The commonality dilemma

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worships*

My younger brother is married and has a child. Therefore, he must be overweight and dangerous. (sarcasm)

And yet people with an unquestioned metaphysical assertion - God or no God - tend to behave in remarkably similar ways and have just as much of a reaction to sacred objects getting smashed. I think anyone who'd assert that Communism wasn't a faith-based religion for example is clearly on the losing end of the argument.

I get reminded of quip I used to hear maybe ten years ago 'Bald is not a hair color, off is not a TV channel', and reductive materialism as well as >99% certainty of atheism are not metaphysical assertions - makes perfect sense. TBH I don't really care what people believe as long as they're not hurting people with it, but hypocrisy is annoying enough that I have to make fun of it when I see it - whether one's capacity for it is a social superpower or not.

I think the big bang theory is simply a new religion for "science-minded" people (actually, it's questionable if it can be called a scientific theory since it cannot be disproved). It fulfills the human need for an origin, and a powerful creator (God) can be squeezed into it. Best of all, it's impossible to disprove it, unlike the creation myths of more typical religions, and so there is no threat that it will be replaced because it is disproved.

Another "scientific" theory that have a clear component of religion is string theory. With many additional dimensions, anything you like can be added and then can never be disproved.

I have a "skeptical" belief in the possibility of there having been a "Big Bang" at one time.

I believe we have to explore the Universe more---to really get to know the Universe better.

Until they can explain how matter from an incredibly large black hole (all the matter of the universe compressed into a single point) can escape and still expand after billions of years, I think this "theory" is completely bogus.

It also creates other problems, like what happened before and what is beyond the place where light will take longer to travel than the time since the big bang? And why do the visible universe seem to be filled in all directions? The latter would once again put humans at the center of the universe, something that seems unlikely. If the big bang was true, we should see nothing at large red-shifts in some directions.

Those are questions that will probably be better answered should we embark upon intergalactic travel.

By the way...our inability to find conclusive answers to how the Universe began does NOT mean that there is a Supreme Being.

Google "Hawking Radiation".

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette

I don't want to ho at a tangent, but my question is why such a supreme being (technologically advanced beyond imagining)/would be primitive enough to need blood sacrifices, even vicarious ones.

It's because they have egos-----and want to be worshipped. And they want people to prostrate over them.

God didn't. Humanity did.

The idea behind "sacrifice" is to do away something precious or valuable. As far as "blood sacrifice" is concerned, the idea is that the death, dismemberment, and cremation of your best bull, ram, or goat was both an admission of guilt and the payment of a "fine" for the the sin(s) you committed. God Himself even admitted that He finds such sacrifices detestable (!) and that He would much rather people obey Him in the first place, but He directed that such sacrifices be made as a sign of sincere repentance and to restore the relationship between Him and sinners.

Of course, the need for "blood sacrifice" ended with Jesus' death on the cross, so we don't have to concern ourselves with it anymore.

Your beliefs may differ, of course...

It depends on an atheist's behavior. If they hold it as a private matter that they don't see enough evidence then that holds true. If they chase people around with it then they're behaving on the premise of a positive assertion and it's not any more than if they ran around preaching the evil and backwardness of collecting stamps - ie. proselytizing against stamp collection would indeed be a hobby.

Atheism could be considered true under any of the following circumstances:
1) Reductive materialism is true
2) Reductive materialism is not true but polytheism or animism is.
3) Reductive materialism is not true, polytheism or animism aren't true, but panpsychism or 'universe as an organism' is.
4) Some unforeseen case where all three of the previous are untrue including no God.

When it's waved as a political cudgel I think it muddies the waters because it confuses 'atheism' for more important constituents like questions about reductive materialism, questions about revelation and its relevance/irrelevance to truth, questions about consciousness, etc.. It gets us into the same sort of problems that Sam Harris complained about in American tribal politics - ie. like your position on gun rights shouldn't inform us on your opinion of global warming or your opinion on abortion, they're apples, oranges, and pears with no proper inherent relationship to one another.

But do you accept the traditional Christian belief that all who don't have him are *lost"? I grew up in a very Bible based church. But it still seems incompatible with an advanced God whose fat superior to our primitive and tribal-like ideas.

I believe God should be beyond all ego, and should think absolutely virtuously.

Only if Plotinus was right about it being 'The Good'.

Otherwise we have no clue what forces shaped it or whether what it would gain or lose from or find better or worse circumstances would be in line, against, or orthogonal to our needs, desires, or what we'd map as 'good'. Overwhelming likelihood seems like it would be completely alien to us.