Big Dog

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Posts by Big Dog

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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  Thanks Doog, that was very cool, mucho appreciated.
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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  I hear what you guys are saying but for the moment it is affecting me the opposite way. I remember a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin asks his imaginary tiger friend Hobbes why he thought we were here and Hobbes replies, to devour each other alive. I guess that's how I see it for the moment, if we are not special, no spark of the divine, we are nothing but another species of animal struggling to survive and not be devoured.

  I guess its a half full, half empty thing for me right now, and unfortunately I am seeing it as half empty at this point. As Mysterious pointed out that could and hopefully will change over time as I come to grips with it, but for me, all this talk of the wonderful meaning of life sounds a lot like the bible toters spiel, only without the payoff, its like a circular thing, yes life actually has no meaning other than to survive and act out our genetic codes, but we give it meaning, therefore it has meaning and so on. I think this is going to take awhile.
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  13

  Pro Choice or not?

  by pratt1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends
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  Big Dog

  You can't help but look at a judge's track record when it comes to appointments. Fair? What the heck is fair, its all about pushing whatever agenda you have.
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  19

  Hi! I'm new here!

  by watch the tower in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi i've been checking out this board for a while.

  i've finally mustered up the guts to post.

  you guys have really helped me to open my eyes.

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  Big Dog

  Welcome to the board! Your's is an often asked question, wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall at Bethel?
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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  Darth,

  Don't worry, I took it as you were very astute and picked up on the fact that there was something going on besides just wrestling with the concept of no god.

  I'm very sorry to hear about your situation, of all the things we have to deal with in this life, nothing even approaches the death of a loved one.
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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  BigDog, so why the long face?

  Honestly? Because I went to the cemetary today and stood looking at my father's grave in the cold rain. He's been gone about 14 months, died in my house of an inoperable brain tumor. I sat and held his hand for the last 36 hours of his life as his body struggled to survive. It was the saddest more horriffic thing I have ever seen, the way we cling to life so desperately, the body struggles vailiantly to survive, to repair itself, but in the end it loses, it always loses, and I saw something in his eyes I had never ever seen before, fear. He was a combat vet, and he used to love to say, no atheists in the foxhole, I wonder if I do fully accept disbelief, if when my time comes I'll stick to it.

  I miss him, I used to take comfort from hoping he was in a better place and that maybe he was sort of watching over me, but now I am beginning to think that is all bunk, when he closed his eyes that last time and drew his last breath, that was it, nothing, no more. Everything he knew, every memory he had gone when the neurons stopped firing. I was thinking of my children, they are going to watch me go someday and the whole cycle of it, I watch them come into being and they watch me exit just brought me down.

  So that's where all of this is coming from, if there isn't anything else, if he is nothing but dust I'm saddened by that. Its fairly easy for me at a healthy 41 to pump myself up and think yes, life is good, I've got lots of years hopefully, and I try to enjoy every mintue, but I only have so many minutes, and, well, they just aren't enough.
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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  Sorry Monkey goddess, my face was red as a baboon's ass trying to get the dang thing to post.
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  51

  Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

  by Big Dog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the atheists have done a pretty good job on me, i am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue.

  they just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the christian version.

  so now that i am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a god and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do i feel?

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  Big Dog

  The atheists have done a pretty good job on me, I am just about to cast my lot in with them after all the reading and debating on the issue. They just seem to have all the answers and appear to hold the intellectual high ground, they do a good job of making one feel like a complete idiot for believing in a god, much less the Christian version.
  
  So now that I am almost free of this delusional, magical thinking, religious burden of foolishly believing in a God and that there is anymore to life than what is right here how do I feel?
  

  Not all that wonderful to be honest. If I remember correctly the earth is thought to be about 4 billion years old, if I live to 70 I will have existed less than one ten millionth of the time the earth has been around, much less the universe (my math could be wrong, I am so rusty, but suffice it to say, an almost infinitesimal tick of the BIG clock so to speak.
  
  In 30, 40, at absolute most 50 years I am going to die, and that is going to be it, every experience I ever had, every thought, every memory, gone, forever. I will cease to exist and my body will either be cremated or left to decompose in the ground. And in another 50 or 60 years after that (maybe a tad longer if I have grandchildren), everyone that ever knew me will be gone. Oh, some might say, but your memory will live on with your family, big freaking deal, I’ll be dead, unaware of it, so I don’t find that all that comforting.
  
  You can call me selfish, call me ungrateful, whatever but this tick of the clock existence, this nano-second in the big picture time while it is nice doesn’t seem like very much. I would like very much that there be something more, but have been pretty much convinced that there isn’t and you know, that doesn’t fill me up with wonder, or make my heart sing, or fill me with really any positive feelings to be quite honest. Oh, it doesn’t nullify the life I have, so far its been good and hopefully I have some good years left, but the idea that once it is over, its over, well that just bums me out actually, I’m not overwhelmed with the fact that, oh my, my ancestors crawled from the slime and I lift my apeman head up for this tiny fraction of time before becoming nothing again.
  
  Do any of you other atheists feel this way? Do any of you feel saddened at all by the fact that we have so little time and that when its over, its over?
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  23

  News about my new Mini Cooper :D

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know... some of you must be getting tired of my talking about my new car... but this is my first *new* car and i'm all excited about it.

  today i looked at the owners lounge website that lets me see the progress of my car and the status has changed from on order to scheduled for production!

  this means that the car should start being assembled around oct. 31.. the car sould be delivered in december... it'll be my personal christmas present to myself..

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  Big Dog

  Else,

  I love Coopers, I took a long hard look at one when I was buying but I ended up going with a Subaru STi. I am an unabashed motorhead and just can't get enough speed. Enjoy your Mini, they are seriously cool.
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  8

  Wild Gorrillas Using Tools

  by bavman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0930_050930_gorilla_tool.html

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  Big Dog

  I heard Charleton Heston was going to be paying this particular gorilla a visit, and that the gorilla wasn't going to be enjoying the visit much.