cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20821881

Huge hat tip to @d00ery who took me to the Wikipedia page of this amazing cartoonist.

All of his anti-religion cartoons on the page are terrific.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_Heston

A near-death experience left the actor with a sacred knowledge sure to ruin your plans for the great beyond

They’re gathering by the thousands. They’re growing fast. They believe that Democrats are possessed by demons—and that Donald Trump must be president again at any cost.

The reasoning was simple: Each of the Christians assembled would soon feel a call to become a poll watcher or to knock on doors or to organize their church—to take part in some act that would aid the Republican presidential candidate. And that act would keep them safe, the prophet said, because God would not call them home before they had completed the task He had given them.

Refrigerator logic, or a shower thought:

According to Genesis, God forbids Adam and Eve from eating fruit of the tree of wisdom, specifically of knowledge of good and evil.

Serpent talks to Eve, calling out God's lie: God said they will die from eating the fruit (as in die quickly, as if the fruit were poisonous). They won't die from the fruit, Serpent tells them. Instead, their eyes will open and they will understand good and evil.

And Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the tree of wisdom, learning good and evil (right and wrong, or social mores). And then God evicts them from paradise for disobedience.

But if the eating the fruit of the tree of wisdom gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil, this belies they did not know good and evil in the first place. They couldn't know what forbidden means, or that eating from the tree was wrong. They were incapable of obedience.

Adam and Eve were too unintelligent (immature? unwise?) to understand, much like telling a toddler not to eat cookies from the cookie jar on the counter.

Putting the tree unguarded and easily accessible in the Garden of Eden was totally a setup

Am I reading this right?

Anyone have any ideas on how to kill God? I was thinking a out it and I think for a lot of people "God" is just this undefined "thing" out there that they can attribute other things to.

Like imagine a caveman kid talking to their caveman parent and asking questions like "Why is there a day and a night? Why is sky blue? Why is dog died?"

And the caveman parent just makes something up.

When people don't know the cause of something, they can create a cause out of their imagination.

God will always be lurking in the imaginations of stupid people, and we will always have stupid people on this planet.

For a while this scared me because I'm a stupid person with an imagination, so I knew the idea of "God" will stay with me till I die (since I can't think about anything when I die).

So I think the only way to kill God is if everyone dies. But even then it's a gamble because there's a whole "if a tree falls in a forest?" aspect.

Anyone else have any ideas?

I find it odd that when filling out a form that asked me what my religion is one of the choices is Atheist.

What now? That is the that opposite of religion.

Since religious groups are potitioning for religious freedom maybe we should get the church of Satan involved.

Link to original study for curious folks with access to it: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2322399121

I recently discovered this guy. He's very amusing. I recommend his Mr. Birchum reviews too.

Recently we had one of the largest fires in California history called the Park Fire.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Wednesday morning that 277 structures have been destroyed by the fire and 29 structures have been damaged.

On the TV they interviewed a man whose house survived. He said, "I thank god my house was spared".

So, let me get this straight. God destroyed 277 homes but saved yours? If that's god's will then god is an asshole.

My mom has a list of prayers that she claims were answered by God. As I look at that list I noticed that I did most of those things. When I mention that she says, God works through people. If I have to do all the work what do I need God for?

I was just Googling for some tips on an argumentative child, but if all that's coming up are Christian dogma blogs with this kinda crap...maybe I should just let it be lmao

So I recently had a long car ride with a person who had some strong views on absolute truth. I am of the opinion that absolute truth needs an arbitrator or some mechanism for consensus for a truth to be an absolute for a group of people.

They kept saying that the lack of absolute truth is the problem with modern society. That god is the only arbiter of absolute truth, and I couldnt get an answer on how we mortals are able to divine such things.

It was real frustrating when they wouldn't agree that the as a society, we give the justice system the ability to arbitrate truth.

When I told them that I dont think absolute truths exists he told me that was an absolute truth I believed

I have seen a lot of people who claim that an absolute truth exists and I have seen that thought process color their interactions in society. I think this belief system is a cancer on society and that religions are cultivating it.

I think the idea of an absolute truth being able to be uncovered is quite comforting to these people, and for people who do t consider themselves to be religious these religious ideas persist into their life.

Anyway, just thought I would share.

I always strive to see the nuiance in people, believe as little as possible, change my opinions on matters when appropriate, see absolute truth as a mechanism for arbiters to control.

Thoughts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rough_History_of_Disbelief

Imagine a world without organised religion, where it doesn't affect people's lives, but atheism still exists. What purpose would atheism fill in this scenario?

First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn't to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions. Maybe I'm wrong, I'd like to hear from you if I am. I'm just expressing here my perception of the movement and not actually what I consider to be facts.

My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth. I do agree that the concept of a God is hard to believe logically, specially with all the incoherent arguments that religions have had in the past. But saying that there's no god with certainty is something I'm just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress. We're constantly learning things we didn't know about, confirming theories that seemed insane in their time. I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.

In general, atheism feels too close minded, too attached to the current facts, which will probably be obsolete in a few centuries. I do agree with logical and rational thinking, but part of that is accepting how little we really know about reality, how what we considered truth in the past was wrong or more complex than we expected

I usually don't believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.