@ Pistós

“Faith”

“Peace to all who read this. I’m not posting to offend anyone, I respect you all and the administrator that provides this forum for us. I’m a former atheist. I’d like to speak about the undeniable reality of evil. The fact that people with full knowledge of right and wrong continue to willfully do the wrong thing. With all of our scientific and technological advancements, humanity has yet to progress in our nature. We are plagued by suffering of all kinds and there’s is corruption in every facet of our communities. A mass shooting occurred in a New Zealand mosque recently, The rich were discovered to be scamming their way into Ivy League schools while taking spots from hardworking honest poorer people, and the Catholic Church is rife with sexual misconduct. Remember, while your celebrating your freedom of non-religion, we are still enslaved to evil desires. This world is in dire need of a savior and mere mortals are proven incapable of providing salvation. My hope is in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. I hope that many of you, dear friends, will also receive the gift of faith that will lead you to Christ.”

"Im a former atheist." I feel sorry for you. You just sank into the horrible den of Pure Evil known as religion. Before you piss all over me, consider these questions …

• Are your religious beliefs open to criticism? If not, then any ideology that cannot suffer criticism is inherently evil.
• How does your religion treat its children? Does it drill its ideology using the threat of Hell? Any ideology that resorts to mental rape, emotional molestation, and psychological terrorism is inherently evil.
• Does your religion preach about the concept of free will? Then how can one have free will to choose with the threat of Hell? Any ideology that supports the eternal damnation and torment of non-believers is inherently evil.
• Does your religion view all of its believers going to heaven and non-believers going to hell? Then any ideology that presupposes its believers are superior to all others is inherently evil.
• Are you a Catholic? Any ideology that protects its members from criminal prosecution is inherently evil.
• Do you believe in the Bible/Qu'ran? Then any ideology that supports the demoralization and bigoted hatred of others is inherently evil.
• Do you believe in the Bible/Qu'ran? Then any ideology that states we are to obey and believe as we are told is inherently evil.
• Do you believe in the concept of Original Sin (i.e. – the Garden of Eden myth?)? Then any ideology that psychologically terrorizes its children/people by telling them they are born evil/sinful, born of evil/sin, born into evil/sin, born from evil/sin, and must have a human-created make-believe Sky Faerie, Magic Lich Virgin, and Rather Comical Spook to save them is inherently evil.

Now truly think about your new-found human-created make-believe fantasy world. Use critical thinking, logical and deductive reasoning, and rational and analytical thought. Additionally, put everything you hold true about this fantasy world through the Scientific Method. If it cannot muster, then it is all untruths and lies.

Factual Truths: FACTS — Formulated Accurately Codified Truth in Science.

Religious Faiths: FAITH — Falsehoods Assumptions Innuendos and Treasonous Hypocrisy.

And then apply everything to the 11 razors …

The Eleven Razors:

1. Sagan's Razor: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
2. Hitchens's Razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
3. Arakish's Razor: NO EVIDENCE = NO EXISTENCE. Or, if there is no evidence for "it," then "it" does not exist.
4. Xenoview's Razor: Objective claims requires objective evidence.
5. Randomhero1982's Razor: If it's not evidenced, it's bollocks.
6. Cognostic's Razor: Any dweeb can make an assertion.
7. LogicFTW's Razor: You MUST first prove your religion/claim is not a con.
8. CyberLN's Razor: A nice vinaigrette dressing must be served with any word salad.
9. Nyarlathotep's Razor: Homines quod muta (People is dumb).
10. Philip K. Dick's Razor: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
11. Tin-Man's Butter Knife: Any ridiculous nonsense presented will be countered with opposing ridiculous nonsense of an equal or greater amount.

• Cognostic's Shovel: When someone starts slinging bullshit at you, get a shovel and sling it back.

"I’d like to speak about the undeniable reality of evil."

Me too. You just joined the most evil organizations ever to be created by the human species. They are called religion.

"The fact that people with full knowledge of right and wrong continue to willfully do the wrong thing."

You are preaching to wrong people dude. Only those who can think rationally can also truly know where evil lurks.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.” — Steven Weinberg

"With all of our scientific and technological advancements, humanity has yet to progress in our nature."

Horse Hoowhee!! We know tons of more information about human behavior and how the mind works than ever before in the history of the human species. Me thinks you need to go back to school, quit skipping classes, and graduate. Come back in ten years when you have earned a Baccalaureate in one of the physical sciences, preferably astrophysics or evolutionary genetics.

"We are plagued by suffering of all kinds and there is corruption in every facet of our communities. A mass shooting occurred in a New Zealand mosque recently, the rich were discovered to be scamming their way into Ivy League schools while taking spots from hardworking honest poorer people, and the Catholic Church [do not forget the Baptist Bible Belters] is rife with sexual misconduct."

And I have often wondered why all this "evil" is still visited upon the human species. I did a GIS analysis about this.

A GIS Research Analysis into the GOOD of Religion

“Current research evidence does not support the common view that religiosity is positively correlated with good morality,” said Sam Harris.

In fact, I used QGIS software, and the most recent TIGER data from the Census Bureau and crime data files from the FBI (as of December 2017) to see how correct his statement is. Hell, the FBI files took about a month to download because there are so many. It took me several months to compile all the files into a single geodatabase, but my research has shown that the more religious a population, the higher the crime rates, specifically violent crime. While the same research shows that the more educated (thus, less religious) a population, the lower the crime rates. If religion is so damned good for us, then why does it seem to spawn so much more violent crime?

Here are some research numbers:
Bold = Highly educated; persons with at least a Master’s degree or higher; or multiple (2+) Baccalaureate or higher degrees.
Emphasis = Highly religious; persons with only a high school diploma, or no high school diploma; Associate’s degree or lower, or no degrees; or home schooled.

This is only in the United States, perhaps the most religious nation on Earth (excepting some Muslim nations).

• Of the 25 states with the lowest rates of crime, 5 are red, 20 are green (a 1:4 ratio).
• Of the 25 states with the highest rates of crime, 19 are red, 6 are green (a 3:1 ratio).
• Of the 25 most dangerous cities, 22 are red, 3 are green (a 7:1 ratio).
• Of the 20 most safest cities, only 2 are red, 18 are green (a 1:9 ratio).
• Of the 19 states with the highest rates of burglary, 16 are red, 3 are green (a 5:1 ratio).
• Of the 22 states with the highest rates of theft, 18 are red, 4 are green (a 4:1 ratio).
• Of the 22 states with the highest rates of murder, 19 are red, 3 are green (a 6:1 ratio).

Notes on how I chose these listings. With the cities/states I chose enough from the list to get at least “3” of whichever color. The only exceptions are the 20 most safest cities due to the fact that to get a third “red” city, I would have had to take the top 38 most safest cities making it 3 are red, 35 are green giving a ratio of 1:12. I figured a 1:9 ratio was bad enough. And to really add insult to injury, to get the fourth “red” safest city, it would been 52 cities making it 4 are red, 48 are green, still a 1:12 ratio. And you call us atheists dangerous and immoral, and to be trusted less than rapists and murderers?

And to add more insult to injury, the first red “most safest” city does not appear until number 16. And to pour more salt in the wound, in the “most dangerous” cities, the three green ones are numbers 19, 22, and 25. So much for atheism being so dangerous!

On the highest theft, I could have stopped at 21 cities making 18 are red, 3 are green. Since adding the 22nd city would lower the ratio (from 6:1 to 4:1) I decided to be a nice guy and cut you Religious Absolutists some slack. I also made it match the number of highest murder states.

I made the choices above just so I would not have to listen to your weenie-whiney-ass pleas about being a vindictive atheist. See, us atheists are actually good people.

Reiteration: If religion is so damned good for us, then why does it seem to spawn so much more violent crime?

These I could NOT cut any slack for you Religious Absolutists. More shocking numbers on the goodness of religion (researched as an afterthought):

• 93% of convicted child molesters identify themselves as Christian %O (a 13:1 ratio).
• 84% of all inmates identify themselves as religious believers (a 5:1 ratio).
• 0.02% of inmates identify themselves as Atheist, meaning only 1 in 5000 are Atheist.

And look again at the first one. This definitely warrants a full-blown: “What the Fucking God Damn Hell is wrong with you Christians?”

I mean, “93% of convicted child molesters identify themselves as Christian?!?” And since, when?, the mid-80s?, this has really come back to bite you Christians in the ass.

Remember, use critical thinking, logical and deductive reasoning, and rational and analytical thought.

"Remember, while your celebrating your freedom of non-religion, we are still enslaved to evil desires."

And looking above, it would seem the true reason is due to religion.

"This world is in dire need of a savior and mere mortals are proven incapable of providing salvation."

The only saving the human species needs is the complete and utter annihilation of all religion.

"My hope is in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross."

And I shall be the first to say that you are going to be waiting for a LONG fucking time. Jesus never existed. At least not as you think it existed.

"I hope that many of you, dear friends, will also receive the gift of faith that will lead you to Christ."

I would rather have truth, facts, and evidence any day of the week than the bullshit lies you are spewing.

Have a Great Day! Love ya. ***really sloppy thick syrupy tree smooch***

rmfr

Like the man says, ladies and gentlemen, you gotta have faith! Sing it, Brother George!...

https://youtu.be/6ISHYtccEs0

Pistós,

"Peace to all who read this. I’m not posting to offend anyone, I respect you all and the administrator that provides this forum for us. I’m a former atheist. I’d like to speak about the undeniable reality of evil. The fact that people with full knowledge of right and wrong continue to willfully do the wrong thing. With all of our scientific and technological advancements, humanity has yet to progress in our nature. We are plagued by suffering of all kinds and there’s is corruption in every facet of our communities. A mass shooting occurred in a New Zealand mosque recently, The rich were discovered to be scamming their way into Ivy League schools while taking spots from hardworking honest poorer people, and the Catholic Church is rife with sexual misconduct. Remember, while your celebrating your freedom of non-religion, we are still enslaved to evil desires. This world is in dire need of a savior and mere mortals are proven incapable of providing salvation. My hope is in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. I hope that many of you, dear friends, will also receive the gift of faith that will lead you to Christ."

Welcome to the lake of fire. I, like the majority of posters on this forum to varying degrees, do not believe in any God, especially Yahweh or Allah, and do not believe that Yeshua (Jesus) existed as depicted in the Bible. But unlike them I will never ask you to prove your claims because I know that you just claim to believe in an imaginary set of characters in an ancient ethnocentric Middle Eastern Jewish religious fairy tale.

The reality is that not one person in human history has ever actually had faith in the Yeshua character because not one person has ever been able o do what he said that a person with faith can easily do.

Luke 17:6 (NKJV) = "So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."

Matthew 21:21 (CEV) = "But Jesus said to them, “If you have faith and don’t doubt, I promise that you can do what I did to this tree. And you will be able to do even more. You can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will."

Mark 16:17-18 (ERV) = "17 And the people who believe will be able to do these things as proof: They will use my name to force demons out of people. They will speak in languages they never learned. 18 If they pick up snakes or drink any poison, they will not be hurt. They will lay their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

So you have a choice of things you can do to prove that your faith is real to yourself. It is not a good idea to toss a mountain into the sea because the resuting waves will cause a lot of death and destruction. But a tree is doable.

There have been a lot of movies made about demons inhabitating people. Do you believe in demons? If so go cure people of them.

You can learn a new language if you take the time to do it. But to prove that you have real faith you should be able to speak and write 6,500 languages. That will be impressive.

People handle snakes all the time. They "milk" the poisonous ones beforehand. Just last week a homeowner saw a few rattlesnakes at his place and the exterminator found 45 of the critters. If you had faith you could have walked in there and picked them all up barehanded without any negative consequences.

If you are thirsty you can take a chance and drink a glass full of poison. But if you make out your will beforehand it might indicate that you lack faith. It is not a good idea to do this unless you have done all of the other tests first. Walk across a deep pond barefoot instead. Even Peter was able to do that for a few steps.

But maybe you want to do some good. So go to the nearest hospital and lay your hands on the sick patients. Your faith will immediately cure them. But you have to be careful or you might get busted for practicing medicine without a license. The doctors and hospital will be pissed at losing their inventory so you might want to start out by curing your sick relatives and friends in private.

So do you really have the faith that you claim you have? Even the writers who wrote the stories didn't have any faith because they never did any of those things themselves. But you can convince at least yourself that you have actual, true faith.

As discussed, some of those things are risky so start out small. Command a piece of trash to jump into the trash can. Once you have mastered simple things like that you can move on to more complex things. And one day you will be able to make Mount Everest disappear and become the first person in history to have ever really believed in the Jesus character.

@Pistos: This world is in dire need of a savior and mere mortals are proven incapable of providing salvation.

The world needs a savior as much it needs another Dear Leader, Fuehrer or Il Duce, etc.

So thank you. But no thank you.

Ok, I'll bite.

Let's take a look at this, shall we?

Peace to all who read this.

Why does this opening lead me to expect canards and word salad in large quantity, before I go any further? Oh, this might have much to do with past observational data to this effect. Let's see if we have a discordant outlier here, shall we?

I’m not posting to offend anyone

I see such assertions being presented frequently. What happens to those assertions after test usually has a habit of being interesting.

I respect you all and the administrator that provides this forum for us.

Still waiting for you to move on to the substance here ...

I’m a former atheist.

And at this point, my bullshit meter's needle is pegged to the far right hand side, and the "signal overload" warning light is flashing like mad.

Have you any idea how many times, the membership here has seen the "I used to be an atheist" trope peddled by supernaturalists? It's practically standard operating procedure for some of the more duplicitous ones to open their posting careers with this assertion, only for examination of relevant data to demonstrate that the individuals in question have no proper, substantive knowledge about atheism, or the actual thoughts expressed by atheists. All too often, we see canards that have been subject previously to massive discoursive bombardment, being resurrected in posts like this. It's reached the point where some of us are wondering if there's a troll factory manufacturing "ex-atheists", set up by some sleazy "evangelical" church with connections to people like Joel Osteen and the Koch Brothers.

So, with that large body of past observational data to bring into play, let's see how well this goes, shall we?

I’d like to speak about the undeniable reality of evil.

And at this point, we're already moving into some tricky conceptual territory. Conceptual territory that is tricky, because there is no universally accepted definition of 'evil' enjoying general applicability. At best, 'evil' is a shorthand for "acts we find repellent, on the basis that said acts inflict harm upon other human beings". At this point, I'll avoid the whole animal welfare realm, as this will serve only to complicate the picture still further for the purposes of my exposition, and again, past observational data tells me that supernaturalists tend to need spoon-feeding with even elementary concepts.

The problem with using the word 'evil' as a shorthand for this, centres upon another elementary observable fact. Namely, that attributing a motivation for the acts in question, in numerous cases requires diligent effort. Taking the easy route of merely presuming that a given harmful act was the product of wilful malice, has led in the past to horrific iniquities and injustices. It's one of the reasons that we employ paid professionals in law enforcement and the realm of jurisprudence, because the moment that developed societies began constructing the requisite infrastructure and using it, we quickly learned that simplistic views of right and wrong were woefully insufficient to embrace the space of possible human activities and motivations.

Indeed, I was reminded of this only yesterday, when a video clip was presented to my YouTube news feed, featuring a police chase in Ohio. Without any background context, an observer watching that video clip would very likely wonder if the individual being pursued was an escaped felon, or on the "wanted" list for murder or drug trafficking. When the police chase ended, after some fairly frightening 100 mph plus driving during the chase in question, and the individual was apprehended, the woman in question was asked why she ran from the police, and during the chase, displayed numerous other examples of recklessly stupid behaviour. The answer? She said "I'm late for work".

You can watch that chase here. The news article in question is here.

This, of course, provides an insight into the origin of the aphorism "do not attribute to malice, that which is better explained by stupidity". Indeed, a good number of harmful actions by human beings arise through failure to engage one's neurons properly, and one of the lessons taught in any properly constituted classes on such topics as ethics, is that in order simply to function as an ethical being even on an elementary level, care and diligence is frequently required. Of course, this does not mean for one moment that genuine, observable and demonstrable examples of wilful malice do not exist, and I take care to state this explicitly, as a result of having been subject to duplicitous misrepresentation in the past by the usual suspects among the supernaturalists who visit rationalist forums - a direct example of the wilful malice I am aware exists.

Indeed, the very question of how to distinguish between wilful malice and other motivations, is one that exercises minds in jurispridence and ethical philosophy long into the night. Superficial and binary thinking simply doesn't work in the real world, because the real world is phenomenologically complex, and renders such superficial binary thinking null and void.

So, before you launch into assertions such as "the undeniable reality of evil", you had better have a lot of thorough prior groundwork to call upon, because if you haven't, the requisite deficits will be exposed here ruthlessly.

Moving on ...

The fact that people with full knowledge of right and wrong continue to willfully do the wrong thing.

And indeed, I've just expounded on numerous relevant issues above.

With all of our scientific and technological advancements, humanity has yet to progress in our nature.

Actually, quite a few of us have made progress in this vein, but of course there are those who have not. The mere existence of criminals provides the relevant observational evidence in this matter.

But, and this is another point that needs to be made explicit here, is that making such progress requires diligent effort on our part. Indeed, it is precisely because I have exercised diligent effort learning about the requisite applicable concepts, that I harbour deep suspicions about supernaturalism, not least because the mythologies presented as purportedly containing all the solutions to the issues, are frequently found to contain assertions that are themselves ethically suspect.

Indeed, one dilemma that I am aware of, is this: how does one act, if presented with a situation in which making ethical progress requires one to commit an ethically suspect act? That dilemma has exercised philosophers for quite some time, and you may find that much has been written on the matter, yet despite the requisite deliberations, no elegant solution has been alighted upon. Indeed, I am aware of how mythologies frequently fail dismally to provide substantive information even allowing the dilemma to be recognised, let alone solved.

In addition, you will find that science has made significant progress with respect to the matter of determining the basis for both our capacity for ethical thought, and the motivation to act upon said thought. Since the requisite dissertations are too long to repeat in full here, I shall simply point you to this post, where I covered the matter of priming, and this post covering the relevant advances in neuroscience and behavioural ecology. You may find those posts informative.

In the meantime, I have a nice little puzzle to present to you. Recently, this website was subject to a distributed denial of service attack, presumably by one or more supernaturalists who didn't like the information being disseminated here. You might like to ask yourself how, if the attackers in question were supernaturalists, how they can assert with a straight face that their morality comes from their mythological magic man of choice, whilst at the same time engaging in an act that is punishable in law, and performed explicitly with the intent of silencing proper discourse.

We are plagued by suffering of all kinds and there’s is corruption in every facet of our communities. A mass shooting occurred in a New Zealand mosque recently, The rich were discovered to be scamming their way into Ivy League schools while taking spots from hardworking honest poorer people, and the Catholic Church is rife with sexual misconduct.

My remarks about diligence are apposite here.

Remember, while your celebrating your freedom of non-religion, we are still enslaved to evil desires.

No we're not. I haven't engaged in any of the above, so you might like to ask yourself, why haven't I done this, if your assertion is true?

Or, for that matter, why I, and many others here, haven't engaged in a whole raft of malign behaviours, if your assertion is true?

This world is in dire need of a savior

Except that this assertion has some unpleasant historical baggage attached thereto. I suggest you read about some of that baggage.

and mere mortals are proven incapable of providing salvation.

This assumes that there is something we need "saving from" in the first place, and further assumes that solving relevant problems is beyond the remit of properly educated individuals. Both of these assumptions are suspect.

My hope is in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross.

And what sort of "work" can be performed in the field of solving ethical problems, by being nailed to some pieces of wood? Do tell.

I hope that many of you, dear friends, will also receive the gift of faith that will lead you to Christ.

No thanks, not least because I recognise that faith is nothing more than uncritical treatment of mythological assertions as true, regardless of how much real world data says otherwise. A practice that has demonstrable and observable malign consequences. You might like to ask yourself why some of the most ardent supernaturalists, including ardent adherents of the mythology you subscribe to, have been among the most pestilential people to have existed.

I should earn one euro each time, one BELIEVER come here and tell us this.

@Pistos RE: FAITH - The Truth
Peace to all who read this. I’m not posting to offend anyone, It is not possible for me to respect any of you. According to the Holy Qua;aran "The curse of Allah is on disbelievers. 2:89" - "I can not be friends with any non-muslims. 3:118 " - "You are all an open enemy to me. 4:101" and lastly "My only friends should be Allah, Muhammad, and those who believe correctly (Muslims). 5:55"

You all and the administrator that provides this forum for us "Are all Enemies of Allah 2:98" I’m a former disbeliever but now I will go to heaven and have sex with 42 virgins. Great to be me. Sucks to be you. . I’d like to convince you of the undeniable reality of evil. The fact that people with full knowledge of right and wrong continue to willfully do the wrong thing. With all of our Islamic peace and love; with out total submission to Allah, humanity has yet to progress in our nature. We are plagued by suffering of all kinds and there’s is corruption in every Mosque. We continue throwing homosexuals off of buildings. We force women to cover their bodies from head to foot and when they do not cover up, we rape them on buses. The Prophet Muhammad raped a 9 year old girl and because he married her when she was six, he thought he had the right to "THIGH" her until she was 9. Islamic schools in Britain and in the USA warn Muslims not to dress like the heathens around them. Muslims in Sweeden are rife with misconduct as they grope and rape Swedish women on the streets. This religion is in dire need of a check up from the neck up and mere Muslims are proven incapable of providing any sort of intelligence towards the situation. They would rather blow themselves up than grow up . My hope is in people who fly their planes into buildings. Perhaps these people will convince the world that Islam is a threat and then the world will wake up, rally against Islam, and do something to save us all.
I hope that many of you, dear friends, will soon be free of faith this faith that will lead you to complete submission to Allah and utter and complete ignorance.
.
PS - Now I am a Christian so I feel so much better about myself. We only bomb abortion clinics, beat our children to death, attack Mosques in New Zealand, and of course, Kill Jews. Praise the Lord.