Posted on 12/29/2011 1:01:09 PM PST by daletoons
Atheist militant Richard Dawkins has produced a children's book entitled "The Magic of Reality" and in doing so has joined the Millstone Swim and Dive Club. Spreading his venom for God to kids under the guise of Scientism is about as putrid as it gets. Children using simple God-given logic conclude the existence of a creator. It requires an abandonment of logic to attain self omniscience and declare there is no God. The materialist's faith in the escape hatch of "there just wasn't enough evidence for me" won't wash on judgement day. Here's a book idea: The ghost of Christopher Hitchens, Jacob Marley style, appears to Richard Dawkins and sets him straight. Dickey would probably make a hash of it, too bad Hitchens isn't still around to write it.
If I don’t believe in God I have to pretend I don’t have dreams? That makes no sense to me. Care to explain it further (and without any name-dropping, because I do not care what some guy named Daniel says.)
1. Your explanation of theism and a theism is a verbal snare and a poor attempt. It has nothing to do with whether or not believing there is no God is a belief system. Try dealing with the two posits of believing in God, or not believing in God, then you might get somewhere.
2. There are a lot of hugely variant religious beliefs, as far as the difference between objectivists and communists. Just try Muslims vs. Christians or Muslims vs. Buddhists, or Scientologists vs. Hindus. Your point proves nothing as it is false, nor does it try to explain why believing there is no God is simply another belief.
3. The "other side" as you call it never just says they just don't believe that. Many of them have their constructs and rationales, as well as rules, history (such as killing only 200 or so million in the name of secular socialism in just one century), projected futures, the whole nine yards. What you are saying, is once again false, but has no relevance to the discussion of whether or not believing there is no God is a belief system.
4. You offered me nos such thing, rather the chance to comment on belief vs unbelief (not as you just described it in this particular note of yours), and I refused only until you actually addressed my question, not as you suppose that "it would expose" anything in particular. You sound silly when you make charges like that. The difference between belief and unbelief in anything has nothing to do with whether or not belief there is no God is simply another belief system.
5. I have no idea what you are saying in this number, nor did you say anything like this to me. It's silly to say that you can acquire a value system without believing in it (if that's what you are saying).
6. Once again, you did not explain this to me, and even so, what you are saying is false. Belief almost always comes from observation, has evidence and reason to back it up, and no one is confused about this fact other than you.
7. Your story was cute, but it had no bearing on my question. Hey, I thought your side had no stories!!! :-)
And finally: 8. You tried! sort of....When I stopped believing in God, I didn't replace it with anything.
I commend you for suggesting that, but beg to differ, you even admit it in your next sentence: I simply stopped worrying about it all and concentrated on making my life as much to my liking as I can. It's pretty clear, you simply switched belief systems, you can't say concentrating on making your life as much to your liking as you can is not a belief system and be accurate. You have to believe that acting in certain ways will make your life better (or as you say to your liking), yes?
So, then you end with ascribing motives to me you have no possible way of knowing, motives you can't give a shred of evidence for, not one bit, and then putting up some kind of straw man who calls you and infidel.
Pardon me if I think your argument is shallow at best, I do believe (dang that dwatted word!) you have not done a good job in answering my question, nor have you been successful in showing you are correct in positing that choosing to believe that God does not exist is nothing more than another belief system.
The *dead noob* was a troll and that's why he got zotted. He didn't get zotted for being an atheist.
If atheism were a reason to be zotted, YOU wouldn't be here. Nor would a bunch of other FReepers.
I've seen *religious* noobs also get the zot for being trolls.
Stop being such a martyr. It doesn't wear well.
Then you're forced into a position of explaining what it is that makes you, you. What it is that thinks and feels and reasons and chooses. Your consciousness, as it were. The part of you that is not the physical body.
And then there's the added complication of giving it a name.
So... ball's in your court.
A few years later, a relative of mine was put on Prozac for a while. Again... dramatic change.
I realize my stories are anecdotal, but that is how I perceive the world. I don't sit at books and read what other people think. I look around and I do my own thinking. Far as I can tell, personalities are simply part of the physical body. Anyone who has animals can tell you that they have personalities too. Mellow dogs, hyper dogs, mean cats, sweet cats... if the soul is where the personality comes from, either animals have them, or they should not have personalities. And physical changes shouldn't affect them.
“If I don’t believe in God I have to pretend I don’t have dreams? That makes no sense to me.”
Spirited: What ‘makes no sense’ is your selective rejection of the unseen dimension. On one hand you choose (free will) to reject the supernatural God and your own soul because neither one can be sensed in any way. On the other hand you choose (free will) to accept the existence of your unseen mind and its abilities, ie., dreams.
You disbelieve in the Holy Spirit because He cannot be sensed yet you accept the reality of dreams experienced during times of unconsciousness. And yet if asked to provide sensory evidence of your dreams you could not do so but nevertheless expect to be believed.
This: nor have you been successful in showing you are correct in positing that choosing to believe that God does not exist is nothing more than another belief system.
Was meant to say this: nor have you been successful in showing you are correct in positing that choosing to believe that God does not exist is not simply another belief system.
*Feeling sheepish*
Excuse me? Did you really just write that? Sir, you are either a liar or a fool.
1.)I explained the actual meaning of the prefix a- in atheist: Asexual means lack of sexuality, not a different sexuality. Atypical means not typical, not a different kind of typical. Arrhythmic means no rhythm, not a different kind of rhythm. My post #427 to you
2.)I demonstrated that there is no predictable worldview that goes with atheism: Some atheists are objectivists, some are communists. Some don't have any particular political philosophy. Some don't even think about these matters. My post #296 to you
3.)I explained by description: One side has a whole belief system, complete with characters, stories, rules, laws, proverbs, prophecies, a history, a projected future, a homeland, everything. The other side just says “I don’t believe that.”My post #303 to you
4.) I offered YOU the chance to describe this fabled Belief System of the Atheist for me – you didn’t even dare to try, knowing it would expose your little game immediately.My post #310 to you
5.) I have explained the systems we DO work by: “value-based rather than belief-based. We may have values, we may have priorities, we may operate on assumptions (until they are proven wrong, in which case we adapt and keep going) but there is no belief system.”My post #316 to you
6.) I explained to you that you were confusing acceptance of certain truths with “beliefs” as in” I don't distrust gravity because all the evidence supports that gravity is in effect and will remain so. But if tomorrow I start floating, I'll abandon that assumption immediately.”My post #318 to you
7.) Finally, I gave you an analogy so that you could see the difference between unbelief and active belief. You didn’t even read it.My post #450 to you
8.) My last post to you, which is apparently the only one you even tried to read.
You have just proven that you either never actually read any of my posts (which certainly explains why you couldn't understand them), you are too lazy to fact check, or you're a liar.
I'm not sure which one it is, but you just lost any credibility with me. Until you can deal with the major snafu you just committed, don't expect me to waste anymore time on you. Deal with this correctly, or you'll just be another sad sack following me around posting long-winded drivel that I don't bother to read.
But I DO see my dreams. You make no sense to me.
The soul can effect the body. People’s attitudes can affect their well being. Worry, stress, fear, etc. can all lead to all kinds of syndromes and diseases.
Besides, even with the body affecting the soul and the people who suffer head injuries having personality changes, they still can think and feel and reason and choose. That hasn’t changed.
When my mother was in the hospital dying from cancer, the evening before she died, I went in to visit her as usual, and when I walked into the room, there was a sense of vacancy. Her body was still there, but there was a sense that she was gone and her body just didn’t know it yet and kept functioning.
There is no rational reason for that because she was resting unconscious as I had seen her every day for the previous week. But I KNEW something was different. It hit me like running into a wall. SHE was gone. I had to back out of the room to compose myself.
I called home and told my brother about it and he just poo-pooed it and sure enough about 4 hours later he got the call that she had died.m My b-i-l warned me that that would happen, the *look of death* he called it, from watching his own father die.
Yeah, I know anecdotal, but as real as anything I’ve ever experienced.
There is SOMETHING beyond just the human body that makes us human and makes us alive.
Yes. It’s a personality. That’s all it is. Sorry.
Nope. You don’t understand.
Those words don’t mean what you think they mean.
Are there other worlds out there?
Oh, we all understand a lot more than you can find comfortable.
“there are dozens of religious threads on FR. I stay off of them.”
Clearly you don’t. You’re here.
”Only when a thread picking on a specific atheist comes on do I say anything”
Which Atheist? Dawkins? You deem an eminent scientist such as he in dire need of your defense? Do you presume that Dawkins frequents FR, and is desperate to read your rebuttal to his attackers? Does he send you “Thank You” notes and birthday cards (obviously not Christmas cards)? You are aware, are you not, that Dawkins is notorious for his relentless and vicious attacks on Christians (delusional psychopaths who worship a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent god)? He has written a book on the subject (The God Delusion) and uses the excuse of its promotion to continue to constantly launch his well-publicized venomous attacks on Christians.
“As for why I stay to argue, I speak because people address me and ask questions.”
Really? Those questions just came flying in over the transom unsolicited? They did not ever arise in response to your assertions? Your initial post in this thread was to daletoons in response to his opening post which customarily is addressed to everyone generally. You certainly had every right to respond, but you had no compelling reason to feel an obligation to respond. Drop the “little old helpless you” routine. It makes you look silly. Everyone knows the drill. Your standard modus operandi is to lodge a provocative post and, tally-ho! we’re of on another running battle.
”If you look at this thread with any honesty, you'll see that if I stop answering questions, I get attacked as having "run away."
Looking at this thread honestly, I see that you could hardly be accused of “running away” from a thread if you had not first entered it.
“So really, there is no way to please Christians.”
You’re not here to please Christians. Who do you think you’re kidding?
“If you speak, they demand answers and explanations.”
If you make assertions, be prepared to support them. That’s how it works in JR’s forum.
“If you don't give them (answers and explanations), they accuse you of cowardice and avoidance.”
Don’t know about “cowardice.” Who has done that? If you make assertions (especially ones that are provocative), but refuse to support those assertions, than that certainly is avoidance. What do you want? A free ride?
“If you do give them (answers), they try to get you zotted or invoke JR to shut you down.
I’ve never known anyone to get the zot who did not deserve it. The house rules impose little else than civility and JR is a remarkably tolerant host. Don’t whine.
“Why don't you just admit that what you want is to abuse and revile atheists and they had better keep quiet and keep their heads down or else.”
The shin kicking getting a little tough for you, is it? Maybe you shouldn’t start shin kicking contests. This thread has been pretty tame. Don’t know what’s your complaint.
“Which reveals to me that Christians have not really changed much since the days that they DID seek out atheists and murder them.”
You suffer from a very selective memory (we must think from a overwhelming need to propagandize). The Twentieth Century will be known as the “Atheist Century,” when Atheist governments sprang up all over the surface of the globe like a festering skin disease. It was their shining moment to show us all how it’s to be done properly. How did they do? In the Soviet Empire? In East Berlin and the countries of Eastern Europe? In China? In Cambodia? In Viet Nam? In Burma? In Cuba? In any country where Atheist thugs held sway?
In the Twentieth Century it has been Christians (really the whole Judeo-Christian tradition) who have been relentlessly pursued and targeted for murder (see The Voice of the Martyrs, serving with the persecuted church since 1967)
Some time ago I gave you a concise but fairly comprehensive description of the labors that Christian Western Civilization has gone through in the last two thousand years to regulate the issues of the meaning of lawful war, the origins of war, the avarice and cruelty of war, the treatment of prisoners, when the right of conquest and the claiming of the spoils of war are just and when they are not, the rights of discovery and the treatment of native peoples, the securing of peace as the prime objective of war, questions of maritime law, redress for injuries, restitution of property and recompense for wrongs done, and the laws of embassy and envoys. I suggested that no competing civilization or philosophy had even approached that accomplishment – ever. Your response was silence. Apparently you could find no adequate rejoinder to my point, so suck it up, cupcake, and take your pity party down the street.
“Nowadays, the only way you can persecute them(Atheists) is online. So you do.
Oh, those mean ole Christians won’t abjectly assent to anything you poor little meek Atheists assert. Poor you. More pity party.
Give it up dear Lady. You’re busted. Your arguments are vapid and evasive. Everyone can see through your circumventions. You think to avoid taking responsibility for your advocacy by declaring disengagement from the world, permitting you to stand off at a distance and snipe.
I’m sorry for the pain you feel, made so obvious by the burning resentment you exhibit. I wish I could assuage your pain, but that task falls to you. Your bile harms only you. The person (or persons) who abused you bears responsibility for the abuse (it’s called “free will”), not the Judeo-Christian God you damn.
Excellent response. I’ve dealt with that one before, and I pray for her, she is angry and bitter and lost.
I, unfortunately, did read all of your posts, understood them quite well, and have replied to you with a lot of patience. You, on the other hand, just lose it, shriek like a banshee, call names, and generally are shown to be incapable of answering a simple, direct question.
Lost credibility? You lost it long ago when you couldn't answer an easy, clear question about your beliefs. You lose it more with every post.
It's easy to see why you can't grasp the obvious, that believing there is no God is simply another belief system that you happen to believe in (dwat that word!!!).
Thanks for the comeback.
Bingo!
Thank you oh so very much, dear brother in Christ, for those beautiful lyrics, the link and especially the Scripture!
Now I'm going to explain this one more time. You can read it or not. You can understand it or not:
Here is the deal: lack of belief is lack of belief, not belief. If you cannot understand this, you are dense. Any other silly semantic trick that any of you try only reveals that you are trying to create a worldview that defines away atheists because apparently our very existence is threatening to you somehow.
If you think you are presenting an image of Christianity that will impress anyone, I have bad news for you. You are hypocrites. It is hypocritical of you to address me and then try to shut me up when I answer. It is hypocritical to ask someone (like Muridae) questions and then seek to have him zotted when he answers. It is hypocritical to ask questions and then ignore the response and ask them again and again. It is hypocritical to claim I never addressed something to you when clearly I did.
And then finally, after pinging me and pinging me till my head feels like a sonar, (after I offered to leave at post #294) you ping JR like a child tattling on a playground? Well, do what you will, the fact remains. I'm an atheist and you cannot change that. You'd be better off accepting that (and I have said this before too) we have no starting point and debate is pointless. No amount of insults on your part will change that.
And now I am finished with you. Lakeshark, your actions have proven that you are not capable of honest debate. I'll not waste any more time on a man who isn't man enough to admit when he is wrong. I am perfectly willing to leave you the last word. If you really want what you say you want (for me to stop posting on this thread), you will not continue to address me. I hope I put that simply enough even for you.
perfect lady: But I DO see my dreams
Spirited: You do not see your dreams with your eyes since they are closed and you are unconscious. You ‘see’ them with your souls’ “mind’s eye”.
You accused me of ‘name-dropping’ for referring to Daniel Dennett, one of the contemporary West’s most infamous atheists. Be that as it may, I’m going to commit the same sin and refer to Carl Jung on the subject of dreams and the unconscious, not because his theories are true but because the dreadful consequences that befell Jung are useful for their testimony.
Like you, Jung rejected the supernatural Triune God. But as an avowed Gnostic he embraced the ancient notion of the divine one-substance (which he called Abraxas), continuity (all things are parts Abraxas), and evolutionary thinking in conjunction with reincarnation.
This being the case, Jung’s theories constitute a ‘scientistic-based’ religion that can be seen in his view of God as the collective unconscious (Abraxas) present in each person’s unconscious. For him religions were useful in that they revealed aspects of the unconscious (Abraxas) and could thus tap into a person’s psyche (soul).
Like the materialist Freud, Jung delved deeply into the occult. Unlike Freud he practiced necromancy, and had daily contact with disembodied spirits, which he called archetypes. Much of what he wrote was inspired by his spirit-guides. His own familiar spirit he called Philemon and described him as part man, part bull with the wings of a fisher.
At first he thought Philemon was part of his own psyche, but later on he reluctantly admitted that Philemon was not an aspect of his own inner self but rather an intelligence external to himself. Jung says:
“Philemon... brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself.... I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. . . . Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru.”
(Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 183)
It was from his spirit-guide Philemon and other spirits that Jung acquired “powers” which he demonstrated before a terrified Freud.
Too late did Jung finally realize that demons do in fact exist, for along with Philemon, multitudes of ‘dark shadows’ had become visible to him during his waking hours.
God IS. And you have an immortal soul of which mind is a part. Yes you dream, and as Jung discovered, unseen intelligences can affect dreams and ‘speak’ into your mind.
Eternity awaits you perfect lady. Do not spend it as the heavily-demonized Jung surely is. Listen to the sincere posters to this thread. They have your best-interest in mind.
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