Atheist Memes

Years ago I ordered a bunch of science books, On The Shoulders of Giants, The Selfish Gene, Not Even Wrong, The Big Bang Origins of our Universe, and some others while on a deployment in the military and when I opened my big bundle my boss "made fun of me," by saying something along the lines of, "Y'all think you're so smart, but you need so many books and I just need one." Referring to his Bible.

The irony being that the more I read, the more I realize I don't know, and the more he reads, the more certain he becomes. So yeah, "I don't know" is my fucking motto these days because I don't know shit.

In my person interactions, the religious conservative folks seem to care most about having clear answers for things. Once they “know” something, they’re good, and they will repeat it confidently to anybody else who asks. If they particularly like the answer, or it is financially or personally beneficial to them, they might just make it part of their core identity.

Of course, not all conservatives are like that, and progressives are not completely immune to it. It’s a problem with the irrational human mind, after all.

This is my first time reading "brain hole", and I do not like it.

Because often enough, results in science contradict religious belief. Heliocentric model, for example.

I get where you're coming from on this.

For example: why not believe that "god" used physics and science to create all of this. Gently manipulating everything as it developed to create humanity and the universe the way they wanted it to be?

The religious issue with this idea is that it undermines the very idea of their belief. God created the heavens and the earth. Period. God didn't create a bunch of stuff then shape it to become the heavens and the earth.... No, he thought it, and it happened.

The difference being that in a more reasonable interpretation, using physics and whatnot to create everything, would be a slow and not very profound process. Under the premise that God basically snapped his fingers and poof, earth... That's incredible. Impossible by any other measure.

By inviting a more measured approach, you diminish the perceived power of God, making the entire concept less awesome (in the sense of inspiring awe), and wondrous. This is the root of faith. Speaking more generally "my Deity can do all this with the snap of a finger, we are nothing compared to them"

By putting people into this subdued mindset of being so much less powerful than God, you can basically exert full control over them "in the name of our Lord". You really only need to convince them that what you want them to do is "the will of God" and they'll be mentally servile to whatever it is.

That's the root of religion. Control. Not eternal salvation. Not saving your soul from damnation. Not doing good for goodness sake.... Control.

Simply, making god seem less wondrous, even by a small amount, makes people less malleable to suggestion, for what God "commands" of them.

If you belive in your own understanding of god, than there's no conflict, it's pandering in my opinion, inserting something somewhere just for the sake of it without being promoted to, but the point is that it's not conflicting. The problem is that most religious people cling to some select dogmas from their respective texts that directly conflict with the scientific method.

But in a way you are correct, the original western "scientist" were usually christian and were looking for God or God's perfect work through the observable world (and were occasionally quite disappointed with their discoveries of the mess they found).