Why I'm Atheist and not Agnostic

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by relaxxx, Oct 19, 2013.

  1. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Organized groups aren't necessarily a bad thing, and are probably inevitable. People organize around common interests, and those of us who are interested in religion like to get together to organize charity drives, discussion groups, worship services, socials, etc. How is that so wrong? I haven't noticed the Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, etc., causing much of a problem for anyone else or trying to tell other people how to run their lives. Nor do they support the Christian groups who are into banning abortion, promoting public prayer, opposing evolution, etc. In fact, I'd argue that they're a more effective counterweight to such groups than are the atheist organizations, who still labor under a social stigma. But the atheist groups are coming along, too. Freedom of assembly! More power to it! The best way to counter bad organization is to form a countervailing organization.
    Also atypical. Did you ever see a Methodist or an Episcopalian cutting his/her head with a scimitar?
     
  2. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Lame. Life itself is terminal. Can we post bloody pictures of freaky atheists/nonbelievers too? :2thumbsup:
     
  3. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    [​IMG][​IMG]
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  4. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    What do you think these statistics imply? Is there any doubt that there is evidence for potential world wide conflagration developing from the tensions in the middle east? Wars and rumors of wars are a constant companion of human relations and everyone senses their potential for catastrophe and we can say the same of earthquakes and storms. We have eyes in the sky presumably to ward of cosmic collision as the specter of apocalyptic doom is common in the human psyche. Apocalyptic prophecy is the seemingly logical extension of the trajectory of current events. But such are not relevant to current emergence and so it becomes an irrelevant side show and it's importance to men comes from the misunderstanding of time. It is irrelevant because it gives no good cause for any change and consigns one to the inevitability of uncontrollable demise combined with the hope that it could somehow be different but no real capacity to affect events in any other way. From this perspective some survive and some don't and they hope they spun the wheel just right. A conceptual dead end in chance. Our hopes and dreams may or may not appear in time but what will be done is done.
    The event horizon is always now and at no other time. To have a current trajectory be different from the assumed one, we make a different choice in the present. We are not products of history as history becomes so in the present, nor is the past consigned to perpetual repetition nor are people who shoot themselves in the foot destined to do so.
     
  5. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    "the specter of apocalyptic doom is common in the human psyche."

    I don't believe that for a second, the idea is implanted and conditioned. What child knows apocalypse before they are told?
     
  6. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Interesting program I was watching, said man can manipulate weather, too, and cause hurricanes and calamities from space on this planet....:eek:

    side note deemed from TheDope's comment about earthquakes and natural calamities....
     
  7. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    You don't accept that it is common? That existential fear is learned or interpreted does not make it uncommon but quite the opposite it is cultivated and actually dominates many day to day choices like locking your door. The perceived necessity for national defense is an extension of it.:2thumbsup:

    For my own part I remember the transition between unbridled trust and essential mistrust as being facilitated by personal abuse engendered by the idea of fault. It took me some time to unravel my conditioning that someone or something must be to blame for my discomfort in life. Be it my own actions or someone else's. Having been afforded enormous personal freedom to do as I will I find that my life is a series of sensations some of which I may call pleasant and some not so regardless my personal choices, the calling on of which is also a choice.
     
  8. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    Ok, I'll admit it may be common, but not inherent. Existential fear can come from a lot of things, but I don't see the point of re-enforcing it with religious doctrine, it should be the opposite.
     
  9. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Confucius say:"One picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, words would be better.,cuz I don't get it. Your pictures seem to be intended as a response to my post about organized religious activities not being necessarily bad. What do the photos have to do with that? How did Armageddon get into the act? Two of the images you show seem to be from the U.S. military which, I grant you, is an organization but not the voluntary private kind I was talking about. Military commanders use any trick in the book to keep their men motivated, so it's not surprising they'd invoke God. (Interestingly, just last week I passed a sign for the Rainbow military unit, and joked to a friend "Is the Army going gay?") The situation in Syria is certainly dangerous, particularly since Russia is so involved, not to mention Iran. But I don't think the U.S. is likely to engage in any military strike there, because it isn't in our national interest to do so. In that sense, if one our of four Americans think such a strike could lead to Armageddon, I'd say that's a good thing (the fear, not the event itself; because it helps keep the brakes on.) As for Armageddon, many Christians aren't particularly into that and tend to interpret it figuratively, if at all. It's from the Book of Revelation, which my church thinks was all about the Roman Empire instead of some occurrence in our future. So what's your point? My solution to warlike groups is to promote peaceful groups in hopes they catch on. Otherwise, the warlike ones will take over.
     
  10. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    I agree.
    I don't see the point of reinforcing it with civil doctrine either or pointing to the problem as representative of the solution. The reason it is is because it seems logical based on the way the world is which is as we have determined a learned affair. It is not reasonable though to suspect reality but it is reasonable to question our previous learning as suspect if we in fact find reality suspicious. We also can tell if interested that we have been fundamentally surprised from time to time by a consideration that renders previous concerns mute. That is while we can make fundamental errors in apprehending things we can learn to be more efficient in identification and less susceptible to imagined threat and more able to deal with genuine causes. Fear is of the imagined potential and correct identification lessens the propensity to guess at outcomes, (mind wandering.) If you can see a pitfall you can avoid falling into it. The truth or right identification sets us free from the psychological burden of imagined threat and our seeming convulsive responses in war seeming necessary to preserve the peace or viscerally accepting it as a good fight. Where our treasure is conceived to be is where we invest our life's blood in attaining it as our protections extend naturally to those things we call our own.

    People who believe war happens in the cause of protection can not perceive that peace is in them to bestow on the world. In this regard only your own thoughts can harm you.
     
  11. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    Yes, many christian pick and choose which parts of the bible to interpret as literal., but no one seems to be annotating Revelations or Genesis in kind.
     
  12. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    No one is a broad brush. This perception comes from the acceptance of hypocrisy as a rule. If we are put off in our perceptions at first glance we may miss other enduring or consistently functioning things. Why would you have cause to view it any other way or desire to investigate more deeply based on the impressionistic?
    There are many different degrees of understanding present in any group think. Each opening a corridor of refraction some more expanded in scope and application than others, teachers and students whose roles are interchangeable.

    I personally regard language itself as symbolic and it must be interpreted through personal reflection in every instance.
     
  13. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    If the bible is not the literal interpretation of gods word then someone should write a new one, and/or priests, preachers, pastors, etc and sectarian religious institutions should be dissolved. Need I quote the late John Lennon? I can only imagine...
     
  14. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Yeah, I know atheists tend to be fundamentalist about this stuff. When the early Christians were putting together their canon, Revelation almost didn't make it in. Origen in the 3rd century lumped it among the"antilegomena"(actively disputed scripture). It was added in the 4th century, but Orthodox churches don't use it for readings in their church services. Martin Luther said he couldn't harmonize it with the God of Jesus. (I have the same trouble). That's why he relegated it to an appendix in his bible. "Pick and choose" is a good thing, as long as it's done by informed judgment and in good conscience. It does have its inspiring passages, but its prophecies didn't work out, and it's generally batshit crazy.
     
  15. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    You are accusing me of being fundamentalist?

    The church where my brother was married is the last religious institution I've stepped foot in, a seemingly benign little Baptist church in the heart of a small community. I was shocked to find, in the room where they held sunday school for the children, a giant poster depicting the grand canyon as being formed by the great flood of the bible, and another depicting dinosaurs and man as having existed at the same time and that the earth is only 6000 yrs old.... Can you imagine the conflict in the poor kids mind when he ends up with an interest in anthropology only to find when he gets to higher education that his upbringing put him at complete odds with greater academia? It's just a fucking abomination, if you ask me.
     
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  16. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    How come?




    More our way of apprehending things could be based on attempts to understand as opposed to attempts to comply. It is a matter of where you place your devotion. The cultural way or way of the cult for attempting to apprehend good is through hero worship and taboo. The disciples way or the way of the individual is through personal investigation.
     
  17. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    So that those facile minions might perhaps appreciate the broader metaphorical value of the good parts of the bible.:)
     
  18. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    You know what He would write? :p
     
  19. Gongshaman

    Gongshaman Modus Lascivious

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    ओ३म्
     
  20. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    That's Baptists for you. But I guess you know lots of Christians don't have a problem with geology and evolution: The Catholic Church and mainline Protestant churches, for example.


    Thomas Jefferson gave it a good shot: Jesus minus miracles and the supernatural.
     

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