there were signs all around my uni that said "dump your socialist boyfriend" for like NO reason 😭😭

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[–] 117 points 6 months ago (25 children)

Never, ever try and engage these people on their terms, for example, by trying to β€œchallenge” them with counter arguments. They already have a whole script of replies ready for anything like that, designed to drag you down to his level of bad-faith bickering.

Instead, simply call out to their face what they actually are. These are bad-faith actors there for the sole purpose of undermining social cohesion by creating a false dichotomy between science and religion. They are not the only reason we are so divided but they are a large one. Tell them that. Don’t let them respond. Don’t give them questions to answer. Just keep pressing, stating what they are, to them, and to everyone who’s stopping to listen. Humiliate them by presenting them to the public as the cancer to society that they are.

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  • [–] 49 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    In this particular case, he has no audience except a banana and a time traveler, so you could also just ignore him. Nothing worse for him than a day of nothing happening.

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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago

    About 25yrs ago we had a flurry of these types invade. So we pulled some strings, got permission, and started having local bands play the main spot where they wanted to preach during the busy part of the day. Drown them out. The best was our local death metal band where the guitarist dressed up like a priest in a gimp mask and the singer wore a prison jumpsuit and nylons over his face. They condemned it but left. Also, mid-day death metal in the center of campus is something to behold.

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago

    Ya. That doesn't work either. What does work is doing the exact same thing they do. Get a sign write on it "Christianity is bullshit. Prove me wrong" and stand there.

    Don't look at him, don't engage. When he does finally say something tell him that he's oppressing your beliefs and he deserves to burn in everlasting hellfire..

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    This is pretty much prime territory for the same methods Kirk used for β€œdebate”.

    Gish gallop, butwhatabout, moving goalposts, exhausting the opponent with bs, etc.

    They’re all the same, they’re not there for any honest conversation. There is absolutely no way to β€œwin” with them because no matter what objective and truthful information you offer it will be rejected or you’ll be asked to β€œprove” something that cannot be done in any manner acceptable to the asker.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    Not only that but both of them, Kirk and WBC, were experienced. Not at being good debators but at shutting down people who tried to prove them wrong. Even if they were wrong. They had months if not years built around defending a flawed view and shutting down naysayers. They regularly practiced all their tactics so most of the people they debated (regular students who had an opinion) weren't ready for their tactics. You don't have to outsmart your opponent or be correct, you just have to trip them up and make them publicly look foolish. These guys travel the country ragebaiting and begging people to call them out daily, they know how to dodge and redirect and speak over.

    Once you stoop to their level, they beat you with experience. It doesn't make them right.

    Also I'm pretty sure half of WBCs old tactic was saying stuff that would get them punched and then suing.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    They also are going in skilled at public debate and picking fights with the unskilled. They're media trained, and you probably aren't. They get to cut the video and decide if they post it. They're fighting dirty, but they're doing it in a game they rigged before the first fight.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    You can't call them out either, they're prepared for that probably even more. You debating them, you calling them names, you doing anything with them gives them what they want - attention and footage for their stupid youtube channels.
    The only thing they're afraid of is if you ignore them. The only footage that makes them look actually bad and which they can't cut to make themselves look good is them sitting in the corner with their silly little bait bullshit, being ignored by society.

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  • [+] 5 points 6 months ago (12 children)
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (11 children)

    Plenty of religious scientists. The more you learn, the greater you are aware of how much is uncertain. You can still believe in a God whilst respecting the scientific method of iterative reasoning and refinement

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    The more you learn, the greater you are aware of how much is uncertain.

    Yes, but similarly, the god of the gaps is pretty hard to ignore.

    There will be questions we never will have the answer to, and if you're actually serious about the scientific method as a philosophy, you aren't uncomfortable with "we don't know".

    To me, a mysterious universe is more wondrous than "god did it" and yes, I do very much question religious scientists, despite many great scientists being religious.

    If you're willing to just believe things "just because" then how can I trust you'll actually apply the scientific method (also a philosophy) reliably?

    I can happily coexist and work with mildly religious scientists/engineers, but I would straight up refuse to work with a creationist or someone born again. Religion is anti-scientific.

    Religion vs science is not a false dichotomy, despite it being possible to be religious and a scientist at the same time.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    It's less accepting the uncertainties, and more seeing familiar patterns and constants and wondering of their nature. Why Pi, why 3 visible human dimensions, why the golden ratio in so many flora and fauna, why quark trios.

    The scientific answer to many of these is "Nature of the universe, energy minimization dictates, we have Math models", all which are fine answers. But you do still question why those values/patterns compared to others, and the truth is we may never know. If we do, that's amazing(!), but if not, that's probably alright too.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    The scientific method answers "How?" questions. It lets us build models of reality - a map of the territory.

    "Why?" questions imply intent- requiring an intelligence making a decision. The scientific method does not and cannot answer those questions.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    There are people who're scientists and also religious people. People are amazing at compartmentalizing. My physics teacher in school was young earth creationists. She had no problems spending the whole academic hour correctly explaining how lead is formed over millenia in a heart of a dying start, and then spending an hour after school explaining to all who could listen, with the same conviction, that the earth is 6 thousands years old everything was made in 6 literal human 24 hours days.
    People contain multitudes. Science and religion, however, are mutually exclusive. Scientific method is the opposite of religious conviction, and anyone who don't see that doesn't know what either of those words mean.

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  • [+] 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    There was a shortformvid clip I saw some time ago that stuck with me: You can only 'believe' in something that does NOT have evidence for it (or at least not conclusive evidence), otherwise you would KNOW it to be true. Belief requires a certain amount of uncertainty. Note that I am in no way religious and in no way am saying people should believe religious texts, just sharing an interesting take on the concept of 'believing'

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    That's not exactly what believe means. In a way we can't be sure of anything, including our own existence, so everything we do is believing something based on what evidence we have. The difference between that and a religious conviction is that religion requires you to stop basing your believe on any evidence at all, and believe in their stuff regardless.
    If I tell you I ate a piece of bread this morning, you'll believe me. If I tell you I ate a piece of Uranium, you wouldn't. Even though, you have the same amount of evidence for both claims. That's normal believe. Religious believe requires you to believe everything religious higher ups tell you, but because humans aren't wired to do that, they only tell you shit you can't actually check, so your believes are "justified".

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  • [+] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    There are also a fair number of scientists that believe there may be a higher power or an afterlife that still devoutly hold to scientific study. You can be a person of science and a person of faith. As long as you don't deny science along the way then there's no problem with that. Now if you don't believe in evolution or something then yes your credentials are weakened significantly, but believing that there is a higher power beyond earth doesn't mean your test results are invalid.

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    [–] 45 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (10 children)

    I'm sorry... Is he saying that the Bible directly, as the first sentence of the first book, like, the very first thing the Bible says, is: "Evolution is a lie," or, "prove me wrong"?

    I shouldn't think too hard about it, but I am.

    Edit: I'm aware the first sentence is "god made everything" but everything includes evolution soo.. πŸ€”

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

    Not a believer, but I recently learned that a correct reading of the original Hebrew doesn't say he created everything. He created the waters and the earth from the void that was already there.

    Back to the sign. Dude is making the claim; he has to support it. Evolution is the most proven theory we have, it has been tested over and over. He'd first have to understand the basics of evolutionary theory, which I guarantee he doesn't know; he wouldn't be there if he did.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Evolution is the most proven theory we have, yet it has been falsified over and over.

    Is this a typo? A theory need only be proven wrong once to nullify it as a theory and so far as I'm aware that hasn't happened.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    It's a miswording. I meant the act of being falsifiable. Testable. If we found something that went totally against the core of the theory and was shown to be factual, we'd have to reconsider what was wrong. But the only debate within evolution are the details, not the main concept, which still hasn't found bunny fossils older than dinosaurs (to use a common example).

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

    Evolution is the most proven theory we have, it has been tested over and over.

    I'll see your Theory of Evolution and raise you the Theory of Gravity.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I'll call. We understand much of how evolution works. Do we really understand how gravity actually works at the core level? There are a few theories, but that's just it; we're not sure, and have different models to try and explain what's going on. Not one.

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  • [–] 43 points 6 months ago (12 children)

    β€œOn second thought let’s not go to the United States. β€˜t’is a silly place.”

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  • [–] -2 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    Yes we are the only country on earth with religious fundamentalists

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    Oh absolutely not, but the USA is without a doubt the silliest one at that.

    In most countries political figures are boring by default. Maybe a few outliers but all in all blander than oatmeal with water instead of milk.

    Do I even need to start describing the USA?

    You guys have fucking wrestling in front of the White House that’s being wrecked to build a ginormous ballroom on top of a β€œsecret” bunker. I could go on for pages but I’m gonna end up in tldr territory very quickly.

    (Also, it was just a play on a Monty python quote)

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Well compared to most European countries you are sure clear winners

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  • [+] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    All what you're saying and more are big problems by European standards. And yet, the most insane Polish catholic will be seen as moderate woke by the most enlightened American public. Polland's remarkably high religious observance is actually 30% of Catholics attended a mass at least once a year, according to 2024 numbers that I could find. Which actually down from 50% over last three decades with continuing downwards trend.
    So yeah, if you look for very specific things like Pentecostsls in Romania, you can find some anomalies that you can then spin as a catastrophe, but the fact that you needed to do this anomaly hunt in the first place says enough.

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  • [+] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    Victor Orban is also very much not Polish, but what does it matter, right?
    Anyway, sure, you're technically correct, the most insane Polish Catholic is insane. Serves me right for trying to insert some literary flΓ©r of hyperbole in this serious scientific conversation.
    We were talking about popluational trends and statistics though, in which case I will explicitly say that I'm talking about "median" population, not literaly the extreme 0.1%

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    The Vatican is #1, but we're the only other "Western Democracy" that is having a major resurgence of fundies in power. There's always been a problem, but never have they had so much sway. And we're not better off for it.

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  • [–] 36 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Is the templar, banana and lighting McQueen toy part of his argument or are those people goofing on him?

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  • [–] 33 points 6 months ago*

    Having attended several red state universities, I chose to take it as a statement that alongside the ubiquitous plaza preachers, who are never affiliated with the school and are generally no one’s favorite campus characters, there’s also plenty of standard college silliness and shenanigans. Apart from the big blue cities, the college towns of the south are generally the most educated and forward thinking enclaves of their red states, hence the huge pressure campaigns from their governors to being the schools themselves to heel.

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  • [–] 24 points 6 months ago
    [–] 21 points 6 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    You first. Prove religion is right.

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Here are the arguments theyll be sure are winners:

    1

    says in old book. You not have old book.

    2

    DIE UNBELIEVER!

    3

    hello, morality officer? Yes, i have an unbeliever here.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    says in old book. You not have old book.

    The first encyclopedia is about as old as the Bible.

    So it'll always end in answer 2 and 3.

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago* (8 children)

    TBH I think Genesis 1:1 is much more about big bang denial/interpretation than evolution.

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

    Isn't there a better quote for being anti-evolution? Like about the creation of Adam and Eve? I say like Gen 1:20-27. Maybe they meant just Genesis 1?

    I love when people are stupid about being stupid.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t think the Bible denies the Big Bang. It doesn’t say how he created the universe except that it took 7 days which is a mistranslation anyway. The Hebrew word used in the Torah for day is β€˜yom’ which means era.

    In my opinion it’s very easy to reconcile the creation story with science.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I saw a big billboard that said "EVOLUTION IS A LIE GENESIS 1:1" with the ape evolving to man with a big ❌ over it and a phone number like 1-800-THE-TRUTH or something.

    god I absolutely love living in Florida πŸ™ƒ

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  • Sounds like all the girls there (or at least the ones whoever printed the signs is interested in) are dating socialist guys?

    Wouldn't need to print the signs otherwise... :P

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Why's he on a footstool lol

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Tell him there's a nobel prize waiting for him if he can prove his view.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    No, you prove that you're right.

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  • [–] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    It's ridiculously easy to prove him wrong, but you know he won't accept your numerous indisputable proofs, not just because he's religious, but because he's a cunt. Just look at him; you just know his profile pic is that sunglasses face in his truck at a weird angle and he constantly whines about everything being woke.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago

    there were signs all around my uni that said "dump your socialist boyfriend" for like NO reason 😭😭

    Are you on my campus or is this a common thing?

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago

    Kick that stool out from under him and see how fit he is for survival.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    My uni just had constant protests against quad gods

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    Once upon a time these batshit crazy politicians would be kicked out of US politics. The shift to ridiculous antics is purposeful ... the media just accepts anything and everything these people do now.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I mean, he's ape-brained still, he might have a point.

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