High there

[pineapplebunnybounce]

This is the intro thread, so I'm saying this in the most polite way possible: Christianity's god is not such a big deal and is not all that different from other gods.

[Jackalope]

Herman, you are certainly correct that it would be irrational no not believe in something known to be and demonstrably true.

Your challenge, and where such claims break, is the italicized portion.

[ParCutz]

In my introduction post I wanted to know if there were some good TV shows without the bull. Now that I found this site, I may not need to watch anymore television. Comedic and dramatic. The religious folk are so entertaining. I am guessing that Father Herman's church did not make their soul quota, so he is trying his darnedest to meet it any which way but loose. Good luck in here! Oh, hi, Father Herman.

[Fruity]

In my introduction post I wanted to know if there were some good TV shows without the bull. Now that I found this site, I may not need to watch anymore television. Comedic and dramatic. The religious folk are so entertaining. I am guessing that Father Herman's church did not make their soul quota, so he is trying his darnedest to meet it any which way but loose. Good luck in here! Oh, hi, Father Herman.

lol Oh, you are going to be entertained here. It's my hobby.

[Angrboda]

......Atheism depends on keeping people confused. I’ll have many opportunities to point this out …
(all sing) As time goes on …

To avoid confusion, you need to be attentive to the difference between “god” and “God.” The uncapitalized word refers to the fictional gods of paganism. I pointed this out in an earlier post in this thread, so try to keep up. I'm not speaking of any pagan “god.”

“Eschew obfuscation.”

The intelligent question is: What happens if I don't believe in God?

My hunch is that you're asking What happens on the day of judgment? But I'm not God, so of course I wouldn’t know.

But maybe you're asking What happens here and now? What happens here and now is that you continue confusing and misleading yourself and others. You continue to waste your life imagining that the universe “created itself” or that it's “beginningless;” that life arose by the Chance of the Gaps.

It means you continue living in a dream world.

Good luck with that.

H

I'm reminded of a passage in one of Asimov's Foundation novels in which they designed a special computer to strip away all the diplomatic jargon and double-talk from speeches given by ambassadors so that they could unambiguously get at the intentions of such envoys. They tried it out when a high ranking diplomat visited and spent three days of non-stop talking, palm pressing, and speech giving. At the end of the three days, they submitted it all to the computer and the computer determined that in his entire three days of talking he hadn't said a single thing. You talk about truth, yet you do the dance of the liar. Why? Are your truths not good enough to stand naked before us?


Answering your questions in reverse order, the image is that of famed Christian mystic, .

And the meaning of my name can be found here: Wikipedia:

When you say the Kellion of St. Makarios, is that attached to the mission near Chicago?

I'm looking forward to your description of the path of a monk.

[downbeatplumb]

downbeatplumb made a mistake. He thought that all deities are fictional. Fine; people make mistakes. But there is one Deity that’s real. So the proposition there is no God is false and its opposite is true. It should be obvious that you should believe that which is true.

I made no mistake.

[Father Herman]

When you say the Kellion of St. Makarios, is that attached to the mission near Chicago?

No. I don’t have a formal connection to any parish or monastery at this time. If you went to the mission's website, you might have seen the video of Fr Roman Braga. I knew him when I was in Ohio.

My path to Orthodox monasticism:

Thanks to a neighbor who was a schoolteacher, I began to read philosophy. Western philosophy is severely limited—but it does get you thinking.

After passing through my atheist period and my Buddhist period I realized that I needed to be a monk. Why? Just for the love of God. So I began attending Church services. I was Roman Catholic at the time. I was immediately attracted to eremitic life, and ended up at the Camaldolese hermitage in Big Sur.

In conversations with Protestants I would often refer to the Christian tradition, and gradually it dawned on me that I needed a better understanding of that tradition. The obvious place to begin is of, course, at the beginning. So I began to read the holy Fathers and the early history of the Church. That’s what led me to the Orthodox Church.

>>How does one become a monastic?

One should have some experience in a parish first—at least a year or two. Monasticism is central to Orthodox Christian life, so during that time one will naturally begin to learn where the monasteries are.

So then you start making visits wherever you can, for two or three days at a time. The ideal, for one who can afford it, is to spend a year in Greece, Romania or some other country where Orthodoxy has been long established. Eventually, you'll find that your heart draws you to some particular monastery.

More importantly, one should try to find an elder who will be your guide. You may have encountered the Russian word stáretz. The Greek word is géronta.

I "do the dance of the liar" -- well, that's interesting! Perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain what you're thinking. It sounds like another "Poe Principle!"

H

---

For those interested, the video is about atheist anti-humanism in Romania. It can be found at the bottom of the page here:

http://saintmakarios.org/links.html

H

[jesupeoplechurch]

High there,

I am new in this forum. This is my first post for all, Just say Hi.
It's so high.

[Zen Badger]

Hi. ...
Nice place you got here.

H

We like it.
The wallpaper is a bit tacky but the bar is well provisioned.
Pull up a stool and regal us with tales of your version of reality.

[Father Herman]

We're coming to the end of HIGH THERE 1.


Dear Cookie (post 60)

1. So you don’t like my tone. Alas! I’ve lost a reader! But …

But of course you don’t like my tone: I'm a theist. Stuff that you wouldn’t bat an eye at if it came from an atheist is of course intolerable coming from a theist. Maybe you should avoid my posts.

But you're a moderator. Maybe you feel obliged to read every bit of drivel that passes through these pages.

I'm certainly not going to change my “tone” to suit every individual. Maybe you should just have me liquidated.

If it helps, I'm not going to call anyone a “liar” (post 65); much less a “pervert” (post 33). So tell us—forgetting anything as ambiguous as the “tone:” How do you feel about the content in those posts?

And … what is it that a moderator does, exactly?

But it raises a question for me. If I author a thread, what assurance do I have that it's not going to be filled with an atheist “tone”—all the sneering, snide remarks, name-calling, crudity—all the inanity that atheism is heir to?

Please. Get back to me on that one.


2. If there’s some specific assertion I've made that you’d like me to address in some future thread (or as you put it, to “justify or abandon”) —please: just name it.

3. As for “Pascal’s wager:” you obviously have some fascination with it. But I'm afraid it’s a fascination I don’t share. “Pascal’s wager” has never impressed me much.

But you want to hear my reasons.

Unfortunately, I haven’t given a thought to “Pascal’s wager” in at least forty years. “Pascal’s wager” is irrelevant to the subjects that currently interest me and consequently it's never referred to in the literature that I read.

So I have no motivation for looking into “Pascal’s wager.” Except—

Except that you're interested; and perhaps you want me to help you think it through. If this is so then I will take the time to see if there’s anything new that philosophers are saying about “Pascal’s wager.” But Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia are about as far as I'm willing to go.

Perhaps you're in pain, suffering from some terminal illness, and need answers right away. In that case of course I will help you.


4. Then you mention evidence—that’s a bold step for an atheist in the 21st century.

Do you want the kind of currently available evidence that has changed the minds of former atheists? Or do you want antiques like 19th century Darwinism, or “Pascal’s wager?”

We're now in the 21st century. Any atheist raising the subject of evidence is lingering in the 19th century.

(I won't be so patronizing as to say that you're “out of step with reality.” —But you know: we're both going to have to forgive this kind of rhetoric, like it or not. it's just too easy to do and too hard to avoid. Still (to mention this again) rhetoric is one thing—crudity and stupidity are something else altogether.)

5. We'll take up the subject of the definition of atheism as contrasted to what individual atheists assert in some future thread.

How many future threads have I generated already? —and this is just my first introduction.

H