“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
— Albert Einstein
“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
— Bertrand Russell
“They said God was on high and he controlled the world and therefore we must pray against Satan. Well, if God controls the world, he controls Satan. For me, religion was full of misstatements and reaches of logic that I just couldn’t agree with.”
— Gene Roddenberry
I know how tough it may be to leave a community behind. You’re hated or at best simply excluded from social affairs. You become an ‘unperson’, where those you’ve known for years pass you in the store while looking away.
Truth is a lonely companion.
But this one companion is worth more than all the gold in all the world. You no longer have to lie and pretend to believe in that which to you is childish nonsense. It is as if you are re-born…as a man…a man who stands naked and alone. You stand alone as if on a mountain top but this time you enter the world unfettered.
Here is reality, here is truth…and with my mind ALONE, I shall conquer.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Did you make it to the reason rally?[/quote]
I don’t need the presence of others.
"I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of manâ??s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a manâ??s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.â??
â?? Ayn Rand, Anthem
“Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all… I personally resent it bitterly.” ~Isaac Asimov
Einstein was a theist, he just didn’t believe in a ‘personal’ god. Neither do I for that matter, there is just God, not a kind of God. But if you are going to make a thread celebrating atheism, which is weird since atheists perpetually claim is a lack of belief, not a belief, then you should quote atheists. Einstein may not have practiced a religion, but in God he did believe.
[quote]pat wrote:
Einstein was a theist, he just didn’t believe in a ‘personal’ god. Neither do I for that matter, there is just God, not a kind of God. But if you are going to make a thread celebrating atheism, which is weird since atheists perpetually claim is a lack of belief, not a belief, then you should quote atheists. Einstein may not have practiced a religion, but in God he did believe. [/quote]
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
— Albert Einstein
[/quote]
Sympathy (except perhaps among “friends,” i.e., those you deem worthy of friendship) was condemned by Rand. Are you able to demonstrate that Einstein’s definition of sympathy and view of sympathy’s limits were identical to Rand’s, or are you as a poor a reader of secular texts as you are of religious ones?
[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you state in another thread that you believed in God, but just hated religion?
CS[/quote]
Of course. But I don’t know the term for someone who believes in a Spinozist type god but not the Christian one.
[/quote]
A monistic pantheist.[/quote]
That sounds like some kind of a fairy, like a gay monk. How about ‘atheist with reservations’?
[/quote]What is it with you man? You say you have all this philosophical education and you don’t know what monism and pantheism are? I have no education and I knew what both of those things are. I’m not calling you a liar (I’m really not), but that does appear a bit odd. How many more self comforting threads are you gonna start before you tell me how you know it was God who spoke to you? Or how you know Spinoza’s God is real for that matter? He must have been the impersonal… whatever that SPOKE to you right? A speaking non person? And you make funna me?
[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you state in another thread that you believed in God, but just hated religion?
CS[/quote]
Of course. But I don’t know the term for someone who believes in a Spinozist type god but not the Christian one.
[/quote]
Wouldn’t Deism be closest? Also I think Spinozism is an actual term but most won’t know what that means.[/quote]
Spinoza believed that everything was God, God was like the cosmos. From what I can remember his beliefs were more in line with Hinduism than Christianity or Judaism (he was Jewish). A little difficult to explain, god wouldn’t be in mans image and probably doesn’t deliberate because everything is already within itself. I forget what it’s called but if you read the Hindi story of creation, that is the sort of god Spinoza had in mind (if I remember right)
A deist, and this is a very general description, is someone who believes God did everything and got the world set in motion, and is just sitting back letting the world do it’s thing. Not necessarily a heaven or afterlife, just got the ball rolling.
Einstein was on record saying he believed in a spinizistic god which is a little more specific than deism which is more over-arching. I think spinozism can be categorized as a form of deism or something close to it.
But, for those into atheism… I think you should check out Alvin Plantinga. He’s probably the most intelligent Catholic alive, I have a great deal of respect for him. Very humble, soft spoken, accomplished and brilliant.
[quote]pat wrote:
Einstein was a theist, he just didn’t believe in a ‘personal’ god. Neither do I for that matter, there is just God, not a kind of God. But if you are going to make a thread celebrating atheism, which is weird since atheists perpetually claim is a lack of belief, not a belief, then you should quote atheists. Einstein may not have practiced a religion, but in God he did believe. [/quote]
You’re a Catholic, you believe in a personal God.
Enough with the half truths or outright lies pat.[/quote]
Incorrect. I am not a kind of pat, I am just pat, there is not a kind of God, there is just God. Whether or not you can know him is debatable, but the fact that he’s not personalized, isn’t a question. If I could personalize him, I throw on some DUB’s, a pair of JL 12’s and put a 572 big block under the hood with curb feelers and a chain steering wheel.
