Atheists and their jargon of insults

[ChristineM]

I spoke briefly with one of the pioneers. He was working at the time but I believe I had his full attention.

But I neglected to ask him Tim Berners Lee just invented computers or if he also invented electricity. Getting power to move through conduits is remarkable enough but then training it to activate a printer mustta been some kind of magic. Imagine leaving a trace of where you've been on a piece of paper or a punchcard!!! Now the real trick would be to recreate the program, computer, and power from the output alone.

No, TimBL didn't invent the computer or electricity. He did invent the WWW (as i stated), i.e. the protocol you use to make posts dissing the very thing you are using.

It's the protocol that activates the printer, the protocol was designed to do that so no magic required.

What the fish are you talking about? Reverse engineering... Bern there, done thst, it's no trick, it just requires knowing of what you are dealing with

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I understand why any X may not be justified, I'm asking about theism specifically

Theism is an extremely broad subject with LOADS of different religions, arguments, claimed "evidence" etc.
As @ratiocinator correctly put it: it's not practical to list all of it in a forum posts as the volume is so vast you could write entire books about it.

Let's turn it around. Let's say YOU bring us what you believe to be the BEST argument and / or BEST piece of evidence, and then I (or we) will tell you how we consider it insufficient.

It's your burden of proof anyway, after all.....

Hey fair enough. So if someone claims the gods are fictional, are myths, that divine experience is delusion, they need to provide evidence.

Sure.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Illuminating thread man, i thought RF was better than places like reddit, but the amount of atheists openly supporting and refusing to condemn the abuse of theists by atheists is astonishing. I'm really grossed out tbh but it's good to know.

Feel free to point out where on this forum theists are being abused by atheists.

 

[MikeF]

Personally, I think the "negative" claim of things existing is entirely useless and a waste of energy.

If people would start reciting all the things they believe to NOT be real, they'ld spend the rest of their lives doing just that and still not be anywhere near finished by the time they die.

Negative claims of existence are thus rather irrelavent and not worthy of being discussed.
For the most part, they are also logically impossible to demonstrate.

Think about it... how much time, really, do you spend pondering the claim "undetectable cookie monsters do NOT exist"?

I treat it like I treat every other claim of existence... Which is to say: non-existence is assumed until existence is demonstrated.

I see no evidence of gods, so I ignore gods. I live my life as if they don't exist.
I also live my life as if there is no undetectable dragon about to eat me. Can I demonstrate there is no such dragon? No.
But why would I live my life in any other way?


Gods are in the same category. There is no rational reason to believe they are real. So I live life as if they aren't real.
For all practical intents and purposes, I assume they are not real.

I will happily change my mind about that the day someone gives me a rational reason to.

I'm also finding the terms 'belief' and 'believe' to be entirely useless and a waste of energy outside of reflecting the psyche and subjective preferences of the individual stating beliefs.

I would much rather hear what someone knows, how they know it, and how confident they are in that knowledge, as well as any conclusions they may draw from that knowledge.

 

[ratiocinator]

Technology can be thought of as a magic trick in three dimensions created by a one dimensional science. We attempt to model science in three dimensions and we all succeed to a greater or lesser extent.

Did this mean something in your mind before you started typing?

"Science" has never given anyone any technology at all.

Utterly false. For example, quantum mechanics (science) gave us the necessary knowledge to design complex semiconductor devices and therefore items like microprocessors. Even specific quantum effects led directly to specific devices: e.g. quantum tunnelling to tunnel diode.

And now I'll be insulted because this is how "theists" are countered when they win arguments.

If you post from a position of ignorance of the subjects and you find being corrected insulting, I'm afraid that isn't my problem. I just care about correcting misinformation (whether it's deliberate or accidental).

 

[Audie]

I love atheists. That's why I try to educate them all the time; they hate me for that.

What a mind. Your hate is someone else's
hate.

 

[cladking]

Sounds like a problem of perception, due to a lack of proper scientific education.

If I had a sense of humor I'm sure I'd delineate the many ways in which this could be taken humorously.

Suffice to say I'm self taught in science and any defect is probably caused by being such a poor student and my defense is that I had a poor teacher. Of course the way I learned it was bit lazy too since I tried to let reality itself teach me and mere perception to acquire it. Nobody should claim either that reality is a poor teacher or that reality is lazy since it always has to factor in the tides induced by each distant star in every single calculation of the wing beats of butterflies in China, Imagine the computational power required to actually operate reality without reductionistic science!

But the reality is every single scientist still has his own unique set of models constructed in unique ways of variable materials. If you missed even one day in elementary school you might have missed some fundamental concept at the very foundation of your models. 97% of physicists can correctly predict if a plane can take off from a conveyor belt but only 50% of aviation engineers can. There's a lot to learn and insights to glean from parsing such data.

The biggest thing I learned from becoming a metaphysician is to embrace my own ignorance. A little humility is good too, since being wrong is the natural state for our species. I might be wrong about anything at all just like real scientists.

Why do those of us who openly list our beliefs gather endless insults from those, whom for the main part, aren't even aware they have beliefs? I think the Bible said it best; something about living in glass houses.

 

[LuisDantas]

If I had a sense of humor I'm sure I'd delineate the many ways in which this could be taken humorously.

Suffice to say I'm self taught in science and any defect is probably caused by being such a poor student and my defense is that I had a poor teacher. Of course the way I learned it was bit lazy too since I tried to let reality itself teach me and mere perception to acquire it. Nobody should claim either that reality is a poor teacher or that reality is lazy since it always has to factor in the tides induced by each distant star in every single calculation of the wing beats of butterflies in China, Imagine the computational power required to actually operate reality without reductionistic science!

But the reality is every single scientist still has his own unique set of models constructed in unique ways of variable materials. If you missed even one day in elementary school you might have missed some fundamental concept at the very foundation of your models. 97% of physicists can correctly predict if a plane can take off from a conveyor belt but only 50% of aviation engineers can. There's a lot to learn and insights to glean from parsing such data.

The biggest thing I learned from becoming a metaphysician is to embrace my own ignorance. A little humility is good too, since being wrong is the natural state for our species. I might be wrong about anything at all just like real scientists.

Why do those of us who openly list our beliefs gather endless insults from those, whom for the main part, aren't even aware they have beliefs? I think the Bible said it best; something about living in glass houses.

So... yes, it is indeed a flaw of science education. A serious one.

That is what you are telling me.

You seem to have convinced yourself that science is some sort of ideology. You seem to be unaware of the roles of falseability and peer review in actual science.

And I would be remiss to fail to point out that humility is sorely missing in the way you express yourself.

 

[cladking]

Did this mean something in your mind before you started typing?

I believe it is the simplest short hand description of how most technology arises.

It is my perception when new ideas come to mind.

For example, quantum mechanics (science) gave us the necessary knowledge to design complex semiconductor devices and therefore items like microprocessors.

NO!!!

There is no "us". Somebody got an idea derived from new understanding.

If you post from a position of ignorance of the subjects and you find being corrected insulting, I'm afraid that isn't my problem.

And herein is the problem. Every homo omniscuiencis who ever lived has had every answer. The Church of Science has produced the holiest of all thous and, obviously, they are each fully justified in insulting the unenlightened.

I just care about correcting misinformation (whether it's deliberate or accidental).

Yet you believe and repeat things like "Science has given us technology". This is only true in a metaphoric sort of way. Literally is is gobbledty gook. Things like religion gave us science has real meaning and are true but reality is never clearly visible except to every observer who mistakes his every belief for the reality we all seek.

 

[Stevicus]

"Magic", they say.
They say "miracles", "supernatural", etc etc etc ... they even say "spaghettis" and in their minds is an insult. So they are.

What is really "miracle" or "magic" or "supernatural" in an atheist mind?
IMHO, they are just things they cann't explain with their current personal knowledge ... and there is soooo much happening in the world right now that most people cann't explain, that I would say miracles are happening all the time and atheists cann't negate it. Insulting is the way their brains deal with it.

One might observe things happening while admitting that one may not know the cause. If we don't know something, then we don't know. Either we can persevere and try to find out through the technological means and resources we have available to us (and even then, it may still take a long time) - or we can just attribute it to "magic" or "miracles" - without really knowing what it is or how it works or even if it's true.

I don't think saying "miracles" or "supernatural" or "spaghetti" is particularly insulting, although religion, like politics, is often a target of criticism, ridicule, mockery, and satire. As long as it stays within certain reasonable boundaries in a free, open, and democratic society, it doesn't need to be a problem. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I've seen some opinions about atheists which can come across as quite nasty, so I guess there's some back-and-forth going on between atheists and theists.

I tend to lean more towards agnosticism, or "soft atheism" as it's sometimes called. If something happens in this world and I don't know what caused it, then I would say "I don't know." I may or may not delve further to try to find out, depending on what it is and whether I have the tools and ability to do so. I could say that "God did it" or that it was "the work of Satan," although that doesn't give much of an explanation as to elements of cause and effect which might help explain why things happen.

That's where the whole inquiry comes to a complete halt, because we're still left with the question why and who - questions which are usually dismissed with witticisms about the Lord "moving in mysterious ways." The bottom line is no one knows why a sentient and powerful deity makes the decisions they do, and what's more, we're not even supposed to know why. And we certainly don't know how it's done either. God said "Let there be light," and there was light. How did He do it? We don't know, it's magic.

Ultimately, to me, that's where the whole question leads: No one knows. It's a dead end, an unresolvable puzzle. Yet, so many believe that "everything happens for a reason" or that it's due to some force beyond our control, comprehension, or understanding. I'm not against the idea of that being the case. Anything is possible, I suppose. But if I don't really know something, then I don't know.

I respect what other people believe. If people want to believe whatever they want to believe, then it's no skin off me - unless they present a clear and present danger, which is the legal standard as practiced under US law. No one should ever be forced to believe something they don't want to believe.

Many of the events taking place in the world appear to be largely human-caused, without really requiring any supernatural interference.

 

[cladking]

And I would be remiss to fail to point out that humility is sorely missing in the way you express yourself.

No.

I speak in tautologies to be understood, not because I believe I have every answer.

My message is very difficult to see, my meaning hard to parse. I literally don't believe I know anything at all relevant to most of these discussions and I literally do not believe in intelligence.

 

[cladking]

You seem to have convinced yourself that science is some sort of ideology.

Absolutely NOT!!!

The way it is understood by insulters is a sort of ideology. Science is not at all.

 

[ChristineM]

What a mind. Your hate is someone else's
hate.

She doesn't realise that her "education" of atheists is one of the biggest insults. Why would anyone wish to give up knowledge and exchange it for woo?

It's a shame really.

 

[1137]

By whom? Where?

By me in this thread lol.

Sure sounds like you are confirming my suspicions, then.

What suspicion? I explicitly said you were wrong haha, are you just a troll? Do you not see the difference between questioning and abusing someone for real?

 

[Audie]

She doesn't realise that her "education" of atheists is one of the biggest insults. Why would anyone wish to give up knowledge and exchange it for woo?

It's a shame really.

"Educated" to be like that is not education.

 

[Soandso]

When I look at Religious books like the Bible, I look at them like I would with science data.

Could you specify in what ways and to what degree?

I use that book as the data base for my analysis, and try to keep my reasoning within that range of data.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, though. There has to be a control, and there has to be other data points to compare and contrast with. Thankfully we have not only many different religions to do this with, but many other myths and legends compare these things with as well

I am not judging the data, but rather approaching it like I would if a was analyzing a book from literature.

But you said in the first sentence that you look at religious books like you would scientific data. No one regards scientific papers like they would classic literature. Maybe you could clarify this more for me

One can still analyze content and find hidden message even if fictional books fro Shakespeare or the TV shows like Star Trek, since they often contain timeless messages, even if the characters are fictional or not. One can still use the power of reason to analyze any data set; comic books, and gain experience developing critical thinking skills based on the possibilities that the data set allows.

Scientific data doesn't contain timeless messages, though. It contains hypotheses and theories that are meant to be picked at. The theories that hold water are kept and the ones that don't are cast aside. Everything is constantly updated with the advent of better information

Timeless messages in literature are interesting, and they can make one evaluate their own lives on a personal level, but philosophical applications on a personal level don't seem to mesh well when those books also make claims on reality that come into conflict with current scientific consensus

Denying certain practice data sets, prevents any exercise of the mind; fat head, leading to name calling; emotional thinking instead of reason.

I don't know what you mean by this

If you ever took a literature course in High School or College, you often had to read and analyze a work of classic literature.

True, but only to understand it on a philosophical level. Understanding the context of the literature and the times it was written and the popular world view of the people who lived at that time when it was written also help to illuminate the actual meaning of the message

It's difficult for many people to do this who see the world from a lense that knows nothing but modernity, so what they do instead is just take what they understand from the message and superimpose their modern biases onto it until it no longer represent the original intention based on the context of when the thing was written and instead it's given a whole new meaning that's more relevant to the people who live in this current day and age

I always thought it interesting, that many aspects of the human condition, are the same today as when the a book was written; War and Peace. However, I also could see how people were different, due to their times and their lack of seeing into their own future.

Ehhh.... I'm gonna disagree with you here. Sure, there are some very basic things that we all share in common, past and modern, but the understanding someone has when they pen something to paper is shaped by their world view

Take the cornerstone speech, for instance. It was written as a mission statement to appeal to the south for why the south was seceding from the USA. To quote the speech:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Why do you think the word "moral" was used? Keep in mind, this speech was written specifically to convince the whole population of the South that they were doing the right thing. We see slavery as monstrous with our modern understanding, but at the time and place this was at worst seen as a fact of life and at best seen as a morally good thing

I cannot understand that mindset. I keep that in mind whenever I look at older literature. The context of the time and place it's written in is alien to what I know and understand now

Religious books teach us timeless human wisdom as well as allows us to live in a different time, so we can analyze and infer how we would have behaved, back then, if you did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

Our hindsight isn't 20/20 though. Our understanding of life in the ancient world is especially sparse

If the topic is Noah's Ark, this is the data set. I will reason with that data based using my development skills for reverse engineering, to help me fill in and set the stage. This is called Creationism, by the Atheists, but I call it reverse engineering based on the sparse fossil evidence. I will help to fill in the missing links based on that limited data set. It often takes ingenuity.

Ehhh... I'll pass

Based on all the data, my best integrated analysis is Genesis is speaking about the evolution of modern human consciousness, through the eyes of people living at that time of change. It was a time, when the unconscious mind was much closer to the surface and the wall between realty vision and unconscious projection overlay, was very low.

I don't know what this means

The ego secondary was leaving the womb of its unconscious development, and becoming more differential. Religious works are like the IT of consciousness, since the data best fits one aspect of science; forensic psychology. They were closer to the operating system of the human brain, and mapped it out; software code has it own language that can different from hardware.

I don't know what this means either

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what the point of your post was. My original post was written to point out that the OP was making assumptions about atheists that didn't gel well with reality

 

[1137]

I just explained them to you, but you are not "playing those games". Why not? Because they put you in a situation where you can't defend your nonsense?
It is off course a lot easier to argue against strawmen, I know.

Because it's a huge waste of time. Why would I waste my time one someone who won't even engage honestly and plays the "I believe nothing" games?

I listen to those making the claims and their arguments / evidence they can offer in support of them and then conclude they are insufficient.
So pretty much in the same way as you listen to scientologists and bigfoot believers and then conclude as I do. That it is insufficient to warrant belief.

It's pretty straightforward.

Dont project your methods onto me okay? I dont decide something is true or not simply based on subjectively finding it insufficient.

Feel free to quote me where I supposedly did that.

Hopefully you haven't, and surely you know that you not doing X doesn't mean nobody does.

Among others, yes.
How?
Please present me your falsifiable god hypothesis.

My gods are immaterial, physicalism would falsify them for instance.

Feel free to tell me in what way I invoke "faith" in the religious sense.

It's not you, it's all of us. Without faith we couldn't function, this is why things like solipsism are important but also impractical. I mean can you so much as prove you're talking to a real person right now?

If you are correct, I will thank you and instantly stop doing it.

Don't, that would be impractical

But my expectation is that you either will find nothing, or you'll do a bait 'n switch and use the word "faith" in a sense that it means something different from "religious" faith.

Faith means faith, trust without certainty. That atheists conflate faith and fideism is only illuminating for the theist.

Why don't you explain it to us, since you brought it up, instead af asking us to go hunt for it.

I already did in this thread haha.

Theism is an extremely broad subject with LOADS of different religions, arguments, claimed "evidence" etc.
As @ratiocinator correctly put it: it's not practical to list all of it in a forum posts as the volume is so vast you could write entire books about it.

So theres so much evidence for atheism you could write books on it, yet you cant present any.

Let's turn it around. Let's say YOU bring us what you believe to be the BEST argument and / or BEST piece of evidence, and then I (or we) will tell you how we consider it insufficient.

I don't really care what you find subjectively sufficient lol.

It's your burden of proof anyway, after all.....

This obsession with the burden of proof gets embarrassing, it's a fun way to know someone doesn't have reasons for their beliefs.

Feel free to point out where on this forum theists are being abused by atheists.

1. This very thread had an atheist gaslighting a theist. The same person is calling theism "woo". Another atheist had a mod edit their post haha.

2. RF is good specifically because with a couple ignores you can avoid this, much better than like r/debatereligion

3. Are you saying if atheists on RF didn't abuse theists this implies it never happens in any context?

 

[ratiocinator]

I believe it is the simplest short hand description of how most technology arises.

I've literally no idea what you're on about, then.

There is no "us". Somebody got an idea derived from new understanding.

Of course there's an 'us'. Nobody (remotely professional or rational) works in isolation. The fact remains that it was science that gave us understanding and then others came up with ideas to make practical devices, that they obviously couldn't have done without the science. Once we had a theoretical understanding of semi-conduction, we could use that to make devices. If you take a course in semiconductor design, they have to teach you the relevant quantum mechanics. Without the prediction of quantum tunnelling, and its subsequent testing, nobody would have thought of a tunnel diode, obviously.

Yet you believe and repeat things like "Science has given us technology".

That's because it's true.

This is only true in a metaphoric sort of way. Literally is is gobbledty gook [sic].

While this is purest male bovine excreta.

Things like religion gave us science has real meaning and are true but reality is never clearly visible except to every observer who mistakes his every belief for the reality we all seek.

And this is gobbledygook.

Science makes models that match reality. That's as close to it as we can get. Superstitions, like religion, may be comforting for individuals who don't really care very much if they're literally true or not, but they are useless for science or technology.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Dawkins is just one aspect of a much deeper problem. I personally differentiate between atheism and new atheism because one is deserving of respect and consideration, the other isn't. I have great, respectful, intelligent atheist friends and wont have them insulted by combining them with the atheists discussed in OP.

What is "new atheism" in your opinion?

 

[ratiocinator]

I understand why any X may not be justified, I'm asking about theism specifically

Theism isn't one thing. And all I can say is that I've never seen any real evidence or sound arguments for any version to date. Hence my lack of belief.

Hey fair enough. So if someone claims the gods are fictional, are myths, that divine experience is delusion, they need to provide evidence.

Okay, but that's not my claim. I'm merely saying that I see no evidence or reasoning to suggest they are real.

The world is full of claims that lack evidence: many, many different religions, cults, and sects—that can't all be true because they contradict each other—as well as things like astrology, homoeopathy, ghosts, alien abductions, and so on, and so on...

You can't take all of them seriously, you'd have to believe endless contradictory things at the same time (even from just the theist claims), so I wait for somebody to provide any evidence that's remotely convincing. So far, I've seen none.