For those of you who have eaten a cheeseburger at a restaurant before...
Offline Do you realize the leap of faith you're taking in believing that a cook made that burger for you? Doesn't it make much more sense that there is a sponaneous hamburger-making ooze in the back of the restaurant, randomly assembling cheeseburgers that the restaurant then sells to customers?
DON'T YOU SEE HOW YOU HAVE THE SAME FAITH IN A CREATOR AS ANY CHRISTIAN!?
...I just listened to this line of 'reasoning' for over an hour at a restaurant, from my parent's new 'friends', who I got to enjoy a 'suprise dinner' out with tonight. Half because none of what I heard were original arguments, half because I was being bombarded by them from a table full of adults, I started losing my cool and raising my voice when arguing back and managed to get awkward looks from most of the restaurant and likely ruined any chance of being a future patron there (which infuriates me to no end, as they're the only nice restaurant within walking distance and they serve really excellent food).
I feel like I've fallen down the Goddamn rabbit hole. I don't suppose anyone knows of some super-secret formula for snapping people out of a religious haze? I'm really having trouble dealing with this recent development, and any arguing done so far has only made things worse (not that I can avoid it, given that I'm the one getting confronted with the bullshit).
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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We usually pick our battles.
Bad Company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf3uiCfNkaM
"Can't Get Enough [Cheese and Fur Burgers] " by Bad Company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0poUqV0SU
Battle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWw4nYvw2Ro
Atheism Books.
I deny that, I never saw or ate a cheeseburger, therefore there's no cook making cheeseburgers.
Well it's really annoying listening to the stupid arguments of theists. You understand how stupid they sound, but it's really hard to refute their claims. And there's no way to stop that, at least I haven't found one.
They say that neither religion or politics should be discussed at the dinner table because voices will inevitably rise.
Sounds like a rotten ambush.
Bet you were looking forward to a meal out too!
Kevin, that sucks. I love food. Awkward and food should never mix for it is the food that will suffer your loss of appetite and food does so wish to be eaten!
Kevin, pity your parents. Berate them. Make them feel ashamed. Actually, I really do feel horrible for you because I can't imagine what I'd do if my parents ever had a change similar to yours. Anyhow, perhaps if you shame them and their beliefs they'll feel bad enough to get off it. Or at least to get off you. Tell them what they've done and how horrible it is. I can't reiterate it enough. Make them feel bad. Very bad. It's not a noble approach, but their emotions can suffer your onslaught and this is war.. or, er, that is... you love your parents, right?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
The other version is a disassembled airplane in a junkyard and wind sweeps it up and randomly assembles.
UTTER GARBAGE AND BULLSHIT!
THAT IS NOT what atheists claim, much less credible scientists who do have some sort of belief. WE simply say that change dosn't happen over night, it is long slow and gradual and the "tree" of life is not liner, but has branches because of those slow changes.
This is just as nutty as the new age morons who claim that the universe is a giant thinking entity or a computer program.
Atoms ARE NOT individually complex and to suggest that a magical being has the ability to manipulate all the atoms on the planet, much less the universe all at the same time, IS ABSURD!
Life happened by a uncognative random process because of random conditions and slow changes. Will somebody please get Dick Cheney to shoot the Crockaduck instead of science. Strike that, he has bad aim.
People used to believe that a god named Thor made lightening. We know now that it is the uncognative process of positive and negitive charges in the atmosphere. NO MAGIC NEEDED.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
The better version of this example would be if a wind accidently connected two parts correctly. And so following millions of huricanes in the end we see a working airplane. Of course this idea is still stupid, but a little less stupid
Next time it comes up, mention the church school collapse in Haiti. If a cheeseburger can't be without a chef, a church collapse surely can't be without a God who means to punish wicked (Christian) children.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
All you can really do is control how you react. Remember that you're dealing with emotion here. Their beliefs are not based on logic, but the ability to make them feel good. This is a new drug for your folks and I bet they're quite high on the lord right now. Patience, time, low expectations, and a calm demeanor are your allies. I wouldn't suggest that you give up discussing religion altogether, but do keep in mind that hitting your head against a brick wall just gives you a headache. As IAGAY mentioned, pick your battles.
Dealing with deluded family sucks, but everyone has the right to screw themselves over in life. Parents are certainly not perfect, but we can love them and find ways of dealing with them despite their faults.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
i'm lucky in that my family knows how strong-willed i am and that i'm not interested in talking about the subject of religion in any context other than a purely academic one. they're actually scared of me when it comes to it. it's not because i ever pwned them in an argument: i have no interest in changing a theist's mind or "defending" myself against them.
if they ever tried to entrap me like this, i would probably smile and do my best to shock them into shutting up by saying, in an even and pleasant tone, something like, "i am not interested in having this fucking conversation and you should know that and if we don't move the fuck on, i will quietly get up and leave and that would be a goddamn shame for everybody."
it might make dinner awkward for them, but i would be ok. i would probably order wine and be downright cheerful after that,
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
My response:
No. How the fuck could that make more sense?
Their response:
Ah, but that's what evolution says ... blah blah.
My response:
No it doesn't. You need to fucking read more. Now, pass the ketchup bottle that's spontaneously assembled itself at your end of the table and shut to fuck up.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
You should have gone to the kitchen and asked the cook to come to your table for a minute.
Then says "Here is the creator of the hamburgers, now can you ask your creator to come to the table please?"
Priceless and perfect.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Dray,
I'm sure that would be met with a ' But our creator is all around us!!'
These are good, but I don't think there's a witty enough response to stop the perpetual defense of their beliefs.
When they say they believe because they see God everywhere, and they'll point to a tree, or something, I could say "so you really see something there other than that tree (or this restaurant) - then you are hallucinating. If you mean it metaphorically, all you are telling me is that you 'see' God because you believe, not the other way round, so you have NOT told me why you believe."
Probably much to wordy and intellectual for a quick retort, but its what goes thru my mind everytime I have had this put to me.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Well, if I told you over the internet, it would not be a secret anymore, would it?
On a more serious note, there are a few things that you can do in any specific situation. The best tools that I know of arise from understanding the nature of what the other people are doing. In the case of the cheeseburgers argument, what is going on is a novel restatement of the teleological argument or argument from design. It is also better known as the watch maker argument, after the writings of William Paley but in reality, it goes back at least as far as Plato and thus predates watches by quite a bit.
Basically, it holds that anything that has been created must have a creator. However, it then starts to weaken if one considers the matter of where the creator came from. That consideration would take us into the ontological argument, so I will lay it aside at least temporarily.
The teleological argument is currently quite popular thanks in no small part to the intelligent design crowd. After all, you can't really put forth that god designed the universe without using some variation on it.
The easiest way to show how it does not work is to use the counter argument that poor design is evident throughout the natural world. For example, why did God give us mere humans an appendix? We don't do anything with it and it occasionally becomes infected and can cause death if not treated promptly. Sure, animals have them too and in herbivores, the appendix is quite well developed. But in humans, it is just extra stuff that did not need to be included in the general design. Unless our ape like ancestors were herbivores and needed one to eat grass, then it would be expected that we would still have a vestigial appendix.
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ok, what you do is set the trap for them next time. tell your parents you want to take them out to show there are no hard feelings. set a time to pick them up/ meet them there. go to the resturant beforehand and talk to the manager. order and pre-pay for a hamburger, then when you get there with your parents, as soon as you sit down, a hamburger is magically placed before you. you turn, smile, and say "your right, there must be a god."
thank penn and teller for this one
"when science contradicts my faith, i tend to believe the science"- his holiness, the 14th dhali lama
A very good response ^^^^ Also try to keep your cool if you're ever confronted like this. I know it's hard, I have trouble keeping my temper as well when it comes to religious people challenging me with things like that but you can also use their temper against them. Once you start challenging them to actually think for once and use their brains like the above statement they'll easily get angry because they realize nothing they believe makes sense when applied to simple reason and logic whereas it takes a massive amount of faith and delusion to keep up their beliefs.
Great advice there dude. Never let yourself get angry in a debate. Anger clouds the mind and deprives you of the only tool that really matters, being general sanity. As far as it being hard to avoid, remember that they are the ones who are possessed of the pathetic condition and pity them for that. From that point, I find that it is easy to avoid the trap of anger.
Another forum that I post on has one guy with an avatar of a stick figure who cannot stop posting in some thread because “someone is wrong on the internet”. I take that as a humorous view of internet debates because, after all, that person would not be any more right if I or anyone else went to bed for the night and got back to the thread the next day.
As far as using another person's anger against them goes, yes I have done that in the past and I will probably do so in the future. That being said, I tend to avoid that as a tool if for no better reason than I don't really see how it furthers whatever topic is being discussed.
If someone is acting like an ass on the internet, I can see some tactical value in making a post that appears angry if for no other reason than to draw that person out into the realm of real anger. However, that would be counter to the general idea of what a debate can be when handled in a civil manner. Tactical it is, strategic it is clearly not, so it should be a tool that is used rarely, if at all.
Far better is to take the time to learn about the opposing side to anything and base your work on that. When you can know and anticipate what someone is likely to do, you can have a full tool box of replies ready to roll.
One of my favorites for dealing with theists who have the proverbial ax to grind is to ask them about the First Council of Nicaea. There the original shape of the Christian church was formed and not too many proselytizers have been made aware of that as it serves as a point of Christianity hanging out the dirty laundry for the rest of us to see.
Rather than take the time to summarize, better to just read the dirt on the matter directly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
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