Lets take a little break from politics and have us a real atheist conversation.

Personally, I’m open to the idea of the existence of supernatural phenomena, and I believe mainstream religions are actually complicated incomplete stories full of misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and half-truths.

Basically, I think that these stories are not as simple and straightforward as they seem to be to religious people. I feel like there is a lot more to them. Concluding that all these stories are just made up or came out of nowhere is kind of hard for me.

  • infinite_assEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    What constitues “something scientific”? That sounds fascinating.

    • Adderbox76@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      There’s a whole crap tonne about the universe we really don’t understand yet; especially when you get down to the quantum level, spooky action at a distance, wave functions, etc…

      In a very real way, we’re still just cavemen banging on rocks as far as the sum total knowledge of how things work out there in what we call “reality”. So within that vast gap of what we know, and what we don’t know, there’s could be a lot of things going on.

      Is that a ghost? or is that a momentary glitch in the fabric of space-time? Or is it just someone mistaking a cars headlight bouncing of a chandelier and into a door that is ajar at just the right angle. One of those theories is provable using the scientific method and the knowledge that we currently have. One of those theories might eventually be able to be proven with knowledge that we don’t yet possess. And one of those theories is so-called “supernatural”.

      As a reasonable human with critical thinking skills, I’ll put my money on either of the last ones before I’ll put my money on the first.

      • infinite_assEnglish
        13·
        9 hours ago

        “Provable”? Nah. I prefer “useful”.

        This desire for “Truth” is strange to me. I see no necessary connection between ideas and phenomena.

        • Adderbox76@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          9 hours ago

          I see no necessary connection between ideas and phenomena

          That’s fair enough. You’re welcome to live however you want to. I’m just explaining the difference between science and mysticism. It’s not going to affect the average person’s life in any fashion whether they believe in ghosts or not; they’ll still go to work, buy groceries, get old and die.

          But the rejection of science leads inexorably down to a path where a cult of ignorance starts to form; where those who aren’t intellectually curious but still want to have an opinion on stuff start to think that their opinion is just as valid as actual facts. And we see what happens when that kind of willful ignorance works its way into the public discourse.

          In short, you’re welcome to not differentiate between ideas and actual scientific phenomena. But someone has to, because society only functions when decisions are made by people who share the same basic knowledge of reality.