If you shouldn’t touch doubtful things, it’s the agnostics you need to avoid contact with! Atheists are usually as determinedly devoted to no God as any zealot is to a deity.
Actually, I think it’s not so much about there being a G”d or there being none. It’s about holding public officials to a higher standard of decision-making and having them in turn hold their electorate to higher standards of intellect.
I mean come on, if you want to obtain consensus for your agenda you’ll have to do better than invoke a god (like, providing evidence.)
Oh, I’m a very firm believer in the separation of church and state, so I don’t have an “agenda” politically that relates at all to religion. Nor do I believe in proselytizing, and I have no desire to convert anyone to or from anything. And I also solidly support the right of anyone to believe what they want. But by definition, anything supernatural is not going to be amenable to proof with natural evidence, so when atheists say, where is your evidence that there is a God, I ask where is their evidence that there is not. In the end it comes down to personal experience, and when one has had direct experience of the transcendent, one needs no other proof. And when one hasn’t had such experience, no other proof will suffice. I’ve had such an experience, and the proof is in the utterly changed life I have lived since then. But I know from experience that the atheists will say I changed my life on my own and deserve all the credit. But I was there, and I know that God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to say you personally had an agenda, I meant that as something that would (actually, should) be directed at someone with an agenda (along with “citation needed”, like in that cartoon (click).) I guess I should’ve either used the less ambiguous pronoun “one” or put the whole paragraph in quotation marks.
As to your experience… Actually, many atheists do acknowledge that there is a certain susceptibility/inclination/whatever to religious feelings in people, as does science. It’s just that not all inclinations should be acted out in the public sphere , much less be a basis for lawmaking (separation of church and state, precisely.)
Regarding “where’s the evidence”, however, there’s a thing called burden of proof.
Sceptics are the easiest people in the world to convince; all you have to do is show them the evidence. When the existence of someone’s special invisible friend is published in a peer-reviewed science journal, I shall have to accept the evidence and the existence of said special invisible friend.
Mind you, if it turns out to be anything like what some of its followers claim it is, I’m not going to muck about worshiping it, I’m going to start researching a way to hunt it down and kill it.
As I said, obtaining material evidence of something supernatural is by definition going to be impossible, for all practical purposes. If one could obtain material evidence of it, then it wouldn’t be supernatural, would it? And in my experience, skeptics are almost impossible to convince, because if you show them, say, an article in the Journal of Parapsychology, they will then say they’ll believe it when they see replication. And if it’s replicated, then it wasn’t replicated by a skeptic, or by a scientist being supervised by a team of magicians. Or the results are just chance. What skeptics never acknowledge is that while they are so quick to say that we believers in God and the survival hypothesis believe this because we find it comforting to do so, they also have emotional reasons for believing what they do, because they are so strongly wedded to a view of the universe that is rational and logical that the thought of something beyond reason is frightening to them.
Please don’t touch my things!
I doubt you have any things.
o o
I
Wow, another Engrish statement that could be a philosophy to live by.
You sure won’t get slapped as much!
…and propably will live longer.
Ahhh!! My face was eated!
well.. now that’s creepy.
Wow. Now that’s horrifying.
*nods*
Sorta like how some road signs in the southwest say
“Strong winds may exist.”
Somehow very zen
that’s not candy in that man’s pocket!
Then don’t touch it!
Like yer mamma?
Wah, hwa ha ha ha!
8-/
So if you are not supposed to touch doubtful things, you can only touch certain things?
And how are we supposed to assess whether a particular thing includes doubt or certainty?
If you have doubts, just don’t touch.
I have a BETTER squirrel video!
How do we know it wasn’t in the final throes of food poisoning?
Because I have WATCHED squirrels get drunk with rotten pears!
I don’t think I clarified enough, the squirrel was fine after a couple of hours. Stupid me though, I didn’t catch it on my camera!
So if I know her boobs are fake, I can touch them?
I doubt it.
*Touch*
*Gets slapped*
I come hear for the humor and the (usually) really great and funny comments.
And now i get some useful advice, a bit of wisdom.
Evangelists of the world take notice: stop groping the atheists! This whole Grab ‘Em For God campaign has gotten *entirely* out of hand!
You mean the Holy Gropers?
The bunch who walk around wearing shirts that read “What would Jesus grab?”.
a sheep!
If you shouldn’t touch doubtful things, it’s the agnostics you need to avoid contact with! Atheists are usually as determinedly devoted to no God as any zealot is to a deity.
No, thy’re not. And even if they were, so what, after all they’re right.
*they
Actually, I think it’s not so much about there being a G”d or there being none. It’s about holding public officials to a higher standard of decision-making and having them in turn hold their electorate to higher standards of intellect.
I mean come on, if you want to obtain consensus for your agenda you’ll have to do better than invoke a god (like, providing evidence.)
Oh, I’m a very firm believer in the separation of church and state, so I don’t have an “agenda” politically that relates at all to religion. Nor do I believe in proselytizing, and I have no desire to convert anyone to or from anything. And I also solidly support the right of anyone to believe what they want. But by definition, anything supernatural is not going to be amenable to proof with natural evidence, so when atheists say, where is your evidence that there is a God, I ask where is their evidence that there is not. In the end it comes down to personal experience, and when one has had direct experience of the transcendent, one needs no other proof. And when one hasn’t had such experience, no other proof will suffice. I’ve had such an experience, and the proof is in the utterly changed life I have lived since then. But I know from experience that the atheists will say I changed my life on my own and deserve all the credit. But I was there, and I know that God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to say you personally had an agenda, I meant that as something that would (actually, should) be directed at someone with an agenda (along with “citation needed”, like in that cartoon (click).) I guess I should’ve either used the less ambiguous pronoun “one” or put the whole paragraph in quotation marks.
As to your experience… Actually, many atheists do acknowledge that there is a certain susceptibility/inclination/whatever to religious feelings in people, as does science. It’s just that not all inclinations should be acted out in the public sphere
, much less be a basis for lawmaking (separation of church and state, precisely.)
Regarding “where’s the evidence”, however, there’s a thing called burden of proof.
Sceptics are the easiest people in the world to convince; all you have to do is show them the evidence. When the existence of someone’s special invisible friend is published in a peer-reviewed science journal, I shall have to accept the evidence and the existence of said special invisible friend.
Mind you, if it turns out to be anything like what some of its followers claim it is, I’m not going to muck about worshiping it, I’m going to start researching a way to hunt it down and kill it.
As I said, obtaining material evidence of something supernatural is by definition going to be impossible, for all practical purposes. If one could obtain material evidence of it, then it wouldn’t be supernatural, would it? And in my experience, skeptics are almost impossible to convince, because if you show them, say, an article in the Journal of Parapsychology, they will then say they’ll believe it when they see replication. And if it’s replicated, then it wasn’t replicated by a skeptic, or by a scientist being supervised by a team of magicians. Or the results are just chance. What skeptics never acknowledge is that while they are so quick to say that we believers in God and the survival hypothesis believe this because we find it comforting to do so, they also have emotional reasons for believing what they do, because they are so strongly wedded to a view of the universe that is rational and logical that the thought of something beyond reason is frightening to them.
so then don’t touch myself.And you can’t touch me either(but through the power of the interwebz you’ll find a way)i’m doutful of this advice!
M.C. Hammer reconsidered.
Sorry, nope, can’t do that I’m a scientist.
I’ve gotta touch it…
Without a doubt, I am certainly skeptical.
nice hand but SHUT up!
*DELETE*
exactly!
Nice post – pictures of road signs ..Keep Posting– Tip: Keep your post active- commenting helps it – Ron pictures of road signs
Are you threatening me?!?!?!?!
Quizz Show Entrant Addict Therapy.