Your thoughts on God

[ThinClient]

No. It is not.

It is rational to attribute the lack of growth of belief in evolution as a failure in scientist/atheist message delivery. And I am here to tell you, part of that message failure is the smugness.

I don't start with smugness, so your point is moot. I start with hand-holdingly gentle conversation. The smugness comes in after I've destroyed every argument they bring to the table and after they choose to continue being stupid.

 

[ThinClient]

No, if you if you "crush" everything they thought was evidence and they still don't follow you, then you didn't "crush" anything outside of your own mind. It means you failed at delivering your message and you need to go back to the drawing board to rework it. Once you add in the ridicule you burn your bridge to get a second chance with an improved message. More likely than not your message incompetence just created more opposition for your cause.

Just having the correct facts, the right answers, doesn't mean your side automatically wins. Heck we are in a technology forum and we ALL have seen superior technology lose out to better marketed worse technology. Unless you want your message to go the way of the betamax you need to work on your delivery....

My signature is proof that Rob M. knows that he's wrong but still clings to what he chooses not to let go of.

Like I said, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You can show someone that they're wrong and they can agree with you and they can then still choose to remain willfully ignorant.

That's not my fault, that's theirs and it is at this point where the ridicule is used and deserved.

 

[poofyhairguy]

That, Creationist museums having financial troubles, Churches losing members in droves, most Teen Theists lose their Theism by 30, etc.

Teens are losing their religion, not their theism. Source:

But when it comes to many beliefs and practices -- like views about life after death, the existence of heaven and hell and miracles -- millennials resemble previous generations of young Americans. For instance, 45 percent of young Americans report praying daily, about the same proportion who said they did in the 1980s and '90s.

"While growing numbers of people are unaffiliated, it's not necessarily a sign that they're committed secularists," said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at the Pew Forum. "We're seeing among young people that there are ways of practicing faith and being religious outside of belonging to a religious organization or attending services."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/17/report.millennials.faith/

Just like with evolution, people are finding their own middle ground between two extremes. Youth don't like the hate message of the religions of their parents, but they cling to ideas like heaven, miracles and prayer. Why?

Because it is baked into us, or at least baked into our culture.

If the churches can recraft a more palatable message those people might fall back into religions. 68 percent of the millennials claim to never doubt the existence of God, that means the majority of the young are still theists, just not practicing ones.

I do believe your side has the opportunity to sway them all the way over, but you need a message they can cling to. Some "Hope and Change" if you will.

 

[ThinClient]

Ridicule is not the answer at all. Some people will not change their beliefs for anything. All you will be accomplishing is behaving uncivilly for no purpose.

Atheists need to be more accepting of other beliefs. We know we are right, however at some point you need to hold yourself accountable for how you represent atheism and how you represent your self.

If those people who won't change their beliefs in anything would simply shut the hell up and keep their delusions to themselves, the ridicule wouldn't exist. Ridicule is only for those who are the most obnoxiously vocal about their blatantly false beliefs.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't care that you don't like my methods. Really, it doesn't bother me one bit.

Me neither really. I mean if your side would rather be "religiously" right and lose than compromise and possibly win that is part of the choice that defines humanity.

I am just pointing out there is proof that the atheist message is flawed if the goal is to be palatable to most Americans. In my opinion it enables the crazies on the other side who have an illogical message that they craft better.

People like you are awesome and deserve every ounce of respect that you have earned in these conversations and not because you're basically on the same side -but because of how you argue.

I have enjoyed the conversation as well. This could never happen in P&N.

The same argument can be made for teachers. If an entire class of students fails, it's the teacher's fault. However, you don't have an entire class failing when it comes to religion vs atheism. You don't have the entire public failing to understand the ad campaign. You have a large group who are willfully ignorant about the ad campaign. You have a large group who are so hell bent on destroying your company that it doesn't matter what ad campaign you put out, they're going to find some way to twist it so their stupidity-inducing agenda won't be threatened. It's not the company's fault. It's not the ad campaign manager's fault that these people are too prideful to admit that they're wrong when they're proven wrong time and time again.

Pepsi has run ads against Coke for most of my life. They are hell bent on "destroying" the market presence Coke has. We all remember the dumb blind taste test commercials. They have done everything they can to twist Coke's brand.

And if they succeed, it is TOTALLY the fault of Coke's marketing department.

Welcome to the modern world. It is a big mix of brands and messages competing with each other for the small slivers of attention modern man is willing to give.

If the opposition does a better job than you twisting your words and your message that is because you did a poor job crafting it. Just like you don't feel bad when a stupid person simply doesn't get it, I don't feel bad when poorly crafted messages fail.

I studied marketing for a large chunk of my life, I know that the atheist message can be improved. I know that science can be made sexy.

The question is: Do those on your side really want that? Or do they prefer to keep the membership exclusive to the intelligent and the free thinkers? Because I can understand the want for an exclusive club, heck even Mr. White Conservative Golfcart Racist can get that one.

If the 6 year old calls you a shithead and says you're wrong and then convinces all his other 6 year old buddies that you are wrong, that's somehow the instructor's fault?

If the one kids wrecks it for a whole class of kids because they are not controlled yes that is the fault of the instructor.

The biggest problem I have honestly is you keep running to kid examples. I am not trying to insult you so please shut me down if I am wrong, but to me that shows the level of respect you have for your fellow theist American.

No one ever wants to listen to the message of someone talking down to them.

Edison wasn't the greatest inventor. He was a dishonest, hostile profiteer who stole and destroyed most of Tesla's research.

I know that. My point is that perception is reality in many cases when policy is decided by feelings instead of facts.

I don't care what people think.

But yet you say you want to save them from the bondage of religion. Which is it?

Those are dangerous, but fox news doesn't advocate taking your child out into the wilderness to kill them to prove your loyalty to them. Fox news doesn't kill off your entire family and all the animals you own and make you deathly ill just to test your faith. Fox news doesn't REQUIRE you to revere these actions as holy simply because "god works in mysterious ways."

There is no comparing the dangers of evolution to something as petty as politics.

No Fox News just helps push us into a War in Iraq that kills thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Seriously, selective ignorance is always a bad thing.

The BEST way is to stop lying to children. Stop raising children in religious settings. Don't introduce them to religion until they're adults. I guarantee religion will take an abrupt drop once this method is employed.

Now I CAN agree with that. How do you achieve such a goal though? That seems to be more a re-enforcing feedback loop when you win, not the way to win.

How can you say it doesn't sell when I bought it? The most ignorant of the religious might not buy it, but there are massive swaths of people across many religions who are intelligent enough to "buy it" -to reason their way out of their oppressive religion. I am living proof.

You are a single person. You prove it can be done, you don't prove that the message is palatable to masses that lack your intelligence.

I voted for Bush because Kerry was the greater of two idiots --err, evils.

Yeah that was just a bad joke, sorry. I voted for Bush back in 2000 too if it matters.

I got no problem with people who want to live in abject slavery to a celestial dictator who can convict you of thought crime in your sleep.

My problem comes when their religion preaches that they indoctrinate others. Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.

The doctrine of religion is to spread. That is the force that you must push back against.

That's not my fault, that's theirs and it is at this point where the ridicule is used and deserved.

See I think ridicule is NEVER deserved. Pitty maybe. Never ridicule.

I don't start with smugness, so your point is moot. I start with hand-holdingly gentle conversation. The smugness comes in after I've destroyed every argument they bring to the table and after they choose to continue being stupid.

So basically the smugness comes in when you failed to deliver your message and so you react in a way that makes you feel better about your failure.

I mean, I am not criticising. That is very human. In fact it shows me that maybe your message is a little less contrived than I believed.

 

[ThinClient]

The question is: Do those on your side really want that? Or do they prefer to keep the membership exclusive to the intelligent and the free thinkers? Because I can understand the want for an exclusive club, heck even Mr. White Conservative Golfcart Racist can get that one.

I'm all for everyone, even the dumbest of us and Rob M. over there joining our cause.

The biggest problem I have honestly is you keep running to kid examples. I am not trying to insult you so please shut me down if I am wrong, but to me that shows the level of respect you have for your fellow theist American.

I've tried adult examples with Rob M. and others. He rejects them and proves time and time again that he doesn't understand them. That means it's time to get more and more simple with each attempt. At some point the message is going to be below him and he is going to feel belittled. Well tough shit, that's what you get for not looking at the more complex message and making an effort to educate yourself on the matter or asking for clarity on specific points so that you can understand the more complex message. Rob just wants to argue and it's evident day in and day out on these forums. That's why I bring my offensive game to him and that's why I don't care if he's offended. Some day he'll learn. Or, you know, he won't, and he'll die clinging to his bronze age myths. Either way, he won't be spreading poison to my fellow impressionable humans.

No one ever wants to listen to the message of someone talking down to them.

Yet, sometimes that's what it takes to get someone's attention -to break them out of their comfort zone.

But yet you say you want to save them from the bondage of religion. Which is it?

Good catch. I should have said worded it differently but we're so far past it that I don't want to make the effort to go back to reword everything. At this point, I don't care what someone believes in their head. I care about what they do with that belief -how they influence others. If you want to go to your grave with no one ever knowing that you secretly believed in an invisible celestial dictator who can convict you of thought crime in your sleep, then so be it. The MOMENT that person begins to exert influence on the world in any way based on such a flawed, fucked up opinion is where I put my foot down.

No Fox News just helps push us into a War in Iraq that kills thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Seriously, selective ignorance is always a bad thing.

True, and maybe you'll learn a thing or two if you go back and do your homework on Bush's Iraq war. Fox news had nothing to do with the government's decision to invade or not. It had a lot to do with what the public thought, but the public is largely useless when it comes to governmental authority. The gub'ment will do whatever they want whenever they want to do it without any real recourse. Many nations like England and Egypt came to the US with evidence of WMD's. However, Fox did a lot of damage by convincing the public that the concept of a WMD is limited to nuclear weapons. The general public has no idea that things like white phosphorus, chem weapons, and biological weapons are on that same list. We DID find mountains of WMDs. We didn't find any nuclear weapons, but we found hoards of WMD caches around the country. We confiscated them. The top-secret documentation listing everything we found has been declassified since something like 2008 or 2009. You can find it on the net if you look hard enough.

You're right. Ignorance is damning.

You are a single person. You prove it can be done, you don't prove that the message is palatable to masses that lack your intelligence.

I have no real reply here that doesn't stroke my own ego, so I'll simply not respond.

The doctrine of religion is to spread. That is the force that you must push back against.

Absolutely. Religion should be something that you keep in your closet, something that you keep secret and take to your grave.

So basically the smugness comes in when you failed to deliver your message and so you react in a way that makes you feel better about your failure.

I never thought about it like that. It doesn't make much sense to me right now, but I'll ponder it for a while. Interesting.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Good point about the comfort zone. I sell for a living so I know that works.

And sorry to bring in all the Iraq War crap. It really has no place on this forum.

Thank you for the frank discussion. I know I have some new things to think about.

My core belief is respect for others, but sometimes it's hard to practice what you preach.

Thanks again.

 

[ThinClient]

Agreed, you're an excellent debater. :thumbsup:

 

[Moonbeam]

Quote:
So basically the smugness comes in when you failed to deliver your message and so you react in a way that makes you feel better about your failure.

I never thought about it like that. It doesn't make much sense to me right now, but I'll ponder it for a while. Interesting.

What good will it do you to ponder it all pumped up and brain damaged from drugs. We know what to expect from drug addled coke heads, especially the ones who reach enlightenment by blowing a God conscious state out their ass.

In short, let me tell you what stupid is. Stupid is the person who can claims with all the same certainty and presumption in the world that on the one hand there's no God and on the other that I take drugs without the slightest awareness that I would be able to see the accuracy or falseness of your prognostication. 'You may be a one eyed Jack dad, but I seen the other side of your face.'

You are the same chump now that you were when you believed and you're just as sad. Never externalize your self hate because it makes self forgiveness very difficult. The contempt you hold of believers has enslaved you because you are that believer. You are completely wrong about everything because you are filled with contempt and that exists nowhere else but in the eye of the beholder. Say now unto yourself, 'Forgive us oh ThinClient our trespasses against others so that I may forgive how I've trespassed against him.'

 

[ThinClient]

Drop some more acid and go find some other thread to troll, Moonbeam. I don't hate myself. <3

I don't claim that there is no god. You'd know if you were sober and coherent while reading my posts.

I'm completely wrong about everything? Nice blanket statement that does not include any rational arguments to back up your claim.

Go back to your drugs and leave cogent thinkers to discuss reality.

 

[Moonbeam]

Drop some more acid and go find some other thread to troll, Moonbeam. I don't hate myself. <3

I don't claim that there is no god. You'd know if you were sober and coherent while reading my posts.

I'm completely wrong about everything? Nice blanket statement that does not include any rational arguments to back up your claim.

Go back to your drugs and leave cogent thinkers to discuss reality.

You do realize, I hope, that when I said I don't use drugs and know I don't use them, and therefore know that you are wrong for the third time in implying that I do, that any discussion about your perceived notion of what reality is, is simply one big joke?

Now as a person who claims to be a cogent thinker can you explain why you knowingly and intentionally distort and lie about me taking drugs. Be honest. Don't you think your aim is to hurt my feelings. And why on earth would you do that? Isn't it because you have a need to demonize the other, that you are a bigot and have self justified your bigotry on the theory that your thinking is morally superior to mine. It wouldn't be very nice of you, I suspect, in your own judgment of yourself, if you did that without first creating some sort of altered moral reality where I take drugs and thus deserve your put-downs, no?

And since such behavior, the demonization of others, is really a moral crime, how would you ever come to do it if you didn't hate yourself, which of course explains why you do not know that you do.

 

[ThinClient]

blah blah blah, go back to your everyone-hates-themselves tirades in L&R. You don't do drugs? What a lie. If you don't want put-downs, maybe you shouldn't be here dishing them out. Too bad this is in DC where I can't say what you need to hear.

 

[Retro Rob]

I'm all for everyone, even the dumbest of us and Rob M. over there joining our cause.

Not likely, and not because of atheism...but because of you.

However, while I don't know any atheists personally, a small minority of them are much more reasonable, moderate, and understanding of the fact that everyone doesn't/will not always think like them.

The best way to make your "cause" worth touching with anything other than a 10-foot pole wrapped in barbed-wire is to change your militant tone, admit you don't know all the answers, and take the cotton-balls out of your ears and place 'em in your mouth.

 

[ThinClient]

So you're going to reject reason and logic because your feelings are hurt.

LAWL. Take your ball and go home.

 

[disappoint]

Ok we get it. You say theists are stupid. I'm sure no one will make the mistake of calling you stupid for not seeing that continuing to call them stupid isn't working.

 

[Moonbeam]

blah blah blah, go back to your everyone-hates-themselves tirades in L&R. You don't do drugs? What a lie. If you don't want put-downs, maybe you shouldn't be here dishing them out. Too bad this is in DC where I can't say what you need to hear.

You have an elf on your shoulder that tells you I do drugs and you believe him, doubtless the same elf that assures you there is no God. Any you insist that it's everybody else that lives in fantasy land.

 

[disappoint]

Well played. Well played. You pushed people's emotional buttons by the use of a powerful emotion. Anger. You called them stupid, drug addicted, whatever it took to get their attention. Advertisers use this trick all the time. It works. They get your attention and pass it along to their friends and it spreads that way, further reaching more people than if you hadn't done so.

You can see it worked because they conversed more with you than anyone else in this thread. But it only goes so far. While you were able to get their attention, you were not able to convince them.

As a matter of fact you did the opposite. As poofyhairguy put it you made them dig in even more so. That is because abuse is a terrible teaching tool. When abuse is used it causes exactly the opposite outcome desired by the teacher. Sometimes without the teacher even realizing it.

You two were like 2 rams butting heads with each other. Neither making any progress. If neither gives up they will just stay there, even to the point of starvation.

In the case of the rams, it is literal starvation of food and water. In your case it's starvation of a different kind, mental starvation. Well it isn't that simple is it? Humans are more complex than rams.

Even if the rams or people pray to God, God will not set a plate of food, water or information to save their life. He will allow them to suffer greatly even to the point of death.

Why do you suppose that is so? Is it because God doesn't care? Doesn't exist? Is unable?

 

[Retro Rob]

Well played. Well played. You pushed people's emotional buttons by the use of a powerful emotion. Anger. You called them stupid, drug addicted, whatever it took to get their attention. Advertisers use this trick all the time. It works. They get your attention and pass it along to their friends and it spreads that way, further reaching more people than if you hadn't done so.

You can see it worked because they conversed more with you than anyone else in this thread. But it only goes so far. While you were able to get their attention, you were not able to convince them.

As a matter of fact you did the opposite. As poofyhairguy put it you made them dig in even more so. That is because abuse is a terrible teaching tool. When abuse is used it causes exactly the opposite outcome desired by the teacher. Sometimes without the teacher even realizing it.

You two were like 2 rams butting heads with each other. Neither making any progress. If neither gives up they will just stay there, even to the point of starvation.

In the case of the rams, it is literal starvation of food and water. In your case it's starvation of a different kind, mental starvation. Well it isn't that simple is it? Humans are more complex than rams.

Even if the rams or people pray to God, God will not set a plate of food, water or information to save their life. He will allow them to suffer greatly even to the point of death.

Why do you suppose that is so? Is it because God doesn't care? Doesn't exist? Is unable?

The irony in your post is that those are some of the same reasons why many of them "distain" religion -- the abuse, threats of extermination ("Science Must Destroy Religion" -- Sam Harris) and retribution by their former god, exclusionism, and then they turn and use this tactic to scare people out of religion.

Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over again, the exact same way, and expecting a different result.

I have no qualms with atheism, but atheism as shown on this forum, is simply a resting place of hate and prejudice.


This is why I'd never become an atheist.

 

[disappoint]

The irony in your post is that those are some of the same reasons why many of them "distain" religion -- the abuse, threats of extermination ("Science Must Destroy Religion" -- Sam Harris) and retribution by their former god, exclusionism, and then they turn and use this tactic to scare people out of religion.

Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over again, the exact same way, and expecting a different result.

I have no qualms with atheism, but atheism as shown on this forum, is simply a resting place of hate and prejudice.


This is why I'd never become an atheist.

So which one, in your opinion, should destroy which? Should science destroy religion or should religion destroy science?

 

[Retro Rob]

So which one, in your opinion, should destroy which? Should science destroy religion or should religion destroy science?

If that is a serious question, neither should destroy neither. Why cannot both amicably exist? After all, science isn't anti-religion...militant atheism (which almost resembles a scientific cult), however, is.

I think science needs to steer clear of militant atheism, especially the Dawkins, Hitches, and Harris variety because, in my honest opinion, they've painted religion as being completely anti-science...and that's caused a lot of prejudice and needless suspicion to poison the minds of many good people.

Militant atheism is a social and scientific poison, and we have no place for that sort of extremism in this world.

 

[ThinClient]

Nope, they are mutually exclusive. One claims that evidence is required to support a conclusion. The other claims that faith is required and that you MUST believe without any shred of evidence.

 

[JD50]

The irony in your post is that those are some of the same reasons why many of them "distain" religion -- the abuse, threats of extermination ("Science Must Destroy Religion" -- Sam Harris) and retribution by their former god, exclusionism, and then they turn and use this tactic to scare people out of religion.

Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over again, the exact same way, and expecting a different result.

I have no qualms with atheism, but atheism as shown on this forum, is simply a resting place of hate and prejudice.


This is why I'd never become an atheist.

The only reason you see all of this "hate and prejudice" coming from Atheists in this forum is because of your posting style. It has nothing to do with Atheists disliking you because you're religious, it's just people disliking you because you're dishonest.

Saying that you'd never become an Atheist because you dislike the way you've been treated in an internet forum is as dumb as saying that you don't believe 1+1=2 because your elementary school math teacher was mean to you.

 

[Moonbeam]

Nope, they are mutually exclusive. One claims that evidence is required to support a conclusion. The other claims that faith is required and that you MUST believe without any shred of evidence.

That would place you in the faith camp regarding, say, your certain knowledge that I use drugs, and expose your thinking as other than rational, logical, analytical, or scientific. It would mean, also, that you are that which you claim to despise. Interestingly also, the truth you claim not to be able to speak about me owing to the rules of this forum are no barrier for me because the truth about you is revealed by your behavior which you yourself have graciously expose for everybody to see.

 

[ThinClient]

it's just people disliking you because you're dishonest.

:thumbsup:

 

[Retro Rob]

The only reason you see all of this "hate and prejudice" coming from Atheists in this forum is because of your posting style. It has nothing to do with Atheists disliking you because you're religious, it's just people disliking you because you're dishonest.

Saying that you'd never become an Atheist because you dislike the way you've been treated in an internet forum is as dumb as saying that you don't believe 1+1=2 because your elementary school math teacher was mean to you.

Religion bashing is a fixture here. It's not personal.

Seeing how atheists conduct themselves here, and over the entire internet for that matter, is a strong indicator of what it has become.