Literally none of you really understand what you are mocking, and 95% of your ‘knowledge’ comes from memes and corporate news.
It is impossible to have a decent discussion with any of you, and I have been trying for YEARS.
Every circumstance is filled with ‘gotcha’ intellectual dishonesty parroted from whatever spike haired edgelad streamer you watched this week with ZERO of your own ideas in the mix.
HOW the FUCK can you hold a position that you can’t even defend without devolving into strawmanning and meme repetition? It staggers me how casually all of you just slip into this comforting ignorance that is immune to any discourse.
To be clear, I am NOT a conservative evangelical and I probably hate them more than you do, but none of you will care because ALL theists are the same to you as those ‘God hates fags’ protesters.
Oh I fucking hate every one of you but I still hate conservative evangelicals worse.
At least most of you edgelad ratheists aren’t trying to bring fascism to American.
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This is what I like about lemmy. On Reddit you’d never see the crazy old man yelling at the clouds. Here he gets his own website, he gets to go on a power trip, he gets to rant, and we get to watch!
You shitheads still downvote bombed me, so much for the vaunted open mindedness of the fediverse.
Also, get the fuck off of my sub for several trillion years.
according to the bible, your faith has to be based on faith alone, rather than evidence. which means, there is no evidence. if there were evidence, your faith would be based on evidence instead of faith.
so what causes you to believe in god?
I know it’s hard for you to contemplate but what if I told you that it really doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme if He does or does not exist?
Statement: God does or does not exist independent of my belief or desire.
Conclusion: my belief is irrelevant to His actual existence or lack thereof.
Statement the Second: Since I have begun living as if He does exist, my life is more fulfilling and purposeful.
Conclusion the Second: Regardless of the existence or lack thereof of God, it is prudent to live as if He exists if your goal is greater life satisfaction.
You have a fucktonne of these arguments you’ve been rehearsing in your head for when you actually get the chance to dunk on a theist and I want to warn you right now that none of them will work on me because they have zero nuance and are formulated by talking heads for views and clicks instead of being rigorous arguments.
Your insistence on this cute little ‘catch 22’ shows that you may have an understanding of specific passages that you and your community have combed through to pick out for these ‘gotchas’, but you certainly have zero grasp of the actually meaningful parts about living a good life and supporting your community.
We call that ‘legalism’ in my church, and it’s looked down upon.
Do you really think that IF God exists, He’s going to be fooled by word play?
And IF He DOESN’T exist, why waste the time? I think it is because you like the attention.
oh, you just go around making up stories about the people you’re talking about in your head? I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing here. have fun with that, I’m not interested
I’m not even going to validate your low effort post, gtfo.
What makes you angry specifically? Trying to figure out where your beef is. I am happy to discuss.
The religious impulse is a fundamental part of human identity, it was the glue that allowed civilization to begin, uniting people in shared values and goals.
To deny this impulse is to cut ourselves away from one of the more successful survival behaviors that we have developed.
You people get SO CLOSE when you make the little ‘Well I see how it can bring people some comfort believing in a nonexistent afterlife, so good for them even if it is childish’, the fear of death and the loss of loved ones ARE NOT ADDRESSED by our modern secular society other than ‘There is no afterlife, suck it up, they’re worm food’ which is so ridiculously detrimental to our well being as a species but you can no more see it than a fish can see water for being fully immersed in it for your entire life.
I argue that even if no god or afterlife exists, that believing in such and using that as a framework to ease the pain of lost loved ones LITERALLY COSTS NOTHING, HARMS NOTHING, AND CAN BE SUPREMELY THERAPEUTIC.
When irrationally exuberant atheists, fresh off the feeling of freedom that ‘throwing off the shackles’ brings, flood the forums with dumbass shit like “Tax the churches” (churces aren’t tax exempt because they are churches, they are tax exempt because they are charities like any other with the only difference being churches are not required to submit a balance sheet (though many do nowadays in the interest of transparency), “Sepuhration of da churches and stateseses” (Congress shall make no law respecting a religion doesn’t and never has meant what you internet raised atheist thinks it means) or PedoPriest Bad so all Bad! (Hollywood producers rape children at a significantly higher rate than clergy but I don’t see ANY of you calling them out)
I have heard every single argument for atheism and in my day have crafted a few of my own with significantly more nuance than I have ever found online and I am so fucking willing to go into every one of them with ANY of you that can maintain at least some form of intellectual honestly.
Problem of Evil? SURE! I can go on about that for hours and none of my arguments will be found online until I type them.
Biblical ‘contradictions’? FUCK YEAH! I love doing this one because unless you and your ilk actively misunderstand, like go out of your way to do so, you’ll be forced to learn just how historically accurate, multiply attested, and applicable the Bible actually is. Protip: There isn’t a single core tenant of Christianity that is contradicted anywhere. Most ‘contradictions’ come from cultural animal names, or misunderstood cultural context as the cultures written of in the Bible are a lot more diverse than you imagine. And no, the Bible isn’t a ‘copy of a copy of a copy’. Unless it is a transliteration, all Bibles start with as close to the oldest texts as we have access to, and thanks to the Vatican that’s within 100 years of Jesus’s death and there is NO ancient document SO WELL attested by literally an order of magnitude.
Evil in the name of the Church? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY because this is not an inherently church issue, it is an issue with ALL hierarchies of power where abusers can shield themselves from scrutiny with power and authority. But since you edgelads focus on pretty much exclusively the church, you ignore that the most brutal dictators on the planet were atheists, with atheist regimes. And don’t you FUCKING START about the nazis being Christian, they openly mocked Christianity and had their own pagan symbolism that wore the trappings of Christianity for protection just like conservative evangelicals do today.
I can literally go on for hours, pick the topic
You had me up to here: “LITERALLY COSTS NOTHING, HARMS NOTHING, AND CAN BE SUPREMELY THERAPEUTIC.”
Religion has historically been extremely damaging to many groups of people including religious people themselves. Religion has caused wars, the persecution of: gay people, trans people, polygamous people, people of other religions, atheists and agnostics, scientists, and so on. It’s also been used as a justification for monarchy, slavery, caste societies, and fascism. It leads to all kinds of crackpot conspiracies including modern flat earthers. It’s caused more harm than pretty much any other idea in human history, other than perhaps money.
From my perspective religion is a kind of mass delusion. Delusions aren’t always harmful, and provided they are benign it might be better to just let them be. This stops the moment those delusions become harmful to either the person having the delusion or the people around them. If your religion harms no one including yourself then that’s a-okay by me. Otherwise we need to disabuse you of it as quickly as possible, or at least try and replace it with a harmless delusion if reality is too painful to bare.
Comparing religion to celebrity worship isn’t a good argument to make. Celebrity worship isn’t a positive thing either, and imo needs to happen a lot less. It’s a bit like saying thing b is bad so why care about bad thing a? I dislike harmful religions and harmful celebrities.
Also I don’t care about Christianity in particular. I don’t consider islam or Judaism to be good either. Nazis were not atheists, and any religion that causes harm is a problem.
Not sure where you want to focus here. I have to speak only for myself, although you must think we are all the same by referring to me as “you people”. For me, the issue as a churchgoer from childhood into adulthood was that of hypocrisy. It hit me on the head one day, like someone took a hammer and seriously whacked me on the side of the head. It was most disconcerting, but over time I realized what I had been “believing “ in was only something that was taught to me, and began to no longer serve its purpose in reality. I got sober 15 years ago and one of the things allowed me to get sober was brutal honesty. I had to look at all persons, places, things and institutions and reflect on them all. One of the institutions was the church. Later, as religion became politics among many people I knew, it appeared to me to be dividing people into tribes, and these tribes were not based on love. My survival therefore depended on my need to not believe these things any longer. It is that important.
I don’t think you understand how many atheists I have spoken with and how fuckdamn similar every one of you are in your retreat to intellectual dishonesty when the conversation gets even slightly tough.
I’m not sure what your little tribal daydream has to do with the world as it is now but I think you are making fantasies that don’t exactly match up with the anthropological record and basing assumptions on that fantasy for your worldview.
At least I have a fucking book to tell me my made up history. You just decided to go and make one up on your own.
Well I hope it serves you well, but for me it no longer does. Sorry you can’t understand.
Oh I understand, I was an atheist myself for more than a decade, it’s just that I was wrong and so are you but not for the reasons you think, and those reasons are impossible for you to understand until you have experienced more of the world.
It’s like when people say ‘Oh you autists can’t understand hierarchies’.
No bitch, we understand them fine, we just know they are stupid and detrimental.
Same with your infantile edgeladism.
I feel you are attacking me and don’t even know me or even how old I am or how many experiences I have had. What makes you think you are superior to another fellow human? You said no one wanted to have a real discussion, but here I am.
Don’t think it makes you special, I attack basically everyone. Have you not read literally anything I’ve posted?
- Mainly by the texture and pattern of your text and how ill formed your replies are, mid 20s I would guess, middle class or close to it, smarter than most of your friends but you don’t have that big of a group to compare to. You might be older but then that would make your friend cadre uncomfortably young in comparison but who am I to judge of you as a 30 year old like hanging out with younger people, but I’m pretty sure you’re 27 at the absolute oldest. You will of course deny all of this so you can win your internet argument, but I’m done paying attention to anything you have to say today.
C} No you don’t want a real discussion, your ridiculous ‘it just hit me in the head’ story is proof of this. I’m sure that’s how you’ve convinced yourself it’s happened but life doesn’t have a narrative outside of the one we craft for ourselves. When people make up those narratives, they are noticeably different from people recounting events.
And lastly, while you were being a smug little fucknugget in my sub, I actually found 2 people with the intellectual honesty to have a discussion and I’ve been having a blast over there.
And I wonder why people with autism (myself included) have such a bad reputation on the internet…
And you are a royal shitstain to police my behavior, my anger has nothing to do with my autism and is a separate thing altogether.
I want to ban you but that means I can’t yell at you anymore.
I don’t know you or your motivations; all I had to go by was your username.
I can’t yell at you anymore.
Keep at it, by all means. It doesn’t bother me
Good.
Listen IDGAF if you are on the spectrum, your conflation was a deliberately sadistic choice, intended to harm. Where the FUCK do you get off even considering that if you actually ARE on the spectrum.
Secondly, if you want to know the real fucking reason autists have a bad reputation, here’s a clinical study that will ABSOLUTELY depress the FUCK out of you if you ARE actually on the spectrum:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/
TL:DR; neurotypicals can detect autism subconsciously and it causes them to downrate individuals on average 30%, EVEN IF ONLY EXPOSED TO FUCKING TRANSCRIPTS.
So, you doing whatever the FUCK you were doing is shifting blame from the bigots where it should rightfully sit onto the behaviors of people WHO NOTABLY HAVE PROBLEMS CONTROLLING THEIR BEHAVIORS!
So either you are a fucking neurotraitor or lying about your place on the spectrum and either outcome makes me angry enough to punch kittens, and I fucking LOVE kittens.
if you actually ARE on the spectrum
How dare you question my mental state… I guess
neurotypicals can detect autism subconsciously
Since “symptoms” vary GREATLY from one person with autism to the next (hence the use of the word “spectrum”) I’m gonna call at least partial bullshit on that.
I fucking LOVE kittens
Me too, actually.
How dare you question my mental state… I guess
Look, if you are on the spectrum, then you’re spreading dangerous misinformation. If you aren’t on the spectrum, then you are an abuser. So I don’t really care which one it is, you’re irredeemable.
You can call bullshit all you want but study after study and every one of our personal experiences proves that neurotypicals nearly always discriminate against us.
I think you underestimate people’s pattern matching ability. Google that lady who could smell parkinsons, that’s the kind of pattern matching we are capable of. We are literally pattern matching meat machines. It is how we survived before we developed the whole scientific method and we’ve only had that for like 800 years…
All those gut feelings have origin in the fact that we are a fucktonne more aware of the world than our conscious mind lets us know (which you should know because NOT being able to do that is part of the reason we (well at least I, in this discussion) are on the spectrum.
They know we’re different, and it makes them hate us slightly more. Why are you giving them even more ammo with your careless memery?
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Could you even be more low effort? Well I guess at least it isn’t just an emoji
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I understand it. I’ve read it. I believed in god when I was small. But I didn’t understand why the clergy and my teachers gave the answers they gave - why someone who had never heard of Jesus would go to hell, why unbaptised babies would go to hell, why such terrible suffering is allowed when we have an all-powerful being to protect us.
And then it hit me: if he exists, and he’s strong enough to do something about all this, and doesn’t, then how could be claim to be good? Or if he can’t do anything about it, is he really that powerful? And if he’s not actually good or not actually powerful, then why worship him? And hey, now that you mention it, all this has been passed down through generations, translated imperfectly we have to presume from God-language to various human tongues, and these words sure do seem to get twisted a lot to serve selfish ends…
I think Jesus was a pretty cool dude with good ideas, and I wish I could figure out how to refresh that message he left us to just be good and kind to one another. But he’d turn in his grave, to see what’s been and being done with his name.
But that’s all about me and what I think. Why do you care what people think of your religion? Why do you feel the need to debate and argue with people who disagree, when what you’re arguing fundamentally can’t be proven (at least right now)?
What is being mocked and what is not understood exactly?
Everything is mocked, nothing is sacred in our society anymore. That’s 30% of the reason I am SO INCANDESCENTLY ANGRY about this.
Saying a religion is sacred presupposed that the religion is true. So your claim that its wrong to mock a religion because its sacred is circular logic.
No religion is true, therefore cannot be sacred, and therefore is not above mockery.
That’s not a true assumption at all and is further proof of your kind’s deliberate intellectual dishonesty.
If you had actually read the thread you’d see in at least 2 places that I am NOT arguing for the existence of a deity, in fact I point out the studies that show that theists report higher quality of life and outcomes than non-theists, and since I assume you believe no deity exists, and the results are peer-reviewed and in some cases multiply attested, you have to accept the results that regardless of the actual existence or not of the supernatural, living AS IF it existed brings better outcomes.
and therefore is not above mockery.
Oh you hold things dear that are above mockery and if I were able to sit with you and talk for ten minutes I GUARANTEE I could find at least 2 subjects you feel would be above mockery.
The thing is, by making everything mockable, you run into bullshit asymmetry and all the good gets lost in a rising sea of trollish discourse.
Great example is the ACA, in its original form it would have been the single best gift to American citizens, but the Republicunts mocked it for years and years until their constituents don’t realize that the ACA and ‘Obamacare’ are THE SAME THING, because it is a LOT easier to spew constant lies and mockery than it is to refute it.
The REASON certain things were held sacred and above reproach was usually because of how critical they were to society, for example the sanctity of human life, or of motherhood, or of charity.
So now that ‘nothing is sacred’, human life can end over a pair of shoes and no one cares, antinatal movements are in full swing, and the only time people talk about charity anymore is to say how celebrities use it to dodge taxes.
The simple fact is the world would be a lot better if we stopped mocking certain things, and we WOULDN’T be here where we are now if all of you and your ilk weren’t hellbent on uprooting three thousand years of human social development because you are angry your mommy wouldn’t let you bring your 3ds to church on Christmas.
I really, really don’t like it when you say things like “you and your ilk”. You are embodying everything you say you’re against.
And that last paragraph. Holy shit!
Ban me, hypocrite.
I know and it feels fucking great to be on this side of it for once in my life after so many hundreds of you harassing me for daring to be passionate about something that has so massively improved my life.
Oh my fucking GLOB you have no idea how magnificently, fucktastically tired I am of all of your half baked meme responses and smug superiority despite the fact that you are JUST as ignorant about theology as the people you mock and when confronted with that fact you and YOUR ILK actively use the same goalpost shifting and intellectually dishonest tactics you accuse cuntservatives of doing.
EVERY
TIME
There has never once been a post where I have engaged with an atheist, no matter how rigorous or referenced my posts, no matter how genial and respectful, that isn’t downvoted completely to oblivion, and I’ve been trying this for FUCKING DAMN NEAR TWENTY YEARS!
I have a bad opinion of you and your ilk because 99.9% of atheists I run into DO THE EXACT SAME INFURIATINGLY BULLETPROOF DANCE.
And you STILL claim the moral high ground afterward.
So yeah, every atheist can turn to dust and make the world a better place.
And I wouldn’t think that if even a handful of you hadn’t, but in my entire time doing this I’ve had exactly 3 atheists respond reasonably. In two decades… Those posts were still comment bombed or downvoted to oblivion though, and so were the reasonable atheist replies. Looks like you rabid sycophants can’t even stand dissent from your own kind. How pathetic.
Ban me, hypocrite.
Make me…
Blocked. Fuck off, you basement dwelling asshat. You are the worst person I’ve met on Lemmy, and I’ve met tankies. You are definitely going to hell. If there is a god, he hates you.
There are literal fashy shock troops on Lemmy right now and you call me the worst person you met?
You must not engage much.
Edit: Sorry, hell isn’t for the saved. I know you don’t care, just want to set the record straight when people start coming into the thread with dispensationalist bullshit.
Excuse me, I mostly watch spike haired edgelady streamers.
Do you take your opinions on theism from their poorly organized for-views rants without even considering them objectively first?
Oh, I don’t really care about theism tbh, I just don’t believe in it. I know some people find a lot of meaning, hope, and community in their beliefs and I have no interest in arguing that’s wrong.
It’s the conservative part I take umbrage with.
It’s the conservative part I take umbrage with.
Agreed.
One thing you have to admit: a sense of community is missing in our world, a lot of people feel adrift and alone. Churches are places where people who share ideals can be together and those kinds of communities provide so many small, unnoticed services.
Just that the easiest way to form a community is around a religion, and with the majority of the world being secular, the only things we can form a similar group around is media, and I don’t see anime circles and record collecting groups having quite the outreach.
At least most of you edgelad ratheists aren’t trying to bring fascism to American.
You can’t “bring” fascism to the US - this call has been coming from inside the house before the ink on the constitution had dried.
Yeah I agree but I couldn’t think of a way to fit it in good prose while also being filled with the red mist atm.
You know Errol Flynn? The actor? I used to work with his nephew. Errol was a big time nazi simp, like embarrassingly so to even other nazi simps.
So yeah, it’s been here, just with the seditionist in chief emboldening them, they are coming out of the woodwork like roaches but less welcome.
I used to work with his nephew. Errol was a big time nazi simp
And his nephew?
Hardcore progressive, pro-trans back before most people even knew the word. Apparently he was part of the Conch Rebellion in the Florida Keys. Also tall AF. He gave me my first Subgenius barrage tape and is probably about 20% of the reason I became anti-authoritarian.
Most of the family hated Errol according to him. Not all though…
Cool.
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Ha, see there! Where is your power now?
Right here in this little three dot menu I got when I made the sub!
Ahhhh that feels nice
So, of all we have it’s strawman arguments, why don’t you educate us and explain why we should believe in your god.
I don’t think you should believe in my God, I think you should find your own god and use your dedication to it to improve your life.
Hell I’m not even arguing whether any god exists or not, it’s largely a pointless argument to be honest. I live as if the God of the Hebrew Bible exists, and it has improved my life and made me a more compassionate and open minded person. I know you don’t believe that, because to you religion is the root of all evil, which is why I don’t really like talking to your ilk.
I think you SHOULD believe in SOMETHING sacred, because such things are powerful. For example, I would like for the world to start believing that human life is sacred again, and that has inspired me to donate to charities that preserve human life like Doctors without Borders. I feel that taking any human life outside of immediate safety should be considered one of the most horrific acts a human can perform. When I think about how unfair it is for those who’s lives are ruined or ended by the greed, ignorance, or anger of another, I strengthen the resolve within me to become more accepting of life imprisonment over execution of criminals. It causes me to want to support causes that prevent it, and to think of ways to convince others to agree and put aside their previously held beliefs about the acceptability of human death for those in the ‘out group’.
There’s no pathway to convince this world of fucking idiots through rational arguments or statistical evidence that such things should be true, and 40% of humanity absolutely needs the unassailable authority of a god lawgiver to keep them from doing ridiculously stupid things out of ignorance or maliciousness.
I’m sure you’ve mocked the whole ‘Without God stopping you, why don’t you rape?’ meme just like every other atheist online but if the last 8 years of mass murders, encroaching fascism, and rising social anxiety hasn’t convinced you that YES there ARE some people who need a god to tell them not to rape, then I don’t know what to say.
You have a very strange idea of what an atheist is. An atheist is simply someone who doesn’t believe in gods. That’s the long and short of it.
…but if the last 8 years of mass murders, encroaching fascism, and rising social anxiety hasn’t convinced you that YES there ARE some people who need a god to tell them not to rape, then I don’t know what to say.
If you look at the kind of behaviour that is being justified with religion, then your good isn’t very good at that, is he?
I’m not even touching that stupid as shit strawman, and I really should ban you for that deliberately crafted bullshit but your naivety amuses me so you may remain for now.
Time for you to be less stupid tho:
Sociopaths use any hierarchy to insulate themselves from judgment, the church isn’t even close to being unique.
Per capita hollywood producers molest children at a SIGNIFICANTLY higher rate than the clergy but I don’t see edgelads like you boycotting their movies.
then your good isn’t very good at that, is he?
What if I told you that I don’t know if He exists and it doesn’t really matter to me at all if He does or doesn’t?
Also, I have been waiting to rip some youtube trained ratheist a ninth opening over the modern ridiculous formation of the Problem of Evil and I have LITERAL HANDWRITTEN notes over the last twenty years I have been formulating this argument, so please tell me you are actually trying to defend that kindergarten-level intellectual dishonesty so I can break out this long pent up lesson.
