what being apart from the law means.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You've missed quite a lot, apparently. Most of the atheists I talk to here do believe that life has meaning and purpose (though not inherent) and they do not deny the possibility of a universal moral standard (though they do deny its current existence).

Yes, I know that you and a handful of others are not truly nihilists. One can be an atheist and not be a nihilist, in theory, but in general I'm inclined to agree with Dostoevsky, that in the absence of a God...

[Esquilax]

Yes, I know that you and a handful of others are not truly nihilists. One can be an atheist and not be a nihilist, in theory, but in general I'm inclined to agree with Dostoevsky, that in the absence of a God...

How's about instead of telling us what we believe, you actually bother talking to us about it? Because when you just assert what atheists believe without bothering to consult us on it, it comes across as rude and dishonest.

[Drich]

Seek I certainly did. Do you think I just stood there and thought "God, please reveal yourself to me?". That's be ridiculous. I looked around, trying to see him in things, see if there were signs or something, which is why I asked earlier what I should be looking out for.

Perhaps I can only knock once I've successfully sought, but I didn't do that. I haven't found the door yet.

The Door is to simply repeat the process till it is open for you. (the "door" finds you)

It is a 3 fold process you have to do all three steps. It is better to wait to do it right, than it is to do do your own thing.

---

...when you say nihilists I think you mean atheists.

No, I mean nihilists. Let's see denies the existence of God, denies that life has inherent purpose, believes in the finality of death, denies the possibility of an universal moral standard...have I missed anything. If the shoe fits, wear it. I do know some atheists who are not nihilists, but they're pretty rare in these parts.

Besides, calling someone a nihilist is not an insult, it just recognizes the logical consequences of their philosophy. It's not like say calling someone a f*ck-tard or a sheeple. So if it offends you that's too bad. I don't do politically correct when the right word is emotionally neutral.

[/quote]

I found Misotheist and dystheist are also a Good words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism

[Question Mark]

Seek I certainly did. Do you think I just stood there and thought "God, please reveal yourself to me?". That's be ridiculous. I looked around, trying to see him in things, see if there were signs or something, which is why I asked earlier what I should be looking out for.

Perhaps I can only knock once I've successfully sought, but I didn't do that. I haven't found the door yet.

The Door is to simply repeat the process till it is open for you. (the "door" finds you)

It is a 3 fold process you have to do all three steps. It is better to wait to do it right, than it is to do do your own thing.

So the third step is to simply repeat the second step until it works? (correct me if I got that wrong)

Not to be argumentative, but don't you think that's rather a bad way of finding god? Essentially waiting for him to come to me, and being patient with my very short (relative to eternity) life to wait for him, someone who is omniscient and omnipresent.
It seems discourteous on a point as important as the state of my immortal soul to be so blasé when I ask and exert myself, when he has the power to answer me whenever it takes his fancy.

Oh well. I'll always keep an eye out for something that might indicate godly presence, but the more I think about it, this really isn't all too convincing.

[Esquilax]

I found Misotheist and dystheist are also a Good words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism

Do you really want to establish a precedent for blanket name calling here, Drich?

[Question Mark]

I found Misotheist and dystheist are also a Good words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism

Do you really want to establish a precedent for blanket name calling here, Drich?

I would add here that, although it may be an earnest desire of one party or the other to make particular the terms that which should apply to an argument in particular, or that of another, for instance, if one were arguing from the perspective that a god/gods are evil, that does not necessarily make them a dystheist. They may simply be arguing from within the hypothetical or fictional universe, the same way that people argue about fictional characters.

One can be an atheist and still comment on the morality of god within the fictional context that most of us place him, the same as we can comment on the fact that Harry Potter is being a typical whiny, angst-ridden teenager in the Order of the Phoenix.

[FallentoReason]

A/S/K as Luke 11 demonstrates is not about seeking the experiences of Others. At the End of that Passage Christ promises to deliver a Measure of the Holy Spirit to the person who A/S/K for themselves. To A/S/K is to meet God for yourself. Not to listen to how someone else met God.

Been there, done that. Nothing.

It's hard to accept any substitutions when you've been to the mountain yourself and seen the promise land with your own eyes. The Reason nothing can convince me other wise is because i experienced God for myself.

We are masters at exaggeration. Your story of having visited hell in your dreams happened ~20 years ago. That's twenty whole years of retelling the story, where with each retelling it gets that much more fantastic.

I went to a university camp before the start of my first year. Long story short, a mate and I were going to the dorm of someone we met the night before and as we walked into his room in the morning, we saw him wet his bunk bed. He had so much urine to release that it seeped through the top bunk mattress and formed a stream of water on the other side and it wet the empty bunk bed beneath. During the start of our second year, I was walking around campus with someone and I bumped into him. The first story he told my friend was of him wetting the bed... and how he wet the person below and they woke up and said "huh, what the f*%&?!".

Stories get modified Drich, whether you like it or not. Good for you that you feel warm and think you have some connection to a bipolar character in a narrative, but you'll need more than a trivial dream which happened twenty years ago to prove your beliefs.

Put your personal beliefs aside for one second and ask yourself if you experienced God on His terms, and He Himself gave you a confirmation/proof daily. Ask yourself what 'philosphy' could anyone offer you that would replace your relationship? what religion could shake your beliefs?

I experienced god just as much as the Muslim experiences theirs. That's the whole point... the believer isn't a trustworthy source of confirmation of a belief.

It's real simple. If you wish to seek and worship the God of the Bible, then it is by the bible that you will find Him.

Agreed. Prove that he exists, otherwise we're wasting our time following a particular Holy book that the Western world just so happens to be brought up with.

I can give an example of a relationship with 100% faithfulness that doesn't work: your wife comes home at very irregular hours of the night. Because you're so faithful, you don't for one second ask yourself that she's sleeping with other men.

This is not what i asked. I asked for you to provide an example of a healthy relationship where one or both of the two people being in a relationship where being unfaithful.

Clearly you missed the point I was trying to make. A level of scepticism is always good.

The Point being if 'we' do not value/honor relationships where one is unfaithful to the other, then why should God? More over if you are not faithful to what God has given you in the way of a relationship, then why should He stay and enable you to be a wicked person?

This is all trivial and applicable to any of the 3 000+ gods humanity has invented until you can start proving your assumptions about Bible God.

The fallacy has to do with excluding someone from a particular group as having never been a "true" member of that group. You do the exact same thing, but with theological methods such as A/S/K. People continually keep telling you they have tried when they were a Christian, but you keep telling them they were doing it all wrong i.e. they never tried out the method properly. Not only are you being fallacious, but you're being arrogant by claiming that YOU know the way and we don't. You are literally stripping the former believer of everything they used to stand for and discrediting the sincere faith they used to have. That's low.

Do i need to beat you with the no true scotsman fallacy before you let this one go?

The No True Scotsmam fallacy Centers around the Idea that their aren't any prerequsites to be a 'true scotsman' and someone just randomly makes up rules to being a 'true scots man.'

How does that differ from Christianity? There are a written set of prerequsites of being a Christian. Meaning one can legitmatly discern a Christian from someone claiming to be one.

All anyone has to do is open the bible and compare what is written to what the person has done. If that person has not followed what is written, then it is pretty easy to discern whether or not that person fit the biblical defination of a Christian.

...

You've adapted the fallacy in such a way that it deals with methods of doing things and not membership of a group, which is what the original fallacy has to do with.

People here are telling you they have tried and tried to communicate with your god but failed. Your response is that they weren't ever doing it right. You're effectively achieving the same sort of comfort as the original fallacy: that you know you have it right and that they don't fit in with your category of "I am a believer and I have A/S/Ked" because they never A/S/Ked properly. Fallacious my friend.

A non thirsty person would not argue as to how to operate the fountain. They would simply ignore the instruction and move on. No one would spend hours debating the operation of the fountain if he were not a little parched.

Cool.

I can tell you right now the only one thirsty is yourself. I don't know your past, but I do know of more people than I can count who are Christian because they have had a traumatic experience/mental issues/lost a loved one... basically it's a crutch they need and they thirst for a resolution -- an answer to their suffering. I personally thirst for truth, but what you offer is too vague, too mysterious, too ambiguous for it to be called a self-evident truth.

Has the whole universe always revolved around how your understanding of it? I mean wow.. What I offer is a starting line and a direction. i wish I could give you more, but this is all God offers any of us to begin with. either you will take him up on what He has offered or you will not.

The universe revolves around truths, of which are embedded within it for all to see. The whole religious pursuit of truth is so contradictory, so hypocritical, so obscure and tedious, so against reason and logic.

Seriously, this whole A/S/K thing is directly comparable to 1984. As you say, you offer me this starting point, this "initiation ritual" whereby I need to achieve a level of "enlightenment" that you claim you have; "I have A/S/Ked God and I have been met with a response". Now you say it's my turn. I have told you it has never worked, but you won't accept that as an answer and instead tell me I've got it wrong and that I need to try harder/more sincerely/more faithfully etc... whatever the snakeoil salesman pitch might be here. So in essence, I am the victim and you are the torturer telling me that I'm in actuality being irrational because A/S/K does work, and so begins the torture within me between the rational mind and the part of me that says "let go of reason, just believe". Well, guess what Drich, 2 + 2 will always equal 4 and A/S/K will continually fail because I won't let you override my rational thinking processes in order to make me fool myself that I can feel/hear/see something.

Do you see how obscure and mysterious this all is? The truth is always much simpler and self-evident, unlike conspiracy theories and cons.

[Neo-Scholastic]

How's about instead of telling us what we believe, you actually bother talking to us about it? Because when you just assert what atheists believe without bothering to consult us on it, it comes across as rude and dishonest.

The whole point of a forum is to share your opinions and find out what other people think. You write that as if nobody loudly advertises their beliefs, particularly yourself. I read people's posts and form my opinions about their beliefs based on what they write. And here you are, getting all upset because I identify many atheists as advocates of philosophical nihilism, either outright or implicitly. Me thinks the atheist doth protest too much.

[Esquilax]

The whole point of a forum is to share your opinions and find out what other people think. You write that as if nobody loudly advertises their beliefs, particularly yourself. I read people's posts and form my opinions about their beliefs based on what they write. And here you are, getting all upset because I identify many atheists as advocates of philosophical nihilism, either outright or implicitly. Me thinks the atheist doth protest too much.

Yes, we do share our opinions. Crucially, "share" is not the same thing as "decide for one another." We'll let you know what we believe if you ask, you don't need to mine it out from our words, and we also wouldn't need to lie about what we believe either. It's what we believe, after all, what would be the point of hiding that?

Of course, if you're really advocating a by fiat labeling of what anyone believes by anyone else, then that's fine, so long as you realize that turnabout is fair play. If you can just declare for me what I believe, then we can do it right back. I don't mind turning off my self censorship to do that, if you're really willing to go down that path.

[Drich]

So the third step is to simply repeat the second step until it works? (correct me if I got that wrong)

That sounds about right.

Not to be argumentative, but don't you think that's rather a bad way of finding god?

Not according to God the Son.
(Remember this is a cut and paste of His words not mine)

Essentially waiting for him to come to me, and being patient with my very short (relative to eternity) life to wait for him, someone who is omniscient and omnipresent.

It's about humility. will you do as you are told?

It seems discourteous on a point as important as the state of my immortal soul to be so blasé when I ask and exert myself, when he has the power to answer me whenever it takes his fancy.

What else can you do?

Oh well. I'll always keep an eye out for something that might indicate godly presence, but the more I think about it, this really isn't all too convincing.

1Cor 1:26 Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 And God chose what the world thinks is not important—what the world hates and thinks is nothing. He chose these to destroy what the world thinks is important. 29 God did this so that no one can stand before him and boast about anything. 30 It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin. 31 So, as the Scriptures say, “Whoever boasts should boast only about the Lord.”[d]

...Seems to me it's all par for the course.

---

I found Misotheist and dystheist are also a Good words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism

Do you really want to establish a precedent for blanket name calling here, Drich?

did you read the definations of those two words? Do they fit anyone who insists on calling themselves Atheists?

If I wanted to just name call, don't you think I would have included some of your screen names, and started to call some of you out? What I have done is shine a little light on the work that is done under the title of atheism. Not all of it fits, I have freely shared information that allows the indivisual to make up his own mind as to who's works are atheistic in nature or maybe Miso/dystheistic..

One would think that a 'true thinker ™' would not bock at hard facts and evidence that promotes Actual Independant thought.