And the piracy, of course.
You can just call yourself an atheist. Hell, if you call yourself a pastafarian you are basically an anti-theist.
If this is you, consider joining or supporting The Satanic Temple. This is why they exist, and they do more meaningful and practical good than a meme religion.
One of the core tenants of Pastafarianism is being too lazy or broke (or both) to actually contribute
I remember watching an interview with a mushroom man, he posited that humans have receptors built in for magic mushrooms because humans used to have an organ that provided hallucinogenic euphoria. This allowed humans to survive in groups without killing eachother, then religion eventually evolved socially and replaced it. Now that we have technology and modern governments thats slowly replacing religion.
It was a neat idea anyways. Its also neat to think about how religions could be a form of evolution, even though they arent technically biological changes.
If you’re into that kind of speculation, you might enjoy “The Cosmic Serpent” by Jeremy Nearby.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I’d rather trip tbh
I mean you go girl more power to ya but it definitely isn’t easier to explain pastafarianism than agnosticism to normies. Noone except programmers and other too online people even know it exists (yes i am also a terminally online freak relax peeps, real recognize real)
Just show them the graph. Can’t argue with hard data.
That’s the neat part - you don’t have to explain anything. You just assert the truthfulness of your religion and act offended when people point out how ridiculous it is.
Chad moves. Get theology-mogged you faithless heathencell
Gotta love how one person writing a silly essay, which didn’t have anything to do with atheism, just being a gaff, got turned into something very atheist and very serious.
“I’m not religious”
Can’t say I’ve ever had to explain anything more than that.
i prefer “i’m not superstitious”
So how will you teach little girls that they’re the problem? How will you fondle little boys? How will you comitt a genocide to prove that your religion is more moral?
You can do all of those without having to actually believe in a specific religion. And the first two happen very easily without religion.
For real. Literally you can just say, “You are the problem. All girls and women are the problem.” There’s zero need to bring God into the equation to live a good, normal life.
Wtf are you talking about?
It’s a sarcastic counter to the typical arguments that there’s no inherent morality in human culture without religion. You know, people don’t naturally have empathy, so they have to be taught to simulate empathy because they beleive they’ll be judged when they die.
But what does that have to do with my comment?
If you’re not religious, how else do you achieve any of the things I mentioned?
Generally in atheistic communities discourse around religion tends to be around where religion is used to replace science, often as a means of control of behavior and othering of out groups.
Speculating, that is likely because many people join these communities after being ostracized or faced abuse at the hands of people in the in-group so it makes sense that those are the aspects of religion that stand out most to them are those aspects.
There is a reason communities have had religious and spiritual practices for millennia, they do provide concrete benefits and social good in terms of community building and as forms of cultural preservation and providing support systems, both emotional and material. Those aspects tend not to be talked about in atheistic and skeptic communities. Not saying they’re obligated to balance every negative comment with a positive one out of some misguided sense of fairness or balanced discourse but if you’re interested in having some kind of well rounded view of the world, it is helpful to understand positive aspects of things you generally disagree with.
In this case, if someone is arguing religion be removed completely it is important to address the loss of positive aspects that keep people in a religion otherwise you’re just going to be yelling at a wall and not actually doing anything or putting people off by assuming everyone who holds any kind of religious belief or engages in religious rituals is some kind of brainwashed cultist.
I didn’t make any kind of argument though?
Out of curiosity, when you say “all religion”, does that include the many atheistic religions?
Oh look, the old “aThEiSm Is A rElIgIoN” trope.
Seriously, you guys need some new material. If Jesus were real he’d be looking for new writers.
I never said atheism is a religion. There are many religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Satanism which don’t believe in god but are still considered religions.
I’m aware of how my original comment came across so I should probably specify that I myself do not believe in a supernatural god.
I myself do not believe in a supernatural god.
So do you lean more towards sacrificing still beating hearts to our father the Sun or are you more into hugging trees and dancing naked in the moonlight?
What?
Dodged the question without even first processing it.
Ninja shit.
You mean like Pastafarian?
Sort of. Pastafarianism is technically a religion, but it started as a satirical protest. I’m talking about religions which do not believe in a supernatural god.
Eastern religions like Buddhism?
Buddhism, Jainism, some forms of Taoism, Secular Humanism, Satanism etc.
Just out of curiosity, who is this question directed at?
The person who posted the meme.
And you expect them to answer questions about the philosophical beliefs of the artist?
It’s a philosophical meme. I’ll try not to assume people stand by what they post next time.
Good idea.
This is very offensive to me. I’m Eastern Orthodox, that’s not spaghetti that’s lo-mein with fish balls. Heathen degenerate.
Agnosticism is weird. It’s just atheism for cowards.
People seem to think belief (or lack thereof) is a one dimensional line.
Theism - Agnosticism - Atheism
But it’s more like the political compass with Theism - Atheism on one axis and Gnostism - Agnosticism on the other.
Theism/Atheism is a comment on whether you believe in god(s).
Gnostism/Agnosticism is a comment on how strongly you hold that belief (or lack of belief).
Are you absolutely certain there’s no god? Then you’re a gnostic atheist. Believe in god in sort of a wishy-washy way? Then you’re an agnostic theist.
I’m a die hard atheist, but I also consider myself an agnostic. Because although there’s no evidence of a god it’s also impossible to prove a negative.
To be a gnostic atheist would actually take a leap of faith I’m not willing to risk.
So you’re atheist? You have unwavering faith in the unknown then. No proof, just feelings and opinions. Just like theists.
Being honest about the uncertain nature of the mystical experiences of our world is a cowards move now? P sure that has been a marker of wisdom for many great thinkers in the western canon, eg well over 2000 years
Atheism is not about treating the nonexistence of gods as more certain than mathematical theorems. It’s about recognizing that just because the theist ideas are put into words doesn’t mean we should treat them as any closer to the truth then the virtually infinite potential strings of characters - meaningful or otherwise - that were not “fortunate enough” to be put to writing.
Agnosticism is the centrism of the theological world.
I believe it’s impossible to prove the existence of two gods.
I’m a diagnostic.
I don’t drink tea.
I’m an atheaist
I hate definite articles, I’m an a-the-ist
God, my mother is going to cackle at that one
Nice, tell her we all said hi! She’ll know who you mean.
RAmen
Ramen.
God I swear even here atheism is more like a cult. They can’t even help themselves from saying, “well you must not know what being agnostic is.” I absolutely appreciate you being agnostic & it is unfortunate that more people can’t accept that.
I mean is there a word for someone who accepts the possibility of a god but there’s absolutely no way it’s the Christian or any of the other established gods?
Do you have proof it’s not an established god? Do you have proof that any of the current representations are accurate or inaccurate to the original god being referenced? Saying it can’t be an established god is as much of a commitment of faith as saying it is a specific god.
Yeah, it’s called being agnostic. There is nothing wrong with it & I honestly think it makes more sense than claiming to know there is no God(s) or supernatural power. Heck, even Quantum Physics continually makes me consider the idea that we exist in infinite universes simultaneously, or that we could be 7 inception layers deep in some advanced computer simulation.
Personally, I say “there is no god”, because I also say “there is no pink space unicorn hiding behind Pluto”. I don’t know either for sure, but if a kid asks me and I start humming and hawing whether there might be pink space unicorns behind Pluto, then that sends entirely the wrong message.
So, the difference between agnosticism and atheism is pure semantics to me. I do not claim to know that there is no god. But I assume there is no god until proven otherwise.
Have you felt the touch of His noodly appendage?
I’m tall. So according to Scripture: Not so much … 😫
Absurdity of all religion
I’m willing to bet they only know Christianity and think all religions are like Christianity, just with a different looking skydaddy.
To be fair that’s most religion.
Its not, but thanks for playing
Yes it is, look it up
Damn, that’s a real convincing argument you got there.
Any cursory understanding of world religions and theology will tell you that this “Sky Daddy” view of divinity is incredibly rare. Not only because not all religions are monotheistic, but even among monotheists, conceptions of God are incredibly varied and diverse.
I think what irks me about this kind of ‘New Atheism’ common in Western internet spaces (which frankly, I thought was a decade+ out of vogue by now) is that it isn’t simply a lack of God belief, but a specific disbelief in the God of American Evangelical Protestantism that somehow manages to retain so much of the philosophical underpinnings of the thing supposedly being rejected.
When Sam Harris famously said, “Islam is the motherload of bad ideas” he’s rooting that position in, not only War-on-terror Imperial chauvanism and racism, but also on the very Protestant idea that right beliefs are what bring about salvation.
Of course, the secular version of this idea eschews God. But it replaces faith with belief in so-called Western Values, and Salvation with ‘backward’ nations of the global south being enfolded into the sphere of western liberal hegemony.
Any cursory understanding of world religions and theology will tell you that this “Sky Daddy” view of divinity is incredibly rare. Not only because not all religions are monotheistic, but even among monotheists, conceptions of God are incredibly varied and diverse.
lol nope that’s a sky daddy
So, when a Shinto practitioner worships the animist spirit which he believes resides within Mt. Fuji, so that the crops he’s growing at its base might yield a fruitful harvest, that’s the same thing as “Sky Daddy” theology?
When an adivasi Hindu gets small pox and she believes that the affliction is her communing with the goddess Sītala, is that the same thing as “Sky Daddy” theology?
When a Wiccan performs a ritual to the Horned God who is a god of hunting, the underworld, (and is himself a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people) so they might have a successful fishing trip. Is that “Sky Daddy” theology?
When a Muslim theologian says that, “God is completely different from whatever comes to your mind concerning Him” and that the nature of God is incomprehensible to human minds. Is that “Sky Daddy” theology?
I looked it up like you told me to. And none of this sounds very “Sky Daddy” to me
Yes
