So, you're essentially claiming that a four year old is able to discern genuine shock or disguised? Were you consistent, at four years old, beating other competitors equal to your father? Did you go on to win championships with competitors who were better players? Spin me another one. I won't argue there aren't brilliant young chess players, but that brilliance is hardly contained to just chess.
Nice. Another nice platitude. In reality, if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often spend your whole life never enjoying anything and, on your death bed, regretting your lack of attention to the good little things that make up a truly happy life.
That about sums me up. girl, I figured as much. Are you female? Then the idea of belonging to a supremely dominant being is attractive to you. It’s a projection of the procreative strategy. Males seek to overcome and overpower and dominate. They kill God or surpass Him. Females want to belong and feel protected. The Feminization of Man is a product of growing populations making Christian-like religions important and the feminine-minded, domesticated male, necessary.
Depends on your definition of the very best. And I believe in simplicity as a criterion. Makes life easy to understand, explore and enjoy, when its shed of the extraneous.
Ya, I figured you haven't chewed on this cud yet. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! An oxy-moron? Babe, do I feel like the submissive type? And I'm definitely not masochistic; nope, I just catch more flies with the honey.
Sweety, you are the submissive kind. You’ve submitted to absolutism. You just want to submit to what is worthy of you. God is that ultimate maleness. No mortal man could measure up.
agreed Lifes greatest pleasures are all free meanwhile contentment is a poor man Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! which would you rather be?
I choose feeling good, also. Feeling discontentment would force me to actually act upon it. Why act when I can just have, through belief? A fat man can overcome his obesity by simply reinterpreting beauty or claiming that it’s skin-deep. Why exercise and get fit when you can eat all you want, and be content and fat? Thanks Sciforums.
Well Ron, I do think that in many cases belief is an achievement. It may take years of "soul" searching to finally convince oneself that, despite strong feelings and evidence to the contrary, there really is something beyond this veil of tears we call life. But an achievement to be respected? Sadly, no. It appears to be one of emminent self deception at the deepest levels. Comforting and self-satisfying in many cases, yes. But a respectable achievement? No. Yes. And some try for years to become concert level pianists and never get there. At least at the end of their struggle there's the potential for some subtantive objective outcome. Just my opinion of course, as always.
hehe fat is not a sign of contentment, not that I have observed. free pleasures sex laughter nature children education (mostly free) etc food not on that list, as it is not free
There are some things that money can’t buy, but most valuable things are not free. Everything has a price. The price of our goals and objects of desire could be in the form of cash, commodities, favors, sacrifices, and assistance.
I would describe myself as an atheist / agnostic. I don’t believe in the common concept of god, but there is nothing that I could say to prove or disprove the existence of an omnipotent creator. I don’t face death with despair because there is no reason to fear it. It would be like me fearing the year 1900. (A time when I did not exist) People have been taught to fear oblivion or non-existence. Most people need to believe in something other than the reality that we are experiencing. Religious people are comforted when they think about fantasies like heaven. I am comforted by fact that I don’t need to believe in religious fantasies to be happy.
It is common to judge the motivations of others as if they were driven by our own assumptions and perceptions. That is why most people are stumped when they come across a different culture or ideology. It is hard to accept that someone can actually prefer an ideology, a system of government, a legal system or a way of life which is so obviously "inferior" to our own. We get past such inconsistensies in our understanding by labeling the other as ignorant, savage, uncultured, backward or barbaric. Of course, the other does the same, so everyone can be happy with their personal delusions of rightness. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Why? So you are in a form of intellectual purgatory then, correct? What impresses you about believers? That they had the will to get through all of the rightly-deserved doubt and lack of supporting objective evidence? Or that they've achieved a form of self assured bliss regardless of the veracity of the basis? Why don't you believe? What's stopping you? If it's simple lack of effort, then you're lazy. If it's continuing doubt based on rational observation, then it's intellectual honesty, however painful that may be, and nothing to be ashamed of. That, in my mind, is the admirable achievement. Then why not simply let it go? If the probability is "good" then surely you have enough self confidence in the idea to pronounce it fit for belief? That it is obvious, without deep philosiphizing or theological epistemologies, that in the real world as we know it, there is no shred of convincing support for things unseen and unmeasurable. How could there be? Spirits, ghosts, gods, and gnomes all have the same level of reality correlation and only differ in the amount of cultural respect they are each afforded. Not sure at all about this statement.
No one is judging anyones motivations. What does preference have to do with the reality or lack thereof of a god? The only way to determine the "rightness" of an empirical statement such as "god exists" is to seek empirical evidence. Ultimately, if we toss all the namecalling, all atheists are asking for is an explanation of how something can be real in the sense of has an actual effect in the universe without some verifiable, objective, empirical evidence? It's incredibly simple, yet fundamentally unanswerable by any theist. Tell me there is no dichotomy between almost any endeavor in your life where empirical verification is vital (say, the warranteed purchase of a car or house, or the claims of TV commercials, or whether your bungee cord is securly anchored) and your belief in a diety.
It's a personal thingy that you have to experience for yourself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
