Hello everyone. I've finally worked out...
February 5, 2016 at 3:54 pm
(This post was last modified: February 5, 2016 at 3:54 pm by FebruaryOfReason.)
why theists bug me.
Hello everyone, FebruaryOfReason here.
Posting for the first time. I have just been in an argument on another board far far away, with a theist, and finally worked out why they get under my skin so much.
I studied Chemistry at college, spent a long time doing it actually. Everything I knew had to be patiently investigated and checked. It had to be consistent with many other things before it was treated as reliable. If our opinions (hypotheses, call them what you will) were not consistent with observable fact, we often had to go back to square one. The careful standardisation so others could repeat what we did. The rigourous nomenclature that ensured we all knew exactly what we were referring to. We put a lot of effort into checking that what we said was right.
Then someone gets to tell me that everything I think is wrong, just because they've got a book of made-up rubbish from thousands of years ago? Full of translation errors, bits that even they don't believe in? Bits that contradict what was said in the previous sentence, bits that for centuries people believed to be literally true and now everyone is saying are "just a metaphor" because they are so obviously, indefensibly ridiculous and only now can we say it without getting burned to death?
Sod that.
And whenever I try to show them the years of reasoning that were required just to get to the point of basic knowledge about how things work and combine (or why they don't), how they explain in minute detail, how they even anticipate subsequent discoveries, that person just gets to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la I'm not listening", and claim that attitude - the ability to carry on thinking exactly the same thing when the facts show that you are wrong- as a virtue?
That is why theists bug me.
Rant over.
Hello everyone, FebruaryOfReason here.
Posting for the first time. I have just been in an argument on another board far far away, with a theist, and finally worked out why they get under my skin so much.
I studied Chemistry at college, spent a long time doing it actually. Everything I knew had to be patiently investigated and checked. It had to be consistent with many other things before it was treated as reliable. If our opinions (hypotheses, call them what you will) were not consistent with observable fact, we often had to go back to square one. The careful standardisation so others could repeat what we did. The rigourous nomenclature that ensured we all knew exactly what we were referring to. We put a lot of effort into checking that what we said was right.
Then someone gets to tell me that everything I think is wrong, just because they've got a book of made-up rubbish from thousands of years ago? Full of translation errors, bits that even they don't believe in? Bits that contradict what was said in the previous sentence, bits that for centuries people believed to be literally true and now everyone is saying are "just a metaphor" because they are so obviously, indefensibly ridiculous and only now can we say it without getting burned to death?
Sod that.
And whenever I try to show them the years of reasoning that were required just to get to the point of basic knowledge about how things work and combine (or why they don't), how they explain in minute detail, how they even anticipate subsequent discoveries, that person just gets to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la I'm not listening", and claim that attitude - the ability to carry on thinking exactly the same thing when the facts show that you are wrong- as a virtue?
That is why theists bug me.
Rant over.
I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty.
