| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Thomas P." |
| Date: |
03 Jan 2005 06:48:23 AM |
| Object: |
The Absurdity of Atheism |
thomas p wrote:
On 2 Jan 2005 16:44:11 -0800, "A.Christian" <weaskapputt@yahoo.com>
wrote:
walksalone wrote:
....
Suffice it to say, enlightened self interest is the basis for
ethics, ....
Enlightened self interest is doing things or actions that lead to others
considering you to be one they really don't mind being around, & it is done
in the expectation that similar conduct will be what is received from
others.. <snip condescension>
if I have no wish to have
others steal from me, harass me, try to kill me, enlightened self interest
says do not do these things to others, at least not first.
Where did you first encounter this idea? I'll give you a hint:
Matthew 7:12. All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should
do to you, do you also to them.
Allow me to give you and education. Matthew did not invent the
concept. It is many centuries older, and it is quite within the
ability of human beings to come up with.
IOW, not be nice because it is expected, but as with any other subjective
interest, be nice because the dividends are better.
Nice:
1 Corinthians 13:4. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not,
dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up,
13:5. Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger,
thinketh no evil:
13:6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth:
13:7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
13:8. Charity never falleth away:
Charity, as elucidated above, is the epitome of "nice."
So in reality, you and I appear to be basing our opinions of morality
on identical sources, just calling them by different names.
You are assuming that the only possible source for the idea is the
Bible. You are wrong.
You are confused, and it is my fault. What a lot I am learning from
you
about how to talk to different kinds of people!
Thomas answers
You made a specific and precise claim about where walksalone first
saw the concept. You were clearly implying that it had to be matthew.
You were wrong, but now you wish to change what you said.
To clarify: I meant "identical sources" to refer to Charity per se,
not
to the specific passages I quoted. "walksalone" appears to be attached
to the concept that all knowledge comes from academic sources. He
consistently denies that direct experience has anything to do with
knowledge of God, preferring to pretend that I must needs choose from
among the gods he has studied in his academic sources. He denies the
existence of anything called gnosis. Which, of course, is par for the
course. He has yet to go the whole way with his skepticism. He is
stuck
on the middle phase, which is agnosticism (the vehement prohibition
that anyone else should actually become acquainted with a real God
directly). He has yet to go on to the final phase, which is apathy.
The three stages of skepticism:
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
Characterized by, "if there is a god, prove it."
2. Agnosticism - the denial of Gnosis, or, the denial that the
question
of God can have a meaningful answer.
Characterized by, "you say you know god, but you are lying."
3. Apathetic - the denial of the value of the question, in the first
place.
Characterized by, "go away and stop bothering us."
Your dishnoesty has now been replaced by wild insults. That didn't
last long. Yes, you should go away.
Thomas P.
.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: The Absurdity of Atheism |
03 Jan 2005 07:21:01 AM |
|
|
In our last episode <58f199d9.0501030448.2ec3ecbe@posting.google.com>,
Thomas P. lept out of the bushes shouting:
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
Wrong.
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Being surprised at the fact that the universe
is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being
surprised at how well it fits its hole"
-- Douglas Adams
.
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| User: "thomas p" |
|
| Title: Re: The Absurdity of Atheism |
03 Jan 2005 03:49:42 PM |
|
|
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 07:21:01 -0600, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
In our last episode <58f199d9.0501030448.2ec3ecbe@posting.google.com>,
Thomas P. lept out of the bushes shouting:
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
Wrong.
It was obviously not something I would have said, and I didn't.
.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: The Absurdity of Atheism |
03 Jan 2005 07:32:51 PM |
|
|
In our last episode <96ejt019q6cmjnsht258d9oitpvckbbjgg@4ax.com>, thomas p
lept out of the bushes shouting:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 07:21:01 -0600, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
In our last episode <58f199d9.0501030448.2ec3ecbe@posting.google.com>,
Thomas P. lept out of the bushes shouting:
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
Wrong.
It was obviously not something I would have said, and I didn't.
Isn't it cute the lil' troll is trying to pretend he's you?
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Being surprised at the fact that the universe
is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being
surprised at how well it fits its hole"
-- Douglas Adams
.
|
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|
| User: "walksalone" |
|
| Title: Re: The Absurdity of Atheism |
03 Jan 2005 08:43:03 AM |
|
|
On 3 Jan 2005 04:48:23 -0800, in alt.atheism you wrote:
thomas p wrote:
On 2 Jan 2005 16:44:11 -0800, "A.Christian" <weaskapputt@yahoo.com>
wrote:
walksalone wrote:
....
Suffice it to say, enlightened self interest is the basis for
ethics, ....
Enlightened self interest is doing things or actions that lead to others
considering you to be one they really don't mind being around, & it is done
in the expectation that similar conduct will be what is received from
others.. <snip condescension>
if I have no wish to have
others steal from me, harass me, try to kill me, enlightened self interest
says do not do these things to others, at least not first.
Where did you first encounter this idea? I'll give you a hint:
Matthew 7:12. All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should
do to you, do you also to them.
Allow me to give you and education. Matthew did not invent the
concept. It is many centuries older, and it is quite within the
ability of human beings to come up with.
IOW, not be nice because it is expected, but as with any other subjective
interest, be nice because the dividends are better.
Nice:
1 Corinthians 13:4. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not,
dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up,
13:5. Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger,
thinketh no evil:
13:6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth:
13:7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
13:8. Charity never falleth away:
Charity, as elucidated above, is the epitome of "nice."
So in reality, you and I appear to be basing our opinions of morality
on identical sources, just calling them by different names.
You are assuming that the only possible source for the idea is the
Bible. You are wrong.
You are confused, and it is my fault. What a lot I am learning from
you
about how to talk to different kinds of people!
Thomas answers
You made a specific and precise claim about where walksalone first
saw the concept. You were clearly implying that it had to be matthew.
You were wrong, but now you wish to change what you said.
To clarify: I meant "identical sources" to refer to Charity per se,
not
to the specific passages I quoted. "walksalone" appears to be attached
to the concept that all knowledge comes from academic sources. He
consistently denies that direct experience has anything to do with
knowledge of God, preferring to pretend that I must needs choose from
among the gods he has studied in his academic sources. He denies the
existence of anything called gnosis. Which, of course, is par for the
course. He has yet to go the whole way with his skepticism. He is
stuck
on the middle phase, which is agnosticism (the vehement prohibition
that anyone else should actually become acquainted with a real God
directly). He has yet to go on to the final phase, which is apathy.
The three stages of skepticism:
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
& you pretend to know what is proper when applied to you but not to others.
Atheism, a compound Greek word for a lack of gods, as in a=no & theos [the
root word] gods.
Dictionary's are your friends as long as they define things they way you
want, but the history of the word will show that the popular definition, in
this case, is in error & therefore is called the popular definition.
Characterized by, "if there is a god, prove it."
Care to put your assumptions aside & guess again. The defining
characteristic of atheism is simply a lack of an active belief in the gods
of the human race, that includes yours.
2. Agnosticism - the denial of Gnosis, or, the denial that the
question
of God can have a meaningful answer.
Again, wrong, it simply address the knowledge of the gods, to include
yours.
Characterized by, "you say you know god, but you are lying."
3. Apathetic - the denial of the value of the question, in the first
place.
Denial? My how confused you are, apathy does not give a rabid rat's *****
beer whether the gods exist or not. They could care less as the question
that worry's you so is mot to them. A total non-event.
Characterized by, "go away and stop bothering us."
Your dishnoesty has now been replaced by wild insults. That didn't
last long. Yes, you should go away.
& total lack of understanding of what others that do not suck up to your
gods are. It is only a worry item with you, & others that think the rest of
the world should give lip service to your version of an adult fairy tale.
Thomas P.
walksalone who notices that the erstwhile xian still assumes its
definitions apply to anyone else.
--
You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you
take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear
Mark Twain
.
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| User: "MG" |
|
| Title: Re: The Absurdity of Atheism |
05 Jan 2005 03:51:40 AM |
|
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walksalone wrote:
[snip]
1. Atheism - the denial of God.
& you pretend to know what is proper when applied to you but not to others.
Atheism, a compound Greek word for a lack of gods, as in a=no & theos [the
root word] gods.
Dictionary's are your friends as long as they define things they way you
want, but the history of the word will show that the popular definition, in
this case, is in error & therefore is called the popular definition.
The thing that piqued my interest in the above is the *apparent*
suggestion that because popular usage strays from original etymological
roots of a word (or even orignial usage) it is somehow in "error". A
word means exactly and precisely what it is used to mean, in all its
senses. Were there only one meaning to each word, the popular usage of a
word has the greatest claim to being *the* meaning of a word.
Fortunately, there is room within the English language for many senses
for any given word, and none of them are *erroneous*, so long as there
is an established usage. Some usages are popular, others techinical,
others archaic.
"atheism" has several meanings. ("agnosticism" has even more.) None of
them are erroneous. It is not erroneous to say that "atheism" means "the
denial of God". It is not the only sense of the term, but it is one
perfectly non-erroneous sense.
Characterized by, "if there is a god, prove it."
Care to put your assumptions aside & guess again. The defining
characteristic of atheism is simply a lack of an active belief in the gods
of the human race, that includes yours.
That's one sense, yes. That's the usage most closely associated with the
etymological roots of the word that you mention.
2. Agnosticism - the denial of Gnosis, or, the denial that the
question
of God can have a meaningful answer.
Again, wrong, it simply address the knowledge of the gods, to include
yours.
The original usage (Huxley) is now completely out of fashion. Huxley
first used the word to identify a *methodological* position - i.e. to
not accept a claim (*any* claim, whether religious or not) without
evidential grounds.
It originally had nothing specifically to do with claims about gods or
knowledge of gods. Of course, it quickly became associated with a
position about the existence of gods, because Huxley and others saw
dogmatic religion (but not, let us note, what he called "scientific"
religion - religion that attempted to subject its claims to evidential
enquiry) as espousing belief without evidential grounds, and therefore
against his principle of agnosticism.
What I'm saying is that there is room for many senses of a word, and so
long people are clear enough on what they mean, then there are no good
grounds to chastise people for using words in ways that are in keeping
with an established usage. This is independent of whether they
accurately present the etymology.
BTW, neither can anyone, without circularity, argue that atheists have
the sole right to determine the one true meaning of "atheism". Same goes
for agnostics and "agnosticism". The reason is that to do that one must
first determine the class of atheists (or agnostics, as the case may
be), which depends on the meaning of "atheism".
Such is my opinion, anyway.
Goober.
[snip]
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