On 22 Sep 2006 10:45:03 -0700, "lee@
rdfmedia.com"
rdfmedia.com>
wrote:
>Hey Cristopher,
>
>First off many thanks for answering back, it must have been as boring
>for you to read it all and reply as it was for me to write it all out.
>So if you will excuse me for not doing that whole you said, I said
>malarky, I would still like to try and sort this out.
>
>I see that one of the main sticking points here is just down to our
>differant interetations of the word Atheist.
>
>I am now confussed as to what you say it means? Are you saying that an
>Atheist is somebody without a belief system?
Sigh. SOMEBODY WHO ISN'T THEIST.
As a CONSEQUENCE they don't have anything remotely like the theist's
belief system.
>Please understand that the online dictioanry I use not for some hidden
>agenda, I use for everyday use at work to find out what a word means, I
>did not choose it because it agreed with my definition, and as far back
>as I can remember it has meant somebody who does not belive in God.
>Again this is not my personal definition, and indeed is what I was
>taught at school. I was not trying to define you or what your stance
>was, just saying what my understanding of the word is.
Then your school was as wrong as you are.
But you didn't do that - you suggested to an atheist that they should
look in a dictionary rather than accepting that he was describing
himself and me, and the rest of us even though it didn't fit what you
had been taught.
I have no idea why so many theists do this. It is just plain rude
because any attempt to "debate" this is tantamount to telling us they
know better than we do what is in our own minds. And that we're not
telling the truth about ourselves.
But why don't YOU look in as many dictionaries as you can find, and
instead of cherry picking a definition that supports you, look at ALL
the definitions.
Have you forgotten how dictionaries work? They describe common usage.
And where there are multiple definitions, they are ORed, so that the
word means definition 1 OR definition 2 OR definition 3 etc according
to context.
And in this case the context is what out actual position is, because
the word is the label that is meant to describe us.
>For the sake of peace though lets just define the word.
Somebody who isn't any kind of theist.
>The second sticking point seems to be the phrase belife system. I
>honestly don't know what yours is/are, but I find it hard to belive
>that you hold absolutly no belifes. It is becoming clearer to me that
>you pesonaly may be in the objectivist camp? In which case, I'm
>starting to understand how all of this happend. I am a relativist, I
>think in a relativist way, I can no more help that than you can help
>the way you think.
More phony amateur-psychologising.
We don't have a belief system qua not believing in pixies,
leprechauns, Santa Claus, Zeus, Mithras, Odin, God, Krishna etc.
Why do you want us to?
Some atheists have ideologies, but atheism is a non-event, not an
ideology. Some atheists are Democrats. Others are Republicans. That
sort of thing is closest to a belief system, but it is nothing to do
with being atheist.
>When I use the phrase I mean the things you belive, to enable you to
>understand the world, I'm certian that you must have these, you must
>belive that the sun will rise in the morning, you obvioisly belive
>there is no such thing as God, you must hold some belifes. Speaking
>relatvislty and taking the belife that the sun will rise tomorrow, I
>belive it will based on two things.
Cant' you read? You're doing it again. Inventing beliefs for us to
have based on presumptions that don't even apply.
Most of us don't waste time and effort having that belief about
something as irrelevant as the hypothetical belief object of somebody
else's religion.
You've been told several times already that the world does not revolve
around your religious beliefs.
And please have the honesty not to equivocate between religious-type
belief such as your god-BELIEF, and the reasoned expectation based on
a lifetime of sunrises, that the sun will rise tomorrow. Nobody
"believes" that. It's just a fact of life and we will be very
surprised if it doesn't.
Which you have now been told so many times it ceased to be amusing
long ago.
>My lifes experiance up to this point(The evidance of my sense). And
>what I learnt in physics at school(The evidance of other peoples
>senses), but in reality I don't know for sure that the sun will rise
>tomorrow, I can never be 100%% and so I belive that it will, I don't
>objectivly know that it will, and so this has become part of my belife
>system.
>
>The third point my rudeness. I can understand how a man can get upset
>if he feels misrepresented, but again I can only say, I honestly did
>not think that was what I was doing, and that my early tone was
>indicitive of the insult that I felt from first Michael's and then your
>words to me.
Then you should have been more careful.
It was a perfect example of what religion does to a previously
thinking mind.
>I wish now to talk about some of the things you have said.
>
>I have asked you to prove that my belife system is Infantile and
>Delusional, I ask again. If you cannot then can you at least say sorry
>mate that was a subjective belife of mine.
>It is not just an observasion, it is insulting to be told your thought
>procesess are like an infants, and it is insulting to be told that your
>thought processes are delusional, so I'm sure that you can understand
>why I ask.
In the real world outside your religion they are.
I've already pointed out that many of them are the stuff of fairy
stories.
Keep them to yourselves and nobody would care.
But tell them ridiculosu things thand rhey get treated as ridiculous.
What part of ONE MAN'S RELIGION IS ANOTHER MAN'S BELLY LAUGH are you
still unable to understand?
>I still don't understand the referance about beams and eyes, could
>you(or anybody for that matter) enlighten me on that score?
Pretends the sanctimonious hypocrite who is incapable of grasping just
how arrogantly nasty, telling an atheist who has corrected then after
they got atheism wrong, to "look in a dictionary".
I have no idea why so many of you do this.
>You have asked me to keep my relgious views to myself. The title of
>the thread is Does religion make people better or worse? Surly you
>can't mean that I have to put up, shut up, and do what I'm told? This
>is an open forum, and I am interested in discussing subjects that take
>my fancy, and given the title of the tread then I am entitled in fact
>required to talk of my religos views in defense of my position.
In your case it has destroyed the capacity to think in terms of the
real world, and whatever decency and courtesy towards others you might
once have had.
>And at last back to the topic.
>
>You said:
>
>'In far too many cases worse. It subverts the innate sense of good and
>bad towards others and replaces it with what the religion says.
>A good person will be good anyway. A bad person will be bad anyway. It
>magnifies these. But it takes religion to make a good person do bad
>thinking he's doing good. '
>
>Yeah agreed in far too many cases relgion has been used for some
>intolarable acts. I wonder though how much this has to do with human
>nature, and our need to tribalise?
When you're on the receiving end you don't care.
>This whole thing here is a case in point, I see it as a massive
>misunderstanding that happend because our rules of communication are
>differant because of the differant 'tribes' we belong to. You look at
>me and automaticaly think ohh yeah I know your sort, and I do the same
>to you.
No. It was your inability to think outside the box, and your rudely
telling an atheist to look in a dictionary to find out what it meant
to be one.
>It seems that we where both wrong in our initial apprasials of each
>other, for instance, I am not now, have never been and do not ever see
>myself becoming a Christain. I am in fact a Sikh. Anyhoo to end I
>hope that we can put today behind us, and continue to communicate in a
>rational way.
Then you should have known better.
>Cheers,
>
>Lee.
