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Thread: Agnostics and Atheists

  1. #61
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthwestUteFan View Post
    Ditto, because I am not at all confident of anything beyond the grave.
    "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  2. #62
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Steve Martin has written a hymn for "hymn-deprived atheists."


    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Steve Martin has written a hymn for "hymn-deprived atheists."

    was that the Red Butte performance? He sang that song at Red Butte last summer, and it got a huge response. Sounds like this audience might have been that one, although he threw in a reference to Mormons in the refrain, and I didn't hear it here.

  4. #64
    I wonder how many times the notion of theism was brought up before it caught on. I imagine the first few guys who tried to pull it off got a club upside the head. Invisioning myself as a prehistoric man introduced to novel explanations of a largely incomprehensible world, I wonder what I would have bought into.

    LUCK: I think I would have jumped at "luck" the first time it was brought up. Any alternative to a completely random punitive world would have been welcome.
    SUPERSTITIOUS ACTIONS/TALISMANS: Once you believe some people have luck and others don't, you'd naturally want to get some of that luck. I think I totally would have adopted prevalent superstitions/talismans. In your limited sample size of observations, some would look very convincing.
    CURSES: Other people messing with my luck? That sounds a little suspect, but might have covered my bases anyway.
    SHAMANISM: So I give you something valuable and in return you do the superstitions better than me? Nope- and don't try and sell that BS to my clan.
    THEISM: So I give you something valuable and in return you speak on my behalf to an all-powerful unseen being? That guy gets clubbed for trying to pull one over on me.

  5. #65
    Educating Cyrus wuapinmon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jrj84105 View Post
    I wonder how many times the notion of theism was brought up before it caught on. I imagine the first few guys who tried to pull it off got a club upside the head. Invisioning myself as a prehistoric man introduced to novel explanations of a largely incomprehensible world, I wonder what I would have bought into.

    LUCK: I think I would have jumped at "luck" the first time it was brought up. Any alternative to a completely random punitive world would have been welcome.
    SUPERSTITIOUS ACTIONS/TALISMANS: Once you believe some people have luck and others don't, you'd naturally want to get some of that luck. I think I totally would have adopted prevalent superstitions/talismans. In your limited sample size of observations, some would look very convincing.
    CURSES: Other people messing with my luck? That sounds a little suspect, but might have covered my bases anyway.
    SHAMANISM: So I give you something valuable and in return you do the superstitions better than me? Nope- and don't try and sell that BS to my clan.
    THEISM: So I give you something valuable and in return you speak on my behalf to an all-powerful unseen being? That guy gets clubbed for trying to pull one over on me.
    The Sumerians had Meni, the Latins...Fortuna. Luck has been deified for millenia. I'm not sure which came first, but I see all as able to occur in any agricultural society concurrently.
    "This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes

  6. #66
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wuapinmon View Post
    The Sumerians had Meni, the Latins...Fortuna. Luck has been deified for millenia. I'm not sure which came first, but I see all as able to occur in any agricultural society concurrently.
    But what about Steve Martin's hymn? Wasn't it awesome?

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by wuapinmon View Post
    The Sumerians had Meni, the Latins...Fortuna. Luck has been deified for millenia. I'm not sure which came first, but I see all as able to occur in any agricultural society concurrently.
    To me luck is intuitive (but false), and superstition a logical extension. The latter things I don't think are intuitive. If you have any degree of specialization (as allowed in agricultural societies) you would probably expect to see shamanism emerge as a pretty natural extension. Being a shaman though would be intrinsically very dangerous, because you're promising things that you can't deliver. Hence you need a plausible excuse for when things don't go well. Powerful, but unpredictable gods each with differening motives seem to have filled a scapegoat role pretty nicely in ancient religions. I have to think that the concept of faith must have been intrinsic to arriving at monotheism. It's the only way you can have a singular god with singular intent where worship can still have inconsistent results. A requirement of faith and role of divine testing of faith place the onus of failure back on the adherent rather than on the shaman/clerical intermediate. Faith is really an incredibly brilliant concept for keeping a clergy class in power without having final responsibility for outcomes.

  8. #68
    Forward, never straight Freaky Girl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Steve Martin has written a hymn for "hymn-deprived atheists."


    The atheists in our congregation used Steve Martin's song for the closing performance at 'church' during the summer, the week they did the service. The service was very interesting and I loved the song.
    If you make friends with yourself, you will never be alone. -Maxwell Maltz

  9. #69
    My dad is agnostic. He left the LDS church some 50 years ago. He's now 87. I was talking to him the other day about his diabetes and asked him why he wasn't taking the meds the doctor prescribed, and he said he just had a "feeling" the meds would screw him up.

    I told him "You're atheist! Atheists don't make decisions based on gut feelings. Atheists make decisions based on facts, logic and science. This medicine has been scientifically proven to help people just like you!" He was quiet for a moments….then I said, "it sucks that I just destroyed the last 50 years of your life's philosophy in one sentence, doesn't it?" He just laughed, said goodbye and hung up.

    Such a great guy, and a great dad. Hope I'm half the dad he is.
    “Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman

    "You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb

    "Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.

  10. #70
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    This is for SeattleUte:




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

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