bonsaltron:

sure i agree, i wrote in #177 that we prolly misunderstood what shahrad is advocating and what he is not, but i guess it was a tl;dr

the most important points:

but uh.. the "destroying"-thing is of course nonsense - he would be claiming that everyone "needs" it. which we obv don't (just yet, alright. maybe.)

If a child doesn't want to visit a school than you have to talk with him that it might be better to go to school and cause he is a child, you cannot talk to him like a professor and if he claims that it is not a fact that going to school is good, what can you say? And even if the child should go to school, you cannot expect the teacher to teach him higher mathematic, you have always to chose the appropriate language given who you are communicating with, although you cannot expect that it will always work. Just like a child that doesn't want to go to school, no matter what you say, he will say, but this is not a fact. Your words will not work.
If I couldn't show that going to school leads to an absolute invulnerability, still I don't think that I couldn't show that visiting school is better than not visiting it.
Another example:
If the teacher writes: e=mc(2) and writes the mathematical reasoning and the child says no this formula is not right (cause e=e) and your reasoning is not a fact, the reasoning is still destroying the claim of the child, although he doesn't get it and he might also think that his teacher is an idiot and laugh about his teacher together with his friends.
Let me give you another example: I might be a good poker player, but against Ivey I would be a total fish. Even if he would see that I take lines, which are slightly more -ev (+25$ev is slightly more -ev than +26$ev) and he would recognize it, he would think, that I am more or less (from a subjective point of view everything is relative, but this doesn't mean that objectivity does not exist) a fish.
If someone could at least recognize that believing could be just a bit slightly more +ev, and he doesn't change his line, than in my eyes: he is a fish, although you might think this is not a fact.
If you still think that the atheistic idea is not destroyed, it is because you still assume that e=e and everything else is not a fact.

shahrad, please tell me what you think of #177;

now you see, you're claiming we(everyone there is) need it (believing is better), just as kids need to go to school (its better than not to).

the thing is that people are not all the same. some need it, some don't. while we know that being well educated is generally better than not (success in life), how would you know whether Everyone's would be better off believing ? how can you know whats better for me? are you claiming you know the truth that billions of other people don't ?
you can say for you its better to believe than not to, but you cant say that for me. because i know that for me, its not.
as described in #177, even if i wanted to, it prolly wouldnt work because i'm too rational.

also, i said it several times: the goal of "invulnerability" (not being afraid of death, or being less afraid) can be achieved by doing other things than believing in god/religions.

and no, its not destroying anybody because a whole bunch of scientists are theists, too; not all atheists claim "there is no god" - many of us just lack the belief (read joel2006's post)

How many times did I hear something like: Would you still believe in God if it weren't true, cause truth is truth and they didn't believe me that truth is truth when it is useful. You see their and your equation: e=e (= absolutely worthless and meaningless).

I did answer your post 177 within my post 202.
And I didn't say that Atheists are destroyed , but the "Idea" of Atheism.
And most fishes don't think that they need to go to school too, but we still call them fish.

we already established that by truth i mean reality.
i agree its only important to know the truth if its useful to know it
i dont agree "whats useful to believe in = truth" because believing in fairy tales might be useful but its not reality (and reality is what i mean by truth)

i explained why the knowing the actual truth is useful, didnt I ?
also, you're claiming believing is more EV for Everyone. happyness EV is different from $EV in poker.

You see: Just like a child. Bringing everything out of its context and logic and not recognizing it. Cause your only aim is not going to school and (your aim is) not finding the truth.

yeah i hoped you would adress a couple more things such as "you're not advocating that what you believe in is reality" etc

the idea of atheism ? read what you named this thread.
also, weak atheism doesnt have an idea whatsoever. its the Lack of an idea.

if you insist on claiming to know whats best for everybody concerning not fearing death, well.

You see just like a child: e=e Destroying scientists.... = Destroying scientists..
Although you exactly know that I did explain this with one of my posts, you see, Your aim is not the truth, your aim is not going to school.

eh... my goal is not to find the truth ?
my goal is to find reality, and since for me knowing reality is beneficial, its the truth for me.
its only that you claim to know whats beneficial to everybody.


you know this thing could just aswell be turned around:
you're the child, you want to go to the cool drug-kids because the drugs make you feel better.

lol. its you who said this:


thats all i pointed out. (i know what you meant by "destroying atheists", but you said you didnt say it, which you did)
so nvm

lol, every child begins to cry (drug-kids... is a sign of whining) , when it doesn't know what to say anymore.
Still I wish you good luck on your way finding reality.

haha what a coincidence, thats exactly what i thought what you were doing: whining when not knowing what to say:

"hey you are just foolish kids and I'm the professor who knows the truth. oh and I'm ivey and you're the fish"

just like hellmuth.

It is not a problem. Atheism doesn't describe a set of beliefs. Atheists do not have a shared value system.

The only thing you can say about an atheist is that they don't have a belief in a personal God.

This is no more a problem of classification then asking what it values and beliefs a person has who doesn't like Chocolate. One has nothing to do with the other.

There is no progress to be made. You are making a false claim and sticking to it.

Let's keep the words simple: You can put two people in a room and they can disagree on absolutely everything except ONE single thing (and even that thing could be debatable), and they could still both be atheists.

This makes it impossible for atheism to be dogmatic beyond belief in god.

As far as clarifications go, it doesn't get much more simpler than this.

And only trembling, fearful people are dumb enough to believe in God, Spendour. That's the shorthand for what you just said.

Humans make bad decisions when they get emotionalistic. There's a reason surgeons don't operate on their own loved ones. There's a reason judges recuse themselves from case involving their own loved ones. There's a reason humans should make their decision about God while NOT in a foxhole.

Personally, I, atheist, do not fear death. It's coming when it comes and what will happen will happen.

But unless God is a bitter, mean-spirited ego-maniac, I don't have to fear having been wrong about him. And if God is the pathetic piece of crap you and Shahrad make him out to be, I'd rather not live with him later anyway. I'd also rather not have to spend eternity with moron religionists. That would be hell.

If we would fear someone who is able to create flowers and fire, it would be a sign of our intelligence, for that we don't forget to show respect.

It wasn't a sarcasm, it was a compliment.

What's the claim?

[x] The Kamikaze bomber becomes fluffy knees

eh yeah but the compliment wasn't for me
you complimented joel2006 and said "I don't know why the others didn't bother trying to just say these things."
but i did

Oh. No problem, you made the cut.

If we could prove someone is/was able to create flowers and fire, it would be a sign of our rational, logical intelligence, for that we don't go making **** up or investing completely in writing that was written by men ages ago.

If there should be a God than everything is proving him and it would really be interesting to see, what you guys will tell God, how you could deny him. If not than is our rational and logical intelligence nothing else but food for worms, no reason to be proud of it and no reason to brag with it.

If i meet God ill tell him thanks for the ride, if that's not enough well... also most atheist don't deny God.

But what would be more interesting to see then us "God deniers" talking to God, is how he feels about all the people talking for him.

I always use an "if" and I never said that God says: you should do this or that. The only thing that I said (in another thread), what God may do someday is: He "might" forgive all of us like a loving mother who threatens her children but forgives although her children did ignore her.