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I am not privy to all the exchanges you had with him, but since I know he was talking generically about atheists and their anti-religion cause I doubt he was specifically addressing YOU. He was focused on the generic atheist "Cause" as he encountered it. His dyslexia and a rather tenacious focus on the lack of integrity and objectivity of the atheistic anti-religion "cause" probably contributed to the seeming incoherence and "off-topic" nature of his posts. As others have noted, he tended to be a one-trick pony.
Yes his fixation on anti religion atheists seemed to blind him against all atheists who posted. No he was just too quick to attack for example my stating that the Soviet army was a large reason forvthe allies to defeat Hitler therefore I am a Communist sympathiser. It he returns I hope he has a reset first.
Other than perhaps my additional sense that AA was always wanting to "play both sides to the middle."
Yes and that in and of itself is not something I can't abide. There's at least one of those on each forum. The other one I'm on has a guy named Jerry that does exactly that, reflexively. I think they get obsessed with the idea that the truth is always found in the middle of any debate, when in fact it has nothing to do with the Overton Window in either direction at all. The truth is a function of facts and evidence and lies at random places in the range between the extremes, and moves around some even then. It would be great if we could "split the difference" but in some questions there IS no middle (because they are straight up-and-down questions) and on others, the middle has no special significance anyway.
As an atheist, Arach was ashamed of the general anti-religion bias of the many atheists he found posting here, especially initially, many of whom have left the forum. He received personal admonishments by DM for "not being a team player" and realizing the "cause" being fought for by the atheists here.
I have never been DM'd by other atheists or in fact anyone at all telling me to toe some sort of line. If that happened he was as free as I would be to tell the person sending such a DM where they could stick it. In fact any atheist worth their salt would likely have exactly that reaction because we don't react well to people telling us what to think or say. That is why atheism and freethinking are so closely connected.
I would not suggest you infantilize AA by suggesting his tender soul was permanently lacerated because some asshat or other gave him impertinent advice. It should have been a source of hilarity to him I would think. And I would be the first to tell AA not to generalize that to all or even most atheists. That would be highly anomalous, this DM thing he's always on about.
But he had a tendency to run with snap judgments like that and once he decided to do that he was not open to new evidence. Perhaps he needed it to be a simple bogeyman problem, IDK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
That lack of integrity toward the plausibility that our Reality was something more than atheists deemed it to be (although not a deity) bothered him a lot. It really troubled his soul and sense of intellectual objectivity. I miss him.
I have intellectual integrity and to maintain that I do not have to credit things that even you don't claim are evidenced but for which you are trying to shoehorn in some kind of "plausibility" for. I mean all things are possible, not all things are likely. Your synthesis originates with you and from what I can see you aren't getting much uptake on it. I don't know what to say, I'm not trying to be cruel or something, but ... if you can't make a convincing argument then either the truth is for a rare select few scattered folks or you just don't have a convincing argument. I am sure this has driven you up the wall (because you have said so at times). It is based on your personal experience "in deep meditation" and I guess if you want it to go somewhere you're going to have to convince and probably train people to achieve that particular state so they can have that experience too. And as you surely realize that is an uphill battle to say the least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I hope he was not chased away by complaints to the moderators.
I have more faith in the moderators than that. And besides, he's not the first person around here I'd imagine to be likely to generate complaints from hypothetical busybodies. AA was guilty only of compulsive / obsessive ideations and leaping to conclusions, but we handle that around here before breakfast anyway. I wouldn't mistake him for a s__tposter. To me he was merely tiresome, not malignant.
I am not privy to all the exchanges you had with him, but since I know he was talking generically about atheists and their anti-religion cause I doubt he was specifically addressing YOU. He was focused on the generic atheist "Cause" as he encountered it. His dyslexia and a rather tenacious focus on the lack of integrity and objectivity of the atheistic anti-religion "cause" probably contributed to the seeming incoherence and "off-topic" nature of his posts. As others have noted, he tended to be a one-trick pony.
Meine Güte, the only one who lacked integrity was Arach. His pretense that we were only anti-religion and not looking at the evidence was just one, another being that we ran away from evidence we did not like. His constant dishonest attacks is possibly why one atheist no longer posts here, and probably why several religious posters also stopped posting.
AA occasionally made good points here and there. But largely, in 9 out of 10 of his posts, I didn't understand what point he was making at all, so if I'm honest I often just skipped reading his posts.
Make no mistake though, he could go on the attack. As Harry says, I've seen people driven from this forum. The mods here I don't suppose issue infractions lightly, so although I'm sad to see anyone go, if repeated attacks were happening then I guess at some point you just have to face the consequences.
I am not privy to all the exchanges you had with him, but since I know he was talking generically about atheists and their anti-religion cause I doubt he was specifically addressing YOU. He was focused on the generic atheist "Cause" as he encountered it. His dyslexia and a rather tenacious focus on the lack of integrity and objectivity of the atheistic anti-religion "cause" probably contributed to the seeming incoherence and "off-topic" nature of his posts. As others have noted, he tended to be a one-trick pony.
There is no generic atheist though other than a disbelief in god.
Also we have no generic cause.
(I know these are not your views but from the POV of Arach).
I might well be becoming a one trick pony here myself, but this picture that is painted that we are all anti-religion is not only tiresome, but a very long way from the truth.
Most religious people wouldn't recognise an atheist if they fell over them. We don't walk around with placards ringing a bell. Most atheists are just regular people who don't give religion a second thought. Painting them all as anti religion is actually pretty harmful and hateful in itself in my view because it stirs up all the kind of division we see in so many aspects of society these days. We don't need it.
As an atheist, Arach was ashamed of the general anti-religion bias of the many atheists he found posting here, especially initially, many of whom have left the forum. He received personal admonishments by DM for "not being a team player" and realizing the "cause" being fought for by the atheists here. That lack of integrity toward the plausibility that our Reality was something more than atheists deemed it to be (although not a deity) bothered him a lot. It really troubled his soul and sense of intellectual objectivity. I miss him. I hope he was not chased away by complaints to the moderators.
Can we please stop these incredibly stupid comments inferring that the moderators are puppets of other members and so eager to do their bidding that we will merrily disregard our job of moderating the TOS to make somebody else happy?
The truth is that members have no one but themselves to blame for actions taken against them. We have a saying, "S/he committed suicide by mod". Some members make numerous attempts and eventually succeed no matter how many times a moderator may try to prevent them from doing so.
There is no generic atheist though other than a disbelief in god.
Also we have no generic cause.
(I know these are not your views but from the POV of Arach).
I might well be becoming a one trick pony here myself, but this picture that is painted that we are all anti-religion is not only tiresome, but a very long way from the truth.
Most religious people wouldn't recognise an atheist if they fell over them. We don't walk around with placards ringing a bell. Most atheists are just regular people who don't give religion a second thought. Painting them all as anti religion is actually pretty harmful and hateful in itself in my view because it stirs up all the kind of division we see in so many aspects of society these days. We don't need it.
It is fair that you consider my initial motivation to scientifically pursue the possibility and plausibility that our Reality is God (as I experienced God to be) as sufficient reason to discount and disregard my Synthesis as worthy of further consideration. It is, after all, counter to your firmly established and preferred view of Reality as atheistic.
It is NOT, however, the attitude of a sincere and rigorous seeker of the Truth using your Ten Assertions. It is a satisficing rationalization of the supposed validity of your preferred view of Reality.
If you are going to refer to my Ten Truths, you could at least use the correct title, and if you are going to refer to my line of reasoning along those lines, you should try harder to understand it. Perhaps you will have to adjust your preferred reality just as you are suggesting I need do mine. How do you suggest we make those adjustments given not our "preferred view" of reality, but what we understand reality to be as best we are able?
BTW, do you capitalize the word reality on purpose? If so, why? Reality is what it is whether capitalized or bolded or put in italics...
I'd bet anything that's why he isn't here.
He would contact me during his last long suspension.
He was hated for exposing the Standard Anti-Religionist Method of Operation here...that they try to deny...but were careless enough to expose by trying to get him to join in.
He'd relate those requests by them...and then make "lists" based upon them for them to "choose what comports best with observations".
They would never address it...and he would call them on that too.
They just had to get rid of someone identifying as Atheist that would do that.
This bothers me as much as the passing of some of the Members over the years...it is a terrible loss.
We're not supposed to discuss moderation here, and I'm not sure to what extent I'm breaking the rules by suggesting we give the mods more credit here than seems you are assuming...
I've been on both sides of that issue when it comes to people complaining about my comments or threads and/or being defended by mods against those kinds of people. I've also seen what seems the work of a few "squeaky wheels" getting the grease when I'd say they shouldn't have. Not to go on about AA here much longer, but just like you and the rest of us, he was not immune from a good deal of criticism. Some perhaps not warranted. A good deal that was/is. Again all a matter of perspective that applies to all of us. Judgements we all make every day. Certainly including the mods of course.
"Good, bad and ugly" as those perspectives may be...
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