Just a nerd without any good answers to the real problems. Sorry.
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You don’t generally stay an apologist long if you’re actually talking to non believers and are honest. Either you start seeing how things don’t really make sense, or you become increasingly dishonest- to yourself included- or you just never have conversations with people who don’t believe
It’s scary that people actually eat that up, too. The comment isn’t to convince the atheists there is a god. It’s to convince his followers he’s smart.
Wasn’t this basically the same argument that Jordan Peterson tried. You know. In the “Christian debates 20 atheists” video where they had to change the title because it became apparent Peterson doesn’t hold anything resembling Christian doctrine as true?
In the same way that if some “divine” being showed up; I wouldn’t necessarily believe they’re truly divine. Powerful, maybe. But also, assholes, probably.
This is a ridiculous argument. Betty Crocker wasn’t a real person, but a character created as a brand mascot. I don’t have to meet her to say she doesn’t exist. Now, if a charming lady shows up with a miraculous biscuit recipe, I still wouldn’t necessarily believe she was “the” Betty Crocker
Zeus was a good dog! people.com/pets/hero-pi...
It’s been known to be a forgery since the catholic church first came to be aware of it.
It’s gonna be real embarrassing when “the most powerful military in the world” loses to Venezuela. Especially when it turns out that it was because someone called Trump fat.
They’re talking about “quiet quitting” which isn’t leaving the office. The idea being, that you don’t go the extra mile, don’t stay late, and don’t let the company exploit you without paying you. Basically, quiet quitting is doing your job, but only your job.
Hey look! It’s management!
They send it out based on cell tower and it’s physical range- even potentially just a neighborhood So if you’re in the area, you’ll get it . If you’re outside it when it goes out you won’t, and if you move into after the first notice but before the update, you’ll get the update.
A large part of that is because every religion proscribes a certain standard if behavior. For theistic religions, that standard is based on the deity’s will. Most theists will assume that all morality comes from their god. So generally we address that.
To add to what Fern said, I value truth; and think belief that is supported by evidence is to be preferred over belief supported by none. and if someone does in fact find compelling tangible evidence, I’ll reevaluate my beliefs. Christians pride themselves in not being open to revaluation, though.
My lack of belief has little at all to do with my moral standards. atheism, in of itself doesn’t offer that standard. I have subjectively chosen the standard of “what contributes to people’s wellbeing”? As one of the core principles. Rationality is another guiding value, for example.
I am an atheist because every god-claim I have looked at, is irrational and incapable of being supported by physical evidence. It doesn’t matter if god is good, if that good cannot be shown to exist in a tangible way. (And theists generally presuppose that god is good, simply. Because it is “god”)
I’m not saying atheism is good. Atheism provides no moral system or expresses anything in regards as to how a person ought to behave. It is simply a lack of belief in a divine being. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
And no, the christian god is not a good or moral god. Not in accordance with my understanding of what a moral act. (which is based on the well being of people impacted by such decisions.) Atheism isn't a moral question. it's a question of best evidence and fact.
As an atheist, I don't ascribe any morals as a result of that atheism. I don't believe in objective morality, and neither do christians (or most theists in general, though I'll freely admit a limited pool of understanding there.) Christian morality is subject to the caprice of their god.
The worst part is the question was asking for the scritptural basis for a core tenet of the "who we are" bullet points for that particular sect. Like this is something that should be there. It should be on all the flyers. It wasn't I got my answer anyway and now I'm an atheist.
a large part of why I stopped going to church was a conversation with certain leaders. Literally dropping appeals to authority and insulting me saying I couldn't possibly know better than they. it was incredibly condescending.
Isiah 64:6, metaphorically saying that our best efforts aren't enough. There's, more though. Like there's no reason to believe that any of us actually have free will; and indeed cannot have free will because of all the numerous times when god violates it.
your scriptures would seem to disagree with you. Jer 17:9, we're inherently sinfill and will always do evil. pretty much that entire book of Romans; it's a cohesive argument for why we neeed slavation. though in particular 3:10-12. The first few chapters are all about how fucked we are.
These are the platitudes that enable christofascists to be fascists. And when you say “no, you gotta love them,” you really need to realize you just picked a side. When your compassion is for the Nazis, you’re saying “fuck you” to the people they’re actively harming.
Eh. I’m okay with them just ending. Their shit is over. We can move on to other terrible people.
If we're going to put that much work into it... I'm going to recomend a deep pit with lots of thermite in it. then we schedule it so everybody gets a chance, and maybe get some asparagus and raddish food trucks out there; lots of booze trucks, too.
It’s pretty much up to the DM what happens. They may have some campaigns going with that, but it’s not a universal “this, therefore that “.
That’s just it, though. That’s far from universal, even for non-worshipping peeps. Some don’t even go to Fugue, particularly if they’ve somehow formed a connection to another plane. Some get to Fugue and basically left to wander around or whatever Some get judged and sent to the 9 hells.
I’d piss on him. But I’d miss a lot.
I dunno why, but the way she’s using that magnet is kinda scary. Anyhow, she’s far from wrong!
To clarify, blasphemy is a very specific, intentional thing; and for the record, slave owners used the same book to justify slavery- because god explicitly says it’s okay. You might view their acts as somehow sacrilegious, but god probably thinks they’re not going far enough.
God is an asshole, so they’re just following in his footsteps.
Sorry, but that’s not what blasphemy is. They’re terrible people. But they’re still Christians. Blasphemy is saying or doing something disrespectful towards god. For example, saying god has a limp dick.
That law only applied to debts Jews owed. Not to debts owed by outsiders. Same deal when Jesus said to love one’s neighbor- it might be better translated as “kin”
It should also be noted that an atheist might not argue whether something like Kelemvor exists- but rather that one is divine. In that frame of reference, the gods may see any atheist as a kind of insurgent, or something, rebelling against the authority.
*to not have an afterlife,
It should be noted that all souls that face judgement are sent to the Fugue plane. Not just atheist’s souls. (Or just non-worshippers, even.) So like, if you were a terrible person, you might get sent to the nine hells anyways. But “terrible” is subjective to the relevant faith.
And skritches! all the best skritchtes.
In a world with gods and some type of afterlife, why would non belief in those gods suddenly cause you to it have an afterlife? It would follow then they have to go somewhere.
When the drag is back to Bronze Age morality, women don’t have a choice. They’ll buy their wives from the fathers.
The gatorade transubstantiates into holy water, so it's all good, right?
*that* SNL sketch with The Rock comes to mind.
I can make all kinds of diagnoses about RFK jr. I'm not a medical expert, by any stretch, but he's a prolapsed asshole. clearly.
I'm told they're quite cuddly. At least as cuddly as cats, though they occasionally do take a nibble, just in case you might be tasty. One of the reasons younger one's are frequently found in the petting-tanks of aquariums and zoos, and stuff.
But that would have required not having MAGA in the department fucking with things. when they breached into the building proper, that's when they should have gone lethal. crawling through a window is a natural choke point. Or they should have had MG's on the steps; like they had for MLK Jr's.
IMO, they should have taken the warnings seriously (and they were hampered by "leadership") and had the unscalable barriers in place, instead of the idiotically stupid crowd-control baricades. (We all saw why those are no longer standard for protective measures on Jan 6.)
I'm shocked that my NY state ex-cop, "Law And Order" uncle actually tried to defend her and say it was a bad shoot. Like. No. She was breaking through to lead a mob to lynch everyone in that room. she was a clear and imminent threat.
It applies to anyone whose not acting on the orders of said Orange Leader, really. The only time the turdling cares about anyone besides himself is when they're being of use. And he sees most of us as disposable.
Absolutely! Imagine the most normal person ever. I just made you imagine the most boring person ever. Quirks are what make us interesting! But yeah, she has a sour-tooth the same way most kids have a sweet tooth (or whatever you want to call it.)
(Also it’s still a planet- albeit a smol planet- aka a dwarf planetoid.)
It wasn’t misdiagnosed. They changed the definitions to exclude Pluto. I’ll leave the technical details to others, but IMO what they should have done is left Pluto as a planet anyway and let science teachers everywhere use that as a “fun fact”, I guess “they” just like being hated.
For the record, when I was that young, with a puzzle that may not have been exactly like that... I didn't even know it was a puzzle. Still fun, though. (though minor correction. Tower of Hanoi puzzle.)
yeah, this post is making me think I should start a parody account, "WerateDogsHigher"... 14? that dog is a hero!
That dog is obliging in the same way my dad plays along every time I give my niece something sour to share with him. (he's not a fan of sour candies, and plays it up for her. she's a weirdo who would most happily suck on a lemon instead of candy.)
That... that's an interesting solution to tower of babylon puzzle....
probably his pseudoscience bullshit reason for blaming women. I dunno. never heard it before.
Wait. I think I've seen this one. It's the powerhouse!
Said another way, as a whole, democrats share a lot of the blame for how we got here. Not because they’re the same as GOP, but because they would rather the GOP than actual progress. As fun as the trolling is, a Newsom presidency will only delay the inevitable, same as Biden’s.
It seems that democrats have still yet to learn, they’re not entitled to our votes and have to earn them. And not being less awful is not how you do that. Centrist dems are conservatives holding the line against regressives. But we’re asking for progressives and people pushing the line back
This. Right here. It doesn’t help that Kamala didn’t get the undecided vote like she thought she’d make up the loss of Palestinian (or just anti-genocide,) voters. I genuinely don’t believe true “undecided” exist- I’m an independent, but all that means is I’m not a member of the dem party.
Somebody shared this. Thought it'd make someone laugh. (and we need a laugh.)
E.Coli. He likes to swim in shit-polluted waters. I say we encourage it.
Apparently they can't indict a ham sammie after all.
Who? (bwhahah. excuse me while I hide from the swifties.)
More a Porthos than Aramis or Athos. rochefort is definitely a cat.
Yeah. I’d believe that. All the bluster of king Louie’s musketeers.
For the record, she gave this look after the bear shuffled off, like “yeah. I could have taken him.” In her defense she was a bit more than a couple months old.
Referees hate this one trick.
Doxies are 50-pound dogs in a 5 pound body, so that checks out. They’re also about 10 pounds of crazy in a 1 pound bag. (Normally it’s the good kind of crazy. But once mom’s doxie tried to pick a fight with a very incredulous black bear. She hid behind me before the bear shuffled off.)
The war cry of a dog much to large for its own body!
Well the most plausible is that they’re straight up lying because they need to. Jesus fulfilled exactly zero messianic prophecies so they made shit up and throw it at the wall to see what stuck. Which is why he’s gone away… he’ll do the whole eternal kingdom thing when he’s done buying milk.
Personally? The patent system needs to be overhauled so that the big corps don’t dominate everything as much- particularly in slap fights because small business or individuals simply can’t compete. Trump isn’t trying to fix shit, though do this should be opposed (like everything else he does.)
This move by Trump definitely is just a way to fleece people, don’t get me wrong. But, IIRC, vanadium reflow batteries were developed under us grants and now we can’t produce them because a Chinese company took the patent. Which is why we don’t have them available for grid energy storage.
Cell phones and wireless communication systems in general. LiPo and other batteries (especially batteries for extreme environments.) There are a lot of things.
I disagree. I don’t think we should get full control of the patent, mind you. But we should get *some* control. Specifically, the patents should be kept for domestic production. Right now, they’d just make things worse and give it to their sugar daddies, so it’s a hard “no”, though.
JD fucked the wrong couch.
Outside of certain sects of Christianity including books that would be deemed apocryphal by Jewish standards, it’s the same set of books. Mostly, the question is in translation and in ordering. While many English translations use the Septuagint, that’s because it’s what the early authors used.
The analogy to baking is recognizing the difference between prophecy and poetry/hymns. If you can’t tell the difference, I’m unlikely to trust your interpretation of it. Same as if you can’t tell the difference between a box of brownie mix and a box of lemon bars, I’m unlikely to eat your baking.
You pretending like it’s so incomprehensible is disingenuous. It’s not. And like the authors of the gospel and NT at large, you need to ignore this and pretend like there’s something there that’s not there.
You’re the Reverend Doctor. I assume you’ve read Rashi’s commentary on the Talmud. Plenty of others, but Rashi was one I studied at Bible college. In the first year. Words mean words. We know they mean, we know what was meant, and we know how it was interpreted pretty much throughout time.
Yes it does. It’s symbolic, describing the Messiah as a branch, being raised up for David. We know this. They know this. Everyone knows this. Why do you lie? www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...
Jesus cannot be the messiah because he was never crowned a king nor ruled over Israel. And we know that didn’t happen because if it had, we’d have never had to create the state of Israel in the first place; and there would be peace in the Middle East- if not the world.
I can tell you right now that “of the line of David” is pretty clearly indicative of patriarchal descent. You can tell because they list all the fathers The only plausible explanation outside of intentional deceit is that they’re utterly incompetent. Either way, they’re blatantly wrong.
Bruh. Are you telling us the reason Joseph’s ancestry is important, isn’t because the messiah is supposed to be a direct descendant of David? It’s pretty plainly stated- Jeremiah 23:5, Isaiah 11:1, 2 Samuel 7:12-16.
First off, most messianic prophecies are all about establishing a Davidic kingdom, and the contingent salvation of Israel. Secondly, if someone were baking brownies but instead of following instructions from the box pointed to a box of lemon bars, would you trust those brownies? Same thing.
If someone proclaims a lot of things as truth, and tells you “that’s how it is, and if you don’t believe, you’re going to hell”… and it turns out their definition of truth is pulled from random, erroneously applied literature, you don’t see that as problematic? I see no reason to trust any gospel.
Spec
Literally the entire virgin birth thing was made up out of whole cloth, either intentionally because they needed *some* prophecy to be fulfilled by jesus; or because the authors were too stupid to understand the scriptures they were quoting. you get how either is pretty bad, right?
The reason the author of Mathew says "virgin" is because the original hebrew word, "alma", generally means "young woman", not necessarily a virgin. even if it did mean 'virgin' it didn't mean that young woman was going to stay a virgin. It was literally just meant to keep time.
Verse 14 establishes a timeline. A young woman will give birth, that child will be called Emanuel, and before he reaches the age of majority, the promised assassination will be completed. (the line about eating curds and honey indicates until then, it'll be a time of poverty.)
the speaker in that chapter is speaking to the Judean king. There's approaching conflicts with 3 kingdoms that are allying against him, and the speaker, on behalf of god is saying "look, don't worry. I got you." Specifically, promising to kill the leaders of the 3 kingdoms.
And the reason I pick on Christians for this is because, for example, Mathew starts us off with the story of the virgin birth saying it fulfilled a prophecy. (mat1:23,) The author of Mathew is quoting Isaiah 7:14. if you read that entire chapter of Isaiah... the context becomes clear.
Which brings me to the second point here: Even though it happened- there's always people being lazy or reading meaning into things that aren't there- that doesn't mean it's right. And in point of fact mainstream rabbis and jewish leadership... rejected that "extra" meaning as ludicrious at best.
if you're going to use "well somebody said a thing and it kinda sounds like I could twist it into being about something" is your standard for interpreting your scriptures, then you're a joke.
First... so what? it's still bad practice. Prophecy is a literary genre with a specific purpose. It doesn't matter if the person doing it is christian, or jewish or atheist. If it's an acceptable form of hermeneutics, I'll have you know I fulfill several prophecies from Song of Solomon regularly.
but that doesn't mean the psalms of david are prophecy. (they're poems/hymns about, by, or for david.)
Did you go through Mathew first? Cuz like, if you actually look into it…. None of the prophecies Mathew holds as fulfilled were in fact fulfilled by Jesus. A large portion of them weren’t even prophecies at all, and then rest are fulfilled by others.
Incorrect. It’s not how YOU use a semicolon. Clearly it’s how I use one. Did you know prescriptive grammar was historically advocated for by white supremacists in the US? They got the idea from the classists in Britain. as an example of why they were better than others?
Author of several classics, like slaughterhouse 5. The quote is wrong, however. The premise supposes that we always turn not-atheist in the final moments; and that just doesn’t seem to be the case at all.