We can all agree that people are great.

Right?

I know I’m pretty great.

Most of the time.

Unless I’m driving or shopping or conversing or interacting with other people.

By myself, I’m great.

Which is the central dogma of the Freedom From Religion people:

Just ignore the first sentence about moral progress being brought about by non-religious people.

It’s not true.

But this post is about Utopia, not truth!

If we get sidetracked by the truth, we’ll never reach Utopia.

Because we arrive at Utopia by eliminating religion.

To put it another way:

Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. – AmericanHumanist.org

I know!  I know!

The statement contradicts itself!

“Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest” is itself an ideological abstraction.

You’re getting distracted again.

The point is, we’ve got to get rid of religion.

(Yes…Humanism is sort of religious…STOP SIDETRACKING ME!  I’m not telling you again!)

Imagine life without the guilt, shame, judgment, discrimination, and hostility that religious people produce!

Imagine a world governed not by ancient superstitions, but by our innate greatness.

A civilization built on the foundation of human virtue.

Can you see it?

I can!

We wouldn’t lock our doors anymore.

We wouldn’t need prisons.

We wouldn’t need government.

Our children could roam the streets in complete safety.

Every action would be a deliberate effort to benefit all of mankind, rather than just ourselves.

This is how we’re wired!

We don’t need religion to tell us how to behave.

Am I right?

Of course, I’m right!

I’m people!

People are always right.

People are great.

You gonna keep lurking forever or are you gonna join this exclusive clique?
Stop procrastinating. Click This.

Leave a comment

43 Responses

  1. “YOU are evidence for God, Ark!” Take it or leave it. 🙂

    That is opinion. It is not evidence.

    So, do you have any actual verifiable evidence?
    Why not tell us what evidence convinced you to become a Christian?

    1. It is evidence. And your opinion is that it’s not acceptable.
      So you’ve chosen “leave it” then.
      Good.
      You will keep being crazy and I will keep being encouraged that I’m on a much better track than you. 🙂

        1. There’s no way in hell I’m going down this rabbit trail with you AGAIN. You may be okay with typing the exact, same comments into a computer for the rest of your lackluster life, but I have better things to do than repeat myself over and over and over.

          Feel free to refresh your memory regarding the last time (but not only time) I humored you when all you really wanted was attention. You can find the end of the thread here: https://johnbranyan.com/why-bad-things-happen-to-good-folks/#comment-12210

          Or just take a sleeping pill and go to bed.

          1. Thank you.So all you have is opinion and no evidence.

            All you had to do was be honest and say so …

          2. Thank you. No evidence will ever be accepted by you. All you had to do was be honest and say so.
            🙂
            The fact that you have trouble sleeping is another favorite bit of evidence.

          3. How do you know I won’t accept any evidence?
            I repeat you have not produced a single piece of verifiable evidence for any claim regarding your faith/belief in your god.

          4. Lol!
            I have LOTS of experiential evidence that you will not accept any evidence. Now you’re throwing in the word “verifiable” to give yourself the final judgement on whether it’s good enough or not. Hahaha!

            I rest my case, Your Dishonor.

          5. Experiential evidence? Are you serious?
            Okay .. then please offer as Exhibit One a piece of experiential evidence that will demonstrate the veracity of your claims for your god.

          6. You poor thing… That’s not what I said. I have experiential evidence that you will not accept any evidence.

            Reading comprehension? Basic communication? Language itself? Only possible if there’s order and meaning in the Universe. (Hey, another small bit of evidence for God!) The fact that you deny the existence of the Source of order/meaning is why you’re so bad at this… You’ve forfeited your mind. Is it worth it?

          7. Evolution fulfills all your human qualities you attribute to a god.
            Your claim of order is, once again, solely opinion, you have not offered any evidence for a god let alone your god.

            I reiterate, all you have offered is an opinion

            If you wish to be taken even remotely seriously then please, show some evidence.

          8. You haven’t shown any verifiable evidence that Evolution accounts for order and meaning. (Don’t tell me you’re back to denying the existence of order altogether… You know where that will get you…)

            Is there order and meaning in the Universe, Ark? You verified there was a couple weeks ago. What say you now?

          9. The dishonorable Judge Ark, presiding.
            I’ll never understand why some Christians actually try to MEET those demands…?
            I refuse to be put on trial by a mentally unstable insomniac who lacks basic reading comprehension skills.

          10. I am making no claims of the divine …. you are.
            If you refuse the simple request to even offer up a single piece of evidence that convinced you to become a Christian then why on earth would you expect anyone to care less about what you claim about your god?

          11. Lol. You first, Buddy.

            Honestly, I HOPE I’m not ever taken seriously by you… I only want to be taken seriously by people who believe there’s order and meaning in the Universe.

            Again, I ask, has it been worthwhile giving up your mind?

          12. So, no evidence then?
            Are you simply afraid that your claims about what convinced you to become a Christian won’t stand up to scrutiny, Amanda?
            Or are you afraid to state that faith and not evidence is the foundation of your belief?

  2. Please tell me exactly what we can know about God. And by this I mean, reliable repeatable, demonstrable knowledge.

      1. You have already acknowledged nothing can be known about your god, so exactly what evidence are you referring to, JB?

        1. Oh. So you don’t know the difference between evidence and reliable repeatable, demonstrable knowledge.

          You should understand the terms in the questions you’re asking.

          1. Fair enough… so exactly what evidence are you referring to, JB. And I am not talking about opinion, or conjecture, but bona fide, verifiable evidence.

          2. No.
            You tell me what you think evidence is.
            How is it different from knowledge?

          3. Already you seem to be laying the groundwork in order to find a way not to bother giving an answer.
            You stated it was evidence that convinced you.
            I am merely asking what this evidence was.

            My interpretation of evidence, whatever that may be, is irrelevant to your belief, surely?
            I am going to presume the evidence you considered must have been pretty powerful.
            So what was it that convinced you to become a Christian?

          4. You’re not going to answer my question.
            Fair enough.
            I’m not going to answer yours.

          5. evidence
            ˈɛvɪd(ə)ns/Submit
            noun
            1.
            the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
            “the study finds little evidence of overt discrimination”
            synonyms: proof, confirmation, verification, substantiation, corroboration, affirmation, authentication, attestation, documentation;

            Will this do for you, JB?

          6. No.
            I have a dictionary.
            My question was: “How is evidence different from knowledge?”

            In your own words, Diggety-Dug. Think for once in your life.

          7. My own words?

            I have knowledge about how to play guitar.

            On its own, that is merely a statement that you can either accept or reject.

            However, if you witnessed me playing then you could say
            ”I have evidence of Ark playing guitar.” ( and of course you also have knowledge of this fact)
            You could also have this verified by having other people witness me playing the guitar and thus verify the claims.

          8. Other people telling me that you play guitar would not be reliable repeatable, demonstrable knowledge.

            Other people telling me that you play guitar would constitute evidence.

            So when I’m asked, “Please tell me exactly what we can know about Ark’s guitar playing and by this I mean reliable repeatable demonstrable knowledge.” the only proper response is: “Nothing.”

          9. Exactly!
            And as I said, on its own it was merely a statement that you could accept r reject … but idf you saw me then you could say you have evideence of me playing the guitar.
            However, this is, of course, contigent on you knowoing what playing a guitar means.
            And this was why I included having other people as witnesses to me playing to back up the initial claim.

            So when I ask, “Please tell me exactly what we can know about your god, and by this I mean reliable repeatable demonstrable knowledge.” the only proper response is: “Nothing.”

            In fact, all you have is argument for your god, JB, and nothing else. And it is a lousy argument to boot. And even if it were a good argument it is still only an argument.
            Yet you claim you were convinced to become a believer in your god because of evidence .
            And so far you have not produced any.

          10. Fine. Now we have done with the jousting.

            What was the evidence that convinced you to become a Christian?

          11. You’ve been given answers to this question many times. Months ago, I told you one of my favorite pieces of evidence is how insane God-deniers are. I said, point blank, “YOU are evidence for God, Ark!”

            Take it or leave it. 🙂

  3. Life sure would be easier without abstract ideals. “Needs and Interests” is such a concrete goal to strive for – why can’t religion be so simple, without any sort of abstraction or ambiguity?

    Take me there. Show me the way!

    1. From what I understand, it is simply a matter of declaring yourself “non-religious”. When you renounce those abstract ideals, your moral framework automatically rests on the bedrock of reason.

      Does that help?

  4. LOL! There’s a whole lot of death and disease in that mission statement! Prison? Mental illness? Death with dignity? Sterilization, abortion, the terminally ill?

    Do we ever get to the part about life and life abundant? Utopia sure seems to involve a whole lot of killing! On the bright side, I guess we’re “humane” about it. I’m not sure what “humane” even means. People who call themselves humanists kind of scare me. We might want to just go with doggests or something. Dogs tend to have far less issues.

Leave a Reply to ArkenatenCancel reply

Archives
Subscribe to Blog via Email

Get my blog in your inbox!

Follow

Get the latest posts delivered to your mailbox:

Your Cart