Albert Cipriani

Dear Sir Drinks A Lot,
Why assume anything? Might as well ask why a bird chirps. It's our design. Our overdeveloped cortex forces us to contemplate our future. Only by force do we suppress the question of "what dreams may be."

Thanks for liking the poem. I am heartened that you can hope in the existence of God. I did, too, when I was an atheist. Hope is a theological virtue, and as such is a form of prayer. Hope mightily and I'll drink to that! -- Cheers, Albert

Albert Cipriani

Dear Koy,
Glad to see you're still around. I was wondering where you'd been.

You are forever so unlike my abbreviation of your name, i.e., Koy is not Coy. That's some of the charm. I haven't really locked horns with you and the fault is mine. I'll get over my reluctance. But not just now. This isn't the context for a fight.

And it's past my bed time. So I'll sleep on what you said (which you said well) and come back to this in the morning. Good night, Albert

Vorkosigan

As much as there is, there is not enough
for gravity. The center cannot hold
my waist size.

LOL. Good line.

Michael

Triple Six

Briefly, No, not ever, never.

When has grovelling to a spiteful being who casually dispenses death and suffering to any one not sufficiently servile ever being something to look forward to?

There's nothing wrong with dreaming of a better future, I'm always planning what to do with that big lottery win just around the corner but even then I'm thinking about an improbability rather than pinning my hopes on a collection of lies and illogicalities (sp?). I do have hopes for the future, I hope to live longer and healthier than is expected now, but I know that will come through human achievements in medicine, not wasting time on fantasy figures.

Finally there are realistic pleasures to look forward too, Viagra will be out of patent by the time I'll probably need it

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

Theli

I sure do...

<strong> Ok, I thought you meant reason to believe in god. Because a promise of an afterlife is something most people will hook on, based on the basic human fear of non-existance (death).

Therefore I'm very sceptical when it comes to cults or religions that promises an afterlife in a paradise if you follow their way. They simply prey on a basic human fear.

Koyaanisqatsi

Believe it or not, Albert, I don't come here looking for a "fight," I come here to detail the truth. It's just that so many cult members have been programmed into thinking that they have a corner on that market that when someone sane comes along and points out that nothing about their programming remotely resembles the truth that a "fight" ensues.

This has nothing to do with you, of course, since all you tend to do is spout vagaries couched in poetry, which, as I've said many times before, is good work if you can get it, but pointlessly rhetorical.

Case in point .

Albert Cipriani

Dear Koy,


Reminds me of the R. Kipling lines:


I thought that was profound in 8th grade. And I still do. Point being, we are all failed and pathetic creatures. Most people just don't have the eyes to see it. You did, and that's to your credit. Then you closed your eyes, and that's to your demerit.

The purpose of the Mosaic law was to reveal to mankind that we are far from perfect. The old testament confirms this by saying "The just man stumbles seven times a day." (Seven being a symbol for a whole lot more than seven.) Without the realization (that our egos constantly fights) of how flawed we are, we cannot have the humility and then the hope for and then the faith in our salvation.

That cult, as you call it, did you a service if it got you to see yourself as a failure. Now that you are out of it, do you see yourself as a success? I sincerely hope not.

You can build on failure. The illusion of success can only come tumbling down. Then you can build on its rubble. But it’s better to avoid the ride; start from the metaphysical truth that we are slime, animated dust, ex nihilo. Our cores are hollow and can only be filled with what is not us, that is with the only other thing that is, God.

Yeah yeah, that's just more rhetoric "which is fine and dandy and quaint and utterly pointless."

You add confirmation to my suspicion that Protestantism is the incubation chamber for atheism. For those who are genetically predisposed to think, Protestantism's non-intellectual non-tradition gestates frustration, rejection, and scorn. Trouble is, you've throw the babe (God) out with the bath water (Protestant heresy). – Cheers, Albert

Albert Cipriani

Dear Michael,
Good taste! It alludes to Pound's, or Yeats' famous line, I forget.

What I like the most is probably the title. Point being, cold cereal or however the milk would be drunk, is not much of a breakfast. But the atheist doesn't even get that. So it's a trope for nothing, the emptiness of our condition here without The Something which is God. Cheers, Albert

CodeMason

1. God sounds nicer than stinky old atheism.
2. Therefore God exists!

Absolutely mind-blowing reasoning.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Zar,


Trouble is, we haven't enough imagination to know what to hope for other than something different than this. So look, if you want to get into a hoping contest, the heresy of universal salvation wins hands down over the heaven-hell duality of Catholicism. Nolo contendo!

The trick is to have hopes that do not contradict reason. Revelation does not contradict reason. Ergo, in hoping that it's true I must accept the barnacle of hell on the hull of heaven.

What's astonishing to me, is how satisfied the human race is with their status quo without hope. I need my hope in eternal verities to live day to day. While most people, theists and atheists alike, do not need hope. To most people, hope is an option, not a necessity. This is utterly astounding.

I imagine hopeless humanity gets by being relatively hopeless by borrowing the stay-in-the-moment technique animals are so well versed in. Humans generally refuse to evaluate their condition over time; that's their secret for having endured so much shit for so long. Cheers, Albert