What are your thoughts about religious waivers for complying with public health or safety policies?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 19, 2018:

Silly and foolish as there are helmets that accomodate Sikh headwear. Vaccinations must be required, with rare, genetic / health (i.e., nonreligious) exceptions, for the safety of the society as a whole. The 'all life is sacred' philosophy evidently doesn't include plant life? Finally, not all vaccinations are viral; some are bacterial. If a bacteria is deemed 'sacred' our immune system is conducting a holocaust.

Hope everyone is having a fantastic evening! Wrap my wings around the deep purple satin darkness of ...

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 19, 2018:

Ooooh ... so scary!

Does aggressive antitheism beget anti-atheism?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 19, 2018:

I do not view myself as an anti-theist, as I find it difficult to summon animosity toward something I don’t believe exists, much less may be defined. But as a nullifidian, I detest with every fiber of my being organized religion. Churchgoers are not the enemy, rather it is the doctrines, dogmas, values and assertions of their religions that are to be combated, at every turn. It is organized religion that has given us that unhappy mixture of ignorance and insanity called faith, and that seeks to turn credulity into a virtue. It is religion that poisons the mind of children by teaching them about invisible beings who will torture and punish them in fire for disobedience. And it is religion that seeks to influence secular government with its own set of policies and laws. Belief in a God, in and of itself, isn't a problem. My avatar, along with many of his fellow Revolutionaries, was a Deist who believed that the Almighty created the universe and the laws governing it, and then moved on to other pursuits. No divine interventions, no doctrines, no prophets, nobody to answer prayers, no creeds, no clergy, no so-called holy books, none of any of that. Consider a world without the following terms, made meaningless in the absence of religion: apostasy, apostle, atonement, baptism, blasphemy, canonize, clergy, conversion, crusade, curse, divine, eucharist, exorcism, faith, fundamentalism, gospel, hajj, heathen, heaven, hell, heresy, holy, infidel, jihad, laity, martyrdom, messianism, miracle, occult, prayer, profane, prophecy, prophet, proselytize, purgatory, resurrection, ritual sacrifice, sacred, salvation, scapegoat, scripture, shamanism, shrine, sin and worship. How much better off the world would be had these words and what they stand for never been introduced! Now that’s a world I would happily live in!

I have a fascination with fungi and quiet mountain trails.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 19, 2018:

I have a friend who lives near Pittsburgh who has a PhD in biochemistry and specializes in the pharmacology of fungi. When he told me of all the life-saving medicines produced by mushrooms, I was blown away. All we ever seem to hear about are the psychotropic and the poisonous. Lovely photography, by the way.

People call us skeptics and non-believers closed-minded.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 19, 2018:

I was very skeptical that the bar set by “W” during his eight years in office could not be lowered; that the man who gave us such gems as, "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" or "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures,” represented the intellectual nadir of the Presidency. I was proven wrong. And beyond that, I can now acknowledge what I refused to see, a mere 8-10 years ago. Namely, that the thread as presented in books like ‘The Age of American Unreason’ [2008] by Susan Jacoby and ‘Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free’ (2010) by Charles Pierce, connects with the Dunning-Kruger effect, and has helped create our present embarrassment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=wvVPdyYeaQU

I feel so pretty now!

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Nice shirt ... but your post had me humming Bernstein! ;-)

Soooo true!

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

The thing's been around since 2001 ... built just to take the record from the 190 ft tall one in Groom, Texas ... bet it makes one hell of a lightning rod.

How many other people have started to study philosophy due to the show?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Matt Dillahunty's preparation and rational objectivity led me to return to philosophy (only took one course in college), particularly the subject of epistemology--how we justify our beliefs.

Burden of Proof | John - Topeka, KS | Atheist Experience 21.18 [youtube.com]

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Most believers have difficulty with this concept, and seem unable (or unwilling) to make the comparison with the legal system, whereby a defendant is found 'guilty' or 'not guilty,' but is never found 'innocent.' To the unbeliever who understands the argument, the burden of proof of God's existence has not been met--God is therefore found 'not guilty' of existing.

What are some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs??

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

In addition to those mentioned, the discovery of radiocarbon dating by Willard Libby; the discovery of the iridium rich K-Pg boundary by the team led by Luis Alvarez; and the inadvertent discovery by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

Given that assimilation and appropriation of external culture traits/features is a means through ...

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Here's an entertaining look at 'cultural appropriation' from YouTuber T1J (the1janitor). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGgj9S8XO7k

What is Reality?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

It is my position that reality exists outside of our collective or individual abilities to perceive it. One only need ask, if another asteroid were to obliterate all sentient life on the planet, would not the reality of a universe, galaxy, solar system and the 3rd planet from the sun remain? Do the laws of the physical universe require human discovery to exist?

Anselm and the Argument for God: Crash Course Philosophy 9 - YouTube

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Ah, the ontological argument ... one of William Lane Craig's favorites!

As a newcomer, I find Agnostics to be elitist.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

This is my second go-around, and I still don’t get the whole ‘level’ thing … does seem a little pretentious. But to generalize agnostics as elitist is much the same thing as generalizing any group—unfair, offensive and just plain wrong. Dig a little deeper, won’t you?

Really happy to be visiting my birth city of Sydney Australia.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 18, 2018:

Speaking of atheists, thank you for the gift of Jim Jefferies. I long to visit the land where "beer does flow and men chunder" ... think I'll have a vegemite sandwich!

How many places have you lived in your lifetime?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 17, 2018:

Please define ‘place,’ and for that matter, ‘live.’ Do you consider a period of less than a year ‘living in a place?’ And is a ‘place’ a region, state, country, ZIP Code or a particular dwelling?

What are the best come-backs someone pushing flat earth science?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 17, 2018:

Wow! I’ve heard of flat earthers, but never met one. As a skeptic I’m inclined to believe that no one is really a flat earther, and that they’re only doing this for attention. How do they explain the navigational patterns of aircraft and ships transitting the oceans? They always use great arc circle navigation. Even though both cities are very close to the same latitude, a plane or ship leaving San Francisco headed for Tokyo never heads west, but always heads towards Alaska following the curvature of the earth to save time/fuel, thus proving that a straight line is never the shortest distance between two points on the sphere!

I never felt beliefs being “pushed” on me with regard to religion.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 17, 2018:

What about ‘imposed’ then? When religions successfully influence curricula, policies and laws, they are imposing their worldview on others. Abortion rights, access to alcoholic beverages, religious symbols on public property, public school science texts, prayers in public proceedings, the insertion of God on currency and in the Pledge to the flag, denials of service on so-called religious grounds, etc. are some of the many ways that religion imposes itself on society. These impositions are always seen as virtuous by the majority, even as they are ‘pushed’ upon the minority. Religions have generally been very pushy when it comes to their agenda.

I have a no soliciting sign by my door and just had a couple of theists knock on my door.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 17, 2018:

Here's a tactic you might want to try. Tell them they are welcome to come in and share their system of belief with you, as long as they're willing to give you equal time to explain why you are an atheist (or agnostic). I wonder how many takers you'd get? Then again, if you value your privacy and feel their very presence on your porch is an intrusion, just keep pointing to your sign--they are, after all, soliciting your valuable time!

"Religion is often depicted as a kind of virus, a mental disease or disorder, a scourge on humanity,...

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

While I appreciate Michael Shermer’s work, I respectfully disagree with the crux of his argument—namely, that one should not entertain notions of a world without religion, which may be viewed as comparable to a political system. Organized religion represents a scourge—a blight on society. And with their favorable tax benefits; their disproportionate influence on curricula, policies and laws; their unproven, unknowable and incompatible truth claims; their sometimes violent rivalries and internecine conflicts; and their hubris that pretends to speak for the so-called creator of the universe—these religions have no useful part in our future. Yahweh, Christ and Allah are destined to take their place alongside Ra, Zeus and Odin in the graveyard of the other dead religions. And while they may seem at times to be resurgent, the world’s great religions are gradually becoming irrelevant, even as they desperately grasp for renewed power through their hirelings and lackeys in the halls of government. But their doctrines, fables and wonders are ringing more hollow with each generation. As Robert Green Ingersoll observed, “Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.” “Every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of Science is but a question of time.”

What kind of philosophical school of thought do you adhere to in your daily lives??

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

Positivism.

Everyone born atheist untill society starts to brain wash you.

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

In every society, there are, and have been (and may continue to be), unbelievers who ‘suffer from' an experience that gives them faith. They hear a voice, receive a vision and experience something unique and life-altering. They become a prophet, and a religion is born. To this I can only offer the cold, hard, shatterproof logic of my avatar, who observed: “It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication; after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.” Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794 Consider how different the world would be, particularly with regard to the existence of religion, if everyone discounted so-called revealed wisdom, whether in speech or text, and insisted only on first-person communication from a ‘supernatural’ entity. Absent our own burning bush, angel Gabriel or observed ascensions, we are obliged to disregard such fictions!

Damn, just when Mars is close enough that with a decent telescope we could see the boats on the ...

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

Martian gondoliers have longer poles... so to speak.

DO ATHEISTS AND HUMANISTS HAVE SACRED VALUES?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

As a secular skeptic I have difficulty with words like sacred, sacrosanct, sanctified, holy and the demeaning concept of the term, worship. In an ideal universe these words, among many others, do not exist. We can, and probably should, have well-founded values, such as those espoused by Dan Dennett, but to encumber these principles with the adjective 'sacred' suggests that they may be beyond discussion and reconsideration.

Do you ever miss the community that church provided?

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

Having been raised in a very tight-knit faith community, the sense of ‘belonging’ is strong, and seemingly impossible to overcome. We kids did everything together: church, school (run by the church) and all extracurricular activities. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I made my first friend with a person outside of my faith. And yet I eventually came to the realization that my religion had simply co-opted a natural human need, and that I didn’t need all the hand waving and empty promises to belong. The deepest, most meaningful and emotionally intimate bonds I have formed are with fellow apostates (i.e., those who, like me, once believed but have 'left the church'.) Only those who have walked away from an oppressive cult-like following can fully understand what it is like to be, from the perspective of the believer, a ‘lost soul.’ My advice, if I may, is to find and befriend fellow 'former members.' Of such folk the community of the future is built.

Top 5 Atheist Songs that Christians... [google.com]

p-nullifidian comments on Jul 16, 2018:

Clearly one of the most, if not *the* most played: Imagine, by John Lennon.