Responding to my friend

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tonyrey said:
If we don’t care whether others agree with what we believe we cannot care much about them or about what we believe. It amounts to cynicism…
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I am going to guess you don’t apply that to every belief that you hold. If not then what I said seems to have applicability even to you. Otherwise you might find more than two people on the Internet that have at least one belief that is different than yours. But if you feel you have the burden of convincing them have at it.

Cheers.
 
tonyrey said:
Those who aren’t concerned in the slightest about whether they are immortal cannot have much intelligence - or be using it! It’s hardly an insignificant matter…
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If you search really hard you just might find some obscure religion that you could possibly argue doesn’t include an afterlife. Having a happy-ever-after is ever present in all religions. Have you not really wondered why?

‘And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish…’

How do you think it would have gone otherwise?
tonyrey said:
A better explanation - which tallies with a previous post by an atheist on this thread and corresponds to the prevailing secular mentality - is that no matter how convincing the proofs are, the atheist isn’t even interested in the subject, let alone concerned. For many the question doesn’t even arise…
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If my lack of belief is no concern to God, then why should it concern me?
 
Bradski said:
If you search really hard you just might find some obscure religion that you could possibly argue doesn’t include an afterlife. Having a happy-ever-after is ever present in all religions. Have you not really wondered why?

‘And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish…’

How do you think it would have gone otherwise?

If my lack of belief is no concern to God, then why should it concern me?
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Your lack of belief is of concern to God. That why His son became human, suffered a criminal’s death, though innocent, and rose from the dead. He then instituted His Church to care about lack of belief.
 
tonyrey said:
Can science explain whether our personal survival is more important than anything else in life?
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a couple thoughts. It doesn’t take the scientific process for most people to grasp that personal survival is important to them. It’s built into us to protect our lives. Along the way many people do discover that there are things they are willing to risk or sacrifice their life for. But we are born with the instinct to stay alive.

Also, atheist does not mean “I have replaced God with the scientific process”

There are things other than the scientific process that inform us, and shape us.

If you want to have an intelligent discussion with people of differing beliefs, be they atheists or folks of other religious faiths, then it’s useful to find out what they believe as opposed to telling them what you think they believe and why it’s wrong.

But then again, someone here posited that atheists are either unintelligent or not using the intelligence they have.

I hear the quote tossed around CAF very often basically stating that few people hate the Catholic church, but they hate what they think the Catholic Church is.

I think there is a lot of truth in that.

Catholics, understandably, do not like when people outside the Church and uniformed of it’s theology make claims that they are cannibals, worship idols etc etc.

yes, it DOES get extremely tiresome to be expected to argue someone’s erroneous ideas about you, or have them repeatedly tell you that you believe something that you don’t.

It gets extremely tiresome for people to posit that anyone who doesn’t believe in god therefore MUST hold…insert whatever point the believer feels they want to argue here.

I’ve been told that I MUST feel I have no meaning in life because I don’t believe in god. And when I explained that I do feel my life has meaning…people kept telling me why I can’t have it without a belief in their god. HUH?

I’ve been told that I MUST believe that everything that happens or ever will happen is entirely random…because I don’t believe in their god.

And then I hear that atheists are either unintelligent or not using the intelligence they have…well, apparently that is a human trait that all of us are prone to.
 
schaeffer said:
a couple thoughts. It doesn’t take the scientific process for most people to grasp that personal survival is important to them. It’s built into us to protect our lives. Along the way many people do discover that there are things they are willing to risk or sacrifice their life for. But we are born with the instinct to stay alive.
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This is a perceptive remark.

But then a dilemma follows for the atheist, because it seems that this very instinct to survive does not include surviving death by way of an immortal soul.

Can you explain that denial of the instinct for life eternal? :confused:
 
This is what I’m talking about. This is exactly what I’m talking about . I’m sitting here and marveling. so many respondents reflect the western mind set .that’s why I want to hook up my beloved refugees with you so they may take a scoop from that mind set .

Hi Shaeffer. Your bit about the dog got me going so hard ,I’d to bite on my teeth to stop from laughing .

Something about the dog I want to talk about but really don’t have time.

Look my friend , if I may call you that , back in the day the understanding was that mathematician don’t do probable reasoning and manufactures don’t do perfect precise products . we fiddle with universals to make general principles and formulations , mfg fiddle with material .the important thing mathematician are not going to burden the particulars with more they can handle . please do not worry .

What exactly is the issue with using universals to predict behavior of particulars . it does fine with dice. Do you dispute that ? not trying to start all that , what do you call it I’m not sure , nominal versus real dispute ? are you ? I’m laughing now . hey you’re not trying to pull my leg , are you ?

Cause, purpose , all that very classical Greeks. part and parcel of western mind set . start with cause . what do you mean by cause , what goes into constituting cause . what is purpose ?

The manufacturer does he have a manufacturer and does the manufacturer have one and so on in an infinite regress or does it stop with one first manufacturer

The person who alerted me to my mistake in quoting our lord and savior . my gratitude. Should have said for us and not with us . English 2nd language for me . no excuse of course . why did you quote the other verse?

the other poster, don’t see issue with Bush doctrine. Think it is sound. Why does verse remind you of doctrine ?perhaps answer that in new post

Both a state of agreement as well as a state of disagreement in western human thought indicate that a very refined and advanced stage of a discussion has been arrived at. Minds can then join in issue resulting in what is called a state of controversy . It behooves not to be hasty to ascribe disagreement or agreement to a discussion because such states require an extremely practiced hands to arrive at and even then there are no guarantees .I have a seen group of great American minds take a go at it including such intellectual power houses like Newt Gingrich and fail .

OP , something his holiness Pope Francis said relating to your topic. Can’t remember it off hand .

To atheist who said religion and science are separate . religion from religion differ . that is one issue . best if we do not lump things . If we’re talking Catholicism / Christianity I do not concur . the west is distinct civilization, the larger culture produce the mind sets that produce the science .

any chefs out there ?

I love jesus so much if i were to wrong him really i would make an eternal hell and throw myself in it .but knowing him he just might turn that fire off and tell me it’s okay you can get in through the golden gate .

In Christ .
 
wadramli said:
the other poster, don’t see issue with Bush doctrine. Think it is sound. Why does verse remind you of doctrine ?perhaps answer that in new post
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It might have to do with “You ate either with us …] or with the terrorist. There’s no in between.” (Or something similar)

youtu.be/-23kmhc3P8U

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from my watch.
 
Bradski said:
If you search really hard you just might find some obscure religion that you could possibly argue doesn’t include an afterlife. Having a happy-ever-after is ever present in all religions. Have you not really wondered why?
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Buddhism is regarded as a religion and seems an exception to that rule but in any case the concept of hell doesn’t fit into the wishful thinking theory. Many people without a religion believe “What comes around goes around” - which suggests a belief in justice that isn’t always fulfilled in this life.
‘And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish…’
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How do you think it would have gone otherwise?
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I’m not sure what you mean…
If my lack of belief is no concern to God, then why should it concern me?
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Even if it were of no concern to God - which seems irrational - the prospect of annihilation and eternal separation from those we love is hardly desirable unless one doesn’t care about anything. What amounts to a death wish amounts to a devaluation of life…
 
tonyrey said:
Even if it were of no concern to God - which seems irrational - the prospect of annihilation and eternal separation from those we love is hardly desirable unless one doesn’t care about anything.
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Who said it was desirable? My point was that it is entirely natural to want to avoid it. Hence all religions offer it.
 
Charlemagne III:
But then a dilemma follows for the atheist, because it seems that this very instinct to survive does not include surviving death by way of an immortal soul. Can you explain that denial of the instinct for life eternal?
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I don’t doubt that atheists have the instinct to go on existing as much as believers do. There is no dilemma. Atheists do not deny that instinct. They simply lack the belief that’s it’s possible to continue existing after physical death. If a person doesn’t believe, no amount of wanting it to be true will make any difference to them.
 
Nixbits said:
I don’t doubt that atheists have the instinct to go on existing as much as believers do. There is no dilemma. Atheists do not deny that instinct. They simply lack the belief that’s it’s possible to continue existing after physical death. If a person doesn’t believe, no amount of wanting it to be true will make any difference to them.
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And no amount of refusing it to be true will prove that it is not true.

Instinct does not rely upon thought, but thought can oppose instinct.
 
Bradski said:
Even if it were of no concern to God - which seems irrational - the prospect of annihilation and eternal separation from those we love is hardly desirable unless one doesn’t care about anything.
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It is also reasonable to want to avoid it. Religions concur not only because we want to avoid it (an example of the genetic fallacy) but because it is unreasonable to believe we are merely strange freaks of nature that exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever. It amounts to believing rationality is produced by irrational molecules…
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I believe most atheists, at least moderns, don’t realize the significance of what they have done. They have not yet truly experienced what it would mean for God not to exist.

As one of my favorite moralists, Freddy Nietzsche wrote:
. . . The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. " Where is God gone? " he called out. " I mean to tell you! We have killed him, – you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction: – for even Gods putrefy? God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,-- who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event,-- and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto! – Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. “I come too early,” he then said, “I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling, – it has not yet reached men’s ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star,-- and yet they have done it!” . . .
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“Unless we welcome the eerie invitation to suicide, our problem is to live. A half dozen intellectuals may find meaning for the absurd in the literary success they gain by it, but such justification has no value for the masses of ordinary men liberated by atheism and who, having become gods without asking for it, do not know what to do with their divinity. The latter make no pretense to save themselves, they eagerly beg to be saved. Then there appear other men who undertake to exploit atheism in their turn, and who organize the cult of the new god. It is not without a profound philosophical reason that Marxism required atheism as one of its necessary principles.” Etienne Gilson
 
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