I figured they had a motive.
All the more reason to not draw attention to yourself by raining on parades.
Of course, if they first rained on my parade of gambling, drinking and hookers, then I’ll rain it back on them. But, certainly not unprovoked.
Maybe later you can go find somebody ranting about how they had something stolen from them by a Black person, and you can theorize that it’s because all Black people are lazy thieves.
Exactly. Just like there’s no proof either way about the dragon in my garage.
Pfft. You don’t have a garage.
This. Let’s not let this turn into another 20 page “God exists/No he doesn’t” trainwreck.
I’ve got a dragon for your garage.
Some people who don’t believe do that. Not all.
I don’t feel the need to convert people to agnosticism, or to talk about it in the real world. However, when someone assumes that I believe as they do, I correct them; and if they insist on making an argument of it, I feel free to smack 'em down.
And yes, I’m talking about a real instance. I’ve had people insist that I must REALLY think that homosexuality is evil and wicked, that I KNOW that’s the case, because I grew up in a certain church that taught that; and that any opinion I espouse to the contrary is not genuine. When that happens I get ornery and mean.
Contrariwise, I have also overheard conversations in which people asserted such things, or that anyone who dies not “saved” is damned to hell. I generally ignore those because I have manners.
Stoid is complaining about someone not having manners.
YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD.
I bet it’s intangible.
Amazing. 1+1 = 19 logic there.
That’s why they sell dragon traps at Home Depot right? Right next to the liquid beep for auto horns.
Well, actually…
The source of a belief in a higher being of any kind is religion. Religion of any sort is a lie, nothing more than a massive con game designed to accumulate wealth and gain power over others. A study of religions over history shows that.
Therefore, it follows logically that whatever higher being the religion in question is pushing does not exist. The being is nothing more than product, packaged and sold to the people who believe the lie. Or inflicted on, in many cases.
I’d argue that faith and organized religion are not interchangeable, which it appears you’re doing here.
Otherwise my little agnostic deist self has been missing a lot of church services somewhere.
True: FAITH is believing in the invisible dragon. RELIGION is attending a group lecture about how great he is.
Exactly.
It may not be a big difference for some of the more militant athiests or theists on the board, but I think it’s a major difference that needs to be pointed out.
You misunderstood me, I think.
First of all, for the record, I am not a believer, per se. I was raised witout religion of any kind (something I am deeply grateful to my parents for - no need to shake off any dogma). I consider myself an atheist in only the narrowest possible sense of the word: I do not believe in any kind of diety, and I never have. I find the very idea ludicrous.
Having said that, I don’t reject all possible realities, I don’t reject that there may be forces operating within and without us that we don’t recognize or understand, that we cannot yet measure. Considering the history of human knowledge, I think it’s pretty silly to assume that pretty much everything knowable is known; people have believed that since the beginning of time!
And since I plan to start a GD thread on this whole subject, I’ll leave it at that for now.
That wasn’t my contention, as should be obvious. I was making two distinct points, and perhaps I did so poorly, but they were:
- It is not possible to truthfully and accurately assert that there is no afterlife. (GD thread to come).
and, as a completely unrelated issue:
- I was inviting Jewish people to educate me about their beliefs. People who understand how to conduct themselves in a decent manner understand that when you invite people over for potluck dinner, you don’t tell them their mac n cheese is the worst you’ve ever tasted and barf on it.
[/QUOTE]
This is fascinating and entirely new to me. I hope you will participate in the upcoming thread and explain this in greater detail, because I’m not really sure I follow, and I very much want to understand. (Because my immediate reaction is to think…hold it. how does this not apply to everything? More on that later, it might be just a semantic thing that is quickly cleared up, but I don’t want to get too deep here.)
I disagree, at least from my point of view as the “host”, so to speak, it might not be official Message Board Reality - but I think CC was wrong, in the sense of being rude (which is what threadshitting is, it’s not just being off topic, it’s being RUDELY off topic, isn’t it? Dropping in to rain on the parade of the thread with some unhelpful contrary remark or opinion that is designed to piss people off?) because of what I’ve said already about inviting people over. It was irrelevant in an intentionally rude way, whereas the Christian posts are part of a larger discussion that’s interesting and respectful to all. CC was purposefully, unnecessarily, and irrelevantly disrespectful. That’s the big difference.
I hope to see the dragon in the GD thread…
I agree. Let’s go to GD and try to hash it out. It’s interesting.
You have every right to get ornery and mean when people tell you that you’re a liar, because that’s exactly what they’re doing, and I feel you 100%. It is insanely rude and obnoxious when people presume to know what one is “really” thinking, what one “really” means, and it is, in fact, the functional equivalent of telling someone that they are lying. And people do it all the fucking time. It is outrageous to me.
The only time it is justified is when the presumer has solid knowledge that the person in question is being untruthful OR extensive experience with the person in question that has demonstrated that the person in question is not honest. But unless one of those two circumstances is at work, the presumer is an asshole and can go fuck themselves.
'zackly
Excellent summary…although I might add that it includes following the rules the dragon has laid down.
I have heard it used differently so often on this board that I am not sure I even remember this correctly anymore. But I always thought I had learned that facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You can have an opinion about a fact, of course. If I say, “There is no afterlife”, that is a false fact. It is incorrect. But it isn’t an opinion. If I say, “Thinking there is an afterlife is dumb” then that is an opinion.
I am repeating myself, though, so maybe I should try finding someone else’s explanation. I googled this and got the following quote from the Wise Geekwebsite.
“The difference between fact and opinion is that a fact is something that is empirically true and can be supported by evidence while an opinion is a belief that may or may not be backed up with some type of evidence. An opinion is normally a subjective statement that can be the result of an emotion or an individual interpretation of a fact. For example, biological differences between males and females are a fact while a preference for one gender over the other is opinion.”
And one of those rules is for everyone in this thread to send me $50.* You can PM me for my address.
*It’s true. Go ask it if you don’t believe me.
Is it? You proposed that all atheists were afraid of religious people because of the actions of one person who claims that there is no afterlife.
Did I say the dragon was male? Sexist pig.
Right, just like you can’t truthfully and accurately assert that there is no dragon in my garage. And the afterlife is just as useful as that dragon.
For fuck’s sake, it’s like you’re not even listening. *You can’t see the dragon. *It’s invisible.
Oh yeah? I’ve seen plenty of these kinds of threads dragon and on and on…
Were I to do so, you’d have a point. To state the fact that there is no afterlife, and further that there cannot be one, on a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance, and further in a forum where rules of politeness are suspended, not so much.
Since no-one’s given the reason why it’s impossible so far, I will. Consciousness is an emergent property of the complex system that is the human brain, and therefore cannot survive without it. So, no spiritual afterlife. A physical afterlife would be theoretically possible, but only if it began before the brain decayed. This observably doesn’t happen. I may head over to the GD thread, but there’s no real debate to be had here.