- Joined
- 01 Oct 04
- Moves
- 12095
@dj2becker saidStill no takers.
I dare anyone to quote one of FMFs posts that have brought them great joy here and explain why rather than simply claiming that his posts fill them with joy.
@rajk999 saidThank you for your kind words.
I have found FMF to be one of the more honest, fair-minded posters around here. I get a significant amount of satisfaction from watching him ask some posters very relevant questions about your beliefs. Because of his high intelligence and robust memory he is able to quickly deal with a lot of your dubious claims. He is a valuable asset to this forum.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThis is how I would have put it if I'd been you posting on this thread. Thank you.
He is one of my favorite posters on this site. I like his dry sense of humour and clarity of thought.
@fmf saidI take great joy in reading that reply sir.
Thank you. I also take joy in your posts but I don't want to talk too much about it on a thread that's meant to be about me.
@caissad4 saidI appreciate your delightfully shrewd comment although, technically, "His contributions to this forum are without equal" could be seen as hedging: if I were to become overly tenacious with you one day, and your opinion of me soured, you could argue that "His contributions to this forum are without equal" means that I am all alone at the bottom of the list, "without equal".
As a seeker of truth he is number 1 in the Spirituality Forum.
His contributions to this forum are without equal. 😉
@sonhouse saidThank you for saying this and thus giving this thread something in common with seemingly every other thread you post in.
So show us the proof your bible is the word of God. Ah, you can't. So sorry. I don't buy humans telling me about gods. When one comes down and tells me personally 'face' to face so to speak, I might believe, after I have submitted to a psych evaluation and a full drug screen. And of course no god would ever deign to actually speak to a human, like a dude having an ant colony and contacting just this ONE ant to tell him all about how great this human is for that colony.
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@dj2becker said"You should adhere to the religion of your choice. My moral compass is undoubtedly influenced by Christianity, for obvious reasons, but I discovered that that orientation did not depend on any belief in supernatural causality, divine revelation or fear of "God". My moral compass has been further tweaked since losing my faith by living in a Muslim majority country for many years." --FMF
I dare anyone to quote one of FMFs posts that have brought them great joy here and explain why rather than simply claiming that his posts fill them with joy.
Explanation why this gives me joy: this is a good example of an open-minded person who is willing and able to think outside the box of his own cultural background and see that other people too have moral compasses which may differ from his own, without losing his own moral compass or passing judgement on others. We have seen many times too often what it looks like when one group of people, convinced that they have a monopoly on Absolute Truth and a Hot Line to God, try to impose their so-called truths on others: it looks like genocide and concentration camps and gulags and pogroms and inquisitions and Islamic State in the Levant etc. etc. We have to share this planet, and no one religion or ideology or philosophy suits everyone. Open-mindedness and mutual respect for alternative world views is the only way we are likely to survive the next 500 years (assuming we don't overheat the atmosphere first), and FMF is consciously, deliberately on that path. When I meet such a person, face-to-face or virtually, it gives me joy and hope for humanity.
@moonbus saidThanks. I am not sure the poster of the thread's OP is going to buy into what you are saying. Clearly, I have to.
"You should adhere to the religion of your choice. My moral compass is undoubtedly influenced by Christianity, for obvious reasons, but I discovered that that orientation did not depend on any belief in supernatural causality, divine revelation or fear of "God". My moral compass has been further tweaked since losing my faith by living in a Muslim majority country for many yea ...[text shortened]... t path. When I meet such a person, face-to-face or virtually, it gives me joy and hope for humanity.
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@dj2becker said"I do not believe in "works based salvation" because I don't believe in "salvation". I am interested in the coherence of ideology that results in morally sound behaviour. Narcissistic Christianity obsessed with being "saved" and "forgiven" and "immortal" and being "deified as God-men" after death seems incoherent when it, by comparison, downplays the crystal clear instructions and commandments that Christian texts offer on walking the walk [as opposed to thinking-the-think]." --FMF
Still no takers.
This is a good example of an acutely inquiring mind at work, not a lazy one which simply accepts dogma without hesitation or question. We have seen many times too often what it looks like when weak or lazy minds accept hoary prejudices uncritically: it leads to such things as institutionalized racism, criminalizing miscegenation, treating the mentally ill as demonically possessed or morally degenerate, treating homosexuals as both mentally and morally degenerate, etc. etc.--all things which have occurred within living memory in supposedly civilized countries. If humanity is to survive the next 500 years, old and stupid prejudices must be replaced by clear-headed, critical thinking. FMF is consciously, deliberately on that path. When I meet such a person, face-to-face or virtually, it gives me joy and hope for humanity.