An Open Letter to Atheists

[Tiger]

I was out in Kilbarrack this morning, and I spotted well known local atheist - James Dawson out and about. He doesn’t look to be in good nick to be honest..

 

[Tiger]

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

In this episode Trent rebuts Stephen Law's "evil god" challenge to the existence of God.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNXk3uhN9Ws

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

 

[bormotello]

And what atheists will say now?

Only the 'Lord Almighty' could compel me to quit - Biden

The president dismisses suggestions he may end his re-election bid, as a fifth House Democrat calls on him to quit as the party's nominee.

www.bbc.com

 

[A Man Called Charolais]

This is very good, although at first appearances may seem a bit convoluted. In pattern, it reminds me of when William Lane Craig debated Christopher Hitchens. While there is a lot of time in both videos (which is something of a drag) one can see sophisticated atheistic minds being shook. Boghossian, though, isn't routed as Hitchens was but is challenged in a way I haven't seen him before. Curious it should come from a carver and artist. The difference here is that Hitchens knows he's been rumbled as a letch (remember he was from a very British family of a very particular time) whereas Boghossian is intellectually convinced and discovers that his perspective isn't really as clever as thought.

​

This would be for the confirmed atheists on the site rather than for casual consumption. It has challenging content and pertinent insights. Pageau is going to Pireaus on this one so believers should not be too alarmed.

The Pageaus (both of the brothers) are very impressive. They come from a Quebecois background, so there's a language hurdle - Jonathan's choice of the word care (for example) might otherwise be described as significance. But there's something else in this choice of word that reflects a different culture - indeed - national sense, it's emotional emphasis that wouldn't be something that the drier anglophone academic world (perhaps now of olde) would find odd and extraneous.

This difference in dasein can be viewed in the embarrassing interlude, which I took as a reference precipitated by Boghossian's question on infidelity and Pageau's formulation of his potential response to it with his significant other (still a bullet but with empathy). Boghossian's "world of possibility" interprets it lewdly within the context of the discussion, which points to a significant different in thematic engagement and customary milieu. It is not something that would occur to Pageau, and this points to the difference in engagement and, indeed, is indicative of the difference in the scope of the relational substrates perceived by both men.
The Christian perspective has a platonic potential whereas the modernist and postmodernist one has a collapsed structure (which gives a window on the current social movements of deep concern). Now that's all very vague (and meant to be) but I can confirm that the prayers of Catholics are also answered, although perhaps not in a fabrication which collapses the field. Didn't Jung have something to say on that Peter?

 

[AUL LAD]

An outside follower of this thread asks the following question:

'What's the plan here exactly. Atheists should "give up atheism" - Zippy, 'convert' to your religion? '

Just disappear from the social discourse is the answer. You're not clever, and Star Trek is not in our future. You've done enough social damage and have no answers for the existential problems you've created. Cultural nihilists cannot fix cultural issues, obviously.

when you take Christianity seriously on a very amateur level it is troubling that it is wonderful and inspiring and contains within so many mystics and people of extraordinary ability and Christs family were essenes --today they would be ridiculed in every publication on earth for their practices. .
you also discover it contains some of the most evil characters in world history who have hijacked the religion to do evil on a vast scale .
when i as a unskilled person wishes to make his way through this none of the churches make this journey easy .
my test for them all is Christs statement that god is within you --none of them embrace this and i then distance my self from them.

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

Christs statement that god is within you

Are you sure? This might be a mistranslation

 

[AUL LAD]

Are you sure? This might be a mistranslatio

What should it say-- i from memory am quoting Jesuit priest john o Donahue who was interviewed after writing his great book ANAM CARA and he said the core of his book was the statement by Christ in his sermon from the mount GOD IS WITHIN YOU .
he was ostracized from the church and the church said this was not catholic teaching.

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

What should it say-- i from memory am quoting Jesuit priest john o Donahue who was interviewed after writing his great book ANAM CARA and he said the core of his book was the statement by Christ in his sermon from the mount GOD IS WITHIN YOU .
he was ostracized from the church and the church said this was not catholic teaching.

"The Kingdom of Heaven Is Within You"

The words of Jesus you cite, “The kingdom of God is within you,” is from Luke 17:21 and was delivered to the Pharisees. A better translation is provided in the...

www.catholic.com

 

[Tiger]

View: https://www.youtube.com/live/CJREgppaCdI?feature=shared

 

[AUL LAD]

Tolstoi wrote a very great book with this title, based on the sermon on the mount.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Banned in Russia, Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Withi…

www.goodreads.com

This was the book that influenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King and myself.

Its message is the only truly revolutionary one.

Why zip did you give this the thumb down i have not read it --whats to look out for.

 

[scolairebocht]

Do you sometimes get the impression Mods that atheists can be very prejudiced and abusive towards the Catholic Church, rather than level headed and logical like they claim to be?

 

[Tiger]

Do you sometimes get the impression Mods that atheists can be very prejudiced and abusive towards the Catholic Church, rather than level headed and logical like they claim to be?

The vast majority of atheists are tedious bores. Obnoxious tedious bores.

 

[SwordOfStZip]

"The Kingdom of Heaven Is Within You"

The words of Jesus you cite, “The kingdom of God is within you,” is from Luke 17:21 and was delivered to the Pharisees. A better translation is provided in the...

www.catholic.com

I am rather taken aback that you would take the NSRV over the Douay Rheims! Making it instead "in the midst of you" clearly to me is trying get away from the inner, ascetic elements of the Gospels to reduce Christ's message to one of purely social concern and utility (there are both "Left wing" and "Right wing" takes on doing that). Our Lord said "The Kingdom of God is within you" but He also said "For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:19) so He clearly did not mean it in some "New Agey" or Quakerish sense of the deification of the fallen bourgeois self.

 

[AUL LAD]

I would ignore anything that comes out of the dried up stupid gob of that vicious lying cunt, and their false piety.

In fact, invert it, take the opposite, and you will 100% of the time be closer to the truth.

Another book in a similar vein, recommended, is the preface to Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw (perhaps the longest preface to any play ever, I suspect).

i have read and replied to zip in all her forms --i have not understood everything she wrote as her scholarship way exceeds mine .
i have never in all the years read anything which would describe her as a viscous lying cunt .
you have destroyed and disgraced yourself here .

 

[AUL LAD]

I have read Zipporah's posts a lot more closely than you have @AUL LAD .

For example, have a read of these old ones of his, and tell me what you notice:





I know exactly what this poster is about, and what I said is right on the button. And what you perceive as "scholarship", was not motivated by any love of learning, is not in fact scholarship, it is in fact something very different.

would you extract from the posts you have listed the -----viscous quotes --i have failed to see them and i do know if some of my previous posts were published --i have read a lot since and found more truthful websites and my views have been refined /altered by education .
i fail to see what you see please just extract a few lines for us to look at.

 

[SwordOfStZip]

Back on topic, I have previously alluded to the dangerous dynamic of thoughts, turning to words, turning to deeds, in the context of these fora, that it appears that Matthew chap is on about.

But what chaps like "Zipporah" don't like hearing from the likes of Tolstoi, is that Christ explicitly told his followers to reject doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, and instead to love truth, to honour God, and to regard all people as your own and as you would want to be regarded yourself.

A simple message, that does away with most of the rigid doctrine and dogma of the church, that often when you scratch the surface is found to be discriminatory, and more about the institution of the church itself, and its primacy, and power, than what Christ spoke about, particularly as regards his sermon on the Mount.

The lie of his being a woman. All those posts reference his "wife". If he lies about that, in the way you know he has on here, and in previous guises, what other lies has he told, and similarly what is the manner and motivation of those lies.

And you give out about other people being conspiracy theorists.....Of course I don't think you actually believe your conspiracy theories about me, what you are doing with them should be obvious.

Anyway- you support what Zionism has being inflicting on the Gazans and you support "gay marriage", and doing either by any remotely Christian standard is deeply evil. Yet you are very fond of Tolstoi's "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You". That fact alone should lead people to raise questions about it's kitsch sentimentality.

 

[Professor]

Anyway- you support what Zionism has being inflicting on the Gazans and you support "gay marriage", and doing either by any remotely Christian standard is deeply evil. Yet you are very fond of Tolstoi's "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You". That fact alone should lead people to raise questions about it's kitsch sentimentality.

Not wanting to butt-in and derail your conversation however what you have stated above is quite a surprise and goes some way in explaining the difficulties which exist within today for various group within Irish society and other types such as Enoch Burke and the errors of his way . . .

 

[AUL LAD]

The lie of his being a woman. All those posts reference his "wife". If he lies about that, in the way you know he has on here, and in previous guises, what other lies has he told, and similarly what is the manner and motivation of those lies.

as i said earlier you have destroyed yourself --when politely asked for the substance of what you say --it turns out there's no substance at all and far from doing zip down --who amongst us has a squeaky clean record as obviously zip has as if you despise her /him so much you would be able to dredge something up and you nailed your colors to the mast but there's no ship underneath you .
as we say locally you have made a nuts of yourself.