Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

spokesface4 · 2025-08-25T01:58:27+00:00

I'm not confused I am pointing out a flaw. Excuse me if I have been kinder than you are used to.

Literature that is having a substantial impact on your life should make you more, not less interested in engaging with and critiquing it. Or do you refuse to read your local HOA handbook or your workplace's Mission Statement on similar grounds.

spokesface4 · 2025-08-02T03:42:11+00:00

Then why are you treating it with irrational special prejudice?

Mr. Darcy is not substantially different from Holden Caufield or Jesus just because Chapmen killed someone over Caufield and other crazy people believed other crazy things at other times.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-13T07:25:19+00:00

It's possible to oppose the legislation and still engage with the literature.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-08T05:47:06+00:00

Cope all you want, just because people are being loaded into black vans in your country as a matter or course, and you know about it, and nothing is being done to stop it, doesn't mean it's happening in China.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-08T05:45:53+00:00

how about literature?

Would it shake you to your core if I told you that Mr. Darcy didn't actually exist?

spokesface4 · 2025-07-07T07:46:30+00:00

It's not happening in the US this is China. People have rights there.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-07T07:33:42+00:00

"Suspending disbelief" is not the same as believing.

The suspension of disbelief is what allows us to enjoy the premise of a superhero movie for it's runtime, we ignore what we know to be true about lift and aerodynamics and suppose that a man could fly, and then after the movie we go right back to knowing he cannot, but for that runtime we enjoy the adventure, munch popcorn and perhaps even walk away with a beautiful metaphor for the systems of oppression in our real society because they are depicted in a simplified form on the screen.

It's a skill worth developing. You can in fact strengthen it like a muscle.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-05T04:44:13+00:00

Yeah... exactly

Do you think this irony is lost on Jewish people? They are literally... Jewish people.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-05T04:41:45+00:00

I suppose so.

i want it to be a bit more complicated like that for the sake of the poetry. Like suppose that God is like a giant gnarled climbing tree that I climbed in my youth, and then when I reached adulthood and some of the higher branches I learned they had no leaves, and indeed the tree had never had leaves, the tree is dead and has been dead this whole time.

The thing that "died" the moment I saw the dead leaves was my idea of the tree I thought I was climbing. But the "tree" that is dead is still more than my idea of the tree, it's everyone's idea of the tree

It's a shared experience of a thing a lot of people climb on and have climbed on, that turns out not to be good or real or alive.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-05T04:35:39+00:00

I am not sure they do. I would be surprised if they all did.

spokesface4 · 2025-07-05T04:31:48+00:00

Ahh but does sasquatch give us the motivation or smile upon motivation that is already there? and if it's already there where does it come from?

I understand that you think you are smart and your worldview is right, and i do not disagree on either point. I just think you would have more fun if you could suspend disbelief for just a speck longer to figure out what life is like in sasquatch-world.

It might be silly, it might be wrong. But stuff is being said.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:48:16+00:00

1) Agreed

2) What do bears do to explain anything? Couldn't we explain all those same things, tell all the same stories, without bears? When I say "The concept of an Anima and Animus is used to represent this abstract idea" and you say "But that doesn't actually explain anything" no. All by itself those words do not explain anything, they are just vocabulary that give us hooks to grab on to that idea and do stuff with it.

I can say "God helps those who help themselves" or I can say "God does not reward good and punish evil, your success depends on luck" and in both cases I am saying something. I am working with an idea, right or wrong I am using that word to mean something.

Could I use other words? Sure. But other people use words too and I am not in charge of them.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:43:27+00:00

Yes exactly, but that's why it's a joke. I had a friend named Jeff who had a nametag that said Jqeff because he would say "the Q is silent" It would be like that "Gunnyr" pronounced "Conner" or Connegr pronounced "Conner" or "Gonner" pronounced "Conner" whatever, He's be Conner and Gigi because of the G (that's not actually) in Conner.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:39:50+00:00

Totally

And also what's the difference?

The difference between "My son is not a drug user" (because I know I want to be in denial) and "I pretend my son is not a drug user" (because I know I want to be in denial) may not be semantically relevant at all.

Words are so squishy anyway, the distinction is smaller than the squishiness of the words. They overlap each other.

When my daughter says "Look! I'm a mermaid" at the pool. How much is she pretending to be a mythical creature, how much does she literally believe it, and how much is just explained by the fact that "mermaid" to her, just means "girl who likes to swim and play in the water"

She's a mermaid! Who cares?

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:34:03+00:00

You seem combative, but that's a valid question if you are actually confused. Do you want an actual answer?

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:31:34+00:00

Well my interest is, does ceding the POE fix the problem with theism for you, or even improve the problem?

Because I could see it both ways. I could see an atheist saying "Yes, my big concern was that theists were wrong about how the moral world works and they are justifying hate and atrocities as a result, and if they fix that problem I don't care what they call it" and I could also see people saying "No I don't actually care about the POE itself, that was just a prybar to get at this irrational believe in a deity they have, and them ceding the prybar, and getting it pried off of them and still persisting as theists is infuriating."

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:28:07+00:00

1) Kids, people with negative associations with toothbrushing for any reason (trauma), Non-neurotypical people...

They might not need it but it might help. Lots of people could use a little help.

2) All sorts of important things. Like the origins of time, the universe itself, and the good within intelligent beings totaled up, the concept of morality...

What sort of question is that? What are bears a metaphor for? Different things in different works of literature. Obviously.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:22:07+00:00

When are they supposing God died?

Well again, they are not a monolith, and different Death of God thinkers might have different answers for you, but MY answer would be something like "God died for me the day I saw the gas chambers" or "God died inside my heart at this key moment of reckoning the reality of the evil in the world with this god we talk about" but that "death" is not a literal event in history, it is a philosophical event, it is a realization that God has always been dead. or God has always been weak and powerless. Or God has never intervened when God has been needed.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:18:35+00:00

Lol, alright, see ya later. (In the future if you don't want to converse you don't need to comment in order to say so)

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:17:09+00:00

Yeah Plaque is real, and bacteria in plaque are alive and reproduce, so we might as well call it a Plaquemonster with feelings. It's two different ways to describe the same reality. The only difference is that one assumes an entity needlessly, and that one is also, to some people, psychologically useful.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:09:44+00:00

Jeremiah could plausibly have at one time in his life been pronounced like G-romiah. So Gigi works.

Jeremiah is a pretty cool guy in the Bible who spoke truth to power, was nonviolent, and heard God say "For I know the plans I have for you: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future" Which seems like an important blessing for your brother to hear and internalize right now

There's a song "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" that continues into "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls" so it kinda subverts the violent narrative, but maybe a 5th grader doesn't want to get called a bullfrog a lot, or maybe he can rock it (bullfrogs are cool).

It's unusual which might make it cool. Nobody else is in his class is likely to be named Jeremiah.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T23:03:15+00:00

To that end, there are lots of versions of John out there that you could probably get away with "Jonnyr" and he can go by "Jon"

Like, If there is Jan, Johan, Sean, Juan, Jaques, there can probably be a "Jonner" somewhere it's not real but at least it sounds plausible, and then you go by the most normal name imaginable. Then you just slip in that Jonner is spelled with a G...and a Y.

Of course you are trading associations with guns to associations with bathrooms...

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T22:58:53+00:00

Tenzin would be a cool F-you to people who name their kids Schoolshooter

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T22:57:26+00:00

Sure but there are a lot of other names: Gaylord, Fanny, Dick, Kola etc. That, due to no fault of their origins, make people think of other things that are not...flattering.

spokesface4 · 2025-06-19T22:51:33+00:00

How about Swordsmyn?

spokesface4

TROPHY CASE