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Atheists around world suffer persecution, discrimination (pg. 14)
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| Psyshell |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kylle
Religious people are all morally superior.
Atheist can't live a moral life
Derp. |
Atheists are far superior morally.
"do what for others what you want"
What is this? 0 ad? Everyone knows it's do for others what they want, and hopefully they'll do for you what you want. |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Psyshell
Anyway... I'll shutup now. |
*posts endlessly* |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| I didn't think anyone took bird drops seriously until now. |
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| srussell0018 |
| William of Ashley took bird drops very seriously. |
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| Joz |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Atheism is a claim. You're both (you and Joz) correct that it is a rejection of other claims, but "there is no verifiable evidence for God" as a sole statement has arisen as a response to post-enlightenment musings on our place in the universe. |
This is far from the first era that an atheist or any non-believer in general has expressed concern over the lack of evidence for a "god" period. Atheism isn't a claim no matter how bad you want it to be.
| quote: | | It is of course correct in every laboratory sense, and all the more so when we begin a dialogue on public policy and the synthesis of governing bodies, their imposition into the pursuit of life in a civic manner, but that doesn't make it any less of an elementary argument in the flux of the public sphere. |
It's a good argument. You demand evidence for anything a Scientist puts out, you demand evidence for any claim anyone would put out, but you want everyone to stop, drop, and roll when it comes to "spirituality". We're supposed to accept "faith" as the reason why we can't weigh and measure its asinine assertions. That's not how it works, and that is the truly "elementary" argument.
| quote: | | Like it or not, spiritualism (and it's Big Brother, religion) is a defining attribute of our species. You can eschew this to mere gullibility all you like, but the formulation of encoded inferences is a default characteristic of mankind; children see things in the dark, thunder inspires fear, hypnogogic reactions and the existence of DMT in the brain, pareidolia and books of documented mental illnesses; all of these things are completely natural occurrences, and it's self-evident that early mankind sought to imbue such events with shamanic hierarchy and inevitable augury. It's at its heart merely spatial-temporal reasoning, extrapolated to clutch epistemological framework. This, too, is natural - nobody in particular made us do this (that's the whole point), and its very existence is proof that it is who we are, it is how we are built. You can explain away that it's is a compounded coping mechanism for sentience, that it is an evolutionary quirk for tribal cohesion, but you cannot claim that it's not here to stay, and that atheism is a much later claim to keep the fascism of religious thought in check. |
As long as there have been people who say there is a God(s), there have been others who say there isn't one, or rather, there's no proof for one. What you cite as "evidence" for spirituality applies to every supernatural phenomenon. It applies to conspiracy believers, people who think aliens will beam them up in the night, and the people who ditch a house because they think it's haunted. Exempting religion from the sort of scrutiny and ridicule these other assertions would have is nothing more than special pleading.
The entire basis of "magic", or rather illusion, is in fact based on the flaws in human perception and thinking. That doesn't mean magic is real or magic is a valid standard by which we define our culture and morality. A priest in a mega-church is no more as scientific or philosophical as an Illusionist in a Vegas lounge.
| quote: | | If we were innately capable of rational thought rather than the uniquely distilled byproduct of millions of years of behavioural neuroses, none of this would be a point of contention. |
And if we were just dumb animals who were always scared of our own shadow and believed whatever snake oil was sold to us by a "leader", you wouldn't be here typing out this sentence on a computer today. We work to solve our flaws, not excuse them. That's why in 21st century America it's now considered bad to own another person as property. We're still working on deciding whether or not raped women should be allowed to have an abortion, though.
| quote: | | The scientific method must be taught to us that we might derive appropriately empirical conclusions of reviewable volition. It is precisely why the claim is so important, and that we not merely assume "oh, that's how everyone should think because it's the least wrong option"; We quite demonstrably work counter to this assumption. |
Science has only ever been the facet that produces results for our species. A church doesn't bring forth breakthroughs in medicine, nor does it answer the fundamental questions of life. It asserts the answers, sure, but the answers are as good as what we had before; i.e. nothing. We're not going with Science because it's the "least wrong", we go with it because unlike religion, it is ever-changing, and it seeks to work out the kinks, rather than sweep them under the rug.
A Christian believer might throw the entire old testament, half their "Holy book" under the bus in a heartbeat to excuse its immorality and inaccuracy. A scientist would examine the flaws and determine how they affected the whole story, and if there was any objective reason to believe them literally, or even take them as metaphors for something more broad.
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
... which is itself a claim.
Atheism is not a religion, not a matter of faith, and it's not loads of things, but saying you don't believe in God is definitely a claim. |
Saying a God doesn't exist is a claim. Saying you lack belief in a God is not. That you can't grasp a basic like that is a bit telling. |
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| de+ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
there is no verifiable evidence for God" |
This claim (and it is, indeed, a claim) however can easily be backed up with evidence. (Or rather, a lack of evidence, which is, itself, evidence for this claim).
Also, the scientific method comes very natural to human beings. All children are born with it. It's beaten out of them by religion. Children observe, interact, study, learn and continue to do so, until someone teaches them not to do it anymore. This can be a religious figure ("I have all the answers you'll ever need"), a teacher ("Shut up and memorize these words") or a parent ("Be quiet and go watch tv") but in the end such a figure is needed to make a child stop being a miniature scientist. |
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| david.michael |
| quote: | Originally posted by de+
Also, the scientific method comes very natural to human beings. All children are born with it. It's beaten out of them by society. Children observe, interact, study, learn and continue to do so, until someone teaches them not to do it anymore. This can be a religious figure ("I have all the answers you'll ever need"), a teacher ("Shut up and memorize these words") or a parent ("Be quiet and go watch tv") but in the end such a figure is needed to make a child stop being a miniature scientist. |
Fixed, as I think religion is too specific in that sentence... but I like this.
Actually, kinda Carlin-esque now that I think about it.
edit - then Hal comes and poops on my parade! Reading. :) |
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| Psyshell |
Just because spirituality is a natural and general trend in societies doesn't mean it's right. Lots of kinds of societies experimented with some sortof slavery as an economic system and today we think we've moved beyond it. Why can't we treat religion the same way.
Your argument that religion is right becuase it's a natural part of human development is IMO flawed.
I accept however that different kinds of societies seemed to all have been religious at some stage as an argument for the existence of god. It's a weak one but I suppose it makes sense. |
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| Joz |
| quote: | Originally posted by de+
This claim (and it is, indeed, a claim) however can easily be backed up with evidence. (Or rather, a lack of evidence, which is, itself, evidence for this claim).
Also, the scientific method comes very natural to human beings. All children are born with it. It's beaten out of them by religion. Children observe, interact, study, learn and continue to do so, until someone teaches them not to do it anymore. This can be a religious figure ("I have all the answers you'll ever need"), a teacher ("Shut up and memorize these words") or a parent ("Be quiet and go watch tv") but in the end such a figure is needed to make a child stop being a miniature scientist. |
Neil Degrasse Tyson had a great bit on this. Every baby is a mini-Scientist, going around examining the world. Smashing pots and pans together to test acoustics, knocking things over to test gravity and impact, chewing and touching things for texture and taste, and so on. If you have a kid, it's better you get out of their way and them let perform these experiments around them (as long as they're kept safe). Don't leave things around the house that can easily be broken and then get upset when they are. |
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| Psyshell |
Every person constantly examines the world around them for cause and effect, no doubt a fetus does as soon as its brain is ready for it's first sensory perceptions. The same can be said about babies.
And in fact that's why I don't think that telling kids about things like santa and actually thinking they're real is a good idea. In practice it actually works a lot like a big practical joke. The parents enjoy their children's naivete but what exactly do the kids get out of it they wouldn't get out of some other gift giving tradition that doesn't involve in believing in something implausible. You could even just tell them Santa is fantasy at a very young age and get them to play along and they wouldn't even care. |
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