Is God real post your thoughts!

[mistywerty]

I see that most of you are atheists here.

 

 

 

Why do you always rush to convert people content with their religion, even if you believe it's false?

 

The religious community are rarely 'force feeding' it you, and most of the time, it makes them happy. Yes, there may be some verse in the old testament saying re-enforcing the strictness of the 'rules', yes, some of the stories make no sense and yes, god can seem cruel sometimes. Having said this, I haven't come into contact with many Christians tasking all this 'way too far'. What harm can a belief really do to someone? Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris may rush to prove the non-existence of god, but they do not realize how content the religious community are, and how they're acting like 'the Grinch that stole Christmas'. Please, respect the views of other, and don't try to force yours upon them.

 

 

 

Shii wrote a nice essay on the subject http://shii.org/knows/Freedom_From_Atheism%20here

[Perakp]

Most problems with religion/ churches I have are legislative.

 

 

 

In Finland:

 

An underage member of a church should be allowed to quit if he so chooses.

 

Teaching religion in schools should be completely voluntary to the pupils, non-dependant on the parents' wishes.

 

Churches shouldn't be favored (<-> no special position compared to other organizations)

 

 

 

Can't think of more tbh

[Lenticular_J]

I suppose that is a bit rough there. I never knew that about Finland.

 

 

 

Although I do think people should learn about various religions. One of the only things I can't tolerate ignorance of.

[Zierro]

Just a brief thought, does the riddle of if god exists equate to the paradox of schrodinger's cat? as in both options are equally true and untrue till we open the "box"

 

 

 

No. It's a completely different situation. Schrodinger's cat describes placing a cat (that we know exists) inside a box, then letting an event occur with two outcomes with are both equally likely. One kills the cat, one doesn't. The uncertaincy arises simply because we don't know which event has occurred until we open the box. I can't see any analogy between that and God.

 

 

 

I think he was getting at how it's completely impossible to know if God exists just like it's impossible to know if the cat is dead. No one can tell for sure. I think that's more of an agnostic ideal though. I see the existence of God as a 50/50.

[assassin_696]

I think he was getting at how it's completely impossible to know if God exists just like it's impossible to know if the cat is dead. No one can tell for sure. I think that's more of an agnostic ideal though. I see the existence of God as a 50/50.

 

 

 

Yes, but Schrodinger's cat is easily resolvable: just open the box and observe. There is no equivalent for God. You might as well just say that we can't be sure. Comparing it to a situation described accurately by mathematics is a little misleading.

 

 

 

I see that most of you are atheists here.

 

 

 

Why do you always rush to convert people content with their religion, even if you believe it's false?

 

The religious community are rarely 'force feeding' it you, and most of the time, it makes them happy. Yes, there may be some verse in the old testament saying re-enforcing the strictness of the 'rules', yes, some of the stories make no sense and yes, god can seem cruel sometimes. Having said this, I haven't come into contact with many Christians tasking all this 'way too far'. What harm can a belief really do to someone? Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris may rush to prove the non-existence of god, but they do not realize how content the religious community are, and how they're acting like 'the Grinch that stole Christmas'. Please, respect the views of other, and don't try to force yours upon them.

 

 

 

It's not a rush to convert, it's a willingness to engage religious people in questioning their beliefs. I don't go to churches and interrupt sermons, I only debate with people who are willing, like on this thread (which you chose to come onto). Besides, if you thought you knew what was correct, wouldn't you want to share it with someone? I understand why religious people want to proselytise, it's a natural reaction. But if respecting the views of others means tip-toeing around people's beliefs without questioning them then I absolutely refuse. If you're going to claim to have answers to some of the biggest questions then you should expect to have them challenged.

 

 

 

This is of course ignoring all the ill-effects of religion and faith.

[EdgedThesis]

I think he was getting at how it's completely impossible to know if God exists just like it's impossible to know if the cat is dead. No one can tell for sure. I think that's more of an agnostic ideal though. I see the existence of God as a 50/50.

 

 

 

Yes, but Schrodinger's cat is easily resolvable: just open the box and observe. There is no equivalent for God. You might as well just say that we can't be sure. Comparing it to a situation described accurately by mathematics is a little misleading.

 

 

 

Opening the box would just be... death.

 

That's the equivalent.

[Lenticular_J]

That's why I say afterlife is more comparable with el gato. Some religions don't believe you'll be with God (or gods) when you die.

[mmmcannibalism]

[hide=]

I think he was getting at how it's completely impossible to know if God exists just like it's impossible to know if the cat is dead. No one can tell for sure. I think that's more of an agnostic ideal though. I see the existence of God as a 50/50.

 

 

 

Yes, but Schrodinger's cat is easily resolvable: just open the box and observe. There is no equivalent for God. You might as well just say that we can't be sure. Comparing it to a situation described accurately by mathematics is a little misleading.

 

 

 

Opening the box would just be... death.

 

That's the equivalent.

[/hide]

 

 

 

Exactly what I was trying to get at, since God assuming he exists is outside of the laws of physics you cant know till you open the "box" into God's reality, through death or maybe being contacted by god.

 

 

 

It doesnt directly relate to the 50/50 scenario of schrodinger's cat but I think the analogy is reasonable just adjust the odds based on your level of theism leaving 1% if your atheist 99% if you believe considering uncertainty

[Zierro]

It doesnt directly relate to the 50/50 scenario of schrodinger's cat but I think the analogy is reasonable just adjust the odds based on your level of theism leaving 1% if your atheist 99% if you believe considering uncertainty

 

 

 

Isn't atheism belief in considering uncertainty too then if they adjust the 'odds' like that? How is either option more or less certain than the other one?

[mmmcannibalism]

It doesnt directly relate to the 50/50 scenario of schrodinger's cat but I think the analogy is reasonable just adjust the odds based on your level of theism leaving 1% if your atheist 99% if you believe considering uncertainty

 

 

 

Isn't atheism belief in considering uncertainty too then if they adjust the 'odds' like that? How is either option more or less certain than the other one?

 

 

 

Well, it would be presumptious to give yourself 100% odds for a situation. Just used the math explanation to say that it is a 50/50 by raw math but you adjust the odds yourself based on your set of beliefs. Technically, you are right half the time and wrong half the time your odds are just an opinion on the situation. Guess that didnt make sense to include, but I guess that was meant to encourage open minded thinking instead of trying to prove or disprove god with math.

[Zierro]

The way I see it is that the box holds a certain answer. There are two possibilities. Of course atheists will say the odds of God existing are lower and theists will say the odds are higher, but I think the most accurate ones would be agnostics in this situation - a 50/50. There really is no proof for or against God so I think 50/50 is the most reasonable. I guess it doesn't help that I'm agnostic though... makes me sound biased. But yes, I do agree with your main point.

[warri0r45]

The way I see it is that the box holds a certain answer. There are two possibilities. Of course atheists will say the odds of God existing are lower and theists will say the odds are higher, but I think the most accurate ones would be agnostics in this situation - a 50/50. There really is no proof for or against God so I think 50/50 is the most reasonable. I guess it doesn't help that I'm agnostic though... makes me sound biased. But yes, I do agree with your main point.

 

 

 

Agnosticism isn't about believing that the chances are 50/50. Agnosticism is purely about accepting that we don't know whether god exists or not. Breaking the term down, agnosticism basically means "without knowledge".

 

 

 

As far as I'm concerned assigning probabilities to the existence of god is a pretty empty exercise. You have to have some experience of something to assign a probability of it happening, otherwise it's just meaningless. I can assign a 50/50 probability to the flip of a coin, but that's not because I'm guessing or assuming something - it's because through experience that's the probability I've determined.

[Zierro]

Agnosticism isn't about believing that the chances are 50/50. Agnosticism is purely about accepting that we don't know whether god exists or not. Breaking the term down, agnosticism basically means "without knowledge".

 

 

 

That doesn't make sense. If there are two possible outcomes (God exists, God doesn't exist), and you have no evidence for either side (no proof for or against him) then wouldn't the standard probability already be at 50/50 from what we can tell? I don't see how 100/2 can equal anything else. I look at it the same as asking someone out. They can either say yes or no, so the most accurate probability would be 50/50. Of course there are factors that should contribute to the probability (your attractiveness, deliverance, personalities clicking) but from what you know, there's no way to tell how those factors would effect the probability. It just seems like 50/50 is the most logical answer out of any other set of probabilities from what we know (we know nothing therefore we don't have any factors to alter that 50/50).

[warri0r45]

Agnosticism isn't about believing that the chances are 50/50. Agnosticism is purely about accepting that we don't know whether god exists or not. Breaking the term down, agnosticism basically means "without knowledge".

 

 

 

That doesn't make sense. If there are two possible outcomes (God exists, God doesn't exist), and you have no evidence for either side (no proof for or against him) then wouldn't the standard probability already be at 50/50 from what we can tell? I don't see how 100/2 can equal anything else. I look at it the same as asking someone out. They can either say yes or no, so the most accurate probability would be 50/50. Of course there are factors that should contribute to the probability (your attractiveness, deliverance, personalities clicking) but from what you know, there's no way to tell how those factors would effect the probability. It just seems like 50/50 is the most logical answer out of any other set of probabilities from what we know (we know nothing therefore we don't have any factors to alter that 50/50).

 

 

 

A probability isn't 50/50 by default, and the fact that there are two options doesn't change that. We have no knowledge of the probability, and in statistics there is no such thing as a "standard probability" of 50/50 for something which we have no knowledge of.

 

 

 

Again, we can only assess the probability of something after we have some experience of it. To use a different example with two possible outcomes, you may want to assess the probability of people choosing one of two brands of milk. It would make no sense to say that the probability is 50/50 before you've even done your study.

 

 

 

You didn't really respond to what you quoted, either. You don't really seem to know what agnosticism is.

[assassin_696]

Exactly what I was trying to get at, since God assuming he exists is outside of the laws of physics you cant know till you open the "box" into God's reality, through death or maybe being contacted by god.

 

 

 

It doesnt directly relate to the 50/50 scenario of schrodinger's cat but I think the analogy is reasonable just adjust the odds based on your level of theism leaving 1% if your atheist 99% if you believe considering uncertainty

 

 

 

But it's meaningless assinging numerical probabilities to something we have no evidence for. You might as well say it's 50/50 that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden.

[Shinjula]

I think you guys might be getting too hung up on the numerical value your assigning to the probablity. I would think that the interesting part of the Schroedinger's Cat analogy is that just as the cat is both alive and dead at the same time, he is suggesting that God both exists and doesnt exist as the same time. That we live in a Universe where simultaneously there is both a god and no god and until the box is opened there is just a super position of both states. Further, that given there can't be proof of the non existence of god (at least I would suggest that that is the case) either one day god will prove it's exitence, or we will always continue to live in a universe with a 'virtual' god.

[assassin_696]

But I would argue that the difference between dead/alive is fundamentally different from existence/non-existence. Some indetereministic event causes the cat to be in a superposition of states, nothing does the same with God. There is no probabilistic event that smears the wavefunction for whether or not he exists. I'm probably just being pedantic, it's not the worst analogy, I just think there are as many differences as similarities.

[Zierro]

You didn't really respond to what you quoted, either. You don't really seem to know what agnosticism is.

 

 

 

 

My paragraph has no connection with your statement about agnosticism not being a 50/50? Oh and I know very well that agnosticism implies no knowledge of the subject, hence the extremely fair fence-sit.

 

 

 

I don't think you're getting my point. I know that we have no knowledge of God. I know that we can't come up with an exact or even a remotely close percentage. But based off what we know, which is nothing, I think it's fair to assume theists can be just as right as atheists are. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up the term 'probabilities', but my point is that atheism is making an assumption based off of absolutely nothing just like theism is. This is why I brought up the 50/50. It's the most accurate answer, from what we know (nothing).

 

 

 

I foresee someone flinging the burden of proof now... So in advance: God =/= Fairies (God is more of a universal concept. Fairies are something that we know we formulated just out of our own imaginations.)

[tryto]

Agnosticism isn't about believing that the chances are 50/50. Agnosticism is purely about accepting that we don't know whether god exists or not. Breaking the term down, agnosticism basically means "without knowledge".

 

 

 

That doesn't make sense. If there are two possible outcomes (God exists, God doesn't exist), and you have no evidence for either side (no proof for or against him) then wouldn't the standard probability already be at 50/50 from what we can tell? I don't see how 100/2 can equal anything else. I look at it the same as asking someone out. They can either say yes or no, so the most accurate probability would be 50/50. Of course there are factors that should contribute to the probability (your attractiveness, deliverance, personalities clicking) but from what you know, there's no way to tell how those factors would effect the probability. It just seems like 50/50 is the most logical answer out of any other set of probabilities from what we know (we know nothing therefore we don't have any factors to alter that 50/50).

 

 

 

 

 

Fallacy of the Middle Ground:

 

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... round.html

[l0rd]

Lets say these probabilities that a god existed were actually tangible and valid. An agnostic could be an agnostic because he knows the odds are 60/40 90/10 55/45, etc.

 

 

 

Saying that agnostics believe the odds of god are 50/50 is like saying that if the weather channel says there is a chance of rain, then it is always a 50% chance.

[tryto]

I saw this post on another forum, and I thought it was quite excellent.

 

 

 

Missionary, let me try to shine some light into this for at least one atheist - me. I want you to close your eyes and pretend that you are just an average guy. Now, I want you to imagine that you live in a society in which the overwhelming majority of your peers believe that eating grapes is evil, and that a gigantic monster will tear you limb from limb if you even think about eating grapes. But all is not lost! If you manage to go through life without giving in to their tastiness and juiciness, you'll get to see a beautiful green unicorn right before you die.

 

 

 

How does everybody know that this is true, Missionary? Well, that's easy. Some desert nomads from the bronze age wrote it down - well, that's not accurate. The desert nomads met the monster and saw the green unicorn, and then after generations of playing the 'telephone' game, somebody wrote it down. Then after being passed through the hands of thousands of people with their own agendas, biases, and transcription errors, it got translated into your native language. Isn't it easy to see why it's true?

 

 

 

And people really do believe that it is true. There have been wars fought between anti-grape groups that think that the monster eats you if you eat any grapes and anti-grape groups that think the monster only eats you if you eat the purple variety of grape. There are sub-sects which think that seedless grapes are especially abominable. There have been murders, tortures, and brutal religious-violence over whether it is even appropriate to touch grapes - including long-standing squabbles in which children too young to even know what a grape looks like have been used as living grenades to carry explosives to the 'heretics' on the other side of some anti-grape related issue.

 

 

 

It's not a problem for you when you don't see any problem with eating grapes, and you didn't mind so much when people laughed at your disbelief in the monster that'll get you for eating grapes. The fact that you eat grapes all the time and there haven't been any monster sightings doesn't seem to dissuade people. In fact, the troubling absence of monster sightings in any time since the dawn of recording devices doesn't seem to dissuade people either. Curious. You note the bizarre fact that the 'reward' for avoiding grapes isn't really all that awesome (so you get to see a green unicorn? That's not so great.). You also find curious the fact that the 'reward' comes at a time when it it completely unverifiable, so even if somebody did see the green unicorn, they'd never be able to tell you about it. None of these observations makes any lick of difference to anybody else, but who cares, right? If they want to believe in a weird story, that's their issue, not yours, right?

 

 

 

Well, not quite. See, you sent your kid to school with some grapes in his lunch and he got beat up by other kids who were afraid of the monster. You complained about it to the school, but the school administrators who were scared of the monster just as much as the kids refused to punish the kids who beat up your child. Every week, people concerned about your grape-eating habits drop by your home to leave you ridiculous pamphlets with crude drawings of what they think the monster might look like, and to point out how awesome seeing the green unicorn would be. You're polite to them and tell them that you're not really interested.

 

 

 

When your family found out that you were a grape-eater, they kicked you out of the house, even though you were young and your older sister got to live at home for another two years. You mother and father refused to have anything to do with you, and your father even contacted his attorney to have his will redrawn so as not to include a son who doesn't believe in the green unicorn. Your mother refused to attend your wedding - either because you were going to omit mention of the evilness of eating grapes or because you would mention them and sacreligiously just pretend that you thought they were evil to try to keep the peace. Despite your best efforts, when your children were born, every family member, neighbor, and 'well-wisher' tried to overrule your moral education of your child by telling them stories about what harms the monster would do to them if they followed in your footsteps, and how sad it would be that 'Daddy' doesn't get to see the unicorn.

 

 

 

Still with me? Now, you spend a lot of your time doing good things. You give blood regularly - saving dozens (maybe hundreds) of lives over your adult life. You regularly volunteer for charitable causes. You give up your Saturday mornings to pick up trash in a park, mow your elderly neighbor's lawn, or stuff lunches in bags for area homeless people. You give away for free professional advice that your work colleagues charge $200/hr for, simply because the people that you help need to be helped and they can't pay. You've never stolen anything (not even a pack of gum from a supermarket), and you do your best to avoid lying and cheating. Heck, you even avoid drinking and smoking just because you're not sure whether they're wrong or not.

 

 

 

Despite all this, the non-grape-eaters automatically assume, a priori, that you are on the verge of murdering them, molesting their children, or that every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie.

 

 

 

To make matters worse, there were a couple of mass-murderers about a century ago who ate grapes. They killed a lot of people. Despite the fact that these mass murderers only killed prostitutes, and wrote about their hatred for prostitutes, non-grape-eaters smugly point to the mass-murderers and insinuate or even openly defend the idea that the mass-murderers killed prostitutes because they ate grapes.

 

 

 

You tried to coach a little-league team, but when word got around that you eat grapes, parents refused to let their children play on your team, and for the children's sake, you resigned and let another, less-competent person coach the team.

 

 

 

You've dated women with whom you were madly in love, only to have every last one dump you over the fact that you eat grapes and don't believe in the green unicorn or monster - and do so completely self-righteously, since once they find out you're not a non-grape-eater, you're not really worth of any sort of consideration as a human being.

 

 

 

You are well trained in your chosen profession - you graduated with your degrees with honors and fielded offers from prestigious companies. Nonetheless, you are forced to hide your grape-eating (even performing sweeps of your online data to clear them of any grape-eating references), else your clients might go elsewhere. And it's not like you've not heard the whispers at previous jobs about your grape-eating, and had questions about the curious timing of your being necessarily downsized during a growth year right after rumors of your grape-eating swirled around the office.

 

 

 

Despite the fact that your society's foundational laws make it clear that the issue of grape evilness/non-evilness isn't something the government should get involved in, there's an annual governmental celebration of the truth of grapes' evilness and the reality of the green unicorn. Your currency is stamped with the slogan "Don't eat grapes!" And as if that weren't weird enough, people are ready to accuse you of being unpatriotic if you don't publicly pledge your fear of the monster.

 

 

 

Now, let's add to this idea. Suppose that for almost every 'electable' position you could imagine, whether that position is a political one, or just 'class treasurer,' you'll almost never get voted in. Your qualifications are almost irrelevant - you eat grapes and that's enough. It doesn't matter how bumbling your opposition is - all they have to do is swear up and down that they've never had grapes and never will, and they'll beat you, hands down.

 

 

 

Are you getting the picture here? Now, let's suppose that heretical scientists from other countries where the belief in the monster and green unicorn isn't so prevalent are making fascinating discoveries. It turns out that eating grapes can actually cure some diseases long-thought to be incurable. They're not quite to the point of giving those discoveries a lot of certainty, but early data looks amazing. With a little research, millions of people's lives could be improved. Unfortunately your politicians, whose overriding criteria for office is belief that eating grapes is evil, ban funding of research aimed at grape-eating benefits.

 

 

 

Now, suppose that after enduring constant stares, belittling comments disguised as 'concern,' and outright hostility for something as innocuous as eating a grape now and then, you find a place online where you can just be yourself and talk about things with other grape-eaters. You don't even have to talk about grape-eating. Politics, science, music, or even just posting pictures of yourselves is a fun way to pass the time without having to deal with the hassle of people going on all the time about how awful grape-eaters are.

 

 

 

Now, suppose that after having found this place, somebody comes along, accuses grape-eaters of being immoral, non-caring people. Suppose that he repeats the tired phrases about the gigantic monster thats going to eat every last one of us grape-eaters, and how awful it is that we simply aren't open to the possibility of the green unicorn. Suppose that he insinuates that people who don't believe in the green unicorn do it because they are angry at the unicorn, or that they eat grapes just because they want to be evil. Suppose that this individual, as can invariably be expected, brings up the mass murderers from a century prior that killed prostitutes and holds them up as examples of grape-eaters. Suppose that after being rebuffed about these things, the anti-grape-eating advocate chastises the grape-eaters for being closed-minded and unwilling to listen to things that most every last grape-eater has heard, thought about in substantially more detail than the anti-grape-eating advocate, and dismissed. Suppose that for evidence of the truth of his claims, the anti-grape-eating advocate cites the words of the desert nomads, written down generations after they were actually uttered, and then complains when the grape-eaters don't treat the words of bronze-aged desert nomads as being all that powerful as evidence.

 

 

 

Suppose that to rebut these claims, the anti-grape-eating advocate points out that these same documents tell about how early believers in the monster were killed by others, and that they wouldn't have died for this belief if it were false - then suppose that the anti-grape-eating advocate ignores suggestions that people die for all kinds of ideas that aren't true, for all types of realistic and plausible reasons.

 

 

 

Do you see why many atheists have an emotional reaction to proselytizing and insinuations against their collective characters?

 

 

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that people are right to treat you with hostility. There are theists here who are welcomed additions, who contribute in a robust and vigorous way to the discussions.

 

 

 

It's not that atheists usually have emotional reactions to the topic of theism. Many atheists I know don't even think about theism. I know I sure as heck don't in any ordinary day. What I and some other atheists have emotional reactions to is getting dragged into discussions about theism with people who clearly don't care about the discussion and who only want to walk away from the discussion after having told another person to fear the monster, tell us not to eat grapes, and to wait for the day when we'll see the green unicorn.

 

[assassin_696]

I don't think you're getting my point. I know that we have no knowledge of God. I know that we can't come up with an exact or even a remotely close percentage. But based off what we know, which is nothing, I think it's fair to assume theists can be just as right as atheists are. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up the term 'probabilities', but my point is that atheism is making an assumption based off of absolutely nothing just like theism is. This is why I brought up the 50/50. It's the most accurate answer, from what we know (nothing).

 

 

 

I foresee someone flinging the burden of proof now... So in advance: God =/= Fairies (God is more of a universal concept. Fairies are something that we know we formulated just out of our own imaginations.)

 

 

 

I think that's a terrible assumption, and surely you must realise that? Positing that something exists, without proof, then saying since there isn't proof to the contrary it's therefore just as valid is obviously a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter what you're positing.

[Zierro]

Fallacy of the Middle Ground:

 

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... round.html

 

 

 

That was not a fallacy at all. I'm just saying there is no evidence for or against God, which means for all we know atheists are no more liable than theists in this situation. The 50/50 is not an absolute truth, it's just all we have to work with.

 

 

 

Honestly, I don't even know what you guys are arguing about... Are you saying that atheists are more likely to be correct than theists or vice versa? You're being too anal about how I brought up probabilities. And for some reason this only seems to bother the atheists... Hmmm... :-k

 

 

 

I think that's a terrible assumption, and surely you must realise that? Positing that something exists, without proof, then saying since there isn't proof to the contrary it's therefore just as valid is obviously a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter what you're positing.

 

 

 

I've always thought it was ridiculous that we require proof to prove something that's proven unprovable. I hate trying to talk about any god in specific in my arguments (especially the Christian one), but doesn't the Bible say that God cannot be proven or disproven? Why do atheists insist on seeing proof for it? Now that is what I call a logical fallacy. Asking for something which everyone knows is not there.

 

 

 

By the way, we're talking about something existing. Like Sly said long ago on this thread, something can exist without it being proven.

[mmmcannibalism]

[hide=]

I saw this post on another forum, and I thought it was quite excellent.

 

 

 

Missionary, let me try to shine some light into this for at least one atheist - me. I want you to close your eyes and pretend that you are just an average guy. Now, I want you to imagine that you live in a society in which the overwhelming majority of your peers believe that eating grapes is evil, and that a gigantic monster will tear you limb from limb if you even think about eating grapes. But all is not lost! If you manage to go through life without giving in to their tastiness and juiciness, you'll get to see a beautiful green unicorn right before you die.

 

 

 

How does everybody know that this is true, Missionary? Well, that's easy. Some desert nomads from the bronze age wrote it down - well, that's not accurate. The desert nomads met the monster and saw the green unicorn, and then after generations of playing the 'telephone' game, somebody wrote it down. Then after being passed through the hands of thousands of people with their own agendas, biases, and transcription errors, it got translated into your native language. Isn't it easy to see why it's true?

 

 

 

And people really do believe that it is true. There have been wars fought between anti-grape groups that think that the monster eats you if you eat any grapes and anti-grape groups that think the monster only eats you if you eat the purple variety of grape. There are sub-sects which think that seedless grapes are especially abominable. There have been murders, tortures, and brutal religious-violence over whether it is even appropriate to touch grapes - including long-standing squabbles in which children too young to even know what a grape looks like have been used as living grenades to carry explosives to the 'heretics' on the other side of some anti-grape related issue.

 

 

 

It's not a problem for you when you don't see any problem with eating grapes, and you didn't mind so much when people laughed at your disbelief in the monster that'll get you for eating grapes. The fact that you eat grapes all the time and there haven't been any monster sightings doesn't seem to dissuade people. In fact, the troubling absence of monster sightings in any time since the dawn of recording devices doesn't seem to dissuade people either. Curious. You note the bizarre fact that the 'reward' for avoiding grapes isn't really all that awesome (so you get to see a green unicorn? That's not so great.). You also find curious the fact that the 'reward' comes at a time when it it completely unverifiable, so even if somebody did see the green unicorn, they'd never be able to tell you about it. None of these observations makes any lick of difference to anybody else, but who cares, right? If they want to believe in a weird story, that's their issue, not yours, right?

 

 

 

Well, not quite. See, you sent your kid to school with some grapes in his lunch and he got beat up by other kids who were afraid of the monster. You complained about it to the school, but the school administrators who were scared of the monster just as much as the kids refused to punish the kids who beat up your child. Every week, people concerned about your grape-eating habits drop by your home to leave you ridiculous pamphlets with crude drawings of what they think the monster might look like, and to point out how awesome seeing the green unicorn would be. You're polite to them and tell them that you're not really interested.

 

 

 

When your family found out that you were a grape-eater, they kicked you out of the house, even though you were young and your older sister got to live at home for another two years. You mother and father refused to have anything to do with you, and your father even contacted his attorney to have his will redrawn so as not to include a son who doesn't believe in the green unicorn. Your mother refused to attend your wedding - either because you were going to omit mention of the evilness of eating grapes or because you would mention them and sacreligiously just pretend that you thought they were evil to try to keep the peace. Despite your best efforts, when your children were born, every family member, neighbor, and 'well-wisher' tried to overrule your moral education of your child by telling them stories about what harms the monster would do to them if they followed in your footsteps, and how sad it would be that 'Daddy' doesn't get to see the unicorn.

 

 

 

Still with me? Now, you spend a lot of your time doing good things. You give blood regularly - saving dozens (maybe hundreds) of lives over your adult life. You regularly volunteer for charitable causes. You give up your Saturday mornings to pick up trash in a park, mow your elderly neighbor's lawn, or stuff lunches in bags for area homeless people. You give away for free professional advice that your work colleagues charge $200/hr for, simply because the people that you help need to be helped and they can't pay. You've never stolen anything (not even a pack of gum from a supermarket), and you do your best to avoid lying and cheating. Heck, you even avoid drinking and smoking just because you're not sure whether they're wrong or not.

 

 

 

Despite all this, the non-grape-eaters automatically assume, a priori, that you are on the verge of murdering them, molesting their children, or that every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie.

 

 

 

To make matters worse, there were a couple of mass-murderers about a century ago who ate grapes. They killed a lot of people. Despite the fact that these mass murderers only killed prostitutes, and wrote about their hatred for prostitutes, non-grape-eaters smugly point to the mass-murderers and insinuate or even openly defend the idea that the mass-murderers killed prostitutes because they ate grapes.

 

 

 

You tried to coach a little-league team, but when word got around that you eat grapes, parents refused to let their children play on your team, and for the children's sake, you resigned and let another, less-competent person coach the team.

 

 

 

You've dated women with whom you were madly in love, only to have every last one dump you over the fact that you eat grapes and don't believe in the green unicorn or monster - and do so completely self-righteously, since once they find out you're not a non-grape-eater, you're not really worth of any sort of consideration as a human being.

 

 

 

You are well trained in your chosen profession - you graduated with your degrees with honors and fielded offers from prestigious companies. Nonetheless, you are forced to hide your grape-eating (even performing sweeps of your online data to clear them of any grape-eating references), else your clients might go elsewhere. And it's not like you've not heard the whispers at previous jobs about your grape-eating, and had questions about the curious timing of your being necessarily downsized during a growth year right after rumors of your grape-eating swirled around the office.

 

 

 

Despite the fact that your society's foundational laws make it clear that the issue of grape evilness/non-evilness isn't something the government should get involved in, there's an annual governmental celebration of the truth of grapes' evilness and the reality of the green unicorn. Your currency is stamped with the slogan "Don't eat grapes!" And as if that weren't weird enough, people are ready to accuse you of being unpatriotic if you don't publicly pledge your fear of the monster.

 

 

 

Now, let's add to this idea. Suppose that for almost every 'electable' position you could imagine, whether that position is a political one, or just 'class treasurer,' you'll almost never get voted in. Your qualifications are almost irrelevant - you eat grapes and that's enough. It doesn't matter how bumbling your opposition is - all they have to do is swear up and down that they've never had grapes and never will, and they'll beat you, hands down.

 

 

 

Are you getting the picture here? Now, let's suppose that heretical scientists from other countries where the belief in the monster and green unicorn isn't so prevalent are making fascinating discoveries. It turns out that eating grapes can actually cure some diseases long-thought to be incurable. They're not quite to the point of giving those discoveries a lot of certainty, but early data looks amazing. With a little research, millions of people's lives could be improved. Unfortunately your politicians, whose overriding criteria for office is belief that eating grapes is evil, ban funding of research aimed at grape-eating benefits.

 

 

 

Now, suppose that after enduring constant stares, belittling comments disguised as 'concern,' and outright hostility for something as innocuous as eating a grape now and then, you find a place online where you can just be yourself and talk about things with other grape-eaters. You don't even have to talk about grape-eating. Politics, science, music, or even just posting pictures of yourselves is a fun way to pass the time without having to deal with the hassle of people going on all the time about how awful grape-eaters are.

 

 

 

Now, suppose that after having found this place, somebody comes along, accuses grape-eaters of being immoral, non-caring people. Suppose that he repeats the tired phrases about the gigantic monster thats going to eat every last one of us grape-eaters, and how awful it is that we simply aren't open to the possibility of the green unicorn. Suppose that he insinuates that people who don't believe in the green unicorn do it because they are angry at the unicorn, or that they eat grapes just because they want to be evil. Suppose that this individual, as can invariably be expected, brings up the mass murderers from a century prior that killed prostitutes and holds them up as examples of grape-eaters. Suppose that after being rebuffed about these things, the anti-grape-eating advocate chastises the grape-eaters for being closed-minded and unwilling to listen to things that most every last grape-eater has heard, thought about in substantially more detail than the anti-grape-eating advocate, and dismissed. Suppose that for evidence of the truth of his claims, the anti-grape-eating advocate cites the words of the desert nomads, written down generations after they were actually uttered, and then complains when the grape-eaters don't treat the words of bronze-aged desert nomads as being all that powerful as evidence.

 

 

 

Suppose that to rebut these claims, the anti-grape-eating advocate points out that these same documents tell about how early believers in the monster were killed by others, and that they wouldn't have died for this belief if it were false - then suppose that the anti-grape-eating advocate ignores suggestions that people die for all kinds of ideas that aren't true, for all types of realistic and plausible reasons.

 

 

 

Do you see why many atheists have an emotional reaction to proselytizing and insinuations against their collective characters?

 

 

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that people are right to treat you with hostility. There are theists here who are welcomed additions, who contribute in a robust and vigorous way to the discussions.

 

 

 

It's not that atheists usually have emotional reactions to the topic of theism. Many atheists I know don't even think about theism. I know I sure as heck don't in any ordinary day. What I and some other atheists have emotional reactions to is getting dragged into discussions about theism with people who clearly don't care about the discussion and who only want to walk away from the discussion after having told another person to fear the monster, tell us not to eat grapes, and to wait for the day when we'll see the green unicorn.

 

[/hide]

 

quote is the giant post.

 

 

 

I think the above story is a bit over the top, it is quite accurate to many of the problems atheists experience but I dont think many people have been fired(modern times) for not believing in god. Slight exaggeration excluded, it does bring up some logical points, I do wish the author had tried a slightly more reasonable basis then grape eating but that doesnt harm the thesis.

 

 

 

To the post on probability, It is fair to assume the odds of their being a god at 50/50 as it is fair to assume them at 74.8/25.2 because the definition of god excludes him/her/it from conventional logic. If someone feels the concept of god is ridiculous they have just as much logical backing as someone who claims their must be a god. In this case 50/50 is technically the empirical choice as it is admitting a lack of controlling factors. For instance if I have an closed box and I ask you if the object in it is akkbjrebr or adlfjkstglkwb your odds of being right must be assumed at 50/50 as you have no way of knowing if their is a predisposition towards either made up object. You may have some personal belief that makes you think the odds should be 70/30 but since we have no way of proving that 50/50 is the fair guess at odds.

 

 

 

note of clarification--those odds are for some form of a god/gods, not suggesting a certain religion or any specific beliefs.

[Lenticular_J]

And for some reason this only seems to bother the atheists... Hmmm... :-k

 

We're too busy stoning homosexuals, beginning holy cleansing wars, and punching science in the face to debate, I've heard.

 

 

 

Our memo writers are too tired to get everyone.