I consider most theists’, especially christians, to be either ignorant or arrogant when it comes to defending the reasons why they believe in the first place. Sometimes it’s just stupidity, right?
I personally believe(think) it’s a combination of both. Clowns like Kent Hovind and his trained monkey(sorry Cog) are so unbelievably arrogant when it comes to evolution and the age of the Earth and the Universe that it’s hard to listen to them for more than 30 seconds.
Any longer, and your IQ will go down with each minute you listen to them.
The recent contributions of a certain lady theist who kept quoting her favorite work of fiction is an example of ignorance. If you just keep repeating the same thing over and over again, it becomes real, right?
Which one is worse, ignorance, or arrogance? I’d say it’s arrogance, because it implies that the person has heard both sides of the argument, but doesn’t care what the facts might be, they’re right and everyone else is wrong.
When it comes to my own family, my wife and our kids, I think it’s a combination of both. What they’re telling our grandkids is the truth is a fucking lie in my opinion. Sometimes it makes me sick listening to the things they’ll tell them, or listening to our 2 younger ones asking for me to “know Jesus” when/if they say grace before we have dinner together. It’s pathetic.
I’ll keep my arrogance, in lieu of a return to the state of ignorance. My arrogance is earned. It is impossible to be both arrogant and ignorant without being just extremely ignorant. I have already made all the mistakes and do not wish to repeat them. I have, in fact, worked very hard, and continue to work, at being the arrogant piece of shit you may think me to be. Frankly, if you don’t like it, you can fuck right off, or have the balls to face me and demonstrate where it is you think I am wrong. (I know there are some as arrogant as myself willing to accept that challenge. LOL)
I believe that Cog has a basketball, two American footballs, 3 home run baseballs from the Padres (81-86) (that’s a joke if anyone gets it) and a whole suburb’s worth of “lost” tennis and ping pong balls lodged alongside and above his rolling pin.
I suppose , just in case some random accuses him of “not having the balls to do that” whatever “that” maybe in context. We all know how literal Cog can be sometimes.
How do I know about the Padres…well in the Jack Murphy Stadium I was a regular in the eighties watching my team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory more times than I care to count…Cog stole my souvenir balls, not from the Padres hitters of course but from the Dodgers.
I actually played that stadium twice…but for Chargers half time. Christ those Line men were huge.
They’ve been told Granpa is going to hell. Like most kids they don’t want that for you and are trying in the only way they know to stop it happening.
Having been on the receiving end of such “kindness” aka bigotry and child abuse by parental custodians, I appreciate how galling it is. I just used to, in playtime or reading time, make sure I dropped in those little questions that would get repeated to the perpetrators. Always fun when the parents approach one a few days later to remonstrate. THEN I could respond them with with some vigour.
Well of course there are those who would accept the challenge, but not because they think you are wrong, but rather because you are wrong.
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Edit (sometimes it is hard to walk with these)
Both are bad, but which is worse would depend on context. Ignorance can often be fixed through information and education, while arrogance can be difficult to fix. The worst is the combination of the two, of which there are two flavours - ignorant arrogance (where arrogance is due to being ignorant) and arrogant ignorance (where arrogance is the basic cause of the ignorance). The worst - and hardest to fix - would most likely be the latter. So my conclusion is that arrogance is probably the worst single factor of the two, but it would depend on context.
Well we have some choice for one of those, but not for the other, since there will always be things we are ignorant of. Of course indulging ignorance or revelling in it always seems arrogant to me. If you’re wrong it’s best to cough to it straight away, if anyone tries to humiliate me for being wrong after that, then they’re just being a cunt.
While it is true that religion can harbor delusions, it’s important to recognize that atheism is not exempt from holding its own set of delusions. Despite claiming a foundation in science, atheism falls short in explaining essential aspects of human existence, such as consciousness, the prevalence of mythology as a universal phenomenon, and the unresolved contradictions between quantum mechanics and relativity.
Admittedly, religion can lead individuals to express absurd notions, but it’s crucial to acknowledge that even in criticizing religion, one may inadvertently promote certain absurdities without realizing it.
The notable difference lies in the historical stability of religious-based societies over millennia, while atheist societies have not demonstrated the same longevity, often lasting only a few generations. This is a point worthy of consideration.
Whataboutism, and again this is fallacious, and since atheism makes no claims nor involves any beliefs it cannot by definition hold any delusions, you are erroneously equating atheist with atheism again, they’re not the same thing. Telling us that someone who doesn’t hold an unevidenced belief in a deity, is also capable of deluding themselves is almost trivially true, but has no relevance to atheism, and reflect the reasoning of that individual, despite your duplicitous attempts to claim something an atheists believes must have resulted from them not holding theistic belief.
Straw man fallacy, atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, and nothing more. Science is not the reason I disbelieve superstitious claims for which no objective evidence can be demonstrated, and no rational arguments offered. Atheism does not need to explain anything, since it is not a claim or belief, this is the same tedious argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy you;ve been peddling from the very first. Nor does atheism need to answer scientific dichotomies, that is for science to do. This is poor bait, and hilariously it is all you have as it is all you have offered from weeks of posting.
Another straw man, you keep making vague sweeping claims like this as if they haven’t occurred to the atheists here, yet these threads are littered with atheists whose hubris and hyperbole gets short shrift on here. The fact remains you can’t demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity.
What a spectacularly stupid claim. Rwanda, Nazi Germany, the whole of Christian Europe for two world wars, Ethnic cleansing by right wing Christian Serbs, ISIS, the never ending trouble between the state of Israel and the wider Muslim middle east. Best of all the claim that religion lends stability would not remotely evidence a deity.
You’ve not heard of France then? However this is again a particularly stupid claim, since even were this true it doesn’t remotely evidence any deity.
Well, can we describe atheism as a literal intellectual interpretation of reality? Believe it or not, atheism is the byproduct of religious extremism, the literal intellectual interpretation of religious texts.
The problem with this stance is that it rejects anything that does not originate from the intellect. For example, inspiration, intuition, premonition, etc., are not products of the intellect. Consequently, this partial appreciation of reality leads to an intellectually impeccable mistake…
No, obviously as that is not what the word means. We can also note you have failed yet again to address your use of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, I shan’t even feign surprise. My atheism is a lack of belief in any deity or deities, exactly as the dictionary defines it, and atheism does not need to offer explanations of anything. Anymore than not believing in unicorns does. Despite your mendaciously desperate desire to insist atheism is a set of beliefs and an intellectual ideology.
No it isn’t, though I imagine it can be, but those are very different claims, you keep making these same sweeping absolutes, and failing to learn from the error in reasoning. All babies are born without any beliefs, ipso facto they are atheists by definition, and clearly have not arrived at this lack of theistic belief because of religious extremism or intellectual rigour. Why you keep lying about this isn’t clear?
Is that it is a straw man fallacy you have created.
Again this is not atheism you’re describing.
Inspiration is defined as being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. So I don’t accept your arbitrary claim it is not derived from the intellect. I would need to see some objective evidence to support the idea that intuition are not simply evolved instincts working at a subconscious level, I will need to see you demonstrate sufficient objective evidence that premonitions are even possible before the claim has any meaning at all, and since the claim is offered in the complete absence of any objective evidence Hitchens’s razor applies - slash.
So you failed to address your previous use of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, resorted immediately to several straw man fallacies about atheism, and made some sweeping and unevidenced claims, one wonders what it is you hope to achieve by continuing to peddle unevidenced superstition, and irrational argument on an atheist debate forum?
OOOUCH!.. (quickly placing tissue under bleeding nose)… Aw, shit! I have GOT to remember to wear a face shield before reading your fucking posts. Damn near facepalmed my fucking nose to the back of my skull… (grabbing more tissues… yelling into the breakroom)… Hey! Anybody know a good metalsmith?
Hmm… well, you are also making an arbitrary statement that inspiration comes solely from the intellect. But as far as I know, I can think about pink ponies if I want to, but I can’t feel inspired at will. So I’m not sure if inspiration can be considered purely an intellectual action.
Nope, this another of your dishonest straw men fallacies, as I made no such claim. You are one of the most consistently dishonest posters I have encountered. You made a claim, it was at odds with the evidence i provided, you singled out one of those claims, and made up a straw man claim and assigned it to me, even though i made no claim, just pointed out what the word means, the definition doesn’t say solely either, so you are being doubly dishonest. What about all your other unevidenced claims, and the challenges offered, nothing to say there then? You just make endless unevidenced assertions then roll right passed any objections.
Like that lie for example, care to address my response? Here it is again then:
Or this claim and my response, anything?
Then finally here are the raft of claims you made, and my response, and you cited just one of those claims, and lied to create a straw man. Try again, and show some integrity please.
