Nice to see you back, Simon!
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I see atheism as very fulfilling.
First, there is a sense of accomplishment when one abandons self-deception.
Second, I take comfort in the fact that I don’t have to worry and/or concern myself about burning in hell for eternity for my beliefs.
Third, I like the idea of being the captain of my own destiny.
Fourth, I really like the idea that I don’t have to do things that I know are wrong because I need to satisfy some imaginary diety . . . like oppressing women, or beating children because sparing the rod spoils the child.
And so on.
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That response totally captures what I have seen of atheism, that sense of being ‘more intelligent than thou’. Also a sense of skepticism and cynicism. But at the same time I have seen this street preacher that seems like that. So, maybe its just a personality quirk…
That sounds very authentic. I don’t quite understand 'being captain of my own destiny".
I thought I felt that with religion, and ‘free will’, but that is very much an illusion, and Sam Harris has published a book on the topic.
I over all feel like I would like a refund for my life. But maybe that is my own fault, and/or our cultures fault to have expectations for things in life that probably don’t happen to very many people.
“Scientists often use the terms language and code, in metaphorical ways, not literal.”
So, what is the literal description of DNA ‘code’.? The molecular string is one really long molecule. I am sure there are other such long chemical clusters, strings, and other structures.
I am very much interested in lojban, which for the most part is so much more literal, and direct than natural languages. I am a bit disappointed however that the few people that speak it want to introduce non-literalism, and ambiguity.
Well, English, and probably most natural languages probably will always have a problem with ambiguity, and metaphorical language. And unfortunately probably will cause some misunderstandings in many areas.
Those are good, never would have thought about that.
I’ll start with the basics. Or at least, the basics within the framework I adopt in the interests of rigour.
Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, consists of nothing more than proper suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboy assertions. That is basically IT.
Being suspicious of, and questioning, every assertion presented to you, protects you from being deceived either by the ill-informed or the devious. Knowing this should provide the basis of the emotional satisfaction you seek.
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Atheism describes one thing only, a lack of belief in gods. Atheists, however, come in many flavors. I also don’t understand why you are referring to my asking clarifying questions (without benefit of a tone of voice) as those things. Will you explain?
Now for the snark: you going to answer the questions or rest on your deflection?
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Describe any culture…if you can
My goodness, well there are things to be skeptical about, other than religion. And yes I suppose over all it is a good thing to ask for evidence for religion.
If this is a reply to my initial questions, then I guess this is a “no” to the question asking if you are going to reply to them.
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The DNA model, the swirl, was designed by Francis Crick to map the DNA molecule to identify 3 sets of nucleotides. What you obviously don’t know is that Crick was an Atheist who did it with one of the reasons being to prove to Christians that their god was imaginary. Obviously you all keep moving the goal posts.
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Culturally, atheists seem skeptical, but friendly I suppose. Having gone to a few local atheist meetings. I actually heard Sam Harris speak in one of the meetings. It was a small meeting, and I was just waiting on the edges of the gathering.
He came over to me to introduce himself. he expressed that it was better to be engaged, and social. I had no reply. I had no idea who he was. I don’t remember what he said, but I do remember that he welcomed me. I suppose that was more important.
I went to another meeting, and the speaker gave a talk questioning if Jesus even existed. The only thing I remember is that he was a former seminary student who found that things were not adding up.
I thought everyone was atheist, until during the introduction portion, a person said they were Christian, but was curious about atheism. I applaud her for attending, and at least taking time to listen.
I do recall there were a few people who seemed bitter about having wasted so much of their life in religion. I found that annoying, as I feel like, eh that could last for awhile, but one needs to go past that.
I regret that i didn’t do certain things due to religion, but what can I do? time only goes one direction
Keep moving the goal posts? what do you mean? I actually am not sure how DNA disproves creationism. Sigh…the video I referenced for this post uses DNA as an argument for creation, via complexity. One commenter said that complexity does not equal design or even intelligence necessarily, as sometimes simple is better, is that what you mean?
This long post of yours answered none of my questions.
Actually, the nucleotides were known long before Crick and Watson did their work, as were the bindings between A and T and between G and C. What Crick and Watson did was to couple this information together with X-ray crystallographic measurements by English researchers Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, to derive the double-helix model of DNA.
More here: Discovery of DNA Double Helix: Watson and Crick | Learn Science at Scitable
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I’d need to see come compelling evidence this was cultural, rather than a subjective or individual choice.
Really? Ffs don’t go to any Klan meetings.
I think you have answered your own question there, one can only move on, and try to base beliefs on objective reality.
Well it doesn’t disprove mermaids either, it’s important to remember that (in logic) nothing is proved because it can’t be disproved, nor disproved because it can’t be proved.
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In fact, this very fact has been proven (Gödel’s incompleteness theorems).
(I know that you already know this, I’m just restating it just for the record.)
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No it won’t necessarily reduce religiosity. People compartmentalize very well. There are lots of liberal Christians who concede that science is right about evolution and the creation accounts are obviously myths. And yet they see a goldmine of wisdom in the myths and ultimately retcon those myths to support their theism, through a combination of redefining words and cherry picking what they pay attention to.
On the other hand one could plausibly argue that a liberal Christian is “less religious” than a fundamentalist for exactly the reason that they can mostly or entirely embrace science when it contradicts a literal reading of the Bible.
If what you’re hoping for is less theism, then yeah, being more educated is less impactful than you could wish.
That is truely disappointing, and something I find rather irritating. I don’t understand people who want to embrace evolution, and the bible. I hope that it might make people a little less extreme than bible literalists
Sam Harris commented about ‘religious moderates’, and he thinks that is still a problem, as it provides cover and tolerance for fundamentalism.