The Existence of Aliens

Hah, yeah. Over at another forum, a christian apologist once told me off by saying “people like you are the reason we have blasphemy laws!” I then felt a certain sensation of “mission accomplished!” :rofl:

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I will always get mad and offended when someone makes a racist, homophobic, sexist, remark about anyone.

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That really is the most absurd thing to me also. An all powerful god needs man made laws to protect it…?

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I use to, unfortunately it started taking a noticeable toll on my health. Working in factories it is pretty much a daily if not hourly occurrence for someone to speak some absolutely foul thing from the shallow depths of their mind. I think being exposed to it near constantly makes some of use more dead to it. If I got mad at every comment I wouldn’t be able to accomplish a single thing in an my 8 hour work day. It is most certainly not right, unfortunately it’s our sick reality. I fucking loathe society as a whole almost every day. I wish I could live in a cave on a mountain far away. Unfortunately I can’t, so some of us just have to become a little dead inside just to carry on. It’s a gross sacrifice for some in my opinion. I wish I could always get mad, but I personally can’t.

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We had one apologist who sticks in my memory, who had a real hissy fit because atheists would not capitalise the word god, it was in vain to explain to that person that since atheists didn’t believe in a single deity, then it was not being used as a proper noun. The poster did their best to try and dictate to everyone how others should spell it, and of course then projected their own hurt ego, by insisting it was a deliberate attempt to intentionally cause offence. I seem to remember the language getting a bit colourful at that point. Someone, it may have been me, linked a well known scene from a famous Monty Python film set in ancient Palestine, where someone told their wife, “That fish was good enough for Jehovah”, it didn’t go across as well as I’d hoped, ah well you can take a theist to humour, but…I’m struggling to find a metaphor… :innocent: :rofl:

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To a certain extent, I do understand what you are saying. And I have been trying to find the best way to explain my view on that matter. First and foremost, allow me to emphasize that I will most certainly DEFEND innocent folks who are in need of defending if I am in a position to do so. No ifs, ands, or buts. That is just how I am programmed. Granted, I do understand there may be some amount of anger involved in some circumstances. And as long as it is a controlled anger, that is fine. (Rage takes away almost all thinking abilities.) However, I am still baffled about the whole, “I am SO offended!” part of it. ESPECIALLY if the insult is not directed at me personally. For instance, there are many racial slurs I hear from time to time that certainly grate my nerves. But I typically just roll my eyes and shake my head at the ignorance of those using such insults. Sure, it can be really annoying sometimes, but it in no way OFFENDS me. (Even if it is directed at me.) Of course, depending on the circumstances, I would absolutely step in to help defend the target of said insults if the individual is incapable of defending himself/herself, or is not able to resolve that matter alone. But, again, it is not because I am offended by the actions of the aggressive imbecile. I would not lower myself to give the cretin the satisfaction of allowing such ignorant stupidity to affect me like that. See what I mean? (Hoping this is making some amount of sense.)

Basically, I guess I simply don’t understand the disturbing obsession with “being offended” in today’s society. It’s like way too many people are out there ACTIVELY SEARCHING for somebody or something by which to be offended. Almost like a damn contest or something to see who can be offended the most. As if everybody is looking for an excuse to be a “victim.” To say it is pathetic would be an incredible understatement, in my opinion. Anyway, I guess I’ll climb down off my soapbox for now. Anybody has anything insulting to say to me about this, please be aware of my sensitive feelings.

(Edit to locate nearest “Safe Space”.)

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I concur, @Tin-Man, that there are some folks who seem addicted to outrage. And there are people who are offended by, for instance, language that is in no way hateful (the word fuck comes to mind). That’s not the sort of offense I was talking about. I will always be offended by, for example, racist words. And, imo, if someone is not offended by those words, they are cut from the same cloth as the person saying them. Another example: I will always be offended by jokes about sexual assault. It is offensive behavior. Plain and simple. Also, if I’m in earshot of someone spewing homophobic bullshit, it helps me to know I want nothing to do with them. Being offended is a tool. I use it for a number of things. Hell, on occasion, I’ve used the tool of being offended to inform how I vote!
Everyone is offended by some things. There are a ton of things I find perfectly acceptable that others find offensive and vice versa. I think religion is offensive. I think Trump is offensive. I don’t think drag shows are offensive. The list goes on and on. You may find the word offensive to be offensive :wink:
Being offended by something happens in degrees. But it does happen. To all of us.

I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE!!!@!@p:uio:i*()_&

Damn, Cog. That hurts, man. It’s as if you weren’t even trying. I’ve seen kids in elementary school playgrounds hurl better insults. Do I mean that little to you now? Am I not worth the effort anymore? I’ve seen you do so much better when insulting complete strangers. But THAT is the best you can do for a FRIEND? Please tell me you were just having a bad day and simply threw that out there as a reflex shot. :worried:

Ah, okay. Cool. I see what you’re saying now. And thank you for taking time to clarify. I do agree there are certain racial and homophobic words out there I detest, refuse to use, and I wish they could disappear from the social vocabulary. Nevertheless, they still do not “offend” me. Sure, a couple of them in particular might cause me to feel some amount of resentment toward the person(s) using the words, depending on the situation. And at the very least, it serves as an indicator of the type of person(s) I am dealing with. Fact is, though, even if some of those words could be “deleted” from our language, we both know there are ignorant-minded folks out there who would simply develop a different word/term to take their place. I suppose what I am trying to say is that the word itself is basically irrelevant. It is the meaning and the intent of the person using the word that really matters, reflecting directly on the character of INDIVIDUAL(S) using the word(s) more than anything. And, as I said, I do my best to not allow myself to be offended by tiny little ignorant minds. Overall, I suppose I just have an aversion to allowing somebody to have that much control over me. (If that makes sense.) But, again, I do understand what you are saying, and I do thank you for taking time to explain it.

HEY! I might find that statement to be offensive if I were the type of guy who was easily offended. :crazy_face:

Then get the fuck out of the way and stop your eavesdropping, you half-wit jello-brain ape. Adults are trying to have a conversation here. Geeez! :roll_eyes:

I’m taking my cookies and going to my room!

YOU NEED JESUS!

I’ve been trying to tone it down… Cyber just took a chunk out of my ass! LOL

(A very polite, and most likely, well-deserved chunk.) I have to say that so as to not piss her off. You ever seen a pissed off hurricane? errr… ummm Solar System?

An effing galaxy you hairy beastie!

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Yeah, yeah, galaxy, that’s what I meant. I thought it was like a solar system because they are bigger. But Galaxy works too.

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Oh. :astonished: Okay. Well, in that case, I forgive you. And I totally understand. Getting chewed by Cyber is NOT fun. The scariest part about it, though, is that she doesn’t even yell. Hardly even raises her voice, for that matter. It’s downright terrifying! :scream:

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But she has that ‘woman look’ down pat. I don’t even have to see her face to know exactly the look she is giving me. It just made me want to pull the rolling pin out of my ass and start hitting myself over the head with it.

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I believe there are aliens out there, call it a statistical thing (you know, billions of planets, gotta be some aliens somewhere); probably why I love science fiction so much :slight_smile:

I also accept that the only place we know life exists is here, on Earth although that is no reason to stop looking.

IMO, anyone who claims to believe aliens have visited Earth does so as a matter of faith… beyond that, I’m not sure there’s anything much else to say.

UK Atheist

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Hey! Just because WE (humans) don’t yet have a ship that can make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, we cannot ASSUME other galactic civilizations don’t have them. :triumph:

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Maybe one day we will but as things stand right now there’s no validatable evidence for the existence of life anywhere else but Earth.

Personally, I’m with the late Douglas Adams on claims of extraterrestrial visitations:

“Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets that haven’t made interstellar contact yet and buzz them.”
“Buzz them?” Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult for him.
“Yeah,” said Ford, “they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.”

UK Atheist