b_chocolatey @b_chocolatey@qoto.org

@lack Atheism didn’t really become a thing at the civilizational and cultural level until the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution and the Cult of Reason. Even then, the Cult of Reason went out of fashion quickly, and they brought in a Cult of the Supreme Being (basically, Enlightenment Deism, Watchmaker creationism without any messiah or prophets) as I understand it.

@lack @lack standards). No other #intellectual achievements of the past 500 years come anywhere near close. That’s why #Newton, who invented #calculus and founded classical #physics, said that he “could see far by standing on the shoulders of giants”. #science #debate #inspirational #quote #quotes

@lack standards). No other intellectual achievements of the past 500 years come anywhere near close. That’s why Newton, who invented calculus and founded classical physics, said that he “could see far by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

@lack New thread. This one isn’t a question of why you are an atheist - different question. Why has atheism never (really) been a thing until recent history? Surely there were philosophical and scientific geniuses in prehistoric civilization and in the ancient world - they discovered fire, invented writing, invented the wheel, discovered how to cultivate plants and domesticated beasts of burden. They did this while performing excruciating manual labor, under constant privation (by modern …

@lack another viable worldview pantheism - the belief that there is a God - an animating, intelligent ghost in the machine - and the physical universe and spacetime is God. The God inhabits and moves the physical universe, just no different that how grandma “lives in” grandma’s arms and legs and brain. Grandma’s soul and personality is just a tiny, tiny piece of God’s intelligence, God’s creativity, God’s love.

@lack To be good at atheism, you have to not only making a convincing case that there is no God who wished for the Big Bang to occur, but you also have to make a good non-supernatural explanation of all sentient life, including the smallest ant. Otherwise that ant is a god.

@lack you’re accustomed to the monotheistic concept of God - it is blasphemous to call the human soul and personality a god, much less the sentience of a cat or a crocodile. Moses defeated the gods of Egypt, there is one god left standing - and if he doesn’t exist, then there is no god. But that’s not how it works. If you dethrone God, but you allow for maybe the possibility that maybe your dear old grandma is somewhere else and you’ll see her again someday… you are inventing polytheism.

@lack Ancient man speculated that maybe the breath of the dead ancestor goes back into the sky and it still present, watching you, entering you when you breathe. Maybe the ancestor is re-born as a human several generations into the future… or maybe an animal. Couldn’t really pin it down precisely, any more than you could predict next year’s harvest or the outcome of tomorrow’s battle. But that can’t possibly disprove the existence of a next life or previous lives.

@lack what I’m saying is the “self” can’t be entirely physical and chemical, and you counter-argue that the self is influenced by the physical and chemical world - which is obviously correct. Different perspectives, different parts of the elephant. If you allow that the human experience doesn’t arise entirely from the physical and chemical world - which appears to be the case - then you can’t reasonably conclude that human experience ends completely with the dissolution of the physical body

@lack ok. I’m only interested in debating the problem of evil if that is the reason why you are atheist, the reason why atheism is considered reasonable and convincing by atheists. All other arguments for atheism seem to be arguments for agnosticism or deism at most; or a refutation targeted against one religion in particular (“Mohammad was a illiterate pedo!”)

@lack because it makes an argument that the universe falls short of some impossible ideal and then pronounces a death penalty curse against the party at fault. The argument that there is unequivocally no god “because cancer” is just a convoluted “you shall surely die” screamed vengefully at the heavens #atheist #atheism #christian #bible #catholic

@molly0xfff back in the dark ages of 2014, the Linux Mint project developer told people to stop using Mint if they support the IDF. I thought of the sheer arrogance and ingratitude of this guy, since other upstream kernel developers never asked him about his politics. And some of them are probably Israeli

@molly0xfff didn’t this guy win a lawsuit in Florida proving he is Satoshi?