People - I /was/ a Christian

How could I? There's no such thing.And quite frankly, Ray, you can take your ad hominem and cram it up your ass. You're doing exactly what I suspected you people would; you're scared to death at the idea that someone could escape your prison of bullshit, so you have to pretend like I was never in the prison, in the first place. Learn to read, Ray. I was a Christian, as were many others. Christians identical to yourself. The only difference is, you haven't left the faith yet. But you will, if you live long enough. I did. As it turns out, there's nothing to come to.If even Mother Theresa can come to realize the truth that there is no God, there's little hope for your faith, don't you think? But that's exactly what I embarked on. I had faith. I had genuine communion with God.And then, I realized it was all self-delusion. Look, I felt it, Ray. I felt exactly what you feel now. But I'm smarter and wiser than you, which led me to the realization that I was deluding myself.There's no aspect of faith that I "didn't get." I got it all. But I understand how you have to deny that to the last, out of your cowardice.

It is, but it's one you can break with practice.You really, really don't have to go around having faith in things unseen, if you don't want to. Well, I agree, but that doesn't mean we have to go around consciously accepting propositions on the basis of no good evidence. I mean, nobody's twisting our arms, right? (Except for the Christians who are literally doing that.)

It is once you know you're doing it, Arach. I realize that's the sticking point - becoming aware of your own bad assumptions - but you seem like you're past that point.I mean, once you've said to yourself "oh, damn. That wasn't something I knew, that was just something I accepted because it felt right, or because I wanted it to be true", you can consciously evaluate the proposition and come to a conscious decision as to whether or not it's supported by evidence.Sure, we all have unquestioned assumptions. Faith is conscious, though, because "faith" is the rationale people use to defend those assumptions when they are challenged. "Oh, I can't prove or defend it; I just accept it on faith." It's an exercise in refusing to justify one's assumptions.How is that not conscious? I'm not saying you should wake up tomorrow with no unchallenged assumptions. I'm saying that you can make the choice to stop defending those bad assumptions with "faith." What's stopping you?

Well, of course I am. I'm committed to accepting what the evidence best supports in as many things as possible - in all things, is my goal.The natural result of that is that I'm always on the very cusp of being shown to be completely wrong in whatever I previously believed. That's what it means to be a rational person.And, of course, that's the farthest thing in the world from being a person of faith. It's possible, however unlikely, that I might be convinced by evidence to believe in God again; but I don't imagine I could ever in this universe become a person of faith, except as a great personal failing. I take great pleasure in finding out that I'm genuinely wrong. In fact I doubt very much that there's anybody at this forum who has admitted to more genuine error than myself. If there's one thing that I wish for you, in this subject and all others, it's that you'll come to regard yourself as the least trustworthy authority on these issues, rather than the greatest, as you seem to, now. I'm sure you'll misunderstand what I mean, but a reasonable person - rather than a person of faith - would find their personal, irrefutable feelings of communion with God to be an even greater reason to be skeptical of the existence of God - not proof of God.Do you see what I mean?

Perhaps you might try comporting yourself with some.

Why would you fail? I don't understand. If you failed - acted irrationally - then clearly you weren't aware of your own irrationality at that time; or else you're choosing to act irrationally, with "faith" that it'll all turn out fine in the end, or whatever. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm not talking about religion to atheism. I'm talking about faith to faithlessness, and it is just as easy as saying "you know, I'm going to stop holding positions that are contravened by the evidence." Sure. It's like coming out of the closet, I imagine. You have to tear down a whole host of bad mental habits you put in place to deal with the cognitive dissonance of being gay and telling people you're straight.But, ultimately, the choice is a simple one - "Today, I'm going to stop pretending. I'm going to stop living a lie. Today, I'm going to change how I act."Trust me, no one knows better than I do about how hard it is to change your own habits. My entire adult life has been a struggle against my own bad mental habits. But ultimately, it's just a matter of choice. The choice to live differently. To think differently. To act differently. Funny, but that's exactly what I've been saying about you. Between you, Holmes, and Rrhain, the three of you have the corner on contrarian sophistry. Right. Do you remember why?Not because I think you hate Jews, or that you're a bigot. All I did, as I recall, was turn your logic around on you and show you how it led to the ridiculous conclusion that you could be considered an anti-semite.Of course, you missed the point in order to have something to argue about, as usual. It's just one more example of your relentless contrarianism run amok, Arach. You like to argue. You misrepresent or misunderstand arguments in order to do so.I can't, for the life of me, understand why you had to make it personal, though. What a chip on your shoulder you must be carrying around. Never nuanced? You haven't got the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Honestly, Arach, you need some help with your obsession problem, I think. I'm neither angry nor spiteful, but I refuse to pay deference to religion. It's a destructive force that humankind would be better without. It's the same as bigotry and sexism, and I refuse to pay lip service to it. Whoah! Never heard the theist call the atheist a "fundamentalist" before!Seriously, Arach, I can be convinced that I'm wrong at any time by evidence. Not by sophistry, which is what you usually bring to the table, but by evidence.You? Nothing in the world can convince you of error once you'd adopted the opposite stance as me. Not even the fact that you're contradicting previous positions. Whatever I say, you have to say the opposite. Here you are doing it in this thread!You're obsessed with contradicting me. What the fuck is wrong with you?

I could give two shits what people say behind my back. Of course, you're deluding yourself if you think that people hold you beyond criticism.I'm wrong like, all the time. And I admit it when I am. You, of course, have never admitted to being a relentless contrarian at any point that I've seen on the board. I'm sure you'll deny it now, but here you are, trying to contradict me at literally every turn. If I told you I jacked off in the shower this morning, I have no doubt at all you'd be the first to proclaim as loudly as possible that I, in fact, did no such thing.I don't know if it's spite, or you're a mean cuss in general, or if you've got a big chip on your shoulder. But you're certainly not the only relentless, ridiculous contrarian around here. As soon as you have an argument, I'll be happy to. As it stands I find it illuminating that your brand of knee-jerk contrarianism, wrong-headed logical fallacies, and clumsy ad hominem managed to convince absolutely nobody at all.

Why do you think that? I see nothing irrational about either love nor hate. Indeed, the sciences behind love and hate are quite well developed.You seem to think that who we love or hate is irrational, subject to whimsy, random. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Who we tend to love and hate couldn't be more predictable, generally. Arach, you always have the choice to change your habits, once you've recognized them.Seriously, what's your problem, here? Why the incessant contradiction? Haven't we, at this point, more than left the bounds of what we know from science and empiricism? Aren't we, at this point, offering our individual outlooks on life?What in the name of holy hell is wrong with you that you would be so arrogant as to try to judge my own personal outlook? To try to tell me that my own experience just didn't happen?What the fuck is wrong with you, Arach? Is your need to contradict me that pathological? You've exceeded even Holmes, at this point. You're sounding more and more like the fundamentalists you claim to oppose. "You don't understand faith, Crash." Sure, never heard that before. I mean it's not like I wrote an essay or anything about how I do understand faith, from experience? "We all have faith in something." I've heard that a lot, but I've never heard a convincing argument. At best, people who say this statement make it obvious that they don't understand the difference between faith and trust, so I recommend you start there.And indeed, if everyone has faith, doesn't that make faith meaningless? If it's impossible for you to conceive of faithlessness, what possible meaning could faith have for you?Are you sure I'm the one who doesn't understand it? Because it sounds like your understanding of faith hasn't improved any since your time as a fundamentalist.At least I've left that shit behind, Arach. You're so wrapped up in the fundamentalist mindset - even after all this time - that you can't help but relentlessly contradict me - me, who you've identified as the "heretic." As the "unbeliever." As he who would dare to hold different ideas than you. No matter what I say, since it issues from the keyboard of the infidel, it must be opposed. If I came out against cancer, your very next post would be about how great cancer is. I don't have all the answers, and lord knows, nothing's easier than finding the solution to other people's problems. But some things really are easy. And deciding not to accept propositions on the basis of no good evidence is one of those things. In practice, your untested assumptions can jump up and bite you on the ass every day. It happens to me all the time, on this forum, and I try to be as transparent about it as possible.But once you've identified the assumption, it's the easiest thing in the world to evaluate it. You just decide to do it. What's stopping you, Arach? Why, after all this time, do you insist on thinking like a crusader? Perhaps you can refresh it yourself, or did someone break your fingers? Why don't you dig up the thread and people can see for themselves? Needless to say, your recollection differs greatly from mine. No surprise, of course, that your own memory would make you out to be the victor in any exchange. More of the fundamentalist mindset, of course.If you want to revisit that debate, as you apparently do (what the hell? did you take notes? Write about it in your journal? "Dear diary - Crash was so mean to me today!") then I suggest you exhume and re-open the thread.This is really very symptomatic of your complete inability to let it go when you see that big orange frog over there on the side. You just have to take the other side, don't you?It's sick, Arach. Seek help. Perhaps my memory is fuzzy but I recall telling you something similar at the time. Yes! Or to read it and share one's own story. Or at the very least, to have someplace to link back to in three months when, invariably, one more Christian comes to the bizzare conclusion that I don't know anything about his religion.I don't recall at any point creating a thread for you to vent your endless hostility and bizzare personal obsession, or to dredge up ridiculous non-arguments from the past, or to play endless games of "you do this" "no you do" "you're projecting" "no you are." Christ, why on Earth would you think that's a worthwhile conversation?What the fuck is wrong with you? No, Arach. I have plenty of respect for a large number of posters, and I've paid respect on a number of occasions. Most recently to Molbiogirl for her stellar contributions to a thread Hoot Man started about horizontal gene transfer.It's just that, you're not one of them, and you find that endlessly galling that I won't genuflect before your elephantine intellect. For the life of me, I can't imagine what a small, small person you must be that you give a damn what somebody like me thinks about you. I actually don't recall that. But it doesn't shock me that you'd take a nonsense dispute where it doesn't belong with a mocking, sarcastic POTM nomination. I haven't ever claimed to be. I'm just a guy that everybody seems to forget has been there. That was the only point of this thread. So that I don't have to keep typing out my fucking life story every time some moron says "oh, if only you were a Christian, then you'd get it." I've yet to encounter the rational, well-reasoned defense of religion you refer to. Unlike you, I guess I'm not willing to take it on faith that, in the end, we come out ahead via religion.If that makes me some kind of asshole, guess what? I could care less, especially coming from you. Then why the relentless contradiction? Why contradict even my own personal viewpoint? Normal people say things like "we'll agree to disagree" when it comes to differing opinions on things.What the fuck is wrong with you? Why does "agree to disagree" never pass your keyboard?Because it's about endless contradiction of Crash at all costs, that's why. It's a sickness, Arach. In order to contradict me? Isn't that my point? That there's nothing you won't say if I've been saying the opposite? Don't you see how you keep proving that, over and over again? Says you, who's bringing up an incident from four years ago (unless my memory is mistaken) to try to impeach me. Jesus Christ, did you mark it on your calendar? I'm glad my only internet pictures are on my Facebook page, or else you'd have one of those creepy stalker walls. (For all I know, you've got an altar burning candles in front of a big poster of a frog.)What the fuck is wrong with you, Arach?

Oh, God. I didn't realize that I was talking to fucking Miss Marple over here.Are you gonna go run and tell on me to mommy and daddy, now? Don't read the posts if you can't handle a few dirty words. Let the adults talk in peace. I think the most famous, and possibly first, of my great blunders was when I said that there were no flying aquatic birds. Pretty stupid. Doubtless ducks were flying right past my window when I typed that.I recall being wrong a great many times about the gender of various posters. I've said a fair number of wrong things in the various 9/11 conspiracy theory threads, at least in the early days. Molbiogirl proved me wrong last week about the Wolbachia HGT thing; I was proceeding from incorrect assumptions about how they parasitize hosts.But honestly, Arach, I've written nearly 15,000 posts under this name, stretching back to my junior year of college. I don't remember specifics. I'm not, for instance, making notes of them on a calendar, as apparently you must be. If you've admitted to being relentlessly contrarian, as you appear to be asserting now, you'll have to point out the relevant post. And yet, you want to chase me around the internet, trying to get me to cry "uncle" about the Arach-Approved(tm) way to interpret a fictional story in a fictional book that we both agree has been misinterpreted all along?Masturbation is all you do, Arach. It's all about proving me wrong, at any cost. I mean, it would never occur to you that two people might read the same text in two entirely different but justifiable ways, right? Because then you might be forced to agree to disagree, and how does that fit in with your relentless crusade to prove me wrong?Of course, the most hilarious thing is that if you just weren't so ignorant - if you spent more time learning and improving your knowledge, rather than obsessing on all the myriad ways I've slighted you in the past five years - you'd find that I can fairly often be caught out being wrong on the facts, just like Dr. A did today. I mean, you could have a who cornucopia of Crashfrog-being-wrong, if you only knew enough to catch me in it. Do you enjoy this? I certainly don't. I don't particularly like being put in the position of having to spend hours correcting your endless slanders and unfair, inaccurate characterizations.Do you enjoy making them? Is that what you're saying? That you'd rather sling this sort of slime than engage with people in a constructive way? One you lost, by my reading. I can't grapple with your Hebrew sources, because I don't speak the language. But Rrhain destroyed your arguments, as near as I can tell. Of course, that didn't stop you from repeating the same bullshit towards me, as though I hadn't been watching or something.That's why I ignored those arguments - they had already been refuted by others. I guess I could have cut and pasted their replies, but you apparently didn't pay attention the first time, and it was hard enough just getting you to debate with my arguments honestly. Gosh, do you think that's maybe because you're so unpleasant to deal with, nobody wants to contend with you? That you hold years-long grudges, and use them to justify all manner of personal attacks and general misbehavior?No, that surely can't be it.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Am I?Where, specifically? Direct quotes, please. It would certainly be a marked improvement on your body of work. Indeed. You're starting to catch on, I think. Of course, you've just refuted your own position that "we all have faith", which is as mealy-mouthed and meaningless a position as any you've taken.But at least you disproved it for me. So I don't have to stay up for another hour to refute you; you were kind enough to refute yourself. So, the word is meaningless?So what, exactly, do you mean when say I have it? You've given away the game, I think. Ah, yes, delightful. You crapped all over the POTM forum with an off-topic, jeering, sarcastic vendetta post because you just couldn't let something* go, and you wonder why you got suspended.You keep proving my points for me. Don't you ever stop to wonder why you do things like that? I mean, clearly you were wrong to make that POTM post. Right?What on Earth would have led you to do something so stupid if not your completely unhinged desire to argue with me? I mean, look what it led you to do here:

quote:

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your argument was plaigarized from postmodern feminist bs.

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And you wonder why you think I resort to ad hominems? Because you start with them. Your second post in that thread is to level a deeply personal and insulting accusation.Which, of course, you conveniently omitted in your mocking POTM post. Considering the severity of the charge you leveled and could not support, and never apologized for, I think I acted with supreme restraint.And, to top it off - we were arguing about the fucking alien in Alien. Don't you think your response was maybe just a little bit disproportionate?No, I forgot. You're the aggrieved party; you're the saint who never utters a peep except the most reasoned of arguments; you're the very paragon of rationality who never loses his temper or gets frustrated.Seriously, Arach. Something is very, very wrong with you. I was aware of it then and tried to tell you. You thought I meant it as an insult, apparently.Should I be worried? You don't list a physical location. Should I expect to see you outside my apartment here in Lincoln or something? No, seriously. You've been carrying a grudge based on an argument you started with an unfair accusation for four years. What the hell else shouldn't I suspect you could be capable of?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Christ, stop with the novels already! That I swear? Yeah, chalk one up for you, I guess. Advantage Arach!Seriously, though. The attitude that I don't like you? Oh, does that carry through?Do you think, maybe, it has something to do with having to fend off deeply personal accusations for all this time? Or how about the fact that you can't post a single response to me that isn't a torrent of abuse? Even four years ago - which I had forgotten about until you brought it up, incidentally - you were spewing forth ridiculous accusations. "Crash is a plagarizer." "Crash uses insult instead of argument." "Crash doesn't speak English."I don't like you, Arach, because you invariably act like a prick. It's not an attitude problem I have. It's a problem I have with the way you act. I'm not a complete moron, Arach. I've never stated that the world is flat or argued that up is down. If you're looking for a blunder I've made that's greater than forgetting that ducks exist, I don't know what to tell you. "Simple goof"? Even now I look back at that as the stupidest thing I've ever said out loud.And that's not enough for you? What the hell have you ever admitted error about? Of course it was absurd, Arach. That was the point. I was hoping to get your attention, to get you to pay attention to my arguments instead of misrepresenting them.Apparently it just gave you more to go off about. Consider that another blunder, I guess - my assumption that you can comport yourself like a reasonable person interested in a discussion. That was certainly the mistake I made offering my opinion in your Sodom thread, in the Alien thread, in the gender-of-objects thread, etc. You have to prove me wrong, first. Your refuted arguments in the Sodom thread certainly didn't do that.But, of course, that won't stop you from asserting the exact opposite - because you're a contrarian. Because you can't possibly accept the idea that I might have a different opinion than you.What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously? Paranoid? You're dragging up years-old grudges to beat me over the head with. What the hell is that, if not obsession? Oh, for god's sake. I refuse to believe that there's this massive conspiracy of Crash haters that I've somehow cowed into silence, all with dirty words apparently. And sorry to burst your delusions of grandeur, but you're hardly the first person to fill several pages of text with everything you think is wrong with me. In fact I wish you were more like Faith; she at least had the decency to keep it to under a few paragraphs.But by all means, if there's this massive contingent of haters, let them step forward. If I'm so truly hated and despised by so many, then I'd just as soon know, so that I can stop (apparently) polluting the board with such offensive post.Step forward, Crash haters! I promise that I hold you no ill-will, nor will I yell at you or say any bad words. I won't show up at your house or anything. I'm a bigger boy than that. But if I'm really so unwanted, here, then I'd genuinely like to hear that to my face.I can't for a minute believe that I've somehow frightened anybody. I'd just like to hear what people have to say - and I'm sure some of you would rather speak your own mind than be co-opted by Arach in his ridiculous, obsessive vendetta.

Calling you psychotic for disagreeing with me?Arach, I'm calling you psychotic because you're acting like you have a psychotic vendetta against me.How did you miss that? So what does the word mean? If everybody has it, how does anybody have it? If faithlessness can't possibly exist, then how can anyone have faith? How is calling me a plagarist not a personal attack?Christ, you're defending that behavior, now? You're truly unbelievable. It's not in the least bit possible that your actions had anything at all to do with escalating the tension level of that encounter? That bandying about accusations of plagarism might, just maybe a little bit have had something to do with why your poor little ego had to suffer the indignity of being called a "douche" on the internet? How can I crib from something I hadn't read, and didn't quote? What, I'm supposed to cite sources I'm completely unaware of, that coincidentally happen to say something similar on the surface to something I might have said? The idea that something might just be a coincidence never occurred to you?Not, of course, when it would give you an opportunity to insult me. Hence, the accusation of plagiarism, to this day unsupported and unretracted. Yeah, that's a personal attack. "You're sexist." How is it not? ...what? What are you talking about? This is the post I'm talking about. There's nothing about TV sitcoms in it. I don't recall that being my argument at all. What post are you referring to? Apparently neither one of us has a functional memory on this issue. I wouldn't have described it as eloquent (you really do go on and on and on...), and needless to say, I don't recognize myself in anything you've said about me. "Respectful of no-one"? "Plagarist"?C'mon, Arach. You must realize how much of that is just mean-spirited, ad hominem attacks. Why don't you take a little of your own advice? I'd never heard that. (Oops! Is that one of those admissions of ignorance you claim I never make!) Do you see how I have a hard time believing that, since you apparently carry around a four-year-old grudge because I had a difference of opinion about the movie Alien? You strain credulity far beyond the breaking point.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Responses like "you plagarized that from somewhere"? Gosh, can't imagine why I might come off short in a response to that.Of course, the way you misread things, I doubt there's much I could say that you wouldn't find assholish. Your unjust perception of me colors the way you read my posts, of course, which just further confirms your own shaded interpretation.I'm not asking for clemency, here, you just need to be aware of your own bias, here.Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. Sometimes I misinterpret joshing for personal attacks, especially when people don't use smilies, especially when its people, like you, I'm already frustrated with. Holmes especially had a tendency to do that. When it was a case of genuine error, I've genuinely apologized for misunderstanding. The line between "you're an idiot" and "you're an idiot; ha ha!" is quite narrow. Hell, even my gentle ribs have come off as great insults from time to time.You, of course, think that I'm an asshole to one and all, and that's how you read my posts - "let's see what Crash the asshole has to say today." But of course, when you say "stole", you don't mean that to imply dishonesty or anything on my part, because that would be one of those personal attacks you never make, right? Jesus Christ. I pray to god I never wind up on your bad side if this level of prickishness is what you extend to the people you don't even dislike. I don't think I could leave the house without a gun if I had the impression that you ever disliked me, now. Is that what "you stole your arguments" is supposed to accomplish? Reasonable discussion?Because it isn't working. I wonder, indeed, if you've ever been a part of a reasonable discussion, or if that term just means "Arach's insult free-for-all" every time you use it. It's not contrarianism, Arach. I honestly found your arguments lacking, for the reasons I described. You did nothing to change my mind.What am I supposed to do? Lie, and tell you you convinced me? You didn't. You didn't convince me to change my reading of the passage.I was not convinced, and I don't think I was being unreasonable then, and you haven't convinced me that I'm unreasonable, now. I'm not going to lie and tell you otherwise. Don't confuse me being unreasonable with you having impotent arguments. Mine's bigger. My bottle of Vicks, I mean. I get terrible congestion. Is that all? I know people who think you're acting like one, right now. (Oh, did you think you were the only one engaged in ex parte discussions about this?) And it's hardly a shock for an atheist to be called "fundamentalist"; that's just par for the course. That's the automatic attempt at insult for anybody who speaks of religion in any but the most glowing language.Why on Earth would I take being called "fundamentalist" at all seriously? Certainly none of the actual fundamentalists here think I'm one of them. Or did you forget about Ray, up there, promising me an eternity of hellfire? He certainly doesn't think I'm in with his group. Nobody on the fundie side of the aisle considers me anything but the strongest possible irreverent skeptic and incorrigible evolutionist. Since you've decided to hijack an entire thread to air your personal greivance with me, I guess it's only fair that others be allowed to do the same. Although I hope that they're not as big an asshole about it as you've been. And it would be nice if they didn't write a novel, either.

No offense, but:I think it's just as possible to be divested of one's faith, as well. It is possible to be faithless, just as one can be footless. I credited the source; my own intellect. That it was coincidentally similar on the surface to something you had read does not make me a plagarist.It does violate the forum guidelines for you to continue to repeat it, though. It is what I said at the time. Maybe we should just stop talking to each other. Quite frankly I find your endless baiting and contrarianism - not to mention your accusations - very difficult to avoid terse responses to. If you can't help but make them, we should both refrain.

Alright. You apologized for something. I'll accept it, and offer you an apology. I'm sorry.And I think we should just refrain from reply to each other, forever. Why don't we just leave it at these apologies?