This time let’s just leave it at that. 
Iambiguous … you have articulated “your point(s)” eloquently … what’s the word count at this point? Repeating it ad nauseum doesn’t make it any more compelling.
“Your point(s)” are valid … supported by bountiful empirical evidence.
Clinging to your point(s) have lead you to what you call an “existential contraption” … I encourage you to be patient … seems you are making progress … as in progress towards breaking the chains that bind you.
Read some of the article … some of the anecdotes in the Book of Acts (NT) suggest Jesus was much closer to being a Communist.
That’s the thing about definitions. We can only define atheism given the gap between what we think the definition ought to be and that which would need to be known about the nature of existence [and human reality] itself in order to define it essentially, objectively, ontologically.
And that frame of mind would seem reasonable only in the entity that we call God. And if God created the human race where does that leave us? Or if the human race created God creating the human race where does that leave us?
Me, I always come back [here on this thread] to discussions of God – the existence of God – as that pertains to the behaviors we choose here and now as that pertains to our fate there and then beyond the grave.
I call myself an atheist. But I recognize that this reflects more an intuitive leap to No God than an actual solid conviction that He does not exist.
Still, the most tenable frame of mind revolves around the greater obligation of those who profess to believe in God to demonstrate that He does in fact exist. After all, “in our head” we can claim to believe in anything that the mind can ever imagine.
You don’t know what motivates me to post as I do here. That goes beyond my participation at ILP.
Besides, new members are joining all the time here. They are exploring my arguments for the first time. Who knows when one of them might post something that actually reaches [even teaches] me in a way that, for example, so far, you don’t.
Yes, and clinging to your own points have allowed you “in your head” to go beyond the existential contraption that entangles me [“I”] in my dilemma above.
But I still don’t have a firm grasp regarding how your own belief in God allows you to yank yourself up out of it. Or in how it facilitates you in connecting the dots between how you choose to behave here and now and your imagined fate there and then. Before and after the grave.
Instead, your frame of mind [to me] is just one more example of someone who has been able to “think” himself into embracing a subjective/subjunctive narrative that affords him considerable more psychological equilibrium and equanimity than my own narrative does. So, just in terms of “peace of mind” you come out way ahead.
“Progress” in “breaking my chains” will occur when others are able to provide me with an argument that seems more reasonable than the one I have now. And lots of folks in the past have accomplished just that.
But now you are in a hole where there is no way to distinguish reasonable from unreasonable. IOW, you have thrown away the tools for getting out of the hole and whenever someone throws you another tool , you reject it as useless. And since you won’t even try using the tool, you can’t convince yourself of its value. 
So, you’re fucked. (Pardon my French.)
Have you learned anything at ILP?
Here of course all we have at our disposal are words. Others either do or do not succeed in assembling them into arguments able to convince me that the manner in which they connect the dots between the behaviors they choose on this side of the grave, their imagined fate on the other side of the grave, and their thoughts and their feelings about God, are more reasonable than my own.
And, if they are, there is still the problem of demonstrating to others that what we believe about these relationships is that which all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.
Or, instead, it all becomes embedded and embodied in but one more leap of faith to God. One more wager.
This as opposed to any number of human interactions in which we have no problem at all in making a distinction between reasonable and unreasonable beliefs:
It is reasonable to note that in fact Donald Trump calls himself a Christian. It is reasonable to note that in fact he was baptized and confirmed at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, in New York City.
But:
Is it reasonable to note that Donald Trump is in fact a Christian? Is it reasonable to note that the Christian God does in fact exist?
What “tools” do you suggest that we use in order to make a proper distinction here between reasonable and unreasonable beliefs?
What I have not come across is an argument that succeeds in yanking me up out of my dilemma. What I have not come across is an argument able to convince me that a God, the God, my God does in fact exist.
More to point, however, I have not come across many on this thread who are actually willing to connect the dots [existentially] between their moral narrative on this side of the grave as that relates to the behaviors they choose as that relates their imagined fate on the other side of the grave as that relates to their belief [here and not] in God and religion.
Instead, I tend to come across agendas that seem more intent on attaining and then sustaining a frame of mind that provides considerably more psychological comfort and consolation than I am myself able to attain and sustain.
And in the face of, among other things, oblivion isn’t that what really counts?
In other words, whatever actually works.
What point would there be in such a suggestion? You would simply reject any suggestion as inadequate.
There are some minimal requirements to be satisfied.
Same as “a heap of sand”. We reasonable know that it is not one grain or two or a few. There is a quantity of sand where it becomes unclear/disputable whether it is a heap. Then it becomes clear again once some quantity is surpassed.
You however make it seem that it’s always in dispute.
My question was a general one, not directly related to your dilemma or God.
No, this is you imagining that you understand my motivation and intention here better than I do myself. But, then, admittedly, one way or another, we all seem forced to make leaps of this sort.
All I can do [as I point out time and again] is to note the many instances in the past when I did not reject a frame of mind that was opposed to my own. Over time any number of folks have managed to yank me up out of one or another set of assumptions embedded in one or another objectivist frame of mind.
Relating either to God and religion or not.
Here it depends on where you draw the line. For some that requirement revolves solely around actually having met Donald Trump; and Trump then convincing them that he is in fact a Christian. Others go back even further – the solipsist for example. Or those who insist that Trump is just one more character in a simulated reality that all of us “exist” in.
What then are the minimal requirements that the Christian is required to have in order to convince either Non-Christians or atheists that in fact Jesus Christ died for our sins?
What is not in dispute however is the existence of all those grains of sand.
Hell, here, we may as well get into a debate as to whether Pluto really is in fact not a planet.
I have been here for almost 7 years and I’ve seen many people try various arguments and approaches with you. None have had even a slight effect on you - not even an infinitesimal reconsideration of your position.
Notice how you shift from considering questions where reason and judgement could be methodically applied, to questions which are easily settled or almost impossible to settle. IOW, shifting from work and philosophy to the relaxed, safe and comfortable.
I think that you now find your dilemma easy and comfortable.
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Again, what are you arguing here? That because I am still an atheist and still entangled in my dilemma that proves that I will never be willing to take into consideration the arguments of others? You just know this?
And here I am entangled in a dilemma that fractures and fragments “me” to the point that I am unable to “take a stand” regarding moral and political commitments. Why? Because even to the extent that I take political leaps to one or another position, I still recognize them for the “existential contraptions” that [from my frame of mind here and now] they are. Also, as I get closer and closer to the dreaded oblivion I have nothing to make that go away. Whereas most religious folks are able to think themselves into believing it’s not really oblivion at all.
On the contrary, it is one or another rendition of salvation itself. Paradise for some.
Again, there are folks who do have the comfort and the consolation of being able to connect those dots between here and now and there and then. They know what the “right thing to do” is. And they know “in their head” that if they do the right thing they are Heaven bound.
And the only reason I created this thread was that, way back when, zinnat had promised me that he would eventually get around to that part himself.
So, sure, I can see why I have absolutely nothing to gain at all in having others reconfigure my bleak and somber frame of mind with an argument that yanks me up out of this grim hole that I’m in.
Notice how that more or less revolves around the distinction that I am always making between the world of either/or and the world of is/ought. The world of empirical rerality and the world of value judgments and religious convictions. As that relates to our capacity to demonstrate that what we believe about reality in either world is something that all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn.
So, with regard to “reason and judgement” that can be “methodically applied” to Jesus Christ, let the Christians among us demonstrate why and how reasonable men and women should believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins.
And though this may well be “impossible” to settle, I can only keep pointing out that with so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – it would seem incumbent upon Christians to come up with the most convincing argument of all.
Do you have one?
Think again.
Yes, you really do believe that don’t you? And, in believing it, it affords you ample peace of mind.
I get that part.
But what on earth does it have to do with the points that I am raising on this thread?
Looks like we’re stuck: youtu.be/V2f-MZ2HRHQ
Maybe.
But here I am getting closer and closer and closer to the abyss. And if my own understanding of it is correct this means that for all of eternity I will be utterly detached from…
1] the folks I love
2] the music I love
3] the films I love
4] the books I love
5] the art I love
6] the food I love
7] the programs on PBS that I love
8] the discussions I love
9] the emotions I love
10] everything else that I love
So, I ask myself, in that context how on earth can I learn to accept death on a philosophical level.
And I presume that, for all of eternity, you in turn will become utterly detached from all of the things that you love.
How then do you manage to put that into perspective philosophically?
From my frame of mind it all comes down to this: That [sooner or later] even all of the things that I love will be no match for all of the accumulating pain and suffering that comes attached to a body getting older and older and older.
Indeed, it can even become so lopsided that you literally beg to die.
Unless of course you’ve got one of another religious narrative to fall back on.
Okay, what does that have to do with the points that I am raising?
Look, you have the comfort and the consolation embedded in your own rendition of God. And all that this implies when connecting the dots between before and after the grave.
So, for all practical purposes, you win. 
[-o<
Could this be any more abstract?
Can it be illustrated with specific incidents which occur to real people?
It’s all in the head, isn’t it?
Those guys over there have illusions. But what I’m writing about illusions is not an illusion. 
He quipped…sarcastically?
The irony then revolving around the fact it really is hard to imagine a frame of mind more abstract.
In other words, is what he proposes here true?
Imagine this…
Someone is up on the podium and he notes all of this for us. We wonder: How is this applicable to the life that I live from day to day?..to my interactions with others?..to particular contexts in which I find myself entangled in conflicts with others?
And [of course] how do my thoughts and feelings about God and religion become [for all practical purposes] intertwined in it?
Is this or is this not the single most important factor in attempting to adduce his meaning?
No, “human’s perception of atheism and God are creations of thought” that arise in particular minds in particular sets of circumstances in particular historical and cultural contexts.
Right?
But not all that we exchange in discussions of God/No God is illusory. There are any number of things that we can demonstrate to others as in fact true about our own particular narrative.
I merely focus on those parts that seem [to me] to be considerably more problematic. We believe that what we claim to know here is true. But are we then able to demonstrate that all reasonable men and women are in turn obligated to share our own frame of mind? In other words, if they wish to be thought of as reasonable men and women themselves.
And how specifically do we then connect the dots [on this thread] between the behaviors that we choose here and now and that which we imagine the consequences of choosing them will be “on the other side”.