• 3 Posts
  • 466 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • These words exist for a reason they mean different things.

    Correct, and you’re still misusing them according to the people who actually identify with these labels. Atheism is the answer to what you believe, and agnosticism is the answer to what you know.

    I don’t believe God exists and I don’t know if God exists, so I’m an agnostic atheist. For you to assume atheists are gnostic by default is like me assuming Christians are Mormons by default. It’d be even more ridiculous for me to go on and argue with Christians that “Christian” means “Mormon.”









  • I don’t think there is one single test that could encompass bad standards of evidence, but the whole “just have faith” thing is a dead giveaway. Hostility towards skepticism is another. Circular logic is also a pretty good indicator, like saying your holy text is the truth because your holy text says it’s true. I guess the simplest and most effective test would be to see if the standard of evidence could be used to justify any claim.

    And for good standards of evidence, I think it depends on the context and claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that. If you told me “I got a pet goldfish” the only evidence I really need is your word. But for claims about how the universe works and why it is the way it is, you might need much more sound reasoning, math that checks out when measurements or numbers are involved, a demonstration or test to serve as proof, etc…

    Lastly, by agreeing that there is not universality …

    The majority of people who smoke don’t die from it but that doesn’t mean cigarettes aren’t problematic. I’m not saying all religions are bigoted or anything, but I am saying having any sort of doctrine opens the door to outdated beliefs overriding what we’d normally consider moral, and that by itself is problematic.


    I’d also just like to say I think this has been the most civil conversation in the whole thread, so cheers to that lol