"Well, there are no yes or no answers."
"What?! I can think of two yes or no answers right off the top of my head!"

Brilliant.

This is the first I heard of it. I don't see the utility of it. These two things mean I'm practically a dinosaur.

Yes, I've already made that point. Your point of view is that I haven't considered it or haven't considered it long enough or whatever it might be, as though what I belief is simply a function of not thinking about it long or hard enough. I could say the same thing to you, well clearly you believe in god because you just haven't thought it through long enough. This is not a fruitful avenue.

Your 'absolute truth' is subjective. "Absolute truth" as a universal constant is not knowable.


You're putting words in my mouth. Who says I have a carefree attitude? I care for other people the same as I would if I were religious. I just don't feel a need to compel them to believe what I believe. I won't respond to anything concerning heaven and hell and "what ifs" because those don't exist.


Just because you believe something is true doesn't make it true.


If you're getting wet, it doesn't matter what you say. You believe what is happening to you based on your observations. You can't convince yourself it's not raining when it is anymore you can convince me there is a god when there isn't. (See, I'm now dropping the pretense and responding with the same conviction in my truths as you are.)


You don't choose to believe. You choose to accept him as your god, but you don't choose to believe he exists for the same reason you don't believe it's not raining when it is. You can deny it's raining just as you can deny your god as your savior, but you can't force yourself to believe something you don't believe. You believe what you believe based on your life experiences. So you believe in your god, but you choose to accept him for all the reasons you've already stated about eternal punishment and so on. You have to accept him as your savior, otherwise you know you will be punished for all eternity, because that's what the church has taught you. That's your absolute truth, even though I know it's wrong.

Haha, jesus h. christ, no. My point is OP posted something and I responded to him. Then you quoted me, directly responding to what I said, and started talking about something neither of us were talking about. I took exception to it because it didn't address what I said, but implied I was down with slavery.

As for us both saying the same thing, I've already quoted it. How many times do I have to quote it, and what good does it do since I've already quoted it and you ignored it?

Here it is again, just for the devil of it, my first post in this thread:


This was in response to the OP, which was "The White European should be praised for their actions concerning slavery" (the title of this thread).


And just for reference, here's the part where you and I expressed the exact same sentiment (again):



We're saying the same thing. Can't we just agree to agree?

Yes, that's the same thing you're doing, I just don't have a magic book to back it up. With the exception of "choosing" what to believe? Did you choose to believe in god? Probably not, you just do because that's what you believe. I'm the same way. I didn't choose not to believe in god. I just don't because that's what I believe.


If I don't believe in an afterlife, why would I spend any time thinking about it or caring about it. YOU believe in an afterlife. That's your belief.

If I believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my god, and all his teachings, I'd be trying to convince you to also believe in him because it would be the only way to salvation. You would look at me the same way I am looking at you. Why would I care about the Flying Spaghetti Monster afterlife, that's obviously not true. That's how I view your version of the afterlife. It's not true to you. It's true to me. What's true to you is not to me. Neither of us can prove the other wrong. I'm not asking you to change your beliefs, just asking you don't force them on people who don't want to live by the rules of your religion.

Your beliefs are not more important or more correct than someone else's. You don't have a right to force other people to act the way you want them to. That's my most important point in this thread. I'm fine with Christians and Muslims and Jews or any other religion that wants to believe anything they want, so long as they don't try to make anyone else live a life subject to their religious rules who doesn't want to.

Where exactly did I say what?

Mate, your first post in this thread was in response to my response to OP. You were not talking about anything before you addressed me first.

Yes, as I've already stated, as positive as you are god exists, that's how positive atheists are you're wrong. For all the same reason: faith.


It would basically be saying "your truth is wrong, mine is right." Guess what, that works both ways.


Empathy is an evolutionary trait. If it didn't evolve into the human species, we wouldn't care when other people were in danger of dying, which is bad for gene propagation.


I didn't say "no matter what you do," I said if you're serving god. When the Church used to murder scientists for teachings that challenged the church doctrine, they knew they were going to heaven because they were serving god. People who used science to contradict the Bible were heretics. "Serving god" was used as a justification to commit all kinds of evils against other people. See: the Crusades. All those soldiers, murdering in the name of god, so if they died in battle they knew they were going to heaven.


You just went full Godwin's Law on us here. (Godwin's Law: if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.) The atheist believes Hitler was an asshole. Also, your association between Hitler and evolution is embarrassing for you:  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hitler_and_evolution

Hitler's government killed 12 million people, and started a war that killed 50 million more. He killed himself as the Allies were advancing on his bunker, rather than face the consequences of his actions. Now he's just gone and that's the way it is. I don't need religion to reconcile the fact that life isn't fair. I just accept it and try not to harm anyone else because of it.

Please don't interrupt the adults when they're trying to have a discussion.

Who is talking about the US? OP didn't bring it up, I didn't bring it up, you brought it up. That means you're changing the topic from what we were talking about.

"You act as if the entities that created the slave based economy in the US were the same people that ended it." How? How do I act like the entities that created the slave based economy in the US were the same people that ended it?

You said the same thing I did. YOU are acting like the same entities that created the slave based economy in the US were the same people that ended it. See how much sense that makes?

What I don't understand is if money is so evil, and it's all derived from an evil world and committing evil acts, so much so that he can't get a job because he's a "good person" who will commit no evil, why is it OK to rely on handouts that would have certainly been earned by the evil he despises? Dank told me in another thread to quit using money and just share stuff with other people instead.

So, why don't YOU do that Dank? You need a field for your hippy commune, ask a field owner to share it with you. Don't pay him money for it. That's supporting the evil system.

Most of this stuff isn't true. You dumbed down "macro evolution" so much that it doesn't make sense. A fish doesn't change into a dog, if that's how you're defining "macro evolution" then of course you're going to come to the conclusion that it's false. Further, evolution IS supported by the fossil record. If it isn't, go get your PhD in evolutionary biology, write the book that proves evolution wrong, and collect your Nobel Prize. It's really very simple. I wonder why no Christian has ever thought of it before?

You'd be the kind of person who recognized that just as you have your own truth that god exists, other people have their own truth that he doesn't, and that just as convinced that you are that it is impossible to be wrong, they are just as convinced that it is impossible to be wrong. You'd be the kind of person who recognized that personal truth is personal, and while not universal (meaning everyone has their own personal truths), they are absolute, meaning nothing you can say can change them. And you'd also be the type of person who is considerate for respecting other people's beliefs, and not condescending by thinking your beliefs trump theirs and you have to "fix" them.

Morality doesn't come from religion. It comes from empathy and the realization that inflicting harm on another person is wrong. Religions teach that no matter what you do to other people, as long as you're serving god you'll go to heaven. Atheists believe that you have one life, so allowing other people to be harmed makes you a bad person, because those people also have one life, and it should not be subject to suffering. That's the world I see without religion. One where "serving god" can't be used as an excuse to inflict harm on other people.

It's a totally irrelevant point! Also, check the definition of fact. You stated an opinion.

OP says: white slave owners weren't so bad cuz they abolished slavery.
I say: before they abolished it, they accepted slavery as legitimate, so no cookie.
You say: You support slavery in the modern day.

Irrelevant to the OP, and my comment! And you put words in my mouth! I said nothing of the guilt of white Americans. I disclaimed praise for white Europeans for abolishing an institution they made possible earlier. The exact same thing you said later in a separate post.

If all you're doing is keeping to yourself and having the occasional debate with nonbelievers, there is little cost.

However, the cost that most of us object to comes from religious folks who are so convinced they are right, they have to force other people to accept their personal truth through the use of force. I'm talking about forcing people to convert (as the Christian church has a long history of doing, not necessarily today), and using your religious texts as justification to pass laws that restrict the freedom of others (banning gay marriage and every other act that you find personally offensive because Jesus or some such).

This is a great summary:  


The point remains that there is no evidence Evolution is not true. Everything we can objectively know about it points to it being true. The notion "everything is so complex it just must have been intelligently designed" offers no basis to test it. There is no evidence pointing to this. Your belief is not evidence.

As for the specific points you're asking for, speak to a geneticist or a scientist. I am neither. I can't spell out all the specific examples of how evolution proves true you're looking for. But because I understand how the scientific process and peer review works, I know that when they settle on a scientific fact, it means there is no evidence that challenges the fact, so no reason to doubt it.

Your doubt is the same as your faith. You just feel it, so you believe it to be true. That's not how science works.


Again, this notion is not based on anything but your feeling. The Universe just is. It didn't have to be crafted and intentionally designed. It just exists, and we study it to find out how it works.


I don't know where you're getting your ideas about mutations, but they're not accurate. They don't "remove information." If you're referring to the genetic code of a species, then yes, mutations "add" information. Mutations come from transcription errors in DNA during the replication process. When cells divide, the DNA instructions are replicated, but sometimes random errors in the code occur. This process, happening trillions upon trillions upon trillions of times causes changes in the gene pool. The surrounding environment sometimes provides a benefit to some of these changes, such that the likelihood of passing them on increases. Over thousands of generations, these beneficial traits help a species survive. The mutations that are not beneficial are less likely to survive. But the mutations are not intentional, they are random. There is no way to control them. And further, they don't happen fast (one generation to the next). They happen over very, very long periods of time, over thousands and millions of generations. The conclusion "evolution is false because mutations are not always beneficial" is not logically sound.

Observable science does not confirm anything re: intelligent design. Confirm means proves. Your concluding so does not make it an objective fact. Also, you seem to fall into the same problem most Christians do. Theory doesn't mean "idea" or "hypothesis" like in common parlance and how you're taking it to mean. A scientific theory is tested and confirmed, meaning everything we can objectively know about the issue proves true and there is no objective or scientific evidence to give any indication otherwise.

You realize you're quoting science for the justification of your answer? Science that you previously have been railing against as unreliable and incapable of giving us objective truth?

You can't have it both ways.

Are you kidding me? You just said the same thing I did, which when I said it you took in some warped way as to somehow mean I supported slavery. You're unbelievable!


Wtf gives?

What is the fact? I still don't see it. You said you think white europeans should be thanked for ending slavery and other races should have more blame. Those are opinions. They are still not historical facts. "It is stupid to shame Europeans or White Americans for slavery"  <--- Your exact words. It is an opinion.

Compliments are not racist. The way you generalize and distinguish people based on race is what is racist.

I've said nothing about white privilege. I don't know what you're carrying on about, but you're clearly confusing me with another poster.