I've been to the Grand Canyon three times, even hiked it once. While it is a sight to behold, it never once made me start believing in a deity.
Edit: The other part goes without saying.
That's because, as it's often the case, the jump from "The Grand Canyon is beautiful -> An higher intelligence must have created it" is not a logical conclusion, but rather the rationalization of a preconceived belief.
It reminds me of the first time I went to the US. Of course I got to be seated in the plane next to some religious nutjob. So he looks through the window at some clouds below us and turning to me "isn't god's creation amazing?".
As I had little experience with his kind, I didn't comment (which, luckily, was the right answer).
You avoided the bait. I wouldn't have been that wise.
He mostly took me by surprise. It's something nobody sane would ever say in Europe.
Later during that trip, I had another surreal exchange in a little nowhere place. We were stopped in the centre of a little village, wondering where we could find some kind of restaurant, but the place was utterly empty. Presumably there might have been some kind of mall or something in the area, but we hadn't spotted it.
Anyway a local helpfully came and told us that he had no idea where a restaurant was, but maybe there was one at some other village 30 km away. And also were we Christians?
Um, what?
For then we shall meet again in heaven.
So I mumbled something along the lines that the whole Christian thing wasn't really all that hot in Europe any longer, and wished him luck with his heavenly endeavours, and we got the fuck out of there.
I met a few of those guys, but that one was the weirdest.
Wouldn't the existence of anything which formed over 80 million years directly contradict every creationist theory from established religious texts? I can't imagine seeing the layer of 270 Million year old Limestone and thinking "How wild that God made this 5,000 years ago with such sophistication" like that's just asinine.
Lol my thoughts exactly... I've also been, it's literally a testament to geological change over time and rich in archeological significance from the natives that once lived there.
Also having been to many national parks it's not even the most impressive imo, even in the area. I thought Bryce Canyon was cooler 🤷♂️
Nature can be beautiful without attributing it to God. Everyone must have seen beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, canyons, etc.
That's what I don't get.. seeing all the earth's wonders and knowing it took millions of years and all these geological processes to create impresses me much more than "some guy" zapping it into existence.
The fact that all of this is beauty was formed through completely random powers of haplenstance is far more impressive to me than someone's imaginary friend creating it.
I find it funny when Christians say that everything is far too complex to have happened at random and it must have been designed by a deity. Bitch, God doesn't know Math.
what you don't like the dino-bone-forgeries that ~~god~~ satan must have planted to deceive people into thinking the earth is older than it really is?
Exactly. Anyone who has studied even one course in geology, like I have, will know that. We have seen features that have existed when humans didn’t exist, let alone a civilization. It is incredibly humbling, for instance, to see Himalayas knowing they preexisted the very minds that named them and probably will be around after the civilization that named them ceases to be.
It's also incredibly human centric even though it borrows from humility, like look at this awesome sight this thing that is bigger than me, that was put here for me to experience!
It's also incredibly harmful to see the world as a possession made for you. We are not masters of the earth, we're stewards. It is our home, and we treat it like our slave because we believe it was made for us. We were made by it. We are sustained by it. The same natural processes that have created all the wonders we can behold have cradled our development and nurtured our growth. And like a petulant, entitled child, we demand more.
Skill issue. Learn how to terraform and make weather controlling satellites.
That maxim, "There are no atheists in foxholes," it's not an argument against atheism — it's an argument against foxholes.
- James Morrow
"If it can be said that there are no atheists in foxholes, then it can certainly be said there are no theists at funerals."
One of the most brutal lines spoken by Mr.Deity lol
Weird then that theists are typically not the ones concerned with preserving that natural beauty.
For them, god put that oil down there for us to extract and burn. Nature be damned.
Tbh I think this one's on the Bible. It does say that we are the Shepherd of God's creation or something, and I guess a shepherd is technically allowed to exploit the fuck out of their flock 🤷
Grand Canyon is proof that the world isn't 5000 years old.
It bothers me that they didn't angle the text to the wall, have pride in your work memers
Well. now it bothers me. jerk.
(lol. I didn't notice it until I read your comment. now i can't not notice it.)
My mom is a strong believer in God, and claims that she and I surviving my birth is proof enough. Her body rejected me at 28 weeks because our blood has different rh factors. She went into eclamptic seizures and I had to be surgically removed. We both almost died. I was an incredibly sickly child. At one point, my mom was as looking into signing me up for Make a Wish, because so many people, my mom included, thought I was just going to die. I was that unhealthy. My left lung has permanent scar tissue from having pneumonia so much when I was younger. You can still see it clearly on x-rays. My lungs weren't fully developed until I was 19. Doctors were tracking their development to make sure I wouldn't need any extra care as an adult.
Now I'm an adult who is relatively healthy considering all of the debilitating ailments I have, most likely a direct result of being born early. My mom says it's a miracle and a blessing from God that I survived and am as successful as I am. I don't think it's any of that shit. I think it's modern medicine and my desire to succeed to spite people who've wronged me. God ain't got shit on antibiotics and spite.
If god did miracles and all that jazz to make you survive, couldn't he just... Not make you premature?
Oh wait. I remember. God works in mysterious ways
To be fair, it's hard to be a Christian or someone who presumes a benign creator when looking at children's wards or the overrepresentation of children and youth in disaster, plague and famine mortality.
As a player and occasional programmer of sims and models, the degree of suffering in the universe is compatible with a creator when the well being of the individual units (or even species) are not a goal.
If the objective is drama and entertainment, creation as Reality TV, where Anyone Can Die™ then mountains of dead babies is all part of the show.
No, what makes it hard to be a theist is how everything is procedural. None of the life around us looks like a pocket-watch made by an artisan. It looks like a pocket-watch made by generative AI, itself programmed by generative AI, itself programmed by generative AI. We aren't the Sims, we're the dead drunken cats in taverns who got alcohol poisoning from spillage on the floors ingested when cleaning ourselves.
This doesn't entirely disprove intelligence creating the universe, of course. The simulation hypothesis is still valid, but we can expect God to be more like Azathoth ( Long may be slumber ) than Adonai. And we are microbes in the tree bark of a single Sequoia Redwood in central California, rather that God's chosen. Heck, if there is a divine purpose to the universe ( ꜰᴏʀᴛy ᴛᴡᴏ ) then we are just as likely incidental to its function, or even an emergent antagonistic side effect thanks to the chaos of complexity, than we are a critical element of its function.
But then, You are a redundant functionary in God's great machine to prepare Its morning breakfast does not sell people into your organized money-driven religious ministry.
Alan Watts basically argued reality was a play one put on for themselves.
When you look at a sunset you are having an emotional reaction to what you are seeing.
Emotions are not real. They do not Exist outside of your head. And therefore cannot be evidence of anything except that you can imagine
It's a little more complex than that. Our sense of beauty is emergent from eons of conditions that are fruitful for survival. A sunset reflecting on water indicates you're next to a body of water, which is often a good place to settle. It's why we consider spiky, bleak architecture to signify where we've buried our toxic waste.
The emotions come from what's in our head, but why we experience those emotions is well informed by eons of ancestors and what clear water vs murky water meant to them. And human art is informed by these instincts, either our love of painting sunsets, pastorals and beautiful human specimens, or in the abstract, tinkering with supernormal stimulus. (Hence why all fast-food brands are red and orange)
This is why green is a narrow bandwidth in the center of our visible color spectrum. We have good cause to see green (typically chlorophyll related) things, since either we want to eat them, or eat things that eat them. That said, it means that the qualia of subjected experiences that differentiate PCs from NPCs (or p-zombies in the mind-body problem) are largely informed by eons of survival-driven evolution, hence red is an alarm color whether or not we have a soul or are the protagonist. Even NPCs experience beauty and color subjectively, with instincts and experiences to inform them.
Why are people floored into faith by the scale of the Grand Canyon, when they can just look up at the sky, and see a gigantic rock that has been falling towards us for millions of years, and feel the heat from the nearby (in cosmic terms) star which is an accumulation of hydrogen so massive that it's gravity alone has enough force to sustain a fusion reaction? But a trough in the ground caused by flowing water, that gotta be the work of god.
Not to downplay the Grand Canyon. It sure does look amazing!
I agree with rhe sentiment but small correction, the moon is falling away from earth.
Well that might depend?
Because as far as orbital mechanics are concerned it's falling toward us (because that's what orbiting usually involves) but because the orbit is slowly getting larger it's falling is slowed, maybe? Well can't really be that because the speed should be pretty constant?
Huh, that's kinda a hard thing to answer comprehensively for someone who didn't take that astrophysics course everyone else took...
I can't remember who said it, but it's a great thought...
Looking at all the beauty of the Earth, the ocean, the forests, mountains and every living creature, then looking to the moon, the sun, all the planets, the stars, galaxies, with a seemingly endless amount of space and possibilities...
With all this, why do religious people feel like that's not enough? Is that not grand enough for you already? Why does there have to be something greater?
Adding "fucking" to the retort makes it funnier
E...ro...sion??? Must be God!
It should also be said, "It's hard to be a Theist when you're taking a stroll through a cemetery with 100+ year old tomb stones where every other one is a dead child."
In a pre-modern science era, religion really makes sense for these people.
I couldn’t imagine losing a child. Let alone more than one. And then having absolutely no understanding of why? I consider myself and atheist and a cynic, but in the shoes of a pre-industrial revolution parent…I may not be able to accept “god has a reason”, but I could absolutely accept “they are in heaven”.
Nowadays it’s inexcusable. Childhood mortality is incredibly low, especially from non-accidental causes like disease. MCs are less frequent due to improved societal factors (diet, stress, exercise, prenatal care, etc), and we can identify the causes a shockingly high percentage of the time.
Yeah I do not get it.
Like this bridge collapse in Baltimore this morning. All over facebook, praying hands and people claiming they're going to pray for the victims. If you thought that worked, why wouldn't you pray that no one would be on the bridge at that moment? Why wouldn't you pray that no ships hit the pier of the bridge? Surely those two things would be within God's power.
I used to see an SUV near work that had a vinyl cut on the rear window that said something like, "so-and-so, 1978-1998 - God cured his pain and called him to heaven". In other words, no matter what, God comes out on top - either he's cured and look how great God is for curing him! Or he dies and look how great God is for ending his suffering!
I will be downvoted to oblivion, but children hospitals made me sense the existence of God more than the Grand Canyon. I see God through the dedication of all the people, theist or not, who fight suffering and illnesses.
Edit: I never wrote or thought that God was the sole responsible for the good actions of the doctors. I'm not here to debate, but please don't attribute me ideas I don't have nor expressed.
It is not god who is fighting the suffering and illnesses. humans do. there is no god. and if there is, then he is a bastard to allow this suffering and illness to happen in the first place.
It's insulting to attribute the dedication of people to something that doesn't exist. Give credit where credit is due. It's Doctors that save lives, not God.
B-b-but b-but they are closer to heaven than any of us! /S
No atheists in ~~foxholes~~ Grand Canyons.
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