People would do well to start practicing it without religion.

"in theory you could fulfill the many functions religions serve with other institutions. but in practice? unlikely."

From the oppression of women to getting people to blindly follow authority, it would all be pretty hard for ruling classes to do without the help of religion.

Gods are not archetypes. Unless you'd prefer to say: Mythological figures can be regarded as archetypal figures.

And by the way: Dissent is welcome, but you can take the insults and invectives somewhere else.

automatthew and his tiny automatic flames

He doesn't seem to back of his little stabs with anything new, strong, or particularly coherent himself.


His sig is a painting by former heavy heroin user who studied "magic" very heavily.

It was also the cover of an LP by a band that was pretty famous amongst the hippie drug user crowd

Yet he is pretty square and squeaky clean it seems.


I don't know, attitude is everything.

Short, terse, bitchy, yet offers no real reason or backing text for his flames.

Just:

"I don't like what you say, so I do not like you.
go away..."

Puerile :
1. of or pertaining to a child or to childhood.
2. childishly foolish; immature or trivial: a puerile piece of writing.

Snotty:
Well just look at a five year old with a cold sometime, green guck oozing out of them.


I guess that's what bothers me.
His quick and mindless dismissiveness.

The type of pinhead that justs snaps and snarls, without making reference to anything of substance themselves.

Sorry, I guess pinhead is a pejorative label, I should apologize.


You guys would be a lot of fun at the pub I bet.
No worries, I stumbled into this place looking for thinkers.

I'll be off.

Yeah; I'm an ass, it's true. Does that impact on the discussion in some way? Or, are you intimating that Rene's self-righteousness or yours are somehow more excuseable?

No; I'm not "parroting" relativism - please read again and give it some thought; if you don't understand what's being expressed, feel free to ask for clarification; the topic almost demands that a certain amount of misunderstanding will occur; I don't think tere's any reason to leave things vague and attack straw men. You can even ensure a certain level of respect on my part by not being an asshole toward me, yourself. Surely you've noted how I soften like a spring blossom when you're avoiding being an obnoxious dickhead..? Remember when I first posted, and you were all liike "na-nanny nagh! mewl mewl mewl" and I was like "no u dint" and you were all like "ooh watch me be higher minded than you" and I was all like "hhhhmmmmm"....?

My ego is massive, but then, my sheer epic awesomeness is greater, still.


You raise an interestingpoint here:
>>as if it was some profound insight to refuse to make the distinction between concepts and other kinds of existence. <<

Sure; that's pretty low-shelf thinking, there. Let's ignore the headier business above and focus why this simple foundational thought seems to be beyond many of the respondents. Any ideas?

"Religion" is a broad concept across which to paint either "true" or "false", don't you think? Similar to saying "people suck" or "people are beautiful" - ridiculously over general.

In attempting to discern the truth of religion, wouldn't unbiased examination of, for instance, theology be important? I suggest that what you suggest is irrelevant is, in fact, central to the definition you imply for atheism. In that study of theology is manifestly not a part of atheist culture, I find that you are mistaken, and that truth has very little to do with atheism, since any even slightly reasonable person can conclude that neither the atheist nor theist view has any chance of being disprovable; both positions are unsupportable positive beliefs. The atheist defense that "nonbelief" is the atom of atheism doesn't pass muster.

Atheism is not science, nor scientific - the search for truth is specifically excluded by atheism, much the same as institutionalized theism has historically hampered science, from time to time.

Sorry. Those are the breaks.

>>What really is the purpose of these personal attacks and your ridiculous boasting?<<

Well, now; I haven't made personal attacks, have I? I've pointed at what I think your flaws are, as a thinker, and what the flaws in your rhetoric indicate to me. I haven't said you're wicked, or that you deserve to die or be excluded; I haven't said you're stupid or smelly. My tone is simply the continuation of the crabby, vituperous, and dismissive dialog that you established, yourself - strangely (I thought), after I'd spent some three pages defending you (truth itself, in that case) and lauding your positions on Ev v Cre. I assume it's that you simply habitually denigrate those with the temerity to find you incorrect on any point.

That your cognitive abilities are less generally potent than mine is a conclusion I formed over time, as I absorbed your (repetitive and graceless, though occasionally brilliant) text over the course of roughly two years - mostly without comment.

But how does what I've posted differ from what you post, constantly, to religious-minded respondents? In no substantive way that I can see. You claim superiority when you feel it; you point out cognitive weakness in those in whom you perceive it; you have been known to insult others more stridently than I do you now, so... ? What's this squirming all about?

The purpose of these criticisms, thank you, is manifold: personal entertainment, intellectual exercise, controlled expression of my growing disdain for your changeless tirade, and, in a broader sense, to provide a basis from which to dismantle the cachet that atheism enjoys in some circles. That last I do enjoy success with; many easily reject the atheism they'd felt forced to adopt simply because I punctured its cool. The feeling of triumph is small but key. It is not necessary to subscribe to atheism to enjoy intellect - it is fun to realize that atheism actually represents a lesser intellectual stance. Nihilists are happy to learn that they needn't espouse atheism, that they needn't embrace deliberate filtration of thought, that they can have the full compliment of human experiences without drinking the kool-aid - red OR green.


The purpose of the ridiculous boasting is totally mundane and pretty much what you'd expect; covering for insecurity, mainly, I suppose, but also expressing actual delight with myself and love of myself - I'm a bit of a narcissist in some small (but excellent) ways - and also to stick it to you, to provoke you into a kind of witless irritated indignance from which you'll be less able to rely on your usual tactics: trumpeting your bleak and thin picture of the desolate world in your mind, occasionally just propping your credentials and brilliance. I don't respect you as a result of reading your text over the years (because of the undeserved treatment you've given to people who were *not* intellectually capable of weathering your attacks, and the generalizations you've made about religious people (though you aren't as bad as Some).

For you, dear, I dance the dance of ridicule, part of which involves wiggling my attractive ass and pointing uproariously at your flabby one. We can dispense with the personal text, if you'd like, but I sincerely doubt you have the ability to have these conversations - with anyone - without being pompous, derisive, disrespectful, and odiously ignorant in terms of what is acceptable in "polite" discourse, especially with regard to religion.

>>we could discuss how far what you imagine I am afraid of is from the truth.<<

That would be instructive -

>> The idea that I am afraid that "the universe is not soluble" by rational means and there might be a limit to the reach of pure science is a rather ridiculous. I am quite aware of the limits of science and reason, but it seems quite apparent that these are the only means at our disposal to gain a greater understanding of the universe.<<

Science and reason are rightly separate, here; science simplified to gatherin data without bias or preconception, reason simplified to chug-chugging through that data. However, as you ahve eliminated art and fancy as means for gaining understanding of the universe, I'll have to regard your position as being as yet insubstantial - nearly irrelevant, as the raving of a truncated consciousness. The universe is not only material. That you or anyone might insist that it is is, neatly, immaterial.

>>It is you rather than I who cannot accept these limits and try to fill in the blanks with a lot of fanciful notions which cannot be supported and therefore should be rejected.<<

What are these notions? Whence this divination of yours? How have you arrived at this belief? What blanks?

>>It is far better to simply say "I do not know" rather than make up a story and claim knowledge you do not and cannot have. <<

I agree strongly.
Though, your assumption about what is possible to know - and what you seem to assume I claim - is ony rooted in your ignorance and deliberate will *not* to know. You can know much, much more than you assume is possible. You seem stuck in an assessment of the topic in merely judeo-christian / latter-roman conceptions of divinity - like Matthew's "supernatural" gods - which is unequal to the divinity of reality. You are simply (in my estimation) lacking understanding and a bit incurious. You paint this as a virtue. It isn't virtuous when you externalize this incuriosity and charge others - about whose perceptions and experiences you do not and cannot have knowledge of - with stupidity, as you do, both implicitly and explicitly.


>>I welcome anything that might broaden and build my understanding of the world.<<

No; this is incorrect. You have simplemindedly *decided* what will broaden your understanding, and hold at bay any suggestion that your education - done long ago, it seems, and modified only by aggregate data that conforms to your criteria - is inadequate for the polemic you offer. It's good to attack hypotheses, but stupid to dismiss the ones that threaten your theory. One thing I can relate to, here, though, is the reticence to take on a whole new field of study when one has put so much effort and sacrifice forth already. What I can't respect, though, is the stupidity of simply dismissing the validity of other fields of study - what I frown on malevolently is the ignorant denigration of those other fields. That's supposed to be the failing of the opposition, isn't it? Stupidly rejecting clear and useful science beause it conflicts with cherished tenets of belief?

>>I have no doubt that I have properly analyzed the data at my disposal and reached the proper conclusions based on what I have observed.<<

That's a great litmus for failure: if you have no doubts, that chances are strong that you're being an idiot about something.

>>From what you have presented here and elsewhere, I don't believe the same can be said about you.<<

That is very true. I have strong reservations about what I have observed, and the analysis of the data involved is troubling in the extreme, even when merely confusing or seemingly impossible (as with the experience of time, how that experience is altered, the phenomenon vs the subjectivity, &c).

Now then: that is *way* fucking rude to tell a blind man you gave him a dollar when you took one from his goddamn cup, dog. Holy SHIT you atheists are a dirty lot without Jesus guiding your nonexistent souls. I do have a perfectly good Paypal account. You can access it at the paypal site under lokipaypal or you can contact Muse right here on tribe.net and she'll tell you all about what you get at what level of donation and all that good stuff.

:)

[blush]

I only allow certain people to touch my zone of comfort.

Not to my satisfaction.