why is it it wrong to show the world what they do?

[sgttomas]

Then God is just as responsible for the evil men do as He is for the good.

You are responsible for your choices.

Life is a test. The good and the bad will be sorted out in the hereafter.

-sgtt

[A Hermit]

Doesn't sound anything like me.

Telling someone they are less than human is nothing? OK...nice to know what I'm dealing with.

You are responsible for your choices.

Not if I "cannot move my finger except that God wills it to happen." If that's the case then it's God's will that controls what I do regardless of any choice I might want to make. Besides a poor impaired subhuman like me can't be held responsible for his actions, can he...

[mdsimpson92]

For the record Hermit, I am a Christian and I disagree with them. Individuals like Schopenhauer who are atheists definitely have a connection to the mystical. You could find it in some forms of Buddhism (though I think much of Mahayana is either pantheistic or panentheistic depending on their view of Dharmakaya, at least in structure). So I guess I am the strange theist on this one.

[mdsimpson92]

I have a problem with that as well. Largely because it has a sort of determinism that doesn't grind well with me and short of compatibalism, implies a possible lack of free will. But I am not a compatibalist, personally an indetermanist ala William James (or something like it haven't read the more recent ideas on it).

Though I am not a process theologian, their concept of a god that creates potentualities and allows us to reject or accept them has some appeal to me. But again that is only to the extent that it emphasizes freedom and cooperation and relation. Urbuild, please correct me if I am wrong.

Hopefully you will come to be an mdsimpsonist, eventually

This notion I put forward is not incompatible with free will. Actually it is the only compatible notion of God and free will that can exist. That is, if your God is all powerful, all knowing, intimately aware of all things, the pre-eternal source of all existence, and the post-eternal absolute. What can we do apart from that by our own selves? There is no power and no ability except with God.

But this process idea that you are putting forward; what makes it incompatible with what I said? We have to have two sets of language: the one for God and the one for our experience of God. Because it is also true that the one who takes one step towards God, God comes running towards him. The God of relation and cooperation is how we approach God, but what is our final approach? What is that God that we approach? It is the all powerful God.

What is your body? I don't mean in the existential sense, I mean in the physical sense. What is your body?

-sgtt

Ok, the way you were writing gave me the impression that we do not make the decision for ourselves, that it is God that directly decides our choices. I think you would like Tolstoy's theory on the philosophy of history very much.

mdsimpsonist hmm has a ring to it. Yes lets take Whitehead, Tillich and Spinoza, with a touch of Tolstoy and you get mdsimpsonism. Now all I need is a bloated bureaucracy to cause stagnation and a kickass hat and then I might just be able to rival the pope.

[A Hermit]

For the record Hermit, I am a Christian and I disagree with them. Individuals like Schopenhauer who are atheists definitely have a connection to the mystical. You could find it in some forms of Buddhism (though I think much of Mahayana is either pantheistic or panentheistic depending on their view of Dharmakaya, at least in structure). So I guess I am the strange theist on this one.

Not that strange. Comte-Sponville recounts a story about meeting a retired Catholic priest who had attended one of Sponville's talks on godless spirituality. The priest told him he had enjoyed the lecture and agreed with everything in it. Sponville thanked him, but expressed his surprise, since he had made it clear he didn't believe in God or the afterlife. "Oh" replied the priest, "those are such secondary matters." My Grandfather, A Mennonite preacher, would probably have agreed, so you're not alone.

Sadly in the minority perhaps...


Maybe I should start a thread on the humanity of atheists...

[mdsimpson92]

Feel free to I would gladly talk about it. Probably the one who convinced me would have to be Schopenhauer. Becuase more or less, he was definitely an atheist, and possibly a nihilist in many ways, but at the same time he showed such great respect to many of the religions (except Judaism, but well he was german in the 19th century). He also preached aescetics and selfless compassion towards all. Moreover, his metaphysical structure was based on a mix of Kantian and Neoplatonic philosophy that led to his concept of WILL. What I realised was that it has the same structure as my own panentheism and in fact he was influenced by the guy who created the term. My views on reality was so vaguely similar but also polar opposites.Anywho, that got me reading Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, some of the best prose I have read, though in Nietzsche's case I think he was a bit crazy until he really did become crazy.

Just curious, would you describe yourself as a humanist?

[Kane Augustus]

Maybe I should start a thread on the humanity of atheists...

Please do. Not only would I be interested in reading more of your thoughts (you're quite a lucid thinker), I'd also be interested in dealing more with sgttomas' disgusting view of nonbelievers.

[Kane Augustus]

No hate, mate. Do I discriminate? Doesn't truth distinguish?

You're an intelligent man. That much is evident from your posts. I'm going to assume that you understand hate can be rather subtle, and not necessarily a felt emotion so much as an underlying perception, yes? And I'm going to assume that you can reason that calling a human being anything other than a human being is derogatory, and therefore not a charitable way of interacting with the people who share the planet with you, yes? I'm sure you can reason, also, that divisive comments suggesting atheists are less than human because they lack god-consciousness may, in fact, only serve to cause repulsion from your own preferred religion? People who reason in such a way as to dehumanise others are like a headache: painful, and we can't wait until they go away.