Question For Athiests

Sorry Jayson to have you talk about yourself only to get abuse from VOotW.

:confusion-shrug:

I have a friend that lives in Palmer. Next door to Wasilla. He hasn’t met Sarah, but has friends that know her personally. So it’s not a stretch that Jayson in Wasilla would know Sarah Palin. It’s a small town. Prolly everybody knows everybody. And to ask is not abuse.

Get the knot outta yer knickers bro Hobbes.

Wasilla isn’t small enough to know everyone; it’s a population of 60,000+ and climbing (it was around 20 to 30 thousand at the turn of the century; Anchorage running out of housing space caused a population boom. About half of our population commutes to Anchorage for work).

But no, I don’t know Palin.
I’m also not a very good “Alaskan” in the sense of hard-core republican (the stereotype for this area [which isn’t exactly accurate, but meh]). I’m more someone that makes more sense to live in Oregon or Washington.
I never really knew Palin that much politically either; she was barely in office here before she jumped to the big stage and started talking crazy; I wouldn’t be comfortable around someone like her.

I also hate Wasilla; this isn’t my homeland. This is a wasteland, like some strange transplant from the middle of Arizona into Alaska and some trees tossed in for camouflage.
I’m from Kodiak originally, so my concept of what a beautiful place looks like are pretty spoiled.

Thanks for being so open Jayson.

BTW - Wiki puts the population of Wasilla at just over 7,000 … but does say that it’s : “part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 364,701.”

Yeah; it’s numbers are off.
You can discern how off it is by just running a google maps search of Wasilla and looking at the footprint of housing. :wink:

A huge amount of people in Wasilla aren’t registered as “Wasillians” due to it only being 60 miles away from Anchorage and that they do everything else in Anchorage.

Like I said; it’s a wasteland. A false town; living like a parasite off of Anchorage.

Probably only a “spiritual gypsy” would understand this.

I was born in England and moved with my parents to Devon at the age of two. During that time I went through the normal rural C of E upbringing, however this was questioned deeply by my father after an accident in an amphibian vehicle in which his whole crew died. Our family went to Malaya when I was eight years old and I was confronted with Buddhism and Asiatic Islam in the local villages because of close ties with our “Alma” called Madeleine, but also with the typical army clerics who my father rejected outright. He was a very adamant atheist – I was fascinated by the religious aspect of life because it was so foreign to me.

After returning to England at 11 and an upheaval due to domestic problems, I got to know my great-aunt better who was a loveable Methodist and had a patience I have seldom found in people. I found out that my great-grandfather had been a Methodist preacher (years later I received the old King James family Bible) and I learnt many of the songs of praise which they sang – much to the disgust of my father. However, he tried to stay open and we went back to Devon, where the rural Anglicans had me interested again, but only marginally, since other things were becoming more interesting.

I went to a school where english literature was being taught by means of enactment and history was being taught with a focus on the everyday lives of people in the day, rather than based on the reign of kings and queens. Also “classical” music was added to the curriculum and, although I never learnt to play an instrument, I was enthralled and caught up in a creative wave which again, had my father frustrated, because his boy was going to be an actor – or worse, a dancer!

After returning to my birthplace there was a distinct break with this development, but I still went on to write and draw on reams of paper, dance trough the room to “classical” music and was so caught up in my creative diarrhoea, that I had to “skive” school and run off into the nearby countryside to soak in nature and find expression for the many churning emotions in me. I was even taken to the school psychologist, afraid that I was “queer” in some terrible way, but my parents were told (as I later learnt) that I was bored with school and needed more advancement of a different kind. This was, unfortunately, beyond the means of my parents and I ended up being pushed in a different direction.

I tried to join the Navy at sixteen, which was more of a romantic flight than anything else, and my father successfully hindered it, but finally at eighteen I joined the army – also not my world, but a door to the world. I even tried to join the Intelligence Corp, which was a bit of a joke, because I ended up becoming a Recovery Mechanic, a more laborious task but, because over many years since Malaya I had been an ardent swimmer and rugby player, I was physically up to it. Of course someone like me wasn’t made for the army – I laughed at their games, especially when they were so serious about it, and so I was deemed “immature” and often found myself on fatigues.

I was sent to Germany, where I was at first welcomed but then found to be a “bad influence” and my writings and drawings were confiscated and I was punished with extra duties. On exercise I was once ask by a Major with whom I had radio-watch, “what the hell I was doing in the army”, and we had a fine time discussing literature and the arts in general. But active service changed a lot of that, although here too, I couldn’t take the whole thing seriously – and I’m glad the enemy didn’t take me seriously either.

Finally, at twenty-two I married a German girl, with whom I have been through the ups and downs of life since. When I left the army, I met old acquaintances of my service who unanimously told me they were glad to see me out of the service. I didn’t only leave the army, I became a completely different, bushy haired, bearded and very alternative person, who immediately was taken to be some drop-out or art student – although at the time I was driving big trucks.

I then found a booklet in German on a pile of rubble which had a title that appealed to me, “Foreigner by order” (my translation), which was about Abrahams call to find “a land which I will show you” and I was deeply inspired by the little thing. I went off looking for a Christianity with this kind of expressionism and for a short time found it amongst Pietists, but it became very clear that I wasn’t the musty kind of Christian who also enjoyed such expressionism. My escapades put me up front and made a lay-preacher (like my great-grandfather) – which seemed to give the mouldy old chapel building a new lease of life for a while, but I soon came into conflict with evangelicalism, which was progressing through the pietistic lay movement.

In the meanwhile I had taken training in geriatric care and found myself leading a ward and having a good time. My antics were welcomed amongst the old people and because I was also a good nurse, I was given responsibility. The Catholic management even included me in meetings concerning church-services and spiritual counselling.

The Protestants welcomed me too, and I even became an elder of the church, but the conflicts within the church made my expressionistic heart dark and sad. After twenty years I had to leave. Since then I have been a bit a spiritual nomad, but everywhere I have worked, I was (and am) able to encourage spirituality of the kind the people were accustomed to. Most of the time they have also accepted my “interpretation” and way of expression, since I have always been inclusive by character (probably from my mother, who encouraged contact with “immigrants” at a time when Enoch Powell had a lot of support).

I think that this shows that a lot of my spirituality (which I have often seen as equal to inspiration) has come from books, whether artistic literature or devotional, but has been lacking in dogma. This seems to me to be the big question when regarding our living as a collective. Dogma is the dangerous aspect, which I had to ignore when working with the old and those in need of care. It seems to me that it is much more a question of what moral standards I have set myself and whether my actions are appropriate and in accordance with them, rather than where the standards come from.

I may be wrong, but “it works for me!” :wink: :astonished:

You are of course entitled to your belife that this is simply a version of Pascal’s wager but you have no evidence.

Why is it so hard for an atheist to belive that there are different ideas of what it means to be a follower of Christ? You seem to be defending the fundamentalists more even than they themselves do… Do you really think that up until the 19th century that everyone held to the literalist belife? I think if you look deeper you will see that the earliest forms of Chrsitianity found most biblical definition metaphorical. As was the tradition in those times. I am confused as to your motivation in leading this conversation down this particular path, have I offended you or criticised your beliefs?

Response in Blue

Life is simply a form of energy and energy cannot be destroyed. The Buddhist believe that we should not question what happens after death because there is no way of knowing. Coming up with an answer to something, we as mankind, have no capabilities of figuring out is absolutely preposterous. There is no true answer, and once you come to accept that death doesn’t seem as scary. I am not afraid of death because death is unknown to us. It is hard but to not be afraid of the unknown, it goes against human nature. But once you accept that no one will ever know what happens after death, it can help you become fearless.

The personality is a specific configuration of matter and energy in a physical matrix individual to each person. When death occurs the uniqueness that is YOU, dissipates forever, never to be reconstituted.
When you die you are dead and gone. And it is the act of a sorry person scared of death and their utter end that invents ideas that make them feel they are worthy of eternity.

I agree, eternity if it is possible is obtained only in what you do in life, and what people remember you for afterwards, if you are going to live on, it will only be because you were Achiles or Julius Caesar, or Gandhi, or Martin Luther King or whatever, your only chance at eternal life is to be remembered as an example to those who follow you. You die you rot in the ground, your legacy is all you have, make it a good one, no one wants to be forgotten because they were a massive incorigable forgettable asshole. Well no one worth caring about anyway. :slight_smile:

Although I think that this particular subject is taking the thread off course, I will still react to your statement.

I think that it is sensible to live as if you were going to live on. This is because, when you die, you do so in the manner which you have lived and the baggage you have collected during your lifetime is what influences how you die. I have seen it many times and just presently in my mother-in-law. That is why the attitude is so important, which is the way you will deal with whatever comes your way. Equanimity, compassion and mindfulness help us die peacefully, and so they are the attributes we should seek - or perhaps allow. It may be a wager, but it seems to have benefits in this life as much as in a (possible-impossible) afterlife.

This is of course palpably false. People die in all sorts of ways unconnected to their ways of life.
Evil people live long, the good die young, and vice versa.
Also people who live healthily can die young, and those that abuse the temple of their body can carry on rocking. I just saw Keith Richards jamming away with the Stones; average age 71. Keith is renowned for putting it away, whilst Jaqueline Du Pre, his contemporary lived a virtuous life but died in 1987 of MS.

I’m not saying you can’t improve your chances with healthy eating, but in terms of social and moral responsibility, or “attitude” it makes not a jot of difference to how and when you die. SO much is obvious.

Many compassionate, loving and mindful people die violent and tragic deaths.

You can dream on as much as you like. But there is not indication that there is a judge to determine what may or may not happen when you die. You seemed to have sucked up the biggest myth out there.

Once again, HC, you have completely missed the point - and you are talking out of your … Back on the ignore list … :-"

“Talking out of your …” is not different from saying “talking out of your arse.”
Is that the best you can do to defend your position?
You do yourself no favours. You just look weak.
What is most amusing about your attitude, is that I am RIGHT ON the “point”, and that is why you are running away - running from yourself.

yeah but I think the afterlife is a delusion, so living as if you were going to benefit somehow from something that isn’t going to happen is pointless. I think atheists say it best, you can hope for an afterlife if you like, but if you don’t get one, perhaps you were missing the implaccable grandeur of this life. Paraphrasing Camus there; I’d rather imgine personally and it is my own opinion that I am going to die, and the only thing that will live on is what I did in this world, the mentallity makes me try harder in this life I think. If I am wrong of course, it’s win, and if I am right it’s win in what I try to achieve without expectation. It just seems win all round. :slight_smile:

Taking a thread off course is win too, some threads need some life. :slight_smile:

Thanks, but again, “living as if you were going to benefit somehow from something that isn’t going to happen is pointless” is exactly where you are missing the point. My observations whilst nursing untold numbers of dying people is that, regardless whether there is a life after death, dying in a bed is where I can benefit from the way I have lived. Unless you have done this any amount of times you may miss this point. Even my wife can only see that it is sad and terrible and all the other things people feel about the death process, but she did agree, that her mother is dying in the way she lived, just as I had said in the many other times when she wasn’t emotionally involved.

Just as an aside, have you seen the cartoon of the ecologist meeting, talking about climate change where the caption say’s, “What if this is all a hoax and we improve the quality of the air, of the water and the land for nothing!” The cartoon makes us laugh, because improving the environment is a goal unto itself, just as the life with the qualities I mentioned is.

Despite what I think about the conservative beliefs, I have seen people from these churches die in a remarkable peace, and I believe that this is the measure of piety, not how literally they take the Bible or how well they can quote it. If they fall into oblivion, it isn’t as though they will know anything … at they same time, if they have lived good lives, they have profited and helped others profit from them having lived.

No one is qualified to disagree with you, eh?
Yet you have not died, and are equally unqualified.
When you die - then come back and shout about who can and cannot know what the point is.
For me, I’ve been in that bed. But I suppose for you, I don’t count.

Religion helps us cope with death better, well ok, coping with the inevitable is not high up on my list of priorities though.

Of course atheists will have lead murderous rapacious satieted lives of excess helping only themselves in an orgiastic indulgence of hedonism. Christians are always so patronising about how much better it is to be religious than not, how it means you are just a better person all round and real good egg, and then you get a happy house in the sky with the beardy fellow 'cause you are so great. It’s a pity they are only looking at it from their point of view. The more interesting religious people I have met lost faith, and probably realise how they sounded to others now, the same could be true in reverse too. It reminds me a bit of the episode of Southpark where they started by hybrids and it started causing toxic amounts of smug to build up in the atmosphere. I am sure you don’t mean to come off sounding smug, but you do.

What you have really outlined in this whole post is it makes no difference what you believe as long as it makes you happy, and you are a good person, just as my logic is good, yours for the believer is also reasonable. In essence it’s all good, believe what you want, which is probably not how you see it, but then I suspect you lack perspective of others views.

OK, that is your choice - perhaps you’ll have different priorities when you are older.

That wasn’t the point of what I posted. If you would read carefully:

Having indicated that I have (sceptical) thoughts about conservative beliefs, I mentioned only that I felt that a measure of piety could be seen in the way people die, rather than the conventional way people measure piety. Instead of reading this, you dash off in a list of ideas you have stored up in a drawer somewhere and pour them out on me.

Which means …???