Quote:
Originally Posted by flamesfever
Cheese is usually very active in a thread like this, and I hadn't seen him until then. He seems so dogmatic in his atheism, that I felt it would take an act of God to get him to Believe.
My first inclination was to chastise him for his rudeness, but the idea of "do unto others......" was so imbedded in my psyche that I made a conscious decision to do otherwise. See, religion does moderate one's behavior.
|
Quite frankly Im surprised by your and others need to "chastise" me.
My post...and the only one here was this...
Believing in a car, another person or the idea of flight is something ALL of us can believe.
When skeptics apply higher standards for claims based on religious experiences than they do for claims based on other experiences, they are thought of as exhibiting a prejudice against religion.
There are many problems with this train of thought. The biggest of all of them is, if there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of religious experiences?
Real experiences that have a large impact on a person can have completely natural sources without any divine connections....yet we as atheists dont suggest that you the "theist" cannot have a real experience!
The idea that only the religious can experience something divine sounds a whole lot like grape flavored Kool-Aid to me.
Please explain the rudeness to me....and then slowly scroll backwards and re-read comments
by other atheists and skeptics and try to suggest that they havent been as profound as I in my excercise.
It is simply because of who I am...because I try to provide hard facts that are inarguable. IF anyone who carries the burden of belief wants to discuss things using educated responses I am all for them...no matter who or what they represent. Im personally not against anyone who chooses dogma, quite frankly you can believe in anything you desire as far as Im concerned. When you bring your points of view to an open message board or into the public eye, then we all have the choice to express our thoughts. I have NEVER accused any theist of slander and Im 100% sure you wont find me calling out an individual personally for their own beliefs. I absolutely will respond to false information or data and will certainly call out anyone who chooses to defend their faith publicly on this or any other message board without backing themselves up with something.....anything. Even YECs try to discuss theology based on "their idea of the facts".
As to the comment about me being "dogmatic" about my atheism? WTF is that supposed to mean? IF I truly believe,
and I do, that there is no God, doesnt that give me or anyone else the right to discuss it openly? Im sure most theists would prefer us Atheists would simply go back to the closet and leave things as they were for the last 2 thousand years. Im sorry...its not going to happen and that is why many theists are feeling like they are being attacked for their beliefs, because there is simply no answer for "Belief"....that is called Education.
If any theist truly wishes to have "open" discussions on their choice with people of faith and un-faith this is absolutely the best place...
http://iidb.org/vbb/index.php
Try it.....
If you choose not to discuss things there, then go to the Library where thousands of articles on every possible idea you have encountered are located...
http://www.infidels.org/library/index.html