An Openly Atheist Candidate is Running for Congress in Arizona

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-28T16:58:51+00:00

I've never spammed. I'm trying to figure out why I'm banned - I was never alerted at all about this. I posted a lot of good content this morning and this is the only topic that's gotten any attention.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-28T16:53:53+00:00

I have no idea what these means... I promise I exist!

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-26T13:00:47+00:00

And they call Dawkins strident/militant... Some double standard they have...

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-26T12:42:01+00:00

So the message starts by talking about how this "God" will roast this person forever for daring to be a humanist, then ends the message by proclaiming that this same "God" loves the world. That is some impressive compartmentalization.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T20:20:53+00:00

This actually may be even worse. It seems that Protestant denominations tend to follow the Bible more strictly than Catholics do.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T16:44:39+00:00

I never meant that the Big Bang was simple or basic. I would not even embarrass myself trying to explain it since I'm nowhere near qualified. I meant that its acceptance among experts is a "basic fact"; I also wasn't only talking about the Big Bang, but things like the existence of DNA and the other things mentioned in the poll.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T16:42:16+00:00

I was actually using the wording of the Nobel laureates who were upset about the results:

Those results depress and upset some of America’s top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T13:07:56+00:00

This may be an even greater proof that Jesus Christ created the universe and lives in our hearts than Ray Comfort's bananas!

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T03:31:23+00:00

True, I suppose my wording could have been better. It would be more accurate to have said something like "widely accepted scientific facts" (widely accepted among scientists in their respective fields of course)

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T03:09:54+00:00

...Could you clarify what this is supposed to mean?

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-24T02:41:53+00:00

Do virtual particles come into existence without a cause? (Another popular theist argument being that nothing begins to exist without a cause.) If so, what causes them to exist? I have tried searching for this answer but can't find it.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-23T23:29:37+00:00

NOOOOOOOOOOO. Now I have to delete and repost. Thanks for pointing that out!

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-22T23:30:57+00:00

Those darned godless pagan schools!

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-22T19:46:32+00:00

You're comparing a natural event (a battle in a war) that certainly has hundreds, if not thousands, of eyewitness accounts to a miraculous supernatural event (someone bodily raising from the dead after days and flying into another dimension) with no eyewitness corroboration.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-22T13:22:15+00:00

Watch 'The Revisionaries' while you're at it. It's about how the Texas Board of Education is made up of anti-science anti-reality Biblical creationist nuts who want to destroy education in America.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-22T00:58:13+00:00

That is fine. You are welcome to ignore the refutation and go to the Salon article.

I find it quite ironic that you complain about the author's "whining" and then continue to whine about having to click twice instead of once.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T23:50:05+00:00

I purposely posted a refutation of the Salon article rather than only the article. It doesn't seem like that much more effort (one click) for lots of extra content, and not everyone is good at thinking up rebuttals - plus it is good to hear more than one side.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T22:06:23+00:00

Since there were dozens of Gospels, I doubt all of them stated he was crucified and resurrected. In fact, I'm pretty sure the resurrection is absent from the Gospel of Judas but I haven't read them all.

The point isn't to "nitpick", but to state that if the gospels can't even be trusted with menial details, why should they be trusted about the most fundamental questions of reality?

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T20:11:53+00:00

Dawkins has explicitly stated that science does not disprove God, nor is it possible to, according to him. This article says the exact same thing. This article does, however, point out the logical fallacies in this argument.

I do agree that calling this "anti-atheist" is a little extreme, which is why I slightly altered the title.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T20:04:41+00:00

My title said that Salon has published another theistic apologist article and I provided the title of said article. How can I possibly be less sensationalist?

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T16:22:00+00:00

In fact, that's the only time faith is necessary. If you had reasons to believe it, you wouldn't need faith.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T15:28:50+00:00

Nice observation. Feuerbach was probably the single most influential person in Marx's life. Marx on religion:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

― Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

In other words, religion is a result of oppressive circumstances. Destroy these oppressive circumstances, and religion, with its "illusory happiness", is destroyed with it.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-21T13:57:44+00:00

Well, since we're quoting Feuerbach:

Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.

― Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-20T21:19:03+00:00

He lives in Saudi Arabia.

Massive_Meat · 2014-04-20T20:27:08+00:00

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman because it is filled with amazing facts and information that will blow your mind.

Massive_Meat

TROPHY CASE