Consequences of Atheism

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The foundation of Christian belief, over a period of 300 years, has been decimated. Not just damaged or roughed-up but severely decimated. I present as Evidence (Article 1) that speaking to people (here) about God, belief, this world, our reality, spirituality, reason, value, meaning and all else is comparable to trying to find your way through a bombed city. No landmarks are left and anyway if you did find one everything is destroyed around it and you are just as confused as if the landmark were not there. We do not share a common view. We live within a ruined country. We have no way to make sense of any of it. I think that the situation is actually worse for those who are 'atheists', but not because one cannot live quite well as an atheist, but rather because of the level of disconnect to the possibility of understanding man at an anthropological and cultural level. It is a simple premise: When the connection is broken to the (let's call it illusory for the sake of the atheist) metaphysical or transcendental concept around which everything Occidental has been built, it will happen successively that each generation will have and discover that much less relationship with the 'fruit' of *all that*. As I have said - I think it is true - we will have no choice but to imitate the machines we create which are better at *seeing* than we are. (We will no longer recognise the sort of *seeing* that Blake speaks about and that many here refer to when they refer to their spiritual experience. This way of being and seeing will be excised from culture).

[henry quirk]

Gus,

If Christendom were to (again) become the primary driver globally, what is to become of the unrepentant, degenerate, unbeliever (like myself)?

I reckon the same thing that would happen if Islam became the primary driver...am I wrong?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

'To repent' means to respond to an inner prompting. It is to have an experience with oneself in relation to a moral feeling or ideal. I doubt that you'd say that you do not have a self that experiences life in some way similar.

'To degenerate' is a notion - a process - that interests me. To degenerate from what to what? You are possibly bring ironic of course, yet I'd ask: do you recognise degereration in yourself? Have you ever watched a person degenerate?

Despite what is said here, 'belief' is not the crucial thing. It is what value-set one serves. So the question is less What I believe and more What do I do that expresses my sense of what is good, valuable, worthy and needed.

If you had to make choices about what value-set to live in relation to (say if you had a family, kids, the responsibility to educate), you'd either give over that responsibility to someone else (culture, school, 'the world') or you yourself would have to define it all.

You and others may think my effort is Christian apology as if I am here to preach and convert. But it is more that I want to place an entire situation on the table solely that it can be seen

The 'bombed city' metaphor suggests that nothing can be seen with clarity.

[henry quirk]

If Christendom were to (again) become the primary driver globally, what is to become of the unbeliever (like myself)?

[Arising_uk]

You and I are in big shit.

[henry quirk]

Yep, that's what I think.

I suggest: a shotgun and lots of shells...take out as many 'inquisitors' as one can...go down (or to the cross) fightin'.

[The Inglorious One]

My quarrel of the with the atheist's skepticism is not in the least that it denies the existence of God; it is that it denies the existence of man as man.

To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man’s only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good. (1118.1)

Atheism asks us to “burn with a hard, gem-like flame.” But flames are never hard and never gem-like — they cannot be handled or arranged. Human beings are never hard and never gem-like; they are always dangerous, like flames, to touch or even to examine. There is only one way in which our passions can become hard and gem-like, and that is by becoming as cold as gems.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Henry, you devil, I saw your post and then it went *poof*. The comment I'd make (to that post) is that to get somewhere in this conversation you'd have to take it more seriously than you seem to be willing to. In other words, your comments are pretty superficial.

If an extreme variety of Christianity - some sort of Calvinism with a very militant aspect, or some sort of hyper-conservative Catholicism - yes, it is possible that it might behave like some of the sects of Islam.

But the problem with your question is that Christianity only seems to be forming/reforming in evangelical circles: small to medium-sized churches made up of people who are seeking an anchor in a world that they cannot understand and which, to them, represents influences and potencies which are attacking them. Stop in sometime to one of those storefront churches and talk to some of the people. You will find that they are using 'conceptual' and 'faith' tools just to hold themselves together ('solidify the self' I term it) as-against powers that determine nearly all things about life (social and cultural and economic life). I am not a Christian and I do not know what this could mean for me personally. But I have made some of these efforts: to understand what is going on with people and to understand why they make the choices they do.

Were you to understand a theology of Christianity that is more studied and intellectual, but not less one of *faith*, you would understand that the Christian position has evolved substantially beyond any of the cliche positions which you (seem to desire to) attack. The ones you ridicule (people coming in the dead of night and hauling you off to confess, accept, or die). There are theological philosophers who are very concerned for the issues and events that (I gather) are important to you.

Also, you (and numerous others here) do not seem willing to examine the question of what has been lost as a religious and existential placement (foundation) has been undermined. You don't seem to have much interest in this. But it is certainly a philosophical issue and one that can be approached philosophically and analytically.

I'd suggest, again, to read the few pages by Waldo Frank to get a sense of what has happened. He reduces it in a way that makes it intelligible.

[The Inglorious One]

If Christendom were to (again) become the primary driver globally, what is to become of the unbeliever (like myself)?

It would ignore you, like a toad ignores its warts.

[henry quirk]

Gus,

I deleted the post cuz I don't think any one really gives a flip.

*shrug*

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Inglorious,

"It would ignore you, like a toad ignores its warts."

If this were true, I'd be most happy to return the favor.

Call me cynical (or simple, or un-serious) but I'm thinkin' (despite Gus's reasoned protest) that it would be otherwise.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

No one gives a flip about your rather totally superficial questions? I mean, it is little more than baiting, isn't it?

Is there any aspect of the question (religion, Christianity, anything) that holds interest for you?

If someone asked you (though I don't expect an answer here) what is the most important thing to you, and a reason that you live (or for something you live for), would you be able to answer?

[Hobbes' Choice]

If Christendom were to (again) become the primary driver globally, what is to become of the unbeliever (like myself)?

In the short term they'd be too buy joining up with the Jews and killing Arabs.
When they had turned Mecca into a radioactive glass bowl, then they'd come for us.

[henry quirk]

Hey, Gus, I posted then deleted...you called attention to the post, not me...if you feel baited, that's on you.

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I have multiple reasons for living. The most important is my nine year old.

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Finally, I have a keen interest in any and all systems of thinking that purport to be (the one and only) 'way'.

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'night folks...goin' home...more tomorrow, as time allows.

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Hobbes,

HA!

[The Inglorious One]

If Christendom were to (again) become the primary driver globally, what is to become of the unbeliever (like myself)?

In the short term they'd be too buy joining up with the Jews and killing Arabs.
When they had turned Mecca into a radioactive glass bowl, then they'd come for us.

Hmmmm. Good idea!

I have multiple reasons for living. The most important is my nine year old.

You're only fooling yourself, living in a make-believe world. See the excerpt in my previous post.

I have a keen interest in any and all systems of thinking that purport to be (the one and only) 'way'.

Except for yours.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I don't *feel* anything Henry (fyi). These conversations/debates have no charge for me in that sense. One reason is because no one really enters into a conversation. Quick jagged quips is the order of the day.

The reason I write is to clarify my thoughts and ideas to myself. The value of the forum is only in being given reference points or material to work with.

What I meant is that your question is less a question and more an opportunity to state your sense, or fear, etc.