Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Lógos Sokratikós · 11-27-2006, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackwater

That is why I grasp at theistic straws.

Please elaborate. Thanks!

Jedi Mind Trick · 11-27-2006, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lógos Sokratikós

Please elaborate. Thanks!

I started a thread where I discuss it Here, but the short of it is that I suffer from depression and I have been dealing with some very tough personal issues this past year and I can’t bear it under atheistic assumptions.

I don’t think that the lack of an afterlife for myself bothers me. But I do think that all of the joy, pain, hard work, relationships, meaning and just plain life coming to nothing in the end bothers me and strikes me as a little absurd. What the hell was it all for? Just so my genes could get passed along? Is that all? For me the bother is in the lack of an absolute meaning.

So I find myself playing with just about every theistic concept; I change my persuasion about as often and as easily as a person changes their cloths. However, deep down, sort of baseline, my understanding is that there is something more, or it is my heart felt whish, anyway.

Today, I call myself a pantheist, mostly because it strikes my fancy; helps me get by.

fatpie42 · 11-27-2006, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackwater

Today, I call myself a pantheist, mostly because it strikes my fancy; helps me get by.

Yeah, I like pantheism. You don't even need to take it literally. It's just nice to imagine the world being animated by various individual deities, and it gives you someONE to curse when things go wrong.

Jedi Mind Trick · 11-27-2006, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatpie42

Yeah, I like pantheism. You don't even need to take it literally. It's just nice to imagine the world being animated by various individual deities, and it gives you someONE to curse when things go wrong.

I like the concept of everything being connected and one; that I am the tree, the woman, the cat, the dog, that rock, the sun... one with everything... even the nasty things are me and I am them and we are one.

darkbusker · 11-27-2006, 07:39 AM

Atheism sucks. Atheism is a knee jerk reaction to the evil of theism. It is an overeaction - a visceral vomiting against the disgusting defamation of God's character by religion.. Don't let theism throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you kill theism you bring God back to life. The essence of religion is blasphemy and denigration of God. Religion defines God as a man in the sky who resurrects the Jews who were tortured by Hitler, simply to torture them again forever in hell for not being Christians. Stop being an atheist and start searching for a rational basis for God. God hates religion. God is waiting for people like us to save HIM/HER/IT from hellfire superstition. Check out my new post. Enjoy your pain -its a renewal.

OldYgg · 11-27-2006, 10:44 AM

Last Christmas we lost my mother-in-law. The pain is consistent and compounded by the fact that my wife and I became pregnant (but did not know it) a few days before she died.

So, consistently, with my new son we miss her for realistic reasons that the dead do nothing in the real world and after my wife and I she was one of two people we would trust watching out sons.

She also died in a year that was a ready downer for us. We had two miscarriages in 2005.

It is compounded of course that she died on Christmas while we are not believers we do a family celebration with the closest family and exchange presents.

And worst of all is the poor medical treatment she received and the hospital's cover up in their post-mortem examination.

You see, the week before or so she went to the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wordrobe as one of my sister-in-laws won tickets to see it in London. She was overweight, retired for just about a year and didn't like flying.

There was a stomach flu going around at about the time she went to the hospital, passing out, bowel problems and difficulty breathing.

They diagnosed her with the stomach ailment (and they did do x-rays). That was Christmas Eve, my wife went with her to the hospital.

Christmas day - early in the morning we get a call that she is throwing up and in Cardiac arrest. She was dead before anyone could get back to the hospital. She had gotten better after she went to the hospital with my wife and had fluids given to her. My mother-in-law told my wife to go home that night - so no one was there with her when she died.

We had an independent medical examination as the reason the hospital gave for her dying did not match reality.

The independent examination indicated that she died of a DVT Deep Vein Thrombosis - and while they did not say it - it was most likely caused by the flight to England and back - also known as Economy Class Disease or something similar. She was 60 years old.

The pain of death over time has been tempered by the fact that I believe in the future. The future should be better than the past or the present. She has contributed to the future with 4 children who are all to varying degrees doing well. My wife and I are the only ones to provide her with grandchildren and with each passing year it seems less likely that there will be any other grandchildren than from our family.

She led a good life even though even her children admit that she was a fairly - hmmm - cranky person. My wife and one of her sisters even remarked that our youngest son, who seems eternally cranky (at 2.5 months old how else could he be?) reminded them of their mother.

I think that her contribution to the future is great and to continue on and contribute to the future is a way of continuing her contribution and making it worth something, for the family and for the future of humanity in general.

I am sorry for your loss, Lógos Sokratikós. It sounds like your grandfather has made many contributions to the future, just as I am sure you make (and will make) contributions to the future.

I am an only child, and it seems my greatest fear that my children should die. If they die, then it will be the end of two families as they are the only grandchildren. It would, in effect, be the end of any directly attributable contributions of the two families to the future or humanity.

Old Ygg

Lógos Sokratikós · 11-27-2006, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackwater

I started a thread where I discuss it Here, but the short of it is that I suffer from depression and I have been dealing with some very tough personal issues this past year and I can’t bear it under atheistic assumptions.

I don’t think that the lack of an afterlife for myself bothers me. But I do think that all of the joy, pain, hard work, relationships, meaning and just plain life coming to nothing in the end bothers me and strikes me as a little absurd. What the hell was it all for? Just so my genes could get passed along? Is that all? For me the bother is in the lack of an absolute meaning.

So I find myself playing with just about every theistic concept; I change my persuasion about as often and as easily as a person changes their cloths. However, deep down, sort of baseline, my understanding is that there is something more, or it is my heart felt whish, anyway.

Today, I call myself a pantheist, mostly because it strikes my fancy; helps me get by.

We likes pantheism too. Call it pantheism or paganism, it's akin to nature worship. Nature is all that is, or all that is that we know directly. I can feel grandfather "went back to nature" (although we never are "out of" nature). Every one of us is that ripple in the water of the universe, as Dawkins put it. Universe/nature/reality/creation, you name it.

It might strike you as odd: "Nature worhip?" I can answer, What is worship for you? For me it's devoting yourself to someone/something and praising it. I, as an atheist/humanist am devoted to reality: finding it, following it. My devotion is similar to a mystic trying to find God.

This isn't something that I suddenly decided to do. Lately, I don't fight language or the people around me (I'm kinda tired of that activism thing 24/7), so whenever they say "God bless you", "Si Dios quiere", "Dios te acompañe" (I'm hispanic, BTW), for me that "God" word is Nature/Universe/Life/Reality. That way social behavior is effective, my emotional life and my family attachments are ok, etc.

Anyway, I'm already a humanist: my devotion is to humanity and reality. And what is reality if it isn't nature, the universe?

Quote:

"If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain." Herbalist Carol McGrath as told to her by a Native-American woman.

Lógos Sokratikós · 11-27-2006, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldYgg

Last Christmas we lost my mother-in-law. The pain is consistent and compounded by the fact that my wife and I became pregnant (but did not know it) a few days before she died.

So, consistently, with my new son we miss her for realistic reasons that the dead do nothing in the real world and after my wife and I she was one of two people we would trust watching out sons.

She also died in a year that was a ready downer for us. We had two miscarriages in 2005.

It is compounded of course that she died on Christmas while we are not believers we do a family celebration with the closest family and exchange presents.

And worst of all is the poor medical treatment she received and the hospital's cover up in their post-mortem examination.

You see, the week before or so she went to the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wordrobe as one of my sister-in-laws won tickets to see it in London. She was overweight, retired for just about a year and didn't like flying.

There was a stomach flu going around at about the time she went to the hospital, passing out, bowel problems and difficulty breathing.

They diagnosed her with the stomach ailment (and they did do x-rays). That was Christmas Eve, my wife went with her to the hospital.

Christmas day - early in the morning we get a call that she is throwing up and in Cardiac arrest. She was dead before anyone could get back to the hospital. She had gotten better after she went to the hospital with my wife and had fluids given to her. My mother-in-law told my wife to go home that night - so no one was there with her when she died.

We had an independent medical examination as the reason the hospital gave for her dying did not match reality.

The independent examination indicated that she died of a DVT Deep Vein Thrombosis - and while they did not say it - it was most likely caused by the flight to England and back - also known as Economy Class Disease or something similar. She was 60 years old.

The pain of death over time has been tempered by the fact that I believe in the future. The future should be better than the past or the present. She has contributed to the future with 4 children who are all to varying degrees doing well. My wife and I are the only ones to provide her with grandchildren and with each passing year it seems less likely that there will be any other grandchildren than from our family.

She led a good life even though even her children admit that she was a fairly - hmmm - cranky person. My wife and one of her sisters even remarked that our youngest son, who seems eternally cranky (at 2.5 months old how else could he be?) reminded them of their mother.

I think that her contribution to the future is great and to continue on and contribute to the future is a way of continuing her contribution and making it worth something, for the family and for the future of humanity in general.

I am sorry for your loss, Lógos Sokratikós. It sounds like your grandfather has made many contributions to the future, just as I am sure you make (and will make) contributions to the future.

I am an only child, and it seems my greatest fear that my children should die. If they die, then it will be the end of two families as they are the only grandchildren. It would, in effect, be the end of any directly attributable contributions of the two families to the future or humanity.

Old Ygg

Genentic contribution only. Also, the people around you share 99% of their genes with you. A teacher once told me she felt all those kids she taught were like her kids. She's right.

Thomas II · 11-27-2006, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lógos Sokratikós

I am not anti-theist. I am anti-fundamentalism. Fundamentalism for me means putting your ideological agenda before compassion and other virtues. Cromwell was a fundamentalist. Torquemada also. But you know what? Stalin was too. He was so much into communism many times he went against the very people communism was designed to free.

I'm not against theism if theism is what "gets you through the night". If it is a consolation for when a loved one dies -great! I wish I believed in a candy-coated hereafter. When someone died when I was a theist, I was sad but satisfied that they were in some sort of hereafter and we would see each other again.

Last week, Saturday before dawn, my grandfather died (in pain before losing consciousness -i.e. the last thing he knew in this M-F@CKING world was excruciating pain). The pain I fell is terrible, for that and for the loss itself. I will never see him again. I wish I had visited my grandparents more often (when somebody dies you never feel that, however often it was, it's never often enough).

We criticize the biblegod for being unmerciful even though he's hailed as merciful, but reality -Life itself included- is cold and wicked. There is nothing to absolve this universe and life is senseless.

Pointing at Calvinism for it's emphasis on predestination? I'll tell you what's worse: this unfeeling atheistic universe is pure fate no one, not even the Calvinistic "elected", escape this relentless moira, this remorseless odious fate.

Deconverting people from theism doesn't look so dandy anymore, unless of course the person is obviously suffering because of it, like gay people still believing they'll go to hell. In other words, if someone is a "cafeteria catholic" (for instance), s/he has my blessing.

Lógos Sokratikós
Reluctant Atheist

My condolences...

But you will see your granpa again...There is a lot we don't know about, so leave it for when it's your time.
Don't say "This will not happen...There is no way...It's impossible..."
There is more "out there", Logos, than we can dream here with all our Philosophy...

So don't be "closed" to your granpa...
Nothing religious...Simply he is on another dimension.
Again, nothing too complicated or hocus pocus...
Nothing too concrete.
Simply be open to the unknown.
Do I understand all this?
No,I don't. But since I don't know, and I've had a few "experiences", I keep an open mind. Not because I think that eventually a religious god is going to show up and so on and so forth,because that in't it, but we don't know ALL about the mind, and about consciousness, and about energy, and about dimensionality...
Since your granpa was meaningful to you don't be surprised if he is the first person you actually see when your turn to leave this dimension comes around...
I see life as being multidimensional...

spamandham · 11-27-2006, 11:22 AM

I'm sorry for your loss. Nothing I say can lessen it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lógos Sokratikós

Of all the people at my grandad's Mass, I was the only one crying inconsolably.

As a result, you are also the only one who will eventually complete the grieving process and come to grips with your loss. The others are putting it off indefinitely in exchange for permanent cognitive dissonance that will cause them recurring fear throughout their lives.

I've lost two grandparents as an atheist. For me, keeping my own mortality in mind puts it in perspective. I will not be without them forever, because I will not be forever. My loss ends when my life ends. In that sense, it's no different than what believers think - the loss is temporary.

11-27-2006, 07:39 AM	#65
darkbusker Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: london England Posts: 50	Your despair and pain is wonderful news for the world Atheism sucks. Atheism is a knee jerk reaction to the evil of theism. It is an overeaction - a visceral vomiting against the disgusting defamation of God's character by religion.. Don't let theism throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you kill theism you bring God back to life. The essence of religion is blasphemy and denigration of God. Religion defines God as a man in the sky who resurrects the Jews who were tortured by Hitler, simply to torture them again forever in hell for not being Christians. Stop being an atheist and start searching for a rational basis for God. God hates religion. God is waiting for people like us to save HIM/HER/IT from hellfire superstition. Check out my new post. Enjoy your pain -its a renewal.

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11-27-2006, 10:44 AM	#66
OldYgg Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: New Jersey Posts: 1,107	Last Christmas we lost my mother-in-law. The pain is consistent and compounded by the fact that my wife and I became pregnant (but did not know it) a few days before she died. So, consistently, with my new son we miss her for realistic reasons that the dead do nothing in the real world and after my wife and I she was one of two people we would trust watching out sons. She also died in a year that was a ready downer for us. We had two miscarriages in 2005. It is compounded of course that she died on Christmas while we are not believers we do a family celebration with the closest family and exchange presents. And worst of all is the poor medical treatment she received and the hospital's cover up in their post-mortem examination. You see, the week before or so she went to the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wordrobe as one of my sister-in-laws won tickets to see it in London. She was overweight, retired for just about a year and didn't like flying. There was a stomach flu going around at about the time she went to the hospital, passing out, bowel problems and difficulty breathing. They diagnosed her with the stomach ailment (and they did do x-rays). That was Christmas Eve, my wife went with her to the hospital. Christmas day - early in the morning we get a call that she is throwing up and in Cardiac arrest. She was dead before anyone could get back to the hospital. She had gotten better after she went to the hospital with my wife and had fluids given to her. My mother-in-law told my wife to go home that night - so no one was there with her when she died. We had an independent medical examination as the reason the hospital gave for her dying did not match reality. The independent examination indicated that she died of a DVT Deep Vein Thrombosis - and while they did not say it - it was most likely caused by the flight to England and back - also known as Economy Class Disease or something similar. She was 60 years old. The pain of death over time has been tempered by the fact that I believe in the future. The future should be better than the past or the present. She has contributed to the future with 4 children who are all to varying degrees doing well. My wife and I are the only ones to provide her with grandchildren and with each passing year it seems less likely that there will be any other grandchildren than from our family. She led a good life even though even her children admit that she was a fairly - hmmm - cranky person. My wife and one of her sisters even remarked that our youngest son, who seems eternally cranky (at 2.5 months old how else could he be?) reminded them of their mother. I think that her contribution to the future is great and to continue on and contribute to the future is a way of continuing her contribution and making it worth something, for the family and for the future of humanity in general. I am sorry for your loss, Lógos Sokratikós. It sounds like your grandfather has made many contributions to the future, just as I am sure you make (and will make) contributions to the future. I am an only child, and it seems my greatest fear that my children should die. If they die, then it will be the end of two families as they are the only grandchildren. It would, in effect, be the end of any directly attributable contributions of the two families to the future or humanity. Old Ygg

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