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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So...whenever religious people talk amongst ourselves about stuff like this, I have literally never heard anyone put down atheists or even reference atheists at all.. Not even, "at least I'll feel smug that I wasn't an atheist!" No religious person talks like that, unless they are a cartoon on TV or an actual fanatic. Most people who are believers (and also not fanatic Christian evangelists, which most of us aren't) are happy to just let atheists do their thing and never bring it up.

So when atheists are doing the offhand-condescension move, like, "well I wish I could be dumb enough to believe in god, what a pity I'm not dumb," with the obvious implication that anyone who differs in opinion is dumb, I [i]kinda[/i] lose respect for you guys. And I don't see a big difference between you and the evangelists. Just saying.[/quote]

+1000

I also note the almost militant, detached tone that agnostics here and in other posts take, a deliberate separation from themselves and God, as though they have to really work to keep Him out of their lives. What they don't (yet) understand is the way that God comes to us, lives in us and changes us, through the Holy Spirit. It's not something you constantly have to work at or try to believe, which is what they imply here[/quote]

To the previous PP, Here's your condescending evidence from the evangelists.

To the pp, you are confused, god doesn't exist, we don't have to keep something out if it doesn't exist in the first place.[b] There is literally no work involved to not believe in god because we are all born not believing in god - it's the default position[/b]. [/quote]

That is not true at all -- in fact, the opposite. We are all born with a "God-shaped" void. We spend our lives trying to fill it; tragically for many, in the wrong way.[/quote]

Actually, you are both wrong. Some people feel a void that, for them, can  effectively be filled by a belief in God. Some people either don't feel that good or do not find it to be filled through belief in God. What is hard about this concept?[/quote]

There is nothing hard about that concept to understand, it's just that I, personally, do not agree with it. I'm not saying that every person on the earth literally walks around every day saying "I FEEL A VOID. WHAT CAN FILL THAT VOID?" Many (most) people go for years or great stretches of their lives, filling it in different ways and/or ignoring it (thus not being really aware), often being quite happy and even content. But yes, I believe those who are truly self-examined, which includes most people at some point if they are lucky enough to live long enough, will recognize that there is a "void" (for lack of a better word) that cannot be filled by anything except a relationship with the God who created them.[/quote]

Ok, and that's a condescending belief based on the false notion that other people aren't "truly self-examined." It lacks cognitive flexibility, because you fail to see that someone of similar intelligence and reflectiveness could process the same information and arrive at a different conclusion. It's also non-falsifiable, because you are using as evidence whether someone is "truly self-examined" the relevant outcome, which is whether they've accepted God. The only major difference between your position and the Athiest who says that anyone who accepts God must be "dumb" is that "truly self-examined" is a much better euphemism than "dumb."[/quote]

I didn't say that at all, and you're putting words in my mouth (words on my post?). One can absolutely reject God, yes. That is a sad truth. One can reject God, over and over. But that doesn't mean that God isn't real and that the person in question is choosing to deny that, like we all choose to deny realities every day that we don't like. (E.g. DH - the kids are being brats. Me -No they aren't, they are just being kids!)[/quote]

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