AJ113

Of course, you are correct as far as you go, Rhea, but Jake's point cannot be ignored. Anyone who is going to posit theistic beliefs on an atheist board must expect to be challenged to some degree.

emotional

All right, I'm used to it, folks.

yguy

Is it really any big surprise that some atheists have the same proclivity as some "Christians" towards intellectual self-aggrandizement at another's expense, towards making others out to be wrong so as to feel a relativistic sense of rightness about themselves?

Jinto

I, for one, would just like to commend emotional on his exceptional courage. As we know, there is no rational basis for belief in the afterlife, but how many theists do we know that are willing to admit that? Personally, I admire his courage in admitting that his beliefs are irrational. I think that such honesty is something to be encouraged. After all, if more theists admitted that they believed because they want to believe, even though they KNOW they are wrong, how quickly would the genuinely deluded disappear? It just seems cruel to force pure logic on someone who doesn't want it. After all, you wouldn't want someone to force their relgious beliefs on you when you obviously have no desire for them, right? Then why do the reverse?

yguy

I don't see any admission of being wrong here, I see an admission that his beliefs don't qualify to some as rational. The two aren't at all synonymous.

Jinto

It seems to be just another case of people trying to attack what they don't understand - people don't understand how emotional can genuinely believe something that he knows to be false, and so are afraid of him. Just as Christians are afraid of us because they don't understand how we can lead normal, happy lives in spite of the complete absence of their God. And why you attack those who have happy families in spite of having such unusual arrangements as (for instance) the mother working and the father staying at home, or perhaps involving professionals in their child's daily care while both parents are free to persue carrers. All people fear that which they do not understand. Perhaps this is why religion is so destructive - in many ways, it teaches us to be content with not understanding - but in not understanding, we become afraid.

Do you fear us?

emotional

Oops, slight mistake, Jinto:

I don't know my beliefs to be false. In fact I think they are true. If I didn't think they were true, they wouldn't have a healing effect upon me. It's just that I can't prove them, that's all - there's no conclusive evidence.

Jinto

Okay, I stand corrected.

yguy

I don't attack those things because I don't understand them, but because I DO understand them - and what's behind them.

Don't ask. I'm not going into all that just now. Suffice it to say these things are less benign than you think, to say the least.

That's absurd. Were you afraid of long division before you understood it?

Then how is it that by your own admission there are some here who are not religious and yet do the same thing?

Heck no. Where would you get that idea?

Jinto

Your record at IIDB speaks to the contrary.

Oh, yeah, they'll destroy the nuclear family, tha man's natural authority and all that.

No. But I was afraid of religion before I understood it. Now it just annoys me.

Bombs destroy buildings. That does not mean that all destroyed buildings have been bombed.

It was a question, not an implication.