Posts by EdenOne

29

Mystery Letters of "Human Apostate" talk 2013 summer convention and its connection to Lev.5:1

by Bill Covert in

greetings from redding calif. my name is bill covert.

i am one of those viet nam war felons for having to refuse communtiy service in lieu of military induction per direct instructions from ny, so i have been around for a while.

i am the writer of the letters mentioned in the human apostate talk of the 2013 conventions.

EdenOne

Welcome to the forum. I'll await further developments on your story and Barbara's comments too.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

Conviction and even passion are one thing. Radicalism is a different animal altogether, because it presupposes the annihilation of its nemesis through the deep, and often cohersive change of its fundamentals. Radicalism isn't concerned with persuasion. It needs to trump, conquest, crush and vaporize any idea that doesn't fit it's tight belief system. Ridiculing the adversary from the onset instead of getting to know what he thinks and why he thinks that way is but a sign of radicalized thinking.

A prominent atheist, Ed Brayton, wrote that "ridicule may lawfully be employed where reason has no hope to success", and some in this forum seem to wholeheartedly agree with this proposition. However, they should first consider what law allows them to ridicule, and, second, if they have tried hard enough to use reason to conclude that its hopeless to keep using it. Usually they are too lazy, and it doesn't take long for the ridiculing to start. That laziness is also a sign of radicalized thinking.

Let me give you a small but tragic example of the connection between radical thinking and laziness. In Cambodja, during the Khmer Rouge regime, the government arrested, tortured and executed anyone suspected of not strictly conforming to their rules. One of those rules was that everyone should be forcefully moved to the countryside and live and work in farming communities. Professionals and intellectuals were, thus, automatically considered "enemies of the state". Anyone found requiring glasses was summarily considered a traitor, because, as the government considered, they likely spent too much time reading books instead of working. No government official would consider investigating if such person needed glasses for other sort of reason other than "reading too much and working too less". The result was execution. Radical thinking leads to lazy.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

I am also pushing for more balanced and realistic perspectives

Radicalism of any kind results in exacerbated emotions and in vitriolic bigotry. If taken to its ultimate consequences, the result isn't good for humanity. The 20th century was an experiment in secularism, and as a result we found that evil can also rise from secularism just as it can rise from theism, perhaps even more spectacularly. All it takes is to radicalize the ideas. Just because some system of belief is firmly grounded on reason, doesn't entitle its proponents to excuse themselves from humility.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Ruby: I'm not against controversy but am against belief systems that are held so tightly as to be suffocating.

I think you nailed it in the head. This combination of activism, demagogy, arrogance and relentless pig-headed stiffness is derogatory to reason, and does nothing to help theists to snap out of the emotional shell regarding their belief and start using their abilities to reason. To many of them, to think they'll become like this is frightening. As you say - suffocating.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

You've not defined it.

I'm under no obligation to define it in your terms, as I'm not here to oblige to your activism. I've given you some common traits that theists attribute to their deities. Stop asking for further definition or it becomes clear that you're debating in bad faith.

to attack atheism

Is that how you construct my threads? Attacks to atheism? In Cofty's words, you have some more thinking to do.

your arrogant and wrong attempt to tell me what I think (...) You should seriously take his advice and stop trying to tell others what they believe

Your wholesale resort to straw man arguments is tiring. I'm not telling you or any one else what you think or what you believe. You're articulate enough to be able to read and know the meaning of what I'm saying, but you simply chose to distort what I write so that you can argue against the distortion. That's below honesty. If you disagree with my opinion, that's fine. Opinions are like asses, everybody has one. As for arrogance, well, your level of contempt indicates that you really should take a good look in the mirror.

You are pretending to know what people think and how they feel, about people that you've never met, which is not an objective fact and is often only knowable AFTER talking to them

Again, you seem to be taking upon yourself to be the spokesperson for the entire body of atheists. I've met enough atheists and read enough material to be sufficiently informed about what atheism stands for. And, just in case you missed the news flash, in the other thread "Defender of Truth" pointed out, and I agreed, that "agnostic atheist" is what more closely defines my ideas nowadays. You construct what I debate as an attack on atheism, but you're wrong. I'm questioning what I perceive to be a misleading definition of what atheism is.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

I blew my budget for e-books, and have a few still to finish. Next batch maybe.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Funny, because that's on my "to read" list, Jonathan Drake. Although it focuses more on organized religions and their part in politic lobbying than in pure theoretical theism/atheism analysis. But I'll read it with interest when I can.

Eden

54

Polytheism in the Book of Daniel, a late second temple religious document

by fulltimestudent in

as jehovah's witnesses we committed ourselves to a blind belief in a monotheistic judaism that was automatically transmitted to a new religious organisation, started (we were taught) by jesus.. that's the premise which this thread will discuss.

i suggest that sufficient evidence is available to throw doubt on both those beliefs.

so this thread will argue (over about a week-hopefully) that:.

EdenOne

For an interesting perspective of diversity of deities in ancient religion of Yahweh and how traces of it were left scattered in the OT, have a look at Michael S. Heiser's website The Divine Council. Are you familiar with the term "henotheism"?

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Back to topic:

"Infants and animals, however, are free of the emotional biases that color the reasoning of adults because they haven't yet developed (or won't, in the case of animals) the meta-cognitive abilities of adults, i.e., the ability to look back on their conclusions and form opinions about them. Infants and animals are therefore forced into drawing conclusions I consider compulsory beliefs—"compulsory" because such beliefs are based on principles of reason and evidence that neither infants nor animals are actually free to disbelieve.

This leads to the rather ironic conclusion that infants and animals are actually better at reasoning from evidence than adults. Not that adults are, by any means, able to avoid forming compulsory beliefs when incontrovertible evidence presents itself (e.g., if a rock is dropped, it will fall), but adults are so mired in their own meta-cognitions that few facts absorbed by their minds can escape being attached to a legion of biases, often creating what I consider rationalized beliefs—"rationalized" because adult judgments about whether an idea is true are so often powerfully influenced by what he or she wants to be true. This is why, for example, creationists continue to disbelieve in evolution despite overwhelming evidence in support of it and activist actors and actresses with autistic children continue to believe that immunizations cause autism despite overwhelming evidence against it.

But if we look down upon people who seem blind to evidence that we ourselves find compelling, imagining ourselves to be paragons of reason and immune to believing erroneous conclusions as a result of the influence of our own pre-existing beliefs, more likely than not we're only deceiving ourselves about the strength of our objectivity. "

- Alex Likerman, M.D. in Psychology Today

While the author points, with justice, to creationists and their disbelief in evolution, I also contend that atheism can become likewise a form of rationalized belief, subject to become def and blind to contrary arguments, not based of their merits, but simply because they go against their deeply engrained biases.
Eden

16

When did Christianity Separate from Judaism?

by fulltimestudent in

this is a subject of some importance, the view of the witnesses, likely inherited from franz's influence, seems to be that early christianity developed as a separate religion to the jews.. the view of most contemporary scholars is that the separation occurred slowly, and that influential early christians (e.g.

such as paul, peter, john and james) still saw themselves as jews.. to those of us that are no longer christians (and, most ex-witnesses here, seem to gradually move to that position) this is not an important issue.. but to an organisation that claims it has "the truth," surely it should know the truth about its origins.

yet the evidence is that the modern day religion of jehovah's witnesses, does not know the "truth" concerning the origins of early christianity.

EdenOne

Even if you take the Bible alone you will notice, despite all the redacting efforts made in the book of Acts, that there were clear fracture lines in the early congregation, namely between the "elders and apostles in Jerusalem", led by James, and the congregations that had been started by the apostle Paul. No such thing as a homogenous group of early christians.

Eden