Ark Encounter visits down, once again. (salvation, soul, Islamic, Israel)
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To be fair, Goldie is correct for once. To get rid of religion would need a major change in our brain structure to stop those teleological short cuts responsible for religious (and other) beliefs from firing. Teleological short cuts that play a role in our survival.
I do not understand though why people like Goldie keep on pointing to the fact that their world view is based on a cognitive bias as if that was a good thing.
Why Goldie does what he does would require a discussion thread. He does, or has, rather, made some valid points, which are taken on board. They don't however, make any difference to what the atheist/irreligionist campaign is trying to do. Keeping on banging away at this futile assertion is merely a tiresome waste of everyone's time. And we no longer care what he thinks he is getting out of it.
It isn't 'trying to get rid of religion' so much as to stop it unduly influencing society. I don't think we need to restructure our instincts so much as to recognise them and stop then leading us around by the collective nose. It's like Captain Kirk said - "we are a violent species and we will kill - but not today; not right now."
We are mentally hardwired to use gap for gods arguments or explanations. We know enough now to understand that this is not helpful. And the more we understand why we have a religious nstinct, the more we can stop it misleading us.
It appears that some on this board are still ignorant (possibly willfully) of "How The World Works".
See, the way it REALLY is, and HOW IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN...is that people want things to be the way THEY prefer them to be.
This is true no matter what issue or matter is at hand.
Since 4 out of 5 people in this world embrace some theological concept...that is what will influentially dominate.
Atheism...that has much less acceptance, and even less "mojo" (except to get its adherents to be viewed as The Most Hated and Least Trusted...it is really good at that) will continue to get trounced and crushed in The Arena of World Merit and Influence.
Right or Wrong, Good or Bad...that is just how it is.
That is how you get major government backing of The Ark Encounter, and myriad other things like that.
And there is nothing anyone is going to do to change that any time soon. MOF...the world is becoming MORE religious.
So, those that get all bolloxed-up by that, better learn to cope...or they will live their life in constant angst, while anything they do to try to stop it will be not unlike spitting into a strong wind.
So...four out of five people in the world actually have 4200 differing opinions on "how The World Works." Atheists represent the remaining fifth, roughly 1.4 billion people, who are all of ONE OPINION on "how The World Works."
There is no God. Only various competing ancient superstitions.
It's just tedious cobblers 'Humanity is superstitious. You atheists are never going to change that'. (prances around emitting raspberries from both orifices). It's not even slightly entertaining,now. I'm sure he knows that and is just getting some infantile pleasure out of pissing everyone off.
....
Look, fellas and fellaesses, you saw how wossname ...Sofiasmommy...bowled up coming up with some ill-informed apologetics and we were all happy to explain at length, for others and well as her. And even Littlelewits got an explanation of the Big bang and 'survival of the fittest' in hopes that he might put the brain that he surely has into gear, or is another exhibition to the general pubic of how the debate is won, and it's just going over old ground.
But it's a pain having to deal with time -wasters.
It's just tedious cobblers 'Humanity is superstitious. You atheists are never going to change that'. (prances around emitting raspberries from both orifices). It's not even slightly entertaining,now. I'm sure he knows that and is just getting some infantile pleasure out of pissing everyone off.
....
Look, fellas and fellaesses, you saw how wossname ...Sofiasmommy...bowled up coming up with some ill-informed apologetics and we were all happy to explain at length, for others and well as her. And even Littlelewits got an explanation of the Big bang and 'survival of the fittest' in hopes that he might put the brain that he surely has into gear, or is another exhibition to the general pubic of how the debate is won, and it's just going over old ground.
But it's a pain having to deal with time -wasters.
It's true that spreading an unpopular message is tedious. But going over old ground with new people does serve a purpose. When I first realized that I was an atheist in 1961 I had never met another openly avowed atheist. Maintaining an unpopular message against all odds was never going to make me a celebrity. Although atheism today hasn't yet reached the status of majority opinion, it HAS become noticeably much more commonplace. Which says a lot, since atheism does not come with a basketful of rosy promises (or threats of everlasting torment for not believing) the way religion does. Atheism only has its apparent relationship to reason and logic to sustain it. And that requires a consistently coherent explanation. Keep spreading the word.
It's true that spreading an unpopular message is tedious. But going over old ground with new people does serve a purpose. When I first realized that I was an atheist in 1961 I had never met another openly avowed atheist. Maintaining an unpopular message against all odds was never going to make me a celebrity. Although atheism today hasn't yet reached the status of majority opinion, it HAS become noticeably much more commonplace. Which says a lot, since atheism does not come with a basketful of rosy promises (or threats of everlasting torment for not believing) the way religion does. Atheism only has its apparent relationship to reason and logic to sustain it. And that requires a consistently coherent explanation. Keep spreading the word.
I agree that, but I see some arguments as worthwhile and others not. I'll keep spreading it
To clear up my botched reply, this was the second time that you posted about increased rates of suicides in New Zealand despiite it being a non religious country. It is not that there are going to be more suicides but rather that more of the deaths will be declared as suicides due to a change in their reporting system. That's right the only change is on paper on how forms are filled out.
I think you are smart enough to understand this so I am assuming you took this information from a religious site and repeated it without verifying the text yourself. Reading the text it is clear th
Yes. I remember the first time that Statistic was used as evidence that atheism is bad, dangerous and must be eliminated. I noticed that there was a curious spike in the stats and I couldn't find out why. It made no sense that over a year or so, everyone in N Zealand went suicidal and then stopped. So the conclusion was more that some change of criterion was involved.
No, I'm not falling into the Theiopologists trap - cherry -picking data (and never mind if it's wrong (1) that seems to support their argument, or waving it away if it doesn't. . I'm just saying that stats, while useful and informative are - like anything else - open to question.
No more so than the way stats and data and feedback and video reporting is used to make the Ark look like a success by filming a huddle of fifty people in the middle of an empty car -park to make the place look crowded, or videoing rows and rows of ticket office queue -lines - with a couple of people in them.
As well as of course arguing that the locality must be benefitting from Hamm's Ark...stands to reason, and never mind the council spokesmen saying it hasn't done the town any good.
And while we are about it, Goldie's China. massive increase in Chinese Christianity. What would one expect after is was effectively banned? I the N Korean army deposed the Kim clan and made the place a democracy with freedom of religion, wouldn't N. Korean Christianity skyrocket in the stats. But to claim this disproving the rise of the Nones in the US is absurd...And Goldie know it and is just enjoying needling atheism, if not by what he's saying, but in wasting our time having to point out the fallacy to people who might mot be forewarned.
(1) see the first atheist evangelical package - A priori godfaith explained (incorporating Lying for Jesus or "Hey, what do some untruths matter if some souls are saved?") dubious evidence, misinterpreted or misrepresented evidence (see 'Quotemining') and false evidence (knowingly or uncaringly) is all ok, just so they win. And up there with Eusebius' freeze -dried Eucalyptus leaves (2)and G Bush's 'No atheists are not citizens', and indeed Bliar's 'You are either against Saddam or you are supporting him', is Mystic's 'Bad evidence is still evidence' tn the theistic gallery of infamy.
(2) though that is of course a floating turd from the outlet of Genesis -literalist creationism, and one is spoilt for choice...ocean sized reservoirs under china, a massive ice shell around the earth at the time of Eden, all created 'kinds' running uphill to escape the Flood -waters, and the fastest getting buried last, thus explaining stratification, and probably best - Volcanoes pop -gunning Koalas to Australia.
And I can't resist reminding the punters of the excellent mustwatch videos.
To clear up my botched reply, this was the second time that you posted about increased rates of suicides in New Zealand despiite it being a non religious country. It is not that there are going to be more suicides but rather that more of the deaths will be declared as suicides due to a change in their reporting system. That's right the only change is on paper on how forms are filled out.
I think you are smart enough to understand this so I am assuming you took this information from a religious site and repeated it without verifying the text yourself. Reading the text it is clear th
That's not what the news sites are reporting. They are clearing stating that the rates keep increasing drastically year by year. Nothing about reporting methods here from a non-religious website
Quote:
It was the fourth year in a row that number has increased. It was also the highest number of suspected suicide deaths since the coroner's annual provisional suicide statistics were first recorded in 2007-08.
I never have beaten my wife. I see you do not understand the difference between a loaded question and a factual one.
Right. To ask that question seriously would assume you once had. Likewise, your silly statement asking about hiring bigots is a lame question that assumes that they do that. It is as reasonable as assuming you beat your wife.
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