An Open Letter to Atheists

[tldr]

I think theists characterize atheists with precisely the same modality of bad-faith that atheists use to define theists. You have done this, just now. Your argument is more or less that Atheists aren't interested in refuting the existence of God for noble reasons, but rather because they want to erase the existence of God so that they may be held to no moral standard and can revel in degeneracy. This is probably true in some cases, but I submit to you that it is far more difficult to be a moral Atheist than it is to be a moral Christian.

That is my argument.

I subscribe to no faith and regularly offer my time, energy and services gratas to people who can't afford it and need help. When I do this, I am not doing so because I am trying to curry favour with the creator of the universe--to earn brownie points so that I might increase my chances of getting into paradise. Nor do I do this out of fear of eternal damnation for otherwise having lived selfishly. I do good for the sake of good--because it is the right thing to do, and because kindness is better than cruelty. I do this without the expectation of reward or punishment for having done so at the end of my life. Furthermore, I do however, largely agree with you; must human beings are not exceptional and are incapable of doing good without carrots and sticks driving them to do said good. The difference between myself and someone like the creator of this thread and Tiger is that what I do takes nobility.

It is natural for us to behave in the way described above in your own conduct. It is foolishness to act in bad faith and yet many are caught in this charade. Your own behaviour does have a reward - it is a fulfillment of your potential for caritas. Caritas is a key feature of salvation. Caritas is not driven by fear although a fear of God is healthy to possess as it cautions us against unholy acts. There is the awe of God too, something that is mixed up with the fear but relates more to enormity and breadth.

caritas

4. a kindly and lenient attitude towards people
5. love of one's fellow people

I will concede that I am an exceptional case, an outlier. I have personally never met a Christian I would deem worthy of heaven. What I have met is a lot of people who are blindly trapped in the rinse-cycle of minor wheel samsara. Or perhaps more accurately, Dhukka.

I have met Christians who were as close to it as I can know.

You raise Hindu concepts here - are you open to a reality beyond materialism? The Sadducees believed there was a God that the Jews were bound to serve but didn't believe in an afterlife - this is something like the Deists from what I can tell.

Here you posit an afterlife, a cycle of reincarnation. Rather than follow it as an active practice, does it provide guidance and sensemaking for you?

This leads me on to your next point, which is a kind of Nietzschean dilemma that I largely agree with, and is specifically why, unlike James (who is incidentally as prone to the three poisons as anyone I have ever met, but who is improving) I don't go about trying to dissuade people from their faith. I genuinely believe that most people are not capable of being moral and selfless without God. People like myself are, unfortunately, quite rare. It is better that a person believes in nonsense that causes them to act morally than it is for a person to believe in nothing and act with evil.

Well. given our commitment to fellowship, I won't tell you about the Great Tragedy I plan to write titled Jimbo, to be known to thespians as the Numpty Play. He's not improving, I've seen a dozen others like him - they don't come out of it, and you're only bleeding yourself with endless transfusions. He's one of those that only Jesus can save. By all means be courteous and just to him but keep a safe distance away from those slavering jaws. He went over the event horizon, a fate you escaped. He will only come out of it when he decides he has to. If you put your hand in to pull him out, he'll only pull you in. There are legions of them salted throughout the infrastructure now and it's becoming a nightmare to get anything done as a result. Wait till the adoption law changes sink in - it'll get much worse. They're making a factory to produce them.

God makes sense, that's why people believe in Him. I remember being told of a missionary pastor to Ireland that told a friend that a life without God is one of asinine fatuity. Got me some respect for those Dissenter types after that. An old priest, a learned and kindly man who lived a dedicated life, told me quietly once that some of them you just can't save. I've seen this wisdom IRL plenty of times since. Don't pretend to be the equal in wisdom to these two men - you aren't. Rather be careful and patient in your investments.

It may be that you just didn't have exposure to a regular decent community because good people weren't all that rare. There's still a few of them knocking about. That said - there have always been imposters that the vulnerable know the cruel truth about. The child abuse scandal destroyed Catholic Ireland - society was disgusted by it. Contrast it to our present times where the sexualisation of children is celebrated and ask yourself where the ground of good is found - in the current arrangement or the past one?

And finally no, you misunderstand my point. I am not talking about Darwinism. My argument is very simple; no good teacher would apply a test of character and nature that is not universal and standardized. Everybody in the year 11 math test gets given the same paper. Do you follow me now?

Moral freedom is the root of tragedy - the freedom to choose good or evil. Your condemnation is of the natural world. Do you reject that there is some standard to contrast an existence merely red in tooth and claw?

 

[Fishalt]

That is my argument.



It is natural for us to behave in the way described above in your own conduct. It is foolishness to act in bad faith and yet many are caught in this charade. Your own behaviour does have a reward - it is a fulfillment of your potential for caritas. Caritas is a key feature of salvation. Caritas is not driven by fear although a fear of God is healthy to possess as it cautions us against unholy acts. There is the awe of God too, something that is mixed up with the fear but relates more to enormity and breadth.

caritas

4. a kindly and lenient attitude towards people
5. love of one's fellow people



I have met Christians who were as close to it as I can know.

You raise Hindu concepts here - are you open to a reality beyond materialism? The Sadducees believed there was a God that the Jews were bound to serve but didn't believe in an afterlife - this is something like the Deists from what I can tell.

Here you posit an afterlife, a cycle of reincarnation. Rather than follow it as an active practice, does it provide guidance and sensemaking for you?



Well. given our commitment to fellowship, I won't tell you about the Great Tragedy I plan to write titled Jimbo, to be known to thespians as the Numpty Play. He's not improving, I've seen a dozen others like him - they don't come out of it, and you're only bleeding yourself with endless transfusions. He's one of those that only Jesus can save. By all means be courteous and just to him but keep a safe distance away from those slavering jaws. He went over the event horizon, a fate you escaped. He will only come out of it when he decides he has to. If you put your hand in to pull him out, he'll only pull you in. There are legions of them salted throughout the infrastructure now and it's becoming a nightmare to get anything done as a result. Wait till the adoption law changes sink in - it'll get much worse. They're making a factory to produce them.

God makes sense, that's why people believe in Him. I remember being told of a missionary pastor to Ireland that told a friend that a life without God is one of asinine fatuity. Got me some respect for those Dissenter types after that. An old priest, a learned and kindly man who lived a dedicated life, told me quietly once that some of them you just can't save. I've seen this wisdom IRL plenty of times since. Don't pretend to be the equal in wisdom to these two men - you aren't. Rather be careful and patient in your investments.

It may be that you just didn't have exposure to a regular decent community because good people weren't all that rare. There's still a few of them knocking about. That said - there have always been imposters that the vulnerable know the cruel truth about. The child abuse scandal destroyed Catholic Ireland - society was disgusted by it. Contrast it to our present times where the sexualisation of children is celebrated and ask yourself where the ground of good is found - in the current arrangement or the past one?



Moral freedom is the root of tragedy - the freedom to choose good or evil. Your condemnation is of the natural world. Do you reject that there is some standard to contrast an existence merely red in tooth and claw?

The concept of Samsara/Dhukka I subscribe to is Buddhist, not Hindu. Mahayana Buddhism, that is. Reincarnation in this system does not work the way you think it does, nor does karma, and neither require any belief in the supernatural. Suffice to say, it is possible to die and be born many times in a lifetime. The fundamental difference I suppose is that Christianity is predicated on the idea of permanence, and this is antithetical to Buddhist teaching--both Mahayana and Theravada. It is the concept of permanence and linearity--that things have beginnings and endings, that a causes attachment underwritten by the fear of death and loss, and it is this that causes suffering. One who cannot see the rising and falling of things,who cannot see past the illusion of time, who is mired in attachment and embroiled in dreams of the self, of being and not being, will never know wisdom. Nor peace. Those priests you mention likely did not possess wisdom. They may have been learned, they may have known all there is to know about Christian theology. But unless they understood that we must all come to an end here, and that nowhere, ever, has there been known a place where death did not overcome the mortal, then they learned the wrong lessons.

The natural world is objective reality. Natural processes are reality. What you conceive of is an imposition of a human value system upon reality. It is an artifice.

 

[tldr]

The concept of Samsara/Dhukka I subscribe to is Buddhist, not Hindu. Mahayana Buddhism, that is. Reincarnation in this system does not work the way you think it does, nor does karma, and neither require any belief in the supernatural. Suffice to say, it is possible to die and be born many times in a lifetime. The fundamental difference I suppose is that Christianity is predicated on the idea of permanence, and this is antithetical to Buddhist teaching--both Mahayana and Theravada. It is the concept of permanence and linearity--that things have beginnings and endings, that a causes attachment underwritten by the fear of death and loss, and it is this that causes suffering. One who cannot see the rising and falling of things,who cannot see past the illusion of time, who is mired in attachment and embroiled in dreams of the self, of being and not being, will never know wisdom. Nor peace. Those priests you mention likely did not possess wisdom. They may have been learned, they may have known all there is to know about Christian theology. But unless they understood that we must all come to an end here, and that nowhere, ever, has there been known a place where death did not overcome the mortal, then they learned the wrong lessons.

The natural world is objective reality. Natural processes are reality. What you conceive of is an imposition of a human value system upon reality. It is an artifice.

You've clearly put a lot of thought into this. The civic space is secular because of disagreements like these, not because such questions aren't crucially important. If it wasn't ecumenical then there would be interminable strife. That it is discussed is firstly an effort to establish mutual codes of enforceable conduct and secondly to try and disarm religious persecution.

As for the agents of chaos in our midst, you've been told. Perhaps the scales will fall. I wouldn't have gone into it if I didn't think they might. It does draw a panicked ire from them when it is discussed. Why do you think they want to bring in censorship? Still, do try by all means but keep an eye out.

 

[Kangal]

I remember being told of a missionary pastor to Ireland that told a friend that a life without God is one of asinine fatuity. Got me some respect for those Dissenter types after that. An old priest, a learned and kindly man who lived a dedicated life, told me quietly once that some of them you just can't save. I've seen this wisdom IRL plenty of times since. Don't pretend to be the equal in wisdom to these two men - you aren't.

Another appeal to authority.

Remember, at the end of the day...

 

[tldr]

Another appeal to authority.

Remember, at the end of the day...

Was watching Megyn Kelly discussing why Matt Drudge turned his site into The Nudge Report and it turns out it seems they bought him with a seat on the Ark.

But there's no seat on the Ark for him or you. You've both been done.

 

[Kangal]

Was watching Megyn Kelly discussing why Matt Drudge turned his site into The Nudge Report and it turns out it seems they bought him with a seat on the Ark.

But there's no seat on the Ark for him or you. You've both been done.

You can't fight in here. This is the war room.

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

Here's my open letter to atheists

 

[Tiger]

Here's my open letter to atheists View attachment 4620

This thread is exhibit A that they are by and large tedious bores.

One them appears to think of himself as some sort of atheistic ‘saint’ deserving of a Nobel prize.

Self praise is no praise.

 

[Kangal]

Here's my open letter to atheists View attachment 4620

Religion reduced down to first principles.

And proof that, with religion, you can in fact polish a turd.

 

[Wolf]

The hate-filled (70 IQ) bigots posting on this thread give normal religious people a bad name

Indeed you and Wank do.
Just stop.

 

[Wolf]

Religion reduced down to first principles.

And proof that, with religion, you can in fact polish a turd.

We know the underage turds you like to polish.

 

[Tiger]

The hate-filled (70 IQ) bigots posting on this thread give normal religious people a bad name

People who describe themselves as agnostic tend to be pretty normal, however anyone who has a tendency to let the world know that they are an atheist at every chance they get, tend to be socially retarded cockwomble bores like you.

You’re a good advertisement for atheists in that regard.

 

[Wolf]

You're in a permanent state of 70 IQ rage

That's right, Clown Child, good boy.
How you getting on with The Gowl?

 

[Wolf]

People who describe themselves as agnostic tend to be pretty normal, however anyone who has a tendency to let the world know that they are an atheist at every chance they get, tend to be socially retarded cockwomble bores like you.

You’re a good advertisement for atheists in that regard.

One of their best.

 

[Tiger]

That's right, Clown Child, good boy.
How you getting on with The Gowl?

He’s going to spend the evening face palming posts and slugging Buckfast.

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

An 'agnostic' is an atheist

you need to buy a dictionary

 

[Wolf]

you need to buy a dictionary

And some sessions with a therapist.

 

[Wolf]

Paedo

More projection.

 

[clarke-connolly]

Here's my open letter to atheists View attachment 4620

That's Not going to win any / many Converts ! !

 

[Fishalt]

An 'agnostic' is an atheist, dipshit, just weak enough (by calling themselves that) for a 70 IQ religious bigot like you to be able to contain your rage (a very good reason for an atheist not to call themself an 'agnostic')

It's possible to be both James.

I might fall into that camp. I don't hold any religious beliefs, but I'm also not willing to completely discount the possibility of a prime mover. The best evidence for God is that there is order in the universe. There's actually no reason for this to be the case at all. I know you're going to go on a rant about how an atheist is just a non-theist and therefore by extension every agnostic is an atheist, but that's a very thin form of logic that is more than slightly autistic.