Quote from SlightlyInsane
Glad someone is realizing that this isn't "Natural" like some claim. WORLD WIDE catastrophe all of a sudden isn't something that naturally comes about.
Yeah! No sudden WORLD WIDE catastrophes are "natural"! That asteroid impact which created the K-T boundary 65 million years ago and vaporized the dinosaurs and most extant species of the time certainly wasn't "natural", WORLD WIDE, or sudden...
Oh wait...
3
Blasphemy!
1
And why are those purely religious ideas?
Oh, they're not.
1
That's precisely the point. You seem to notice when someone else is expressing an opinion, but when it's your opinion you seem to think it's absolute and indisputable.
How is anyone's freedom being harmed by dancing? And which freedom is being harmed? The right to not see others dancing? Where is that in the bill of rights exactly?
Sounds like a good way to get the law changed: by being completely obedient and never speaking out against it. "Law is the law" is not a compelling argument for anything. It's not even an argument.
What a twisted morality that is. "No dancing in public. It's as bad as peeing on someone."
1
News at 11.
1
Why would you listen to scientists when you can read Michael Crichton?
6
2
You were already told why you were wrong by jmp. Your only retort was a sarcastic tirade about how the entire English language is useless because your particular hang up on the definition of a word was wrong:
Yes, there are lots of interpretations, that's exactly the point jmp was making. You came and declared that atheism is exactly one thing (the explicit belief that there are no gods) and could not be anything else.
You then cherry-picked a dictionary definition that supported your point:
Convenient that you left off this part:
Which is precisely the definition jmp was arguing from.
Except the exact definition he was using was given in the same damn link that yours was. So far you can't seem to accept that the word has multiple meanings and usages and the way a lot of us use it (those of us that actually identify as atheist) is more in line with the second definition. Your only argument against this has been to declare that atheism has always been a name for a system of belief and that any other meaning is wrong.
The reason jmp thought that is probably because it looks like you're lumping any belief about gods into being religious. I.e. if you hold any sort of belief about gods, then that's religious. That's absurd because religion is more than just a belief about deities, it's also a collection of traditions and stories. The only thing atheism (as you define it) has in common with religions is the belief about deities aspect. Besides that it has absolutely nothing else in common with them, so it's ridiculous to lump it in with religions.
1
You're assuming the nuke would actually hit and not be deflected or shot down by a torpedo or laser based weapon.
Dolphins don't live on land.
Nonsense, you could use the exact same reasoning to say that about particular countries. What a primitive way of thinking. If we can share resources amongst ourselves (which we almost can, but only just barely), then there's no reason we couldn't share with another species.
1
http://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson/status/70834012142313472
What a fantastic answer. No matter what happens ever, you can always rely on someone to drop this little nugget of divine wisdom.
[quote]And, I've seen people hiccuping on this many times, whenever you're talking about the Judeo-Christian God, all pronouns should be capitalized, even Who, Whoever, That, and especially He or Him. Also, you should say LORD rather than Lord to distinguish from Earthly kings.
This isn't just a sign of respect, it's part of English grammar. /quote]
Language changes.
6
This remains to be demonstrated. After all, it could be the case that atheists get rewarded for not falling for the ********. Of all the uncountable possibilities for what could potentially happen what makes you think Pascal's wager carries any weight whatsoever? Marcus Aurelius debunked the argument before Pascal ever made it:
I'm afraid I don't understand the request. I can't recall I time when I've ever been unable to identify the source of a shadow. Nor does the "last time" make sense to me. The last time is when I glanced down at my keyboard and saw the shadow cast by my hands onto the desk, or the shadows cast by my monitor onto the desk, or the table my printer sits on, or the foot of my bed.
And here I was thinking you were going to go straight to Godfellas and you pick an entirely different episode and draw a really unusual conclusion from it. The montage at the end of that episode wasn't anyone looking back on anything, it wasn't an epiphany of belief, it was exposition. Leela's whole identity up until then had been that of an orphan, someone who was abandoned and left alone. The montage was there to show that this never was the case and to develop the character into someone who's less alone. Nothing about it was contingent on faith.