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Vastet's picture

Three of the most powerful weapons against theism and other irrational beliefs

In no particular order:

1: Education. When you learn how evolution works, and how we know it works, you are no longer able to honestly deny it's facts. When you learn the earth is round, and how we know it is round, you can not honestly deny it is round. An education may not stop a liar from denying reality, but there aren't that many people who actually enjoy lying once it's been pointed out that they are lying. A theif's worst enemy is recognition.

2: Diversification. I have little to nothing in the way of hard evidence of this position, merely personal experience. I'm unaware if large and/or long term studies have been done on the issue, though would recommend that they be done by those capable of doing them. But in my experience, irrational viewpoints become harder to sustain when not surrounded by those who share them. Racism in a small town full of caucasian people(merely an example) is, in my experience, far more common than in a large city with multiple ethnic groups. Religious beliefs in a small town of one ethnic group are far more centralized than in a large city of dozens of them. I don't think everyone needs to be living in cities, but I do think that minorities need to spend more time getting into small communities; and that majorities need to spread out more so as not to be such a majority. How much harder is it to recruit extremists when you're surrounded by people who believe something other than what you believe?

Master Debater

Grammastola is an apologist on YouTube. This means telling stories about some hypothetical guy you totally owned in a debate.

"So I says to the guy..."

If you comment on a video, he'll let your first comments through. After that, he'll reject any subsequent comments after his reply so he can tell people about the atheists left speechless by his YouTube profundity. If this guy's a Pinoy, I'm full of shame and indignation.

Take a ride in my van -- I've got candy.

This theist wanted to learn about atheism. We all know the best way to learn about something is to talk at length about what you believe. Thanks to her, I know that Hindus are going to hell and atheists find their children "meaningless." She confessed to being afraid of what she would do if she didn't have Christianity as a moral compass and was left to decide her actions by herself.

She was particularly interested in talking to troubled young girls.

Ophios's picture

The flood

If we were to take the Old Testament literally, that is a 6000 year old earth and the like.
When would the flood have happened?
I found this (http://www.nwcreation.net/biblechrono.html) that said:
Total - from creation to flood 1656 Years
2344 BC.
I would like to hear other people on this matter though.

Of course this would mean that the human race never really learned about the cultivation of race, beer wasn't a human invention.
The early history of Egypt was probably an illusion.
The Bristlecone pine tree known as Methuselah was probably either really sturdy, or not as old as we think it was (I wish I could talk to trees now). The Văn Lang kingdom of what is now Veitnam probably had to reform itself after the flood.

BenfromCanada's picture

Discussions with theists part 2

Here's another one, on YouTube, between me and "BetterThanU123". This is pretty funny. On the comment section for this video

Quote:
PayToBeBornPayToDie
Good song, but 'Death To Allah*
& CHRIST!!

rowsdowersavesus (that's me)
I didn't catch them saying that. I agree...death to all religions.


This set off a defender of religion.
Quote:
BetterThanU123
look man if u dont like religion thats ok. dont go around denouncing people religions thats stupid as fuck. i can put athiests down a million ways but i never do. just dont do that kind of shit.
Note the bolded part, it is important for later.

Ophios's picture

My problem with creationism

I have this irk with creationism. This very specific problem.

While creationism itself is laughable.
One part always got me. It's never a creation debate, it's an anti-evolution debate.

I have never seen a debate about creationism that ignores evolution. Someone always has to drag it in.
This is where evolution gets points in my book, you can have a discussion of evolution and creationism can never be brought up.
But when you talk about creationism's flaws.

"Well, evolution can't explain..."
"Evolution doesn't make since either because..."

That's what sad about creationism. Outside of the (Other) logically flawed arguments, they only have a negative argument working for them.

BenfromCanada's picture

Discussions with Theists part 1

I've been talking to theists lately. Mostly on GodTube, but on other places as well. Here's a conversation I had with a particular GodTuber, mikepl82.
It started out with this comment on the Christian response to "The God Who Wasn't There". (My name on GodTube is nothingman)

nothingman wrote:
You could have used this part to insert some more convincing arguments. This is nothing but a plea to emotion. That's a logical fallacy. If you're trying to convince people, fallacies are counterintuitive.

I got a few responses, but the one that yielded the most discussion was this one:
mikepl82 wrote:
I think is is important to remember that only God can open a hard heart. God works through many ways and this may in fact be one of them. If you think YOUR intellectual arguments are what turn people to God, have you not given the glory to yourself and forgotten that God is the only one who can true make the sinner see.

Dissident1's picture

karma

What goes around comes around. Blah blah blah blah blah.

The idea of karma presents itself as a method of inviting "good" into ones life by expelling "good" into the cosmic void. It takes cosmic forces to gather your "good" and "bad", but whatever plant you raise will present you with a yield or harvest of earned rewards.

Whatever.

If there truly was a way to gain a cosmic reward, for good or ill, it would present itself most assuredly in the immediate and horrible deaths of practically everybody on earth! Nearly everyone has done something that would cause the flow of "bad karma", inviting sure disaster.

Ophios's picture

Reply

Youth is wasted on the young.

Intelligence is wasted on the old.

Ophios's picture

You can't have it both ways.

The argument "I can't see it, so it isn't there" is a rather silly argument. and is usually met with the response "You haven't seen (Name of thing) so, is that not real too."

It's usually a theist who has the second sentence here (A logical response too), usually that sentence is met with another response.

Unless it's a creationist.
The very same argument that probably annoys some theists, tends to be (ab)used by creationists.

"You've never seen evolution, so how can you know it's true?"

Of course they never seen the creation, so how can they know it's true?

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