Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[The Valkyrie]

Now, go back and answer the facts I've pointed out in my edited post, above.

Oh, and if we want to make broad, unsubstantiated claims, Christianity is the worship of Loki the Trickster.

I'm sorry Beccs, but that is an unsubstantiated claim. I have also just read the entire wiki-article for "paganism" and it reads out loud "satan worship". You are simply incorrect. In fact, why don't you go read it yourself? A little education never hurt anybody. For Pete's sake, everybody knows that paganism is equivilent to satan worship.

Prove it's an unsubstantiated claim.  It makes as much sense as your broad claim.

What you read into an article and what the article actually says, are two entirely different things, especially if your interpretation is coloured by your own agenda.

Perhaps you need to find facts, and not personal opinions.

But I WILL accept your apology.

[LadyForCamus]

“What the (Bleep) Do You Know.” Since its discovery, quantum mechanics has been used to justify the claims of New Age hucksters, so-called non-dualists, proponents of idealism, and various mystical beliefs. Disagreements of interpretation abound. This doesn’t not make you wrong; it only means that you should take pause before making pronouncements about what QM research does and does not reveal. As a layman, I have only a basic understanding of it; the physics classes I took as an architect only touched on the basics. While I follow with interest more recent discoveries like quantum erasure and retro-causality, I generally steer clear of relying on the findings of natural science to inform metaphysical issues. Doing so puts the cart before the horse.

I make no claim to expertise, but I know that it directly refutes two of your claims. That you'd wave it away as a matter of preference is not a problem with my point; rather, I've just elicited what I want from you, an admission that you'd rather ponder the ineffables as aopposed to talk about facts.

Me, I will take the findings of natural science any day of the week. Reality is my ontology.

Fortunately it doesn’t take an advanced degree in physics to recognize the incoherence of the self-refuting position you have taken. The findings of all natural science inquiries, including QM, presuppose the fundamental principles I listed. If the results of a QM experiment were to invalidate the first principles of its own inquiry then its own results are invalidated.

That's actually why QM gives everyone fits. But -- the computer you are reading this on relies upon QM to work. If QM weren't true, you and I wouldn't be having this exchange. So however much you wish to protest that QM cannot be (because you have logicked it out of existence!), you have certainly chosen the wrong medium to argue that point -- this medium relies the very thing you say cannot be.

That leaves open the question of what to make of quantum oddities and puzzles. Nothing prevents the existence of contraries in a particular provided they are not contrary in the same respect. For example suffering is contrary to joy and yet an athlete can suffer greatly during a marathon and still experience the joy of achievement. I am not suggesting that I know how to apply that idea to any one quantum puzzle. I only bring it up to suggest how such puzzles can be resolved without falling into self-refutation.

This is nonsense. Joy and suffering are subjective states. We were supposed to be speaking about objective reality. Stay on topic.

Also, I just wanted to point out how similar is this passage of yours:

As a layman, I have only a basic understanding of it; the physics classes I took as an architect only touched on the basics. While I follow with interest more recent discoveries like quantum erasure and retro-causality, I generally steer clear of relying on the findings of natural science to inform metaphysical issues.

... to this graphic in the OP's article:

THAT....was just so awesome. Where is the OP?! I love how theists badger us to provide evidence to disprove their beliefs; really, really, real scientific evidence, and when we do demonstrate scientific evidence (ex: QM) their comeback is, "well, stupid old science doesn't mean anything anyway." *sigh*. You guys must feel exhausted after a several day round with the likes of Chad...

[Joods]

As it is, the average atheist on this forum sound like a toddler throwing tantrums.

Sure you're not projecting?

lol

Delicate, you little gem you. So, with nearly 9,000 members on this forum, please, for the benefit of ALL of us, show us your well documented statistics on your claim. Show us your work in research that proves your claim above to be true. 

Spreadsheets? Years of research? A paper trail? A bunch of polls that you personally have conducted with regards to comparing toddlers throwing tantrums and ALL of the atheists here doing the same? C'mon man, throw us a bone, will ya?

If you can't do that then well, I feel sorry for you to have lived such a closed off life from reality.

[JBrentonK]

I'm sorry Beccs, but that is an unsubstantiated claim. I have also just read the entire wiki-article for "paganism" and it reads out loud "satan worship". You are simply incorrect. In fact, why don't you go read it yourself? A little education never hurt anybody. For Pete's sake, everybody knows that paganism is equivilent to satan worship.

Prove it's an unsubstantiated claim.  It makes as much sense as your broad claim.

What you read into an article and what the article actually says, are two entirely different things, especially if your interpretation is coloured by your own agenda.

Perhaps you need to find facts, and not personal opinions.

But I WILL accept your apology.

I'll have you know, as children my brother managed to BARELY make it alive. He, as was I, were found to be products of the "pagan industry". The ammount of innocent lives killed by (satan worship) "paganism" is litterally ball breaking. There are SO MANY innocent lives that are killed by paganism, that it is not equal to the ammount of hype that the word "paganism" brings up. You have to be serious about that.

I can bet that an approximate "billion" lives die every 5 years to the practice known as "paganism". This is just an estimate, but there are so many forms of paganism. "Back yard paganism", where  you build a little wicker man, probably helps out that number and makes it a "trillion". Are you still so sure that paganism is not satan worship? I know for a fact it is, and I am in the process of proving that to you (if I find a way to....). Most every form of paganism is directly "satanism" or devil worship. In fact, a great majority of popular paganism is ALSO satan worship. They wear masks or whatever, I think gas masks?? Like Malikas (The son of Lucifer), and spread the boundary of their city with pain and curses.

Jehovah God, in point of fact, resides within the story of the wicker man itself. So it is also a RELIGIOUS act, but not in any way at all is it actually religious! The Mikhael angels protect the very dignity of the wicker man, dealing with people like you probably constantly who resort to calling it a religious thing (paganism the religion). They reside within the very kingdom of God, and that's big, so you know that the wicker man is actually meant from the beginning to be an entirely christian thing, and resting outside the realm of actual pagan practice. I believe this is where the religion of Christianity is proven as the world's only actual superpower. Nevertheless, people still make the wicker man look satanic. They make the (Michael is such a popular name these days....) Mikhael angels look bad.

There are enormous ammounts of proof for your incorrect claim though. If you visit just about any "pagan" website on the web, it is linked to an enormous ammount of satan worship. You will find a majority of a million websites directed towards nothing but forum debate (aka satanism as paganism), or other methods of getting their "word" across.

The popularity of paganism, however, is sky high, and it is astonishing that you do not know this about the actual practice known as paganism. Because 10/10th's of the paganism out there is an extremely large population of people doing nothing but sacraficing an innocent person. Daily. Weekly. By the hour. They have clocks that count down to "roast" time. I've seen some of the wildest stuff really.... But if you still believe that Paganism is not Satan worship, perhaps this is the wrong forum for you. You need to join some other forum, preferably "the pagan zoo" (just kidding, but I bet there is a "the pagan zoo" out there some where....).

[Redbeard The Pink]

Man, we've had a lot of trolls around here lately. Am I gonna have to go back to monster hunting?


Modern "pagans" (at least ones in the civilized, Western world) are not sacrificing humans or animals to anything. They're mostly buying books about Wicca and crystal magic from Barnes and Noble and then getting naked and sprinkling glitter and feathers into the wind when they should be asleep and it's too cold to be outside.

[LadyForCamus]

LadyforCamus. Are you one of those devil worshiping pagan types, or do you truly not believe in God? We'd be speechless if the latter were true!!!

I'm sorry...is that a serious question? It is belief in God that leaves ME speechless.

---

Man, we've had a lot of trolls around here lately. Am I gonna have to go back to monster hunting?


Modern "pagans" (at least ones in the civilized, Western world) are not sacrificing humans or animals to anything. They're mostly buying books about Wicca and crystal magic from Barnes and Noble and then getting naked and sprinkling glitter and feathers into the wind when they should be asleep and it's too cold to be outside.

Not that far off from Christianity, is it? ?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Not that far off from Christianity, is it?  ?

ZING!

[Iroscato]

A billion lives every 5 years are taken because of Paganism? 200 million per year? That's an astonishing number! O_O


...Particularly when you consider there are only around 50-60 million deaths per year, from every cause combined, around the entire world. Really, quite astonishing!

[Neo-Scholastic]

I love how theists badger us to provide evidence to disprove their beliefs; really, really, real scientific evidence, and when we do demonstrate scientific evidence (ex: QM) their comeback is, "well, stupid old science doesn't mean anything anyway."  *sigh*. You guys must feel exhausted after a several day round with the likes of Chad...

No one said that science doesn't matter, only that people must be clear about the kind of knowledge it provides and the kind of knowledge it presupposes.

Quantum Mechanics works. Newtonian physics works also. Both describe in mathematical language an underlying reality. If someone says that QM is ‘true’ he mistakes the map for the terrain. Someone else could just as easily say that Newtonian physics is ‘true’.

Within a logical positivist methodology, the scientific narratives do not conflict when used within the scope of their application. Neither, however, speaks to the underlying ontology of the thing described. Divorced from metaphysics of being, scientific inquiry of the natural world yields story about a set of accidental features but not the essential natures of beings.

In other words, natural science presupposes the metaphysical concept of essential natures that philosophically shallow atheistic positivists deny because they accept only empirical findings.

[JBrentonK]

A billion lives every 5 years are taken because of Paganism? 200 million per year? That's an astonishing number! O_O


...Particularly when you consider there are only around 50-60 million deaths per year, from every cause combined, around the entire world. Really, quite astonishing!

Might I add these numbers are among the UNDOCUMENTED DEATHS.

The flying speghetti monster is, I believe, a PAGAN satire. So therefore, the modern atheist is confused about what makes religion, religion.

In Christianity, it is acceptable God to make sacrafices. This we all know. God asks for certain sacrafices in the bible, I believe. Nevertheless, these sacrafices are all NON PAGAN. That is the difference between atheists and christians: One sacrafices for the Good of the world, and one sacrafices for pure stupidity and ill intented purposes.

I will have you know: Likely every reader on this thread will not recognize the difference fully.