This thread is so disjointed, I don't know who is who or what is what. So I'm not doing any more work until I find out whether the poster actually needs me to explain the meaning of a false dichotomy, or how it applies to her post.

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

No, because I've explained it several times already. If you don't want to engage, just say so. Or better, stop posting about fairies already, until you're able to defend the analogy.

"You can't make a man understand what he does not want to understand." (or something like that)
-- Sinclair

Perhaps someone else can explain what PP is talking about.

"If you can't explain how Mother Theresa (who twinges of doubt) is an atheist, then "belief in gods" is saner than "belief in faries"?

Can anyone else follow this argument? Thanks.

No one at all? Whew! I was afraid I was the only one.

Anonymous wrote:Serious question for 7:11: Where did you study rhetoric? Because you should ask for your money back. When a five-year-old can figure out you're dodging the question, it's time to upgrade your skill set.

No, I think the two word term "false dichotomy" is sufficient for anyone who understands the meaning of the term.

Obviously the people who want to redefine all agnostics as atheists realize that 100% certainty that God doesn't exist is intellectually indefensible. But this has always struck me as silly, because if everybody with a even slight question about God is an atheist, then you've redefined Mother Theresa as an atheist, and you've also redefined all people who call themselves "agnostic" right out of existence by relabeling them all atheists.

Proving a negative a logical impossibility. That is not positive evidence of a god. The strength of Mother Theresa's belief is irrelevant. If I were to make the claim to Dawkins that the tree in my backyard is "God", he would have the same level of "doubt" as he does about claims of any other type of god. No more, no less.

Anonymous wrote:

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

No, because I've explained it several times already. If you don't want to engage, just say so. Or better, stop posting about fairies already, until you're able to defend the analogy.

"You can't make a man understand what he does not want to understand." (or something like that)
-- Sinclair

Perhaps someone else can explain what PP is talking about.

"If you can't explain how Mother Theresa (who twinges of doubt) is an atheist, then "belief in gods" is saner than "belief in faries"?

Can anyone else follow this argument? Thanks.

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

No, because I've explained it several times already. If you don't want to engage, just say so. Or better, stop posting about fairies already, until you're able to defend the analogy.

"You can't make a man understand what he does not want to understand." (or something like that)
-- Sinclair

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, some Hindus DO take offense at the cultural appropriation going on in US yoga -- sanskrit chants and whatnot. My SIL is Indian, and she told me she was quite surprised to walk into a yoga class in the US and hear Hindu prayers.

And to make matters more complicated ... yoga is not really purely Hindu anyway. The emphasis on physical postures (asana) is a new thing. There's been a lot of research on this lately, and there's evidence that the physical postures are actually derived in part from British gymnastic practices taken to India in the 19th century. When yoga came to the US, it got mixed up with all sorts of traditional US things, like the religious revivalism of the late 19th century.

Good one!...not. yet another attempt to warp history to fit the "greatness of the white man".

You do realize that Patanjali's Yoga Sutra was written before the "dawn of christ". Let's not forget that it is also in the written in Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. But you'll probably find some "reliable (christian) source" that says they were all copied from the bible as well.

Thanks, PP. That gave me a good laugh as well. I was going to say the same thing. The asanas are not a 'new thing' at all. Practice yoga if you want, but tradional forms of yoga are based in Hinduism. Now, if you're talking about power yoga at Gold's or something, yeah, it might not be the same thing.

As I understand it, "asana" in the Yoga Sutra was not really the same as asana as practiced today. It just meant seated meditation; there was certainly no description of sun salutations or "vinyasas." Asanas as practiced in the US today emerge from 19th/20th century cross-cultural innovations in Mysore and then in the US. The word "yoga" is ancient, or course -- but it meant something pretty different to Panatjali than it does to us.

You should read that Yoga Journal article I posted earlier -- it is really enlightening. There's no doubt that modern yoga takes some inspiration and form from ancient Hindu practice; but you don't need to be threatened by understanding that yoga as we practice it now is a modern, cross-cultural innovation, which derives its richness from many sources. Here is another article by historian Mark Singleton: http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2610. As far as I know, his position isn't really radical.

As far as the earlier accusation that I was being ethnocentric by pointing all of this out ... the insistence that yoga springs from ancient Hinduism and is not worthwhile unless it has that pure connection to the East is also a kind of ethnocentrism -- it's a pretty classic example of Orientalism, exoticising and essentiallizing the East rather than accepting it on its own merits.

Anonymous wrote:Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist. If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

Could you flesh this out a bit? Because it doesn't seem to follow.

Anonymous wrote:

RantingAtheist wrote:One last thing: this is usually where the discussion goes of the rails, and we get the inevitable response, "How dare you call me crazy!"

To reiterate, statements like this make you look like a douchebag.

Thanks for reminding me; you're right, of course. What I should have said is, this is where the discussion goes of the rails and the response is either "how dare you call me crazy" or, in your case, some variation of "go fuck yourself."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, yes, thanks for reminding me of hypocrisy quote, and I'll try not to use it too much against you. I guess the only relevant thing is that you seemed to direct it right at me, and that's what riled me up.

Yes, the NT is very accepting to non-believers and strangers. And Jesus was also not bothered about the guy who did miracles in His name. For me the bottom line is really that a non-Christian celebrating Lent is welcome to get whatever he or she wants out of it.

However, the issue of nasty atheist posters is a separate issue, and I do think they need to be challenged. If it takes some frank talk, instead of sweet talk, then I don't see a problem with challenging them frankly.

Oh no, I didn't mean it toward you. I don't really know which poster you are. I thought that you were commenting that my post was judgmental, and I was defending it by pointing out that Jesus also criticized people who tried to deny access to God. Maybe I should have quoted Luke so that it would have been clearer: '“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” It's the same passage, but Jesus' point is that the Pharisees tried to put barriers between ordinary people and God by denying them access to knowledge.

In any case, I do agree that there are some mean-spirited atheist posters. I'll probably post something on that at some point. But I mostly post if I think I can change something for the better. But I can't convince Christians to be more Christian, so what influence would I have on atheists?

Sadly, I really didn't get much discussion going about inclusiveness aside from your comments, which is a shame. That was the purpose of this whole thread.

I'm a new poster to this thread, and an atheist. I would suggest that you approach angry atheists with sympathy and kindness. Speaking in general terms - the angry ones are the ones are the ones who were personally hurt, sometimes very deeply, by religion in some way. I personally grew up in a non-practicing Unitarian household, so you can see religion didn't hold that much power in my relationships at an early age. I have very few problems with people who are religious, except the convert by the sword types. Typically when I talk to someone who is angry about religion it turns out religion was used to hurt or control them in the past (or someone - typically a mother - is trying to use it to control them now.) If you approach it as an argument about logic you will lose - twice over, because it will descend into name calling - and we all lose when we start calling each other names.

Once again, please explain for us how Mother Theresa, who had a little doubt, is an atheist.

If you can't explain this, your fairy analogy falls apart.

The question is NOT whether doubt per se is good, bad, sane or crazy. I've already agreed with you that a little doubt is good and normal for a person of faith. The only difference between Mother Theresa and you is that she had some doubt and you have a lot. So please get off this red herring.