SteveInCO

I’ve seen it used from time to time on the internet, myself, but I don’t have even Strega’s amount of direct experience with the general public in the South, in spite of multiple business and personal trips to northern Alabama, Charlotte and Atlanta.

On the other hand, Belle, some people come here so they can “decompress” from the stress caused them by asshats who happen to be religious (and those seem to be the worst asshats, as they think god wants them to be asshats). Said decompression will involve rants, often with a lot of vitriol in them. (In point of fact you did so just recently…[Read more]

Brian, look again at the second half. It reads that the establishment of a just society would be a disaster.

In other words, the whole thing is sarcastic, and premised on the idea that Christians would establish a just society.

Fouad wrote:Thanks Strega and Steveln for the lovely welcome. I hope too to find an online home. Meanwhile, let’s try to find a way to deal with their imaginary friend Allah

I’m not in the least bit worried about Allah. I’m worried about his followers.

I’ll second that. I hope you find this a good online “home.”

Atheists living in Islamic societies today have the toughest row to hoe, given that those cultures haven’t given up the notion that unbelievers need to be put to death. (Not saying that Christianity hasn’t done so, but today they mostly ignore the stuff talking about it in the book.)

BeckyL wrote:On the very first day of catechism, the nun teaching our class told us that snakes used to have legs, walked upright, and talked. She lost me right there. It sounded like bullshit to my young ears and the good sister lost all credibility on the spot.

Similar reaction to the one I had to Noah’s Ark. I was raised secular, and it’s…[Read more]

erock68la wrote:I think the purpose of these arguments is not to definitively disprove god, but rather to attempt to meet theists where they are in their thinking and to get them to recognize just one inconsistency in what they think. Many theists wear their delusional belief systems like a suit of armor, and arguments like the problem of evil or…

[Read more]

Welcome to you, and hopefully Judith makes it over here as well (if she’s not already here).

However Davis’s larger point remains.

The fact that god is portrayed as mean and nasty, and/or the observation that there’s a lot of suffering in the world that a (hypothetical) god doesn’t put an end to, is not an argument for the nonexistence of god. Such would be a fallacious argument. In fact, that’s the argument many theists accuse us of…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:

SteveInCO wrote:
A lot of people are saying “well this will ensure Pluto gets reclassified as a planet again”

One of the qualifications to be a full-blown planet is that it must have cleared its orbit. Pluto is pretty much part of the Kuiper Belt. In other words, it’s in a dirty orbit.

Ironically, it could be argued that becau…[Read more]

Davis wrote:They have also discovered some cañons that are up to 10km deep (6miles). Imagine bungee jumping down one of those mega deep canyons. I don’t even know how different the experience would be with less gravity/pressure. I assume you’ll fall more slowly and bounce back less dramatically? Maybe a sciency person here can help with that one?…

[Read more]