Religion: The first alternative fact?

[°Leprechaun]

I'm always on the side of bad poets, but even so, this guy shouldn't quit his day job.

Dan Baker is a good liberal, who is pushing an agenda that is against superstition and in favor of rationality. Baker is doing more for the liberal causes then any phony religious "liberals".

Superstition is believing in things that you can't understand. Often religion is believing in things you can't understand. Isn't that a form of "blind faith"?

Religion IS all about believing in the superstition that is handed down by dogma. Concepts of hell and everlasting paradise based on what your preacher says in church, the derogating treatment of the gay community, hatred of non-believers, instigating violence around the world.

Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound.

Get a room, LOL.

Gee, I wonder what (or who) predestined you to write such a stupid post.... Could it be....
...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_mePjkQW_c

[Farmlands]

It was the only explanation the people who lived in the past had for phenomenons they couldn't understand, not really an alternative fact. There are many things we take as truth today which will be proven wrong in the future as well.

[RINO Tom]

I'm always on the side of bad poets, but even so, this guy shouldn't quit his day job.

Dan Baker is a good liberal, who is pushing an agenda that is against superstition and in favor of rationality. Baker is doing more for the liberal causes then any phony religious "liberals".

Superstition is believing in things that you can't understand. Often religion is believing in things you can't understand. Isn't that a form of "blind faith"?

Religion IS all about believing in the superstition that is handed down by dogma. Concepts of hell and everlasting paradise based on what your preacher says in church, the derogating treatment of the gay community, hatred of non-believers, instigating violence around the world.

Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound.

Get a room, LOL.

Gee, I wonder what (or who) predestined you to write such a stupid post.... Could it be....
...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_mePjkQW_c

"Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound."

You presented that like it was some crazy fact you thought 99% of people here wouldn't be aware of.  What was the point?  You make all of these threads generalizing all religious people/theists and trying to simplify things, you're going to get some sarcastic responses.  People don't fall into the categories of, "logical person who rejects fairytales" and "illogical person who clings to religion."  That's an absurd way to look at a complex topic.  There are plenty of deists/theists/religious people who put a lot more thought into their "final verdict" on this most eternal question than a given atheist; you seem to act like the only reason someone could believe is blind faith, and that is - IMO - going into this type of discussion with bad faith (no pun intended).

[°Leprechaun]

I'm always on the side of bad poets, but even so, this guy shouldn't quit his day job.

Dan Baker is a good liberal, who is pushing an agenda that is against superstition and in favor of rationality. Baker is doing more for the liberal causes then any phony religious "liberals".

Superstition is believing in things that you can't understand. Often religion is believing in things you can't understand. Isn't that a form of "blind faith"?

Religion IS all about believing in the superstition that is handed down by dogma. Concepts of hell and everlasting paradise based on what your preacher says in church, the derogating treatment of the gay community, hatred of non-believers, instigating violence around the world.

Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound.

Get a room, LOL.

Gee, I wonder what (or who) predestined you to write such a stupid post.... Could it be....
...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_mePjkQW_c

"Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound."

You presented that like it was some crazy fact you thought 99% of people here wouldn't be aware of.  What was the point?  You make all of these threads generalizing all religious people/theists and trying to simplify things, you're going to get some sarcastic responses.  People don't fall into the categories of, "logical person who rejects fairytales" and "illogical person who clings to religion."  That's an absurd way to look at a complex topic.  There are plenty of deists/theists/religious people who put a lot more thought into their "final verdict" on this most eternal question than a given atheist; you seem to act like the only reason someone could believe is blind faith, and that is - IMO - going into this type of discussion with bad faith (no pun intended).

You have totally twisted my words to suit your own prejudice toward me. In the quote, I said "some" and I never said that people here don't know this. I can't read anyone's mind.

[°Leprechaun]

I don't have to like people who hate me. I'm not going to be a doormat.

[°Leprechaun]

I certainly am not going to walk on eggshells around bullies and there are a lot of bullies here at atlas.

[TJ in Oregon]

Randi explained the scientific method in just a minute to demonstrate why faith couldn't reconcile with the principles of science. Religion texts are man-made written that have perpetuate elementary-minded adults into believing in these ludicrous fairy tales, without ever thinking logical how possible a story that could be. People want to believe there is something greater out there that makes life meaningful, I'm sorry to say that is not true in the cosmos we reside.

He explained the scientific method but never demonstrated why faith can't be reconcile with the principles of science. Your responses seem to be arguing:

Premise 1) The scientific method
Premise 2) Unstated

Conclusion: Religion is fairy tales and I will assert this forcefully.

I will repeat my previous question to illustrate what I mean:

I'm always on the side of bad poets, but even so, this guy shouldn't quit his day job.

Dan Baker is a good liberal, who is pushing an agenda that is against superstition and in favor of rationality. Baker is doing more for the liberal causes then any phony religious "liberals".

Superstition is believing in things that you can't understand. Often religion is believing in things you can't understand. Isn't that a form of "blind faith"?

Religion IS all about believing in the superstition that is handed down by dogma. Concepts of hell and everlasting paradise based on what your preacher says in church, the derogating treatment of the gay community, hatred of non-believers, instigating violence around the world.

Some (I don't know how many) believe that non-believers will literally burn in hell, as strange as that may sound.

Religious followers just want to burnish anyone who thinks different then their belief system. Their bronze-age fairy tales actively tells them that such rational people are the nadir of the world. Such a shame some progressive would subscribe to religion when the Gods are such homophobic, misogynist, racist, intolerant creatures ever known in ancient fiction.


For the record, I'm a Deist who believes God created a world where He doesn't intervene.

How is that a falsifiable hypothesis? I'm perfectly fine accepting that it isn't, and wouldn't take that to necessarily discredit that view. But, it is seemingly contrary to the position that all science is the only way of knowing things. How do you reconcile them? Also, posing any kind of position on these sorts of questions is philosophy by definition, so it would appear you have to allow for some place for philosophy beyond "mumble-jumble schlock like religion that spoon-feds whetever makes the person feel good inside of itself". Even if you argue that there are multiple right answers or no answers that are either right or wrong, or that all propositions are actually an illusion and thus there are not true or false statements, every possible permutation that I can think of (and I have good reason to think it truly is all possible permutations) do require some philosophy.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Since according to you there is no God and nothing granting meaning to human existence, why waste limited time on this rock arguing? So strange that a liberal would carry with them the atheistic conviction we would usually only assume motivates Marxists.

[Farmlands]

Since according to you there is no God and nothing granting meaning to human existence, why waste limited time on this rock arguing? So strange that a liberal would carry with them the atheistic conviction we would usually only assume motivates Marxists.

There's a lot of things which you can point to as the meaning of human existence: love, devotion, learning, etc. which will almost certainly going to get you a more universal answer than God. Yes, I know I'm not saying anything new.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Since according to you there is no God and nothing granting meaning to human existence, why waste limited time on this rock arguing? So strange that a liberal would carry with them the atheistic conviction we would usually only assume motivates Marxists.

There's a lot of things which you can point to as the meaning of human existence: love, devotion, learning, etc. which will almost certainly going to get you a more universal answer than God. Yes, I know I'm not saying anything new.

Neither am I. I just figured since we're using retread arguments from Bush-era Internet debates I'd bring out mine.

[muon2]

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[Mopsus]

It's irritating when the proponents of scientism demonstrate that they don't even know how the discipline they're holding up as the be all and end all of human knowledge even works.

Judging from that tweet, that Baker fellow is a Philistine.

What other source of knowledge could be empirically used to determined the truth behind the universe that we are active participants of? I mean, philosophy is just another form of mumble-jumble schlock like religion that spoon-feds whetever makes the person feel good inside of itself. Any other form of spirituality that isn't religious in nature is a bunch of woo junk that has harmed the nation health status, with new-age belief being scientific proven to be detrimental to a person lifestyle, such as the belief in homeopathy. Science has no boundaries with regards to knowledge and finding the true meaning of our lives. If there is new evidence that a previous common held belief by scientists is debunked, they'll happily to accept that as the new factual information, as science isn't dogmatic nor driven by ideology like other forms of human expressionism. Science doesn't go crank and say "whoa, look what this un-certified healing does to me," science takes the steps to figure out if that is the right way to live out your lifestyle. Science in the coming years will further make spirituality of all forms irreverent with incoming generations finding the truth in the material world.

Baker is a world-class author and musician who escape the puerile Evangelical faith for a more reasonable and rational faith in the sciences.

You have things completely backwards: “science” tells man that it’s impossible to understand the world unless he is a “scientist”, and he must therefore defer to everything “scientists” say. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of this bias, so they had to investigate the world for themselves - this is where religion comes from.

[muon2]

It's irritating when the proponents of scientism demonstrate that they don't even know how the discipline they're holding up as the be all and end all of human knowledge even works.

Judging from that tweet, that Baker fellow is a Philistine.

What other source of knowledge could be empirically used to determined the truth behind the universe that we are active participants of? I mean, philosophy is just another form of mumble-jumble schlock like religion that spoon-feds whetever makes the person feel good inside of itself. Any other form of spirituality that isn't religious in nature is a bunch of woo junk that has harmed the nation health status, with new-age belief being scientific proven to be detrimental to a person lifestyle, such as the belief in homeopathy. Science has no boundaries with regards to knowledge and finding the true meaning of our lives. If there is new evidence that a previous common held belief by scientists is debunked, they'll happily to accept that as the new factual information, as science isn't dogmatic nor driven by ideology like other forms of human expressionism. Science doesn't go crank and say "whoa, look what this un-certified healing does to me," science takes the steps to figure out if that is the right way to live out your lifestyle. Science in the coming years will further make spirituality of all forms irreverent with incoming generations finding the truth in the material world.

Baker is a world-class author and musician who escape the puerile Evangelical faith for a more reasonable and rational faith in the sciences.

The highlighted line is not true. Scientists do have belief systems, sometimes called paradigms. If there are facts that contradict that paradigm it can take a generation or more for the acceptance of that fact. In some cases the new facts can only be accepted in the context of a paradigm shift. Those shifts don't come easily since they typically would force the displacement of senior scientists whose reputations are based on the old paradigm.