I have a stone here in my hand made of granite—an igneous, course grained rock formed under intense pressure, composed mainly of quartz and feldspar with minor amounts of mica, amphiboles, and other minerals. What are its components made of?
Breaking it apart, cracking the composition into smaller and smaller fractions to the nth°, we finally find the atom, lay open the pieces and we find nothing—like a Russian Matryoshka doll. Left with an empty shell comprised of .00000001% of “physical matter” in the common understanding.
We are made of barely nothing—a mere projection from the conscious vacuum, gravitational waves, and energy. We are space. We are in fact, energy. The eyes and ears, neurons of our own entity. The whole universe of everything.
Similarly, we find the firm foundation, the rock of ages, the priesthoods, the believers, the fathers of dogmas by errant perception of regionally based experience, and when we break it all down to its core and lay out all the parts we find nothing. It is coated, however, with a large smudge of hope and bullshit.
“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing—Thomas Paine
At the core of religion we find it relates to science after all. After peeling back the layers we find nothing. No substance, no proof, no matter, no bliss, but under intense pressure to believe. I’m certain Delusionite™️ is an undiscovered element for the periodic table—we certainly have evidence of its existence. 
TheCommonAtheist 
Sigh, good post … awful illustration. What is the spherical thingee supposed to represent? And the lines associated with the supposed electrons? (There are no paths or “orbits” that electrons follow. What is the star burst in the middle?
People often ask what atoms would look like if we could see them. For one, it would be dark. We need light to see and while atoms emit and absorb photos, this is an occasional happening which contains no spacial data per se. The nucleus is so small (compared to the atom as a whole) that we could not see it (we do not have the visual acuity, but then no animal does) and the electrons weigh so little that they would form only a very, very (Very!) whispy mass.
My complain regarding these illustrations on acid is that people use them as mental constructs for things they cannot see and then they mislead. But then, that is what I am, a retired chemistry professor who couldn’t even get these ludicrous diagrams expunged from college-level textbooks.
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I guess I need a new illustrator? There is one theory that all the electrons are entangled and we live in a web, or network of tiny black holes—abrahamic Faith is at the center of the Schwartschild radius and no light escapes. Only cosmic chatter measured by belief.
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And talking of black holes …
In an odd way, religion is much like astronomy.
Lots of ‘nothing’ and then you see Uranus
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It also contains all the unanswered prayers. Sucked into the vortex. The Hamilton Path problem also finds them—waiting
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I thought electrons didn’t actually orbit at all. They just sort of existed as a cloud of probabilities around the nucleus until they were actually observed and then the wavefront would collapse into a particle. Or am I think of what my brain is like before coffee in the morning?
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Ok another video
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That’s a neat little experiment. It’s magic! Maybe those are spirits of ancient intergalactic travelers? It’s amazing that they just pass right through everything, probably even the earth itself.
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Thomas Paine. Oh snap.
A universe created by a quirk of native mental function. How is that not something from nothing.
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Well look who’s here! Creating something from nothing is the magic of religion. Now we have to deal with it. The founders were very keen on the foibles of human perception and psychology. Getting them to believe one ridiculous notion and you can control the dialog and distractions for millennia.
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We really do need to shed our primitive notions of origins and imaginings there from. What a profound waist of intellectual and emotional capital. Oh my, tsk tsk.
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Or a quark of nature, even!
🙂
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Exactly.
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More assertion Jim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect
I would really like to read some reasons for your beliefs.
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I don’t have any beliefs. Illusory truth syndrome is a well know Christian phenomenon. Keep repeating what others have said and discard your own thoughts out of insecurities. Hans Christian Anderson really nailed it. Nobody really believes, but only pretends. That doesn’t happen nor need to with facts. Faith isn’t required for things that actually exist. Most of people’s beliefs are other people’s propaganda and guesses. The experts find the most clever wording.
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Jim
You keep pretending belief only has one meaning – religious belief. It has multiple and in the general sense we all have beliefs. You believe you are human, and that you have a blog. Your blogs is full of your beliefs. But you very rarely give reasons for your belief other than quoting other people making the same claims you believe.
For example you quote Hans Christian Anderson for saying “no one really believes but only pretends to believe.” If you really believe that then I have a question. Are martyrs only pretending to believe?
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My blog is full of my observations. I’ve thrown witchcraft and crystals along with shamanism in the mix. I am merely exploring. Belief in such things is open to discussion. But I believe none of it.
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Being a martyr only proves one chooses fanaticism over life. Many people have died for the wrong reasons. Are you saying Joseph Smith really was a prophet because he died for his beliefs?
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I’m saying if people died for their beliefs they probably really believed them and were not just pretending.
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And they were still wrong. It is hardly a tool to decide if their belief was truth, or we’d all be Muslims.
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Ok but saying someone is wrong to believe X is different than the claim that someone only pretends to believe X. I do think muslims who die for their faith really believe in what they are doing.
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That is the fallacy of belief! Indoctrination, neurologically fused physiology and hormones. Totally unreliable is belief. The churches want the kids young because it’s literally brainwashing to believe something they would have never considered had it not been wielded at them with passionate testimony and force by another who merely believed without proof. Belief is the seedbed of tribalism and divisive rhetoric. It isn’t so important what you believe, but merely because you believe.
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Jim
Anti-christian and anti-religious regimes wanted kids when they were young to brain-wash them as well.
We all teach our kids our values and the reasons for our values. You can call it brainwashing if you want.
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Doesn’t matter what I call it. It is what it is. Teaching critical thinking skills and helping them understand the foibles of human neurology and psychology should be grade school stuff. Imagine if everyone was engaged in reality and sciences where we could advance the human cause? But we wait for god who’s is never coming. The bar is so low they give glory to god for one damn problem free day, while the power is in us to make the world great, but beliefs get in the way. Beliefs to fight and die for.
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“Imagine if everyone was engaged in reality and sciences where we could advance the human cause? ”
“….advance the human cause” what do you mean? Please prove that there is a human cause that we should advance – or at least offer some evidence that there is such a thing.
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There is a human cause and want, a desire for peace and durability. Mine. My autonomy dictates you cannot infringe your will, legally or otherwise against my person. This is the baseline of moral autonomy. This same person that was saved from the abortion that immediately has their will taken away from them with fake stories and threats of hell—injecting fear. You prove a god and I can guarantee he would not be the forceful tyrant that abrahamic fear has created. That is inherent in every person to be free. Although through indoctrination you talk em out of it. Like devout believing women in the churches.
Sure we live in a society of people and there will be some compromise, but not through beliefs. Mere thought convictions without substance. A masterful play on some key failures in human cognition.
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I asked what you meant by a human cause and you said this:
“There is a human cause and want, a desire for peace and durability. Mine.”
So are you saying a human cause is the same as what we want or are they two different things? Can you prove that the human cause is what you want? Or are you just trying to indoctrinate your fake stories? Mere thought convictions without substance.
You demand evidence of all the religious people but you never offer any for your own morality.
“My autonomy dictates you cannot infringe your will, legally or otherwise against my person.”
Is that not what all governments do?
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You want to write more of your Christian beliefs into law? I prefer a republic thank you. I’ve seen theocracy. Funny how the conservative thinking people fight for less governance , then give those rights away to an imagined god who watched their every move, proving they are the very ones that need strict governance.
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“You want to write more of your Christian beliefs into law?”
You mean like anti-slavery and discrimination laws? Tell that to Rosa Parks or Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. You mean like laws that discourage murder?
“I prefer a republic thank you. I’ve seen theocracy.”
Republic everyone gets a vote. Even people like MLK and Rosa Parks. Just because people have religious beliefs that inform their morality does not mean they want a theocracy.
“Funny how the conservative thinking people fight for less governance , then give those rights away to an imagined god who watched their every move, proving they are the very ones that need strict governance.”
I guess you can call MLK and Rosa Parks conservatives if you want.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-01-21-me-22523-story.html
But you are sort of losing the point of the discussion.
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You all have fought, just as you do now, women’s right and negro rights. KKK was your baby, not mine. Jesus even condoned slavery. God murdered people in the Bible for interracial marriage. Such a stellar guidebook.
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I’m not sure what you mean. KKK was a Catholic Baby? Just because many Catholics were democrats and the KKK was also largely democrats does not mean KKK was Catholic.
The Christian God Jesus broke down gender and other barriers between people. You should read a Gospel.
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Fabulous reply. You are on a roll!
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Through unbelief I merely observe the obvious. Belief requires one to trust the expert opinions and apologetic nonsense. I trust my own observations by analyzing data and outcomes.
You say “more assertion Jim” but tell me what I’ve asserted that anyone but a believer would agree with. The truth would be truth for believers and nons. Hope doesn’t make truth.
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“Through unbelief I merely observe the obvious. Belief requires one to trust the expert opinions and apologetic nonsense.”
But Jim you are the one always quoting conclusions from Thomas Paine and others. Why do you believe them? Look at their reasoning and lets talk about whether their conclusions should be believed.
“I trust my own observations by analyzing data and outcomes.
You say “more assertion Jim” but tell me what I’ve asserted that anyone but a believer would agree with. The truth would be truth for believers and nons. Hope doesn’t make truth.”
You just keep asserting religious people are wrong. But repeating that is not the same as making reasoned arguments for that claim.
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Thomas pain saw it. You act as though I’ve never seen your side of it. Lived the fantasy for a long long time making excuses for a brutal god. Virtually every catch phrase and scripture is at odds with reality. I can pick one if you like—god is merciful. Tell that to the priests of Baal that got bushwhacked after they kept their end of the bargain. I could write volumes of how god is not merciful, but alas, god is merely the writers of the time that had no decency that would not survive outside of a prison by today’s men’s standards.
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Jim
Setting aside how we got to have the standards we do – you seem to think our standards are better than God’s. By that do you just mean you like ours more? Or do you think there are actually objectively real moral standards?
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Moral autonomy is the only definitive truth inside a framework that protects each individual. Are all men created equal? Are all men entitled to operate their person without persecution, even if they don’t align with the church’s sexual model? Should people be punished for their genetics or other dispositions if they are not touching you? The Bible is for the Jewish only. A set of Jim Crow laws that sets one above another. That is immoral and against a self evident truth.
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Jim
What way do you think all men are created equal? In a spiritual sense? I mean clearly some are smarter some are taller stronger etc. So what do you mean they are all equal?
Should parents be free to not support their children is that ok? Or does their autonomy have limits beyond not touching others?
Do you think we have any moral obligations to try to help others? Are these real obligations of just imagined obligations?
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Moral autonomy solves these issues very easily. Children however, are treated like property and their minds twisted with fantasy out of fear of something that doesn’t exist. That is actually immoral. It infringes in the person with a mind numbing jail sentence few can swim out of.
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“That is actually immoral.”
What do you mean by “actually immoral”? Do you mean “actually immoral” as in “really immoral”? Do you think morality is real?
I thought you were saying morality is not real and we just make it up? Do you want kids to believe things we make up – like morality? Do you want to scare kids into believing in “morality” so they will act as you want? This is why I think you have some fundamental contradictions in your views.
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Your being presumptuous. Last time you and I talked morality your beliefs and stubbornness would not even discuss a rock. Quote some experts if you want. Why is it you are so focused on the tried and failed results of the status quo? The experts got us to where we are now. Maybe an innocent and fresh look is in order.
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Discuss a rock? I’m not sure what you mean.
What are you referring to when you say the tried and failed results of the status quo? Do you mean economic policy – I know you were in favor of a socialist leaning website. Do you mean the general social values of the west?
If you think our values are bad what do you want to replace them with and what basis do you have to say your values are better?
I don’t think I need to quote any experts I just really want to know what you hope to accomplish? Lets say we do away with religion. So no one thinks people are made in God’s image and no one follows Christ’s command to love one another.
Then what? Ok we can learn lots of science. Great! (I think we can do that with Christianity but whatever) But lets your right and because we get rid of religion we find out what dark matter is and that most of the universe is made out of such and such elements. And that the first human lived in this area etc. I mean its all great and I would be happy to know these things too. But is that why you bash religion so much because you think religion slows down our progress to answer these questions?
If you have a moral agenda that is different than a moral agenda based on religion then what proof do you have that your agenda is true? If you can’t offer any evidence then you seem like a hypocrite to demand evidence from religious people.
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I can’t discuss anything with you if you are not reading my comments. I have never promoted socialism nor do I promote any political agenda. We are discussing morality a while back and I stated that morality begins with one irrefutable truth and we work from that one truth. You would not even agree that the rock existed and could cause pain. You went off on tangents about pain levels and some crap trying to maintain ambiguity where there is none. You know damn well what tried and failed. We are talking about religion. As always. On a irreligious blog. 2+2 = 4 joe. You are so determined to advance your belief you can’t even friggin connect a simple dot or stay on task. This is the problem of belief.
There is no way your going to reason religion. You need me to have a crisis and get me some serotonin and dopamine at the right moment.
I chased the religious tale of contradiction far too long and frankly it’s boring discussing it. It’s a scam about money and control. Period. You want to live subjugated to fabrications, so be it. Go to, your faith has made you a big hole that belief never climbs out of.
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“I can’t discuss anything with you if you are not reading my comments. I have never promoted socialism nor do I promote any political agenda.”
Again what is wrong with the status quo – your refusal to answer leads to speculation.
“We are discussing morality a while back and I stated that morality begins with one irrefutable truth and we work from that one truth. ”
I suppose I didn’t agree with you and you could not provide evidence of your truth. Is that about right?
“You would not even agree that the rock existed and could cause pain. ”
“The rock” existed and could cause pain? Im sorry do you mean you can cause pain if you hit someone with a rock? That I agree with.
“You went off on tangents about pain levels and some crap trying to maintain ambiguity where there is none. You know damn well what tried and failed.”
What is so clear? I don’t even know if you think moral obligations are real or if they are something we make up. Can you at least answer that?
“We are talking about religion. As always. On a irreligious blog. 2+2 = 4 joe. You are so determined to advance your belief you can’t even friggin connect a simple dot or stay on task. This is the problem of belief.
There is no way your going to reason religion. ”
You want to have a double standard for religious beliefs as compared to other beliefs. I am pointing that out and it seems to upset you. Why not just think it through and stop creating a double standard for morality based on religion and morality based on whatever you want to replace it with?
“You need me to have a crisis and get me some serotonin and dopamine at the right moment.”
Jim
I don’t want you to have any crisis at all. Seriously and I hope you do not have any hormonal imbalances. I am ok with you being an atheist, I just want to share why I am a Christian. If you don’t want that its ok.
“I chased the religious tale of contradiction far too long and frankly it’s boring discussing it. ”
Why do you blog about it so much then? Do you just want to hear from people who agree with you?
“It’s a scam about money and control. Period. You want to live subjugated to fabrications, so be it.”
Im not so certain it is a scam as you are. But I think we all live life according to some goals. I think many atheists openly admit their morality is a fabrication. That does not appeal to me.
“Go to, your faith has made you a big hole that belief never climbs out of.”
Im not sure what you mean.
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It actually is the other way around. Christianity’s Jesus has claimed itself the source of morality, and has taken credit for something that occurs naturally, and in much better ways than religion has pretended. Lots of happy people became unhappy after you planted your flag—if they survived at all. I don’t care if you agree, but your personality would not even discuss a rock. A physical actual truth as a starting point. That speaks volumes that you’ve already concluded you have the answers.
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“It actually is the other way around. Christianity’s Jesus has claimed itself the source of morality, and has taken credit for something that occurs naturally, and in much better ways than religion has pretended. Lots of happy people became unhappy after you planted your flag—if they survived at all.”
So do you think cultures with the least christian influence are naturally better?
“I don’t care if you agree, but your personality would not even discuss a rock. A physical actual truth as a starting point. ”
What did you want to discuss about a rock? I don’t understand what you are getting at.
“That speaks volumes that you’ve already concluded you have the answers.”
I usually have more questions than answers. You might have noticed.
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What is wrong with the status quo? You really need me to answer that? So what if I make up my own morality? At least I don’t persecute others for their genetics. On the other hand, at least I live my code versus believing and proclaiming some nonsensical religious babble but not even living what they say they believe. The hypocrisy alone is a failure of the religion itself. Widespread. It is a byproduct of faith in nothing, which is the core of your faith. Just as Thomas Paine put it.
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“What is wrong with the status quo? You really need me to answer that?”
If you want me to know what you are even talking about.
“So what if I make up my own morality?”
Then you live life based on make believe. Do you teach that made up morality to your children too?
“At least I don’t persecute others for their genetics.”
Ok that is good news.
“On the other hand, at least I live my code versus believing and proclaiming some nonsensical religious babble but not even living what they say they believe.
Ok so your make believe morality happens to be easy for you to follow? That shouldn’t be surprising just say whatever you want to do is moral.
“The hypocrisy alone is a failure of the religion itself. Widespread. It is a byproduct of faith in nothing, which is the core of your faith. Just as Thomas Paine put it.”
Faith in nothing? I thought that was you motto.
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Belief is bogus. At least the sciences are real. If you don’t believe your a son of god, that’s perfect. So what. Who cares? . Now we can tackle reality. It may not always be pretty, but it is a valid place to start.
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Why do you think I do not believe Jesus? Is that what you are saying? Beliefs can be bogus but sometimes they are true and reasonable.
We can tackle reality any time. I take it you do not think morality is part of reality. Morality is just something you made up right?
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Belief in many things is correct, but the best way to assure you are believing something that’s most probably correct, is actual testing, research and the opinions of experts that analyze all the data. The more tested, computed, analyzed and the logical conclusions that are derived, the higher chance of not being a fool.
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It seems humanity — at least the portion who has a firm grasp of multi- and interdisciplinary sciences — has reached the bones and organs of Consciousness. What an utterly WONDERFUL time to be so alive, huh!!!!!!!? 😉
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Jim
Did you ever wear a vr headset? Imagine you wore one your whole life and explored all sorts of things in that vr world created by someone else. Do you think you would then find something in the vr world that persuaded you it was not a vr world? How would that work?
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Here are some of my beliefs. https://jimoeba.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/what-i-believe/
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You seem to have a view of belief that is different than the standard understanding of what it means. Knowledge is a form of belief. Therefore all knowledge is belief.
Are you against knowledge as well?
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Your funny. My blog is about the fallacy of religious belief. If I “believe” a science experiment will perform the same over and over, it hardly compares with belief in a god that has yet to show up, ever, but in the philosophy and construct of the mind and the hocus of primitive fears. This is not an apples to apples comparison of belief.
I would venture to say if your belief in a science project leads you to condemn another man because if his genetics, I’d say your injecting an untrue self evidence. If your religious belief was worth anything it would be true to the believer and unbeliever alike. Knowledge may be a form of belief, but belief in feelings and hunches based on your regional upbringing hardly constitutes a fact, which is quite another level above hope/feeling, and persuasive guesses.
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Jim
You are talking about “facts” “knowledge” “truth” and “beliefs”. Each of these terms should be understood on their own at least preliminarily. There may be some questions at the edges but I think we should have some general understanding first.
Something is “true” if it accords with reality. Whether I believe it or you believe it or whether anyone believes it for good or bad reasons is irrelevant. Witches used to think that ” eating walnuts is good for our brains.” They apparently thought that because they looked like brains. Now that is a bad reason to think it is good for our brains. But as it turns out studies have shown that “eating walnuts is good for our brains.” Now the fact that witches used bad reasoning to conclude that eating walnuts was good for our brains did not make their belief false. It was still a “fact” that eating a walnut may have been good for someones brain.
Here are a few blogs I did about some of these terms and I wonder what you think about them (if you get some time):
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/05/in-real-life-and-reasonable/
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/09/do-you-belieeeeve/
https://trueandreasonable.co/2017/04/24/scientific-imperialism-what-is-a-fact/
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Only two links allowed per comment or they go to spam. Just FYI
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Ok, I can’t edit the post feel free to delete one link. Does that link limit include third party links like to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or just the posters own site?
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No. I can edit but my setting allow two only automatically for my wishes.
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The Wikipedia on “Descriptive Knowledge” says this: “The difference between knowledge and beliefs is as follows:. A belief is an internal thought or memory which exists in one’s mind. Most people accept that for a belief to be knowledge it must be, at least, true and justified (demonstrable)
I would challenge you to look at any common fallacies website and the majority of the examples used from every category are religious. Make ya wonder at all?
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Jim
As far as websites about fallacies involving religion I have no way to test that. There are so many websites. But logic and critical reasoning is part of the philosophy department of most schools. And we certainly used to learn about fallacies without bashing religion. Perhaps the faculties now feel more of a need to bash religion with the examples they use, I don’t know.
But the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is generally a good source and you can see very few examples of fallacies deal with religion.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/
Jim I think the wikipedia is likely a poor source for understanding knowledge. People can be justified in believing things they can not demonstrate/prove. For example I saw humming bird in my back yard within the past 30 days. Could I prove that I saw a hummingbird in the past 30 days? I really have no idea and my justification is in no way related to my ability to prove it to someone else.
Moreover their understanding of “belief” seems controversial to say the least. Do you think beliefs “exist”? Moreover it seems to me that beliefs are not dispositions to act a certain way when certain circumstances arise rather than particular thoughts or memories in themselves.
But that said I do agree that knowledge is roughly “justified true belief.”
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Here we are Joe, we have to rationalize the very definition of belief in order to justify faith in something that is number one, referred to as highly fallacious, even by its own believers (because it’s not on Stanford’s website only means they are polite, not all encompassing) Every jot and tittle is at odds with what we actually observe outside the belief, which is admittedly irrational and contradicts itself. The concept of heaven, or physical, eternal burning in lakes of fire and brimstone in a “spirit” world, just to name a couple. I could go on and on. Do I think beliefs exist? Thoughts exist, beliefs are primarily convictions of words. Nobody really believes god is watching them. Not nearly as much as they say they do. People will do in the presence of their god what they would never do in public. Religious belief is highly faked due to several of the bias syndromes.
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Jim I use the description of belief from Quine’s book Web of Belief. He was a atheist. His description was hardly invented to justify faith.
I don’t deny people sin in private and that this sin can be attributed to lack of belief. But I don’t agree that no religious people believe their faith.
As for Stanford just being nice I think that just shows your own bias. There are plenty of examples of fallacious reasoning from atheists and religious alike. The fallacies are much broader than this topic and if anyone just uses example for or against a religion that would be a pretty good indicator they had an ax to grind beyond informing people about the fallacies.
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Knowledge, of the kind you’re asking about, I think, usually requires evidence and reasoning. In extreme cases where such knowledge doesn’t require both evidence and reasoning, such as in parts of symbolic logic, knowledge requires only reasoning.
On the other hand, belief doesn’t require any reasoning or evidence whatsoever. All knowledge may be a form of belief, but belief is not knowledge. It’s a feeling or guess.
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“On the other hand, belief doesn’t require any reasoning or evidence whatsoever. All knowledge may be a form of belief, but belief is not knowledge. It’s a feeling or guess.”
Jim
Thanks for talking this through a bit because I think we can actually understand each other a bit more.
Yes it is true that beliefs do not require good reasons. They *can* be based on feeling or guesses but they can also be based on reasons so good they amount to knowledge. It seems to me that we hold many beliefs that might fall short of knowledge but we are still justified in holding them.
The traditional view of knowledge is that it is “Justified true belief.” So just for example in order for you to “know” that you are not dreaming right now you would need to
1) believe you are not dreaming now
2) It would have to be true that you are not dreaming now
And
3) you would need to be justified in believing you are not dreaming. Sometimes we say you have to have sufficient reason to believe you are not dreaming.
The third requirement seems to be the most debated/discussed. Is it ok to have some beliefs that fall short of knowledge? Or should we say the only rational beliefs are knowledge? It seems to me people can legitimately hold beliefs even if the justification falls short of knowledge. For example I know that Australia exists. If someone wrote a blog about how Australia does not exist then I would probably not bother reading it because I know it exists. But there are other beliefs that I hold without that level of certainty. And so I will read blogs saying here are good reasons not to hold those beliefs etc.
It seems to me that most of the debates are dealing with beliefs that people can give some good reasons to believe them but they are still not knowledge. Do you agree
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Excellent post….one of your best!
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Take for instance one group of “religious” people: Christians. This religious group believes in a merciful and loving god who is so loving that he sacrificed his own beloved son to save us from our sins. Okay. So, someone may ask. Why do you “believe” this to be true?
Most Christians will offer the classic circular argument: because it is written in the Bible, and the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and he says so–in the Bible.
Now right of the bat, someone who questions that belief will ask the obvious question: Did you observe God writing this so-called Bible? OR Do you have some external proof, for instance, verifiable witnesses, a fingerprint, a fragment of the original book that has can be verified through scientific testing? Can we talk to this immortal godly author and discuss his life as a writer. The answer will be no.
Now we could go on and on with this dialogue and the pattern would change very little. For instance, the Christian claims that roughly six thousand years ago Adam and Eve were the first humans, divinely created, and as a result of their disobedience–fairly soon after their creation–they brought Sin into the world and hence we are all sinful and depraved. That is a Christian belief. There is no verifiable proof for this belief. It stands with all other mythic creation stories: Mesopotamian, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Rig Veda, etc.
An opposing belief is that the planet upon which we exist is roughly four and a half billion years old and that we, homo sapiens, along with all other current life forms that made it through a number of mass extinctions, evolved to our present state. That belief is not based on a story someone came up with out of desperation. It is a belief based on hundreds of years of painstaking, documented research that persisted and grew in spite of “religious” people who tried their best to stop it, along with other scientific discoveries, such as the structure of our solar system. Our current knowledge of DNA, of eco-systems, of astronomy, and bio-molecular functions are believable facts based on tested and verified scientific exploration that consistently admits its failures.
Thomas Paine, as Jim correctly points out, speaks the truth. It, the study of Theology, is based on nothing.
As usual a great post! Thanks Jim!
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Nothing to add here (especially that last part) hehe. Thank you
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Delusional™️ is a heavy element, man made, with an atomic number 125, well above its nearest neighbour, Darmstadtium. When applied to an organic property that entity becomes fixed on the spot where it is. Over time, blindness is guaranteed, together with a terrible stink of decay.
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It has elements of stagnation. It wishes it were more mobile and able to produce results, but unfortunately it bonds easily with pretendium, which has no mass and easily crosses the blood brain barrier causing hopeless waiting.
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🙂
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It’s too early for this deep stuff. I will sip my coffee and ponder the simple life.
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I like the new element! I drove past a lot of parked cars today by the house that delusion built.
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My sabbath is two to three hours of lighter traffic. TheDelusionalCraftsman—the contractor. Great idea!
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