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.

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."

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.

that is, there seems to be....

[see how easy it is to talk to yourself?]

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Aww, honey. We'll let you have the last word -- your inevitable next post -- because nobody wants to waste time arguing with an abusive, contemptuous poster like you.

Well played.

Talking to yourself again.

???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Aww, honey. We'll let you have the last word -- your inevitable next post -- because nobody wants to waste time arguing with an abusive, contemptuous poster like you.

Well played.

Talking to yourself again.

Anonymous wrote:

Aww, honey. We'll let you have the last word -- your inevitable next post -- because nobody wants to waste time arguing with an abusive, contemptuous poster like you.

Well played.

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.

Aww, honey. We'll let you have the last word -- your inevitable next post -- because nobody wants to waste time arguing with an abusive, contemptuous poster like you.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of nasty atheists, are there examples in history of atheists engaging in systematic killing of people who disagree with our worldview?

Why yes, yes there are! Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot come to mind.

And Mao, of course. And others.

Talking to yourself again??

Oh joy. The atheist troll is here.

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?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of nasty atheists, are there examples in history of atheists engaging in systematic killing of people who disagree with our worldview?

Why yes, yes there are! Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot come to mind.

And Mao, of course. And others.

Talking to yourself again??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Whenever I hear about the version of god that is beyond our comprehension and beyond our reality I just don’t understand how this helps the theist make their case for their particular religion.

Such a god could be any god. Such a god could be an alien machine intelligence running a simulation on an alien supercomputer to see how organics may have created the first machine intelligence (and we are that simulation). Such a god could be as concerned about humanity as we are about the bacteria that grows around volcano vents a mile below the ocean.

How exactly does such an undefinable god tie back to the beliefs of any religion? How does that help make the case that Jesus was anything other than a man that was killed by other men? How does that help make the case that Moses didn’t carve the Ten Commandments himself? How does it make the case that Joseph Smith was wrong?

In the attempt to not be pinned down to any part of reality, this argument makes the case that man cannot know the mind of god and hence know what god wants, expects or demands. If that is the case, you are better off believing in no gods and just trying to be a good person lest you believe something based on the wrong religion and get punished for doing so.

Yes, it's about belief. I thought we settled that several pages back-- and in umpteen other DCUM threads. If you like, we can make this more interesting, by debating how agnosticism is the only rationally-definsible position, because atheism is also faith (you can't prove God doesn't exist). In short: we will have to agree to disagree, with RESPECT.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Dawkins is a fallible human being. Atheists don't need to defend him, because we don't hold him up as any kind of ultimate source of truth. He makes some strong arguments which you should address on their merits, rather than attacking him for some of the abrasive things he has said.

The whole Dawkins tangent came up because I suggested that he and some of the other prominent "new atheists" had brought atheism into the open and create space in the public sphere for discussion of these issues, but that now that we had that space, and since we were demanding respect for our position, we should treat others' positions with the respect was want to be accorded, even though we disagree, rather than treating each other with contempt.

I can't prove there's no God, and I don't believe in one. Believers can't prove there is, but they choose to believe in one.

As long as we're not trying to force one another to submit to our position (which includes enacting legislation based that forces someone to submit to our respective positions on theology), we ought to be able to live together and agree to disagree without arguing based on contempt and ridicule (again, unless we're talking about Scientologists, who just deserve it).

At least one person took exception to the claim that Dawkins shows contempt for believers' positions and demanded evidence. Links were provided, but the issue shouldn't be whether Dawkins does it or not.

Dawkins is a brilliant man who has advanced public recognition of and acceptance of atheism. He's not the patron saint of atheism.

I'll go back to my previous position - as long as a believer isn't trying to force me to accept his/her position, or legislate/regulate their particular theology, I don't care what they believe, because I believe they have a fundamental right to believe whatever they choose. If they try to force their theology on me, or if their theology harms children or animals who are incapable of evaluating for themselves, I will push back.

Aside from that, go in peace and believe what you want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of nasty atheists, are there examples in history of atheists engaging in systematic killing of people who disagree with our worldview?

Why yes, yes there are! Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot come to mind.

And Mao, of course. And others.

Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao were all irrational cult-founders. They're no different--though more successful in the short run--than any other founder of a religion. Whether it be Joe Smith, L Ron Hubbard, Mohammed, or Paul.