Atheism
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Connect with Atheists
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Help and Support Links
- Freedom From Religion Foundation
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Mainstream
Bibliography
Start here...
...proceed here.
- God is Not Great (Hitchens)
- The God Delusion (Dawkins)
- The End of Faith (Harris)
- Why I Am Not a Christian (Russell)
- Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
Proselytize Religion
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a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.
view the rest of the comments
Here’s a good write up for it all
One of the more simple issues to understand, is that if there's an easy-to-reproduce natural explanation for what's happening/being observed, then it's probably that, and not something supernatural (Occam's Razor, all that.)
And gee. some scientists did!
From that article:
basically, the only real difference here is that a priest hasn't done their magic spell to make it a host for christ or whatever weird term they use for it.
basically, the wafer is a "special" styrofoam-like cracker made from wheat flour. the water is generic tap water, and the wafer's are usually found on the floor. to be respectful (cuz they believe it genuinely becomes the flesh and blood of christ...) they soak it in water until it no longer looks like bread, then pour it out- either into a special designated sink or someplace "respectful" like a flower garden.
now onto a rather more likely explanation than magic. There’s a common bacteria that happened to sourdough starters, that gives is a pink to crimson kind of bleeding look. this is something we've known about for... welll... pretty much since we've been making bread. it's fairly uncommon because it's easy to avoid if you take reasonable measures.
It can look like this:
(This is a serratia infection on bread. It can also appear pink-ish, or orange.)
but these miracles? they already believe in the magic. they're not looking for the natural, reasonable, repeatable explanation. They already believe that the wafer is the body of christ, and that the wine is the blood of christ. so when that freaky bloody looking thing shows up in the jar they're disposing of wheat, they don't think "hey no. it's probably this bacteria we've known existed since before our god was ever actually worshiped, that likes to infect wet wheat.". No. they jumped straight to magic.
so they apply the tests that would support magic, without understanding the scientific tests that they're doing. like the antigen tests. yes. it tested positive for AB antigens, which yes, human blood has, too. So does bacteria, and the tests they used can't differentiate between the two sources like modern ones can.
Or the DNA test, they ignored the statements by the people running them, that hey, there's probably contamination there. The wafer was handled, for example, by the priest, and maybe the person taking it, and maybe others. and that's if the DNA was even human. It could have been- again- from the bacteria doing it's impression of a Jackson Pollock painting. Or it could have been from the wheat itself. We won't know, because the DNA tests weren't able to tell us that. just that there was indeed DNA.
Basically. They're using science they don't understand and when they squint at it, it makes them go 'AHA! PROOF!' but they've never once considered it might be something else, and these results were exactly what they wanted, so they go with it. This is why they're Anti-Science and should not be trusted with anything. Except maybe running with scisors. I think they can figure out why that's bad, and if they can't, well... it's probably not going to kill them. (maybe start with those kiddy scissors they gave us in preschool?)
for example....Did they ever consider that these miracles are being caused by the Demon of War, the enemy of the Big Flying Dildo, to mislead the faithful into the false religion of hate, so as to further spread the message of hate and fear? No? But the Big Flying Dildo sent a sign, warning of the Great Fuckening! (The photographer was in fact from Dildo! The bay it was in was Conception Bay! You can’t make this up!) so the Great Dildo is real and the catholic faith is just following the Demon of War, who is the Great Dildo's Greatest Enemy.
Okay. Sorry for being facetious there. But not really. What I just did with an iceberg, they do with their miracles- which is just magic, by the way. And you should ask them. If this is true, why does it only happen to catholic eucharist hosts? protestants and evangelicals and orthodox christians all consecrate their eucharists? Eastern Orthodox believe in something very much like transubstantiation, lutherans believe in consubstantiation (the presence of christ is in the stuff, but it's not physically his flesh and blood.) protestants and evangelics view the act as purely symbolic (which, maybe a hold over of my bias, is the only position supported by scripture. cannibal weirdos.)
All of that said, this doesn't actually get them to proving that A) there is a god,
B) thatt god is legitimately the abrahamic god,
C1) that Jesus was the messiah
C2) that Jesus was the literal son of god, and also god.
D) Jesus did miracles
E) his followers did miracles in his name
F) he died and resurrected and all that claptrop.
G) Miracles are still happening.
Until they prove all of that, my claim that this was really the Demon of War, and that the Big Fuckign Dildo is the only true god is just as valid. (Please please tell me they like to bring up pascal's wager. Cuz like, I don't think walking around with a but plug in case the BFD is true is going to hurt anything.)
In fact, though,, their own scriptures show that Jesus can’t be the messiah, because he fulfilled none of the messianic prophecies. And all the ones the gospels claim he fulfilled, were all some combination of already fulfilled by someone else, not messianic, not prophecy, or blatantly not about him.
the truth is that the messiah was supposed to be a king in the line of david and as told, Jesus doesn't qualify. (the two lineages for Jospeh, are for Joseph, and in any case, Joseph isn't a legitimate heir, since Jocaniah(sp?) was cursed. and that line cant' be through Marry cuz she's a levite.