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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
February 27, 2011 at 12:36 pm
(February 19, 2011 at 2:45 am)Gregoriouse Wrote: To explain I'll evaluate what I mean by selfish as applied to the pleasure principle: generally we wish for people to succeed and fulfill their role in society as best as they can. Humanistically we would like them to have a happy and prosperous like. Or to rethink this in other words, we'd like then to be selfish like the rest of us while conforming happily to social norms. on the contrary imagine a selfless world. No one wold ever take a job promotion because we would want the other person to have it. money and goods would have little to no value because we would only want to use them to help others. Ironically in being selfless and trying to give we expect the other person to take what is given. we expect selfishness. If we didn't have it society would come to a halt.
Sounds like you're hinting at a possible contradiction, because society will come to a halt if we are'nt selfish, but we are taught to be selfless.
But then again, if people are selfless, they will wind up helping each other. Consider this, suppose you're selfless. In order for society to function, someone else has to play the roll of selfish for you, but not for them, in order for them to be selfless.
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 11:49 am
Define "selfless".
If someone likes helping others do you consider them selfish because they are helping others because they like doing so and not out of pure selflessness (however that could be possible), or do you call them selfless for helping others regardless of their intentions?
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 12:36 pm
(March 2, 2011 at 11:49 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: Define "selfless".
If someone likes helping others do you consider them selfish because they are helping others because they like doing so and not out of pure selflessness (however that could be possible), or do you call them selfless for helping others regardless of their intentions?
Got me there. Sounds right, though.
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 2:22 pm
(February 18, 2011 at 3:14 pm)sun Wrote: All of the first generation atheists without an exception have residual nagging believes – Freudian remnants of the psychological rapes their poor minds suffered when they were, as infants & teenagers, at the mercy of their brain-washed parents, society and the church!
That's such a sweeping statement that it can't possibly be qualified. I too am a first generation unbeliever and have no inclinations to return to the church.
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"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Quote:Sounds like you're hinting at a possible contradiction, because society will come to a halt if we are'nt selfish,
Agreed
Quote:but we are taught to be selfless.
Bollocks. We are taught to give the superficial appearance of being selfless. There are selfless acts,but no selfless people.[that I've ever noticed]
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 4:21 pm
(March 2, 2011 at 11:49 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: Define "selfless".
If someone likes helping others do you consider them selfish because they are helping others because they like doing so and not out of pure selflessness (however that could be possible), or do you call them selfless for helping others regardless of their intentions? ![[Image: Can-one-self-be-without-self.jpg?imageSi...losoraptor]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images2.memegenerator.net%2FImageMacro%2F6029601%2FCan-one-self-be-without-self.jpg%3FimageSize%3DMedium%26amp%3BgeneratorName%3DPhilosoraptor)
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 2, 2011 at 4:23 pm
No because one is oneself.
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 3, 2011 at 11:30 pm
(This post was last modified: March 3, 2011 at 11:36 pm by Emporion.)
(March 2, 2011 at 4:21 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: (March 2, 2011 at 11:49 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: Define "selfless".
If someone likes helping others do you consider them selfish because they are helping others because they like doing so and not out of pure selflessness (however that could be possible), or do you call them selfless for helping others regardless of their intentions?
Yes, but then you'd be a zero.
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 4, 2011 at 12:23 am
(This post was last modified: March 4, 2011 at 12:25 am by azharrison.)
I think the opposite is true. I feel that once you stop belief in God/s, you can never go back. Much like the inevitible Santa Claus spoiler, once the mind matures beyond the mytical bearded man, it can never be rationalized again. YMMV.
I am a First Gen'er myself. I have encountered a few people that claim they were "atheist" and re-converted for various reasons... but upon further examination, usually they were driven away from God by hatred of a loss, or in another case a Brahman Hindu that claimed atheism until her discovery of Islam.
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RE: No first generation true atheist is possible!
March 4, 2011 at 12:33 am
(March 4, 2011 at 12:23 am)azharrison Wrote: I think the opposite is true. I feel that once you stop belief in God/s, you can never go back. Much like the inevitible Santa Claus spoiler, once the mind matures beyond the mytical bearded man, it can never be rationalized again. YMMV.
I am a First Gen'er myself. I have encountered a few people that claim they were "atheist" and re-converted for various reasons... but upon further examination, usually they were driven away from God by hatred of a loss, or in another case a Brahman Hindu that claimed atheism until her discovery of Islam.
To re-convert all you need is a weak minded atheist and a really clever rationalization for Jesus.
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