"I believe in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in Nate Silver and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Christopher Hitchens. Although I do admit he could be a kind of an asshole. I cannot get behind some supreme being who weighs in on the Tony Awards while a million people get whacked with machetes. I don't believe a billion Indians are going to hell. I don't think we get cancer to learn life lessons, and I don't believe that people die young because God needs another angel. I think it's just bullshit, and on some level, I think we all know that, I mean, don't you?... Look I understand that religion makes it easier to deal with all of the random shitty things that happen to us. And I wish I could get on that ride, I'm sure I would be happier. But I can't . Feeling aren't enough. I need it to be real." - Piper Chapman (Orange is the new black)
Quote Source: IMDB
This to me is an example of why I tend to be somewhat disappointed in atheist thinking. Lets break it down. To be religious in its most basic sense, is to have a system of beliefs that is strictly adhered to. It doesn't require the supernatural. Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, seem cool to the uninformed atheist. The atheists are typically politically motivated. Killing for abstract principles such as freedom, God or country amounts to killing.
Science is the imperfect observations of men, the same as theology. Evolution is a 150 year old dead metaphysical experiment for narrow minds who haven't the sense to approach theology with a studious criticism.
Christopher Hitchins was an asshole, actually in some primitive and uneducated sense not entirely unlike myself. I greatly admire Hitchins for that. Sometimes the best answer is "fuck you" which I've seen the intellectually integral giant of our time, Hitchens employ as I have myself. Hitchens was spot on when it came to religion and politics, but sadly inadequate when it came to Biblical criticism. Like most atheist, even intellectually retarded and unproductive snobs like Dawkins of the formerly Christian types, Hitchens, unfortunately never rose above the pagan apostate Christian examination of the Bible.
Hell isn't a Bible teaching. It's a cool pagan thing like the Indians embraced. Fucking get it right. Look a little deeper than the shit you scratch on the surface. Cancer has had 20 or 30 cures just in the last 100 years. Natural cures that have been scientifically tested as 90% effective compared to the placebo of current medical science? Why? Religion? Nah. Money. The FDA and the pharmaceutical industry who destroys natural cures for cancer because they can't be patented. Cancer and drugs are big business.
Do some research, ignorant spoiled hippy. My younger brother was iagnosed with stage 4 Cancer about the same time as Hitchens. He's gone. God didn't do it. Greed did. Fuck your science because they got the pay off. Just like they did with thermonuclear and chemical warfare.
Idiot atheists piss me off just a little more than theist idiots.
So, first off ... Piper Chapman is a fictional character. She doesn't represent "atheist thinking," she represents a woman in prison for drug smuggling, who happens to be atheist. If you're not familiar with the concept, just let me remind you that literature involves characters whose thinking is imperfect. You're usually supposed to be able to imagine her as a partially educated, emotionally complex being. The charm and inspiration of this quote doesn't arise from theological knowledge, it arises from unexpected, but refreshing, antipathy about the grand religious proclamations to which the character has been exposed in her life.
Your proclamation that evolution is a "dead metaphysical experiment" isn't worthy even of a query, so I'll move on without comment. Ah, maybe just one comment. A kindergartner can observe the fundamentals of evolution occurring in real time. It's not dead, and it doesn't hinge on one's approach to theology.
Eternal punishment is attested to throughout the bible. Your weird observations on cancer have no bearing on the question raised by this fictional character, which is whether cancer teaches a spiritual lesson or is part of a divine plan. Some say it does, she says it doesn't. There's no falsifiability either way, so it's weird that you're even arguing with her, but if you want to argue with her, argue that there is a spiritual world in which these things matter. She's not defending science (or, as you imply, scientific *institutions*) by saying cancer doesn't teach spiritual lessons.
Sorry. An emotional double post. I deleted the second.
The truth, and i believe God exists within that parameter, exists and is truth irrespective of what you or I believe. Science i can believe in, it is not mutually exclusive to religion, evolution on the other hand is not a science. It is a theory. A poorly supported and untestable theory, which by sciences own methods renders it useless.
Evolution is a fairytale for grown-ups.