I can't believe ya'll took the time to answer him. It won't phase him. He's convinced that atheists are having wild kinky monkey sex, doing outlandish behavior, stealing, cheating, etc...
It doesn't matter how many times some believers of the LDS faith are told about reciprocal altruism, moral codes derived from man, empathy, etc... they won't accept that you can be a good, moral person outside of their religion, because then, well, what is the point of their religion?
~edited to add~
The LDS faith with the coffee taboo, masturbation taboo, and other taboos that have no discernible impact on how we actually treat each other in society actually ensures, as well, they that see themselves as morally superior. So, no matter what, they have this fall back on absurd notions of morality that most people dismiss.
I can't believe ya'll took the time to answer him. It won't phase him. He's convinced that atheists are having wild kinky monkey sex, doing outlandish behavior, stealing, cheating, etc...
It doesn't matter how many times some believers of the LDS faith are told about reciprocal altruism, moral codes derived from man, empathy, etc... they won't accept that you can be a good, moral person outside of their religion, because then, well, what is the point of their religion?
Whenever I respond to someone like BC, my response is really intended to benefit lurkers, who may be trying to figure these things out.
~edited to add~
The LDS faith with the coffee taboo, masturbation taboo, and other taboos that have no discernible impact on how we actually treat each other in society actually ensures, as well, they that see themselves as morally superior. So, no matter what, they have this fall back on absurd notions of morality that most people dismiss.
Exactly. Don't forget, they're intellectually superior, too, due to the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
All that needs to be said here is…. There are no atheists in foxholes.
Guy responded:
I'm not sure you're serious. But in any case, this is just plain rubbish.
As a side note, it would be interesting to me to see how many people who experience extreme crisis (e.g., the soldier in the foxhole) lose belief in God as a result. While I'm certain that such experience can and does often produce belief or increased belief in God, I think that the opposite can and also does often happen.
Sorry to be confusing in my brevity. I was providing support for the assertion that emotional comfort is not an insignificant factor in religious belief by sharing one of the favorite theist clichés: there are no atheists in foxholes. What theists do not seem to grasp is that this cliché reveals the truth of what they often deny: emotional comfort is a significant factor in religious belief.
I think it's rubbish, as well. There are plenty of atheists who endure extreme crisis without suddenly "gittin' god", including myself. There were certainly times, such as when a dear friend died of cancer, when I actually wished I could believe in a loving god who might help us out, due to the emotional comfort that may bring, but I didn't suddenly become a believer.
OK, thanks for the clarification.
I think that any theist who claims that emotional comfort is not a significant factor in religious belief (for many, but certainly not all) had his/her head in the sand.
That said, I think that any atheist who dismisses religious belief as nothing more than than a means to provide comfort and help believers cope with uncertainty is likewise ill-informed.
I've just finished having the interesting experience of having gone through a personal crisis in the last month (thought I might be laid off). What made it interesting was that this was the first really big crisis since deciding a couple years ago that atheism made more sense than being agnostic. I never realized just how often I relied on supernatural rubbish to get me through times like this. In the last few weeks, I would start to go down a particular line of thought, and realize, "You're thinking magically again, Schmo." I've just begun to realize how much fate and guardian angels used to play a role in my life when it came to assuaging my fears.
Anyone who denies the comfort factor pertaining to god belief is in the serious throws of denial.
The other thing that was massively reinforced was the realization that an atheistic outlook is the ultimate in personal responsibility. The only individual that was going to get me out of my situation was me.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
The LDS faith with the coffee taboo, masturbation taboo, and other taboos that have no discernible impact on how we actually treat each other in society actually ensures, as well, they that see themselves as morally superior. So, no matter what, they have this fall back on absurd notions of morality that most people dismiss.
Exactly. Don't forget, they're intellectually superior, too, due to the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost.
Right, I learned quickly that I'm intellectually inferior to LDS because I lack the Holy Ghost shoulder tap.
I was actually thinking quite a bit about paternalism the other day and how this plays into the mental mindset of LDS and I even see it apparent in some of those that grew up in the Church and left. They must interfere with others, they know what is best for others, can intercede and make decisions for others, etc... Hammer the other day on MAD talked about investigators and compared them to 5 year olds -- the missionary decides what the investigator should know. I think this type of mindset is terrifying, and it shocks me every time I see it. The prophet knows best, then elders in the community know best, then missionaries know best and then members of the LDS faith know best because they have a special pipe line to God.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Jul 02, 2008 3:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
antishock8 wrote:So, the "test" is you have to believe in nonsensical b***s***. If you don't believe it, you suffer for a 1,000 years because you failed to allow yourself to be bamboozled.
Holy. s***.
Then again for some hell might feel like coming home.
As long as they gave me solitary confinement, preferably with a little more space to roam than most current prisons. A healthy body, a small world of my own. It doesn't look so bad to me. I guess they could throw a bunch of clones of myself in, since that would only be fair. I think we'd get along fine.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
One of the popular models has the universe being always topologically equivalent to a copy of R^3. In the The Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model with K<=0, each spatial slice is a constant curvature space of infinite extent but with density approaching infinity at one goes back toward the time of the big bang. In these K<=0 models, it was only the observable universe that was once crammed into a dot. But there was, at any positive time, a whole R^3 full of such dots each destined to fill out a volume as large as what we can now observe. In the K>0 case, the whole universe (not just the observable universe) was a tiny dense copy of S^3.
If the universe is expanding and entropy is the tendency, is it conceivable that at some point in time/space that the universe wil be contracting and order will be the tendency?
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Moniker wrote:I can't believe ya'll took the time to answer him. It won't phase him. He's convinced that atheists are having wild kinky monkey sex, doing outlandish behavior, stealing, cheating, etc...
It doesn't matter how many times some believers of the LDS faith are told about reciprocal altruism, moral codes derived from man, empathy, etc... they won't accept that you can be a good, moral person outside of their religion, because then, well, what is the point of their religion?
~edited to add~
The LDS faith with the coffee taboo, masturbation taboo, and other taboos that have no discernible impact on how we actually treat each other in society actually ensures, as well, they that see themselves as morally superior. So, no matter what, they have this fall back on absurd notions of morality that most people dismiss.
Atheists can be moral people. I don't believe they have to be evil. I do believe that I'm a more moral person with my religion than I would be without it. I reject the modern view (leftist) view of morality. I still look to Christian princples for morality and sometimes the virtures of tribal heroes in my own family ancestors, clan, and ultimately but to a much more diluted extent my race. .
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
