b_chocolatey @b_chocolatey@qoto.org

@lack picking up the gauntlet: I am a pantheistic agnostic. I unironically believe that hard atheism is a heretical branch of Christianity.

@lack if you ignore the improbability of literalist young-earth creationism and the miraculous described in the #Bible, you will find that it’s actually quite difficult to really rule out the existence of both a creator God and lesser “gods”, souls, ghosts, spirit ancestors. You are left both with the origins-of-the-Big-Bang problem (why is there something rather than nothing?) and the consciousness problem (why can I feel sensation, memory, reasoning, desire, fear, hate, love? Mechanical contraptions can’t have any of this)

@b_chocolatey @lack but frankly also there are non-Abrahamic conceptions of god that are less punitive

I'm so excited I've connected with so many cool #pagan #witch #Buddhist and #polytheist people on Mastodon already!

Just as a heads-up, my criteria for a followback are pretty low, but still existent: Just have a filled-out profile and post stuff that's relevant to my interests and doesn't appear to subscribe to any beliefs that I find abhorrent. I'm a queer anarcho-communist anti-fascist if that gives you any hints. Just having an introduction is okay so long as it looks like you'll be active here in the future.

Next up: Gonna look for people to follow from the @witches.live instance who are also coming over as part of the #twittermigration !

#RobinaCourtin is a #Buddhist nun with great insight and wise words. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRxameKr/

If you're interested in #Buddhism, and especially if you identify as #Buddhist, you might want to follow @ReadingFaithfully_org.

I've been subscribed for some time to Reading Faithfully's email, and look forward to receiving a daily extract from the Buddhist (Pāli) scriptures.

There's a monthly theme. This month's is giving (dāna) and generosity (cāga)

Hi, I am Sven, interested in #Buddhist Philosophy, #Marxism, "programming" - it's more googling. Actually struggling with #d3 and #statistics. But working as an advertising copywriter (by accident). Enjoying books from #Tom_hillebrand Just reading #survival_of_the-richest, #the_nectar_of_manjusris_speech, #Bayesian_statistic_the_fun_way, #learn_d3 I lost a bit interest in drinking beer and doing intoxication, which sometimes worries me. Nice to meet you too. :) #introduction

"The source of true courage in the face of possible death is...the recognition that what we essentially are transcends the limits of the person...gives us the courage to go beyond our individual person and needs."

- Rupert Spira (paraphrased)

#quotes #inspiration #courage #hope #transcendance #mysticism

I'm impressed with the robustness of the mastodon-fediverse so far, under extreme duress.

kudos to the sysadmins

Child sex predators don't hang out on Twitter, they become teachers. Macron should know this.

You really don't need to have a take on everything.

i followed too many people the timeline is too fast

@lack the #rationalist #scientific mind should accept, with #Nietzchean #Buddhist -like resignation, that we live in a Lawful Neutral universe that is sometimes indifferent to human well-being. Sometimes the hurricane wins. Sometimes the virus wins. Doesn’t conclusively dis-prove that Someone invented hydrogen and oxygen all those trillions of years ago.

@b_chocolatey I don't usually use the "problem of evil" argument, but when I do it's not me saying "I think God exists and is evil so I don't want it to exist", but more of a "If I temporarily assume that God exists for the sake of argument, I find this contradiction which suggests the initial idea (that a loving and powerful God exists) is incorrect".

I think this is a common misunderstanding of how the argument is supposed to work, made worse by atheists who maybe don't explain it well :)

@lack Christian god: “You are evil, and you deserve to die.” Atheist: “No, -you- are evil and I think you don’t exist.”

@lack I also think hard-atheist materialism, taken by itself without anti-Christian miso-theism, is a poorly thought out position. Either you accept the possibility of reincarnation or an afterlife of some sort, that just means you are re-inventing paganism… or, you deny the possibility of an afterlife or a soul, which is a difficult position to prove. Face it: consciousness is a hard problem, every AI developer or a sci-fi author knows that!

@me the remark about human insignificance, alluding to the Copernican principle, doesn’t disprove the existence of a personal god. Even Jesus said “are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And yet not one of them falls to the ground without your father knowing about it” - suggesting that the Copernican implications had already been considered, and considered refuted, centuries before Copernicus.

@scottcohn I’m gonna pay #Elon eight bucks just for driving traffic to the #fediverse. This is awesome.