tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post3899438620937844014..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: We are smart! The internet told us so!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-60891263462745610622014-11-16T01:48:12.074-06:002014-11-16T01:48:12.074-06:00"It is of a piece with the courage to have Da..."It is of a piece with the courage to have Dawkins on your nightstand."<br /><br />Or whether there's anything "alternate" about the bog-standard anti-theism of AlterNet (which I knew, w/o looking, would be the source of the Salon piece).JCFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14516376500318551838noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-44871462963758331082014-11-15T08:49:30.636-06:002014-11-15T08:49:30.636-06:00"Between the idea and the reality/Falls the s..."Between the idea and the reality/Falls the shadow."<br /><br />Or Lamont Cranston.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-69803309612335987362014-11-14T22:21:23.083-06:002014-11-14T22:21:23.083-06:00the more i look at it the less i like the 'def...the more i look at it the less i like the 'default' phrasing. there must be a word for someone who is influenced by something without being part of it directly and that's where i was trying to go<br /><br />odd how things make sense in your mind up to the point you say them out loudjim, some guy in iowahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16737929189283553013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-78631576018129045512014-11-14T18:39:54.751-06:002014-11-14T18:39:54.751-06:00Atheist outreach will be successful as GOP minorit...Atheist outreach will be successful as GOP minority outreach.ntoddhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01068160577299501895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-57239711749259410572014-11-14T13:17:27.662-06:002014-11-14T13:17:27.662-06:00It's funny how few people in comments at Salon...It's funny how few people in comments at Salon have picked up on that "atheist outreach" language.<br /><br />Such ideas usually prompt some hooting and throwing of feces from people who claim they are to "independent" to part of any group. Which makes them another group, of course....<br /><br />(Saw your post on this subject this morning. I'd call this synchronicity, except Salon and Marcotte can always be counted on for some clickbait on religion and atheism.)Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-26307906944300174282014-11-14T13:09:00.091-06:002014-11-14T13:09:00.091-06:00As you know, it was reading thousands of atheists,...As you know, it was reading thousands of atheists, online, many of the anonymous, being jerks, spouting nonsense, demonstrating that they were pig ignorant of science, mathematics, logic, history.... that made me look more critically at atheism and coming to some conclusions about atheism in intellectual and actual history. I have concluded that it is at most a very dangerous materialist monist belief system though, in its pop online version, it's merely a shallow, bigoted, lazy intellectual fad. <br /><br />I think most of the atheist outreach is to other atheists, to everyone else their idea of outreach is to flip humanity the bird. The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-7881774554122318112014-11-14T08:21:54.221-06:002014-11-14T08:21:54.221-06:00I skimmed right over that "atheist outreach&q...I skimmed right over that "atheist outreach" phrase. It is of a piece with the courage to have Dawkins on your nightstand. What's courageous about that, I don't understand; unless atheists are more akin to fundamentalists than they like to admit, since part of the identity of fundies has become being 'victims' of persecution by the world. Now the atheists apparently want some of that mojo.<br /><br />Faith is hard. That's one thing the on-line atheists I've encountered don't understand. Even Mother Teresa spent the bulk of her life in India trying to have one last mystical experience of Christ, and never getting it. Apparently it was her great secret torment.<br /><br />I wouldn't say she was Christian by default. But it does prove the truth of the old hymn: "The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife sown in the sod."Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-39373649390633898652014-11-14T07:45:52.588-06:002014-11-14T07:45:52.588-06:00the phrase "atheist outreach" started me...the phrase "atheist outreach" started me laughing. the whole thing is just another version of pick-and-choose, or cafeteria, (fill-in-the-faith). it always struck me that if you didn't need a god you didn't need a dawkins to create some sort of intellectual underpinnings for that, either. you just go on about your business<br /><br /> but i don't know- i'm one of those people you've written about before who are agnostic/apathetic on the god question. i have come to think of myself as a christian by default- not because of any active faith but because that was still the nature of the time and place in which i grew up. a lot of the people who influenced me in a good way then were actively religious. it would be dishonest of me to claim otherwisejim, some guy in iowahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16737929189283553013noreply@blogger.com