Autonemesis

You seem to understand my viewpoint just fine. So now that you have finished restating my position again, and I have agreed that you have restated it correctly, would you go on to make whatever point you are leading up to. Is that too much to ask? Do you have a point?

Echo

Your apology was unnecessary but appreciated.

Do you mind if I ask what *is* your intention in posting here? I feel that is only fair, since you asked a similiar question of us

Jobar

How this topic managed to get to five pages without being removed from this forum is beyond me! Off to MRD.

freemonkey

Okay, I get it. Odemus has switched to the "if-there-is-no-god-where-do-we-get-morals-from" argument. This belief always personally offends me.

Low blow, Odemus.

The mistake that christians make is that they think that "belief in a god" means belief in the xian God(tm). Atheists are not asking for preferences, we are simply demanding that EVERYONE has the freedom to believe or not believe as they so wish, without our government endorsing one worldview over any other.

phlebas

I was wondering when this would show up. The polite withdrawl from the field after having failed to impress anyone with a tactic which seemed new to him.

He's probably at some theist board gloating about how he single-handedly demolished a bunch of smartass atheists.

Samhain

Once again theistic intolerance and misinformation completely trumps atheistic "axe-grinding". And you wonder why we have an "axe to grind".

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]</p>

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Odemus:
<strong>Why do you care so passionately about your disbelief?</strong>

Would you prefer blank apathy? Would that make you feel better about the fact that you have an imaginary friend that some people just don't believe in?

<strong>It seems to me that if one is going to live life absent from a belief in God, one wouldn't pay much attention to the the fact that one was doing so.</strong>

It seems to me that one ought to try being an atheist for a while before one makes pronouncements about what atheists should or should not do.

<strong>I mean, if all there is to life is what we can see and touch and measure, then what does this debate matter?</strong>

I can see the debate. I can even measure how it's going - and on the QueenofSwords Debate-O-Meter, you're toast.

<strong>You can't possibly be engaging theists because you believe atheism will make the world a better place, because if life doesn't have a higher purpose, 'better' doesn't exist either.</strong>

If we're playing an unsupported-assertion game, I say that you can't possibly be happy as a christian, because you've come to an unbelievers' discussion board and must therefore have doubts about your "faith".

<strong>If you are right and God doesn't exist, that is if you die and simply cease to be, the only true conclusion about life is that it is meaningless.</strong>

Or maybe this is the true conclusion : despite your claim that our lives would be meaningless, many atheists continue to be happy and productive people.

<strong>You might argue that your philosophy allows for life to hold value but in the final analysis you will be dead and unable to care regardless,</strong>

Whereas you will continue to be oh-so-caring? What difference will that make to anyone, after you die, wherever you end up?

<strong>and after your death the world will go on as if you were never here to begin with.</strong>

Isn't a terrible thought, that the Earth would continue to orbit the Sun after your death?

<strong>How is it that your take on the universe can hold any more value than mine?</strong>

Because it wasn't inspired by a Hebrew myth characterized by copious quantities of foreskins?

<strong>If you're right, your epitaph will congratulate you for not having been superstitious </strong>

And for doing my part to leave the world a little better than when I came into it.

<strong>and mine will note that I lead a life devoted to the unverifiable.</strong>

Devote away, just allow everyone else the same courtesy, especially if they wish to focus on the real, rather than the mythical.

<strong>So my question is, what's the point?</strong>

It is the thing on the end of your crayon. The part you color with.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: QueenofSwords ]</p>

excreationist

Odemus:
I wrote a point by point response 1/4 of the way down <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000767&p=2" target="_blank">page 2</a>... I'd appreciate it if you could comment on it...

Eudaimonist

You aren't the only one who has written unique, relevant objections that Odemus has dodged... I mean didn't have time for -- yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.

WJ

Samhain, & 2 other's whose name escape me,

You guys were talking about the point of it all & took exception to my 'AJ Ayer comment' about it being 'nonsensical'. Then samhain you said that I don't understand... . Perhaps I *really* don't, but the perception is that of the original thread topic. The 'axe' tends to take on the life of a 'political statement', that's the perception. Just like the recent case about the pledge (don't really care to go there). So I'd be willing to bet that neither Odemus or myself are interested in politics (on both sides). But I do agree it is fun to chat about.

As with the 'dipolar opposites' that I'll call within the specific context of atheist/theist (mis)understanding, perhaps Maslow said it best(it's worth repeating): "What you are not you cannot percieve to understand. It cannot communicate itself to you". [taken from Higher Reaches of Human Nature]

If that is true, then what we are doing on this board is passing time since we might be bored, which also is in part, true.

What's the point? I think it was a good question. If I believe my wife is not having an affair, would I bother asking her questions about her lover? If i believe reality is not a dream, why should i think any different? Better yet, if I didn't believe in any thing that can't be physically seen or proven as such, why bother with its nonexistence?

I think being curious is one thing; making political statements another. Then of course, carrying the 'axe' (justifying it) around is probably something you'll have to fix on your own... Maslow and James probably would be helpful here...

That's the only thing I can think of that seems to explain why you "gringe" at the 'nonsensical argument'. Otherwise I think we are talking about say the ontological/epistemic difficulties or frustrations about what is humanly possible to know... . Remember, there are distinctions between something that is assumed in order to know 'it' and something that can or can't be verified even if you thought you knew 'it' and/or once you discovered it. You may want to express your thoughts in the Aesthetic/metaphysics thread...

Anyway, I have no quarrel with the 'fireside chat'.