by EdenOne 284 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I don't know where you got that idea from. Aten was depicted as a solar disc with rays emanating from it. And the sun exists, I see it mostly every day here.
From reading on the subject.
Aten was originally a hypostasis of Ra as well. His origin story is that a dead king rose to the heavens and united with the sun.
Either way, assigning spirit power to a real thing no more makes that thing a god than does painting orange and black stripes on a poodle make it a tiger.
Cofty,
My intention was indeed to end my participation on this thread because it was getting ugly with personal attacks and no one really benefited from that. However, since the tone came down and others were still willing to keep on discussing in a civilized way, I changed my mind. Don't make a tantrum out of it.
As for the seriousness of the thread. I said it was a light subject steming from a word play, that I didn't intended to become an academic debate. While the 'nonsense' and 'arguments demolished' are your subjective opinion of the output of the debate, and I won't even argue with you on that, calling me a liar isn't taken lightly. Of course, knowing how you operate in this forum, I suspected that your participation on this thread would be an inevitability. I welcome your participation, but when the subject is theism / atheism, you manage to make your intervention extremely unpleasant, bordering the insult, and you hijack the thread to suit your proselitizing agenda. Many in this thread disagreed with me, and they were able to do so without becoming obnoxious as you did and keep doing. In return, they have my respect and no incensed ad hominem took place. It did with you because you don't hesitate in misrepresenting my words, ignore inconvenient arguments, and freely calling me a liar.
Ideas are like children. They may be imperfect, silly, impetuous, intelligent or bratty, but they are our ideas and we defend them because they represent a small portion of us. And I'm perfectly capable of defending and debating one idea that I had formulated. In this case, I formulated an idea around the notion of absentheism and thought it was worth it to bring it out for discussion. Nothing too serious, but I was interested in debating it to see how it would stand up upon scrutiny. Naturally, you cannot resist the subject, but this wasn't done to bait you. However, you're boringly predictable. Like a predator fish, you thrust yourself into the bare unbaited hook. And sometimes, you deserve to be taken on a fool's errand. For the simple reason that when it comes to this particular subject, you behave like an anti-theist bigot who thinks he's entitled to insult whomever doesn't agree with your ideas; are you surprised to get some tough love back? Because the troll in this thread turns out to be you. I'm not in this forum to win or lose debates, I'm here to get and offer support, learn but not be lectured. And certainly not to be ridiculed for whatever my thoughts are. And if this is as nonsensical and you feel offended in your dignity, why are you still here debating?
But hey - take it to the moderators of the forum and file a complaint. Then tell me the outcome please.
Eden
I welcome your participation, but when the subject is theism / atheism, you manage to make your intervention extremely unpleasant, bordering the insult, and you hijack the thread to suit your proselitizing agenda.
I feel the need to point out this is kind of instigatory. These kind of comments are what initiated Coftys more.. assertive replies.
I feel compelled to defend cofty here just because I can't disagree with this statement more or I would. I've been on your side of things Eden and while I did get frustrated with some of Coftys points, like when discussing the Quran for instance, it was never how you describe here. It was an honest debate and discourse and Coftys posts are just to the point and factual. It may come across cold, and thus aggressive but it's just straightforward. Even when on your side I actually appreciated this about each post. You have to remember, or rather I suggest remembering, that how something comes across (especially when lacking tone of voice such as text) is completely up to you - not cofty.
I even look back and appreciate some of Vivs posts to a point (lol). And I agree with everything she's said here.
Jonathan Drake,
Even in writing, people can show restraint even when they disagree. I can tolerate a cold tone, but I cannot let misrepresentation and distortion of what I write to be used to attack me. Like I said, I normally apreciate Cofty's participation on threads that don't deal with theism / atheism. He's a sharp thinker and usually his interventions are well thought out. But on this particular area, he feels entitled to make all sorts of derrogatory remarks about the people who hold ideas he doesn't agree with. Not about the ideas, but ridiculing the people who have them. That's unacceptable, and at some point it will trigger a violent response. More, he freely twists and cherry picks quotes from my posts to pass the impression that I said something I didn't say and then attack me for it. It's a relentless and sneaky resort to strawman fallacy that gets quickly tiring.
I apologize for some excessive language towards Cofty. Is he able to do the same or does he have nothing to apologize for?
Eden
So, well done, good job, thread derailed.
As we left it last, so far we still don't have clue what absentheism is actually saying (or not) and I suspect we never will.
As we left it last, so far we still don't have clue what absentheism is actually saying (or not) and I suspect we never will.
Albert Hitchcock style. :P
Fear not, Viviane. I'm sitting at a chinese restaurant getting ready for some beijing duck, and will get back on track when I finish dinner.
Eden *chomping*
By the way, who is "we"?
By the way, who is "we"?
Everyone, including you.
Not about the ideas, but ridiculing the people who have them. - Eden1
I attack bad ideas, unlike you I don't attack people. If I am going to criticise somebody's character I do it by PM as you well know.
Go back to the first page or two and see how I paid you the respect of discussing your idea seriously.
I have nothing to apologise for.
Thank you Jonathan Drake for your supportive comments.
