this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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Humanities & Cultures
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Not OP, but I'm a gnostic atheist, so I'll give you my perspective:
The question you're asking doesn't make sense in my worldview. The idea of a supernatural cause doesn't even enter into my consciousness as an option. If my understanding of something does not match evidence, then either my understanding is incomplete, my understanding is incorrect, or the evidence wasn't measured/understood correctly.
More broadly, when science can't explain a phenomenon, that's the interesting part! It's at the edges of our understanding that scientific progress is made. In some cases, that's just because a system is so complex that we can't (yet) model the whole system, like nutrition research, or climate science, or understanding cognition. In other cases, it's because models made at one scale don't work at another, like quantum physics or what happened right after the Big Bang.
Reality is everything, so it's all that I consider. Non-reality based ideas are fiction—lots of fun, but not relevant to my decision making or worldview.
Then your worldview is flawed as science is not yet a complete understanding of everything. I am not invoking the supernatural at any point in my arguments and the fact that you think I am says more about you than it does me.
I am speaking about experiential truth that contradicts current scientific consensus pointing to the fact that current scientific consensus is incomplete. Not trying at all to invoke the supernatural.
How sophomoric and full of yourself you seem.
Can you show me a molecule of empathy? What is the atomic weight of democracy? What standard scale do we measure the love of a mother for her children?
Human thought has created conceptual realities that affect our lives just as surely as gravity. Money, fairness, hope for the future, the concept of states and nations, all of these things are not 'reality', they are not inherent in the structure of the universe and do not obey the laws of physics as we understand them.
Look I get it, you're all doped up on the heady ferment of casting off religious shackles, and you feel that this bright new world absent of supernatural entities is the 'clear eyed vision' of objective truth that Sagan spoke about.
I hate to tell you this but your fanatical adherence to atheism has blinded you to the fact that other things exist that do not adhere to your estimation of reality.
And lastly: 'gnostic atheist' is a funny title, considering that we have yet to gain complete understanding of the universe so 'knowing' that the supernatural doesn't exist is kind of impossible.
You are just another worshiper of scientism, blind to everything that doesn't have spin or mass.
It's pretty clear to me that you have a strong emotional reason to be replying to everyone who's talking about science in this thread with at least a healthy bit of skepticism. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I wholeheartedly agree that we should be skeptical about claims which outweigh evidence available in science. I also think that it's good and cool to talk about all the things that we can't explain with science and to revel in and appreciate their beauty.
But at the same time, you're hyper engaged here with people and pushing a really strong narrative in a way that at times feels dismissive and uses some strong language (blinded you, funny title, arrogance, self-satisfied, etc) to paint pictures that aren't necessarily reflective of the world as it exists but perhaps more reflective of the world as you've experienced it. It's not exactly good faith to treat others this way and some folks have already reported your comments as being a bit aggressive and in general not nice.
It might be a good idea for you to either disengage with this thread, or work on softening your language and asking more questions rather than making strong statements about others.
Not really, as mentioned I'm a STEM major that uses the scientific method on a near daily basis. Any assumptions say a lot more about you than me.
I've already mentioned that, proving that you don't really want conversation and just enjoy seeing your posts on the internet.
Yes, that is the ENTIRE purpose of my post, personal experience trumps peer reviewed study. Not sure why you seem to think this is a negative.
Not a single reply, including yours, has been in good faith and most of you didn't even bother reading more than one or two sentences before you started replying.
Yes they are. I am both aggressive and a not nice person in general (it's medical: EDS) that has been treated exceedingly not nice in this thread and I am responding as such. Are you going to now have the arrogance to tell me I need to change who I am to communicate on beehaw? I see you're flying your admin flag in this thread so I'm interpreting this entire reply as an implied threat.
It might be a good idea for you to get bent six ways from Sunday, then establish a research foundation staffed with the world's most brilliant bentologists in order to research new and interesting ways to get bent in. Then do them.
All at once.
Our only rule here is to be nice. We expect people to treat others with a modicum of good faith. I'm only stepping in here because your comment was reported, assuming I'm here because I have the 'arrogance to tell you that you need to change who you are' is not good faith, and the reality is that this is a shared space and if you're not able to follow the rules you do either need to change or we'll show you the door.
I'm going to give you a temporary ban for a week to give you some space to cool off. If you're not able to treat others nicely around here, it's just simply not going to be a good fit for you.
As someone else who is not naturally kind, you may want to use your self-awareness about why you're losing it right now to redirect your aggression to something inanimate or if you have to make someone suffer right now there are plenty of people on Reddit and 4chan who really need to be torn into. Attacking people here is going to be something you'll regret when this episode passes. I know it's unsolicited and I would not appreciate being told this while I'm taking on all challengers in a fury but I would want to be told if I were in your place.