We rational people know about Richard Dawkins’s excellent answer to a stupid ‘what if you’re wrong’ question. Now let’s enjoy the art. And let the believers think about what Dawkins says until they get back their rational logical mind.
Taslima Nasreen
No Country for Women - Humanism, Secularism, Feminism
Good clip.
Yes, we could be wrong. There’s (almost) always that possibility.
But what are the odds and the evidence and what do we have most reason to believe or accept?
That’s the real question. I think,
Though I could be wrong about that or almost anything. As goes for everyone pretty much.
Oh, that’s what I call drawing! Cool!
Yeah, it’s highly unlikely to be right with the thousands of gods to choose from. We could be wrong about all but one of them, a one in 3000 chance, let’s say, to be right. But if there are no gods, we have a 2,999/3000 to be right – 99.97%.
‘We rational people‘ ??- A self deluding statement – .Human emotional impulse & emotional perception are almost always irrational.
Atheist brigades proclamation of ‘no Gods’ with just only hypothesis is the ultimate proof of the irrationality of rationality
“What if you are wrong” – a very spot on, rational and independent minded question.
Only people with logical blind spot would consider it being ‘stupid’
Jumping off the Empire State building in New York will probably result in death. But what if I’m wrong? A very spot on, rational and independent minded question. Maybe angels will save you at the last moment! Care to test it?
What if the Christian is wrong?
She has been part of preventing the happiness and even hastening the death of other human beings in a vicious cycle going back thousands of years.
The atheist hypothesis is the null hypothesis, at the base of all science: Theists assert the existence of a god or gods. We say: prove it.
Exactly, Randomfactor. We say, make me spurn that null hypothesis like…um, a very shunned thing*, send it crying to its room whining that it’s not FAIR there are really deities, spank it like a disobedient rented mule.
Show me the MONEY, God-Boy. Or get yer Wholly Fiction out my face.
* That metaphor went bad somewhere in there.
Agni, there are degrees of being wrong.
For instance, the mostly harmless Swedish church is not interested in preaching against evolution, and is not opposing science.Belief in magical things is optional and the church generally does not bother anyone. I have no beef with them.
In ‘Merica, there are preachers who tell parents of sick children they should pray for a cure instead of taking the kids to hospital, often resulting in death.
If you want to see who is wrong, seriously wrong, just look at the death rate in “snake-handling” congregations.
I think centuries of enlightenment and research have pretty much discredited the “magical bloke in the sky” hypothesis but those who let magical thinking interfere with everyday tasks are more mistaken than with those who don’t , or who keep the belief on a harmless level, like believing in UFO’s: it’s wrong, but not dangerous.
@birgerjohansson
Not defending any believes- questing the moral high ground and the claim of absolute truth of Atheism
Atheist cant pretend to be new messiah and sitting on gold mine of eternal truth, when scientist still searching the human eternal quest
Atheist developed a fundamentalist trait, cant visualize that it is a an idea/hypothesis/probability- not a 100% truth.
Cool, Taslima, now we have brigades?
Can I be a colour sergeant? I look really good with flags, and I already know how to march.
It’d be nice to have a spiffy uniform when we do our proclamatin’ about how much god there isn’t, and all that silly critical thinking and reasoning we’re always going on about.
Damn whoever mocks Cthulhu!
@Agni: What if we’re wrong about what? Specifically, what should I be concerned that I’m “wrong” about?
Am I wrong to question the validity and inerrancy of a book of myths written by primitive superstitious men that quite literally makes its first mistake in the first sentence? The tenth word is demonstrably wrong. Scientifically disproven, and has been for some decades now. And it just gets worse from there.
Am I wrong to question whether there existed a magic garden and a tree where IQ-raising sin-fruit tempted a mentally challenged man and woman — who didn’t know the concept of right and wrong until after they ate the IQ-raising sin-fruit?
Am I wrong to question whether snakes can talk?
Am I wrong to question whether a book that seeks to stake a claim as a moral guide shouldn’t feature slavery, genocide, human sacrifice (including one acted upon a young girl), and all the rest?
Am I wrong to question the credulity of folks who actually think it’s possible that someone walked on water, changed water into wine, healed sick people by chasing demons from them, and brought back a days-old stinking corpse?
Am I wrong to question whether or not there’s any evidence whatsoever of the existence of this water-walking wine-loving demon hunter outside of the collection of myths? If there are any contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of his alleged life, surely they’d have popped up by now. It’s not for lack of looking, that’s for sure. Or for the lack of inserting scribblings into totally unrelated accounts (ie, Josephus).
I’d like to know. Seriously.
Kevin you could be wrong about the “Truecoat”:
@Kevin
You are absolutely right to question religious believes and all the superstition to go with it and also the validity of your assertion that XXX don’t exist.
Just to repeat ‘ God does not exist’ is not enough without any convincing arguments.
Even Prophet Dawkins said that if new evidence comes to light he will change his mind.
Belief” is worthless — evidence is the only reliable thing to go by and applies to
Theist and Atheist. You have a presupposition with no evidence.
God is an ever-changing mental concept which is different for every person,
t’s impossible to prove or disprove God, so anyone who says they “know” God exists / doesn’t exist is simply lying. Everybody perceives the world differently. they are right in their own way.
You don’t know god exists any more than anyone else does. You *believe* it.
Bullshit. It’s quite possible to disprove any specific god you care to mention.
The god of the Jews? Well…there’s that whole “the bible is wrong within the first 10 words” thing. There’s the history of how this particular god was created and evolved from one of many gods to the most-important god of this group of goat-herders to the only god ever. A “real” god doesn’t evolve like that.
And about a book or 12 full of other specific disproofs for that specific god.
The only god concept that cannot specifically be disproven (at present) is either the trickster god, or some god who created the multiverse and then left to never return again. Neither of those gods demands belief, requires worship, and tells us whether it’s OK to eat a bacon cheeseburger.
So. Tell me WHICH god you think I can’t disprove. You’re saying “because there’s no evidence for an imaginary thing, therefore we should suspend judgment about it’s existence”. Again, that’s pure unadulterated bullshit.
Kevin,
The question already has a loaded answer, which is a threat. You know, the going to hell bit. It’s like the “Were you there?” question. Any rational answer is generally ignored by the person asking the question. Until they pony up any evidence for their superstitious beliefs this is all they really have, Pascal’s fucking wager.
…and there might be another type of god; satan’s “bitch”. Tied up somewhere unable to do a thing, with satan being the actual author of the bible (and all other religious texts) designed to fuck over humanity. I mean goodness gracious, what if I’m right?
@Kevin (following Agni_B, # 7.2)
I’m afraid that I have to contradict: while it’s entirely possible to prove any religious text as wrong, this can only be used to demonstrate that the texts are wrong, NOT as a logically valid conclusion concerning the existence or nonexistence of a certain deity.
It is not possible to prove a negative if the properties of the object in question are not clearly defined.
(I think that’s the real reason why Agni_B describes “God” as “an ever changing mental concept which is different for every person” — this perfectly immunizes her proposition.)
@Agni_B (#7.2)
Nonetheless, the impetus of your argument, that a “non disproven deity” must be assumed to be existent, might carry you a good part further than you might want to go.
By this standard of yours ANY imaginable mythical figure MUST be assumed to exist, beginning with any deity ever conceived and ending with the “Invisible Pink Unicorn” and the Tooth Fairy.
I’m quite certain that you don’t want to go this far, do you?
But Rudolph, it’s fun to invent gods and religions! As long as they come with the legal disclaimer “for entertainment purposes only” what’s the harm?
FWIW, I prefer the clip, from the same event, commonly referred to as the “not a trivial error” clip. It’s epic, a real “senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” moment. You can see it here: http://youtu.be/W3-BNO1xzJo
(Sorry. If I knew how to embed it, I would.)
The point is that Atheism is a position where reason dictates that, due to any evidence to the contrary,we are not wrong, however, the mind of a freethinker is not closed to the possibility that should such evidence(provable and repeatable) be forthcoming then I for one would accept that I was wrong,but it’s not likely.
Just a thought………………….R D is going to feel more than a little stupid when he meets the Judge of all the earth, Jesus Christ. The blessing of our God be with him.