The Atheist's Heap Of Science And Superior Reason

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Comments

  • hor·ri·ble  


    Adjective
    1. Causing or likely to cause horror; shocking.
    2. Very unpleasant.

    Very different. 
  • I'll concede on this terminology war, lest the actual point of which becomes buried like so many other discussions.

    Not being able to admit that you're wrong is a root that causes such prideful and smug behavior from both theists and atheists in the first place.

    a den of rats is no more appealing no matter what type of linen is used to line that den.
  • Acererak said:

    Mojave Music, can I quote you on that some time? 



    You could unless I deleted it, yeah.

    Unless this was supposed to be some kind of quip.

    I'll concede on this terminology war, lest the actual point of which becomes buried like so many other discussions. 

    Given how often you talk about the language used in comments rather than the comments themselves, this is a bit of an odd statement coming from you.
  • edited 2013-04-25 05:17:37
    Well actually, I initially thought you weren't being serious. 

    But I can see your point. I don't deny that smug Christians exist, and that they use their God to do horrible, hateful things. I think that a racist Jack Chick-ish Christian is just as bad as an asshole r/atheism poster, too.

    Unless this was supposed to be some kind of quip.
    No, it wasn't. I like it: it sums up everything wrong with the asshat atheist lifestyle.

  • I can never tell anymore. Sorry.

    side note, a lot of threads on r/atheist are (or used to be anyway, I have not had the masochism to visit that place willingly for a very long time) pictures of scientists with inspirational "sciencey" quotes overtop them. 

    Once, someone did this with a Hitler quote and a picture of Neil deGrasse Tyson and it got several thousand upvotes.

    If that doesn't display the bent hivemind that exists in that place, I don't know what does.

  • It's not whether or not you're serious, it's how serious or not you can get other people to take you.

    Which is to say, make it so you can always play it off like you were joking I guess /smug.

    Given how often you talk about the language used in comments rather
    than the comments themselves, this is a bit of an odd statement coming
    from you.


    Gotta keep them guessing, y'know.
  • Once, someone did this with a Hitler quote and a picture of Neil deGrasse Tyson and it got several thousand upvotes.
    Oh my God, someone invoked Godwin's Law and it fucking worked there.

    By the way, is r/christianity just as bad?
  • Gotta keep them guessing, y'know.

    Guessing about what? Being deliberately self-contradictory is just annoying.

    By the way, is r/christianity just as bad?

    I don't think so, but there are actually a couple christian subreddits all with slightly different focuses.

    I don't really visit them, I'm nondenominationalist at best and frankly I just don't care for most other Christians.

  • You're a Christian? I thought you were a fellow atheist who hated how r/atheism made your beliefs look. 
  • my relationship with spirituality in general is a rocky and windy one.

    In all honesty it's probably best to say that I'm agnostic in some sense, since I don't think it's really possible to be sure one way or the other whether or not there is a god or gods.

    Beyond that, I try to come to my own conclusions. I've been (at various points) a hardcore Catholic, an atheist, an autohierophant, a student of my grandmother (who is a Wiccan priest), and whatever you'd call me now.

    edit: I also briefly entertained becoming a Taoist, but after reading up on the faith, I decided I didn't really care for it and had been mistaken about most of what it stood for.

  • I used to be Catholic too, so I can relate with you to some extent.

  • I was a pretty hateful little spout in middle school, I went to a Catholic one. You know that one kid in the class who's really into theology to the extent of shunning everyone else because he thinks they're not good enough at being Christian? That was me until about 7th grade, where I started to become a rebellious little shit and decided I was a capital-A Atheist. Which really just made me hateful in a different way entirely. Then that summer my grandma offered to give me some introductories on Wiccan stuff. I don't remember most of what I learned now, but it was a nice bonding experience if nothing else. 

    I was confirmed in 8th Grade thinking of myself as some sort of Wiccan who was sure of nothing except that the christian god absolutely did not exist. My confirmation name was Philippe, for no particular reason. In retrospect, the saint I took the name after (one Blessed Philippe deNari, I believe a saint of healers) was ironic at the time, but I like to think it's representative of the path I've tried to take in the years since. I still hate (I think everyone does), but nowadays I try to direct it more towards institutions that make people think the way they do rather than the people themselves.

    I don't know, maybe that's also immature.

  • Being deliberately self-contradictory is just annoying.

    Actually, I just conceded the point because arguing semantics instead of points is something I'm very well aware that I do, so instead of continuing to derail the topic that somewhat interests me, I would concede.

  • Being deliberately self-contradictory is just annoying.

    Actually, I just conceded the point because arguing semantics instead of points is something I'm very well aware that I do, so instead of continuing to derail the topic that somewhat interests me, I would concede.

    That makes sense.
  • I think that a racist Jack Chick-ish Christian is just as bad as an asshole r/atheism poster, too.

    i'd say that a terrible christian is worse than a horrible atheist, because horrible christians have more cultural momentum.


    i mean, the worst that a horrible atheist can do with their atheism is go all "I DO NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR FALSE JESUUUUUS", which can be emotionally hurtful in some circumstances, but is for the most part just annoying.


    ...i was going to google-fu a story of an awful christian kicking their gay kid out of the house, but it autocompleted to "kid kicked out of house for being a brony" and i am 5000% done with the world.
  • Confirmed googling statement.
  • Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
    Let's be completely fair here. Google autocomplete is mostly based on what you've already searched for and your browser history. Since you've seen a lot of crazy brony drama, that's going to bias autocomplete towards brony drama.
  • Confirmed Google being an arsehole statement.

    Used a proxy server internet words.

    image
  • see, that's.... well it's not better. but yeah.


    also i have done my best to keep my life awful brony drama free
  • Considering I hadn't googled anything pony related since season 1, this is probably less "Brony Drama" and more "Google is evil and sells your soul"
  • Speaking of which, you did raise something of a discussion point (oh my) in that group influence when it comes to radical ideals.
  • You know, something I've realized. we've had arms races before (As in the drive to create better weapons) but I don't see too many races where people use their arms.

    Swimming.
  • Acererak said:

    ^ Duly noted.



    Honestly, I feel like some of those kinds of atheists should sit through my Christian Worldview class, because my professor says some stuff that offers a different perspective on Christianity.

    Such as? I'm interested. 

    All the same, I don't think it's that easy to get rid of skewed perceptions.
    Basically, it's all Christian apologetics, but here's what stands out, among my professor's claims:

    1. Modern society actually hates sex, despite all of the pornography we make and consume. He claims that if we actually loved it, we'd understand that it was relational.

    2. Nationalism should never ever be mixed with Christianity.

    3. Consumerism is against the idea that everything is God's.

    It goes against what some Christians in America believe.
  • edited 2013-04-26 12:50:48
    2. Nationalism should never ever be mixed with Christianity.
    yes yes yes yes YES

    I am so fucking sick of people combining 911-fueled vitriol towards Islam and Middle Eastern peoples with Christianity. For a religion focused so much on love and acceptance, they sure seem hateful and intolerant.

    I don't care if he's really old or straight, I want to give your professor a kiss on the lips for saying that.

    1. Modern society actually hates sex, despite all of the pornography we make and consume. He claims that if we actually loved it, we'd understand that it was relational.
    Well...I can't say that I agree with this, but I can understand where it's coming from. Christianity has never been too keen on sex.

    i mean, the worst that a horrible atheist can do with their atheism is go all "I DO NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR FALSE JESUUUUUS"
    Most atheists fail to realize that the science they glorify so much and use to put themselves on a pedestal has conclusively proven that Jesus exists. That's not up for debate: not believing in it is like not believing in Stephen King. The question is whether or not Jesus is divine, and their lack of understanding of that belies how little they truly understand science.

    And I disagree. I think an atheist mocking genuinely benevolent Christians is just as bad as a Christian making fun of [insert common political target here] for vindictive reasons.

  • edited 2013-04-26 13:05:16

    And I disagree. I think an atheist mocking genuinely benevolent Christians is just as bad as a Christian making fun of [insert common political target here] for vindictive reasons.


    that wan't what i was talking about
  • Well...your post wasn't clear enough for me to draw anything exacting. 
  • I don't see how my post wasn't perfectly clear?
  • I think Naney was more talking about political movements when it came to religious folks vs. abrasive atheists.

    such as propositions to ban gay marriage citing religious texts as influence.

    Or at least, that's what I took from it, I may be completely wrong.
  • Did you mean that Christian bigotry was worse than atheist bigotry because Christian bigots were around longer?

    Or maybe I'm reading too much into things, I dunno.
  • edited 2013-04-26 13:34:09

    what i meant is that Jack Chick-ish christians perpetuate ideas that are directly harmful to people in an immediate, tangible way.


    Whereas nobody takes some r/atheism twit in a fedora up on his ideas of taking kids away from religious parents, for example.
  • what i meant is that Jack Chick-ish christians perpetuate ideas that are directly, immediately harmful to people in an immediate, tangible way.



    Don't forget the non-immediate ways that tend to permeate in the hidden corners of our minds.
  • Well, asstheist subculture is new relative to "You're going to Hell!" subculture. I guess it's only fair to expect that.
  • edited 2013-04-26 13:37:06

    ^ ^ also that
  • "It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
    Acererak said:


    2. Nationalism should never ever be mixed with Christianity.
    yes yes yes yes YES


    I am so fucking sick of people combining 911-fueled vitriol towards Islam and Middle Eastern peoples with Christianity. For a religion focused so much on love and acceptance, they sure seem hateful and intolerant.

    Where on Earth did you get the idea that Christianity is focused on accptance?

    Jesus didn't associate with prostitutes and tax collectors because he liked promiscuity and tax farming. He didn't heal the centurion's slave because he liked militarism and slavery.

    Christianity is about loving bad people in the hope that it will make them lovable. It's the lesson of Beauty and the Beast.

  • edited 2013-04-26 14:23:58
    ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    You know what's really irritating?

    Phosgene.  That stuff is dang irritating. COCl2 is just so irritating.

    Also, Christ associated with Prostitutes and Tax Collectors because they were people.  They were people with problems, with flaws, and they were the ones that needed him the most. 

    Christianity is about accepting what's unchangeable and helping improve what is changeable.  It's about loving your fellow man. 

    All of Christianity can be summed up in this rhyme:

    Jesus said love everyone; treat them kindly too; when your heart is filled with love; others will love you.

    The rest is just annotation.
  • Well...I can't say that I agree with this, but I can understand where it's coming from. Christianity has never been too keen on sex.


    Christianity's actually pretty okay with the sex thing, as long as it's not out of wedlock.

    There's an entire book of the Bible that's basically a love poem by Solomon, after all.
  • edited 2013-05-25 11:10:03
    Relevant:




  • Man, I don't know what to think of Richard Dawkins

    Like, he's really smart

    But he's really smug too.
  • Richard Dawkins is a huuuuuuuuge 8itch
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    8luh 8luh huge 8itch
  • What would his chumhandle be?
  • enlightenedEgotist
  • Nah, you probably want something about Darwin in there too.
  • enlightenedDarwinist?
  • or maybe euphoricDarwinist?
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    image
  • Your name is RICHARD DAWKINS. As was previously mentioned, you REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hate RELIGION. Your chumhandle is enlightenedDarwinist and you type very eloquently, except WHEN TALKING TO IGNORANT CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS.
  • READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    ^^ The second one made me giggle.
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