God - do you believe?

[Fragile Bird]

solo, I think you killed the thread. Well done! :cheers:

It's been quite a while since I read that excerpt from Herr Marx. The saddest thing that always struck me about it is Marx's belief the opium that helped people cope with life could should be taken away and replaced with material things, by distributing excess production "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs". While I realize he envisaged a classless society without money, I always thought his concept that material goods could make a worker's paradise oddly capitalistic. Or perhaps that's just my perception, as a well fed, well educated, relatively free member of a society much different from mid-19th century Europe. Poor Marx had no concept of what the soul needed, did he? He really thought all that suffering people went through, and therefore needed religion to cope with, would disappear with the remaking of society so that material needs could be satisfied.

Funnily enough, you actually strike me as someone who requires less of the material goods and more of the feeding of the soul. I guess I'm wrong, though, right? You have no soul either? :)

[The Anti-Targ]

I think it is okay to offend people's religion as much as it is okay to offend people's political views

For example i detest the Republicans which isn't too bad but if i was to detest Religious beliefs that's secularism

Neither, in fact, is true though is it? You can actually find common ground with some Republicans' policies and ideals, as you can find common ground with the beliefs of a lot of religious people. And I'm sure you like and admire many people who are either Republican or religious or both. Indeed there are probably entire religious groups with whom you'd find a great deal of philosophical affinity, aside from the God thing, and moderate factions (as small as they might be) within the Republican party whose views allign quite well with yours.

The problem occurs when someone sees a large group of people who can be identified by a single word, in this case "religious", as an homogenous set that almost universally embodies all of the detestable elements that exist within that set. For instance, one hears "Christian" and one almost reflexively thinks "anti-science and creationist", when in fact many, if not most Christians (globally) are not died in the wool creationists, and even fewer think that science is the work of the devil.

Oh, and the "you can't disprove fictional stuff" is the very weakest of all arguments in favour of atheism, not least because via thought experiment you can indeed disprove dragons and pixies and Westeros and the Loch Ness monster (well actually you'd be proving Nessie because she definitely does exist :-P ).

[MercenaryChef]

god and I have a mutual disbelief in one another.

[sologdin]

You have no soul either?

an oddly mercantile manner of expressing it, having a soul? we know that CS lewis ridiculed this rhetoric with

you do not have a soul. you are a soul. you have a body.

this philistine objection is the center of gravity of the issue, though. consider fromm's analysis:

A noun is a proper denotation for a thing. I can say that I have things: for instance that I have a table, a house, a book, a car. The proper denotation for an activity, a process, is a verb: for instance I am, I love, I desire, I hate, etc. Yet ever more frequently an activity is expressed in terms of having; that is, a noun is used instead of a verb. [...]

Marx and Engels answer: Bauer "transforms love into a 'goddess,' and into a 'cruel goddess' by transforming the loving man or the love of man into the man of love; he thus separates love as a separate being from man and makes it an independent entity." Marx and Engels point here to the decisive factor in the use of the noun instead of the verb. The noun love, which is only an abstraction for the activity of loving, becomes separated from the man. The loving man becomes the man of love. Love becomes a goddess, an idol into which the man projects his loving; in this process of alienation he ceases to experience love, but is in touch only with his capacity to love by his submission to the goddess Love. He has ceased to be an active person who feels; instead he has become an alienated worshiper of an idol, and he is lost when out of touch with his idol.

(fromm, to have or to be? (1976) at 20-21).

we see, then, that CS lewis, poor kid, has attempted to avoid this error by suggesting that he is a soul, rather than possessing one. to have animus, rather than to be animated, is not really different, however, than saying i am a soul. in reducing animation to a noun, mere animus, the experiencing of animation, of living, is reduced to a noun-property. CS lewis is therefore reifying the properietary relation of tenere animum to being a thing, esse animum. in CS lewis, having has become being. the process of bourgeois philistinization is accordingly complete. one no longer lives, but has a life.

the process of transforming animus into a capital is ancient. we might note some echoes in far antiquity, but the major intervention is well known in the british renaissance:

FAUSTUS. Then there's enough for a thousand souls.

Here, Mephistophilis, receive this scroll,

A deed of gift of body and of soul:

But yet conditionally that thou perform

All articles prescrib'd between us both.

MEPHIST. Faustus, I swear by hell and Lucifer

To effect all promises between us made!

FAUSTUS. Then hear me read them. [Reads] ON THESE CONDITIONS

FOLLOWING. FIRST, THAT FAUSTUS MAY BE A SPIRIT IN FORM AND

SUBSTANCE. SECONDLY, THAT MEPHISTOPHILIS SHALL BE HIS SERVANT,

AND AT HIS COMMAND. THIRDLY, THAT MEPHISTOPHILIS SHALL DO FOR HIM,

AND BRING HIM WHATSOEVER HE DESIRES. FOURTHLY, THAT HE SHALL

BE IN HIS CHAMBER OR HOUSE INVISIBLE. LASTLY, THAT HE SHALL APPEAR

TO THE SAID JOHN FAUSTUS, AT ALL TIMES, IN WHAT FORM OR SHAPE

SOEVER HE PLEASE. I, JOHN FAUSTUS, OF WERTENBERG, DOCTOR, BY

THESE PRESENTS, DO GIVE BOTH BODY AND SOUL TO LUCIFER PRINCE OF

THE EAST, AND HIS MINISTER MEPHISTOPHILIS; AND FURTHERMORE GRANT

UNTO THEM, THAT, TWENTY-FOUR YEARS BEING EXPIRED, THE ARTICLES

ABOVE-WRITTEN INVIOLATE, FULL POWER TO FETCH OR CARRY THE SAID

JOHN FAUSTUS, BODY AND SOUL, FLESH, BLOOD, OR GOODS, INTO THEIR

HABITATION WHERESOEVER. BY ME, JOHN FAUSTUS.

MEPHIST. Speak, Faustus, do you deliver this as your deed?

FAUSTUS. Ay, take it, and the devil give thee good on't!

(marlowe, tragical history of doctor faustus (A) (1604)).

it appears to be anti-labor, to the extent that the employer must pay his soul for service of the bondsman. but more important is that the market for souls is very well established. 24 years of all voluptuousness is the market price. at the end, the good doctor is literally torn limb from limb. it should not be seen as a coincidence that market relations are finding their way into both the arts and theology at the same time.

to answer the initial interrogatory: the existence of my soul is denied. the existence of souls in general is denied.

i am, however, starting an LLC down my way, and am looking for investors. shake down some of your fancy canadian lawyer friends. the business plan is this:

1 - purchase immortal souls from dumbasses in the united states on sound commercial paper: something like

In consideration of $1,000.00 (US) presently received, i promise to pay to bearer of this note one immortal soul upon the expiration of my life.

2 - trade this sound commercial paper to dumbasses on wall street who will cut it into tranches and securitize it for resale to those who think it might be extremely valuable to own souls.

3 - profit.

it's a sure thing. there's plenty of dumb people who'd sell, and plenty of dumb people who'd buy. i just need the dumb initial investors to fork over about $10M startup.

and if the business bankrupts, then i have the satisfaction of knowing that a great many people's afterlife plans are severely disrupted and that wall street is once again awash in bad commercial paper. w00t!

[Fragile Bird]

Very nice.

to answer the initial interrogatory: the existence of my soul is denied. the existence of souls in general is denied.

We shall have to agree to disagree. :)

You still strike me as someone who needs to feed their soul, but if you in fact don't have one, what do you name, by what description to you call the beast within that hungers and needs to be fed?

[Sci-2]

You still strike me as someone who needs to feed their soul, but if you in fact don't have one, what do you name, by what description to you call the beast within that hugers and needs to be fed?

"I'd heard it said that fairies have no souls."

"Then I do ache, and bleed, and smart elsewhere; still, call it a soul for it is solely mine."

-Gaiman, World's End

[Fragile Bird]

"I'd heard it said that fairies have no souls."

"Then I do ache, and bleed, and smart elsewhere; still, call it a soul for it is solely mine."

-Gaiman, World's End

:P He's not a fairy, he's a marxist.

[LuisDantas]

I am an Atheist and we are huge minority in any country.

Not really. The scandinavian countries, at least, have an atheist majority. Depending on how exactly you define atheism, so do Japan and Israel, or so I am told.

[The Night's Watch Man]

Poor Marx had no concept of what the soul needed, did he? He really thought all that suffering people went through, and therefore needed religion to cope with, would disappear with the remaking of society so that material needs could be satisfied.

What you fail to understand here, is that Marx believed that, when a society managed to fulfill all of the material needs of its citizens, then each person would have the perfect conditions to develop whatever passion, ambition or project you have to complete in your life, and those things are not only material, they have the obvious connection with the material world but they are motivated, in lack of a better word, by the spirit.

[sologdin]

reformed anarcho-marxist, to be precise. but with faerie wings. and a JD. and

endowed with a member eight and one-quarter inches around by thirteen long. Nothing more beautiful nor more majestic has ever been seen; this tool was almost always upright, and with only eight discharges, so tests revealed, it could fill a pint measure to the brim.

.

that's my CV, anyway. anyone want to sell souls to wall street with me? my credentials are pretty obviously superior to the guys who caused the '08 crash.

[Sci-2]

that's my CV, anyway. anyone want to sell souls to wall street with me?

Amusingly enough, the idea of derivatives on souls was covered by Kobold Quarterly. I can't recall if it was 4e or Pathfinder rules.

[sologdin]

dammitall. scooped by gamers.

[Fragile Bird]

Is this an appropriate time to link this article?

ETA: Note, please, number 2 on the list?

[sologdin]

nothing psychopathic about selling souls. nothing at all! i offer a valuable service of brnging a specific product to a specific market! we live in a world that has souls, and those souls have to be sold by people with JDs. who's gonna do it? you? you, fragile bird? i have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. you weep for those souls, and you curse the soulsellers. you have that luxury. you have the luxury of not knowing what i know. that the soul's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. you don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that sale, you need me on that sale. we use words like spiritual default swap, eternity backed security, eschatological profit. we use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. you use them as a punchline. i have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a person who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that i provide, and then questions the manner in which i provide it. i would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, otherwise, i suggest you pick up a briefcase, and draft a note. either way, i don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

[ManyFacedMember]

Not really. The scandinavian countries, at least, have an atheist majority. Depending on how exactly you define atheism, so do Japan and Israel, or so I am told.

When you look at screening methods of Galup and similar companies you always see just three groups.

1 Yes there is GOD,

2. There is something

3. Nope

In all of Europe, USA and Canada third group is never over 30% and in most countries is at 5-10%

I don't know about Japan and Israel.

Personally I would define Atheist as somebody who will go to great lengths to convince himself that vacuum fluctuation

or some other quantum phenomena is able to create space/time. Universe also evolve and can create new Universe.

(I just got an idea about Theon crackpot theory)

[Sci-2]

“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”

Joseph Campbell

[LuisDantas]

Personally I would define Atheist as somebody who will go to great lengths to convince himself that vacuum fluctuation

or some other quantum phenomena is able to create space/time. Universe also evolve and can create new Universe.

(I just got an idea about Theon crackpot theory)

Eh, isn't it simpler and more accurate to just use the old-fashioned criteria? Either "an atheist is someone who doesn't believe that there are any gods" or "an atheist is someone who says that there are no gods"?

I don't know about you, but I'm very much an atheist and I don't know of any reason to "go to great lengths" to be one. Nor can I make heads or tails of that stuff you just mentioned.

Gee, it used to be far easier to qualify for Atheism, I swear. :)

[Stubby]

Personally I would define Atheist as somebody who will go to great lengths to convince himself that vacuum fluctuation

or some other quantum phenomena is able to create space/time. Universe also evolve and can create new Universe.

One might define a Christian as somebody who will go to great lengths to convince himself that god sacrificed himself to himself to atone for sins he himself said were sins in the first place and could have prevented if he could have been bothered and that this was somehow a good thing.

But we don't get to set our own sarcastic definitions of things.

Otherwise, what Luis Dantas said.

[Fragile Bird]

nothing psychopathic about selling souls. nothing at all! i offer a valuable service of brnging a specific product to a specific market! we live in a world that has souls, and those souls have to be sold by people with JDs. who's gonna do it? you? you, fragile bird? i have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. you weep for those souls, and you curse the soulsellers. you have that luxury. you have the luxury of not knowing what i know. that the soul's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. you don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that sale, you need me on that sale. we use words like spiritual default swap, eternity backed security, eschatological profit. we use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. you use them as a punchline. i have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a person who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that i provide, and then questions the manner in which i provide it. i would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, otherwise, i suggest you pick up a briefcase, and draft a note. either way, i don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

But, but, but . . . .how can you sell souls when you deny they exist? Surely for me to accept your offer to sell souls in such circumstances would be foolish: it's one thing to sell a product you don't believe in, but it's another to sell a product you don't actually believe exists. Would we not then be treading into the territory of fraud? Let's set aside the question of wanting you and needing you for the moment. I would never use your words as a punchline, please!

And I only point out that we are both lawyers, nothing beyond that.

[sologdin]

well, counselor, i respectfully submit that i truly believe that the product--a note promising to pay one soul to bearer--is properly confected and sufficiently protects the holder in due course. it matters little to me whether the object purported to exist by the note maker actually exists or not. if it does not, then the the maker will default, and the holder will have an action at law. my personal belief as to the solvency of the maker is not relevant, if in fact i confect contemporaneously an affidavit of the maker solemnly assuring me of solvency.