are you an atheist?

God tripped balls

I mean I guess? I’m not really here to engage the question of which gods are and aren’t plausible, because I don’t think it’s interesting

they cannot stand this mourning
of my life
show me
how the gods
are and aren't plausible

(riff)

idgi, the big 3 monotheistic religions all have the same god and p much share a “bearded guy” conception, don’t they?

― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Saturday, August 1, 2020 7:18 PM (one minute ago)

No

Uhhh in two of them it’s prohibited to draw a picture of a human man with a beard and say it’s god, is my first point

Odin has a beard too motherfuckers

“Punishing father” doesn’t really resemble the conception of God that I or other actual extant Jews of my acquaintance would be likely to describe.

https://img.etsystatic.com/il/a170ff/1041158026/il_fullxfull.1041158026_rcn6.jpg

While God gets the masculine gender in Biblical Hebrew and in one stray part of the liturgy I can think of gets called “our parent” (lit. father) “God the Father” is not really a thing I’m familiar with having any significance in Judaism.

I’m afraid I don’t know remotely as much about Islam I would like but the prohibition on iconography is even stronger there than it is in Judaism, I’m willing to bet there are nearly zero depictions of god as a “bearded guy” in Islamic art

“How do the theologies of three different religions with pointedly divergent histories differ” is kind of a large question imo, I wish I could tell you more but maybe you could read this book, seems good http://stephenprothero.com/books/god-is-not-one/

You’re really good at drunk posting for a person who doesn’t drink

Lay the fuck off

Me??

yes. go to bed

Tom I live on the west coast, I dunno why I seem drunk to you this is the most levelheadedly I’ve been posting all day

I’m trying to answer questions in “”””””””good faith””””””””” for once so I don’t know what your malfunction is

I am giving you advice. you have nearly 40 fps. you are generally disliked. consider your approach.

That’s a lot! I could stand to get 51 clearly transmisogyny and antisemitism are more popular here than I am so I don’t know what good I could be getting from posting here

silby, as far as I know you are just words type on a screen. I know nothing more about you. whatever you type is what gets reacted to. not any manifestation of trans-ness or Jewishness, apart from your words. try to grasp that maybe your presentation of your thoughts is what people find difficult.

Correct, style is meaningless here, it’s only about what you stand for according to yourself

I am agnostic rather than atheist, but think there should be more of a space for spirituality within traditionally secular left spaces. This isn't something I'm thinking in a particularly prescriptive way and may already be happening to some extent

What a bizarre thread to choose to yell at silby, the one where he’s levelheadedly explaining how some of us are acting ignorantly.

Okay now I'm the drunk one but Silbs you are making a huge leap into the question of iconography from "prevailing conception"—I thought it was evident that "old bearded guy" was proverbial and not referring to thundercloud guy in the comics.

While God gets the masculine gender in Biblical Hebrew

This is a *lot* to handwave considering the question. The Abrahamic god is literally a "he" who begets man in his image—a man. The distinction is evidently important enough that a woman could only be created in turn by that man. It's patriarchy's big bang.

“Punishing father” doesn’t really resemble the conception of God that I or other actual extant Jews of my acquaintance would be likely to describe.

I can't argue this, but can only wonder why...? I mean these are people who have read the Pentateuch? Man-god is smiting everything in site!

The father-son construct is central to the messianic conception...men descended from men, the line of Abraham through Jacob, all the way down the line. Jesus wasn't a Christian. There weren't any Christians! He was a Jew drafting in father/son mythology that dovetailed with prophecy.

DADS I say!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ir0EouHan6Q/hqdefault.jpg

Option should have been "God no"

Hadrian I’m taking a long long break after this post that I will use to implore you for a last time to not say “Abrahamic” in instances when you mean “Christian”. The Jewish and Muslim gods begat no sons. And the religion the supposed Yeshuah ben Yosef grew up in is not the one Jews practice now. You are unwittingly (I hope) trotting our anti-Semitic commonplaces and you should stop.

Ok goodbye forever!

I think he's talking about Adam there not Jesus?

i'm not interested in entering this madhouse but there is a very real difference between begat and created

Of course, but then the rest of the paragraph doesn't make any sense.

Though I'm not sure it does with 'created' either.

What a bizarre thread to choose to yell at silby, the one where he’s levelheadedly explaining how some of us are acting ignorantly.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

can't imagine how that would get anyone's goat at all :)

nb i am actually pro-silby, in general

silby I'm not gonna pretend to understand what has set you off here...I imagine this is a hangover from recent shitshow on multiple other threads? It seems like a weird issue to make your *last straw* but maybe it's just a response to Tombot's chastening.

I appreciate you and your schtick and felt kind of bad about your last ban. It is a little bit weird though from someone who regularly and indiscriminately tosses bombs and steamrolls threads with generalizations (I think most of us take that in stride) to totally wilt at this one.

implore you for a last time to not say “Abrahamic” in instances when you mean “Christian”.

I don't mean Christian though. I mean Abrahamic. These religions share the same creation myth and a lot more. (I did get ahead of my thoughts as NV points out with "begat"^—drunkenly conflating the biblical line of "begetting" w/ god "creating" man," but the point stands—there's a persistent theme of male parentage across the big three monotheistic religions. Not sure how that is even remotely controversial.

Anyway this isn't about personal views. I know a lot of Christians who reject the notion of an anthropomorphized god—it doesn't mean that "old bearded guy in sky" doesn't prevail in the popular conception.

I may be wrong but this seems at bottom more of a political objection on your part—an understandable disdain for Christianity that encourages you to imagine it as more apart from its neighboring faiths than it really is.

All of these religions are dumb btw

(^this last with apologies from a preacher's kid—and former editor of a journal abt religions)

Full disclosure: I admit it was lazy and cheap to appear to conflate Abrahamic visions of the godhead into Beard Dude. If that was what set silby off, I take responsibility and will flay myself appropriately in private.

I was (and am) aware of the prohibitions in Judaism and Islam about depictions of the deity; in a moment of rapid typing I engaged in an act of casual shorthand.

So, with that out of the way: I strongly disagree that the assembled ilxor heathens are only addressing Christianity. For me? Adonai, Aphrodite, and Apollo are all on equally shaky ground and have not hesitated to say so. Personally I've been exactly as dismissive of Norse gods as I am of Jehovah. I'm an equal-opportunity god-mocker.

I am still fuzzy on the gravamen of silby's charge of antisemitism. Is it somehow antisemitic to be an atheist or agnostic if your rejection is limited to rejections of Christian doctrine? (By which I mean, the doctrine that is currently obscenely prevalent in US culture?)

Okay. I am happy to state that I am just as contemptuous of the ancient Babylonian gods as I am of the god worshipped by Mike Huckabee and Jerry Falwell.

Does that help?

here just choosing to ignore the antisemitism charge because wtaf

I don't get what silby did itt that was so bad. And I think it's weird that no one commented on this post, which strikes me as egregiously worrying mod behavior (at least I assume Tombot is a mod based on his access to fp totals?):

I am giving you advice. you have nearly 40 fps. you are generally disliked. consider your approach.

― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Sunday, August 2, 2020 12:24 AM (eleven hours ago)

I think mods warning posters when they're accruing fps can be a kind gesture, but surely it should be done privately, not as a public threat intended to get a poster to alter their posting in a way the mod approves of and certainly not accompanied by stating "you are generally disliked" like it's a fact.

The only religious explanation I would be OK with is "god is an evil irrational sadist".

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

fwiw I don't think the antisemitism charge was directed at atheists at all. It was directed at the "whatever" dismissal of the differences between the Abrahamic religions, and prioritising of Christian conceptions as emblematic of all Abrahamic religions. While I don't think the intent was at all antisemitic or Islamophobic on your parts, such dismissal of difference as insignificant is *definitely* part of the Christocentric thinking that leads to structural antisemitism and Islamophobia.

"whatever" dismissal of the differences between the Abrahamic religions, and prioritising of Christian conceptions as emblematic of all Abrahamic religions

nobody itt doing this though

I admit it was lazy and cheap to appear to conflate Abrahamic visions of the godhead into Beard Dude. If that was what set silby off, I take responsibility and will flay myself appropriately in private.

I was (and am) aware of the prohibitions in Judaism and Islam about depictions of the deity; in a moment of rapid typing I engaged in an act of casual shorthand.

Like, this is INCREDIBLY dismissive of someone's religion, you realise that? And yes, I know you're dismissing all religions because this is a thread about atheism, but you are 100% being culturally insensitive in a way that diminishes Judaism and Islam more than Xianity. "Oh, I'm just ignoring facets of your religion for my own convenience, what could be wrong with that?"

"Oh, I'm just ignoring facets of your religion for my own convenience, what could be wrong with that?"

This is the entire history of religion iirc.

Why do religious people give a shit that a non believer dismisses their religion

Fair point, pom.

Granny, because it can have real-world consequences? And often has? And in fact still does?

In answer to the original question, I'm pragmatically atheist and philosophically agnostic, funnily enough for a lot of the same reasons YMP and Hadrian give, except that I'm not "contemptuous" of other people's gods, I just don't believe in them.

silby otm

I know you're dismissing all religions because this is a thread about atheism, but you are 100% being culturally insensitive in a way that diminishes Judaism and Islam more than Xianity.

I don't know abt YMP but I'm not dismissing or diminishing any religions. And I'm not an atheist. I was addressing a pretty obvious commonality among the three major monotheistic religions which have a sacred text in common.

Religious ppl perpetually getting offended at every perceived slight tends to be the thing that has the real world consequences tho

The bearded dude conception of God is not an "obvious commonality." Even in the Christian Bible there's not a physical description of God that describes Him as having a beard iirc.

no shit

a paternalistic god is the obvious commonality.

Oh, sorry Hadrian, I think I was confusing some of your posts with agreeing with YMP's in a way that meant you were agreeing with the dismissal (re-opening the full thread makes my computer chug too much). I think you can argue for the similarity without being "like, whatever, shorthand" offensive, but it's still worth listening to someone who is obviously pretty offended by the conflations being made.