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The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

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You say that like it's a bad thing.

We do have one comfort. Sheer stubborn pride. It's a long lonely fall, if even the cosmos casts you off and there's only the hard ground to catch you. But we'll make our own wings.

And your cold unfeeling universe... Looks like this.



I'll see you out there.

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Originally posted by SkyDiveLife:
peacekeeper wrote: "In the words of Riddick "I absolutely believe in God and I absolutely hate the fucker!!"

When children reach puberty, they usually curse their parents. Yet, after they have lived, and reached adult-hood... that cursing turns to understanding, and being grateful.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

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You say that like it's a bad thing.

We do have one comfort. Sheer stubborn pride. It's a long lonely fall, if even the cosmos casts you off and there's only the hard ground to catch you. But we'll make our own wings.

And your cold unfeeling universe... Looks like this.



I'll see you out there.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
If God hates us, ergo, we are fags.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

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You say that like it's a bad thing.

We do have one comfort. Sheer stubborn pride. It's a long lonely fall, if even the cosmos casts you off and there's only the hard ground to catch you. But we'll make our own wings.

And your cold unfeeling universe... Looks like this.



I'll see you out there.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
"I reject this fucking race! I despise this fucking place!"

A telling and inevitable conclusion for the song and for the the way of thinking it celebrates. The man who believes "God hates us all" will come to reflect that sentiment in his own orientation toward his fellows. Or perhaps more to the point, his notion of God proceeds from his own feelings about the cosmos and about himself.

It's axiomatic in psychology that a person's understanding of the cosmos corresponds rather precisely to his or her understanding of the self. In other words, how we feel about God, we end up feeling about ourselves.

The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

On the other hand, the Christian who believes that life is a test of his faith which he is doomed to fail, fares no better. It is an absurdly cruel God who gives His worshippers a scant 70 or 80 years to figure out what's what and base the following infinity of existence upon their findings.

Seriously, the first twenty years, let's face it, gotta be a write off. What happens to us as children is far more powerful in determining our actions than what we as children elect to do of our own free will. Then come the twenties, when we're finally in a place to begin to understand just how unconscious we were as children. Then the thirties when we do the same work for our twenties that we'd just done for our childhoods--the extent of our will-less, habitual behaving is truly immense, is it not? Anyone who's made it past their twenties knows the twenties are a fanciful decade of error and illusion (perhaps I'm being optimistic, some folk don't seem to figure out just how foolish they've been all their lives until much later in life). Which pretty much takes care of the first half of life's "test." So then we have the second 40 or so years to get our shit together for eternity. Ach. What a misery!

Or the awful American Calvinist notion that me and mine are saved and the rest of you losers and reprobates are going to hell. As they live, such Christians can feel strong and virtuous, but their cosmology will get them in the end. After all, what manner of asshole does God have to be to condemn even people who have never heard His gospel to the everlasting abyss? Because a man doesn't go to the particular protestant church, he will rot in hell? Any child can understand the rank injustice in that. And in such a Christian's final moments, is it not tragic to imagine them never feeling the weight of that injustice nor their part in its perpetuation?

I'm a good deal more comfortable with people who are conversant with mystery. The unknown and the unknowable. I'm not talking about a tepid and ill defined agnosticism, but a real seeker of truth who knows her limits and yet continually tests them. Perhaps an atheist poet is the sanest orientation to the divine. Or maybe just a poet of any kind.

A poet like the writer of that song, perhaps. After all, a man who truly believes the words of that song as his final statement on the matter would not write that song, nor sing it, nor wish to share it with us--the very folk he claims to reject. Ain't art a magnificent, paradoxical, mysterious and improbable thingamajig?

HKCavalier







Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Originally posted by kaneman:
Kwicko...my bad..it's my nook..i can't scroll doen and remove that whole aborting thing..you'll live i'm sure...not the first time you've seen it...again just old and unremovable at the moment
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Be grateful for WHAT exactly.I am grateful for my parents for giving me the upbringing that was expected of them,and I love them for it.GOD had jack shit to do with it.I am grateful for the food on my table, the money in my pocket, the fruit of my loins and the company I keep.That was all MY doing. God had jack shit to do with it.I am grateful for the decisions I have made, the loves I have won and lost, the mistakes I have made and the successes and failures in my life.I am a well liked, reasonably well respected and happy individual.And all that is IN SPITE of what your God purportedly throws at me. God(if you still believe in such twaddle) has done nothing but take away any individuals right to be individual.But not me, never needed him and never will.In fact, I'm better than him.I answer my own prayers and I don't make generic excuses when things go tits up.I worship my ability to run my own life.And God has jack shit to do with it.

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Originally posted by Niki2:

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But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent

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Why can't one be happy, hopeful and self-determined without belief in a "god"? I don't understand.

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All the self-described Atheists I've known personally have been extremely materialistic. That's the context I'm working from.

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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Well said hardware.

I was under the impression that Christianity was about love and forgiveness. That's kinda 'Christ like' don'cha think?

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Originally posted by SkyDiveLife:
Bytemite wrote:
"Apologizing in advance for the pun, but I don't think it MATTERS that I'm not a mystic. Who have I harmed?"

Thats a very good point. You can have your beliefs, I can have mine.

So long as you don't push your beliefs on me thru force (of law or other) than its fine.

I can be a "mystic" and you can be a "self-involved, narcacistic, spoiled, loner".


This applies to most "hot-button issues", I believe.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Byte, given his actions in those other two threads, what he "means" is probably just snarking. Rather a nasty new voice (if he IS new)...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Originally posted by SkyDiveLife:
Bytemite wrote:
"Apologizing in advance for the pun, but I don't think it MATTERS that I'm not a mystic. Who have I harmed?"

Thats a very good point. You can have your beliefs, I can have mine.

So long as you don't push your beliefs on me thru force (of law or other) than its fine.

I can be a "mystic" and you can be a "self-involved, narcacistic, spoiled, loner".


This applies to most "hot-button issues", I believe.

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Will you agree to never try to force your beliefs on me through force (of law or other)?

Will you support a woman's right to choose when or whether to have children?

Will you support the banning of Judeo-Christian law in this country, just as so many insist that we must unite to ban Sharia law in this country?

Will you support the doing away with such religion-based pablum as posting the Ten Commandments in some courthouses, printing "In God We Trust" on our currency, and adding unnecessary clause like "under God" to our Pledge of Allegiance?



"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
"I reject this fucking race! I despise this fucking place!"

A telling and inevitable conclusion for the song and for the the way of thinking it celebrates. The man who believes "God hates us all" will come to reflect that sentiment in his own orientation toward his fellows. Or perhaps more to the point, his notion of God proceeds from his own feelings about the cosmos and about himself.

It's axiomatic in psychology that a person's understanding of the cosmos corresponds rather precisely to his or her understanding of the self. In other words, how we feel about God, we end up feeling about ourselves.

The man who believes in an utterly neutral, inhuman and unfeeling cosmos will end by emulating that in himself. Hence we see "the cold man of science." This is why atheism ultimately troubles me as a "belief system" because in saying that there is no God and life proceeds according to no rule beyond thermodynamics, the atheist expresses an ultimately self-defeating cosmology. Determinist, pessimist, entropy-obsesses atheism is no way to live. But happy, hopeful, self-determined atheism is ultimately incongruent. The only happy atheist then is a bad one, a logically flawed one. And if the self-consistent atheist ends her days as one, she will end without happiness, nor hope, nor a sense of personal significance.

On the other hand, the Christian who believes that life is a test of his faith which he is doomed to fail, fares no better. It is an absurdly cruel God who gives His worshippers a scant 70 or 80 years to figure out what's what and base the following infinity of existence upon their findings.

Seriously, the first twenty years, let's face it, gotta be a write off. What happens to us as children is far more powerful in determining our actions than what we as children elect to do of our own free will. Then come the twenties, when we're finally in a place to begin to understand just how unconscious we were as children. Then the thirties when we do the same work for our twenties that we'd just done for our childhoods--the extent of our will-less, habitual behaving is truly immense, is it not? Anyone who's made it past their twenties knows the twenties are a fanciful decade of error and illusion (perhaps I'm being optimistic, some folk don't seem to figure out just how foolish they've been all their lives until much later in life). Which pretty much takes care of the first half of life's "test." So then we have the second 40 or so years to get our shit together for eternity. Ach. What a misery!

Or the awful American Calvinist notion that me and mine are saved and the rest of you losers and reprobates are going to hell. As they live, such Christians can feel strong and virtuous, but their cosmology will get them in the end. After all, what manner of asshole does God have to be to condemn even people who have never heard His gospel to the everlasting abyss? Because a man doesn't go to the particular protestant church, he will rot in hell? Any child can understand the rank injustice in that. And in such a Christian's final moments, is it not tragic to imagine them never feeling the weight of that injustice nor their part in its perpetuation?

I'm a good deal more comfortable with people who are conversant with mystery. The unknown and the unknowable. I'm not talking about a tepid and ill defined agnosticism, but a real seeker of truth who knows her limits and yet continually tests them. Perhaps an atheist poet is the sanest orientation to the divine. Or maybe just a poet of any kind.

A poet like the writer of that song, perhaps. After all, a man who truly believes the words of that song as his final statement on the matter would not write that song, nor sing it, nor wish to share it with us--the very folk he claims to reject. Ain't art a magnificent, paradoxical, mysterious and improbable thingamajig?

HKCavalier



The poet of that song concludes it in gods voice...not his own...point being if there is a god he must hate us...homocide suicide peace through war stabbing each other for game...i'dlisten a tad closer before you rant...i think god hates you



Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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