What’s Wrong Believer?
When I see, a believer complaining, I think, “What is wrong? Did prayer not work?” or “I thought everything happens for a reason?” The most fundamental believers seem to almost completely rely on pseudo-intuition for everything good feeling god is guiding you give him the glory but are sometimes practical in realizing things are going wrong but instead of blaming god or their reliance on pseudo-intuition think it’s just life being unfair or hard.
Moreover, even though fundamental believers sometimes are practical in realizing things are going wrong they do not connect that some of the things going wrong are directly because of them relying on pseudo-intuition. Intuition will work at times but it will also mislead you or may partially deviate from facts or reason, or even wholly pervert accusation of facts in giving deliverance to exaggerations or extravagances, impossibilities, or delusions.
Consequently, at the very time when you suppose that you are being infallibly guided by intuition, you may in fact be strongly guided by pseudo-intuition which is something quite different. You may believe that you are honoring higher guidance when in actuality you are dishonoring facts or reason and choosing deceptions and unreason.
Prayer: “a Useless Action Some Wrongly Think is Useful”
If you must pray for me, please do whatever makes you feel better about yourself as it does nothing for me. Nevertheless, watch out atheists, for theists have a secret weapon better than our facts or reason, it is simply to tell us non-theists “I will pray for you.” I just have to laugh and think; really, the prayer myth is as equally ridiculous as the fairy dust myth. Prayer for others is like mental masturbation; sure, it makes you feel good as you are even doing something while doing absolutely nothing for the other person. Don’t think prayer is like masturbation well both please only the person doing it and does nothing for the person they’re thinking about. Well now that I think of it prayer is nothing and at least masturbation gets results. So stop wasting time in mental masturbation if you see someone in need actually help them don’t say “I will pray for you.” And please don’t throughout the dreaded “I will pray for you” when someone does not want your prayers or you ae just using t like a threat thinking you have some upper hand over us nonbelievers. Oh no not that, “I will pray for you” proclamation to regain lost power in an argument with an atheist. When you threat pray at us, we cringe and cower at such a powerful dreaded comeback. Not we laugh at you or are sad at such willful delusion as “I will pray for you” and we usually thinking sarcastically, which out stand back the shit just got real now. I am in for it and they are invoking their imaginary friend to help them bully me. I interpret “I will pray for you”, as a way to state with contempt that they as theists with the invoking of a threat prayer like magic makes them superior and us as non-theists completely inferior. The religionist/fideist invokes their incantation, “I will pray for you,” in other words, “I know I cannot do anything about this argument or reasoning, and I will summon my ‘imaginary delusion’” and as if that is going to do something. Oh, it will do something all right; it will give them the same delusion of helping as it always does. The “I will pray for you” statement for religionists/fideists is as if a trump card that once stated counteracts all facts or reason offered then allows them to win no matter what. I do not like the “I will pray for you” statement at all because the thought of someone thinking of me on their knees and mumbling to themselves is just creepy. I hate when people say that to me especially and repeatedly in the same discussion as like a threat. It just hits a nerve and it is a very annoying statement and not one of care or their claimed love.
We must wonder why they even say the “I will pray for you” statement, when ‘god’ is already doing what he feels is right or do they claim to know what is better than god does. Moreover, it is actually in a way against the bible anyway to proclaim prayer at people in public. Matthew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. However, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Non-religionists and ones who do not value fideism or reality do not just pray to some fantasy other world and instead, actually help others who are hurting in this real world. One pair of open hands assisting another in a positive action does more than a thousand hands closed in the futile inaction of prayers that it does not even help the ones praying let along anyone else. Prayer is working hard at accomplishing nothing!
Nothing fails like prayer: The three-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP), published in the April 4 American Heart Journal, was the largest-ever attempt to apply scientific methods to measure the influence of prayer on the well-being of another. It examined 1,800 patients undergoing heart-bypass surgery. On the eve of the operations, church groups began two weeks of praying for one set of patients. Each recipient had a praying contingent of about 70, none of whom knew the patient personally. The study found no differences in survival or complication rates compared with those who did not receive prayers. The only statistically significant blip appeared in a subgroup of patients who were prayed for and knew it. They experienced a higher rate of postsurgical heart arrhythmias (59 versus 52 percent of unaware subjects). As the debunking of prayer was so thorough they have no plans for a follow-up study. This one, sponsored largely by the John Templeton Foundation, cost $2.4 million. Ref
Is Belief in Supernatural or Paranormal Realistic or Reasonable?
If anything supernatural or paranormal was provable, the believers would have taken James Randi’s famous million-dollar challenge, or they would have gone and got their Nobel Prize in proving the supernatural or open up a 100% faith-based prayer and miracles hospital. Where the cure for anything and everything is guaranteed because “prayer and miracles works” and the only education was being a religious or spiritual leader.
Prove it or it is not really worthy for true belief and if there was actual scientific proof it would silence us rationalists, atheists, and skeptics forever.
However, nothing of the sort has ever happened. List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal or supernatural woo-woo go back to at least 1922 with Scientific American. But it did not stop there instead there has been many individuals and groups have offered similar monetary awards for proof of the paranormal or supernatural with some reaching over a million dollars yet as of February 2016, not one prizes have been claimed.
Therefore, belief in supernatural or paranormal are not realistic nor are they reasonable. And what’s even crazier its nonsense and they act like it is us rationalists, atheists, and skeptics that have to disprove something they have never proved.
Damien, the supernatural is as real as the natural, not because one cannot see or doesn’t believe, dose Not mean it doesn’t exist. The super natural is not of this dimension,…. Just like your soul is not from this dimension.. If one is smart enough and has a bit of science, they will understand that many things that exist .. Still cannot be explained or seen… Like the air, Gravity and consciousness … We cant see them but they exist. Regardless of none believers..
My response, ha ha and you know this even though no one can see it scientifically and no one has ever proven it ever? you don’t even know anything nor does anyone to say it could be real it’s just making stuff up, think otherwise prove it. And saying it is not of this dimension is more unfounded talk and yet more claims about things neither you or any one knows.
Now think if as claim there is another dimension that means you don’t have a way to know what is or is not or even what could be there in fact with all we do know if there are other dimensions we are reasonably sure it’s also only natural, and in no way can we nor should we think it must have magic. Beliefs in the supernatural is all talk with no valid anything and often not even offered with valid reasoning.
Damien, are you denying the soul? Consciousness??? Black matter? Air? Gravity?? The astral plane (the dream world)… Ever taken any psychedelics? Ever had an OBE? Ever seen shadow people with your own eyes? Seen auras or energy fields?? Are you denying the countless individuals who can literately see the supernatural???
My response, there is no soul. Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. Dark matter is not magic is a label for a hypothetical substance that is believed by most astronomers to account for around five-sixths of the matter in the universe. Air, I assume you mean oxygen? Or air as the name given to the Earth’s atmosphere? If so both are testable. Gravity or gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which all things with energy are brought toward (or gravitate toward) one another, including stars, planets, galaxies and even light and sub-atomic particles. You state things that have nothing to do with supernaturalism and instead are known and testable in our nonmagical would.
And again why would I or any critical thinker believe in souls?
Soul Theory = Unjustified Untrue Faith Belief = Magical Thinking Beliefs as Knowledge = Unwarranted Psychological Certainty supportive of incorrectability. (arbitrary and unjustified way of coming to ideas or Idealism)
What Science Really Says About the Soul: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-03-20/
Soul Theory and Skepticism, Science Versus Spirituality: http://www.humantruth.info/index_souls.html
“Life after death” NO think again, Physics and the Immortality of the Soul: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/
I am all for free thinking, if the evidence is there great go down the rabbit hole but do not eat the rabbit shit offered as real; when its proof disappears like a mental mirage, gone in a poof magic as simple as the magical thinking that inspires all manner of flawed beliefs.
“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”
Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)
Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft
Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.
My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?
Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.
To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.
Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):
Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism
My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com