@ROYISM, and others interested...

Before I get started, as an afterthought, I have realized you do not understand my definition of Absolutist.

Absolutist - anyone belonging to any religion, especially the absolute Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. - due to their absolutist beliefs system and is truly applicable to any AND all religious believers.

Thus, even though I may say Christian or Bible, I am actually referring to any AND all religions and their obsolete texts. Including Islam.

The above was copied and pasted from later on in this document.

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How can you say so? There are all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs. There are some who believe in God but do not believe in afterlife. There are some who do not believe in God, but believe in Karma. So for you to argue that belief comes as one big package and you either like it or lump it as a whole, shows you are out of touch with these ideas.

Secondly, what I was trying to explain was the belief system in Islam, where you clearly have set parts in belief. Yes, you have to believe in all of them to be a complete Muslim, but then there clearly defined parts to it. This is what I was trying to explain.

How can I say so? Simple, and I'll type in pauses so you can follow easier: There... is... only... one... part... to... belief... Either... you... believe... or... you... do... not...

See? Easy peasy. If you really try, you might be able to speak/write it also...

...all kinds of beliefs.

Exactly, but only one part. I did not say either way whether there are differents kinds/types of belief. I was hoping you already knew that as you just indicated. Beliefs are also to their own degree. Some are so deeply believed that the mind is purposefully mentally retarded to the point they can no longer think for themselves. And the other end of the extreme which is more like a wish, something that ain't true, but wished that it is.

One example is my belief in the afterlife. I would LOVE to believe it is true because I would get to see my wife and daughters again. However, I know there is no afterlife. I already know your question: How do you know there is no afterlife? Simple. No evidence = no existence. Furthermore, I believe that IF there is an afterlife, then it is exactly like this one, it is what you make of it.

And all you have done with the first paragraph above, is just prove what I said. There are different kinds/types of belief, but there is only ONE part to belief. You either believe or you do not. That is the only part of belief. I admit that I should have left out the "any." That did confuse it. Thus, let me rephrase.

There is only one part to belief. Any belief. You either believe or you do not. There are not other parts. There are "parts" of a "beliefs system," but only one part of belief.

Secondly, what I was trying to explain was the belief system in Islam, where you clearly have set parts in belief. Yes, you have to believe in all of them to be a complete Muslim, but then there clearly defined parts to it. This is what I was trying to explain.

Islam? Just as bad as any other religion. ALL religions are the same. Maybe not exactly the same, but they are the same. About the only difference is their writings. And your entire Qu'ran has only one philosophy: "Live in peace, joy, and brotherhood with each other. But of those of different mind (beliefs), they are to be put to the sword (killed)." That is the whole premise of Islam. Yes, you could probably cherry-pick your Qu'ran to show it is nothing but a peaceful religion. Hell, even I could do it. However, if you are to give an overview of ALL the text within the Qu'ran, it is of only one philosophy (reiterated): "Live in peace, joy, and brotherhood with each other. But of those of different mind (beliefs), they are to be put to the sword (killed)."

Yes, I studied the Qu'ran for decades, just like I have studied the Bible, the Talmud, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, the Writings of Confucius, writings about the I Ching, the philosophy of the Great Yin-Yang, the Tanakh, amongst a few others. Yes, I am that well versed with the concept of "religion." However, I have not done any religious studies in the last ten years due to going for my ScD in Global Climatology, and working. Additionally, I have very little memorized from the religous texts. Needed the storage space for more important information...

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The first part is to believe that God exists and that he created you. The second part of the belief is that you will meet God in the afterlife and that you will have to account for your deeds. Therefore you need to live a good life here. So just by believing the first part (God exists) doesn’t automatically make you a good person, unless the second part of the belief kicks in.

I am just going to say it once more: This suppossed "second part" is NOT a part of belief. This is nothing more than the result that is supposed to happen once you believe at all. There are no separate parts of belief. You either do or don't. What you are saying is a "second part" is not a part of belief. That is just the result of believing in the first place. Nothing more than a desire to look deeper into the belief.

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You said: Einstein said it best: If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. — Albert Einstein

Can you tell me why you do good? Let’s say you help a poor a man out of pity. Then you have actually acted in order to save yourself the emotional pain that pity caused in you. You were being selfish too. If you have to be absolutely altruistic then you will have to act in a dead-wood fashion without any emotions attached to it. This is not possible.

Easy. Why do I do good? Because I am an evil, wicked, mean, and nasty person. That is why I do good. I am so disgusted with my evil nature, I want to prove your silly sky-faerie wrong.

Seriously, I do good because it the HUMAN thing to do. I do good unto others because I do not want others to do evil to me. I do good because of the LOVE I have for all humans. Well, excepting a few. And I already know you are going to ask, "Where does that love come from?" Simple answer, not your God. It comes from little old worthless me. I do good because I want to do good. I would like to believe I live in a world where every person is not so caught up with themselves and would help others just because they have empathy. Those are the two main reasons all truly enlightened humans do good: Empathy and Love. Without those two things, you just end up like ALL Absolutists and believe all those not of like mind should be put to death.

I do good because I would like to believe that as I do good for others, then others will do good for me. This is the simple concept of Reciprocity. The "Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" concept. Reciprocity, which the Christians call The Golden Rule, is a very good reason to do good. I am actually getting to the point, I may need to have some of the good I have done reciprocated unto me. My knees and hips are failing. I have already been told that I am at least looking to have total knee replacement in both knees. My right hip will need replacemnt and possibly my left hip also. This means I am going to have to rely on the good of others while I recuperate.

And here is something I never posted here. Want to know what I did for ten years? Every New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day, through my company, I would purchase at least five whole hogs and would have a Carolina Pig Picking for the homeless and less fortunate. All I asked was for the churches to bus the people down my land. While I was the one to pit-cook the hogs, chop and season them, my wife and daughters would purchase gallons of tater salad, cole slaw, and veggies and fruit and get them ready. Additionally, my wife would cook a few hundred Chesapeake Bay biscuits. I did this because it was the HUMAN thing to do for those who were less fortunate than I was. And I can see your thoughts already. I did it so I could use it as a tax-deduction. Guess what? Your thoughts would be wrong. I did no such thing. Filing taxes for my business was complicated enough to also have to deal with that migraine. Besides, I felt that if you are going to donate out of the goodness of your heart, then you should not be doing it to rob the government of their funds to supply you with the services they provide you in return for those funds.

Another one. While I was visiting my wife and daughters in the hospital (daughters had appendicitus), I saw where a little eight year old girl was suffering from an advanced form of leukemia. I discussed it with my wife, and we made an anonymous donation to help pay for that girl's medical bills. I am certain it was not enough, but it certainly helped.

Another. The high school I had attended was in a high school band competition up in Washington DC. On the way back, one of the buses that was carrying their instruments was knocked off the highway when a horrible wind in a terrible storm blew a tractor trailer truck into the bus and off the highway. The instruments were destroyed. The two drivers survived. When I saw this news story, the next day, my wife and I donated the entire amount of money needed to replace the instruments. We donated anonymously. And no, not even this was used as a tax-deduction.

And there are many other such acts of wickedness I have done in my whole life, simply because I am an evil, wicked, mean, and nasty person.

I do not believe in tax-deductions except for my wife, my daughters, and myself. All others, I never filed. And still don't. Filing taxes in this country is already enough of a headache. Besides, if I am donating anonymously, that means I do not receive a receipt, meaning I cannot file it with my taxes.

I do good because I want to do good. It is the HUMAN thing to do.

Rationality, critical thinking, logic, analytical thought, deduction/induction, empathy/sympathy, reason, and the greatest one of all, LOVE.

That is why I do good. Nothing to do with an illusionary and degenerate sky-faerie.

...without any emotions attached to it. This is not possible.

Of course it is not possible. When doing anything, there will always be an emotion attached. With ANY action you may perform, there will always be an emotion attached. There is also a mental pattern attached.

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You said: “And here is the gist for me. After what I have been through (read Soul Shatter), I do not fear punishment.”

You are digressing from the topic. I am talking about the logical train of thoughts that lead a believer to be good. You may have your own reasons for being good or evil. That’s not the scope of this discussion.

No I did not digress from the topic. You were the one to include the "punishment" thing. Not me. I was simply replying to the fact that any form of punishment is not going to make me believe in your sky-faerie.

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I would like to know two things from you. 1. How do you make moral judgements in life, whether something is good or bad? 2. Once you know that something is morally right, why do you think it’s a must to live by it? For example, if you think feeding the poor is morally right, what motivates you part with your hard-earned money to feed them.

Excerpt from my book, Riding Some Wild Tangents.

Religious morality does not exist. They are just following orders.
—Ray Spurrill

Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
—H. L. Mencken

According to my world view, the fact that you have different beliefs and views than I do is not wrong. What is wrong in my world view is that you Absolutists feel it is your moral imperative to force your beliefs system onto others who refuse to believe your bullshit. What is wrong in my world view is that you Absolutists firmly believe that ALL humans are worthless, sick, immoral, wicked demons. That none can be good, moral, ethical, and treat others as being worthy of being treated as equals without some form of sky-faerie telling them how to live their lives and what they can and cannot think. Most Absolutists believe I deserve to be tortured by having my flesh seared off my bones and regrown only to be burnt off again and again and again for all eternity if I do not believe the same way they do. As if the threat of your Hell makes your bullshit smell any sweeter. And obversely, as if your enticemnt of Heaven is any sweeter. Reread "Is Heaven and Eternity Really Good?" and "From Whence Comes Evil and Sin" in my previous response. Both are just as applicable to Islam as Christianity.

In my world view, I can ascertain and evaluate what is moral truth. "How do I determine moral truth?" you may ask. Simple, with hard empirical evidence, logical and deductive reasoning, rational and analytical thought, critical thinking, empathy and sympathy, simple cogitation, and reasonable arguments.

How do you determine moral truth? Simple, you run to an obsolete religious text full of pure savage immorality.

I can look at anything, and say, "that is right," or "that is wrong" by using the above listed mental faculties. But according to your world view, or should I say according to that obsolete religious text, I am incapable of determining what is right or wrong, good or evil, truth or lie. You cannot seem to derive any reason of your own to think anything is wrong except by what your book tells you. "That is depressing to say the least," said Godless Cranium, to which I wholly agree. It is SAD.

Absolutists are clearly incapable of defending their moral beliefs without relying on some immoral religious text. Moral beliefs should be defended and explained by rationality and reasoning.

Why is it that you feel that ONLY you can make an account for what is right or wrong? In your world view, how exactly can you know what is absolutely true? You saying that an obsolete and immoral religious text tells you, makes no sense to me whatsoever. And relying on that obsolete and immoral religious text also informs me that you have purposefully mentally retarded your mental faculties to the point that you are incapable of thinking for yourself.

You seem to be telling me that you can look at an event and intuitively know what is true, or right and wrong, or good and evil, just because you have memorized an obsolete religious text, or memorized only that which you have cherry-picked out of it. Yet I see Absolutists doing heinous things, such as the rape and molestation of children, blowing up innocent people, past and current, at least once a month in the news. It seems I can never turn on the news without seeing a story, once a month, about a priest having raped and/or molested children, or a Muslim blowing up innocent people. And these news stories have been going on for the last three decades and more. Then you wonder why I no longer watch the news.

There are myriad different Absolutist divisions (about 30,000 to 40,000 in all the Abrahamic religions!), and none seem to agree on how to interpret your obsolete texts. Yet you want me to believe that you know the ultimate truth in any given situation. Why should I not be able to form an opinion on what is right and what is wrong? You Absolutists do it all the time. Mostly against your obsolete religious texts. What makes you so damned privileged? As Christopher Hitchens once said (paraphrased), "Since it is preposterous to believe all religions are true, the only final answer is that they are all wrong."

How do you Absolutists determine that raping someone, or beating someone in the street, is wrong when your religious texts are full of rape and murder and genocide and torture and abuse and slavery? Justifying any kind of violence is easy using your Bible. Especially if you buy into William Lane Craig's bullshit known as Divine Command Morality.

Divine Command Morality, a.k.a. Divine Command Theory. The belief you Absolutists hold onto that says that anything your God commands is good, regardless of its actual moral implications. This is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever heard. I found these two formal definitions for Divine Command Morality: "Morality is dependent upon God, and that moral obligation consists in obedience to God's commands." And from Wikipedia: "A meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God." In other words, if "God" tells you kill someone, then it is morally good. To which I would say, "Bullshit!"

Then you stupid assholes have the gall to claim that Satanism is evil when all they are doing is imitating what your God told the Hebrews to do. Blood sacrifices and burnt offerings… Do not ever come to my doorstep claiming you have "the good word." Even Jesus (who never existed) was a hypocritical ass-wipe. And Muhammad (and I wonder about his existence) was nothing more than theiving, lying, child molesting war lord. All Abrahamic religious texts are nothing more than guidelines on how to live the most immoral life possible.

How I reason that raping or beating someone is wrong, is because I can sympathize with the victim, I can even empathize with the victim, because even I got my ass whooped in the street once for no other reason than my car died in the wrong part of town, and for nothing more than what I did not have in my wallet.

I do not want to live in a society full of rape and violence because I want to be safe. I desire for my friends, my family, and my loved ones to be the safest they can be within human possibility by having laws that help to protect them from rape and assault. I believe that ALL human beings have integrity, dignity, and worth. I do not need a silly sky-faerie to tell me that. I can arrive at that truth with my own cognitive abilities. Should I list them again? Empathy, rationality, logic, reason, deduction, critical thinking, sympathy, analytical thought, and the greatest one of all, LOVE.

I cannot think of anyway how I shall ever understand why you Absolutists find this so hard to comprehend. Such is just one of myriad reasons I find ALL religions like yours so damned repugnant and disgusting. It teaches me that I cannot be good to others without some form of special permission from your sky-faerie. And, to get that special permission, all I have to do is to kneel and bow down and kiss his ass. This robs me of my self-worth, my dignity, my self-esteem, my mental faculties, my morality, and teaches me that all human beings are wretched and wicked things, needing an imaginative sky-faerie to heal them. Why is it that you can make judgment calls and dictate what is right and wrong, and I cannot?

As Godless Cranium once said, "If I bought into that argument, I would be just as deluded as all of you [Absolutists]."

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This is a clever argument so often cited by atheists. But it’s just silly logic. I can turn the logic around and tell you that you are as much an anti-evolutionist as any creationist. What??? Yes, among the many conflicting schools of thought in evolution, you may be following any one that you think makes most sense. By that process you are rejecting several other schools of thought. So you are an anti-evolutionist to that extent. The creationist adds just one more to that list of rejections. I hope you have the intelligence to comprehend this one?

There is ONLY one school of thought when it comes to Evolution. If there is more that one "school of evolution" as you put it, then please provide the evidence. Just because you say it so does not make it so.

This is a clever argument so often cited by atheists. But it’s just silly logic.

No, it is NOT silly logic. It is DEDUCTIVE logic.

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“Really? Really?! Well, since the entire Bible is supposedly written by fallible men while under the guidance of the Holy Ghost…”

I am not a Christian, but a Muslim. So if you can bring your proofs against Islam, I shall indulge them.

I am not replying to the rest of your points as they are answers to others, not me.

ALL of my arguments are against ALL religions and applicable, especially to the Absolutist religions. Perhaps you have not seen my definition of "Absolutist?" Here it is.

Absolutist - anyone belonging to any religion, especially the absolute Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. — due to their absolutist beliefs systems and is truly applicable to any AND all religious believers.

I may say Chritian, but I am also referring to Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc., etc., etc.

I may say Bible, but I am also referring to the Qu'ran, Talmud, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Writings of Confucius, I Ching, Great Yin-Yang, Tanakh, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, etc., etc., etc.

How many have you read? Just curious.

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I am not replying to the rest of your points as they are answers to others, not me.

No. They are answers to you also. Remember, just because I may say Christian or Bible, I am referring to ALL religions and their texts. I only use the terms Christian and Bible because of the country I grew up in. Otherwise, I am always referring to ALL religions in everything I say/write. Even Islam.

Just because I was born and raised in a "Christian" nation, please realize I am an equal opportunity atheist, anti-theist, anti-religionist. I despise them ALL. For the most part, and most accurate, I am an anti-religionist. I attack religions and their beliefs, and what their immoral and savage indoctrination processes do to people. However, I do use the pronouns "they, you, he, she, them, their, etc." quite a bit. Honestly, I only use those pronouns because they are excellent shortcuts for having to write much more text. Nothing should be implied as being directed at the reader. It is actually directed to religions as a whole.

For example, instead of having to type "Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc." each and every time, I may use "you" or "they" instead.

And this sums up my anti-religionism.

I have never truly believed in ANY religion, especially the Absolutist religions. There is no philosophical ideology more divisive than religion. And, the worst part of ANY religion is that it is an ideology that is implicitly and explicitly protected from any and all criticism from both within and without. Why should any ideology, especially religion, be so privileged? Can you not see how disastrous this way of thinking can be, and is? I firmly believe, and shall take this belief to my grave, that the human species would have been much better off had there NEVER been ANY form of religion. It is due to religions, and their way of thinking, and their theological disagreements, that has created the greatest destruction, injury, death, harm, immorality, wickedness, and abuse to the human species than any other cause. The main problem is not religious fundamentalism, but the fundamentals of religion. Ultimately, it is Religion that is Humankind's worst enemy. — RMF Runyan

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A Concluding Summation

I sat down and thought of why the Absolutist religions are wrong based on the actions and atrocities they have committed. I came up with the list below. Your Absolutist religions have:

Murdered, Raped, Tortured, Lied, Extorted, Sacrificed, Ravaged, Swindled, Exploited, Plundered, Abused, Coerced, Pillaged, Tormented, Harassed, Rampaged, Insulted, Endangered, Threatened, Oppressed, Persecuted, Ethnically Cleansed, Terrorized, Mutilated Genitalia, Enslaved, Molested and Raped Children, Corrupted, Genocidally Cleansed, (Did I miss any? How many?)

All in the Name of God for centuries around the world to spread such theological messages.

BUT I AM THE ONE GOING TO HELL FOR NOT BELIEVING IN THIS NONSENSE?!

Yet, all you Absolutists have the balls to ask why I do not believe?

rmfr

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