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Well that may have sounded like I meant that we are here to communicate with the likes of Mario, but I didn’t mean that at all. Like Jezuz_A had indicated, it’s because of religious nuttery that we have been gathered into this site, that’s all I meant to convey.
Ah ...
Fair enough - makes sense.
can zen - 21 December 2011 09:14 AM
Also, I’m a bit like saralynn in that I sometimes sense that there’s significantly intelligent being there (in Mario) who has been literally hijacked by a stupid childhood delusion. I have on dozens of occasions promised myself that I will quit responding, but then almost instinctively I see some glimmer of hope in something he says and I want to see if that can part the curtain of supernaturalism and let him see the light. Of course when he responds I understand that I myself was delusional in the hope that my silly words could lead him “out of the wilderness.” The only way to get to someone like Mario is to be greater than his idea of what god is in the first place, and obviously that’s not possible.
I see the same things (less often, I’m sure, because I mostly just catch a BM quote here and there kinda-almost by accident), but it sounds like trying to revive a patient with definitive signs of death (dependent lividity, rigor mortis ... cranial detachment) simply because some cardiac and cerebral tissue is still alive (maybe there’s a random blip on an EEG or EKG or some nervous muscle activity or something). Or for a more dramatic, familiar example (which will likely backfire for me with some), is this not kinda like presuming Terri Schiavo wasn’t in a persistent vegetative state because her brain and body could still react more or less appropriately in simple ways to certain simple stimuli (note that I’m not raising the issue of how to deal with such a patient, only the technical diagnosis)?
Well that may have sounded like I meant that we are here to communicate with the likes of Mario, but I didn’t mean that at all. Like Jezuz_A had indicated, it’s because of religious nuttery that we have been gathered into this site, that’s all I meant to convey.
Ah ...
Fair enough - makes sense.
can zen - 21 December 2011 09:14 AM
Also, I’m a bit like saralynn in that I sometimes sense that there’s significantly intelligent being there (in Mario) who has been literally hijacked by a stupid childhood delusion. I have on dozens of occasions promised myself that I will quit responding, but then almost instinctively I see some glimmer of hope in something he says and I want to see if that can part the curtain of supernaturalism and let him see the light. Of course when he responds I understand that I myself was delusional in the hope that my silly words could lead him “out of the wilderness.” The only way to get to someone like Mario is to be greater than his idea of what god is in the first place, and obviously that’s not possible.
I see the same things (less often, I’m sure, because I mostly just catch a BM quote here and there kinda-almost by accident), but it sounds like trying to revive a patient with definitive signs of death (dependent lividity, rigor mortis ... cranial detachment) simply because some cardiac and cerebral tissue is still alive (maybe there’s a random blip on an EEG or EKG or some nervous muscle activity or something). Or for a more dramatic, familiar example (which will likely backfire for me with some), is this not kinda like presuming Terri Schiavo wasn’t in a persistent vegetative state because her brain and body could still react more or less appropriately in simple ways to certain simple stimuli (note that I’m not raising the issue of how to deal with such a patient, only the technical diagnosis)?
I have this weird theory that it is in fact the fanatics who visit these forums who are the closest to being liberated from the metaphysics. While those who come here are obviously very vocal and often fanatic in their views. I can’t help but feel that the act of coming to a forum like this is a sort of cry for help. Someone really secure in their beliefs would not need to seek us out to argue with us in our home arena. I think they long for the arguments, and for intellectualism and they can’t find that with their peers. So they come here because even though they don’t share our beliefs about the universe they know we are more likely to bring out challenging arguments. Like a criminal who returns to the scene of the crime because of a deep desire to get caught, to be free of being on the run and always in doubt. Mario and the others are without knowing it seeking out the challenging arguments because of a deep desire to be free of all of the burdens that the slavery to a dogma brings, a hope that just maybe someone will hand them that argument that breaks them out of it.
It is the religious people who do not seek out the battles that I feel are the furthest from reason. They really can’t be touched.
No, SkepticX, it’s not just you. BM is an unapologetically dishonest demogogue, and I refuse to engage someone who will willfully and purposefully lie about what he knows.
I meant the “interesting for maybe about five minutes” part.
About five minutes is all it took for BM to initially demonstrate his complete disregard for honesty, and thus when he ceased to be interesting to me. Surprisingly, he did it while addressing topics unrelated to theism. Go figure.
Ahh ... free speech of the likes of Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church intruding on the solemn burial of ones sacrificed son with loud chants and rants and signs. Mario got his 15 minutes here. Since when is being silent and to ignore the answer for Atheists? It’s just plain crass and rude were one of us to infiltrate a Christian site with the same purpose and practice for Mario’s presence here. It’s the person of Mario that is so reprehensible not that he is here as a Christian or expressing Christian views. That’s all I’m saying. In a way, I have to feel sorry for him, he is a very sick person, not simply for his beliefs, but for how he’s chosen to exercise them. Personally, I’m not so sure that he is so harmless (not to us here but to others). He is for Atheists here as a bigot is for Blacks or a homophobe is for Gays. He is definitely a troll. I hope the word doesn’t get out to others that this site is troll tolerant. But I suppose by its nature and the works of Harris that it will attract some screwballs and wannabes who are the antithesis of its aims, many so-called Atheists themselves, we’ve certainly seen them come and go. It just bothers me that they feel comfortable enough to call the place their permanent home. That’s the two-tiered pleasure of Mario, that he can be here in the first place, and that he can be a bother.
Ahh ... free speech of the likes of Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church intruding on the solemn burial of ones sacrificed son with loud chants and rants and signs. Mario got his 15 minutes here. Since when is being silent and to ignore the answer for Atheists? It’s just plain crass and rude were one of us to infiltrate a Christian site with the same purpose and practice for Mario’s presence here. It’s the person of Mario that is so reprehensible not that he is here as a Christian or expressing Christian views. That’s all I’m saying. In a way, I have to feel sorry for him, he is a very sick person, not simply for his beliefs, but for how he’s chosen to exercise them. Personally, I’m not so sure that he is so harmless (not to us here but to others). He is for Atheists here as a bigot is for Blacks or a homophobe is for Gays. He is definitely a troll. I hope the word doesn’t get out to others that this site is troll tolerant. But I suppose by its nature and the works of Harris that it will attract some screwballs and wannabes who are the antithesis of its aims, many so-called Atheists themselves, we’ve certainly seen them come and go. It just bothers me that they feel comfortable enough to call the place their permanent home. That’s the two-tiered pleasure of Mario, that he can be here in the first place, and that he can be a bother.
Sometimes it takes a bit more to spot a problem than a white hood or a swastika. Hate and intolerance to other points of view are just the symptom. I think it never wise to shun evil into the darkness. That is where it flourishes the most. The light of day and close examination of its workings and motives are its enemy.
Let them rest here. All of them. If we can’t fight them and the words they bring, we will seem defeated. I have been banned from christian YouTube channels and I wear no higher badge. The truth is what they fear, as well it should be. We may not like the chore or duty of flag bearer for the truth and reason. Can we not have our own faith, that it will prevail?
That you do not, on a spiritual level, see God everywhere and in everything is the blindness that is in you.
With every teeth-gnashing word you post against me telling you the truth about yourselves, and all the digging of your heels into your mere “opinions” about the living God, you become all the more blind.
You actually are selfish, self-centered people without great things to say because of it.
You actually do actions that harm yourselves because they are detrimental to the divinity that is in you.
You actually are not thinkers who have found the answer to whether or not God exists.
And you actually are reading the words of a person who God trusted enough to give sight to his blindness.
Stop looking at me for the sound of flapping wings and the sight of a glowing halo. (You only ridicule people who are fine examples of goodness anyway.)
God, who you know nothing about (the blindness thing), does not want us to be cardboard cutouts of each other, or to follow along a track like the first video games. No. He wants us to walk freely about in a world of Skyrim, being ourselves, choosing our characters, but all the while knowing that the game will never end and we will always be His.
I am a Redguard, with one- and two-handed weapon skills, and wearing a mage cloak. And I am chasing you peasants back into your houses, out of fear that one swing of my sword, filled with a soul gem, will lop off your heads.
Was that a bit too much?
Oh well, I have been playing the game a lot lately during my vacation.
I think it all tied together rather nicely, though.
Sorry Mario. We don’t really see you as much more than a patient in the mental ward swearing he is Napoleon. Most of us care for you as a fellow human but have more sympathy for you than respect.
Sorry Mario. We don’t really see you as much more than a patient in the mental ward swearing he is Napoleon. Most of us care for you as a fellow human but have more sympathy for you than respect.
You guys gather under the banner of a negative “truth” that God does not exist, and then try with all your tiny mights to develop some sort of consensus of atheistic ideals and collection of secular dogmas, which you can then spread throughout the world in replace of belief in God and religion.
I am a Redguard, with one- and two-handed weapon skills, and wearing a mage cloak. And I am chasing you peasants back into your houses, out of fear that one swing of my sword, filled with a soul gem, will lop off your heads.
Are you sure that you are playing Skyrim? You can’t wear a cloak in the game (unless you are talking about Mage robes), and soul gems are separate items that are not part of weapons. The soul gem only gets filled after you slay something upon which you’ve cast a Soul Trap spell, or if you have a weapon with a Soul Trap
Yes, I can be a geek and I’m playing way too much Skyrim these days.
[ Edited: 22 December 2011 09:21 AM by ChaosRules ]
