@moonbus saidI agree.
What is so bad about uncertainty? A question, a doubt, an uncertainty, is a quickening, it stimulates the mind, makes you keep on thinking.What is bad about certainty: it is deadening. It makes people think they can stop thinking. Certainty leads to rigidity and dogma.
15 Dec 19
@philokalia saidPeople sometimes involuntarily soil their pants and vomit in foxholes or cry out for their mothers "before the end", regardless of whether they are theists or atheists. Perhaps that is caused by "stress of uncertainty".
If you talk about how atheists actually are panicky before the end, they become quite testy and are more than excited to thunder back that there are atheists in foxholes.
@philokalia saidSo your generalizations about agnostics, for whom you think their doubt, or lack of faith, or uncertainty cause them "stress", are based on things they DIDN'T "admit" to you when you discussed it with them?
Being stressed out by your own mindset and ideology is not something that people like to publicly admit to, and if itis admitted to, it is almost always done in reflection, about the past.
@philokalia saidI'm not being "prickly" at all. I'm just responding to your posts. Where are you getting your evidence about "the typical agnostic mentality"? I am baffled as to how you could come to the trite conclusion that there is such a thing as "the typical agnostic mentality".
Oh geez, you become so prickly when anyone even suggests there could be something negative within the typical agnostic mentality, lol.
15 Dec 19
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThis is actually very rooted in the modernist approach.
Fish die. Penguins die. Is their death a result of sin?
If cats developed an intelligence capable of contemplating the finality of death, they too would most likely cling to the hope of divine salvation.
The average Christian uses to firmly believe in the possibility of their own going to hell. The theism was not necessarily therapeutic, but an attempt to explain reality.
Which leads to the second point: this is top short sighted for me. Yes, of course, people will try to explain reality in a way that's only pleasant sometimes. But it is also true that we cannot understand reality without understanding the uniqueness of our situation and the concept of a God originator of all matter and creator of laws.
15 Dec 19
@philokalia said@FMF sure, there are those who are either uncertain of death or attached to life among theists. And there are atheists who are completely certain. Indeed, definitionally, I think that true atheists would not really feel much uncertainty (as shown by the post that I chose to quote).
I personally think that the uncertainty factors would really only apply to those who are agnostic.
I think that atheists do have a sense of certainty, particularly when it comes to their bold denouncements of the Christian faith.
If you talk about how atheists actually are panicky before the end, they become quite testy and are more than excited to thunder back that there are atheists in foxholes.
But, it is also true that there are atheists and agnostics who are uncertain, and thus are really obsessed with these issues and carry with them a lot of baggage. Of course, some of them might be people who are obsessed because they attach their disbelief to their ego or perhaps some are genuinely enthralled by the topic.
But I think we all have met very annoying, obsessed, and panicky/prickly atheists. I can think of another chess forum that has a very obvious example of this.
There's no sources that I am aware of that provide that much insight into this, though, so I cannot point you in any direction on it if you find my takes to be insufficient.
Do you have some objective sources you want to share about this, FMF? I doubt it, beecause if you did, surely, that would have been in the OP.
@philokalia saidI am not the one who is prattling on with plucked-out-of-the-air generalizations about heterogeneous groups of people.
Do you have some objective sources you want to share about this, FMF?
@philokalia saidsonship - for example - is frequently a nasty, annoying, obsessed, and joyless theist who often becomes quite testy and more than excited about his beliefs, spitting out insults that no one here matches. But why on Earth would anyone make a generalized statement about theists because of that? Why would anyone start talking nonsense about 'the typical theist mentality'?
But I think we all have met very annoying, obsessed, and panicky/prickly atheists.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidAre you suggesting that man has the mental capacity to convince himself he is merely progressing to a higher self, and that is a delusion on man's part according to you? If it is nothing but a delusion, not sure why it would matter if anyone reproduced; it isn't like it would matter one way or another in the end.
Everything in existence has a shelf life, including us. Things live (hopefully reproduce) and then die.
Man is unique in having the mental capacity to convince himself he merely progresses on to a higher shelf.
I think believing that would be a delusion, our purpose is more in the divine than it is in the evolving pond scum to self-awareness variety.
16 Dec 19
So, FMF actually fully regrets generalizing anything, and not talking about the sort of trends you might find within a movement?
Very radically non-judgmental. I like it.
However, it isn't for me. I think it is useful to understand the intellectual trends that are out there because we have to make practical assessments of what we are facing.
But I admire your stance on this, FMF. I do indeed.
@kellyjay saidThe ubiquity of religions 'offering' everlasting life across cultures and down through history, I would say, points towards the aspiration for immortality being a facet of the human condition rather than being a phenomenon that provides facts about supernatural things.
Are you suggesting that man has the mental capacity to convince himself he is merely progressing to a higher self, and that is a delusion on man's part according to you?
@philokalia saidIronic advice, indeed, from someone who stalked me from thread to thread throughout 2018 and 2019 with incessant off-topic condemnations and personal remarks.
I would say this, though... That you should not trash another member so hard if you are trying to appear as someone who is being fair and objective.
@philokalia saidIf you can find any examples of me offering inane drivel about 'the typical agnostic mentality' etc. etc. feel free to call me out for it.
So, FMF actually fully regrets generalizing anything, and not talking about the sort of trends you might find within a movement?