Comments on: This Christmas, part 2 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/ Life through the eyes of an 18-year-old formerly Catholic atheist in a small, heavily religious country. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:57:43 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Najo http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-449 Najo Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:18:26 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-449 Some people still don't believe that I'm an atheist because they think I'm too good to be one. LOL!~ They really don't understand the concept of morality without religion or morality without the belief in divinity. If your mother graduated from the school where I think she graduated...damn...she's really a shame to the institution. O_O Some people still don’t believe that I’m an atheist because they think I’m too good to be one. LOL!~

They really don’t understand the concept of morality without religion or morality without the belief in divinity.

If your mother graduated from the school where I think she graduated…damn…she’s really a shame to the institution. O_O

]]> By: This makes me want to punch right through my laptop screen. « Diary of a Teenage Atheist http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-434 This makes me want to punch right through my laptop screen. « Diary of a Teenage Atheist Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:26:32 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-434 [...] This dates back to that time when my parents asserted that atheists have no moral code: [...] [...] This dates back to that time when my parents asserted that atheists have no moral code: [...]

]]> By: Drew http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-303 Drew Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:18:48 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-303 " I don’t do it because I want brownie points from The Big Daddy, or safety from the sea of fire below, or seventy-seven virgins, or because it’s my dharma. I don’t even do it in the name of atheism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I do it because seeing the way their faces light up really warms my heart, and it makes me feel like I’m not the monster that people say I am. If theists need the promise of a reward to motivate them into doing these things…well, that’s really, really sad, and maybe I have more faith in the goodness of people than they do. And I didn’t even learn this from what they taught me in Church or in my Catholic school, I learned it from the people who were nice to me." I have to say, that paragraph just lighted up my day. Its sad that ppl believe that morality is a virtue of a voice from heaven preaching to some loner on a mountain. It just dumbfounds the fact that humanity is capable of its own empathy. To DaFatalGigabyte, I think what Kant was trying to say can be interpreted by einstein's saying "I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that I can comprehend only imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced, there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness." Many ppl misquote Kant and Einstein as being religious, but they were not (Not in the conventional sense). They believed in Nature and the Human ability/disability. They were awed by it, but never tied it down to anything outside of Humanity, or Nature. Paul kinda meant the same thing when he said "through the glass, darkly", but unlike atheists, who are just as astounded as the religious when it comes to the intricate complexities of nature, or the ability of humanity to raise itself, we dont tie this to any 'super'natural or extra-intelligent lifeform. Just the entity in itself. Nature. Humans. Existence. Just my two cents worth, teenatheist, Its this philosophy that helps me blend in to a society thats discriminatory to those of us who are 'weak-of faith'. I relate to their 'god' as the complexites of nature, the laws of physics, and their 'religiousness' as the limited ability of our 5 senses to capture these complexities and also as our ability to do good. Deep down inside even Paul knew it was a human thing, not a command from the Voice from the Heavens. ” I don’t do it because I want brownie points from The Big Daddy, or safety from the sea of fire below, or seventy-seven virgins, or because it’s my dharma. I don’t even do it in the name of atheism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I do it because seeing the way their faces light up really warms my heart, and it makes me feel like I’m not the monster that people say I am. If theists need the promise of a reward to motivate them into doing these things…well, that’s really, really sad, and maybe I have more faith in the goodness of people than they do. And I didn’t even learn this from what they taught me in Church or in my Catholic school, I learned it from the people who were nice to me.”

I have to say, that paragraph just lighted up my day. Its sad that ppl believe that morality is a virtue of a voice from heaven preaching to some loner on a mountain. It just dumbfounds the fact that humanity is capable of its own empathy.

To DaFatalGigabyte, I think what Kant was trying to say can be interpreted by einstein’s saying “I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that I can comprehend only imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced, there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.”

Many ppl misquote Kant and Einstein as being religious, but they were not (Not in the conventional sense). They believed in Nature and the Human ability/disability. They were awed by it, but never tied it down to anything outside of Humanity, or Nature.

Paul kinda meant the same thing when he said “through the glass, darkly”, but unlike atheists, who are just as astounded as the religious when it comes to the intricate complexities of nature, or the ability of humanity to raise itself, we dont tie this to any
’super’natural or extra-intelligent lifeform. Just the entity in itself.
Nature. Humans. Existence.

Just my two cents worth, teenatheist, Its this philosophy that helps me blend in to a society thats discriminatory to those of us who are ‘weak-of faith’. I relate to their ‘god’ as the complexites of nature, the laws of physics, and their ‘religiousness’ as the limited ability of our 5 senses to capture these complexities and also as our ability to do good. Deep down inside even Paul knew it was a human thing, not a command from the Voice from the Heavens.

]]> By: DaFatalGigabyte http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-285 DaFatalGigabyte Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:06:06 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-285 Teen Atheist, I sympathize with you greatly. I'm forced to go to church and my parents actually made it more important to them than anything else. All I knew was God and those pictures of Jesus with the lambs and children, touching a butterfly. My father uses the bible to refute my claims. What a loser. The only reason he's doing fine at a factory-like job is because he started early when someone could work at a factory and handle a 5 person family easily. He got a managers job which pays for health care. It wasn't some dude in the sky. He's not a good person because he believes in ghosts. "“Well, I can’t encourage your atheism because I don’t know much about it, but I think it is very important to have a belief. It is religion that teaches us moral values, like humility [says my elitist mother...." and downwards has really riled up my emotions. Oh yeah, and how can she say anything about your religion if she doesn't know anything about it? Instead she says the first thing she heard about it, that it's immoral and has no values. Try at showing her the secular humanist organizations webpage. Explain to her how she can't denonce your religion if she doesn't know anything about it. Maybe she'll learn something...Maaaaybe. I doubt it. Ah, the only reason I tolerate going to church is because I know a really hot girl there :P. I'm such a DPer (Do with that as you will haha) I forgot to say cheers in the spirit of double sightedness :D. Teen Atheist, I sympathize with you greatly. I’m forced to go to church and my parents actually made it more important to them than anything else. All I knew was God and those pictures of Jesus with the lambs and children, touching a butterfly. My father uses the bible to refute my claims. What a loser. The only reason he’s doing fine at a factory-like job is because he started early when someone could work at a factory and handle a 5 person family easily. He got a managers job which pays for health care. It wasn’t some dude in the sky. He’s not a good person because he believes in ghosts. ““Well, I can’t encourage your atheism because I don’t know much about it, but I think it is very important to have a belief. It is religion that teaches us moral values, like humility [says my elitist mother….” and downwards has really riled up my emotions. Oh yeah, and how can she say anything about your religion if she doesn’t know anything about it? Instead she says the first thing she heard about it, that it’s immoral and has no values. Try at showing her the secular humanist organizations webpage. Explain to her how she can’t denonce your religion if she doesn’t know anything about it. Maybe she’ll learn something…Maaaaybe. I doubt it.

Ah, the only reason I tolerate going to church is because I know a really hot girl there :P .

I’m such a DPer (Do with that as you will haha)
I forgot to say cheers in the spirit of double sightedness :D .

]]> By: DaFatalGigabyte http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-284 DaFatalGigabyte Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:52:10 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-284 http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20071017/cm_csm/ydsouza;_ylt=AnmCGDCm4T0ToBws.6WOLiD9wxIF "So powerful is Kant's argument here that his critics have been able to answer him only with derision, as though his arguments are self-evidently fallacious. When I challenged Daniel Dennett to debunk Kant's argument, he responded on his website by saying several people had already refuted Kant. But he didn't provide any refutations and he didn't name any names. Basically, Mr. Dennett was relying on the ignorance of the audience. In fact, there are no such refutations. Although Kant's argument seems counterintuitive – in the way that some of the greatest ideas from Copernicus to Einstein are counterintuitive — no one who understands the central doctrines of the world's leading religions should have any difficulty grasping his main point. Kant's philosophical vision is largely congruent with the teachings of many faiths that the empirical world is not the only world. Ours is a world of appearances only, in which we see things in a limited and distorted way – "through a glass, darkly," as the apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians. The spiritual reality constitutes the only permanent reality there is. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, it cannot on its own fully comprehend that domain." Let me refute this then. Kant's argument says that we can't possibly know about other realms, probably except when endowed with this power from God. There's no scientific evidence that says that this realm exists nor does not exist. It's non-falsifiable, because it is not proven in the first place, so atheists would not even debate with people who believe in other realms that are explained in some ancient text. It actually is falsifiable. It's just not truthifiable and Kant provides the apologetic. Unfortunately the realm of the spiritual is either written as an allegory and thus we should go by the real object, or it is a realm seen through human eyes after being endowed with that power from God. The former would be like looking at some myths about the underworld, a watery chamber where life is to begin again, and where the person takes sustenance from a female god(such as Persephone). This is called the womb. There is no spiritual realm. It's just "As below, so above" bull****. As for the latter, go to the top of this page and click the link for Christmass part 1 if you haven't read my comment explaining the amanita muscaria, a psychoactive mushroom. It was a personification of the sun/Christ. It was used for Communion, code-word for orgy. God thus gives us the power to see far realms, or maybe that's just the far sightedness. God gives us the power to see closer to oneself, or maybe that's just the short-sightedness. God gives us the power to see another spiritual realm, or maybe that's all the pretty colors. http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20071017/cm_csm/ydsouza;_ylt=AnmCGDCm4T0ToBws.6WOLiD9wxIF
“So powerful is Kant’s argument here that his critics have been able to answer him only with derision, as though his arguments are self-evidently fallacious. When I challenged Daniel Dennett to debunk Kant’s argument, he responded on his website by saying several people had already refuted Kant. But he didn’t provide any refutations and he didn’t name any names. Basically, Mr. Dennett was relying on the ignorance of the audience. In fact, there are no such refutations.

Although Kant’s argument seems counterintuitive – in the way that some of the greatest ideas from Copernicus to Einstein are counterintuitive — no one who understands the central doctrines of the world’s leading religions should have any difficulty grasping his main point. Kant’s philosophical vision is largely congruent with the teachings of many faiths that the empirical world is not the only world. Ours is a world of appearances only, in which we see things in a limited and distorted way – “through a glass, darkly,” as the apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians. The spiritual reality constitutes the only permanent reality there is. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, it cannot on its own fully comprehend that domain.”

Let me refute this then. Kant’s argument says that we can’t possibly know about other realms, probably except when endowed with this power from God. There’s no scientific evidence that says that this realm exists nor does not exist. It’s non-falsifiable, because it is not proven in the first place, so atheists would not even debate with people who believe in other realms that are explained in some ancient text. It actually is falsifiable. It’s just not truthifiable and Kant provides the apologetic. Unfortunately the realm of the spiritual is either written as an allegory and thus we should go by the real object, or it is a realm seen through human eyes after being endowed with that power from God. The former would be like looking at some myths about the underworld, a watery chamber where life is to begin again, and where the person takes sustenance from a female god(such as Persephone). This is called the womb. There is no spiritual realm. It’s just “As below, so above” bull****. As for the latter, go to the top of this page and click the link for Christmass part 1 if you haven’t read my comment explaining the amanita muscaria, a psychoactive mushroom. It was a personification of the sun/Christ. It was used for Communion, code-word for orgy. God thus gives us the power to see far realms, or maybe that’s just the far sightedness. God gives us the power to see closer to oneself, or maybe that’s just the short-sightedness. God gives us the power to see another spiritual realm, or maybe that’s all the pretty colors.

]]> By: Teen Atheist http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-236 Teen Atheist Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:24:31 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-236 The "About Teen Atheist" page. :D The “About Teen Atheist” page. :D

]]> By: jgrab1 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-235 jgrab1 Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:35:38 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-235 By the way, I think I've guessed your country. Where can I ask? By the way, I think I’ve guessed your country. Where can I ask?

]]> By: Teen Atheist http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-234 Teen Atheist Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:27:08 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-234 Heh. :P It usually stops at thoughts (before I start thinking of, like, grocery lists or unicorns or something), and they last, like, five seconds tops. I have a remarkably short attention span. XD Heh. :P It usually stops at thoughts (before I start thinking of, like, grocery lists or unicorns or something), and they last, like, five seconds tops. I have a remarkably short attention span. XD

]]> By: jgrab1 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-233 jgrab1 Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:06:04 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-233 > I have naughty thoughts about attractive men... Go on... ;-) (Just kidding. Couldn't resist.) > I have naughty thoughts about attractive men…

Go on… ;-)

(Just kidding. Couldn’t resist.)

]]> By: Teen Atheist http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-231 Teen Atheist Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:47:19 +0000 http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/this-christmas-part-2/#comment-231 <blockquote>I also listen to heavy metal and play violent video games so I should be a soulless murdering fiend by now, but I didn’t need the fear of god or eternal damnation to know right and wrong or learn empathy, sympathy or compassion. So fear not, if god where real I should of been struck by lightning a while ago.</blockquote> Ha, me too. I like to eat, I'm a lazy-ass slob, I have naughty thoughts about attractive men, I love money, I am jealous of people with tons of money, I am filled with utter contempt for my family (most of the time), and I'm too proud to...do a lot of things. Yeah. They'd probably clone my soul nine times over so that I could be banished to ALL the Circles of Hell. XD

I also listen to heavy metal and play violent video games so I should be a soulless murdering fiend by now, but I didn’t need the fear of god or eternal damnation to know right and wrong or learn empathy, sympathy or compassion. So fear not, if god where real I should of been struck by lightning a while ago.

Ha, me too. I like to eat, I’m a lazy-ass slob, I have naughty thoughts about attractive men, I love money, I am jealous of people with tons of money, I am filled with utter contempt for my family (most of the time), and I’m too proud to…do a lot of things. Yeah. They’d probably clone my soul nine times over so that I could be banished to ALL the Circles of Hell. XD

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