Fun

We’d certainly be better off in the education/intelligence department if we promoted skepticism and criticized faith or any belief without evidence, but to be fair the word “better” is more broad than that…

If you’re into Pokemon and have access to the GBA/DS ROMs, PokeMMO is a great emulator that adds online MMO features to the first 5 generations of Pokemon. You can take one character across all 5 regions, and there’s tons of QoL features.

I’m too lazy to memorize alt codes

Reminds me of the people who taught their bird to say “mom beats me! oOoOoOoOo”

Einstein believed in “Spinoza’s god”, which is essentially just nature and the laws that govern the universe. It’s not the same as believing in an anthropomorphic God and putting faith in scripture.

This is one of those reasons I always call myself an agnostic instead of atheist.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive terms. “Agnostic” answers whether you know a god exists, and “atheist” answers whether you believe a god exists.

I don’t know of any gods, and I don’t believe any exist, so I’m an agnostic atheist.

That’s right. Then after the Israelites were freed, Moses, claiming to be speaking for God, gave them permission to take slaves of their own from the nations around them. Before that, they were told how merciless they could be when bludgeoning those slaves.

The Bible portrays this as moral behavior, and the excuses you’ve given me aren’t convincing. I don’t think there is any excuse for it, but I’m all ears if you want to give it a shot.

The most reliable way to lose faith isn’t through science, it’s reading their holy text.

In general, nothing about science ever shakes a theist’s faith, and I doubt it ever will. Reason being: the moment science breaks new ground, religion retreats further back into the unknown. As long as there is an unknown, theists will have something to take shelter from.

##Old Testament

#####Exodus 21:20-21 (NIV):

“And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.”

##New Testament

#####Ephesians 6:5 (NIV):

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ”

#####1 Timothy 6:1 (NIV):

“All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.”

Violent silence coming from @MuntedCrocodile@lemm.ee lmao

If you’re interested in videogames at all, playing some multiplayer games could help. TV/books are great too, but I think chatting online would give you a realistic dialogue to learn from, and having a common goal with the other players should give you plenty of opportunities to contribute to the dialogue.

And as a bonus, you’ll probably learn lots of creative insults haha

I took every coding class my highschool offered, and the only thing that drove me more crazy than this syntax was trying to use CSS.

Reddit hasn’t felt the same for me since around 2021/22.

At some point it stopped being a platform for niche communities to come together and became a cesspool of corporate/government astroturfing and karma farm bots with a side of real people.

PCussy

These words exist for a reason they mean different things.

Correct, and you’re still misusing them according to the people who actually identify with these labels. Atheism is the answer to what you believe, and agnosticism is the answer to what you know.

I don’t believe God exists and I don’t know if God exists, so I’m an agnostic atheist. For you to assume atheists are gnostic by default is like me assuming Christians are Mormons by default. It’d be even more ridiculous for me to go on and argue with Christians that “Christian” means “Mormon.”

Sure. And nobody claimed “God doesn’t exist.” Two people now have told you that you’re mistaken, but you insist.

From our perspective it seems like you’re imposing a baseless claim onto us so you can feel better about your own baseless claims. Only theists say atheism is a claim.

I don’t think there is one single test that could encompass bad standards of evidence, but the whole “just have faith” thing is a dead giveaway. Hostility towards skepticism is another. Circular logic is also a pretty good indicator, like saying your holy text is the truth because your holy text says it’s true. I guess the simplest and most effective test would be to see if the standard of evidence could be used to justify any claim.

And for good standards of evidence, I think it depends on the context and claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that. If you told me “I got a pet goldfish” the only evidence I really need is your word. But for claims about how the universe works and why it is the way it is, you might need much more sound reasoning, math that checks out when measurements or numbers are involved, a demonstration or test to serve as proof, etc…

Lastly, by agreeing that there is not universality …

The majority of people who smoke don’t die from it but that doesn’t mean cigarettes aren’t problematic. I’m not saying all religions are bigoted or anything, but I am saying having any sort of doctrine opens the door to outdated beliefs overriding what we’d normally consider moral, and that by itself is problematic.

I’d also just like to say I think this has been the most civil conversation in the whole thread, so cheers to that lol

Still arguably both. Even if their doctrine isn’t problematic, the sort of standard of evidence you seem to need to believe religious claims is what gets us things like antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists.

It may not be universal but you’re certainly opening the door for it if you believe truth comes from uncritical belief. That by itself is still “problematic” even if the consequences aren’t as blatant.

I wasn’t even disagreeing with you. But rage on, queen.