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I really like how the “empirical” evidence for god’s existence is just “math has rules and there are patterns in nature, therefore god exists” (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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And you know what, that might just very well be true if we’re talking about some supernatural force that is indifferent to its creations, not out of malice, but because it simply is truly neutral.

But as evidence for the religious capital ‘G’ God, the one who communicates and plans every little detail because he loves us so much? What is the point of these “subtle” proofs that took thousands of years to be studied and recorded when he has shown that he can just pop up anywhere or perform miracles and whatever the fuck.

It is no coincidence that the vast majority, possibly 99%, of devout religious people do not give a shit about using math to explain god because it’s all proven in their holy books. It is no coincidence that the “empirical” evidence is, in reality, just pointing at the existence of features and concepts of math and science rather than utilizing said features and concepts to prove the existence of god. And no, philosophical musings about morality using the language of mathematical proofs does not count as utilizing math and science (literally, all the axioms in these types of "proofs" are subjective shit like "bad" and "good" and not, say, the difference between 1 and 0).

And I didn’t even want to make a post dunking on religion, but I’m irritated because YouTube recommended some dumbass video by a channel called “Reformed Zoomer” and one of the arguments is “there is an infinite range of numbers between two numbers, and if we turn those numbers into letters, then every book possible has already been written. Checkmate atheoids”. https://youtu.be/z0hxb5UVaNE?si=RpjF6S0fHiF71iH-

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

Have a good friend, pretty fucking brilliant guy who is essentially a mathematical genius. It always intrigued me though because he’s super religious and always tells me the justification for his faith is a feeling he can’t describe that he doesn’t get from anywhere else but church

Personally, I get that at concerts shrug-outta-hecks

But as I get older, I see why Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. Just imagine if the hours spent on Sunday (in what is essentially an industry in and of itself) were spent towards bettering things in one’s local community.

You’d get your socialization that people crave, except you would be making a tangible difference on the world and not planning for an afterlife

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

I wonder if the feeling of God is some in-built sense that people together form something bigger than each of us taken as an individual sum

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Just imagine if the hours spent on Sunday (in what is essentially an industry in and of itself) were spent towards bettering things in one’s local community.

That's what churches should be doing anyway

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Just imagine if the hours spent on Sunday (in what is essentially an industry in and of itself) were spent towards bettering things in one’s local community.

Church attendance is already pretty down and good church parishes/communities will often have volunteer work to do in their area. The problem with what counts as one's "local community" could be a 10 mi radius.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Just imagine if the hours spent on Sunday (in what is essentially an industry in and of itself)

i think the word you are looking for is "institution". An institution is structured group of people that exists and persists through generations. Industry is an institution that exists to convert labor into products. Church is an institution that exists to perpetuate a set of cultural values. Same broad category, but not the same sort of thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Isn’t there an actual industry around it too though? Like the churches that sell Bible study videos or produce movies for an exclusively Christian audience?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Well, yes. There's industry around most things. The bit you were describing, going to a room to feel god for an hour or two out of the week, that's institution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

imagine if the hours spent in church on sunday were spent drinking beer with your friends in the woods.