4 Billion Losers

[TechBear_Seattle]

Ooh, I just know I will burn in Hell for sharing this (assuming that those 4 billion losers are wrong, of course.) :evilgrin: From Scott Adams' blog (of Dilbert fame):

4 Billion Losers

Recently I asked the believers among you to explain why you believe in your own prophet but not the other guy’s prophet. The LDS (Mormon) folks said they talk directly to God and get personal answers. Most of the rest of you said something along the lines that your prophet(s) (or Christ) told you that the other guy’s prophet(s) (or Christ) isn’t all that. Fair enough. I was concerned that you hadn’t thought it through.

Now I have another question for the believers. And by the way, I’m genuinely curious. I don’t do this just to stir up things, although that’s fun too. I actually wonder how you think. My question is this: How do you explain to yourself that 4 billion people (minimum) believe different from you?

These are the only reasons I can imagine. Pick one or tell me what I missed.

You will have to visit the link above to read his reasons. Enjoy!

[LaurenG]

1. I thought that was funny

though I wish he would have put in more answers.

[Burning Water]

2. I liked #3 myself. n/t

[Inland]

3. Eh. Atheists believe 5.9 billion are wrong (or worse), doesn't bother them

Fact is, nobody who has actually met a human is particularly surprised by those others getting it wrong. Looks like Scott Adams is another atheist who thinks he's telling the religious something that's going to rock their world. Too bad. He should stick to what he knows.

[papau]

5. :-) Is it fear of being accountable to God?- and does having no answer to

creation bother the atheist - or do they not care how creation occurred? Why do atheists claim to not believe anything, indeed to not have a belief system, when they are certain that no God exists? etc.

It is interesting how TechBear_Seattle, squarepants, and others use "Question for Christians" to do a little religion-bashing.

But at least these threads are polite - rather than the usual cut and paste from the various atheist web sites of an attack piece. Funny how few of the attack pieces include links to those web sites that have the thoughts of those that have refuted the attack piece - or at least think they have refuted it! :-)

I guess I prefer this kinder attack form of "Question for Christians"- but it would be nice if R/T was split into 2 forums, one on "R/T", and the other on "atheist thoughts on religion" - a place those that want to respond to the atheist postings can go to and have a grand time either fighting or agreeing - but I guess the atheist would feel left out if that were done.

In any case, interesting thread. I liked your response.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. I did not participate in the thread you mentioned

But then, some people never bother to look at facts. :hi:

[Proud_Democratt]

8. No answer to Creation? Here's one example of my answer

to Creation:
Let's talk about human creation......How many ribs do humans have? The answer is 12 pair.....male and female. They both have the same number of ribs.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/ribs.htm

This is Biblical human creation....

Genesis 2:21
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Genesis 2:22
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

27. mmmm ribs.

I boil mine first, then smoke them all day.

[Evoman]

9. Let me answer your questions

"and does having no answer to creation bother the atheist - or do they not care how creation occurred?"

Um....I'm an atheist and i don't care how creation occured because I'm not convinced creation has occured. Now, it does bother me that I don't know how the universe came to be, but just because I don't know, doesn't mean I'm going to invent bullshit stories to make myself feel better!

"Why do atheists claim to not believe anything, indeed to not have a belief system, when they are certain that no God exists? etc."

I'm NOT certain, how could I be? ...but since there is no evidence of god, I assume the default position that there is no god. Is that hard to understand? If I asked you if you were certain, would you tell me yes?

I don't know...there just doesn't seem to be any more convincing evidence that christians are right, and other religions are wrong. Or that buddhists are right. Or that jainists are right. I mean..really, how do you know that your not wrong, and that the muslems are right? YOU DON'T...you just THINK you do.

As to me..well, it doesn't matter what the other 5.9 billion believe. Are they ALL wrong...I couldn't say for sure. Is one of them right? Well, maybe, but which one?

IF I were to go religion shopping, and each religion had a good pamphlet, which would you suggest I pick. Some religions have gods, some like buddhism don't. Some have the baggage of atrocities, other don't. What WOULD you have me pick? I choose to pick none of them, and then live with a real uncertaintly, rather than fraudulent certainties.

Evoman

[Proud_Democratt]

10. You are absolutely correct in

saying no one knows for certain about Creation. I guess it is hard to grasp the idea of Evolution, when one sees everything as a miracle. The only miracle I ponder about is, how SOME(not all) religious people are so naive to deception and deceit. They seem to buy anyhing that is marked "God"...not even questioning the "human intervention" and "invention" of these earthly works.

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. He would want you to pick his own, of course

After all, the other 4 billion people are all going to Hell. :hi:

[SidDithers]

11. Or you could hide the threads...

that you would consider "atheist thoughts on religion".

Yet you continue to post in those types of threads...

Interesting. :)

Sid

[Inland]

13. It was a form of "Here's a Stumper for You" threads.

Like most of them, there's really no answer desired, because it's the assumed lack of an answer that is supposed to be "the stumper." It's an entirely disingenous form of question about religion, which some treat as serious and some treat as an invitation to take a stinky dump.

Here, it's Scott Addams pretending to have a real concern about how the religious handle other people disagreeing. Of course, it's an article of (censored) among some that religious are driven absolutely apeshit by the very THOUGHT that some people disagree with their religion (as other posters here insist that every religious person has damned everyone who disagrees to hell) so he thinks he has a stumper, just as others think they have a stumper with a challenge for you to proselytze them with your religion and convince them that it's better....because, of course, that's what every religious person spends all their time doing anyway, right, and so it can't be resisted no matter the bad faith it's requested......

Anyway, it's a set piece, borne of an assumption, bigotry by any other name.

[beam me up scottie]

14. " it's a set piece, borne of an assumption, bigotry by any other name"

Now, is that any way to talk about papau's post???

Some people have no manners!

[Zhade]

23. And should Inland REALLY be talking about others' "bigotry"?

After all, a lot of us still have actual proof of HIS bigotry, shared right here on DU.

[beam me up scottie]

24. Exactly.

Although if we were to bring that up, it would be harassing him.

Do a search of his posts in this forum.

Unbelievable.

If any one of us was on a personal mission to stalk, harass and insult christians in this forum, for YEARS no less, I hardly think we'd be allowed to get away with it.

Maybe it's because pretty much everyone ignores him.

[catbert836]

19. Papau, I would suggest

not trying to guess motives behind other's beliefs or non-beliefs. Many consider it to be very arrogant. Also, many consider it arrogant to assume what other's beliefs ARE, as in "when they are certain that no God exists".

Just a little helpful advice.

[Orrex]

15. Many atheists make a smaller assumption than do theists

This atheist, for instance, assumes only the the universe exists and that we can observe it with varying degrees of accuracy. All other information descends from these two assumptions. This atheist further concludes that the evidence does not convincingly support the argument that God exists.

Theists, in contrast (at least, god-worshipping theists) assume that their finite, fallible minds can somehow make solid determinations about an absolute, infinite, omnipotent entity for which they have no evidence.

A theist who declares that 4+ billion are wrong is saying, in effect, "my ability to grasp the infinite is superior to all of yours."

But when an atheist concludes that 5.9 billion (or so) are wrong, he is saying "the conclusion you have reached is not consistent with the evidence available to me. If you have convincing evidence that you are correct, please present it." But here are a few caveats:

"Faith requires no evidence" is not an argument; it is witnessing.

"The evidence is all around us" is likewise witnessing.

"But you don't know where the universe came from" is not evidence--it is a foot-stomping argument from ignorance and a fallacy.

In my experience, the best way to "rock" a religious person's world is to protect that person from influence by his religious peers and to educate him in the methods of critical thinking and argument. This doesn't always work, of course.

[Proud_Democratt]

16. Critical Thinking is the enemy of Christian Fundamentalists

"Questioning the existance of a god" is their queue for more scare tactics.

[Inland]

17. That's hardly the point.

A person who feels he is right doesn't care if six billion disagree. That's obvious enough to me, just as it should have been obvious enough to Adams. The rest is saying that atheists ARE right.

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. And the question is: What your logical basis?

"A person who feels he is right doesn't care if six billion disagree." If he is right, then the other six billion are wrong. Right? On what does he base the conclusion that the other six billion are wrong, and why is his argument more valid than the arguments used by that six billion?

[Inland]

21. That's not the point of Adams's "stumper".

His stumper is, how do religious stand the fact that 4 billion others disagree about the tenets of their religion?

But the answer is, the same way that atheists such as himself, apparently, can stand that almost six billion disagree with them: it doesn't bother them to be in the small minority if they think they are in the right. Contrary to Adam's implicit premises, it doesn't drive the religious mad to know other religious disagree, and they don't consider it proof of the illegitimacy of their religion, so there's an answer, not a stumper.

The basis a religious person or atheist has for his position is simply irrelevant to the issue of what everyone else believes and therefore irrelevant to his question. He wasn't trying to find out why people believe as they do: he was putting forth what he felt was an difficult conundrum, the stumper, in the same way the stumper gets thrown out in R/T as unanswerable. Pretty weak.

[Orrex]

22. I disagree, as you might expect.

Since the assumptions of the atheist are very small, it's no big deal when people reach a different conclusion, unless that conclusion inspires them to harm or exert undue control over other people. If you disagree with me, it's no big deal, because it means only that the available evidence leads you to a different conclusion. If you can convince me that your conclusion has greater validity than mine, then I will adopt yours. If not, then I'll keep mine until something better comes along that's consistent with my small assumptions.

But a theist makes literally the biggest possible assumption in all of existence. When a person disagrees with a theist, she's in effect saying that the theist's concept of the fundamental nature of the universe is wrong, and all the absolutes that descend from that worldview are likewise in question. Since many theists cling to notions of "absolute" morality, ethics, and right-and-wrong, such a counter-assertion is a potentially fatal blow the the entire order of things. Sure, you can say that you don't care what those other 4+ billion believe, but if you're wrong, then the stakes are infinitely high.

It's the counterpart to Pascal's Wager: the atheist gambles very little and so has very little to lose. The theist wagers the whole universe and so has everything to lose.

Before anyone raises a pedestrian objection, I know that not all theists are whacked-out absolutists, just as all atheists do not fit my particular conception of atheism. But since I'm making a point here, I feel justified in generalizing.

[Proud_Democratt]

25. Are you aware of his credentials?...or background???

A person doesn't need to be a "believer" in order to be an expert in different religions or faiths.

[beam me up scottie]

28. Don't bother, he's an ID-iot.

Of course, I'm talking about Scott Adams.
;)
Seriously, he's not an atheist, he believes in ID.

[jdadd]

4. Back in 71

I was an LSD (Acid) Guy and Talked directly to God and got personal answers....:hippie:

[htuttle]

6. Did you ask him what he thought of you?

...and did he give you the answers that you wanted him to?

Oh welllll......

:)

[jdadd]

20. He wasn't very happy with me....

That was my first and last acid experience....Nah! that was a meager attemt at humor...Ya Know? LDS (Morman). I grew up in a fundie family and always felt there was more than their narrow view of the world...It works for them...I say I am an agnostic now...Works for me!:-)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

26. My response is a bit different

from his choices.

I simply don't care. It's not my problem. I have enough to do dealing with my own soul. You all have to be accountable for yours, not me.