Justify atheism. Please

[Ted Striker]

pffft, science... justify that!

[PNWbrit]

In a cosmic first, scientists detect ‘ghost particles’ from a distant galaxy

This is physics at its most mind-boggling and extreme. Researchers compared the breakthrough to the 2017 detection of ripples in space time caused by colliding dead stars, which added gravitational waves to scientists’ toolbox for observing the cosmos.

Modern credence to Bronze age tribal superstitions looks kind of sillier by the day doesn't it?

[hutash]

That is just Satan teasing you with false facts...repent sinner, repent.

[Kenny Satch]

This is the Matrix
Nothing is real and nothing is solid.
Can someone hit the reset button.
Long live Zion

[SumJongGuy]

That is just Satan teasing you with false facts...repent sinner, repent.

I still remember the moment my grandmother told me that dinosaur fossils were "false evidence placed in the ground by the devil to fool people"... That was sometime in the late 1970s.. I had to pause for a minute or two to figure out she was actually serious..

[hutash]

I had someone tell me she won't do yoga because it opens the mind to the devil.

Yep, perfect Christian logic, be closed minded about all things. No wonder pastors can lead their flocks to such levels of stupidity. Have a sip of Kool-Aid

[XXX-er]

Havent seen the devil yet but my mind was open to drugs/alcohol/fornication well before I got into yoga

do I get thots n prayers ?

[Jethro]

I still remember the moment my grandmother told me that dinosaur fossils were "false evidence placed in the ground by the devil to fool people"... That was sometime in the late 1970s.. I had to pause for a minute or two to figure out she was actually serious..

I worked with a guy who was some type of born again. I remember when he said “trust me, the devil put dinosaur bones in the ground to tempt non believers, and the world is 6000 years old

[iceman]

I'm pretty bummed out the Devil got to the Saudis and now they're gonna let women drive. That was the only good thing about that country, and they got rid of it, wtf?

[Core Shot]

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer.

And the atheist says: “Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God.

It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing.

Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out “Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.”

And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. “Well then you must believe now,” he says, “After all, here you are, alive.”

The atheist just rolls his eyes. “No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.”

– Wallace, “This is Water”


Wallace said he used the Eskimo story to discuss what he termed “the whole matter of arrogance”:



The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help.

True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They’re probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us.

But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.

Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.

– Wallace, “This is Water”

[plugboots]

After that total B.S., this:

[wyeaster]

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer.

And the atheist says: “Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God.

It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing.

Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out “Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.”

And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. “Well then you must believe now,” he says, “After all, here you are, alive.”

The atheist just rolls his eyes. “No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.”

– Wallace, “This is Water”


Wallace said he used the Eskimo story to discuss what he termed “the whole matter of arrogance”:



The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help.

True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They’re probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us.

But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.

Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.

– Wallace, “This is Water”

yuck.

more people who can't handle the truth.

..


Another debate on the published format is over a slight rewrite. In the delivered speech, Wallace concluded an extended metaphor with, "It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. They shoot the terrible master." Due to Wallace's suicide the publisher chose to remove the final line, "They shoot the terrible master",[8] which has polarized critics. One side believes that changing an author's words is unacceptable if the original meaning is to be preserved.[8] But in defense of the edit, the other side says that in order to preserve the original message, the edit is a must. Author Tom Bissell states that, "any mention of self-annihilation in Wallace's work...now has a blast radius that obscures everything around it."[

[Kenny Satch]

France wins the World Cup..there is no God !

[BeardMech]

Woah spoilers! it is only 10:38 am here. Actually... I dont care

[Meadow Skipper]

I keep reading the title of this thread as “Justify Autism” or “Justify Anthems”

Justify Autism amuses me.

[BeardMech]

I justify autism by saying they are the unfortunate consequence of protecting majority of children with vaccines. Im a pro autism vaxxer.





/$

[PB]

Religion causes autism.

[old goat]

Re the guy lost in the blizzard--I would apply Occam's Razor--which is simpler--that a supreme being with the power to control the specific actions of specific human beings at a specific point in time sent the Eskimos while at the same time failing to answer the prayers of equally good and equally faithful people who are dying at the time, or that 2 Eskimos in Eskimo country came by? Now if the guy was saved from drowning in Tahiti by 2 Eskimos in sealskins and kayaks--I would buy divine intervention.

Or as Bob Costas said after Giselle Bundchen asked people to pray for Tom Brady--"I think god has done enough for Tom Brady."

[mcski]

Religion causes autism.

There are too many smart autistics for that to be true

[SumJongGuy]

Or as Bob Costas said after Giselle Bundchen asked people to pray for Tom Brady--"I think Satan has done enough for Tom Brady."

Fixed it for you.

R.e.. Occum's razor and horrible things happening to totally undeserving people while god saves other seemingly less deserving folks from tragedy... the typical explanation would be that perhaps the innocent child being molested by the priest may have been a priest who molested children in their previous life.

[iceman]

You don't get a lot of talk about reincarnation with most religions dude.

[SumJongGuy]

You don't get a lot of talk about reincarnation with most religions dude.

There is a growing group of clergy who are preaching that hell isn't a real place. Old school fire and brimstone fundies ya, hell is more real than anything else. But, more progressive, younger, religious authors are venturing away from that..

[PNWbrit]

There is a growing group of clergy who are preaching that hell isn't a real place. Old school fire and brimstone fundies ya, hell is more real than anything else. But, more progressive, younger, religious authors are venturing away from that..

Making it up as they go along.

Faith lite.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[old goat]

Fixed it for you.

R.e.. Occum's razor and horrible things happening to totally undeserving people while god saves other seemingly less deserving folks from tragedy... the typical explanation would be that perhaps the innocent child being molested by the priest may have been a priest who molested children in their previous life.

The typical answer is that god has his reasons and who are we to question them.
It's a lot more simple in Judaism--if you're bad and don't repent you die. I'm sure nowadays the rabbis have more modern and complex answers but I wouldn't know.

[PB]

There are too many smart autistics for that to be true

Good point. How about the intersection between religion and jugaloes??