Atheists... Your life is pointless

How convenient for you.

You win.

OK
What do I win?

The right to a non-binding claim that you've got it all figured out.

Strange prize.
Accepting it would make me unable to learn anything new.
Gonna have to decline the victory.

It was illusory anyway. It was a sarcastic rejoinder to your decision that you'd expand the definition of religion in order to make it appear that you had something profound to say.

Setanta Maybe you do not care to hear this but this is the side of you I value the most.
You were not critical of anyone in your analyses and you made a lot of sense in my opinion.
I think that this approach is an approach that many will learn from because they do not fell as they are being attacked.

Thank "God"! Maybe all such victories are only illusions.

It's not me Matt. It's the name of the game. These atheists are in denial simply because if they accept it they can be accused of subjectivity. They like to pretend they are disinterested observers but they are not.

I would feel awfully foolish making any pronouncements about God. Absolutely.

In the EU there are about 200 million dicks and roughly the same number of cunts. What do you suggest?

Are you one of the cunts?

Probably many more dicks and cunts if we count non-human animals.
I would suggest that sexuality is very central to any discussion of the human condition and of the condition with all other animals which reproduce using dicks and cunts.

Frank when most people are faced with changing their mind or getting busy with the proof why they should not change their mind most get busy with the proof. The rational mind is way overrated in most cases it is a slave to the emotional mind and generates endless rationalizations as to why the conclusions reached by the emotional mind are correct.

Is there any room left in your model of the psyche for "will"?

Izzy after looking at a subject for decades one tends to take a position one way or the other. I am in my 7th decade and I have done a lot reading and lived many decades. There is point in life when you are young and before you form opinions on certain subjects that you entertain arguments from both sides of a subject but at some point you must choose one side of argument or the other.

Most people go through life and at life's end the best they can say is, “It’s life illusion I recall I don’t know life at all.” We are surrounded by illusion and magical thinking. Illusions are the sirens of life. Their songs are irresistible to most. The attraction of magical thinking is just too strong. Once one accepts magical thinking he is no longer tethered to reality. Magically thinking makes reality seem dim by comparison. Once one accepts magically thinking as reality it is a near impossibility to ever go back to rational thinking. Izzy you will dwell in the halls of magical thinking all the days of your life, reality will never intrude.

Of all the illusions of life, and there are many, religion is the most harmful and the one illusion that is most likely to end life on this planet. In all of the world’s wars god was on both sides. When people were being tortured and burnt at the stake in god’s name he was there to cheer them on. As the million died horrible deaths in world wars god was there to cheer the blood lust on.

Yes I have an agenda to expose the illusion and the magical thinking that maintains it.

Spendius religious hatred is every bit as solid as concrete. Just ask the people that were burnt at the stake with green would to prolong their agony or those had their eyes gouged out because they would not accept the magical thinking of those deluded by religion. Martin Luther hate wasn’t because the Jews had three arms or two heads or even that they had a different skin color it was for one of the world’s oldest reasons they didn’t believe in his particular form of magical thinking.

What do you think is going on in the Middle East now? If you looked at those people they could be brothers all that separates them is their type of magical thinking.

Cicerone I agree human beings were born with an imagination but like all abilities it can be used and misused. Not only can an imagination be misused it is very easy to exploit someone imagination. Once you can convince someone to accept magical thinking you own them. All you have to do is convince them that you know more than they do and the brain washing starts when you are a small child before you reach the age of reason. Research by neuroscientist shows that our brains are physically shaped by thought if you can control the thoughts someone thinks you can physical shape their brain to believe.

The religious have always tried to intimidate anyone with a different point of view. There were even early laws on the books in America prescribing the death penalty for those who didn’t believe in their religion.

Zardoz, I'm not sure why you addressed your post to me, but I'm way beyond the idea of the age of brain-washing. I call religion an accident of birth.

All my siblings are christains married to christians. I don't find them any more "good or bad" than any other folks with the same or other religions.

I'm an atheist; I don't believe in any god(s), or that religion is needed to teach morals.

I've been "through" the family conversion from Buddhism to Christianity at a very young age. I saw the dogma and bigotry of the christian church we belonged to from a very early age.

My older brother "forced" me to go to church even though he didn't attend - at the threat of beating me up if I didn't go. He calls himself a christian today.

Hypocrite.

Even though I attend a Unitarian Church every week and subscribe to a belief in a sort of mild-mannered observer god (female, and rather like a therapist, nodding, observing and listening without judging), I'm very glad of the fact that my sister is a fanatical atheist. When we were in college, she broke out in song once: "Praise be to God, the saints are dead..." (to the tune of "Joy to the World"). She is marrying the son of an Episcopalian minister. I really hope she doesn't find God any time soon.

Stop being patronising. You may be in your Autumnal years, but I don't see any evidence of increased wisdom. You still think you know what's best for everyone else. With regard to metaphysics there's no reason on earth why someone must choose one side of an argument, or even to accept the argument as someone has framed it.

The biggest problem facing the planet isn't religion, but greed, and we're all guilty of that in some shape or form.

But wait! I'm really getting old, so i must know what i'm talking about!

When it comes to the question of whether or not there is a god, unless one lives in a country in which there is a death penalty for apostasy, there is no reason to come to a conclusion, ever.

Was that last clause a play on words?