Today’s extraction from the vault comes from only yesterday, when I wrote a quick note for Mentalnotes1 in response to her sweet expression of thanks for God’s blessings.
I don’t disagree with the idea entirely – I think it’s very healthy to acknowledge one’s position in the scheme of things. Looking around it is clear that things could be a whole lot worse, after all.
But I’m not big on the idea of thanking some imaginary benefactor in the heavens. Perhaps we should, instead, spend more time thanking each other.
Thank you.
*
We wake up every morning blissed
But don’t thank God. He don’t exist
Doesn’t watch us rise or fall
Was never really there at all
we’re on our own here – sad but true
And though we don’t know what to do
Neither are we frightened fools
Who look above to read the rules
Where in our image, God we made
And as we see that image fade
Responsibility we take
The superstitious shackles break
Champions of our destiny
Captured in this life, yet free
*
Richmond Road 
It’s almost time for us to rock the rhyming story event!! Glad you’re getting good practice here!
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YUP!!! 👍👏👏👏❗
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I agree with Nan. 👌👍👏🙇
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Maybe God is a nonexistent quantity but someone needs to explain to me the downsides to belief. A rich man is unlikely to give me a dime but only a fool would fail to ask.
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Where do I start? Is there an order to these things? How does a belief in God rank when compared to a belief in gravity, for example?
And your example? What sort of belief is that? You recognise that a rich man probably won’t give you a dime, yet you still ask? I would suggest that only a fool would waste his time by bothering to ask. There are better ways to accumulate dimes. And if you walk around the streets taking note of the people asking for dimes are you immediately inspired to follow in their footsteps – to adopt their belief system, based upon their success thus far?
But that aside, I don’t think anyone needs to explain the downsides of believing in something that isn’t true. Have a think about what you don’t believe in … why don’t you? I mean, based on your logic you should believe in absolutely everything. So you can believe, if you wish, that you can fly. But I would strongly suggest resisting the urge to test the belief from the 42nd floor.
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If you would like to continue this conversation YOU need to drop the beggar bigotry totally and if conversation is the goal bigotry of all kinds should stay in the closet,
A like is not an endorsement it is an acknowledgement that I read it.😉
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Oh dear. I did not mean to come across as a beggar bigot (though it does have a ring to it, now that I say it!) or any sort of bigot at all.
I apologise as much to myself as I do to you if that was the impression I made.
I was merely attempting to provide an explanation (as you requested) of the general fallacy of believing in things when all the available evidence suggests that such beliefs are false.
The fact that a loving God presides over a situation within which people are starving on the streets of an incredibly wealthy country and being forced to beg seems just another source of evidence that no such loving God exists.
But your sudden indignation suggests to me that you are diverting attention (in this continuing conversation) from the weakness of your own argument.
Belief is not something that you just choose to have – it represents your understanding of the truth, so either you believe in an existent God or you don’t. Believing, as you apparently choose to do, in something that you recognise as non-existent makes no sense at all.
Your ‘like’ is accepted in the very way it was intended, fear not!
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Bigotry is beget by assumptions. In America one is free to choose to beg. Beggar as I am a least I am not a lawyer. You have yet to offer a single upside to non belief or a downside to belief. To believe in impossibility as opposed to possibility to choose nothing is to me nonsensical.
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That’s true, and I’m trying to focus not on assumptions but on evidence.
I don’t think that there is any necessity to justify a disbelief in the impossible – the very question being an answer to itself – though I am not a lawyer either, so I’m not certain of the legal argument.
But if we are solely talking about religious belief then I would suggest that history is bursting with downsides, thus implying the upside of its opposite.
I am unaware of mass sufferings and genocides being conducted under the name of atheism. Beyond that I feel that there is an intrinsic value in seeking truth as apposed to superstition.
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My dad had a favorite aphorism for the word assume. What proof do you offer, other than the stories of men, that god and religion are connected. It could easily be argued that the barbarities of which you speak were all done by atheists if atheists are godless men.
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You may be going a little over my head here. I’m not a bigot but actually just something of a dunce.
Your dad’s undoubtedly wise observation was surely not simply about the word ‘assume’ but rather more specifically about the relationship between gods and religion. But it strikes me as a bit self-contradictory since to seperate gods from religion would, from a human perspective, render both concepts meaningless and therefore beyond any hope of discussion – thus effectively non-existent.
Atheists are, from an atheist perspective, godless – but likewise, from the same perspective, are theists godless. But from the theist perspective the reverse applies. The whole point of the atrocities of which I speak it that such atrocities were committed by those of a theist perspective. So we are talking here about the acts of those with an indefensible belief in a nonexistent God.
At least I think that’s what we are talking about.
But perhaps you should make your own position clear. Am I to take it that you hold a belief in a God (for lack of a better word) that has no involvement in the nature of man and the universe? May I ask you, if so, upon what rationale you base such a belief?
Or are you saying that you do not have a disbelief? A double negative sort of approach, in other words?
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The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things.
Therefore let there always be non-being, so we may see their subtlety, And let there always be being, so we may see their outcome.
The two are the same, But after they are produced, they have different names.
They both may be called deep and profound. Deeper and more profound, The door to all subtleties!
Dad in a nutshell Ass You Me. Just because a man claims to be doing an act in the name of god or for the principle of the thing. does not make it so. As long as the god, the gun, the deep state, shoulders the blame the problem will remain unseen and unsolved.
Modus tollens is one of two types of inference that can be drawn from a hypothetical proposition, the other being modus ponens. Both modus tollens and modus ponens are valid hypothetical syllogisms, meaning that if the premises are assumed to be true, then the conclusion must also be true.
Prove your IF. It is a false assumption that I will pick up YOUR burden. IMO both god bother’s and atheists are complete fools(hhgtg). I have respect for agnostics. Good luck in your endeavors to prove the negative.
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Ha ha! So you look upon both theists and atheists as complete fools but deign to sprinkle a little respect towards the agnostics! Clearly, though, you view all from a position of superiority, even whilst remaining a little vague about that position.
Tao Te Ching, I would have thought, remains fairly ambiguous in regard to Gods and, from a Western sense, atheist (you might view the position as agnostic but I disagree), but I’m not sure what relevance this has to our discussion.
We were not even discussing the accuracy of belief but rather the potential negative side-effects and I would continue to insist that one would have to be blind not to recognise them everywhere. Specifically in terms of religious belief I am arguing that atrocities committed by those of belief against those of other belief or non-belief are such an example.
You continue to remain cagey about yourself. Is your position that of Taoism? Is Taoism about belief? Is it about disbelief? My understanding is that is about neither but rather a philosophical stance on the nature of reality which defies explanation. I’m also not sure that the Tao Te Ching benefits much from translation.
What’s your position on witches?
How about your thoughts on ingesting bleach to cure Covid?
Were you about when heaven’s gate opened briefly in the wake of the Hale-Bop comet? Should we all have jumped on board?
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God explains the duality of quantum mechanics. If you mistrust my interpreters translation of the Tao why trust whatever interpretation of holy writ. Again you subscribe to god the sins of man. You have also misinterpreted my absolute and complete respect for complete fools. You speak of accuracy to a taoist?🤣He who never aims never misses,😂A muslim boy once told me I had not read the Koran as there is no English Koran,😂If it’s a numbers game the majorities in WWII fighters diers and all in between were atheist or non-believers.
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Buddy, I am struggling to understand you. You may exist on some sort of higher plane than do I.
I would encourage you to be suspicious of any translations of anything though (and, let’s face it, just about everything is a translation of one sort or another) and perhaps one is free to translate things as they please.
We are concerned here about those who translate the words of religious texts in any way literally and apply that translation to what may be generally accepted as reality. And that such translation often has resulted in negative consequences.
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Focus. All books are an artists translation. I assume the words you write are your words that I interpret as my experience directs. Evidenced by your confusion in the meaning of my words.
God does not do atrocities, men do. Say God is the perpetrator is a slur and does not make it so. You have offered zero evidence to god’s bad acts and it has never been my position to justify his existence through good acts or indeed any acts whatsoever. My concept closest proximate entity would be the Universal Observer who prevents Schrodinger’s jellification of the universe.
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For fuck’s sake! Hello? Are you listening? I said not a word about God’s bad acts. But yes, I am very fucking confused about the meaning of your words.
I blame God for nothing. For I have no belief in God. I blame man for everything. It’s just that I am particularly contemptuous of man who acts in what he considers to be the accordance of this non-existent God.
For me to direct a slur towards God would be a meaningless gesture – I am increasingly aware that attempting to explain the simplicity of my view to you may be equally meaningless.
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