Albert Cipriani

ATHEIST BREAKFAST
Reaching through refrigerator air,
I grasp a jug of dated milk and reach
the same conclusion for myself, that there
is no escaping heat death, no reprieve
from the universal law of thermodynamics
that's homogenizing our Milky Way
away along with the entire cosmic
order until utter stillness reigns.

As much as there is, there is not enough
for gravity. The center cannot hold
my waist size. Frigidaires are megaliths of
our consummation, gods of cold.

My curdled milk now orbits down the drain
Like sour thoughts corkscrewing through my brain.

***********************************
I hope the moderator gods do not damn this thread to the netherworld of other topics. For I mean by this poem to advance an aesthetic, not a rational, argument. I used to be an atheist, and this sonnet expresses, I think, a valid way of feeling about it.

Wishful thinking is not grounds for believing in God, but believing in God satisfies our wishful thinking. And what is wrong with that? Can you guys at least admit that Hope in God's existence is preferable to no hope in His existence?

I liken our worldly condition to that of prisoners chained together. One by one we are released and escorted through the soundproof prison doors. Those who remain in our chains can either assume that our comrades are being shot or being set free. The choice is ours. In fact, the choices we make are all that we are.

I'd rather choose hope than assume the worse. What is wrong with that? It's not even illogical. And such a choice helps my wrists and ankles not chaff so much against this chain of being. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Theli

Oh, really?
So an eternity in a paradise is nothing you would wish for then?
Or a god to answer your prayers?

I think wishful thinking is a very real ground for believing in god. Not for all people, but for many.

David Gould

Albert,

One of the main reasons I used to believe in God was because I thought it was better for humanity if such a being existed.

I held this position for 12 years until I started thinking about the concept of Hell.

This lead me to try to find a way around Hell and yet remain a Christian.

I came to the conclusion that it was impossible, yet still held to my belief.

Then I read Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason' which showed me that Christianity was based on lies.

My belief vanished and I felt a lot better.

I now see that it is better for humanity if such a being as described in the Bible does not exist.

Thus, even an atheist can have some wishful thinking in their minds when contemplating eternity.

I do not doubt that for many people the idea of God is a comfort. I do not begrudge them that. However, if they thought about it in the same way that I did they could gain comfort from the fact that He does not exist...

David

Theli

"The choice is ours. In fact, the choices we make are all that we are."

Good point taken...
Of course it's wrong to try to convert someone from what that person believe, whatever it might be.
Unless that persons beliefs include hurting or threatening others that is.

cloudyphiz

when milk has soured...
no wish or desire can
make it savory again.
-gary

sir drinks-a-lot

I liken our worldly condition to that of prisoners chained together. One by one we are released and escorted through the soundproof prison doors. Those who remain in our chains can either assume that our comrades are being shot or being set free. The choice is ours. In fact, the choices we make are all that we are.

I'd rather choose hope than assume the worse. What is wrong with that? It's not even illogical.

Those who remain in our chains can either assume that their comrades are being shot or being set free, but why assume anything? Why not just accept the realization that they don't know what has become of their comrades? I am an atheist, but I can still hope gods exist even without thinking that they do.

I enjoyed the poem. You have a way with words.

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: sir drinks-a-lot ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

Why then hope in the god of the bible? Why not make up your own fictional deity to hope in? So long as you're arguing for self-delusion, why not hope for Gaia? Or Allah? Or the Great And Powerful Too RAH Loo?

Albert, you seem to keep trying to argue for the poetry of it all, which is fine and dandy and quaint and utterly pointless.

Why not instead hope that mankind can stop hoping and instead start doing?

Hope that a fictional fairy tale will save you and you'll never save yourself; never change yourself; never grow to be a better person, because you'll always have your safe, fictional "out," your external redeemer instead of your internal barometer.

The Jesus that was taught to me as a young, impressionable Presbyterian cult member was an impossible ideal that I could never hope to reach and as such was always indirectly, deliberately, a failure (unlike the Catholic cult members and Fundamentalist cult members who were directly failures).

It has taken me thirty six years to get out from under that indoctrinated feeling of failure and it still haunts me, all because someone wanted to control my hopes and manipulate my ideals so that I could never, ever achieve them; that I would forever remain subordinate to them.

That's how you make a lifelong slave, not a productive, self-assured contributor to the human condition and while your poetry and rhetorical musings sound all rainbows and jumping frogs, what it has caused in human history is thousands of years of self-loathing, divisiveness and war.

So, "what's wrong with that?" Man's inhumanity to man is what's wrong with that; man's pious beliefs as opposed to treasured deeds is what's wrong with that; man's constant thought toward redemption for one's sins instead of the prevention of sins is what's wrong with that.

Cults do not offer hope. They sell it at a tremendous cost; individual self-worth.

Christianity detests pride and condemns self-confidence. Why?

What aspect of "hope" is served by pretending something is real that is not?

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Zar

Albert said:

Move over St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, a new iron clad proof for God's existence has arrived!

...not...

There is nothing objectionable to me about being hopeful, even when evidence seems to suggest that your chances aren't very good for the situation in question. But what of it? When taken as far as you do, this seems like a garden variety case of obfuscation of the issue and concept theft.

Hopefulness is an important drive that keeps members of the human race pushing toward the goals they set. But many religious zealots who make this line of argument conflate a healthy optimism, which is often the wellspring of positive change here on earth, with righteous justification. This is one of the main problems I have with them. They futher confuse their "optimism" with things it makes little sense to be "optimistic" about, such as the liklihood of eternal damnation, a potential the Christian God has set up but that many other Gods have not.

No, I don't think "hope" can be fitted squarely onto these beliefs. If "hoping is believing" as it were, I'd hope for something other than what Christians have to offer or that wrathful capricious God of the Bible (like universal salvation or perhaps measured punishment for the wicked, or, better yet, a world free from the conflict and pain that exists so we don't have to wish for another one.) Is this enough to make Yaweh evaporate from existence because I wish it? Or is it going to take a little more than my whim to make it so?

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Zar ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Theli,
You contradict me, saying,
By "grounds," I meant a logically justifiable basis for believing. Most people's belief in God rests on an aesthetic, or emotional basis rather than logic. – Albert

Albert Cipriani

Dear David,
That's a hell of a testimony. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Hell is a stumbling block for those who see it as everlasting punishment, which, on both counts, it is not. Eternity is not an infinite amount of time but no time at all and so hell is not everlasting. And hell is not punishment (Purgatory is) because punishment improves the recipient; but the damned, by definition, are unregenerate.

So hell ought to be conceived as the state of our reality in relation to Reality Itself. To the degree we are in love with the truth, all other things being equal, we should love Reality Itself. That is, who we are makes us hell or heaven in relation to God, depending upon our disposition to what’s real. Looked at this way, morality becomes the most real choice. Immorality becomes the most phony choice.

Most atheists I have known, including myself, are in love with the truth and for the most part are rejecting distortions of the truth. That's why I expect to see atheists in heaven. Maybe even you, assuming I make it! Sincerely, Albert