chat

there's a huge leap from these vapid deistic arguments that christian apologists make all the time and the god they claim we should believe in. i genuinely have more respect for the "molecular biology is in the koran" dorks

Studying the history of religion turned me into an atheist (or at least agnostic), and I honestly have trouble understanding why it doesn't do that to everyone. Organized religions change their doctrine according to the spiritual needs of the society they preach to, not according to what some ancient all powerful being dictated at some point, and it's completely obvious that that happens even if you just observe the way religious figures change behavior in real time and use your memory to spot the changes.

Like, why would God change their opinion on homosexuality? If they're omniscient then they should have been right all along, which either means that certain church leaders are softening on the issue as a cynical ploy to get more followers, or they don't actually have a clue what God believes and are just making it up on the spot - either way, whether or not a God exists is irrelevant, because the inescapable conclusion is that organized religions don't speak for them and are just making shit up.

I honestly have more respect for people who use their faith as their evidence for the existence of God because at least they respect themselves and others enough to not pretend to understand hard science to prove you wrong.

I like the one that goes, "if conditions had been just a bit different, we wouldn't exist".

Yeah cool well if we didn't exist we couldn't observe these conditions required for our existence dummies. And have you considered all possible configurations of sentient life under the other conditions? Maybe some really weird plasma aliens would exist and have the same thoughts

Imo if there is a 'God', they are a sadistic monster. Millions of deaths, starvation, diseases etc.

That's the most annoying aspect of organized religion. They need to be ordered around by some ultimate authority telling them what to do. I follow an indigenous belief system and the differences between a spiritual belief system vs organized religion are night and day. Unfortunately, I've seen too many Western leftists act like the two are one and the same. Often mocking indigenous beliefs as "nature worship" or "ancestor worship."

The types who go out of their way to dismiss these beliefs from a group of people who don't actively seek converts remind me of Neoliberals dismissing Communism because their Econ books and professors have shown them why it's inherently flawed and wrong.

The real proof that God exists is that sometimes things make penises hard when they shouldn't and the only reason that could happen is if it was a test from God because WHY ELSE WOULD PEEPEE GET HARD AHHHH

I suppose that's pretty uncharitable to some people, but also I fucking hate how often these assholes use religion to protect and rationalize child abuse

Anselm of Canterbury's proof of God, the foundation of most philosophical apologia, is that God is the greatest, and if you could imagine something was just as cool as him but actually existed he wouldn't be the coolest, so he must exist in order to be the coolest.

this is so used soooo frequently in discussions about biology. the argument literally just boils down to "i think the biological mechanisms of life are too complex and so obviously some insanely intelligent thing made it". for some reason, it's easier for some to believe that a hyper intelligent god made biological mechanisms than that they occurred simply by chance and millions of years of trial and error that refined them. besides, they aren't even that efficient sometimes. mRNA synthesis begins with abortive initiation, where the RNA polymerase will try several times to begin synthesizing the chain but it will just fall off after a few nucleotides and the process has to start again, until it just, by chance, happens to make it past the first few. does that sound like the doing of a hyper intelligent entity? it doesn't, it sounds like something that has been hastily put together by nature and whatever works works. when you look at the whole thing, it can definitely look insanely complex, but when you start looking at the details it becomes obvious that its just nature trying to find something that works and then sticking with it with a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude.

Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion [...] Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. [...] It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

pi has infinite digits but universe is finite, so uh.... god.

Religion does not exist because of evidence/proof for it, or evidence against it, or a lack of evidence either way. Anyone arguing for this is lost. The reason religions or spiritual beliefs exist is simple, and it has nothing to do with proving if God exists or not:

Nevertheless, another reading can be made of Marx. The often cited phrase--"religion is the opium of the people"--is truncated. What follows this remark lets it be understood that human beings need opium, because they are metaphysical animals who cannot avoid asking themselves questions about the meaning of life. They give what answers they can, either adopting those offered by religion or inventing new ones, or else they avoid worrying about them.

As for why the major monotheistic religions, mainly the Abrahamic ones, operate in the way they do, Marx helps explain it. Man created religion, religion did not create man. So what religion states is above in heaven is used to legitimise the current order of what is taking place on earth. Thus from there, critique of religion becomes critique of law, politics, social organisation and society itself, as Marx states. I will give an example below if how religion has been used to legitimise patriarchy, and how critique of that eventually becomes critique of religious fundamentalism.

Is monotheism really a wonderful advance in the history of thought, a qualitative progress? There are plenty of cunning minds (but when you say cunning, you could as well say ill-intentioned or malign, inspired by the Devil) who draw a parallel between this unique God (who is represented in the popular imagination, if not in the purified vision of the learned, as an old man with a white beard, a symbol of wisdom and authority) and the patriarch of the patriarchal system, the autocrat of the power systems. In this imagery, which adequately reflects what is actually experienced, it is obvious that the wise old male is closer to God than a woman or a youth. This is a projection into heaven that legitimizes the patriarchal order and autocracy which prevails on earth. In addition, the elimination of female deities, always important in non-monotheist religions, only accentuates patriarchal domination. Those cunning minds will add that this only and all powerful God deprives them, poor bastfards, of all power.

• All quotes are from Eurocentrism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy. A Critique of Eurocentrism and Culturalism by Samir Amin.

“there is an infinite range of numbers between two numbers, and if we turn those numbers into letters, then every book possible has already been written. Checkmate atheoids”.

I realized that about 20+ years ago and it was probably a a huge step towards me becoming a communist. They basically described The Commons and that Intellectual Property is theft.

If you need empirical evidence you lack faith. Faith is all I need.

God is just a joke that a small group created a website about in 1994 and people took it too seriously

Lmao I got recommended that too.

Made me mad watching it. What point was bro trying to make 💀

: "Something caused another thing.....it must be the nazi magic! Now we need to slaughter everyone who isn't a white man or else you'll make the nazi wizard in the sky sad!"

literal weak-minded sheep.

It is self evident that no gods exist. Theists lie to themselves and everyone else.

You cannot argue someone out of faith, they didn't argue themselves into it. It's an axiom, it's immuteable fact to these people. Sure the axiom is, by our understanding, very fucking bad, but you're not gonna change that by reasoning from your axiom. They don't agree.

Have a good friend, pretty fucking brilliant guy who is essentially a mathematical genius. It always intrigued me though because he’s super religious and always tells me the justification for his faith is a feeling he can’t describe that he doesn’t get from anywhere else but church

Personally, I get that at concerts

But as I get older, I see why Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. Just imagine if the hours spent on Sunday (in what is essentially an industry in and of itself) were spent towards bettering things in one’s local community.

You’d get your socialization that people crave, except you would be making a tangible difference on the world and not planning for an afterlife

Talos the mighty! Talos the unerring! Talos the unassailable! To you we give praise! We are but maggots, writhing in the filth of our own corruption! While you have ascended from the dung of mortality, and now walk among the stars! But you were once man! Aye! And as man, you said, “Let me show you the power of Talos Stormcrown, born of the North, where my breath is long winter. I breathe now, in royalty,and reshape this land which is mine. I do this for you, Red Legions, for I love you.”

Aye, love. Love! Even as man, great Talos cherished us. For he saw in us, in each of us, the future of Skyrim! The future of Tamriel! And there it is, friends! The ugly truth! We are the children of man! Talos is the true god of man! Ascended from flesh, to rule the realm of spirit! The very idea is inconceivable to our Elven overlords! Sharing the heavens with us? With man? Ha! They can barely tolerate our presence on earth! Today, they take away your faith. But what of tomorrow? What then? Do the elves take your homes? Your businesses? Your children? Your very lives?

And what does the Empire do? Nothing! Nay, worse than nothing! The Imperial machine enforces the will of the Thalmor! Against its own people! So rise up! Rise up, children of the Empire! Rise up, Stormcloaks! Embrace the word of mighty Talos, he who is both man and Divine! For we are the children of man! And we shall inherit both the heavens and the earth! And we, not the Elves or their toadies, will rule Skyrim! Forever! Terrible and powerful Talos! We, your unworthy servants, give praise! For only through your grace and benevolence may we truly reach enlightenment! And deserve our praise you do, for we are one! Ere you ascended and the Eight became Nine, you walked among us, great Talos, not as god, but as man! Trust in me, Whiterun! Trust in the words of Heimskr! For I am the chosen of Talos!

I alone have been anointed by the Ninth to spread his holy word!

Hegel argues that god exists because everything has a cause. The natural question then is, what created god?

God is real i eated him. Yim yam

Exploring the “why” behind religion is super fun and this post proves it

Reddit atheism is just as much of an ideology as anything else

Christians using maths to argue for the existence of God :solidarity: Atheists using the exact same argument to reconstruct tenants of Christianity, only this time God is a computer programme.

As a teenager, I had a conversation while stargazing with one of the oldtimers at the local astronomy club. We talked about science and the limits of human knowledge, and I learned that he was Catholic. I was still newly atheist at the time so I wasn't ready to discuss it publicly, but I listened with interest to his scientific arguments for the existence of God.

One of the memorable arguments was that the second law of thermodynamics proves that life is a divine creation, since entropy tends to increase, while a complex organism is an extremely low entropic state.

I didn't know what to say at the time, sounded credible because I was 14 or whatever and this was an adult with real science credentials. Of course during college I had a moment where I realized how absurd that argument is.

Most of the "proofs", even taken at face value, don't get them anywhere they want to go. No matter if it's Pascal's Wager, or Kalam Cosmological Argument, or something that tortures the Second Law of Thermodynamics. They get you to some kind of god, but the Abrahamic God is supposed to be all knowing, all powerful, and caring. It's very difficult to get all three while being consistent with the world we see around us.

"Communism begins where atheism begins" - Karl Marx

I think you're right in that an important question to first ask is what we consider to be God? Or, what comes to mind with the word 'God'?

If it means some grander, universal unity, then maybe there is proof to be found in something like mathematics. I couldn't say. But if it's something closer to the concept described as a 'Living God' in the traditions coming from the Abrahamic religions then I think we have left the realm of any possibility for proof. If it's any consolation, I am a very religious and philosophically oriented person and I think proofs of God are not just ridiculous but very near blasphemous. There is no objective proof for God and we all need to be able to accept that, just as well as we need to accept the objective proof of the more certain existence of other things, such as the theory of evolution and so on.

These proofs are usually of interest only to fundamentalists and literalists, who are the extremists of the religious world. Although there are plenty of good, and even Leftist, people who are religious so I think just assuming every religious person is a Right-wing ignorant lunatic or wholesale rejection of all religion or religious traditions as worthless lies to be erased from history (not saying you're saying any of this) is not the right path to take. I also think there are really good and intelligent people who are atheists or agnostics, there is no need to be religious to be an ethical person. Many atheists I have met were more ethical than religious people I have met because the responsibility lies wholly within their conscience without excuse or consolation. I usually even prefer atheists to religious people because they are usually not as weird. Then again, I was raised very religious and then became militantly atheist and now am again very religious. It was a very dialectical journey, which is not yet finished I hope, but I see potential value and disvalue in both: belief and disbelief. I think it really depends more on what is truly in the person's heart because that will color and project itself onto the "belief" and in that way they will reveal themselves to themselves and the world, for better or worse.

Religious belief is only one component of the existential responsibility which all people have, where they must choose how they will believe and how they will live their lives.