On the Nature of Things | Forum

I always try to look at the world through the eyes of an atheist. It's somewhat doable because I sort of used to be one.

It's illuminating. Life, including human life leeched out of rocks in the ground. No one has seen it since but it DEFINITELY HAD TO HAPPEN. Fast forward, and all these silly intelligent beings keep creating a God that doesn't exist, never existed, never will exist. They kill each other over the idea, and go to extreme behavioral lengths to try to manifest an imaginary being into existence who has no regard for them one way or the other.

But despite this obvious foolishness the idea self perpetuates out of the human mind beyond any state control. It looks like this. 1:31:15

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In 2017 this still happens beyond anyone's ability to control.

Gavin while being confronted with pedophilia says to Joe's face at 1:35:20 that his realization trumps Joe's argument. And it does. This happens to people all the time. Their realization ends up trumping just about everything.

Powerful sociological phenomenon that makes certain people terrified.

The way I look at it is theists have have a God awareness experience. At some point they look at reality and conclude that God is the only explanation. This is independent of any outside influence, it happens internally to individual human beings.

Interestingly the next step is revelation. A still small voice. It just starts to happen.

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Once you hear it you can't unhear it.

Then another experience starts happening.

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And you can't really stop it. These experiences keep happening in every generation, for all recorded human history. These people will probably never stop believing in God.

And when you believe in God it changes your understanding of existence. It makes you acutely aware of consequences of actions. Which leads to this.

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Mr. Perfect wrote:I always try to look at the world through the eyes of an atheist. It's somewhat doable because I sort of used to be one.

It's illuminating. Life, including human life leeched out of rocks in the ground. No one has seen it since but it DEFINITELY HAD TO HAPPEN. Fast forward, and all these silly intelligent beings keep creating a God that doesn't exist, never existed, never will exist. They kill each other over the idea, and go to extreme behavioral lengths to try to manifest an imaginary being into existence who has no regard for them one way or the other.

But despite this obvious foolishness the idea self perpetuates out of the human mind beyond any state control. It looks like this. 1:31:15

. . .

Why are you so concerned with regards to the beliefs of others?

Whom are you attempting to convince? One has the impression that it is yourself.

Naturally, the same applies to both strident theists and atheists.

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And this is my emotive and unshakeable inner response to atheistism and a godless universe:

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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote: . . .

And this is my emotive and unshakeable inner response to atheistism and a godless universe:

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One can hardly fault Roy Batty for thinking that he had been a bit shortchanged with regards to lifetime.

And yet, in the end, he understands the transience of life and comes to terms with his own mortality.

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Well..... this is sorta like a beta or demo version of a really great game, but there is no way I can get through it the first time without playing it really crap. And that's the only time I get to play it and I'll never see it again. This is shitty and nothing redeems it.........'>........

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Well..... this is sorta like a beta or demo version of a really great game, but there is no way I can get through it the first time without playing it really crap. And that's the only time I get to play it and I'll never see it again. This is shitty and nothing redeems it.........'>........

Indeed.

Experience is the comb that life gives you once you've lost your hair.

~ Indian proverb

The great mathematician and Catholic theologian,
Blaise Pascal, the founder of probability theory, presented a series of insightful arguments as to whether or not one should believe in a God,
known today as Pascal's Wager.

In the end, perhaps it is simplest and best to not become too attached to a game that one cannot win.

There is always that risk of having so much invested in the God of Good, Hope and Promise that when He doesn't deliver you become its opposite. A disillusioned, rejected, revengful destroyer whose only joy left is to see others suffer and die first. The Orgasm of the Last Sufferer. Sadism followed by suicide to end the story.

Begging for God is always a prayer to Satan too, awakening his appetite for innocent meat. Sometimes it's better to stay out of a fight, me thinks...

Parodite wrote:There is always that risk of having so much invested in the God of Good, Hope and Promise that when He doesn't deliver you become its opposite. A disillusioned, rejected, revengful destroyer whose only joy left is to see others suffer and die first. The Orgasm of the Last Sufferer. Sadism followed by suicide to end the story.

Begging for God is always a prayer to Satan too, awakening his appetite for innocent meat. Sometimes it's better to stay out of a fight, me thinks...

Oh you made my day. Well said. I often love your humor/perspective.

Typhoon wrote:

Experience is the comb that life gives you once you've lost your hair.

~ Indian proverb

a classic that is going in my collection! thanks!

Parodite wrote:There is always that risk of having so much invested in the God of Good, Hope and Promise that when He doesn't deliver you become its opposite. A disillusioned, rejected, revengful destroyer whose only joy left is to see others suffer and die first. The Orgasm of the Last Sufferer. Sadism followed by suicide to end the story.

We are God's Chosen Few.
There's no room left in Heaven,
So to Hell with the rest of you.

Parodite wrote:Begging for God is always a prayer to Satan too, awakening his appetite for innocent meat. Sometimes it's better to stay out of a fight, me thinks...

One could argue that God would love atheists the most. They don't trouble him with a constant stream of requests and demands.

Typhoon wrote:One could argue that God would love atheists the most. They don't trouble him with a constant stream of requests and demands.

That's why G_d got all full up with pagans who thought the gods, or god, was responsible for everything. The Logos represented by the G_d of Abraham was supposed to be a wisdom tradition, but deteriorated due to tribalism, self-deception and unconsciously giving in more or less to the Freudian death drive. It sorta defies reason that people would neg on a consensus consciousness that works for an untried hypothetical one unless they were driven to it by an existential revulsion that exists outside of reason. It's a hard sell telling atheists that they didn't become so by their own logical deduction and that they live on daddy's money, so to speak, when it comes to morality and ethics. It's gonna be a harder sell to tell rank and file Christians that they're closet pagans and that they better stop with this princess jack lavender moonshine bit they call revelation...... and get with the bloody program......'>.......

Here's some more...... stuff.....'>......

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If you want to find God find the final judge. The one that judges all other judges. Or the one that people have faith in to judge in a way that perfectly follows the rules.

An author I'm taken with is Patricia S. Klein, after reading her preface to C.S. Lewis' informal dictionary Virtue and Vice......

https://www.paracletepress.com/Products ... words.aspx

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Here's some more...... stuff.....'>......

[youtube Matt D reflecting on his convo w JBP]

Excellent. Maybe Air Jordan will get back to MD, another conversation would be great.

My take on what happened is that JBP forgot to add maybe to some of the things he tried to get across.

Maybe there is more to stories and their archetypes than just being inspirational. That they reveal something hard core about our nature; not only reveal nature but also are of that nature.

That maybe dismissing them as mere inspirational fairy tales will violate part of our true nature which could makes us more violent. Once again communist type nightmares somewhere down the road?

That if we dismiss drugs induced, life changing and out of the ordinary experiences as nothing more than changed brain chemistry... then why not dismiss ordinary daily conscious experience also as a deceptive hallucination of sorts? Why dismiss one hallucination and favoring another that supposedly tells you "the truth"?

Maybe there is so little we understand, especially about consciousness, that we have to be very careful not to throw away various babies with all that rational bathtub water?

That the rational skeptic is going blindfolded through the mystery of existence, not seeing the obstacles and traps that may surround him because he follows an artificial light that is not grounded in the irrational, emotional and mysterious reality of his soul?

It seems to me the good JBP went so deep into the horrors of especially the 20th century, that he got very suspicious of the idea of quick fixes like just being very rational, a-religious and skeptical; especially when they go under the banner of an atheism that didn't have a very promising start under communism.

But not all atheists are communists. Most atheists just seem to have rejected the anthropomorphic version of God, of miracles and superstitions, punishment-reward programs running amok in our bedeviled brains and societies for centuries.

Maybe JBP is a bit too worried? Or does he think we'd better be safe than sorry... and not dispose of God too quickly.

JBP does have a point.

The French Revolution with its rejection of the Church ended in the Jacobin Terror.
In the 20th century we had Marxism with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

Most religions have been reworked by millennia of human experience and returned to its proper sphere, the metaphysical,
by the Scientific Revolution.
Secular religions such as Marxism, Environmentalism, and Vegetarianism are simplistic and naive by comparison.

It does me, or any other atheist, no harm if people believe in a higher metaphysical authority. One should be free to choose.
In fact, given the history of the 20th century, it would seem preferable that they do so.
With the caveat that others don't expect/demand/threaten/coerce/attempt to force that I do the same.

Thank you. That was more than a bit reasonable......^^..........

Simple Minded wrote:

Parodite wrote:There is always that risk of having so much invested in the God of Good, Hope and Promise that when He doesn't deliver you become its opposite. A disillusioned, rejected, revengful destroyer whose only joy left is to see others suffer and die first. The Orgasm of the Last Sufferer. Sadism followed by suicide to end the story.

Begging for God is always a prayer to Satan too, awakening his appetite for innocent meat. Sometimes it's better to stay out of a fight, me thinks...

Oh you made my day. Well said. I often love your humor/perspective.

Thanks Bro. I just came out reading the book about Marx & Satan. A thriller!

Typhoon wrote: Why are you so concerned with regards to the beliefs of others?

Whom are you attempting to convince? One has the impression that it is yourself.

Hardly. The question of God is the oldest question we have. Currently Atheists are engaged in warfare on the question and we have every right to respond.

Also I am a proselyter.

Naturally, the same applies to both strident theists and atheists.

Which would be weird, to see people who are afraid God exists but are trying to convince themselves otherwise vs people who are afraid God does not exist but trying to convince themselves he does.

There may be psychosis involved but I'm not sure that's what it is.

Typhoon wrote: One could argue that God would love atheists the most. They don't trouble him with a constant stream of requests and demands.

In the Bible we are instructed to do that. It's his idea.

Typhoon wrote:JBP does have a point.

The French Revolution with its rejection of the Church ended in the Jacobin Terror.
In the 20th century we had Marxism with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

Most religions have been reworked by millennia of human experience and returned to its proper sphere, the metaphysical,
by the Scientific Revolution.
Secular religions such as Marxism, Environmentalism, and Vegetarianism are simplistic and naive by comparison.

It does me, or any other atheist, no harm if people believe in a higher metaphysical authority. One should be free to choose.
In fact, given the history of the 20th century, it would seem preferable that they do so.
With the caveat that others don't expect/demand/threaten/coerce/attempt to force that I do the same.

That's all in the video I posted in the beginning.

After thousands of years atheists have been unable to create moral constructs to replace religious ones.