Religion is a Mental Illness

If your "proof" is the bible, not only do you have no proof, but you don't even understand what constitutes evidence, much less your obligation.

A reliable indicator of someone who’s never read it.

I used to ask believers how they know their holy book is true, not really to actually extract evidence but to probe for their epistemology (how they decide what is true).

Based on the answers I've received, I now ask believers how they know their holy book is true as an intelligence test.

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[ P.S. I added this post to my queue and within 10 minutes had a deranged Muslim blathering about how true the quran is because the quran says so - and that I have "darkness" because I never tried to find god, presumably theirs. They also didn't know what the word "ignorant" means, so I told them to look it up. The system is foolproof. ]

Xian logic is circular.

Ironic, given the flat Earth of their bible.

Why aren’t you as good a Xtian as Pastor Steven Anderson?

When you quote the bible as “evidence,” you’re admitting you don’t know the meaning of or what constitutes evidence, don’t know the origin of the bible as a curated anthology of ancient fables, myths (many of them stolen) and exaggerated aspirational legends, and that your god literally only exists between the front and back covers of the pages you’re quoting.

Also the Quran.

@so-yougotjesus :​

Considering you popped out nothing but the weakest of the weak apologetics, like the argument from design (LOL) the argument from first cause/cosmological argument (in which you determined your god was...

... than the universe that was too complex to exist without a creator - thereby necessitating the creator itself having a creator of its own, teehee), and the execrable argument from ignorance...

 ... which is nigh on declaring that you have neither intellectual integrity nor curiosity, so you’re going to pack everything up into a sealed box called “god” nobody can either find or look in, therefore not actually answering the how/where/what at all and surrendering all intent to look any further, amounting to dead-endism... no thank you, very much not. Nuh-uh.

Of course you think they’re “good”. They’re written by charlatans who take the same presuppositional position as you and use linguistic and logical sleight-of-hand to convince you of what you already believe - that your particular god exists - while attempting to cherry-pick and dishonestly misrepresent scientific evidence and principles, without actually understanding any of them, and pretend that it supports that specific god. Rather than starting from a neutral, unbiased starting point.

They’re “good” because they tell you what you want to hear, rather than what can be substantiated and justified, through a razzle-dazzle smoke and mirrors show that lets you pretend magic is science.

I’ve read some of those types of books and come away annoyed and frustrated, because they’re so transparent. The fallacious reasoning they’re going to use is telegraphed long before they use it, and then when it does come, it’s inept and unconvincing to anyone but the gullible faithful. Like South Park-Jesus doing his magic.

Starting from a pre-determined conclusion, and then working backwards - you know, the way clumsy fiction is usually written - and sourcing primarily or even exclusively from the bible, demonstrating a limited repertoire that’s the philosophical equivalent of “10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 more makes 11.”

You know, the bible which is not even internally consistent and can’t get its own mythology right, starting right out of the gate with two different chronologies for the Genesis myth and going on to four different, incompatible versions of the resurrection myth, much less being “the most historically accurate ancient text in the world” - yes, I read the reblog you posted, which is end-to-end “bible-is-true-because-the-bible-says-the-bible-is-true” fallacious, devoid of logic, and doesn’t constitute - or even use - evidence in any way. Remember when I had to actually define evidence to you?

While describing that presupposed god as as... how did you put it?

That’s right... indistinguishable from non-existent. In a way that means you have no mechanism for determining it exists at all, and thus no justification for claiming it does. Which you admitted.

“Kinda figure it out”. But you have to already be a Xtian, to “kinda figure it out” your way. And yet you’ve committed your life to the idea that you have figured it out, and that it is true, backed by your fear that your life is meaningless, and therefore are willing to accept a slave-master who will punish you for not fulfilling a purpose that it won’t tell you about.

What would change my mind is evidence. I asked for it again and again, and all you did is claim your poor understanding of scientific principles supports you.

Like that. And then dove onto the rocks at the shallow end of the pool by trying to invoke general relativity and the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as if you could somehow trace all that back to the existence of Yahwallahvah.

When, no, they don’t. Your preacher and the conmen in your silly books lied to you. Or don’t understand it either.

It’s also demonstrably fallacious to demand that I...

... when you spent our entire chat popping out nothing but fallacies every time I asked for evidence, while refusing to be open to the possibility your unfalsifiable god does not exist. That I could identify your fallacious logic by name appears to have been particularly frustrating for you (how many times did you tell me to “chill” when I instantly popped out the name of your fallacy? I bet those books told you they’d be a slam-dunk, “atheist kryptonite,” amirite?), hence your retreat to an accusation of close-mindedness for simply not entertaining your non-logic.

Being open-minded does not mean accepting your bronze-age myth uncritically. It means giving you the chance to substantiate it - which I did - and which you squandered by trotting out the absolute worst of novice apologetics.

Eventually, you got all haughty:

This, despite you fulfilling exactly what I predicted way back when you asked why I’m a atheist - actually, what you asked is

and after correcting you, that atheism is the default position for every human ever born - I said:

You successfully managed to tick off, and cling unshakeably to, each item on this simple list.

And at that, you got all passive-aggressive and pretended I was the close-minded one. The one who told you, up front, in a helpful, unambiguous list, what was unconvincing, so you could avoid it and be compelling.

But instead you immediately adopted it as your playbook.

We, well, I know virtual particles and radioactive decay are uncaused. But had I let you ramble your way through this speech instead of pre-emptively calling you out on the cosmological argument apologetic

I think I would have gotten the ‘”Watch” or “Mousetrap” or “Mount Rushmore”’ square.

Had you not given up entirely, I’m confident I would have gotten multiple BINGOs in under 10 more replies.

Considering you pretended to be interested in science - yet could only regurgitate cherry-picked fragments that don’t say what you were told they say, and you don’t seem to know anything outside of these pre-canned apologetics - why not instead of reading books from scam-artists masquerading as Xtian “scientists,” read books from actual published, peer-reviewed scientists, recognized and respected in the fields in which they’re qualified?

I do want to thank you, though. I’m a person of only moderate intelligence, and totally self-taught in this field. So if there’s that little justification for your god that you have to pretend obvious fallacious nonsense is insightful thought, if your god is that difficult to find that you have to already believe in it in order to be convinced to believe in it, then I can rest easy in the reassurance and vindication that my position is justified, even if it turned out it’s not correct. While yours is not, and warrants a little self-reflection.

Checks out.