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.

  • rentar42@kbin.social
    54·
    1 year ago

    That’s a silly idea. I can definitely come up with a definition of an immeasurable entity that has no powers, no effects and no way of being detected and call that thing “god”. it would be unfalsifiable and thus irrelevant to scientific inquiry, but it wouldn’t be “logically inconsistent”.

      • rentar42@kbin.social
        33·
        1 year ago

        Let me guess. By your definition only definitions that match your initial statements could possibly be definitions of god?

        You’re “no true scotsman”-ing this …

        Let’s retry: by which reason does any definition of good need to be logically inconsistent?

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
          42·
          1 year ago

          Nope, just acknowledging that words actually have meaning. You can’t claim that something is one thing while having no qualities of that thing; it’s like saying you’ve got water that doesn’t contain any oxygen or hydrogen.

          • rentar42@kbin.social
            21·
            1 year ago

            Not all “gods” thought history were all powerful, some were very limited in their powers. not all “gods” were abrahameic.

            But let’s pretend that a good has to be all-powerful.

            Then let’s posit that there is a god that has created all life on earth by making sure that he preconditions for life on earth were just right and then leaned back and just wachted.

            That is powerful enough, right? and while I don’t believe that this (or any other) god exists, there is no logical inconsistency here.