Theology of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Absolutely, agnosticism is the only defensible position. What I can't quite understand is that the "real theists" place God outside of the realm of knowing, define it as nothing more than "quintessence of being", then the second they reach that stable position, jump to, "Well, now that we've established He exists, let's talk about what His Son thinks about gay marriage."

It's ludicrous. Obviously, you get to believe anything you want. But let's leave the cheap robes of "theological scholarship" and pretensions to philosophy out of it. One of the great things about this country is that you have the fundamental right to believe whatever you like without a shred of evidence or support. Stop being so hyper-sensitive about it. And stop asking others to nod and say, "Sure that's perfectly reasonable." Just live.

Hold up a minute. Not sure it's "ludicrous " that an essence of being that needs to communicate to humans would send actual human prophets. You were thinking God should communicate with thunderbolts in Morse code, or messages in rainbows, or something?

Anyway, using "contemptuous" terms like "ludicrous" totally undermine you as you lecture us to "just live." And it's pretty clear that the angry atheists are hypersensitive too-anger is a heated emotion, right?

Actually I'm not angry at all. I find the ludicrous logical contortions to be fascinating.

I'm this PP. Man, you guys have been busy for a Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe time to get some perspective....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there seems ts a poster who makes brash statements, then responds to her/hiimself to make it appear that there is support for the initial statement.

Congratulations. You've just defined the process of "sock puppetting."

Don'tnock sock puppetry. God is the goodness within each of us and prayer is the most exalted form of sock puppetry.

Wow - deep. Great insight, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there seems ts a poster who makes brash statements, then responds to her/hiimself to make it appear that there is support for the initial statement.

Congratulations. You've just defined the process of "sock puppetting."

Don'tnock sock puppetry. God is the goodness within each of us and prayer is the most exalted form of sock puppetry.

Wow - deep. Great insight, PP.

Thank you. It was partly joking, and partly recognition that prayer may be a useful form of meditation. I admit that using the term "sock puppetry" may have hidden any serious intent. As I said in another post, I live with the danger of going to hell for my perverted sense of humor; thank God I'm an atheist and don't believe in hell!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there seems ts a poster who makes brash statements, then responds to her/hiimself to make it appear that there is support for the initial statement.

Congratulations. You've just defined the process of "sock puppetting."

Don'tnock sock puppetry. God is the goodness within each of us and prayer is the most exalted form of sock puppetry.

Wow - deep. Great insight, PP.

Yeah-- awesome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there seems ts a poster who makes brash statements, then responds to her/hiimself to make it appear that there is support for the initial statement.

Congratulations. You've just defined the process of "sock puppetting."

Don'tnock sock puppetry. God is the goodness within each of us and prayer is the most exalted form of sock puppetry.

Wow - deep. Great insight, PP.

Yeah-- awesome!

+1000

[Anonymous]

Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

I'm not "deep", "awesome", "1000" or any of the posters in that string, and I think there's a good chance that (a) at least one of them misunderstands the point being made here, and (b) at least two of them is the atheist sock puppet again.

That said, I think the key thing here is that it's not to focus thought on "things of importance to the supplicant" but on hings important to the religion in question, moral things like kindness, forgiveness, love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

Not any of the above. I tend to agree with you. Though I'm not sure how that necessitates a Big Guy In The Sky, though. You can meditate without any deities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

Not any of the above. I tend to agree with you. Though I'm not sure how that necessitates a Big Guy In The Sky, though. You can meditate without any deities.

Of course! And if you believe, you can meditate with deities. Tolerance and different strokes and respect--those are the points.

[Anonymous]

The good thing is that since atheists have no soul ... Killing them is more moral than killing a chicken since they negatively impact the environment more than a chicken.

... Twisted ... Illogical .. Defense of atheist importance in an existence without God in.... 3...2...1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The good thing is that since atheists have no soul ... Killing them is more moral than killing a chicken since they negatively impact the environment more than a chicken.

... Twisted ... Illogical .. Defense of atheist importance in an existence without God in.... 3...2...1.

Wow- we're up to chicken status now? You were so sure it was rocks just the other day. I'm so glad to see that your esteem for atheists is increasing. It's great to have a front-row seat to the opening of your fragile mind. Sniff.

[Anonymous]

That sniff of yours wasted valuable oxygen,.. Your soul-less mass of smelly consuming while excreting mass of cellular disgustingness is now relegated to rock status.. Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good thing is that since atheists have no soul ... Killing them is more moral than killing a chicken since they negatively impact the environment more than a chicken.

... Twisted ... Illogical .. Defense of atheist importance in an existence without God in.... 3...2...1.

Wow- we're up to chicken status now? You were so sure it was rocks just the other day. I'm so glad to see that your esteem for atheists is increasing. It's great to have a front-row seat to the opening of your fragile mind. Sniff.

God wins!! No logical defense of the value of an atheist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

I am "awesome" and '1000" - not a sock puppet, just a jokester.

As for prayer - if you call it meditation or self-talk, then I'm with you on it's value. It's the "supplicant" part that I don't accept. This means asking or begging someone and implies that a god is listening who may (or may not) answer the prayer. I understand that is a feature of religious prayer, but I think a person can get all the benefits of meditation without thinking of it as prayer that will be answered by a supernatural God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity, can the last three ("deep", "awesome" and "1000") tell me in a straighforward way, what you think of the idea that at least part of the value of prayer is the internal focus of thought on things of importance to the supplicant?

I am "awesome" and '1000" - not a sock puppet, just a jokester.

As for prayer - if you call it meditation or self-talk, then I'm with you on it's value. It's the "supplicant" part that I don't accept. This means asking or begging someone and implies that a god is listening who may (or may not) answer the prayer. I understand that is a feature of religious prayer, but I think a person can get all the benefits of meditation without thinking of it as prayer that will be answered by a supernatural God.

I'm the prayer as meditation (or sock puppetry) guy again. My use of the word supplicant was not intended to carry such weight. The reason I used it was simply that I needed a term to refer to the one doing the praying, and the obvious word ("prayer") was already taken by another use.

To lay my position on the line, I'm an atheist who thinks I don't have all that much disagreement with anyone, believer or non, who wishes the best for his (or her) fellow human beings. And other creatures, for that matter.