The Loony Tunes Deal With Science, But Not As We Know It! The United States is supposed to be one...

Amisja comments on Jan 3, 2019:

John, my grandpa used to say, "Empty vessels make most noise". As in these are a very loud and vocal MINORITY. To people not in USA, it can appear alarming. Believe me though, the vast majority of Americans are sensible pragmatical people.

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 3, 2019:

If I had to guess, I'd say about 35% of Americans fall somewhere on a spectrum of sensible and pragmatic. I'd say about 35% on the other end are neither sensible nor pragmatic. And the 30% in the middle are a mixed bag.

The Loony Tunes Deal With Science, But Not As We Know It! The United States is supposed to be one...

linxminx comments on Jan 3, 2019:

Who would believe such nonsense? Well, let's look at a current education trend... I'm always looking for a connection to education, since I'm an educator. This seems like an especially large amount of Looney Tunes nonsense, and I'm wondering how this compares to such nonsense compared to 25-30 ...

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 3, 2019:

@Elganned I have a very religious cousin who says they have science classes at church. As a teacher (high school English), I know it is very difficult to get teachers at all, much less skilled teachers, much less skilled teachers in science. I can't imagine who they have teaching science at church. I just...can't talk to my cousin about this. I would go ballistic.

The Loony Tunes Deal With Science, But Not As We Know It! The United States is supposed to be one...

creative51 comments on Jan 3, 2019:

That we are one of the most educated nations in the world, is a statement which I feel is open to a very lively debate in regard to its accuracy.

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 3, 2019:

@mattersauce And as a teacher, I have noticed a deep seated anti-intellectual, anti-education culture. Many parents instill in their children that school is a hoop to jump through, and you are to take it seriously only to that extent and then forget about it. People talk about the Dunning-Kruger effect, where incompetent people grossly overestimate their competence due to the fact of their incompetence. But when you have parents like this, the kids often think the parents must know just as much as anyone else...which fosters the attitude that intellectualism is just a way to fake that you are smart, and education is just a way to fake that you know things that no one really knows, or is just a matter of opinion. And some of the data bears this out also, in that our kids when tested always grossly overestimate their knowledge and ability, while kids in other countries grossly UNDERESTIMATE their knowledge and abilities. It seems that applying doubt and skepticism to your own knowledge and skills continuously makes your knowledge and skills continuously better, while having faith you are the best and never questioning it makes your knowledge and skills terrible...while at the same time making you think you'r e wonderful, or could be wonderful tomorrow with a tiny bit of effort so you don't really need to try anyway.

The Loony Tunes Deal With Science, But Not As We Know It! The United States is supposed to be one...

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Jan 3, 2019:

As an educator on a collegiate level, I have had some students who must have read some of these works. I had one who used Noah's Ark as proof that global warming did not take place--even after I told him that he could not use The Bible as a source or argue based on religious beliefs.

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 3, 2019:

I'm only a high school English teacher, but I had a student last year start an argumentative paper on why Israel should remain a Jewish homeland. Since he got half way through before I knew what he was doing, I told him he simply needed to make his case without relying on personal religious reasons since those would only be effective arguments for people who already believe his personal views. So he started arguing that in Judaism, god gave the land to the Jews. Therefore it is their land because god said so, etc. (Apparently it was just a coincidence that the Jewish view of that biblical story was nearly the same as his personal Christian view.) When I told him that wouldn't work, he started going to religious websites and trying to glean arguments that I might find acceptable. He found antisemitic statements from a Palestinian leader who died in the 1970s. When it finally dawned on me that he really wasn't trying to make an argument at all. He was just repeating things he had heard from religiously motivated family, friends, and church. (This is why most of us in the English department don't allow essays on abortion. The pro-life students simply rely on religious arguments, and bad arguments they have heard from religious people. The pro-choice students focus on how bad the arguments are for the pro-life side...rarely making a case for their claim at all. And suggesting either one is making a bad argument--or none at all--puts the teacher in the hot seat and accused of being "on the other side".)

This evening at dusk and in heavy rain a person was driving a black car without their headlights on...

greyeyed123 comments on Jan 2, 2019:

I agree with everyone here, except I am perplexed why so many people where I live have their headlights on at noon on a cloudless, sunny, 95 degree day in the middle of July (literally, nearly everyone). If we can't see you under those weather conditions, we can't see you with your headlights on ...

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 2, 2019:

@Tominator Not everything. But after 30 years, and with millions of blue, black, or grey vehicles sharing the road with me, I would have certainly crashed into one of them if I didn't see them. Maybe they all had their lights on. lol

This evening at dusk and in heavy rain a person was driving a black car without their headlights on...

greyeyed123 comments on Jan 2, 2019:

I agree with everyone here, except I am perplexed why so many people where I live have their headlights on at noon on a cloudless, sunny, 95 degree day in the middle of July (literally, nearly everyone). If we can't see you under those weather conditions, we can't see you with your headlights on ...

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 2, 2019:

@Tominator I would know because I would have crashed into it. Then I would know I didn't see it. But since I've never crashed in such a way in 30 years...and cars of such colors are on the road...

This evening at dusk and in heavy rain a person was driving a black car without their headlights on...

greyeyed123 comments on Jan 2, 2019:

I agree with everyone here, except I am perplexed why so many people where I live have their headlights on at noon on a cloudless, sunny, 95 degree day in the middle of July (literally, nearly everyone). If we can't see you under those weather conditions, we can't see you with your headlights on ...

greyeyed123 replies on Jan 2, 2019:

@rogueflyer Maybe this is true, but I've been driving 30 years and I've never not seen a car because it was a similar color to the road. I've also never been in an accident on any road, although I had two very minor bumps in parking lots. Maybe I am just old and resistant to change.

Am I the only one who has had the most miserable holiday ever?

Nevermind345 comments on Dec 31, 2018:

I gave them up long ago and have never regretted it.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@Maindawg He never when to the graduation ceremony. I didn't go to mine, either, but I regretted it later.

I'm always fascinated by the line, "we don't want to become minorities in our own country". Why not?

TristanNuvo comments on Dec 30, 2018:

The truth is that the far right bolster "imagration" on a platform that is NOT what America has been in history, all about. For example. the Statue of liberty quite boldly states, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

Remember a year ago when Stephen Miller told the press corpse that the poem didn't represent the immigration philosophy of the US? I think he said the poem wasn't originally part of the statue, or something stupid like that. lol

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@WilliamFleming The director of Run Lola Run directed some of Cloud Atlas, and the Wachowskis directed the rest (it was the only way such a huge undertaking could be accomplished). It very nearly did not get made, but Tom Hanks pushed it through. The book is awesome, connecting a wide variety of genres in a very clever way. The structure of the book is different than the structure of the movie, which is why many said it would be impossible to film. But they came as damned close as possible, I think, and I really loved the result. It flopped in theaters, but I think it's the best big budget independent film of all time, lol.

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics?

Deveno comments on Dec 31, 2018:

Wide-spread belief doesn't count as proof of existence. For example, the Earth is not flat. An alternative theory might be wide-spread (and perhaps unwitting) use of psychedelic edibles. People might have interpreted these experiences as religious revelation. It's a tantalizing theory, but one...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@Gwendolyn2018 I'm the caregiver for my ageing parents. Mom has Parkinson's and has had various hallucinations over the years, mostly due to med changes. But she still has one where she says the floor is vibrating. This is either caused by the Parkinson's, the Parkinson's meds, or a compression fracture in her back. For whatever reason, I can't convince her it isn't real. She will say a big truck must be driving by (I tell her there is no truck), or plane must be flying over (I tell her there is no plane). The other day she started saying the floor in front of her chair was vibrating again. I assured her it was not, and asked her what it is she thinks could possibly be vibrating in the floor under her chair. She said, "Maybe a fan?" There is no fan, certainly not in the floor, downstairs, anywhere. The other day she called me into the bathroom and told me to "stand right there. Can't you feel that?" Once again I had to say no, there is nothing there. (Again, not a riveting story that would ever make it into fiction.)

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics?

Deveno comments on Dec 31, 2018:

Wide-spread belief doesn't count as proof of existence. For example, the Earth is not flat. An alternative theory might be wide-spread (and perhaps unwitting) use of psychedelic edibles. People might have interpreted these experiences as religious revelation. It's a tantalizing theory, but one...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@Gwendolyn2018 I've had experience with mental illness in my family, and I have to say it is absolutely nothing like it is depicted in fiction or in movies. It is extremely easy to find yourself believing something you are being told because it is mostly mundane and it doesn't even occur to you that this trustworthy person you know and love would lie to you. It's when the mundane thing they are telling you swerves into the impossible or improbable in a way that is obvious to you, but completely normal to them...or when their perceptions move into the completely fantastical. If they have "insight" that something is wrong with their perceptions, you can talk them out of them. If they have no insight, it doesn't matter what you say. It can be extremely scary. I've come to believe the reason it isn't depicted realistically in movies/fiction is because it is so disturbing...and not at all entertaining...and at a certain point not that interesting (the "plot" of their story goes no where, as it isn't real). When my dad went off his lithium, he saw aliens, vampires, zombies, bodies on the floor (that were only towels or clothes), etc.. Although I couldn't always convince him that it wasn't real, I could talk him out of taking any of it seriously. Later he briefly went back on the lithium, and then he saw babies, angels, fluffy animals, etc. I couldn't really convince him they weren't there, but even taking those hallucinations seriously wasn't dangerous. Eventually he went off again, wouldn't go to the doctor, and eventually stabilized. Now he's just angry all the time and loves Fox News and Trump.

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics?

Deveno comments on Dec 31, 2018:

Wide-spread belief doesn't count as proof of existence. For example, the Earth is not flat. An alternative theory might be wide-spread (and perhaps unwitting) use of psychedelic edibles. People might have interpreted these experiences as religious revelation. It's a tantalizing theory, but one...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@Spinliesel Let's not forget that there was no modern medicine. Physical and mental illnesses were not controlled. Humans lived in a world of superstition, and when several people in your sphere of influence have mental illnesses, the fantastic things they say and believe and recount wholeheartedly are very convincing, especially when you have no other alternative means of looking at the world and good information is unavailable.

Do you think that one "chooses" to become an atheist or is it more like they always were but only ...

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Phrases like "we believe" were dead giveaways of a scam when I was a kid (that is, using "we" to include me). How could someone else be telling me what "we believe". How did they know what I believed? But since everyone around me seemed to believe it, I figured it must make sense to someone who knew...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 31, 2018:

@Lilith My mom hugged me at the time. Dad told her to tell me--in front of me--that they were presents for my cousins. Which made me howl louder because we already gave my cousins their presents, and because dad thought I was so stupid that he could tell mom to tell me they were someone else's presents when I could HEAR him telling her (because she was hugging me). I really did like Santa, lol.

I just went back to reading a newspaper (on-line, very cheap too) Reading news allows me to pause, ...

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 30, 2018:

Tv news also is in continual fear that you may not be entertained and thus turn the channel, so they talk as fast as they possibly can. I'm also getting annoyed with those human interest pieces at the end of CBS news. Generally the CBS Evening News is still pretty solid, but ending with puppies or ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 30, 2018:

@RavenCT Exactly. But is the value of news the news, or money from entertainment? We used to recognize that there was value in things like truth, facts, news, values, etc. Now everything has to be distilled down to money or nothing, which unfortunately has led to many misinformed or uninformed "news" consumers.

New Jersey AG has obtained evidence of possible crimes at Trump's golf club — and Mueller, FBI are...

Kodiamus comments on Dec 29, 2018:

I’m just hoping for impeachment proceedings to start after Jan 1

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 30, 2018:

@PalacinkyPDX The New York Times piece on his taxes from a few weeks ago should have rocked the country. Now it seems like they could find Trump burying bodies in the Rose Garden, and everyone would shrug because, you know, it's Trump...and he does things differently.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming I read the wikipedia entry where you got the blurb, and I read the Scientific American article. I can't say I'm very impressed. I know nothing about Ian Bering, but reading the bottom of the article, it tells me "He is the author of The Belief Instinct (2011), Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? (2012) and Perv (2013)." Which doesn't instill confidence. And the wikipedia entry suggested a lot problems in the data gathering. I do love the whole idea. Have you ever seen Cloud Atlas, or read the book? I think Cloud Atlas is still on Netflix. (The film seems to be a much better experience if you read the novel first.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s&t=8s

It’s a joke

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 29, 2018:

"A few years ago, One Direction broke up. Now they are going in many directions!" I made that up myself. As you can tell.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@48thRonin I'm a high school teacher and I've been telling that joke to groans for a couple of years.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming This indeed sounds impressive. I will look into it.

Should We Build the Wall? We Asked Trump Supporters. - YouTube

DenoPenno comments on Dec 29, 2018:

I see no questions here. Look at how well the Great Wall of China has worked out and it's still around today. Hey, I wonder if China would pay for it?

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

I seem to remember David Copperfield walked through the Great Wall of China. I hope there are no Mexican magicians.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming Name one claim of reincarnation that is not simply a story that is unverifiable, unreproducible, unfalsifiable, and not predictive. Name one claim that doesn't fall victim to one or more logical fallacies. My mind is NOT made up. The way a claim is demonstrated is the same no matter what. There is a standard of evidence. Give me one piece of evidence that meets the standard (as I have suggested here) and I will look at it. If it meets the standard, it meets the standard. If it doesn't meet the standard, I can make up an opposing claim to your claim that doesn't meet the standard either...and yet you wouldn't except the opposing claim because it's not your claim and not what you want to believe. In other words, your claim has nothing to do with evidence and reason, and only has to do with what you want to believe. You understood the diabetes analogy. Right now I am the doctor in the analogy, and you are claiming you eat 10 cakes a day and have magical powers that negate the diabetes. Ok. Maybe you do. Where is your evidence?

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming You apparently sent me a google search list for evidence for reincarnation. I understand people make this claim, and there are STORIES that sound impressive. That isn't good evidence. It's the worst evidence possible. What is the single best piece of evidence for reincarnation that you have? (I will guess that it falls victim to one of the major problems I've already pointed out, because if it did not, it would already be known to be a true phenomenon.)

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming The burden of proof is not to force others to examine anything. I can explain it further if you would like. There is a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) Suffice it to say, evidence that is derived from a logical fallacy, is easily faked, inconclusive, gathered in uncontrolled ways, anecdotal, etc, is all "evidence" that can be used to support ANY claim. The problem skeptics have is that you are accepting bad evidence to support what you already believe, or what you WANT to believe, when you can easily formulate a conflicting claim and support it with the same kind of bad evidence. That kind of contradiction can't happen if you have good evidence that meets its burden of proof. That's all. It's not a trick, or a means to intimidate you.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming Yes. People do it all the time. That's how we know anything there is to know. It's just a demonstration of the truth of something via verifiable, reproducible, falsifiable, and predictive means. The doctor thinks you may be diabetic because you have some symptoms and a family history. So you test your blood sugar. You test your A1C. You don't trust that doctor? That test? You go to another doctor, and have him run the tests. You get your own glucose monitor and try it yourself. It's possible the results could have been different, but they weren't. It's verifiable, reproducible, falsifiable, and predictive. I don't then go to the doctor, tell him I'm not diabetic because the burden of proof is just a trick to make me feel bad about the ten cakes I eat every day.

When you love someone, what are non-verbal ways of knowing that they care for you back?

twshield comments on Dec 29, 2018:

Can that person look you directly in your eyes without challenge

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@twshield Trust me. You would trust me. lol

When you love someone, what are non-verbal ways of knowing that they care for you back?

twshield comments on Dec 29, 2018:

Can that person look you directly in your eyes without challenge

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@twshield I can't even look someone in the eye and tell the truth, lol.

I’ve seen several people on here bring up the issue of dealing with religious people questioning ...

marmot84 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

There is a pretty solid argument that shows that morality can not be defined by religious beliefs. I've forgotten it. Anyone remember? I mean, I guess I could look it up and stuff but that would be boring.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@48thRonin You might find this funny. I did a search on bible gateway for the words "ten commandments". The 10 in Exodus 20 (the familiar ones) are not identified in the passage as the ten commandments. So they added "the ten commandments" to it, but put them in brackets to show they were not in the original text, lol. Good grief. https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22ten+commandments%22=NIV

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming Sure. There is no good evidence for reincarnation. You got me there! (There is bad evidence for the Cottingley Fairies.) "The burden of proof" as it is used in the argumentative sense doesn't use the word "proof" in the mathematical sense, obviously. It's how we demonstrate things in reality using argument and evidence.

I’ve seen several people on here bring up the issue of dealing with religious people questioning ...

marmot84 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

There is a pretty solid argument that shows that morality can not be defined by religious beliefs. I've forgotten it. Anyone remember? I mean, I guess I could look it up and stuff but that would be boring.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@48thRonin There is an apologetic to counter this, but I can't remember what it was--except that it was stupid.

I’ve seen several people on here bring up the issue of dealing with religious people questioning ...

marmot84 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

There is a pretty solid argument that shows that morality can not be defined by religious beliefs. I've forgotten it. Anyone remember? I mean, I guess I could look it up and stuff but that would be boring.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@48thRonin And the only place the bible actually lists the "ten commandments" as the "the ten commandments", the list does not bear any resemblance to what the other 10 are. (Were a lot of people cooking baby goats in their mother's milk? It does sound kinda gross.) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+34=NIV

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

@WilliamFleming The burden of proof comes from argumentation. The fact that it works is why it is used in a courtroom. Few people understand how it works, or critical thinking, however.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

WilliamFleming comments on Dec 29, 2018:

You can read about state atheism in Wikipedia and you’ll learn that non-religious societies have been enforced over wide regions of the earth. Some of them functioned somewhat highly for awhile. Some still function. Most fell into famine, war, tyranny, torture, gulag, and so on. You can get ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 29, 2018:

That's not what I, or Hitchens, was talking about. He explains in the video.

So seriously, I think this is the root of our problems.

marmot84 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

So yeah, I think we see a crises coming ... maybe the immigration crises from hell. I mean the folks down south are going to want the stability that we in the Northern Hemisphere have. I hate the whole "wall" crap since is it is simplistic to the extreme but the truth is that immigration is coming...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

Luckily humans have not invented ropes, ladders...or sticks dig holes beneath fences. What a stupid waste of time and .

I’ve seen several people on here bring up the issue of dealing with religious people questioning ...

marmot84 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

There is a pretty solid argument that shows that morality can not be defined by religious beliefs. I've forgotten it. Anyone remember? I mean, I guess I could look it up and stuff but that would be boring.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

A common argument is that if humans didn't know lying, stealing, and murder were wrong until god gave Moses tablets from Mt. Sinai, humans would never have made it that point in the first place.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

Al-Bundy_59 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

What would a highly functional society where everyone was given the same life look like? How would that work? Educate everyone the same? Give everyone the same healthcare? Who leads this society? Single leader, a committee? Who waits on who? Who cleans the toilet, who counts the money? Any...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

A philosopher king?

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

@skado Do Buddhists reject the fantastical/supernatural claims about Buddha's origin, reincarnation, etc? Seems weird to me that a claimed reincarnated entity such as the Dalai Lama would reject the idea of reincarnation simply because it has never been demonstrated scientifically. If the Dalai Lama is saying it is up to science to disprove doctrines for which there never was any evidence in the first place, that is shifting the burden of proof, and as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with New Atheism or any narrative. It's just a cute way of saying they will hold on to their weird beliefs until someone can prove they are not true.

The fastest growing group of people in the country has been measured as being those who have no ...

Marionville comments on Dec 28, 2018:

I can’t get my head around the connection between any political leanings and being an atheist. As far as I’m concerned my being an atheist has no bearing on my political beliefs. I don’t want to know what religion or none the politicians I vote for are....it’s their policies I want to know...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

Republicans have wrapped themselves in the flag for so long that for many on both sides, Republican has become synonymous with Christian. Many conservatives think Jesus gave us the United States, that we're a "Christian nation", that our laws are all based on the Bible, and that the constitution is/should be revered as much or more than the Bible itself (especially the 2nd Amendment, if for no other reason). This famous painting says it all: https://cdn10.bigcommerce.com/s-dcvfa4/product_images/uploaded_images/one-nation-under-god-39928.1351554514.1280.1280-33303.1352235469.1280.1280.jpg?t=1469819944

May be because Im a bit of an emotional dude, but I keep coming back to the topic of Theodicy.

mattersauce comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Atheists don't need proof against god and theists don't accept this as proof. Find something that swings theists and I'll pay attention.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

@mattersauce Some say you cannot reason someone out of a believe that they were not reasoned into to begin with. We have evidence that this isn't true. The natural progression, as I see it, requires us to engage with people using reason and evidence. If we don't, the only progression we get is into various other irrational beliefs, sometimes slightly better than the previous one...sometimes slightly worse.

What would a highly functional society without religion look like?

skado comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Through the broader lens of history, your question looks like "What would a highly functional society without high functionality look like?" Morality doesn't *come* from religion - morality comes from evolution, and its expression ends up being called religion. When questioned in this clip, ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

I can't say I agree that we cannot identify many objective moral principles centered on well being of humanity that wouldn't be "faith-based" and wouldn't be immune to continuous reevaluation, rethinking, testing, etc., and that this continued reevaluation, etc., would be valued for the simple reason that valuing it continues to provide us with better results over time. ... My knee jerk reaction is to agree with Hitchens, but I'm not sure such a society doesn't amount to imagining what a society would be like if all the people in it were either perfectly rational, or had a solid grasp of when they were straying from rationality (individually and as a whole). I'm really not sure if that is fair either, but I would at least say that a society that held in high esteem the values of critical thinking, testing, science, rationalism, freedom of thought, etc., would be LESS LIKELY to fall into famine, war, tyranny, etc. Maybe it's not even a profound thought. I don't know. Something about it is bothering me because I sense a contradiction in my own thoughts about it. I just can't put a finger on it beyond what I wrote here.

May be because Im a bit of an emotional dude, but I keep coming back to the topic of Theodicy.

mattersauce comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Atheists don't need proof against god and theists don't accept this as proof. Find something that swings theists and I'll pay attention.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

@mattersauce You said to find something that would swing theists, and you'd pay attention. It isn't just "one thing", but many, and this is one of them. The goal isn't to find "one thing" that will change all minds instantly like magic. That's not how it works. We actually have to pay attention to all the arguments, and all the means by which to change people's minds.

NY Times claims ‘Trump imperils planet’ with carbon emissions, but still plans own private jet ...

doug6352 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Yes we need clean water and clean air, and lots of CO2 in the clean air to help our plants grow in the new colder climate caused by lack of sunspot activity. All the devout believers in global warming will eventually need to realize that the joke was on them.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

@doug6352 Plenty of evidence cigarettes are great also. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ZDQKq2F08 Plenty of smokers will tell you they had a grandma who smoked her entire life and died at age 93. Case closed.

May be because Im a bit of an emotional dude, but I keep coming back to the topic of Theodicy.

mattersauce comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Atheists don't need proof against god and theists don't accept this as proof. Find something that swings theists and I'll pay attention.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

It actually swung me. Theodicy is troubling for many believers who have thought about it. The rest have never thought about it.

NY Times claims ‘Trump imperils planet’ with carbon emissions, but still plans own private jet ...

doug6352 comments on Dec 28, 2018:

Yes we need clean water and clean air, and lots of CO2 in the clean air to help our plants grow in the new colder climate caused by lack of sunspot activity. All the devout believers in global warming will eventually need to realize that the joke was on them.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 28, 2018:

And cigarettes are healthy for you. My doctor smokes them.

Anyone else have a problem with the President "procedural" accident in releasing SEAL names and ...

AmiSue comments on Dec 27, 2018:

Why the hell aren't his actions checked before he can cause harm? This infuriated me.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 27, 2018:

Checked how? By whom? He's the president of the United States. The few checks the Constitution provides are simply not being exercised. We need 20 Republican senators to vote for impeachment, and thus far they seem completely reticent to do so. The other potential checks on him have been fired by him, save Mueller. If he fires Mueller, conventional wisdom (and I tend to agree) is that he would be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate. The other problem is that even if he commits a conventional crime, the conventional wisdom is that he can't be charged until he is out of office. Some disagree, but at this point it seems most don't, including Mueller.

Anyone else have a problem with the President "procedural" accident in releasing SEAL names and ...

joe1334us comments on Dec 27, 2018:

He went to Iraq just after the story of his Dr. never even examined him for Bone Spurs for his Deferments from Vietnam War! Distract and do Bad, its whole life is Distract and do Bad!

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 27, 2018:

@joe1334us Both of my parents are 70, both watch Fox News all the time (dad more than mom), and both think Trump is great. I have no idea what to say. Both of them were Democrats their entire lives. Dad hated Hillary because she was a woman and wanted authority (he has a weird complex about this since his mother refused him a penny when he was 5, and later took his Vietnam money and spent it on his brother's wedding while telling him she gave it to his struggling grandparents). Ten years ago he would go on and on about how terrible mom's brothers were for being Republicans (which was untrue--the "terrible" part, not the Republican part). Now he goes on and on about how evil Democrats and liberals are (he got the "liberal" epithet from Fox News--he never used it once before in his life so far as I am aware). He rails against the evils of socialism while he has been on 100% VA disability for 22 years, and now has social security. He rails against any Democrat he thinks was a draft dodger (occasionally he gets this wrong as some he accuses were children or not born yet), but says nothing about Trump dodging the draft. When the Dow crashed on Christmas Eve, he said it was the Fed's fault because Trump and Fox News said so. When it spiked 1000 yesterday, it was because Trump said to buy the dip. He's literally mimicking the irrationality of Trump himself. It doesn't have to be consistent, logical, honest, or legal, but if it supports Trump, he's for it 100%.

Why not? It worked for Mary! [amredeemed.com]

John_Tyrrell comments on Dec 27, 2018:

Have to laugh. The source is a serious End Times web site. and a little bit of research reveals they were sucked in by a parody site -- There Is News . com -- from which they ripped off the article word for word. https://thereisnews.com/pregnant-nun-says-it-was-holy-spirit/

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 27, 2018:

@John_Tyrrell That's a really old joke. I think "Golden Girls" used it once, but changed it to the parking brake.

Anyone else have a problem with the President "procedural" accident in releasing SEAL names and ...

joe1334us comments on Dec 27, 2018:

He went to Iraq just after the story of his Dr. never even examined him for Bone Spurs for his Deferments from Vietnam War! Distract and do Bad, its whole life is Distract and do Bad!

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 27, 2018:

Fox News says it's an unfair hit piece because the doctor is dead and it was his children who claimed their father had told that story throughout his life--that he got Trump out of Vietnam as a favor to Trump's father. Not that it matters now. We know Trump voters don't really care for morality, honesty, or law. It was just something they faked to pretend to be superior to everyone else. I never thought my own father would be defending the dismemberment of a journalist, or advocating shooting pregnant women at the border. But after Trump said we shouldn't care much about the dismemberment because of Saudi money, and then sent the US military to the border and said to consider rocks to be rifles, all he could talk about was how noisy journalists deserve what they get and pregnant women trying to break our border laws should be shot. (This is NOT how he used to be. His paranoia and racism are off the scale now. He watches Fox News 24/7.) (Edit: and just as I type this, Fox reports the controversy about the "massive inflow of illegal immigrants" where "one child has died." So he starts yelling at the tv that it doesn't matter that the child died because lots of people die. Good grief. We need an army of mental health professionals to get the country back from insanity.)

Anyone else have a problem with the President "procedural" accident in releasing SEAL names and ...

Gypsy494 comments on Dec 27, 2018:

He only does things to benefit himself ONLY could care less he exposed them to harm. Why in the HELL is that grifter traitor con man STILL in the WH?

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 27, 2018:

40% of the country loves him no matter what. Modernity, education, and facts frighten most of those people. He's promised that he will drag the country back from modernity, that facts are fake news, and that education doesn't matter--it's all just something those liberal elites use to oppress everyone else with a Chinese hoax and their "science" of evolution that makes baby Jesus cry. (My dad all through Christmas said the Fed is trying to destroy the economy to make Trump look bad. All through yesterday he said the DOW went up 1000 because Trump said to buy on the dip. Today it's down again and I'm sure it's the FED's fault again. It doesn't matter WHAT happens, Trump is great and everyone else is trying to destroy him. Either Trump has magical powers to save us all...or if he doesn't, it's because everyone else is persecuting him so the magic stops working.)

Run Mary run!!!

Beowulfsfriend comments on Dec 26, 2018:

You folks do realize some reptiles and amphibians can asexually reproduce? GeeZeus may have been a lizard person. Scientifically, for Mary to have a virgin birth, the baby would need be, like her an XX. Albeit, maybe she was an XXY, making her kid a transgender god.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 26, 2018:

One of my favorite sentences ever in the English language from Christopher Hitchens: "Parthenogenesis is not completely unthinkable."

I guess the big topic on my agenda today is I am tired of talking to myself.

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 26, 2018:

Are alien babies still people, do they have souls, and if so, do they have gun rights? Inquiring minds want to know. I want to know.

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 26, 2018:

@MissKathleen I'm pretty sure Fox News says only liberal wackos say alien babies shouldn't have guns in schools. The only defense against an evil alien baby with a death ray is a good alien baby with a gun.

I made my first attempt at Street Epistemology this morning while wrapping gifts on Periscope.

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 26, 2018:

Never expect to change the mind of the person you are talking to. The purpose of an online discussion is for others reading it to first learn something, and then maybe change their minds. I'm always open to changing my mind as well. (For these reasons, never have an "online discussion" privately ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 26, 2018:

@RezZa I think it is about changing minds, but indirectly and over time. I was just pointing out that it rarely happens directly with the person you are talking to, and if you get it in your mind that that is your goal (as I often do, and is easy to fall into), frustration will consume you.

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 26, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 This is a much better documentary in terms of filmmaking and storytelling. Also on Netflix. (The logical fallacies and arguments from ignorance are smooth and appeal to our hysteria. Not clunky like in the other documentary.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMnPKVbgH60

Deep thoughts.

hippydog comments on Dec 26, 2018:

"Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind" I'm more interested on how the author justifies that.. as I was pretty sure the bible never said that..

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 26, 2018:

And if memory serves, Eve was created because Adam was lonely. How can a perfect being be lonely? Sounds like an imperfection to me.

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 Patient 17 said that if aliens were real, his Christianity would crumble--as if the two are remotely connected...except for the fact that they are both faith based. ... There aren't many living witnesses to Roswell. Anyone 18 or older at the time would be 89 or older today...if my math is correct. ... To make this easier, if you present to me a living, breathing alien, I will believe you. If you present to me a dead alien, confirmed to be an unknown biological entity with chemistry too different from any on earth to be earthly, I will make the inference that is extra-terrestrial (which is not entirely rational in itself, but that's what I would do). If you present to me a technology that two dozen of our best scientists confirm does something, but they have no idea how...I will make the inference that it is extra-terrestrial (also not completely rational of me, but that's what I would do). ... What you need is confirmation by independent experts in controlled ways. All you have is the most flimsy of evidence imaginable. It is either uncontrolled, unfalsifiable, witness testimony, hearsay, anomalous, easily faked, inconclusive, deeply dependent on the argument from ignorance fallacy, or unidentified. That isn't evidence for an claim so extraordinary (your documentary calls it an "extraordinary belief" at least once). ... Your problem is you accept every claim as evidence if it supports your foregone conclusion. That's not how evidence, reason, or argument works. And honestly, this pattern of flimsy evidence over decades is another main reason I am now so very skeptical of the overall claim of alien visitation (much less abduction, etc). ... You say Ken Ham ignores evidence. Ken Ham has exactly the same kind of evidence you do. His overall claims are also based on witness testimony, hearsay, personal conviction, confirmation bias, a never ending list of unfalsifiable supporting claims, easily faked evidence, inconclusive evidence, pareidolia, etc. You think I am ignoring evidence, WHEN YOU ARE IGNORING THE FACT THAT I ALREADY TOLD YOU I SPENT THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF HOURS studying this for more than two decades. Do you just not believe me? I was an absolutely true believer. You keep talking to me as if I missed something over those thousands of hours and changed my mind on a whim. Are you not curious how or why my view changed? You seem more keen on accusing me of being overly rational and ignoring evidence that, I told you, I already knew all about AND ACCEPTED WHOLE HEARTEDLY for years. Until I learned how critical thinking and evidence actually works. I didn't just suddenly decide to reject conclusive evidence that had been rigorously tested using controlled, unfalsifiable methodology over decades. I discovered that ...

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@TheAstroChuck I was going to say the chemist/metal expert was not terribly believable because he was only one dude and worked for Dr. Leir. Then the results he gave were pretty tepid. He hedged and hawed. The documentary guy kept asking leading questions, and he provided half-hearted confirmations. Yeah, it probably was from off planet. You probably wouldn't be able to fake this, probably. You'd have to test some random metal samples, such as nails, and you would probably not get the same results they got from the metal fragment in the guy's leg. Probably. ... ... AND THEN WHAT HAPPENS. The metal expert says he was actually PATIENT 15, and that he has gone through this process himself, his wife left him due to his obsession, and Dr. Leir didn't want anyone to know about this because he was Dr. Leir's "expert." Good grief. (No mention of 4 trillion dollars.) ... The final metal expert, if correct, could easily have his results confirmed by others instead of begging us to believe him and answering every leading question the filmmaker asks him. ... The filmmaker tries to confirm these results, according to him, with the lab. The lab claimed that mistakes can happen, contamination, etc. They perform multiple other independent tests. He says the results are 50/50, half saying it is common, everyday metal, and 50 saying it is originating off earth. ... With evidence like that, who needs verification? Aliens are real! AHAHAHAH! Good grief.

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@TheAstroChuck This reminds me of a couple of comments Tracie Harris once made on the atheist experience. She said that if you want to know the family structures of Big Foot, you have to first establish that Big Foot exists--THEN you determine the family structures, mating habits, sleep patterns, etc. She also said, "Don't do with god what you wouldn't do with Big Foot." I would tweak it to say, "Don't do with aliens what you wouldn't do with Big Foot." ... I'm only 15 minutes into the Patient 17 doc. The "patient" is portrayed as completely oblivious to ufology. He tells us he has never heard of Dr. Leir, and has never seen a UFO. And then in the middle of having his leg cut open to remove the "implant", he describes how he was abducted by aliens as a child. (It is also weird that they spend a couple of minutes showing him frying eggs and bacon, and a couple of minutes of Dr. Leir playing an organ, when the hour documentary is supposedly illustrating the most important story in the history of mankind, lol. I don't mean to laugh. I remember what it felt like when people laughed at my cherished alien beliefs back in the day, but we do need to grow up a little bit, don't we? There is better evidence for Santa.)

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 Here's another trailer. You watch my movie, and I'll watch yours. Deal? It's on amazon prime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-jjflkg6Hw

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 Well if that one guy is "telling me", it must be true. The stories are very compelling as stories, I agree. But they are just stories. They are not compelling as arguments. I do implore you to not project onto me a point of view as if I am someone who was always skeptical of UFO phenomena. I am willing to bet I spent far more time studying it and obsessing about it than you have. Indeed, in the '90s we had X-Files, alien autopsy, Art Bell, etc. I probably spent thousands of hours listening to Art Bell alone! If 10,000 hours makes one an expert, I'm probably an expert two or three times over, lol. ... What so annoying about my journey is that skeptics assume I was always skeptical, and true believers assume I was never one of them...neither of which is remotely true. One way I know I am in a better position now on this issue is because I can fake my way as a true believer with my eyes closed, and no one knows I'm faking. But you can't fake the ability to think critically, skeptically, and rationally. Which is why these weird claims never make it off the ground with people who actually know how to evaluate and test claims to determine their truth value. They just don't pass the test, no matter what one dude on one netflix doc says "I'm telling you...". But I will watch the doc...with popcorn. I also just got my last two seasons of X-Files on blu ray. AWESOME!

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 As I already said, I know all the stories. Dozens of people at Salem all saw the same thing--witches controlling children. People at Fatima all saw the same thing--the sun dancing in the sky (come to find out decades and decades later that some people present DIDN'T see the sun dancing--it was just that confirmation bias was so strong, and the will to believe so overwhelming, that the reports of seeing nothing were not spread after the fact). Human perception is notoriously BAD. (I only mentioned Venus because AS I SAID, I used to laugh at people making that stupid suggestion. And even years after I became a skeptic on the subject, I fell victim to the misperception myself.) You probably don't believe me, but I've read Keal and Vallee, probably years and years before you did. I've also read Strieber and John Mack and Stanton Friedman and Jim Mars and dozens of others. (Do you find it odd that the alien stories people told in the '40s and '50s are so very different than the ones people tell today? Or the aliens in South America are so very different than the aliens in the US? Doesn't that parallel religious beliefs in different regions?) "He clearly doesn't bring up the lights doing 90° turns or going out, disappearing." If that was the perception of the witnesses, then A) it is something that is unknown. B) declaring it is known by virtue of being unknown is an argument from ignorance fallacy. C) it is only mildly weird given humans have only been around 100-250 thousand years, the planet is almost 5 billion years old, and the universe almost 14 billion. We are bound to encounter natural phenomena once in a while that is initially inexplicable. Jumping to conclusions because they are the conclusions you want to jump to is not rational (and I jumped to the same conclusions you did FOR DECADES). "yet isn't science base in observation data?" Indeed. And those observations would be UNKNOWN. You then have to hypothesize what they are, test them under controlled conditions in an unfalsifiable manner. To declare that they are aliens abducting us because you saw lights in the sky doing things you can't explain is the definition of irrational because the claim is unfalsifiable, and the observation is UNKNOWN and UNIDENTIFIED. (It is the very same as saying they are witches on broomsticks, angry ghosts, or Thor. The only reason you think they are alien spacecraft is because that is the first association you make when seeing unknown things in the sky.) "Well he's testing material he has and the test results are coming back on how pure these materials are and when they were found, it would have costed over $4 tillion dollars to make such a pure piece of metal." I'll believe this claim when it is verified by a dozen independent ...

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 24, 2018:

@TheAstroChuck You may find this documentary interesting. It ultimately was titled "A Journey to Planet Sanity", although it must have gone through some kind of production hell because it took several years and several titles before it was released. I finally bought it on blu ray a year or so ago. There are 2-3 trailers on youtube, and someone posted a big chunk of it...apparently by recording their tv with their phone or something. Just checked amazon and it is available with Prime. I highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADcXZHhaIw

Conflating possible with probable

sirbikesalot06 comments on Dec 23, 2018:

This is the nonsense I get from people who never really did any research into UFOs. It's basically ignoring all the evidence accumulated by research groups like MUFON and other long time researchers. And yes physical evidence is collected. So the way I treat people like TheAstroChuck and people...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 23, 2018:

@sirbikesalot06 I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I was right there saying the same things over and over 20+ years ago. I know all the big names, evidence, etc. But if you look at all of it even mildly skeptically, none of it is compelling. As Mulder's poster said, "I want to believe," and someone who wants to believe in the claim is in a profoundly biased position to judge the merits of the evidence of the claim. Witnesses are notoriously terrible. (I used to laugh about people saying a sighting was Venus, and was reminded by this a few weeks ago one morning when I literally saw Venus out my bedroom window and became genuinely concerned it might be an asteroid about to kill us all. I had never seen anything in the morning sky--besides the sun--that BRIGHT before. I watched it for 10 minutes before considering it COULD be Venus, then looking it up on the net to see where Venus was supposed to be that morning at that time in the sky...and sure enough, it WAS Venus, which is far less compelling a story than an asteroid about to kill us all.) The other evidence is uncontrolled, inconclusive, anomalous, or easily faked. In other words, unfalsifiable, a bit weird for unknown reasons, not understood, or easily faked. That's not a list of the kinds of evidence I want to find aliens guilty of abducting people. (And indeed, even if I had an "experience" myself, I would more conclude I was having mental health issues than that I was actually abducted in the absence of corroborating evidence. I understand all too well how easily the human brain malfunctions. I've had more than one family member see zombies, angels, babies, aliens, ufos, dancing girls, cowboys, vampires, government-controlled cameras in the tv, old women smoking cigarettes, children playing, dead bodies on the floor, a man attacking a woman, Jesus in the sun, ghosts, and several other things I don't remember.) ... But I will bite. What is the VERY VERY best single piece of evidence you have for the existence of extra terrestrial visitors to earth that doesn't rely on a logical fallacy, evidence gathered in an uncontrolled way, inconclusive evidence, anomalous (unknown) evidence, testimonial evidence, easily faked evidence, or evidence that is otherwise unfalsifiable? Last I checked, there was none. Which was ultimately the reason I changed my mind on the question. It's not that we are ignoring anything. It is that what the claimants are presenting just isn't compelling unless you start with the conclusion and then look for things to confirm it, no matter what it is. But I'm open to changing my mind BACK. I'm still in love with the idea. We're just not married anymore, lol.

Conflating possible with probable

David1955 comments on Dec 22, 2018:

Well of course all this is depressingly and reality-checkingly true. But I ask how can we statistically determine the likelihood that alien species elsewhere, that have been around far longer than we, may have invented faster than light drives, mastered worm-hole travel, or discovered pathways in ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 23, 2018:

@David1955 Any rationalization of why there is no evidence of something immediately makes it suspect to me. (And I actually made the same argument you are making very often years ago.) It may be possible that an alien species advanced enough to visit us would not choose to visit us any more than we would choose visit pond scum at the bottom of a pond at midnight. The problem is, as I said elsewhere in this page, we have no way to know if the requirements for such travel also makes the possibility of visiting us moot or not. In other words, we A) don't know if it is possible or not for beings roughly like ourselves to physically learn to travel the distances needed to visit us, and B) don't know if it is possible or not for such beings if capable to simultaneously be interested or motivated or in any way inclined to visit us. Thus, having no idea if such things are possible or not, and having no evidence of them at all, should leave us with no belief at all until such time as such things are proven possible, and if possible, in what ways likely in the future. What WOULD be impressive to me is not an explanation of why we don't have any evidence at all, but under what conditions we have not yet explored that COULD be explored in the future to show if certain creatures are likely to exist or not. The problem is that under every condition we can imagine so far of discovering evidence of intelligent life that would demonstrate the claim of the existence of such life...we find nothing. Maybe we're looking under the lamppost because that is where the light is, or maybe under the lamppost is the only place there is to look. We have no way to know at this point, but having no evidence isn't impressive, and having no falsifiable way to test any aspect of the claim is not impressive either.

Conflating possible with probable

evidentialist comments on Dec 22, 2018:

Good observation, Sir. We run into them all the time. So much that one is tempted to throw one's hands up and say, "I quit. The world is full of morons." See something in the sky and you don't know what it is, immediately it is being driven by Lizard men from Altair. Something bad happens and ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 22, 2018:

I used to believe in much of the UFO mythology...more so than I ever believed in a god. I probably read thousands of pages of aliens/ufo books in the '90s in between weekly episodes of The X-Files. Somewhere between the late '90s and mid-2000s, I did a lot of reading on atheism...skepticism...etc, and then ended up applying skepticism to all my weird beliefs. (I still wonder what I was thinking when I thought "Communion" was compelling evidence of alien abduction...when written by a horror/sci-fi writer. It is still a fascinating exercise in understanding myth, in that the author claimed it was nonfiction and yet it was filled with fantastical elements with flimsy to no corroboration...yet told so compellingly that the reader is desperate for it to be true if for no other reason than the story would be far less interesting if it wasn't.)

What quality(ies) of the opposite sex do you appreciate the most?

Drsmash253 comments on Dec 20, 2018:

She was real and not just an imaginary person in my head

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 20, 2018:

Or the picture that came in the frame for Glamour Shots. http://briff.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/napoleon-dynamite-girlfriend.jpg

Do You Remember "nra Savior" Good Man with a Gun?

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 19, 2018:

Conveniently, the "good" and "bad" guys are interchangeable when needed for their argument to work. It's like the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but it's "no true good guy with a gun" would hurt any innocent people with a gun. Apparently we now need Super-Duper Good Guys with guns to save us from the ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 20, 2018:

@GipsyOfNewSpain I was being sarcastic. They say "good guys with guns" are all we need to protect us from bad guys with guns, but those are not objective terms. Once someone hurts or kills someone with the gun, the "good" becomes "bad" when it is exactly the same person (as apparently it was in this case). Therefore, I said sarcastically, we now need Super-Duper good guys to protect us from the good guys, etc., etc., ad infinitum, as the NRA argument is completely irrational.

I might have posted this before, honestly I don't remember.

RonnieD comments on Dec 19, 2018:

Here is WLC getting an education on physics from sean carroll https://youtu.be/wqKObSeim2w

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 19, 2018:

Carroll's response to the teleological argument here is literally the best argument I've heard about anything, ever, period. It's a tour de force. It is brilliant. The only way you can walk away still siding with Craig is if reason and evidence means nothing to you, and Craig's response is vapid and empty. At around 4:25 here: https://youtu.be/MxQOsN046HQ?t=265

God's Truth - Lies and Liars

Triphid comments on Dec 18, 2018:

As an Atheist ( and still am an Atheist) studying Theology and Comparative modern Religions I often posed many similar questions and simply got the same answers as; " It is NOT for you to question, it IS simply for you to believe and thus make those who follow your teachings to believe as well." ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 18, 2018:

I heard or read somewhere that seminary is where people go to lose their faith. Even the indoctrinated, once they dig deep into it, realize it just falls apart.

What are your thoughts/ideas on prophesy?

skado comments on Dec 17, 2018:

I don't believe anything is magical or supernatural. There are things we understand and things we don't. When I was around the age of twenty, I had an unusually vivid dream. I saw a small, white house on the side of a hill. As I approached the house I saw that the door was below grade, and ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 18, 2018:

@BryanLV Also, since we are giving personal experiences, I had a dream once in about '83 or '84. I was 9 or 10. I felt like I awoke suddenly, and felt a presence in my room. My mom was there, just as she had been in a family picture. It was as if she was saying "It's all right," and she was almost glowing. I felt safe, and happy mom was in a better place. She faded away...and as she faded away, I realized mom wasn't dead. She was sleeping in the next room. And even at that age, I remember thinking...wow. If mom HAD been dead, I would have thought that was her ghost for sure. Now I know it was aliens (just kidding, lol).

What are your thoughts/ideas on prophesy?

skado comments on Dec 17, 2018:

I don't believe anything is magical or supernatural. There are things we understand and things we don't. When I was around the age of twenty, I had an unusually vivid dream. I saw a small, white house on the side of a hill. As I approached the house I saw that the door was below grade, and ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 18, 2018:

@BryanLV I have recently been converting some home movies of my grandmother's 72nd birthday party from 1988 to DVD to send out to family for the holidays. I had remembered the day quite well, I thought. And had watched the video tape several times 4-5 years after the event, but not since then (so I was certain I at least remember THE TAPE very well). Watching it now...there were things I had completely forgotten about, but THINK I remember now that I've seen them on tape. But I'm not entirely sure I'm remembering them, or the fact that I see them on tape has just tricked my brain into believing I'm remembering them. Other parts I am certain I had forgotten completely. Even now, watching them, I don't remember having ever seen them--either in person, or on tape in the few years after the event (I would have swore up and down they were not on the tape before viewing it in the last few days). Even stranger, my parents still have the same house where we hosted the party nearly 31 years ago. The carpet is different, the windows are different, the doors are different, the appliances are different, the furniture is different, neighbors houses were not there yet, paint was different, trees outside were less than half the size, the view was different (no trees blocking it), even the wind through the windows was different as the old windows opened on the opposite side (seeing the weird breeze on a plant in the corner struck me as extremely odd yet perfectly correct for all those years ago). I guess what I'm saying is that before watching the tape, I felt like I remembered things very well. AFTER watching it...even while I was watching it...it felt like the past had come alive in a way that disturbed me. It was as if my memories were rearranging themselves, and things I was certain of suddenly became uncertain, and then certain again solely because of the tape that I had largely misremembered for 25 years at least. Thinking about it now makes me queasy...akin to sea sickness.

The surprising way smartphones affect our brains and our lives

linxminx comments on Dec 15, 2018:

I remember seeing a news story of Michelle Obama, at the time First Lady, speaking at a college commencement. The camera panned to the college graduates, who of course, had their heads down in their phones during her speech. Being an educator, I can see first hand the distraction technology ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 15, 2018:

I'm a teacher also. On the way to school yesterday, I heard on the radio that Vitamin Water is having some kind of challenge where you could win 100 grand if you successfully never use your smart phone for all of 2019. So when I was telling kids to put their phones away again yesterday, I burst into excitement in telling them about this contest. "You could win 100,000!" I exclaimed. Not one expression changed. Not one. And about 10 kids randomly said, "It's not worth it." (I have a 10 dollar trac phone I bought at Target 5 years ago for emergencies. The kids think I'm weird.)

Star Wars religious views?

greyeyed123 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

I think it is less concerned with religion and more concerned with the Hero's Journey. Insofar as the two overlap, it's just the nature of the beast of the Hero's Journey. I do like the more egalitarian view of the force in "The Last Jedi". Even as a child it kind of bothered me that the force was ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 8, 2018:

@petewillia Not that I care anymore, but how, exactly, does it spit in their face? I singled out Dune because Star Wars is a thinly failed plagiarism of the first novel to win a Nebula. (Dune also won a Hugo.) Dune came just 10 years before shooting began on Star Wars, and anyone who knew anything about science fiction at that time had read Dune (Lucas certainly read it). If you had ever read Dune, the parallels would be undeniable. I don't really care about Star Wars games and books and things. Most of that stuff is nonsense. And not that I am hating on Star Wars. I still love it. But I can also view it in context. The story was a mash of the hero's journey, Dune, and westerns. Combined with the innovations in film making, and a decade of depressing news and depressing realism in film, pure, unadulterated escapism was just what the doctor ordered.

Star Wars religious views?

greyeyed123 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

I think it is less concerned with religion and more concerned with the Hero's Journey. Insofar as the two overlap, it's just the nature of the beast of the Hero's Journey. I do like the more egalitarian view of the force in "The Last Jedi". Even as a child it kind of bothered me that the force was ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 8, 2018:

@petewillia We have Jedi "Knights", an empire, an emperor, a princess, etc. "Darth" is an epithet given to "Dark Lords" of the Sith. "Lord" is also a term of royalty, along with Knight, empire, emperor, princess, etc. (All of which is taken wholesale yet again from Dune, as is Tatooine, the Force itself, and dozens of other aspects of the film). Skywalker's ability with the Force is attributed to his bloodline, with all the trappings of it. "The Force is strong in my family. My father had it. I have it. My sister has it." Focusing on the Skywalkers yet AGAIN in 7-8-9 would have emphasized the bloodline yet again. Revealing Rey was Luke's daughter, or Ben's granddaughter--which seemed to be the prevailing theories--would have emphasized bloodline yet again. I find such possibilities to be repetitive and unsatisfying. The story needs to go in another direction, and TLJ did go in an interesting direction. No doubt that presages they will return to something boring again with 9. I hope not, but the franchise is awash in so much money now that creativity is choked to death.

Star Wars religious views?

greyeyed123 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

I think it is less concerned with religion and more concerned with the Hero's Journey. Insofar as the two overlap, it's just the nature of the beast of the Hero's Journey. I do like the more egalitarian view of the force in "The Last Jedi". Even as a child it kind of bothered me that the force was ...

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 8, 2018:

@petewillia I would say the way the force was sometimes treated in earlier stories doesn't mean that is how it "works", even within the fictional framework. (Remember midichlorians? Even as a child, even as the Emperor was falling down that shaft in ROTJ, I wondered why the "power of the Dark Side" wasn't strong enough to levitate himself out of there, as Yoda was powerful enough to lift an entire X-Wing out of a swamp on Dagobah. And the answer is, of course, that it's all made up.) The elite/exclusive/royal bloodline quality of the Force never appealed to me, even as a child. It just seemed Lucas was trying to have it both ways--a nobody farm boy turns out to be "special"...because he was born that way from a secret royal bloodline (an element he lifted directly from Dune, by the way). It never seemed to make sense that all those other Jedi must have had similar but disparate bloodlines in their own families. Yoda certainly wasn't related to the Skywalkers, but in terms of Force strength, he was among them. In terms of Rey not being a Jedi yet, that's a given. And the creative choice to keep her out of any royal bloodlines was refreshing. All the other choices would have been rehashes and uninteresting to me. (Moreover, in terms of the hero's journey, that is often how strikingly talented and creative people often arise--plucked from obscurity from parents who were either not around at all, or have no idea where that talent came from. In that sense also, it makes for a more interesting story.)

Why I don't feel guilty about celebrating Christmas 1.

greyeyed123 comments on Dec 4, 2018:

I always loved this bit on a very old episode of The Atheist Experience. It's about 1 minute at the time stamp I included: https://youtu.be/pMnutsApTNU?t=1184

greyeyed123 replies on Dec 4, 2018:

The time I was going for was 20:00. For some reason it is jumping around the time stamp I included.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 28, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay That's not ironic. Leave me alone.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 28, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay You are wrong. Stop replying to me. Find some fellow Christians to talk to.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Carl Sagan was wrong. (He was playing to a largely theist audience and trying to soften his message as a science proponent.) In any case, you say YOU are not a theist. That makes you an atheist, by your own etymology above. Everyone who is NOT a theist is an atheist. It's a true dichotomy. ... But why not ask 10 or 20 atheists whether they agree with your definition of themselves or not? If ONLY there was a place where a bunch of people reacted negatively to your claim that atheism is a myth? Hmm. Where oh where could you go to be corrected by real life atheists? I guess there is no such place. Oh well. I guess you'll have to remain in ignorance. Maybe you could go to conservapedia's atheism site and get plenty of well researched information that is peer reviewed by a bunch of Conservative Christians, so you KNOW it has to be true. https://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism If anyone else hasn't read this entry on conservapedia, I'd recommend it. It's one of the funniest things I've ever read. This one is hilarious also: https://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Theism isn't a proposition.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Also, that joke about "conservapedia"? The atheism entry on conservapedia literally links to SEP. No joke. (And the conservapedia entry for SEP literally copies an entire paragraph from wikipedia. No joke.)

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay If you'd like me to give the argument for antitheism, it would only take a second. Maybe two. lol I would probably be wasting my time, however.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay The SEP also starts with the claim that "God" exists and everything else flows from there. The "Hiddenness of God" page has sentences like "There are people who are capable of relating personally to God but who, through no fault of their own, fail to believe." Hardly an even handed, objective approach to defining different perspectives from their own point of view. Just admit you are a theist infiltrator, lol. You are spy behind enemy lines!

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@JimG I know. I'm just bored. I love the "atheism means different things to different people" tactic, lol. I haven't heard that one before. For SOME people, atheism means a lack of belief in gods. For OTHER people, it means devil worshiping baby eaters. Who's to know which definition is correct? (I'm sure he'll look up a definition on conservapedia that says we're baby eaters, lol.)

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Atheism broadly defined is a lack of belief in god. That can include gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Moreover, atheism IS NOT a claim. Neither is theism. You keep SAYING they claims. But they are not. Belief in something is not a knowledge claim. Lacking a belief in something is not a knowledge claim either. Again, amoral means having nothing to do with morality. Immoral means against what is moral. Asocial means having nothing to do with being social. ANTI-social means actively hurting/killing people. Etc. Etc. This is just the basic semantics of the language. Do you deny that there are the basic four positions that virtually everyone takes on the god question? 1) I know there is a god and I believe in him. 2) I don't know if there is a god and I believe in him. 3) I don't know if there is a god and I don't believe in him. 4) I know there isn't a god and I don't believe in him. These are all positions real people in the real world hold, and agnosticism overlaps both atheism and theism with the "I don't know" half, while theism and atheism address BELIEF or LACK OF A BELIEF. That is why these definitions are the most useful. Your definitions above are not useful because lacking a belief DOES NOT REQUIRE A CLAIM OF ANY KIND, just as belief DOESN'T REQUIRE A CLAIM OF ANY KIND EITHER. As Yoda said, "That is why you fail."

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 27, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Doofus, I'm telling YOU to stop defining MY position. You don't get to define MY position. I have in no way tried to define your position, as I don't care what your position is. And I especially don't care what YOUR position is on MY position. Quoting other people who seem to be completely divorced from logic doesn't interest me.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 26, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Atheism to most atheists means "lack of belief in gods". That is why it is the opposite of theism, which is the belief in gods. If you don't agree, I don't care. You don't get to tell other people or groups how to define themselves. MOST atheists, and the dictionary, define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. I don't care what you think otherwise. The word games with the prefix a- meaning "not" doesn't even conform to English norms. "Ammoral" doesn't mean "immoral". Apolitical doesn't mean anti-political. Asocial doesn't mean antisocial. And on...and on...and on. And atheism IS NOT A BELIEF either, doofus. Lacking a belief is BY DEFINITION NOT A BELIEF. Good grief. Atheism isn't a claim, it's not a belief, it's not a philosophy, it's not a pizza topic. It is not holding theistic beliefs. Not holding theistic beliefs is not a belief, not a claim, not anything but NOT HOLDING THEISTIC BELIEFS. That's it. And since you claim you are not an atheist, you need to stop telling others how to define their own positions. Period.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 26, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Atheism isn't a claim. Neither is theism. Theism is a belief in a god. Atheism is a lack of a belief. These are what the terms mean. If you don't agree, fine. I don't really care.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 26, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay I didn't read all of your posts because I'm not responding with a wall of text. Suffice it to say, if a claim is such that there shouldn't be evidence for it, it is completely useless, practically meaningless, and can be in direct contradiction with other such claims. It is of no interest to me or anyone interested in truth.

Jared Kushner and Trump Officials Made a Secret Visit to Saudi Arabia Last Week

Trajan61 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to be associated with Saudi Arabia than with Iran like that idiot Obama was. Hell that guy Koshoggi that they killed was a supporter of the Muslim brotherhood so good riddance.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 26, 2018:

@Trajan61 And I'm sure if 19 Iranians flew planes into our buildings, you would be defending the Iranian government as no authorizing the attack?

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay We have extraordinary evidence for relativity and quantum mechanics. We have no such extraordinary evidence for prayer (we don't even have "ordinary" evidence for it). You seem to be playing with the idea that some claims are beyond the understanding of some people. That may be true, but the claims of prayer are easily testable using falsifiable methodology, and they fail every time. The evidence for relativity and quantum mechanics can also be tested using falsifiable testing, and they pass every time. An extraordinary claim is one that goes against all previous logic and evidence for such claims. Relativity, for example, went against all the evidence and logic previously. So we tested it using falsifiable methodology before believing the extraordinary claim that it was true. IT PASSED THE TEST. That's how we know it is true, and depend on it daily for everything from GPS to communication satellites. If we had said ordinary evidence is good enough, we would never have discovered the truth, as false claims about space and time would have been excepted with "ordinary" evidence (an in fact, they WERE, because we didn't yet no what kind of test to conduct to determine what was actually true).

Atheism is a myth.

jlynn37 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

A-theists have reason, logic, evidence (or lack of), facts and data, self-determination.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay Sure. Religious people can be reasonable, logical, evidence based people. If they NEVER were such people, they would have died out a long time ago. Atheists too can be irrational, as "atheism" is only a lack of belief in gods. You could lack a belief because there is no evidence, which dictates reasonably that you should not believe in things until presented with sufficient evidence for it. Or you could lack a belief because your talking frog Julian told you gods are not real, right alongside beliefs that global warming is a Chinese hoax and Sandy Hook was a false flag and that Hillary Clinton had sex slaves in the basement of a pizza parlor that had no basement. I think the claim that atheists are saying religious people are completely and totally irrational because they believe in irrational religious beliefs is disingenuous. What many of us ARE saying is that deeply ingrained, irrational religious beliefs can and often does teach people how to think fallaciously, and they transfer that fallacious thinking to everything from politics to personal relationships to even medical advice. Does that mean they ALWAYS think fallaciously? No. But as Hitchens said (from a paraphrase of Stephen Weinberg), to get good people to do morally abhorrent things, you need religion, or something so akin to religion that the thinking pattern is the same.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay You are playing a word game with the word "prove" when you say situations in which one cannot prove there should be evidence. The way you determine if there SHOULD be evidence is by reason and logic in comparison to past experiences. Again, if I claim I have a pet dragon, and that the evidence for this is my charred house, footprints, and a dragon tooth, to then claim that the reason my house looks undamaged, there are no footprints, and there is no tooth is because the dragon used magic to make it disappear...DOES NOT REQUIRE YOU TO PROVE EVIDENCE THIS MAGIC DOESN'T EXIST to disbelieve the claim. You can disbelieve the claim based on Occam's razor, the extraordinary nature of the claim, and the lack of evidence. That does NOT mean there is a 50/50 chance the dragon exists. The lack of evidence in light of all of past human experience means the nonexistence of the dragon is virtually 100%. ... Moreover, I have never heard a god claim when closely examined that included no interaction with reality in any way, shape, or form that lends itself to evidence. In addition, I have heard many god claims that are inherently contradictory to logic itself, much less the most mundane of facts in the physical world. That isn't a claim that is in the realm of "no one knows" and "50/50 chance".

Today's America is like the plot of an old western movie.

LiterateHiker comments on Nov 25, 2018:

Today, America is far more complex, and cannot be explained by the racist and sexist "good guy/bad guy/**white male hero**" myth of old Western movies. As a group, Democratic voters were the collective hero of the Midterm Elections. "If the November midterms stood for anything, it was that in...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@david75090 One of the more fascinating parallel's with pop culture (other than Trump seems to be the embodiment of our fascination with Tony Soprano, Walter White, Frank Underwood, etc--as if the American voter said they like those evil, immoral, shady people who get things done and let's not remember how those stories ended), is that the show "House of Cards" seemed to fall apart because they could not top Trump's reality. I mean, he hasn't pushed someone into a train, but he did cover for the murder and dismemberment of a journalist...and Fox News itself floated the idea that maybe the journalist deserved it! If that had been a plot line on "House of Cards", Fox News would have declared it insane and liberal bias and propaganda. In reality it HAPPENS, and is supposed to be perfectly normal.

Jared Kushner and Trump Officials Made a Secret Visit to Saudi Arabia Last Week

Trajan61 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to be associated with Saudi Arabia than with Iran like that idiot Obama was. Hell that guy Koshoggi that they killed was a supporter of the Muslim brotherhood so good riddance.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@Trajan61 Is "somewhat friendly" how we define 19 Saudi's flying planes into our buildings and the Pentagon? And murdering and dismembering one of our journalists? If Obama had done exactly what Trump has done, you'd be screaming bloody murder, and justifiably so. Now Fox News viewers think Obama gave Iran our tax money. https://www.washingtonpost./news/fact-checker/wp/2018/03/01/was-obamas-1-7-billion-cash-deal-with-iran-prohibited-by-u-s-law/?utm_term=.8b9514c6dfcb

Atheism is a myth.

jlynn37 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

A-theists have reason, logic, evidence (or lack of), facts and data, self-determination.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay But the claim would simply be that they don't have a grasp of reason, evidence, and logic WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. And many would probably admit as much, claiming their beliefs are a matter of faith, not reason and evidence.

Atheism is a myth.

JimG comments on Nov 24, 2018:

You seem to be operating under the fallacious assumption that a lack of evidence for each claim carries equal weight. By you "logic" I can claim any ridiculous thing that I wish exists, and if you can't prove me wrong and I can't prove I'm wrong there's an equal probability for either side. Those ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay I'm not sure I followed all of that, but what is often forgotten is that if a claim is such that there SHOULD be evidence for it, but there isn't, then the LACK of evidence is evidence of its nonexistence. (I have a fire breathing dragon as a pet, and as evidence of this dragon, I will show you the charred remains of my house, the dragon foot prints in my yard, and a dragon tooth that fell out last week. I take you to my house, and the house is not burned, there are no footprints in the yard, and there is no tooth when there SHOULD be if my claim is true. The fact that I then claim the dragon is magic and fixed everything, made the neighbor's forget, etc., does not lend "evidence" to the claim. The LACK of evidence for the claim is actually evidence AGAINST the claim, no matter how it is spun afterward.)

Atheism is a myth.

KKGator comments on Nov 24, 2018:

I'm an atheist. Unless and until I am presented with credible, verifiable proof of the existence of gods, I am going to continue to believe that they have never existed in reality. Atheism is not a "myth". Btw, @Bierbasstard is 100% correct, and you should consult a dictionary before you ...

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@Storm1752 There is actually quite a lot of proof that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnipresent creator god does not exist. And if you start peeling away these descriptors, it's hard to call whatever is left a "god" as anyone would normally define it.

Atheism is a myth.

KissedbySun comments on Nov 24, 2018:

I don't claim to know there are no gods, my stand is that I don't believe there are any gods. I don't go around trying to convince others to agree with me. It's not disingenuous for me to make the statement that I don't hold a belief in any divine beings.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 25, 2018:

@Storm1752 No. Atheism and theism address belief. Atheists have no belief in gods. Theists do have belief in gods. Gnosticism and agnosticism address knowledge. To simplify, real people in the real world hold all of these positions: "I know there is a god and I believe in him." "I don't know if there is a god and I belief in him." "I don't know if there is a god and I don't believe in him." "I know there is no god and I don't believe in him." Agnosticism as such does not indicate whether someone has a belief or not in any gods. Thus claiming you are not an atheist but an agnostic seems to redefine a legion of agnostic theists out there as somehow nonbelievers. To keep claiming someone is NOT an atheist but an agnostic implies the two are mutually exclusive. They are not, as both an atheist and a theist could be agnostic (or gnostic). This is why the definitions as I have laid them out are most useful.

Atheism is a myth.

jlynn37 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

A-theists have reason, logic, evidence (or lack of), facts and data, self-determination.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 24, 2018:

@TheMiddleWay No one has won a Nobel Prize for proving a god exists, or any supernatural religious claim whatsoever. Doctors, scientists, and Nobel Prize winners are none of those things by virtue of being religious. Doctors do not heal by using religious doctrine or magic, scientists don't discover things through prayer, and Nobel Prize winners don't win the prize because of their good judgment about religious teachings.

Jared Kushner and Trump Officials Made a Secret Visit to Saudi Arabia Last Week

Trajan61 comments on Nov 24, 2018:

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to be associated with Saudi Arabia than with Iran like that idiot Obama was. Hell that guy Koshoggi that they killed was a supporter of the Muslim brotherhood so good riddance.

greyeyed123 replies on Nov 24, 2018:

It's a bit more complicated than "good riddance." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/19/on-jamal-khashoggi-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-saudi-arabia/ Since Trump has become president, my father has advocated (usually while watching Fox News) shooting children/pregnant women at the southern border, Nazi's are misunderstood because some are "good people", hoping an 85 year old woman drops dead (Ruth Ginsburg), rape is ok even if it happened because it was a long time ago and it is also a lie, and that dismembering a man secretly and lying to help those who did it is a good thing because of economic interests in Saudi Arabia. But misuse of email is the worst crime every, until last week when it wasn't a big deal anymore. What has happened to our country?