(November 6, 2012 at 9:29 am)passionatefool Wrote: apophenia,

most of my response wasn't even toward you neither did I care to call you a fundie atheist. I hardly read any of your response.

You hardly read any of Apo's response? How then did you extract three multi-sentence portions to address?

Here's a nice essay from A.C. Grayling that should help with your confusion regarding the term "fundamentalist atheist".

http://www.skeptical-science.com/atheism...-grayling/

Quote: So, in order not to be a “fundamentalist” atheist, which of the absurdities connoted in the foregoing should an atheist temporise over? Should a “moderate atheist” be one who does not mind how many hundreds of millions of people have been deeply harmed by religion throughout history? Should he or she be one who chuckles indulgently at the antipathy of Sunni for Shia, Christian for Jew, Muslim for Hindu, and all of them for anyone who does not think the universe is controlled by invisible powers? Is an acceptable (to the faithful) atheist one who thinks it is reasonable for people to believe that the gods suspend the laws of nature occasionally in answer to personal prayers, or that to save someone’s soul from further sin (especially the sin of heresy) it is in his own interests to be murdered?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...fuck off!

Apophenia,

I am going to stop responding to you because I think you are much more interested in attacking me personally by calling and accusing me of all sort of things. Even after I said there are plenty of things in buddhism that i criticize myself. I have no desire to practice buddhism myself which is why I am an atheist. I was originally pointing out the pros as my first response in this thread as "to be fair". Giving a different perspective that atheist tend to ignore and sometimes too afraid to admit that there can be good thing with religion by giving the example of the Dalai Lama encouraging practitioner to choose science when conflict with buddhism, and that was all that I said before many of you blowing thing up. you can find the video on youtube and I am sure everywhere on the internet if you do a simple google search) I would do the same for any religion whether it is buddhism or not such as I think fundraising to help people is a positive act even if it is Christianity or hinduism. I didnt say buddhism is flawless or the holy all wonderful flowery path, if it is I wouldnt be an atheist.

To be honest I feel like you are more up in arm defend yourself, whine and complain because you infered that I somehow attack you or infer anything about you (as stated in your original response toward me). I also dont need citation because it is things from personal experience with all those years I am in practice and with the community. Are there crazy Buddhist? Yes there are but you dont generally see buddhist setting people on fire. Or wage war in the name of Buddha, whether or not you want to admit it, they are much more moderate and peaceful. There are zen buddhist involve in war but it is hardly a war because of religion but more of a political tactic used by politician such as the case with Japan. Do a google search on it and read about it, dont just look for that few rare case as an argument to your favor and ignore the abundance of other sources saying otherwise, I think it would be easier for you to do that than it is for me because my only internet access is my phone. You will see what I am talking about. I think you will find more things about Hinduism to frown upon.

All that I admit to promoting is a more reasonable logical approach as an atheist and just attack what is appropriate. However it seems like you arent an atheist so it doesnt matter.

You can think whatever you want and you can just say I am a wolf in sheep disguise. It doesnt matter to me since it is clear we hold a different view on how we should approaches issues. I am no longer interested in debating with you over something that I am accused of.

---

Cato123,

I think you didnt see a thing I said and I think it is completely irrelevant that you called me out on something that I am not guilty of. I didnt care much to read for apophenia's response prior to the one he/she quote me and seem to attack me in anger in which i extracted sentences from to respons to him/her.

If you read any of my response in this thread, I already clearly said that anything that is necessary to attack should be attacked such as belief or act that are harmful to others and I dont hesitate to criticize them either. I do all the time even though I live in the buckle of the bible belt in the United States. I over and over again repeated the fact that we should attack what is harmful to education and human rights or harmful in general so the little quote you quoted was unnecessary. However I appreciate that you take the effort. Thank you. Even though whoever wrote that thing is probably just another fundie atheist idiot or just an idiot that illogically exaggerate things nor really know what being moderate is so I prefer not to waste my time. Yall have a good day

passionatefool,

You aren't getting the point. For the kumbaya learning impaired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6aweJbgk...=fvwp&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtn_DD28HMo

When you're back in your old neighborhood
The cigarettes taste so good
But you're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
There's something there that you can't find
You look honest when you're telling a lie
You hurt her but you don't know why
You love her but you don't know why
You're short on long term goals
There's a party there that we ought to go to
Do you still love rock and roll?
Do you still love rock and roll?
It's only a quarter to three
Reflected off of your CD
You're looking at a picture of me
You're staring at a picture of me
Take the guitar player for a ride
You see he's never been satisfied
He thinks he owes you some kind of debt
It'll be years before he gets over it
There's a fortune inside your head
And all you touch turns to lead
You think you might just crawl back in bed
With a fortune inside your head
I know you're just a mama's boy
You're positively unemployed
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
And if you got a God shaped hole
You're bleeding out your heart full of soul
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
I'd like to thank you all for nothing
I'd like to thank you all for nothing at all
I'd like to thank you all for nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing at all

— Wilco, Misunderstood

As a great fan of reason I must say Buddhism as a philosophy, that is minus the fairytale stuff mentioned prior, still works for me, that is it makes intuitive sense. If you take away the fairytale parts of Christianity, however, you are left with the unfortunate early death of a nice if a little crazy guy who thought he should be king of the Jews and pissed off the wrong crowd.

I might sound a bit segregational (sp?), but leave QM to the people who actually understand QM. Why? Because the New Age assholes are taking advantage of peoples misunderstanding of QM to sell their woo. If you want to understand QM, then read a physics book or take a course in it, anything other than reading it from these New Age assholes.

(May 21, 2013 at 3:27 pm)littleendian Wrote: As a great fan of reason I must say Buddhism as a philosophy, that is minus the fairytale stuff mentioned prior, still works for me, that is it makes intuitive sense. If you take away the fairytale parts of Christianity, however, you are left with the unfortunate early death of a nice if a little crazy guy who thought he should be king of the Jews and pissed off the wrong crowd.

I've heard this sort of stuff so many times before and every time it's equally vague. Could you be a little more specific as to what philosophical part of Buddhism 'works for you' and how?

(May 21, 2013 at 6:32 pm)Sal Wrote: I might sound a bit segregational (sp?), but leave QM to the people who actually understand QM. Why? Because the New Age assholes are taking advantage of peoples misunderstanding of QM to sell their woo. If you want to understand QM, then read a physics book or take a course in it, anything other than reading it from these New Age assholes.

Tell me about it. That woowoo in QM has spread like a cancer over the internet. Some of them, especially the religious nutjobs, read a page or two on wikipedia, and they're instant experts. The internet has its good sides, but not in this case.

Joe

(May 25, 2013 at 4:20 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote:

(May 21, 2013 at 3:27 pm)littleendian Wrote: As a great fan of reason I must say Buddhism as a philosophy, that is minus the fairytale stuff mentioned prior, still works for me, that is it makes intuitive sense. If you take away the fairytale parts of Christianity, however, you are left with the unfortunate early death of a nice if a little crazy guy who thought he should be king of the Jews and pissed off the wrong crowd.

I've heard this sort of stuff so many times before and every time it's equally vague. Could you be a little more specific as to what philosophical part of Buddhism 'works for you' and how?

The four truths and the eightfold path basically, I try to use those as an ideal for my actions, though of course I don't always succeed. The concept of Karma is for me intuitively true and I think even the eternal cycle of living, or rebirth Makes sense (but not on a level of individuals and their specific traits, but is this one fruit fly really so different from all those before and after her? I suspect same for all life). Meditation also seems to make sense whether Buddha really sat for weeks under that tree or just a few days or not at all. Prayer without god is just talking to oneself.