I have converted to atheism

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I'm an agnostic heathen. I'll put it that way. As I have said so often, if I had a religion, it would be the old religion, which is that which was practiced by my Old Norse ancestors and that which was practiced by the ancient Sumerians. I see them as one and the same. It would be the religion that was practiced by peoples who walked the Western shores of the Black Sea during the time of Thales of Miletus.

However, I am a humanist.

As for Christianity, the only noble quality I see in the Old Testament is its honesty. It tells us in very plain language how brutal and evil some of the founders of Israel were. It doesn't overly flatter men like King David. It goes farther in telling the ugly, filthy truth than I think any other culture would have the nerve to. However, a religion that was actually based on treating the Old Testament as an example of good moral behavior could only be evil. The only variations of either Judaism, Islam or Christianity that have any worth to society are those that keep the OT in its proper and due place as a valuable historical document that describes part of the history of an ancient people. If anything, Israel's bloody history ought to be a dark warning to us all.

Christianity can have worth if its practitioner behaves with courtesy toward prudence.

We all know what you think by now. Unfortunately, we also know what you don't think. That, what you are not understanding, is what we are trying to explain to you.

Because people do have the ability to not come to a stance when exposed to a notion. They really do! I do it all the time. Others have claimed the same! You might not have the ability, it certainly seems that you are making the case that you don't. That's fine. Not everyone has the same mental qualities, if you lack the ability to hold a non-belief that's ok.

I don’t think anyone here is trying to tell you that you must learn to hold a non-belief. You can go on believing yes, or believing no, all you want to, and it won't make much difference to anyone else.

But to completely dismiss other peoples thoughts and condemn their position as impossible to have is arrogance, it is ignorant and insulting. You might not like that someone holds a position that you can’t wrap your head around, I get that. Sometimes I get frustrated by "true believers", I know what that is like. But I never tell them they don't actually believe because in my mind that kind of belief isn't possible. I never make the claim that no one is capable of believing something without evidence, because I cannot believe something without evidence.

No, what you are doing when you insult people by saying they are incapable of holding the position they hold is completely uncalled for.

You have provided absolutely no justification for why you feel a non-belief isn't possible. All you've done is just repeat it over and over again and use inapropriate metaphors and analogies that are not applicable to the topic. Bricks, asteroids, lakes etc. If you have a case for why people think they have a non-belief but are somehow mistaken, and you have some new evidence to supply to the discussion about it...by all means please provide it at this time!!

If you are simply confused and want more information about how other people experience the world in their own subject terms, and how each of our realities is necessarily going to be different ones...just ask, and I can find you some good reading material about it...or really anything else that is causing you this sort of confusion. I am happy to help if that's what this is, if you are in need of a good source(s) of information relating to non-beliefs.

But if all you want to do is just fill up post after post of "No, you're wrong about what you think, I know your mind better than you do"...then please just concede that your whole argument is simply your own biased opinion. That way we can just move on to something productive.

Personally, I find the most astonishing thing about all of this, is that snapcap would have experienced the same attitude he is presenting to us, from other people on a frequent basis.

Most of us here do to our ASD have had other people deny the way we experience the world, and included in that are the conclusions we come to because of it.

Yet here you are going the exact same thing to us. You are flatly denying our experience of the world and the conclusions we come to because of it.

I'm sure you don't like it when other people do it to you, so why are you doing it to us?

That's what I find really sad about all of this.

I agree I really do Snapcap gives me quite the headache too.

Exactly this!

I think that's why I am getting a little worked up about this conversation. Denying someone's experience is just not ok to me. It is one of the few things that will get under my skin... I suppose I need to work on not allowing it to affect me. But in the mean time, I try to speak out against it. Whatever form it comes in.

seconded

"Even sticks and stones have a spiritual essence, a manifestation of the mysterious power that fills the Universe." -Lakota saying

or don't you believe that?

and how do you know what babies believe?

The same way he knows what all the rest of us are thinking. He doesn't.

nope. they can't.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inyan

Show me that I'm wrong. That's all I ask, and that's all I've wanted to know since I began the discussion on the bottom of page 1 of Shrox's thread about the atheist gathering in D.C.

Last edited by snapcap on 07 Apr 2012, 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You may experience the world differently, but you still experience it. Actually, you have no choice but to experience it. Just like you have no choice but to come to a stance on all concepts you come across, not to come to a non-position.



I'm not denying your experiences, I'm saying that the only way you can have a non-position is if you don't experience it.



I'd consider it and tell them why I believe they are wrong or right.

Last edited by snapcap on 07 Apr 2012, 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Saying that you don't have a position regarding something that was explained to you is like not having it told to you at all.

I'm not denying your experience, you're denying that it happened.

We were all babies once, I don't remember anything as a baby, especially about God.

Anyways, I thought we were in agreement that everyone was born an atheist?

Can anyone here communicate with a rock?

the lakota people certainly believe they can communicate with a rock… it is after all their superior god inyan. the creator who was in existence before the beginning...

can anyone else here communicate with a god?