Will the fedorafags ever go away? We get it, you are on a scientific crusade to purge all religious belief. Now, can we please accept that: 1)religion serves a certain need. 2)religion can promote both good and bad actions. 3)religion can carry on even without the belief in a personal god. 4)we must also be critical of science. 5)there is no demand need nor true possibility to have a consistent and single opinion about the nature of god or the meaning of the word.
As in move on towards discussion of these things without the obligatory "god is a fairytale!!", "stop living according to ancient myths of goat herders" etc...
Ian Smith
>4)we must also be critical of science.
Grayson Lee
Scientists fuck up and can be dishonest. Deal with it.
Angel Miller
There's a difference between being critical of certain scientists who try to push crackpot bullshit and being critical of science as a concept
Carter Reyes
It means that scientific research is tied up with cultural and economic changes. We must also stop treating science as if it is the bringer and standard of absolute knowledge.
Ian Jenkins
>will the Christfags ever go away? We get it, you're on a normal crusade to purge all beliefs other than those you approve of.
Mason Russell
Its the bringer if empirical knowledge. Which is more than religoon does.
Nathaniel Campbell
Only once pushy, self righteous anti-fedoras go away. Remember: fedoras are a reaction.
Justin Martin
There isn't . Because all science starts as crackpot bullshit being pushed in.
Joshua Davis
...
Adrian Cook
OP here, im not a christfag, nor do i believe in a personal god, just stop pretending this topic is closed and behaving like insufferable teens.
Liam Reed
Thats fine. Its not the role of religion to bring empirical knowledge nor has it ever been, nor has any intelligent person ever pretended it to be.
Jaxson Harris
I'll accept all of those except 1.
4 I accept provided you're talking about epistemic disagreements with the scientific methodology, not a tin foil hat thing.
Isaac Ward
>stop pretending this topic is closed I'm not the one demanding others accept my propositions.
I was just meming, no need to get so butthurt over a joke.
Matthew Hernandez
Thats just a lie. Thats where you are relegated to now since you failed.
Leo Clark
He does kinda have a point. Many ideas were thought to be crackpot.
Jayden Davis
Go look up "empirical" in a dictionary.
Matthew Garcia
All concepts need to be criticized
Ethan Russell
Based on what do you disagree with 1? Just look what happened after religion was de facto relinquished. The USSR. It was replaced by secular ideology. There is no escape from ideology. Not in the past, not in the present nor in the future. Religion has the power to connect a person to the past. Give him not only a knowledge of history but a connection to it. It creates communal bonds and a platform for a discussion and proliferation of shared ideas. Religious texts are also a source of criticism of everything we experience, and in all areas in which we are stuck because religious texts reflect the more general concentrated and less compartmentalized ideas and fantasies and opinions of us but at a more primordial time.
James Parker
>3)religion can carry on even without the belief in a personal god. Some can, like Buddhism and Judaism, but attempts to pull this with Abrahamic religions (Reform Judaism, Paul Tillich, etc.) have been disasters.
Caleb Robinson
*and Judaism Mistake, obviously, as you can see from the rest of the post
Jose Foster
>There are still people who fall for the "USSR forced everyone to be atheist" meme
Charles Nguyen
I don't know I always liked the dead god theology more than actual christianity.
Benjamin Hernandez
Being critical of science is literally the point of science, you retard. Scientists work to prove each other wrong.
Kayden Wright
Regardless of your preferences, it is poison to Abrahamic religion because it terminates the ethics and leads to a major decline in numbers generationally.
Easton Parker
That was not the point at all.
Julian Bennett
They taught atheism in school and, depending on the period, heavily persecuted religion.
Eli Green
First of all, reform judaism does not relinquish a personal god(Maybe you mean reconstructionist judaism?). Second of all it is a major success since its a very big branch of Judaism.
In general terms, let us not forget that Religion has been relegated to the sidelines in the 20th century. It has to be brought back to front row first so new ideas can proliferate easier. When religious talks are left to each congregation which serves people in a perticular way adjusted for small groups its topics are limited and its breadth of discussion is limited and its needs and thus chosen interpretations and ideas are also adjusted. It becomes an institute catering to people in a very unique and compartmentalized way. You go to a specific church, go through some rituals, talk about it in the setting of a small group and then go back to your regular life.
If religion is taken out of the shadows it's direction will change, it will have to adopt more streamlined ideas and ideas that are more appropriate to modern times.
Thomas Evans
>First of all, reform judaism does not relinquish a personal god Makes it optional.
>You go to a specific church, go through some rituals, talk about it in the setting of a small group and then go back to your regular life. In which case it rapidly declines over generations. Religion, gutted of philosophy and spirituality and lifestyle, is not worth the time or money to most people. Religion takes a lot of involvement to uphold, it takes a lot of investment of time and money to keep a church going, and offspring of parents who don't think religion is anything more than a social club are not going to want to sit through an hour plus of something which has zero relevance except as a performance, let alone tithe money to it; if they want a performance, they'll go to a rock concert or a movie, if they want to hang out, they'll go to a club or something, from a purely materialist perspective, these things are far more interesting.
Juan Watson
>In which case it rapidly declines over generations. Religion, gutted of philosophy and spirituality and lifestyle, is not worth the time or money to most people.
But this is exactly what i was saying.. It has to be brought into the light. out of churches into common public discourse where it can rejoin philosophy, art, culture and be an active part of social life, as oppose to an attraction or obligation that requires special action.
Ethan Russell
Guy who you originally replied to here.
Not sure if I agree with anything you said. But none of those demonstrate the fulfillment of a need. First, characterize the need being fulfilled, next describe how religion does this, and why it cannot be replaced with anything else.
Jonathan Hughes
Non-theistic Christians just follow whatever the current year says.
Bentley Wood
To just expand on this now that I'm at a keyboard, I could understand why religion may represent a necessary mode of catharsis for some people, but I don't see why keeping a diary, playing music, or dancing couldn't present a similar or identical effect to praying for other individuals.
But to respond to your points:
>The USSR I don't see how this is relevant
>There is not escape from ideology So, is religious ideology somehow safer? People shouldn't be allowed to construct their own opinions on things?
>Religion has the power to connect a person to the past So does national identity
>Religious texts area source of criticism of everything we experience But so are many texts written as secular works. There are ancient and modern philosophical texts, as well as books for laypeople like The 7 Healthy Habits of Highly Effective People claim to be this.
You could even take books like Moby Dick or Infinite Jest and turn them into comprehensive criticisms of every aspect of our lives. In fact, some people have.
Liam Flores
> Can we move on now? Lets start with religious people stopping denial of the scientific facts.
Zachary Powell
1) So does stalinism 2) So does stalinism 3) So does stalinism, without a personal Stalin
Stalinism still must be stomped out.
And religion too.
And 5) is just wrong. There is a demand, among most religions themselves, as they maintain that their dogmas are the truth and the way, and also among atheists and even some agnostics who think that their idea is correct and thus best. There is a need, as these opposed views create and fuel conflicts and peace is needed. There might not be a way to solve that issue completely but we can make progress, as we did by bringing Christianity in Europe to its knees.
Liam Torres
stop putting them on the same level as the actual serious religions
Lincoln Jackson
That's just Americans.
Nolan Kelly
>4)we must also be critical of science What do you mean? Of course we shouldn't just immediately blindly accept whatever the latest scientific study seems to imply might be true, but the way to be critical of it, to find out whether it's really true or not, is... just to do more science. More research.
Aaron Myers
>Will the fedorafags ever go away? If you keep thinking its a good idea to talk about something like religion on an anonymous image forum of all places then don't be surprised when you are surrounded by idiots.
Ayden Perez
This board is full of pro Christian threads. If you cant stand atheist posting counter arguments go find yourself a hugbox
Cooper Lopez
I see more threads with nothing or very little to do with religion hijacked by Christposters than atheists successfully pulling off a thread takeover.
Brandon Thomas
Sure. Why are you so angry. Also, the Holy Spirit is a filthy cunt and no one, not even Jesus can save me now because he was a shitty messiah that allowed such a loophole to exist. Thanks Paul.
Cooper Rivera
>We get it, you are on a scientific crusade to purge all religious belief.
I want to wish for a future world where there is armed extremist atheist who terrorizes the world under the call of "Liberating Mankind from the tyranny of God"
Ethan Fisher
Science does not work to counterprove religion. Science is the pursuit of truth. A truth that will change with the passing of time and is by nature faulty due to the limitations of our sense. Science is ever-changing and constantly seeks to debunk itself.
Science as an ideology is faulty due to its ever-changing nature. Consider the mind of a human being. Can an ideology that is ever-changing be satisfactory to us? Does it bring us joy in our moments of despair? Does it soothe the aching soul? What comfort is science to the miserable and outcast? What shield against the coming death?
Jaxon Stewart
Already happened son. Of course it wasnt in the name of atheism but in the name of the thing that underlies atheism, matererialism.
Matthew Johnson
go back to tumblr.
Alexander Foster
It's code for 'don't let shit like social Darwinism become a thing'
Wyatt Walker
>can be dishonest
No, they literally cannot. Shut the fuck up and go talk to your friends about the fairies and other dumb shit you believe in that doesn't exist so you can sleep at night, pussy.
Noah Martin
Do you understand what peer review is?
It means he doesn't understand peer review.
Jace Baker
>So, is religious ideology somehow safer? People shouldn't be allowed to construct their own opinions on things?
yes, because it is not narrow. This is why the anciant religions are still with us. They are general and multifaceted. Stalinism isnt, and probably cant and wont be, judging by its relevance today.
>So does national identity Nations change, lose and gain power, change identity etc..
>But so are many texts written as secular works. Yes and just like we reread anciant greek texts we should reread the bible. Its power also resides in its historical significance and appeal to the layman. The bible sells itself while more recent philosophical texts are hard to read.
Justin Cook
As an ordained priest of Dudeism, I advise you all to sit back and relax. You can't be so worried about all that stuff, man.
Nolan Perez
>condescending asshole who thinks he can be because he is an internet atheist. Do you understand that i am an atheist as well? Get it into your skull that there is a position after yours, which if you do not close your mind you can get to, instead of being stuck in "fairytales" and "beareded men in the sky" and science is "absolute truth".
Cameron Torres
Religion not as catharsis or a necessary illusion for dying people or any of that bullkshit. Religion and religious texts as a source of criticism of the modern world in all its aspects. Much like anciant philosophers that contemporary philosophers go back to to refresh their position and find a new strand to draw from the anciant beginning of thought so can we go back to religious texts. They represent a wholesome, multifaceted description of the world and of different relations between groups and individuals. The bible is not just a set of rules, or a philosophy, or a guide how to lead a good life. It is all of these and non of them. It is a primordial form of how our society and reality are structured by us. Its a very high resultion painting into how people saw the world back then and how they thought it was a good idea to cannonize their views.
Ethan Williams
I want this fedora meme to die, it's so long past being amusing.
Daniel Kelly
This
Charles Flores
Ok, so from your argument I would understand why you think religious texts and their accompanying commentaries would be worth preserving and studying, which I agree with. I do not understand what privileges religious texts above all others to the point where the only way to preserve society is to become a monomaniacal adherent to their teachings, and why this is a "need."
I just want to be able to understand your argument, what is the need being fulfilled by religion, and why can't it be replaced with something else?
Isaac Diaz
amen brah amen
Easton Powell
>religion serves a certain need >good and bad actions
John Edwards
Well, think of religion as a system, an announcement of importance of said religious texts. In our modern day religion has the potential to look very different, as a plane, scattered all over society, explored not through a congregation in a house of worship but through online discussion and engagement. Religion as an all pervasive and guiding, not as a set of rituals for some small group. Small group discussion tends to reinforce and deepen existing oppinions while discussion on the level of society, using instant communication for propagation of information can transform religion from an authoritarian and dogmatic set of rules into an evolving set of ideas that through the historical importance of religion in our history, can take hold and inspire people into action. Religious ideas, to a group for whom these ideas and their particular expression are part of its history, is a glue to the past and to one another. It creates another level of unwritten rules, of guidelines which are held together through their already existing importance in the history of the group that uses them.
Good ideas are important but they are nothing without the proper means for their propagation. Its all nice and good to say do not murder, but why not? Why not do evil to improve one's postion? Why not improve one's position in a fragmented society with no depth to inspire safety in its members? Rules usually come after they are needed. They cannot guarantee a movement to a positive direction. They are reactive, forbidding or allowing based on the direction towards which society has moved. Religion through its historical and literary depth and variety can inspire people into action.
Modern society is full of options and paths but how does one decide which ones to take? Religion provides depth, continuity and good will. it unites a group and creates a community. It creates a shared "language" but unlike a new shared language it has the excuse necessary for it to be adopted.
Evan Ramirez
Unlike a set of rules of a country that create a framework of what one can and cannot do, religious texts connect rules and the question of what to actually do. Relying on its historical depth, its interesting and pretty poetry, its figurative expressions, it inspires one into action. Think of your life. Look back and examine it and see how a thread goes through it. how your actions today make complete sense when your past actions are taken into consideration.
Now think of a religious text of a group of people. The old or new testaments are declarations of a certain fate, as if saying "this is how your future will be". they are essentially predictions of sorts expressed in many different ways. Like a country being founded and deciding its guiding principles.
Imagine you wake up tomorrow and lose your memory. Based on what do you make decisions now? based on what do you make new decisions about your life. you have no goals, no aim, you are lost. Think of religions as one's past but not historical past, instead the past of a people's desires and hopes and wishes. Like asking you to go back and find your beginning, the most important years of your life when your future was to some extent decided. What did you want back then? What interested you?
Benjamin Parker
Religious texts represent an encompassing vision of life. Oh opes and dreams, of rules, of mythical ideas about the ultimate beginning and start. Religion itself, is a declaration that these texts are important. Its a declaration that they should be looked into, that they are central. thats what the rituals are about deep down.
Now you can say that there are many religious texts, many ancient books and writings. Why choose one and not another? Well, its a good question. Why do people in europe are not as interested in buddhism and why are people in the east more interested in Confucius than in plato(just an example, might be wrong)? Because things happened in a way that you were put into a certain society with a certain past that stems from certain ideas and not others. That is just how things happened. You were born to a certain society with a certain past. You can go on and read other texts but their chances of being proliferated through a society accustomed to something else are much lower because they dont have the depth of the local texts.
Europe's past is intertwined with christianity. Its philsopers, its artists for thousands of years have touched upon Christianity and found inspiration in it. It is everywhere. In the architecture, in the way people dress etc.. Of course you can learn from other texts but they cannot serve as a social glue as much as something like Christianity, because also it itself is a declaration of itself as a binding tool. It is presumes itself to be that and it has proven it can be that.
Nolan Bell
This is the mind of a person who prefers dogma.
No. Change is good. That's not a fault of science and never was. Having dogma, beliefs that refuse to change, is what is a faulty ideology.
Ryan Ramirez
>he doesnt know what Transhistoricity is.
William Carter
m8 they pretty much did
google the journals "bezboshnik" and "bezboshnik u stanka"
Tyler Foster
>Does it bring us joy in our moments of despair? Does it soothe the aching soul? What comfort is science to the miserable and outcast? What shield against the coming death? That's the description of a fantasy for the feeble minds, a dream for those whose reality isn't worth living
Dominic Martinez
>1)religion serves a certain need. Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way to satisfy that need without resorting to making stuff up?
>2)religion can promote both good and bad actions. Wouldn't it be nice if our actions (both good and bad) were based on real things?
>3)religion can carry on even without the belief in a personal god. Wouldn't it be nice if that happened?
>4)we must also be critical of science. Of course we should.
>5)there is no demand need nor true possibility to have a consistent and single opinion about the nature of god or the meaning of the word. Wouldn't it be nice if religions acted like this?
Aaron Reed
They can't even accept that their worship of the ideal of science serves the same need
t.agnostic atheist
Anyways a counter voice to the more kooky religious types is somewhat necessary to me. Moderates aren't always loud enough and creationism seriously has footing in the American school system.
Luke Miller
1, prove all religion is necessarily made up and there is absolutely nothing beyond your immediate experience. 2, prove morality is entirely made up, no I don't mean "maybe morality is objective but we wont know", disprove Plato, please. 3, it does, often. 4, obviously. 5, they do, more often than not.
existence itself demands the question begged. There is no such thing as an agnostic atheist.
Brayden Sanchez
We can be critical of the support structures on which we prop up the specialized labor of researchers and scientists.
We can be critical of the kind of research that's being done.
We can be critical of the hierarchies they organize themselves into, the work they do.
We can be critical of any sort of insider cooperation to avoid actual peer review
We can be critical of the journalism around science
We can be critical of our methods, and the philosophy of science as well. Neither of these things are perfect or complete in any sense.
We can be critical of science as a whole, and of its parts.
Andrew Edwards
Why don't we just accept Kant's critique? Religion can never be disproven or even logically questioned without the objection itself being self refuting. Most fedoras have lost their ability to think as a result of their fedoraism. They don't understand that religion provides the intellectual philosophical framework necessary to even begin to defend any principle, especially scientific ones. But science hasn't changed, at least not which is studied, our interpretations are all that's changed and so many are so eager to set up a science vs religion dichotomy without knowing that in the same stroke they defeat one they defeat the other. Atheists have always been terrible philosophers. >inb4 you cite an "atheist" who was really agnostic or deistic, secular=/atheist
Why don't we take the words of Aristotle, "its probably true, lets just assume its true and move on"
Brody Jones
>implying I'll pick your sides
Life, to me requires some sort of faith in the abstract. But these are the domains of gods, not the stuff of them. Otherwise, nothing has been able to justify itself enough, so your own "self-evident" theism isn't impressive.
Jose Garcia
>nothing has been able to justify itself enough this is true. Though, consider there is a certainty greater than desire or reason, a certainty of the heart, the soul itself, the essence of (you). That is the certainty where men find God, all things stem from this certainty. Though we live in a world of men without hearts, men without chests. Read the Abolition of Man.
Luke Morales
You can't even formulate concept of God without it being something absurd and the self-contradictory. That should be enough to not rely on religion, as a framework of thought or philosophy.
Ryan Cooper
>They don't understand that religion provides the intellectual philosophical framework necessary to even begin to defend any principle, especially scientific ones.
Where do religious people get their crackpot ideas from?
>you can't defend anything unless you believe in Zeus!
Julian Long
But that's the entire nature of sience
Jaxson Peterson
If I have time.
I find a lot that my own certainty is kind of fucked, or wonky though. My perception is colored by my brain problems, so I tend to see this certainty as a reflection of the scope of my perception. Anxiety is a hell of a drug.
I have to suspend it a lot to really understand how situations have played out. But I'll check that out.
Has anyone read up on The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict: Evidence I & II? It was recommended to me as well.
Daniel Watson
Platonism is irrefutable and fits the definition of religion. Remember how I mentioned Kant? I have this strange feeling that you didn't read him, even if you did you didn't understand him. I also have a feeling you didn't read or understand Hume or even Nietzsche as he is slightly relevant to this. Absurd and self contradictory? Such as? I am going to guess you'll take Christianity to take a shot at as that's all your 'kind' ever does.
youtube.com/watch?v=RlEi-u-Rps8 I want you to listen to this. its part 1. But if you want to roll with the philosophers this is absolutely necessary if you are going to discuss religion, and more specifically Christianity. Would also urge you to break the manacles of materialism you've forged for yourself. Rid yourself of your presuppositions, try and just exist to take in information.
Trinity, easily explained though not easily understood, afterall it is a fundamental nature of God. Origins of the world, God. Omni's power knowledge, etc. Well, knowledge doesn't = causality
Brayden Wood
>Where do religious people get their crackpot ideas from? A purely atheistic worldview can not answer this at all without justifying religion. Read Kant.
You cant defend anything unless you believe in an absolute. Is non-contradiction an absolute? Can you ever prove that something is what it isn't? How can you trust that fully? You need something akin to a God, a mind, rational and benevolent, greater than Humanity to justify such a notion.
Andrew Reyes
I have no interest in "justifying" anything by making stuff up. That isn't justifying something, it is just making up stuff.
Ayden Bell
We are the children of the gods, at night they lay their great blanket over us so that we might sleep and grow big and strong like them. But there are holes in this blanket, those holes are called stars, and through them we see the campfire and revelry of the gods, the shining is flames of the fire dancing past. The music of the spheres becomes evident to us even as the earth itself slumbers.
>modern cosmology
When there is no difference between fact and fiction, truth and non-truth, why not choose the sweeter.
Nathan Diaz
>I have no interest in "justifying" anything by making stuff up
What you're trying to justify is just made up. Everything is made up. Prove me wrong.
You now have worked yourself into the hole that you can not get out of. You must logically prove truth, however to even begin to do so you presuppose truth, and thus you can not logically complete this task. You can not live consistently with your paradigm lest you throw out Rationality and succumb to a self induced delusion.
Besides, even according to your own understanding you would be objectively wrong as you can in no way be consistent. You could just become an absurdist and admit yourself to an institution. But hey, who cares about that when you can just disregard 3,000 years of thought and intellectual history.
Anthony Gray
>Prove me wrong.
Why would I feel the need to prove a figment of my own imagination wrong?
Noah Myers
Because even we, your own mind, think you're retarded.
Andrew Russell
Prove I am a figment. prove your imagination without presupposing reason.
Jeremiah Williams
Why should the fedoras go away if this place is going to be infested with obnoxious christfaggots?
>>personal god Who the fuck says that there is only one deity assuming deities exist in the first place?
Jayden Myers
Prove it.
Oliver Collins
Yes. Who on earth says any different besides a small group of new-age american absolutists with victim complexes?
Camden Long
Ask Jaden here. He's the one that thinks nothing is real.
Grayson Lewis
You're arguing with yourself about dumb shit that clearly has no bearing on your reality, as you've said. Also you have a really low standard for imagination figments, so we think it's a good call.
Adam Diaz
>Also you have a really low standard for imagination figments,
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself.
Tyler Williams
I always wondered: Are they talking about the possible falsehood of our reflections in a mirror, since our eyes are just sensory organs subject to biological interpretation? Is it just the diction of a 13 year old thinking in concepts that are larger than the words he has to work with? It sorta mesh's with the whole "Jade" thing, if they're having issues with concrete identity.
Or is it just nonsense?
Wyatt Edwards
You made me this way. I didn't ask for this.
Nathan Evans
>5)there is no demand need nor true possibility to have a consistent and single opinion about the nature of god or the meaning of the word.
This.
We all don't need the same opinion, it all doesn't need to be "exactly defined" right now because there is always more.
Gavin Brown
>1, prove all religion is necessarily made up and there is absolutely nothing beyond your immediate experience. 1) The OP is not asking for an argument against God, they are asking why atheists can't also accept this list of things. I don't accept that people "need" a thing I don't believe exists.
>2, prove morality is entirely made up, no I don't mean "maybe morality is objective but we wont know", disprove Plato, please. I never claimed anything about the nature of morality. As an atheist I'm pointing out that it would be better for our actions to stem from an actual source (whatever it may be) rather than an imaginary one (see point 1).
>3, it does, often. How close are the Muslims, Christians and Jews to announcing a non-personal god?
>5, they do, more often than not. Have Christians and Muslims stopped trying to convert people to their religion? Have they stopped trying to pass laws based on their beliefs?
Henry Clark
Literally showing everyone how retarded you are with one sentence. Good job.
Asher Fisher
kek I wonder if they hurt realizing how their entire silly position was so succinctly ridiculed.
Bentley Jenkins
I.. I think you need to write that sentence again user.
Nathan Green
I wonder if they hurt, realizing how their entire silly position was so succinctly ridiculed.