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+1
Just had a conversation about this last night after reading River out of Eden (yes, I am a dirtmunching antiChristmas heartbleeder, get over it). If we regard it as silly to believe in tiny faeries that move particles around with the power of their LOVE, then we should regard it equally as silly to believe in a magic entity that started everything. The inability of science to disprove nonscientific statements is not to the credit of the statement.
It’s an admission of ridiculousness.
@ieattime20
You obviously haven’t opened your heart to Jesus christ. Let him in and you shall be saved. apparently.
@...Ando: Sounds like some alternate version of pokemon or something.
@Ando
Hahaha. Man, I really think a lot of evangelical Christians should look up what “begging the question” or “assuming the conclusion” means. Of COURSE if I accept Jesus into my heart I’ll not be an atheist. Eating a shit-ton of food makes me fat. No one’s explaining why I SHOULD be fat by saying that though.
Fat with JESUS.
Oh wow, so awesome, I love you guys.
The second argument is all wrong.
What he should be saying is “I believe that a baseball exists”
What’s with all this religious crap Tiki, if I wanted to expend ANY energy what-so-ever I’d go to church or get on a religious forum… well wait I mean I enjoy the Scientology bashing and Raptor Jesus, and well actually go ahead with it Tiki you know what’s up
@...Dublin0: Some people enjoy religion bashing whole heatedly. It makes me feel better about my own stupidity.
+1.5
Oh, and *golf clap*. Good show.
@...Namelis1: It might also have to do with other people telling us how to live our lives AND/OR creating laws to enforce their archaic views of morality all while claiming justification because someone a long time ago heard voices in their head.
Y’know… that whole thing we (and by “we,” I mean these exact people) hate the Middle East for?
win
+ 2 internets for spreading logic and reason tiki
@Namelis1: You’re right! You may be dumb, but at least you’re not “religion-stupid”.
Thank God I’m an atheist!
@...Louis E.: I almost shit and split my sides LOL awesome
@...Namelis1: I was just saying I didn’t see why everyone exhausts so much fucking energy in the words of the Beatles Let it be… there will be an answer let it be. I mean does it surprise you that people follow a religion, and granite yes there are witnessers but that’s the beauty of freedom of speech, I just get tired thinking about it… like beating up an autistic midget what’s the point
Just about everyone does this about something, religious or not.
No comment.. I dont want another Atheist threat to get 300+ post. lol
@...riverdaledragon: Atheist threat? Good name for a punk band. Could open for Agnostic Front.
@...greytone: I agree.
@...greytone: lol
@...Dublin0: Its called FAITH. not everyone has the balls for it.
@...riverdaledragon: Apparently you have a different definition of ‘no comment’ than one would expect. It’s called REALITY, not everyone has the balls for it.
I am sick of these threads. Just because i can’t prove god doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And just because you can’t disprove him doesn’t mean he is real. End of story everyone shut the fuck up.
Bulletproof. That’s how everyone who ever believed in God acts. Coincidentally all religions technically fall under Christianity too.
@...riverdaledragon: I know I don’t. Maybe they just haven’t dropped yet. Please pray for my balls.
Personally, I love these threads. Why? Because our religious tards throw a shit fit every time and lose every time. It’s really quite funny.
Um no we don’t. It’s more like the atheist fags engage in mental masturbation and high five eachother. Meanwhile the reasonable and rational and educated of us so called “religious tards” try explaining to you and the way we see it. And then you just resort to generalizations completely ignoring any logical presentation given to you. And quite frankly your heads explode when you try to comprehend the “possibility” ( not the proven fact just the suggestion of a possibility) of a divine or supernatural reason to why Science and the universe exist. Meanwhile you offer Absolutely no evidence to contradict it and again resort to petty generalizations because you can’t man up and say “hey maybe i am wrong”.
I mean after all it is impossible for anyone or anything to use science to create things right?
^^^
Exhibit A: shit fit.
@...thelotuseater725: Ok, now that I got the snarkiness out of the way. The reason that we “can’t man up and say ‘hey maybe i am wrong'” is because ‘maybe’ doesn’t matter. If you could prove beyond a doubt that there is a god, that would totally be a game-changer. All of the sudden it would be imperative to try to understand the nature and intentions of such a god. OTOH, if I’m confident that there is no god, then I can spend my life as I see fit and not worry about what some old guy in sky thinks about it. But sitting on the fence doesn’t mean shit. There’s no intellectual or practical advantage to ‘maybe’.
@...awfulintentions: I don’t know. I’ve been seeing some poor arguments from the atheists and agnostics. You can’t shout someone down and declare yourself the winner. It’s kind of embarrassing from either side.
Not that we should expect to see well structured debate on an image blog comment section, so whatever. I try to keep it lighthearted.
@...reboot: Dealing in absolutes is a characteristic of fundamentalism.
@...greytone: Trite cliches are a characteristic of intellectual laziness. If you disagree with me, explain why instead of attacking the strawman of fundamentalism.
Well, what’s great about the religous people, like yourself, Lotuseater, is because you guys are, without a doubt right, in your opinion, and are always trying to force your crap down people’s throats who believe other wise.
When us Atheists go and post something that’s against your sensitive Christian Upbringing, it’s omg, persecution. Even if it’s just for funzies, but your kind can around slamming us, when we actually use science and deductive thinking and all these wonderful things that evolution and natural selection gave us. ( Oh please, oh please, ask the monkey question, I dare you. )
How can God as Christianity believes God to be, even exist? Where’s the proof, give me a shred. Christianity, nor Judaism, has existed since the advent of man kind. THAT HAS BEEN PROVED. Cultures and societies have existed far longer than Judaism, from which Christianity was formed. Now, if the Christian God is the one all powerful God, wouldn’t he have made his word known from the beginning of Human time?
@...thelotuseater725: Hey, did you read my first thread? How there is no reason to ever lend credit to any explanation that is not scientifically verifiable at base? Faeries pushing particles around with LOVE? Why is one silly and the other “World Religion”? History, not facts, not creedence, not arguments. The same reason racism persists after being shown time and again to be nothing but a damaging influence. History is the ONLY thing defining religion from paranoia, schizophrenia, and mania.
There is nothing rational about believing an explanation that can never be proven. Even String Theorists admit it’s hope as much as science that ties them to their field, and that they could be wrong. So the most reasonable and rational of ‘religious tards’ are still made of fail.
@...reboot: My apologies. What I was trying to point out is that it’s not so much a matter of proving beyond a doubt but to the point were one feels it is more reasonable to believe. That point varies from person to person based on their criteria for evidence. I find it more productive to discuss what that criteria should be according to logic and reason rather than bickering back and forth about god v no god.
Your stated criteria seems to be absolute certainty which strikes me as a bit extreme. Scientific method calls for a working falsifiable model and Occam’s razor for the least amount of unwarranted assumptions. There are no absolute certainties in science.
Would you mind explaining why you think it’s reasonable to set your expectations to black and white absolutes?
@...awfulintentions: I don’t see the justification in telling someone else what they believe and how they behave.
@...awfulintentions: Way to prove Lotuseater wrong about atheist resorting to generalizations.
@...greytone: Some questions have room for ‘grey areas’. Is it right to kill a human being? Most people would say that there are sometimes when it is and sometimes when it isn’t. Then the debate continues about which circumstances justify killing.
Is there a god? The answer is yes or no. We look at the evidence, consider the arguments and chose one or the other. If you answer the question ‘maybe’ what doesn’t even mean? Like I said, if God does exist, in any sense, that’s a big fucking deal. Believing in an omnipotent, supernatural being should change the way you live your life in some way or another. That’s not an inconsequential conclusion. If you don’t think its a black and white question, then explain how answers it with a definitive ‘maybe’ would at all be productive? What conclusions can I draw from that? How should I live my life in response to a ‘maybe’ belief? Should I pray just in case? Should I join as many churches as possible to cover my bets? If god wants me to believe in him, why doesn’t he make it more obvious?
BTW, awfulintentions didn’t post a generalization. It’s not a generalization to say that believers slam atheists without science or deductive thinking, when that exactly what lotuseater did. It’s pretty damn specific.
@...reboot: Awesome.
Oh, and “atheist fags” is so loving! What a wonderful rhetorical strategy! It’s sure to win people to religion’s side!
@The Matrix: Rebooted: the answer may be yes or no, but can we reasonably reach either conclusion at this point? no, we’re limited in our scope of understanding. The pursuit of truth is different than knowing it.
and if there is a God, we can’t assume he is motivated the same way we are. he might not care about us at all. He might not even be aware of our intelligence. He might fucking hate us! He might be a non-specific cosmic organization by a committee of lesser “gods”.
Anything is possible, but it’s unreasonable to assign probability from where we’re standing.
Can there be an afterlife without God? Abso-fucking-lutely!
“Coincidentally all religions technically fall under Christianity too.”-Dyna-Mole
Me reading this Pre-Coffee: “Huh?”
@...Dyna-Mole: can we reasonably reach either conclusion at this point? Yes. Unless you believe that Russel’s teapot might be floating in orbit between Earth and Mars, then given a lack of evidence in favor of god, we can conclude that there is no god.
I do respect that you’re open-minded about what the nature of god might be like. I think one thing that we CAN conclude is that if god does exist, its not benevolent. That given the nature the universe there are 3 equally valid conclusions:
1) God doesn’t exist
2) God doesn’t care about us
3) God is insane
Atheism is optimistic.
@...reboot: Atheism is optimistic. I lol’d. I also cried with pride. Too bad there’s not leetspeak for that.
I see now what lotus means when he said mental masturbation.
“Rational this, rational that. Unlikely this except for my hat.(because I can see it, unlike your god, duh).
“I did not discover relativity by rational thinking alone.”
@...reboot:
Atheism is optimistic. Right. Once again, atheism has no agenda and is so to say useless. If you think the Christian god, or any other god, is as unlikely as a pink fairy in your garden, then how can you assume your disbelief in that very god means any thing?
You can’t tell me that the disbelief in pink fairies means any thing to how you live your life.
It’s only after you compare your disbelief to say, Christianity. Then you go, ooh see? Because my disbelief hasn’t caused any harm, it automatically causes something positive! No.
I don’t believe in Santa Claus. But that disbelief doesn’t have any thing to do with how I live my life.
“I don’t believe in Santa Claus. But that disbelief doesn’t have any thing to do with how I live my life.”
Sure, it does! Just think of all the insanity if you really believed in Santa Claus. It means that you don’t have to worry about peeping-tom elves checking on whether you are naughty or nice. It means that you don’t blame yourself when presents don’t magically appear each year. It means that you can live in a house without a chimney. It means that you can go ahead and eat the milk and cookies after the kids have gone to bed.
@...dieAntagonista: How old were you when you stopped trying to stay awake and get a peek at Santa Clause? When did you stop writing your list to Santa and started writing it to your parents instead? That atheists still celebrate xmas and giving knowing there is no god and no santa seems, to me, very positive indeed.
hey, fuckers- take it to the moldy bible post.
If you’re not afraid that a sky daddy keeps track of how you behaved, so you do good things only because you believe that it’s the right thing to do – common sense, and the belief in love caused you to do that. Not the fact that you know there’s no sky daddy.If there were no people who lived their life according to a sky daddy, wouldn’t you still continue to live your life, like *you* think is right?
@...reboot:
Yes that’s true, but you did exactly what I said. Atheism only appears to have advantages after you compare it to the belief in something unlikely. If you don’t believe in Santa Claus, then why would you compare your disbelief to other people’s belief in something you think is unlikely?
Let me put it this way, imagine no religion existed, ever. But let’s say you would still call yourself an atheist, would you still think your disbelief contributes to the quality of your life?
@...nyokki:
Ok that might be a bad example, because I was never taught about Santa Claus or any of that.
I understand what you mean though. And I agree.
But if you celebrate Christmas anyway, and you do nice things without believing in god, then you’re not doing it because you believe there is no god, right? You do it because you appreciate being nice. If you agree to this point, you would have to say that Niceism causes you to do that, not atheism.
@...elzarcothepale: Have you noticed how long it takes that site to load? I mean c’mon.
@...dieAntagonista:
huh. it didn’t take anytime at all for me, but oh well- we busted the +500 mark, so i am satisfied.
any tips on a comment to read if i want to bother chiming in?
If not, here are two pennies:
There are only two reasons to participate in religious ceremonies. The first is Fear of Consequences, wherein the afterlife will punish non-participation. An example would be Baptism, saving a baby from damnation or purgatory by performing a ceremony that alleviates the burden of something that the baby personally did not do.
The second reason is Symbolism- attaching cultural weight to a process that is or was in the past somehow legitimately important for the survival of a particular culture, like many tribal ceremonies that mirror/teach the act of the hunt, or the spiritualization of the game hunted.
I didn’t read all the comments, so somebody might have made this point already.
Belief in God is not illogical. Socrates started it.
What is God? God is not anything in this universe. This is logical. We hypothesize that there exists something that is not any ‘thing’. This is the only way we can know God, or think about God: to look at a tree and say “That tree is not God”, or to look at ourselves in the mirror and say “That reflection is not God”. We are hypothesizing that something exists which does not exist. How can the non-existence of nothing be proved?
On the other hand, to subscribe to a Religion is to believe in a story that someone else told you. Even though you have faith so hot that it can burn down a forest and you believe with all your heart, all this means is that someone told you a story and you believed it. You bought it, hook line and sinker.
I’d like to remind all the Atheists out there that ‘logic’ as you call it is flawed and broken, and ‘rational thought’ makes no sense because it means quite literally that you cannot talk about the sky without mentioning the ground[which really has nothing to do with the sky at all], and that you must divide everything into a ratio, an is and an isn’t. ‘Reason’ is also neurologically linked to emotion, and whether you are an Atheist, Agnostic, Deist, Polytheist, or Pantheist probably has a lot to do with the books you read, the words you hear and say most often, and how your parents raised you.
Is this too ontological for m[c]s?
“‘rational thought’ makes no sense because it means quite literally that you cannot talk about the sky without mentioning the ground[which really has nothing to do with the sky at all], and that you must divide everything into a ratio, an is and an isn’t.”
If you’re trying to make an etymology argument, you fail. ‘Rational’ comes from the same root word as reason, reri, which means to reckon or think. The mathematical sense of ratio, or rational numbers, did not come into use until the 17th century.
The idea that Socrates started the belief in god is laughable.
@...dieAntagonista: Oh homeslice. Oooh homeslice. I’ll make this real mathematical for you: A belief in no god confers no advantage. But a belief in ANY god confers disadvantage. Therefore, do not believe in god, it is an improvement. To the quality. Of my life. End of story.
@...Belbo:
Oh and you. Spoken like someone who has absolutely no understanding of logic. First of all, the rational disbelief in god isn’t about logic, it’s about systematic explanatory schema. Theistic versions of SES’s are barely systematic and have extraordinarily limited explanatory power (i.e. the explanation confers no understanding– God’s Will Is Strange). And this is precisely because they are unfalsifiable and ‘silly’, like faeries pushing particles around.
Science and atheism provide useful explanatory schema that are indeed systematic, like the Scientific Method, see? Why is the systematic necessary? Because it doesn’t exclude people; nothing but learning prevents anyone from performing a scientific experiment, and it also provides checks against bias. When’s the last time a religion did that? Best of all, it’s useful.
To reference Dawkins, airplanes built by science are extraordinarily reliable, and if they fail their failures can be identified and guarded against. The airplanes built by religion (for instance, the ones in the coke-can worshipping tribe who saw planes and tried to build them) didn’t get off the ground.
So no, logic is not broken, religion is not useful, science is, we’re too old as a species to listen to voices in our heads or believe in things that, if they existed even theoretically, could not interact with you at all. God is dead, all hail humanity. What’s ours is ours now, it’s not something else’s.
@...dieAntagonista: I only meant to say that a world w/out religion need not be austere and unfeeling. That atheists participate in a moral world regardless of their lack of belief in god(s). Who would call themselves an atheist in a world that didn’t believe in god? Why would the concept of atheism even exist? Atheists would still celebrate life and have holidays (though it may not be called “holiday”). There would still be joy and sadness, suffering and relief. This is what I thought when reboot said “Atheism is optimistic.”
@...Belbo: That 3rd paragraph made no sense. What part of rational metaphysics demands that every time you say “is”, you must also say “isn’t”? Too much Hegel, I think.
Whoops, don’t know what happened there.
One does not need to say what something is by describing every single thing it isn’t. Uniqueness doesn’t require such a ridiculous litany.
@...elzarcothepale:
You forgot another thing- Fear of being discriminated against, by other religious people.
Well, I’ve never been baptised, I would go straight to hell anyway. But honestly? Even if I knew there was a god, who punishes people, an afterlife etc – I would refuse to do what he wants me to do. I do what I think is right, and I live my life the way I think is fair. Should I ever start believing in an afterlife, I want somebody to shoot me. I wouldn’t feel worthy of continuing like that.
@...nyokki:
I see. But still, you say atheism is something positive, if it can’t be positive without theism – then how can it be any thing in the first place?
If an atheist goes crazy, kills a bunch of other people and himself after he figured there’s no afterlife – he didn’t do it because he’s an atheist. He did it because he was mentally sick, and not able to think rational etc.
I know I’m gonna get shit for bringing this up, but there are also nihilistic atheists. Who don’t care to do any thing good, because they think, why should I do good if there’s no god any way? What do I care?
Yes those people exist. Would you assume that a person like that, does it because he doesn’t believe in a god? Or because he’s confused, mental, doesn’t appreciate love, or whatever else.
Another ugly thing – the definition of atheism is in dictionaries described as a disbelief. With no agenda. It doesn’t also say, atheism causes all the good, that theism isn’t capable of causing.
If you’re an atheist and you do good things, you do them because you’re a good person. Not because a theist would do the exact same thing because of dishonest reasons.
Oh all of you please please please for the love of jeebus and baby jeebus and the flying spaghetti monster and nothingness please stop all of you are making my brains hurt. This is pointless and futile there will be no resolution and that hooker will still be dead regardless of whether there is a god or not she’s not coming back to life and I’m still going to have to bury her in the river valley because the N. Sask. river is too shallow in places to be sure that she won’t wash up onshore.
@...dieAntagonista: I think we’re talking around each other a bit. In general the term atheist has no meaning except as a lack belief in god (theism). If there were no people ever, that believed in god then there would be neither atheists nor theists. It would be meaningless and therefore moot. We had a choice. Somewhere, sometime, someone believed in god. What was the original state of man? Was man born believing and then some other man said “No, I don’t believe”? Did man not consider it until one day another man said “I believe”? Did wars begin over it, right from the beginning? It may not be to say that atheism is because theism is; it may be to say that theism is because atheism is.
@...reboot:
So in other words you can’t accept a possibility of being wrong? I mean what about plausibility? Why is it not plausible that a race of beings or a single unknown being like that which we can not imagine lightyears upon lightyears ahead of us in pure knowledge of science or. I’m asking you to push religion aside and to throw out any preconceived notions on our universe away. Now please understand my argument does have a flaw in it. I am going to assume you believe in parallel universes and the idea that there may be a Metaverse. Here is my proposal: If our universe is as vast and seemingly infinite as we believe it to be then it would be safe to say at least a few other planets or systems beyond our reach can possibly spawn life that is similar, inferior, superior to ours; correct? So let us assume that there are multiples of them not only in our universe but in other ones in the metaverse. Now we humans are capable of understanding how our universe and our slice of existence work; am i correct? Now theoretically and hypothetically speaking we can harness that knowledge to create and replicate our surroundings-possibly improve or spawn a new category- provided we are given the right materials and the right technology; correct? Then why can we not also assume that there are other beings in our metaverse and universe that are already capable of doing that?Let’s even take the metaverse out of it. Let’s say there is only our universe and nothing else. Is it not possible that there is another planet in our universe teaming with beings who are superior in understanding of the universe and science than us? And if that is true then can they not also harness there knowledge providing they have the right technology etc? I mean i know it is extremely hypothetical and the odds would make the planet look like a quark in the center of the galaxy. But is it plausible? I’m not askign you to bow down and worship my god. I’m not asking you to believe in any one religion.
Please understand i am not trying to talk down to you or anything near that vein. I know you are a smart man reboot. You have knowledge that would take me years upon years to understand.
@...ieattime20:
Believe it or not i actually love science. And i have known ever since i was a kid that DNA is why some people are black or white.Hell i even know other animals even have genetic sequences that are more or less identical to mine. I know that genetically Apes and Humans are similar. I also know that if life started in the universe it was probably by Abiogenesis: a process in which “inorganic” materials reacted to create “organic” materials that function as building blocks. Infact there is a very famous experiment that shows how ammonia, methane and hydrogen created amino acids which are an important building block to organic life. But hey what do i know? I believe faeries push around shit and that dinosaur bones were put in the earth to test our faith. I mean simple country folk like me wouldn’t know anything about Abiogenesis or that DNA is a complex organic storage system made up of a smaller elements and compounds. Or that chemically it is a polymer comprised of units called nucleotides (like certain plastics) and is mostly comprised of Sugars,and Phosphates. Yeah i guess i should just stick to my bible and primal impulses that dictate my adherence to it.
Seriously, fuck you.
@...nyokki:
Alright I do see your point.
“it may be to say that theism is because atheism is” – that line is a winner.
@...thelotuseater725:
Wait what? couldn’t hear you over my high speed fapping while giving out fives to people
@...thelotuseater725: The love of Christ on display yet again!
Real science and a belief in a supernatural entity cannot coexist logically in the same head. Science involves looking for explanations to the NATURAL world that are verifiable, and thus falsifiable. The supernatural is, well SUPER-natural. What more is there to say?
“Faeries push around the particles, and you can never detect the faeries” is not science. And neither is “God made the universe, and you can never detect God or understand it”. It’s the antithesis of science. It’s explanation that confers no understanding, and cannot be checked.
I’ll further say that lots of people think contradictory things. Pro-life people who believe in the death penalty for one. That doesn’t make it OK. Sure, you don’t have to be a Dark Ages shit-shoveler to believe in God, but if you really believed in science you wouldn’t even acknowledge the useless and fundamentally baseless possibility of a ‘higher being’. It’s clear where your loyalties lie.
@...thelotuseater725: It’s possible that I’m wrong. This goes without saying for me since there’s no point where that possibility doesn’t exist. Plausibility? I’m not sure what you’re asking there. I got kind of lost in the meandering paragraph. Sorry, I just woke up.
I’ll just say that “god” is not a very descriptive term. And that while there might be something out there that might fit some description of a god, non belief is justified until there is evidence to suspect this thing’s existence. At least from where I’m sitting.
I’m wide open to finding that reason. But every definition of “god” I’ve been presented with has been either demonstrably false (lives at the top of a mountain) or so vague as to be meaningless (is the sum of all things). Or outside the universe and unable to be observed or interacted with such as the deists’ concept of god.
But if he’s hiding and someone knows where, by all means tell me.
@...ieattime20:
And it is clear that you are an unimaginitive prejudiced piece of shit. I never said god is undetectable either, Maybe science is god working? ever thought of that? Or maybe we lack the proper hardware to detect god? There are endless possibilities when you are dealing with something as abstract as god. Lack of evidence does not mean evidence of falshood. AND DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TELL ME WHERE MY LOYALTIES LIE. MY LOYALTIES LIE TO NO ONE BUT MYSELF. Good luck slaving away in your cubicle screaming at existence from your blog you unimaginative cunt.
@...greytone: Thank you! that is what i trying to get at. I’m not asking anyone to believe in a god and i know that i can not prove him more than one can disprove him or it. As far as definitions of god go i could talk your ear off for hours. Basically i figured out that in order for us to find plausibility of god you have to throw out any religions definition of what god is. You have to think of god not as the creator of all but as the creator of “some”. Once you do that you’ll find that there are plenty of ways to scientifically explain how god MIGHT work.
@...thelotuseater725: The evidence here is that you’re unreasonable. Thanks for the pantomime of the comic at the top of your screen.
If you’d like to construct for yourself a world that exists outside of our evidence and pretensing on hypotheticals like “Maybe we lack the proper hardware” go ahead. I will maintain my grip on reality and deal with what explanations are rational, reasonable, provable, and meaningful to experience.
Smoking pot in a dorm room and gasping through chemical smoke and exclaiming, “Man, maybe time isn’t real, man, but our higher dimensional selves just moving in space, man! THAT’S why we can’t detect god! He’s not on our plane of existence” is not meaningful. It’s baseless armchair speculation at best, and schizophrenic paranoia at worst. I’m tired of listening to it.
If you’d like to redefine God so he exists, then by all means go ahead. But all it proves is that you’d go so far as to reconstruct language to prove yourself right, instead of being willing to admit you’re wrong and move on towards being constructive.
I do think it’s pretty funny you’re telling me I’m screaming at my existence, when you’re pretty obviously screaming against all experience.
I see the comic reenacted on either side. For every Christian touting that science doesn’t mean anything and championing that no one can prove them wrong I see just as many atheists hurling attacks at people who don’t care to prove a thing, don’t want to convince anyone of anything but still happen to hold different set of personal beliefs, many of whom aren’t even Christian, let alone the lazy-eyed bible thumping wastes of flesh who deserve the backlash.
People on all sides are so threatened be each other that it’s really rare to be able to cut the bullshit and actually debate ideas, which is what I think most of us would prefer if we could only get the fuck over ourselves.
@...ieattime20:
Hey maybe i am wrong. Ask anyone on this site who debates with me on this matter. At no point do i ever claim that my observations and beliefs are the ONLY way a person can look at things. And at no point do i belittle others for not seeing it the way i do. You on the other hand. You are the reason i left the atheist movement. People like you who deal in absolutes and scoff at others of differing opinion are why crazy christians think there is some Atheist agenda.
You see i live in the real world. I understand that as a pin prick in a vast ocean of cosmic nothingness and existence there is no one definitive answer on why things do what they do. All i know is how things do what they do and it may be beyond our brains physical ability to process it Did you know that the brain is technically an analog processor? Yet despite being analog it is the most powerful processor we have. And in 20/30 years they believe a desktop will have that raw computational power? So i don’t limit myself to one explanation on something. IF god exists ( i know you hate the word “if”)i might not even know it. And god may not exist at all! Maybe all the universe is is some crazy sequence of random actions upon random actions with no real shape or form. A veritable cacophony of intersteller mayhem that has always existed and will always be. the fact of the matter is THAT I DON’T FUCKING KNOW.
I don’t refute science and i do not refute abstract thinking. In other words I think for myself. If you have a problem with that then fuck you. I am not forcing anyone to believe what i believe and i do not lambaste people for it. Not like you, when you are posed with a question or scenario that makes you reconsider your belief you stop and revert to your little shell where your word is king. Look i never asked you to believe what i say. I asked you to consider that there may be more going on than what we observe. Obviously you are not a scientist. Our universe changes and so does the way we understand it. To sit there with your ears plugged and your eyes closed while others suggest how it could work is foolish. If we all acted like that then we would still believe mice spontaneously generate out of piles of hay. So go ahead and mock me for thinking. You behave exactly like those you hate. You obviously have not read any of my comments with an open mind and you obviously know nothing of me. All you are is some stereotypical atheist prick angry at others for not confirming to your belief. Reboot, nyokki and the most of the other atheists on this site at least engage in intelligent and non discriminatory philosophical/scientific engagement with me on my crazy ass views. You just sit there and laugh at me like some pious vulture of the church confident that those who do not believe will burn in hell. You have offered absolutely no philosophically sound conjecture towards me. Instead you yelled at me and belittled me because i did not agree with you. That is not scientific at all. And most of all it shows just how insecure you are. I mean does the possibility of not knowing things really scare you that much to not entertain the idea that things are going on beyond our scope? Do you honestly think that in our short brief glimpse into the universe and time we fully understand it?
Talk to me when you can think independently. When you aren’t too busy trying to disprove others. Me i’ll be sitting at home complacent with the fact that the mystery of our universes origins may be “natural” or “super natural”.
I’ll make this real simple and without all the namecalling you accuse me of. (Cunt? Prick? Insecure? What? It’s ME destroying the debate?)
If I propose a theory, an explanatory model, that includes spirits that generate emotion by typing on spiritual keyboards attached to the back of our heads, but I explain away the lack of evidence by saying, “We don’t know enough yet,” or “we can’t detect its presence by any means”, I will A. not be able to teach this theory anywhere that has interest in education and B. would be best suited towards being laughed at standing on a box in a street.
However, if I say that there is a something out there that does something, is on some level omnipotent, omniscient, and sentient, and is responsible for the creation of the universe, and I call it a god, all of a sudden someone takes me seriously. A lot of people do.
What is the difference between one crazy idea and the other, besides the word ‘god’? Why should I take any of your theories seriously, or even give them a modicum of respectability, when every sane, rational person would realize that the former theory up there is the ravings of a lunatic? I can justify my ‘belief’ system with utility, results, understanding, and helping people (at least as many people as I hurt, and in fact far more). That’s why science deserves respect.
Why do I need to respect your belief system, besides the fact that it’s ‘not mine’?
@...ieattime20: Perhaps you should listen because an intelligent decent person said it. Perhaps you should listen because to not-listen is to not-understand another human being.
@...nyokki: In that case, we listen to both.
Something you won’t see in real life for a reason. Really smart people have both good and crazy ideas. Godel thought people were trying to kill him, Turing was convinced that machines were better than people and wanted to raise one as a child.
Listening to someone is different than believing them. You should allow credence to an idea based on evidence and merit, not on who said it. That’s what ad hominem means. An idea that precludes evidence is not a satisfactory explanation of anything, and is in fact dangerous because it allows not just righteousness (which science has, just listen to me), but infallible righteousness.
@...ieattime20: When you’re dealing w/ people and personalities, it’s not all about right and wrong, right doesn’t mean much in a relationship. No one is asking you to believe anything. Lotus knows I disagree w/ him on this issue, but I give credence to his thoughts because I’m not interested in the pure debate. Actually, I’m tired and bored w/ pure debate, especially on the internet. Lotus is interesting, I’ve not met many like him, so I listen and I discuss things which interest us both. The chances of either of us changing the other’s mind is near nil, but that’s not really the point, for either of us.
@...thelotuseater725: I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth.
@...ieattime20: Giving an argument credence based on who said it is an appeal to authority fallacy. Ad hominem is appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument.
@...greytone: Right, right, my bad. Easy mix-up; the main point is that the person, in general, doesn’t matter. It’s the argument one must analyze, if one is being strictly logical.
@...nyokki: I understand where both you and nyokki are coming from, sickened by the anger and ridiculousness of the debate. And I can respect that. But I’m not interested in lotus as a person like you are, my interest lies in Lotus’ ideas and why I think they are the antithesis of reasonable thought, since they give credence based on ignorance instead of evidence. I respect your attempt to play nice for being genuine, unfortunately I don’t think either of us want to play nice as we are exhausted with each others’ worldviews to the point of frustration.
Hopefully one of us will shut up soon. Looks like Lotus.
@...ieattime20:
Dude look i wasn’t upset with you until you accused me of believing in faeries and shit. And yes i do apologize for calling you names. That was below me and i did more damage than good.
But it is apparent that you do not want to listen to people of differing opinions regardless of their level of education and their knowledge. You already have your mind made up prior to argument i suppose. And i am not trying to make you believe me. I am trying to make you understand where i am coming from and why i believe what i believe. Instead of saying ” ok i can see how that MIGHT work maybe you are on to something, i guess we’ll find out whether or not it is true one day” you just immeadiately say ” no you are wrong you have no clue what you are talking about and obviously you are closed minded and loyal to one side because you disagree with me. furthermore i am going to do everything in my power to refute everything you say by throwing in a completely unrelated scenario” A lack of evidence does not mean it is not real. Not too long ago we didn’t know about radiation or x-rays. It wasn’t until we put effort into developing hypotheses, theories and technology that we were able to prove their existence. Why is it not possible that if god exists we may not know for sure until we do the same for him/it as we did with all of our other knowledge? That is what i am saying. Not that god does exist and not that god doesn’t exist.
“Why do I need to respect your belief system, besides the fact that it’s ‘not mine’?”
Because i respect yours.
@...nyokki:
Oh it’s cool nyokki. I share the same sentiment. I hold your opinions and thoughts very high.
@...thelotuseater725: I’m going to be very clear here, because like you, I want you to understand: I have never once said you are wrong. There are only two possibilities with your worldview (as I don’t know enough of it to be definite):
You cannot be right or wrong. This is the case if your world view has completely (even in the hypothetical) unverifiable tenants (like the faeries). Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence” proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.
The other possibility is that you’re possibly right, and if your world view is not like that above (as in, your definition of ‘god’ allows for verification of existence under theories, methods, and protocols for experimentation), which is why I have been careful to not say you are wrong. The reason I’m still derisive is that, until you have some method of even theoretically verifying this, it’s just near-meaningless armchair thinking, hence my pothead comment.
String theory, perhaps the most outlandish theory still considered ‘physics’, at least had the wise idea to keep quiet about the fundamentals until experimental protocols and aligning of explanation with what we currently know were verified. Until then, it was simply not a considerable theory. That’s why I’m not considering yours. You still could be right, if it’s possible for you to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to give you any credit until you’ve done some work.
Does this make sense now?
Yeah it does. I guess i shouldn’t have made assumptions and for that i apologize.
“Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence†proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.”
“The reason I’m still derisive is that, until you have some method of even theoretically verifying this, it’s just near-meaningless armchair thinking, hence my pothead comment.”
Well that’s what i was beginning to get at. The reason people don’t take the theories seriously is because there has been no real effort into trying to prove or disprove them. They take things like Abiogenesis and say ” THERE DEFINITIVE PROOF GOD DOESN’T EXIST.” Or they say even dumber shit like the young earth people and say ” WELL THE BIBLE SAYS IT HAPPENED AND IT IT’S A HISTORICAL TOME!” People aren’t putting any real effort as far as cold hard science goes. Two: in order for god to work we will have to completely rearrange and rethink what we know. It’s alot like when quantum mechanics first started coming out. When michael farraday discovered cathode rays he created the seeds for modern quantum mechanics. That more or less shook the scientific community and challenged the past hundredsomething years of newtonian physics. Now we know that both Newtonian and quantum physics co-exist. A lot of people didn’t want to fuss with it because it challenged our previous notions of how our universe worked. It more or less caused a huge stir among scientists. It wasn’t until all the bunk science trying to prove or disprove it was weeded out that we were able to come to todays current conclusions. That is what “creationism” ( and believe me i use that word loosely because of all the stigmas attached to it) is doing. It is suggesting that the last 30 or so years of research on the matter might have been in vain. Anything that disrupts previous notions is rarely greeted by a slew of serious research on either side
Add into it the religious and atheist crazies who fuck around with any effort that is remotely serious by adding in bunk science and personal vendettas; we may never find the true answer for a long timer. It’s not sciences fault we can’t prove or disprove it. It is the very nature of man and his willingness to go to any means necessary to prove himself right or to prove others wrong. So That is why there has been no real headway in creationist theories or pure secular science in regards to the origins of the universe and existence of god. I mean think of it this way. One side is intent on disproving thousands of years of religious dogma and giving cold hard proof in order to establish that their belief is correct. And then there is another side (christians mostly)who is intent on proving that the past thousands of years of their teachings and beliefs have been correct all along. Who can you really trust? It’s a mess. And both scientists and religious folk lose out on it.
Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence†proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.
I do agree with you to a degree there. There can be some pure evil drawn out of that type of thinking. Again the nature of man is what makes it so.
You still could be right, if it’s possible for “you to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to give you any credit until you’ve done some work.”
Oh i am not asking for credit, just that there could be some credit. And if i was smart enough i would do work on it ( i am horrible at math)and i am afraid i would end up getting biased towards one side or another.
Also i apologize for being hostile. MCS is the first site where i haven’t had 10000 atheists gang up on me and start acting like name calling dicks. Also it’s the first one where people actually challenged my views in a non-dickhead manner. God thats all Fark.com is whenever anything in regards to atheism or religion is posted. So when people begin accusing me of fairy belief and stuff i begin getting hostile and nasty out of old habit.
I look at it as a philosophical argument, rather than a scientific one. Right now, science points to no-god. Right now, science ends there. When you’re talking about origins, your into philosophy. Aristotle posited a Prime Mover, purposely leaving out god. Philosophy allows us to argue ideas that can not, as yet, be explored through the harder sciences. This doesn’t make the argument moot, it makes it unknown and argues the likelihood of this or that theory. It’s often philosophy that sets what may be the next scientific front. W/out it science is no more. Scientists wouldn’t know where to look next. How many fields that once belonged to philosophy are now science. Talking strictly science (especially on this subject)is not looking forward, rather it’s championing the status quo.
Just a couple more issues of clarification:
1. Cold, hard science is making serious efforts in every field, legitimate efforts, and all while held (for the most part) at the arm’s length of skepticism and being incredibly self-critical. Thus far, no evidence of god, or anything like a Prime Mover. I’d argue that we’ve made a LOT of headway in secular science towards an origin explanation, getting monumentally closer to the moment of the Big Bang itself. Religion, or even spiritual thought, thus far has put forth no testable theory towards the origin. Only a claim of ignorance.
2. Michael Faraday (and Oppenheimer, and Planck, and Heisenberg, and Newton for that matter) all had unorthodox ideas that some considered crazy. The difference between these people and evangelists or Carlos Castanada for example, is that each of them also had evidence to back up what they were saying, or at the very least, experiments that could be run.
3. The goal of science is, despite the talk you hear from people like me, not to prove or disprove god. Like I’ve said before, in most cases, with what most people mean, it’s not a thing that can be proven or disproven (these things exist in mathematics, and what it means is that they have no bearing on the rest of the model). If, in the course of us systematically understanding our universe, we come across a god, then good for us. If not, it only means everything we’ve done is that much more worthwhile, because we did it by ourselves.
That’s a big reason why, philosophically speaking now, I refuse to believe in a god, especially without evidence. I want every man and woman to be honored alone for their successes and blamed alone for their failures or crimes. It makes me cringe when basketball players thank God for their game. Dude, you did that yourself! Pat yourself on the back. I think crimes committed in the name of god are 1,000 times worse than crimes committed for your own selfish gain; at least in the latter case even you understand you can be held accountable.
Philosophically, I also refuse to believe in god. I don’t expect that others do the same. I don’t even care much if there is or isn’t a god. I don’t expect others to feel the same. I understand that not-belief is extraordinarily difficult for those raised in a faith. I wasn’t. I was raised an atheist and have no bitterness towards those that aren’t. Somewhere on this site I said I’d considered believing but just can’t keep it up. Fundamentally I’m an atheist. How difficult must it be for those who believe to try not to?
@...ieattime20:
“The difference between these people and evangelists or Carlos Castanada for example…”
Dude i do not take the words of priests and whatnot as scientific fact.
But still for the most part on everything else you are right. Religion has failed to show any scientific evidence for god. So i understand your skepticism in that regard. The only reason i believe is because of some wild shit that has happened to me. All i can offer is anecdotal evidence but for the most part anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean shit because i could be lying.
Yay! Everyone’s friends again! Feels like the end of a sitcom in here. Everything’s wrapped up nice and neat.
I’m really impressed with everyone. I’ve never seen this happen in a comment thread.
Now we can all go back to arguing about boob size and trigger discipline. Good ol’ m[c]s. 🙂
BOOB SIZE DOESN’T EXIST
PROPER GUN STANCES ARE FOR ZEALOTS
Agreed. Every time I have fired a shot at something important, proper stance was nowhere to be found.
Disagree. If boob size does not exist, then would the boob itself not exist?
How have you manage to build this type of wonderful audience regarding commenters to your website?