(no subject)

[theweaselking]

"What it feels like to be an atheist"

Imagine that you live in a world where 90% of the people around you sincerely believe in something that appears to you to be downright whacky, if perhaps relatively pleasant on the surface in many respects. Say they believe in Santa Claus; beard, the big red suit, the flying reindeer, the sled loaded with a billion gifts, the North Pole Workshop, Mrs. Claus and the elves; all of it.

But in this fantasy world, they're not content merely to believe in Santa Claus, they want you to publicly agree all the time that you also believe in Santa, in their specific version of same, and they pressure everyone else in numerous ways to pretend that they're not strange or childish for believing in this. They don't just limit it at that even, they insist everyone kiss their ass about their Santa belief every damn day of their lives and if you don't humor them at the drop of hat under any circumstances, you're being disrespectful, you're out of line. No matter how much you humor them, they always demand more.

Imagine, seriously imagine for a moment now, that these people, the vast majority of the electorate, vote for politicians based in large part on what they think Santa wants, campaign speeches all end with "Be good or Santa won't come to visit". And most of these voters won't even consider voting for someone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and his factory at the North Pole.

It gets better. Click it, read it.

Comments

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Omnipotence means all-powerful. If that language doesn't fit your argument, use a different term.

Probability cannot be separated out. Like it or not, the universe changes constantly, and doesn't ask for our permission, or even care about what happens to us. The potential for something to exist is directly tied to probability, and nothing can be said to have zero probability. It can be said to have infinitely small, but you yourself claim that you can't prove the probability to be zero. It's right there, at the very top of this thread. Combined with your meta-infinite overview, that leads to the existance of the Discworld as a real place. Where do I get tickets, and what kind of visa do I need to visit?

*yawn*

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

How's dogmatism working out for you?

Re: *yawn*

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

I'm being dogmatic? Somehow, refusing to believe in things for which there is zero evidence makes me dogmatic. Great, sign me up. If some meta-critter wants me to care about, or fuck that, let's just get to acknowledge, its existance, then it can show up and provide some evidence for its existance. That I exist is proof of nothing more than that I exist. Trying to use it to argue anything more is silly.

Disprove the existance of the IPU. Go ahead. or accept that in your own logical construct, it can exist, because you can envision a being who can envision a being, who can envision a being...[ad infinitum, if necessary], who can envision a logical way for it to exist.

Re: *yawn*

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Whatever.

Re: *yawn*

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Ah, so you can't. Just checking. How's the belief in the IPU working out for you?

Re: *yawn*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

He's not going to answer. Just a quick FYI.

Re: *yawn*

[lemecq.livejournal.com]

You start with ad hominem and you expect the person you're arguing fallaciously against to care enough to read what you've written once you've given good reason to believe that you didn't actually read what he (or she) wrote and argued against a strawman?

Amusing.

You consider yourself rational?

Even more amusing.

Re: *yawn*

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

There's an Invisible Pink Unicorn on the line for you...

How, exactly, is this ad hominem? I'm just curious, really. I merely insinuated that his logic was broken. I wasn't nice about it, but I'm fine with that, I'm not a nice person.

Re: *yawn*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Don't argue with the Sock Puppet, please.

Re: *yawn*

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was unaware it had a sock puppet.

Now I know, and knowing is half the battle!

Re: *yawn*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

He didn't, until just now. New account, created 5 minutes ago, no friends, no interests, 4 comments, all on this thread.

I didn't even need to check the IP to be sure. The IP just backs it up.

Re: *yawn*

[ecqlem.livejournal.com]

You're making an unfounded presumption about the structure of the person's conceptual scheme, forcing it to fit into your dogmatically atheist structure so that it leads to consequences which the person denies and not inconsistently with their expressed belief system.

It's ad hom because it's an insulting presumption of something you have absolutely no access to and have shown you can't comprehend without forcing it into your predetermined dogmatic belief-system.

It's strawman because it isn't what the person is arguing.

It's equivocation because you're presuming that all words have only one sense and you are interpreting the imagined belief system of another person in such a way as to conform to your predetermined beliefs and continue to do so when the person points out that, no, in fact, there is more than one sense of various terms, which sense is proper is a contentious issue among philosophers of religion and theologians, and you're trying to force him to use your sense, which he has already explicitly denied.

Also, it's weak to ban a person from ones journal because you started out arguing fallaciously, continued arguing fallaciously, then the person finally got sick of your bullshit and told you that

You've won nothing.

Re: *yawn*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oooh, sock puppet #2! I should collect the whole set.

Yes, yes, I'm TOTALLY educated stupid by academic bastards (http://www.timecube.com/) because you don't make sense and won't explain or defend your perceived inconsistencies.

Banning an account takes two clicks. Creating one takes more. Which one of us is going to get bored first, and whose ISP is more likely to take kindly to reports of TOS violation by harassment?

I'll give you a hint: RoadRunner's support and abuse department are old friends of mine.

Goodbye, Chris.

Re: *yawn*

[tosk.livejournal.com]

How about, "The IPU doesn't exist, because I choose not to believe that it exists". But, yet... The IPU does exist, at least as a concept, a strawman, a witless response pulled out of the athiestic asses. It does indeed exist, to some people. Likewise, so does the pantheistic Gargle Balster God of The Unnamed One's.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to how the IPU and its evil twin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, qualify as "witless".

Pulled out of the ass, sure, totally granted. That's the whole point.

And I think you really need to define "existence" here, since I think everyone but you is using the term in an objective sense.

[tosk.livejournal.com]

Not my fault if you decide to limit yourself to something as unprovable as objective existence. ;-)

As for witless... the use of color and invisible (no color) to describe the same object doesn't really seem to involve any wit that I can see.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, on the other hand, I didn't qualify as witless. However, I would point out the FSM is not an evil twin to the IPU, it's the Good Twin to the Flying Plate of Lasanga, who co-starred in "Reality Is What You Can Get Away With".

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

When enough people share a subjective existence and interract with it the same way for all practical purposes, you can all it "objective" without losing anything.

Refusing to do so means an inability to get anywhere and do anything, and while you might not mind that, I do.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Meh. Consensus-based "objective" existance is over-rated. I'll go with the expert, Phillip K. Dick, and his definition of what is "real"; something is real if, whether you believe (in) it or not, it still affects you in a tangible manner. Cite "gravity" as a classic example; even mass quantities of substance abuse (vis Dick) can't make it go away.

The proliferation of religious beliefs in the world would suggest that such beliefs are not "real" by this definition.

-- Steve will note that it's others' belief in religion that impinges upon his existance, not religion in and of itself.

[tosk.livejournal.com]

I prefer "Reality is what you can get away with. If you can't get away with it, it just ain't real."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nice definition. I was thinking more in terms of things like orbital mechanics, where you compare all the observations, so that you can do things like say "No, you're wrong, see why?" to the guy who insists that he can see the sun moving aroudn the earth and has the measurements to back it up.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

That's when you pull out the "Chris 'I Hock Your Jewelry' Columbus" card and use your understanding of orbital mechanics to predict an eclipse. Mr. "It's Elephants All the Way Down" may deny the means by which you arrive at your conclusion, but it's hard to rationally refute that you used it to correctly predict the Sun getting dimmer.

-- Steve will point out that the irrational refutation of, "Witchery!", is alas also unfalsifiable. (And danged uncomfortable too, even if you like it warm.)

[tosk.livejournal.com]

I think that appears rather narrowsighted.

When enough people share a subjective experience, you'll tend to find that they (more likely) had experiences which shared a high number of attributes. We could discuss the experiments which indicate that this is the case, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear them.

It also assumes that we must consider "generally accepted, subjective information" as objective, if we wish to get anywhere, or do anything. This doesn't appear based on anything more than your particular view of reality... which is a shame.

I currently think that there likely is an objective universe, I tend to think that mosbunall things we experience as real map in some way to the objective universe. However, I see no reason to lie to myself and pretend that it is objective.

Why, do you think one must accept the simulation as real to do anything, or get anywhere? I do a lot of things, and I think I'm getting somewhere, but I suppose that depends on the defination one would use for those terms. From a 'materialist' perspective, I think I'm pretty well off (job, money, hobbies, relationships), from a non-physical perspective I think I'm doing pretty well (regular visions of whatever deity I choose, interesting coincidences which allow me more direction over my life).

Hell, the magic ritual I used a few weeks ago may have done nothing... but the new job I was offered last week still comes with a six figure salary, so I don't too much mind if the magic isn't "getting me anywhere".