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"All of this massive cosmological churning and destruction (which is paralleled, by the way, on our own earth where 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct) could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist could prove it’s not. But it’s some plan, isn’t it? With mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time. And all of this set in motion on a scale that’s absolutely beyond our imagination…all in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off."
-- Christopher Hitchens

Can I get an Amen?

jeshuey 8 Dec 16
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"mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time" i mean, seriously? Please give us a brief description of all of the destruction, extermination, and/or annihilation you have personally experienced, if you would? Hopefully you sorta see a point there; that your perspective is based on gnossis? Knowledge? "I happen to be in possesssion of this fact, ergo God is surely an asshole" kinda thing?

i come to agnostic.com, and discuss existentialism with gnostics lol, almost exclusively

So reality is limited to your personal experience. Convenient.

@jeshuey wadr that would be missing the point though, even if it might be entirely true, as i guess is now being debated. Is there even such a thing as "objective reality?" idk

@jeshuey i mean srsly something like our present pop, 7 billion ppl, have all died, most of them quite horribly! Oh, the humanity! Whatever will we do!
lol

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Nema.

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the pope, lol. Surely you don't believe he has anything to do with Yah?

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this is maybe a little hard to accept (but we do have metrics for it), that being that the world has never been better than it is right now, by any metric you might care to name. If you were to describe your current life to someone from even 100 years ago they would likely suspect you were lying lol. Now don't get me wrong, i get your perspective too, but i suggest that there may be other, more valid ones

Economically you are certainly right, healthwise too. But Hitch was talking of natural threats, of which Covid is one, as well as the long term prospects of all species including our own.

I might argue that one chooses/creates “metrics” based on one’s values, which are judged as valid based on ... what? Tradition? Taste? Consensus?

@The-Krzyz my reply to that would be that pretty much any metric you could formulate can be quantified. I used to refer to morality.com for these, but they seem to have recently gone religious, so im a bit at sea there at the moment, but the metrics i recall were pretty much consensus-based, or so it seemed to me? Anyway, to avoid bias, you could identify your metric beforehand, and then go look for data on it. The ones that spring to mind were like violent crime, famine, standard of living (hmm) but like that.

my main takeaway was that subjective experience does not = objective experience, but id like to point out here that believers are all pretty much universally moaning about life here/now, waiting for Jesus to take them away, etc, and the pov strikes me as...um, Gnostic, at the very least?

i mean you gotta admit "massive cosmological churning and destruction" is pretty subjective too eh? Completely gnossis; based upon facts that we have discovered, and not real-world daily experience?

@jeshuey covid, as a threat? hmm. aren't viruses a good thing, remove weak genes from the pool, etc? Why am i not feeling threatened, when i guess everyone else is? i guess im insane or something lol

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Only an all knowing all powerful all seeing deity would be wise enough to send his kid with a message to people before the Internet or the printing press or photography or world travel.
Right....

Strange ways Willow, he works in strange ways....

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If seeking "amens" please go elsewhere. This is the same bullshit argument rehashed, "You can't prove it's false so it is true". Bullshit.

MizJ Level 8 Dec 16, 2020

I'm thinking you need to reread the quote more carefully.

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There is no evidence of a "plan" of any sort. It is random selection by the evolutionary process in nature. Nature does not know nor care what happens in the evolutionary process.

random selection can't be the plan?

you know manna is called what is it? right

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We don't now if there is a plan by a god. We have no knowledge any god exist.

if "existence" infers "objective evidence" as most definitions state then i would def say we already have proof that Yah mos def does not "exist?"

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If he-she is in control, and I use control loosely, then he-she is a sadistic bastard.

from your pov, maybe, but then who has not expressed hate for a parent? Wouldnt it be better to admit that you are just mad at Yah, and go from there?

@bbyrd009 Why should I be mad at a mythological creature?

The idea of sadistic gods is more credible to me than the moralizing loser many claim to “worship.”

@starwatcher-al hmm, wouldnt that be "creator?" And "mythology" to me is where all of our truth was stored until just very recently, so the definition has changed i guess
like they all do

anyway, indeed, why? Yet i repeatedly encounter this emotion around "atheists," anger at a Creator they don't believe exists? Which hey im pissed at Yah too lol, don't get me wrong; but bc gnossis, or iow a faulty perspective based upon some "knowledge" or other

@The-Krzyz ah well ppl say all kinda stuff huh? But i submit that that is not Yah anyway, as the Bible plainly delineates, ...and I create evil; I, YHWH, do all these things so prolly more like Pax or some other god, one of the Catholic ones i guess?

The Bible pretty plainly outlines how the religious are the deceived ones, btw

anyway, i love how ppl who don't believe a Creator exists, and cannot point to any Creator engendered "sadisms," can simultaneously be so adamantly angry. We seek scapegoats, basically, over self-examination. So i would accuse yall of making god in your own image too, just a diff image, no offense

"then he/she is..."
the quintessential gnostic declaration eh

@bbyrd009 Can’t say that, when I think about religion or any gods, that the bible or it’s characters are my reference point.

@The-Krzyz well, i can't think of any reason why they should, if those don't speak to you, but i would say that there is a Legend in there that few are able to even read, that has nothing whatever to do with what we now call religion. Imo if you are sure that you get a Bible verse, you are almost surely wrong.
small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it
contrast with "When we all get to heaven"
my point being that believers are the absolute last people one should be going to for Bible wisdom, and there are even verses to that effect, the heir is under servants while he is a child, and no better than a slave, even though he is the lord of it all etc

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That's why I tell peple that if there were a god, he woldn't be worthy of worshiping.

then please note how all of Yah's "worshippers" were basically annihilated in the NT lol, and understand what you are telling ppl, if you will

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Yes it could be the plan of a creator god, at least one which is not all caring and has no interest in suffering. But it is hard to see it as the plan of an all caring, Abrahamic god of human morality.

wadr the "god of human morality" thing is pretty well put to rest by the implosion of the theocracy recorded in the NT i think. Strangely enough "suffering" seems to be a central theme though...just one we are not too fond of i guess lol, go figure

suffering is a central theme in Buddhism too i guess; why do we suffer, iyo? I watched a YT by some Italian scientist/philosopher on that, hafta dig it up maybe...

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Amen.

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