critical thinking

Welfare and initiative decline, Part 2

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I would like to offer the following information about myself that hopefully will shed light upon my belief system and my search for the truth in every aspect. I am willing to accept evidence from scientific sources regarding thing that I believe, and am willing to adjust my beliefs in accordance to modern scientific evidence.  I love skepticism and critical thought. As far as I am concerned, these things have given me new purpose in life and have legitimized my way of thinking and living. I do not believe in fairy stories and vet all of the information that I receive to get rid of the biased bullshit usually contained in media. I abhor drama and cannot stand assholes that love the stage more than they love truth. I am a lover of facts and evidence, and have great distaste for those making claims without any facts to back them.

I just found out that I am an Ashkenazi Jew, AND that I am most likely directly related to the Koch Bros. of Republican hate fame. Thank you Mormon ancestry database! My mother, who I have not spoken to in 21 years and who died last year, looks like a young portrait of Anne Frank! Imagine that! My grandmother has told me stories of being taken in by the rich ladies of the Chicago Jewish community! No shit, really? I do NOT agree with the Israeli agenda in Palestine and I do NOT support the acts of terrorism committed on behalf of the super-rich Jewish community that wants you to think that their terrorism is not like Palestinian terrorism  in Israel! 

My journey here begins with; can I tell Jewish jokes with impunity now? Can I complain and whine endlessly, and can I squeeze a drop of blood out of a fucking penny? Just kidding. Where does my requirement for justice lie now? What can I do on the international front? Can I use this to blog my dissent on current issues? I think that on the last question that you all know what my answer will be. I will continue on and set an example for the way thinking critically should proceed. I will continue to advocate for those trapped in theism and doubt. I still try to find out how to think regarding those who take the easy way out. Can I get an opinion? I have such animosity towards those who are given things but wallow in self pity. I have overcome so much that I naturally believe that people should do their best, but so many do not and ride the system. Please give me feedback as to what is the best answer to deal with complacency. 

Skeptically Speaking!

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In my various travels, I have rarely encountered a true skeptic that held to any particular religion. I have known those who carefully weigh issues and facts, but not exercised true measures of skeptical thinking in everyday matters. Many professed religious people use degrees of critical thought and questioning, but are not actually devout in beliefs and are sort of half-assed about the whole matter. My assessment of the subject is that down deep these folks actually don’t believe in the crazy batshittery of talking snakes and holy zombies, they are just adhering to the early indoctrination of their childhood. My experience with true skeptics is that you actually can’t believe in obvious bullshit and be considered skeptical. Maybe you have degrees of skepticality, but will exercise cognitive dissonance when the ball rolls into the religious court. The truth of the matter is is that belief in talking animals, corporeal gods on Earth, and walking on water is a willful suspension of critical thinking and common sense.

My personal favorites are the complete imbeciles that know that the bible is complete bullshit, but fall back on the ‘its just parables, a guideline to live by,’ crap, ignoring that if this shit is true, then Adam and Eve are parables and Original Sin is complete schtakko. If this is the case, then that nullifies the need for salvation and a savior to be nailed to the cross after having the shit beaten out of Him in the name of Himself! Let’s forget about the fact that He is Jesus and Jesus is Him and that He prays to Himself like a schizophrenic off of His fucking meds, THAT shit is downright off the effing hook in and of itself, but far be it from the faithful to see this obvious fact because they already believe in something that has absolutely NO basis in reality!

The asshole, Bill O’Reilly is one of these idiots who invalidates his own religion by being a non-believer in the word of his Almighty God! Parables, these shitbirds say! I have never heard such a wishy-washy bunch of sissified nonsense in my entire life! These aren’t believers, these are people who cling to being homophobic, close-minded assholes just for the fuck of it! If they really adhered to the faith, then they have to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, genocide, rape, mass murder and all! None of this cherry picking shit! If you don’t actually believe, then don’t try to lie your slimy asses out of it, just admit that you were incapable of true honesty and that you don’t actually believe in talking snakes and other batshittery!

I was frequently told as a child to not over think things, to trust in God and not to always try to rationalize why that shit seemed so fucking crazy to me even as a 12 year old kid. The constant admonishing to stay ignorant permeated religious people around me as I grew up, and followed me into young adulthood. The more questions that were asked, the more the heads of the faith tried to conjure answers based in no evidence or sensibility whatsoever. In the Reagan 80’s, a new approach appeared on the scene in which progressive ‘its cool to be a Christian’ youth ministers started to ‘encourage’ questioning saying that God WANTED His followers to be inquisitive. What this approach actually was was a creation of circular arguments that were designed to baffle with bullshit while giving the impression that questions had actually been answered! The only thing that happened during these exercises in futility, was that those with a very limited scientific background became satisfied that their pastors actually knew what they were peddling. The truth of the matter was that there was no science involved in the explanations and the language of fire and damnation was finally euphemized to dummy down the goddamned crazy talk.

The reality of these matters is that innocent children still die of cancer, starvation, cruel acts of child abuse and an all powerful deity continues to sit on His hands and remain silent! Basketball and football teams still continue to win games according to those that pray for a win. Super rich celebrities continue to thank God for their good fortune while people are raped and murdered in Sudan and the Congo, but the God of Abraham continues to demand supplication from poor hapless assholes to ignorant to stand on their own without the crutch of religion.

A very wise person once told me that 90% of living people are followers, and 10% are forward thinkers, the 90% just drag the 10% down. Now of that 10%, only about less than 5% are true born leaders. Leaders are few and far between, just look at the political landscape here in Murcuh, as Dudya was so fond of calling it. We give legacy kids and scumbag Chicago lawyers the reins of the country and just let them sell us out! Great leadership! The common denominator is how far you go to hand over our country to special interest.

These assholes are experts, and before you rush to the keyboard to write about doing something about it instead of bitching, I already do, in the form of blogging it out there, raising awareness, voting, signing petitions, donating money, writing Congress, you name it! I get shit ALL the time from armchair quarterbacks who get pissed because they feel inadequate in the light of activism! Hell, I’m about ready to launch a video podcast to increase activism and awareness, what else can a person do? I would say better than my fair share and proud to do it! Going against the common thought and promoting critical skeptical thinking is immense in its own right! I implore EVERYONE to question EVERYTHING that anyone tries to pass off as absolute truth, because the more that you question, the greater your skeptical thought process grows. Very few people think skeptically, they are too busy entrenched in their own thoughts and worldview. Changing requires pliability, forward thinking, introspect and true self awareness, things that most people definitely do not possess. I am guilty of closing my mind as well, but I am also actively trying to open it as wide as possible. The more open that you are to change the quicker you advance intellectually! I strive for greater knowledge and reach beyond my limited borders every single day to grasp a better understanding of everything for the benefit of my people and my world. It starts in small places and spreads once the seeds take hold.

Ridding the world of the sand pits that people plug with their heads is one of the most important things that one can do, and religion is one of these pits. Regardless of the small good that it does, the adherence to religious practice fosters bigotry, scientific ignorance and personal shame over just being human. People were NOT born in sin, and do fucking NOT need to accept a 2.000 year old zombie as their personal savior to gain self worth! This is the most patently ridiculous bullshit that any psychotic entity could try to pass off! As I mentioned above, most Christians don’t even read, adhere or believe in their own Bible, so why should anyone take them seriously? Scientists have to run their research through rigorous tests and peer review before publishing, well even MENTIONING results, why don’t Christian have to know the very manual that they are supposed to live their lives by? Most Christians that I have spoken too can only quote the most popular passages of the Bible and wither under my knowledge of it, why? Because I, the atheist, have actually READ the goddamned thing cover to amoral cover and know its contents!

My summary is quite simple. Lose your Bible and start questioning everything going on around you. Don’t be paranoid, just skeptical. Leave behind Fox News and CNN and start searching the internet for cross references to important news stories, why? The absence of reporters means that the news is not driven by parlor tricks and theatrics. It still needs vetting, but if you go to multiple sites, then you can start to correlate facts. This is just one example of encouraging skepticality. Religion doesn’t allow this because it usually leads to the debunking of the fantastic paranormal claims of its doctrine. There is no evidence in religion, that is the problem. Also, do a simple Google search to obtain the vast list of transitions species. Most people make false claims based only on the admonition of apologists who generally state that Evolution is a lie due to a lack of these fossils, ( that can easily be found……). Remember that ignorance involves the willful suspension of skeptical, critical thinking. Question fantastic claims and forget about the afterlife! You only have one life, and if you waste it trying to obtain a divine death, then you have missed out on everything. We atheists live for now because their IS no doing it over, or living forever in an unprovable heaven. We don’t do good because a magical man in the sky is judging us, we do good because it is the right thing to do and morality is innate, no given by some imaginary god. So get out there and live your life and try to change the world for the better based upon scientific truth. Peace be unto you, Allllalalalalalalasalamimallleekhum my brothers and sisters!

 

Critical thought and God.

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I feel as I read the stories of God’s wrath, that I am reading the amoral ramblings of an uncaged psychotic who has way too much power than He deserves. The Bible reads as this and continually gives this madman props for his wanton killing of faithful and unfaithful alike. I was reading a blog post by noreligionrequired, here on WordPress, detailing the selfless act of Uzzah in the book of Sameul, trying to save the Ark of the Covenant  from hitting the ground when the oxen carrying it stumbled. Because he dared touch the sacred Ark, God struck him dead, even though Uzzah was trying to show the utmost respect for a sacred relic of his lord! 

Christians will spin this bullshit a different way and try to make ‘The Lord’ look like other than a drunken tyrant but they will fail because critical thinkers will not buy this Bronze-Age bullshit any more than a story of a magical unicorn. Of course the magical unicorn would probably represent a character of a much higher moral fiber than the god of Abraham! Christians just do not understand that when critical thinkers are fed this illogical load of shit, the first thing that they do is search for evidence to back up the fantastical unrealistic claims and then they completely scoff at the pure idiocy of biblical suppositions. Truly there is not a single person out there that can actually convince a real atheist that the fairy stories of the bible are anything but ancient fables designed to control an illiterate populace. The bible was written to appeal to a mostly uneducated mass of folks who lacked the ability to read and scrabbled for a day to day subsistence just to remain alive in difficult times. The bible appealed to the very poor who needed something to make them feel as though they were special and not the expendable thralls that they actually were. A promise of a wealthy afterlife seemed very attractive to people who usually ended up dead at around fifty years of age from things like urinary tract infections and tooth abscesses. 

Hell, if you promised me the goddamned world and I was a dirt poor shepherd, I’d probably sip the wondrous Kool-Ade as well, and seeing that 90% of the people in this world are made up of tractable followers, there’s no wonder that nonsense of the bible has persisted into the modern age! If more people voted for their favorite American Idol than they did their representatives, that surely means that sheeple are alive and well in contemporary times. It doesn’t matter how illogical and contradictory the stories of the bible are, or how savage their god treated the main players on the stage, they will continue believing in these obvious made up stories because they have a promise of heaven in the end! How sad and very pedestrian of so many people. The irony of it all is that the level of education of some of these people is very high and many actually hold advanced degrees in the sciences! The very sciences that disprove sky fairies every day of every week are subverted by these people in an attempt to convince others of the unsupported claims of religious doctrine. 

I thank the almighty Critical Thought Matrix that the ‘Nones’ are on the rise and that so many people identify as agnostic. That means that we will thankfully see a dramatic increase in those choosing logic and reason in the future. These people just need to step out of the shadows and quit caring what religious friends and family think of them. It will happen, I just hope that it spreads fast enough to head of more religious wars and atrocities, you know, that which religion is so great at propagating? Peace be unto you, critical thinkers!

 

Godless Intellectuals

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Godless Intellectual Values: Intellectual Values are Important, Godless, Secular

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Importance of Intellectual Values:

When people in America talk about “values,” they are usually talking about moral values — and moral values concentrated around controlling people’s sexuality, to boot. Neither moral values nor sexual morality are the only sorts of values that exist, however, and they certainly aren’t the only sort which should be emphasized. There also exist very important intellectual values which are necessary for human society. If religious theists won’t promote them, then irreligious, godless atheists must.

Skepticism & Critical Thinking:

Perhaps the most important intellectual value which godless atheists should promote is that of skepticism and critical thinking. Claims should not simply be accepted at face value; instead, they should be treated to a skeptical, critical evaluation that is commensurate with the nature of the claim. People should learn how to understand and identify arguments, how to recognize and avoid logical fallacies, how to reason coherently, and how to be skeptical of their own assumptions.

Curiosity & Wonder:

Lest skepticism become cynicism, godless atheists should also promote the values of curiosity and wonder — especially about the world we live in. All children are born curious; in fact, they sometimes act so curious that they become annoying and their curiosity may be discouraged. This may be the easiest course of action, but it’s also probably the worst. Curiosity and wonder should be encouraged as much as possible because without it, we won’t bother to learn anything new.

Reason & Rationality:

Far too often, people adopt positions based upon inappropriate emotional and psychological preferences. Skeptical evaluations will reveal these problems, but it would be preferable if we didn’t adopt such positions in the first place. Thus a fundamental intellectual value which godless atheists can promote is the need to use reason and rationality as broadly as possible in our lives. Becoming overly rational may be a concern, but being insufficiently rational is ultimately more dangerous.

Scientific Method:

Science has played a vital role in making modernity what it is, and the scientific method is what differentiates science from other human pursuits. The scientific method is precisely that, a method, and it is applied in a manner which emphasizes the importance of using the most reliable means to arrive at valid conclusions, regardless of what those conclusions are. Too many people care more about simply justifying the conclusions they prefer, which places things backwards.

Intellectual Honesty:

There can’t be intellectual values without intellectual honesty, which is the capacity for being consistent with one’s intellectual standards. Intellectual honesty means admitting when opponents have reasonable arguments (even if you don’t find them persuasive), it means admitting when data or logic lead in a different direction from what you had originally hoped and/or assumed, and it means not deliberately misrepresenting data or arguments in pursuit of an agenda.

Broad Study & Research:

An important intellectual value lies in not being intellectually narrow. There is no virtue in becoming so consumed by a topic that one never look around and the rest of the world. This isn’t an argument against specialization, but it is an argument against over-specialization that comes at the expense of being able to connect one’s favored topic with the rest of the human and intellectual world. Broad study and research can help develop broader perspectives on life.

Freethought & Questioning Authority:

An intellect isn’t being used very well if it isn’t allowed the freedom to follow reason to wherever it may lead. This means not allowing tradition or authority to absolutely determine one’s beliefs on a matter, thus a basic intellectual value lies in free thinking and questioning the conclusions of authorities. We cannot grow or improve if we aren’t able to move past what others before us have believed, and it’s unreasonable to think that growth or progress are impossible.

Evidence vs. Faith:

Generally speaking, “faith” is an intellectual cop-out. There is nothing that cannot be defended by relying on faith because if that’s all one uses, it’s impossible to distinguish between true and false beliefs. Faith ends conversation and investigation because faith doesn’t allow itself to be judged. Thus arguments and claims must be based upon the best available evidence and logic for only they can be evaluated, critiqued, and judged adequate or inadequate reasons for a position.

Intellectual Values in the Modern World:

None of the intellectual values described here need be unique to the irreligious, the godless, or atheists; indeed, there are any number of irreligious atheists who fail to appreciate them or who simply ignore them, while there are religious theists who try to emphasize them in their lives. It’s also a fact, though, that you don’t often find religious organizations or religious leaders making a point to emphasize these, whereas atheist and skeptical organizations promote them all the time. This is unfortunate because these intellectual values should be important to everyone. They are, in the end, vital foundations for our modern world.

For most, the above intellectual values will appear to be fairly obvious and cause one to wonder why anyone would feel the need to list and explain them. Surely no one argues against broad study, intellectual honesty, and skepticism do they? In fact, there is a strong anti-intellectual and anti-modern movement in the West, and especially America, which seeks to roll back just about every advance made in the wake of the Enlightenment. They oppose all of these things because they see these values as leading to questioning, doubting, and even rejecting traditional religion, traditional social values, traditional structures of power, and traditional theism.

To be fair, they have a point. Many of the changes in politics, society, and religion in the past several centuries have in large part been consequences of people adopting these intellectual values. The question is whether these changes are good or not. If critics were intellectually honest, they would be more open about what their real goals are and what they are really seeking to critique. It’s important to help identify where their arguments lead by explicitly laying out some of the intellectual values we rely upon and which their movement would undermine.