Life

[Twig]

As an atheist myself, I find pompous, preachy atheist zealots just as annoying as pompous, preachy religious zealots. Tell him he's being an annoying little shit and if that doesn't work, I don't think face-punching is undeserved? But I've never punched someone in the face before. Been punched (and subsequently started bawling (even though it probably didn't really hurt (c'mon I was like 9 or something)))!

I've always secretly wanted to get into a full-on brawl, but I'd probably utterly fail to be effective in any fashion whatsoever, due to my incredibly low tolerance for pain. U;

[Orv]

I too am a complete baby when it comes to pain tolerance, but the one large brawl I've been in was, an experience. I imagine it was mostly because it was the kind of fighting you tend to see in high school/untrained kids where they latch onto each other and punch until one of them does something to stop it, but it was a thing. Not one I'd want to repeat, but I can say I have hit someone with a honest to god bar stool, so I guess, you know, cross that off the bucket list. It wasn't though Pope though, so maybe it stays on.

But yeah, the guy in question is probably getting punched. I will relish it, I expect, we haven't had much in common for years, maybe it's time to just burn that bridge. With punching.

[elmuerte]

The word you're looking for is "colleague."

D'oh. Didn't see that at all. I blame work, have been busy from 07:00 till 22:00ish yesterday.

[elmuerte]

Dear Thumbs,

A friend of mine has become an insufferable, circlejerking atheist twat. How do I make him stop?

Love,

Orv

Just say that he's taking atheism to the level of religion. He's preaching and trying to convert people to his views. That is quite the opposite of atheism.

You can qualify me as an atheist too. I would never call myself an atheist as that would put me into a group of people with similar views. I don't shy away to make jokes about people's religion (if they can take it), or tell people how I honestly think about their religion. But you shouldn't try to convince people to change their views, that's simply wrong, it's religious.

Edit: hmm... I sense some irony in my post

[brkl]

Dear Thumbs,

A friend of mine has become an insufferable, circlejerking atheist twat. How do I make him stop?

Love,

Orv

http://www.youtube.c...kuXuQ9eA#t=235s

You could tell him that the belief that science is getting closer and closer to uncovering the workings of the universe (which is why most atheists find deities unlikely) is merely faith peddled as truth. There is no philosophical argument that can explain how we could get any kind of information from a world beyond our senses, including whether one exists. Atheists have no claim to being closer to the truth.

[subbes]

Tell him he's become a circlejerking twat.

[brkl]

Yeah, do that instead.

[Patters]

Dear Thumbs,

A friend of mine has become an insufferable, circlejerking atheist twat. How do I make him stop?

Love,

Orv

So yeah, while he's been an atheist for a while, he's recently taken to expounding his "Dohoho! I'm much more enlightened than those saps down at the seminary!" view to anyone who will listen, and posting reams of out of context quotes from famous people (with the occasional correctly intended one, I admit) and being smug about it. Face-punchings are going to commence shortly if he keeps it up.

In other news, Caligula, the youngest cat who tolerates my existence, has developed a taste for Honey Bunches of Oats. I am now out of Honey Bunches of Oats. Not amused here, cat.

Stab him and ask "where is your god now!".

(Don't actually do this).

[Roderick]

You could tell him that the belief that science is getting closer and closer to uncovering the workings of the universe (which is why most atheists find deities unlikely) is merely faith peddled as truth. There is no philosophical argument that can explain how we could get any kind of information from a world beyond our senses, including whether one exists. Atheists have no claim to being closer to the truth.

I hope you mean this in an ironic, jesting way, because the idea that science is on the same level as -literally- fairy tales and superstition dreamed up by desert men thousands of years ago, is absurd. Orvidos' friend may be a bit of a prat for telling others what to believe and feeling quite good about it, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

[ADDED] Sorry for going on about it, but this type of argument bugs the shit out of me. So many people (not necessarily brkl) seem to have this weird idea that science is anything more than a system for discovering and describing the way the universe works based on falsifiable evidence, measurements and tests. They frame it in the viewpoints and language of religion, which is wrong and more than a little misguided/misguiding. You don't "believe" in science, because there's nothing to believe, there are no dogmas, there is only either hard evidence that you can accept as truth or theories which you can assume might be true within reasonable doubt. If you can't see that 'science' has very little in common with 'religion', that it's like comparing apples and Guns 'n Roses concerts, you've bought into the shallow rhetoric of religious apologists.

Sure, there are people who cloth themselves in the same fabric of religion when it comes to spreading and defending the idea of science, but that's on their heads, not science's. There are radical, fanatical people on both sides of the line - it doesn't matter. It doesn't make science a religion. Science doesn't require faith, just common sense.

It doesn't require a whole lot of philosophy either. Descartes' musings on crazy devils tricking the senses are fun to read, but a cheap way to get out of thinking hard about anything: 'ah well, we can't know it anyway, so let's believe just about anything - it's all the same.' The fact of the matter is that we live in a predictable, tangible world that throughout recorded human history has behaved pretty constantly and has never spawned any super-crazy magic things that we couldn't (afterwards) explain. That alone is basis enough to say, quite scientifically, 'let's just assume this shit is actually real and start describing it.' So far, the idea of science hasn't let us down and has shaped the world all around us.

[Patters]

Point out that science has revolutions as well and that current science is likely going to be superseded by a better more accurate one. Then kick him in the balls.

[Scrobbs]

...and piss in his eye.

[subbes]

Just one eye, not both. Pissing in both would be cruel.

[MrHoatzin]

Today's imperfect science (i.e. Our Best Understanding of the Universe) is somehow just as dumb as patriarchal nonsense pulled out of the asses of bronze age shepherds? Gotcha.

[brkl]

That alone is basis enough to say, quite scientifically, 'let's just assume this shit is actually real and start describing it.' So far, the idea of science hasn't let us down and has shaped the world all around us.

I totally agree, but it's that original assumption that's important to keep in mind. Science works extremely well for explaining and predicting our experience, but it is based on some key assumptions. The practice of science is not problematic, but science cannot uncover absolute truths in the sense you would need to disprove God, for instance. This is why some of the greatest scientific minds have been religious at least to some extent.

Science itself doesn't require faith, but a positivist approach to it does.

EDIT:

Hmm, maybe positivism at least in its current form isn't what I mean. Stephen Hawking:

Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes.

That's a good description of the scientific method. Note his caveat regarding time. This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism is what I'm arguing against.

[Nappi]

(In Jake's robot voice) What is truth?

So what about annoying religious people? Do we mutilate them as well?

Anyway, I'm supposed to present the findings of my Master's thesis — which I have not started writing yet — in an international symposium in August. I'm not nervous yet, but I imagine that I will be very much so nearer to the deadline.

[Patters]

Today's imperfect science (i.e. Our Best Understanding of the Universe) is somehow just as dumb as patriarchal nonsense pulled out of the asses of bronze age shepherds? Gotcha.

No, not at all, but to somehow think that you are correct simply because you believe that what you believe in infallible is just as bad a religious zealot. There are definite inconsistencies in modern science that mean that various parts will be thrown out at some point in the next hundred or so years. Preaching with certain righteousness is not the correct way to do it, taking it as the best answer which we have is fine, but denying the possibility of change, as most aggressive atheists do is not fine.

Science has evolved an incredible amount since the Romans fucked everything up. The idea of a plenum has been debunked. Classical Mechanics replaced with Quantum, The change in the atomic model. Everything could change tomorrow, it probably won't, but it might.

[Roderick]

I totally agree, but it's that original assumption that's important to keep in mind. Science works extremely well for explaining and predicting our experience, but it is based on some key assumptions. The practice of science is not problematic, but science cannot uncover absolute truths in the sense you would need to disprove God, for instance. This is why some of the greatest scientific minds have been religious at least to some extent.

This is putting the argument on its head. In an ideal world, if you have a wild, unfounded idea like the existence of a god, that spits in the face of every bit of daily logic, the right approach is to not believe it, instead of assuming it's true until you've found conclusive evidence against it. It's an absurd, truly absurd proposition to do it the other way around, and a testament to the insanity of the religious experience.

Patters: you are right that everything in science can and will be superceded by more advanced ideas. That doubt and skepticism is built into science itself, it thrives on it. But it doesn't preclude that an asshat could look at an idea that is clearly idiotic, such as the existence of the classical god, and laugh at it. The fact that science constantly betters itself isn't an argument against the invalidity of the ideas it debunked.

[Patters]

This is putting the argument on its head. In an ideal world, if you have a wild, unfounded idea like the existence of a god, that spits in the face of every bit of daily logic, the right approach is to not believe it, instead of assuming it's true until you've found conclusive evidence against it. It's an absurd, truly absurd proposition to do it the other way around, and a testament to the insanity of the religious experience.

Patters: you are right that everything in science can and will be superceded by more advanced ideas. That doubt and skepticism is built into science itself, it thrives on it. But it doesn't preclude that an asshat could look at an idea that is clearly idiotic, such as the existence of the classical god, and laugh at it.

Of course, But modern Christians are not so sure, disregard the idiots who take the literal word of the bible as true.

A religion as a whole doesn't mean that there is a giant man in the sky who judges all, many simply believe the idea of an observer who simply started rolling the ball. Particularly as God apparently gave humans free will, why would it happen if we weren't to make mistakes, the simple argument which always comes up. Humans do need to learn, a lot, we have and continue to make massive mistakes.

I haven't said here, but I am an Atheist, I understand why people are religious, I am not, my philosophy is not to bother people, but to talk to those that are interested. I practice the same philosophy with vegetarianism, I frankly don't give a shit what others are eating, unless it is forced upon them.

[Nappi]

No, not at all, but to somehow think that you are correct simply because you believe that what you believe in infallible is just as bad a religious zealot. There are definite inconsistencies in modern science that mean that various parts will be thrown out at some point in the next hundred or so years. Preaching with certain righteousness is not the correct way to do it, taking it as the best answer which we have is fine, but denying the possibility of change, as most aggressive atheists do is not fine.

Yeah, denying the possibility of change altogether, shows that the person does not understand the scientific method at all and should be ignored.

[elmuerte]

How did science get into this discussion of religion? Science has nothing to do with religion (of course you can turn science into a religion, just like you can turn a brand into a religion). But why is it that science always has to be attacked when religion comes into question? Science isn't a fact, it isn't a set of rules, it's a procedure into understanding life, the universe, and everything. Science isn't out to disprove any religion (if it does, it's purely coincidental).

As for the matter of disproving the existence of god(s), for that I'll play my Pastafarian card.

[Patters]

How did science get into this discussion of religion? Science has nothing to do with religion (of course you can turn science into a religion, just like you can turn a brand into a religion). But why is it that science always has to be attacked when religion comes into question? Science isn't a fact, it isn't a set of rules, it's a procedure into understanding life, the universe, and everything. Science isn't out to disprove any religion (if it does, it's purely coincidental).

As for the matter of disproving the existence of god(s), for that I'll play my Pastafarian card.

Atheist twats

[brkl]

This is putting the argument on its head. In an ideal world, if you have a wild, unfounded idea like the existence of a god, that spits in the face of every bit of daily logic, the right approach is to not believe it, instead of assuming it's true until you've found conclusive evidence against it. It's an absurd, truly absurd proposition to do it the other way around, and a testament to the insanity of the religious experience.

Patters: you are right that everything in science can and will be superceded by more advanced ideas. That doubt and skepticism is built into science itself, it thrives on it. But it doesn't preclude that an asshat could look at an idea that is clearly idiotic, such as the existence of the classical god, and laugh at it. The fact that science constantly betters itself isn't an argument against the invalidity of the ideas it debunked.

Science has debunked many things that specific religions have claimed is the truth (heliocentric worldview is an obvious example) and it's excellent for finding inconsistencies in claims, but when did science debunk God?

[brkl]

How did science get into this discussion of religion? Science has nothing to do with religion (of course you can turn science into a religion, just like you can turn a brand into a religion). But why is it that science always has to be attacked when religion comes into question? Science isn't a fact, it isn't a set of rules, it's a procedure into understanding life, the universe, and everything. Science isn't out to disprove any religion (if it does, it's purely coincidental).

As for the matter of disproving the existence of god(s), for that I'll play my Pastafarian card.

What Patters said. I was an atheist twat when I was younger and this was why. There are common beliefs about what science is that are used to back arguments that attack religion. I think these beliefs are harmful to science (and science education, but that's another story) and to the discourse between secular and religious people. I also think that when I attack those beliefs, I'm not attacking science.

[Roderick]

Science has debunked many things that specific religions have claimed is the truth (heliocentric worldview is an obvious example) and it's excellent for finding inconsistencies in claims, but when did science debunk God?

It didn't. Neither did it debunk the flying teapot, or leprechauns, or the invisible, untouchable unicorn standing behind you in the room right now.

Damn it, now I'm the twat!

[brkl]

Another thing that occurred to me at some point when I was thinking about religion was that while I can give many reasons for not believing in any deities or supernatural forces, they are all rationalizations. The real reason is that I'm just not feeling it. For some people, the religious experience is real and I would be a fool to try to convince them otherwise (also a dick).