On becoming atheist - the tug of war (page 14)

Nickolas

Fanks, graviator. Went awwight, buth my mouf ith sthiw fwozen.

Nickolas

ok. Novocaine is wearing off. Couldn't do the implant. Bone was too mushy. Had to scrape it all out and do a graft. Now have to wait 6 more months. Still gonna have that single malt tonight, though.

dear Nick (peace to you!), but wanted to say that I hate Shiraz... and Syrah. Bleh. I was a Zin girl. Or a nice Pinot Noir. Chianti. Merlot. All that's behind me, now, though. Doesn't mix well with the current narcotics I'm taking!

There's shiraz, and there's shiraz, Shelby. I've had shiraz that tasted like plummy glue and I've had shiraz that was absolute ambrosia. Not so keen on Syrah, even though the grape is the same. There's just something that the better ozzie vineyards can do with it. Same goes for zinfandel - only you folks in California do it justice, sometimes its great but sometimes it's no better than the cheapest Italian plonk. Pinot is the pinnacle. Hard to do well but when it is done well it is wonderful. Chianti and merlot? Same thing. Condolences on having to give it all up, though. I'd be truly dispondent.

Great comments all around. You're especially smart for a young fella, SBC.

Einstein may have been a deist, certainly not a theist.

“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”

—Albert Einstein, 1947 from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel, New York: New American Library, 1972, Chapter 11.

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the worlds so far as our science can reveal it.”

—Albert Einstein, in a letter March 24, 1954 from Albert Einstein, the Human Side, Helen Dukas andBanesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, Chapter 5.

And, apropos to the OP:

“I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.”

—Albert Einstein, letter to a Baptist pastor in 1953 from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Chapter 5.

PSacramento

Sometimes I wonder if Einstein understood the significance of his views OUTSIDE the science community.

I also wonder why he woudl think that Ethics and morals mean anything to anyone outside of the culture they rezide in.

Certainly the ethics and morals of his country men in WW2 left much to be desired from those outside but were quite accetable to the majority of his countrymen.

Nickolas

The ethics and morals of the world were only a tad more noble than those of Einstein's countrymen in the 1930's and early 40's, Paul. And they were pretty much reflected intact in other parts of europe, the slavic countries and soviet bloc in particular, where pogroms were ingrained within the culture for centuries. Even our Christian country, Canada, has blood on its hands for having turned away all those Jewish refugees who showed up at our doorstep, almost all of whom perished in the holocaust. What Einstein understood, far as I can tell of anything he understood, is that ethics and morals reside within men and only men can create and apply them in whatever form they take.

AGuest

death is a problem for the ones still alive.

Now, see, I don't see it that way, dear CJ (peace to you!). For me, death is a problem... for the dying.

Again, peace to you!

A slave of Christ,

SA

Nickolas

death is a problem for the ones still alive

For me, death is a problem... for the dying.

But the dying are still alive. Once one is dead, he has no problem. He's dead.

AGuest

What I mean, dear Nick (peace to you!), is that it's a problem for those who aren't living but whose only "hope" is death. For those who truly live... death really isn't a problem. Capiche?

Peace, honey chile!

Your servant and a slave of Christ,

SA

Nickolas

Capiche?

No, can't say I do, bambina.

it's a problem for those who aren't living but whose only "hope" is death.

those who aren't living are dead and have no hope (or am I missing some sort of nuance, here?). I don't know anyone who hopes for death - well, except some who are terminally ill and want to get it over with. I might say that death is a problem only for those who hope not to die.

AGuest

those who aren't living are dead and have no hope (or am I missing some sort of nuance, here?).

You are, Paisano (pace a voi!). MANY people (in the western world, primarily) don't live/stop living... but rather, simply wait to die. Even at a young age.

I don't know anyone who hopes for death - well, except some who are terminally ill and want to get it over with.

Or some who think that death is the "only way" to "be with God"...

I might say that death is a problem only for those who hope not to die.

Which is largely made up of those who aren't living. Capiche, now?

Ancora una volta , pace a te , amico mio!

Uno schiavo di Cristo,

SA

Nickolas

Oh. Ok. Much clearer now. You are speaking in the negative present continuous tense of the verb. Quite right. Carry on.

On becoming atheist - the tug of war

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