Jonathan H. B. Lobl

Nuance does get lost.

The lunatic fringe has a lunatic fringe. The crazies think this group is nuts.

My apologies. I will always be pleased to hear from you.

You were right. Dan's provocations have lost all trace of subtlety. Still, it seems an odd strategy. There are no moderators around to kick us off. Even if there were..... then what? He inherits what's left of this broken board. As far as I'm concerned, he can have it. If you want to chat, or Key, I'm here for you. Otherwise, consider me gone.

Just to be clear -- like Adam -- you have the power to name things. You name something a philosophy. Poof. It's a philosophy. This is not an exchange. This is you making up the rules as you go along. I'm done here.

Oh, yea of excess faith. I had plenty of belief in the supernatural when I was younger. I grew up.

It would be more accurate, to say that Atheists have the values of the society they grew up with. This is indeed fortunate. You won't find a secular society, anywhere, that permits slavery. What a pity, that neither the Bible nor the Koran, forbids owning people as property.

1. Maybe. I have been coming to the conclusion, that Dan can not understand any position except his own. Since Dan is never wrong about anything -- it follows that Dan must correct the error. Not actually stupid, but very rigid. 2. You're making this too complicated. If I believe that God authored the Bible, then morality is objective. If I know that people produced the Bible -- many people, with various motives, over vast periods of time -- then morality is subjective. 3. Keep it simple. If it were God, Scripture would contain information that people didn't have at that time. Look at the Cosmology in Genesis. Well? Genesis was produced by people who didn't know where the Sun goes at night. Don't you wish that you were "spiritual"? 4. I'm waiting to see if Kingfisher has anything else to say. Fair is fair. He came in late.

Because Dan's world outlook is so stiff and rigid, that he can't bend on anything. Only break. Grass bends. Trees break.

1. There are lots of things that I don't accept, due to a lack of evidence. A small sampling would include: Green Elephants on Mars; the Lochnes Monster; Unicorns; Elves; Bigfoot;; etc. Oh, yes. Your God. It's not so much disbelief. I need a reason to believe. Or even take a proposition seriously. 2. Still? Alright. One more time. Atheists have morals. It is Atheism that does not involve morals, one way or another. Neither does Math. Neither does physics. 3. Unicorns also can't be disproven. Does that make A-Unicornism an unproven philosophy? 4. Mythology is about the stories of gods of other people. The Greek gods are mythology, to me, because they are not my gods. The Norse gods are mythology, to me, because they are not my gods. Guess what? The Christian God is also not my God. That makes it mythology, to me. As a matter of personal preference, I find the stories about the Norse gods, to be much more interesting, than the Bible stories. 5. In what way is Atheism a philosophy? You still can't understand something that simple? Non-belief due to non-evidence is not philosophy. I don't know why you persist in trying to bait me. This time, it failed.

Balance and unity? Then stop trying to force everybody into one of two boxes.

1. Atheism is not a philosophy. It isn't even a conclusion. It is non-belief on one point, due to a lack of evidence. There is nothing to distill. Perhaps by distill, you mean turning water into fruit juice? 2. In 1954, Under God was inserted into The Pledge of Allegiance, in order to distinguish between "God fearing" Americans and "Godless Commies". Then you come along and "distill" Atheism into dialectic materialism. Yes. I called that shameful and dirty, because my first response seemed inappropriate. You don't want to know what my first response was. I toned it down out of civility. Tarnish your own image, if you must. Atheism is still recovering from the Cold War. 3. I have no reason to insert myself into a dialog, between and among Christians. Christians can have that conversation without me. 4. Perhaps, you have missed my interactions with Dan. I don't care what other people believe. What gets me bent out of shape, is when the pious insist on misrepresenting Atheism; into something that it's not. For instance, dialectic materialism. Or Philosophy. Or a system of morals. Or answers to the countless questions that have nothing to do with Atheism. 5. Atheism and Christianity are not a binary. There are other options. Small wonder that the Pagans -- and others -- have gone silent on this board. 6. It's not my place to say this. Still, I do have Catholic friends. Catholics don't enjoy being called Papists. Is this your idea of being open minded? Or respectful of difference? 7. Perhaps I have you confused with someone else. Are you not, the individual who was pressing me on the subject of Objective Morals? That's right. You're here to bring accord.

Alright. You wish to speak directly to me? You were the individual who -- out of nowhere -- attempted to conflate dialectic materialism with Atheism. It set off my BS detector. Did I misread something?

It's like turning on the television for the "fresh, new season". What do I see? Things that were old when they happened on "Make room for Daddy" with Danny Thomas. Or on I love Lucy. Or the Flintstones. Or the Jetsons. Or the Honeymooners. Always like it's the first time. I can't sustain the excitement.

It's nice to enjoy working. Some people would rather watch the tide.

People with an income get to sit and watch the wheels. Others get to get a job and work when they don't want to.

My concern is not for name and fame. It's pension. It's nice to have the food I want, instead of the food in my budget. It's nice to have the more comfortable shoes. In lots of little things, money does make a difference. Losing a pension is not the same as death. It is so many loses. Like being drained by countless mosquitoes. It is the little things that make life endurable. Young people like to have fantasies, about giving their all for a noble cause. Some of us are old enough to think -- Now what?

I've been around for a while. Long enough to see the pious, unload their standard dirty tricks. The next step is to accuse Atheists of genocide -- because look at Stalin, Marx and Pol Pot. Dirty, dirty and tedious. I can smell the same sort of crap, when they talk about "objective morals". There's no novelty in any of it. Always, the same dirty tricks. Stick around. The scent is unmistakable. The Cosmological arguments. The utterly irrelevant attacks on evolution. Pascal's Wager. Oh look! Trees! The Watchmaker Argument. Kalaam. Variants of First Cause, etc. The thing is, they always act like they just had this great idea. For the first time. Again.

Years ago, in New York City, there was -- "The Process Church of the Final Judgement". They wore crosses with a serpent wrapped around them. Fun times. Novel teachings

Since you have chosen to pursue the matter, let us look at the cultural context. Every time I have ever encountered "dialectic materialism" was in the context of Marxist, Soviet Communism. In America, it is common among the ignorant to confuse Communism and Atheism, as the same. No. They are not the same. For what ever dirty and shameful reason -- Kingfisher has decided to bring back the old canard -- and conflate Communism with Atheism. I won't have it.

If we are going to cite philosophy in the abstract; we can also consider the Buddhist teachings on loss. All things are transitory. All things pass. When we cling to the transitory, we suffer. In the abstract, it all makes great sense. But I am neither a rock nor a Buddha. Most of us are not. We are weak and we have needs. Human needs. If it were easy to live up to our highest principles, everybody would. We can also cite the wisdom of Jesus. "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he lose his soul?"

" So which of us has the authority to say, "What I believe, is "right' for all of the rest of you." ?" You're putting your words into my mouth, as though they were my own. It's very irritating and it's a lie.

It takes courage to endanger a pension. American society will forgive almost anything but being poor. Life without principles is an awful thing. My only point is that living by those principles, can have an awful cost. There are reasons, why lesser men sell out. Understandable reasons. There is another set of costs. It's a tough thing to become a Methodist Minister. The preparation is severe. It requires a profound commitment. Years of study and internship. To go through all that, in order to become a Methodist Minister -- and then lose all that -- to see the denomination split ---- I won't even pretend that I understand such a loss. It is not a small thing.