After success with my senior project, developing a real game with a team of 15 that we're releasing on Steam, which I feel really good about, I crave the experience of working in a team to develop a game. But of course, my hobby project is a nonprofit endeavor so I can only expect volunteers, and even though I feel I can get the coding down mostly on my own, I feel like I might be asking too much by hoping for an artist or few to join with me... maybe I just need to change up my approach, and offer equal shares of creative control, that way it's not "help me make my game" so much as "join me and we'll make our game."
My preferred way to browse here is using All and blocking communities I don't want to see. That way I get exposed to new things I wouldn't seek out on my own (for example: British archaeology)...
29 communities, mostly news. I'm here for memes, not links to articles.
Also a few atheism communities, because I'm not a fan of seeing posts bashing my religion from a community where the rules forbid me from saying anything in its defense.
To be clear, I'm not trying to say it's unfair for atheism communities to have those rules. Your community, your rules. But if I'm seeing those posts, I'm going to be bothered, and if I respond, I'm going to break the rules and bother everyone else. Better to not see it in the first place.
In the same way, I'd expect atheists to block a Christian community if it were trending - though I'd be willing to meet them in constructive debate in such a community if the rules permitted it.
Blocking is a community is how I control my personal feed, it's not a condemnation.
Makes sense. You don't exactly have atheist scriptures to study and discuss, and you're not going to have any atheological discussions on how nature reflects the lack of a god.
The burden of proof tennis is quite tricky here because it's not about whether you claim something exists, it's whether you claim something that goes against what's generally accepted. If I claim quantum mechanics don't exist, it's not on you to prove they do.
And that's before we get into the fact that there isn't a general consensus on whether God (or any gods) exist.
Yeah, if everyone believes there's an invisible dragon under my bed, then that means the burden of proof is on me to claim there isn't. And I'd probably address that with a stick.
As for assertion without evidence, how do you feel about eyewitness accounts of miracles? Or sociological reasoning on the odds of the disciples keeping a conspiracy for their whole lives? Or how about the origin of the universe - we had all the matter in the universe condensed into a single point, complete with laws that would lead to such interesting things as nuclear fusion, complex planetary orbits, and even pockets of life. Do you take it as a given that it's far more likely for that to have come out of nowhere than for a higher power to exist and have arranged it as such?
You're free to discount the evidence (though I'd be happy to debate it with you,) and dismiss the claims because it doesn't align with your experiences. But note that the idea that all this happened without God is as absurd to me as the existence of God is to you, and equally unsubstantiated.
I see your point, but the idea here is that, since I'm starting from the assumption that dinosaurs don't exist, I conclude that the fossils came from some source other than dinosaurs, so they can't be used as pro-dinosaur evidence. But at the same time I don't offer an alternative explanation on where they came from.
Eyewitness testimony isn't evidence, eh? Before I get too invested in this, I want to know what you do consider to be evidence. Suppose that, hypothetically, I run a study where I recruit 1000 people off the street. I tell them that at some point over the next 10 days, I'm going to pray for them to experience peace. For each person, I roll a 10 sided die to choose which day to pray on, do so, and record the result. Then at the end of the 10 days, I bring them all back and ask them to indicate on which day they felt the most peace. ~600 of them say the same day that I rolled for them, ~150 of them are one day off, and ~100 can't give an answer. If this were to happen (solely hypothetical, ignoring any arguments about whether God would play along for a study,) would that count as evidence?
So if it doesn't meet the standards of a double blind study, it's worthless as evidence? What about case studies?
I get that double blind studies are superior because they combat bias, but sometimes double blind studies aren't what's been done. Other types of studies aren't invalid, you just have to take them with salt and consider alternative explanations - just as you do with a double blind study.
Honestly, I'm getting flashbacks from old debates where people were really picky about evidence. If you don't mind a too-long backstory, read the next paragraph. Otherwise, skip it. Sorry for the amount of context needed.
There was a certain mobile app I played with an arena gamemode, where each player was part of a certain arena pool, and you could go up in the ranks by attacking others or go down by being attacked. I figured that, for each arena pool, there's a certain point of no interest, beyond which nobody would bother attacking you because they don't play that gamemode. As part of a debate on Reddit, I wanted to give a general indication of where this point was. To do this, I set my defense team to actual garbage (that anyone who unlocked the gamemode could stomp,) stopped doing offense, and recorded my arena ranking as it dropped. This went on for many weeks, and I published my results to Reddit, figuring that when it stops dropping, I'm probably somewhere near the point of no interest. The other guy refused to accept that it had any worth as an indication, though, because it was a sample size of one and too stochastic. We argued about it for... probably weeks, I can't remember.
Anyways, because of that argument, I'm cautious about dealing with internet debaters who have rigorous standards about what counts as evidence. I'm just a guy on the net, not a professional scientist, I don't have the energy to do research papers to convince one person of something they're probably not going to believe anyways. This thought especially comes up when I hear things like "if it doesn't meet the standard, it's worthless." Though looking back, it appears I put that word in your mouth, sorry.
To be honest, you're still setting off that red flag in the back of my mind, but unlike everyone it's been a problem with before, you seem pretty friendly about it (unless you're one of the people downvoting my every comment.) I'd be willing to talk about it, but it would have to be with the understanding that I don't have scientifically rigorous evidence because I'm not a scientifically rigorous professional. What I do have is personal experience about subtly yet distinctly answered prayers, paired with mental note-taking to ward off confirmation bias. I also have a couple anecdotes that work better as funny little stories than evidence. And I also have, as mentioned before, a line of reasoning showing that it's extraordinarily unlikely for the disciples to have been conspiring or hallucinating when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, though I'd have to dig up my notes on that.
The dinosaur thing was just an example to deal with the concept of burden of proof. So I suppose in a way I was trolling about it, or at least I didn't make it clear enough that it wasn't what I actually thought.
I do believe in science, and I haven't found that scientific discoveries conflicted with the Bible. Interpretations of the Bible do change over time, but the actual text in the Bible does not go out of style. Well, I guess translations do, but you know what I mean. The Bible says God created the planet in a week, and that includes all the plants and animals. We have evidence of evolution, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the creation story. God is fully capable of kicking off, directing, and accelerating evolution so that it still fits within the allotted time.
I take issue with your line of reasoning in the gay marriage sentence, but to be clear, I'm not saying it should be illegal, just addressing the logic. Just to avoid misconceptions, let's apply the same reasoning to alcohol instead. Something being legalized has nothing to do with whether God accepts it. Yes, God ultimately has all authority, and yes, the Bible says to follow the laws of man, but the laws of man are ultimately the laws of man, and there's a clause that the laws of God take precedence in a conflict. But even if that weren't the case, if the laws of man say we're allowed to get drunk, that doesn't mean we have to. The Bible still says it's a sin (which I think is because it leads to unwise choices and other sins that you could blame on the alcohol,) and what mankind thinks doesn't change that.
Also, to be clear, since you think I'm a hardline kind of guy, something being a sin does not mean we have to fight to make the laws reflect that. There's a lot of talk in the Bible, especially in the new testament, about how the laws are not enough to make someone righteous, and that was the whole point of Jesus. I do take hardline stances in that what the Bible says is true, but I'm not going to condemn people around me for working on the sabbath, and I'm certainly not going to try to make it illegal. (Well, a law against employers requiring you to work 7 days a week would be good on its own merit, but it doesn't have to line up with the sabbath.) Another biblical principle is that the way to reach someone is by love, not force.
Sorry for the late reply, I've been too busy with school to set aside a block of time to address this yesterday.
I understand that you want a high standard for proof, and I agree that, if it's available, you definitely want the highest quality proof available before you make a commitment that's going to alter your life and eternal destiny. But if all you have is medium-low quality proof for a god and a "we can't be sure" for there being no god, it doesn't make strictly logical sense to default to no god. I know Pascal's wager isn't going to save souls, but if the risk of getting it wrong is being tortured by some other deity, then it's better to take n-1 risks of eternal torment than n risks, especially if the only evidence available points towards a god. For a mundane comparison, if you're in a burning building and a helicopter lowers a rope ladder to get you out, while the burden of proof would be on them to demonstrate that the ladder is strong enough to hold you, if all they can offer you is a "Billy said it should work," you're still better off taking the ladder (with a risk of falling back into the fire and dying) than staying in the fire and certainly burning to death.
If I were you, I would have made the case about life on Earth instead, because when it's about choosing your lifestyle, there's little risk of the ultimate bad time in the equation, so it makes more sense to be picky about the quality of evidence. You're not going to commit 10% of your income, half a day a week, and obligate yourself to study a book just for a "Billy said it's true."
If you do want to make the case about life on Earth, I'd be happy to meet you on that front, but I don't want to put words in your mouth and then immediately punch them back out without waiting for you to respond. I mean, I'm not planning on throwing punches anyways, I'm more just talking about fair debate principles.
It's historically confirmed that Jesus existed at least as a human. The disciples were, at least after Acts, prominent enough that if one of them made a statement that they never actually saw Jesus resurrected, word would have gotten around and been recorded somewhere. To me, that means there are one of three possibilities:
The disciples really saw Jesus resurrected. Impossible if God isn't real (unless time traveling aliens or something,) but we don't know that.
The disciples conspired to fabricate Jesus' resurrection. It doesn't seem far fetched for 11 people to make something up for clout. There are far more people than that who claim to have seen aliens. But there are three key differences here:
It was a singular event, and everyone present was in agreement. That puts it above most alien sightings, but not all. I'm sure somewhere a group of 20 alien fanatics got together to claim an alien sighting.
The disciples were prominent figures who were subject to investigation and much persecution, pressuring them to concede that Jesus was not the real deal for most of their lives. The scope of that far exceeds any other conspiracies I know about. 5 professional liars couldn't keep Watergate under wraps for even a few years.
Prior to the resurrection, the disciples believed that lying was a sin, and they continued to teach it afterwards. It's not out of the question that a few of them could have reasoned that getting the Gospel out was more important than telling the truth, but for all 11 of them to unanimously decide on that, and not one of them lets it slip in a moment of guilt at any time? These people weren't chosen for their commitment to the cause or their ability to keep a secret.
The disciples hallucinated Jesus' resurrection. It's a known phenomenon that sometimes happens to widows. The person I originally talked about this with told me that 30-60% of widows have this hallucination. I think that number looks a bit too high, but I took 60% for a generous estimate. For all 11 disciples to hallucinate Jesus' return would be 0.6^11 = 0.36% chance tops. Even if 60% is accurate, the chance would still be lower, because they'd all have to hallucinate him in the same place at the same time.
I'm Canadian and we have our own issues with far right nutjobs but I've heard the phrase "Project 2025" thrown around and the little I've seen about it frightens me. I don't follow the news for the sake my mental health but could someone explain it in depth? What kind of a shit show are we looking at? Unfortunately Canadian...
Thanks for this. I had read up on it some time ago, and it seemed like par-for-the-course "paint the government our color once we're in power" except for a couple concerning points, so when people around here were talking about it like it was literal fascism, I dismissed that as misunderstandings and exaggeration. I hadn't realized that civil servants were hitherto untouched by the government switching colors.
So it sounds like it's not literal fascism, but it's more like... how in some fantasy worlds, higher powers will avoid getting involved in mortal affairs because doing so will give their enemies license to do the same and then the world becomes a mess. It sounds like if Project 2025 happens, then blue's going to retaliate in kind when they get power back (because otherwise they're at a major disadvantage,) and it keeps going, majorly hampering the government's operations. Who wants to get a job that you're gonna be fired from in 4 years? There's a chance that blue's just going to try to hit the undo button, but if red keeps knocking the block tower over and blue keeps rebuilding it, that's still not going to go very well.
But at the same time... they've already stated their willingness to do this. So the damage to the unwritten contract between parties is already done, and the only way to avoid the consequences is to keep blue in power until red redacts, and hope blue doesn't decide to do it first (which they probably won't, unless they say something like "the only way to defend against red doing it is to make sure they don't have their own people in there when they get the power.")
I don't like that, though. Sure, blue is generally more reasonable than red, but that's because they have to be in order to secure votes from reasonable people. If all they need to be is more reasonable than the guys who are literally planning to destroy the government, that's going to let them get away with some pretty undesirable things. I think a better move would be to try to address the deteriorating two-party dynamics we have. My money's on Literally Anybody Else.
There have been quite a few comments and posts arguing about political memes and whether they belong here. I'm not exactly in any position of authority, but hopefully I can do something about this....
Should we tell him? ( sh.itjust.works )
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How many communities do you have blocked?
My preferred way to browse here is using All and blocking communities I don't want to see. That way I get exposed to new things I wouldn't seek out on my own (for example: British archaeology)...
What did you get told as a child that you realised was a lie as you got older?
What would your last words be?
What's a job you couldn't get paid enough to do?
[Serious] What is project 2025? What kind of risk is involved?
I'm Canadian and we have our own issues with far right nutjobs but I've heard the phrase "Project 2025" thrown around and the little I've seen about it frightens me. I don't follow the news for the sake my mental health but could someone explain it in depth? What kind of a shit show are we looking at? Unfortunately Canadian...
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Sorry Mrs. Johansson
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He revealed the secrets ! ( jlai.lu )
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[Meta] Resolving the political memes argument
There have been quite a few comments and posts arguing about political memes and whether they belong here. I'm not exactly in any position of authority, but hopefully I can do something about this....