What did I do wrong here? Should I hate humanity?

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Maybe I should eleborate a little:

I asked kindly what is existence, on an atheist forum. I have a poor reputation there, so someone answered me, calling my post "BS" and attacked me personally otherwise.

I have then been told, In Real World, that if you have a bad reputation, no matter WHATEVER you write, your post is ridiculous, and worthy of nothing but BS replies.
No matter what you say.

Even if you write something that your fellow members would agree on, if YOU write it down, if YOU say it, it is BS.

That is why I am hating humanity. There's no reason for hating people or what they say, just because it is a particular individual that says so.
It makes no sense!! !

Last edited by thinkinginpictures on 09 Jun 2014, 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I hope/think it's not too late for us to change. Many others think the same.

1-Should you hate humanity? Probably. Most of humanity is dispicable. But that would be counter-productive. No one would benefit.

2-It's not everyone on that thread. I don't know who or what "Casperov" is, so I skipped that part.
Otherwise, "DunkleSeele" should have been the only jerk in that thread. They're everywhere - it's nothing personal.
Your mistake was feeding the troll, expecially in a whiny voice. That's like wearing a "kick me" sign.

3-If it's true that they pick on you, Why not use another username? Or just walk away, if the jerks outnumber the better people.

DunkelSeele happens to be a Staff.

Therefore, he represents what AtheistForums.com stands for. If he is a jerk, the entire AtheistForums.com are jerks.

Someone was mean on the internet. It happens.

His identifier says: "Proud azzwhole" and he appears to be small minded.

I would ask them ...

1. per E=mc^2 - image a hypothetical scenario where mass is totally converted to energy, then would such a mass still "exist" ? Is their definition of existence more than just matter, but the specific arrangement of matter ?

2. Pertinent to you question about the unseen star, I would wonder what they thought about "relational quantum mechanics"?

A theory that quantum states depend on the relationship between the observer and observation. Thus, is their definition of existence also dependent on the observer ?

source,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational ... _mechanics

As near as i can tell from reading the entire thread, nobody comes off looking too good. Not you and not some of the other commenters. (Actually there were one or two who seemed polite, but you were not one of them)

It seems as if your original post was hinting at cosmic questions, assuming that one could infer an absolute truth from your premise. When things did not go your way, you insisted that you were really trying to discuss politics. I think the best one can say about your post is that you could have made your point more clearly at the beginning and avoided the attacks. At worst, it comes off as if you were making a poorly formed argument and then getting angry when you were called out on it.

While i would tentatively agree that even if we do not know of a planet in a distant galaxy with life on it, it would still be there whether we knew of it or not, but i question your use of the phrase "absolute truth". And when you switch to using it in terms of politics I really question your argument as, in my view, politics is ALWAYS the push and pull of people with differing agendas and needs where there can NEVER be absolute truth.

You seem concerned that people are attacking you. I agree, some of it seems unfair. But clearly you have a history in that forum that I haven't seen and can't assess. It seems to me that you could improve your standing in the forum by working harder to make sure your conclustions actually arise logically from your premise and arguments. In the case of your thread, the idea of an absolute truth did not seem to arise coherently from your argument.

They are not making any efforts in trying to understand what I am saying.

They keep bashing me, telling me that I am talking about a God-like thing when I talk about an Absolute Truth.
My "Absolute Truth" is not meant in any religious or mysterious way. It is simply my way of saying that we know we know nothing. That could be what is inside a box, it could be which stars there are where in the Universe etc.

Really, if that is stupid, Socrates was as stupid as me.

If people don't want to do any effort in trying to understand me, it's logical they would assume I am making irrational arguments.
But that's not my fault people refuse to make any efforts in trying to understand what I am saying.

I begin to see why people get annoyed at you.

What is rather ironic and amusing here is that you are complaining how other people do not make an effort to understand what you are saying and yet this is exactly what you have done in responding to my comments. You seem to have completely ignored the point I was making; that your argument is not adequately formed or cogently expressed to clearly communicate your ideas. You make no effort to understand the point I am making and only further complain about how you are misunderstood.

Communication is a two way process. If you wish to communicate a specific idea you must understand your own argument well and you must understand the context in which you express that idea. You make a post on an atheist specific forum and you use a term like "absolute truth" and you expect it to be interpreted in a non-religious manner. Clearly you either do not understand the connotations that a term like "absolute truth" is going to have in that particular forum or else you are being disingenuous about your motivations in posting the argument in the first place. And if people respond to your comments in a way that shows they did not understand your actual meaning, then it is your responsibility to clarify your meaning. Complaining that people don't understand you under these circumstances is a bit like speaking in a foreign language and then complaining when people do not understand.

Returning to your post on the atheist forum, the basic premise makes sense and I suspect most on that forum would not disagree with it. But at the end of your post you make the claim "There IS an absolute Truth, we don't know what it is, but it is still there." The problem with this claim is that you use a term that holds a specific kind of meaning in a religious context but you make no effort to define what exactly you mean by "absolute truth" If your intent was that the reader should understand your personal non-religious interpretation of the term "absolute truth" then you need to clearly define that term. If, on the other hand, you expected the term to be understood in a religious context; specifically that there is a truth established by a creator, then clearly that does not follow logically from your premise.

But here is what I suspect you are really doing; You make a claim using laden terms, knowing they will be interpreted in a specific manner. And then when they are interpreted in the expected manner, you then complain that other people are misunderstanding you. What advantage would you gain by behaving in this manner? My suspicion is that you like playing the "misunderstood genius" By manipulating discussions in this passive aggressive manner, you can maintain a fiction that you are thinking on a higher level than others (note your comparison of yourself to Socrates) while not actually having to do any of the work of actually thinking on a higher level.

If you wish to gain the respect for your ideas you must first work to form solid, intelligent ideas and then you must argue your position clearly. The process of intellectual argument is one of constantly challenging ideas with the aim of weeding out weak arguments so as to allow the best ideas to rise to the top. Engaging in an intellectual discussion and then immediately complaining the moment your ideas are challenged suggests you do not have a clear understanding of the purpose of this sort of debate. You seem to have the impression that you should simply be congratulated for every thought that drifts through your brain. Good intellectual discussion involves understanding your own ideas well enough to express them clearly and making an effort to understand opposing arguments and addressing those arguments rationally without descending to complaining about how misunderstood you are. The fastest way to lose the respect of people is to start whining about how you are mistreated the moment any challenge is made to your ideas.

I'm staying out of there.

There is a saying, 'Birds of a feather flock together.' Sometimes forums take on certain attitudes. If you are feeling picked on there, its best to avoid the place I think.