Nightlion wrote:You all know how I killed atheism by convicting it of a chosen passion rather than a rationale of pure intellect and science. You guys ignore my great triumph to pretend it out of existence. Hardly. Even though at this moment while on break at work I am having a stupor of thought concerning the other stake in the heart of atheism, it shall come back to me in spades soon enough.
To be continued...
Before you continue you had better notice one thing.
Even if it were true that someone had a passion for the idea that something doesn't exist, that doesn't make that thing exist.
For example, I have a sort of passion for the idea that black magic isn't real. I care because in some countries the idea causes suffering.
But if someone points out my passion, that does nothing to make black magic real after all.
That said, I must tell you that I have an unrequited passion for the idea of a benevolent God. So much so that I revisit the whole God question every so often and make several attempts at resuscitating a belief in God without violating my intellectual integrity.
I haven't been able so far. The best I can do is make God into something like "
the structure of reality" or in a different mood "
the mysterium tremendum" or even "
Being itself" or "
love". But I doubt any of those things really make me anything other than an atheist with as sense of awe and a mystical disposition.
In short, unlike the late great Mr. Hitchens, I don't actually despise the idea of God and I would be delighted to find life after death.
You will just have to face up to the fact that for some of us it is really just a matter of what we can honestly affirm given our experiences searching for truth and some of us maintain these conclusions despite a passion for eternal life and all that.
Or you could keep pretending we are what we are not if it makes you more secure.
