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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@Lion... “ coerrection.”
Sorry Tin, I got here first “nana-nanana”
Please define, is that co-erection “ prefix
(forming nouns) joint; mutual; common.”
Meaning “Jerking each other off?” Or the idea of “not in need” that it is common, always “erect”.
@Andromeda: No new ideas have been proposed to further "improve" religion.
Well religions are continually thinking up new ways to separate people from their money.
No people are. And those with a religious affiliation, are just a human as the ones in other organizations. And they make the decision to be thieves just as those in other organizations.
And there are Churches, that have a lot of good around the world, even to the point of those humans who truly believe of giving up their lives to do that good.
Not everyone involved in a church are nuts, thieves, or (fill int the blank). But we all are sinners. And this is the reason we come to church. To change. Our only fear is that we will give the bad impression as some who are atheists have. Because when we do. It is not us that they see making the mistakes. It is God. Because they don't realize God wants the best for us. But we don't give it sometimes.
@Gerald: No people are. And those with a religious affiliation, are just a human as the ones in other organizations.
Churches create perfect environments for thieves and sexual predators to thrive by concocting a dangerous mixture of unaccountable authority, secrecy, mindless obedience and faith, and subjugation of women.
Try weighing up the little bits of good churches have done against the massive harm they've caused with their consistent support for tyrants and their cult of ignorance and dependence on divine help. Since the end of World War II, secular education, trade, investment, and science have lifted billions out of poverty and done infinitely more to improve the human condition than centuries of mumbling and begging to the ceiling, wall, and floor. The nuclear arms race has improved human life more than religion ffs.
You don't help people by "giving up your life" and becoming a martyr to save their heathen souls. You help people by trading fairly with them on a foundation of mutual respect, and by sharing the technologies they need to make more and better stuff so they can sell what they have to get what they want. You help them by sharing the products of science, including medical science.
Yes, theists are terrified of change, especially where that change threatens their core religious beliefs. Many of them distrust science intensely, see Apollo's posts on this.
Ha. Truth, not what you want to be true. But true truth, has nothing to fear. God is the truth. We may not paint His picture very well, but He still is truth.
And it is not science that Christians do not trust in. It is those who claim to be scientists and then misinterpret evidence, either because they have false assumptions or because they prefer to believe what they want to believe.
Of course God exists. He is the only explanation as to how life could have begun. But those who refuse to believe refuse to accept this as fact, even though they have seen over and over again that they don't have another explanation that has been shown to make life. So they, refusing the evidence, even after hundreds of years of trying to get it right, keep looking under some rock for the "how". Not realizing that they have done this over and over again. With the same results. What was that definition for "insanity" again.
Yes I'm not going to waste time working through all your unevidenced assertions this time, as I have done that above. I will just ask what objective evidence you can demonstrate for any deity or deities?
Theists never ever open with the best most compelling piece of evidence they think they have for their chosen deity, why is that I wonder?
Oh ok, just one then, this is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, not having a contrary explanation is does not validate religious claims, that is by definition irrational, and of course the bare claim you offer that godidit is not an explanation for anything, it is merely a bare assertion, and quite demonstrably has no explanatory powers whatsoever.
@ Gerald
"Of course God exists. He is the only explanation as to how life could have begun."
I must assume you are unaware of abiogenesis, which does explain how life began, and a god was not required.
@gerald
"Of course God exists."
Do you know the functional difference between subjective and objective evidences? I thought I would point that out before I pointed out your failure in reason.
Do you have any objective evidence of existence, of your version of a god?
Thank you, come again.
@Gerald: It is those who claim to be scientists and then misinterpret evidence
Do you mean anti-vaxxers and faith-healers?
What really induces huge amounts of butthurt in mythology fanboys, is the manner in which science has rendered their sad little pre-scientific mythologies utterly irrelevant. That's what really pisses them off. Because the relegation of their mythologies to pathetic irrelevance, means they can no longer call upon their cartoon invisible magic men to shit on people they don't like, which is, for many mythology fanboys, the real reason they became mythology fanboys in the first place.
Oh, fuck me, 100,000,000 agrees.
Just what misconceptions do you have that says that science has in any way rendered irrelavent?
Humans being created in an instant in their current form, just a few thousand years ago will do for a start, and of course one error is enough, as unlike science, the bible is claimed too be the inerrant word of an infallible deity, which of course it demonstrably cannot be if contains even one error. That's not how you spell irrelevant either.
Edited...typos
Oh this is going to be good ...
In case you failed to learn this in the requisite basic science classes, the moment testable natural processes are determined to be sufficient to explain a given class of entities and interactions, then imaginary magic entities from mythology become superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.
In case you slept through your basic science classes, this has already happened for vast classes of entities and interactions, including classes thereof that the authors of your mythology were incapable of even fantasising about, but which scientists alighted upon, and placed within usefully predictive quantitative frameworks of knowledge.
Oh, by the way, you are aware that the authors of your mythology were incapable of counting correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses, a basic fact that an astute five year old can determine correctly? Or that the authors of your mythology thought that genetics was controlled by coloured sticks? An assertion contained in your mythology that was flushed down the toilet in the 19th century by an Austrian monk?
Wind the clock back far enough, and people thought that magic entities from mythology were required to explain lightning, until Benjamin Franklin decided to go kite flying in a thunderstorm, and determined that lightning was nothing more than static electricity discharges.
Likewise, wind the clock back far enough (typically to the mediaeval era), and people thought diseases were caused by "demons", a farcical notion that, sadly, is still entertained among various fundagelicals. Except that, oops, people such as Pasteur and Koch determined otherwise, and alighted upon pathogenic bacteria and viruses. Indeed, Pasteur was the first scientist to produce a working rabies vaccine. Later on, scientists alighted upon other mechanisms for the emergence of disease, such as genetic diseases, and diseases arising from breakdown of certain molecular biological processes (Alzheimer's is typically listed among the latter, though research is still ongoing with respect to other possible causes).
But please, do continue peddling the farcical assertion that all of the above is the product of "misconceptions" ... I enjoy seeing mythology fanboys presenting hilarious spectacles of themselves before a global audience.
@Calilasseia: You know, more and more I find myself simply skimming your posts. I already know they are well organized, exceptionally well thought out, and that they completely destroy the idiotic post that came before. I want to go and find something interesting that I can comment on. Your posts appear to be so well thought out and documented that they are not worth my time.
That's not a bad thing. Here I am looking for something to do and like a fine book I have turned to simply reading your posts. I expect there is nothing to argue about or disagree with. I LOVE THIS SHIT "Oh, by the way, you are aware that the authors of your mythology were incapable of counting correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses, a basic fact that an astute five year old can determine correctly? Or that the authors of your mythology thought that genetics was controlled by colored sticks? An assertion contained in your mythology that was flushed down the toilet in the 19th century by an Austrian monk?"
So even though I find myself rushing through them now and again, knowing full well you have demolished anything that came before, I love just sitting here quietly with my coffee and allowing the prose to waft through the silence with morning sunlight and coffee steam. Always Enjoyable! I must spank myself for being the skimmer that I sometimes am.
(Or get Tin Man to spank me.) :-)
Calilasseia
Science has done a lot more to help biblical theism than supposedly harm it.
Exhibit A - correcting its own mistakes. If science can call Pluto a planet then the bible can call a bat a bird.
Exhibit B - science verifying and amplifying (in hi-resolution imagery) the self-evident fact that unborn living human babies are human and are alive.
Exhibit C - the continually growing mountain of evidence that 'many worlds' (parallel universes) are not only plausible but probable. Christians can no longer be mocked for mentioning realms such as heaven/hell.
Exhibit D - the scientific consensus that Lawrence Krauss (and the bible) is right - the advent of a universe out of nothing (ex nihilo) is not Bronze Age woo at all.
Exhibit E - the emerging scientific confusion as to whether or not a female 'brain' (aka soul) can be born into a male body. And the academic back-peddling over whether gender role conditioning from a young age makes any difference to the tabula rasa. Thus the biblical theist (Cartesian Dualist) who claims that mind/soul and matter/body are in two different ontological categories can no longer be accused of woo.
"We don't 'have' souls. We are souls. What we 'have' is a body.
@Lion IRC: If science can call Pluto a planet then the bible can call a bat a bird.
Science called Pluto a planet based on the best evidence available at the time. As more evidence became available, science corrected itself and redesignated Pluto.
We're still waiting for religion to correct its own fallacies, such as young earth creationism, the virgin birth, the resurrection, assorted magic show miracles like weeping statues, and the idea that mental illness is caused by demons and cured by exorcism.
And now it's time for this hilarity ...
Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh wait, how many legs does an insect have again?
Except that scientists regarded Pluto as a planet before a rigorous definition of 'planet' was agreed upon, and had reasons for doing so prior to the development of the requisite ideas. Though I note with interest that Pluto is now classed as a dwarf planet. This arises from the manner in which 'planet' is defined in modern astrophysics, namely:
[1] The body in question is sufficiently massive to have adopted an approximately spherical shape, under the influence of its own gravity;
[2] The body in question does not possess sufficient mass to initiate thermonuclear reactions at its core;
[3] The body in question has cleared its orbital neighbourhood of planetesimals.
A dwarf planet only satisfies the first two conditions.
Indeed, as an indication of the work involved in placing the concept of 'planet' on a rigorous footing, we have this scientific paper by the astrophysicist Jean-Luc Margot, in which a well-defined mathematical criterion is established, namely, the minimum mass that is needed to clear the orbital neighbourhood to a distance of 2√3 times the Hill radius of the object in question. Margot demonstrates that his metric clearly distinguishes between the eight 'proper' planets of the Solar System, and various dwarf planets and asteroids. The metric in question is defined as:
C = M/m
where M is the mass of the body in question, and m is the minimum clearing mass for a body in the requisite orbital position. For the eight 'proper' planets, C is considerably greater than 1 (the smallest value in the Solar System is C=54 for Mars, while for Jupiter, C = 40,000). On the other hand, for Pluto, C = 0.028, and for Eris, C = 0.020.
Trouble is, your mythology still refers to a bat as being a bird, despite this being known to be wrong for at least 300 years.
Moving on ...
Except that oops, human embryos don't develop a functioning brain until 17 weeks after conception.
But of course, everyone here knows the reason you tossed that one into the mix.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Oh please, this apologetic diarrhoea is lame even by your usual standards. One slight problem with this being that the different entities in the multiverse are considered by physicists to be causally disconnected. Which poses a big problem for your lame apologetics.
Then, of course, we have the possibility that the vast majority of those other universe-type entities will have different laws of physics, many of which won't even permit the formation of neutral atoms, let alone anything resembling life.
Oh dear, you really are scraping the barrel here, aren't you?
When Krauss formulated his mechanism for the instantiation of the current observable universe, it required that quantum fields and a space-time metric were already in place. But I don't expect a mythology fanboy to understand the finer points of actual scientific cosmology.
But once again, we're in that realm known as "physicists postulate that well-defined entities and interactions were responsible for the instantiation of the observable universe and its contents", which is as far removed from your mythology's cretinous assertions as it's possible to be.
Citation for this alleged "confusion"?
Only it's been known for a long time, that individuals with CAIS exclusively self-identify as female, despite having XY chromosomes.
Again, citation for this?
Except that 'mind' is a process driven by human brain chemistry. Or did you sleep through the science classes where this little detail was taught?
Poppycock. Brain chemistry, anyone?
Except the bible cannot be what christians claim, the inerrant word of an infallible omniscient deity, if it contains even one error.
Is the mother not human and alive then? This is the usual dishonest hyperbolic rhetoric we've come to expect from the anti-choice brigade, theists who insist their superstitious delusions entitles them to tell others how they must act. Would insist a man's body be used against his will to preserve the life of one of his children? Lets say his child is 21, and unlike a an insentient blastocyst can experience emotional and physical pain, and need a kidney transplant or will die,, The father is the only available donor but refuses, would you be happy to pass laws that would strap him down against his will and remove his kidney? If not why on earth do you expect anyone rational person to take seriously a rationale that gives rights to an insentient blastocyst it would deny a fully formed sentient human, that can experience both physical and emotional pain, which all the scientific evidence shows a blastocyst or foetus cannot?
That's an asinine analogy even by theistic standards, you're being less than honest about the evidence with your rhetoric, and not of those scientific hypotheses make any supernatural claims, and there is of zero scientific evidence for the religious myths of heaven and hell. You'll be touting near death experiences next, an argument from ignorance fallacy if ever there was one.
One is a being offered as a scientific model to be examined and tested for validity, the other is archaic bronze age woo woo superstition using unexplained and unevidenced magic. Either way this claim doesn't remotely evidence a deity, I'm starting to wonder if you even know what evidence means.
Scientific confusion? In what fucking universe is that nonsensical claim representative of evidence? There is no scientific evidence for the woo woo superstition of souls, and no amount of tortured analogies will change this, thanks for the belly laugh though.
Another bare claim to go with the previous 5, if you think any of that asinine verbiage is evidence then you're delusional, setting the bar that low would enable one to believe literally anything. which of course it what theists of all stripes the world over do on here all the time. Tortured analogies, hyperbolic subjective rhetoric, and woo woo superstition is all you're offering, tenuously peppered with the odd unrelated fact as if this represents evidence, hilarious. We've seen it all before.
Why not cut to the chase and post the most compelling piece of evidence for the existence of any deity. I'm cutting you an enormous amount of slack by making it a generic deity rather asking you to specifically evidence the christian one, and yet you post endlessly about having evidence, then offer naught but the usual vapid rhetoric we see all the time form theists.
@ Lion IRC
"If science can call Pluto a planet then the bible can call a bat a bird."
Science did not name Pluto. Using science Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, and he, not science named it after the Roman god of the underworld.
Did I say science called a planet Pluto?
No.
I said science called Pluto a planet.
Then science changed its mind and called Pluto not a planet.
So much for empirical evidence.
You're talking about taxonomy, which is arbitrary. And for what it is worth: under the current taxonomy, Pluto is classified as a minor planet.
@ Lion IRC
So much for ignorance.
The International Astronomical Union voted in 2006 to redefine what constituted a "planet".
"A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit."
From https://www.iau.org/public/themes/pluto/
Lion IRC, I suggest you read that article.
@Calilasseia
"for many mythology fanboys, the real reason they became mythology fanboys in the first place."
Indeed.
In the good old days, they they could murder heretics and other undesirables. There is no doubt in my mind that many would still burn people at the stake if permitted. Or at least watch burnings and public executions at half time at the football.(cable tv only)
Instead, such good folk have to be content with the warm glow of schadenfreude they exude when they are convinced that X Y or Z person is going to hell. I have actually seen good christians assert that they will be gloating from heaven. But only on forums. Ever gutless, such hypocrites lack the gumption to say such things to one's face.
According to my favourite Theist, Bishop John Shelby Spong, churches have always been about control and scam . Seems about right to me. Except I add guilt for the catholics and 'lapsed' *** catholics" . I mean, NO ONE does guilt better than Catholics. They can be made to feel guilty about just about anything.
John Spong, about 2 minutes,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtpn517RgA
Below
Irish comic Dylan Moran (1 minute 42)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2mVOw3A7t8
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
***there is no such thing as an ex or former catholic. Once on the books, you're counted until you die. I ceased being a catholic in 1968. Officially, I remain a lapsed catholic. . You can't even get thrown out for calling the pope cunt. Sinead O'Connor tried that, and in public. . Later apologised and was instantly forgiven. I understand she has since become a buddhist. .
@Andromeda
Well, to begin 'theists" covers most of the human race.
Not convinced it's rationally possible to ascribe any characteristics to all of them.
The human beings I've known don't like change , especially if it is imposed upon them. I suspect (but can't prove) people with rigid dogmatic beliefs, about anything are the most resistant to change .
"No breakthroughs have been discovered in religion"
I notice you are very fond of superlatives. Plus I'm not quite sure I understand a what you mean. That Catholic church is unchanging, or do you mean scientific changes.
The problem with sweeping generalisations is that one exception blows them out of the water.
The Catholic church has always shown great flexibility for such a massive Institution :
Catholicism is different in each country by way of emphasis . Italian Catholicism is different from French ,is different from Australian, is different from the way Catholicism is practiced on the Island of Negros, in the Philippines.
With Spanish colonialism came catholicism. I'm thinking especially of Centra and South America. Some local gods were absorbed into Catholic practice by the simple expedient of making them a form of the Virgin Mary.That practice has also been common in Eastern Europe and Ireland. There are hundreds of shrines and grottos all over Ireland. Originally to the earth mother, now dedicated to Mary .
In my life time, there was the second Vatican council, called by Pope John XX111 in 1959. It ran from 1962 to 1965, and resulted in a long list of changes to Catholicism .
As to religions and scientific achievements: I would also include the great accomplishments by theists in China and India . Then there was Islam's Golden Age. (roughly the 8th to the14 century)
It seems that most of those responding here do so from the heart. And not from their intellect. Or at least the heart misguides the intellect.
They have some deep personal abhorrence to religion, seemingly to Christianity as a whole, and they refuse to look at the evidence and remember what the Bible says about God, in favor for what their fellow humans have done that is wrong.
I don't think anyone in their right mind would reject the hand of someone who is so unselfish and loving as the Bible has portrayed to be.
They only think that what the Bible says, is a lie. It can't be true. Why is this? Because man can't be trusted. And since man to them is the one that wrote the Bible, God must be a made up mythical being, who is in the work of hurting and killing them.
@Gerald
This is the third time you have made a bare assertion for evidence, yet still have demonstrated none? Please demonstrate some objective evidence for any deity?
The bible demonstrably contains errant nonsense, so your assertions it is infallible are wasted on people who can read and have read it.
@ Gerald
"And since man to them is the one that wrote the Bible, God must be a made up mythical being, who is in the work of hurting and killing them."
Not at all. I have read the bible and my interpretation is that god created mankind in order to breed fawning sycophants who will praise it and kiss it's ass forever. This Earth is just a testing ground. Those who are willing to kiss this god's ass go to heaven, and those who do not go to hell.
Go to hell? That dispels any notions this god is loving.
@Gerald: They only think that what the Bible says, is a lie. It can't be true.
Well who can know what the Bible is really meant to say. It's a collection of ancient texts selected by committees through a process of vicious factional in-fighting. It's been the tool of tyrants for centuries. People today cherry-pick the nice bits under the direction of their priests and pastors and think that's all there is.
The Bible is also a translation, and as a professional translator, I can tell you that translation is impossible. When I was first starting out translating I mistranslated the Japanese word for "vasectormy" as "castration". Fortunately only sheep were harmed. But the person who mistranslated "young woman" for "virgin" in the Bible caused a real disaster.
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