Wilco and atheism

[kwall]

If your "hypothesis" - as opposed to your "belief" - is that a creative force is at work in the universe, it seems rather grandiose, doesn't it? And as I've already pointed out, fantastic claims always require fantastic evidence. You have thus far presented roughly none.

i guess i'll just keep repeating this. the existence of highly ordered systems is my evidence of a creative agent. not proof, but evidence.

 

what is your evidence to support your claim that science will eventually answer all our questions?

[TheMaker]

Holy christ, how is that "evidence?" I really, really, really want you to attempt an explanation. Could you do that for me? Because it's not evidence.

 

what is your evidence to support your claim that science will eventually answer all our questions?

 

First of all, I introduced this statement by clearly stating that it was my opinion, not anything remotely like a deeply held belief. I later clarified my position further, stating that I had no vested interest in my best guess (that you requested, I might add; I sure didn't feel any pressing need to volunteer it), and that I wouldn't feel slighted if it were eventually proven false.

 

But to answer your question, my evidence is Newton. My evidence is LaPlace. My evidence is Einstein. My evidence is NASA. My evidence is the fucking fact that the sum of all human knowledge happens to be multiplying at a truly incredible rate. What could we explain two thousand years ago? Jack fucking shit. What can we explain now? A ton of shit.

 

You're trying to get me to admit that my position is a "belief." Even if it were (and it is not), at least it's one that holds up to the scientific standard. It's rooted in observation. It weighs evidence. It makes predictions.

 

Your god delusion does none of that. And I'm truly fucking sorry for you.

[kwall]

And I'm truly fucking sorry for you.

the feeling is fucking mutual.

 

i've completely fucking lost interest in discussing this with you. congratulations - you fucking wore me out. i guess that means you fucking win. or something.

[Central Scrutinizer]

...Suggesting that god created the world on seven particular days spread across millions of years, or that "seven days" is somehow a euphemism for "millions of years?" If it's the former, that's one hell of a stretch, even for folks who might happen to be the biggest fans of poetic license. If it's the latter, it simply seems shifty for no good reason. Why such deliberate obfuscation among so much supposed divinity? Is the bible like a word game, perhaps?

 

I understand what you're saying, but I'm still not entirely sure that I'm grasping your point. If the bible is allegorical, is it allegorical all the time? Some of the time? Nobody knows? Can there be any consensus as regards its general message if this is the case? It seems to me that this helps to undercut the alleged truth of the bible, rather than support it.

We've trod over this ground before. The bible is a history of a people. It is an amazing collaboration over thousands of years. Great literary explorations, it is everything from history, to theology, to political science and law, allegory, poetry, even a cookbook. It was an oral history, contributions by thousands of writers, when you think about it. Each "book" has its history, it's social and political reasons for being. One passage does not condemn nor prove the entire book. You can't grind the thing up, pour it into a test tube and heat it over a bunson burner and derive a verdict from litmus paper. I'm not saying you believe any of it, any more than you can the Wizard of Oz. There is a degree of the man behind the curtain in everything. But you can't say it's all a lie because, in fact, there is proven history in it. The first five books of the old testiment are laws in which people lived under. To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist. You should know better.

[Central Scrutinizer]

And the real kicker, One Wing, is that the strength of my convictions has nothing to do with the validity of any of them. That's a bitter pill for any of us to have to swallah', ain't it?

I think that was part of my point. The point is we would still arrive at the same place.

If your assertion is true, then it's also conditional. First of all, "exploring and questioning" a lie is ultimately pretty useless, don't you think? Instead of continually revising the world's religions as they become ever more archaic and embarrassing, doesn't it make infinitely more sense to simply regard them as fables (which is clearly what they are)?

 

Are they really? Were you there? (that was a joke).

 

You find what's true and what's not by constantly testing them. "The world is flat." "Blacks are inferior." It is the same as any academic study. You balance your theories on the work of others, and hope to expand upon it, but if you build your career's work on studies that are misproven, aren't you up the same shit's creek? Your literate search is still the opinions and views, which you choose to espouse or condemn. Same with a faith-based search.

[Good Old Neon]

No offense dude(the maker) but the fact that you don't understand how the bible makes sesne if you don't take it literally is not a virtue of yours.

Your arguement over the hole 7 day things is really stupid, but that is common among athesit when they talk about realigions they dumb it down.

I mean you do realize these stories were written thousands of years ago. The whole seven days is symbolic as everything in the bible is.

You are on the side of logic simply because people are saying stupid shit to try and argue your straight logic.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

It's not more of the "what," and it's hardly an after-the-fact musing to conclude that Darwin's Finches changed several times in body size and in two beak traits over a 30-year period in order to better adapt to their environment.

 

What did they do?

 

They changed several times in body size and in two beak traits over a 30-year period!

 

Why did they do it?

 

To better adapt to their environment!

 

It's practically a union chant, for fuck's sake! What you're after is a philosophical "why," and no clear-headed individual can reasonably expect biology to explain something like that.

 

Neither does the god delusion. The best it can offer is a fantasy scenario involving god's will, man's work, ascension, life after death, and other circular pseudo-answers that resolve absolutely nothing at all. Evolution is a dent in this particular Big Question. It is a far, far bigger dent than the small scratch made two thousand years ago by the joke that is Christianity.

 

Any studies of Darwin, regardless of the time over which they took are still a posteriori. Yes it changed size. The why is conjecture that's based upon fact. It's still an assumption that can be as much "common sense" that is reinforced by the happenstance of the one recording the change. Maybe the freakin birds were raised next to a berry tree and they just ate like pigs? Man is an example in some respects of natural selection in reverse. Our ancestors are becoming, fatter, lazier with shorter attention spans, various illnesses from bad diets, inbred illnesses based on how we poison our environment.

[TheMaker]

i've completely fucking lost interest in discussing this with you. congratulations - you fucking wore me out. i guess that means you fucking win. or something.

 

Sayonara' date=' pal. The record will address the fact that you've presented zero evidence of your own and recognized none of mine. I won't call this a win; it simply is one.

 

Next?

 

The bible is a history of a people. It is an amazing collaboration over thousands of years.

 

Well, you're half-right. Given its utter lack of cohesion, its blatantly shifty characterizations, and its largely impenetrable morality, the bible is self-evidently a collaboration, but it's far from amazing.

 

Great literary explorations, it is everything from history, to theology, to political science and law, allegory, poetry, even a cookbook. It was an oral history, contributions by thousands of writers, when you think about it.

 

The bible falls well short of being great literature, in my opinion. There are no overarching themes, its hero advertises himself as being perfect rather than flawed, and on and on. Granted, it explores a great many things, some more successfully than others.

 

Each "book" has its history, it's social and political reasons for being. One passage does not condemn nor prove the entire book. You can't grind the thing up, pour it into a test tube and heat it over a bunson burner and derive a verdict from litmus paper. I'm not saying you believe any of it, any more than you can the Wizard of Oz. There is a degree of the man behind the curtain in everything. But you can't say it's all a lie because, in fact, there is proven history in it. The first five books of the old testiment are laws in which people lived under. To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist. You should know better.

 

And so should you by now, my dithering friend. "To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist?" That's really quite a stretch. (Did you hear that? Just now? I think something snapped.) "One nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." I can find at least four things wrong with that statement off the top of my head, but denying it is in no way tantamount to denying the existence of the United States of America. Many laws are rooted in fallacies. Remember when black people weren't legally human, even though corporations were (and still are), under U.S. law? Fun times, those.

 

What you've written here is simply more covering fire reported for the benefit of the bible. First of all, we can reasonably conclude that almost none of the individual pseudo-historical figures of the Old Testament ever existed, simply because of the overwhelming lack of corroborating evidence that might lend credence to such claims. We can also reasonably conclude that the New Testament contains a number of exciting cameos (!!!) by actual historical figures (Pilate, Philo Judaes, etc), and we are able conclude this based entirely on corroborating historical evidence that points to the extreme likelihood of their existence.

 

However, it is incredibly difficult to find truth - not value, mind you, and not merely concessions to the historical record - in a text which so heavily obfuscates its own message. While it's true that corroborating evidence does exist to reinforce certain historical aspects of the bible, from geography to empire and so forth, no evidence exists to suggest that the bible is significantly different from any other work of historical fiction. Given the shockingly local scope of the bible, as evidenced by its only vague physical understanding of the region in which it takes place, it hardly stands up to secular resources as far as historians are concerned. What mainly separates it are its fantastic unique claims (all of which lack fantastic evidence) and the tendency of its followers to take it at its word, however muddled that word might be. Scratch at the bible's surface and what do you see? Folk tales. There is historicity, but should that not be expected from a text that has been positioned as the inerrant word of god? For a cult to recruit followers, it must be accessible, after all. Still - folk tales. Recaptures of pagan mythology. Tips of the hat to the religions it basically swipes from, Greek and Roman alike. Jesus is the "lamb of god." Hey, neat! Just like Krishna, word for fuckin' word.

 

The bible is tripe.

 

P.S., Jesus murders like four people in the New Testament. He wasn't without sin.

[myboyblue]

Jeff should login sometime and just tell us if we should believe in God or something. This is really frustrating.

[TheMaker]

I think that was part of my point. The point is we would still arrive at the same place.

 

Indeed. And the point, actually, is that atheists have no need of the god delusion to get us there. I would much rather die defending a worldview that seems logical on its face than die defending an unprovable delusion. The atheist is less likely to die for his worldview at the hands of a Sunni Muslim than the Shi'a Muslim for his beliefs. Nor is the atheist as prone to kill in the name of any god as those who believe in such things.

 

I'll call it a win for the atheists. Feel free to disagree.

 

You find what's true and what's not by constantly testing them. "The world is flat." "Blacks are inferior." It is the same as any academic study. You balance your theories on the work of others, and hope to expand upon it, but if you build your career's work on studies that are misproven, aren't you up the same shit's creek? Your literate search is still the opinions and views, which you choose to espouse or condemn. Same with a faith-based search.

 

The problem is that faith has yielded a very precise number of testable theories and satisfactory answers to Life's Big Questions:

 

Zero.

 

Faith is often too busy pounding the square pegs of science into religion's round hole to bother attempting new answers, let alone new questions. Religion is limited in scope by design, because everything must somehow jive with the god delusion as it was established many centuries ago, even if it means gently annotating faith to allow it to better adapt to the real world as we understand it today. This is dithering. This is apologetics. This is pointless. The razor of Ockham diced religion to shreds long ago. In spite of telling the faithful to simply discard it as a massively flawed theory, the religious instead turn a blind eye to their own rational instinct and cling fast to the security blanket that is Christianity, Islam, et al.

 

It's tragic. It's dishonest, it's a waste of resources, and whether you like it or not, the end of faith is all but guaranteed on a long enough timeline. I just wish it'd hurry the fuck up and get here, already.

[TheMaker]

Any studies of Darwin, regardless of the time over which they took are still a posteriori. Yes it changed size. The why is conjecture that's based upon fact. It's still an assumption that can be as much "common sense" that is reinforced by the happenstance of the one recording the change. Maybe the freakin birds were raised next to a berry tree and they just ate like pigs?

 

You're really kicking against evolution here. Nothing you say is categorically false, but it's pretty harried and definitely feels like it's radiating suspicion. It also feels like you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm not going to bend over backwards in an effort to steer this conversation into an unflattering (for everybody) debate about the reality of evolution.

 

Man is an example in some respects of natural selection in reverse. Our ancestors are becoming, fatter, lazier with shorter attention spans, various illnesses from bad diets, inbred illnesses based on how we poison our environment.

 

Bingo. In short, we're spoiled, lazy assholes. I certainly won't disagree with this.

 

Maybe Bog and Jebus will save us...?

[Central Scrutinizer]

Well, you're half-right. Given its utter lack of cohesion, its blatantly shifty characterizations, and its largely impenetrable morality, the bible is self-evidently a collaboration, but it's far from amazing.

It is a collaboration over thousands of years. You're looking for cohesion. I think that is one of the great values of it; that the corners aren't rounded, that it's not reworked to all fit together; then you'd have something else to complain about it.

 

The bible falls well short of being great literature, in my opinion. There are no overarching themes, its hero advertises himself as being perfect rather than flawed, and on and on. Granted, it explores a great many things, some more successfully than others.

 

And so should you by now, my dithering friend. "To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist?" That's really quite a stretch. (Did you hear that? Just now? I think something snapped.) "One nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." I can find at least four things wrong with that statement off the top of my head, but denying it is in no way tantamount to denying the existence of the United States of America. Many laws are rooted in fallacies. Remember when black people weren't legally human, even though corporations were (and still are), under U.S. law? Fun times, those.

 

What you've written here is simply more covering fire reported for the benefit of the bible. First of all, we can reasonably conclude that almost none of the individual pseudo-historical figures of the Old Testament ever existed, simply because of the overwhelming lack of corroborating evidence that might lend credence to such claims. We can also reasonably conclude that the New Testament contains a number of exciting cameos (!!!) by actual historical figures (Pilate, Philo Judaes, etc), and we are able conclude this based entirely on corroborating historical evidence that points to the extreme likelihood of their existence.

 

However, it is incredibly difficult to find truth - not value, mind you, and not merely concessions to the historical record - in a text which so heavily obfuscates its own message. While it's true that corroborating evidence does exist to reinforce certain historical aspects of the bible, from geography to empire and so forth, no evidence exists to suggest that the bible is significantly different from any other work of historical fiction. Given the shockingly local scope of the bible, as evidenced by its only vague physical understanding of the region in which it takes place, it hardly stands up to secular resources as far as historians are concerned. What mainly separates it are its fantastic unique claims (all of which lack fantastic evidence) and the tendency of its followers to take it at its word, however muddled that word might be. Scratch at the bible's surface and what do you see? Folk tales. There is historicity, but should that not be expected from a text that has been positioned as the inerrant word of god? For a cult to recruit followers, it must be accessible, after all. Still - folk tales. Recaptures of pagan mythology. Tips of the hat to the religions it basically swipes from, Greek and Roman alike. Jesus is the "lamb of god." Hey, neat! Just like Krishna, word for fuckin' word.

 

The bible is tripe.

 

P.S., Jesus murders like four people in the New Testament. He wasn't without sin.

1. While I don't consider you an enemy, I would expect better behavior and respect of others before I would consider someone a friend. Let's just be "dithering" acquaintances.

 

2. You have pulled the word "obfuscates" out of your ass so many times, your hemorrhoids must be flaming.

 

3. All of your comments here are just attacks and opinions; pretty weak stuff even by your own standards. You claim the pentateuch is pure fiction, you are indeed calling Jews and Muslims a work of fiction as well, since they link their histories to these events. Jews acknowledge this history, even if they do not claim to be of the faith.

 

4. Much of the arguments and attempts at conversation on this meandering thread have sought to deal with the human angle of all of this. But you dispose of that completely, constantly. All you have are bitter attacks, blathering to reinforce whatever confidence you find in pursuing people who have frankly gotten sick of you. You pretend to have some obligation to set us all straight. Even when you say you've had enough, that people are putting upon you to address their responses, you have some need to bring your misery upon others. It is very hard not to dismiss your rants and attacks as bitterness -- you certainly allude that you've spurned faith(s) in the past -- or vice versa. There is a pride in some of your comments, of being one who is antisocial, of outside of the fray -- above, I'm sure you're convinced -- or misunderstood and at odds against a world that just doesn't see you in your own light. A darkness that will find an end in some bizarre, disjointed way that those around you will never understand.

 

There's the fear -- or maybe dread, or just cold understanding -- that you are TheMaker of your own intellectual hell. The two best conclusions for all concerned are 1) get help, or 2) keep your darkness to yourself. Despite some fascinating discource throughout these pages, I'm through with it, and through with you.

[Good Old Neon]

For anyone still straddling evolution

[M. (hristine]

You give me too much credit. I would think eventually even if no one would respond to your diatribes you'd eventually piss yourself off. In fact, I bet you annoy the hell out of you.

 

Spoken like a true ninja.

This is the best thing to come out of this very illuminating thread.

 

Cheers, One Wing.

 

The second best thing was TheMaker's awesome gif.

 

Cheers, TheMaker.

[JUDE]

AM

BT

ST

YHF

AGIB

SBS

[Spawn's dad]

Come on dude, don't eat up posts. We only have seven pages left to work this out.

[kwall]

. . . hopelessly dogmatic . . .

i know some people like that. they sure are frustrating, eh?

[Littlebear]

Did you read wikipedia about "atheism"?

 

An excerpt:

 

"It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs.[97] In addition, people in some regions of the world refrain from reporting themselves as atheists to avoid social stigma, discrimination, and persecution. A 2005 survey published in Encyclop

[M. (hristine]

I practice an atheistic religion with gnostic cross training.

 

I just can't seem to get myself all riled up about what other people believe.

[TheMaker]

It is a collaboration over thousands of years. You're looking for cohesion. I think that is one of the great values of it; that the corners aren't rounded, that it's not reworked to all fit together; then you'd have something else to complain about it.

 

You think the utter lack of cohesion which characterizes the inerrant word of god is a great value? Could you explain that? Because where the deluded faithful see the hand of god informing these books, a rational appraisal reveals only the clumsy hand of man, busily pulling the wool over the eyes of his fellow men. You can find wisdom in folk tales, but good luck finding truth.

 

2. You have pulled the word "obfuscates" out of your ass so many times, your hemorrhoids must be flaming.

 

Fun zinger, but I've illustrated the fabrications and contradictions of religion many times over in the course of this discussion (as well as the other). Rather than continue to cite scripture like a zealot might do, I've simply resorted to using a kind of argumentative shorthand to further my points. Since nobody has bothered to address the many internal inconsistencies of the bible, or the tremendous literary debt it owes to earlier religious texts, or indeed its own ultimately muddled assertions, I assumed that nobody would have a problem with this.

 

3. All of your comments here are just attacks and opinions; pretty weak stuff even by your own standards.

 

A demonstrably false charge. Kindly re-read the thread, folks.

 

You claim the pentateuch is pure fiction, you are indeed calling Jews and Muslims a work of fiction as well, since they link their histories to these events. Jews acknowledge this history, even if they do not claim to be of the faith.

 

It's entirely possible that they do so for traditional and political reasons. Very few Jews remain in the world today - something like 13 million, I think - and the founding of the modern state of Israel was at least partly rooted in biblical claims. Surely you're able to draw a straight line between two dots. Tradition casts a heavy spell over people (hell, it's the only reason religion still exists). I continued to celebrate Christmas, for instance, until my last remaining grandparent died. Old Neon celebrates it to this day.

 

I'm not denying the existence of Jews and Muslims simply because I deny their religion's truth claims. For any part of the bible is to be considered an unembellished account, it must be able to stand up to the same scrutiny as any other historical document. Exodus, for instance, is most assuredly a fairy tale. Even apologists seem unable to agree on when the trek took place. 1200 BCE? 1600 BCE? For the whiff of truth to even cling to the Old Testament, we have to assume that the Israelites were Hyskos, and even then there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea of the Jews being enslaved in Egypt.

 

(I'm half-sure somebody will come along and charge me being an anti-semite now, so fuck you in advance.)

 

4. Much of the arguments and attempts at conversation on this meandering thread have sought to deal with the human angle of all of this. But you dispose of that completely, constantly.

 

Do I? I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the historical record, scientific advancement and the role of man in the universe are all distinctly rooted in "the human angle." What you really mean to say, One Wing, is that people don't like it when I point out how wrongheaded and empty their beliefs truly are. You're desperate to anchor this conversation in philosophy, but it simply cannot be done. The very simple fact of the matter is that, in addition to their many absurd metaphysical claims, the world's religions make explicit real-world truth claims that can either be discarded due to a lack of evidence or else debunked completely.

 

All you have are bitter attacks, blathering to reinforce whatever confidence you find in pursuing people who have frankly gotten sick of you

 

If they've gotten sick of me, they can simply exit the conversation at their earliest convenience. I'm hardly going to send them mean letters in the mail if they disappear on me.

 

You pretend to have some obligation to set us all straight.

 

I feel an obligation to shatter the world's religious shackles, since it's my position that they have held it in check for too long a time.

 

Even when you say you've had enough, that people are putting upon you to address their responses, you have some need to bring your misery upon others. It is very hard not to dismiss your rants and attacks as bitterness

 

Is that so? In a discussion in which I've been subjected to more ad hominem attacks than any other single contributor? In a discussion in which my opponents have had the temerity to repeatedly suggest that I harbour secret religious aspirations because I utter epithets and sayings like "Jesus fucking Christ" and "I swear to god?" I'm not one for sprawling internet discussions, believe it or not, but when somebody attempts to score the last word via a ridiculously stupid broadside, a part of me refuses to allow it.

 

you certainly allude that you've spurned faith(s) in the past -- or vice versa. There is a pride in some of your comments, of being one who is antisocial, of outside of the fray -- above, I'm sure you're convinced -- or misunderstood and at odds against a world that just doesn't see you in your own light. A darkness that will find an end in some bizarre, disjointed way that those around you will never understand.

 

There's the fear -- or maybe dread, or just cold understanding -- that you are TheMaker of your own intellectual hell. The two best conclusions for all concerned are 1) get help, or 2) keep your darkness to yourself. Despite some fascinating discource throughout these pages, I'm through with it, and through with you.

 

This is pure, laughable conjecture. Nicely written, though.

 

Cheers, One Wing.

[Panther]

GOD or GODHEAD(CREATOR) is more logical than no creator given creation or existence anyone have a better logic?

[orchestra]

GOD or GODHEAD(CREATOR) is more logical than no creator given creation or existence anyone have a better logic?

 

Maybe you could flesh our your posts more? I'm not following your train of thought.

[Littlebear]

GOD or GODHEAD(CREATOR) is more logical than no creator given creation or existence anyone have a better logic?

 

There is no logic to think it must be a Creator for everything, otherwise there'll be always that mysticism for wondering about who's the creator of the creator of the creator of the creator... It never ends.

 

So yeah, at some point, something does exist by itself in my opinion, just as an happening or chimical reaction, without creator behind. Life is that thing, as well as the Universe. In my opinion again.

 

The nonsense about God is that it's not clearly defined, so it's like talking about nothing.

 

If you tell me your idea of God is just a space where some chimical reactions happened, then we can agree. I'd call it just Space, then.

 

Enough thoughts for now.

[Good Old Neon]

I have fallen behind in this discussion, and at this point, have no real strong desire to catch all the way up

[Winston Legthigh]

I think Harris pretty much cleans Sullivan