On the subject of atheism.

[Asmodean]

I am atheist. [Period]

I'm not on some <current year> spectrum of bullshit when it comes to it. I do not hold any belief whatsoever in YHWH, Zeus, Odin, Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Krishna or the doctrines of intersectionalism. This is by far not an exhaustive list.

I find some religions palatable, others fascinating, others still tolerable and a bunch - worth regretfully forgetting, with some overlap in places. That does not, however, in any way speak to me having faith in a particular deity or adhering to any particular doctrine.

At best, I'm a coincidental -ist in pretty much every regard - yes, even when it comes to atheism. I don't believe in gods - therefore I'm atheist. I'm not "atheist, therefore <insert dogma>."

[zorkan]

Had you been living in a past century, would you still have been an atheist?
Because of you non belief, would you have accepted being burned alive?

I think I would have gone along with the herd and gone to church/mosque/temple/whatever.
Praise be to Charles Darwin for informing us of why life exists.
Mention also to Einstein, Hubble, space telescopes.

[Asmodean]

Had you been living in a past century, would you still have been an atheist?

I have lived in the past century and I was.

I understand what you are trying to say, and it's difficult to know. Had I been born in 2005 in rural Alabama, I may not have been atheist today.

Because of you non belief, would you have accepted being burned alive?

Acceptance of the guilty is not necessary for justice to work. Now, whether I would have thought it just is a-whole-nother matter.

That said, I'm kind-of on the self-serving side of things, so I try not to pick fights I cannot win as long as whether or not I do has a tangible impact upon my sweet, sweet self. Thus, it stands to reason that if I were some kind of heretic in times where that was punishable by more than I was willing to endure, then I would outwardly toe the line.

I think I would have gone along with the herd and gone to church/mosque/temple/whatever.

Yeah. When I was younger, I knew plenty of kids from the american bible belt who did just that, then covertly talked about not actually being religious in various atheist fora online.* It may well be that if you depend on someone and your trust in them having your back is conditional to say the least, that keeping your head low is the safest strategy. If you depend on your parents for stuff like food and shelter and know that their loyalty to their faith surpasses that to you... I'd call that one such circumstance.

Praise be to Charles Darwin for informing us of why life exists.

He didn't. His body of work is on how life changes.

Mention also to Einstein, Hubble, space telescopes.

As long as we are honourable-mentioning the honoured dead, I'd like to lift up some less-known yet no less important names; John S. Bell, father Georges Lemaître, Ralph A. Alpher, George Gamow. Many others.

[EDIT:]*Wow, that doesn't seem like such a long time ago, but over two decades went by. I was maybe 16-17 when I entered the online Atheist scene... Getting long in the proverbial tooth, and I'm not sure I like it.

[zorkan]

I have lived in the past century and I was.

I find it irritating that we date our centuries from the supposed birth of one Jesus X.
If he was born at the time of one Herod, didn't that king die in 4 BC.
There we go again. I'm using BC as a calendar.
Why do we still continue with this outdated nonsense?
Might as well think the ancient Greeks knew they were living in PC times.

I'm happy with a year being a full orbit of the sun, even though that's not strictly accurate 365 days.
Abolish the word year altogether and use one orbit of our star. Like we're all  on our Xth orbit of the sun.
In the unlikely event that aliens are observing us dumb Earthlings, what in 'heaven' must they be thinking of our calendar, considering we date from a time of mythology. Other non-christian dating methods are available and they are all wrong.
Everything is superstition.
And we are all ignorant of what the future holds.

[zorkan]

Is atheism an insult to god, or perhaps religion is?
If I were god, would I want to be worshipped?
I'd probably lay down a few rules for life, like a number of do's and don'ts.
Given about 300,000 years of human history and about 8000 years of human civilisation, then why did god delay in revealing himself by way of incarnation? Surely he could just have left texts on stones.
If like me, you have a problem identifying the gospel writers, you are not alone.

"Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses."

Like these 4, I was also not present to witness any of the events attributed to the life of Jesus.
I would also like to know what he was doing before he came to preach.
It seems I am not even allowed to ask questions like this.

Were the gospel writers attempting to start a new religion?
Was there perhaps another motive?
Denied by many christians, Jesus was a Jew and Jews needed their heroes at the time of Roman occupation.
Somehow the cult got lucky but Christianity was delayed for another 400 years.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1138419-the-only-position-that-leaves-me-with-no-cognitive-dissonance

Definition:  Spiritual cognitive dissonance (SCD) is a condition wherein a person holds conflicting thoughts about their spiritual beliefs and their behavioral patterns (Festinger, 1957).

[Old Seer]

Something you may want to think over. There is a drastic (supposed to be) difference from old testament to new. The religion hold onto the old in conjunction with the new as it facilitates the general mentality of what they want. Combining the two has led to trash religion that doesn't make much sense on the overall.

[zorkan]

For christians the great link between OT and NT is the prophet Isaiah.
He forecast the coming of the christ.

Now, was this a few months or years before the great one. Maybe it was 50 years.
Nope. More like 800 years and he didn't mention Jesus at all, instead it was Immanuel, later to be known as Our Immanuel.
A bit like going back in time from the present to the time of the Crusades.

[Asmodean]

I find it irritating that we date our centuries from the supposed birth of one Jesus X.

Other calendars of questionable precision are available. Julian, Lunar, Bengali...

The Gregorian calendar "won" due to a multitude of factors - the rise and fall of empires, "chronological" alliances, its overall usefulness... It may be irritating, but it is understandable, as it is understandable why the origo is placed around-ish Jesus' alleged birth day.

I'm happy with a year being a full orbit of the sun, even though that's not strictly accurate 365 days.
Abolish the word year altogether and use one orbit of our star. Like we're all  on our Xth orbit of the sun.

The year of our Earth 4567362179... Or was it 4567362163?

...And the time before the origo, that being the year the Earth accreted from a cloud of dust (a process which I assume took far longer than a year) we could call BE - "before Earth."

So, change a system to one with far less intuitive numbers, which has all the flaws of the current one with no everyday life benefits. Why?

In the unlikely event that aliens are observing us dumb Earthlings, what in 'heaven' must they be thinking of our calendar, considering we date from a time of mythology. Other non-christian dating methods are available and they are all wrong.

They would find it a useful way of measuring time. What does it matter if the coordinate system is arbitrary, as long as it is agreed upon?

[zorkan]

Will cyborgs burn in hell? A new age has begun.

https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-brain-chip-technology-heralds-the-age-of-the-cyborg-13059835

[Asmodean]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just media hyping up something that is far less interesting up close - at least from that particular source. Now, if someone like Microsoft or some other "reputable" entity were heralding the age of the cyborg, I would possibly be mildly intrigued. Musk..? Not so much.

That said, I've never quite understood how a soul is supposed to burn in Hell, since it's not alleged to be made of anything flammable. A cyborg, on the other hand, that you could burn.

[zorkan]

Good to know only cyborgs will be thrown into the fiery lake, which I assume is central to hell.
But isn't the soul supposed to be linked to both body and mind?
The penalty for not believing in the loving Jesus is still a burning end whether you're a cyborg or not.

There are other places of the mind.
One is Shangri-La favoured by Tibetans.
"The mythical land of Shangri-La is the novelist James Hilton's fictional account of the legendary Tibetan paradise Shambala. In Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, he changes the name of the paradise to Shangri-La."

People regain their youth here in a sort of youthing field.
Well, it makes a change from the idea of hell.










 

[Asmodean]

Good to know only cyborgs will be thrown into the fiery lake, which I assume is central to hell.

Made from regular matter them 'borgs, you see.

But isn't the soul supposed to be linked to both body and mind?

Yeah, but body and, by extension, mind just rot after death - or get disposed of in some other way. The soul is supposed to get "released" or some such nonsense at or around that point. I postulate that it makes it unburnable by virtue of immateriality.

And you know what could be used synonymously with "immateriality?" Non-existence.

The penalty for not believing in the loving Jesus is still a burning end whether you're a cyborg or not.

Well, yeah, but what does it matter? (See what I did there? Matter. Because immaterial. Comedy. Fucking. King. Yep. )

If you in your soul form can very well exist in the core of a star, then what's a little lake of magical fire?

There are other places of the mind.
One is Shangri-La favoured by Tibetans.

My end-of-the-line complaint with most concepts of eternal life, life after death and such like is that eternity is a very long time. Now, if you get reincarnated and thereby "reset" every time you die, then it need not matter to you how you live - you will not even be you, let alone remember anything, upon reincarnation. That one is kinda' close to nature recycling your molecules.

As for "eternal soul" worlds, I present you with one trillion years. If you reset your birthdays for convenience every 100 years, after a trillion years, you will have celebrated your 100th birthday ten thousand million times. Humans being what they are, there is "nothing" worth doing that many times. So, deathly bored but doomed to undeath, there you are, having shoved that birthday cake into every orifice imaginable more times than you can count... Welcome to the very beginning of your eternity.

How's that for Hell? 

[zorkan]

Seems like you could benefit from this.

https://www.mysticmag.com/psychic-reading/what-you-need-to-know-about-past-life-readings/

You could also try the Akashic records.

[zorkan]

Would like your opinion on The God Delusion by Dawkins.
The only effect it's had is to harden atheism and religion at the same time.

We know that religion puts people into a straight jacket, as they descend further and further into their own mental black hole.
Few people admit to being wrong, not even Dawkins.
Black holes are a reality from which you cannot escape.
In fact you won't even know you have fallen below the event horizon.
With Dawkins it's more than just non belief. It's an intellectual argument that had to be won.
He's failed, hasn't he?

[Icarus]

I have the book, I have read it carefully. Dawkins does a pretty good job of making his point of view applicable to reality. The book is probably on the prohibited list in many red state American libraries.

Yes Dawkins has failed to persuade or reason with the people who will not, or cannot, read his book. What I mean by "cannot" is that potential learners are prohibited by their religious peers from reading such "ungodly trash".

Dawkins and others of similar persuasion are pissing against the tide of the religious establishment.

Some of us, a growing number of us, are slowly removing ourselves from the self imposed slavery to religion. Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagan, Steele, and others have helped keep the ball rolling.