No God More Suicide - US Suicide Rate Increases 24% (Buddhism, Vatican, behavior)
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Personally, I thought Dawkin's idea of "Brights" was asinine, presumptuous , and elitist. I'm an atheist, or even an anti-theist which was Hitchen's preferred term. That doesn't make me smarter than religious believers, it just makes me more curious about the world and skeptical about assertions that don't have any evidence to back them up.
Yeah, I couldn't get behind "brights" either and am glad it died a natural death. If theists wonder whether we think ourselves inherently smarter, that should answer it fully for them. Of course they'll likely cling to the notion that we are arrogant anyway. They have made up their mind and don't want to be confused with facts.
Personally, I thought Dawkin's idea of "Brights" was asinine, presumptuous , and elitist. I'm an atheist, or even an anti-theist which was Hitchen's preferred term. That doesn't make me smarter than religious believers, it just makes me more curious about the world and skeptical about assertions that don't have any evidence to back them up.
It wasn't Dawkins' idea - he was just a promoter of it. But I certainly agree that it was, as Hitchens said, "cringeworthy".
I'll take 'atheist'. It's a noun. It accurately describes me. The fact that some people might call it a 'label' is irrelevant to me - nouns are labels. And I embrace it. I think it should be owned and made acceptable by atheists just living normal everyday lives and thereby being examples of normal everyday people - who happen to be atheists. I certainly own it, if the topic ever comes up (it doesn't very often for me - I live in Minnesota). But I never shy away from it. If someone asks, or if it becomes relevant in a conversation, I serve it up.
Yeah, I couldn't get behind "brights" either and am glad it died a natural death. If theists wonder whether we think ourselves inherently smarter, that should answer it fully for them. Of course they'll likely cling to the notion that we are arrogant anyway. They have made up their mind and don't want to be confused with facts.
Yes they will. Because (as you know) they consider any skepticism towards the bible as an arrogant affront to their god. How dare us puny humans question their god's validity, which is entirely based on a book which presumed the majority of people to be illiterate.
It's a wonder the suicide rate hasn't tracked along with literacy in my mind.
Yeah, I couldn't get behind "brights" either and am glad it died a natural death. If theists wonder whether we think ourselves inherently smarter, that should answer it fully for them. Of course they'll likely cling to the notion that we are arrogant anyway. They have made up their mind and don't want to be confused with facts.
If I'm being totally honest I have to admit that I think that believers are all cuckoo to some extent. A believer may be better a mathematician than me but my arrogant atheist self considers myself more sane on a sum total measure because I don't have that one glaring fault.
If I'm being totally honest I have to admit that I think that believers are all cuckoo to some extent. A believer may be better a mathematician than me but my arrogant atheist self considers myself more sane on a sum total measure because I don't have that one glaring fault.
As one who formerly was "cuckoo" by your lights I think really it is largely a question of whether you are going to embrace reason or not. From childhood I was told that "mere human" wisdom was inferior to god's foolishness. I was taught that to doubt was sin, to argue against holy writ was sin, that not trusting any authority that claims god's approval was "rebelling" against it, etc., etc. It took me until my mid-30s to gin up the courage to really question all those interlocking taboos, and almost the instant I crossed that threshold, the whole house of cards came down.
So yes it is insanity -- but of a particular and very focused kind. It is, at least within certain well-defined compartments of one's thinking, the refusal to question baseless assertions of dogma AS baseless assertions. The refusal to apply the same standards of logic, reason and proof in ALL areas of life. And this is all in the service of yielding to confirmation bias and agency inference as "proof" of god rather than resisting it as an impediment to discovering what reality is really like and how it really operates. It is predetermining certain things (or more often, adopting the preconceptions of others) about meaning, purpose, morality and destiny rather than investigating their true nature.
So it is not crazy in the sense of "can't function in society, hold down a job, pay taxes, provide for family, and/or is an overt danger to self and others". It's just garden-variety irrational with some major areas in which one is deliberately blinkered.
I personally gave $20.00 to Doctor's Without Borders the other day. That's more than the imaginary God did for starving children the other day.
Well if God is imaginary (and you have zero proof for such a claim) why would you expect Him to do something? Again, it comes off really silly to hear atheists rail and rail and judge God's actions and then say oh but wait, I think He isn't real.
Well if God is imaginary (and you have zero proof for such a claim) why would you expect Him to do something? Again, it comes off really silly to hear atheists rail and rail and judge God's actions and then say oh but wait, I think He isn't real.
Why do you take those comments that God is not doing what he should do as literal?
You are right in that there is zero proof that Napi is an imaginary god.
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