re: #407 changomo

Obdicut, I so not understand the cause for your incivility, I have been making that same argument throughout this thread. As for being a bigot, according to Johnstone (1993:323) 84% claim no personal religion and 64% do not believe in God Demerath (2001;138). Ironically I point to Japan as a highly funtional secular society- I make no judgements in their character, so I am sincerely confused on why you call me a bigot?

How do you not get it?

One can have a religion without having a god. One can have spirituality without having a religion. By the criteria of your argument— believing that there is more to this life than mere secular existence— the Japanese are not ‘atheist’. If you mean only that they don’t believe in a monotheistic god, that’s certainly true. But your attempt to view their spirituality through purely Western standards is, indeed, making you engage in bigotry.

You also have not ever made an actual argument for your main premise— that life is pointless if it doesn’t last forever somehow. You just reassert this over and over, as if we’re supposed to take it as proved. It’s not. One could just as easily say that infinite existence would remove meaning from life.

You don’t deserve civility because you refuse to actually engage with any ideas presented to you; you’re still repeating the same assertion that you entered the argument with, without taking any counterargument into account in the least. That is uncivil of you.