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[–] 3 points 23 hours ago (6 children)

I find the joke offensive because it's not particularly clever and warps each belief system in a way that doesn't capture the essence of the belief system. It's neither an honest nor a satirical representation of each belief system, it's just a bunch of people being bad drivers with some lazy rationales. It's just not a good joke

The atheist portion is consistent with all the others though. Atheism is definitionally a belief system, agnosticism can sometimes be a lack of a belief system, but atheism is a positive assertion on unknowable aspects of existence

How can your assert a grad student named Kyle didn't spark the big bang when playing with a physics sim in a higher information density layer of reality? It's a matter of belief

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  • [–] 2 points 14 hours ago (5 children)

    it’s just a bunch of people being bad drivers with some lazy rationales. It’s just not a good joke

    At least we agree on that much.

    atheism is a positive assertion on unknowable aspects of existence

    No, not at all. Atheism just means that a person doesn't believe in any gods. I'm positive that I don't believe in any of the current possible gods. I remain open to evidence of an undiscovered god. I'm not positive that there are no gods.

    How can your assert a grad student named Kyle didn’t spark the big bang

    I'm not the one making the assertion, so I have no obligation to prove or disprove it any way. If someone wants me to believe that is true, then they need to provide evidence. Otherwise, it's just a fanciful claim indistinguishable from any child's imaginary friend.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago (4 children)

    I remain open to evidence of an undiscovered god. I'm not positive that there are no gods.

    That's agnosticism.

    I'm positive that I don't believe in any of the current possible gods.

    But you also positively assert all known God's don't exist? That's an interesting belief system, but you're making an incredible amount of assertions there. There's no way you know every belief system out there, that's just not humanly possible

    So you believe that any potential deity is fundamentally unknowable by humans?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

    That’s agnosticism.

    There is an element of agnosticism involved, but they are separate. Atheist simply means that one does not believe in any gods. Agnosticism/Gnosticism would be a statement about certainty any god(s) existing or not existing. One could be a theist and agnostic.

    Without actual evidence, I don't believe anyone go claims to be gnostic regardless of whether they are theist or atheist.

    But you also positively assert all known God’s don’t exist?

    I positively assert that I do not believe in any of the thousands of possible gods that have been proposed as none of them have compelling evidence.

    I further assert that I'm not that different from the vast majority of theists (those who believe in one or more gods). The theist has some set of gods that they believe exist and that all of the other possibilities do not exist. I just take a step further and don't believe their god(s) exist, either.

    So you believe that any potential deity is fundamentally unknowable by humans?

    No. I don't try to make any kind of super-natural claims. I only state that I have seen no compelling evidence that any gods exist and therefore I do not believe in them. Could a god exist, including with unknown evidence, that hasn't been discovered? Sure... science makes new discoveries all of the time. My expectation, even then, is that it will simply be something sufficiently advanced and/or obscure that we just don't recognize it. I would remain very skeptical of any attempts to describe it as super-natural.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (2 children)

    Agnosticism/Gnosticism would be a statement about certainty any god(s) existing or not existing. One could be a theist and agnostic.

    Gnosticism is a collection of belief systems that asset the God known to mankind is not the true creator diety, but something else, whether an imposter, a deluded higher being, etc. But that's a whole other thing

    In my mind love and hate aren't opposites, the opposite of both is disinterest. The opposite of belief isn't rejection of belief, it's indifference

    From my perspective, you've just described a system of beliefs to me. You said you do not accept the belief systems you've learned of, but you do have beliefs about the nature of any potential deity

    So do you understand why I would group your set of beliefs on divinity in the same category as other sets of beliefs on the subject?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago* (1 child)

    So do you understand why I would group your set of beliefs on divinity in the same category as other sets of beliefs on the subject?

    I understand what you are saying and I'm telling you that you are patently wrong. Atheist has a very simple meaning. The only thing it tells you is that the person does not believe in any gods. Are you aware that there are Buddhist atheists? The Buddhist part is essential to knowing what their belief system might be. In my case, if you were to ask of my belief system, I would tell you that it most closely aligns with secular humanism. Without that piece of information, the only thing you know about me is that I don't believe in any gods. You might also find it interesting to know that I was the president of a church - as an 'out' atheist. Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair color. They may often be proximal, but they are very distinct things.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    Wait hold on...I was careful to not put any labels on you (I don't like to be labeled, but people can label themselves however they want), I haven't said anything about religion (which is a totally separate conversation) or anything about you outside this one specific topic, all I did was repeat back what you said to illustrate my point

    My whole point is that atheism fits in the (bad) joke just as much as the other entries

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