Icarus

Foxhole Atheist,

Thank you for the kind words. They are especially meaningful coming from someone with whom I have not interacted until this very moment. You remind me that individuals who have no reason to reply may read and move on, respecting a point but having nothing to say on the matter.

Thanks again,

Icarus

Icarus

Odemus,

I would also like to thank you and let you know that I will get back to you soon. I'd like to promise to have an answer for you some time this evening or earlier, but work prevents me from doing so. You will hear from me soon.

Icarus

phlebas

Just to butt in here...

Odemus: My life is my testimony to this fact.It is through my pursuit of holiness that I learn to submit to the will of God, to be accountable for my actions to him, to be responsible as a provider and a steward to my family.

Interesting. Are you saying that if you were not a Christian, you would be an irresponsible husband and father? And if so, are you saying that atheists are automatically irresponsible parents or spouses? Or is this weakness limited to you?

If you're not saying that, then what benefit has your faith given you in respect to your being a "provider and steward"?

My journey has been one of increasing fulfillment since my conversion.

Yeah, becoming an atheist had the same effect on me Still does, after almost 20 years.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

I LOVE talking to Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, etc. I actually have made appointments, so that they could come back when I had a few hours free.

While Jehovah's Witnesses are interesting, and by the time they leave my house they are doubting their own beliefs enough that they usually won't return, Mormons are the best.

The main argument for Mormonism is 'well, you already believe the stories in the Bible--as unbelievable as so many of them are--what reasons can you give for refusing to accept the stories in the Book of Mormon, as well?'

Of course, as an atheist, I don't accept the Bible, and thus I am able to refuse to accept the Book of Mormon, for the same reasons.

The last time I spoke with Mormons, the Elder was late, and the two young missionaries were having trouble explaining to me why I should even believe in God, let alone the Mormon version of God.

I explained my reliance on reason, and my rejection of faith (and claims of faith) as irrational.

When the Elder finally arrived, after catching up to the conversation, he explained that he, too, had once been an atheist. He relented, under pressure from his Mormon wife and their Mormon friends.

Basically, he said he 'willed' himself to believe in God, rather than alienate himself from his wife and her life within the Mormon chuch. (All their friends were Mormons, his wife's family were all Mormons, and he pretty much felt 'left out'.)

The two young missionaries were visibly upset by this explanation, especially when the Elder reiterated that there was truly no rational reason why he accepted theism, God, and Mormonism--other than the Elder was 'worn down', and simply wanted to 'fit in'.

Obviously, these Mormons failed utterly to 'convert' me that evening. Further, I think a rather sizeable seed of doubt was sown in the minds of the two missionaries. I think they were hoping that the Edler would offer me a rational belief underpinning faith that would counter my claim that faith is not--and cannot be--rational.

Instead, he confirmed it, loudly and clearly.

(Remember, conversion works both ways...)

Keith Russell.

Eudaimonist

That's sad, and not so uncommon.

I have to wonder if Mormonism had robbed him of any meaningful and authentically personal purpose in life.

Koyaanisqatsi

Un hunh...

Your point?

Yes, I know, which is why I chastised you for thinking that anything I posted had to do just with you and your life and not christianity as a whole and further pointed out the fact that you had completely ignored all that I had posted regarding my Aunt and her family, friends (church) and by extension, my own family, spoke volumes about the christian lifestyle you were so egocentrically lauding, as if your own experience cancels out others or history.

Comprende? Your entire post countering my observations on christianity as a whole was to say, "I'm not like that, so your arguments don't stand," which is childish at best; fallacious at worst.

Hence my comments regarding other people that were directly harmed that ultimately outweigh whether or not you, personally, find happiness in your delusions.

Hate the sin, not the sinner, remember? Meaning, of course, hate christianity, not necessarily the individual christian.

Got it now?



Oh please, get over yourself. (A) I did no such thing, (B), I've had entire posts taken out of context.

I was deflating your egocentrism and illustrating the strawman response it bore from you, nothing more.

Would this be the same truth that you argued against discovering, because living a lie made you "happy?"

And how, exactly, do you propose I address the issue of you and what you say you do or do not do in your own life, hmm?

Do you understand what a strawman argument is? If not, than read your own words.

It is obviously impossible for me to know anything truthful about you at all in order to answer your question, but I can certainly assess your posts here, if you like, and argue that you are manipulated and controlled by your own beliefs; so much so, in fact, that you think you are important enough to make strawman arguments based on yourself and your own life--requiring me to be a mind reader in order to address them--in response to a post someone else was making regarding the institution in general and throughout history; worse, that you actually will argue that living a lie that makes you happy is better than knowing the truth.

So, in short, my snap judgment based on what you've posted so far is that you're controlled by the doctrines you laud.

Clarification of my posts?

Since I don't know you and have never met you, how do you propose I argue anything in particular to you?

Hence, hate the sin, not the sinner.

I'm all ears if you have a means for me to be able to read your mind from a distance, but short of that I would have to argue the overall good vs. the overall bad, now wouldn't I?

And, Mr. Hypocrite, what do you call everything I posted regarding my own personal experiences and the personal experiences of my Aunt and extended family?

I tell you what. You have one last chance to post a relevant argument that doesn't require me to be clairvoyant or I won't respond to you, capisca?

Bully for you. How does this address whether or not christianity is based on a lie and therefore has, ultimately, nothing to offer but that lie and/or how that lie is used to manipulate and control its members?

Does the comparison of you to a sheep and Jesus to a sheep herder (aka, shepherd) mean anything to you?

It is. It is a logical conclusion of anything but, arguably, Judeo/Christian cult mentality that inculcates its members with contradictory and logically inconsistent tenets; such as God created everything, which necessarily includes sin and the Devil and Hell and is therefore ultimately to blame for it all, and yet here you are saying that this is not the case and that we are all responsible for our actions.

The fact that you are capable of recognizing the obvious flaw in that reasoning does not exonerate the institution as a whole by any means!

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

Oh please. Call me when you're done with your pointless soap boxing. The finger is pointed and it's pointed directly at cult indoctrination by me not anyone else, all right?

The question of this thread was "what does Atheism offer," and I responded by saying it offers the truth and then went on to clarify why the truth was "better."

In case you never made it to Middle School, asking someone to qualify how something can be "better" is asking them to point a goddamned finger!

Why would you? I'm not a member of the communist party.

You, however, are an admitted member of the Christian "party," yes? I don't care how reformed you may or may not be, that means that you are culpable to whatever degree you wish to argue for what that institution did, does or will do, yes, either directly or indirectly?

Now you're finally getting it, because the sin to communism was not a lack of belief in God by any means, so if you're trying to be ironic, ironically, you've completely missed the target.

Yes, we can, so you got what I was going for, that so doing is utterly pointless so you bringing it up and arguing in that manner was equally utterly pointless.

No, we both agree that meaning is derived from personal experience period. Only you added the "in the absence of God" illogically and for no supportable reason (evidence of how you are being controlled and manipulated, by the way).

As I pointed out, even in the alleged presence of your God concept, meaning is still entirely derived from personal experience or else there is no free will.

"Reserve the right?"

Now do you see what I was getting at by assessing what you've written in order to possibly determine how you've been manipulated and/or controlled? From whom are you "reserving the right" to determine how meaningful you life is?

Well then, I'm certainly glad nobody is manipulating or controlling you...



Oh, one other thing. Which God is that again? Could you please define it so we know exactly what it is you mean when you say your purpose is defined by "Him?"

I really shouldn't be pointing out how you are being manipulated and controlled by your own beliefs until you explain exactly what it is you actually believe in.

You say your life is "defined" by your concept of God, so what exactly is that concept and where does it come from?

After all, if I am to assess your life in accordance with my generalized claims, I'll have to know more about you, yes?

I hold no "disbelief" in God. It is not possible to "disbelieve" a fictional character is a factual being; by definition alone a fictional character cannot be a factual being.

Belief or disbelief does not ever enter into the equation in any way.



No shit, Sherlock, which is why I spoke in generalized terms and clarified my arguments were geared toward the overall "good" of the christian cult vs. its overall "bad."

I can, however, and have made a quantitative assessment of how you have been manipulated and controlled, IMO, based on your words and logically inconsistent statements as well as the observation that if happiness is your only answer to why living a lie is "better" than living the "truth," then why not just get a lobotomy and be nothing but happy?

Or, better still, since your concept of God defines your life, why not become a monk and live your life completely devoted to that definition?

I assume, of course, that you hate your father and your mother and brothers and sisters and own life also and that you have no worldly possessions and so on? You know, the life Jesus defined for his disciples, right?

Mine was only ten bucks, but I hired a crack addict with a rusty ice pick. I can no longer spell the word " ."

No, that was precisely my point. Your only argument so far regarding living a lie was, in essence, "Who cares so long as I'm happy."

Well, with that kind of logic, then why not a lobotomy? Or become a heroin addict, they're mighty happy--so long as they can define themselves twice a day....

The point is, of course, that such a delineation is ludicrous and no answer at all to why someone should choose to never live a lie if possible.

I suspect you agree and further suspect that such an agreement is at the heart of your convictions regarding the quality of your life; that you do not consider yourself to be living a lie and it is the certainty that you have convinced yourself of that you so cherish!

But then, I wouldn't want to base any arguments or observations on you personally, since I don't know you and couldn't possibly know you in order to make any kind of qualitative argument accordingly, right?

Then here is a perfect place to start with how you personally are being manipulated and controlled by your beliefs, yes?

You believe that you are "put on this planet to serve God" and that is where your "greatest joy" comes from. These are your words.

This means--if I may be so bold as to base an argument on you and your beliefs--that a character from ancient Middle Eastern mythology "defines" your life and that being a servant to this character (that you can only accept as being real for no discernable, tangible reason beyond operant conditioning) gives you your "greatest joy."

Not your wife not even your own daughter, but a fictional character that you simply hope is real. Your wife and daughter are real, but they don't give you your "greatest joy;" an impossible to define character from ancient Middle Eastern mythology does.

And why? Because "he" put you on this planet, apparently, to serve him.

So, to recap, you get your "greatest joy" not from you wife, not from your own daughter, but by defining yourself as a servant to a possibly existing character from ancient Middle Eastern mythology, yes?

And you believe this why? From what are you basing this upon? A book? Teachings?

I'm sure you'll say "personal experience," but I'm talking about the genesis, if you will, of these beliefs.

Which no one ever does so please stop stuffing that hack strawman; people "seek" happiness for a myriad of reasons, not "just" for the sake of happiness.

According to whom? Who told you this and how do you qualify it, since nobody ever does such a thing?

I try.

That's a meaningless statement. "Who I am in Christ?" That's like saying, "Who I am in Knute Rockne."

Would those be the human weaknesses and frailties that were defined by God so that you could serve him?

Good thing there aren't any references that could be misconstrued to be evidence of manipulation and control...



So, to recap so far, the "order and purpose" to your life is that you're a weak and frail servant to a fictional character from ancient Middle Eastern mythology and that this defining quality gives you the "greatest joy" over your own wife and daughter.

Got it. I'll schedule your lobotomy with that crack addict for, say, 2:30?

No, an example of fulfillment "in the light of" your understanding of scriptural truths. What "scriptural truth," for example, that you understand provides your life with a "greater sense of fulfillment?"

In other words, could you quote a "scriptural truth" as an example and describe how your understanding of it gives you...

Oh, nevermind. You're a weak and frail servant to a fictional character that gives you the "greatest joy" of your life.

I think I know exactly what "scriptural truths" you're referring to. Perhaps you should join luvluv's evasions <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=000721" target="_blank">here</a>?

Un hunh...

Would this be the "holiness" written about by the men who wrote the Bible, because I want to make sure that you are accountable to no man for your actions.



Oh, good, then you beat your daughter, rape your wife and hate them both and your own life also as the Bible commands you to do, right?

Well, what do you know? The same thing happened to me when I got my makeshift lobotomy...what a...coincidence...

No assumption required.

Right.

Why? You are happy and you find meaning and purpose in your life and your life is not based on a lie.

You are the one who stated that your meaning and purpose in life was defined by your belief in a God, a fictional creature from ancient mythology that does not exist, which is why I illustrated that fact with the individual who believes that his life is defined by the Great Pumpkin.

He is happy, too, right, but you and I know that his happiness is ultimately a lie and since what we're doing here is comparing the two, you tell me.

Comparatively speaking is it better to live a lie or live the truth?

You don't have to go any deeper than that. Just answer either "yes, it is better to live the truth" or "no, it is better to live a lie," since that's the only point of contention between us in this regard.

Is it better to live a lie so long as that lie makes you happy?

Then you are nothing more than God's robot and every single thing that you have ever done (both "good" and "bad") has been programmed by God and "he" is therefore completely responsible for it all, including the "bad."

That also means that you actually feel nothing at all--its just God's programming; which, of course, in turn means that there really is, ultimately, no "you" at all and never was; "you" would ultimately be nothing more than God's pointless masturbation; so your "greatest joy" was programmed and your sins were programmed and your wife and your child--all programmed.

Which, in turn, means that you have had absolutely no meaning in your life at all, not even to God, since he is omniscient and knew the instant he created you every single thing that you would ever do, say, practice or preach, so even for him you entire life was instantly pointless to himself, beyond, of course, masturbation.

So, to recap in light of this little tidbit, the "purpose and order" to your life on the ultimate, God scale is nothing more than God jerking off out of, I suppose, divine boredom?

Yeah, I can certainly see no argument against believing as you do there...



No you aren't. You are apparently nothing more than God's pointless wank job.

Why would it? God didn't program that into you.

You just said it before. You are a programmed servant to God with only one ultimate purpose that not even God apparently gives a shit about, since he didn't even bother to grant you the freedom to be your own, autonomous being; you are nothing more than an utterly pointless waste of God's time, serving no foreseeable purpose to even God.

You're a program that God wrote and has already either destroyed or put on a shelf the instant he created you.

YOU: My life is living proof that the God I worship is one of great comfort.Sorry to burst your bubble.

ME: No, no, you're asinine comments and complete lack of regard for everything I mentioned about what my Aunt and her family and friends (and by extension our entire family as well) has gone through for over fifteen years now serves perfectly to prove what worshipping an imaginary creature can provide.

YOU (finally): I addressed this at the beginning of this post[/quote]

No, you actually did not as I clarified.

Un hunh...

So, you intentionally did not comment on my own personal experiences and my family's personal experiences because it was such a source of pain for me in favor of intentionally accusing me of over generalizing and stereotyping christians and not basing any of my arguments upon actual christians, like you?

Oh, quite the contrary, you've revealed your God perfectly to me.

No thanks. I have no intention whatsoever of believing that I am a weak and frail servant/robot to God, whose ultimate purpose, apparently, is to act as little more than God's own personal wank rag.

Why? The finger points directly at the problem.

Why? You have no free will. Prayer is utterly pointless for you.

First, let me repost what I wrote and emphasize certain things that perhaps you missed:

Second, the fact that you think you friend is in heaven, arguably means that you have not come to terms with the fact that he is, in fact, dead and not in "heaven," an imaginary place.

Let me put it this way. Suppose I had told you that my friend was dead and that means he's sitting upstairs in my house looking out a window.

Now, sure, at first, you would certainly not comment on this and let the healing process continue; hell you'd probably even support my delusion at first.

Now imagine ten years, twenty years have gone by and I'm still saying that my friend is sitting upstairs in my house. I know he's dead, certainly, and can distinguish that fact, but I still fervently and unquestionably believe that he is in fact sitting upstairs in my house.

Now, granted that this belief does not necessarily hurt anybody, but if somebody else asked you to assess the situation, wouldn't you say that they aren't actually "getting on" with their lives? That they have instead settled upon a self-delusional scenario and in so doing have not arguably got on with their lives in regard to the death of their friend?

Is there now? And you qualify this how?

Ahh, yes, just as I suspected. Well, good to have it and all of my observations regarding it confirmed. Thank you.

I must do nothing of the kind. All my statement demonstrates is that nobody knows what (if anything) happens after death. That is a simple statement of fact.

What? I hold no "disbelief" in Christ (aka, the Messiah, or Anointed One). As I mentioned before, fictional creatures from ancient mythologies do not factually exist.

That, too, is a fact. No "faith" required.

Quote:

ME:

How have you not would be an easier question! Just re-read every single thing you've posted just in this one post alone!



You have been conditioned to believe that your "greatest joy" in life comes not from your wife or from your own daughter, but from an imaginary character from ancient Middle Eastern mythology; that you are his weak and frail robot with no free will, put on this planet in order to serve "him."

Done.

For auld lang syne, you receive your "greatest joy" out of life by defining yourself as a weak and frail robot put on this planet to serve a fictional character from Middle Eastern mythology written by anonymous authors over two to five thousand years ago, all told.

I do not.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Odemus

You have consistently proven an innability to hold a mature conversation with me.

I have no desire to sift through %95 hostile jibberish to find your %5 content.

I wish you the best, you are now on ignore.

Tom Sawyer

One thing I don't entirely get is why is it that acceptance of a truth is necessarily better than acceptance of a lie? If the lie makes you happy and the truth would not, why wouldn't the lie be better? Just because one person would rather cut his own throat rather than live his life according to a lie, doesn't mean that every other person does, or even should, feel the same way.

Look at it this way, you have a friend who is madly in love with his wife. They have a wonderful life together - children, house, diversified stock portfolio, the whole deal. Your friend is deliriously happy with his life. You then find out that his wife is having an affair - she's not going to leave him or anything, or ever tell him, she's just sleeping around. Do you tell him, and ruin his happy existence, but at least he knows the truth, or do you keep quiet and let him go on being happy, even though his happiness is based upon a lie?

Some people would say one thing, some the other. The real question is what's to be gained by telling him the truth? Is the mere fact that it's true reason enough to destroy someone's happiness? Or is the fact that he's happy sufficient reason to keep quiet about the truth?

Note that the premise of this analogy is that the wife IS having an affair. Relating that to the discussion, the point of this thread is based on the premise that there IS NOT a God. That being assumed, is it better for a happy religious person to accept that he's been living a lie and lose that happiness, even though he MAY find another source of happiness later on, or to continue on believing in something that isn't true and hold onto the happiness he has?

Relating that back to my analogy, if you keep quiet about the affair, the guy will remain happy with what he thinks is his perfect life. If you tell the guy his wife is cheating on him, you'll be destroying his happy world, even though that world is based upon something that isn't real. He may find happiness later, but is that chance worth taking away what he has? Are you being a good friend to him letting him know the truth no matter what the cost, or are you just being a jerk who'll ruin your friend's happiness because you think that what you know is better than what he knows?

Koyaanisqatsi

What?

Deliberately mischaracterizing my post in this manner is "mature" of you in what way?

What "hostile jibberish" are you referring to?

I explained every single thing I was talking about in direct response to exactly what you had written to me (in your own "hostile/immature" tone, one could argue) and your response is this bullshit?

Meaning I wasn't previously?

Don't worry, I won't loose sleep over it.

Koyaanisqatsi

As Odemus' post demonstrated, it's not a matter of "acceptance" of a lie; he is defining himself and his happiness and the hierarchy of his family according to a lie, so that he states he gets his "greatest joy" (his words, not mine) our of being a servant to an imaginary creature over and above getting joy from his wife, his marriage and his own daughter!

That's just a tad more than merely "accepting a lie," don't you think?

Again, why not just get a lobotomy while you're at it too, or become a heroin addict then?

If "happiness" is your only criterion for you life, then just walk around all day with a morphine IV drip sticking out your arm.

Why not?

Do either of you understand what it means for someone to offer their own reasons for a position they support when asked? Or what they would do in such a situation?

And how that might be considered, say, ancillary observations; anecdotal addendums, perhaps, to the more salient points one is making?

Thus, to focus on the ancillary and ignore the salient is probably not going to advance the discussion much? Perhaps?

I guess that depends on whether or not you're really this guy's friend. To determine that, wouldn't you simply have to put yourself in your friend's shoes and think, "What would I want my friend to do?"

Ummm...the truth!

Have you ever had someone cheat on you, by the way? I have. My ex-fiancé, as a matter of fact, and you know what devastated me more than the fact that she had f*cked somebody else? The fact that she lied about it. For months, actually.

During which I was largely clueless, except for little signs here and there that, because I didn't know the truth couldn't ever link together.

Then she broke off our engagement and I slowly, over the subsequent months, I found out from others (none of my close friends, thank Buddha) what she had actually been doing the whole time she was making love to me and talking about our future children and so on.

The cheating had been going on for about three to five months (four months into our engagement), which meant that for a considerable period of time not only was she lying to me, but all of those moments we had shared together during that time were now blacker than black to me.

It took me some five to seven years, all told, to get over any of it, precisely because it was all a pack of lies, which, in retrospect means that I wasted not just the three years we had spent together prior, but also a good five years after she broke up with me "getting over her."

All because of a lie.

Now, had she simply come to me prior to cheating on me and said, "You know, I'm having these doubts about us and I'm not sure we should be engaged..." etc., etc., it would still have hurt me, of course, but it would not have devastated me the way it did, so you tell me.

Would it have been better for her to tell me the truth about her feelings before living a lie, or after or not at all ever (assuming she was going to remain with me and get married)?

If happiness is predicated ultimately on a lie, then can it truly be considered "happiness?"

I contend not and feel I've argued that effectively.

Look at Odemus. Think his daughter (assuming she was never conditioned in the same manner he was) would be happy to know that her father receives the "greatest joy" out of life not by her or her mother but by believing that he is a servant to a fictional creature? Much less the horrific fictional creature depicted in the Old and New Testaments?

Well, since you are asking, my answer is no, happiness is not a sufficient enough reason to keep quiet about the truth since that happiness is, ultimately, nothing more than self delusion.

Again, if self delusion is a "preferable" way to live, then heroin addicts should be everyone's role models, or, at the very least, we should all line up for lobotomies, yes?

Yes, I caught that.

Again, I would argue that the answer comes from putting yourself in your friend's shoes and asking yourself whether or not you would want to know whether or not the woman (or man, don't want to rule out our homosexual friends from the discussion) you share your life and family with is lying to you literally with every breath that does not contain the words, "Hon, I'm screwing another person?"

If you would want to know such a thing about your own life and you consider yourself a true friend, then, yes, you should tell your hypothetical friend that the truth immediately, because the sooner he (or she) can deal with it the sooner he (or she) can truly get on with their lives.

The other side effect, by the way, of my own experience was the final devastation of realizing I was in fact living in a self-delusional state the whole time; necessarily so, since I believed everything between us was (as Odemus put it) "unconditional love" and happiness.

Well, then, to correct your own cheating analogy, the devastation does not necessarily come from the fact that your mate is cheating on you; it comes ultimately from the fact that you are deluding yourself into thinking that you are in love and your mate is committed to you, etc., etc.

So, just as above, in your analogy the central point is that your mate is NOT in love with you and therefore lying to you.

Well, to paraphrase the Bard, the truth will out.

Again, just put yourself into his shoes and see what it would mean to live in that fake world.

Arguably, yes, since ultimately he has no happiness; what he has is self-delusion; a house of cards that he only believes is "happiness," when the truth is, it is the exact opposite of happiness.

This relates directly to what I deconstructed regarding Odemus' post and you saw how angry he got and I wasn't even on "2" with that one.

Well, it's not "better than what he knows" it's the truth, so, again, you would have to put yourself into his shoes and ask yourself whether or not knowing the truth or deluding yourself into believing a lie is "preferable."

From one who went through that particular scenario as the guy in the shoes, I can tell you without hesitation that had any of my friends known and did not tell me--thereby sparing me further pain and humiliation and, ultimately, loss--they would no longer be my friend.

(edited for lysdexia- Koy)

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>