Sometimes I feel like atheists are like fish in a fish bowl who refuse to think the idea of an ocean is anything but ridiculous. If any of the fish in the tank start talking about the possibility of an ocean, the atheists are the first to point their fins and call them dumb because THERE IS NO PROOF!
Do you ever feel like that?
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NO !
I understand what you are saying, that atheists are just not willing to look past our immediate sensory world and accept the possibility of supernatural.
But the more plausible explanation to there being an "ocean" just seems to be that the fish claiming there to be an "ocean" just mistakes the kitchen sink as an "ocean", because neither fish really knows what an "ocean" is or would even look like.
I would equate the fish bowl to the ego. It's the ego which veils God from the atheist. That's why many atheists who have "ego death" experiences no longer identify as atheists.
Well, I would equate the ocean as a mix of emotions interpreted as affirmations of a connection with the supernatural, cultural traditions and community building. It's our evolutionary cognition that leads people to make the mistake that gods exist. So I guess we are in a bind here.
@ Kafei
Yeh, drugs really fuck you up....
@ Kafei
You belief an omniscient omnipotent deity created the entire universe with you in mind, and that it ares what you do, think and believe, even who you shag, and you're calling atheists egotistical?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, theists are irony impaired.
Yes, there are some atheists who are like that, and there have been also been religious people who refuse to believe that LGBTQ+ people aren't as bad as they claim. There is more to life than a book, just like there's more to life than a fish bowl.
Not all atheists are people who simply refuse to believe in God, sometimes they just can't believe in him if they try.
Close mindedness is not exclusive to atheism. It happens in religion as well. Close mindedness comes from ignorance and not willing to see the bigger picture. Religious values support ignorance and close mindedness, as well as hatred against people who don't follow their ideas.
Atheists don't hate God or the idea of there being one, they just don't think it'll happen. However, if people do hate God, they have the right to. The Bible has taught horrible things and people use God as a weapon to hurt others. If God does exist, then either his followers must answer to him, or he must answer to us.
So, to cut a long story short, the OP has no proof.
@ Sapporo
Even worse, he has no shred of evidence.
In the words of that famous street philosopher "He ain't got nuttin' but a big mouth"
@ Sapporo
Never mind proof, the OP can't demonstrate a single piece of objective evidence for any deity.
And somehow this represents a failure on the part of those who don't share his superstition.
Jordan:"Sometimes I feel like atheists are like fish in a fish bowl who refuse to think the idea of an ocean is anything but ridiculous. If any of the fish in the tank start talking about the possibility of an ocean, the atheists are the first to point their fins and call them dumb because THERE IS NO PROOF!"
No! I never feel like that!"
@Jordan "I feel like..." WTF? Do you have any idea at all what a "feeling" is?
And Christians are like a fish in a bowl insisting that they are swimming in spaghetti. Not only are they swimming in it but everything outside the bowl is made of spaghetti too. All the non-believers wish they would do is jump out of the bowl and prove it.
@Jordan "I feel like..." WTF? Do you have any idea at all what a "feeling" is?
And Christians are like a fish in a bowl insisting that they are swimming in spaghetti. Not only are they swimming in it but everything outside the bowl is made of spaghetti too. All the non-believers wish they would do is jump out of the bowl and prove it.
@Jordan
It is you who have a big ego. You arrived here a few days ago and all you have done is to categorize us out of the blue.
And here we see another pathetically inane supernaturalist analogy at work, which is pathetic for several reasons.
Reason number one: all of the fish that are kept in bowls are freshwater fish, which will never know what an ocean is, even in the wild, because, wait for it, they will die if exposed to salt water. If you want to keep saltwater fish alive in captivity, you have to spend a hefty four figure sum setting up a large aquarium for the purpose, with a LOT of filtration technology to keep the water chemistry parameters within stringent limits.
Reason number two: fish have sensory organs that react to water pressure differences, including the sensors concentrated along the lateral line. As a consequence, fish are able to sense the presence of the water around them, just as we can sense the presence of air around us.
Reason number three: the idea that a fish with sufficient sentience to recognise that it's in a bowl or aquarium, could not at least imagine a bigger body of water, is a piece of inanity only a supernaturalist could entertain.
Reason number four: there are fish species actually living in the ocean, that do not venture far from one spot during their lives, and as a corollary of their territorially restricted lives, simply would not be bothered with the rest of the ocean beyond that territory. The Jawfishes of the Genus Opistognathus are but one example. The various Shrimp Gobies (these are spread across two Genera, namely Cryptocentrus and Amblyeleotris) also never stray far from the burrows they inhabit, which they share with various burrowing shrimps. These fishes are able to observe that there's a wider ocean out there to venture into, but choose not to because of their ecological niche.
Reason number five: even pelagic species exhibit habitat restrictions. Most of the pelagic species living in the photic zone where light can penetrate, do not descend to depths below the photic zone, and vice versa, not least because they haven't acquired the adaptations to survive the pressure changes. Likewise, you won't see any deep abyssal fishes venturing toward the surface. Consequently, deep abyssal fishes never know any environment other than the permanently dark abyssal waters they inhabit, and almost certainly have no conception of the low pressure illuminated waters above.
Reason number six: Any fish that had sufficient sentience to ask questions of this sort, would probably also have the ability to communicate that sentience to us, and obtain from us observational data answering those questions.
Why do supernaturalists make up such ill-considered shit when they're trying to defend their attachment to imaginary mythological magic men?
@Calilasseia: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....... You actually took the time to do that. Enjoyable!
@Jordan: Sometimes I feel like atheists are like fish in a fish bowl
Just more evidence that you're living in a world of delusion. You're imagining that you're outside the fish bowl looking in.
Just out of curiosity, has anybody else noticed that Jordan has herself designated as an "Atheist" in her profile?.... *sniff-sniff-sniff*..... Ewwwwww.... *pinching nose closed*... Smells like troll in here... *gag*...
Oh, anyway, in response to the question in the OP about, "Do you ever feel like that?," I have to admit I do not feel like a fish in a fish bowl. Personally, I sometimes feel like a regular sized hotdog weenie in a foot-long hotdog bun. But, then again, I suppose we ALL feel that way sometimes, right?... *solemnly nodding head*...
@Tin-Man,
"Personally, I sometimes feel like a regular sized hotdog weenie in a foot-long hotdog bun. But, then again, I suppose we ALL feel that way sometimes, right?... *solemnly nodding head*...
I think that goes without saying. (is this a sexual metaphor? I think I might have stepped into one here!?) I would just add that when I get really confused, I sometimes even feel that I'm covered in Mustard (which I despise), Grey Poupon by the way, which I will not share with passengers of other limousines, but I double digress, sorry my mind just isn't the same since legalization in MI, well to quote the great Emily Litella:
Never mind.
@OP by Jordan
I fully agree that there is so much out there that is unknown to us. (And I mean all of us humans, not just atheist or theist.)
BUT!
The human created various god ideas? We have been toying with this idea for many thousands of years in thousands of different ways, this is a well known idea, well practiced, thoroughly explored to the best of our abilities, experienced by billions in various ways... and all that amounted to....ZERO.
To put this in your "fish bowl" analogy. Let's expand the fish bowl to an ocean, (making the analogy to humans more comparable,) and lets have billions of fish for 1000's of years explore the idea of the possibility of another ocean they currently are not aware of but suspect might exist. The fish developed technology to leave this fishbowl ocean and explore its vicinity, the fish developed technology to see very far away, and the very small, the fish learned much about their current fish bowl and how it works, and billions of fish, 1000's of years later, still have come up with nothing. About the only thing they achieved is to define this "ocean" as something that does not exist because it is outside our "realm."
Not one piece of even vague evidence for any one of the various god ideas/religions. The only thing religions have achieved over say Santa Claus /tooth fairy/ unicorn, etc etc IS that it managed to convince billions to believing unevidenced human created ideas despite a total lack of any sort of real evidence.
The various god concepts might be one of the most thoroughly explored concepts we have ever had, and still nothing, to me, one of the few things I am most confident about in life is that gods are a human created idea, and are fiction/lies.
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I had thought about replying, but this is better than anything I would have come up with. Excellent expansion of the analogy, I must say.
I have a fish bowl. There used to be a fish in it. I named the fish Red. Red Fred the Red goldfish. I called him Red Fred because he had a little red spot on his head. Red Fred the and I were best friends and I used to feed him bread. I used to lay in bed and watch Red Fred with the spot on his head eat bread as he swam back and forth and back and forth as I fell asleep at night. I always said, "Good night Red Fred as I watched him eat bread with the spot on his head. One night Red Fred was not swimming or eating bread. Instead he spread his little fins in place and the spot on his head just floated in one place. I tried to sleep but dread overtook me as I watched Red Fred with the spot on his head ignore his bread while he spread his little fins back and forth just staring at me with the little spot on his head in his little fish bowl of cold water. He looked so sad and lonely as he pled for the love he needed. I got the little net, scooped him out of the fish bowl and put him in the top of my pajama pocket with a piece of bread where he would be nice and warm and then we went to bed.
In the morning Fred the Red with the spot on his head was not moving. He was all stiff and when I scraped him out of the pajama pocket and he stuck to the bread. I pealed Red Fred off the bread and his little fins wouldn't spread. I put him back in the water but he just looked up at me with dread and floated. No matter how many times I poked him down, he just floated to the top again and refused to spread his little fins. It was then I realized with dread, Red Fred with the spot on his head couldn't spread his fins or eat the bread because he had died in bed. I took bed dead Red Fred with the spot on his head and the bread to the head and flushed him. That was the last I saw of poor bed dead Red Fred, the spot on his head and his bread. Now I have a fish bowl. It's not as interesting but it helps me understand fish bowl analogies no matter how inane the happen to be.
@ Cog
You are a humorous bastard aren't you? I loved that...*still chuckling*.
Like you, most of them squint down their wrinkled up noses with a completely unjustified haughty air of derision. Seemingly oblivious to questions, or the rational necessity to demonstrate sufficient objective evidence for their unshakable belief in bronze and iron age superstitions.
Incidentally atheists don't need to deny the possibility a deity exists. Until a theist can demonstrate some objective evidence that the existence of any deity is possibie, its entirely unnecessary. Anymore than I need to deny the possibility pink invisible mermaids are everywhere.
You'd do well to grasp this simple fact if you ever hope to have any rational grasp of reality.