You want atheists on your side

Indeed, power corrupts; but mankind is still very far from learning this. Hence the entirety of this discussion.

You think I seek power. Nope. I seek to give it away. Through open and honest communication. You seek to preach about the meaninglessness of this communication while purporting to know the answer to what is the best way for any given individual to use their time.

You are seething with bullshit. I say that as much with candor as without malice. Really. You are full of it.

According to your own constant and counterproductive babblings people seeking to make a difference or not seeking to make a difference should make no difference anyway, especially not to you, which makes your constant preaching about the ineffectiveness and even the destructiveness of trying to make a difference a non-sequitor -- especially for you.

That there is nothing in actuality to gain personally does not keep people from seeking to gain, and hence, our limited mortal experience is cheapened. This is why I seek to address injustices, though I know full well that I will be unlikely to gain from it personally. My participation ensures nothing but that I participated, yet having done so I can be at peace with myself and need not wrangle with people over the choices I make or they make for themselves, but rather their attempts to make choices for others.

Your preaching ensures nothing but that you preached; but maybe we have both participated in our own ways.

 

I am a kind of man, mankind. It is only a matter of time that the lesson will be complete. Where one man goes every man finds himself. It doesn't take common knowledge to change the course of history.

Take the discovery of America by modern Europeans. The venture of a few men becomes the fabric of understanding for all men in time. No modern European now needs venture to North America to be familiar with it's existence or spaces because we are able to share our thoughts and someone had gone before. These men didn't need to convince the world, only take advantage of what is.

I think you seek to make a difference and to make a difference requires power. You cannot lend power to others while you are yet seeking it. What did you say in another thread , something along the lines of you being a pioneer for humanity and having concern that the effort would be resigned to obscurity? I don't have such a concern, I take advantage of the principalities and powers that are.

And this statement is documentation of what fact?

What I suggest is your own sorting out does not matter. Seeking gives the experience of seeking, once found the object is no longer sought but incorporated into our model of reality. Being is all doing in terms of having. I have peace when I am peaceful. I have love when I am loving. I have contention when I am contentious. All that transpires does so now.

I agree which is why I don't write books. What is the nature of injustice when we by our own choice have learned to devalue our own experience through accusation? Who makes us arbitrator of world events or proper value? Your heart may not treasure the same things as mine.

Sharing my thoughts ensures that they are.
If you wish to characterize my observations as preaching then I think what is true for me must also be true for you.

You are vain and it takes my own experience with my own vanity to recognize it. By vain I mean entertaining an exaggerated sense of self importance. I point to the evidence that you call my positions bull shit on the strength of your saying it alone. When I was a child I would embellish my accounting of events to make myself appear larger but the disparity between my reports and the eventual unraveling of facts caused me great embarrassment when my deception had been discovered. Like I said I soon got over myself. It is my assumption however that we both reach toward the same things.

I have no trouble honoring what you say, it is not bull shit, that is to the exclusion of any accusation you make. At the same time we are justified by our words and our apprehension of reality coincides with our narrative about it. You will hear nothing from me that you do not believe is there. When you call a thing bullshit then you relieve yourself of the challenge of a reasonable response.

 

Here is the thing you miss: making a difference does not require power. It requires the abdication of power. It is a subtle concept that is lost on the likes of you.

A human being is an animal in a power struggle with its own nature. These power struggles extrapolate themselvesin our dealings with each other. You and I are doing it here. In this sense we are participating.

You decry my accusation of-- bullshit! Very good. But the challenge of a reasonable response has already been met and not reciprocated, and so I still cry-- bullshit!

You talk about your own experience with your own vanity. You are certain that you have the better of me in this, that your experience is greater than my own. Why? Because you think your age and/or experience supersedes my own? Is age then experience? I know not. Our knowledge of each other is in fact very limted.

What I see is a mystic struggling so much with his own misconceptions that he seeks to re-label them as unmystical, and thereby validate them in his own anxious attempt to alleviate the resulting dissociation.

"Where one man goes every man finds himself."

No. Where one man goes, he goes. No other man may follow, or every man may follow, or some moderate smattering in between. It is all arbitrary.

You say, everything is happening on its own, it needs no help. You say, everything is what one makes it. So what, then, are you making it? Hm?

The discovery of America by Europe (which isn't necessarily the most glowing example you could have given, genocide and general contempt for the natives being factored in as such) would have been impossible without the blasphemous contention that, after all, the Earth may not be flat. I am a blasphemer, and proud to be so.

You may have what you have, however, in your flat world.

 

He knows that which deceives the eyes and what the breasts conceal..

 

Here is the thing that you miss. No one is without the only power an individual can possess. The only power we have which then is all power is the power to rule the kingdom of our own mind amidst a world of vast changes that we can do nothing about. You cannot stop the world spinning or the tide from going in and out but you can change your mind about the world.

Well I don't think everyone is so at odds with his own being. Human beings find themselves struggling because they are not familiar with it, (human being). Instead they seek to model human being upon arbitrarily induced cultural standards and suggest that to overcome ourselves is the way to function with each other. In other words the struggle is not with our own being or an imperfect human nature but with our mis-perception of it.
There are no should be's in the phenomenal world, only what is. Should be is not pertinent to our survival but certainly is the author of much contention in human life. There is always however the potential that a new paradigm will emerge, like being eaten by a bigger fish.

Where is the beef? A single example beyond your saying it in proxy, would be helpful if you want me to appreciate that I am full of bull shit. I am not in the least bit afraid to call a spade a spade. I know shit stinks no matter whose it is and I wouldn't be proud to dump it on anyone.

No, I do not think I have the better of you on this, I just don't think my vanity is a reliable indicator of real things. Like I said, your statement that my positions and consequently I myself am full of shit, assumes much greater knowledge of me than you admit now to possess. That is what is vain about it, by definition. Part of that assumption is in your label of me as mystic. It causes you to view what I say with a cloud of your own associations.
What is mystic about me osiris? Why do you suggest that I am dissociated from life?

Dude, or person of interest, as you describe me to yourself, so you populate the world with the figures in your life. You are the arbitrator of your own experience and it is nuanced by the terms you couch it in. You are certain I am a known quantity, full of shit, yet admit that you do not know much about me. This is a self contradictory premise.

You mis-interpret what I say here. I say every thing that happens as personal experience, happens consistently with your state of being. Your state of being has a field effect that interacts with other personal points of being. There is no future state that you may attain that will change the nature of emergent experience. Mastery then is to pick your life up and lay it down at will.

A remedial one considering the audience. (just kidding) But seriously why make it complicated. The point is not what occurred beyond it's popular discovery.

In your eyes I am also heretic to real things.
I don't regard the world as flat or round but as scribing a spiral through space.

 

"There is no future state that you may attain that will change the nature of emergent experience. Mastery then is to pick your life up and lay it down at will."

False. There is no mastery. There are no masters. The world is what we make it, by our efforts, and those who write our efforts off as having no effect beyond our personal mindset are copping out. Hence, I cry-- bullshit!

Now, you seem on the surface a very reasonable fellow. Maybe too reasonable.

Thing about reason is: it is a strictly analytical tool. An analogy would be to the surgeon's scalpel. We can go out and cut up all the bodies in the world and decipher their parts and how they fit together, but then all we have are parts.

You've got lots of parts, and you're pretty defensive about your arbitrary arrangement of them into some sort of synthesis; but it's just a collage of dead things. All self-supposed masters do this. They have to have something to show for all that hacking away. Of course, now you'll tell me your not a self-supposed master, or some equally insincere-- bullshit.

But, hey, it's been fun. Just call me an onbnoxious twit, already, and get it over with. That's what all your preaching amounts to, anyway.

Extrapolation continues.

 

Again you have mis-interpreted what I have said. You may master a task. You may master the tools you are given in life. I haven't discounted anyone's efforts. I say only that like calls unto like and you can't keep doing the same things and expect a different result.

That is so. The way I see it the whole accounts for all parts but no individual part accounts for the whole. I don't chops bodies up I look for similar characteristics when developing nomenclature. I am not a reductionist in thought as the whole is irreducible.

I am sensitive about unfounded accusation concerning anyone. Now you are telling me I am insincere. Again I ask what is mystic about me? I would be willing to bet that I display as much if not more dexterity in managing physical affairs. Mastery is to me the ability to amend my own thoughts if they are found to be wanting of objective constituents, to pick my life up and lay it down at will.

I am beginning to enjoy our conversation more and more.

 

What's mystic about your point of view is that it takes no account of the manner in which an individual's efforts against seeming futility can inevitably yield results beyond the individual, which life lived, impractically or no, far outweighs the lives of thousands and even in some cases millions of people who profess that the best way to live is in the way you describe.

Take a census of any age. For example: ancient Greece. Which is more significant, the number of the population or the fact that Socrates was among it?

Your position does not seem essentially much different than that of Lao Tsu's or Gotama's. What was mystic about their point of views was the practical aspects of them, and not the asinine fetishistic acoutrements of the cultures who adopted those views. It seems like an oxymoron, but it's true. Think about it: still the turbulence in your mind and you will still the turbulence in your world. True enough, but yours is not the only world, and a lapse into solipsism is a lapse against the betterment of the world you may find yourself in later.

And in all seriousness, I find nothing wrong with this point of view, when someone practices it; but when they preach it, it's like they're wasting a whole lot of everybody's time saying nothing.

I am a storyteller, I admit it -- I admit it! -- and the stories I tell are all parables, pointing to something I can't quite express directly but which is very real and very important. No special knowledge, but special experience.

Thoth, the God of Wisdom, and of Writing, is cursed with a little ape that follows him around everywhere he goes and mocks and distorts his every word. Sometimes people hear Thoth's wisdom; sometimes they hear the ape. It can't be helped. The curse is: slay the ape and you slay the God of Wisdom as well, and nothing remains-- but dead bodies!

 

I find this rather silly and vain. An asshole is every bit as important as a mouth. We need garbage men as well as executives.

The knowledgeable share their thoughts, that is their value to mankind. If they had kept them to themselves they would not be known at large.

How many worlds are there? I think you miss my point because you are comparing what I say to things you have heard in your past from other people, i.e. Lao tsu or Gautama. I personally do not compare myself to them nor have I studied what they might have said. My positions come from the school of hard knocks so to speak, not from some rarefied abstinence from life. As I still the turbulence in my mind I become a locus of stillness for those around me. People seek me out for my effects on their environment.

See above.

Experience is as common as man. My question about what you claim of your efforts is how are they different in substance from anyone else's? It seems to me a mindset that is not fundamentally different in rewarding the hero and punishing the villain. Hero worship and taboo are a primitive superstitious way to organize our lives.

I agree, that is why I give to the ape what is his and don't deny that he exists in the name of calling myself a mystic. You have me confused with someone else. Dejavu will tell you that I claim there is no level of depravity with which I am unfamiliar.

 

Assholes are every bit as important as mouths, yes; but who was the last person to make a significant social difference by taking a dump?

Who said anything about hero worship? It is you that mistake me. I could have just as easily used someone reprehensible -- Ivan the Terrible -- or someone powerful but whose motivations and actions might be considered less acceptable by today's standards -- Alexander the Great or Napoleon -- as someone intellectual like Socrates to make the point: for good or ill, profound people engaging in persistent action make a difference in the cultures in which they reside. This gives us a model to go on with respect to making a difference, which you continue to assert doesn't occur, or is irrelevent. An assertion which betrays not your knowledge but your ignorance, and which I have already agreed to disagree with you about. There's really nothing more to say.

Yes, it is a crap shoot. We've been over this before. And, yes, your mode of being and thinking is alright; but not relevent enough to take over threads off topic with droves of posts trying to assert it. In fact, your doing so is antithetical to the very concepts you preach. I didn't come to you for anything. You keep chasing me. Why?

Whatever school you went to, it taught you poorly. Assetions of the depravity we've sunken to will avail neither of us in getting across our points.

You should maybe think of looking into the study of Eastern mysticism, as so much of the point of view you espouse was already worked out by those people thousands of years ago. It. is. no. feat. Really. Try educating yourself in the quiet repose you so often preach... and preach... and preach. Your mind is a hell of a lot more turbulent then you... think!

 

Perhaps I can enlighten you with this one. It's probably because you keep answering him. Where 2 are conversing on and on you can't blame one for taking the thread off topic

 

Actually potty training is a significant social development.

How does one get to be a profound person? You are singing the praises of what you consider exceptional men, for good or ill, that is what I mean by hero worship.

Here is a clue for you. Anybody can advance what ever cause with effort towards a desired aim, and there are supporting roles in every effort.

The only crap shoot is the time you take. Your actions and the things you perceive accurately reflect your state being. What is off topic about my conversation with you? I want people who see things clearly on my side, I don't give a shit if they are atheists or not. You didn't come to me for anything, I appreciate you none the less. I am not following you other than to read your posts as the are in a section that I frequent discussing subjects that I enjoy talking about. If you feel harried it is from the weakness of your position.

The point of what I said is to assure you that I am not seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Your theory of exceptionalism is barbaric.
There are no idle thoughts.
Who are those people who do not matter in the fabric of life? Name them.
I know, me you could do without. The reason man's inhumanity to man continues despite our native impulses to have it otherwise is we tell ourselves the other is not me or mine. They are expendable because they are not significant in my world view. See above and below. The record is consistent.

So much of the point of view I espouse? I bring with me some of what is old and some of what is new, that is how we learn.
Are you in my mind? The only way it seems you can be comfortable around me is to stand on my ignorant shoulders. You go read a book and you may not need peons to make you feel great. I would share my thoughts on these subjects with whoever cares to engage me on them. You are not special in that regard and it is not like I need your carcass strung up somewhere. Gee whiz.


I want sincere lovers on my side.

Any other atheists here think they are gods gift?

 

Since when do atheist have a movement? Now you will be telling me that atheist will have their own church as well?

If so i dont want to be an atheist anymore

 

You gonna believe in a higher power when there will be an atheist church?

 

If you have people running around trying to drag the world back to the middle ages because god said so, there is a need to cut down their bullshit.

I get harassed about not being christian, and people stop to join in and talk about jesus, and how he loves me but if I don't accept his love he'll give me eternal pain.... because of his love. But if I do the same to people who don't agree with me, it's suddenly a big deal.

No, it's okay for me to talk about why people should not have beliefs that cause them to go and do harm to the world in which I live, and it's okay to use logic to debunk those beliefs.

As of late on here, I feel like I'm in one of those fox news "discussions", where they make it look fair and balanced by having one atheist and then nobody lets him talk and when they do, they don't respond to what he says at all, but start talking about the hate of the atheist movement, or whatever.

It is not hateful to stand up to harmful beliefs. It is not hateful to lay one's reputation and social standing on the line, and say this is wrong, and I'll tell you why. It is not hateful to call out evil, regardless of what religious symbol it hides behind.

And when religion does exactly what you'd think, and goes ".....nuh-uhh..... we're totally right, and you're going to hell", it is not hateful to persist, and not just fall silent.

 

Really? How often do you get harassed for not being a christian? This is a serious question by the way, I can imagine things are different where you live but I of course would like to know how and why. Here I must say most christians have learned to not bother people in an harrasing/aggresive manner (with aggressive I just mean they approach you and bother you out of nothing with their message which of course is already aggressive enough).

It is obvious that all of that is ok. I guess it becomes a big deal or harrasment when it is done repetitively and most commonly disrespectful, discriminating/generalizing and or just plain aggressively.
It is of course still hateful when you bring your valid message with hate. Duh. That is just what hateful is. I'm not saying you can't spread your message with hate, just that you don't reach any meaningful goal with it.

 

quite, but why does this need to be under the banner of "atheism", why not under a banner which actually has a bearing on the issue in question:

people oppressing gay people? - this is an issue of human rights.

people won't teach the theory of evolution? - this is an issue of rationalism and objectivity in education.

in fact there isn't a socio-political isue i can think of which atheists debate the religious over which wouldn't be easier and swifter to defend on the basis of human rights and rationalism/logic.



this idea that religion must be fought on its own terms, so atheists must band together under identical ideologies and doctrines in the same manner in order to fight it robs atheism of the fluidity and breadth of belief which is its only strength (and should be its only characteristic, besides the single position held in common.)

 

I find this debate a little puzzling, because so many of the comments seem to regard organization to pursue common ends as something unusual, controversial or suspect. Atheists where I come from organize because religious folks are organized. Atheists organize to protect and advance common interests, but also to hang out with like-minded people, benefit from support groups in a hostile environment, find potential dating partners, operate summer camps to send their kids to, and engage in charity drives. Atheists who don't like to do these things don't have to, but they're available for those who do. How is this dangerous? As a Christian, I welcome this, because I'm curious about atheists and what they're like. So far, my conclusion is they're not much different from Methodists, Episcopalians or Disciples of Christ, except they don't believe in God. This is the way African Americans, gays, etc., gained acceptance. My guess is that it would be the most effective route for atheists, as well. As it stands, they're still a minority and a pariah group, but as the majority begins to see them as just folks, I suspect that will change.

 

It is my opinion that beliefs only argue against other beliefs. We can't or don't argue with the truth.

It helps to identify what is actually harmful. What is actually harmful is the idea that our own shit doesn't stink and if that is the case then we feel relieved to dump it on others. The nest that gets shit in is common humanity.

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