Re: the greatest thing about freedom is...

On Dec 11, 4:37�am, John Ashby <J.V.As...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
$Zero wrote:
On Dec 11, 3:53 am, John Ashby <J.V.As...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
$Zero wrote:
On Dec 10, 4:24 pm, "John Ashby" <j.v.as...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"$Zero" <zeroi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
On Dec 10, 12:17?pm, John Ashby <J.V.As...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
$Zero wrote:
On Dec 10, 10:38 am, John Ashby <J.V.As...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

So what is it that you recognise that convinces you of the
existence of God?

merely the truth of the existence of God.

Isn't that circular?
not really.
i'd say the same thing about my sense of humor.
You believe God exists because you believe God exists.
i believe my sense of humor exists because it does exist.
if you never saw any evidence of it yourself, would my sense of
humor stop existing?

If I never see any evidence of it, if it has no impact on my life,
what benefit is there to me in positing its existence?

if you saw me constantly laughing my ass off,

Which would be (indirect) evidence...

maybe.

but you didn't see the
direct source of the amusement, wouldn't you at least be
curious about why?

Which is the point of my questions in this thread.

yep.

or would you automatically attribute it to insanity?

Not automatically, but if I asked what was so funny and you replied
"Oh, you wouldn't understand it" often enough, or were unable to
explain the joke and why you found it funny, then I might well send
for the men in white coats.

that seems logical enough.

That's permissible, but I'd like to see more open
acknowledgment of that. In your case, zero, I'll issue a
similar challenge I put to boots. You say you used to be an
atheist but are now a believer. What changed your mind? What
events, experiences happened to convince you?
lots.
very complex and stretching over many years of non-belief.
and even if i could explain it all, you'd only have my word for
any of it.
so what good would that do you?

None in terms of my own belief, but it might help me to comprehend
yours.

but what good would that be to you?

Suppose that as a writer I wished to write a character who had a
strong faith. To do so convincingly I'd need to get inside the
mindset of that character.

i'd imagine that there's many different reasons why individuals have
strong faiths.

just like there's probably many different reasons why people have good
senses of humor.

90% of people claim to have a better than average sense of humour.

that's pretty funny.

...

ba'dum, chsh!

...


i suppose it might serve to help you to somehow debunk my belief in
God in your own mind.

that's what i always used to do with all of the gullible saps that
i argued with.

and it was easy to do. �because most of them really were gullible
saps.

but you don't come across in that "delightfully debunking" way at
all.

Hope does, though.

Good cop, bad cop. Alan has less patience than I have with all sorts
of things.

and he's far more eager to go for the cheap laughs, especially if he
believes it will throw the hounds off the track.

you seem more interested in furthering your understanding.

hopeful for some insight you may have somehow missed along the way.

i was like that too, at times.

not nearly as entertaining as Alan's pokings, but at least it's
sincere.

well, so is Hope's hope, but he has to be a clown about it, it's
his nature.

And for a bonus, why should I accept that to convince me?

you probably shouldn't take the word of anybody but yourself
and your
own experience.

And thus far, I've had no need of that hypothesis.
i never had need of it either.
besides never "needing" God, what made me a thoroughly convinced
atheist for much of my life were most of the people i came across
who were "representing" God.
they always seemed as silly and irrational and illogical and
deluded and gullible as a Flying Spaghetti Monster cult.
for the most part, they distracted me from realizing the truth
with all of their nonsensical positions and comb-overs and wigs
and pleads for cash and whatnot.
and whenever i argued with believers about their beliefs, which
was always fun, they always ended up grasping at straws and
sounding and looking stupid and ridiculous and gullible.
even so, there was always a certain mystery about life and the
universe that i felt somewhere in the back of my mind, regardless
of all the kooks and their nonsense -- though most of it i felt i
could easily explain in some rational way -- and that it didn't
really matter that there was some of it that what was beyond my
current understanding -- that was to be expected.

So, a desire for explanation of how the world is the way it is.
Would that be an adequate summary?

no. �like i said, i already believed that i had that mostly figured
out.

the part i didn't understand was fine with me. i still wondered
about it, naturally, but not enough to attrribute it to the Flying
Spaghetti monsters of the world. to me the unknown was just
something to marvel about.

my eventual belief in God didn't come about out of some relentless
curiosity for wanting to understand what i did not already
understand.

nor did it come in some sort of fox-hole desperation moment.

(though amusingly, even though i was a devout atheist, when i faced
death a few times in my life, i did find myself praying rather
intensely -- but once the danger passed, i always went back to my
atheism, ASAP).

Hmm, I've just posted a response to Heather about God as crutch, and
here you are confirming that.

well, yeah, back when i was an atheist i had no other use for God.

Which begs the question, what non-crutch use for God do you now have?

mysterious teacher?

beyond that, provider of increasing sprititual joy.


-$Zero...

after awhile, you figure out why nothing ever changes
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.writing/msg/d10e71396a9d48db
.

Relevant Pages

  • Atheism: The Religion of Fools
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  • Re: Atheism: The Religion of Fools
    ... "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God". ... to be able to comprehend the existence of God. ... random development or evolution of life on this planet. ... Then, according to the randomist theorists, an even bigger accident ...
    (soc.culture.thai)
  • Re: Atheism: The Religion of Fools
    ... "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God". ... to be able to comprehend the existence of God. ... random development or evolution of life on this planet. ... Then, according to the randomist theorists, an even bigger accident ...
    (soc.culture.thai)
  • Re: Re: funny creationsist
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