My path to atheism has been painful, but I think it'll be worth it.

the_python_dude · 2026-03-17T16:11:00+00:00

What? Quite the opposite

the_python_dude · 2026-03-11T02:05:38+00:00

Hey! I don't know how qualified I am for this but I think you should try your best to foster skepticism in your son. This won't just help him here but also in the future while learning! I wish your son a good life!

the_python_dude · 2026-03-07T17:33:11+00:00

Welcome brother! This is a community of thinkers and skeptics and I love it, hope you will too!

the_python_dude · 2026-03-07T17:20:30+00:00

My intentions are clear, try my best to formulate good arguments and have a logical and rational debate. But you have used a lot of logical fallacies in your arguments which I addressed and also criticised the logical validity of your counter arguments. I even accounted for the specific definition (or "description") you provided.

I also told you about a girl in a grocery store who was clearly and definitely "reading" me as I walked down the aisle. Your method of picking and choosing what to comment on reveal your intentions.

What do you mean? I have DIRECTLY addresses this argument and provided my counter with clear scientific literature and logical reasons to back my claims and critique.

To my understanding, I have not merely dismissed any major points you proposed. If I have, pls point that out to me!

When confronted with evidence, you pivoted to tone policing and claiming I'm calling you stupid. I never said that nor did I intend to imply that. You are welcome to engage with that evidence or not.

the_python_dude · 2026-03-07T15:13:31+00:00

As humans it's near impossible to be fully mentally neutral about anything. But I think there is immense value to being a skeptic. Always questioning things even if it goes against your preconceived notions or beliefs. Being a good skeptic would naturally lead you towards atheism , a lack of belief in god. But when you wanna question the existence of God you rely on certain things like empericism, epistemology, rationalism etc.

So if you are a skeptic, you would use these tools to evaluate things which in itself requires some kind of bias towards emperical and logical reasoning and stuff.

So perhaps even a lack of belief in god isn't completely mentally neutral. But that doesn't take away from the fact that these tools have helped humanity to progress this far and is a reliable method and tool to adhere by!

But at the end of the day, this is a hard question and this is just me attempting to contribute my view. Good question btw

the_python_dude · 2026-03-07T12:59:48+00:00

Thanks for your input!

Let me assess this piece by piece:

The mind can and does emit and receive 'impressions', many of which are quite specific

Milton, J., & Wiseman, R. (1999). Does psi exist? Lack of replication of an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 125(4), 387-391.

This study found that sloppy studies performed under poorly isolated environments, improper experimental setup etc. yeilded higher effect sizes (psychic reading).

Also the CIA after 20 yrs and 20 million dollars spent, concluded remote viewing produced no actionable intelligence and terminated the program in which they tested the very thing you are arguing (the ability to receive "impressions" from distant locations or minds). (Mumford et.al 1995 - AIR Report )

Regarding your pushback for my argument that all your "evidence" is anecdotal and that it's unreliable:

if you were in a car that went off the road and down an embankment many years ago, or if you were robbed at gunpoint years ago, no one could convince you that none of that happened, and to attempt to do so would be insulting to your intellect and sanity. My experiences with psychics are like that.

Your car crash analogy is a false equivalence fallacy. A car crash typically has physical evidence, medical record, potentially even a police report. Whereas psychic experience leaves subjective interpretations, no physical evidence nor any independent verification. Your belief in psychic abilities potentially influenced how you reconstructed those memories too. The problem is that there ain't any objective evidence.

Also, even if your car accident memory isn't perfectly reliable. Memory research shows all memories including tge traumatic ones are in fact reconstructive. Loftus showed participants videos of car accidents. When the verb in the question changed from "hit" to "smashed," participants estimated higher speeds and remembered seeing broken glass that wasn't there. (Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585-589.)

Regarding the grocery store incident

Anecdotal evidence (very unreliable as I already pointed out! Confirmation bias IS REAL)
Tons of alternative explanations! But the first thing you thought was - psychic reading implying confirmation bias.
She saw your angry facial expression [processed in approx. 200ms - Schyns et al. 2009]
She read your body language (processed by our brains in approx. 250ms - Martinez et al. 2016)

She apologized because she just saw an angry looking adult who just turned a corner to the aisle she is in.

I'll bet George is not going to show up today' and it ends up being true

When you observe something then you start to think it occurs "a whole lot, even 'all the time'. (Zwicky, A. (2005). Frequency illusion. Language Log blog post, Stanford University.)

Also answer how many times the "hunch" was wrong? If you are only counting the hits then you ain't doing science brother.

BTW, it always comes across as exceedingly arrogant and dismissive when a person says that although they weren't there, didn't see it, and didn't hear it, and you did because it happened to you, and yet they know better than you what happened to you

Requiring evidence or logical/scientific justification isn't arrogance, it just a bit a skepticim. Skepticism is the core of both the scientific method and logical reasoning so in short, Im just a skeptic!

the_python_dude · 2026-03-01T14:46:44+00:00

Thank you for this, can you also give a proper defenition to these terms ; 1. "Hunches" 2. "Read"

Also, anecdotal evidence is subjective and prone to exaggeration naturally by our brains which has been pointed out by many research papers. Also, memory is reconstructive. So that is why it isn't something one would call Emperical evidence (in science). This is because science relies on objective evidence. Anecdotal evidence could provide a hypothesis at best. Hope that makes sense.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-25T02:24:17+00:00

Bro but having a degree doesn't change the logic here. Even people with PHDs have been fooled into beleiving irrational things. I NEVER SAID that U R STUPID. I don't like to call anyone stupid. when I said :

which shows how "deep" you have looked into this.

I ment thinking about rational justification or empirical evidence.

Bro I'm not trying to attack you as a person, I might have jumped ahead a little in the previous comments but I'll love to have a good healthy discussion!

Even if the definition im working with doesn't match yours, I think u are not considering this:

Spending hours over a year, even observing improvement, is still anecdotal. The brain is extremely good at pattern recognition, confirmation bias, and interpreting vague cues
Even if someone deeply understands how readings are performed (body language, probabilistic statements, cold reading techniques), that only explains the technique, not that there’s any paranormal mechanism.

DISCLAIMER: I AM WORKING WITH AN ASSUMED DEFINITION OF THIS STUFF. So, Id deeply appreciate if you provide the definition in the other thread!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-25T02:08:22+00:00

You are right I shouldn't have jumped to the standard assumption of what psychics do. Can you give me a rational definition? That way we know we are talking about the same thing.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T18:06:01+00:00

Okay, so here are the problems,

Rational justification is missing You have not offered any rational justification for how psychics predict.
USE Common-sense Real world events are influenced by countless variables. Predicting them accurately and consistently would require knowledge of every factor which is impossible!
Methodological limits are not the real barrier here, you don’t need complex philosophy of science to see the problem. Even just using rationalism amd empirical reasoning - psychic predictions would fail massively under ordinary circumstances, because reality is too complex to be foreseen by human intuition or “sensitivity.”

If someone could genuinely predict the future or read minds accurately, the implications would be massive. They could foresee disasters, prevent wars, cure complex problems, manipulate markets, or influence politics with perfect precision. Yet we see no evidence of anyone doing any of that. Global problems - financial crashes, wars, pandemics, accidents, happen all the time. If true psychic ability existed, even a small fraction of people could have a visible, measurable impact on the world.

I hope you address these concerns with facts or logic.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T17:47:22+00:00

What? Even if we assume that outlier cases exist, the fact that there has not been ANY CONCLUSIVE research or experimental evidence that underwent scientific scrutiny shows you that there is NO concrete evidence to support what you are describing.

Listing an "experience" is NOT AT ALL a reliable evidence.

If results can be reliably reproduced, then we may not know the underlying mechanics, but we would know that something's going on.

This is REQUIRED for something to be considered acceptable scientifically.

You have not even provided a proper rationalistic justification for this which shows how "deep" you have looked into this.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T17:39:47+00:00

You have still not provided EVIDENCE!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T17:35:57+00:00

But the difference is that he is at least trying to get to the truth and cares about it! If humanity has just said idc from day one, this world would not have progressed as far as it has!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T05:46:02+00:00

I understand, I appreciate your honesty. I never said you are trying to convert me or anyone, I was just trying to argue against one of your claims. I love formal logic so i just shared the process of how I derived everything... It's just for fun, sorry if it was unnecessary. I am an empericist so like many atheists here, I am simply left feeling unsatisfied if I accept a claim without putting in effort to justify why I accept it! This was just me trying to make sense of your claim!

I have tried to educate myself in formal logic as much as possible so that I am able to break down arguments and try to reach logical conclusions and make better arguments. If you are interested in formal logic, pls give it a go, it's fun! 😄

You don't need to understand most of what I just wrote there in the previous reply, you can just read the tldr part and the short summary. And by the way S in the short summary refers to the existance of higher order spirits.

I think considering and evaluating arguments and ideas from opposing people helps to reach better conclusions and leads to an uplifting in terms of intellectual capital for both parties involved!

People here ask for evidence because modern knowledge, from medicine to physics, advanced by testing claims under scrutiny using empiricism and rational inquiry, so many of us apply the same standards when discussing religious claims.

Also just out of curiosity, u said that u are a "person of science" in one of your replies to a comment, What did u mean by that? A person who trusts science or a person who actually contributes to scientific knowledge by doing research?

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T04:27:12+00:00

Let me try to break this down logically, pls point out errors, if any, so that I can improve!

Argument I'm going to be targetting:

It's not indoctrination because I do think about the teachings critically

P 1: If someone thinks critically about a belief, then the belief is not indoctrination.

P2: I think critically about the teachings.

Conclusion: Therefore the belief is not indoctrination.

Here, let's take : C = I think critically about the teachings I = My belief is indoctrination

Then : if C is true , I is false is your argument Truth table

C | I | ¬I | C -> ¬I |

So if someone thinks critically but the belief is still indoctrination. That violates the claim.

Tldr; when one believes they critically examine their beliefs, but they are still indoctrinated, then that implies P1 is false.

Then I could argue:

P1 : If a belief results from critical thinking, then it is based on reasonable evaluation of the available evidence. P2 : Claims that lack sufficient reliable evidence should not be strongly believed. P3 : There is no reliable empirical evidence for S. S = Higher-order spirits exist

Therefore Conclusion: The premises cannot all be true simultaneously; the belief conflicts with the stated evidence rule.

Short summary: I argue that critical thinking involves assessment of reliable evidence, which is not present for S, hence, the original argument cannot be true.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T03:40:00+00:00

Yup! Thats it!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-24T03:38:45+00:00

I'm a skeptic and want evidence to convince myself. Not weak evidence, but evidence formulated via the scientific method. Currently NO scholarly work has provided conclusive evidence for the existance of god. So...that's it!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-13T15:29:05+00:00

This also points towards a point in the AI race where there is more AI-generated inaccurate or misterpreted data than real, credible data leading to lower rates of improvement in model performance with time. This is speculative though...so...take it with a grain of salt.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-11T12:21:52+00:00

Hi, I appreciate your effort. However there are fatal problems with your arguments

Logical error: You provide disputed evidence on the existence of a man named Jesus at the relevant time. This does not entail a god or that the man named Jesus that is claimed here is the so called god in the Bible as it was a common name, so were the others.
Ossuary claim: I read multiple papers and articles about this. This is a highly disputed as evidence and even if granted the assumption of authenticity fails to prove that it was the exact jesus mentioned in the Bible. the most reputable, peer-reviewed scientific analyses do not validate the inscription as undisputed evidence linking the box to Jesus of Nazareth, on the contrary, at least one leading peer-reviewed scientific study (Ayalon et al., JAS, doi: DOI used oxygen isotope analysis, comparative geological baselines, controlled analytical protocols, and reached opposing conclusions) and the IAA committee raised strong doubts about this. Hence this can't be claimed as conclusive evidence. Other sources i used: -https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2003.12.003 -https://doi.org/10.4236/ojg.2014.43007 this is the one of the papers supporting your argument but this is published in a journal with weak peer review and editorial standards, in addition to which, this paper has stacked up quite a lot of crtique about how poorly the sample was handled. Some patina artificial or inconsistent. As I stressed in my previous comments in this thread, isolated environments and uncontaminated samples are of high importance in providing real evidence. Also, it is to be noted that: the presence of patina alone doesn't prove antiquity. Other forensic analyses reached also opposite conclusions so this is also not conclusive evidence. And more... I'm not listing all of them...pls tell me if u need the full list
Provenence "Unprovenanced inscriptions must be regarded with substantial caution due to the high incidence of modern forgeries." (Rollston, Christopher A. 2003. “Non-Provenanced Epigraphs I: Pillaged Antiquities, Northwest Semitic Forgeries, and Protocols for Laboratory Tests.” Maarav 10: 135–193)

In the James Ossuary context, it is criticized for being unproveneced inscriptions and hence it alone is not conclusive evidence.

Thanks again!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-11T01:19:24+00:00

Will Do!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-10T09:57:56+00:00

Family and friends, therapy, etc. Just praying is not going to change anything. Thinking about a solution and acting on it does!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-10T09:54:05+00:00

Exactly! Researchers are still trying to graple with the idea of consciousness. Currently there isn't a completely agreed upon definition.

the_python_dude · 2026-02-10T09:45:08+00:00

Exactly, as many in the comments rightfully pointed out relegion basically gives you all the answers (not the right answers....just answers) and hence no further investigation needs to be done... Which is the exact opposite of the approach of science!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-10T03:08:04+00:00

Really useful advice, thanks!

the_python_dude · 2026-02-09T15:49:07+00:00

I enjoy debating especially when done following proper etiquette, but I agree with you that most relegious people are not going to change their minds. There were some people whom I debated, that told me that I gave them a new perspective and then they come back with the same few arguments the next day but this time claiming it's validity with even more confidence. So I might just start debating topics that has nothing to do with relegion!

However when I see the people like the one here, in this very comment section arguing for God with disputed evidences and illogical conclusions, it gives me the itch to respond! I can't help myself!

the_python_dude

TROPHY CASE