this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024

296 points (96.0% liked)

Atheism

4048 readers

300 users here now

Community Guide

Archive Today will help you look at paywalled content the way search engines see it.

Statement of Purpose

This is a support and conversation community for people who don't believe in gods.
Superstition hucksters have no reason to subscribe or post here at all.
If you are looking to debate or proselytize, options will be linked lower in the sidebar.

Acceptable

Honest questions or conversations.
Discussions on parenting or advice.
Struggles, frustrations, coming out.
Atheist memes. We can have fun!
News headlines relevant to atheism.

Unacceptable

Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.

Anything against site rules.
Illegal and/or NSFW material.
Troll posts and comments. There will be no attempt to explain what that means.
Leading questions, agenda pushing, or disingenuous attempts to bait members.
Personal attacks or flaming.

Inadvisable

Self promotion or upvote farming.
Excessive shitposting or off-topic discussion.

Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.

Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.

 ~ /c/nostupidquestions

If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!

Connect with Atheists

Matrix: #atheism:envs.net

Help and Support Links

Streaming Media

This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.

Orgs, Blogs, Zines

Mainstream

Bibliography

Start here...

...proceed here.

Proselytize Religion

Convince an Atheist

From Reddit

As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

296

United we stand, divided we fall. (files.sfba.social)

submitted 5 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Source.

top 27 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

That kid with the stick isn't helping. Gotta aim that thing higher.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 16 minutes ago

He's trying but yeah

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 hours ago

That's right, teach science! It's under threat as well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

Seriously, that guy needs to raise his rod higher up between the gay rights into the back of the trans rights, or wedge it into the ground and post it up from behind. Maybe even think ahead, have the gay rights lean forward and create a type of A frame tower there he can use the rod for support

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

There are no gods to save us. We have to save ourselves. And that requires everyone working together. Including us and theists.

I am even happy to extend an olive branch to any evangelical that agrees to fight for progressive causes. They do exist believe it or not.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

A motto of mine is "The universe doesn't care, so we have to".

Love seeing other versions of the same idea held by others.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

We are the caring center of the universe.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

That is similar to one of mine. "The Universe, and Life are fair. They are completely impassionate about their fairness."

I throw that at any one that dares utter the phrase "life isn't fair," at anyone else in my earshot. Through 44 years of life it seems that those that like the phrase "Life isn't fair," are the very ones working as hard as they can to ensure it is unfair.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

My retort for "life isn't fair" is a lot shorter.

It is: "I know, doesn't mean you can't be".

So often it's used to excuse you getting screwed by someone. The universe may not be fair, but more often than not, when facing unfair bullshit, there's a person/people you can actually slap behind it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 hours ago

for real. folks, even if you're atheist or agnostic, make a note right now of the religious institutions in your community with pride flags, progress flags, coexistence symbols, and palestine flags (assuming they're not mosques, that will be a little trickier to get a read on, i'm not saying to hate a mosque with a palestine flag, it's just not intrinsically a symbol of coexistence in that context). these are people who root their love of you in a different place than you root your love of humanity, but they still love you and want you to be alive on this earth. an imperfect coalition is better than a compromised one.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Palestine was in front before. Make of that what you will.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 35 minutes ago)

careful; continuing to espouse reality will get you ostracized and eventually banned on .world and nevermind that ignoring similar constructive criticism is the reason why democrats lost the election.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 hours ago

Gay...

[+] [email protected] -7 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Isn't the idea of rights that they are endowed upon or imbued into each individual by some supernatural authority, like a god? I mean, aren't rights metaphysical, in that they are not context dependent, and exist even outside of time and space itself? Like, the idea of inherent individual rights is that you can remove a person from any given time and place, move that individual to any other time and place, and their "rights" would follow with them, not unlike a soul.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 53 minutes ago (1 children)

Rights are what we agree to as a society.

The things you're describing aren't real.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 43 minutes ago (1 children)

Well, I didn't construct this description out of thin air. It's based on how the concept of individual rights has been explained to me by various people over the years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 35 minutes ago (1 children)

So, you've been listening to stupid people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 24 minutes ago)

Well, you weren't around. In the future, I'll be sure to consult you first.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

It's a type of social contract. In the traditionalist culture, being non-secular, they ascribed it to "God", but, as you know, there is no God, so it was actually up to real people belonging to religious institutions, the clergy. Since the Enlightenment, people have tried to replace God with Nature; this has often been a bad joke with terrible consequences, but eventually secular paradigms took over and tried to reason the contracts into shape, to make them more consistent. There's a lot of philosophy about this and I can't summarize it as easily. But what you're seeing today with Trump and the traditionalists, this anti-secularism, is a desire to return to the pre-Enlightenment state with its contracts and monarchy and aristocracy determined by "God":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

unfortunately, those are dignities, not rights. rights are a legal contract between you and your governing body. rights are granted. dignities are the things that are intrinsically connected to your personhood, your humanity, or both.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

So if your governing body decides you don't have rights, then you don't have those rights.

Edit: it seems like rights are only available to people who have enough power, money, and/or influence over the state to persuade the state to grant them the rights they desire.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

That is generally how rights work, yes. But not how rights for people who believe in a humanist moral outlook think should work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

precisely. when we talk about who runs the government and how they should operate it, we are generally (i can't speak for everyone) trying to navigate getting the rights the government grants us to align as perfectly as possible with the dignities we possess

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Edit: it seems like rights are only available to people who have enough power, money, and/or influence over the state to persuade them to grant then the rights they desire.

unfortunately, yes. this understanding of what rights and dignities are is what fully converted me to anarchism/communism in college. since the government values greed over all other human forces, our rights will always be more restricted than our dignities. our only hope as common people with net worths south of 1 billion dollars is to resist every chance we get.