My beef is not with the practitioners of any religion, it is the religions themselves. I consider religions as a con, and most theists victims of this con. Of course there are many theist jerks, but you can find jerks in any group.
Although I prefer to be respectful and polite to others, I am very aware on how religions used to AND STILL treat anyone outside of their group in very nasty ways. Even today I am on the receiving end of abuse by theists just because of me being an atheist. When push comes to shove I am a fighter, and I wonât go meekly.
So I do not intend to be nasty to others, but fuck any theist who thinks they can put me down or take away any of my rights.
Personally, so what if people get offended on behalf of their god.
god doesnât seem to mind⌠nor does god get offended by what itâs followers âdoâ âŚnor does god feel any need to make itself known, nor interact in a positive way with humans.
It doesnât respond to prayer, tears, nor Blasphemous Art.
Maybe its because the deity is so fragile that any believer offended by a drawing of its particular god doing things it created NEEDS to step up in defense? Seriously. Why the fuck does an âalmighty creator deityâ require any follower to be offended âon its behalfâ.
Iâll just reply to one absurd statement. This old saw:
First, is she seriously holding Christian morality as an example? Now thatâs funny.
To answer the silly claim; @susanh Have you ever heard of the Greek Philosophers? Or perhaps the enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the growth of humanism? (In fact, humanism has been around for about 2000 years). Look it up.
Speaking for myself only: Purely pragmatic: Human beings are social animals. I want to live as part of a community. That means I most certainly cannot do as I want: I need to obey the law. If I do I not, there are sanctions, some of them most unpleasant.
In my opinion, our need for community has/had an evolutionary advantage, predating organised religion by millennia.
My approach to morality here is called ethical egoism. IE is to my advantage to obey laws and have a certain code of behaviour. That it might not be the same as Christianityâs is utterly irrelevant, just as is Christianity most of the time⌠(except Friday 2, all the shops will be shut which pisses me off)
Susanh; I really donât mean to be unkind. Just a gentle hint. I think it might be a good idea if you did some reading. Iâm terribly sorry to tell you, but so far youâve come across as risibly ignorant and not very bright. One canât help but wonder if you might be a troll
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements which have identified with it.[1] Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotion and development of individuals, espouses the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings, and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to the world.[2]
All those species evolved, this is a scientific fact supported by an overwhelming amount of objective evidence that is contained in the scientific theory that explains it.
How life first originated is not known, but not knowing something doesnât validate unevidenced superstition.
A rather stupid tautology, you are using what is called a begging the question fallacy.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
Oh dear, someone has stepped up to the plate with exactly the drivel I mentioned above âŚ
There is ZERO evidence that any of these entities were the product of magic conjuring tricks by a cartoon magic man from a goat herder mythology.
On the other hand, scientists have a wealth of explanations for all of these. In the case of the biosphere, we have evidence in quantity that this was the product of evolution, as documented in over 1½ million peer reviewed scientific papers. Papers that cover everything from direct experimental test and verification of evolutionary postulates, to the replication of speciation events in the laboratory. I suggest you read some of that literature.
Oh, and thereâs also a wealth of papers in the astrophysics literature covering the process of planet formation. Read some of that literature while youâre at it.
See above. Testable natural processes are more than sufficient for the purpose, as documented in those peer reviewed scientific papers.
There is ZERO evidence that the universe is a âcreationâ, let alone the result of actions by a cartoon magic man from a goat herder mythology. In the past, Iâve presented papers from the cosmological physics literature, covering a testable cosmology that can account for the universe and its contents without a cartoon magic man.
And with your resurrection of THIS duplicitous mythology fanboy trope, youâve demonstrated that youâre either ignorant or mendacious. Time for this again:
Letâs deal with the âatheists believe something out of nothingâ canard once and for all, shall we?
Item One. Atheists dispense with belief altogether. Instead, if theyâre contemplating a postulate properly, they ask âwhat evidence exists in support of this postulate?â, and look to whichever discipline is supplying the evidence.
Item Two. the people who REALLY think the universe came from ânothingâ, are those supernaturalists who think their imaginary magic man from their favourite mythology, waved his magic todger and poofed the universe into existence from nothing. So even before I move on to the next items, this alone stuffs the âatheists think the universe came from nothingâ excrement down the toilet and pulls the flush hard.
Item Three. The question of the origin of the universe has nothing to do with atheism. This question is the remit of cosmological physics. And, once again, those of us who paid attention in class, turn to that discipline, and ask what postulates arise therefrom, and what evidence is supplied in support thereof.
Item Four. No cosmological physicist presents the fatuous notion that the universe âcame from nothingâ. Instead, cosmological physicists postulate that testable natural processes, acting upon well defined entities, were responsible for the origin of the observable universe in its current form.
Item Five. The question of the origin of the universe is an active research topic, and as a corollary, a number of hypotheses are extant in the field, with respect to the origin of the observable universe. Indeed, itâs a measure of how far cosmological physics has progressed, that researchers in the field are able to postulate a number of pre-Big-Bang cosmologies, and then work out how to test those cosmologies and the hypotheses underpinning them.
Item Six. As an example of the ideas extant in the literature, Iâm aware of two papers by Steinhardt & Turok, in which they propose a pre-Big-Bang cosmology centred upon braneworld collisions, and which possesses three elegant features. Namely:
[1] It provides a mechanism for the donation of energy to the newly instantiated universe, facilitating subsequent matter synthesis;
[2] It eliminates the singularity problem from standard Big Bang cosmology;
[3] It provides a testable prediction, namely that the power spectrum of primordial gravitational waves will take a specific form, with the graph skewed towards short wavelengths.
Indeed, [3] above is one of the reasons scientists have been labouring diligently, to produce operational gravitational wave detectors, precisely so that they can test this prediction, once theyâve learned how to distinguish between primordial gravitational waves and gravitational waves of more recent origin. The moment they learn to do this, the requisite tests will be conducted. Furthermore, if those tests reveal a power spectrum that matches the Steinhardt-Turok prediction, then Steinhardt & Turok walk away with the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Though this will probably be completely wasted upon you, I provided a lengthy exposition of those two scientific papers on the old version of the forums, which you can read here. The two papers themselves can be read in full via these links:
[1] Colliding Branes In Heterotic M-Theory : full paper
[2] Generating Ekpyrotic Curvature Perturbations Before The Big Bang : full paper
Now before you embarrass yourself before a global audience, by posting the âatheists think the universe came from nothingâ garbage elsewhere, read the above.
Meanwhile âŚ
The mere fact that Iâm able to write an extensive piece covering cutting edge cosmological physics papers, should answer this question emphatically in the negative. Next?
As for the rest of your incoherent drivel, this is beneath deserving of a point of view, and only deserves attention in the interests of discoursive rigour.
Item One. Those of us who paid attention in class, dismiss your imaginary cartoon magic man, not only because the mythology in question is replete with risible elementary errors, of a sort I would have pointed and laughed at as a child, but because scientists have demonstrated that testable natural processes are sufficient to account for vast classes of entities and interactions, including classes thereof that the goat herder authors of your mythology were incapable of even fantasising about.
Item Two. There is no such thing as âsinâ. This is an imaginary offence against an imaginary cartoon magic man. Furthermore, if you actually bothered to read your mythology, you would have learned that your cartoon magic man, if it ever existed, was perfectly happy with mass murder and child rape. Courtesy of the 200-plus pages of your mythology, which are devoted to gleeful coverage of genocidal Lebensraum wars that the goat herder authors assert they launched, either because your cartoon magic man directly ordered them, or gave silent assent thereto. In one particularly hideous instance, it is asserted in your mythology, that the same goat herders took underage girls as sex slaves, after butchering said unfortunate girlsâ parents in one of those genocidal Lebensraum wars. An entity that is happy with genocide and child rape is in no position to dictate to me how I should live my life.
Item Three. Your mythology is replete with assertions that are known to be false. Including the ludicrous assertion that genetics is purportedly controlled by coloured sticks. This was found to be a lie by an Austrian monk, whose diligent experiments not only exposed this lie, but laid the foundations of modern genetics. If you havenât heard of Gregor Mendel, I suggest you look him up.
Oh, and this example is doubly problematic for your cartoon magic man, if it ever existed. Because it demonstrates that your cartoon magic man, if it ever existed, was insufficiently âomniscientâ to foresee the emergence of said Austrian monk, and the work thereof. You might want to dwell upon the implications of this for your attachment to a goat herder mythology, written by piss-stained Bronze Age incels who were too stupid to count correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses.
Youâll probably be too indolent, as is frequently the case with your ilk, to bother reading even this post in full, let alone the material Iâve linked to, and as a corollary, I have low expectations of any response you might provide while uploading selfies to Instagram, though you probably wonât even reach that low level.
I made a forum thread about a pastor who freaked out about blasphemous art . You will eventually offend them by just saying âI am sorry but I donât believe in the same things as youâ.
I think the distinction you infer is subjective. I certainly donât have the courage to try to define good and inferior art.
Of course I have my preferences, and Iâm not fond of comic books. Stopped reading them when I was 12. Latterly Iâve liked a couple of Japanese animated movies. Especially âGrave of The Firefliesâ which I found very powerful but wrenching to watchâŚ
TWO works of art have resulted in a strong emotional response from me: Sculpture in wood of Mary Magdalene by Donatello, in Florence and âBlue Polesâ by Jackson Pollock, here in Australia.
OK, I think I need to clarify. For what I called Art, I mean works where the visual content is noticed first, and where the information might be somewhat concealed by the purely visual appearance. For the âartâ bit, the information contents is more important, like in the example above. The visual appearance is clearly not the most important bit. It could be quite crude, and still deliver the same information.
For me, blasphemous art is art by which one imposes their religious beliefs on others, in order to convert them and gain more followers to their religion. In that way, our basic human right of free choice is violated, regardless of whether one believes in God or not, or regardless of whether one chooses to be a member of any religion or not. And that, to me, is both tasteless and offensive.
Both these question seem to simply assume there is a creation and created things, but you have offered no objective evidence to support this archaic myth. Itâs an objective scientific fact that all living things evolved, which is directly at odds with unevidenced creation myths.
If the best response you have is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, that implies not knowing where or how life originated validates unevidenced creation myths, then Iâm afraid youâve no hope of offering any compelling debate to people who understand how risibly flawed such fallacies are.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
Iâve said it many times before, but youâre placing your wheezy clapped out old pony behind your cart. So start with the emboldened question above.
We know living things exist, we know natural phenomena exist, and whilst we cannot yet evidence such a phenomenon that explains the origins of life, I see no valid or rational reason to start inserting unevidenced myths, deities or magic into those origins. Occamâs razor would seem to apply here.
Personally, I enjoy making blasphemous art from time to time. It can be delightful to attack, even symbolically, something that has caused me so much pain and frustration throughout my life. That said, I donât send it or show it to believers. Itâs a personal thing, a personal effort.
I respect and appreciate that. We each have our own individual methods in dealing with this disease, and yours is a healthy form of self-expression and release.
that your post will be read by that particular theist.
