Atheism
Community Guide
Archive Today will help you look at paywalled content the way search engines see it.
Statement of Purpose
- This is a support and conversation community for people who don't believe in gods.
- Superstition hucksters have no reason to subscribe or post here at all.
- If you are looking to debate or proselytize, options will be linked lower in the sidebar.
Acceptable
- Honest questions or conversations.
- Discussions on parenting or advice.
- Struggles, frustrations, coming out.
- Atheist memes. We can have fun!
- News headlines relevant to atheism.
Unacceptable
Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.
- Anything against site rules.
- Illegal and/or NSFW material.
- Troll posts and comments. There will be no attempt to explain what that means.
- Leading questions, agenda pushing, or disingenuous attempts to bait members.
- Personal attacks or flaming.
Inadvisable
- Self promotion or upvote farming.
- Excessive shitposting or off-topic discussion.
Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.
Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.
~ /c/nostupidquestions
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
Connect with Atheists
- Matrix: #atheism:envs.net
Help and Support Links
- Freedom From Religion Foundation
- The Secular Therapy Project
- Secular Students Alliance
- Black Nonbelievers
- The Clergy Project
- Atheist Alliance International
- Sunday Assembly
- Atheist Ireland
- Atheism UK
- Atheists United
Streaming Media
This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.
- Atheist Debates - Matt Dillahunty
- Rationality Rules
- Friendly Atheist
- Making Sense with Sam Harris
- Cosmic Skeptic
- Genetically Modified Skeptic
- Street Epistemology
- Armored Skeptic
- NonStampCollector
Orgs, Blogs, Zines
- Center for Inquiry
- American Atheists
- Humanists International
- Atheist Republic
- The Brights
- The Angry Atheist
- History for Atheists
- Rationalist International
- Atheist Revolution
- Debunking Christianity
- Godless Mom
- Atheist Freethinkers
Mainstream
Bibliography
Start here...
...proceed here.
- God is Not Great (Hitchens)
- The God Delusion (Dawkins)
- The End of Faith (Harris)
- Why I Am Not a Christian (Russell)
- Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
Proselytize Religion
From Reddit
As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.
view the rest of the comments
But if it's a Trinity, why are they listed separately if they're not separate? Why make the distinction if they're one and the same?
Who did God send down to die for our sins? Why does Jesus have a name if he just is god? Why not call him God?
If he is god, why is the resurrection so special? Wouldn't you expect God to be deathless anyway?
I'm half being difficult, half wondering what the real answers are.
that's their secret, shit doesn't have to make sense, and each branch can make up its own interpretation for the pesky details
Are Hannah Montanna and Miley Cyrus not the same person?
Are you the same person you were 15 years ago? Your name is the same. So is your social security number. But those were assigned to you by an external party.
You look different, feel different, act different. Are you the same person you were yesterday?
That's like the old ship problem. If I build a ship and then replace every part of it over time, is it still the same ship?
Ship of Theseus is the problem you’re thinking about
if I replace every part of the story is it still the same story though?
This is what I understood from the teachings of the Catholic Church:
There are sacred mysteries which are not explainable by rational or scientific reasoning and thus believing in these mysteries is the catholic faith.
So the Trinity means God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are separate and the same.
Resurrection is special because God lived as a human, died to cleanse the sins of all humans (dying is a punishment for the sins) and his resurrection means he is really God, he cannot die and doing so he defeated death itself. Which means all humans believing in God will be able to cheat death and live eternally in paradise.
God died for our sins because he loves humans and wants them to be free of sin.
Trying to understand this through reason is not possible. You need faith, this is the whole shtick.
Again this is my understanding, been a long time since I went to catechism.
This is why I'm not religious. I believe God would have a more elegant solution.
Growing up attending various Protestant churches, the basics re the Trinity was that God is the Father/Creator of everything, the Holy Spirit is essentially His spiritual form, and Jesus was His earthly human form. YMMV by denomination.
So…you’re saying it’s ineffable?
Wasn't that a World of Warcraft expansion?
My mistake its catechesis not catechism. English is not my first language.
No, you had the right word.
I was just making a joke because it sounds like "Cataclysm".
Its like voltron, 3 gods make 1 bigger god.
It's a secret identity. When trouble strikes, God ducks into a phone booth and becomes the Holy Spirit.
The best analogy I've heard so far is that god is like water and trinity is a bit like the aggregate states liquid, solid, gas. They are the same (water) but liquid water is obviously different from ice and steam.
More specifically, they are not one and same. Father is not Son is not Holy Spirit, but all of them are God.
Your questions are better answered by theologicians. I am not even a Christian, but even I know about concept of trinity. Perhaps everything about God is not meant to be comprehensible by humans. God is beyond humans after all.
For anyone wondering how this breaks down logically and where the error is:
The position as put here and elsewhere contains logical errors upon clarification. God has parts? Okay what makes the parts unique and discrete? If they aren’t, they aren’t parts of a whole and are equal to the whole.
For example: does the father have the same knowledge as the spirit? The same powers? If yes to these and similar questions, then they all are god and are not discrete. If no, then we don’t have one god at all, we have 3 gods. Also if no, the gods cannot be all knowing or all powerful individually.
I’ve never heard it put like this comment though. Instead I hear that they’re all god. As in, Jesus isn’t 1/3 of god, he is god. And so is the spirit/ghost and father. But if I ask if Jesus is the spirit, they’ll say no. This is an identity flaw. You’re saying that A=D and C=D but A!=C.
This is what you're describing and is a good pictograph for explaining why it's nonsense that cannot be presented in any accepted form of propositional logic.
OP commenter got mad at "pagans" for not describing something in terms of a contradictions, while accepting that contradiction on its own terms. Theist mad at accurate meme.
What's so hard about it. My house is a home, a storage and an awful dump at the same time. All those have different attributes but they are the same house all together.
These are interchangeable, the trinity is not. Your house is/can be a home, storage, dump, but a home can be storage and storage can be a dump.
The claims of the trinity are that the son, father, and ghost are all god. But the ghost is not the son is not the father.
It’s an identity contradiction. A,B, and C all equal D. But A is not B is not C. The claim IS NOT A + B + C = D which would actually make sense and works with your analogy. Like yes my house is a dump + storage + home. That works. Does not work with the trinity.
Calm down, silly. Did you forget that we're dealing with magic? Now that I've reminded you, everything should be fine.
Reminds me of this Simpsons clip:
https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=sVgVB3qsySQ
And don't even get me started on all the theatrics in the Bible. I mean, why did God even bother to sneak temptation into the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve? Why put all his shady stuff on Satan's to-do list? And let's not forget about flooding the entire planet! To me, the Bible seems more like another epic science fiction novel, complete with a variety of plot twists and mystery elements. Really, it's more 'Star Trek' than holy scripture in my eyes.