Memes must be related to phil.
The Memiverse:
!90s_memes@quokk.au
!y2k_memes@quokk.au
!sigh_fi@quokk.au
Mandatory relevant Douglas Adams:
"I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Every time I see a Douglas Adams quote, it brings me back to the joy I felt discovering him about 35 years ago. Thanks!
Hey Tim!
Do you believe in the flying spaghetti monster?
No?
So, that means it does exist for you to not believe in it, right? Or are you just some no-talent has-been who needs to stop speaking in public?
From my perspective, the argument for the existence of a god has always had one fatal flaw: in all of our human discoveries that were once attributed to a god or gods, none of them actually required a god to make them happen.
Is it possible that there is some kind of being that created our reality? Sure. But how do we recognize that? Where are the moments that only a god could accomplish? If we want to prove that God was responsible for an event, we must first consider if the event could happen without a god. Every time I have looked at a question from that perspective, no gods were required. That is why I do not believe.
Is it possible that there is some kind of being that created our reality?
If a being created everything, what created that being?
If that being sprang into existence, then it would be simpler for the universe to have sprung into existence without that extra step.
Oh I have theory that came to me in a dream. But it bat shit crazy. I need write it in a story then maybe it make sense.
For me, the main issue of being a believer or an atheist is the fact that we can't even agree on what God actually is. Is it a bearded dude in the sky, is it the universe, is it an entity out of space and time, is it the friends we made along the way ?
That's why I'm agnostic, you can't be certain whether a God exists or not if you can't define it. And in the end, it probably doesn't even matter anyway, why would something like that even consider your existence.
The funniest thing about this photo is the look on his face, like he's thinks he's really onto something here
I don't appreciate some of you being so flippant with one of the greatest minds of our time, Tim Allen. I, for one, appreciate him weighing in on the toughest questions we wrestle with.
He's like a modern day Descartes!
Yay!!! Santa!!!
I think the issue I consistently see in discussions surrounding theism and atheism is the definition of what it means to be agnostic vs atheist. The way I see it, there are generally five “buckets” of belief most people fit into; theist, agnostic theist, agnostic, agnostic atheist, and atheist.
In the most technical sense atheist means “a lack of belief.” But some people use it to mean a disbelief in a god, or in other words a belief there is no god. Other people use it in the technical sense, but rarely does someone clarify which use they actually mean.
So for clarity and ease of communication, I think it would make sense to use the fives states of belief above as follows:
Theist: believes there is a god.
Agnostic theist: does not hold a belief in a god, but lives as though there is one.
Agnostic: does not hold a belief or disbelief in a god.
Agnostic atheist: does not hold a belief in a god, and lives as though there is not one.
Atheist/antitheist: believes that there is no god.
Obviously I don’t expect others to enter a conversation already using that framework, and it will probably never become a common framework, but when I read comments online and someone says they are an atheist, the first thing I try to do is determine if they are an agnostic or antitheist atheist.
But why? It doesn't matter how we don't believe does it? This seems like a ridiculous need to 'other' for no reason.
When I was a freshman in college over a decade ago, I was given this link to a youtube video basically asserting that all agnostic people are atheist. At the time I was fairly agnostic, and being told this felt wrong, like my thoughts were being miscategorized, but I didn't have a great way to explain that feeling at the time. The framework above is ultimately how I parsed through that feeling to better understand myself and others. That's why I started thinking about it.
I think a person's belief (or lack thereof) is a reflection of how they think, so adding clarity to what and how one believes or doesn't believe something can grant a better understanding of how they think. And I like understanding other people and how they think.
I don't really understand how this is othering, could you elaborate on that?
Well, the reasons you give are better than most. Typically people that feel your compulsion to categorize are doing it to argue others aren't 'unbelieving' the right way or for the right reasons. Comedians cracking jokes that agnostics are cowards, hardcore atheists condescending any attempt at mysticism, mystics calling atheists blind immoral fools, and so on.
It's the same with leftism and how they constantly defeat themselves by splintering into subsets of people who aren't left enough or too centrist, etc... We live in a culture desperate to form cliques to our detriment imo.
Well, there has to be a TimAllenGrunt.mp3 for you not to believe in.
Check, and mate.
okay i don't believe in unicorns, centaurs and fauns, so they exist too? that's such a stupid statement, undone in a single sentence, kthxbye