So is this how dumb our Christian stance sounds all the time? I hope not, but sadly, I know it probably does.
I heard a line recently. Someone talking about some beautiful paradise said, "It's better than heaven. There's no Christians there."
A friend of mine (I'm pretty sure he's a Christian, too) has a bumper sticker that says, "Lord, save me from your followers."
I understand these thoughts. Christians annoy me too (and I am one). Maybe it's just a certain type of Christian though that does. My faith isn't diminished I don't think, but I do feel different from these people. I love 'em and all still. I just feel like they're kind of retarded or hypnotized in a non-obvious cult-like daze.
On the other hand, Paul the Apostle talks about how God has chosen the foolish things in the world to confound the wise (Jesus' crucifixion being primary.)
There's always some kind of grand paradox that the universe seems to be playing. I'm sure if I ever became an atheist, I'd die and find out I was wrong. But as a Christian, I also have nagging doubts that this could all be some kind of grand historical mistake.
Its kind of like buying stocks. I'm almost always wrong. If I buy 'em I was wrong. If I don't buy 'em I was wrong.
Maybe I should be a Taoist.
I'm curious about the claims this atheist lady makes as to being able to sleep at night and be at peace with herself. That's along the lines of the same sales pitches Christian theology used to offer.
Funny... I don't feel at peace. Never have really. Is that really a side-effect of either Christianity or atheism? Or is it just a result of ceasing to argue with yourself?
Actually, most of the old testament prophets were pretty miserable. Elijah prayed to die. Jeremiah was a famous moaner-groaner. Most of them were isolated pessimists that everyone else hated. Only after they were long dead and gone were they praised or revered by anybody.
Except for Job. He actually got a bunch of material rewards again before he died. (But he did go through hell before that.)
i'm totally happy being an atheist.
ReplyDelete*shrugs shoulders*
what else is there to say beyond that?
I'm not frustrated. But I was a little condescending. I felt like you were being condescending and I sort of responded in kind. Can you not say the same (cheers for dad)? You sure seem full of something. If it ain't spite, I don't know what it is.
ReplyDeleteI feel like you're jumping to a lot of conclusions about me or how I raise my kids or what I believe about God or animals, but I think that is a big waste of a conversation since we'd just have to hang out for awhile to get back to square one on any of that. Or not. Either way, none of that matters, really. I'm a big idiot. A dope. I love killing baby seals and drinking their blood.
But I don't feel like you really answered my questions. Maybe it is b/c they were couched in an attempt to point out what seemed like logical fallacies in your rant (was it not a rant?). Those are muddled leaps you are making. You're essentially saying some "dolphiness" makes dolphins equally valuable as humans without defining what the core "value" is. The attacks on Christianity are a smoke screen to all that, but you never get back to what makes a dolphin as valuable as a chimp as a cockroach as a janitor. That's muddled, dude. And you're the clear Darwinian rational thinker here.
So, I'll try again:
Put aside anything about Christianity for a moment. Yeah, yeah. It's retarded. It's stupid. What I'm asking is what are you appealing to when you use words like "fraud" or "magnificent" or "ridiculous?" It would seem there is some universal constant behind your attack on religion for its wrongheadedness. Even if, say, we knew the "facts" of life beyond a shadow of a doubt, what is morally wrong with killing animals? Remember, you picked animals, not me. I'm not suggesting anything by this. I guess I'm asking you to expand on your beliefs a bit. It's easy to point out how ridiculous humans are in their idealogies no matter the source or solution. It seems difficult to get at what we ourselves believe.
So step out of the standard atheistic rant (Christians are evil and ruining the planet) and give me some of that clear thinking you keep going on about.
Or don't. I thought you'd avoid the Spanish conquests, but I guess it can't be helped. You'll take Mao's slaughter of 20 million + Stalin's slaughter of 16 million + Hitler's slaughter of ? million. Okey.
haha thanks for the level headed response. i've been working 36 on, 12 off for the past two weeks and right now i haven't slept for exactly 39 hours because we've had calls and crap these days. pretty sweet though i'm hungry for money because i'm about to cut n' run out of this shithole.
ReplyDeletethis isn't a cop out but nothing i've written has been well thought out or anything really beyond unproofread rantings. sure i'm trying to blow through alot of my beliefs in a few paragraphs but well i don't know how to say it but i'm not all here and with even less time to articulate what is. hard to pinpoint what it's like.
anyway i'm going to crash out for the nite and finally have 12 hours to crash all day tomorrow so when i get back to work i'll start again on the tangent i was going on.
i do love dolphins though i got to swim with some. later.
I love dolphins, too. Freaking dolphins. I took the fam to Mexico last summer and we got to swim with some at an "eco" park down near Playa del Carmen. I asked them for the meaning of life, but one of them stuck a flipper in my face so it came out kind of garbled.
ReplyDeletethe love experiment:
ReplyDeletea baby monkey is put into a cage and given a device to replace its mother. The device changes temperature from extreme heat to massive cold. Sometimes so cold it will freeze its skin and sometimes so hot it will burn the skin. Then these copper spikes flick out and jab into the monkey to make it go away and sit in a corner. The baby monkey dies a couple of months later. They say from heart-break.
is it not a better value to have compassion for ALL thinking and feeling life? if it's obvious that the animal suffers and at the same time is fully self aware of its own life then how is it different from people when it comes to the right to life?
you throw around cockroaches with pigs but a pig is clearly self-aware to the point of being a needing piglet to a nurturing mother. or you can teach it to do as many tricks as a dog. if you went to korea would it bother you to eat dog? it's perfectly normal to them.
So then two more questions:
ReplyDeleteIs self-awareness the same thing as "thinking and feeling?" I mean where do you say that a decision to scurry this way as opposed to that way isn't thinking? Do we know for sure that a cockroach doesn't feel? Have we "studied" them enough? Why not take it a step further and define feeling as sensations and therefore the cockroach feels? I'm not being silly to justify killing or not killing. I'm just saying that, for me, the "thinking and feeling" seems open to a vast interpretation (i.e. you could still pretty much justify whatever you want along those lines...either campaigning against the holocaust of insects or defining it upwards to self-awareness and therefore more "human-like" traits, which is what I think you're leaning towards...the more they act like us, etc.).
Given that self-awareness (or thinking/feeling) seems to be the reason not to kill something...why? In your beliefs, what about self-awareness is more important than, say, hair color? Again, take the question at face value. I'm not being dumb here. You're still implying a universal constant or a shared notion of moral correctness in your appeals. Needing piglet. Nurturing mother. You're clearly appealing to human behaviors and then saying, see, they are like us, therefore we shouldn't kill them. But why shouldn't we kill them and ourselves? What is the moral reason why we shouldn't kill? Here's your answer (as far as I can tell) so far: We shouldn't kill animals b/c they are more like us than we realize. But that clearly points out there is a "shouldn't." What's behind the "shouldn't?"
Possible answers for #2:
1. It's just wrong. There's not a universal rational reason I can give you. We just know certain things are wrong. More attacking Christianity and its stupid reasons for not killing and the hypocrisy of Christ dying for people who go on to kill other people, etc. (problem: Still implies something other than pure biological stimulus/response and brain as AI zeros/ones. What is that something?).
2. Self-preservation. We need animals and each other to survive and survival is the ultimate goal of mankind (until, of course, we die). (problem: I don't necessarily need you or the kid down the street or his dad. In fact, the dad's weak and he's probably going to cost me a shit ton in health care bills when he goes into the hospital at age 60. Survival involves killing. Nature has worked this out. Why can't we?)
Other misc. stumbling blocks and confessions:
I ate a horse when I was in Japan.
I killed a dog once.
The Japanese, a Buddhist/Shinto culture (i.e. non-Christian) are probably single-handedly responsible for strip-mining the Pacific ocean of fish. Does that mean Buddhism is wrong?
I certainly didn't want to get off in the weeds of Hitler or evils of Christianity or evils of atheism, but that's where I ended up, I guess.
ReplyDeleteMy core question was basically this:
Given that Mr. Anon B. does not believe in God, but believes there is some inherent value in animals which should prevent us from killing them, what is that inherent value?
I tried to give some answers or prop up his argument where it made some sense, but, I also am putting words in his mouth as he is mine, ad nauseum. I don't have a core proposition. I just had a question. It seems to me that I always get the atheists (several of my friends are atheists so don't think I'm bashing them) who want to attack Christianity, but I always want to ask (a la Percy), what are you selling? It seems to me that it is elephants all the way down, but I'm willing to hear it.
I'll jump over to your new blog post to follow up.
Hopefully no hard feelings. I do enjoy prodding and poking, but also get carried away at times.
Jrudld write more, thanks.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
ReplyDeleteNice Article.
ReplyDeletePlease write anything else!
ReplyDeleteHello all!
ReplyDeleteactually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
ReplyDeleteThanks to author.
ReplyDeleteNice Article.
ReplyDeleteThanks to author.
ReplyDeleteNice Article.
ReplyDeleteMagnific!
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog.
ReplyDeleteactually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog.
ReplyDeleteFriends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies
ReplyDelete640K ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates 81
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeleteBuild a watch in 179 easy steps - by C. Forsberg.
ReplyDeleteA flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
ReplyDeleteOops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a will, I want to be in it.
ReplyDeleteBuild a watch in 179 easy steps - by C. Forsberg.
ReplyDeleteCalvin, we will not have an anatomically correct snowman!
ReplyDeleteOops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
ReplyDelete640K ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates 81
ReplyDeleteBeam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a will, I want to be in it.
ReplyDeleteC++ should have been called B
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeleteFriends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeleteHello all!
ReplyDeleteEver notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
ReplyDeleteThanks to author.
ReplyDeleteMagnific!
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a will, I want to be in it.
ReplyDeleteThe gene pool could use a little chlorine.
ReplyDeleteBeam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
ReplyDeleteNice Article.
ReplyDeleteThanks to author.
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a will, I want to be in it.
ReplyDeleteBeam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
ReplyDeleteOops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
ReplyDeleteOops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
ReplyDeleteOops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
ReplyDeleteClap on! , Clap off! clap@#&$NO CARRIER
ReplyDeleteWhat is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
ReplyDeleteHello all!
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeleteNice Article.
ReplyDeleteSave the whales, collect the whole set
ReplyDeleteSuicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
ReplyDeleteEnergizer Bunny Arrested! Charged with battery.
ReplyDeleteEver notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
ReplyDeleteAll generalizations are false, including this one.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a will, I want to be in it.
ReplyDeleteA flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeletePlease write anything else!
ReplyDeleteThe gene pool could use a little chlorine.
ReplyDeleteSuicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
ReplyDeleteLottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
ReplyDeleteIf ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.
ReplyDelete