Understanding Religion's Relationship To Human Social Systems

  ​  @RyanPauly  On any given matter of insight into history, scholars will have a range of arguments that run from strained speculation to (in some matters) virtually inarguable. This is true even when there is unanimous agreement on an issue. They'll still have a tier list of best-to-worst arguments. In any case, reaching consensus means the data to support the majority view is ... very substantial. I'm glad you and I both understand this. Moving foward, I'm fine with citing some of the arguments I was most impressed by. To cite a few: 1. References, in the affirmative, to other gods existing.   Those texts don't say that those (nor all) other gods are false gods. 2. Yahweh loses a battle with another god. 3. Yaheh has a dad-God over him. 4. ALL references to Yahweh begin to appear in the record only after various other gods have been phased out. 5. Some of the gods previously phased out had some very specific stories, idioms, names, and at...

 ​ @Gorillagangsta202    18 minutes ago Have you seen the video where your Derek got dog walked by Jay Dyer" ---  My reply: Greetings, Gorilla Ganster.  It's "great" to meet you. ;)  I never saw that incident.  But the script is always the same.     Presuppositionalism is gaslighting via: * semantic sleights of hand  * asserting as "facts" and as "necessary" things that are neither,  and * circular reasoning, to satisfy their special pleading. It's also an attempt to pre-dismiss all challenges to the presupper's politically weaponized, religious *identity*  via * social humiliation, and * orchestrated confusion (aka: mind-fogging). gaslighting /ˈɡasˌlīdiNG/ noun The practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning. The goal of gaslighting is to get people so profoundly doubting their own critical faculties that they'll go "soft" or otherwise abandon their cr...

As for the question of any "god" existing, it's like arguing whether the Eternal King of the Leprechauns exists.  Nobody is ever going to prove or disprove it.  But honestly, I never try to. Nor do most atheists.  Instead, we just point out how counterfactual, fallacious, and unethical the claims and arguments are. Few of us care about people believing in fantastic things. For most of us, our attitude is: "Worship dryer lint, for all we care.  Notice how we never really tangle with Wiccans, Buddhists, or Native Indigenous spiritual persons about their beliefs.  That's because those people are not troubling us with it. In fact, they hardly ever harm or intrude into other people's lives as a consequence of their spiritual beliefs.  Whenever someone's weird relationship to dryer lint threatens to (or actively does) greatly intrude on non-consenting people's lives, ... now we have a problem that can't be ignored." As Will Smith's character in...

@Christmas1914-dg5xc 3 hours ago  @BionicLatino  "murder is still wrong" How would you try talking someone out of it, if they don't care that it is, and if it's to their benefit? You know what politicians are capable of. Their believing in God isn't a guaranteed way to stop it, but it's something. At least you can then try to introduce some cognitive dissonance, if their motive is purely personal gain. --- --- My thoughts about it:  ​ @Christmas1914-dg5xc  I understand your point.  As someone once said, "I may not believe in God, but I sure hope my maid does". I get it. And by "I get it", I mean ... I truly and deeply understand it.  The easiest counterpoint would be to offer this: However, Weinberg really underestimates the problem.  Now, I do understand that some Christians are genuinely loving people.  But that actually makes it worse. Because those people are taught to rob themselves of their credit for being decent people. -Believing...

  LOL He was about to plug my channel, but, ... mid-sentence, he realized he shouldn't. I'm too hated by the cult. And that cult is ever-present in every channel within that network. -always ready to ensure "consequences" for violating social doctrine. #TheShunningIsReal This was why the only person in chat who was willing to say Hi to me was Dave, as always. Even people who do talk to w/ me privately via Facebook ... just refuse to talk to me in front of a specific social-cult of atheists, which I call "The Mean Girls" (pop culture movie reference). So the host (Chris Mallard's) brain grabbed the first random safe channel he could think of and inserted it to complete his sentence. The stress of trying to make that sudden shift appear natural ... resulted in momentary decoherence of his thought process. That, in turn, resulted in putting his foot in his mouth, insulting Joe (Kentucky Atheist). And then Chris had to do some messy and awkward...

In the comments section under that video, this discussion unfolded: @KD_1111-b3b 2 weeks ago I used to think using the year as a valid argument for Christ's existence but the problem is everybody acknowledges Jesus Christ's existence but not everybody accepts Jesus as Lord and the son of God. We need to win people over with Jesus as Lord more than convincing He existed.   @crimsonguy8696 2 weeks ago No, not everyone accepts the reality of Christ's existence. There are people that still don't know we have more historical proof for Jesus being real than Alexander the great being real.   @coopertown7867 8 days ago I just heard a very good Christian truther say, "We need to stop trying to convince people that God exists. But instead show them/convince them of the power of God." I pray that that one sticks with me. Godspeed friends!   @ApPersonaNonGrata 7 days ago (edited) re 1. "everybody acknowledges Jesus Christ's existence"  --- Nope. In fact, man...