Where Boredom Meets Procrastination

smilingsollux:

I love that we can ask Brenan any question about pretty much anything and he will give us the straight forward and geek answer we expect seriously my little bro is a genius

:D

knight-of-stars:

vanehwasreal:

my sister sent me a text saying “for the next 30 years you have to live with one person in the same room all the time. afterwards you have to kill them. would you choose someone you like or someone you hate?”

I have never been more distraught in my entire life

it’s funny because maybe you’ll grow to hate the person you like and start to like the person you hate

The plot of every road trip movie ever.

The Argument Against Apologetics

deconversionmovement:

The following are two versions of the same argument; there may be another version, but I’ll withhold that for the time being.

P1 If Jesus wasn’t who the NT says he was, Christianity is false.

P2 Jesus wasn’t who the NT says he was.

P3/C1 Therefore, Christianity is false.

P4 If Christianity is false, apologetics is pointless.

P5 Christianity is false.

P6/C2 Therefore, apologetics is pointless.

Basically put, if Jesus wasn’t the son of god, didn’t die for our sins, didn’t resurrect and didn’t ascend to the right hand of the father, Christianity is false.  Since Christianity is false, the defense of Christianity is pointless—especially since its defenders seek to ascertain its truth.

Here’s another version of the argument for anyone who objects by stating that Jesus didn’t have to be who the NT said he was for Christianity to be true.  I would strongly disagree with this objection anyway, but it is worth addressing in advance.

P1  If Jesus didn’t exist, Christianity is false.

P2  Jesus didn’t exist.

P3/C1 Therefore, Christianity is false.

P4 If Christianity is false, apologetics is pointless.

P5 Christianity is false.

P6/C2 Therefore, apologetics is pointless.

These arguments aren’t really meant to show that Jesus didn’t exist or that Christianity is false.  It’s the conclusion I call attention to.  If Jesus wasn’t who the NT says he was or if he didn’t exist, Christianity is false—and if Christianity is false, the defense of it is pointless.  I call attention to the conclusion because it makes my point succinctly.  The atheist’s main objection against Christianity should be that its founder is a myth or likely didn’t exist.  Upon making this objection, the Christian cannot turn to apologetic arguments for god; it should be a monumental concern for the Christian.  It is the equivalent of making the claim that Muhammad didn’t exist; if this is ever proven true, it follows that Islam is false.  Unfortunately, for Christianity, it has been demonstrated that if Jesus existed, he wasn’t the Christ of the NT; it has also been speculated (prominently by the likes of Richard Carrier and Robert Price) that Jesus might not have existed at all.  What Carrier calls the best case for the notion that Jesus never existed is set to be published later this year:  On the Historicity of Jesus Christ. 

If you’re a Christian and the argument doesn’t make sense to you, perhaps you should read authors other than the Christian scholars that are abusing their majority by misrepresenting what skeptical authors have written and attempting to establish truth by repetition.  X number of scholars repeatedly shouting that Jesus existed and was who the NT says he was doesn’t imply that that’s true.  Read the skeptics!  If you don’t know where to look, you may start here.  By the way, for all of you aspiring apologists, you’re clearly wasting your time by devoting time and energy to a pointless endeavor; the founder of your religion is a myth and if this isn’t your biggest concern, it is clear that you have no interest in what’s true.

limited-probabilities:

amemoryhangson:

Im sorry but Im genuinely quite angered by those people, particularly, those who don’t believe in the Catholic faith, who claim to know certain things about the Bible when clearly, they DON’T study it or read it as much as we (Catholics) do. So it confuses me. How can you assume all these things about the Bible or the Catholic faith itself when your knowledge about it is not as abundant as ours? So please, stop saying all these things about Catholicism when you’re not an expert to begin with.

I’m sorry, but here’s a study in which they measured religious knowledge and not only did atheists and agnostics do better than Catholics in general religious knowledge, they also did better in Bible knowledge and in knowledge of Christianity. The thing is that most atheists were raised religious (usually Christian) and then deconverted from the religion they were raised in. Deconversion isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, so most atheists do a lot of research in the process to be as sure as possible that they are right.

If your knowledge of Catholicism is really so superior, why don’t you use it to counter what atheists are actually saying rather than just telling us to shut up? Telling people they don’t know what they’re talking about is never as effective as giving them the knowledge they lack.

It’s interesting how common of an accusation this is from the religious to the atheistic when it’s so apparently rare from one religion to another. Why do you, a Catholic, so flippantly discount the sayings of Mohammad without having read the Koran? If you’ve read the Koran (already you’re going better than most Catholics, I must say) why do you discount the gnostic gospels of early Christianity without having even read them? Why do you discount the Greek and Roman gods without having even read about all of their exploits?

If you’re going to say that atheists and agnostics don’t have the right to disbelieve in Catholicism because they may not have read the Catholic version of the Bible, don’t go telling me that you don’t believe in something else–anything else– without having read the source material about it first.

I finally finished The Portable Atheist, which I’m pretty proud of/happy about. Now, I’m going to give Breakfast With Socrates another chance because it’s a great idea that I disliked the first time I read a chapter or so. Hooray for reading.

On definitions of “atheist” and “agnostic” or why I call myself an agnostic atheist

limited-probabilities:

Interesting thing I’ve noticed. Okay, so we all know that the term “atheism” kind of has two definitions:

1. the claim that there is no god
2. the lack of belief in any gods.

The second is the more colloquial definition (and possibly the sociological definition, but I haven’t looked into that) that we tend to agree on on this website and the first is is, I’m pretty sure, the more technically correct one in philosophy. 

“Agnosticism” also has multiple definitions.

1. the claim that one doesn’t know or it can’t be known whether or not there’s a god (although the term “agnosticism” can apply to other things, besides whether or not there is a god)
2. when one doesn’t know whether or not one believes in a god.

The first definition is the more technically correct one and the one that we tend to agree on here on Tumblr. The second is a random colloquial one that, much like the colloquial definition of “theory,” has an obnoxious tendency to get underfoot.

So why do I call myself an agnostic atheist and why do I make such a big deal about using my particular definitions? Well, it all comes down to the purpose of language- to communicate. And calling myself an agnostic atheist seems like the most effective way to communicate my stance. More on that in a minute- first an excursion into contextualism.

Contextualism is the idea that words have different meanings in different contexts. For example, you know that the word “theory” means something different when I’m talking about the theory of evolution vs. my theory that my friend Sarah has a crush on my friend Mitch, right? Anyone who’s had a quality science education understands that. The terms “agnostic” and “atheist” are also like that, but it isn’t as well known, so you have to be more clear.

By the technical definition I am an agnostic because I don’t claim to know whether or not there is a god, but I do know that I don’t believe in a god personally so by the colloquial definition I am an atheist. In the context of having a legit philosophical discussion with people who actually knew the terms, I would just call myself an agnostic. In the context of casual categorization I am an atheist. So I call myself an agnostic atheist to leave the least amount of space for people to misunderstand my stance. If they don’t understand, they at least know they don’t understand.

Our system of separately stating whether or not you claim to know and whether or not you believe is user friendly and easy to explain. The purpose of language is to communicate clearly and this system does that, so I say that we should encourage it.

limited-probabilities:

julieuscaesar:

WHO THE FUCK IS ATHEIST I HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU

*an atheist

“Atheist” is not an adjective.

Yeah, I am one. What do you want to know?

It’d be great if they were looking for someone named “Atheist” because that person needed to be interrogated, or something.

Anyway, I’m also an atheist and happy to answer questions about it.