• 17 Posts
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Halasham@dormi.zonetoAtheism@lemmy.worldIt's God's will?
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    18 days ago

    Stories like that of Job is why my position is that if it were to be determined by some means that the God of Abraham actually exists than that should be corrected at the earliest available opportunity. If almost any claimed gods exist than that should be corrected.


  • Yeah, that’s frustrating. Reminds me of learning my grandfather attributed me being accepted to my collage of choice to the fictitious despot rather than my own ability (at least in spite of being religious he’s kind, this kind of thing with him tends more to be by way of unfortunate implication rather than intent).



  • Halasham@dormi.zonetoAtheism@lemmy.worldSpiritual battery
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    18 days ago

    Thank you. I’m aware it won’t change their minds however for one of them I have been established as a source of correct information (close relative and lifetime of giving them correct info)…

    They don’t seem to internalize the information but I still try to provide them with correct information to counter the christofasc programming.





  • What I’m trying to say is that we don’t really understand much about the origin of the universe, so saying “I don’t believe there is a god because of lack of evidence” seems too harsh.

    I don’t think many Atheists come to the conclusion based off of arguments about the origin of the universe. It appears to be more common that logical or ethical contradictions within theistic doctrine lead to its rejection.

    For me personally it began with the divine hiddenness problem. Being raised in a faith that states its god wants a relationship with me and yet is wholly imperceivable to me. From there building with additional arguments such as the abhorrent ethics of their mythical figures when viewed from a frame of reference other than ‘they’re the good guys because their god said so’.


  • My last paragraph was aimed towards religious people and atheists that have a solid opinion.

    Alright. Was thinking about this prior to seeing your reply and meant to apologize as on thinking about it your statement could be meant that way and now with the clarification doubt has further been removed. Sorry.

    I don’t think accepting ignorance is something bad, I advice to do it whenever possible.

    I agree that it’s not bad to accept legitimate ignorance however I don’t think it’s best practice to accept ignorance just because it’s one of the possibilities. Rather, I feel that ignorance should be the fallback position, over baseless speculation, when hard facts on a subject are insufficient in number and/or scope to paint a reasonably clear picture.

    Where sufficient facts on a matter exist to show a clear picture exist I don’t believe it proper to accept an assertion of ignorance. Firstly because it’s false, we know at least some things on the topic, and secondly because it can be harmful, shysters leveraging ‘we don’t know’ to insert a baseless speculation paired with hawking a product or marketing themselves as a problem solver.


  • Do you think lack of evidence provided by humans, little animals who live in a dust spec for a relative short amount of time, gives you enough confidence to say “there is no creator”?

    For some generalized creator figure? I can’t disprove that, however I think Russel’s Teapot comes into play at this point. We couldn’t detect a porcelain teapot the size of a common teapot in stellar orbit between the Earth and Mars. So, currently, it would be impossible to disprove that claim, however there is also no reason to accept it. The burden of proof is on those who make these claims to support them, not on those who don’t accept them to disprove every claim they could posit.

    For any of the creator figures I’m aware of non-deist theists claiming exist? At least of all those that I am familiar with they have self-contradictory stated natures, operate in logical contradictions, and perform impossibilities. In short: They don’t exist because for that not to be the case then the few things we can demonstrate to be true must be false.

    That is exactly my issue with atheism, that they think their human reason gives them enough capacity to take a position to something as complex as the origin of reality.

    The only times I’ve seen an atheist back their atheism just with human reason is when explaining logical contradictions about the asserted god. Most arguments I’m aware of use more than just logical contradictions in the opposing claim. More often than not I see them engaging with the proposed evidence for the claim and providing contrary evidence against it.

    It’s just outside of our reach and anything we choose to believe, even if rooted in reason, is a wild guess.

    We use the terms ‘rooted in reason’ and ‘wild guess’ to mean different things. To me a wild guess is made in the absence of reason or without regard to it while something that is ‘rooted in reason’ is about as opposed to that as is possible, a belief that stems only from what it well supported by evidence, reasoning, or most preferably both.

    I’m not sure I take your meaning for ‘just outside our reach’. Are you stating that we’re close to it but not there yet or that it is categorically beyond our ability to reach such that we will never reach it?

    The most rational thing to do is just to stop guessing. I feel if people accepted their ignorance more frequently instead of taking sides without actual knowledge, the world would be a better place.

    I’m sorry but this comes off as somewhat disingenuous directed toward atheists. We’re not accepting the other side’s guess and generally also provide reasoning for that decision when prompted. Contrast with the theistic position of the assertion of some grand causer or creator and subsequent assertions that anything not yet explained rationally is somehow the work of this unsupported asserted entity.


  • Halasham@dormi.zonetoAtheism@lemmy.worldMy problem with atheism
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    30 days ago

    First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn’t to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions.

    Welcome. Happy to talk with people rather than have to counter rhetorical attacks.

    My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth.

    Personally, I’m partial to the definition of Atheism as ‘Lack of belief in any gods’ rather than ‘Belief that there are no gods.’ I fit both definitions but I think the first is more accurate and better represents most Atheist’s relationship with the truth value of the claim. Even for those of us who believe there are no gods I believe it’s a grand commonality between a super-majority of atheists that there’s some quantity of sufficient evidence that would change our minds… though quite likely the specific amount will vary from one to another.

    But saying that there’s no god with certainty is something I’m just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress.

    The way I see it most of the time scientific advancement doesn’t say our previous understanding was wrong, rather that it was incomplete. One of the better examples being Newtonian Physics and Relativity, Newton wasn’t wrong so much as his work didn’t account for special behavior under extreme circumstances. We do occasionally have counter examples such as miasma being replaced with the Germ Theory of Disease but this tends to be when a historical unscientific position is unraveled by a scientific explanation.

    As-is I don’t see how any such gods that have been commonly claimed could exist as stated without them violating various scientific, and in some cases logical, laws. So, I feel quite secure in my position that these things that contradict our best evidenced understanding of the universe are not real.

    I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.

    Sure, it’s worthwhile to look at the evidence against our own positions. But evidence is the key word here. The theistic position has yet to forward any noteworthy body of anything that would fit the definition of the word. They’re welcome to keep trying in perpetuity if they so wish but I’m not going to lend credence to the claim until such time as they are not only successful in finding something that is evidence but a sufficient body of it to outweigh what the claim is mutually exclusive with which already has evidence or they can by some means discredit the whole body of evidence against their claim and forward evidence for it.

    That being said so long as there is measurable harm to come from theistic belief and the benefits of it are ephemeral I will be opposed to inflicting it on others.

    I usually don’t believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.

    I don’t believe that that’s the case. To be no amount of assertion creates a chance that anything could be the case. What makes a chance is that an assessment of possibilities puts a known or estimable probability on it being the case.




  • Halasham@dormi.zonetoAutism@lemmy.worldWhats your take? Creepy or not?
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    1 month ago

    Unfortunately ‘Creepy’ is subjective and poorly defined. It’s a feeling rather than ‘this meets XYZ criteria and therefore is creepy’.

    she calls me creepy and to stop stalking her. I explain im not stalking im just being a friend and just enjoy talking inbetween class.

    I agree with you that she’s not using ‘stalking’ correctly but I believe this was meant to terminate your platonic relationship. It’s upsetting but that’s likely the point.

    random number of text message with photo of me 20 seconds ago at lunch table. panic issues, i message who dis. They reply, you dont need to know stop stalking (girls name). I explain its not stalking if i go up and say hello and talk to them.

    This behavior is much more in-line with a correct usage of ‘stalking’. I would assume this escalation was taken as being fair game from your refusal to accept her use as stalking. That’s vexing but likely meant just to highlight their desire to terminate the relationship as that wasn’t clear from her first accusation.


  • Today, I overheard my mom talking loudly on a video call to my brother and his wife, catching up and sharing their latest news. Apparently her latest news included the fact that I have been diagnosed with ASD.

    The way I respond to this is pretty simple; The people around me know I have little need for conversation. I can talk to people and sometimes enjoy it but I can very well not make conversation with people. Disclosing my secrets or misrepresenting my statements is grounds for no further conversation beyond simple practical utility.

    In my experience NTs generally assume there’s not a privacy restriction unless explicitly stated. Even if not the explicit statement further grounds the decision to make minimal conversation should they violate your trust in that way.

    she also mentioned that I’ve been less conversational lately, which she attributes to my diagnosis and to me no longer wanting to make the effort necessary to talk to neurotypical people

    You were recently diagnosed with a second condition that affects your willingness to converse. She already knows you have one and that it’s been significantly affecting you lately. Does she know how autism affects interpersonal interaction? Does she think you’ve developed autism recently? Does she doubt the diagnosis?

    I’m also not sure how to move forward with this information in any way without it seeming like I was eavesdropping - which I wasn’t intentionally doing,

    I have sensitive hearing and I live in an area where most people don’t have inside voices. If I’m not wearing my headphones or hyperfocusing on something I can hear people trying to be quiet a floor away. I don’t know if you’re the same way but I agree with Cagi, if a conversation was meant to be private it should be conducted where it wouldn’t be overheard. It’d be eavesdropping only if an attempt to do that was made and you had made intentional actions to subvert that effort. Eavesdropping is an intentional act, overhearing is an autonomic act.

    but as it is I don’t feel comfortable raising the subject, or noticeably increasing my level of masking (to accomodate her apparent discomfort with me not doing so),

    That’s entirely up to you how to deal with it. I try to mask less around people I feel safe around. So far I think it’s going well. Does she scrutinize things that spontaneously start going her way? If not it may just not come up. If so you could be honest about overhearing her or assert that you were trying to think about how she felt about your recent behavior.

    I haven’t yet told him, and now I’m worried that he’s going to take it as me no longer socializing with neurotypical family members (even though the arrangement was made before my diagnosis).

    You could call him to share the diagnosis and ‘play dumb’ about him already knowing. I don’t know how far just to your brother’s city is but you could offer an alternative get-together for later and explain that last year’s complications have made you want this trip to be simplified.


  • Capitalism is for sure flawed. I, and most if not all leftists, would argue that it is inherently flawed. Not in small ways either but in the sort of large ways that make it’s continued use unacceptable. Such as essentially every Human need being denied to some people within the system.

    Capitalism obsessively distributes by market forces that are fundamentally incapable of caring about universality. So long as any human need is distributed by market forces, especially paired with profit as the driving incentive, it doesn’t matter how large the surplus of it is people will be deprived of it.

    I think the concept behind the chaos of anarchy is that the lack of a social contract Well, there’s also the matter that Anarchism and Communism were both relatively recently the targets of the largest and most prolific propaganda machine ever made. US media is incredibly sycophantic toward the government, to the point Russian state media bucks the line more frequently, and has been extremely effective at coloring public opinion on topics the average person knows effectively nothing about, even beyond the USA.

    that people without regulation are chaotic in the sense that no matter how much I want to be a “good boss” I always end up being a “fun boss” instead and people only do as much as they think they can get away with doing instead of doing what seems to be the right amount of work for the greater good.

    You’re a manager? Part of the issue with motivating workers to work without systemic change is that regardless of your managerial style we live in a system where the primary motivating force is fundamentally a death threat: work or die, likely from exposure or starvation.

    Further no matter how good a manager you are they are not receiving the full value of their labor. No company in any capitalist nation employs people at the full value they produce as that would mean net profit for the company from that employee is $0. As the fundamental motivating force for all companies is increasing profit this course of action is effectively impossible as all decision-making at the topmost level is centered around doing the opposite of giving the full value they receive.

    Given that workers, from the company’s perspective, are there to do as much as possible for as little as possible in return is it any wonder that so many of them take the inverse perspective? That they are there to do as little as possible for as much as possible in return.


  • Actually I’m a Marxist. However don’t see much reason in perpetuating the red/black divide. Both groups have the same end-goal in mind, we just want to do the two major steps in reverse order compared to each-other. The end goal is a stateless society without need of currency and without the division of people into different classes. To drastically oversimplify centuries of work to get there we need to do two things:

    • Abolish Capitalism
    • Abolish Nationalism

    Side note: As you may be able to infer from those two steps Anarcho-Capitalism and National Socialism aren’t really from either system, rather they’ve pretty much just stolen the terms for their use rather that denote relatedness to other Anarcho-s or Socialisms.

    Communists want to do them in the order I presented, generally by seizing control of the State and using it to destroy capitalism then adopting reforms to slowly make the State pointless. Anarchists want to destroy the State first then get rid of Capitalism.

    One big misconception about Anarchism is that it isn’t for chaos and disorder, it’s for the end of unjustified hierarchy. An actual Anarchist experiment would still have social order, rather than be the chaotic social breakdown that is called Anarchism as a means of disinformation. A lot of Anarchist works explain how systems of voluntary cooperation can work and would be helpful to society.

    Unfortunately America’s bad urban design is the product of legal corruption, lobbying, on the part of the automotive industry. Good urban design invalidates any need for a car and so the companies that make and sell cars pour billions into ensuring that ours will continue to be horrible. We used to have trains that went everywhere and they were great but again that was all unraveled for the sake of the dead-last worst way to move people in bulk: cars.


    • Video Games Mostly those that allow me to tinker or engineer or just optimize from a lot of options available to the player. Minecraft, especially with the Create Mod, is a great example. I can engineer to my heart’s content with it. Space Engineers is one that if feels like I should love it but I have a hard time getting into it.
    • Leftist Political Ideologies Mostly Marxism and it’s sub-groups but also Anarcho-Communism as well. This includes the history of attempts at those systems and modern examples. Sometimes this gets frustrating when I encounter an unironic use of a wholly, or almost wholly, false point being brought out again. Unfortunately some of the big names have writing styles so dry they could sap the moisture from the Atlantic.
    • World History in general Especially early to mid modern history and ancient history. Military history from any point in time is also pretty enjoyable to me. Sometimes it’s frustrating like learning that a major problem of today was almost wholly caused by one person in the past having a particular preference for X over Y (ex Ford preferring internal combustion for his cars over battery power).
    • Urban Design I like learning about what is and isn’t effective in terms of how to build places that work for people. What makes places safer or more dangerous, how to reduce stress through little design tricks, and how places can be a net positive for the wider area they’re in. Also trains on both large and small scale.
    • Computer Programming/IT Out of all my interests this is the one I’m perusing as something I could have a job doing. Working with computers strikes a nice balance between rules being clear and exact and being open-ended enough to allow for creative solutions. Also learned I have a strong preference for C++ over Javascript. That may be because I learned C++ first and Javascript is a lot more typing intensive to do simple things.