Ex Theists

[theVOID]

Philosophy is a great way to spend your life not getting answers.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't conflate that with evidence necessarily. For the atheist like myself,I think it can be the experience of realising there IS no evidence,[...]

I just think of it as overall an evidential matter. Because it's either about evidence or lack thereof.

Philosophy is a great way to spend your life not getting answers.

I tend to think of philosophy as more about questions than answers.

EvF

[Pippy]

I tend to think of philosophy of more about questions than answers.

Very true.

But more telling is the fact that every single time a theist claims this kind of thing they are NEVER able to substantiate it! It doesn't prove they aren't but it builds up an impression about the disingenuous little fucks!

You want us to substantiate that we used to have atheist or agnostic leanings by linking to old forum threads? What if, like Frodo, I didn't forum back then? I also remember taking on theists, and still to this day I will debate with the religious if I have too. But not in a form that I can link too now. I too try to live in the real world.

You can believe everyone is lying to you.

You can take our word on our histories, or not.

-Pip

[theVOID]

I don't conflate that with evidence necessarily. For the atheist like myself,I think it can be the experience of realising there IS no evidence,[...]

I just think of it as overall an evidential matter. Because it's either about evidence or lack thereof.

Philosophy is a great way to spend your life not getting answers.

I tend to think of philosophy of more about questions than answers.

EvF

Still a waste of time, there are no answers. People are actually paid money to sit around and think about a range of issues but are not expected to produce any meaningful results or evidence.

[Pippy]

It is about the journey, not the destination.

Questions like "is there a god" or "is there a meaning of life" are unanswerable. But they are fun to ponder. It's not always about output, not just a waste of time if there is no production.

People actually get paid for weirder shit than that...

[Edwardo Piet]

Still a waste of time, there are no answers. People are actually paid money to sit around and think about a range of issues but are not expected to produce any meaningful results or evidence.

I personally enjoy it. And if only for that reason and that reason alone - I personally don't find it a waste of time.

EvF

[Kyuuketsuki]

I operated in the real world back then. early 80's computer You remember actual conversations don't you?

Back then Frodo? I was first debating online, in a forum, in 1998 ... earlier on Compu$erve, I've been using PC based personal computers since the late 80', computers that have been pushed by users rather than business since the early 90's (a major reason why Windows rules the desktop world) ... you talk about two years ago as if computers and forums didn't exist ... and they were extremely popular even then!

This may shock you but I still talk to people now, I don't (like most commuters it seems) lock myself within an iPod shell and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist but instead prefer to hear the real world, smile at and chat with others and so on.

Sending 5 1/4 floppy disks by post wasn't condusive to much more than "hey, got any good programs to swap?". I bow to your geekery Kyu.

Geek I may be (and proud of it) and yeah, I still have a case full of FD's but I haven't sent or given stuff to people on one for getting on for 10 years and only use them for BIOS updates, drivers (XP type builds) and computer imaging and those things are almost no longer needed. My preferred medium of exchange for many years now has been e-mail, MSN, personal FTP sites, USB drives, hard disks and, where necessary, CD/DVD.

No, I accosted people in the street. Various nutty flavours of the door to door variety. Vicars and professionals I'd meet. After resigning from a church you can imagine the even richer pickings. I'd consider online badgering possibly tame next to that. My meaty morsels were usually live bait confined.

I think Sir is being more than a little disingenuous in his claim to atheism.

I did participate in a very long thread between myself and a strange person on Beliefnet a few years ago. I was relating spiritual experience and they were talking about speaking to me in my dreams. Atheism takes many forms of course. As we see on here.

On here? No evidence yet again? Sir shocks me ... NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!

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But more telling is the fact that every single time a theist claims this kind of thing they are NEVER able to substantiate it! It doesn't prove they aren't but it builds up an impression about the disingenuous little fucks!

You want us to substantiate that we used to have atheist or agnostic leanings by linking to old forum threads? What if, like Frodo, I didn't forum back then? I also remember taking on theists, and still to this day I will debate with the religious if I have too. But not in a form that I can link too now. I too try to live in the real world.

Do you not get that your answer is EXACTLY what I expect and have got from EVERY FUCKING THEIST WHO HAS EVER CLAIMED TO BE EX-ATHEIST?

You can believe everyone is lying to you.

I don't ... I just believe theist throw in such claim like, "I used to be atheist" either as some kind of implicit "but now I've seen the truth!" or because they genuinely don't understand what an atheist is, thinking it is not rejection of claims to deity but a kind of falling out with God or that they can somehow choose to be atheist when they can't (no one can in any real sense).

You can take our word on our histories, or not.

Not!

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Philosophy is a great way to spend your life not getting answers.

BRAVO! Well said that man

Still a waste of time, there are no answers. People are actually paid money to sit around and think about a range of issues but are not expected to produce any meaningful results or evidence.

Yeah, although I accept such things can be interesting and philosophy can sometimes play into science making a claim that can be tested (metaphysics never does as far as I can tell) that's why I refer to it as psychobabble and mental masturbation.

I will change my view on it the day someone points out something that is pretty much globally accepted by scientific, academic and the smarter theologists purely on the basis of modern day philosophy ... until then I will regard true philosophy as the search for knowledge and science/math as the only reasonable way of acquiring it.

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Still a waste of time, there are no answers. People are actually paid money to sit around and think about a range of issues but are not expected to produce any meaningful results or evidence.

I personally enjoy it. And if only for that reason and that reason alone - I personally don't find it a waste of time.

That's fine but as a means of establishing things it's pretty fucking useless!

Kyu

[Violet]

Answers From Philosophy: our very existence, the universal stability of 1=1, the establishment of justice and morality (unique by viewpoint), to name a few.

Philosophy, as with a great many things, can bring one answers. As with science and faith, the answers can be incorrect... but unlike science which relies purely on the physical, and faith which relies purely on belief: philosophy brings one answers from pure logic. That means that philosophy (assuming it is well thought through) is almost always reasonable.

And without reason... where would our science be? Science is completely based on chance. Even if something happens 500 times in a row under the same conditions... it is still possible for it to happen differently on the 501st time. The scientific method does not acknowledge this fact... and assumes that if it happens a few times the same way: it will not alter in an infinite number of tests. This is all well and good if we are in a universe formed not by intelligent beings. But it is impossible to prove that we are or not... therefore science must blindly assume that our world abides by the same laws at all time (if it is to progress at any reasonable pace).

Science can work on a single math equation for years and years, whereas i by simple logic can tell them wether it is or is not possible in mere minutes. This does not negate the need for mathematicians... however it does show how easy it is for a lay person to learn a great deal without throwing vital lifetime into something they only care a little about. That is why all of us should be, at least partly, philosophers. Not because all of us care to know about why we must exist, or why one must equal one... but because a little doubt and a little wisdom can save one years of wasted time in learning 'the hard way'.

[Pippy]

Do you not get that your answer is EXACTLY what I expect and have got from EVERY FUCKING THEIST WHO HAS EVER CLAIMED TO BE EX-ATHEIST?

That I can't link to other online "proof" since my atheist existence was offline? Is this like "pics or it didn't happen,"? What is the difference between a theist saying they used to be an atheist, and an atheist saying they used to be a theist? That is kind of the point of this thread, and I see no distinction between the two. Unless, you all as ex-theist atheists have "seen the light"...

Thanks,
-Pip

[Edwardo Piet]

That's fine but as a means of establishing things it's pretty fucking useless!

Kyu

I don't think that's its job though hehe That's science's job. The most rational of philosophy in the past became what we know science to be today, and then the rest doesn't really deal with reality I think. Am I at all close there?

Lol, I like one of the things Dan Dennett has said about philosophy "Philosophers are those people who say "Oh, we know it's possible in practice, we're just trying to find out if it's possible in principle!", lol.

Any philosophy that is tied in with science turns out to be more like science than philsophy and I guess not really philosophy. Dan Dennett is my favourite philosopher...but then his stuff tends to be a lot more scientific and with emprical basis! Even Dawkins has said that he has found scientific stuff in Dennett's work that he hasn't himself known of.

So yeah, in its 'purest form' - philosophy is pretty fucking impractial me thinks!

Science ultimately stems from philosophy, but as you say Kyu - the philosophy of :Science is the greatest philosophy (it actually gets results, and consistently so).

EvF