Nickolas

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Posts by Nickolas

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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

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  Nickolas

  I'm now pickling it with a nice Shiraz, Shelby.
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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

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  Nickolas

  After I read your latest, PSac, my brain went into overload and I had to lie down to take a nap.
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  48

  "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over."

  by Mr. Falcon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (numbers 5:23-28) 23 and the priest must write these cursings in the book and must wipe them out into the bitter water.

  24 and he must make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse must enter into her as something bitter.

  25 and the priest must take the grain offering of jealousy from the womans hand and wave the grain offering to and fro before jehovah, and he must bring it near the altar.

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  Nickolas

  
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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

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  2. 
  3. 
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  Nickolas

  Yes, I will take full responsibility for the detour, dear lady. We started out discussing fear of death and oblivion, went to personal experiences with death and expanded the subject to include horrendous scenarios of death and destruction. My illustration was not so much a prediction of what is going to happen but the extent to which faith holds the world hostage. It was an interesting tangent and I thank you sincerely for your contributions. But when you wax on so eloquently about prophets and prophesies my mind goes into a self-induced muddle of sorts. I suppose I just tune out because for me that train has already left the station, never to return.
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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

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  Nickolas

  How so? Because your previous entry is all over the map, and in some places off the map entirely. I don't have a clue how to address it, so I won't try. We seem, regardless, to have wandered rather badly off the topic of discussion.
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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Nickolas

  Whew. I'm dizzy.

  Did you happen to watch SBC's vids, Shelby?
• 
  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

  1. 
  2. 
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  Nickolas

  Great vids, SBC. Keep 'em coming.

  Very interesting post, Shelby. Thoughtful, too. But this:

  They do... but they won't use it.

  I am not so sure about. Let's take a practical illustration and extrapolate it to a feasible hypothetical. The former president of the United States of America, elected not once but twice by his people into the position of the most powerful man in the world, launched his war on terror by invading Iraq. He did so on the basis that God told him to. The power structure in the United States, fueled at least to some obvious measure by religious fundamentalism, did not just go along with him but pushed forward with what can only be described as enthusiastic zeal. What followed were the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the most serious economic crisis to befall his country.

  Here's the hypothetical. There will be an election in the United States next year and it is entirely possible that another fundamentalist Christian will find his (or maybe even her) way into the oval office. We can most reasonably assume that there will not be peace and security in the world and the US economic woes will not have abated appreciably, if at all. Let us suppose that the new president (assuming Obama is defeated, which given his current approval rating is more than entirely possible) at the helm of a country in crisis hears God talking to him, too. I mean, it happened just recently so why not again? Except this time, God says "The time has come for Armageddon. You are my instrument. You must destroy the enemies of my chosen peoples and then you must rebuild the earth" or somesuch thing. Far fetched? I don't think so. The United States of America is the only country in the world that has the capability of utterly destroying it, and it is the only country in the world that has demonstrated its willingness to obliterate entire populations with nuclear weapons and that has the capability of surgically removing entire cultures from the planet. Your faith in your country is touching, but it may be misplaced.
• 
  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

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  Nickolas

  Agreed, Paul. But can you imagine what kind of world we would live in if modern society used the morals of the OT to govern itself? You don't even have to imagine. You need only witness what life is like in fundamentalist Islamic countries.

  I also agree with you, Tammy. From my perspective, faith is the invention of mankind and to a very large measure is the result of mankind's efforts to codify its inner makeup. Please don't get me wrong. I believe that the development of faith in the evolution of mankind was THE key to the civilisation of mankind primarily because it provided mankind with acceptable standards of behaviour. But those standards were both invented and applied unequally among the human populations and as a consequence horrific things have happened on earth justified by faith. One could not be so naiive to think that the darker sides of humanity don't play a major role in what humanity does to itself. That undoubtedly comes first, followed by humanity giving itself permission to do what it does. Christopher Hitchens expressed it something like "religion belongs to the braying infancy of our species." I think he's right, but I don't think it will be any time soon that it is abandoned.
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  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Nickolas

  Question for you, Paul, on reading your comment above. What to you are superior, secular morals or religious morals?
• 
  207

  On becoming atheist - the tug of war

  by Nickolas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps, if you are a theist, you might not want to read this.

  if you are nevertheless curious about how an atheist thinks, then please read on.. i don't think there are any active members of this board who have been atheists all their lives (are there?).

  i think virtually all of us transitioned into non-belief from a religious beginning.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Nickolas

  I believe, however, that just as those who built the A-bomb came to regret it, due to the misuse of the technology, those who wish to see all "faith" go... are going to experience the same regret. Because of what will follow. Truly.

  Perhaps, Shelby, but thinking along those lines is an abstraction in the present context. The end of faith is not upon us yet and there are those who believe, amongst them some of the leading atheist thinkers of our time, that the end of faith will never arrive because it is an integral part of the human condition. None of us wishes for the end of faith, per se, but only the end of evil things done in the name of faith. The problem is that those evil things are to a large measure woven into the fabric of faith, at least generally, and that makes them inseparable.

  It is interesting, however, that you tied faith and nuclear technology together, because they are volatile components when mingled. There are common themes running through the Abrahamic faiths and one of them is the annihilation of those who do not believe or who fail to worship in a certain way. Iran looks upon the United States and Israel as the Great Satan that must be destroyed while it quietly builds up its nuclear weapon production capabilities. While recently set back by the brilliantly executed destruction of all its centrifuges, Iran hasn't resigned to defeat. Once it has build a nuclear explosive device it will focus on delivery systems, if only in the form of an ocean container or a cargo truck. And Iran is not alone. Other governments, who like the USA blend faith and politics together in a dangerous cocktail, are developing or already have nuclear weapon capability. Still others have ballistic capability. There are many, many people in the world who would rejoice over the sight on their televisions of a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv or New York City, among them Americans, because to them it would be interpreted as the beginning of the fulfillment of prophesy. But to your comment above, I am much more concerned about what will follow in the world because of faith than what will follow in the world as it sheds it.