Challenging "the Moral Landscape" ?

[LazyGun]

Anyone here tempted to take Sam Harris up on his challenge?

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-moral-landscape-challenge1

[Khandro]

//But it will keep me off the streets, won't it?// You'd probably find more enlightenment ON the streets, v_e

[mibn2cweus]

Khandro
//But it will keep me off the streets, won't it?// You'd probably find more enlightenment ON the streets, v_e
18:55 Mon 02nd Sep 2013

If not an appreciation for the value of 'enlightenment'.

[keyplus90]

Cheaper way of making people to buy his book, perhaps?

[naomi24]

Keyplus, Cheaper than what? It's not a new book, so hardly advertising. It's simply a challenge. Why don't you have a go?

[Khandro]

What a bunch of clowns you atheists are; having removed all that 'nonsense' of religion from your lives, what do you do but immediately start clamouring for something to replace the vacuum in your barren spiritual 'landscape'.
Yes, to paraphrase G.K.Chesterton, - when a person stops believing in religion, they will start to believe in anything.

[sandyRoe]

I'm sure you know, Khandro, that behind many a clowns smiling painted face is a deep and abiding melancholia. I sometimes wonder why the Goodly unGodly keep returning to the religious topics.

[pixie373]

We haven't "removed religion". I didn't have it when i was born. Just don't feel the need to take in something, just because some others have.

[jomifl]

Khandro, it is not necessary to believe in religion, there is plenty of evidence for it's existence, why we even have a church in my village so there is a bit of a clue there.

[jomifl]

Sandy, I don't think you need to tell Khandro about 'a deep and abiding melancholia', I suspect he is just as aware of it as you are. :o)

[LazyGun]

You are aware just how smug and deeply unpleasant you sound when you employ the tactics of the school playground, Khandro? I believe in insulting the belief, not the people, and I know that might upset some people who decide to take it personally, like you, it seems - but it appears that you just prefer, and not for the first time either, to insult the individuals instead.

You cannot even justify your sweeping, stereotypical insults, and for someone who considers themselves, as you continually inform us,an educated person, that is what is so tragic about your contributions to this section.

Your whole argument is a strawman that you gleefully set fire too; The only people who think atheists wander about in some barren spiritual landscape are theists -like you- convinced that a lack of belief in a god or some other supernatural creator equates to a lack of meaning or direction or an appreciation for life or some combination of these - a muted, black and white journey through life that theists in contrast enjoy in marvellous technicolour. What an absurd vision that is.

Its these same theists, like you, who are so dismissive of humanity that they believe us incapable of developing our own morality through evolution of self, of our society, of our culture - Instead it has to have been granted from an external agency,given its authority from the source, a supernatural creator - and the "proof" of this is derived from the scribblings in ancient texts. Otherwise, the argument goes, we would all automatically be conscienceless beasts, absent any morality.That is a profoundly offensive and actually quite stupid argument.

And Chesterton was right enough, in his way, but he was not talking about atheists - he was talking about wannabe theists, those desperate to find the right spiritual connection - and you can find oodles of people like this in the world -like you - convinced they need to find someone or something to tell them how to connect "spiritually", to give meaning to their existence - It is from the ranks of people like these that you will find a desperate or hopeful few that will hop from religion to religion, adopt the latest trendy belief, desperate to find something that fills up their barren life. Its these same people that will believe in ESP, or Teleportation, or Clairvoyancy or Astral Projection or any one of a number of unevidenced phenomena.Many of these people have disregarded that sage advice that you should approach life's journey with an open mind - but not so open your brains fall out.

Its these people Chesterton was talking about.

So - Insult or deride the beliefs or lack of them as much as you like Khandro - just try and reign in your childish impulses to refrain from personal insults unless you yourself are happy to be adjudged a clown, and an unpleasant one at that.

[naomi24]

Khandro, //to paraphrase G.K.Chesterton, - when a person stops believing in religion, they will start to believe in anything. //

You're easily impressed by other people's quotes, but you shouldn't believe all you read - no matter how famous the author. That one in particular is just plain silly.

[Old_Geezer]

Challenge the public, sell more books ?

[naomi24]

OG, I don't think so. This not a new book and I doubt many will accept the challenge.

[Khandro]

LG, Thank you for starting my day off with a good laugh, and the sun is shining to boot, - I'm ready for anything. I wish you luck and happiness with your moral landscape, you sound rather like you are in need of it. :-)

[LazyGun]

I neither need nor want any best wishes from you, Khandro. Merely that you refrain from personal insult. That shouldn't be too hard even for you should it?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Chesterton, Chesterton? Wasn't he a very bad poet, Khandro?

[Khandro]

v_e; Yes, he was also a lay theologian, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, Christian apologist and poet, though I personally don't think he cut the mustard as the latter (but what do I know?)
He also was also an erstwhile art student at the Slade School, (as was yours truly). You can't help but like a man who said "Lying in bed all day would be the perfect way to pass the time if one only had coloured pencils long enough to reach the ceiling."

[vetuste_ennemi]

"Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I be?"
Recently re-read the delightful Heretics which I first read in my early twenties, and (for the first time) Orthodoxy which I found disappointing.

[Khandro]

Very good, just checked and found; 'Chesterton was extremely witty. At the end of one lecture, a woman remarked that he seemed to know everything, to which he retorted: "I know nothing, madam, I am a journalist." During the First World War, he was asked why he wasn't "out at the Front". Quick as a flash, he replied, "Go round to the side, madam, and you will see that I am." Hatred of cocoa and a love of talking to himself were two of his eccentricities, but the one he cultivated most assiduously was the brandishing of a swordstick, which symbolised romance and adventure. Chesterton would flourish it while dictating articles to his secretary, often two at the same time.' :-)

[naomi24]

//Chesterton was extremely witty.//

In that case when he said this……

………//when a person stops believing in religion, they will start to believe in anything//………

…..I assume he was joking.