Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
(June 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm)Castle Wrote: If I look at this from the upside and downside comparing Theist and Atheist
Over all Theist intellectually down side is being COWARDICE in the sense of lacking reason, logic and science
On the other hand
Atheist downside is the spiritual understanding, in which cowardice toward the open mind for imagination of the 99% spiritual unknowns World and Universe
So you're redefining cowardice to mean lacking reason, logic and science, and then just generally throwing on every theist..
Ok... got it ..
next..
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(June 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm)Castle Wrote: If I look at this from the upside and downside comparing Theist and Atheist
Over all Theist intellectually down side is being COWARDICE in the sense of lacking reason, logic and science
On the other hand
Atheist downside is the spiritual understanding, in which cowardice toward the open mind for imagination of the 99% spiritual unknowns World and Universe
If a thing is unknown, how can you place a percentage on it?
June 13, 2011 at 4:17 pm (This post was last modified: June 13, 2011 at 4:47 pm by Castle.)
(June 13, 2011 at 7:49 am)tackattack Wrote:
(June 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm)Castle Wrote: If I look at this from the upside and downside comparing Theist and Atheist
Over all Theist intellectually down side is being COWARDICE in the sense of lacking reason, logic and science
On the other hand
Atheist downside is the spiritual understanding, in which cowardice toward the open mind for imagination of the 99% spiritual unknowns World and Universe
So you're redefining cowardice to mean lacking reason, logic and science, and then just generally throwing on every theist..
Ok... got it ..
next..
I am specking very general, the word theist is too general for me to understand well enough yet. It's tricky because religion and atheist tend to want to separate groups and thing. Where my spiritual sided thinking is where everything is connected to the Universe. Can Atheism Be Spiritual or Compatible with Spiritual Beliefs? ... All of these and similar senses of "spirituality" are entirely compatible with atheism. I wonder why the two extremes want to separate and not find out better middle grounds
(June 13, 2011 at 12:42 pm)Rhizomorph13 Wrote:
(June 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm)Castle Wrote: If I look at this from the upside and downside comparing Theist and Atheist
Over all Theist intellectually down side is being COWARDICE in the sense of lacking reason, logic and science
On the other hand
Atheist downside is the spiritual understanding, in which cowardice toward the open mind for imagination of the 99% spiritual unknowns World and Universe
If a thing is unknown, how can you place a percentage on it?
I just round it off to 99% , Human do not even know what beneath the 6 km. surface of the earth is. What do we know about our own 99% mass we do not get to see. Now much can you imagine, how much we don't know about the Universe, much less than 1% that is for sure.
Utter crap. You can't use the tired old argument of no proof means possible proof of existance, which ever way you wing it, ridiculous examples following:
Celestial teapot.
Good old Flying Spaghetti Monster.
"Insert stupid fucking boring cyclic waste of time argument symbolism here"
Cmon, humour me, you seriously expect me to believe you or I are going to consider the existance of the teapot?
The word is meant to be general. If you meant to make a broad generalization, be sure you can back it up. If you can't just use a more specific term, like the kind of theists you think are cowards, but it'll still be fallicious.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(June 14, 2011 at 12:30 am)tackattack Wrote: The word is meant to be general. If you meant to make a broad generalization, be sure you can back it up. If you can't just use a more specific term, like the kind of theists you think are cowards, but it'll still be fallicious.
I find the religiously impaired cannot give you an answer through the Universal book of truth.
I try to give you an open end enough answer that can lead us both to discover a better question and answer toward the 99%unknown and 1% known World and Universe
If you want a direct black and white answer, it is 42
June 14, 2011 at 3:53 pm (This post was last modified: June 14, 2011 at 4:57 pm by Darth.)
(June 13, 2011 at 7:49 am)tackattack Wrote:
(June 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm)Castle Wrote: If I look at this from the upside and downside comparing Theist and Atheist
Over all Theist intellectually down side is being COWARDICE in the sense of lacking reason, logic and science
On the other hand
Atheist downside is the spiritual understanding, in which cowardice toward the open mind for imagination of the 99% spiritual unknowns World and Universe
So you're redefining cowardice to mean lacking reason, logic and science, and then just generally throwing on every theist..
Ok... got it ..
next..
I agree, I wouldn't say that those things are cowardice, you can lack those things (reason, logic, science) and be brave sure (One might joke that its harder for one to be brave WITH those things =P). However, I would class anybody who refuses to look at other arguments, any head-sand inserters as cowards. The brave delve into the unknown. That's not to say that everyone who was brought up to believe x (and let me just state for the record this includes those who were raise as anything, atheist, agnostic, deists, theists...) is a coward. But if/when they realise that they might be wrong and have only been presented with one side, they now have a choice to make. A) Investigate further, do some research, or b) ignore any doubts in favour of believing what makes them feel comfortable/what they were brought up believing because that's what everyone else important to them believes. The second choice? THAT'S cowardly (and lets be fair, that's probably the perception of theists among a lot of people (I know I've thought it))
Regarding refutation: A) Burden of proof and what-have-you, where's the evidence FOR the existence of whatever it is you're proposing exists? + what Nazz said a few posts up (Only minus the swearing =P). b) What is it that you're proposing? Did a quick search, 38 pages of posts, wasn't in your introduction, not really up to going through them to find where you explained you're beliefs. Mind chucking us a link to where you explained what your beliefs are?
@ castle: everything is connected? Depends on how connected we're talking, diving into things like monism, pantheism and pansychism. Yes you can believe in spiritual stuff as an atheist, the one thing you can't believe in, by definition (As an atheist; protecting myself from quote miners here), is a god/s, as someone else on here has said, the raelians are atheists, all atheism is is: "A) the lack of belief in a god or gods, B) believing that no god or gods exist". Of the four horsemen I'd wager that Sam Harris is the one down your alley, look him up. There are different broad types/subgroups of atheists, the ones you're talking about could be the rationalists/skeptics.
I agree, I wouldn't say that those things are cowardice, you can lack those things (reason, logic, science) and be brave sure (One might joke that its harder for one to be brave WITH those things =P). However, I would class anybody who refuses to look at other arguments, any head-sand inserters as cowards. The brave delve into the unknown. That's not to say that everyone who was brought up to believe x (and let me just state for the record this includes those who were raise as anything, atheist, agnostic, deists, theists...) is a coward. But if/when they realise that they might be wrong and have only been presented with one side, they now have a choice to make. A) Investigate further, do some research, or b) ignore any doubts in favour of believing what makes them feel comfortable/what they were brought up believing because that's what everyone else important to them believes. The second choice? THAT'S cowardly (and lets be fair, that's probably the perception of theists among a lot of people (I know I've thought it))
Regarding refutation: A) Burden of proof and what-have-you, where's the evidence FOR the existence of whatever it is you're proposing exists? + what Nazz said a few posts up (Only minus the swearing =P). b) What is it that you're proposing? Did a quick search, 38 pages of posts, wasn't in your introduction, not really up to going through them to find where you explained you're beliefs. Mind chucking us a link to where you explained what your beliefs are?
castle: everything is connected? Depends on how connected we're talking, diving into things like pantheism and pansychism. Yes you can believe in spiritual stuff as an atheist, the one thing you can't believe in by definition is a god/s, as someone else on here has said, the raelians are atheists, all atheism is is: "A) the lack of belief in a god or gods, B) believing that no god or gods exist". Of the four horsemen I'd wager that Sam Harris is the one down your alley, look him up.
I use the wizard of Oz as somewhat of a guild line
Within me is the heart, courage and brains, for me courage is most important, which allow me to confront every event or problem. I would be more of the scarecrow kind of guy searching for a brain yet oddly enough he was the one who came up with most of the ideas in the journey. By knowing that, I am what i am, make me pretty happy with the surrounding.
@Stue Denim - I agree a lot of atheist have those views of theists. I'd like to think that it's predominantly because one type of theist/theism made them have that general perception. Then they applied it to all theist, which I'm glad you can see, that while founded upon regional experience does not make it necessarily true universally or to other groups. I agree it's cowardice to beleive what you told without question just because a lot of other people do. I also feel it's important to have a strong introspective look at yourself regularly and question what and why you believe what you do with an open a mind as possible.
As far as staing a case for God's existence, I agree the burden of proof is on me, and I have elsewhere. This is not the thread and frankly there are other current and relevant threads I have more time/interest for/in. If you are really that interested feel free to PM me or start another thread. I can't guarantee I'll have loads of time for an appropriate depth of conversation, but I try not to leave any questions unanswered, even if it's IDK.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
Okay, I'll make this simple for you. I'll ignore the arrogance from which you proceed and focus rather on your fallacious argument. We could sit around doubting ourselves constantly over what "could" be. We could sit on the fence, like agnostics, and commit to neither school of thought. However, and I speak only for myself here, one need not prove that God does not exist to have a definitive answer. One need only prove that the existence of God is not NECESSARY to the existence of the universe. Science has done that. Case closed. Purple unicorns could exist, too. But wasting intellectual energy by refusing to accept the unlikeliness of such a creature is pointless. I accept agnostics as uneasy brothers and sisters in our plight, but fail to see how advocating the "maybe" stance actually helps anyone.
