worldling

On this board, a Christian wrote:
I find "clinging" an interesting choice of words here. To a freethinker, the idea of clinging to a truth is absurd. If you have to make the effort to cling to it, the chances are it is not true.

Truth has its own gravity. You do not have to cling to it any more than you have to cling to the Earth to keep youself from flying off into space.

Reading these boards – especially BC&A, E/C, and this one – you will find a few religionists doing a lot of clinging. Makes you wonder what planet they are on…

No, wait…Kronos

happyboy

i totally agree. theists are living in a fantasy world with a sky faerie granting their requests on a whim, and killing them on a whim. they live in a world of superstition and terror, where the sky faerie they worship does horrific things on a daily basis, just because He can.

i and other non-believers, on the other hand, live in a universe where bad things happen, yes, but not because some sky faerie wishes it so. people like you and i live in a cosmos that can be scientifically understood, without the hypocrisy of religion of the nonsense of the occult. we live in a universe where simple unbiased observation and critical thinking will unlock untold benefits. you and i live in a universe where people are the masters of the own fates, not some invisible pink unicorn that has no ethics and fears no punishments for It's psychotic behavior.

happyboy, glad he lives in a rational universe

scumble

Truth ought to exist independently of the way you feel about it. Whether or not a person "clings" to something is irrelevant. I'll agree it's possible to cling to stuff that is nowhere near the truth. It really depends whether you have a handle on truth at all.

Daisy

Hmmm, I don't see why a person can't cling to the truth like they would cling to the ground. Yeah, it's kinda insane, but many people are insane.

daria

"Clinging," to me, conjures an image of holding onto something really small with a huge void underneath that you might fall into at any moment. (Too bad they don't know that if they would just let go, the void would turn out to be solid ground...)
I would think that if it was Truth one was actually holding onto--like others said about the ground, a person wouldn't need to cling at all. While it's kind of a sad image, Christianity tends to promote it. They separate themselves and look for persecution, to justify the image of the monster void. *shrug*

philechat

"Convictions are greater enemies of truth than lies." ~Nietzsche

"The problem is that while the fools and the fanatics are so certain of themselves, the wise men are full of doubt." ~Russell

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." ~Voltaire