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[guillaumeb]

This message was self-deleted by its author (guillaumeb) on Fri Oct 13, 2017, 07:21 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[Warpy]

1. There are a lot of consequences to coming out as a full on atheist

especially for POC and women.

The consequences are economic, social and political and can affect every area of an atheist's life.

I came out offline when I no longer had a job to threaten, parents to threaten, or an income to threaten. I have no interest in running for office because I came of age in the 60s and not only have skeletons, they're partying.

I still sit in the "I'm not religious" closet when I'm around people I don't know.

It's just not safe to be otherwise.

[Warpy]

72. What the hell does that have to do with anyything?

Well, except you want to complain about those two men while giving the pope and every preacher a free pass for pushing their world view on media and off.

Yes, I called you on that. What are you going to do about it? Anything?

[Warpy]

76. You mean like the pope and all those preachers?

Yeah, they're all such humble, media averse and retiring guys.

[elleng]

3. This sounds silly to me, 'closet athiests?'

Who the heck CARES??? Do we really have to create MORE 'us vs them' hatefest vehicles? STOP!

[elleng]

7. Gotcha.

Still seems silly to me, which is one reason I visit this group seldom.

[trotsky]

4. The confusion arises from the fact that the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" aren't mutually exclusive

One describes belief, the other knowledge.



In common parlance however, "atheist" has come to mean "someone who thinks gods don't exist" while "agnostic" means "someone who isn't sure if gods exist."

Since you are comfortable defining other people's religions though, I'm sure you'll go ahead and define what atheism is too.

[trotsky]

8. From Dictionary.com:

gnostic
[nos-tik]
1. pertaining to knowledge.
2. possessing knowledge, especially esoteric knowledge of spiritual matters.

It doesn't mean "hidden."

And no, I don't believe they are synonymous any more than "red" and "round" are synonymous. Something can be both red and round, red or round, or neither red nor round.

[trotsky]

20. Still doesn't mean "hidden." Sorry.

"But the question remains, are atheist and agnostic synonymous in your posted definition?"

I answered your question. Read it again.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Why in the hell do you think he suggested atheist and agnostic are synonyms?

[trotsky]

22. I honestly have no freaking clue how you processed that post to conclude...

that I think agnostic and atheist are synonyms.

Suffice it to say, you're completely wrong.

[AtheistCrusader]

94. I refer you back to Psyduck.

Because that makes no sense at all.

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. We're not speaking Greek.

We're speaking English, wherein the Greek loanword "gnostic" pertains to knowledge.

[Lordquinton]

11. "Faith obviously implies belief, and belief does not require proof."

So basically you can demand proof of what anyone says but you wrote yourself a rule saying you don't have to do the same? Sorry, but when God starts crossing over into sciencethen proof is needed. The god hypothesis has been tested many times over the centuries, and it fails at ever turn. Evolution, plate tectonics, carbon dating, even lightning rods.

And let's talk beliefs. Some people believe that a lighter skin tone means they are more human, this has been disproved by science, but you say belief needs no proof, are they right? Some believe that two people of the same gender don't belong together, (this often comes as a command from God as well) are they right?

[Lordquinton]

13. You keep saying it, but that doesn't make it so

You put belief in God in the same category as belief in leprechauns, or Santa, or the tooth fairy, or that two women can't marry.

It seems like the last gasps of a beaten system. You can't torture and kill non-believers anymore so you just write your own rules and act like they mean anything.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Utter nonsense.

Would you say the Mormon church/faith was right or wrong when they held that black people were black be user they were the cursed descendants of Cain?

Pretty sure they were wrong.

In fact, roundabout the year I was born, their elders got a celestial fax that remanded that doctrine.



Is it possible the world still rides around on the back of a great tortoise? Maybe we should ask the fine inhabitants of the ISS?

Etc.

Religion is wrong all the time. All. The. Time.

Because it is not a tool for finding or presenting, the truth.

[trotsky]

23. The fact that science keeps finding better answers is a sign of its strength.

What better answers has religion found - answers that have resulted in the complete discarding of previous ones?

For that matter, how does one determine the truth of religious answers?

[trotsky]

26. Answer my questions first. n/t

[trotsky]

37. Fundamentalism works for a whole hell of a lot of people.

Glad you can finally admit the radicals are motivated by their religion - their truth.

[trotsky]

40. You're the one validating religion as truth.

That's all on you.

[trotsky]

45. What if someone believes they can fly?

Should we let them try?

WHO ARE YOU TO DENY THEM THEIR TRUTH?!?

[trotsky]

48. Doesn't address my point.

I sure do understand why you don't want to though.

[Doodley]

105. What is proof? Proof is usually a form of belief, as it often involves having a belief in what one

reads or hears is "scientific proof." For example, we might believe what we read about evolution, plate tectonics, carbon dating, etc., but our belief in based on our faith in the scientists and the reporting of scientific findings. What I am saying is that we rely on third-party testimony, with little direct first-hand experience and knowledge from our fallible senses and minds, to form our views of the world. One person's proof of a theory may be another person's proof against. Even proof is subjective.

[Lordquinton]

113. Um, wow no. Just no

Here's a scientific term for you, You'renot even wrong.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. You say the idea that God cares about people's lives is a 'fairy story'

Perhaps it is to you, but it is the basis of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism; and, depending on how you define 'God' in the more complicated polytheistic Hinduism, in that too.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Tyson said he sees no evidence for a God that cares about humans

You call that a "fairy story approach to theology". So you're saying that thinking God cares for humans is a "fairy story approach". It does seem pretty clear. And that does fit with the view you expressed in the other thread, that "the Creator created matter and existence. End of the Creator's part. The rest, meaning the last however many million years, followed with no input from the Creator." That's a deistic point of view, not a Christian, Muslim etc. one.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. His talk about asteroid strikes is about why he cannot see evidence for a god that cares

about humans. That is what you're calling "a fairy story approach to theology".

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Tyson didn't talk about "good not existing"

He talked about a God that cares for humans.

"The Creator takes no part in what follows after the initial act of creation. "

Yes, that's a deistic point-of-view, in which a god doesn't care enough to ever intervene. But it's not Christian. There's no room for Jesus as the son of God in that point of view.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. Tyson was replying to a person who said they thought there must be a god

because of the existence of the rings of Saturn, sunsets, and yoga pants. Especially yoga pants filled by big behinds.

So, no, he wasn't framing the kind of god he was talking about; the other person did so.

It is a divine intervention, as you say; and, what's more, the typical Christian belief is that Jesus's intervention allows your soul to exist in a never-ending paradise. "Jesus saves" is a very common belief.

[trotsky]

95. Do you believe women should dress more modestly? n/t

[trotsky]

109. Some people believe Satan is real.

How am I supposed to know whether you are one of them?

[Cartoonist]

97. Free will my ass

It's called duress.

[Cartoonist]

101. Definition

du·ress
d(y)o͝oˈres/
noun
threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment.
"confessions extracted under duress"
synonyms: coercion, compulsion, force, pressure, intimidation, constraint; More
LAW
constraint illegally exercised to force someone to perform an act.
archaic
forcible restraint or imprisonment.

--'---
The threat of hell

[Cartoonist]

103. I smoke pot

Try and stop me

[immoderate]

28. I spent some time with Dawkins. He is an atheist.

He has no god. Doesn't believe in one. His hedging is based on the notion that scientific statements cannot be absolute. That accounts for the word play.

--imm

[immoderate]

34. It's part of the game. How it's worded determines who has 'burden of proof.'

Things that can't be sensed, or detected, or measured, are undifferentiable from things that don't exist.

--imm

[immoderate]

41. I think Noam Chomsky already did that.

Science jargon never includes the word proof. If God exists, science can study her.

--imm

[immoderate]

51. In that sense God is like Big Foot, fairies, and Loch Ness Monster.

They also have a desire to remain hidden.

--imm

[immoderate]

63. I admire your dedication to the undetectable, undiscoverable being.

Like the others I mentioned, and things that go bump in the night, you can know nothing about him.

We know he does not respond to any stimulus. Poses no answer to epistemological questions. Explains nothing. So what is his plan for the universe?

--imm

[immoderate]

77. Creator does not answer. As you say, he is undetectable.

Maybe he's like Donald Trump. Big plans, but he's full of shit. How does faith deal with bullshit? Mythological beings have been known to fuck with people's minds!

Also, "before the Big Bang," is a phrase which might have no meaning. Space and time are consequences.

--imm

[immoderate]

91. Or quantum mechanics.

The same quantum mechanics that enables satellites and cell phones, explains(?) how matter can appear spontaneously. It is somewhat counter intuitive, nevertheless it is consistent with things we can verify.

Scientists and philosophers diverge on the meaning of nothing. If it has no time, energy, and no space, how can you say it exists? Scientific cosmologists pose something different. Admittedly, I lack expertise in that area (as do most people who use the word quantum. But I don't use it as a trendy substitute for 'magic.')

That you don't see the god stuff is imaginary, kind of belies your 'faith' in human creativity. It's make believe. You don't think people could make this up?

--imm

[immoderate]

108. It's called imagination.

The humans you descend from had it. I suspect the Genesis account is a collection of 'just so' stories. Humans endeavor to explain their surroundings even when they don't know anything. Every culture has a story to explain its origins. Where did all those others come from?

--imm

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

106. Or unless you believe in god.

Somehow it's OK to think God came from nothing, while rejecting the premise in all other instances.

[cpwm17]

62. Does a single-celled organism worship humans?

Humans have some ability to understand, if they apply themselves. Single-celled organisms have no such ability.

Faith is just a euphemism for believing without good reason. Faith gets you a zillion different, mutually contradictory, religions. Faith is lazy and selfish thinking.

It's not necessarily the end of the world if someone uses lazy faith-based thinking and can possibly be of some entertainment value to engage in some creative thinking. I like to engage in creative thinking when it comes to the nature of reality, but it is most fun when I can support my position with logic. I have no desire to believe anything just because it makes me feel better that something may be true.

Faith (as used by the religious) is not a good reason to believe in anything. Faith doesn't lead you to the nature of reality.

If God exists, nature would operate like it had a creator. But the opposite is true. There is zero evidence for any god and the pre-scientific faith-based beliefs on how the Universe works are completely wrong.

[cpwm17]

79. Unless you strip all meaning from the definition of a god,

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which would make god a useless concept, gods have higher intelligence. If you don't believe that is part of the definition, you don't believe in any god. This intelligence would leave a detectable signature on the nature of the Universe.

If you can't demonstrate any signature of god in nature, then you have zero reasons to believe in any god, no matter how many time you throw that faith word around.

[cpwm17]

93. It's the burden of the theists to demonstrate the signatures of god in nature,

and if they can't, then the default position is there is no god.

Science works since much of nature can be understood. Nature can be understood since there are patterns in nature. Nature isn't infinitely complicated since it isn't driven by the whims of a higher power. If it were, science couldn't work.

From a human perspective, nature is far from perfect. People are born with birth defects. Animals eat other animals, causing great suffering. There have been a number of major extinction events in the history of the Earth. These, and many more examples, are the signature of a world operating without a higher power.

Our Universe didn't come from literally nothing. Nothing doesn't exist. The Big Bang came from an existing physics in some realm that it is currently impossible to understand. I think it is very likely that we live in one of a huge number of universes that came from the same realm and by similar physics that created our Universe, since nature doesn't make things in ones and a multiverse does a good job of explaining much about our existence. There could also very well be other realms beyond that, unrelated to ours with realities unlike our own.

A reality with a starting point with a god is almost infinitely less likely than a reality with a starting point of dumb matter and energy. A god would be almost infinitely more complicated with purposeful design. Dumb matter and energy doesn't necessarily have purposeful design.

The design of life on Earth came from 4,000,000,000 years of evolution. But this God would have magically gotten its purposeful design from nothing. We also have direct evidence of dumb matter and energy, but we have no evidence for any god.

Consciousness is the product of brain processes, evolved over millions of years to allow complex animated beings. Consciousness isn't a thing. It is very likely that there are numerous other places beyond Earth with conscious beings, and likely in other universes outside our own.

[cpwm17]

107. Your god pushes the question of the beginning infinitely back in time with a magical being,

unless you believe your god had a creator. Then where did your god's creator come from?

You have the same problem of original creation, and you've created a much worse problem: how did this almost infinitely purposefully-complex critter get here?

My starting point is dumb matter and energy. Your starting point is an almost infinitely purposefully-complex critter with magical powers. We also have no evidence for your invisible magic-critter – or however you define your god.

No matter what view of reality you believe in, whether scientific or not, there is a reality that exists that didn't create itself. The scientific view is to simplify things down to their basic processes going back in time: the more complex comes from the less complex. The religious view is the complex is explained by the even more complex, which is explained by magic.

[trotsky]

110. ...

"The religious view is the complex is explained by the even more complex, which is explained by magic."

Well put. Or just good old special pleading. 'You know everything I said about a naturalistic origin for the universe being impossible? Like something can't come from nothing, etc.? Yeah none of those objections apply to my theory. Because I said so.'

[cpwm17]

111. It seems that it's common for theists to be more amazed by the existence of a rock than

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consciousness and disembodied conscious beings (gods), as they believe that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Universe.

[trotsky]

38. LMAO!

So the quote in my sig line is what set you off on this crusade to destroy NDT?

[trotsky]

49. Your sig line is what's called begging the question.

I love it that you're pissed off by NDT. Totally makes sense.

[trotsky]

66. Considering how dishonestly you've had to misstate his position (as many people have pointed out)...

I think it's obvious you're pissed off.

[trotsky]

70. What they are defending is the truth.

You are distorting his statements in order to grind your axe. You claimed to have watched THREE videos that support your position. You have only provided ONE link, which has been completely dismissed as supporting your claims. Where are the other two? Perhaps they show what you are claiming. Provide the links.

[trotsky]

75. Alright, your agenda is clear. Thanks. n/t

[Angry Dragon]

52. Because bad things exist in the world good cannot also exist?

You can not have one without the other

Need balance

[Angry Dragon]

61. yes

How can a perfect being create evil??

[Angry Dragon]

69. What I hear you saying is

All is good unless we say otherwise

[underthematrix]

53. I was baptized Catholic and later became a Christian

I no longer identify with any religion. I no longer call myself a Christian because I consider it a hate group.

I believe mathematics is the language of God and absolute proof of its existence. I love the passage in the Bible where the writer describes how God spoke existence into existence and when John says "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God." I substitute mathematical formulas for "the Word." I'm in awe of the universe and the way our genetic code turns into human beings. So yes, I believe in a Supreme Being but not in the religious sense.

[immoderate]

56. Math actually exists.

So, can god decide that 2 + 2 = 5? (Integer values of 2, of course.) Or is he bound by some higher law?

--imm

[underthematrix]

78. I think the laws already exists and we simply discover the truth

[immoderate]

82. So God can't impetuously change them, as opposed to killing all living things.

God has no control over his language. Right?

--imm

[underthematrix]

87. I think once a human comes into existence they are what they are in terms of

nature and nurture. I suppose the language could be changed but I believe everything is already present. We may discover how to stop the killing as we learn more from the neurosciences, more about our genetic code. From these two areas, maybe we modify our behavior. In 100 years, I don't think humans will be as primitive, as barbaric, as evil as we are today.

[underthematrix]

81. Well I assume it's intelligent which makes it divine in my estimation

The Big Bang theory is the evidence, the mathematical expression of the divine. I mean just imagine for a minute that the universe is a set of mathematical formulas that spoken into existence beginning (from our perspective) with the big bang theory. It's from our perspective because our universe is supposed to be part of a multiverse, (many universes) in which some of those universes are much older than ours.

[immoderate]

92. Uhm, first there was nothing, then -- there was something. Genius!

Your Bronze Age buddies also said the earth is flat, supported by pillars at the corners, and covered by a dome that sometimes leaks. If you consider that every line of Genesis contains a factual error, it takes a special level of tunnel vision to ascribe some insight to these myths.

--imm

[MynameisBlarney]

83. Dawkins accepted that it's impossible to know

with certainty either way.
I used to be a atheist. Now I'm an agnostic that believes that it is extremely unlikely that there is any sort of omnipotent being that created everything but never shows itself.

"But faith and science are not subject to the same rules, the same tests. Faith obviously implies belief, and belief does not require proof. Faith has been described as the willing suspension of disbelief. I can understand why scientist Dawkins is more comfortable with the requirements of science, but to insist that the same approach must be applied to faith is clearly a ruse. Why not just return to the atheist label and be done with it? "

And seriously, lol.

Science does not require belief.

Religion does. It require one to abandon all rational thought and believe some absolutely ridiculous mythology.

There may or may not be some sort of deity out there. But I sincerely doubt it is anything like anyone could imagine.

[MynameisBlarney]

90. Perhaps.

But it appears that as science progresses in leaps and bounds, and is explaining more and more mysteries of the our universe, religion's role in explaining things is rapidly shrinking.

[LynnTTT]

86. My take

An agnostic is an atheist who doesn't like to argue. I say I'm an atheist but sometime's if someone likes to argue and I'm not in the mood (at a wedding) I just say, "yeah, you're right I can't prove that a supreme being didn't create all this but I think it is proven that it wasn't created in 6 "man "days." Then I go get another drink.