Who am I to question someone’s spirituality if it makes them happpy and they practice in a healthy way and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
The woman crying in this comic isn't the religion that's "burning down your house"
She's just some schmoe that had her light in the dark removed and now she's scared.
I agree, there are better ways to light the darkness than religion. Candle in the Dark is a book by Carol Sagan about how science is a candle in the dark.
It's a pretty mean angle to take, but why deconvert people by pushing them into a nihilistic crisis?
It's not like atheists think life is meaningless, kindness to be pointless, or the afterlife something to be anxious about.
I've found far less mean-spirited success by explaining how belief isn't necessary for existence to be worthwhile for us. If they can come to understand how happiness is possible for someone who doesn't believe, their own belief suddenly become a lot more optional.
I have friends who are full on religious while I'm an atheist, they know I'm not a fan of their religion but they also know that I only care if it's making them happier and helping them, which to be fair has helped them become better people, but they were always the ones that needed some external guidance so I suppose gods a better guide than a meth dealer.
They don't try to convert me and I don't try to convert them and we still have fun, plus I enjoy hearing the weird AF stories from the bible, like the time Jesus got pissed at an out of season fig tree for not having figs when he wanted, so he cursed to for life, hungover entitled shit Jesus has some funny stories.
I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.
It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.
If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.
and it doesn’t negatively affect the people around them?
The problem is that most of the time this isn't true.
I found out not too long ago that my best friend is perfectly willing to vote against my right to love who I want and embrace the identity that I want, and will openly (albeit only when I ask) tell me I deserve to go to hell for it. My family is even worse.
You are right that they are no longer a friend, but that's because they were brainwashed into thinking their friends perfectly normal identity is a result of Satan controlling them, or whatever. Christianity, and most other religions, cause more harm than good in our modern times.
We have outgrown religion's usefulness as a species, but people are so afraid of death, and the meaningless of life, that they will deny reality to hold on to the hope of a better life after this one. Then, others will use this desperation to their own advantage, and convince their followers that being gay, trans, or just a little different, is an automatic heaven ban.
I struggled a lot when I lost my faith. I truly believe I’m better off now but I don’t take other people’s spiritual paths lightly. You go to dark places when you haven’t learned how to cope otherwise.
Yeah, and also I wouldn’t go out of my way to shit on someone who believes we live in a simulation. Simulation theory is sort of plausible with our current understanding of tech—but right now it has just as much evidence as most religions (which is none for both). So yeah, I don’t think it’s good practice to try and dunk on people for their beliefs.
I had the opposite experience. I was convinced I was going to hell and that there was nothing I could do about it, so I thought I may as well be glutinous and selfish to enjoy my time here before getting tortured for eternity. It caused me some serious trauma, and on top of that it led to me hurting family and friends.
I don't think I could've ever left my self-loathing and selfishness behind if I didn't let go of my religion.
I’m an athiest, and I generally believe that religion can be easily used to be shitty towards others and push them to being the worst type of people in life (more generally this happens with all ideologies). But for many religious people they aren’t too different compared to an athiest. They might go to church only on the holidays, or maybe they go weekly. They probably have many religious values. But at the end of the day they often make similar decisions for different reasons.
But I genuinely believe that trying to convince people that god isn’t real is super shitty and counter-productive. Show some compassion you fucking deodorant-free 🤓-brained reddit moderator. Take a shower.
I occasionally hear people say something like “We should be making people atheists. Religion is a scourge that uses ideology to harm others.” I can’t help to laugh when I hear this, because someone who takes this seriously (perhaps the person in the comic) is doing the literal thing they are decrying.
So what if someone is a christian because it comforts them? I don’t care if you think it lacks logic when your alternative lacks compassion.
Instead of opposing religion unilaterally, oppose the harmful ideas laundered by religion. Shame the politicians and the charlatans. Don’t shame mary-sue who goes to church weekly for being the a Christian, even though the shitbags at NIFB hate church are also Christians.
It’s certainly possible for people to be good to each other due to their religious beliefs. The local pro-palestine protests near me are primarilly organized by christians, and they are often led by a local group of leftist christian pacifists. They organize anti-war protests, support palestinian freedom, and do many smaller actions to alleviate suffering such as volunteering at the local food bank or other similar orgs. Compared to other groups that organize near me, I vastly prefer them over my local PSL chapter, or almost every ML group I’ve ever come across. Unlike many atheists I’ve worked with, that christian group will happily work with a local mosque, or synagogue when it doesn’t help them materially. This is because they don’t oppose people based on simple reasons like religion, but instead have deep solidarity with everyone else suffering through life on this terrible world.
Instead of opposing religion because you think it’s cringe how about you show solidarity and compassion for your fellow human beings.
I disagree pretty strongly on especially the "don't shame someone for who is essentially a good person for sharing the same religion as a bad person."
Community is everything, and there's strength in names. If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't. If you want to follow the teachings of the character known as Christ, you ironically have to call yourself something other than Christian, because that label is synonymous with all kinds of bigotry to a dangerous number of people. The bigotry isn't going to die out as long as they can claim to be a majority.
We're not talking about sports teams here. These labels matter, and have dangerous effects. I'd rather everyone drop religions labels entirely and just say how they claim to be a good person, because as it stands there are good people and bad people who share the same label, which makes the bad people stronger.
Christianity is a big tent term that encompasses a lot of differing groups of thought. You've got Catholics and Protestants, being the largest groups that come to mind. Below that you have everything from Lutherans to Presbyterians to Christian Scientists to Westboro Baptists. Admittedly, I don't think I made it clear enough in my comment I was speaking more big-tent Christianity when referring to mary-sue rather than a specific denomination (or a specific church), as I was speaking about religion as a whole, using Christianity as an example, hence why I was saying "Oppose harmful ideas laundered by religion" rather than opposing religion unilaterally. For example, we should oppose the colonialist ideology smuggled through religion, such as forced religious conversions (in order to save their soul!) or the necessity to colonize to do said conversions. We should oppose genocidal rhetoric smuggled through religion. Heck, we should even oppose the shitty bits of text in a religious text like when or when not to stone someone or the punishment for whatever crime.
However, you are implying that you should simply give up your label when bad actors take up your label. While I don't dispute that labels matter, because they do, I think it's silly to just give it up once another person/group tries to coopt your label. If you don't want bigots using your label, you've gotta kick them out. If you change your label to something else, and the bigots come to hide in the crowd, what are you supposed to do, change it for the 5th time?
As far as dropping labels goes, while I like the idea (I hate labels though I find them useful), I think it's impractical. As you said, "there's strength in names," and I think it would be crazy to ask someone to entirely drop a label that they hold dearly, such as their religious affiliation. It would also be crazy to ask them to just say "I believe in Jesus Christ..." and then list out 95 theses to indicate that they oppose aspects of the catholic church, then a good 95 more when they need to indicate their church had a schism in 1893, and another in 1913.
But whenever we do say that those evil people aren't Christians and push them away, we get accused of "no true Scotsman fallacy" or some BS and "you are part of the problem not taking responsibility".
As for coming up with a new label, the thing with the label "Christian" is that it's prescribed in the Bible. Even other religions far removed from Nicene Christianity that respect the Bible or some form of it use the label, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. So the productive thing to do is calling them out on not being one for not following the teachings of the Bible
Oops! Sorry! Atheists are always right because they are very very very intelligent and their intelligence knows no bounds, so maybe if it's not in the Bible, then Jesus did actually say it and the evil xtians removed it! Because atheists are never wrong! Every single argument an atheist makes is valid and isn't completely disingenuous!
If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't.
Hitler and I may have agreed that the sky is blue, but if someone uses this to say we agree in general, they are simply being unreasonable. There are countless denominations of Christianity as a result of people disagreeing with each other about history and values. The Christian label is not synonymous with bigotry, and we could use more counterexamples if people seem to think otherwise.
I 100% agree. I think most anti-relious atheist are still living in reaction to their religious up bringing or unable to recognize where power resides to be able to hold it to account or both.
Agreed, except for proselytizers. If they came to my door, bus stop, or campus to try to "convert" me, I'm gonna use their own "holy book" against them.
Numbers 5: 11-21 is one of the more effective passages, since it's the only time The Bible mentions abortion, and it tells you how to perform a questionable method.
I mean, I haven’t dealt with proselytizers in so long I kinda forgot about them. I used to get the odd mormon or Jehovah’s witness but they stopped coming a long while ago, and I don’t miss em.
Numbers 5: 11-21 is pretty good imho. But I rarely debate religious people since I’ve gotten in a position where I really don’t see people like that anymore between the online algorithms which don’t show that shit and the fact that there aren’t too many religious people near me who are fascistic.
This is why I may never be able to fully repair my relationship with my religious father after my own journey out, because I love him too much to undermine the belief that sustains him as an 87 year old.
My own journey out has been incredibly painful and challenging but that is MY life path, not his. He stuck with my mother for 25 years to the very end after her Parkinsons diagnosis and he got to watch her choke to death on some food at the end.
I really believe my father doesn’t need the religion to be that good and faithful, because he is just basically made of good stuff. But I will never attack his faith even though in my heart of hearts I find the foundations of that faith to be risible. What would be gained? What would it say about me if I did?
My philosophy is if they are truly happy with what they believe and aren’t harming other people with vitriolic speech or dogmatic beliefs just leave them be. It’s not harming anything for them to comfortable in their little bubble.
But when they put on their “holier than thou … I know better and I am going to push my beliefs on you” hat the gloves are off. Although it’s unlikely you’ll change their mind, you can usually score a few jabs that rock their world just a smidgeon.
All I want is an apology for forcing their religion onto me so aggressively as a child. I don't think that is too much to ask, but they sure seem to think it is.
not even an apology. I don't need anyone to be sorry. The nuns who beat me will never be sorry, they think that they're doing it for God and nothing can be wrong when you're doing it for God. But if one of the other adults that I trust could at least say 'Hey, they shouldn't have beat you with sticks. They were wrong for that.' it would make me feel like maybe I wasn't a fucking crazy person for not wanting to get beat with sticks. But they won't. Everyone pretends it didn't happen, or that it was some sort of misunderstanding, because everyone needs to maintain the delusion that everything the church does is good just because it's the church doing it. For years I was essentially told "that didn't happen because the church wouldn't do that but if they did it's because you deserved it". What can a six year old do to deserve being beaten with a yardstick by a grown woman?
Eh doing that isn't really worth the headache. Blind faith is, IMO, a socially acceptable mental illness. You can't cure a mental illness by brute force; all your gonna do is tire yourself out.
It's not even that, the comic really does get right to the point. It would absolutely crush some people. My grandmother finds strength to deal with such bullshit by her beliefs so I wouldn't dare take that away from her. It's harmless as long as they aren't the type to push their beliefs on you and hurt you for it.
Not my grandma, she always says it's God that helps her through her troubles and that her faith in his support is what helps her cope with bad times.
There are other ways that I totally agree, she says God helped her survive, but in those cases I remind her it's her own intelligence and resourcefulness that got her through those situations.
What I mean, which I didn't make clear in my original post, was: If religion was erased before she was born, she'd still find something to place her faith in and power up her innate resourcefulness. And the people who force their views on others would find another authoritative vehicle for that. But you're right, if you rip that foundation out now, you risk more harm than good.
Okay but as a kid, I got crushed because my family was religious and threw me out like literal fucking trash. This shit never stays harmless, and it keeps people susceptible to the worst instincts to do shit like fascism. Its always the most vulnerable who this shit hurts, so nobody cares.
So I don't give a shit how good your delusion makes you feel. If you want to hurt people to feel good, keep it between you and yourself and just put a needle in your arm. Plus, if something goes wrong there, you have narcan.
I'm sorry you went through that but I literally said "It’s harmless as long as they aren’t the type to push their beliefs on you and hurt you for it."
My family has always been live and let live. They're religious but you wouldn't know it unless you spent enough time with them to hear them mention going to mass or whatever.
That can absolutely be true, but the context here is just the comic where some guys got a "win" and totally crushed a person we don't know anything about.
My initial comment was replying to someone saying it's not worth it because of how difficult it can be with no payout. I just wanted to remind them that the outcome can be really bad for some people.
On a related topic: my mother isn't religious, but she believes in "karma" and "reiki healing," all that new age b.s. It helps her cope with life and i'd never want to take that from her just because it isnt real unless she starts using that as a way to cure cancer or something that will actually hurt her.
But they always do. Its like the mythical 'good cop', they act as cover for the rest, and (almost) never take real action to compensate for the damage the majority do. Its one if those circumstances where being individually harmless is not systemically harmless.
I think I can agree with that. They may not like what the church has to say about LGBT+ people, but they also don't actively fight for their rights either.
I do have a gay cousin though and they all love him, but yeah how they act within their own family doesn't change how society at large deals with those issues.
I'd absofuckinglutley love to see religion eventually go by the wayside, too much pain and suffer caused by it, but to "forcefully" remove someone from within it can also be really damaging to that individual who may not be hurting anyone. I don't really know what the answer is there though. Hopefully in time we move away from these magical stories. :/
The solution isnt shallow stripping if shit or reeducation camps that basically amount to bullying, but actually fixing the core problems. I know I tend to talk about a lot of American atheists as 'Christianity as directed by Christopher Nolan'; all the explicit magic and camp stripped out, but otherwise the exact same ways of thinking they were raised with.
But the most anyone can do anything here is halfway, so...
Your grandma is not (necessarily - I don't know her, she could be trafficking people) a bad person, but her beliefs and that of so many others who also are good (at least they might be) people provide the fertile ground for the growth of an agressive weed. It's not the grounds fault, it could be growing strawberries instead, but right now its existence nourishes a strangling vine that bears poisonous fruit.
We definetly should not poison the ground to kill the weed, though that certainly is a way to get rid of it. But we absolutely need to prevent it from spreading, new fields should not be infected by it and with the exhaution of the old places of growth, we might manage to extinct it.
That's why it is important to keep in mind that your grandma is (most likely) okay to just exist as a believer, but that the beliefs she holds are roots of something, that must not spread.
Also imo a church directory is a con-man's gold mine. Especially elderly church members, they've been taught all their lives to Believe anyone exuding confidence and claiming to have answers and solutions.
Belief only becomes a problem when someone weaponizes it. If you want to become a better person to appease the space rock, go for it, but if you tell me the space rock says no abortions for anyone, no it doesn't.
Belief is a problem because it normalizes magical thinking and pushes blame away from the self. Belief paves the way for snake oil, anti-intellectualism, and learned helplessness. Belief is comforting shackle but there are other ways to be comforted that do not leave one vulnerable to predation.
Nah, it really isn't a problem. At all actually. It doesn't matter if every single person believes in a different gemstone and that the gemstone will bestow upon them magical blessings for being a good person. If that is what they need to be good people, to motivate them, to inspire them to be better - who gives a fuck if it 'normalizes magic'?
I'm not so concerned with being right that I'd let us live in misery to be closer to 'intellectualism'. Not everyone will find other methods to cope and their belief doesn't harm anyone. I think you have to be a genuinely dank and dreary person to want to rob people of something like Santa Claus because it 'normalizes magic' while I'm sitting here hoping people just try to be better with the vague promise of presents.
Their preachers tell them how to vote, and their preachers tell them to take rights away from women and minorities. To not worry about climate change because the Rapture is coming. To give all their money to Trump. They hurt our society.
Everything has grifters. Elon Musk hasn't whispered a word of religion yet people will vote the way he tells them to. Magic has nothing to do with stupidity.
The woman on the floor is thinking about all the gay people she screamed at about God's wrath, and all the beatings she took from her husband because he was the Head of her, and all of the time and money she wasted on the church, and all of the beatings she let her husband give to her kids lest she "spoil the child," and all of the bs she swallowed from Republicans, and all of the shame she carried for masturbating, and all of the abuse she hurled at women outside abortion clinics, and all.of the children she'd terrified at Sunday School, and all of the things she never tried because someone had told her not to.
Religious people might be polite, might even do good things, but they vote for people who do terrible things. Ideally, the whole thing would be done away with. Convincing people to reject facts and vote their feelings is never a gpod combo.
If religious people recused themselves from voting, I wouldn't care much. But they're dragging our country down. They're gullible tools of awful rich men. They fight any forms of progress.
And yeah yeah you're about to tell me about your aunt Maple who isn't like that, she's really lovely and doesn't preach at you and just likes going to church for the social element. But who does she vote for??
Being religious doesn't mean you vote for Trump. Thinking that way just encourages them.
Plenty of religious people actually vote for the person more likely to feed the hungry, liberate the captive, take care of the earth, etc. You know, the way the Bible teaches.
White evangelical Protestants are an extremely numerous and extremely politically active denomination in the US. If they're not a majority of religious people, they're at least a plurality.
The person who replied to you went on a rant about voting. Which I agree, religious people tend to vote against their interests. But spending 3 paragraphs talking about voting and nothing else doesn't really elaborate on why it's a shit lifestyle does it? I'll add what I think are the worst aspects of a religious lifestyle.
The biggest issue with a religious lifestyle, in my opinion, is the fact that truly believing in a religion, especially a deity means you have been convinced, and are able to convince yourself to believe in something for which there is no evidence (ive heard religious arguments that faith is a "radical" belief in something that defies logic). The concept of God, for the most part, isn't that bad. The issue is, if you've let in one truth about your life that you believe is true despite any supporting evidence and no logical reason, that opens the door for more random beliefs that aren't founded on evidence. Or more accurately, they may believe new things (good or bad) for one reason or another but the idea that something needs evidence or solid reasoning to be believed doesn't factor into their calculations nearly as much.
This means that a religious lifestyle is random, based on where and how they were raised with an ethos of not questioning their foundational beliefs. This means many religious communities grow up fine, and it means many grow up in the bizarre bigoted looney-tunes world I'm sure you've seen if you know religious people from disparate backgrounds.
Idk exactly what that person necessarily meant, but to me, a lifestyle based on beliefs that the person has been trained not to question and doesn't need evidence to be true is kind of shit.
And in before people say that not all (or even most) religious people are like that. I agree that a religious person could easily be raised as someone who engages in logical reasoning and only accepts new beliefs if they think they have sufficient evidence etc. That's probably true. I'm explaining why I think religion opens the door to a shit lifestyle because of religion.
I kid you not, all that kind of personal history creates a massive sunk cost fallacy that will make it impossible for them to admit that they may possibly be wrong.
"Hey, you know that belief system that attempts to answer the great unanswerable questions and gives you some shred of comfort? Nah, you live in an unfeeling, uncaring world. There is nothing, no great answer. Just living until you die.
Why are you crying?"
If you call yourself an atheist vs agnostic, I immediately just see an edgy teenager who wants to be confrontational. Not someone seeking actual answers or discussion. Most of the greatest scientific thinkers acknowledge that science is the answer to "how?", but not "why?". We simply don't have that answer. Anyone claiming to is arrogant at best.
Just like nobody knows for certain if centaurs or the Tooth Fairy actually exist or not. Right.
...I can certainly relate to the idea that we cannot fully comprehend reality. No, seriously, I do; and I'm often ranting against assumers claiming to know shit that they cannot reliably know*.
But, at the end of the day, this shit is supposed to be practical, not some mental masturbation over the metaphysical fabric of the reality. You need to draw the line somewhere and say "nah, this is likely enough to be bullshit that we can safely say «it's bullshit»". Otherwise your "agnosticism" is simply a fancy name for solipsism.
*for example, implying that they know who says it (edgy teenager) and "intention" (to be confrontational), based on the label that one might use (atheist). That stinks assumption from a distance, like it or not.
I mean if lying to yourself and others gives you comfort, then my point stands that you need help
unfeeling, uncaring world
Absolutely not, otherwise i would have written "she can go fuck herself", but i didnt because people deserve better than being forced to believe in some century old mental mindgame of bullshit.
Just living until you die.
Thats correct, but life is amazing and full of cool stuff already. There is no need to limit your happiness with some archaic system of self oppression.
People who have grown up in a culture of religion assume that there’s nothing but pain in atheism, when actually it’s quite liberating. The intellectual honesty of atheism is simple, refreshing, and empowering. I for one have never been more at peace with myself.
It turns out that fearmongering about death (eg. most religious teachings of an afterlife) perpetuates the fear of death. Atheists must make peace with the reality of the universe and when they do the fear simply goes away.
You lack the charisma of a televangelist and the backing of a wealthy group to lobby against taxing your gains.
I mean if lying to yourself and others gives you comfort, then my point stands that you need help
Truth hurts and most people don't like being in pain most of the time.
Absolutely not, otherwise i would have written “she can go fuck herself”, but i didnt because people deserve better than being forced to believe in some century old mental mindgame of bullshit.
You assume they are being forced and not do so willingly. Those looking for stability tend to cling to ideas that don't change multiple times over the course of their life. An ancient religion is considerably more stable than the ever-changing discoveries of science.
Thats correct, but life is amazing and full of cool stuff already. There is no need to limit your happiness with some archaic system of self oppression.
Most people don't get to see those. Each individual has a limited experience through life and we all tend to take for granted the idea that we all experience the same things in the same way. We don't.
If you can't understand why someone would cling to religion, at least try to understand that the same can be said about them regarding you.
There are lots of ways to approach meaning, and more broadly spirituality and community, without theism.
This is a weird take on atheism that reads like you've only seen atheists online creeping out of /r/atheism or some similar place. There's no more reason that "why" should be answered by Christianity than by any number of philosophies that don't require a god, and pegging someone as arrogant for ascribing to those beliefs is silly.
The first part is a response to "why would somebody be sad if their religion turned out to be false", which for the record, if you need it explained to you why that might be, you're really earning that "edgy teenager" label.
The second is saying that there's literally no way to be sure of answers on the scale of "is there a god?", science included
Philosophy asks some "why?" questions, but if you think it's equipped to definitively answer all of them you don't know much about philosophy.
neither science nor philosophy can provide objective truth in answer to the question "is there a god?"
That's a loaded question. What type of god? You wanna define it before you ask if it exists.
And after you define it, you can also gather all the proof that it exists and you can present it to science and to philosophy. And they will look at all that proof and say "X". Because they doubt.
But it's still on you to prove your claim that there is a god, if you believe it. If you're just on the sidelines asking because you're not sure - there's a simpler answer: yes, there is a god. It is me. And I need about 10% of your monthly income. Get in touch, I'll send you some details where you can donate your share. In return, I will of course love you unconditionally until you slightly annoy me with your lifestyle (which I already know you will, I am omniscient and I literally made you this way, you have no choice in the matter), at which point you will know my vengeance, for I am the Lord. Throughout this period where I exact my retribution, the expectation is that you'll shut up and take it, and never forget about that 10% you owe me. Otherwise I will literally put you through hell.
If you somehow doubt ANY of these claims, for reasons like "why would God contact me on the internet, or need my money, or hate me for how he made me", or any of these silly questions, just remember - neither science nor philosophy can provide objective truth in answer to the question "is there a god?". Just like they can't provide objective truth to "is god that dude on lemmy?"
My dude there's a few billion of you that I'm looking into, I don't have all day to listen to your half-assed "logic", I am eternal, I'm beyond your comprehension. Enjoy the rusted-spear-devil-dick, I'm Audi.
Neither can science nor philosophy prove that unicorn's don't exist. Proving negatives isn't a thing, you have to substantiate whatever claim it is you're making.
That which is claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It's ignorant or plain wishful thinking to claim otherwise
What are you on about? Atheism is rejecting a ridiculous belief system. There is nothing for atheists to prove, they made no claims. Religion is the one making claims, so it's on them to prove it. Atheism simply says "no thanks, the evidence you provide is insufficient and I don't believe you".
What are you on about? Atheism is rejecting a ridiculous belief system.
Y'all are arguing the same thing with these two sentences.
There is nothing for atheists to prove, they made no claims. Religion is the one making claims, so it's on them to prove it. Atheism simply says "no thanks, the evidence you provide is insufficient and I don't believe you".
That sounds like trying to disprove a negative to me. Just because it's an absurd negative doesn't mean it's not impossible to disprove it.
I don't want to get into all the nitty gritty, but the weight against the big sky person is "we definitely don't see it." and the argument for the big sky person is "we definitely feel it."
Y'all are both spending a lot of time arguing about the big sky person regardless of your stance.
*edit
actually, i just saw this comment, and i'm not gonna argue with that.
That’s not what agnostic means. Agnostics believe “there is no way to know”, so you can have Agnostic Theists (we can’t know for sure, but I believe God exists) as well as Agnostic Atheists (we can’t know for sure, but I don’t believe God exists).
The opposite is gnosticism, and you can similarly have Gnostic Theists (God exists and I can prove it) and Gnostic Atheists (God doesn’t exist, and I can prove it).
Looks like I made a small mistake, but it just takes agnostic closer to atheist
The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe
No, they are agnostic theists, which means that they believe there is no way to know if god exists or not, but they believe in god anyway.
Agnosticism is about believing whether the existence of god is testable, not about whether god actually exists or not.
Obviously the vast majority of agnostics are also atheists, because it’s silly to believe in something for which there is no evidence. But there are some few who feel that god is out there even if we cannot know for sure.
Simpler: he's saying that there are people who believe in something, but they don't claim to know it.
For example. I brew some coffee at 14:00. Now it's 18:00. I believe that my coffee is still warm, but I don't know it - because I have no data to back up that knowledge. I can however generate said knowledge by grabbing a cup of coffee. (I just did it. It's warm.)
What the agnostic theists do is like that. With a key difference: they cannot generate said knowledge, and they know it. They cannot grab that cup of coffee.
If for example we didn't know how much time has passed, it would be impossible to estimate with any calculations the temperature - thus agnostic person would conclude there's no way of knowing, thus believing the coffee is warm or cold is useless.
Read again that quote I posted earlier
The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe
The very basis of agnosticism is basing your belief or opinion in verified data. Faith lays on believing without a proof. Those 2 things are the polar opposites, and agnostic theist an oxymoron
Those 2 things are the polar opposites, and agnostic theist an oxymoron
Expecting people to operate in a purely logic driven manner is a great road to disappointment, and one could argue that it also reveals a deep lack in understanding of your own self. People are not logical beings.
Life is not debate club. You can insist all you want that it's not a logically compatible "belief system" (or however you want to label it). You can argue that there should be a different, more etymologically sound name for it.
But regardless of your objections, agnostic theists do exist, and "correct" or not that is what they are called.
Edit: I'm not even one of them, I just absolutely loathe this sort of behavior online, especially when discussions of theism and belief systems come up.
The belief is still there, even if you don't know it nor claim knowledge. You believe that the coffee is cold or warm, inferring it from tiny scraps of info, or... even based on stupid grounds, like wishful belief. Because the belief is not necessarily grounded on rationality; some Christians even highlight this, with their idiotic credo quoniam sum stultus "credo quia absurdum" ("I believe because [it is] absurd").
Read again that quote I posted earlier
That's a fallacy known as "the etymological fallacy" - you're trying to define a word based on its etymological origin (in this case, Huxley's usage when coining it), instead of its usage.
And even if the reasoning wasn't fallacious, look at the very Wikipedia page that you took this quote from, and you'll also get the following:
Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.
He's saying that lack of belief + claim of knowledge is more offensive for him than belief + lack of claim of knowledge. Effectively splitting both things (belief and knowledge), and acknowledging that they do not necessarily follow each other.
The very basis of agnosticism is basing your belief or opinion in verified data.
Your *knowledge. Or rather, what you claim to know. ("Opinions" are third can of worms by the way, as they are not epistemic in nature.)
Those 2 things are the polar opposites, and agnostic theist an oxymoron
Personally I opine agnostic theism to be ridiculous, as any sort of theism; as a rationalist I'd rather tweak my beliefs to be in conformity with my knowledge. And as I implied in another comment, I don't see any good reason to put gods in a higher standard than the Tooth Fairy or centaurs, when it comes to claiming knowledge of absence, for practical purposes.
However that does not mean that agnostic theist is an oxymoron. It boils down to someone who believes in that superstition without claiming knowledge over it.
You messaged me directly rather than responding in the thread, but messaging back is failing, so I will respond here.
There is no theory involving deities that fits the models of the universe we have based on observable evidence, and there is no evidence in support of any theory involving deities.
For anything else we would say that this thing doesn't exist and leave it at that.
Agnosticism gets lost in the fallacy that since it's logically impossible to prove non-existence we must hold open the possibility of existence without evidence.
So I'm an atheist because it is the default state to be, it makes no statement requiring evidence, and it doesn't require fallacy.
You live in a universe whose only source of joy, hope, inspiration, and meaning is sapient minds like yours. The entire observable cosmos has so far turned out to be nothing but dead rocks, dead dust, and dead gas, except for beings like you. Your very existence is an act of defiance worthy of pride. Stand tall, sophont. Create the future you wish to see, for YOUR KIND are the only ones who you've met who are capable of bringing it about!
Nah, you live in an unfeeling, uncaring world. There is nothing, no great answer. Just living until you die.
I don't agree with that other guy, but now you're just wrestling with a straw man. Nobody says these things.
Nature and physics may not have the capacity to care about you, but you have friends, family, and pets that do whether God exists or not. And there's plenty of questions that seem like we won't get an answer for the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean you can't find any meaning or joy in trying, or that you can't tackle smaller questions that could build up to answering a greater one.
Just living until you die.
This part is particularly cartoonish. Nobody says life is just living until you die. That's a debatably bigoted caricature that Christians invented.
We live the same lives theists do, and we have just as many meaningful experiences and relationships. We just don't sacrifice enormous amounts of our time worshiping or thinking about something that can't be shown to exist unless you take someone's word for it.
I'm certainly not religious, but I understand that a lot of people use religion to supplement a lacking support network. Yes, they should find healthier ways to receive the support they need, but if you force them to abandon their religion without having another source of support to replace it, they're going to feel very isolated and scared, possibly leading to tears. Especially if their son forced them into that situation and then immediately left, showing complete disregard for their feelings.
I've decided that I can't change my mother's beliefs nor should I. I told her that we have a no-politics rule as of summer 2020. It saved our relationship.
Part of this was what finally got me off Facebook. People I liked, family members, posting dumb shit, and me letting it trigger me. It was literally only on Facebook, family gatherings were fun times. And honestly, since Trump, and despite the dichotomy that exists in my family and probably every other family, we seem to speak less about politics.
I've been off Facebook for somewhere between 10 and 15 years. I quit it because I didn't care about what friends and family posted because they were all very religious, and I couldn't post what I really wanted without offending said friends and family.
Instead of having faith in God, I have faith in the next generation to do slightly better each time. I can't really bring it to myself to tell my grandma there's no heaven or hell and her entire life has been a lie. Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes.
Slightly being the key word. I used to think we'd be fine after boomers die and millenials take over (sorry Gen X yes we always forget you) but then realized there are plenty of terrible Gen Y and then for a moment Gen Z was going to change labor politics gun control environment gender/sexuality and be super accepting but there's still a huge proportion who still want to MAGA... we'll see how bad alpha is
like my nephews say the same racist shit on their discord and valorant as I saw on 4chan 20 years ago and it's just sad
Doesn't mean people can't change. Kids just wanna feel powerful/invincible. I used to say and hear the craziest of slurs in cod lobbies back in the day. My friends and I who have said those things have just grown up when we learned their real impact and we've stopped.
I wish mine did that. I said one thing about Trump not having as much money as he claims, and my mom got all insulted. She said that maybe we shouldn't talk about politics, etc, and I agreed to be nice. I don't like to talk politics at all, even with like-minded people. But she'll blame a company getting hacked and losing my personal info on democrats, and tell me that she can't wait until all democrats die off.
But now she just spouts of any shit that comes to her mind without a care, while I'm keeping to our dealt and shutting up. I doubt she even remembers our promise, because the moment it wasn't convenient for her, she dropped it.
Be pragmatic in your atheism advocacy. Lay out your arguments why supernatural thinking is bad, both from an epistemological and pragmatic sense, poke at contradictions of the other person's religion with reality, and warn about the dangers of organized religion specifically, just don't cross the line of actually engaging in nuclear warfare.
If they haven't been brainwashed enough, they'll bite, even if it takes them months. If they have been brainwashed enough but they have intellectual honesty and curiosity, they may begin a self-questioning process themselves that will eventually make them crash, and it will be painful, but once they get recovered they'll be grateful. If they don't have that intellectual honesty, you've at least planted the potential seeds for them to decide at some later point that superstition was indeed bullshit, which may or may not come into fruition in the future. If the person you're talking with is an intellectual donkey (in terms of unwillingness to reason), you have nothing to gain from that conversation.
When it comes to old religious people, though, I limit myself to relentlessly attacking the church. Due to their material conditions, they have the lowest chance to ever leaving their beliefs anyway, so my goal is just to make them wary of any dumbfuck hate preacher they may find.
Meh. All reasoning is grounded in emotion. Even atheistic reasoning. That's why argumentation does zip. It's like trying to fix a warped floor by moving the rug around.
Free will also isn't real, but I don't go around to people I know and care about trying to collapse their entire world view around it. Sometimes it's better if people believe in fundamentally incorrect things that don't impact others.
Edit: here's a crazy idea, if you think I'm wrong...that's ok. Just leave me be? Maybe? Isn't that the point of my entire initial comment. Lol.
It was relevant to this discussion as I'm saying I similarly wouldn't bring this truth up with someone like my mother or similar as shown in the original post.
My goal is not to convince anyone who feels differently, I just felt others could relate to my example. I will not provide any explanation unless specifically asked as my goal here is not to force my knowledge onto someone who doesn't want it.
I think he's trying to refute your claim that your will isn't free. I.e. you made that comment of your own free will. Not literally asking why you made the comment.
I do not believe I had free will to make or not the comment. And this seems upsetting to many. So I suggest they just keep their world view if it benefits them.
You said that free will isn't real and went on to say the reason YOU DECIDED to make that comment, as well as what YOUR GOAL was, and what YOU WILL OR WILL NOT DO.
If you're not the one deciding what you did in the past or what you will or won't do in the future, it seems pretty arrogant of you to speak one way or the other about it.
At best, maybe you're saying that all existence is just made up of particles colliding and interacting with each other, and that if you knew the exact position, vector, and velocity of the most base level of all particles, you could perfectly predict all future events or extrapolate past events and that we're all forced to proceed just like pool balls moving on the table. Since we currently can't map those values for a single electron, I'm thinking that maybe your "truth" can't be extrapolated to the rest of the 99.99999999999% of existence that we haven't discovered and don't understand.
My favorite part is at the end where you say you're not going to force "your knowledge" on anyone, as if you've found this immutable truth that the rest of us are just too daft to understand.
My guess is that you're between 13 and 22 years old and like to feel special by knowing "the truth." That's why we have flat earthers and people who say that 5G causes autism. Their goal is to feel like one of the enlightened ones much more than performing or understanding research.
If you really want to be a lifelong learner and something closer to a scientist, your goal won't be to arrive at some final destination ("my knowledge"/"the truth") but to continue to move forward, press on, learn more, take it to the next level ("my most recent theory.."/"what I'm thinking right now.."/"this study suggests.."), and drop the arrogance and fake superiority.
I guess you were also predestined to not address any of the points I made?
Telling someone that their thought process is flawed/immature is not the same as being triggered.
If logic doesn't move the needle, how about this: every person who thinks they have it all figured out is seen by most others as an arrogant douche.
If you ask any real scientist who's running real research and experimentation - those people who have 1,000 more understanding of the subject for which you claim to hold "The Truth" - they'll tell you that every new discovery leads to many more questions. The last step of the scientific process isn't, "sit back and enjoy having figured it all out." It just starts over.
The reason I think (hope) you're younger is because it's more natural for younger people to believe that they get it, they understand, they have the answer. After all, that's much of what school pounds into us: here's The Answers. Repeat them back to me for full credit. Most education is focused on creating a foundation for different subject areas as opposed to teaching students how to learn and think for themselves. Having "the answer" and being "right" is heavily encouraged and younger people gain validation from it. It's natural to continue reaching for more truths and answers instead of innately valuing the learning process itself.
A lot of people never grow out of that stage. Feeling like you own all the answers can be quite comforting. That's why the mom in the comic is broken on the floor. She just lost all the answers that got her that far in life. You probably relate to the guys in the first frames who know The Truth (god isn't real) but you're also being represented by the woman on the floor. You don't know how to cope with the actual truth which is that you don't and will never know The Truth. The best you can do is accept your current level of understanding in all its deficiencies and to keep learning more.
If you currently possess the ability to take in what I said and accept some new Truths about yourself, great. I'm really writing for anyone who might see this and benefit from your example.
I have answered the only question presented to me. The rest is you ranting aimlessly to feel better about your own position.
I wish I had 1,000 more understanding though! If you have any legitimate evidence to provide that demonstrates I'm wrong, please share it. If not, shut the fuck up. Or don't. It's not in your control anyway.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could meaningfully clarify what 'truths' I should take away from your comment and why.
It sounds like there's already some cracks in your foundation, and that's a good thing. If you were privy to The Truth you surely wouldn't care about what one person thinks about how flawed your thought process is. You definitely wouldn't tell them to shut the fuck up.
That shows that you're a bit rattled and don't like having your authority challenged. If you can become aware of this predisposition within yourself, you can start to change it.
Anyone who "knows how it all works" stops learning because there is nothing more to learn. They started digging and got all the way to the bottom and there's no more to go. You said you wish you had a 1,000 times more understanding which doesn't align with your position of owning The Truth. Either you understand The Truth or you have a lot of understanding to go. You can't have both. And spoiler, no one has ever come anywhere close to The Truth in any discipline. What we can do however is increase our understanding to be used in meaningful ways and to create and test current and new theories as we keep moving forward.
You can accept this, or tell me to shut the fuck up and down vote my comment. If it's the latter I hope that this either planted a seed or was meaningful in any way to someone else.
I'll edit my comment to respond to the edited addition in your last one:
The truth is that you don't and won't ever know The Truth. Knowledge is a journey, not a destination. Claiming to know The Truth is arrogance and leads to the end of learning. Intellectuals seek to learn more and keep digging while they understand that they'll never reach the bottom.
Our current understanding of math tells us that it's 4, and simple addition like this led to higher levels of mathematics that we've used to do things like place humans on the moon.
That never would have happened if we'd collectively said, "2+2=4 and now we know all math."
We don't Know All Math. Check out all the unsolved proofs that our best mathematicians haven't been able to solve. And those are just the questions we've thought to ask due to our current level of understanding.
People who acted like you used to believe that they were having a drought because enough virgins weren't blood sacrificed, as that was the contemporary thinking. They were just as unbending as you in believing they knew The Truth. We have the benefit of hindsight and advancements in science to better understand and predict droughts. You're lacking the ability to see your place in history objectively and understand that what you call Truth is merely a theory of today that requires infinitely more understanding.
If you're not ready to accept that you don't know The Truth, that you're not in the special club of enlightened people like everyone who goes to the Flat Earth conferences also believes, I understand. It's not an easy transition from "I'm so smart that I understand the very foundation of reality" to "I'll never know The Truth about anything but I'm excited to keep learning." It's not something that happens quickly either. It's a whole shift that changes how you see everything, and it can initially lead to feeling like the mom in the comic. I hope you can make that transition someday as the earth always needs more scientific minds.
If you were able to take in anything I've said you wouldn't have asked that, though you've made it abundantly clear that you don't currently value the process of learning. I've never cast judgement on the theory you've chosen to call The Truth. Through everything I've said, you either refuse or can't understand what I've clearly laid out. Your issue is blind acceptance of something you heard. Your arrogance and lack of actual knowledge told you that it sounds neat and makes sense at 30,000 feet so it's Truth.
You go for personal attacks because you have nothing of value to retort or add. Your Knowledge was challenged and you reacted with anger and name calling because you can't reasonably address anything I've said.
You and religious people have a lot more in common than you think. You all believe that you've found The Truth. Whether it's Jesus or some theory you actually know practically nothing about, you're drunk on feeling superior and think you comprehend the very nature of existence. There's no real difference between you and any religious person because there's as much hard evidence for one belief as the other. You believe there's a difference because you chose to go all in on a theory as opposed to a god, and that makes you feel smug.
You're a kid who doesn't know much about anything, and you think you've got existence figured out. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad and common.
Hopefully you'll grow out of this but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that may not be the case.
You're the only one making personal attacks. I only expressed my concern that you are unwell. Like just read what you yourself wrote, it's all right there.
I get that you feel like you have to "win" and that since facts and logic aren't on your side you want me to feel upset which would give you some sort of moral victory. You try and change the topic away from you claiming your own god (predestination) in response to an atheism comic no less, to debating my mental health which could put me on the defensive and begin to get under my skin like I have to you.
It doesn't work when you're so transparent though. And even if it had, you'd still walk away knowing that some stranger poked a few holes in the latest belief structure that you were trying to use to make sense of your reality. That would be a fun challenge to an intellectual but just sucks for someone like yourself who wants to be right and feel smug.
There's hope though. You don't have to stay like this. As you get older and mature, your awareness can help you to become someone who's interested in learning instead of being right. Then you could grow into a real intellectual thinker instead of cosplaying one.
You didn't answer the only question: 'what name calling?'
You may want to consider showing this thread to a friend or family member you trust and get their opinion of the interaction. I'm not at all trying to hurt your feelings or belittle you.
Telling someone that their thought process is flawed/immature is not the same as being triggered.
The amount of text contained in your answer is usually associated with "being triggered" though (at least in my experience)
Then again, depending on what exactly one means with "triggered", you could say that you've "been triggered" (like activating some mechanism or something) to write a long response :D
(Not trying to join any side of the original discussion, just sharing what's on my mind ^^)
If "triggered" means to be influenced to think or act due to stimuli, then sure, everything is triggering to everyone all of the time. You were triggered to respond. I was triggered to pee when I woke up.
It's true, I spent way too long replying. I usually avoid engaging but I think it was the absurdity that made me throw away what had to be at least a combined hour of my day. They knew the true nature of the universe and tried to convince an atheism group.
It was obvious pretty quickly that they weren't in a place where they could accept their belief being challenged, but maybe a really bored person read it all and took something away from it.
If you define "free will" as individual processing of input based on your genetic makeup and past experiences/memories and circumstances, with some inherent randomness. Then i guess free will is real.
If everything is predestined, whatever you choose is your destiny. Which means you get to choose your destiny. Even if the decision is already determined, your decision process is a part of that and whatever you decide is what becomes the future (or present). Predetermination is irrelevant unless it can be seen beforehand, but if it could, that knowledge could be acted on to change it. So either you can see the future and change it, or you can't so there's no functional difference between it being indeterminate.
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