Victory?

simpsons is going for so long i think they might have done literally every joke in existence by now

They’re not your friend

I’d like to think religious people don’t necessarily believe or remember word-for-word what happened to Jesus or Muhammad or whoever but they do learn lessons from the readings that they apply in their lives in a positive way. Or at least their intentions are positive.

It’s a routine group-based literary text analysis that gives people a reason to be together, not unlike a high school first language class.

If you wanna get old school sociological about it, you could say it fulfills a social need for cohesion that non practicing people replace by placing increased importance to other routine activities such as sports watching or working.

In my experience, people like that will be terrible with or without religion.

The difference of "external man in the sky" vs "internal concept of my own rightness" for how they feel ok about their own actions doesn't make a difference when they're still a bigoted asshat at their core.

You can't get another light until you're in the dark.

not even an apology. I don't need anyone to be sorry. The nuns who beat me will never be sorry, they think that they're doing it for God and nothing can be wrong when you're doing it for God. But if one of the other adults that I trust could at least say 'Hey, they shouldn't have beat you with sticks. They were wrong for that.' it would make me feel like maybe I wasn't a fucking crazy person for not wanting to get beat with sticks. But they won't. Everyone pretends it didn't happen, or that it was some sort of misunderstanding, because everyone needs to maintain the delusion that everything the church does is good just because it's the church doing it. For years I was essentially told "that didn't happen because the church wouldn't do that but if they did it's because you deserved it". What can a six year old do to deserve being beaten with a yardstick by a grown woman?

Christianity is a big tent term that encompasses a lot of differing groups of thought. You've got Catholics and Protestants, being the largest groups that come to mind. Below that you have everything from Lutherans to Presbyterians to Christian Scientists to Westboro Baptists. Admittedly, I don't think I made it clear enough in my comment I was speaking more big-tent Christianity when referring to mary-sue rather than a specific denomination (or a specific church), as I was speaking about religion as a whole, using Christianity as an example, hence why I was saying "Oppose harmful ideas laundered by religion" rather than opposing religion unilaterally. For example, we should oppose the colonialist ideology smuggled through religion, such as forced religious conversions (in order to save their soul!) or the necessity to colonize to do said conversions. We should oppose genocidal rhetoric smuggled through religion. Heck, we should even oppose the shitty bits of text in a religious text like when or when not to stone someone or the punishment for whatever crime.

However, you are implying that you should simply give up your label when bad actors take up your label. While I don't dispute that labels matter, because they do, I think it's silly to just give it up once another person/group tries to coopt your label. If you don't want bigots using your label, you've gotta kick them out. If you change your label to something else, and the bigots come to hide in the crowd, what are you supposed to do, change it for the 5th time?

As far as dropping labels goes, while I like the idea (I hate labels though I find them useful), I think it's impractical. As you said, "there's strength in names," and I think it would be crazy to ask someone to entirely drop a label that they hold dearly, such as their religious affiliation. It would also be crazy to ask them to just say "I believe in Jesus Christ..." and then list out 95 theses to indicate that they oppose aspects of the catholic church, then a good 95 more when they need to indicate their church had a schism in 1893, and another in 1913.

If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't.

Hitler and I may have agreed that the sky is blue, but if someone uses this to say we agree in general, they are simply being unreasonable. There are countless denominations of Christianity as a result of people disagreeing with each other about history and values. The Christian label is not synonymous with bigotry, and we could use more counterexamples if people seem to think otherwise.

Score one for atheism!

I mean, I haven’t dealt with proselytizers in so long I kinda forgot about them. I used to get the odd mormon or Jehovah’s witness but they stopped coming a long while ago, and I don’t miss em.

Numbers 5: 11-21 is pretty good imho. But I rarely debate religious people since I’ve gotten in a position where I really don’t see people like that anymore between the online algorithms which don’t show that shit and the fact that there aren’t too many religious people near me who are fascistic.

Idk how the fuck you got that but pop off sis

the moment it wasn’t convenient for her, she dropped it.

Sticking to the (lack of) principles of the Republican Party, I see!

I've been off Facebook for somewhere between 10 and 15 years. I quit it because I didn't care about what friends and family posted because they were all very religious, and I couldn't post what I really wanted without offending said friends and family.

• for a neckbeard :D

I agree entirely with your comment and I experience the illusion of free will. I just recognize it's an illusion.

I enjoyed it as well.

Just like nobody knows for certain if centaurs or the Tooth Fairy actually exist or not. Right.

...I can certainly relate to the idea that we cannot fully comprehend reality. No, seriously, I do; and I'm often ranting against assumers claiming to know shit that they cannot reliably know.

But, at the end of the day, this shit is supposed to be practical, not some mental masturbation over the metaphysical fabric of the reality. You need to draw the line somewhere and say "nah, this is likely enough to be bullshit that we can safely say «it's bullshit»". Otherwise your "agnosticism" is simply a fancy name for solipsism.

for example, implying that they know who says it (edgy teenager) and "intention" (to be confrontational), based on the label that one might use (atheist). That stinks assumption from a distance, like it or not.

You messaged me directly rather than responding in the thread, but messaging back is failing, so I will respond here.

There is no theory involving deities that fits the models of the universe we have based on observable evidence, and there is no evidence in support of any theory involving deities.

For anything else we would say that this thing doesn't exist and leave it at that.

Agnosticism gets lost in the fallacy that since it's logically impossible to prove non-existence we must hold open the possibility of existence without evidence.

So I'm an atheist because it is the default state to be, it makes no statement requiring evidence, and it doesn't require fallacy.

There are lots of ways to approach meaning, and more broadly spirituality and community, without theism.

This is a weird take on atheism that reads like you've only seen atheists online creeping out of /r/atheism or some similar place. There's no more reason that "why" should be answered by Christianity than by any number of philosophies that don't require a god, and pegging someone as arrogant for ascribing to those beliefs is silly.

Nah, you live in an unfeeling, uncaring world. There is nothing, no great answer. Just living until you die.

I don't agree with that other guy, but now you're just wrestling with a straw man. Nobody says these things.

Nature and physics may not have the capacity to care about you, but you have friends, family, and pets that do whether God exists or not. And there's plenty of questions that seem like we won't get an answer for the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean you can't find any meaning or joy in trying, or that you can't tackle smaller questions that could build up to answering a greater one.

Just living until you die.

This part is particularly cartoonish. Nobody says life is just living until you die. That's a debatably bigoted caricature that Christians invented.

We live the same lives theists do, and we have just as many meaningful experiences and relationships. We just don't sacrifice enormous amounts of our time worshiping or thinking about something that can't be shown to exist unless you take someone's word for it.

You live in a universe whose only source of joy, hope, inspiration, and meaning is sapient minds like yours. The entire observable cosmos has so far turned out to be nothing but dead rocks, dead dust, and dead gas, except for beings like you. Your very existence is an act of defiance worthy of pride. Stand tall, sophont. Create the future you wish to see, for YOUR KIND are the only ones who you've met who are capable of bringing it about!