Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is tell people the truth.

Truth and how we know it is really important.

Too bad nothing you claim to know qualifies.

Case in point.

You could not be more wrong.

Teaching children the facts of life is one of the most loving acts a parent does. Giving kids facts in school is the loving vocation of a teacher. Getting adults educated in college is a loving, caring act of passing knowledge and information to others who can use it and share it. Many parents and teachers feel a passion for sharing wisdom, and humans would not survive long without the knowledge they pass along to us. Teaching the facts is vitally important for human survival and flourishing.

You are spitting in the face of those who answer that call.

Malinda, that is no more than exactly what it looks like. You can keep pretending about fairies and magic villages but there is nothing in this universe which makes it look like your fairy stories are true. Not one thing.

Just because you really want something doesn't make it true. Kids love Santa too, but he is pretend, and all the wanting in the world doesn't change it.

There are no magic guys in your life giving you magic love from on high. And what use would it be if there were, if you can't experience it? It's like being married to a poster of a man. You can think about him, but he doesn't actually touch you, or help you, or father children with you, or provide for you, or stroll through the park with you, or walk along the beach at sunset holding your hand, or laugh and cry with you through life's trials. He's of no use whatsoever. So you may as well not bother.

They most certainly do. Studies of sub-atomic particles show that at the tiniest levels, at the Planck scale, particles pop into existence and back out again in a nanosecond all the time. The confluence of these microinteractions produces the amazing effects of macromatter. I'm only sorry you refuse to understand what is really happening.

Wow, you are so prejudiced it's really kind of sickening. People who don't believe in magic fairies are just as loving with their friends and family as believers. They have just as much fun participating in festive celebrations. They feel the same joy watching their children laugh with delight as they discover hidden treasures. They have the same deep feelings of awe and wonder marking the changing seasons. They are not less human than you.

You should stop insulting people like this. It's mean..

You wish a lot of things.

Hi there Malinda! It can't be easy to converse with someone who disagrees with everything you say, so thanks for hanging in there. I appreciate it!

Even if "God" was real as toast, telling people facts would still be an important, loving act. Please do not disparage it.

This does not seem to be true.

This does not seem to be true. It's certainly not helping you.

You would not be looking at these words without the wisdom of this world.

They don't. Everywhere people look for God they find nothing remotely related to gods.

Once again, completely wrong. I see the magic of reality, and it is all the more amazing because it can be shown to be true.

Gods do not do anything in your life. Things that happen are the products of nature and human effort. Only cognitive biases make it seem like the work of gods, and only if you don't look too closely. Every attempt to track down "the god part" yields nothing.

This does not seem to be true.

It's only sad if you are pretending it's something other than what it is.

I think you know that your lack of understanding is not dispositive.

Because it seems to be true.

Do you mean, what makes one person right and another wrong? The person who is right is presenting a position which can be verified by anyone to be an accurate description of the reality.

They are not mutually exclusive. Relationships are important and facts are also important. It's not one or the other.

Trying to figure out the truth is very important. The more accurate our understanding, the more we can do with it.

This does not seem to be true.

This does not seem to be true.

This does not seem to be true.

I do, every day. My emotions soar to view a rainbow...even though I understand that it is caused by the refraction of light through water droplets. My heart melts to cuddle a newborn, even though I understand that she is the product of genetic material. My senses reel to smell a daffodil, even though I understand that it is an insect landing pad which offers a treat in exchange for pollination. My eyes fill with tears to hear a Mozart sonata, even though I understand it is vibrations moving the air which impact on my eardrum and send electrochemical signals to my brain. This is the magic of reality and understanding how it works only deepens the wonder.

"Isn't it enough to see that the garden is beautiful, without having to pretend there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams

I agree, but this process will be thwarted until people get on the same page with reality.

Bill Nye is not actually a scientist; he is more of a publicist for science. But you could start with a critical examination of his position in the debate and find out why it seems to be true. You don't have to walk around bewildered about how fish could turn into people. You can find out exactly how it happened and how we know it happened that way.

Understanding how something specific works gives you insight into how things generally work. This is extremely useful in life.

Not exactly. It is important to understand how the universe really works, and how life works and came to be like it is. It is important to understand that what we are experiencing does not involve supernatural creators.

I can agree with that.

Nothing, but those are not claims about supernatural creators.

Christianity does not appear to be true, but that doesn't mean every word in the bible is false, any more than the presence of a few historical facts means that every word in the bible is true. Each claim has to be weighed on its own merits.

Back to completely wrong. The wisdom we possess did not come from a supernatural creator. We figured it out ourselves, mostly by trial and error.

Asking "god" is just asking yourself.

No. That is just you talking to yourself in your head. No information has ever been provided to a human by a god. Not ever.

The bible is not important.

No, that is what you want. The sooner you figure this out, the better, because then you can understand that your happiness and love come from you.

Lots of known things are "unseen," but we know about them anyway, because they have effects that can be observed and predictably demonstrated by anyone. We can't see air, or x-rays, or atoms, but we don't need to have faith or "believe" they exist. Their existence and effects can be shown.

Nothing about any supernatural beings, gods or otherwise, can be shown. They are indistinguishable from imaginary beings. And, since it is known that humans are very prone to invent imaginary beings, there is no reason to think that any particular Supernatural Being A is more than imaginary.

In particular, there is zero reason to think the bible contains any actual information about gods.

There is no reason to believe any other person's descriptions of gods. They do not know anything more than you do.

Human claims about gods do not seem to be true. The truth matters.

The main reason to not accept another person's claims about gods is that there is no reason to think they actually know anything about gods.

It does not seem to be true.

God claims cannot be substantiated. They do not correspond to observable reality. There is no evidence of any supernatural beings. Many of the things we used to explain as the work of gods now have natural explanations. Gods are not necessary.

Lots of people experience deep and profound spiritual feelings. Even atheists. Even Buddhists, whose religion doesn't even HAVE a god. Most people seem to have feelings like this regardless of what they "believe."

The feelings have even been studied. They appear to be generated by neural activity, and there are very logical explanations as to why humans would have feelings like this. There is no evidence that the feelings are caused by or experiences of actual supernatural beings.

However if you had been raised as a Shinto or a Native American, you would probably feel that it was the spirits of your ancestors. If you were a Dabo tribesman, you would undoubtedly feel it was your personal totem spirit. If you were a Buddhist, you might not even think it was supernatural - you might consider it a state of higher consciousness or a feeling of oneness with everything.

The reason most people in our culture call those feelings "God" is because someone told them that when they were small.

No supernatural claims of any religion seem any truer than any other. However in Christianity (and other religions) it is required to insist that the supernatural claims are true. Even if they contradict the claims of another.

Since there is no way to check to see which claims have merit, the result is unresolvable conflict. That is a big problem.

It is not necessary to believe in gods, or in anything unsubstantiated, to be spiritual and to practice religion. Religions do not have to be about gods.

Undoubtedly there is. But gods are among the less interesting possibilities. They have nothing to do with anything. They reek of ancient ignorance.

It is far more interesting to look at the frontier of discovery and find out what is being seen and proven and explained. Because that is where you find actual truth.

I appreciate your thoughtful words. I hope you will consider mine as well, I would be interested in discussing,

It's possible for opinions to be facts, if they match the reality.

Facts are accurate descriptions of reality.

Accurate descriptions of reality can be confirmed by anyone.

Yet it is possible to accurately measure the temperature.

"What color is the sky?" may be a matter of opinion. "It is now 30°F here" would be a fact if it was an accurate description which could be confirmed by anyone.

Accurate descriptions of reality exist. If your opinion matches an accurate description of the reality which anyone can confirm, it is also a fact.

That is why we invented checking.

It is possible to overcome the "subjectivity" of perception to get accurate descriptions of reality. We can use measuring tools which produce consistent results, and we can compare our descriptions of reality with others and work to discover why there are discrepancies. As the discrepancies are addressed, more accurate descriptions can be crafted until everyone can agree the descriptions match the reality well enough to work.

In other words, if we want to know if a description of reality is accurate, we can check.

The quadrillionaires could have a few less yachts and that would pay for it.

Several reasons.

1) Because they are keeping money for themselves that they should be using to pay their employees who are actually working their asses off.

If you can't run a business that pays employees a living wage, your business model is faulty.

2) There is no reason to think quadrillionaires have "worked their asses off" for their money. Most come from money and have had every advantage their whole lives. Most have become very much richer over the last eight years because of the restructuring of the economy. Most of their vast wealth comes from financial transactions, not work. Making a call to your broker once a month is not working your ass off.

3) Living slightly less lavishly, to preserve the economy and fairly compensate workers, would present zero hardship to them. No suffering.

1) Wealthy people donate to operas, art museums and university sports programs far more than they donate to charities for people in need.

2) Obviously whatever they are donating is not enough.

People who work a 40 hour week deserve enough money in return to live for that week. Any other scenario is exploitation.

They could take it out of their insane profits instead. American businesses are sitting on literally trillions of dollars in profits they refuse to spend.

The increase would stimulate the economy enormously. That causes upward pressure on all wages. Minimum wage earners spend almost everything they make. So it goes right back into the pockets of businesses.

That is happening right now anyway, just to give the quadrillionaires more yachts. Is that more fair than giving a living wage to people who work?

That should go without saying. Those things are also not funded because of quadrillionaire hoarding.

Congress is bought. Someone has to do something which will help people besides bajillionaires. Who else can?

This guy happens to be the President, so he has a little bit of actual power. We elected him to do something about the economy. If it is the one thing he could do to reshape the entire country for the better, he should do it.

Your voice has been lost to billions of dollars in political spending by narrow private interests.

For example, it is they who disseminate the misinformation that raising the minimum wage hurts people. Actually, raising the minimum wage can be consistently shown to help everyone in the economy in many different ways.

I moderate a discussion called Crossroads of Religion on another forum. You wouldn't believe how often the theists there suggest that atheism is a birth defect.

It's not hard to imagine. Haven't you personally said that you know "God" is real because you can "feel" Him?

Theists often suggest that atheists are born without the ability to "feel" this. I've seen it compared to color blindness.

Glad to help. Now, allow me to explain why that theory appears to be completely wrong.

1) Color blindess is a thing which actually exists and can be shown to. There is no debate among the color blind about whether the rest of us are "really" seeing more or not. It is extremely simple to show that full-sighted people are seeing something real. That is not analagous with theists, who cannot provide any evidence that they are actually getting something "extra."

2) This theory doesn't contend with the fact that people are able to freely switch from theist to non-theist (and vice versa) throughout their lives.

3) There is no reason to think that theists actually "feel" something that non-theists don't feel. When brain activity is examined with an MRI, the readings of Buddhist monks in meditation are the same as those of Catholic nuns in prayer, even though the nuns are reportedly in communication with a deity and the monks are not.

Every normal person appears to be capable of those "feelings." The difference is whether you choose to assign "God" as the source of the feeling or not, and that is a personal choice. That choice does not appear to be something you are born with.


The conceit of the theist - that God is real and they can tell but you can't - is repugnant. In the absence of evidence, there is no reason to assign a "defect" in the sense abilities of those who disagree about what certain sensations mean - particularly in the absence of any kind of pathology. This conceit is unwarranted by the facts.

The answer is that there is no reason to think that is the case.

What is it?

I'm sorry, what are you saying these are evidence of?

Exactly what "proof" has been offered, and of exactly what?

Some people who wrote holy writings said that He said that. However people who write holy writings can write anything.

Like many of your assertions, this is a completely unsupported assertion.

If this was actually true it would be very easy to demonstrate. There would be evidence showing that Christians are happier and healthier. However Christians and theists have no demonstratable corner on mental health or life satisfaction. They do not appear to be any less troubled...for example, Christians divorce, murder and commit suicide at the same or greater rates than people in other faith categories.

On the other hand, atheists in particular are seriously under represented in prison poulations and even have a slightly lower divorce rate. As a group they show no symptoms of general "emptiness." And, notably, the one religion which is actually shown to improve happiness is Buddhism, which has no deity.

Link: Buddhists Really are Happier

I don't have that.

I have many questions because that is my discussion style. Life is an endless series of questions. Life should have questions. What bugs me is made-up answers.

Doubt is healthy. Without it you have no way to prevent delusion.

It doesn't appear to be.

Charming.

Believers don't get to decide what is real. What is actually known to be real can be verified by anyone.

You do not get to decide what is real. It is what it is.

You get to decide what you like. However, real is not a personal decision. It exists outside of you.

Millions of children believe that Santa is real but that doesn't mean there actually is a jolly old elf making toys at the north pole. The kids believe it, but they are wrong.

If you think something is real and it isn't, it doesn't become partly real or "real in some way" just because you think so. You would simply be incorrect.

Relax, nobody is worried that you are.

I am not concerned that you are "mocking me" for having a hole in my life. I am concerned that you are wrong. I do not have a hole in my life.

Where did I mock you? I said, it appears to be made up. Well, it does appear to be made up. It is not supported with the tiniest shred of evidence. It is not fundamentally different from a dozen other mythologies which also appear to be made up.

Are you saying it's out of line to mention this around believers?

I certainly did not use language like "stupid." I attempt to be straightforward.

People do what they want in their own heads, of course. But since you have exactly no facts to support your position, you are asking too much if you expect people to just act like you are right to avoid offending you.

If you think this discussion makes you look "stupid," maybe you should ask yourself why your ideas look that way.

I am not attempting to prove "otherwise." I am saying that I don't know, and neither do you.

How Zen. :-)

However the difference is that I am not making declarative statements that can't be supported with evidence.

That is not necessary. In case you haven't noticed, I already feel great about it. My positions are extremely well supported by evidence. I don't mind when people challenge them - I love it! It gives me a chance to show off how well they withstand scrutiny.

And if someone managed to make my claims look stupid, I would immediately start examining them to find out where they don't hold up. I care about having a position that makes sense and can be supported.

I would say that Christianity has not earned much credibility and exposing it should not be off limits in a debate forum.

Because it appears to be a Big Lie. Those bother me.

And, because it requires that believers give up all intellectual inquiry and surrender themselves utterly to the dogma, with no chance at re-examination.

See?

Some things seem real enough. You are reading this on something. Your screen wouldn't work at all if we could not verify that some things are pretty solid and work in ways that we can understand. Our knowledge about gravity is not perfect, but it worked well enough to navigate Voyager 1 through our solar system.

Not among people with evidence.

There is also "I don't know" as a possible answer if evidence is not conclusive.

The fact that not everything in the universe is known for certain doesn't mean that nothing in the universe can be known at all.

There is no reason to think that reality consists of what "each one of us" chooses. It appears to have an independent existence outside of us.

There is no evidence that this is true.

Well, you can save yourself some unnessary grief. There is no evidence that you have something they don't.

Prove it.

I didn't come to a debate forum to live and let live.

In any holy writings there are some accuracies and some inaccuracies and a lot of speculation.

You are the one making claims of "knowing" something. Back it up.

Well, for example, I am of the position that objects in earth's gravity well fall at precisely 32.2'/sec² - minus drag. This is supported by literally millions of separate measurements over the last century which show that it works exactly like this.

You are free to attempt to demonstrate otherwise, of course. That would be interesting.

What, specifically? I am not making any claims.

I never claimed that they were completely inaccurate.

However, various claims, such as, the deity did this, the diety wants this, the good afterlife is like this, this is what you must do to get there, etc. are not supported by evidence. They seem to be completely made up, and no more likely to be true than unsupported claims from completely different religions.

How convenient.

I'm not sure which belief, exactly, you are referring to.

Specifically, if I remember correctly, you claimed that there is an "emptiness inside" everyone which can only be filled by believing in God. I pointed out that this claim is unsupported. There is no evidence that people who don't believe in God are more prone to "emptiness" or any kind of pathology. So, you appear to be wrong in your belief about that.

Then, you made this claim:

"I do know. You think I don't know, but I do."

If you are going to claim that you "know" something, the burden of proof is on you to show that you do. If there is no way this can be confirmed, there is no reason to agree that it is likely to be correct.

If there is another specific claim you want me to address you might have to point it out.

I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there were not two fully-formed first humans and one of them was made from the other's rib. There is no evidence to show that there was a world-wide flood and all the surviving species had been grouped together on a boat. Clearly, some of it is just stories.

Since there is no way to confirm any claim the "holy writings" make about what God is, what God wants, what the afterlife is like, etc., there is no reason to presume that the claims are not just stories also.

About whether non-theists experience more "emptiness" than theists? Possibly, but the evidence suggests that it is your assertion which is wrong. That's the great thing about evidence, because it provides a way to settle such questions. Of course if you have evidence to the contrary just present it.

Demonstrate that you actually "know" something others don't.

For example, if your hope was to show that believers gain some benefit in life over non-believers, you are not being a case in point. If "believing in Him and accepting Him" has adequately "filled" your "emptiness," then why the need to resort to ad hominem attacks?

That might be overstating it a tad, but I'm glad you get the jist.

I don't think anyone would suggest that they were not made up for a reason.

Sorry, you don't "know" this. You just think it. That is different from knowing. There is no evidence that any of this is actually true. I can see that you really, really want this to be true but that doesn't mean it actually is. For all you really know, it could be an entirely made up fantasy.

For all we are able to discern, the reality could be completely different - perhaps the truth is that most of us will wander eternity on the wrong side of the River Styx because we were not buried with coins to pay the Ferryman.

I really don't see how you can contend that your afterlife scenario is any more likely than the River Styx one.

I agree. Of course it is.

What I don't understand is why some people find it necessary to conflate "believe" and "know" as if they are the same.

The vast majority of theists I have met in my life are intellectually honest about this. They say, "Well, I don't know this for a fact, but this is what I believe."

That certainly seems reasonable. And it's certainly less arguable. Why would a theist reject such a reasonable statement and instead insist that they "know" what in reality nobody knows?

I don't know that it is. I wouldn't make that kind of claim.

However, if we are talking specifically about the Abrahamic faiths here, I said, it appears to be a Big Lie. Because, I have examined them very closely, and compared them very carefully with actual reality, and they don't hold up.

Most of the claims are nothing that could ever be verified. They claim special knowledge about what is unknown, like "the afterlife." There is no way to verify or confirm any of those claims.

It appears to consist entirely of people talking.



I am not an atheist. I make no claim to know what kind of God does or does not exist, what kind of afterlife may or may not await, etc. I have no knowledge of those things.

But, I have examined the Abrahamic faiths and there is just no reason to think they have any knowledge of it either. They do not appear to have any more of a touch on real answers to these questions than anybody else does. It appears to be another set of tales, like many other sets of tales human cultures have created.

By questioning.

If you live your life thinking that the only thing that matters is how it turns out after you die, then that would, at the very least, be a shame. As far as I can tell the real show is here.

Verification against reality. I provided two examples from the Abrahamic faiths earlier - Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark. etc. Claims that God wants people to act a certain way, to have certain days off, that God is "jealous," or God is "loving," that a man was born of a virgin, that there is more than one afterlife, that believing in Jesus is required to get the good afterlife, that homosexuality offends God, that a particular part of the earth is a "holy land," that killing an infidel will net you 96 virgins, etc.

None of these claims can be verified. They sound like something somebody made up.

So we can find out of there is anything to it, or if it was just somebody talking out his ass.

Maybe not. But, they are batting zero zero zero on all those other "answers". Why should I think the AFs have more of a line on "reason for existence" than anyone else?

I don't know if there is a reason for existence. That doesn't frighten me. Even if it did, I would never allow fear to stand between me and understanding as much as I can about how things really, actually are, and accepting "I don't know" when it's the truth.

I never said there was nothing obviously greater than us. I said, the Abrahamic Faiths don't appear to have a line on it.

Wrong. No human has knowledge of the afterlife and if you claim to you are lying or deluded.

I'm always willing to re-examine. Present something real and I will consider it.

First of all, if you maintain that there is an afterlife, you are dismissing all the beliefs of millions of Hindus and settling with "there is an afterlife."

Second of all, would you really advise people to turn away from "I don't know" when it is the truth?

Like, would you want a brain surgeon to operate on you without a diagnosis, just because he can't figure out what to do but won't settle for "I don't know"?


If "I don't know" is the truth then pretending to know is a lie.

When you said, "But I do know. You don't think I do, but I do."

You claiming that it is a fact has no affect whatsoever. I have no reason to think you are correct about this.

However you could easily challenge my "lack of belief" in anything with evidence of it.

With what?

I may yet do that, who knows? :-)

But, for now I am grateful for the opportunity to expound on this subject.

That would be interesting.

I am this. These are my thoughts. Isn't it exciting!?



Later...

I don't have beliefs about those things. But, I do care about those things. I have studied them deeply, from many different perspectives, and I am prepared to say that I know a number of facts about those things. I also have a few ideas about those things. Beyond that, I still have a large number of questions about those things. That seems like about what you'd reasonably expect, and a pretty healthy place to be.

Well, that's nice of you to say. You are a very gracious lady. This conversation has been deeply meaningful from the get-go, and I thank you.

I have been studying enlightenment for many years, and I would say that the lyrics to Imagine qualify John Lennon as an enlightened person, in the same manner that the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon at Deer Park qualify Jesus Christ and The Buddha as enlightened beings. This song is as elegant a description of enlightened and Enlightenment values as can be found anywhere in human history.


You may say he's a dreamer...but he's not the only one.

How many have you killed? If none, why not?






*crickets*

The line is, "Nothing to kill or die for" and it means, No War.

I have no idea where you got the idea that it means "nothing is important to you." That is ridiculous. It means that the lives of our people are so important to us that we will not waste them in needless death. It means, that "their" lives are just as important to us as "our" lives. It means caring so much for everything that we will not destroy it with violent conflict. It means, caring enough to do the extra work of finding a peaceful resolution to our differences.

War is a horror show of pure suffering. If you really cannot think of a better way you are suffering from a serious lack of imagination.

Why, do you go around killing people who don't think the same as you?


Republicans and Democrats are not killing each other. They sure don't think the same, but somehow they manage to work together in a system without killing. We have lots of nations who are our allies, too - we don't think the same as them but we do try to avoid killing them. If we could just extend our "not killing" policies to a few more nations, we wouldn't be killing anybody in war.

It can be done. We do it with most. We should do it with all.

The opposite of war isn't "no differences." It is "working out our differences without killing."

Most other nations. We need to extend it a couple of nations further.

No nation has attacked us since Pearl Harbor. Obviously other nations, and almost everybody else except the total crazies, have been willing to do it for awhile now. Maybe we can keep it going.

It's worth a try, and it beats pretending that we have to keep warring because the alternative is too boring.

Iraq and Afganistan. They didn't attack us. No one has ever successfully occupied them. We need to quit messing with them and just get out.

They don't trust ours either.

But, we are now allies with other former enemies. If we did it before I'm sure we can do it again.

Obviously that is not the case. We don't all think alike in this country and yet we are not at war with each other. It is possible for people who do not think alike to be at peace (or at least, not engaged in physical violence.)

We haven't warred over our disagreements in this country since the end of slavery. People who are working together can find ways to avoid it most of the time.

That doesn't make it a bad ideal. No ideal is ever attainable. Does that mean we should abandon them?


What is there to hate about imagining a better world, and singing a song about it?