The boasts of atheists (Atheist self-deception)

I totally disagree. This is beyond question.Ask him if you don't believe me.

Absolutely crazy, I agree. Completely upside down and backwards to call feeling sorry for someone in pain "dehumanizing" or "spitting on them" or "boasting" -- but it's all of a piece with this odd idea that calling oneself morally exemplary and the greatest friend who ever lived NOT boasting. Truly wonderland around here. I'm not offended by it as you seem to be, but boasting it certainly is.

I think you caught their logic there.

Well you and me both.Flowers are the way the earth laughs. Retch. We need to start a very exclusive club for those very few who understand what's wrong with that kind of sentiment.

Wow, that blast of moral indignation against a guy who felt something for some people who have suffered greatly is just perverse.

It's called empathy. Sensitivity.

I'm sorry. I just dislike sentimentality. It's phony. Sometimes it's mere inarticulateness though, not always phoniness. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings about it. I would never say this to anyone normally. It just has to be said on a thread like this which is ABOUT such things and in which you are all trashing Robin because of his perfectly sensible feelings and arguments.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Why are you all making this huge moral calamity out of a man's feeling for people who are suffering?????

A FEELING of pity is not the same thing as SAYING to their face how you pity them. Pity has acquired a nasty meaning from those who use it to put someone down, which has in fact been done here. But that's because it's a LIE. True pity is just feeling with your fellow man.

There's nothing sentimental and phony about rescuing animals and caring for animals. But there sure is about making ooing and ahing over baby birds into the meaning of life, and there sure is about saying that flowers are how the earth laughs. Yik. Almost ruins the beauty of flowers and the charm of baby birds. It's about proportion.

"Sentiment" is probably what you are thinking of. Most of us have quite a bit of sentimentality too, so in itself it's just a human thing. The problem is in elevating sentimental expressions to the meaning of life.

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sen·ti·men·tal·i·ty sen·ti·men·tal·i·ties 1. The quality or condition of being excessively or affectedly sentimental.
2. A sentimental idea or an expression of it.

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Sentimentality - definition of sentimentality by The Free Dictionary

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sen·ti·men·tal (sen't?-men'tl)
adj.

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Characterized or swayed by sentiment.
Affectedly or extravagantly emotional.

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Resulting from or colored by emotion rather than reason or realism.

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Appealing to the sentiments, especially to romantic feelings: sentimental music.sentimentally sen'ti·men'tal·ly adv.SYNONYMS sentimental, bathetic, maudlin, mawkish, mushy, romantic, schmaltzy. These adjectives mean overly or insincerely emotional: a sentimental card; a bathetic novel; maudlin words of sympathy; mawkish sentiment; mushy effusiveness; a romantic adolescent; a schmaltzy song.

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Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions

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Dictionary Information: Definition Pity
Thesaurus: Pity
Description and Meaning: Pity

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Pity (Pit"y) (?), n.; pl. Pities (#).
[OE. pite, OF. pité, pitié, F. pitié, L. pietas piety, kindness, pity. See Pious, and cf. Piety.]

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1. Piety. [Obs.] Wyclif.
2. A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration. "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord." Prov. xix. 17. "He . . . has no more pity in him than a dog." Shak.
3. A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted. "The more the pity." Shak. "What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!" Addison.
^ In this sense, sometimes used in the plural, especially in the colloquialism: "It is a thousand pities."

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Synonyms -- Compassion; mercy; commiseration; condolence; sympathy, fellow-suffering; fellow-feeling. -- Pity, Sympathy, Compassion. Sympathy is literally fellow-feeling, and therefore requiers a certain degree of equality in situation, circumstances, etc., to its fullest exercise. Compassion is deep tenderness for another under severe or inevitable misfortune. Pity regards its object not only as suffering, but weak, and hence as inferior.Pity (Pit"y) (?), v. t.
[imp. & p. p. Pitied (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Pitying.]

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1. To feel pity or compassion for; to have sympathy with; to compassionate; to commiserate; to have tender feelings toward (any one), awakened by a knowledge of suffering. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Ps. ciii. 13.
2. To move to pity; -- used impersonally. [Obs.] "It pitieth them to see her in the dust." Bk. of Com. Prayer.Pity (Pit"y), v. i.

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To be compassionate; to show pity. "I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy." Jer. xiii. 14.
http://www.selfknowledge.com/72347.htm

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Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Actually, Doc's remark pretty much qualifies him for Robin's and my club. In case it's just a flash in the pan, though, he'd have to undergo testing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Good grief, man, how do you know what anybody here does to help out others?And hey, how are you so sure they'd like you to sit down and talk to them anyway, since you're into questioning everybody's reactions but your own? They might experience your conversation as a royal pain.

Some people know how to read facial expressions and body language better than others.This objection to a feeling of pity for old men who have spent much of their lives in an institution with terrible wounds is mindboggling.I'm sure most people just pass them by, either feeling nothing or avoiding whatever they do feel, or saying something cheery and patronizing. But you all would attack a guy who felt for them. You're all nuts.

Yeah well the proof IS in the pudding.