Formally, I classify myself as a gnostic atheist, meaning I know there are no gods. Most atheists (from what I read online) appear to be agnostic atheists, people who are without gods but who do not claim to know there are no gods. Some people who fit this description simply call themselves agnostic. But, on formal forums, like reddit’s atheism subreddit, all who are without gods are atheists and agnostic or gnostic is a statement of whether they know or have doubt. Similarly, they allow for agnostic theists, those who believe in god(s) but have some doubt.
Empirical evidence, also known as sensory experience, is the knowledge received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, ἐμπειρία (empeiría).
After Immanuel Kant, in philosophy, it is common to call the knowledge gained a posteriori knowledge (in contrast to a priori knowledge).
This is the type of knowledge we use when we say that we know that if we drop a ball on the surface of the earth, it will fall. I don’t hear a whole lot of people telling me, you can’t claim to know that because you can’t prove it. But, indeed we cannot. We know the ball will fall because it has done so the last gazillion times we performed the experiment.
For some reason, most people expect that if you say that you know there are no gods, that this one case of knowledge requires certainty. We do not require certainty from any other type of knowledge. Why do we demand certainty to state knowledge only when we are discussing knowledge of the existence or non-existence of gods?
Why this one?
Nowhere in the definition of knowledge does it ever specify that we must have 100% certainty.
So, when I say I know there are no gods, I mean it the same way that I know the ball will drop or that I know the planet on which we live will continue to rotate through the night causing the appearance of a sunrise in the morning, even if it is blocked by clouds. Night will become day as the earth rotates. I know it. You know it. We cannot prove it to 100% certainty. We only know that it has always done so before.
Classifying gods:
To begin our discussion, we have to classify gods. This way we can address different claims of gods individually.
I doubt I get many readers who doubt evolution. But, some of these are kind of cool and might help if you end up debating nutjobs who think we were created by God in our present state sometime after the actual human invention of agriculture.
I can’t believe people actually think like this. What a load of horseshit! Holy horseshit, that is. This is actually a serious page with step-by-step instructions for trying to convince atheists to become Christian.
For years, I’ve been saying that the Bible says nothing about abortion. Since abortion predates the Bible by centuries and was commonplace in the area where the Bible was written, I used this as an argument that there is no Biblical foundation for any religious objection to abortion.
However, someone just pointed me at a section of the Bible I’ve missed.
Numbers 5:11-31 actually mandates that women who are unfaithful to their husbands undergo abortion and even gives the recipe for making the Biblical version of RU-486. So, the next time some wacko religious freak who thinks that the government has more to say about a woman’s vagina than she does because … Jesus/God/Bible, point them at Numbers chapter 5. Read it for yourself here. It’s quite amusing.
This isn’t really a big deal. But, I thought it was kind of cool. I had been on reddit for about 10 months and had just broken the 1000 mark in my karma. Then I happened to respond to a Christian’s questions on the atheism subreddit. That thread got a lot of traffic. My single response more than doubled my karma. And, someone gave me reddit gold, which I had never had before.
So, I’m kind of pleased with the external validation and thought I’d share the post here.
[edit] For any who are unaware, reddit gold actually costs money. So, when someone threw gold at me, they were actually putting their money where their mouth was … so to speak. The thousand plus karma points are a big compliment to me, but clicking upvote on a post costs nothing. The gold was a real thrill. A month of reddit gold is $2.50 by the year or $4 by the month.
Background for people new to my blog: I am an atheist and antitheist. But, I ask this question seriously and am hoping for a real discussion on the subject.
It occurred to me recently when thinking about eternity just how long we’re talking about and that even in heaven, were I to believe in heaven, I think I would end up so incredibly bored by the monotony of it that oblivion would be very welcome indeed.
Sure the first million years would be a blast!
Nearly all of us would like more time than we get on this planet. But, how long?
Yes, it’s true that the cartoon is not truly accurate to the bible verse in question. The authors embellished a bit. And, the fucking took place on two different nights, not the same night. Here’s a link to the original text.
As you read Gen 19:30-38, keep in mind that these are the same two daughters from Gen 19:8, just a few paragraphs earlier, whom Lot offered to sell into sexual slavery to the men from Gen 19:4 “the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.”
Isn’t it nice to know the daughters, even after this attempt to sell them into sexual slavery to a whole city full of men, still loved their father and wanted to “preserve seed of [their] father.”
Who ever thought that getting rid of the Westboro Batshits would be as simple as offering them a free ride to Iraq to protest against ISIS? Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of inDUHviduals! Can you say “natural selection”?
Lately we seem to be constantly confronted with examples of religion creeping in and trying to infringe on our science education. The latest I have come across is a young earth creationist donating a huge grant to a technical and scientific university. What’s more worrisome is that this university is a leading educator of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) teachers. Will this donation influence the curriculum of this university is the big question. And, what does accepting this money say about the university and their commitment to real science? I guess for organizations that accept grants, money is always taken no matter what the source or any potential consequences may be.
I personally find this very disturbing.
Greg Gianforte is an alumnus of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He is also a presumed young earth creationist who helped fund a creationist museum in Glendive Montana. And, now he’s funding Stevens Institute of Technology, among other things, a leading educator of our STEM educators.
So, what does it mean when the largest donation by a living donor in the history of Stevens Institute of Technology, $10 million, is being given to the institution by a presumed young earth creationist who also funded a museum that teaches that humans and non-avian dinosaurs coexisted in a world that is less than 10,000 years old?
Warning: This Dilbert comic may not be safe for your brain. If you already have suicidal tendencies, I would strongly recommend that you click away, far away and very quickly.
On the other hand, I had a coworker at the time this strip came out (2001) whose response was, “Cool!! Now I have a goal.”
Yes, the video is 48 minutes long. It’s worth it. I’ll wait for others to comment, if any bother to watch the whole thing, before adding my $0.02. Seriously, do watch it. It’s well worth the time. And, I don’t say that about a lot of 48 minute videos.
I had no idea there were this many examples of evolution caught in the act in a human time frame. I had heard of 3, the recent finch evolution in the Galapagos, the recent lizard evolution on Cypress, and the color change of butterflies (or was it moths) during the industrial revolution when tree bark blackened from coal soot.
Anyway, this is a great page full of examples, including new speciation and even whole new organs evolving. Cool stuff.
The tax subsidy for clergy, one of the echoes of McCarthyism, may finally be being put to rest. A couple of the others that survived to this day are “In God We Trust”, which was not our country’s motto until 1956, and “under God”, which was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954.
These two still stand as a reminder that the embarrassing period of McCarthyism with its fight against the “godless communists”, and persecution of many innocent people in the entertainment industry in particular, is not over yet. However, ending the tax subsidy for clergy, that was implemented at the same time, also in obvious violation of the establishment clause of the first amendment, is a powerful step in the right direction.
I added the S since I maintain that Christianity with God/Yahweh, Jesus, The Holy Ghost (the three never tied together as a trinity in the Bible), Holy Mary Mother of God (really??!!?), Satan/Beelzebub/Lucifer, and a whole bunch of angels, saints, cherubim, seraphim, incubi, and succubi, is clearly polytheism. Satan, in particular, is so powerful that God seems unable to zap Him into oblivion, making him a god of equal power to Yahweh.
Anyway, on to Sam Harris’ great speech. Note the more subtle unspoken references to, at least, “In God We Trust” on our money (3:15), Book of Mormon (4:34), faith healing (4:37), Sister Act (4:44), and Monty Python (6:02).
Note also that Sam Harris points out that God is impotent or evil. I prefer the term omnimpotent since our laws of physics show no signs of occasional tampering by any deity. Therefore, for God to remain undetectable by science, as is his wont, he must remain completely and utterly impotent in every possible way with respect to any effect on the observable universe. Therefore, the correct term is omnimpotent. This is my own term that I am trying to define and spread as a meme. Feel free to use it with or without credit to me.
Has anyone actually seen these phony $10 bills? note that if these fake $10 bills are close enough to fool anyone for a second, they’re probably illegal. They must legally be not only one-sided, as these are, but must also be either smaller than 75% or greater than 150% of the size of actual money.
I’d love it if these are close enough to get the shitheads that made them arrested for counterfeiting.
Of course, as an atheist, I do not believe in hell. So, clearly I believe no one will burn in it. However, by their own religious beliefs, it is easy to show that Christians are not following their Bible and will thus “burn in hell” forever and ever with fire and brimstone and gnashing of teeth and all the rest.
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Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.
Posted by Misanthropic Scott 
