When I was young, I very much wanted to believe, and tried very hard, prayed very much, with passion and and with pleading and with worship.
Didn't work.
There is no 'there' there.
No entity reveals itself, therefore there is little point in attempting to commune with an uncommunicating non-entity. IOW, I have never found/seen/felt any evidence of the existence of any deity or supernatural force, not so much as a fluttering of the spirit(mind). No prayer ever answered, yay or nay.
I am essentially an honest person who tries to be honest first of all to myself. I could, if I wanted to, force myself to pretend the supernatural is natural or real, and likely I could successfully delude myself into believing all sorts of things, could convince myself, if I repeated the fantasy often enough to myself and others, that I had really had a religious experience, or a supernatural visitation, or a conversion - memory is easily manipulated. But I prefer the honesty of reality.
I'm pretty much convinced we have a finite singular lifetime in which to enjoy consciousness. I think that can be a pretty good deal if we are lucky and have health and good experiences. I think we have a duty to try to help everyone born achieve this. The deaths of children and young people are the greatest tragedies to me, the now being all we can have and they having missed what could have been their portion.
......
As for Holy Roller, he only speaks to the atheist he has manufactured in his head, an imaginary entity (see how easy that is?) that bears no relation to real atheists. He likes to insult his imaginary atheist and pretend it represents any real atheists he is actually speaking to. He likes to indulge his curious devotion to making bizarre accusations about the 'atheism' of Hitler, the god beliefs of Einstein, and pretend this has any relevance to atheists currently alive. He has insulted dead women in the person of Marie Curie, and live women in the persons of women on this board. He apparently thinks this makes him a shining example of Christian (Messianic) virtue. I'm pleased to be able to say most of the Christians I know in the real world would disagree.
Didn't work.
There is no 'there' there.
No entity reveals itself, therefore there is little point in attempting to commune with an uncommunicating non-entity. IOW, I have never found/seen/felt any evidence of the existence of any deity or supernatural force, not so much as a fluttering of the spirit(mind). No prayer ever answered, yay or nay.
I am essentially an honest person who tries to be honest first of all to myself. I could, if I wanted to, force myself to pretend the supernatural is natural or real, and likely I could successfully delude myself into believing all sorts of things, could convince myself, if I repeated the fantasy often enough to myself and others, that I had really had a religious experience, or a supernatural visitation, or a conversion - memory is easily manipulated. But I prefer the honesty of reality.
I'm pretty much convinced we have a finite singular lifetime in which to enjoy consciousness. I think that can be a pretty good deal if we are lucky and have health and good experiences. I think we have a duty to try to help everyone born achieve this. The deaths of children and young people are the greatest tragedies to me, the now being all we can have and they having missed what could have been their portion.
......
As for Holy Roller, he only speaks to the atheist he has manufactured in his head, an imaginary entity (see how easy that is?) that bears no relation to real atheists. He likes to insult his imaginary atheist and pretend it represents any real atheists he is actually speaking to. He likes to indulge his curious devotion to making bizarre accusations about the 'atheism' of Hitler, the god beliefs of Einstein, and pretend this has any relevance to atheists currently alive. He has insulted dead women in the person of Marie Curie, and live women in the persons of women on this board. He apparently thinks this makes him a shining example of Christian (Messianic) virtue. I'm pleased to be able to say most of the Christians I know in the real world would disagree.
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