this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Religion is ignorance and refusal to face reality.
As long as people behave, treat others, and vote according to the sacred scriptures written by a crackhead thousands of years ago, and their influence shapes the world around me and puts a limit to my freedom, then there will be no distinction between religion and extremism. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
I'm a pansexual protestant Christian skepticist, who has not once tried to convert anyone and votes for far left parties. Please enlighten me how I'm inherently ignorant and taking your freedom.
Despite millenia of disproven lies about a non existing almighty being, you still believe this being indeed does exist and indeed is almighty without ever having any measurable effect on the world whatsoever.
How is that not ignorant?
I don't support the statement that you personally take away anyones freedom.
But organized churches have a long standing tradition of suppression and if you are part of one you support that at least indirectly.
I think you understand neither what a skepticist is, nor how religion or free churches work. And by your logic I assume you have to be an anarchist, since every government that ever existed - or society for that matter - has exercised some form of suppression.
I think your overgeneralizing, intollerant way of thinking is sickening and hardly better than that of a racist or sexist.
And please don't tell me what my beliefs are. That's pretty church-y of you.
Well you're wrong in both, but I am curious why you would think that.
Hilariously wrong here.
Care to explain what that has to do with anything I said in this thread?
And I think you resort to personal insults because you have no valid arguments against my positions.
But please humor me and tell me how I am intolerant in an comparable way to a racist or sexist.
Are you kidding me? You told about your beliefs yourself.
And it's especially rich after your whole post made assumptions about me.
You claim I believe in an almighty being, yet this is a key point where a skepticist might disagree with your average Christian. Moreover you claim I am supporting oppression, yet you don't even have the slightest idea what church I'm in and what they do or ever did. So you seem to have either huge misconceptions or you are prejudiced to a point where you are dismissive of anything that doesn't fit your narrative.
This just shows how you don't view Christians as individuals at all. Claiming to know exactly what I believe in based on that sole statement is exactly as silly as me claiming: 'I know what you believe, because your are an atheist.' Acting like you know a strangers beliefs for certain is arrogant to say the least.
Well, you judge churches based on the fact that some where oppressive in the past (and yes, I know some are still today). Based on that you either have to hate pretty much all governments, since it obviously doesn't matter whether anything have changed, or you have double standards.
If you feel attacked by me calling out your intolerant and overgeneralizing way of thinking, that's just because you are unable to defend yourself against a fact. Your words leave no other conclusion than that your are extremely prejudiced against Christians. You might have expressed yourself badly once, but you doubled down on your hate and ignorance. You might have good reasons for it, but would you excuse someone being racist for having had bad encounters with an ethnic group? Just as you probably wouldn't, neither do I excuse your statements about Christians.
I didn't want to reply at all because it is starting to get ridiculous and noone else keeps reading this.
But please just for the sake of being honest, show me where I am intolerant or hateful?
I replied to other comments in this thread as well, there should be plenty to pick from.
Show me my intolerance, show me my hate.
I even make it easier for you.
I think religion is a cancer to society.
I think all religions are basically cults.
Make a straightforward argument how my statements are either hateful or intolerant.
Because while those statements are my honest opinion, I am still strongly in favour of freedom of religion.
I would never forbid anyone from practicing their religion as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights in doing so.
I don't hate anyone for being religious. There are wonderful religious people.
Still I think they are wonderful despite their religion, not because of it.
I don't even hate you, despite your ongoing insults towards me.
I just think you are very wrong on a fundamental level and haven't yet learned to deal with being told so.
There is a whole area in Philosophy called Philosophy of Religion that would really like your disproof of the existence of such a being. They have atheists and theists alike.
I don't have to proof something doesn't exist, someone that wants to be taken seriously has to proof why they would believe something does positively exist.
"what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
"Academic philosopher Michael V. Antony (2010) argued that despite the use of Hitchens's razor to reject religious belief and to support atheism, applying the razor to atheism itself would seem to imply that atheism is epistemically unjustified. According to Antony, the New Atheists (to whom Hitchens also belonged) invoke a number of special arguments purporting to show that atheism can in fact be asserted without evidence."
If only you could read, maybe you'd be more tolerant, but I doubt it, sigh.
The sheer arrogance to post a philosophical minority opinion paired with an insult and then end it with a sigh.
And while I am not particularly familiar with Mr. Antony's work I can tell you that he either didn't understand or purposefully misused Hitchen's Razor insofar as you indeed can not apply it to Atheism the same way you can apply it to christianity.
The reason for that being that there is no particular thing at all you have to believe to be an atheist.
Atheism in and of itself doesn't assert anything at all.
So there is nothing that could be dismissed.
Atheism says there is no reason to believe in god.
How does Hitchen's Razor dismiss that? It doesn't.
Not to mention your quote still is no argument towards the positive existence of god.
And if you don't show me how I am supposed to be intolerant, I will take it as the baseless insult that it is and will no longer discuss with you.
Reported.
Well, shutting you up was that easy, who would have guessed.
Point me to a god and I'll dismantle them.
What do you mean?
That no god can survive empirical investigation
Do you think I believe in a god?
Edit: Bonus question, do you think I'm claiming a god exists?
It's irrelevant.
It seems like you should understand my point/position before you reply to me if you want this conversation to be productive? Why is understanding those things irrelevant to you?
Because philosophy, debate and logic were part of the basic school curriculum when I was a kid, and as a result I understand your particular subjective perpective is irrelevant to this conversation...
How do you know my point is subjective if you do not understand my point in the first place?
Because you're oh-so-focused on whether I think you believe a god or not.
I'm "oh-so-focused" on that because you're "oh-so-focused" on telling me about "empirical investigations" that disprove the existence of gods, which have literally nothing at all to do with my point.
I see - the issue here is that you're functionally illiterate.
The lack of reading comprehension here is definitely on your end.
Me (sans-snarkyness) in the original comment you replied to: "Hey, the field of philosophy where this stuff is studied is called philosophy of religion. Proofs for and against the existence of a god have been critiqued to shit there. You should read about it."
You: "Oh yeah! Well I can disprove any god you like."
Congrats? Do you want a gold star or something?
Go study philosophy of religion. These kinds of proofs and disproofs are part of that field along with their critiques. That's the point I'm making in the comment you originally replied to. Nothing about my point is subjective.
As I stated, you're functionally illiterate. I'd recommend reviewing your basic literature curriculum from the start.
From
You understood
Instead of the well established concept
Sorry for getting your panties in a twist over paraphrasing your totally irrelevant point. Please understand, I don't give a shit about what you think you can prove or disprove.
Great point, one of the MAJOR challenges with arguments about whether a god does or does not exist is that the whole notion of a god is incredibly vague and not "rigorously delineated" in a general sense. Literally any introductory course in philosophy of religion would point this out.
So not only are you functionally illiterate, but you're also largely ignorant of the field you claim to have some sort of knowledge on. Great going, chief. Just a little headsup - philosophy isn't short for "we talk about shit while holding a beer".
Have you studied philosophy of religion? Sounds a lot like you haven't. Maybe reading up on it will help you? You can fix your reading comprehension and also learn not to say the dumbest shit possible on topics of religion. It's really a win-win for you.
Richard Dawkins has demonstrated that you don't need to know a lick of philosophy to be an atheist. Simply cite anecdote as universal knowledge.
Corporations have been stealing ever since the dawn of time, anyone working under a big company willingly is not the one to blame, and also what’s with this ‘I know everything’ stuff in the comments section? Is your only basis of hating 90% of the world’s population is that they believe in a god? If anyone can tell for a fact that God doesn’t exist, go on, but everyone knows its a matter of choice and you can’t prove that god doesn’t exist
You are all over the place.
But I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and reply to your specific points.
That is a strawman argument.
In most societies people are more or less forced to work for some employer, so I think it is hard to blame a worker for the company he works for.
And additionally I think one can blame a worker if they choose to work for the ethically worst companies.
That is very insulting.
I don't hate religious people, my mother is deeply religious and I truly love her.
But she is misguided and gives time, effort, believe and most of all money to an organization that still to this day promotes homophobia, suppresses women and staunchly defends child rapists.
I don't like that and I won't stop criticizing it.
Off course it is your prerogative to believe in god.
I wouldn't ever want to ban you from believing in whatever you want.
But you shouldn't be surprised if people put you in the same category with people believing in a flat earth or something like that.
If you just choose to believe random stuff without evidence than it is only natural that your opinion is not taken seriously.
It is not like there are two equally valid theories about what to believe.
One group believes in things if there is proof and one group believes in things because some dude from the bronze ages wrote it down.
I am gonna make an apology for the fact that I am getting a little bit excited, which might be becoming apparent, religion is a complex subject and discussing so much matter is a bit complex and no one here in the comments seems to be interested in having a discussion but rather spouting nonsense against 90% of the world
But I will agree that I am also against giving money to organizations that promotes hate, whether it’s affiliated with religion or not, that money is better spent on a better cause, and I also respect the fact that you don’t hate religious people, but also there are lots of institutions affiliated with religion that work for a good cause, a lot of churches and mosque provide shelter, gurudwaras are famous for providing food, atleast where I live
The thing is I don’t think a person should be judged for their beliefs but rather they should be judged based on their actions, a person kills someone, it should be condemned, no matter if he is a priest or the pope, a person donates money to the charity and helps someone, that should be praised, no matter what he believes personally about god
Me believing in a flat earth is me disbelieving in a proven fact, you would be right to call me dumb, but there is no study that disproves the existence of god, so if anyone believes in one, you can’t call him/her dumb because it’s not against any proven fact, it’s just that he thinks that life around him is enough evidence that someone out there exists, and there is nothing unscientific or unreasonable about that, and spouting hate comments against them and claiming they are dumb, banning them for wearing a piece of clothing is just wrong, no matter how you look at it.
Hey first and foremost, thanks for the good faith discussion.
I want you to be reassured that I don't hate you for your religion.
And I don't think you or any religious person is necessarily dumb.
We just happen to fundamentally disagree on certain points that seem to hold at least some value for both our lives.
And I will gladly admit that believing in god has the fundamental difference to believing in a flat earth that you described. The flat earth is soundly disproven and the existence of god is not.
I would in reply try to refine my point to saying that I think believing in god is comparable to believing in the easter bunny or the often quoted flying spaghetti monster (that I purposefully didn't want to invoke earlier).
Yes you are absolutely free to believe in any of those things.
I would fight to defend your right to believe in them.
But I cannot ever accept it as truth or even an educated opinion to hold without any proof pointing specifically towards the existence of any god.
And not to end on a negative note.
I love life around me, I love nature, I love animals.
I think the world is a wonder.
I do not believe any god made it the way it is.
I have no reason to believe that.
I just love it for itself.
Nobody is saying that people should be judged by their religion. People here are saying Religion itself encourages anti-science and bigoted views.
Secondly, it's absolutely unscientific to believe that the lack of disproof is sufficient evidence for belief. This is fundamentally unreasonable and is just as much proof as saying that pigs can fly when nobody observes them.
No, religious people are not morally wrong for being religious, and they are not to blame. Religion itself is.
Listen everyone! According to cowbee, we should make sure that from now on, nobody will ever put out any hypothesis ever again! It’s absolutely unscientific! Any claim should be absolutely 100% correct and if not, we should leave it at there!
No, that is not what I've said.
Believing firmly in a hypothesis without confirmation of said hypothesis is not sound. Again, pigs flying when nobody can see them, and firmly believing in it.
This gets additionally dicey when religion is used as a tool to restrict women's rights, and uphold homophobia, transphobia, and racism.
The scientific method works by creating a hypothesis, and testing it to verify. It does not work by creating a hypothesis and firmly believing in it until its disproven. You take an agnostic approach until confirmed one way or the other.