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Testing the strength of your Atheism
#51
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
I can't see it - unless I had lost my mind. Who am I going to pray to? Vishnu? Allah? The Great Pumpkin?

I would more likely cry out to Scotty to beam me up NOW dammit!
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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#52
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
(January 21, 2015 at 4:35 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: I can't see it - unless I had lost my mind. Who am I going to pray to? Vishnu? Allah? The Great Pumpkin?

I would more likely cry out to Scotty to beam me up NOW dammit!

Oh, come on!

Like Scotty can hear you without a communicator. Geek
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#53
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
It requires no effort from me to be an atheist.
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#54
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
I'm pretty sure I would talk to God, because I have a habit of doing that without any crisis to motivate me. I was indoctrinated as a Christian. Intellectually I don't see any possible way that any form of Christianity could be true, but my habit of talking to God and Jesus continues. I even cross myself sometimes which is particularly silly. Undecided
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#55
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
(January 21, 2015 at 1:14 am)PreV2 Wrote: Say you were in building in an earthquake zone and a large earthquake struck.
You were buried and in great pain as concrete trapped your legs and arms.
The hours went by and you heard some activity outside.

As days then passed without any rescue would you then decide to pray
to be rescued as a kinda last resort as the pain increased even more? Thinking
No. Nothing can be gained from praying. There is no god, so what is the point. Even if there were, I am not concerned about my wallet at the moment. Look to real solutions. Pray to MacGyver maybe. Thinking
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
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#56
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
(January 21, 2015 at 8:40 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: I'm pretty sure I would talk to God, because I have a habit of doing that without any crisis to motivate me. I was indoctrinated as a Christian. Intellectually I don't see any possible way that any form of Christianity could be true, but my habit of talking to God and Jesus continues. I even cross myself sometimes which is particularly silly. Undecided

Jesus Christ, pull yerself together!

Oh, wait...
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#57
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
Then again...
Speaking of pulling yourself together. Prayer may be helpful psychologically. In a panic situation your instincts (emotional brain) take charge and suppresses your cognition to a degree...presumably to make you take historically proven action quickly rather than risking delay due to analysis paralysis, or something like that. It may be that praying is akin to meditation in this circumstance and may calm down your emotional response and enable some clearer thinking.

IOW when you pray to God you might actually be praying to yourself to calm down a tad and come up with a new course of action. Praying for "inspiration from God" but not really from getting it from a god. Like you might think better if you had another person with you.

Our minds are highly emotional. Who designed this thing? Tongue
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#58
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
Very good point, Animated Earth.

I remember reading somewhere that the 'design' of our brain would not permit total suppression of emotion or even to the degree of the fictional Vulcans of Star Trek. Something about everything going through an emotional filter before it even reaches our analytical brain. It seems like a crappy 'design' all right.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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#59
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
AFTT47,

Yep. Think about it - none of your actions can ever be purely based on rationality, because logic is simply a system to arrive at conclusions from given premises or axioms. The first motivation for any action must be a non-rational one, be it instinct or emotion. Suppressing all that would mean loss of all inner drive.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#60
RE: Testing the strength of your Atheism
I pray to Mila Kunis all the time. She responds about as often as god does. But, at least I know she's real and better looking.
"I was thirsty for everything, but blood wasn't my style" - Live, "Voodoo Lady"
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