(no subject)

[essentialsaltes]

Arguing on the internet is like...

Comments

hmmm

[(Anonymous)]

The problem I have found is that most people absolutely refuse to change their minds. And the more deeply felt their minds are, the more impossible it is to change them: "It's easier to change the world than change your mind."--Kirsten

They create "epicycles" (a term I copped from Copernicus), where they will make huge elaborate explanations to hold onto their beliefs, rather than challenge the belief itself. In other words, people believed planets rotated in perfect circles, so they'd make up huge charts to somehow explain retrograde motion (observed fact), rather than question the basic belief that the planets rotate in circles.

Religious people are the same way: they have decided on the way the universe operates, and there's no way that's every going to change (barring more serious brain malfunction). It's like Bush: if he questions anything, or if you question him, it's tantamount to questioning god himself, and blasphemous.

People believe in the absolute word of the Bible because we have to believe something. Few have recently put up a good enough argument that says "Look, we were created by random evolution, our consciousness developed through random evolution, when we die we go to the exact same nothingness we were before we were born, you can't stop it, and there really is no point as to why we're here...unless you view life as winning the cosmic lottery, and we are the astronomically lucky species that has the opportunity to observe, question, suffer, and understand the universe to try and make sense out of it...our own sense."

Atheists don't have a charismatic leader who can appeal to emotion as well as intellect, so the screaming Bible people win, because it's better to live a lie in peace than live the truth in fear.

Which brings us to things like this:
"I thought it was the Lord saying to me, 'You're just going to have to step out in faith. This is faith. You can't see why. You just got to.' "
From Deanna Laney, the TEXAS mother who murdered two of her sons (and maimed her third, the youngest)

I'd love to hear how the religious people shuffle Deanna under the rug: "Oh, no, she was crazy! But believing in this book written in the time of dinosaurs as absolute fact despite all appeararnces to the contrary; no, that's not crazy! Believing in a God who has such low self esteem he DEMANDS that you worship his son to get into heaven, no, that's not crazy! Believing in some kind of sentient force that created us as part of a plan, no, that's not crazy!"

Re: hmmm

[rsheslin.livejournal.com]

Where's Spike when we need him to set us straight? Been awfully quiet from that corner, lately.
;)

[the-undertow.livejournal.com]

If any of them are female, suggest to their fathers that they be sold into slavery. Please post recent pix, so I may consider purchasing one.
hah!
that would be the hottest argument ive ever read, cept it was online...so your geek points just went up a bit.

Re: hmmm

[(Anonymous)]

Spike hasn't said anything lately because his fanged maw has been recently found to be full of MY FAIR FLESH! in it.

The cat is going to kill me, I know it.

[toren-atkinson.livejournal.com]

Yeah - shouldn't your time be better spent KILLING DEFENSELESS PLANTS?!?

Youuuuuuuuu heathen...

Defenseless?

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Defenseless?!? They've got spines and poisons. Rebecca even suspects that they're using their mind control powers to command an army of earwigs.