Victory? [elder cactus]

He said doesn’t negatively impact others

Strong but unfounded beliefs have consequences

Considering how many edgelord atheists I've seen uncritically embrace the tenets of white supremacism I'm inclined to agree with you...

Yup.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that we are more modern than we actually are, that we have already moved past these issues. It’s important to remember that civil rights, feminism, and LGBTQ rights are not topics to be relegated to the history books. They are as alive now as they were in the 60s for today, like yesterday and tomorrow, is a constant fight for our rights.

In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.

The difference of "external man in the sky" vs "internal concept of my own rightness" for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn't make a difference when they're still a bigoted asshat at their core.

I think you missed the bit of the above post that specified that spiritual belief was fine WHEN it's expressed in "a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them" - restricting abortion and marriage prohibitions both are violations of their actual premise.

and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it

Sorry for your loss because that's not a friend.

I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.

It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.

If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.

They use that candle to burn your house down. There are better ways to light your path.

You can't get another light until you're in the dark.

It’s cruel to blow it out when they don’t have another light.

And atheism offers any kind of light?

not even an apology. I don't need anyone to be sorry. The nuns who beat me will never be sorry, they think that they're doing it for God and nothing can be wrong when you're doing it for God. But if one of the other adults that I trust could at least say 'Hey, they shouldn't have beat you with sticks. They were wrong for that.' it would make me feel like maybe I wasn't a fucking crazy person for not wanting to get beat with sticks. But they won't. Everyone pretends it didn't happen, or that it was some sort of misunderstanding, because everyone needs to maintain the delusion that everything the church does is good just because it's the church doing it. For years I was essentially told "that didn't happen because the church wouldn't do that but if they did it's because you deserved it". What can a six year old do to deserve being beaten with a yardstick by a grown woman?

Nah, it really isn't a problem. At all actually. It doesn't matter if every single person believes in a different gemstone and that the gemstone will bestow upon them magical blessings for being a good person. If that is what they need to be good people, to motivate them, to inspire them to be better - who gives a fuck if it 'normalizes magic'?

I'm not so concerned with being right that I'd let us live in misery to be closer to 'intellectualism'. Not everyone will find other methods to cope and their belief doesn't harm anyone. I think you have to be a genuinely dank and dreary person to want to rob people of something like Santa Claus because it 'normalizes magic' while I'm sitting here hoping people just try to be better with the vague promise of presents.

Christianity is a big tent term that encompasses a lot of differing groups of thought. You've got Catholics and Protestants, being the largest groups that come to mind. Below that you have everything from Lutherans to Presbyterians to Christian Scientists to Westboro Baptists. Admittedly, I don't think I made it clear enough in my comment I was speaking more big-tent Christianity when referring to mary-sue rather than a specific denomination (or a specific church), as I was speaking about religion as a whole, using Christianity as an example, hence why I was saying "Oppose harmful ideas laundered by religion" rather than opposing religion unilaterally. For example, we should oppose the colonialist ideology smuggled through religion, such as forced religious conversions (in order to save their soul!) or the necessity to colonize to do said conversions. We should oppose genocidal rhetoric smuggled through religion. Heck, we should even oppose the shitty bits of text in a religious text like when or when not to stone someone or the punishment for whatever crime.

However, you are implying that you should simply give up your label when bad actors take up your label. While I don't dispute that labels matter, because they do, I think it's silly to just give it up once another person/group tries to coopt your label. If you don't want bigots using your label, you've gotta kick them out. If you change your label to something else, and the bigots come to hide in the crowd, what are you supposed to do, change it for the 5th time?

As far as dropping labels goes, while I like the idea (I hate labels though I find them useful), I think it's impractical. As you said, "there's strength in names," and I think it would be crazy to ask someone to entirely drop a label that they hold dearly, such as their religious affiliation. It would also be crazy to ask them to just say "I believe in Jesus Christ..." and then list out 95 theses to indicate that they oppose aspects of the catholic church, then a good 95 more when they need to indicate their church had a schism in 1893, and another in 1913.

If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't.

Hitler and I may have agreed that the sky is blue, but if someone uses this to say we agree in general, they are simply being unreasonable. There are countless denominations of Christianity as a result of people disagreeing with each other about history and values. The Christian label is not synonymous with bigotry, and we could use more counterexamples if people seem to think otherwise.

Score one for atheism!

I mean, I haven’t dealt with proselytizers in so long I kinda forgot about them. I used to get the odd mormon or Jehovah’s witness but they stopped coming a long while ago, and I don’t miss em.

Numbers 5: 11-21 is pretty good imho. But I rarely debate religious people since I’ve gotten in a position where I really don’t see people like that anymore between the online algorithms which don’t show that shit and the fact that there aren’t too many religious people near me who are fascistic.

Idk how the fuck you got that but pop off sis

Your grandma is not (necessarily - I don't know her, she could be trafficking people) a bad person, but her beliefs and that of so many others who also are good (at least they might be) people provide the fertile ground for the growth of an agressive weed. It's not the grounds fault, it could be growing strawberries instead, but right now its existence nourishes a strangling vine that bears poisonous fruit.

We definetly should not poison the ground to kill the weed, though that certainly is a way to get rid of it. But we absolutely need to prevent it from spreading, new fields should not be infected by it and with the exhaution of the old places of growth, we might manage to extinct it.

That's why it is important to keep in mind that your grandma is (most likely) okay to just exist as a believer, but that the beliefs she holds are roots of something, that must not spread.

Okay but as a kid, I got crushed because my family was religious and threw me out like literal fucking trash. This shit never stays harmless, and it keeps people susceptible to the worst instincts to do shit like fascism. Its always the most vulnerable who this shit hurts, so nobody cares.

So I don't give a shit how good your delusion makes you feel. If you want to hurt people to feel good, keep it between you and yourself and just put a needle in your arm. Plus, if something goes wrong there, you have narcan.

The thing I always feel the need to remind people: they would be that kind of person without religion.

the moment it wasn’t convenient for her, she dropped it.

Sticking to the (lack of) principles of the Republican Party, I see!

Slightly being the key word. I used to think we'd be fine after boomers die and millenials take over (sorry Gen X yes we always forget you) but then realized there are plenty of terrible Gen Y and then for a moment Gen Z was going to change labor politics gun control environment gender/sexuality and be super accepting but there's still a huge proportion who still want to MAGA... we'll see how bad alpha is

like my nephews say the same racist shit on their discord and valorant as I saw on 4chan 20 years ago and it's just sad

I've been off Facebook for somewhere between 10 and 15 years. I quit it because I didn't care about what friends and family posted because they were all very religious, and I couldn't post what I really wanted without offending said friends and family.

• for a neckbeard :D

Because he wanted someone to ask, "What do you mean free will isn't real?!?!?"

It was relevant to this discussion as I'm saying I similarly wouldn't bring this truth up with someone like my mother or similar as shown in the original post.

My goal is not to convince anyone who feels differently, I just felt others could relate to my example. I will not provide any explanation unless specifically asked as my goal here is not to force my knowledge onto someone who doesn't want it.

I agree entirely with your comment and I experience the illusion of free will. I just recognize it's an illusion.

God damn quantum mechanics is like a "get out of determinism” card.

If yo momma is crying, it's probably because I ain't been up for a booty call in a few days.

Just like nobody knows for certain if centaurs or the Tooth Fairy actually exist or not. Right.

...I can certainly relate to the idea that we cannot fully comprehend reality. No, seriously, I do; and I'm often ranting against assumers claiming to know shit that they cannot reliably know.

But, at the end of the day, this shit is supposed to be practical, not some mental masturbation over the metaphysical fabric of the reality. You need to draw the line somewhere and say "nah, this is likely enough to be bullshit that we can safely say «it's bullshit»". Otherwise your "agnosticism" is simply a fancy name for solipsism.

for example, implying that they know who says it (edgy teenager) and "intention" (to be confrontational), based on the label that one might use (atheist). That stinks assumption from a distance, like it or not.

You messaged me directly rather than responding in the thread, but messaging back is failing, so I will respond here.

There is no theory involving deities that fits the models of the universe we have based on observable evidence, and there is no evidence in support of any theory involving deities.

For anything else we would say that this thing doesn't exist and leave it at that.

Agnosticism gets lost in the fallacy that since it's logically impossible to prove non-existence we must hold open the possibility of existence without evidence.

So I'm an atheist because it is the default state to be, it makes no statement requiring evidence, and it doesn't require fallacy.

So your arguments for agnosticism over atheism is that you don't want to make religious people feel uncomfortable and science isn't philosophy?

attempts to answer the great unanswerable

I can also try to do that, where is my money?

gives you some shred of comfort

I mean if lying to yourself and others gives you comfort, then my point stands that you need help

unfeeling, uncaring world

Absolutely not, otherwise i would have written "she can go fuck herself", but i didnt because people deserve better than being forced to believe in some century old mental mindgame of bullshit.

Just living until you die.

Thats correct, but life is amazing and full of cool stuff already. There is no need to limit your happiness with some archaic system of self oppression.

There are lots of ways to approach meaning, and more broadly spirituality and community, without theism.

This is a weird take on atheism that reads like you've only seen atheists online creeping out of /r/atheism or some similar place. There's no more reason that "why" should be answered by Christianity than by any number of philosophies that don't require a god, and pegging someone as arrogant for ascribing to those beliefs is silly.

Nah, you live in an unfeeling, uncaring world. There is nothing, no great answer. Just living until you die.

I don't agree with that other guy, but now you're just wrestling with a straw man. Nobody says these things.

Nature and physics may not have the capacity to care about you, but you have friends, family, and pets that do whether God exists or not. And there's plenty of questions that seem like we won't get an answer for the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean you can't find any meaning or joy in trying, or that you can't tackle smaller questions that could build up to answering a greater one.

Just living until you die.

This part is particularly cartoonish. Nobody says life is just living until you die. That's a debatably bigoted caricature that Christians invented.

We live the same lives theists do, and we have just as many meaningful experiences and relationships. We just don't sacrifice enormous amounts of our time worshiping or thinking about something that can't be shown to exist unless you take someone's word for it.

You live in a universe whose only source of joy, hope, inspiration, and meaning is sapient minds like yours. The entire observable cosmos has so far turned out to be nothing but dead rocks, dead dust, and dead gas, except for beings like you. Your very existence is an act of defiance worthy of pride. Stand tall, sophont. Create the future you wish to see, for YOUR KIND are the only ones who you've met who are capable of bringing it about!

Agnosticism was coined because people were afraid of coming out as atheists, but it's really the same thing.

Atheist thinks there's no evidence for god so it doesn't make sense to believe in one.

Agnostic thinks there's no evidence for god, so it's unlikely there's one.

In both cases, the person is science first and would change their opinion if proof was presented but before that they don't believe in god.

I’d venture to say that the overwhelming majority of atheists are agnostic.

This is atheist deletion. I know God doesn't exist that same way I know unicorns don't exist. Or the same way I know Gandalf wasn't real. I am not an agnostic, I am quite sure that there is not a spooky sky wizard who refuses to demonstrate its existence.

I am not agnostic. there is no god. there is no proof so there is no god. yes, it is really that simple.

I enjoyed it as well.

That's a lot of assumptions you just made. Fascinating really.