At the end of a curious Saturday I was almost prone to give up hope entirely, but then I asked myself what else should I do? Just fade away .... wither away like a Dutch tulip at the end of May (ask yourself some time why the tulips in the Dutch bulb fields only flower between March and May - isn't nature interesting?)? Or simply wake up tomorrow as challenged as ever and with most of any hope disappearing across the proverbial distant horizon?
I spent some part of yesterday evening watching a football (soccer to North American readers) international between Switzerland and Germany (my adopted country). Switzerland, a useful but not amazing team, won 5-3. Every time they got near the German goal, they seemed to score. It was only a friendly game, nothing too serious involved and there was a lot of experimentation in the teams - but we (Germany) looked bad, and my emotions were winning the arguments over my reasoning.
Well you cannot live your entire life in a totally rational sphere, there are times when you have got to give your emotions time to .... well do what they have to do, enjoy, lust, get angry, cry, wharrever.
As long as you know how to respond to them positively and not get carried away.
It ought to be amazing though how powerful the forces of emotion are and how much curbing reason is required in order to win arguments in this world, and it is sadly to our permanent detriment that we allow reason to take the proverbial back seat. The issues that affect us all should be solvable, but they need reasoned approaches and pragmatic solutions. The more that we step away from that thinking, the less things are likely to improve.
You will not for instance wish away cancer (and crying because someone close to you has it will not improve the situation), you rather need to find a cure that works. At the same time, you must prepare yourself for the worst and live with the consequences of what is to come, should one not be found.
What I would repeat is "beware propaganda". I am getting into the unfortunate habit of checking out YouTube when there is nothing better to do. As I have subscribed to a number of channels on the subject of atheism, it should not surprise me that I keep running into the same silly arguments, particularly from religious believers, who are particularly fond of using propaganda for lack of any more convincing arguments available to them.
So last night came the argument from a Muslim (based in the US - sounds weird, but they exist) with all the Allah will take revenge on you in the next life garbage.
This morning from a Christian (of sorts), an item on atheism being in decline worldwide (stats in Germany suggest that that is not the case here, but I digress), highlighting the phrase "the thrill has gone".
Is "bored" an emotional word? That was my response to both of them. I could go and argue but why? Both are using stock emotional, not rational, techniques. Fear of what might happen when you die (I have no fear of permanent void and peaceful, permanent sleep), and belief being an instant fun thing.
I am not an atheist because I get a kick from being so. I am an atheist because I have scientifically weighed up cause and effect and logically reached the conclusions that I have reached. Cold reasoning may sound very unemotional, but that is exactly where we need to be IMHO. I would like to see it applied outside the realms of religion (politics could do to have a large dose of it applied for example), but given that much of humanity is still unclear as to how to free the power of logic and reasoning, and is still far too tuned to trying to meet the needs of its often flawed emotional requirements, it will not happen in my lifetime.
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