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Amazing how every single time Christian sheep just downvote any dissenting view, but no one ever has the curiosity to ask "how do you know that" and what eviden

Amazing how every single time Christian sheep just downvote any dissenting view, but no one ever has the curiosity to ask "how do you know that" and what evidence is there to debunk Christianity, yet again confirming this whole "evidence based reasoning" business is completely foreign to them, which is why they are religious in the first place.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
Actually, I'm downvoting both you and Mr Online Evangelist. You know, people who really believe in naturalism and science don't feel the need to wave flags for "ATHEISM(TM)" or yack about "Christian sheep". You know why? Because we know damn well how the world is, so we don't have to BELIEVE(TM) in it. It's just how the world is. And one of the things about how the world really is, is that you can't change people's minds about the universe by calling them "sheep" or "sharing the Light of the Redeemer" or any such methods. None of this engages anyone in the intellectual and emotional calm needed to actually change their views based on reasoned discussion, nor does any of it provide evidence for, well, anything in particular. So please, just head off to /r/DebateReligion or something.
- super_mario 12y ago
  What an incredibly stupid thing to say. Yes, we do know how the natural world works but it is tenet of Abrahamic religions (and Christianity in particular) that naturalism is not true. And I would not really care about it if these people left it at that. But these people get to vote too you know. What person believes influences strongly what they do and what they want. There is no such thing as a private belief. What you believe about the physical world and what you base your beliefs on determines how you behave, what policies you support, if you will deny scientific facts, what you want your kids taught in schools, etc. If that weren't enough some of these people find it irresistible temptation to "share" their delusions to the point they want their brand of belief instituted in laws and constitution of the country, and things like commandments displayed in schools and courtrooms almost like graven images. This is why they must be engaged in debate, discussion and idiocy of their beliefs pointed out. There is no polite way to tell someone that what they hold as most precious and dearest thing is false, and debunked. But it has to be done, esp. now that we live in times when we do know, are free to say so. And the only reason we are having this discussion is precisely because these people feel the need to discuss and share their beliefs, because they can't be happy until you believe it too, and until every knee bows. The stipulation to proselytize is in the holy books.
  - geofft 12y ago
    I would like to kindly request that you look at the guidelines on commenting (linked at the bottom of the page). In particular, complaining about being downmodded and opening with "What an incredibly stupid thing to say" are both explicitly against community norms. The rest of your comments may or may not be true, but they feel off-topic.
crpatino 12y ago
This is a most interesting philosophical question. How do you know that "evidence based reasoning" gives you access to the whole of reality, instead of an (admittedly large and very useful) subset of it? You do not have to answer that question to me, but until you have produced a satisfactory answer, you will be like the drunkard who lost his keys in a dark alley, but keeps looking for them on main street because "there's light there". You basically accuse people of dogmatism but in my experience, the dogmatics are those that get pissed off upon hearing some taboo word mentioned, ignore what other people are actually saying, and instead of respond resort to cheap rhetoric tricks such as name calling and repetition of litanies. Christians are at least (painfully) aware that theirs is one amongst many competing faiths. Scienticists on the other hand just believe that the World is exactly like they think it is, and that everyone that thinks different is plainly wrong. This makes them dangerous because there is always a subset in every group that would burn every "other" man, woman and child at the stake if they thought they could get away with it. The more you affirm the "otherness" in people you dislike, the closer you make this scenario to play out in your reality.
- super_mario 12y ago
  Nice attempt at distraction. But you see I don't need to know the answer to that question (nor do I need to know everything) to know the correct answer isn't bronze ramblings of goat herders who got everything about the natural world wrong and who invented the concept of god to explain the world they misunderstood and feared in the first place. The only question worth asking is if Christianity and religion in general is true. And all evidence points out that it is decidedly not true. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory (which is the highest pedestal a scientific hypothesis can be placed upon, only mathematics has theorems). There is now strong evidence that theistic gods i.e. gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, god who stops the motion of the sun around earth so certain people in the Bible can finish their work, god who takes "our" side in a war, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity are man made invention. Religion comes to us from other human mammals who not only know there is a god, but they also know his mind what he wants us to do. And how do they know? Revelation of course, god told them something often times contradictory what he told others. And the religious never even seek evidence for their extraordinary claims. But revelation is useless and unreliable as a way to discover truth Revelation can only ever be relevant to the person to whom something is revealed. As soon as that person shares and relates the revelation to someone else, it becomes a testimony at that point. And then it becomes a matter of trusting that person for the claim they are making. Also, the person to whom something is revealed should be apprehensive and wonder which is more likely that laws of nature have been bent in their favor no less, or if perhaps they are under apprehension. Revelations are dime a dozen. Numerous people have claimed that something has been revealed to them. Even worse different people have claimed same god has revealed things that are contradictory to the things god has revealed to other people. In Christianity god reveals himself as a human, he dies on the cross, and resurrects. In Islam, Jesus is not only not the son of god, he never died on the cross and never resurrected. Believing otherwise will have you condemned to hell. In Christianity god says love your enemies, in Islam he says kill your enemies and apostates. Yet it's the same god, and both sides claim divine revelation for the "wisdom" they preach. Content of revelation paints a picture of a god who is quite frankly incompetent, stupid and has morals lesser than average decent human being today. And most importantly he leaves it to chance what you will believe about him and if you will be damned to eternity. What religion you get indoctrinated into has very little to do with its truthfulness, but everything to do with where you were born. If you were born in Saudi Arabia for example you would be a Muslim defending Islam right now. Yet both Islam and Christianity and Judaism (the three desert dogmas) all claim to posses the true and perfect words of the creator of the universe. And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made. All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really? Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either). But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can plausibly come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Besides positing an intelligent god capable of creating universes, god that always existed, or that spontaneously came into being is assuming a lot more than assuming the same about the universe itself i.e. dumb matter. Occam's razor cuts him out of existence as superfluous assumption that does not explain anything.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

Actually, I'm downvoting both you and Mr Online Evangelist. You know, people who really believe in naturalism and science don't feel the need to wave flags for "ATHEISM(TM)" or yack about "Christian sheep". You know why? Because we know damn well how the world is, so we don't have to BELIEVE(TM) in it. It's just how the world is. And one of the things about how the world really is, is that you can't change people's minds about the universe by calling them "sheep" or "sharing the Light of the Redeemer" or any such methods. None of this engages anyone in the intellectual and emotional calm needed to actually change their views based on reasoned discussion, nor does any of it provide evidence for, well, anything in particular. So please, just head off to /r/DebateReligion or something.

super_mario 12y ago
What an incredibly stupid thing to say. Yes, we do know how the natural world works but it is tenet of Abrahamic religions (and Christianity in particular) that naturalism is not true. And I would not really care about it if these people left it at that. But these people get to vote too you know. What person believes influences strongly what they do and what they want. There is no such thing as a private belief. What you believe about the physical world and what you base your beliefs on determines how you behave, what policies you support, if you will deny scientific facts, what you want your kids taught in schools, etc. If that weren't enough some of these people find it irresistible temptation to "share" their delusions to the point they want their brand of belief instituted in laws and constitution of the country, and things like commandments displayed in schools and courtrooms almost like graven images. This is why they must be engaged in debate, discussion and idiocy of their beliefs pointed out. There is no polite way to tell someone that what they hold as most precious and dearest thing is false, and debunked. But it has to be done, esp. now that we live in times when we do know, are free to say so. And the only reason we are having this discussion is precisely because these people feel the need to discuss and share their beliefs, because they can't be happy until you believe it too, and until every knee bows. The stipulation to proselytize is in the holy books.
- geofft 12y ago
  I would like to kindly request that you look at the guidelines on commenting (linked at the bottom of the page). In particular, complaining about being downmodded and opening with "What an incredibly stupid thing to say" are both explicitly against community norms. The rest of your comments may or may not be true, but they feel off-topic.

crpatino 12y ago

This is a most interesting philosophical question. How do you know that "evidence based reasoning" gives you access to the whole of reality, instead of an (admittedly large and very useful) subset of it? You do not have to answer that question to me, but until you have produced a satisfactory answer, you will be like the drunkard who lost his keys in a dark alley, but keeps looking for them on main street because "there's light there". You basically accuse people of dogmatism but in my experience, the dogmatics are those that get pissed off upon hearing some taboo word mentioned, ignore what other people are actually saying, and instead of respond resort to cheap rhetoric tricks such as name calling and repetition of litanies. Christians are at least (painfully) aware that theirs is one amongst many competing faiths. Scienticists on the other hand just believe that the World is exactly like they think it is, and that everyone that thinks different is plainly wrong. This makes them dangerous because there is always a subset in every group that would burn every "other" man, woman and child at the stake if they thought they could get away with it. The more you affirm the "otherness" in people you dislike, the closer you make this scenario to play out in your reality.

super_mario 12y ago
Nice attempt at distraction. But you see I don't need to know the answer to that question (nor do I need to know everything) to know the correct answer isn't bronze ramblings of goat herders who got everything about the natural world wrong and who invented the concept of god to explain the world they misunderstood and feared in the first place. The only question worth asking is if Christianity and religion in general is true. And all evidence points out that it is decidedly not true. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory (which is the highest pedestal a scientific hypothesis can be placed upon, only mathematics has theorems). There is now strong evidence that theistic gods i.e. gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, god who stops the motion of the sun around earth so certain people in the Bible can finish their work, god who takes "our" side in a war, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity are man made invention. Religion comes to us from other human mammals who not only know there is a god, but they also know his mind what he wants us to do. And how do they know? Revelation of course, god told them something often times contradictory what he told others. And the religious never even seek evidence for their extraordinary claims. But revelation is useless and unreliable as a way to discover truth Revelation can only ever be relevant to the person to whom something is revealed. As soon as that person shares and relates the revelation to someone else, it becomes a testimony at that point. And then it becomes a matter of trusting that person for the claim they are making. Also, the person to whom something is revealed should be apprehensive and wonder which is more likely that laws of nature have been bent in their favor no less, or if perhaps they are under apprehension. Revelations are dime a dozen. Numerous people have claimed that something has been revealed to them. Even worse different people have claimed same god has revealed things that are contradictory to the things god has revealed to other people. In Christianity god reveals himself as a human, he dies on the cross, and resurrects. In Islam, Jesus is not only not the son of god, he never died on the cross and never resurrected. Believing otherwise will have you condemned to hell. In Christianity god says love your enemies, in Islam he says kill your enemies and apostates. Yet it's the same god, and both sides claim divine revelation for the "wisdom" they preach. Content of revelation paints a picture of a god who is quite frankly incompetent, stupid and has morals lesser than average decent human being today. And most importantly he leaves it to chance what you will believe about him and if you will be damned to eternity. What religion you get indoctrinated into has very little to do with its truthfulness, but everything to do with where you were born. If you were born in Saudi Arabia for example you would be a Muslim defending Islam right now. Yet both Islam and Christianity and Judaism (the three desert dogmas) all claim to posses the true and perfect words of the creator of the universe. And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made. All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really? Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either). But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can plausibly come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Besides positing an intelligent god capable of creating universes, god that always existed, or that spontaneously came into being is assuming a lot more than assuming the same about the universe itself i.e. dumb matter. Occam's razor cuts him out of existence as superfluous assumption that does not explain anything.