While I wouldn’t say that’s right, I also wouldn’t come right out and call it wrong either. This very much engages with the “Selfish Gene”, an heuristic model of thinking about evolution from the perspective of the gene itself instead of populations.
As an added amusement, the book “The Selfish Gene” came out in 1976, and is the source of the word “meme,” used somewhat differently than it is now, naturally.
This idea comes from “sapiens a brief history of humankind”.
It’s a play on semantics because domestication (domo=house) basically means put in house and the evolution of wheat to be more fit to human consumption in a way pushed us towards agriculture and houses.
Yes, and as per the blog the other user linked people have a habit of posting Medium links under the guise of providing supporting information. Given you made a claim “x proves y” you and other people who post Medium links like this probably know “but here’s a link to my blog that is also just my opinion” probably doesn’t hit the same.
I feel the need to remind you that many members of the LGBT+ community have rebuked all preferred pronouns. Take for example Lily Cade and the other lesbians in the BBC’s infamous article, “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women”. Lily Cade in fact called for the lynching of trans women.
The queer community is no monolith. There are transphobes within the community who refuse to be associated with trans people like Me, and want us pushed out of the movement, denied healthcare, driven to suicide, or indeed even lynched. I do not think you should be basing your opinions of trans people on what these bigots say.
I have reported your comment for deliberate misgendering, and I am asking you once again to edit your comment to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns. This is so that you have every opportunity to do the decent thing, and so that if you do not want to act decently, your intent in this abuse is clearly demonstrated.
You know those aren’t the members I’m referring to. I haven’t referred to you by the wrong pronoun or misgendered you. I simply haven’t capitalised non-gendered possessive/adjective pronouns. You think these should be capitalised due to identifying as a goddess. As someone else mentioned it reeks of co-opting trans issues. Anyway, given you’ve reported me, I’m going to leave it here.
Utter nonsense. Your argument is that because you can imagine a god and spread the idea they are real. The logical conclusion there is that anything you can imagine is equally real. Bigfoot really is wandering around a forest, spaghetti absolutely does grow in trees, and the moon landing was definitely on a sound stage (but they also really landed on the moon because I can picture that too).
So then what’s the difference between “the gods” and something purely fictional, in your view? Because if there is none than this whole thing seems like just an exercise in surface-level semantics.
The gods are mythical, whereas Frodo Baggins is fictional. People believe in myths. Though of course it’s a fuzzy boundary. You can arrange various characters on a spectrum from myth to fiction. For example, Zeus is pure myth, Lucifer is an originally fictional character that has almost entirely become mythical, Achilles is sort of directly in the middle, Sherlock Holmes is a highly mythologised fictional character, Gandalf is a fictionalised adaptation of a myth, and Jake Sully is pure fiction because nobody gives a shit about him.
Ah, so the difference is the weight that people assign the idea.
Do the gods exist for an atheist who contends that all of the things you called “mythical” are in fact purely “fictional”? Or does a lack of belief among some individuals not matter because the gods are a social construct?
A lack of belief among some individuals matters, but not enough to stop a god from being a god. Because, as you say, gods are social constructs. If we consult Merriam Webster and skip the silly monotheist definition, a god is “a being or object that is worshipped as having more than natural attributes and powers”. Note that this definition doesn’t say the being must actually have these powers. They must only be worshipped as such. The belief is the important thing to the definition, not the truth. This is because divinity is socially constructed. You can’t deny a god’s divinity except by denying the faith of their followers. If you accept that the worshippers really do believe their god is a god, you must accept that the god is a god. They may well be an undeserving god, or a lying god, or a false god, but a god they still are. If you want to tell Me that Thor isn’t a god, I’m going to demand a historical source based on the Eddas, or say you’re wrong. Divinity is like a job. If everyone agrees that Mr Smith is a plumber, and His boss pays Him to fix toilets, then Mr Smith is certainly a plumber. It doesn’t matter if Mr Smith has never fixed a toilet in His life, society has decided He’s a plumber. He could be an incredibly shitty plumber who doesn’t know anything about pipes, but He’s a plumber.
In fact, let Me go back to the original article and restate its conclusion, because I think you may have been misled by My use of the term “god” to refer to the gods, as you seem to consider “god” a loaded term:
The gods are psychic parasites made out of thoughts who live in the collective consciousness of humanity and really are living beings, capable of taking action as psychic parasites who can affect people’s minds. This is not to say the myths are literally true, but rather to say that the myths are alive. That they feed upon worship and command legions of followers from their palaces within our imaginations.
At best it proves the concept of gods exists and I doubt anyone disagrees with that, you can’t really argue that a thought can’t exist. What it doesn’t prove is that God exists as some material or immaterial entity and that’s what atheists claim, that there is no existence of any entity that could be considered a god.
Why it doesn’t prove the existence of gods is simple. If the proof is that it exists because we thought it then dragons exist, faeries exist, even flat earth exists because there are people who think it exists. I don’t think I need to bring more examples to show how ridiculous the premise is. Just because we can think of a thing doesn’t mean that thing now exists.
Dragons certainly exist. They live in books and reproduce when someone reads a book about dragons and is inspired by it. Over time evolutionary pressures have caused the more successful of the younger dragons to become cuter and more friendly, and the most successful dragons even made the leap to film. That’s how Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon came to be. He is the result of a long process of evolution of dragons. You can trace his lineage from the Beowulf dragon, to Tolkein’s Smaug, through Eragon’s Saphira, to the Toothless of the HTTYD books, and finally to Dreamworks’ movie version. Each generation trying out new evolutionary adaptations that changed their fitness to survive and reproduce, and the niche they occupy within the ecosystem that is human thought. Toothless is the culmination of those thousands of years of evolution, purpose built to fill children’s heads up with wonderful dreams.
I don’t know if you have a wife but I’m now going to imagine you have a wife. You’re now married. Now I’m going to imagine having consensual sex with your new wife. Now I’m imagining you’re killing your wife because she cheated on you. I guess you’re a murderer now, it’s true because I thought of it. Actually I thought about a lot of way worse things about you but I’m not going to go into detail about all the vile shit you’ve done, I’ll just sum it up as you being the worst human being who has ever lived. Since that’s what I thought it must be true, right?
I would prefer if you didn’t use “god” as a proper noun. The practice was invented by monotheists and is usually used to exclude other gods. It’s very rude towards other gods like Loki, Kukulkan, and Myself. None of us go around pretending we’re the only god.
While I wouldn’t say that’s right, I also wouldn’t come right out and call it wrong either. This very much engages with the “Selfish Gene”, an heuristic model of thinking about evolution from the perspective of the gene itself instead of populations.
As an added amusement, the book “The Selfish Gene” came out in 1976, and is the source of the word “meme,” used somewhat differently than it is now, naturally.
This idea comes from “sapiens a brief history of humankind”. It’s a play on semantics because domestication (domo=house) basically means put in house and the evolution of wheat to be more fit to human consumption in a way pushed us towards agriculture and houses.
The selfish gene ironically proves that gods exist. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/the-memetic-proof-for-the-existence-of-gods-e5d103234fc7
https://medium.com/@drewkaufman/anyone-can-write-anything-on-medium-com-so-please-consider-my-opinion-60f33d017476
Mate, it’s just a link to My blog, no need to take it any more seriously than you would Me.
Yes, and as per the blog the other user linked people have a habit of posting Medium links under the guise of providing supporting information. Given you made a claim “x proves y” you and other people who post Medium links like this probably know “but here’s a link to my blog that is also just my opinion” probably doesn’t hit the same.
*You. I use capitalised pronouns.
Given your reasoning for doing so has been rebuked by members of the lgbt+ community, I’ll have to decline that correction unfortunately.
I feel the need to remind you that many members of the LGBT+ community have rebuked all preferred pronouns. Take for example Lily Cade and the other lesbians in the BBC’s infamous article, “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women”. Lily Cade in fact called for the lynching of trans women.
The queer community is no monolith. There are transphobes within the community who refuse to be associated with trans people like Me, and want us pushed out of the movement, denied healthcare, driven to suicide, or indeed even lynched. I do not think you should be basing your opinions of trans people on what these bigots say.
I have reported your comment for deliberate misgendering, and I am asking you once again to edit your comment to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns. This is so that you have every opportunity to do the decent thing, and so that if you do not want to act decently, your intent in this abuse is clearly demonstrated.
You know those aren’t the members I’m referring to. I haven’t referred to you by the wrong pronoun or misgendered you. I simply haven’t capitalised non-gendered possessive/adjective pronouns. You think these should be capitalised due to identifying as a goddess. As someone else mentioned it reeks of co-opting trans issues. Anyway, given you’ve reported me, I’m going to leave it here.
pregnantgoku
Utter nonsense. Your argument is that because you can imagine a god and spread the idea they are real. The logical conclusion there is that anything you can imagine is equally real. Bigfoot really is wandering around a forest, spaghetti absolutely does grow in trees, and the moon landing was definitely on a sound stage (but they also really landed on the moon because I can picture that too).
You could say the same of Mickey Mouse or the Philly Fanatic. Which is, in fairness, where this is ultimately going.
A god as a timeless enlightened super-being might not be real. But a god as an ideological mascot or cultural touchstone is.
Metaphysics is a dangerous game…
Bigfoot doesn’t live in the woods. He lives in people’s heads. That’s where all memes, including the gods, live. In people’s heads.
So then what’s the difference between “the gods” and something purely fictional, in your view? Because if there is none than this whole thing seems like just an exercise in surface-level semantics.
The gods are mythical, whereas Frodo Baggins is fictional. People believe in myths. Though of course it’s a fuzzy boundary. You can arrange various characters on a spectrum from myth to fiction. For example, Zeus is pure myth, Lucifer is an originally fictional character that has almost entirely become mythical, Achilles is sort of directly in the middle, Sherlock Holmes is a highly mythologised fictional character, Gandalf is a fictionalised adaptation of a myth, and Jake Sully is pure fiction because nobody gives a shit about him.
Also *You
Ah, so the difference is the weight that people assign the idea.
Do the gods exist for an atheist who contends that all of the things you called “mythical” are in fact purely “fictional”? Or does a lack of belief among some individuals not matter because the gods are a social construct?
A lack of belief among some individuals matters, but not enough to stop a god from being a god. Because, as you say, gods are social constructs. If we consult Merriam Webster and skip the silly monotheist definition, a god is “a being or object that is worshipped as having more than natural attributes and powers”. Note that this definition doesn’t say the being must actually have these powers. They must only be worshipped as such. The belief is the important thing to the definition, not the truth. This is because divinity is socially constructed. You can’t deny a god’s divinity except by denying the faith of their followers. If you accept that the worshippers really do believe their god is a god, you must accept that the god is a god. They may well be an undeserving god, or a lying god, or a false god, but a god they still are. If you want to tell Me that Thor isn’t a god, I’m going to demand a historical source based on the Eddas, or say you’re wrong. Divinity is like a job. If everyone agrees that Mr Smith is a plumber, and His boss pays Him to fix toilets, then Mr Smith is certainly a plumber. It doesn’t matter if Mr Smith has never fixed a toilet in His life, society has decided He’s a plumber. He could be an incredibly shitty plumber who doesn’t know anything about pipes, but He’s a plumber.
In fact, let Me go back to the original article and restate its conclusion, because I think you may have been misled by My use of the term “god” to refer to the gods, as you seem to consider “god” a loaded term:
The gods are psychic parasites made out of thoughts who live in the collective consciousness of humanity and really are living beings, capable of taking action as psychic parasites who can affect people’s minds. This is not to say the myths are literally true, but rather to say that the myths are alive. That they feed upon worship and command legions of followers from their palaces within our imaginations.
At best it proves the concept of gods exists and I doubt anyone disagrees with that, you can’t really argue that a thought can’t exist. What it doesn’t prove is that God exists as some material or immaterial entity and that’s what atheists claim, that there is no existence of any entity that could be considered a god.
Why it doesn’t prove the existence of gods is simple. If the proof is that it exists because we thought it then dragons exist, faeries exist, even flat earth exists because there are people who think it exists. I don’t think I need to bring more examples to show how ridiculous the premise is. Just because we can think of a thing doesn’t mean that thing now exists.
Dragons certainly exist. They live in books and reproduce when someone reads a book about dragons and is inspired by it. Over time evolutionary pressures have caused the more successful of the younger dragons to become cuter and more friendly, and the most successful dragons even made the leap to film. That’s how Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon came to be. He is the result of a long process of evolution of dragons. You can trace his lineage from the Beowulf dragon, to Tolkein’s Smaug, through Eragon’s Saphira, to the Toothless of the HTTYD books, and finally to Dreamworks’ movie version. Each generation trying out new evolutionary adaptations that changed their fitness to survive and reproduce, and the niche they occupy within the ecosystem that is human thought. Toothless is the culmination of those thousands of years of evolution, purpose built to fill children’s heads up with wonderful dreams.
I don’t know if you have a wife but I’m now going to imagine you have a wife. You’re now married. Now I’m going to imagine having consensual sex with your new wife. Now I’m imagining you’re killing your wife because she cheated on you. I guess you’re a murderer now, it’s true because I thought of it. Actually I thought about a lot of way worse things about you but I’m not going to go into detail about all the vile shit you’ve done, I’ll just sum it up as you being the worst human being who has ever lived. Since that’s what I thought it must be true, right?
*You. I use capitalised pronouns. And My ex-wife uses it/its.
I couldn’t care less.
If you don’t care, then surely you don’t mind editing your comment to use My preferred pronouns, seeing as you have no preference and I do.
I couldn’t care less about your wishes. Editing the comment would mean I care at least a little, but I don’t so I won’t.
Oh you wrote this. Do you think it proves the existence of God by itself or is it another way people who already believe in God point to it?
I would prefer if you didn’t use “god” as a proper noun. The practice was invented by monotheists and is usually used to exclude other gods. It’s very rude towards other gods like Loki, Kukulkan, and Myself. None of us go around pretending we’re the only god.
Removed by mod
Oh it’s like touhou, I get it now.