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I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 10:17 am
What strikes me as odd is that even though its the deities and theists who have proven over and over again that they are capable of untold evil and ruthlessness, some people still buy into the idea that dispensing with god means dispensing with basic human sentiments like empathy and compassion
When the cat's away, the mice will play? That is unworthy of a thinking adult who claims to have put away mindlessness. What is the point of evolving if we're going to continue acting and thinking like theists and lower life forms. Lions jumping on the flanks of zebras, eating them as they run for their lives and not giving a thought to how the zebra feels about this. Survival of the fittest. Yea yea humbug. Those who hold to social Darwinism betray that they are not willing to evolve beyond the mindless, blind watch maker. But I'm glad to see those who hold themselves to a higher standard.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 11:37 am
I think most people prefer to be spoonfed, as opposed to looking into things for oneself. Questioning one's own premises is a lot of work, and often leaves one in the uncomfortable position of saying "I don't know". Humans don't like that. We therefore tend to cling to our just-so stories.
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 11:51 am
People are stupid.
That's your answer to religion.
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 12:22 pm
(June 25, 2015 at 10:17 am)Rhondazvous Wrote: What strikes me as odd is that even though its the deities and theists who have proven over and over again that they are capable of untold evil and ruthlessness, some people still buy into the idea that dispensing with god means dispensing with basic human sentiments like empathy and compassion
When the cat's away, the mice will play? That is unworthy of a thinking adult who claims to have put away mindlessness. What is the point of evolving if we're going to continue acting and thinking like theists and lower life forms. Lions jumping on the flanks of zebras, eating them as they run for their lives and not giving a thought to how the zebra feels about this. Survival of the fittest. Yea yea humbug. Those who hold to social Darwinism betray that they are not willing to evolve beyond the mindless, blind watch maker. But I'm glad to see those who hold themselves to a higher standard.
People are flawed enough that most do need some oversight but other humans work for that. Laws and law enforcement keep honest people honest. It is indeed ironic though that the gods we invent to do that are worse than the worst of us. Hitler doesn't hold a candle to Yahweh. He's just the red-headed stepchild by comparison. Yet we need Yahweh to be moral. Laughable.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 1:29 pm
(June 25, 2015 at 10:17 am)Rhondazvous Wrote: What strikes me as odd is that even though its the deities and theists who have proven over and over again that they are capable of untold evil and ruthlessness, some people still buy into the idea that dispensing with god means dispensing with basic human sentiments like empathy and compassion
When the cat's away, the mice will play? That is unworthy of a thinking adult who claims to have put away mindlessness. What is the point of evolving if we're going to continue acting and thinking like theists and lower life forms. Lions jumping on the flanks of zebras, eating them as they run for their lives and not giving a thought to how the zebra feels about this. Survival of the fittest. Yea yea humbug. Those who hold to social Darwinism betray that they are not willing to evolve beyond the mindless, blind watch maker. But I'm glad to see those who hold themselves to a higher standard.
First of all, it is just a myth that people need such a thing as religion or belief in god to be moral. This bit of Christian propaganda is something that many atheists cling to, for no reason worthy of the name. Think of all of the atheists who were former Christians. Do you know any of them who ran amok when they gave up their religion? If you were religious yourself, are you running out of room in your cellar due to it being full of dead bodies from your activities since you gave up your religion? That religious people often claim it is necessary is as worthless as their claims that Jesus talks to them.
This is just another part of the religion virus, that helps it continue. They have suckered atheists into believing that it is good if their neighbors are religious, and so they are less inclined to help them come to know the truth. This tactic is a bit like the doctrine of hell for the Christians, to use fear to keep people from leaving the religion. It is just pure bullshit. But psychology tells us that if a lie is repeated often enough, people tend to believe it, and so we have many atheists believing this religious nonsense that religion is necessary to keep people in check.
Your analogy of the lions and the zebras, though, is not apt. Humans torture and kill other types of animals all the time, and most of them not only have no problem with it, but are adamant that it is right and proper and should continue.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 1:43 pm
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The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
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RE: I Find This Odd. Do You?
June 25, 2015 at 3:46 pm
It seems to me to be an idea that would have gained traction as communities grew larger and systems of law and law enforcement were necessary yet primitive. How to get people to obey the law if the deterrence wasn't sufficient? Create a "cop" who could see what you did no matter how well you hid yourself, and whose punishments were inescapable, whether in this world or the next. Even the development of concepts like karma would have been a way of dealing with crime (or even just lack of cooperation) in such communities.
The idea that one needs a supernatural authority figure in order to know right from wrong seems absurd from the outside, and I think it works on the inside only because of our propensity for seeing the world from our own narrow perspective. Like many believers, I felt that people who abandoned god no longer had a system of moral restraint to rely on. And I suspect that I was like many believers in also being quite certain that *I* did not need such a system because I'd learned to be a good person. It's easier to believe that everyone else will falter under certain circumstances that would not be sufficient to trip ME up.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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