Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.
Right, it bears pointing out that atheism is in itself a faith, or at least its adherents treat it very much like one to the point that it might as well be one. For me it is the faith in the non-existance of a supreme being or deity.
It really bears pointing out that this is, in fact, not true.
If I walk up to you and tell you that I can turn lead into gold, and you ask me to prove it, only to have me rebut that telling you to prove I can’t… Did you need “faith” to not believe me?
I think using the word “faith” here may need more explanation. Would you say you have faith that the tooth fairy, Santa, or the Easter Bunny does not exist?
I am an atheist so far as I can say that there is no intelligent deity that snapped its fingers and created the universe. But I cannot definitely conclude that the universe itself might not be the living body of a god. An atheist™️ would say that there is nothing transcendental about the universe itself, despite the proof of their very eyes that it is transcendental. If you’re not in awe at the sheer magnitude of the universe then maybe you’re too self centered to realize how truly insignificant we are in the greater universe.
An atheist would say that a god needs some kind of intelligence, but does the lack of intelligence and will makes a being less of a being? What do we make of plants and bacteria then?
I know the biblical god isn’t real. I know the Ancient pantheons are also not real. I don’t know that there is no such thing as a supreme transcendent being. But I think there’s enough prove to make an argument that there might be one.
Sounds like you are agnostic rather than atheist.
I’m not talking about it what i am, I am saying that atheist have as much proof of there being no supreme being as they have of there being one. There’s really no way to prove anything yet until we find a way (if there is one) to look at our universe from outside of it. We could literally be an atom in the balls of a weird fourth dimensional creature for all we know.
But their belief in the non existence of a god and their outright hostility towards anything that might suggest some kind of divinity makes them act as any other zealot would. So atheism works a lot like a religion, which was my argument.
Please forgive me for being confused.
I agree. I prefer to consider myself agnostic rather than atheist.
I’m really a dishonest agnostic since I can’t really imagine a proof of deity that I wouldn’t discount as a hallucination.
I did have a dream many years ago in which I woke up with absolute proof that God existed, but then I went back to sleep.
When I woke later, I couldn’t remember what the proof was. If the proof was real, and God let me forget it, then he’s an ass and he doesn’t deserve my belief.
I think the problem is that most people think of god as non material. In my view m whatever you want to call god is a material thing and you are touching it right now. And there’s absolutely no conclusive evidence to prove that this isn’t true and most thought exercises will have you reach the conclusion that there is a high likelihood that we are indeed part of a bigger thing that could be defined as god.
I guess a big divide here is how you define god, for most people it’s this intelligent and willful being. But that’s just what a human, who fashions gods in his image, thinks a god is.
For me intelligence is not a requirement for supremacy. I believe the universe itself for all intents and purposes is god. It has no will and no intelligence but that doesn’t make it any less powerful.
It’s an ideology. The problem with it, is that like any ideology. Many turn it into their identity. And if you attack or even dismiss the ideology, it is as if you’ve done it to them personally.
That said there’s more clear evidence for atheism than there is for any other theist belief. But it does get tiresome to combat against constant fantastic and unprovable claims.