Irrational Atheists
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You made good points, but the matter goes even deeper and exposes (once again) the *irrationality* and illogic of the 'atheist' (generic) ... and also exposes the fact that he (generic) doesn't merely "lack belief that there is a God," that he is not indifferent to the issue; that, in fact, he (generic) is every bit the "theist" that you and I are, but that he hates God, whereas you and I are trying to love God. Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children [ignoring the small matters: 1) that "atheism" tends to the state of childlessness, 2) it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian]. For, after all, were 'atheism' the truth about the nature of reality, then it wouldn't *matter* in the least whether a person were an 'atheist' or a Christian: all die, and that's the end of the matter. From their *own* claimed point of view we see that it is an act of irrationality to oppose *any* religion (per se). Apparently, they don't believe what they believe.
Ilíon wrote:
- it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian
*giggles* Read a history book or 25 and then make that statement. Forced conversions at sword/spear/gunpoint are a fundamental feature of human history.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein
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Ah yes, here comes the little peep from the peanut-gallery apologist crowd. Good job, thanks for coming out. Don't call us, we'll call you.
A truly rational mind would appreciate the importance of not merely the peanut-gallery, but the apology also.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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Ilíon wrote:
Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children
So since atheists do not believe in God, they should not care that children are forcibly indoctrinated to believe in God? Excellent argument!
Ilíon wrote:
he (generic) is every bit the "theist" that you and I are, but that he hates God, whereas you and I are trying to love God.
You are literally unable to comprehend that someone could not believe in God, but yet you imagine yourself to be logical, and imagine yourself to win debates with atheists. You are absolutely pathetic and laughable. :laugh:
Furthermore, in Galileo's time and for quite some time afterwards, the "scientific evidence" was *against* heliocentrism. - Ilion
DemonPossessed wrote:
So since atheists do not believe in God, they should not care that children are forcibly indoctrinated to believe in God? Excellent argument!
If you don't believe in peanuts, who cares if your kids spend 5 minutes a year thinking about imaginary peanuts? Yeah, absolutely you shouldn't care, which is why it's so puzzling that you do.
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Here is a rebuttal by Dr. Ravi Zacharias titled "Why I am not an atheist." It's an MP3. This is part 1, I can't seem to find a link to part 2... Agree or disagree, I think you'll find it interesting. He's an extremely articulate speaker. http://htod.cdncon.com/o2/rzimht/MP3/LMPT/131-1.mp3[^] I think you'll find him surprisingly fair.
modified on Friday, February 22, 2008 2:35 PM
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A truly rational mind would appreciate the importance of not merely the peanut-gallery, but the apology also.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Now you sound like the Shithead.
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DemonPossessed wrote:
So since atheists do not believe in God, they should not care that children are forcibly indoctrinated to believe in God? Excellent argument!
If you don't believe in peanuts, who cares if your kids spend 5 minutes a year thinking about imaginary peanuts? Yeah, absolutely you shouldn't care, which is why it's so puzzling that you do.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
If you don't believe in peanuts, who cares if your kids spend 5 minutes a year thinking about imaginary peanuts? Yeah, absolutely you shouldn't care, which is why it's so puzzling that you do.
What an irrelevant and useless analogy.
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Vincent Reynolds wrote:
I suspect that has somewhat more to do with the fact that no one is trying to encourage your kids to pray to Ganesh in school.
No offense, but this isn't it and you know it. I'm Catholic, and Christian theology in public life is predominately Protestant. There is much in recent history to support bad blood between our sects, yet I don't get upset at the idea of some sliver of Protestant theology making its way into the lives of kids. Because I know that I can take them to Mass and they forget all about it. A ten-minute talk with your kids, one time, would head all of the attempted religious indoctrination off at the pass. What you're upset about is the implication by religious people that you are lacking. That you are evil. News flash: you probably are lacking and you probably are evil. If you're not, then get over it. Life is too short to worry about whether or not some person you've never met thinks you're going to imaginary Hell.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
No offense, but this isn't it and you know it. I'm Catholic, and Christian theology in public life is predominately Protestant. There is much in recent history to support bad blood between our sects, yet I don't get upset at the idea of some sliver of Protestant theology making its way into the lives of kids. Because I know that I can take them to Mass and they forget all about it. A ten-minute talk with your kids, one time, would head all of the attempted religious indoctrination off at the pass.
No offense, but what Christian theology in public life? Your kids aren't asked to pray in school (unless you're sending them to parochial school, of course). When someone in government tries to bring religion overtly into their job -- Ashcroft, for instance -- their behavior is seen as wrong. (Secular government of religious men, right?) Outside of government, who gives a rat's ass? Street corner preachers, atheist college professors with book deals -- it just doesn't matter. School, however -- public school, anyway -- is a government institution, and should not include Christian theology outside studies of comparative religion. That was my point.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
What you're upset about is the implication by religious people that you are lacking. That you are evil.
Again, I don't give a rat's ass what atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or Scientologists think of my beliefs, my completeness as a human being, or my likely disposition in the hereafter. I'm comfortable in my philosophy (I'm not an atheist, by the way), and being damned by someone's God in which I do not believe -- by proxy, no less -- means nothing to me.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
News flash: you probably are lacking and you probably are evil. If you're not, then get over it. Life is too short to worry about whether or not some person you've never met thinks you're going to imaginary Hell.
I'm not the one getting upset. That would be Ilíon.
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Now you sound like the Shithead.
All I can say is that the only thing that trully horrifies me is the spectre of a society that cannot happily tolerate intellectual competition from the various peanut galleries. I've decided that I am actually a monistic idealist.[^] I arrived at these tenants on my own, and was quite surprised to recently discover there is actually an entire philosophy dedicated to these ideas. As with everything else, there are those who are trying to make yet another religion out of it. But for me it is just an interesting way of thinking about the universe, no religion necessary. You just never know what kinds of interesting insights might pop out of the occassional peanut gallery.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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IamChrisMcCall wrote:
No offense, but this isn't it and you know it. I'm Catholic, and Christian theology in public life is predominately Protestant. There is much in recent history to support bad blood between our sects, yet I don't get upset at the idea of some sliver of Protestant theology making its way into the lives of kids. Because I know that I can take them to Mass and they forget all about it. A ten-minute talk with your kids, one time, would head all of the attempted religious indoctrination off at the pass.
No offense, but what Christian theology in public life? Your kids aren't asked to pray in school (unless you're sending them to parochial school, of course). When someone in government tries to bring religion overtly into their job -- Ashcroft, for instance -- their behavior is seen as wrong. (Secular government of religious men, right?) Outside of government, who gives a rat's ass? Street corner preachers, atheist college professors with book deals -- it just doesn't matter. School, however -- public school, anyway -- is a government institution, and should not include Christian theology outside studies of comparative religion. That was my point.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
What you're upset about is the implication by religious people that you are lacking. That you are evil.
Again, I don't give a rat's ass what atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or Scientologists think of my beliefs, my completeness as a human being, or my likely disposition in the hereafter. I'm comfortable in my philosophy (I'm not an atheist, by the way), and being damned by someone's God in which I do not believe -- by proxy, no less -- means nothing to me.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
News flash: you probably are lacking and you probably are evil. If you're not, then get over it. Life is too short to worry about whether or not some person you've never met thinks you're going to imaginary Hell.
I'm not the one getting upset. That would be Ilíon.
Vincent Reynolds wrote:
School, however -- public school, anyway -- is a government institution
No it isn't, at least not in a Jeffersonian society. The government has simply declared them to be its own so that it can control what is taught. Thats known as 'political indoctrination' in most parts of the world.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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DemonPossessed wrote:
So since atheists do not believe in God, they should not care that children are forcibly indoctrinated to believe in God? Excellent argument!
If you don't believe in peanuts, who cares if your kids spend 5 minutes a year thinking about imaginary peanuts? Yeah, absolutely you shouldn't care, which is why it's so puzzling that you do.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
If you don't believe in peanuts, who cares if your kids spend 5 minutes a year thinking about imaginary peanuts? Yeah, absolutely you shouldn't care, which is why it's so puzzling that you do.
That is only puzzling to you and Ilion because you have trouble understanding even the most basic concepts related to religion and atheism, yet try to argue about it and only succeed in making fools out of yourselves. There is a bit more to Christianity than believing in an imaginary God. There is the fear of going to hell if you don't follow the commandments from the Bible. There is the teaching that a morally perfect God sacrificed his own son to himself. So it stands to reason that atheists do not want children indoctrinated with that. The fact that you say that atheists shouldn't care is ludicrous and even most Christians would be intelligent enough not to try to argue that.
Furthermore, in Galileo's time and for quite some time afterwards, the "scientific evidence" was *against* heliocentrism. - Ilion
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You made good points, but the matter goes even deeper and exposes (once again) the *irrationality* and illogic of the 'atheist' (generic) ... and also exposes the fact that he (generic) doesn't merely "lack belief that there is a God," that he is not indifferent to the issue; that, in fact, he (generic) is every bit the "theist" that you and I are, but that he hates God, whereas you and I are trying to love God. Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children [ignoring the small matters: 1) that "atheism" tends to the state of childlessness, 2) it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian]. For, after all, were 'atheism' the truth about the nature of reality, then it wouldn't *matter* in the least whether a person were an 'atheist' or a Christian: all die, and that's the end of the matter. From their *own* claimed point of view we see that it is an act of irrationality to oppose *any* religion (per se). Apparently, they don't believe what they believe.
Ilíon wrote:
Apparently, they don't believe what they believe.
the above is the most irrational thing, you've drivelled.
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
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Ilíon wrote:
Apparently, they don't believe what they believe.
the above is the most irrational thing, you've drivelled.
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
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Since I don't drivel and don't say irrational things, your assessment is, well, as shallow as you are. ;P
Got another one. Just like fishing with dynamite as my grand pappy taught me. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
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Got another one. Just like fishing with dynamite as my grand pappy taught me. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
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IamChrisMcCall wrote:
No offense, but this isn't it and you know it. I'm Catholic, and Christian theology in public life is predominately Protestant. There is much in recent history to support bad blood between our sects, yet I don't get upset at the idea of some sliver of Protestant theology making its way into the lives of kids. Because I know that I can take them to Mass and they forget all about it. A ten-minute talk with your kids, one time, would head all of the attempted religious indoctrination off at the pass.
No offense, but what Christian theology in public life? Your kids aren't asked to pray in school (unless you're sending them to parochial school, of course). When someone in government tries to bring religion overtly into their job -- Ashcroft, for instance -- their behavior is seen as wrong. (Secular government of religious men, right?) Outside of government, who gives a rat's ass? Street corner preachers, atheist college professors with book deals -- it just doesn't matter. School, however -- public school, anyway -- is a government institution, and should not include Christian theology outside studies of comparative religion. That was my point.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
What you're upset about is the implication by religious people that you are lacking. That you are evil.
Again, I don't give a rat's ass what atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or Scientologists think of my beliefs, my completeness as a human being, or my likely disposition in the hereafter. I'm comfortable in my philosophy (I'm not an atheist, by the way), and being damned by someone's God in which I do not believe -- by proxy, no less -- means nothing to me.
IamChrisMcCall wrote:
News flash: you probably are lacking and you probably are evil. If you're not, then get over it. Life is too short to worry about whether or not some person you've never met thinks you're going to imaginary Hell.
I'm not the one getting upset. That would be Ilíon.
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You made good points, but the matter goes even deeper and exposes (once again) the *irrationality* and illogic of the 'atheist' (generic) ... and also exposes the fact that he (generic) doesn't merely "lack belief that there is a God," that he is not indifferent to the issue; that, in fact, he (generic) is every bit the "theist" that you and I are, but that he hates God, whereas you and I are trying to love God. Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children [ignoring the small matters: 1) that "atheism" tends to the state of childlessness, 2) it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian]. For, after all, were 'atheism' the truth about the nature of reality, then it wouldn't *matter* in the least whether a person were an 'atheist' or a Christian: all die, and that's the end of the matter. From their *own* claimed point of view we see that it is an act of irrationality to oppose *any* religion (per se). Apparently, they don't believe what they believe.
Ilíon wrote:
Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children
Consider: if our 'conservatives' actually believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even if it were true that Marxists were trying to forcibly indoctrinate their children.
Ilíon wrote:
- that "atheism" tends to the state of childlessness
That's funny. You do know that "be fruitful and multiply" isn't just an edict from on high; it's also an expression of biological imperative.
Ilíon wrote:
- it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian].
True, but it is possible to force someone to act like a Christian, which seems to be all the God-botherers really care about.
Ilíon wrote:
For, after all, were 'atheism' the truth about the nature of reality, then it wouldn't *matter* in the least whether a person were an 'atheist' or a Christian: all die, and that's the end of the matter.
Have you read Dawkins? He makes the argument that if you take away the afterlife, all you have is your short time here, and you are more inclined to treasure every moment. Religion is full of talk that the inevitable misery and suffering of this world doesn't matter (or, more cruelly, is a "test"), and all will be well after you die. Which of these beliefs sounds more likely to create a feeling that life doesn't matter? How many suicide bombers are atheists?
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Ilíon wrote:
Consider: if our 'atheists' *actually* believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even were it true that Christians were trying to forceably indoctrinate their children
Consider: if our 'conservatives' actually believed what they say they believe, it wouldn't bother them the least little bit even if it were true that Marxists were trying to forcibly indoctrinate their children.
Ilíon wrote:
- that "atheism" tends to the state of childlessness
That's funny. You do know that "be fruitful and multiply" isn't just an edict from on high; it's also an expression of biological imperative.
Ilíon wrote:
- it's *impossible* to force anyone to be a Christian].
True, but it is possible to force someone to act like a Christian, which seems to be all the God-botherers really care about.
Ilíon wrote:
For, after all, were 'atheism' the truth about the nature of reality, then it wouldn't *matter* in the least whether a person were an 'atheist' or a Christian: all die, and that's the end of the matter.
Have you read Dawkins? He makes the argument that if you take away the afterlife, all you have is your short time here, and you are more inclined to treasure every moment. Religion is full of talk that the inevitable misery and suffering of this world doesn't matter (or, more cruelly, is a "test"), and all will be well after you die. Which of these beliefs sounds more likely to create a feeling that life doesn't matter? How many suicide bombers are atheists?
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Vincent Reynolds wrote:
... means nothing to me.
And yet, here you are ... *acting* as though this all matters in some way to you.
Vincent Reynolds wrote:
I'm not the one getting upset. That would be Ilíon.
Are you blind? Or is it that you can't read?
Ilíon wrote:
And yet, here you are ... *acting* as though this all matters in some way to you.
Insomuch as it's an interesting mental exercise, I suppose it "matters" as much as the daily crossword puzzle.
Ilíon wrote:
Are you blind? Or is it that you can't read?
I am not blind (although I don't see how that fact is relevant to this argument). I can obviously read. But even if I were sightless and illiterate, it would not change the fact that logic always fails you, your arguments inevitably degenerate, and you are left spouting nothing but dismissive condescension. That's where you stop being even mildly entertaining.
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Vincent Reynolds wrote:
School, however -- public school, anyway -- is a government institution
No it isn't, at least not in a Jeffersonian society. The government has simply declared them to be its own so that it can control what is taught. Thats known as 'political indoctrination' in most parts of the world.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
No it isn't, at least not in a Jeffersonian society. The government has simply declared them to be its own so that it can control what is taught. Thats known as 'political indoctrination' in most parts of the world.
In the ideal Jeffersonian society, perhaps not. In this society, however, schools are indeed funded by government. And, while I disagree that any indoctrination is being done, if it is done I'd much rather it be political, leaving the religious indoctrination to home and church where it belongs.
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Ilíon wrote:
Simple logical reasoning seems out of your grasp.
Wow. Guess you got me real good with that one. Ouch. Well said. There I was, feeling all smug about my actual logical refutation of your comments, expecting you to slide into your usual dismissive condescending jackassery, and then you go and skewer me with your unassailable reason. "Simple logical reasoning seems out of your grasp." Oh, snap! Excellent! Well done! Kudos, sir, kudos.