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


Martell Spy

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26 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I really don't care to get into an existential argument, but I will explain.  What I was referring to, specifically, was fellow grad students - some of which are still friends of mine - making fun of Mormon doctrine.  Now, I am not going to pretend I do not entirely agree with them on the ridiculousness that they were referring to, but that's kind of the point.  There's a tendency among some to treat more esoteric or "fringe" religions differently than mainstream faiths.  For instance, if you say you're Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, it's much more likely you'll be viewed as strange than if you say you're Catholic or Methodist.

I find that distinction fascinating from my perspective.  In fact, I almost find it backwards.  At least Mormons and JWs did not construct institutions that are responsible for countless deaths.  Anyway, point is, while the story of Joseph Smith and whatnot is achingly dumb, I really don't find it any more dumb than anyone else that professes religious beliefs.  Therefore, I don't know why this certain Mormon graduate cohort should be ridiculed anymore than, say, the bevy of Catholic students we have in the Latin American department.  Which of course means no religious cohorts should be ridiculed.  Which, consequently, means maybe shut the fuck up and respect others' beliefs and just have fun. 

Do I find organized religion dumb?  Yep, have so since before I can remember.  Have I learned others feel differently and that - belief or not - doesn't really mean anything about an individual's intelligence, let alone their content of character?  Yeah, that too.  So, that's where I'm coming from.

I'm sorry I must have missed the step in logic that connected these two things. Since I would argue this means they should all be mocked, much like homeopathy, crystal healing, and the idea that aliens come to earth so they can stick probes up people's buts.

Also I'm not going to give either Mormons or JW credits for not killing as many people as the other branches of Christianity (peaceful the early Mormons were not). Especially given some of their stated beliefs. As a Metis person I am very glad that the Mormons never gained much power, we had enough trouble with the regular Christians who didn't explicit consider us the descendants of the bad guys from their dumbass holy book, and they killed plenty of Native Americans anyway.

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On 11/27/2017 at 3:56 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

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.

An omniscient and omnipotent God would almost certainly be completely alien to us and we'd be very hard pressed to explain anything such a being does. It could indeed be that all interaction is embedded into the initial conditions (not just the Big Bang, but the laws of nature). This is a tempting assumption at our current level of physics because our understanding of the initial conditions is lousy (hello-o-o-o, Hierarchy Problems). However, it doesn't have to be this way: it could be that God is continuously tinkering with the universe like a cook who adds ingredients to the pot according to a recipe. We'd need to know God's motivation in creating the universe in the first place to distinguish between the various options and the motivation is as impossible to determine as anything else about God.

All of that said... if we require merely the appearance of omniscience and omnipotence and assume a human-like intelligence with transcendent technology, we already have microcosms of this in the form of online worlds wherein the creators play the role of gods. Their behavior is actually not too far off from what one would expect based on mythology if we account for the fact that, unlike in our world, participants in the online worlds can choose between several of the latter.

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19 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I'm sorry I must have missed the step in logic that connected these two things. [snip]

No, I am sorry because I really don't understand your point.  Are you saying Mormons should just be mocked more than mainstream denominations?  Or they should be subjugated because they - and you're certainly correct about this - institutionally were racist for a longer time than mainstream denominations?  As for Jehovah's Witnesses, I'm frankly not familiar enough with the religion, but I assume the "leaders" are similarly fundamentalist and reactionary.

Anyway, all that aside, what are you implying by bolding what you did?  That I should ridicule the cohort that's Mormon?  If so, you're a dick.  If not, I don't really get your argument.

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14 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

No, I am sorry because I really don't understand your point.  Are you saying Mormons should just be mocked more than mainstream denominations?  Or they should be subjugated because they - and you're certainly correct about this - institutionally were racist for a longer time than mainstream denominations?  As for Jehovah's Witnesses, I'm frankly not familiar enough with the religion, but I assume the "leaders" are similarly fundamentalist and reactionary.

Anyway, all that aside, what are you implying by bolding what you did?  That I should ridicule the cohort that's Mormon?  If so, you're a dick.  If not, I don't really get your argument.

When did anyone in this thread ridicule Mormons or JW's more than others? Or elevate any religion more than the others?  I think they've all been given pretty equal treatment, though admittedly Santa and the Elves may have received harsher words, though only from the religious ones. 

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5 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

When did anyone in this thread ridicule Mormons or JW's more than others? Or elevate any religion more than the others?  I think they've all been given pretty equal treatment, though admittedly Santa and the Elves may have received harsher words, though only from the religious ones. 

What you quoted was a direct response to someone that directly responded to me.  I prefer keep that exchange as is, thanks.

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10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

What you quoted was a direct response to someone that directly responded to me.  I prefer keep that exchange as is, thanks.

Yeah, but it was a follow up from your 'intellectual bullying' post.  I had no clue what you meant about it and when someone responded, you followed up with "well they all laugh at Mormons and JWs".  

I guess I should have gone way back to wonder what intellectual bullying you think is happening.

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5 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Yeah, but it was a follow up from your 'intellectual bullying' post.  I had no clue what you meant about it and when someone responded, you followed up with "well they all laugh at Mormons and JWs".  

I guess I should have gone way back to wonder what intellectual bullying you think is happening.

The intellectual bullying I was referring to was discussed on page 3 of this thread, specifically around here:

If that's not clear please let me know.

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4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

The intellectual bullying I was referring to was discussed on page 3 of this thread, specifically around here:

If that's not clear please let me know.

Yeah, no, it's not clear at all.  In the page three post you mention some people getting drunk and talking shit to people about their beliefs.  Quite a different thing where we have a dedicated topic about nonbelievers and where believers choose to enter and engage. The only believer who received derision was one who, in a different thread, claimed his degree gave him superiority in discussion and who then argued in bad faith or refused to accept that people interpret things differently. 

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1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Yeah, no, it's not clear at all.  In the page three post you mention some people getting drunk and talking shit to people about their beliefs.  Quite a different thing where we have a dedicated topic about nonbelievers and where believers choose to enter and engage. The only believer who received derision was one who, in a different thread, claimed his degree gave him superiority in discussion and who then argued in bad faith or refused to accept that people interpret things differently. 

Ok then.  You asked what I meant by intellectual bullying.  That's what I meant.

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2 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Ok then, so you didn't mean atheists, you meant believers who come into atheist conversations.  Got it. 

No, I mean the atheists.  But more importantly, I have obviously been trying to avoid engaging in an argument with you.  I will never block you, but every time I try to have a discussion it ends up with you calling me some kind of ism.  So I'm over it.  Fire away and let this thread move on.

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31 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

No, I mean the atheists.  But more importantly, I have obviously been trying to avoid engaging in an argument with you.  I will never block you, but every time I try to have a discussion it ends up with you calling me some kind of ism.  So I'm over it.  Fire away and let this thread move on.

Yeah, I've literally just asked you to explain yourself, seemed simple enough.  You apparently can't or won't, with the only comment being about how mormons and Jws are mocked more (I mean, wut?).  I don't have discussions with you, but I certainly won't deny identifying people as what they are.  Maybe don't be that -ism.  If you didn't want to engage with me, then the smart thing probably would have been to literally not respond instead of responding with vague comments about the question I asked.

There hasn't been any bullying in this thread.  Not even the annoyance with the "but i have a master's degree" poster could be called bullying, unless we're talking about him.  But this probably gets to the question that's been posed multiple times about whether or not it's possible to be 'sensitive' or not 'offensive' when discussion things with believers.  It's probably not.  Almost no one would say that it's inherently offensive to tell a child that santa isn't real, but somehow when it's an adult you're having to tell this to then things seem to become problematic.  Even here you are attempting to call it 'bullying' despite that fact that this discussion is clearly labeled and believers who join in know that they are entering a space where their beliefs will, at the very least, be challenged.

Of course, no one worries much about how offensive discussing theism is to atheists.  In areas where I've lived, religion has always been presumed as universal, causing me to have to often participate in the ruse in some way or another.  Quite offensive.

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5 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I don't have discussions with you, but I certainly won't deny identifying people as what they are.  Maybe don't be that -ism. 

Yep, right there.  What ism am I?  Whatever.  It's unfortunate, because I would like to respond to much of the interesting aspects you provide.  But I'm not going to engage with someone that already thinks I'm unqualified to engage with them.  Seriously, why would you want me to if you think of me in such odious ways?

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2 hours ago, Altherion said:

An omniscient and omnipotent God would almost certainly be completely alien to us and we'd be very hard pressed to explain anything such a being does. It could indeed be that all interaction is embedded into the initial conditions (not just the Big Bang, but the laws of nature). This is a tempting assumption at our current level of physics because our understanding of the initial conditions is lousy (hello-o-o-o, Hierarchy Problems). However, it doesn't have to be this way: it could be that God is continuously tinkering with the universe like a cook who adds ingredients to the pot according to a recipe. We'd need to know God's motivation in creating the universe in the first place to distinguish between the various options and the motivation is as impossible to determine as anything else about God.

All of which is very convenient reasoning, when pre-judging that there needs to be a god.

None of this makes any sense until there is some explanation of why there needs to be a god.

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 Why would you participate in the ruse? Wouldn't that make you a sympathizer of a sort? I can understand keeping your non-belief to yourself in some circumstances, but outside of that...

 And it is at the very least dickish to tell a child that Santa doesn't exist under many circumstances. If the child is not yours, you pretty much have no business butting in. 

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3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yep, right there.  What ism am I?  Whatever.  It's unfortunate, because I would like to respond to much of the interesting aspects you provide.  But I'm not going to engage with someone that already thinks I'm unqualified to engage with them.  Seriously, why would you want me to if you think of me in such odious ways?

Because I literally have no clue who you are.  I don't keep a running tab of the thousands of people on this website.  You say I called you something, I have no memory but am also not denying I said something.  It was a general "don't be an -ism", not to you directly because, again, I have no clue who you are.  

I asked a question, you refuse to answer so I'm guessing your point was invalid anyway.  Maybe you're drunk?

Anyone else want to discuss?

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3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 The thing I find kind of interesting is somewhat specific to this board but also to fans of Fantasy as a whole. I know this is a generalization, but it seems to me that a somewhat overwhelming percentage of us are non-believers, which kind of flies in the face of what one might think.

Not really all that surprising IMO.  We learn pretty early on that there is a difference between the real world and our alternate worlds.  We are also pretty good at spotting continuity errors, world-building inconsistencies,  and plot holes.  A simple application of those three criteria to religious texts reveals that they are all pretty much bad fiction.

   

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13 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Why would you participate in the ruse? Wouldn't that make you a sympathizer of a sort? I can understand keeping your non-belief to yourself in some circumstances, but outside of that...

 

Because not participating causes more problems in many circumstances.  We all participate passively in some way simply by not point out that it's foolish fantasy.  I was passively participating in the ruse earlier this afternoon when a neighbor said he'd pray for us when we said our basement was flooding and my only response was "thanks".  The word of gratitude implies that I think his telling me that he'll go talk to himself or his imaginary friend is helpful, appropriate or even polite.  It's not any of those but telling him the truth would have caused more problems. Hence participating in the ruse, and yes being a sympathizer.  And that's why the questions posed above have been asked in the thread.

Quote

 And it is at the very least dickish to tell a child that Santa doesn't exist under many circumstances. If the child is not yours, you pretty much have no business butting in. 

I'm not talking about going up to some random child and talking to them about anything.  I'm speaking in general.  Children learn every day that santa isn't real and we see that as an appropriate sign of growth and maturity.  We don't view it the same when it's an adult.

6 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Well, in that case, yeah just move on.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize we were required to know the posters we engage with.  :rolleyes:

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7 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Not really all that surprising IMO.  We learn pretty early on that there is a difference between the real world and our alternate worlds.  We are also pretty good at spotting continuity errors, world-building inconsistencies,  and plot holes.  A simple application of those three criteria to religious texts reveals that they are all pretty much bad fiction.   

 Yeah, I suppose that follows to some degree, but when you look at the degree of the analysis that occurs around these fictions (just look at the upper boards) it kind of resembles study of the Bible or Koran or whatever ancient religious text you'd care to name. It appears to be more than a bit cultish to an outsider. 

 I agree with you that these texts are bad fiction, but you have to admit that they are easily the most fantastically successful fairy tales ever told. 

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