony as a three dollar bill. It is obvious that i am not "dear" to you and that you have no love for me. I am really contemptuous of people who post phony, smarmy, passive-aggressive crap like that.

So, once again, my criticism of what you wrote was based on the content. It was a simple-minded categorization of atheists and theists, and worthy of criticism. It is also germane to the discussion in this thread. I am not responsible for your inability to deal with criticism.

Again Setanta.
I will say it again.
I appreciate your criticism!
I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Paint me as an aggressor, paint me as a victim.
Without regard I really do care about you.
And I really do care about what you have to contribute.

Maybe we could talk about what distinctions should be made regarding atheist and atheist positions prior to discussing them.
I think we both are interested in that discussion.
If we could both maybe set some animosity aside.
This is something I would like to engage with you about.

Wouldn't the only distinctions be ones of the personality, education and class of the various atheists?

Matt I often heard the statistic that a typical rapist rapes 200 before he is every prosecuted. Bill boards were taken out that quoted the sad statistic that one in four women in America would be raped during her lifetime. In the case of the Priests, one priest James R Porter, actual confessed to 200 molestations. As far as I can remember the statistic came from a crime show about a serial rapist in the Cleveland, Ohio area, a fireman I believe. He got away with a very high number of rapes before he was caught and they never knew how many went unreported. Rape is the most under reported crime in America. Victims are often too afraid or too embarrassed to go through the humiliation of reporting the crime.

The figure of 200 seemed unbelievable at the time and I guess that it why it stuck in my mind as unreasonable until a later statistic showed that over 39 million women are raped in their lifetime. Then the figure doesn’t seem that farfetched.

If the statistics from the rape crisis center are correct over 39 million American women will be raped in their lifetime if we divided that figure by 200 rapes that would leave us with a figure of about 200,000 rapists and remember this leaves the boys that are raped out of the equation. Of course 200 is an average figure some will get caught after the first rape others will never be caught.

I suspect you might be right about Martin Luther that Idea was poorly stated. I think the publicity about the priests’ child molestation was what the church administration’s worst nightmare was. It was what kept them up at night. Imagine weighing the two options of having a priest publicly prosecuted for child molestation or sending him to a new parish where he would be free to molest unsuspecting children again and imagine making that same decision over and over again.

I wonder if there were any Bishops who decided to have the molester arrested and prosecuted the first time it happened or if in every case their first instinct was to cover up the crime for the good of the religious cult. Were there no men of courage, no men of real faith, none that recognized evil when they were confronted with it?

Sorry I meant for that to read atheist and theist.
(autocorrect on my phone )
So,
What distinctions should be made regarding athiest and theist positions prior to discussing them?

You're the one who is attempting to paint me as an aggressor, and yourself as the victim, and it's getting tedious. You had a clear opportunity to discuss the subject, but you preferred to go the route of baseless accusations about "picking a fight," a false assertion that you didn't have a dog in the fight, and a pose of the long-suffering reasonable man dealing with an unwarranted attack. You're still at it. Claiming to "care about " me does me no good, nor is it germane to the topic here. It is immaterial to me if you "care" about what i contribute. I will criticize anything i see here which i consider unwarranted. I expect that, and it is my experience that people will react to me in the same manner.

I have no animosity toward you. I am contemptuous of attempts to make this a discussion of personalities, which is what you introduced.

By "explicit atheist" do you mean someone who asserts "There is no god".
And "implicit atheist" meaning someone who does not make an assertion but rather thinks that the default position should be atheist, until proven otherwise?

It's incredible to me that you're asking that. I would have thought it was clear from what i posted. Allow me to "gently" insert a link:

Types of atheism

One of the reasons I have given up using the designation "agnostic" is because of the kind of thing mentioned in the citation to which Setanta linked...specifically:



How any agnostic can say they do not know if there is a god...

...but can KNOW that such knowledge is impossible makes no sense to me.

Forgetting the designations for a moment:

At best I can say that I do not know if a GOD or gods exist. There is absolutely no way I can logically assert that KNOWLEDGE of GOD or gods is impossible. If there is a GOD--that GOD could easily impart knowledge of its being should it choose...and simply because IT "has not chosen to impart it to me" does not mean that IT cannot impart that knowledge...or even that IT has not imparted that knowledge to others.

So I have gotten away from the designation (for the most part) and just describe my position in a variation of:

I do not KNOW if there is a GOD; I do not KNOW there are no gods: I see no reason to suppose there must be a GOD in order to explain existence; I see no reason to suppose the existence of a GOD is impossible...and I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess on the question.

Thanks Frank,
Do you think it would be helpful to have a name for such a position that you describe.
I don't know just to throw some out there....
principled agnosticism
generalized agnosticism
?

Do whatever you think appropriate. I most certainly will respond with comments about agreements and disagreements.

I just know you're wrong about that . . .