The Other Michael

Hi Free12thinker,

I think your son (if you have one), if a puppy, might be a leg-up on him, but I think female puppies are usually squatters instead of leg lifters.

But the sentiment seems appropriate.

cheers,
Michael

(edited because I pressed the button too quick)

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: The Other Michael ]</p>

Kamchatka

Free12thinker,

Whose person am I?

You have no idea who I am. You have no idea where I come from. But, as usual, being that you are an atheist and you base everything on logic and reason, you have logically deducted that I am not my own person.

Why is that?

I'll answer that one for you; because you are the same brand of hypocrite that you accuse theists of being.

Your child will be her own person because of what you exposed to her and how. Without your direction she would have little chance.

In my opinion, you are god to your child in her formative years. Those years do not last long. The only reason you will be able to sit back and watch her blossom as her own person is because of the tools you provided.

Now, why don't you build a picture of me and my lack of personhood. Who are you lumping me with? The Islamics? Yeah, I guess not one of those hundreds of millions are their own person. None of them have put any logical thought into their Islam.
Every one of them is just a moron following some dead guy.

Maybe it's the Christians? Not one of those hundreds of million is his/her own person either.

Maybe I'm a Jew. No individuals there.

Am I a Hindu or a Bhuddist?

Your egos are beyond sickening.

Thank you for pointing out that you and your atheist buddies and children are the only individuals in the world.

Please tell me who you are lumping me with. Make it any lump but yours.

Samhain

Kamchatka:

Watch out for those hasty over-generalizations, they may come back to bite you in the ass.

Koyaanisqatsi

...still waiting....


Meanwhile...

Kamchatka--

You've got it all backwards.

And who is it that is doing the describing? You are. You are the one forcing this definition and thus, you are committing a common fallacy; post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this).

All you have done is grouped a sequence of events, labeled the group "Descriptions of God," then taken your own self-applied label as evidence for God.

That's patently absurd as you can readily see. You are the one describing it--randomly I might add, since you could just as easily self-apply the word "Allah" or "Vishnu" or "Flea;l3;lk5353" for all it matters--so you have simply (yet again) demonstrated that such a concept is not innate!

The events you describe happen. A child gets food from mommy's tit. All that ultimately means is that food was generated by the mother; it does not mean that a god factually exists.

Do you see the distinction? It doesn't follow, yet you are simply saying, "Yes it does, call it what you want, this is the way it is."

That's obviously false.

How's that again? I don't recall anybody building a child around here. As I recall from my sex ed courses, one sperm out of millions was jettisoned from its "home," thereby triggering its function; swam down a long corridor toward an ovum and penetrated it. From there a highly complex sequence of chemical reactions took place until the merged matter (zygote) replayed milllions of years of evolution in just under ten months until forcing its way out of its gestation chamber like the parasite it initially is until mature.

Where along that journey are you a creator and I don't mean poetically as you're attempting to equivocate; I mean literally as in the argument at hand? Don't you think a more descriptive term would be enabler? Or facilitator?

"Totally?" Rhetorical hyperbole is fun, isn't it?

As you should be aware, analogy is not argument.

Especially when the analogy is not applicable and serves to demonstrate just the opposite of what it is you were trying to demonstrate to begin with.

Just like with the word "God," the "you" in your above sentences can be easily and effortlessly replaced at any time.

For example:[*] Your absence will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.[*] Your presence will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.[*] Your child's teachers will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.[*] Soceity will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.[*] Life itself will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.[*] Bob will have the greatest effect on the forming of Your child.

So, are all those replacements likewise "God?"

If so, you've only demonstrated the word "God" to be without any innate meaning; it is nothing more than a mutable, malleable catch-all phrase that you simply randomly define according to your own personal whim.

That in turn simply means self-delusion; nothing more nothing less, so if that's your argument, have at it. You won't find any detractors here.

Kamchatka

Philosoft,

Nothing I have said in any of my posts is more derogatory than the terms used to describe theists here.

Nothing I have said on these posts is more derogatory than the terms used towards me.

Now you accuse me of attempted martyrdom.

Cute.

The original thread was something about whether or not atheism is a default position.

I have been clear in asserting that I think it is not. I have stated that it is my opinion that babies are born with god belief according to my interpretation of the circumstances at birth: total dependence combined with human cognitive characteristics.

As a result I have been lumped in with WJ, which I don't mind considering the source of my lumping.

I have been labeled a theist, a christian, a moron, a non-person, a wannabe martyr, and I have been accused of being childish, silly, rude and on and on.

Now, you can call it rude, childish, or whatever, but the atheists on this thread are like a bunch of flies on shit. If that makes me the shit, well, now we're getting somewhere.

Philosoft

I'm not concerned about what other alleged posts say about alleged theists.

<strong> I don't recall anyone calling you a "puppy" or talking about your need for "toilet training."

<strong> Despite what you have convinced yourself, I hadn't threatened you with anything when you said this: Now, I happen to think you're rather intelligent, judging mostly by the quality of your writing, not necessarily the content. I'd much rather you control your temper a bit and challenge my intellect rather than my emotions.

<strong> Thanks, but I do need a haircut.

<strong> Indeed, we are probably irretrievably off-topic by now.

<strong> I wouldn't even suppose a newborn is fully concsious, much less endowed with god-belief. I think the ability to form memories is probably necessary before that. Calling instinctual behavior "god-belief" is bizarre.

<strong> Be careful which friends' noses you pick.

My thoughts in brackets:

<strong> Mm-kay.

<strong> Very clever. Now, can we get back to the discussion?

Koyaanisqatsi

You bitch and moan about being "attacked," when it was your very first post here that clearly established your own antagonistic tone and attitude.

You kicked us and now you're whining about us kicking you back. Did you think we wouldn't kick back?



There is no mistaking the condescension and derision inherent within that (erroneous) comment.

I should know! I'm the King of condescension and derision around here .

Did you think we would just go, "Oh, you know what? Kamchatka's right! The painfully simple definition "A theism, meaning without theism , isn't actually what we've been arguing about all this time; instead it's one hundred and eighty degrees the opposite of what we define it to be, all because Kamchatka and WJ must force this erroneous definition upon us in order to make their irrelevant, fallacious straw men attacks stick!"

And then to have you stuff that straw man upon this stupidity?

See? You force an erroneous definition upon us that does not apply and is not what it means to be atheist in a condescending manner so that you can then make an assinine argument that doesn't even make basic common sense (paying attention WJ or are you still hiding?). You then contradict what you initially said once your arguments are shown for the straw men that they are by resorting to creative semantic word play.

"Everyone is born with god belief." No, they are not as every single thing you've posted clearly demonstrates. It is learned not innate and since to be a theist means to be without belief in a god or gods, then you've proved our contention, not yours.

Read your own words again:

Then they are without a belief in a god or gods.

Wrong as you've just established in the point prior! <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Then you make more assinine, condescending declarations:

Yeah. Let's ask all those "godless heathens."

While we're at it, we can ask the Mongol hordes, if ever they would just put down their rice bowls and take off thos coke bottle glasses as they rape our Nuns, right? Oh, sorry, I was taking my stereotypes from the same 1950's propaganda files you were....

More pearls of condscension from your very first post establishing your antagonism and demonstrating that you were asking if not deserving of response in kind:

How, exactly, are we "denying" responsibility and what "belief" system are you soapboxing about?

We've all asked you this repeatedly and all you and WJ can come up with is, "You just are! Nyah, nyah, nyah!"

Yes. I paraphrase.


When somebody like Goliath patiently explains the bleeding inherent obvious to you:

Your response was:

A theism. Without theism, the belief in a god or gods.

You are the one asserting that magical fairy god kings from ancient Middle-Eastern mythologies factually exist. Prove it or shut the hell up.

A theism. Without theism, the belief in a god or gods.

Deal with it and don't dish it out if you can't take it.

Pomp

Kamchatka,

First of all, no one is being banned, and certainly not for daring to dispute the received wisdom of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.

Second, while you did initially present yoru views in a somewhat confrontational manner, I agree that the response you received has been somewhat rude, so I'd like to ask everyone, including you, to keep it civil.

Third, you do have a very unusual view on the issue. Perhaps you'd start a new thread where you explain your stance in detail for us?

SteveD

I would say that any god that actually cared whether you bow toward Mekkah five times a day* ( or insert religious ritual of your choice) is some kind of a nut job.

If this is actually in the Quran then I would say this is the work of man rather than Allah.

Steve

free12thinker

Apparently, you are gods person. He created you right? You live by gods every word, right? You note him as your god, and you note god as the creator of all things and the purveyor of all things. You note him as your light and you as his shadow. Am I missing something here?

Difference between you and my daughter : I created her, along with my wife. She does not and will not live by my every word, I certainly did not and do not live by my mother's every word, a fact she is very proud of. I am the purveyor of all things for her now, but that will change. I am her light, at least in that daddy kind of way, but I will not be her shadow, nor her mine.

A picture of personhood: The ability to function within the state of ones own mind. You function within the context of a deity's mind, reading his wishes and intentions from a book. A deity that does not exist. Your morals come from such a deity, and you defend such morals on the basis that they came from that deity. My morals are my own, and whether or not my parents were the first to help me establish such morals, I can back-up such morals and ethics and thoughts with conviction and logic and reason (the tools we use to back-up everything else in life). Can you?

And by the way, I know a some Christians who I think experience personhood. The difference between them and you is simple: They believe in god and the ideas he teaches, but when we have a debate about such ideas, the words that come out of their mouth are more than "God say's so" or "God will come and save you". They have genuine reasons in believing why certian things are the way they are. In short, I will give anyone credit for having opinions, so long as they can back-up such opinions tooth and nail, without mentioning that the opinions are correct because someone else said they were.

I may be wrong about you, but judging by your replies, you believe in god and all that he preaches, but you can't answer why without simply stating, "Because the bible says so".