Come one, come all to the Great Debate! It’s pretty ginormous, but I think it’s interesting! I hope it generates a lively and informative exchange!
“Religion of any sort is a lie” is true only if there is no God; hence, advancing this as *proof *that there is no God is an elementary fallacy. 2/10, see me after class.
You’re appear to be the atheists equivalent of Fred Phelps.
just saying.
Why don’t you just call her Hitler while you’re at it?
That does not follow. Your logic is flawed. What it the aftrerlife is only attained once a certain complexity is reached? It’s called “nirvana”.
The point is that there can be no consciousness without the brain, so no afterlife. It would be like saying traffic patterns remain if all the roads were destroyed.
I’m curious how you could demonstrate this equivalence.
Picket a funeral with signs that say “God hates God.”
I remember a similiar thread a while back. Someone asked about the concept of holy water in the Catholic church, or whatever. And of course, you had some dipshit come in and say, “Holy water doesn’t exist.” :rolleyes:
Especially when there IS such a thing – just whether or not you believe it’s actually well, “blessed” in the sense that it’s actually holy. Holy water is simply water a priest has prayed over. It’s called holy water – you don’t have to believe it has any power or whatever. Which made the person even more of a shit, if you ask me.
Seriously, you can’t even discuss some religious history or culture around here anymore without assholes barging in. It’s sad – we used to be able to do so.
The place really has changed over the years, just like the internet itself. Us old-timers know how it was. I still think the Dope is more balanced and sane than any other message board out there, with more room to breathe, in terms of the huge variety of topics and people to talk about them…but I feel the losses in the changes more all the time.
One of the things I’ve really noticed and it really undermines the “oomph”, is that we really have flattened out the political & social bell curve. We used to have a really good, healthy mix of people who fell all across the spectrum. And I think the discussions were a lot more compelling as a consequence. The more alike people are, the less likely anyone is willing to step into the breach. And it’s a loss.
Is IS sad. 
I have been posting to the SDMB since 1997, and even then people were complaining about how much better it was in “the old days”.
BACK THEN, we had an incredibly stupid thread about ageism that went on for literally over a hundred thousand posts! We had Cyberian56 going on about Khazars and Hillary Clinton’s ass! Oh gosh, everything was so much better back then.
Heh. It’s not a “good old days” thing, it just seems that in the last say, two years, you can’t really discuss any religious topic without people coming in and making comments about “Magical Sky Fairies”.
You can’t talk about religious traditions and how certain ones came about without someone making snide remarks about how stupid and deluded people are. It’s not so much about persecution, it’s just fucking annoying.
I don’t think there’s a “good old days” thing. I think this is more recent.
(Because we’ve ALWAYS had stupid crap. And no, I don’t think the SDMB is any different from other message boards. I’m simply pointing out this one area)
Literally?
Yeah. This was on the AOL message board and the way it was set up, every time you went to the MB, it would show all the posts since your last visit. For a period of about three or four weeks, every single time I logged on (which was often multiple times a day), this thread would have had added another 100+ posts. It was INSANE.
In the middle of it, two prolific posters hijacked the thread for a long and detailed debate about basketball. Which didn’t help.
… and giving money to the organizers.
Great summary, VT.
You missed my point, which wasn’t that the board used to be free of stupidity or excess - if anything my point was the reverse. It’s much blander than it used to be.
Probably because nutbars are banned too quickly. We used to get some really good ones.
Complete agreement with that.
Well, other than the atheism bit. For starters I’d quite like to get a religion going based around me. In the absence of that though, there’s something about simulation theory that appeals to me massively. It’d explain an awful lot if the universe actually had been created by technologically advanced geeks for a laugh.
Sod simulation theory. I’ve been playing for 40-odd years and still not leveled up.
I know it’s hard, but you should probably just admit you’re a bigot and grow as a person.