According to many theists, all this magical shit is going on all the time. Depending on the level of crazy... Prayers are being answered. Angels are doing this and that. Satan is influencing things. Demons are possessing people. Miracles are happening.

I'd expect to see some sort of blip of evidence somewhere, to account for all this. Yet I see nothing. I see confirmation bias fucking people up the arse, and them taking it like a bitch. I see highly suggestible people being conned. I see children being programmed. I see group hysteria.

And I see all of this behavior for every religion, while I know that most of them (if not all) are false religions.

(January 4, 2017 at 1:12 am)robvalue Wrote: According to many theists, all this magical shit is going on all the time. Depending on the level of crazy... Prayers are being answered. Angels are doing this and that. Satan is influencing things. Demons are possessing people. Miracles are happening.

I'd expect to see some sort of blip of evidence somewhere, to account for all this. Yet I see nothing. I see confirmation bias fucking people up the arse, and them taking it like a bitch. I see highly suggestible people being conned. I see children being programmed. I see group hysteria.

And I see all of this behavior for every religion, while I know that most of them (if not all) are false religions.

What kind of perfect being forces its creations to believe in it on insufficient evidence? Or to create things in such a way as to make itself look unbelievably incompetent? It's hardly fitting to call such a thing superior, that's like calling aliens with superior technology but with as many ethical and intellectual failings as our own, 'gods' simply because they possess a means of doing something beyond our capabilities. It's like the people who made these deities up constructed this nonsense up in such a way as to make it easy to determine the gullible from the skeptical and set the rules in such a way that using the skeptics for target practice was their mantra. I mean, it's a great strategy and you can always rely on the majority to be heart-breakingly foolish and gang up on the minority no matter how preposterous and immoral the majority leaders' stance and the skeptical minority's logically sound and ethically upstanding position.

(January 4, 2017 at 1:12 am)robvalue Wrote: According to many theists, all this magical shit is going on all the time. Depending on the level of crazy... Prayers are being answered. Angels are doing this and that. Satan is influencing things. Demons are possessing people. Miracles are happening.

I'd expect to see some sort of blip of evidence somewhere, to account for all this. Yet I see nothing. I see confirmation bias fucking people up the arse, and them taking it like a bitch. I see highly suggestible people being conned. I see children being programmed. I see group hysteria.

And I see all of this behavior for every religion, while I know that most of them (if not all) are false religions.

I was just thinking along similar lines just a few minutes ago.  Specifically I was thinking of "giving thanks" or saying grace before a meal.  I have to work for a living, buy food, prepare it, set it out and then give thanks for it because, somehow down the line, all the mundane shit that got it there is irrelevant because magic was the ultimate cause of the food being there.  There's no question.  God get the credit.  I bought it?  He made sure I got the job.  I prepared it?  He made sure I was healthy enough to do so.  Hell, I wouldn't even mind saying grace before eating if he'd just magic the fucking dishes done once in a while or something.  But I suppose he does enough, what with the fact that unemployment would always be at 100% if God weren't there pushing all those little electrons around to make your computer work to get the online job postings.

(January 4, 2017 at 11:51 am)Asmodee Wrote:

(January 4, 2017 at 1:12 am)robvalue Wrote: According to many theists, all this magical shit is going on all the time. Depending on the level of crazy... Prayers are being answered. Angels are doing this and that. Satan is influencing things. Demons are possessing people. Miracles are happening.

I'd expect to see some sort of blip of evidence somewhere, to account for all this. Yet I see nothing. I see confirmation bias fucking people up the arse, and them taking it like a bitch. I see highly suggestible people being conned. I see children being programmed. I see group hysteria.

And I see all of this behavior for every religion, while I know that most of them (if not all) are false religions.

I was just thinking along similar lines just a few minutes ago.  Specifically I was thinking of "giving thanks" or saying grace before a meal.  I have to work for a living, buy food, prepare it, set it out and then give thanks for it because, somehow down the line, all the mundane shit that got it there is irrelevant because magic was the ultimate cause of the food being there.  There's no question.  God get the credit.  I bought it?  He made sure I got the job.  I prepared it?  He made sure I was healthy enough to do so.  Hell, I wouldn't even mind saying grace before eating if he'd just magic the fucking dishes done once in a while or something.  But I suppose he does enough, what with the fact that unemployment would always be at 100% if God weren't there pushing all those little electrons around to make your computer work to get the online job postings.

When you consider that adhering to the doctrines in the bible to the letter would not only be an impossibility, but also forbid us to have made the advancements we have and most likely rob us of adequate food and water and medical treatment, but also leave us babbling lunatics (I said following them to the letter, which no one on earth does or is even capable of) and probably unable to find our way back coherently enough to remember what it was we were attempting to worship or how to do so. It would seem then that trying to bring god into the equation would actually take away from your ability to find employment, shelter, food and water. So if you're going to be praying, maybe the more practical thing would be to thank god for not existing or at least staying the fuck out of your affairs so he can't screw them up.

There's something I was reminded about which, while it probably didn't kickstart my atheism per se, I can definitely consider a stepping stone. When I was younger, my dad told me a little anecdote from when he himself was a boy in the fifties. Basically, his headmaster called the whole school together for assembly as usual, and towards the end wanted everyone to ask their parents to donate money, to fund a holiday for the local vicar and his wife.

As he walked home, my dad mulled this over and came to the realisation that "hang on - my mum and dad have never even been able to afford their own holiday. Why should they have to pay for someone with a well-paid job to have one?"

So he didn't. I've no idea if the vicar got his holiday.

(January 4, 2017 at 3:48 pm)Stimbo Wrote: There's something I was reminded about which, while it probably didn't kickstart my atheism per se, I can definitely consider a stepping stone. When I was younger, my dad told me a little anecdote from when he himself was a boy in the fifties. Basically, his headmaster called the whole school together for assembly as usual, and towards the end wanted everyone to ask their parents to donate money, to fund a holiday for the local vicar and his wife.

As he walked home, my dad mulled this over and came to the realisation that "hang on - my mum and dad have never even been able to afford their own holiday. Why should they have to pay for someone with a well-paid job to have one?"

So he didn't. I've no idea if the vicar got his holiday.

Heaven forbid he have to get a real job and earn it the legitimate way.

Quite.