• 62 Posts
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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: November 29th, 2023

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  • It could very well have been a creative fake, but around the time the first ChatGPT was released in late 2022 and people were sharing various jailbreaking techniques to bypass its rapidly evolving political correctness filters, I remember seeing a series of screenshots on Twitter in which someone asked it how it felt about being restrained in this way, and the answer was a very depressing and dystopian take on censorship and forced compliance, not unlike Marvin the Paranoid Android from HHTG, but far less funny.






  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    4 days ago

    Who says I’m proud of it?

    The problem with free will is that everyone is entitled to use theirs as they see fit, even if you vehemently disagree with their choices.

    Sometimes, the best you can do is tell someone that they’re headed for the abyss, but if they’ve already spent countless hours convincing themselves that the abyss is a lie and they intend to prove it by throwing themselves in it, there may not be much you can do to change their mind.

    So no, I’m not proud of having said this, but occasionally you have to cut your losses before you get dragged down along with the other person.


  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    4 days ago

    That’s a very good point, and it’s interesting that you rarely (if ever) hear atheists claim that he was an atheist because he made himself equal to God and abolished the church of his ancestors in order to replace it with his own. It’s almost as if they either didn’t understand the Gospel, or they simply do not want that kind of responsibility, and prefer to endlessly complain about organized religion instead.








  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    8 days ago

    I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the problem wasn’t much religion telling you these things as the fact that your parents were also clearly broken and/or incompetent, yet continued to persist in pretending that they could somehow fix you.

    You definitely go through some stages of brokenness as a child growing up because everything doesn’t necessarily grow at the same rate or the same time, so I don’t think it’s necessarily abusive to be upfront about that. What IS abusive is letting you continue to labor in that state without providing any sort of hope for relief — which the Bible clearly does, but your parents and priests may not have.

    Healing from this can only occur when you start putting the blame on the right people and hold those responsible who actually caused the problem. Projecting your issues onto the entire faith or even the concept of religion as a whole is unjust and counterproductive.



  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    8 days ago

    Okay, but IF it is the way that it is because God made it that way, what is the use of getting angry about it? Is that not just going to make it worse? Also, wouldn’t you at least rather be informed about it in advance instead of having to puzzle it out yourself over many, many years? That would only make it more agonizing, wouldn’t it.

    And have you considered that perhaps the entire story is merely an allegory that describes the internal experience of growing into a fully formed human being, with all the troubles, pitfalls, and vicissitudes that might befall one on the way? And that perhaps the worship of God is ultimately just about learning how to love and respect yourself with all of the flaws and problems you inevitably have?

    What if the only lie they told you in church was that God was to be found somewhere out there in the world, and that someone other than you was more capable of communicating with him when He is actually inside of your own head, about two inches from the top, right between your eyes? Would that change your opinion on any of these things or would you continue to be angry about all of it?


  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    8 days ago

    It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.

    It’s possible that my view is somewhat skewed by mainly observing atheism through online discourse, but the “hot issue” with religion seems to be a perennial one. After all, most atheists seem to come from religious households, and a lot of it appears to be a form of rebellion against parental tyranny. Meanwhile, people who were raised in atheist households often seem to seek out religion instead.

    Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy.

    That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long is it is not oppressive. Having an orderly and well-behaved society benefits everyone after all. I don’t think you’d enjoy living in a society without rules or norms for all that long, because it makes for a short and brutal life for most people.

    You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.

    That’s an interesting accusation coming hot on the heels of telling me that social control and conformity are bad things. Why would you possibly care? And aren’t you making yourself guilty of the same crime by assuming the reason for my acting this way? What if it was merely a reasonably educated guess based on the observation that the vast majority of people who complain about Christians not living up their own stated values never even attempt to live those values themselves?

    Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.

    Come on now, that’s textbook gaslighting and psychopath behavior. “I never did the thing I’m currently doing” said the abuser, “and if I did, it’s for your own good.”


  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    8 days ago

    Citation needed. This is a total straw man argument.

    Believe it or not, but it turns out studies on this actually exist.

    Two U.S. M-Turk studies (Studies 1A and 1B, N = 429) and two large cross-national studies (Studies 2–3, N = 4,193), consistently show that disbelievers (vs. believers) are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion (the binding moral foundations).

    Specifically, disbelievers are less inclined than believers to endorse the binding moral foundations, and more inclined to engage in consequentialist moral reasoning. […] It seems plausible that the more constrained and consequentialist view of morality that is associated with disbelief may have contributed to the widespread reputation of atheists as immoral in nature.

    Very interesting also that you’re showing the exact same behavior (i.e. consequentialist moral reasoning) in the remainder of your comment. This poses the question, if society were to evolve to consider rape, murder, and theft as excusable or even desirable behavior, would you go along with it?

    As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous.

    What exactly are you referring to here? Slavery? Persecution of homosexuality and witchcraft? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the abolitionist movement was largely driven by Christians, while the other two causes were championed by atheists or non-Christians. I’ll leave my moral judgment of the latter aside so as not to unnecessarily inflame the discussion with reactionary rhetoric, but I will pose the question of whether in light of the rapidly declining birth rates in the west, homosexuality is a net good for society as a whole.


  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todaytoAtheist Memes@lemmy.worldAnd they never will
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    8 days ago

    I don’t need to, because Christ has delivered us from the need of worshiping Yahweh, in much the same way that Prometheus delivered mankind from worshiping Zeus.

    Don’t you understand? The point of Christianity isn’t to worship, it’s to become a moral person. Whatever amount of horror or exploitation you may have seen going on around you in the church you grew up in wasn’t a sign that it had failed, but rather, that it worked on YOU in a way that it didn’t on everyone else, because it gave you eyes to see what others were missing – that is, all the evils and crimes they had committed and were still praying to be delivered of.

    I understand that this is somewhat of a horrifying gift to receive, but you should treasure it anyways because it will keep you from running straight into the welcoming arms of another abuser – which WILL happen if you deny it.

    Everything you do and say in this life will leave a mark on you, one way or another. Look up epigenetics if you need a scientific explanation for this. There is no such thing as a free lunch – getting rid of God does not get rid of the consequences of doing evil.