Religious colleagues
Last year, I started a new job, and was sat getting to know some of my co workers at lunch. One girl started asking what religion people followed, she was a Muslim and proud of it, which is fine by me. However when it came to me, I explained I was an atheist, but from the look on her face, you'd think I said I was a pedophile. This caused her to go fucking loopy. "You mean you don't believe in god?!" she cried, "Well, No." I explained. "But how else did we get here?" she demanded. "Well the big bang and evolution is were I believe life came from." I tried to explain. "But what about after you die? You won't go to heaven!" she said with a look of real concern. "Well I don't believe in the afterlife." was my reply, This caused alot of the women in the group to start and question me, asked me to explain ghosts and angels, which I explained as peoples minds playing tricks, seeing things that weren't there and so forth.

"Right, well you can't celebrate Christmas!" came a call from across the table. "I can and do," I explained "I just view it as a celebration of friends and family, good will to all men and all that."

"Well you CAN'T say "Oh my god!"" said the instigator of my interigation. "I can, but I just use it as a general curse, not literally calling out to god." By this point, I was getting very uncomfortable and didn't want to cause any one any offence, I believe what I believe, I don't care what outhers choose to believe. "But I KNOW god exists!" stated the Muslim girl, clearly frustrated that I wasn't being swayed. "But I know he doesn't." I gently replied "Can't you see how me knowing that he doesn't exist is just as you knowing he does?" I asked, trying to get her to at least tolerate my lack of faith. "NO! I know your wrong!" she said loudly. "Yes, but in my opinion, I know that your wrong, can you not see that it's just our different perspective?" I asked. She couldn't but luckily her phone rang and I was saved further questioning.

So I don't know who was stupider, her for being unable to see a perspective outside of her own or me for being drawn into a pointless debate in which logic, my main belife, was invalid.
(Mong goose, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 20:20, 40 replies)

Logic?
You are Spock.
(Sadarse works like Mist condensing mud flaps, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 20:27, closed)

There was a man in the high street the other day preaching the christian bible.

' I know evolution is a myth because my great grandfather was not a monkey'
(shezam slouching towards nirvana., Mon 7 Mar 2011, 20:35, closed)

You should have taken his bible
Looked in the first few pages and told him it's nonesense because it was only printed in 2003 (or whatever)
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 10:22, closed)

How do you explain ghosts and fairies?
Infrasound and low frequency sound waves.
The vibrations (at around 8hz) cause the eyes to vibrate and can cause slight hallucinogenic images whilst at the same time causing chills and sometimes nausea.
One particular 'haunted house' had an extractor fan that when the wind blew back down it when it was off, would spin and create a sound at, yep, 8hz.
(dchurch bah, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 20:57, closed)

:(
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:14, closed)

I just went DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH eight times a second and nothing happened.

Far more likely that the blowing air caused chills, and the change in pressure caused nausea.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 2:47, closed)

Hmmm
quite likely.

I couldn't find reference to the 8hz, so I may well have remembered that wrong.

I did find this though:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound#The_Ghost_in_the_Machine

Which makes interesting reading if nothing else.
(dchurch bah, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 7:51, closed)

Heretic!
All true atheists know Dawkins is the saviour of humanity.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:30, closed)

In truth....
all atheists worship a higher power:

www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=798#comic
(Falco, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 0:13, closed)

You can only know something if it is true, else it is only a belief.
She didn't know that god exists, anymore than you know that he/she/it doesn't, as such a thing is essentially unknowable. Hence, belief in god requires faith, which is sort of the point.

Long story short, you're all idiots.

This is also why agnosticism is the more rational position for those of no faith, as militant, there-is-no-god, aetheism is as irrational as those it seeks to criticise. There's a massive debate to be had here but, eh, idiots, all of you.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:43, closed)

Are you similarly ambivalent about unicorns?

They may just be really good at hiding.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:46, closed)

...or
indeed Russell's Teapot.
(dchurch bah, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:51, closed)

Russell's Teapot
is the perfect illustration. To claim knowledge of it's existence is nonsense.

Unicorns are a man made construct, intended to explain the then unexplainable (narwhal horns, probably), at least to the best of my knowledge. I wouldn't be so arrogant as to claim that I know the nature of every creature on this planet.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 16:59, closed)

Although
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

Is better than the teapot in my eyes.
(dchurch bah, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 17:51, closed)

If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

--from the man himself via Wikipedia.
(dchurch bah, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 17:57, closed)

I still think that I'm in general agreement with Russell,
as I'm all for doubt, and none for dogma.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 9 Mar 2011, 10:10, closed)

What the fuck are you saying about unicorns?
I'll have you for religious intolerance you heathen bastard.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Mon 7 Mar 2011, 22:06, closed)

Ok well I have a t Rex who lives in my garden, he's invisible, makes no noise and leaves no impact in the world around him, but I say he's real. This cannot be dissproved so would it be rational to accept the possibility, or is it more rational to stop me looking after kids and to keep me away from pointy objects as I'm clearly a mental?

Im not a "militant atheist" who would refuse to believe in god even if there was evidence, but it doesn't make me stupid to not believe in something there isn't a scrap of evidence for.
(Mong goose, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 22:11, closed)

God isn't real
same as love isn't real, neither is truth or conscience real. That's kind of how faith works - it's the logic of the emotional world, the opposite of ego essentially.

Trouble with religion is that thick (non or psuedo-spiritual) people take it literally and tag a whole lot of stuff onto a basic premis of the idea that there is a right thing to do that defies all logic and reasoning.

The OP might want to explain to their muslim friend that the word Islam means surrender. Surrender of self will and acceptance of "god's will", anything else above this is the work of a bunch of mad mullahs much like first centurary christianity was pretty pure until St Paul had his madcap "Spiritual experience" and fucked it all up with his ideas of Jesus being the literal son of god, the virgin birth, original sin and all that other holy roman empire baloney. Add ego to spirtuality and what you get is religion.

It is perfectly possible to believe in and surrender to a power other than your own self will without worshiping a deity. Spirituality and anti-thiest (athiest) are not mutually exclusive, mankind was doing it for hundreds of thousands of years until around 6000 BCE when all this ego driven religious nonsense took hold chiefly as a result of the desertification of north africa and the middle east.

This book is a pretty comprehensive text on the differences between theism and spirituality. Well worth a read, though probably makes more sense to athiests than religious types for obvious reasons.

www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Insanity-Human-History-Dawning/dp/1905047207/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299578308&sr=8-1


HTH
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 9:44, closed)

Ahhh
Love IS real. It's a chemical imbalance in humans 'designed' to make us act out and go after the real goal, which is to procreate.
Hence, once pro-creation has occurred, love is more akin to habit.
(dchurch bah, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 17:52, closed)

All human behaviour is attributable to electrical/chemical impulses in the brain,
but you have to start hanging simple labels on them at some point, or you're going to have trouble functioning in society.

I hear that the human mind is predisposed to perceive the existence of god (or be receptive to the concept of god, depending on how you approach the issue). Chances are, we're predisposed to argue about it, too!
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 9 Mar 2011, 10:16, closed)

"it doesn't make me stupid to not believe in something there isn't a scrap of evidence for"
Quite. But you would be stupid to claim to know the very nature of the universe. There may well be things in this world which are intangible to us (like your t-rex), but I doubt that either you or I are going to change our lifestyles in reaction to that possibility. Likewise, there may well be beings beyond the limits of our universe that spin it around for their own amusement, but that's neither here nor there, to me.

Organised religion and a personal relationship with god, are worth arguing about, the existence of god is not.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 17:07, closed)

Agreed.
Considering our physical existence is limited to three dimensions of space and a one-dimensional path in time, it's unbelievably arrogant and short-sighted for anyone on either side of this debate* to swan around as if they have a theory of everything.

* for "debate" read "bear pit"
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 22:52, closed)

Er no
I don't know if there is a flotilla of battle fairies, or a giant invisible ethereal space moose, or a talking teapot on the end of a pinhead, or hyper intelligent shade of blue, or granny phantom who lives 5 minutes in the past or any other of an infinite number of absurd, unsupported unfalsifiable assertions that someone could concoct. If I chose to be agnostic on these matters I would be an idiot. I don't see why religions (or which there are many asserting mutually incompatible things) should be treated any different.
(MagicMoose, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 23:56, closed)

I'm willing to bet actual money there's a Petri dish in a lab somewhere
with different species of mould having a huffy, self-righteous and utterly simplistic slanging match about the nature of the universe and how there can or can't be a mould god and how there definitely isn't a third dimension or anything beyond the edge of the dish because they're completely incapable of understanding or experiencing it on any level.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 0:29, closed)

If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out
(c) Tim Minchin
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 9:31, closed)

haha
I have secretly thought that for ages. It would explain a few things.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 9:48, closed)

I'd take that bet
Give you pretty good odds too.

Onus is on you to find these mould though, and give reasonable proof of their debates.

I'm collecting from you in the meantime.
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 13:07, closed)

Which
of course it would have to be.

To prove a negative would be futile. How could the onus of proof be on you to show that the petri dish doesn't exist?
(dchurch bah, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 17:54, closed)

Sounds familiar.......

( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 18:40, closed)

aetheism is as irrational as those it seeks to criticise

- except that there either is or there isn't a god, in which case it's either 100% rational or 0% rational. What isn't rational is agnositicism as it's the only position guaranteed to be wrong.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Wed 9 Mar 2011, 16:45, closed)

She was probably setting your employer up
For a lawsuit.

Never ever ever to talk about religion or politics with people you work with. It'll inevitably upset someone, it'll likely as not land you in the shit and it's never even all that good a conversation (as you've just discovered.)

The time and place for talking religion is at university, in a shared kitchen, at 3am. Politics is for the pub. Football, where you're going on holidays, the incompetence of your managers and your significant other's sexual shortcomings are the only acceptable conversation topics in the canteen.

FWIW she's the idiot. You sound reasonable.
( Scrumper, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 22:13, closed)

I have a friend like this, utterly incapable of seeing when shes wrong and infuriatingly cannot see any logic our reason to believe she's anything but bang on. I'm in the process of ending our friendship...
(Nigella Pussycat picking baked-in hair from creme brulee, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 22:58, closed)

I'll just leave this here

(funktrash soul = combustion engine, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 8:17, closed)

I believe in God
He's that cnut who really fucked over his creation. I believe in him, I just think he's such a despicable character that I could never worship the bastard.


this post may contain some lies
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 11:02, closed)

Isn’t the whole point of thiest religion to give that certainty?
It church goers who’d be happy to accommodate your atheism as a rational and acceptable alternative who I really don’t understand
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Tue 8 Mar 2011, 12:35, closed)

^ this

(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 13:03, closed)

I thought faith was the key ingredient in religious belief?
Faith in your chosen belief system should at least allow acceptance of others views, whilst simultaneously dismissing them.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 9 Mar 2011, 10:21, closed)

"We must respect the other fellow’s religion,but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." – Henry Louis Mencken
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 13:09, closed)

Who created God?
That particular question leads to hours of fun.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Wed 9 Mar 2011, 14:20, closed)