I am an atheist thread 3

[holdencaulfield]

With the story alone, it has all the veracity of a fairy tale. Is there anything to this other than a story?

It’s not just a story. It happened. If you wont believe it then don’t. No ones forcing you. We’re just trying to give you facts so that you know better. And you can’t use the excuse that you didn’t know anything for not believing.

 

[psyche23]

I don’t respect the notion that the priest class is somehow better than anyone other group of people. I mentioned the most recognizeable corruption to underscore that.

They aren’t any better than any other group of people. Anyone who tells you that, doesn’t understand the whole process. They just hand over their lives to God in a different way than the rest of us. Just like me being single is meant to glorify God, or a married person is meant to hand over their marriage to glorify God. It’s honerable, sure, but doesn’t make them any better than the rest of the population.

 

[psyche23]

I don’t respect the notion that the priest class is somehow better than anyone other group of people. I mentioned the most recognizeable corruption to underscore that.

Besides, I think you could have said the exact same thing without implying that all priests are rapists and pedophiles. It’s insulting.

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Besides, I think you could have said the exact same thing without implying that all priests are rapists and pedophiles. It’s insulting.

That was clearly his intent.

I don’t understand why we find this guy so enthralling. He offers nothing but standard atheistic cliches and one-liners. And yet we keep on coming back.

 

[phooney]

And yet my multi-quote, forced-multi-post comments get surprisingly little response. It’s a funny old internet! A is obviously doing something better than I am

 

[_A]

What do you mean by believable? If you mean the in regards to faith and morals, they are supposed to get this from the Pope who is infallible in regards to faith and morals alone. Even the Pope sins obviously. The Pope and all prists are simply human and make mistakes. But if they are acting in accordance with church teaching, then yes, they are believable.

But the ones who rape children are proof enough that they don’t always act 'in accordance with church teaching.
At least I hope so, and that was the point I was trying to make. They can’t be trusted because there is no way for the lay person to tell if they are doing their job, or doing something against their ‘mission statement’ (sorry if I am using the wrong term here)

I’m glad to hear you’re talking with a preacher. If only to seek answers to your questions. Plus, they make for some pretty amazing friends. If you want Catholic teaching, priests are preferable unless you go straight into the encyclicals or catechism. You can find those on the web…

I don’t see preachers or priests as much different than anyone else. Some are amazing, some are bland, some are tall, some are short. Why would they be any different?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

And yet my multi-quote, forced-multi-post comments get surprisingly little response. It’s a funny old internet! A is obviously doing something better than I am

Phooney, thank God you’re back! The place ain’t the same without ya.

Speaking of little response, did I blow off a post from you a while ago? If so, I’ll try to dig it up.

 

[Armor_of_God]

Does this mean that your god does something real for them, or just that they work hard to solve their problems themselves, and give all the credit to their imaginary god.

What I have seen is that in many cases, the problems are often not solved in the human sense, but a transformation has taken place interiorly in the person, and it manifests itself in how they approach life and suffering.

 

[psyche23]

And yet my multi-quote, forced-multi-post comments get surprisingly little response. It’s a funny old internet! A is obviously doing something better than I am

Don’t look for a reply from me. I’m not qualified in this area of what makes something exist verses hallucinatory. I’m not a hundred percent sure what you’re referring to, but chances are good It’s not my area. Can’t speak for the others though.

Also I find long posts hard to read sometimes. so if it was a long multi post, chances are good I haven’t read it.

 

[_A]

Besides, I think you could have said the exact same thing without implying that all priests are rapists and pedophiles. It’s insulting.

I didn’t imply that. Is it possible that you inferred it because I used the worst of the bunch to dispel the idea that priests are somehow more worthy of trust than other groups?

 

[_A]

That was clearly his intent.

I don’t understand why we find this guy so enthralling. He offers nothing but standard atheistic cliches and one-liners. And yet we keep on coming back.

Doesn’t take much to refute evidence that is all stories.

 

[psyche23]

That was clearly his intent.

I don’t understand why we find this guy so enthralling. He offers nothing but standard atheistic cliches and one-liners. And yet we keep on coming back.

I just find atheism interesting and completely hard to understand. I cant’ even imagine what my life would be like if I was an atheist (actually, I’d probably be suicidal- not joking there). So to hear the logic (or lack of at times) makes me curious.

 

[phooney]

Phooney, thank God you’re back! The place ain’t the same without ya.

Speaking of little response, did I blow off a post from you a while ago? If so, I’ll try to dig it up.

You responded to part of my last (multi) post directed at you. I was considering the ball partly in each of our courts at this particular point in time.

 

[_A]

What I have seen is that in many cases, the problems are often not solved in the human sense, but a transformation has taken place interiorly in the person, and it manifests itself in how they approach life and suffering.

It looks a lot to me like they just do it themselves, because they believe, not because of anything divine.

 

[psyche23]

I didn’t imply that. Is it possible that you inferred it because I used the worst of the bunch to dispel the idea that priests are somehow more worthy of trust than other groups?

Anything’s possible. I tend to get a little overly defensive because I get tired of fighting social perception of Catholicism/me. I don’t know how many times I’ve been backed into a corner and yelled at because of my beliefs. So if I was overly defensive I apologise. Just so long as I know that your intent wasn’t to insult us.

 

[Armor_of_God]

Sorry, they wouldn’t need to be multi poster if there wasn’t a 5000 character limit! I also have tried not to take your quotes out of context if possible, so I hope you won’t have toooooo much trouble finding where I was quoting from.

What I was getting at by “multi-poster” was the post where you were speaking to two different members in the same post. I went back and checked and see that you only did that in one (long) post.

You mean to say that if there wasn’t that limit, your posts would be even longer?! Oh boy!!

Still impressive, though, how you manage to keep everything straight and navigate your way around to get all those quotes.

 

[phooney]

Don’t look for a reply from me. I’m not qualified in this area of what makes something exist verses hallucinatory. I’m not a hundred percent sure what you’re referring to, but chances are good It’s not my area. Can’t speak for the others though.

Also I find long posts hard to read sometimes. so if it was a long multi post, chances are good I haven’t read it.

These things often start to discuss a ridiculously wide range of topcs. That being the case I try to make my posts as detailed as possible, given the time restraints of having a full time job, and the character restrictions of posts etc. I can’t explain everything in every field of science, but I will try not to overstate the level of evidence that has been gathered as well.

If you have any questions about anything that I have posted, I will either try to answer you, point you towards some resources or say I don’t know. Or if you throw mars coloured herrings at me like c659smith, I might just have a laugh.

As our respected poster Socrates4Jesus has implied, it is difficult to come up with an inherently ‘wrong’ question, but I do sometimes get the impression that some people here have tried! I might know things you don’t, you might know things that I don’t. We might be able to learn from each other, and I don’t think any god that anybody would want to worship would punish or stand in the way of that.

 

[psyche23]

But the ones who rape children are proof enough that they don’t always act 'in accordance with church teaching.
At least I hope so, and that was the point I was trying to make. They can’t be trusted because there is no way for the lay person to tell if they are doing their job, or doing something against their ‘mission statement’ (sorry if I am using the wrong term here)
I don’t see preachers or priests as much different than anyone else. Some are amazing, some are bland, some are tall, some are short. Why would they be any different?

I’m not disputing that. If they sin they don’t act in accordance with the church. But no, it wouldn’t be hard to know if they’re doing their job, becaus you could just look at scripture + tradition+ the church teaching (you can find an easy summary in the catechism of the Catholic Church). So the Lay person should absolutely know if their actions are wrong. If anything suggests otherwise they should probably seek advice from another priest.

And like I said before, I don’t see preachers/priests as different from any lay person…

 

[Armor_of_God]

And yet my multi-quote, forced-multi-post comments get surprisingly little response. It’s a funny old internet! A is obviously doing something better than I am

Well, Phooney, I will admit that I find your posts rather daunting at times, for their sheer length. They can appear very verbose - but quite thoughtful and intelligent verbosity, I might add. I will try to spend more time analyzing them and responding.

You definitely are getting your bang for your buck on your character limit!

 

[phooney]

What I was getting at by “multi-poster” was the post where you were speaking to two different members in the same post. I went back and checked and see that you only did that in one (long) post.

You mean to say that if there wasn’t that limit, your posts would be even longer?! Oh boy!!

Still impressive, though, how you manage to keep everything straight and navigate your way around to get all those quotes.

I’ve been constructing my posts in a separate notepad file, trying to post them, seeing how far over the limit I am and then breaking the posts down into forum-acceptable chunks.

Responding to C659Smith gave me a message something like “your post is 26,501 characters, the limit is 5,000 characters, please edit your post” so it was mildly disgruntling to see it all swept aside with “lol you believe there’s no god” and “prove the revolutionary war” ,which is a topic I’m pretty sure I have given no indication I have any knowledge in at all.

By the way, I have had a few beers tonight so I am just in ‘chat’ mode, and I just want to warn people not to expect any particularly noteworthy responses from me until tomorrow.