We’re in the 21st century, and the vast majority of us still believe in an utterly and obviously fictional creator deity. Plenty of people, even in developed countries with decent educational systems, still believe in ghosts or magic (e.g. voodoo). And I–an atheist and a skeptic–am told I need to respect these patently false beliefs as cultural traditions.
Fuck that. They’re bad cultural traditions, undeserving of respect. Child-proofing society for these intellectually stunted people doesn’t help them; it is in fact a disservice to them to pretend it’s okay to go through life believing these things. We should demand that people contend with reality on a factual basis by the time they reach adulthood (even earlier, if I’m being completely honest). We shouldn’t be coddling people who profess beliefs that are demonstrably false, simply because their feelings might get hurt.
The one making the claim is the one who has the burden of proof. Requiring someone to prove a negative is completely illogical.
I would also say that someone’s disbelief in someone else’s claim is not a belief system in itself.
Which is why I am calling out the OP. They are making a claim and thus have a burden of proof which they can not achieve.
And no it is not illogical in the slightest. Merely impossible. If they demand the negative be accepted as a given then they must prove it first. To do otherwise is to fall into the same trap being claimed Religious People are in.
One can’t prove Evolution, despite it being the most complete explanation for the observations. Thus it is a Theory despite being accepted as the explanation by the vast majority of Scientists who study it.
This right here is all I need to know you’re a moron.
Evolution IS proven. A scientific theory is NOT the same thing as the common usage of the word “theory”(Source).
No it is not. It is impossible to prove by current Human abilities. No one every said it was the same. You are assuming when someone says it is a theory that they mean a baseless guess. That is not at all what is meant. It is accepted as the best possible explanation at this time, nothing more. You assume accepting that means Creationists get to pretend the same about their claims. Creationism doesn’t even hold up under Biblical research much less Scientific. Calling Evolution a theory gets a lot of panties in knots because most folks didn’t study Math long enough to know what theory and proof actually are. For Evolution to be proven you’d have to predict the mutation before it was observed and then prove how it becomes dominate after the millions of Years it takes to do so. There simply isnt time to have proven it. Same with Continental drift and Pangea. The time it takes is too long to prove the theory for Humans to have done so.
This is not what “scientific theory” means, and I’m so fucking tired of this argument being tossed around
Edit: People in this thread are either uneducated or being dense on purpose. The word “theory” when it comes to science has a specific meaning. Read a book. Hell, type the words “scientific theory” on Google, if you’re too lazy for the former.
Yes it is. It means that it is not proven. That is the very definition of theory. Once it is proven it is no longer a theory. Acceptance of it means nothing much like how tired you are of People pointing out you’ve not a leg to stand upon.
So is gravity. Feel free to disprove it at the nearest cliff face, thanks.
And to dogpile on your statement that you can’t prove evolution despite it being one of the most complete observations. There’s recorded history of mystical, spiritual, and religious events happening.
The fact that we’ve lost or never had the ability to scientifically verify the spiritual for some reason doesn’t really invalidate the claims of the past, rather it places them into a position where you should not rely upon them for specific outcomes.
At most, it suggests that there is some other actor at play and that other actor has not been identified yet, whether that be a I don’t know a form of ergot that has died out due to changes in CO2 levels in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution or something like that.
Maybe magic existed in the silphium plant that was lost to antiquity, maybe the strange gases that accumulated in the Grecian oracles put human beings in the State of mind needed for prophecy but their sources have dissipated.
Maybe the cause is three of the four peoples of the earth breaking their sacred Wheels according to the Hopi religion.
My opinion is that as an individual what I believe should be respected as long as it does not directly impact another.
If I want to hang up candles for Beltane then that’s me and whatever.
When an atheist flips out online because religion is being discussed amongst people who have religious inclinations then they are the assholes every single time, the same as when I as a religious person flips out that atheism is being discussed online then I am the asshole.
He made the claim that these beliefs are demonstrably false. We are waiting for the demonstration.
Also being atheist IS taking a position, making a positive claim that God does not exist. Agnosticism is neutral, not taking a stance.
There are a few proofs against existence of god. Ineffectiveness of prayer. Impossibility of miracles under controlled conditions. Biological nature of human cognition which precludes life after death.