Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
"Oh? I only ever claimed to be honest, I never claimed to be a benevolent and compassionate person, I am a misanthrope. I generally view people I do not know, and many of the people I do know, about the same as you might view a venomous animal or insect. I suppose you could probably consider that evil, but it is really more a matter of perspective, considering homicide kills more people a year than all animal or insect attacks combined by quite a LARGE margin. Sorry, I am just not a big fan of humanity, and if that bothers you then YOU have the problem."
If you have children or a wife, I'm sure you would have compassion for them. They are human just like all the rest of us humans. I don't understand why you would have compassion for your children and wife (if you have either), but then not have compassion for a child or woman who isn't your family that might be suffering. If you came across a child or woman who was suffering and you could help, wouldn't you help? It's in our nature to help those who are suffering when we can easily help. Some are even willing to go out of there way to help and still others are even willing to risk their own lives to help. These are the people we call heroes and there is something inside of a person who is willing to risk their lives for another that goes beyond their animalistic nature and into a spiritual nature that can only be understood when you believe in a spiritual nature that exists in all of us.
"If you have children or a wife, I'm sure you would have compassion for them."
I have both a wife and child, actually, but not compassion. Compassion requires empathy, which I am neurologically incapable of.
"They are human just like all the rest of us humans."
Yes, indeed, and? You have yet to give me a compelling LOGICAL reason to give a shit about YOU.
"I don't understand why you would have compassion for your children and wife (if you have either), but then not have compassion for a child or woman who isn't your family that might be suffering."
Because it is neither my responsibility nor my personal duty to feel absolutely anything for them whatsoever. I might be persuaded to give money to a cause, if I perceived some rational social or personal benefit coming from it in the future(I.E. AIDS Research, etc), but otherwise my wife handles it. She is my opposite, in that regard, and is more concerned with others lives and suffering than the majority of Christians. She appears to have a somewhat Jainist philosophy, so cares enough for us both.
"If you came across a child or woman who was suffering and you could help, wouldn't you help?"
Possibly, it just depends.
"It's in our nature to help those who are suffering when we can easily help."
What do you mean "our" kemosabe?
"Some are even willing to go out of there way to help and still others are even willing to risk their own lives to help."
My wifes job, she lets me know what she wants me to do. She functions, in effect, as my conscience.
"These are the people we call heroes and there is something inside of a person who is willing to risk their lives for another that goes beyond their animalistic nature and into a spiritual nature that can only be understood when you believe in a spiritual nature that exists in all of us."
Blah, blah, spirits, souls, blah, blah. I really don't have time for demonstrably false information.
"There is no "absolute certainty" that the sky can't fall in, either. All this " absolute objectivity," "subjective minds, absolute conscious mind, objective reality" stuff is ALL BULLSHIT!!! This is a theist at their best grasping at straws, trying to make logic out of something that has none to satify their own "superstitions," as I call it now. Theists are very good at bringing the conversation around in circles, touching on things that have nothing to do with the original issue, and justify that as explaining away things that are COMPLETE NONSENSE!!"
Not nonsense, just rational thinking. A subjective mind can't be absolutely certain that absolutes exists nor can it be absolutely certain that absolutes don't exist, thus the requirement to believe in absolutes or not believe in absolutes. When you believe in absolutes you can be certain that mars existed in objective reality before your mind was there to realize mars existence. When you don't believe in absolutes you can't be certain that mars existed in objective reality before your mind was there to realize it. If you believe absolutes don't exist beyond your mind, then mars existence is dependent on your mind to exist. All I'm saying is this leads to irrational thinking, when we can clearly see that mars has been around for a long time.
Chriliman - "Does this not prove that we actually have free will to believe what we want to believe?"
not in the slightest
"This shows that truth can exist not just in our minds, but outside of our minds as well."
Substitute "facts" for "truth" and the statement becomes valid. Things that exist do not need humanity to vouch for them.
The word "truth" is all too often abused by faith based systems in their attempts to attain credibility. The use of that word in theistic context always lands outside the sphere of logic, as would any other doctrine that cannot appeal to facts. Theism tends to claim much of the natural world to reinvent it for it's own purposes and agenda. This twisting of the natural world is the heart of the dogma of religious perpetration upon the less gifted. Such is the premise of this thread.
The facts in the archeological record have been altered and bundled into the bible by theists who would explain them as truths. Truth cannot be altered by subjective circumstance or even the boldest of impositions in the presence of facts. They silently denounce such fraudulent attempts regardless of how long, loud and repetitive the nature of their ignoble persuasion.
Pages