BALLSY ATHEIST OPINIONS WANTED
| Robin | |
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Allen,
Don't know if you saw my last post concerning the death penalty.... "Yesterday I listened to some arguements concerning the death penalty. I have to say, I was convinced that because of the overwhelming evidence of injustice and disparity with regards to application of the death penalty (rich vs poor, retained attorney vs appointed attorney, DNA evidence of innocence post mortem, etc, etc), I can no longer support the death penalty, but have no rejection of it based on the sentimentality of the "specialness" of a human life." |
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| Tief | |
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Allan Greene -
Why do you continue attacking me for being a nontheist and not a strict atheist? I must admit, I have re-read some of your posts and followed the chain of your discussion better. I was thrown off by your assumptions about capitalism (to me lies) and not paying attention. I no longer think you hijacked this post, my apologies.  Thanks, Tief |
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| A former member | |
Allen, December 5, 2005 Monday About 3:00 P.M. E.S.T. Robin: My apologies. I actually did see this post, but did not catch your name on it, due to my own evident too rapid perusal of it. Again, my apologies. I would agree with this statement of yours, too. So I am a bit pained at my own not having noticed this, and a bit pissed at myself. Again, sorry about this, and thank you for pointing it out to me. Chagrined, but Thankful to You, Allan |
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| A former member | |
"Death penalty- It may not bring a victim back, but it sure evens the score." December 5, 2005 Monday About 3:12 P.M. E.S.T. Robin and All, I missed this before, as I earlier said. My apologies for my earlier post based on my earlier thought you had a position different from this. I hereby seek to pull my foot out of my mouth.  Best wishes, Allan |
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| A former member | |
Allan Greene - December 5, 2005 Monday About 3:14 P.M. E.S.T. Dear Tief, Thank you for this. Since you no longer think I hijacked the discussion, I no longer think you sought to force the discussion to be cut short. I should add something else. I read what you said about your position. While you yourself professed yourself not a "strict atheist," in reality, I now believe you are an atheist. You should read George Smith's book, Atheism: The Case Against God, and I say this despite his pro-capitalist viewpoint, because by his definition of what might be called an "agnostic atheist," I think you're an "agnostic atheist." You might want to read the Marxist, Nikolai Bukharin's, book, Historical Materialism, as well, because Bukarin's definition of what he calls an "implicit atheist" is very similar to the definition of the pro-capitalist and anti-Marxist, George Smith's, definition of an "agnostic atheist." I think you fit both definitions of either an "agnostic atheist" and an "implicit atheist." I got quite pissed, however, when someone who professed himself a non-atheist basically seemed to try to be artificially shortening the natural, organically developed, string of a discussion in a site whose majority are professed atheists, particularly since I am a professed atheist myself. Now, however, I advise you that, at least from my latest perusals of what you wrote, you can use the "non-theist" designation if you like, but you're an atheist. I now realize that. I didn't before. I happen to think you fit the definition Bukarin gave for an "implicit atheist" or the definition George Smith gave for an "agnostic atheist," but I think you're an atheist, nevertheless. I think "non-theist" is a cop-out. But you certainly have the right to self-designate, if you like. I now feel that, though, you're an atheist. So I no longer accuse a non-atheist of trying to short-circuit a discussion originated by one kind of atheist to which another kind of atheist (I) responded, in response to which a third kind of atheist (Standard Deviant a/k/a another "Mike" in turn responded), in response to whose response second kind of atheist (I) again responded. It appeared to me you (a 4th kind of atheist, as I now believe to be the case) was trying to short-circuit that discussion and arbitrarily cut into it. I still think my basic point about freedom of thought and freedom of speech and, essentially, how the dynamics of freedom of thought and freedom of speech and freedom of association operate, however, was right on the money, and, therefore, trying to short-circuit the direction in which the discussion went was not productive or conducive to the spirit of freedom of speech and freedom of thought and freedom of discussion. And we are, after all, not called "freethinkers" for nothing, now, are we? Anyway, thank you for your more comprehensible and supportable remarks, Tief.  Best wishes, Allan Greene |
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| A former member | |
What are your opinions, from an atheist's perspective, on the following subjects. (Please answer if you have the cojones) |
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| A former member | |
What are your opinions, from an atheist's perspective, on the following subjects. (Please answer if you have the cojones) "absolutely no doubt." Hmmmm. Since when is there ever "absolutely no doubt"??? Even DNA evidence can show only one thing: it can, so far as current contemporary standards of DNA testing demonstrate, only exclude the innocent, but there is no way it can positively and unequivocally confirm the guilty. This notion that there can be "absolutely no doubt" is itself a childish notion. Barry Sheck and his Innocence Project, as well as the ACLU and their various projects about the death penalty have, with unconditional scientific certitude, demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that the only thing which can be confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt is, that which excludes the guilty. That's why your position that there can ever be "absolutely no doubt" is itself false. There is always a reasonable doubt. Consequently, no death penalty should ever apply. --Allan |
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| A former member | |
What December 5, 2005 Monday Excuse me. I should have written, "that which excludes the innocent," rather than "that which excludes the guilty," because that is all that DNA evidence can contemporarily confirm beyond the shadow of a doubt. That is the point of why the death penalty ought never to apply. --Allan |
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| A former member | |
Donnie December 5, 2005 Monday About 6:01 P.M. I used to believe in marriage. But I never could seem to get married. Then, I realized why not. It was because, deep down, I doubted it. My mother and father were married 55 years, till my father died in 1991. My mother never re-married, till her own death in 2001. My older brother and my sister-in-law have been married since 1965 or so, about 40 years. Still are. But I remained unmarried my whole life. I used to regret it, but I don't know. I read about how many people are unmarried, how many marriages break up, how much domestic violence there is, how much family violence, how much abuse of women, children, and even occasionally men there is, and I think, good, I'm glad I did not get married. I think I have come to believe in companionship, friendship, pleasure and mutual giving and receiving of pleasure. I think the word, "love," in America, has too many expectations built into it. In the 1970s, I read this really interesting little book by this British left-wing feminist, a woman named, Jill Tweedie, or perhaps her name was spelled, Tweedy. It was entitled, In the Name of Love, and it was pretty devastating. She wrote that in Nazi Germany, all these Nazi gas chamber guards spent all day at a hard day's work gassing to death children, women, men, old people -- other people and other people's families -- and then they went home into the loving embraces of completely forgiving wives and, in some cases, husbands. She said, it was kind of a built-in kind of conscienceless sociopathology or psychopathology. Here was this sick and evil society, killing millions of innocent people, and all was forgiven at day's end by the idiotic ideology of nuclear family domesticity. She really hit the nail on the head, in my view. I think of Bill Clinton and Madalyn Albright killing upwards of one and one-half million Iraqis, 750 thousand of whom were kids, with the American and UN economic sanctions, or Lyndon Johnson, Robert MacNamara, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger's killing upwards of 3 million Vietnamese with airplane bombings of Vietnam, or Adolf Hitler killing 6 million Jews, 6 million non-Jews, 27 million Russians, or Harry Truman dropping A-bombs and killing upwards of 200 thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Joseph Stalin killing upwards of 10 or 15 million Russians, or Cheney and Bush killing upwards of 150 thousand Iraqis and forcing American kids into a position where so far well over 2 thousand have forfeited their lives -- and all these people did this in the name of "family values". Heck, Hitler and the Nazis even screamed that woman's place was in the home, and that "home, hearth, kitchen" was the "correct" "German" ideology. I think Jill Tweedy (or Tweedie) got it right when she said, "home, hearth, kitchen, domesticity" have been used to sanction a multitude of horrendous evils and horrendous and horrible cruelties throughout history, and all kinds of horrendous psychopathologies and sociopathologies have been sanctioned in the name of "family." I once worked as a counselor for schizophrenic and autistic children. One of the little kids with whom I worked as a counselor would look into your eyes with blazing hate, and say, "I LOVE you!" Then, he would proceed to try to bite you hard with his teeth. I read years ago the book on the prosecutor in the Manson murder case, Vincent Bugliosi, by Curt Gentry, entitled, Helter Skelter. At one point, after Manson had been found out, he said he organized all those murders for "love." The great American secular humanist writer and novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, in one of his novels (I offhand forget which one, sadly), had as the introductory little remark for his novel, "A little less love, and a little more common decency." I really identified with that. So I believe in companionship, friendship, sexual pleasure (mutual and give-and-take), affection, gentleness, kindness, intelligent conversation. But I don't think I believe in marriage. 'Nuf said. Best, Allan |
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| A former member | |
1. I have gave this a lot of thought, and I have concluded that some people do not deserve to live. If a person commits a horrible crime, such as murdering a child, then I don't think they deserve life. When I heard about about the 9 year girl being abducted, violently raped, then buried alive, this made up my mind on the subject. Anyone who would commit such an act deserves anything done to them, and, and anything done would not be enough. December 9, 2005 Friday Robert: When I earlier posted on this issue, I think I said, 125 people had been found to have been innocent by DNA evidence. I was wrong. It was 164. So by your logic, who in the heck cares if some innocent person gets death. I mean, look, if you're an atheist, you don't believe in the fundamentalist religious notion of "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out," because you know there's no god and no life after death, right? So if you kill someone innocent -- if the state kills the innocent (and with 164 people found to be innocent who would have been killed by your logic, I'd say that's a lot of innocent people on death row) --you're not solving the issue. The guilty party is still out there. That's the problem with the death penalty. There's always a reasonable doubt about the guilt of the party alleged to have committed the crime. That's why I oppose it. That and the fact I don't give one iota of credibility to the state -- the police and the prosecutors -- because they want to get someone, guilty or innocent, and there's just been too many innocent people found to have been on death row who, by your logic, would have been killed if the death penalty had been applied really fast. So, no, your logic doesn't work, in my view, on this issue. Your logic's illogical. --Allan |
are your opinions, from an atheist's perspective, on the following subjects. (Please answer if you have the cojones) Powered by mvnForum
