Rushdie

[A. Kingstone]

Gods are our worst invention.

[Stringswinger]

Gods are our worst invention.

Or perhaps, humanity is God's worst invention.

[A. Kingstone]

Yeah, Zeus was a real prick.

[Woody Sound]

As someone who lives nearby, the Chautauqua Institution is a peaceful, tranquil, artsy, somewhat remote place. The venue is actually outdoors and covered. Thus, security was obviously lacking for someone like SR.

[James W]

[CliffR]

I don’t know that he’s had any security for the longest time. He came to speak at my old workplace 10-15 years ago and I didn’t see any obvious security measures.

[Sam Sherry]

Honor Salman Rushdie: Read this. Better yet, go to your library and get it, and if they don't have it, drop the word on them.

It's an easy read (unlike some of Mr. Rushdie's more postmodern nonlinear work) but it gently cuts right to the core. My immediate reaction in 1992 was that Mr. Rushdie was worth everything it took to keep him alive and writing.

[RJVB]

Or perhaps, humanity was god's worst intention.

T,FTFY

We've reached a new low in religious zealotism and numbwitism: the *sshole who did it claims he didn't do it...

[Jimmy Smith]

Gods are our worst invention.

Religion hasn't been proven true or false so far. It isn't an invention, it's a hypothesis.

[A. Kingstone]

Language is our best invention.

[RJVB]

Religion hasn't been proven true or false so far. It isn't an invention, it's a hypothesis.

Nope. Religion is

1 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
2a(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural
(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2b : the state of a religious
3 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
4 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness

(you know something is off with a concept when a serious dictionary gives circular definitions of it )

usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements;[1] however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.

So yeah, invention is a proper term, hypothesis is inappropriate.

A number of the key beliefs preached by the most common religions can be shown to be in violation of the basic laws of physics (even if you could argue that quantum physics flirts with a number of those same beliefs )

Il paraît que le djihadisme n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que l’islamisme n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que le salafisme n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que les talibans n’ont rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que l’état islamique Daesh n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que boko haram n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que les frères musulmans n’ont rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que l’Arabie saoudite et son wahhabisme qui decapite sur la place publique n’a rien à voir avec l’islam….
Il paraît que Le GIA n’avait rien à voir avec l’islam
Il paraît que Al Qaida n’a rien à voir avec l’islam
Bref l’islam n’a rien à voir avec l’islam

(couldn't find a translation but I think you'll get the gist)

[Jimmy Smith]

By saying invention, you're implying that it is by definition false. Saying that is just as circular as defining it as true. With how much technology accelerates through time, it is possible that God will eventually be proven true or false in centuries time.

[RJVB]

With how much technology accelerates through time gods will become even less useful/needed than they are today.

[Jimmy Smith]

Lol ok keep posing your opinion as a fact. Like I said, we don't know if the idea of God is true or false yet, so there's no purpose in going around stating opinions as facts. It could be true, it could be false, people just have different opinions.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Religion is obviously a human invention. If you want to call it a "hypothesis" I can't stop you, but that hypothesis is also a human invention.

Look around at the world, at human history. Mankind has invented thousands and thousands of religions.

Saying that it's an invention is not weighing in on the truth or utility of assertion A or B.

[pauln]

The dreamer dreamed the dust arose and walked,
but when the dreamer awoke, who told the dust?

[Jimmy Smith]

Religion is a human creation but the idea of God hasn't been proven true or false yet. Touting your opinion as a fact is uppity and moronical.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Surely some gods are inventions, right? Zeus?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Back to the thread topic, someone's conception of their Deity led them to stab a novelist. At what point in that chain did it go wrong?

[Jimmy Smith]

Well I agree, I wouldn't think absolutely every view of spirituality and gods could coexist as true. It's still possible that one or some of them could be true though.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Well I agree, I wouldn't think absolutely every view of spirituality and gods could coexist as true. It's still possible that one or some of them could be true though.

Well, maybe on narrow facts, you know, don't kill. But true in their entirety?

[Jimmy Smith]

True in their religion's entirety, I wouldn't think so either. I mean like God exists or not.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

True in their entirety, I wouldn't think so either. I mean like God exists or not.

To my knowledge. there is only one religion that has non-violence as a central tenant. It's just that there aren't many Jains around today.

[Jimmy Smith]

You can find inconsistencies everywhere but that doesn't mean by definition atheism is the only possible view that could be true. It's possible God could exist even though our understanding so far isn't accurate.

[Christian Miller]

You can find inconsistencies everywhere but that doesn't mean by definition atheism is the only possible view that could be true. It's possible God could exist even though our understanding so far isn't accurate.

Basic bitch agnosticism is the only completely rational position - one that doesn’t require a leap of faith. The bonus is that you unite the theists and atheists in contempt against you.

(Nb; you could be THAT guy and invoke the correct definition of agnosticism but literally no one cares. See also positivism. Apologies to John A.)

I also understand it is entirely self consistent to be both an agnostic in the popular sense and not appeal to the ‘god of the gaps’ fallacy, which iirc is Dawkins main objection to the position. Even I can tell the ‘new aetheists’ weren’t/aren’t very sophisticated thinkers, although Hitchens is fun to listen to which is more than you can say about the other two. And I say that as an avid reader of Dawkin’s books about his actual area of knowledge.

But internet New Atheists were almost more interested in optics than logic, which is why Jordan Peterson - at least an apologist for (a certain flavour of) theism even if not an actual believer - was embraced by the exact same people a decade later.

Now Peterson changed optics from ‘besuited man of reason/sad Kermit’ to ‘Marvel supervillain’ and consequently lost most of his fans, I wonder who will be the next ‘intellectual’ we’ll have young nerdy men bore us about?

Anyway; rant over. Atheists are obviously not entirely insufferable but most of the ones on the internet were