Non Believers: I'm What's Called a Pessimist

[Dr. Pepper]

21 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

May I just ask...

Why did this Christian discussion get kicked off the Christian thread?

Why is this Christian discussion considered more relevant to the atheism thread?

Should we all descend on the Christian thread and start discussing the differences between Agnosticism and Atheism? Would that be cool?

I brought it over because it violated the disclaimer of the Christian thread and because I was using it to illustrate why I now tend to shy away from discussions with irrational thinkers because it devolves into "no, my way is the only right way" type of bullshit.  It was ill-advised as someone suggesting that there aren't varying ways to interpret a text like the bible has already failed at thinking.  I'll drop it.

 

This is kind of related.  I'm curious how atheists approach things like santa or tooth fairy or easter bunny with their kids.  As a foster parent I've never had much choice on how I discussed these things, but when I did have choice my method was to say that it was just for fun.  "We'll talk to santa, just for fun.  He's pretend, just for fun", etc.  My gf's are doing elf on the shelf for the kids and it annoys me so much.  Basically the elf watches over you and reports back to the big dude on behavior and that report determines whether you get stuff.  Sound familiar?  It grosses me out, even more so because it feels like the sort of emotional abuse that religion can impose on children.  

So atheists, how do you do the imaginary parts of holidays?

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

Hey dude, all I'm doing is holding you up to the same standard you use on others. If you don't like that, well all I can say if from my experience that's very Christian of you.

Well there's the ten commandments. But no on seems to think those expired with the old pact. (1)

I'm assuming by the second part your referring to you not being okay with generalizations. You complained about Tywin et al making "sweeping assertions towards doctrine" but when you do it? Nah that's fine. (2)

Who gives a shit? Yeah they're hypocritical as fuck ignoring some parts of the bible and embracing others. But that's every Christian denomination ever.

(1) Firstly, you may remember that they aren’t in Leviticus and Numbers. Second, they are in fact quoted by Jesus on a couple of occasions. And thirdly, they are very general in nature, in contrast to the very spesific commandments that follow. 

I guess you already knew that. I’d be intersted in learning why you choose to look away from it. 

(2) Context, dude. Context. For someone charging that others are hypocritical, you should avoid going for it yourself.

Tywin was rather disparaging in his comments. He has since disappeared, but I suspect he’ll return - but in the process he spoke rather definitive (like you do) about Christians - to Christians - saying how they were this and that. 

I know how the board reacts to charges like «atheists are this and that», so do yourself a favour. The equal standard you fight for - use it. 

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

May I just ask...

Why did this Christian discussion get kicked off the Christian thread?

Why is this Christian discussion considered more relevant to the atheism thread?

Should we all descend on the Christian thread and start discussing the differences between Agnosticism and Atheism? Would that be cool?

Sorry - Dr. Pepper brought it over. I responded, and have received questions afterwards from several posters. I try to respond. 

If it’s not appreciated, I’ll withdraw. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Not to throw a firebomb here but I think it's beneath atheists to debate theists on the glaring logical fallacies in their specific belief/dogma.  The problem there is that you've allowed them to center the discussion in their wheelhouse, where they can enforce their own theocracy and long history of sophistry on the terms of debate.  That's basically the same thing Trump did to the GOP primary.  Never debate on their turf, never try to win by poking holes in logical fallacies -- they've already demonstrated that their faith can withstand millennia of logical fallacy.  You have de facto conceded that theirs is the default status quo from which debate must start, and you will wander their labyrinth that ignores the rules of logic (and physics).  Why bother citing Leviticus or anything else?  If it's all bullshit from deranged and/or deceitful human minds, why accept it into evidence in the debate on god at all?  Just like I don't accept the bible into evidence on the debate of the geological age of the earth.  The bible was written only by man, so it offers no more evidence of the possible existence of god than the dictionary and thesaurus on my desk.  It tells me a lot about human need for belief in a god but absolutely nothing about whether there might be a god, its nature, its relationship with us, or anything else.

The default position is that there is no evidence for an interventionist god(s), and it's not atheist's job to reconcile theist's need to believe in one with the factual absence of one.  That's a journey they need to undertake for themselves and we need to accept that most of them can't or won't.  Theists often talk about their faith journey but atheists need to promulgate the rationalism journey instead, and decouple the very human desire for transcendental abstraction (justice, mercy, beauty, etc) from the child-like dependency of theism.

I wouldn't walk into an insane asylum and try to persuade the inmate that he's not Napoleon through refuting his claims, and I wouldn't attempt to referee when three of them argue that they're each the true Napoleon.  I just remove the sharp objects from the room and let them argue as they will.  My great hope for religion is that we can remove the sharp objects from the room to reduce their potential for harm to self and others while we wait for the Enlightenment to continue its slow spread.  And have no doubt about it, a large majority of humanity still has not truly embraced the Enlightenment, just like literacy was the province of only a niche minority in most literate societies for a very long time.

[Eggegg]

Haha, great post, feels a bit like a drop the mike moment there! Not sure anything else needs to be said after that 

[Dr. Pepper]

For real!  It's one of those achingly beautiful posts that nearly made me cry.  Thanks @Iskaral Pust

[Seli]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

May I just ask...

Why did this Christian discussion get kicked off the Christian thread?

Why is this Christian discussion considered more relevant to the atheism thread?

Should we all descend on the Christian thread and start discussing the differences between Agnosticism and Atheism? Would that be cool?

As a show and tell why it is nonsense to follow the Courtier down the rabbithole? And why it is much easier to show why the basis of a beliefsystem is flawed than to argue within its inconsistent rules?

[Iskaral Pust]

52 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

So atheists, how do you do the imaginary parts of holidays?

I'm comfortable with allowing young children to enjoy a fiction for what it is, just like I waited to point out the horrible plot holes in Harry Potter or Star Wars.  And mass participation fiction engenders a particular kind of fun unavailable to individual alternatives intended as protests, so I have no problem participating in light-hearted fantasy like Santa Claus, tooth fairy or god until the child is rational enough to end the fiction.  Our son told us when he was seven that he knew Santa Claus was impossible and that he suspected a year earlier but didn't want to spoil the mood since we obviously enjoyed it.

If a parent takes that light-hearted fantasy in a dark direction like sin/purgatory/hell or elf monitors, then that's an individual reflection on the parent and their willingness to subvert an innocent fiction to become Big Brother rather than just trying some simple good parenting.  1984 reflects on bad parenting as much as autocratic dictatorships (or are they just the same thing writ small?).

[Which Tyler]

@Iskaral Pust - I think I want to make babies with you.

 

We just have issues of Geography, Biology and consent to deal with

[Iskaral Pust]

Speculative questions for non-believers:

The Emperor's New Clothes (by Hans Christian Andersen) often struck me as a perfect but unintended refutation of religion and god, and there were probably many more examples in the republican/post-Enlightenment era as the mythology of the divinely appointed monarchy and aristocracy was challenged.  Can you think of other widely published/distributed examples?  Why do think they changed attitudes toward monarchy & aristocracy but the analogy to religion went unheeded?  Why could people agree that the emperor had no clothes but not see that the emperor could also be the pope/bishop/whatever?

Have you ever contemplated how an omniscient, omnipotent god would interact with the universe?  If omniscience makes god exist outside of time (there is no future or past, there is no chain of causality, all is known and coexists in a single unified moment), how would god perceive with and interact with the universe?  My best guess is that all interaction would be embedded into the starting point conditions, i.e. the big bang.  If there is a god who hears your prayers, it answered them 13.7 billion years ago by our reckoning.

[TrueMetis]

I've contemplated a being with omniscience and omnipotent, but don't think on it because I've concluded it's a impossibility as it's logically contradictory. There's the old one about god creating a rock so heavy that it itself cannot lift it. There's also that omniscient means knowing everything, omnipotence means can do anything. But if you're omniscient you cannot learn new things and are hence not omnipotent. And if your omnipotent you should be omniscient because how can you do everything without knowing everything?

So I've never bothered to think how such a being can interact with the universe since logically such a being cannot exist. And I'm not sure how to get into the mind of something logically inconsistent.

(Seriously though good mike drop, I let myself be drawn into these debates far to often)

[IheartIheartTesla]

This is precisely the reason I said earlier that I was agnostic till a Planck's time after the Big Bang (when all the laws of physics came into existence as we know it now....sort of), since we have no way of knowing what happened before then. The origins of the universe are indeed a mystery, and any of smaller case god's messages or interactions with the world be hard wired into some fundamental physical constants (for which there will be no first principle deductions to arrive at those numbers).

In other words, any explanation for the universe will always involve some (few) assumptions, but are otherwise internally self consistent. Once we accept that, there is no reason to assume a prime mover continuing to interact with the universe, hence I call myself an atheist after that initial time period.

[Martell Spy]

41 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Speculative questions for non-believers:

The Emperor's New Clothes (by Hans Christian Andersen) often struck me as a perfect but unintended refutation of religion and god, and there were probably many more examples in the republican/post-Enlightenment era as the mythology of the divinely appointed monarchy and aristocracy was challenged.  Can you think of other widely published/distributed examples?  Why do think they changed attitudes toward monarchy & aristocracy but the analogy to religion went unheeded?  Why could people agree that the emperor had no clothes but not see that the emperor could also be the pope/bishop/whatever?

Have you ever contemplated how an omniscient, omnipotent god would interact with the universe?  If omniscience makes god exist outside of time (there is no future or past, there is no chain of causality, all is known and coexists in a single unified moment), how would god perceive with and interact with the universe?  My best guess is that all interaction would be embedded into the starting point conditions, i.e. the big bang.  If there is a god who hears your prayers, it answered them 13.7 billion years ago by our reckoning.

Yeah, to the extent that I entertain that we non believers may be wrong, It just seems like God the being doesn't seem to want to have much to do with us. Or is incapable of communication. Or dead. We have the physical world, a finite lifetime before our organism expires, and possible early expiration of our kind due to Climate Change. 

It's a bit like wondering  if advanced technology aliens are out there and one day will contact us. I'm not exactly going to wait by the phone.

[mankytoes]

Following on from before, where do people stand on this Tyson v Dawkins issue?

I broadly agree with Tyson. If you actually want to win people over, I think his methods are more effective.

[Dr. Pepper]

I think both of their methods will reach different audiences and both are necessary in their own ways.

When I was 'coming out atheist', I needed the Dawkins method because I was scared.  I had been raised in super conservative branches of a religion that told me this big brother dude was watching over me and judging me and he was one hateful prick who went on genocidal rampages when you didn't do what he wanted.  People like Dawkins made the transition easier.  Maybe even made me feel braver?  I think there are a lot of types of people who would be responsive to Dawkins' style.  This kinder gentler teacher isn't the only way to do things because styles of learning aren't one size fits all.

[Stubby]

14 hours ago, Rorshach said:

This is a better example. I think that defining it as «fuck everyone else» is a stretch, but it is a topic that has divided opininon in churches worldwide for the last 10-15 years. 

One point to note is in your bolded - «the Bible’s primary theme of love». Even conservatives agree on that point. The discussion isn’t about that, or whether the Bible tells people to «fuck everyone», but what is included in «love» here. I happen to think that the arguments against this bishop are stronger, and not based on «shallow, ill-informed exegesis», but we agree on the point of «keep my commandments». 

To go into the whole homosexuality debate here .. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t agree with the conservative position, even if I understand it. I do not think either position goes against «try to live your life like Jesus did», because a central understanding is that everyone will fail in their attempt. It’s part of being human.

Which just goes to highlight how your declaration that (you) "... know of no Christian text that can be used to defend a «fuck everyone else» (attitude)" was naively incorrect.

Archbishop Davies was clearly using the text to state a "fuck you" to gay people.

And I'm sure I could find equally eminent senior clergy and/or theologians who take a similar line with respect other classes of humans. 

[LongRider]

3 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The origins of the universe are indeed a mystery

I don't know much about physics, really, but I see no reason that the universe can't have a Big Bang beginning of natural causes.  Not knowing why or how something happens does not mean I will insert a God of the Gaps.  For me it's just turtles (natural causes) all the way down.

[King Ned Stark]

Take God out of the equation.  At present, what is the best running theory on creation?  There was nothing and then it exploded?

[Stubby]

33 minutes ago, King Ned Stark said:

Take God out of the equation.  At present, what is the best running theory on creation?  There was nothing and then it exploded?

If you are going to take a god out of the equation, you should take the word "creation" out of it too.

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I don't know much about physics, really, but I see no reason that the universe can't have a Big Bang beginning of natural causes.  Not knowing why or how something happens does not mean I will insert a God of the Gaps.  For me it's just turtles (natural causes) all the way down.

There is really no way of telling, which is why I am agnostic about it. A prime mover would only be one of many conjectures, all of which we will be unable to experimentally verify (although with 'natural causes' explaining everything post big bang there is a strong argument to presume it is natural causes 'before' as well)