Common ground.

[DNB]

Are you serious?
We can find common ground on that basis, i.e. we can agree to put each other on ignore.

..are you serious - that wasn't the question.

'...I can love you for just being you...'

 

[DNB]

Theists should be ashamed of saying something like this. Since when you have assumed the mantle of a judge? Atheist will deal with God, if he/she encounters him. Who are you to make the judgement?
This topic is about finding common ground. If there is not going to be a common ground, then a theist should not float such an idea.
Atheists are secure enough. We do not need an assurance of security from theists.

Oh, but you do - all the evidence is right before you, you have no excuse - you are defiant and contemptuous. You will not have a word to say, and will be entirely impotent to deal with God on the Day of Judgement. I have all the right in the world to warn the infidel, and to charge them with being a reprobate.

 

[DNB]

Your god is welcome to come challenge me.

If and when it does, I will point out how senseless and destructive are the claims made on its name by the Bible, the Qur'an, and many or most of its followers.

If you think that I should be afraid or ashamed... I guess I will have to accept that I failed your expectations, for good or worse.

Life, as we know it, was clearly not a haphazard chance - therefore you will have a lot of explaining to do, ...but, you won't be able to as you will be shivering in your boots on that Day.

 

[DNB]

A good start would be leaving your religious beliefs out of the relationship unless asked.



You responded to, "Common Ground will only be found if religious people stop trying to influence the lives of non-believers."

Humanists don't care what theists believe until it intrudes into their world. When invasive religions are detoothed, humanists will likely never think about any of the religions, just as scientists don't think about gods. Why would they? These other belief systems are of no value or interest to him. Just consider the religions that have no effect on the humanist's life, like Druidry or Jainism. Humanists don't care that people believe those things, because it doesn't overlap into their lives. Christians often ask why skeptics criticize Christianity more than Islam or other religions. Maybe because they never hear from them and aren't affected by them.



Why would a humanist be interested in anything a person like you has to say? What do you have to offer somebody like me that I should listen to your opinions. Your moral system is unappealing. I'm perfectly content with you keeping your distance, and not particularly interested in what offends you. And why shouldn't humanists be subversive regarding a religion that teaches people to think like this? What do you think it adds to the world but contention and division.

But you come by this honestly. You've been reading your Bible. It's filled with this kind of bigotry and hate speech for unbelievers. And it's the attitude that powers my antitheism. I don't believe that your religion has the moral right to teach such things to anybody. It has always been destructive for unbelievers, who have a moral obligation to oppose the institution that teaches people things like what it taught you. Isn't that what I'm doing right now?



You responded to, "Common Ground will only be found if religious people stop trying to influence the lives of non-believers." You don't see that? The theist above just explained that he has no interest in atheists except to convert them.

Also, I doubt you missed the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe, but apparently you missed that it was an attempt to influence people's lives according to Christianity's idea of what Jesus wants his church to impose on the piece of humanity in the court's jurisdiction. Maybe you don't look at or read much news. There's also been some backlash from those uninterested in what Christians think Jesus wants for American women.

That religion needs to be weakened until it affects only volunteers. And as I indicated above, once that happens, they'll be no reason to think about that religion at all or care what any of its adherents believe. I explained to you that I wouldn't care if my neighbor danced around a tree at midnight shaking a stick with a bloody chicken claw nailed to it at the moon if that's what centers him and gives his life meaning, as long as he keeps the noise down. Nor would I ask him what he believes beyond trying to get a sense of whether he is dangerous or insane. If he's harmless and considerate of his neighbors, then he doesn't get a second thought, because it would have no effect on me.

And, I forgot to mention, atheists are apathetic.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. all the evidence is right before you, you have no excuse - you are defiant and contemptuous. You will not have a word to say, and will be entirely impotent to deal with God on the Day of Judgement. I have all the right in the world to warn the infidel, and to charge them with being a reprobate.

What evidence? Tell me of of one. There is no evidence of God or soul; therefore, no judgment and end of days too. Sure, you do all your raving that you want. It is a free world. Abrahamic religions have been doing that for centuries. But do you think atheists will be afraid of that?

 

[LuisDantas]

Life, as we know it, was clearly not a haphazard chance - therefore you will have a lot of explaining to do, ...but, you won't be able to as you will be shivering in your boots on that Day.

Try me.

Or send your god if you prefer.

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Try me.

Or send your god if you prefer.

Whatever floats your boat.

I have to much time on my hands in one sense.

So here is a part of humanity. The GOR people. They all with variation do the same for what really matters, God/Objective Reality. In this model theism is only a variation.
They in the end all do the same. "My/our cognition and feelings are the objective standard and they as the other ones are in the ontological sense a case of objectively existing negatives."

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

all the evidence is right before you, you have no excuse - you are defiant and contemptuous.

The critical thinker is the one experienced in interpreting evidence and generating sound conclusions from it. If he disagrees with the faith-based thinker about whether the evidence cited supports his beliefs, it's because it doesn't. From the critical thinker's perspective, it is the faith-based thinker who is defiant and contemptuous. The difference is that the humanist considers that an intellectual failure on the part of the faith-based thinker, whereas the Abrahamist sees a moral failing in the humanist.

You will not have a word to say, and will be entirely impotent to deal with God on the Day of Judgement. I have all the right in the world to warn the infidel, and to charge them with being a reprobate.

Why should anybody take your warnings seriously?

Life, as we know it, was clearly not a haphazard chance - therefore you will have a lot of explaining to do, ...but, you won't be able to as you will be shivering in your boots on that Day.

I doubt it. Here is how I order the likelihood of what follows death:

[1] The permanent extinction of the individual consciousness
[2] An afterlife without criteria or judgments
[3] An afterlife with tolerant and fair judges
[4] The Abrahamic hellscape.

If there is some kind of judgment of the choices we made while alive, I expect it to not be based in some human system designed to coerce compliance, but in something more natural. I guess I'm just projecting my humanist values and worldview, which respects reason and moral rectitude according to the principles of rational ethics. I'm thinking about how a god with a humanist's temperament would judge people who chose faith over those who chose reason. It would welcome both and congratulate the one who used the faculties it gave man to discover what is true and what is right.

atheists are apathetic.

I'm not clear what you mean there, but many agnostic atheists are apathetic about the possibility that non-interventionalist gods exist - the kind that would generate no evidence of their existence, and it wouldn't matter whether they still existed or not, like the deist god. It's a metaphysical claim, meaning that it's neither correct nor incorrect (unfalsifiable).

"An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist. The existence of a god or gods is not rejected, but may be designated irrelevant. One of the first recorded apatheists was arguably Denis Diderot (1713–1784), who wrote: "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all." - Wiki

Of course, this is referring to what I have called a non-interventionalist deity. If the kind of deity that the Abrahamists believe in exists - an interventionalist god, the kind that answers prayer, performs miracles, visits earth, and generates revelations for mankind, etc. - that would be important to know. The evidence doesn't support believing in any interventionalist god. And frankly, the deity of the Old Testament has already been ruled out by the evidence supporting evolutionary theory.

What if the theory were wrong and was falsified tomorrow? Does that restore the god of the OT? No, it doesn't. That god is already ruled out. One would be forced to accept the fact of a deceptive intelligent designer going to great lengths to fool man into thinking naturalistic evolution had occurred on earth, which need not be a deity, and definitely not an honest one.

 

[DNB]

What evidence? Tell me of of one. There is no evidence of God or soul; therefore, no judgment and end of days too. Sure, you do all your raving that you want. It is a free world. Abrahamic religions have been doing that for centuries. But do you think atheists will be afraid of that?

The universe is a miracle, there's your first indication. The spirit in man, and in no other creature, necessitates that we are created in the image of a moral entity - for righteousness and wisdom do not come from stardust and protoplasm, obviously.

 

[DNB]

Try me.

Or send your god if you prefer.

Whatever floats your boat.

Many things float my boat, yours will be sinking.

 

[DNB]

The critical thinker is the one experienced in interpreting evidence and generating sound conclusions from it. If he disagrees with the faith-based thinker about whether the evidence cited supports his beliefs, it's because it doesn't. From the critical thinker's perspective, it is the faith-based thinker who is defiant and contemptuous. The difference is that the humanist considers that an intellectual failure on the part of the faith-based thinker, whereas the Abrahamist sees a moral failing in the humanist.



Why should anybody take your warnings seriously?



I doubt it. Here is how I order the likelihood of what follows death:

[1] The permanent extinction of the individual consciousness
[2] An afterlife without criteria or judgments
[3] An afterlife with tolerant and fair judges
[4] The Abrahamic hellscape.

If there is some kind of judgment of the choices we made while alive, I expect it to not be based in some human system designed to coerce compliance, but in something more natural. I guess I'm just projecting my humanist values and worldview, which respects reason and moral rectitude according to the principles of rational ethics. I'm thinking about how a god with a humanist's temperament would judge people who chose faith over those who chose reason. It would welcome both and congratulate the one who used the faculties it gave man to discover what is true and what is right.



I'm not clear what you mean there, but many agnostic atheists are apathetic about the possibility that non-interventionalist gods exist - the kind that would generate no evidence of their existence, and it wouldn't matter whether they still existed or not, like the deist god. It's a metaphysical claim, meaning that it's neither correct nor incorrect (unfalsifiable).

"An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist. The existence of a god or gods is not rejected, but may be designated irrelevant. One of the first recorded apatheists was arguably Denis Diderot (1713–1784), who wrote: "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all." - Wiki

Of course, this is referring to what I have called a non-interventionalist deity. If the kind of deity that the Abrahamists believe in exists - an interventionalist god, the kind that answers prayer, performs miracles, visits earth, and generates revelations for mankind, etc. - that would be important to know. The evidence doesn't support believing in any interventionalist god. And frankly, the deity of the Old Testament has already been ruled out by the evidence supporting evolutionary theory.

What if the theory were wrong and was falsified tomorrow? Does that restore the god of the OT? No, it doesn't. That god is already ruled out. One would be forced to accept the fact of a deceptive intelligent designer going to great lengths to fool man into thinking naturalistic evolution had occurred on earth, which need not be a deity, and definitely not an honest one.

Morality was not derived from protoplasm nor stardust - there is a spirit in man making him capable of the most heinous atrocities, and equally extreme acts of altruism.
Evel is senseless, hypocritical and self-destructive - why does man act in such a manner that defies his intellectual capacity, when no other creature, who have a fraction of man's intellectual faculties, do not act in such an irrational way?
There is clearly a spiritual warfare at hand on this earth - evolutionary theory has been debunked before it began.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The universe is a miracle, there's your first indication. The spirit in man, and in no other creature, necessitates that we are created in the image of a moral entity - for righteousness and wisdom do not come from stardust and protoplasm, obviously.

Yeah, the universe and its apparent existence is something which we do not understand today, therefore, ascribing it to a 'God', 'moral entity' (though morality is much deficient among humans) is not correct. I do not know in whose image we have been crated. If it is a 'God', then he is just as unrighteous, foolish and despicable as we are.

.. why does man act in such a manner that defies his intellectual capacity, when no other creature, who have a fraction of man's intellectual faculties, do not act in such an irrational way?

Your question is illustrative by itself.

 

[LuisDantas]

Many things float my boat, yours will be sinking.

You know, I started to realize that there were people who held such beliefs when I was about twelve. Over forty years ago.

It makes no more sense now.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How can believers and atheists find common ground to be able to say.

You know, I see you as a human being, no matter if you believe in a religion or not.
I want to know you as a person, but if you believe or not, that is your private choice.

I can love you for just being you.

To be fair here.... most of the time it's the theists who are severing the social ties with the atheists, not the other way round.

It is said sometimes that coming out as an atheist in certain regions, like in MANY places in the US, is like committing "social suicide".
In the US, it is also said that coming out as an atheist, is like committing "political suicide" also. Try getting elected as a known atheist.

 

[Heyo]

For the most part i see it in discussion or debate area.

Maybe it is unhealthy to discuss between believers and non believers because it seldom lead to any good.

I guess many non believers would be OK with that but some believers are "on a mission from god" (mandatory proselytation in their scripture).

You've been silent in this thread for some time. How do you feel about the results so far?

 

[Spirit of Light]

I guess many non believers would be OK with that but some believers are "on a mission from god" (mandatory proselytation in their scripture).

You've been silent in this thread for some time. How do you feel about the results so far?

Well, I haven't payed this thread much attention to be true.

I think in a way many of the religious OP's i Have started as a Baha'i should not have been started at all

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The universe is a miracle, there's your first indication.

The universe is not compelling evidence for a god. It is evidence that a universe can and does exist, but not that a god is required for that to be the case. The universe is being explained without gods. Countless former "miracles" such as the cycle of day and night have been shown to be natural phenomena, the sun needing no angels to push it through the sky, for example. You've jumped to an insufficiently supported conclusion when you guessed that a god was involved.

The spirit in man, and in no other creature, necessitates that we are created in the image of a moral entity - for righteousness and wisdom do not come from stardust and protoplasm, obviously.

Obviously? You see reality through a faith-based confirmation bias that reinforces your faith-based beliefs. Take it off if you wish to see further. The emergence of moral intuitions is entirely consistent with naturalistic evolution - expected even, if it facilitates fecundity in a population.

Evel is senseless, hypocritical and self-destructive - why does man act in such a manner that defies his intellectual capacity, when no other creature, who have a fraction of man's intellectual faculties, do not act in such an irrational way?

That question is answered by evolutionary theory. Man's intellectual capacity is the latest innovation in human neurological and behavioral evolution. Man has also inherited two lower levels of cognition and behavior, one that served the reptiles and another that served the mammals superimposed on the reptilian brain. Man adds a third component not found in the beasts - intellect, or the use of symbols and formal thought, which makes his moral faculty into a conscience that considers moral issues. Critical thought is the pinnacle of this rational capacity of man.

This part of the brain is frequently in conflict with lower centers, which we experience as having the will to do contradictory things (cognitive dissonance). The animal brain says that minor is sexually attractive, but the intellectual brain, which understands how society thinks and works, says don't you dare. The religious depict this as a devil and an angel sitting invisibly on one's shoulders arguing through the ears as the conscious self looks on, not realizing that it is all his own mind - like gods, who he also imagines talk to him.

There is clearly a spiritual warfare at hand on this earth - evolutionary theory has been debunked before it began.

Spiritual warfare is a term without meaning. It's a religious concept like the angel and devil on the shoulder. The world contains competing ideologies and variations in individual temperaments and goals, including a family of Abrahamic religions that invent concepts that refer to nothing real, like gods, angels, sin and blasphemy.

And I think you have it backwards. It's Christian creationism that has been debunked by the same evidence supporting the scientific theory.

*********
You sure ignored a raft of content in that post to which you responded. I wonder why.

 

[DNB]

Yeah, the universe and its apparent existence is something which we do not understand today, therefore, ascribing it to a 'God', 'moral entity' (though morality is much deficient among humans) is not correct. I do not know in whose image we have been crated. If it is a 'God', then he is just as unrighteous, foolish and despicable as we are.Your question is illustrative by itself.

...point was, there is an external influence acting upon man that incites him to go against his rationale - a spiritual warfare exists on this earth - life is not about flesh and blood as a big-bang theorist must purport, but it's rather about our moral conduct. Again, protoplasm & stardust are not capable of instilling in man these attributes or cognizance of justice and equity, hate or malevolence

 

[DNB]

You know, I started to realize that there were people who held such beliefs when I was about twelve. Over forty years ago.

It makes no more sense now.

Love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, as much as wickedness is senseless and self-annihilating - can you explain that according to the big-bang theory?

 

[DNB]

The universe is not compelling evidence for a god. It is evidence that a universe can and does exist, but not that a god is required for that to be the case. The universe is being explained without gods. Countless former "miracles" such as the cycle of day and night have been shown to be natural phenomena, the sun needing no angels to push it through the sky, for example. You've jumped to an insufficiently supported conclusion when you guessed that a god was involved.



Obviously? You see reality through a faith-based confirmation bias that reinforces your faith-based beliefs. Take it off if you wish to see further. The emergence of moral intuitions is entirely consistent with naturalistic evolution - expected even, if it facilitates fecundity in a population.



That question is answered by evolutionary theory. Man's intellectual capacity is the latest innovation in human neurological and behavioral evolution. Man has also inherited two lower levels of cognition and behavior, one that served the reptiles and another that served the mammals superimposed on the reptilian brain. Man adds a third component not found in the beasts - intellect, or the use of symbols and formal thought, which makes his moral faculty into a conscience that considers moral issues. Critical thought is the pinnacle of this rational capacity of man.

This part of the brain is frequently in conflict with lower centers, which we experience as having the will to do contradictory things (cognitive dissonance). The animal brain says that minor is sexually attractive, but the intellectual brain, which understands how society thinks and works, says don't you dare. The religious depict this as a devil and an angel sitting invisibly on one's shoulders arguing through the ears as the conscious self looks on, not realizing that it is all his own mind - like gods, who he also imagines talk to him.



Spiritual warfare is a term without meaning. It's a religious concept like the angel and devil on the shoulder. The world contains competing ideologies and variations in individual temperaments and goals, including a family of Abrahamic religions that invent concepts that refer to nothing real, like gods, angels, sin and blasphemy.

And I think you have it backwards. It's Christian creationism that has been debunked by the same evidence supporting the scientific theory.

*********
You sure ignored a raft of content in that post to which you responded. I wonder why.

...I ignored irrelevant or fallacious content, thank you!
Look, you're well read, but misinformed - you have to stop the shallow and misguided perception of life and man.
There is a profound evil on this earth, has there ever been an intellect throughout history who has denied this axiomatic fact? Can one explain such a 'dementia' in man via the big-bang theory, obviously not.
You're not seeing the struggle in man, it's not about survival at all, it's about circumventing greed, selfishness, tyranny, abuse, intolerance, bigotry, chauvinism and misogyny, objectification and exploitation, etc...
Don't talk about evolution as though that's the extent of your insights of man and history.
One cannot explain racism within a secular framework - we are now within the spiritual realm.