Help! I NEED advice!
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Hello, this is my first post here. Well… I have just found out my kind of atheistic girlfriend just converted to christianity. It comes as a shock to me because, after six years of knowing her, it is the last thing I expected to hear. Hell, when I first met her she was Wiccan; then, she told me she did not think she could believe in a higher power.
When she told me about her conversion I was taken back. I asked her, “Why?” She told me that: I enjoy the feeling I get from being there; the music and being with people who love me. I then asked: What does being "saved" and "baptized" have to do with going to church? You can not go just to be there? I then added: I sometimes go to my old church to listen to our choir and pipe organ (which is the only one in the town I live) because I love music. I am also xenophobic, can not stand to be in large crowds with people I barely know. She said: It just felt like the right thing to do. I really did not say anything the rest of the ride back to her aunts.
The part that really got to me was when she tried using Pascal’s wager. I just stopped her and said, "No." I would rather be wrong than be subservient to a hypocritical, malicious, self-centered imaginary friend. She asked me: Are you angry with me? I said: No, just taken aback that is all.
I respect her decision and will not hold anything to it. I have heard many stories of an atheist converting and breaking the relationship. I want to know how to make it work or if it is doomed to fail. I want to know if I did the right thing and respected her decision or should have I tried to talk to her more. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." --Bill Watterson
"The world is my country; to do good is my religion."
--Thomas Paine
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super Atheist."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
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Offline Freeminer, learn to use the quote function properly.
James Jeans- wow, such great company. He was almost a total screw up in his own time; relative to the benchmarks of knowledge now, you fit in pretty well still being that far behind the times; you both also seem to have enjoyed talking out of your asses.
I have explained why I won't be taking the time to educate you (or make an argument in a useless attempt to do so)- that you have not comprehended my explanation is precisely why I will not offer one on the subject at hand. To put it simply; you are an idiot.
You remind me of this 'pantheist' girl on this site, whatever her name was, who thought she was a "scientist" and believed in some spooky free will woodoo. Well, not you reminding me of her, exactly (having slightly different beliefs), but your inability to understand my reasons for not addressing your arguments, but rather addressing your unwillingness to comprehend any potential arguments that might be presented to you instead. She never did get it.
It is not because I CAN NOT address them (you can find extensive discussions between myself and other members of the site who actually have critical thinking capability), but because I WILL NOT due to the fact that you will actively ignore them and I prefer to mock you (mocking being more productive, since you can't ignore it, and much more entertaining).
If there were, hypothetically, a drug you could be administered to cause you to pay attention and to disable your reflexive coping mechanisms thus enabling your critical reassessment of your core beliefs, I would be happy to give you a brief explanation. Actually, I could come up with a few to try (legal ones too!) if you'd be willing to give it a shot (test of your faith?).
Blake wrote:don't waste my time.If you wanted to learn, I'd give you links. Since you don't, I'll refer back to the suggestion I gave at the end of my last post.
No, actually, it was: Kindly, "STFU"
But "Don't waste my time." is close. Don't worry, I won't let you waste my time; I'd have to take you seriously and put in more than I'm in up for in terms of idle amusement for that to be possible.
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Offline Sigh. Having recovered from all the head desking I had to do while reading your post, I see that Blake already took your crap apart. He's right, I was an optimist about you. But like him and Bob, I am quite tired of your breathtaking inanity. It feels like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a goat. Here, I'll repeat the point, for your benefit. This is what you wrote:
particle physics suggests that the WHOLE of external reality is a trick
Knowing something about particle physics, this statement is bollocks. Go to any particle physicist and say it, and watch them laugh at you. Go ahead. Since you didn't get this point the first couple of times, I will try to put it terms you might understand. What you wrote up there is the equivalent of "Islam suggests that Jesus Christ is an orange". You now have two options:
1) Actually substantiate your claim. Show how Islam suggests Jesus Christ is an orange and what evidence you have for this. (Prediction: you won't actually pick this option)
2) Continue to whine that I haven't specified just how orangey Jesus Christ is according to Islam. (Prediction: you will pick this one)
In other words, put up or shut up.
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Offline Freeminer, I hope there were at least one two other people who read through my response to you and found something helpful in it, because it was clearly a total waste of genuine effort as far as you are concerned.
You still doggedly refuse to, or perhaps are unable to grasp, simple statements of the way I organise my world-view. We can legitimately disagree on other matters at issue, but I am the prime authority in this discussion as what I mean and understand by when I make assertions about the way I see and think about things. If you bring along qualified psychologist with an fMRI machine, I may be prepared to consider what self-delusions I may have.
I use the term 'working assumption' precisely to make the point that I do not 'trust' them, I simply use them as a framework, as being the best I have at any given point in time. Any approach to making sense of our perceptions has to start from a minimal set of propositions. I try to understand which ones seem to fit the raw observations best.
The reaction to an approaching truck does NOT involve a 'conviction'! That is arrant nonsense!
Maybe you just have radically different understandings of the menings of so many common terms, that we are simply talking past each other. That is the most charitable interpretation I can think of.
I do not have enough time to waste on further such fruitless discussion. Sorry.
Dear Bob,
Should we ever find ourselves in the same place at the same time, prepare to drink for free...
Yours truly, Rich
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Offline But like him and Bob, I am quite tired of your breathtaking inanity.
Huzzah, you've ascended!
We should us three make a pact. Friends don't let friends drive drunk, and they shouldn't let each other argue futilely with dogmatic theists either.
If we all agreed to hold each other to it, and only provide responses in condescending and variably insulting limericks once it becomes apparent that the opponent is impossible to reason with, we could save each other quite a bit of frustration.
For example:
The was an odd git called freeminer;
And Oh, that he was such a whiner;
His religion defeated;
He remained so conceited;
As Christians go, never one finer.
It feels like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a goat. Here, I'll repeat the point, for your benefit.
A goat would be substantially easier to teach; they simply devour any books you put before them.
Just stick with the limericks, eh? It's your turn. (Bad puns are also acceptable)
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Offline What I'd Like to Know is...
What does any of this have to do with This dude's girlfriend losing her mind and potentially ruining their relationship?
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Offline What does any of this have to do with This dude's girlfriend losing her mind and potentially ruining their relationship?
Quite a bit, actually.
With theism, there's a subtle "point of no return"- we could call it a dogmatic singularity. Lets call freeminer a demonstration of that.
The most important question to ask is whether she has reached it yet (this point of no return).
If not, argument will bring her back, and there's no real risk losing her if there was anything there to begin with.
If so, argument is futile, and one needs to determine if one can live with it (not advisable)- the best course of action would be to end the relationship. Incidental emotional attachments aren't a good excuse for putting your future self through that much misery. "There are plenty of other fish in the sea", as they say [fishermen?]
In my opinion, arguing with her (gently) is a win-win. Either it brings her back to sanity, or it ends things (which would have not worked out well in the long run anyway).
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Offline I hate it when that happens
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No, I'm an atheist; not remotely 'agnostic'. You don't really understand what words mean, though, so there's no use in trying to explain it to you.
Congratulations, you get to continue believing in your idiotically dogmatic world view uncontested!
No need to tell the story, you're playing it out for us as we speak.
It's a theist puppet show...
Creativity has nothing to do with why some words don't have perfect rhymes. I could use a near-rhyme, but those are rather weak unless they're very relevant. Unless I'm just lucky with words, they won't have a rhyme.
I can see why you're confused, though-- you won't understand this, but where theists can use their imaginations to bend reality and conveniently make up things to fit in with what they believe, "Derr... hey, spoon rhymes with idiot! Says so in the bible, if you interpret this verse correctly!", us atheists are stuck with what really is.
I certainly could use a different word, but it's hard to describe your type so succinctly with any other.