I am an atheist

[Armor_of_God]

I check a lot of things that I am told are not needed. Some things I don’t bother with. My sweetheart told me that ‘romantic love’ is an invention of man and was unheard of not too long ago. Sounds right to me. I think people’s feelings are not so easy to understand.
You are the one who brought love into this, why rely on me to explain it.
By the way, I will walk to work today, and yes, I will check my gear before I go, even though it was fine yesterday.
I had a friend die yesterday. The truck he was in fell through the ice. He didn’t check the thickness of some ice before his crew drove out on it.
I check relentlessly because this world is a harsh and unforgiving place. Perhaps especially up in the north here.

Hi A,

I’m very sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. I will pray for him and his family.

 

[_A]

Hi A,

I’m very sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. I will pray for him and his family.

I understand where your idea for prayer comes from. Thank you. If you wanted to remember him well I would say, be happy (he was) and work to improve personal safety measures. I think positive action can be a good response to this kind of event. I will still icefish, for example, but I will NEVER sit in the backseat of the truck again. (on the ice, I mean). In this fashion, my friend will help me from beyond the grave.
Something else to think about. I don’t feel comfortable when required to participate in a religious ritual. I will be doing it in a few days anyway, because he was a good man, but when planning these things, please remember us secular types, and try to make a memorial service comfortable for us, too. That is if you are involved in the planning.
Most of all, be happy. That is what this man spread around. He would take time away from a party in his honour to go cheer up a friend.

 

[Armor_of_God]

I check a lot of things that I am told are not needed. Some things I don’t bother with. My sweetheart told me that ‘romantic love’ is an invention of man and was unheard of not too long ago. Sounds right to me. I think people’s feelings are not so easy to understand.
You are the one who brought love into this, why rely on me to explain it.
By the way, I will walk to work today, and yes, I will check my gear before I go, even though it was fine yesterday.
I had a friend die yesterday. The truck he was in fell through the ice. He didn’t check the thickness of some ice before his crew drove out on it.
I check relentlessly because this world is a harsh and unforgiving place. Perhaps especially up in the north here.

A,

About this “love” thing - I wasn’t referring to romantic love. I’m not asking you to explain love - I was just trying to get your take on things and try to understand your thought processes on the concept before I put my thoughts out there.

The best definition I know of love is the following:

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Yes, this is taken from that violent fairy tale book. But the concept of love seems to be universal, even for those who haven’t read that book.

Many of the characteristics of love appear to be intangible. Sure, you can touch or hug someone, or feed them or give them gifts, but these things are really just manifestations of this thing called love. And yet, the love thing appears to have a profound effect on many, many people in this world.

 

[_A]

A,

About this “love” thing - I wasn’t referring to romantic love. I’m not asking you to explain love - I was just trying to get your take on things and try to understand your thought processes on the concept before I put my thoughts out there.

The best definition I know of love is the following:

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Yes, this is taken from that violent fairy tale book. But the concept of love seems to be universal, even for those who haven’t read that book.

Many of the characteristics of love appear to be intangible. Sure, you can touch or hug someone, or feed them or give them gifts, but these things are really just manifestations of this thing called love. And yet, the love thing appears to have a profound effect on many, many people in this world.

You make these claims without first making clear what love is? I think if you asked a hundred people to tell you what love is, in their own words, you would get a hundred different answers, many incompatible. Same for god, soul, chakra or many other indistinct words.
Is it love that has such a profound effect? How can you be sure when you can’t even identify it certainly?
By the way, if love isn’t envious, and Yahweh is a jealous god, doesn’t that conflict with earlier statements that ‘god is love’?

 

[Armor_of_God]

I understand where your idea for prayer comes from. Thank you. If you wanted to remember him well I would say, be happy (he was) and work to improve personal safety measures. I think positive action can be a good response to this kind of event. I will still icefish, for example, but I will NEVER sit in the backseat of the truck again. (on the ice, I mean). In this fashion, my friend will help me from beyond the grave.
Something else to think about. I don’t feel comfortable when required to participate in a religious ritual. I will be doing it in a few days anyway, because he was a good man, but when planning these things, please remember us secular types, and try to make a memorial service comfortable for us, too. That is if you are involved in the planning.
Most of all, be happy. That is what this man spread around. He would take time away from a party in his honour to go cheer up a friend.

Thank you for acknowledging the intention of my prayer, even if you don’t believe in it. I know it can sound empty to someone who doesn’t believe in it, and some people even get angry, so I was a little hesitant to say it. But it was the truth.

Was it one of those Supercab trucks with only two doors? I’m very sorry- that must have been very distressing and frightening to be trapped like that. I have a fear of drowning, as I can’t swim.

I hope you are not too uncomfortable at the memorial for your friend. Maybe it will help you to know that perhaps some of his beliefs are what made him a good and happy man, so they possibly could have some merit in that sense.

 

[_A]

Thank you for acknowledging the intention of my prayer, even if you don’t believe in it. I know it can sound empty to someone who doesn’t believe in it, and some people even get angry, so I was a little hesitant to say it. But it was the truth.

Was it one of those Supercab trucks with only two doors? I’m very sorry- that must have been very distressing and frightening to be trapped like that. I have a fear of drowning, as I can’t swim.

I hope you are not too uncomfortable at the memorial for your friend. Maybe it will help you to know that perhaps some of his beliefs are what made him a good and happy man, so they possibly could have some merit in that sense.

I don’t know many details. I only know what I have read in a news article here, and what the camp cook (another friend of mine) said while he was chatting with me (he didn’t say much either, and I didn’t feel like firing off a bunch of question.).
I will miss him, though we weren’t very close. I will tell people about his helpful, good-natured way because I think it is important that people know something I read many years ago.
Good news is buried in the obituaries.
There is crime aplenty in the news, but if you look in the obituaries, you will see, every day, good people who lived good lives which were not newsworthy. They far outweigh the bad news, even though they only get a few lines by amateur writers.

 

[jburgherr]

You make these claims without first making clear what love is? I think if you asked a hundred people to tell you what love is, in their own words, you would get a hundred different answers, many incompatible. Same for god, soul, chakra or many other indistinct words.
Is it love that has such a profound effect? How can you be sure when you can’t even identify it certainly?
By the way, if love isn’t envious, and Yahweh is a jealous god, doesn’t that conflict with earlier statements that ‘god is love’?

I find this part of your argument interesting.
You seem to admit that there is a thing called love. You accept it that it exists in the world. You accept that if you ask a hundred people, you will get a hundred different answers of what love is…

Isn’t this just exaclty like the argument of whether God exists? You cant touch, taste, see, measure God, but His presence in the world can not be denied.

Just because someone can not define or package something well enough for you doesn’t mean that that something does not exist.

 

[_A]

I find this part of your argument interesting.
You seem to admit that there is a thing called love. You accept it that it exists in the world. You accept that if you ask a hundred people, you will get a hundred different answers of what love is…

Isn’t this just exaclty like the argument of whether God exists? You cant touch, taste, see, measure God, but His presence in the world can not be denied.

Just because someone can not define or package something well enough for you doesn’t mean that that something does not exist.

I see the fact that everyone has a different answer as indicating that everyone is guessing. I mean that more with regards to god than to love.
I deny the presence of your god in the world. That statement you made about his presence is nonsense and I just proved it. Of course it can be denied.
If you ask a hundred scientists to tell you about the special relativity theory, you will get one hundred of them quoting E=mc2. This is quite a bit more useful than your bible quote, since independent experiment will confirm this relationship for the doubter. Your bible quote can be parroted, but really, some of the people who quoted that stuff used to burn witches. Is that love? Did they have a real understanding of love, or did they just recite some ancient poetry and murder women because they were told it was right?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Quote:Originally Posted by Socrates4Jesus forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif A:I’d say that National Geographic is a credible source to answer your question:news.nationalgeographic.com/n…der-great.htmlOr do you think that all archaeologists are cheats and liars, too!**S4JInteresting article. It doesn’t say wether Tyre was found, though. It only talks about the causeway. If Tyre has been found, I think that disproves another part of the fantasy/prophecy (as phooney was saying) I just pointed out that it **has **been found.

A:

I apologize for not responding sooner. I’ve been working on a meeting a deadline for a project at work. I do appreciate your replies and hope you will continue.

**To briefly recap:**I was suggesting that Ezekiel’s prediction of future was evidence that an all-knowing being spoke to him, as he claimed. For only an omniscient being could know the future with such detail and accuracy how Alexander the Great would, 200 years later, dump all of the ruins of the mainland city of Tyre into the Mediterranean Sea.Your objection, i believe, was that i had no evidence that the mainland city of Tyre ever existed. So i pointed out the National Geographic article sited above. Your latest objection is that the mainland city of Tyre was never lost, so Ezekiel’s prediction that it would never be found is in error. Hence, Ezekiel’s God is either non-existent or not omniscient. To respond:

You are mistaken, A, if you think Ezekiel was claiming the ancient city of Tyre would ever be lost, for that is what your reply seems to imply. Please reread his prediction:

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you, then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of long ago. I will make you dwell in the earth below, as in ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, and you will not return or take your place in the land of the living. I will bring you to a horrible end and you will be no more. You will be sought, but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign LORD.”*(Ezekiel 26:19-21, emphasis added)*What Ezekiel actually wrote was that the ancient mainland city would never be found. He wrote nothing about it being lost.

I fear that my confidence in your intelligence and thoughtfulness has been shaken, A. Certainly you must understand that a thing that is never be found is not, by necessity, lost!

 

[_A]

I

Allow me to interrupt - the city has been found (according to the NG article you supplied). So the prophecy is only part right. How much more of it is wrong? It has been found so your god was either mistaken, or not very good at preventing things from being found.
There may yet be a simpler answer. How about this - Alexander the Great, being a good military leader, somehow found out about this prophecy and took advantage of it.
I admit that my answer lacks magical beings or other fantastic elements, but it is much more reasonable a suggestion than yours, which has a god making predictions which are sometimes right.

 

[_A]

Socrates4Jesus:
Certainly you must understand that a thing that is never be found is not, by necessity, lost!

Main Entry:
1found Listen to the pronunciation of 1found
Pronunciation:
\ˈfau̇nd\

past and past participle of find


Main Entry:
1find Listen to the pronunciation of 1find
Pronunciation:
\ˈfīnd\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
found Listen to the pronunciation of found \ˈfau̇nd; find·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English findan; akin to Old High German findan to find, Latin pont-, pons bridge, Greek pontos sea, Sanskrit patha way, course
Date:
before 12th century

transitive verb1 a: to come upon often accidentally : encounter b: to meet with (a particular reception) **2 a: to come upon by searching or effort b: to discover by study or experiment **

Just what did you think was meant by ‘found’?

 

[rboo124]

I’m going to throw some extremely basic ideas out…please understand they may be of no use towards this discussion at all.

Much of what I’m reading is great, and it’s very educating. I consider myself fortunate that I’m able to rely on a more simple approach.

I’ve never seen my heart. I believe I have one. Nothing you can say to me will make me believe otherwise.

I’ve seen pictures of OTHER people’s heart. Doctors tell me my heart is beating. I’ve never touched, smelled, seen, tasted my heart. I’ve never seen an X-Ray of my heart. I am still positive that I have one. The medical field tells me it’s a fact that I have a heart, or I wouldn’t be alive. I believe them.

Someone could argue with me that just because I’ve seen video of open heart surgery and have seen a human heart does NOT prove that I myself have one. They could argue that MAYBE some people do and some people don’t…there’s no proof unless you have actually seen and touched your OWN heart. I would slowly walk away from these people…facing them as I walk away…I would not turn my back on them for a moment.

Doctors tell me that my body has electricity in it. I believe them. I’ve never seen electricity in my body. But, we all accept it to be a proven fact that it’s within us. I believe I have a brain in my head, but, again, I’ve never seen my brain, nor have I ever had any type of medical procedure that concretely proves that MY skull houses a brain. But, I have one. How can I not? ‘Something’ is allowing me to think, to learn, triggering my body to operate. I’ve been told that it’s a fact that all of this is because of my brain. I believe it. I don’t know much about the brain…but I accept that others do, and I accept what they tell me as fact.

This may come off as absolutely ridiculous…perhaps I’m coming off as a complete simpleton. But, aren’t there thousands of examples in life that we accept as fact because someone else told us? How much do we accept in life as fact though we ourselves have never personally seen, touched, tasted, smelled the evidence?

600 years ago it was believed that the world was flat. You’d have been laughed at if you believed otherwise.

 

[Pax]

You yourself have told me that I am not reading the bible correctly, mainly because I am not drawing the same conclusion as you.

This is not true. You are not reading the bible correctly for the reasons that I cited…not because we draw different conclusions.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

@Socrates4Jesus

“I find it fascinating when something i think is obvious is, to someone else, clear as mud!”

What a coincidence!

LOL!

… In regards to your 3 possible places where our understandings might part, I think we can probably safely dismiss possibilities 1 and 2.

It is number 3 were I think our main issues are. What else would we need to know about Tyre in order for it to be ‘found’ by your understanding? If, by moving the human structures into the ocean, and killing the people that lived there at the time, it became impossible for it to be found, then the statement that god supposedly makes becomes completely redundant, irrelevant information. If Tyre cannot be found, simply because it has never been lost, it is irrelevant information. Not what one would reasonably expect of an all-knowing God.

If I was to (hypothetically of course!) take your car, put it through one of those compacting machines and make it into a cube of twisted metal, then dump it in your swimming pool and tell you that you will never find your car, I hope you can see the parallel.

You would point into your swimming pool and say “There it is, I think you owe me some cash”

But wait! What is your definition of a car? As far as I know, it is a mechanical vehicle for transport across land, usually with an internal combustion engine to propell it, what you have found is a cube of metal. Also, cars go across land and this is at the bottom of your swimming pool.

As far as I can see, you know what your car was, you know what I did to it, you know what it was made of, you know where the remains are. By all accounts it is found.

Phooney:

Is it possible for you to find for me today the twin towers of the World Trade Center that once stood in New York City?

…Going over my other bones of contention!:

I also still feel quite justified in my stance regarding prophecies where people can act them out. In regards to this kind of extraordinary claim, I’m with Carl Sagan, I want extraordinary evidence. Please show how it was not possible that Alexander the Great, in all his years and in all his travels could have heard of this prophecy.

The level of detail of this prophecy (and every other example of prophecy I have come across) is spectacularly underwhelming considering what an all-knowing entity would know!

For sake of comparison, please consider this: Lets say that in 1777 Benjamin Franklin claimed that he found a time machine in New York City. Lets say he told an astonishing story of travelling to the future where buildings reached to the clouds. Lets say his tale told of two flying machines that crashed into the two tallest buildings, bringing them crashing down and killing thousands. I suppose for more than 200 years people would describe him as a nut job, brilliant and talented, but a nut job nonetheless. That is, until Sept. 11, 2001.

Now you might say he was still insane or made a lucky guess. You might reason that anyone might predict buildings reaching to the sky and flying machines and two buildings falling to the ground. There is nothing remarkable about that. You might object that Benjamin Franklin did not give the name of Osama Bin Ladin or President Bush or mentioned anything about the Iraq war. He did not give any clue about when all this would take place.

In response i’d say three things:

1. 
   *]Once, and only once, in the history of the world have the two tallest sky scrapers of a city come crashing down when jet liners flew into them.
   *]Benjamin Franklin got the name of the city correct where these one-time uncanny event in history occurred.
   Forgetting Ezekiel and his astonishing prediction of the fate of the Tyrians, i’d like to ask you to please answer this:
   
   Lets say old Ben really did claim to take a ride in a time machine. Would you accept his story as true after 9/11? If not, what more proof would you require?
   

   Prophecies such as this almost never give a specific time for them to take place. This is for the best as far as being a false prophet is concerned because then when people tell you that something hasn’t happened, the prophet can just reply “it hasn’t happened YET!” Ezekiel fails on this count in this prophecy.
   
   Was I wrong in my reading of Daniel, by the way?

   Sorry, that was Cyrus, not Darius (i’m embarrassed to say i confused my Medes and Persians)! Daniel does mention Darius, but that is not important. The passage mentioning Cyrus by name is in Isaiah. I’m willing to discuss this if you want, however i’m extremely interested in how you will respond to my latest replies above.
   
   biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=cyrus&version1=31&searchtype=all&bookset=1
   
   livius.org/ct-cz/cyrus_I/cyrus.html
   
   livius.org/da-dd/darius/darius_i_0.html

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… transitive verb1 a: to come upon often accidentally : encounter b: to meet with (a particular reception) **2 a: to come upon by searching or effort b: to discover by study or experiment **

Just what did you think was meant by ‘found’?

Can you find for me today the twin towers of the World Trade Center of New York City?

 

[notself]

I had a friend die yesterday. The truck he was in fell through the ice.

My sympathy for your loss.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Allow me to interrupt - the city has been found (according to the NG article you supplied). So the prophecy is only part right. How much more of it is wrong? It has been found so your god was either mistaken, or not very good at preventing things from being found…

The article states that the place where the city was found, not the the city itself.

Perhaps an example might help:

A political prisoner is released after 10 years in prison in North Korea and put on a boat to Taiwan. He has no knowledge of the events that transpired in the last decade. In Taiwan he gets on a plane to Hawaii, then on a plane to Los Angeles, then on a plan to New York City. In NYC he gets in a cab and tells the cab driver that he has always wanted to climb to the top of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The cab driver tries to explain that the twin towers do not exist any more. The man tries to argue with him, angrily insisting that he had been waiting for this moment all his life and was going to find the twin towers.

The cabbie replies, “Look, pal, I’ll take you to the place where the twin towers once was, but I can’t take you to the place where they now is, because they ain’t.”

Who is telling the truth? The one who insists he will find the twin towers or the cab driver who claims they will never be found by him?

 

[_A]

I’m going to throw some extremely basic ideas out…please understand they may be of no use towards this discussion at all.

Much of what I’m reading is great, and it’s very educating. I consider myself fortunate that I’m able to rely on a more simple approach.

I’ve never seen my heart. I believe I have one. Nothing you can say to me will make me believe otherwise.

You have no need to believe this. You can check, quite easily. I know you don’t feel a need to check, but if it became important, you or any doctor with a few instruments could check. Regardless of their ‘belief’.

They could argue that MAYBE some people do and some people don’t…there’s no proof unless you have actually seen and touched your OWN heart. There would be easy ways to check this. You don’t need to rely on someone else’s word. If it comes into doubt for you, you would not need a special sense to discover the truth. This fact is available for everyone with the sense to investigate on their own.
rboo124;3041863:

Doctors tell me that my body has electricity in it. I believe them. I’ve never seen electricity in my body. But, we all accept it to be a proven fact that it’s within us.

Again, there is no need to beIieve that. You can check it quite accurately and don’t need a mystical intervention (which may be confused with an hallucination).

believe I have a brain in my head, but, again, I’ve never seen my brain, nor have I ever had any type of medical procedure that concretely proves that MY skull houses a brain.

Yet again, you have named something which can be checked easily, and by anyone with the correct instruments - no special mystic belief needed.

This may come off as absolutely ridiculous…perhaps I’m coming off as a complete simpleton. But, aren’t there thousands of examples in life that we accept as fact because someone else told us?

For the most part, yes. Everyone can check much of these items for themselves, however. Not so with the ridiculous claims of the bible.

600 years ago it was believed that the world was flat. You’d have been laughed at if you believed otherwise.

Now, though the majority thought it was so, there is enough evidence to the contrary that holding this view is considered delusional, at best. Evidence has also dispelled the myth that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Science has falsified the ‘global flood’ myth of the bible. Many of these facts people just ‘accept’, but the fact is no-one needs to. Anyone can check with mundane reasoning and some basic instruments.
The bible can be disproved as well, because it makes false claims (like the flood) the difference there is, when science proves such a claim wrong, the bible-believers simply claim a different meaning. More and more stories must be taken as ‘allegory’ or some other kind of fiction as science uncovers more and more fallacies.
I would think that would make anyone suspicious.

 

[_A]

This is not true. You are not reading the bible correctly for the reasons that I cited…not because we draw different conclusions.

OK, I read it with my eyes, and an understanding of the english language. Where did I go wrong?

 

[Aleii]

You have no need to believe this. You can check, quite easily. I know you don’t feel a need to check, but if it became important, you or any doctor with a few instruments could check. Regardless of their ‘belief’.

Exactly. Why, you can even do a test right now – put your finger over your other wrist(palm side up, thumb side), and there’s your pulse. Or, go out on a jog. Now you can feel your heart beating. Or use a stethoscope to hear your heart. Or get a chest xray and see your heart. Or go to the hospital and get an EKG done to see the electrical representation of your heart. I’ve had the great fortune of being able to see a beating heart in a human chest firsthand. Very cool! Now you’ve been able to use sensation, vision, and hearing to verify your heart. Unless you want to smell and taste your heart, I think that’s sufficient

Everyone can check much of these items for themselves, however. Not so with the ridiculous claims of the bible.
Now, though the majority thought it was so, there is enough evidence to the contrary that holding this view is considered delusional, at best. Evidence has also dispelled the myth that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Science has falsified the ‘global flood’ myth of the bible. Many of these facts people just ‘accept’, but the fact is no-one needs to. Anyone can check with mundane reasoning and some basic instruments.
The bible can be disproved as well, because it makes false claims (like the flood) the difference there is, when science proves such a claim wrong, the bible-believers simply claim a different meaning. More and more stories must be taken as ‘allegory’ or some other kind of fiction as science uncovers more and more fallacies.
I would think that would make anyone suspicious.

Well stated