Prager - the Left, Right and Wrong, AronRa [youtube.com]

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

Prager would appear to be the poster child for the tactic of accusing your opponents of all of your own worst crimes and shortcomings so people won't see them in you - because they're looking the other direction. And of course he's opposed to people going to (non-religious) universities, and therefore spends a lot of time badmouthing them: that's where people get equipped with the tools for dismantling and refuting his constant stream of lies and mischaracterizations. Prager frames everything in terms of his moral opposition to it, and makes the blanket statement that what he's against is evil. Everyone can easily agree that they are opposed to evil, but he does absolutely nothing to prove that anything he so labels is actually evil or even bad in the slightest degree. Much like Joseph McCarthy's calling people "identified communists" because he himself called them such. And people fell for it because he spoke with a sense of confidence and authority, and he was good at stroking their fears.

Why don't you ever hear about demons possessing atheists?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

Because it's all imaginary, and we're not obsessed with finding exterior causes for our shortcomings?

Unelectable Atheists: U.

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

Those are still present because no one has yet challenged them. As soon as someone mounted a legal challenge, the prohibitions would immediately be found unconstitutional.

What made you become an atheist?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

1. A total lack of evidence. 2. A lack of any significant difference in the behaviors (atrocity and criminality-wise) of people of all the different faiths. If any of them were actually true, wouldn't we be seeing some kind of difference in the behavioral results of that faith's adherents?

Does being a "hard line atheist" mean you believe in an accidental universe?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

Not "accident", but rather "random". That way you move away from the mistake of anthropomorphism.

Creation / Starting Theory

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

It's very implausible - something intelligent that has the power to create the Universe is orders of magnitude more complicated than the Universe itself. The idea of that just springing into existence is a much greater leap than the Universe springing into existence.

What Super-power Would You Choose?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

My first pick would be the ability to copy and paste skills and knowledge from one person to another. A complete college education and 10 years of work experience in 30 seconds? Done. For a whole room of students. Second pick would be the ability to teleport things any distance. We could have a working Moon base built inside a week, and I could make a fortune working for shipping companies. Invisibility is a trap - if people can't see you, there's nothing to stop them from running into/over you. Not so bad in an office, pretty terrible in an intersection.

Explain to me how you know your attraction for someone else is not just a desire or an infatuation ...

chilehead9 comments on Jun 27, 2018:

When you want what's best for them even if it's not in your own best interest or if it's directly opposed to your own best interest. And that you keep reinvesting into building the relationship instead of just taking what you want from it - your concept of "you" grows to include the other person and their wants and needs.

UFO’s, science, and religion

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Unidentified objects are just that - unidentified. They're just as likely to be aliens as they are to be the dinosaurs that didn't die off from an asteroid impact, but flew off to another planet instead. Science is ok with saying "we don't know" and stopping there because there's not enough information/evidence yet. Religion has only three possible answers: 1) God did it, 2) The Devil did it, 3) man did it.

Labelling yourself an atheist in online dating apps

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Is there something wrong with your matches being low when you are being true to who you are? By leaving that bit out, you'll get a lot more first dates, but also much fewer second dates - since the people that place importance on religious belief will react the same way regardless of whether they find out before or during that first date. I'd much rather go on fewer dates, but with people I'm much more likely to get along with.

Should I attend a wedding at church as an atheist?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

You don't attend a wedding to assert your beliefs or lack thereof with respect to the deity of that particular building, you're there to share in the couple's happy moment of getting joined. Going into that building isn't conceding that you think their god delusion has any merit, and doesn't make you a hypocrite. The actual marriage license doesn't specify any kind of deity, but it does have the name of the state on it. If you want to toe a line with respect to religious rituals, you could do what I do and just refuse to do things like recite prayers, close your eyes, or bow your head while in attendance. But there's no good reason to miss out on your daughter's happy day over this - her getting married isn't about religion, it's about her declaring her intent to spend (hopefully) the rest of her life with the person that is making her happy.

Proof of no god?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

This is a good example of a strawman argument: creating your own version of what someone else says and attacking that instead of their actual argument. Atheism is NOT "stating unequivocably that there is no god", it is simply not believing that there is one. I suggest you do a bit more reading on things like Russell's Teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot) and the burden of proof. The person making a claim has the burden of proving it, and until they do the default position is that there is no reason to believe their claim. You cannot expect to receive any scientific proof for or against something that has been designed specifically to be non-falsifiable. God is just an increasingly small gap in our scientific understanding of the Universe, since everyplace we look we find the same lack of any evidence that she exists. But there's no indication that we'll ever run out of new places to look.

Why do you reject the idea of religion?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Zero evidence. The repulsive nature of the personalities of the devout is only (revolting) icing on that cake.

Boyfriend is agnostic, I'm an atheist. How to cope with disagreements?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

You can't really reason someone out of a position they weren't reasoned into to begin with.

Do you want to be resuscitated?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

CPR brought me back after a few minutes before, and I seem to think I function reasonably well still. Then again, I have also left instructions that I'm to be unplugged if I'm in a persistent vegitative state or brain dead.

Dating after 50

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

I've noticed that even in their 40s, people tend to be significantly more unyielding with respect to what they won't put up with. They see themselves as not having much time to weed out the prospects that are only promising yet not perfect. So your perception is that the casualty rate in the first and perhaps second waves of attempts at dating them is much, much higher, it is saving you a bit of time. I don't necessarily agree that it significantly increases their chances of finding someone they match with, but I certainly can't tell them they're not entitled to do things the way they are comfortable with in their own private lives.

Should public nudity be legal?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

We certainly should allow women to go topless everywhere that men can go topless, but there's other issues that would come up - like how would restaurants deal with the change in rules? Would you really want to sit on chairs that had been exposed to hundreds of other people's unclothed posteriors? People bring up the "not everyone looks like what you're hoping to see with nudity", without digesting the part where you talked about "no sexual agendas". While I think that for the most part, people would be a lot more modest in a clothing-optional society than the "everybody's naked" model, the existence of the web site peopleofwalmart.com suggests it would be more uncomfortable for everyone than our current set of circumstances is. That, and we already have problems with people who feel that seeing women in jeans or a revealing skirt is all the permission they need to catcall or grope them - of course those sorts will equate exposure with permission.

Sacred Land

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Isn't that like having a club for non-stamp-collectors? The drawback of having an atheist country instead of a secular one is that the religiously-driven countries would have no compunctions about trying to murder everyone in that country. Just like Nazis and demons in video games are "safe" targets to kill, because they are seen as not having any redeeming qualities, they'd feel the same way about a country that was explicitly atheist. Much better to work at educating them out of their delusions a bit more gradually, and in their own countries.

Are you an open or closet agnostic/atheist, and why?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Just as much as I don't want a believer to wave their stuff in my face, I don't think they want me waving mine. As soon as they bring up the topic, I let them know it's not a good idea to bring that up. If they still pursue it, they get resistance to conceding any part of their delusion as being real - and that usually wears them out to the point where they stop bringing it up.

Do you ever miss the religious life?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

I don't recall any part of it that appealed to me.

Would you raise your children religious just to fit in?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Absolutely not. Just as much as they learn about what the local religions believe, I'm going to give them the rational counter-arguments and let them figure it out.

How comfortable are you with the word "Atheist" ?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

It's about as completely descriptive of me as "white" or "tall" are. That, and it tends to keep the religious away from trying to pull me into their meetings.

How do you deal with semi-supportive family?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

When your nieces are old enough, they can decide if they are going to follow their parent's delusions or not. You can let them know that you'd support their decision to abandon useless traditions, but don't put that into their parent's faces - people with religious beliefs don't make the most rational choices and will sometimes resort to violence if they think their religion calls for it.

When did you first doubt religion?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

When I first noticed that most of the worst people I ever had to deal with were also the most outspokenly devout. Then I noticed that much of belief is based on responding to threats of violence and torture. That converged one Halloween with a thought experiment about what would happen if I saw a ghost and refused to be terrified by it.

Fellow agnostics, how do you feel about believers joining?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

If they're going to come into a place like this and try to accost me, they'd best be prepared to get a double-earload of blasphemy. That, and I think if they honestly try to debate the topic with me, there's a much better chance that I'll de-convert them than them coming up with the necessary proof to convert me. It wouldn't be very difficult for them to convert me to their religion - I have a couple amputees already picked out that they can make whole before my eyes, without knowing ahead of time who they are or what parts they are missing.

What moral code do you follow now that you are non-religious?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

I do what I can to objectively make the world a better place. Aside from the Golden Rule, there's also this: When I woke up this morning, the world was not good enough. So rather that sit on my ass, I'm going to take a little responsibility for making it better, and do some things every day that will make other people's lives a little better, and a little easier. Because the world isn't going to get better if no one does anything to make it better.

What is your response when people threaten you with religious punishments? (i.e. Hell/Jahannam)

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

You realize you're threatening me with something that doesn't exist, don't you? You might as well threaten to punch me in the aura and poke out my chakras. Then again, if your Hell and Heaven did exist, I can't think of a torture that would be worse than being surrounded by people like you.

Soulmates: do they exist?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

The thought that there's only one person out there that you need to find out of a sea of 7.5 billion is a bit ridiculous, as that makes needles and haystacks look like child's play. What makes someone your match is the mutual commitment and caring that are built between you and someone that is sufficiently compatible to begin with. If there's some real compatibility there, and both are committed to similar goals with respect to each other, something great and unique is going to get built.

Should religion be taught in schools?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

To the extent that they should give equal coverage to **every** religion, and not omit the atrocities they commit. That usually gets the religiously-minded to ban discussing religion in schools, if they can't limit it to their own specific delusion. The idea that their kids might have to hear about Brahma, Mohammed, Xenu, and John Frum instead of exclusively about the Jeebus will make them have mental conniptions.

How do you deal with Door-knockers?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

"I understand that you *think* you're doing something good, but unless you have some actual proof, I'm going to treat you like any other con artist trying to rip me off."

How do you tell religious people that you're an atheist?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

I tend to use the short "I'm not a believer" and leave it at that. If they press the issue beyond that, I follow the maxim of "if you don't want to deal with the answer, don't ask the question" and expose them to some reality.

For atheists - what makes you believe no deity exists?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Why should I even give the claim that there is a deity any credence? There is zero physical evidence of any of them being real, yet they all have "eyewitness" accounts to vouch for them - despite pretty much all of them being mutually exclusive. The fact that priests are child molesters at at least the same rate (or more) as the general population seems to point to the complete lack of those deities ability to do anything in the physical world. The rate that people seem to commit atrocities in the name of their god without being struck by lightning bolts suggests that either said deities are ok with that kind of behavior, or that they don't exist enough to be offended by it.

Euthenasia?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

On the other hand, what right does anyone have to tell someone that they have to stick around if they don't want to? Pain does not give life meaning, it just gives people pain. The real concerns we should have about this is the inevitable misuse that will be attempted: mobster types telling people their spouses/younger family members will be killed if they don't get themselves to a clinic, things like that.

Death. Do you fear it?

chilehead9 comments on Jun 26, 2018:

Being dead? No. The act of dying? I'd like to avoid it as much as possible. I died once in my late teens, and it wasn't fun. I like the idea of curing the disease of aging, though I suspect that most people would choose to exit on their own terms before they reached their 200th birthday even if their body stopped aging in their late 20s/early 30s.