Pale Blue Dot (an atheist's view - tiny update)
Created on: September 27th, 2006
Damn that's a lot of comments. I've responded at http://skeptobot.blogspot.com - but that is just a quick rant. I will put a more professional post there later. It also has the picture & quote in full.
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And finally I'll say this : Site description:"A rebuttal of Whetstones idiocy by showing the beauty a group of predominately atheist people can achieve." HA! nice achievement! a flamewar and a wonderful splitting of sides!!! HAHA! also a wonderful yelling of "Douche" back and forth. Bravo! Peace and love right there!! isn't it? no!
Excellent video, using tangible and proven numbers instead of hallucinatory frantic yells. Despite all the criticisms, it doesnt need to somehow combat whetstones sh*tty logic, I think it accomplished the goal...my only citique is the music...the looping was a bit repetetive, but still an excellent choice of song.
And being so arrogant as to call a group of people you've never met gay? NOW THATS SMUG RIGHT THERE! I mean seriously!! What are we? freaking 12 year olds?(haha I said freaking and 12 year olds) stop being so immature and shut your yap! and insult only decreases how much of a point you have. Isn't the difference between elementary and high school the ability to defend yourself without offright insulting someone without grounds?
=') I'll go back to lol'ing later, I'm going to take a minute and take this in. Message board smessage board, this is a great ytmnd, the music, while a minor fad, was an obvious and good choice, the picture was a singular focus, not just the picture, but a single pixel in the picture, and the text was probably some of the greatest words ever written by Sagen. $20, take all the stuff out about some insignifigant ytmnd user.
The creator does look full of sh*t with some of the stuff he says at first. I choose to ignore all that religious arguement crap and just enjoy the quote for what it is.
Its amusing that this quote talks about how we make big deals out of stuff that is insignificant and people in here immediately blow insignificant sh*t out of proportion. The creator of the YTMND included.
"Starvingwriter is right on some points, because without religion we have no morals. if there
were no morals instilled by religion, then life would be just another thing. Killing someone
would be as insignifcant as breaking a glass, or a plate." - Mouseman. Just out of curiosity, where are you getting this from? What makes morals dependent upon religion?
Personally I think any Christian who condemns somebody else to hell is completely out of line. As a Christian myself (Catholic and proud of it!), I take very seriously what Christ meant when he said "Judge not, lest you be judged" (or something to that effect). Belittling someone else's views is no way to get your point across to them, which is where I think Whetstone toes the line. 5'd because the quote can be meaningful to anybody, and because you avoid (overly) bashing someone you disagree with, Lave.
"Not really understanding how it disproves religion though." It doesnt have anything to do with religion, but the creator of this YTMND is using it in some ongoing atheist vs. theist saga that has everyone riled up. Conversely, many of the theists who don't like the approach Lave is using are attacking this quote saying it does nothing to disprove religion. So really, this quote has been dragged into an arguement it doesn't belong in. Which is a pity, because I think it conveys a good message.
Mouseman: Oh no its not smug, I'm not smiling.. I don't think my farts smell like a little f*cking feild of flowers. I am attacking you, anyone like you, and that douchebag Whetstone. He is not only pushing ignorant beliefs on an audience he KNOWs doesn't want to hear it.. But he is then "turning the other cheek" and acting innocent and hurt after a retaliation.. If you are forcefeeding someone the digital equivilent to runny horsesh*t don't even PRETEND to be surprised when they f*cking attack it and you.
Wow, some atheists are great scientists. You sure set all those athiest bashers straight. I dont think anyone bashed atheists for not being good in science. This is lame as f*ck. The quote is pretty damn cool, but the fact that you used it to make some point about religion ruins the ytmnd. This is annoying.
Dude...I only wish that 'believers' would accept that God is looking for spiritual fruits, not religious nuts, and stop being *ssh*l*es (Not targeted to said spiritual fruit,) And that atheists and those with religions could share an intellectual, philosophical point without being getting flamed to the next millenium. This site is truly beautiful, it reminds me of dear things I have forgotten.
Carl Sagan makes an excellent point here, but I don't think that this quote necessarily supports your claims against the religious. He's pointing out, and I agree with him, that we were put on Earth to help ourselves. That doesn't necessarily mean that we are alone. Honestly, if God were to give us everything we needed to survive and be happy, what would be the point of living?
Would have 5'd it if you had left out Whetf*ck and his stupid fire and brimstone. Seriously kid, way to screw up a good idea.
Lave, on second thought I do think it'd be a lot better without the mild thrashing you gave Whetstone. If you're serious about being inclusive of other people's views, that stuff should probably go. Being critical is one thing, being abusive..that's something else. And to clarify the comment I left before, I was not implying Whetstone himself was belittling anybody--but a lot of people on both sides of this argument sure are.
This is exactly what makes atheists such *ssh*l*es. They try to discredit humanity and degrade themselves into thinking they are somehow insignificant because our universe is so big and science can somehow explain away everything. They must love themselves dearly if they truly think we evolved from a pile of ooze and that we will merely rot in the ground when we die. Then they go attacking Christians for somehow having "outdated" beliefs, all the while insisting they are right because atheism is the new cool
All atheists mock christianity. Quit pretending that there are those out there who actually give a damn about christian beliefs. They're all full of themselves because they have the backing of the scientific community and it makes them appear smarter in comparison. I've never met a single aetheist who wasn't intent on sarcastically dismantling every aspect of biblical beliefs.
"I've never met a single
aetheist who wasn't intent on sarcastically dismantling every aspect of
biblical beliefs." Then the only suggestion I can give is get out more. I can claim that all Christians won't rest until all the laws of the United States reflect the rules of the Bible, but that wouldnt be true. The majority of athiests dont believe what you claim, just as the majority of Christians don't believe what I just "claimed". The unfortunate truth is that most of the time those types of people are
wow look at all the religious people downvoting this site. Whether you're religious or not... you have to admit... we're all pretty small in the grand scheme of things and that's what this site is pointing out. I don't know if there's a God or not... but I do know that Whetstone is a f*cktard and I'm giving this site a 5. Hail Xenu!
While I fail to see how this prooves or disprooves anything other than the universe is big and earth is small (which we already had a YTMND for,) I do think that's an interresting quote.
The religion debate is something that has been going on for countless years. There's really no reason to bring it to YTMND. Personally, I'm a Christian, there for I am biased on the subject - then again, everyone of us is.
"Never, not once, did I ever see Whetstone make a
deliberate attack on people who disagreed with him and his views. "
Good grief, he made and sponsored a ytmnd which basically alleges that non-believers are all hypocrites which will all come screaming and begging to god in the end, and that they'd better... or else. There is quite litterally, NOTHING, more evil and nasty than the eternal torment whetstone's religion promises.
All this ytmnd says is that whetstone is a douche and that non-believers are more than capable of doing great things, thinking great thoughts, having an awe and wonder and respect for life and the universe around us. whetstone, at base, does not believe that, and all his work is premised on the idea that non-believers are fundamentally flawed. What's more insulting than that?
I never saw any spamming. You complain these guys are calling you small minded and sh*t, and you call him a douche bag in the third slide? GTFO, moron, nobody gives a sh*t about your f*cking spec, or your goddamn poem. I'm so sick of this "Whetstone is a dickhead" sh*t. I've never seen Whetstone comment on anything, and I only saw his f*cking YTMND because people bitched so much. All your bitching is giving him publicity, and your f*cking dot proves nothing, dickhole. Please, for the love of Jesus, gtfo.
"I've never met a single aetheist who wasn't intent on sarcastically dismantling every aspect of biblical beliefs." There's a difference between believing that there's a higher power and believing that you're the most important thing in the universe. Plus, have you read some of the stories in the Bible? Why not commit atrocities against your fellow humans, eh, after all, it's right in there. Besides, every person who is religious uses their religion just to justify what they do, no matter what it is.
Not bad. A little preachy, though. But here's a small rebuttal to the "athiests" here. Please answer the following questions: 1) Do you have the full-sum total knowledge of the universe? (Answer is probably no) 2) Is it POSSIBLE that a higher being of some sort is out there that you are not aware? (Answer must be yes for scientists cannot dismiss possibilities, they just don't have to blindly accept them)
If you ascribe to the logical foundations of science, you must admit that you cannot take up a position that denies the existence of God without breaking a cardinal scientific rule that states that you cannot prove a negative. At this point, you cannot call yourselves "Athiests" if you follow scientific principles. You are, therefore, agnostics. Agnosticism means "without knowledge." Meaning you don't know one way or the other. It utterly hypocritical to have a scientist who is also an athiest.
Heh, how quickly fads are made...
Gotta love nihilism. The Earth is awesome and it's a great goal to rule the world. People who say otherwise are probably jealous they can't get anywhere to doing that, so they'll rationalize and blame the ones that almost did. :)
Let's hope we can get a new Emperor sometime. Everything is awesome about this world so it's equally awesome to conquer it. Until intelligent life is found elsewhere, we should try to dominate what we have since it's so cool to do so.
LOL ungodly hitler. It really is emo. "Waah wahh, I'm insignificant. I'm not cool enough to have a chance at ruling the world so I'll just say it doesn't matter and the people that try to do so are idiots. Waah wahh, that makes me feel better." It's the same for the people who wish they were as rich as the Forbes 400 people. Now those guys are awesome, but you'll undoubtedly have emo kids saying it's not all about the money and whine all the time.
Wow. Beautiful in a quaint sort of way. I love these science presentations. Huzzah! Nice music too. You: "I just wanted to make a site about the beauty an atheist *can* see - to go against his 'all athiests are infidels that hate the world' sites. Nothing more." Fair enough. BTW I am a spiritual person.
I liked your YTMND, you didn't degrade yourself to 'science', but the problem I found is that there was no arguement. I didn't really find a rebuttal, just a long quote from an atheist astronomer about how he relates his own faith (or lack of faith) into a call for a change in human behavior. Yes it was beautiful, but it was not a convincing rebuttal, yet it was a 100 times better than any Whetstone YTMND.
It was way too fast, I was only able to finish reading the last slide. Especially the really long slide should be slowed down, because that's the pulp of the quote (which I've read before, so don't worry I didn't miss out on any knowledge).
Thanks for posting this, it's extremely humbling and I feel that there are few better ways to express our desperate and dire situation on Earth if we cannot learn to live in peace.
The fact that our planet is so full of life AND that it's the only one in the known universe with that trait only SUPPORTS my faith in an almighty God. It makes no sense that one tiny dustspeck in the solar system should be protectecd against the endless vacuum of space. Either we're insanely luck, or the Creator of the universe allowed this one tiny part of it to contain all known forms of life, including the human race. Science at every turn proves the reality of God.
All of you fanatics on both sides need to calm the f*ck down, because all your doing is illustrating Sagan's point in the quote. All this blind hatred that is being givin to one another is all pointless, so you argue and debate and fight on some tiny little web site for hours on end about ideas that nobody the whole of existance will ever begin to understand. To all the so called religous people on this site, do you really think that god even cares about what some dude said on a web site?
Ithink what he would care about is the overall blind hatred that some of his followers are showing, what do you think will happen with all the supposed proof you're showing? Will Jesus and God give you a high five when you get up to heaven? I personally dont like thinking that the cosmos acts like some after school special, where my deity is a vain and wrathful king out to just pointlessly smite the non believers.He has more patience and love and acceptance in this world that all of you supposed holy men.
What I think you should be doing is just sseeing this for what it is. A look at a little species on a little tiny planet in a far off galaxy in the chaotic firestorm that is existance, and realize that all the arguemants and fighting and hate doesnt matter at all on this small little place we all call home. what does matter is that we try to preserve this place, and tear it apart with all the stupid conflicts we constantly get into. Because when it's all said and done, this is home, and this is it.
And I accept all these ideas and views and opinions because I know in my heart that that is the way my creator would want me to live this life, speading love and acceptance wherever I tread. So go ahead and 1 this site if you must, but know that all your hatred of others with different views is just that, hatred. And I hope that some day you can see the world as I see it, a world with out hate or tyranical oppression of other's rights and views, and find peace with yourself on this planet. btw 5'd
I'm becoming somewhat agnostic, since all religions have some glaring flaws and lead to horrible, horrible things. The UCC is a decent Christian church, though, one that won't try to push its views on you or scare you with specters of Hell. Anyway, 5 for Sagan; if you hadn't cited him for Pale Blue Dot, I was going to take you to town. And I'm pretty certain it's "farthest," but no grammatical deduction.
Whetstone is a douchebag, that's something nobody should question. I do find it funny how people seem to dilude themselves into thinking this planet is significant, when in reality, it's less than a speck in an ocean. For those who can't see it, Carl Sagan's point is that every event that has happened on Earth is insignifigant when compared to the size of the universe, even the birth of Christ.
i cant believe how much this one got downvoted. The thing is, in this world, for someone to be comfortable with the insignificance of existence, knowing how big everything is and how small we all are, is the ultimate freedom from constricting ideas like god. we see what the world is like, and we don't need anything supernatural to explain it, and we don't need the supernatural to make us feel better about being.
I really don't see how this is an atheists view? Their atheism isn't what made them great engineers. Also, when you next bash religious people, or anybody with a world view that you don't agree with, think more carefully about the words of Carl Sagan: "how frequent their misunderstandings, how fervent their hatreds. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another." QFT, and plz practice what you preach. Thanks.
Maybe remove the subjective text about Whetstone and the argument would be even stronger. Music and text were pretty good, too.
This discussion will be endless; write a theory that precludes itself from being disproven and you might as well write;
10 PRINT "I am correct about religion!"
20 PRINT "No, I am correct about atheism!"
30 GOTO 10
No one can win this 'argument' - it is philosophy, which by its nature cant really be proven.
I'm at work - so I'll make it short. I am NOT trying to disprove any of your f*cking Gods.
I'm trying to counteract Whestones characterisation of atheists as horrible people. It's a quote about the ridiculousness off all our hatreds against each other for pitys sake. Yes I'm aware of the irony of the douchebag comment - but I thought that was funny. I didn't think people would flip out about it.
But thanks to everyone who voted high and saw what I was aiming at. You are all f*cking awesome.
"Cherish the pale blue spot"? Why? The universe does not care if it ceases to exist (and this day will come, that's for sure). A God would probably do. So what Carl Sagan said seems rather nihilistic to me. But I don't want to start another useless discussion/flamewar. I just want to say that I don't like this point of view, and I don't like whetstone's one, too. That's all.
Remove all the slides mentioning whetstone, and then just pop in one that says "even atheists view the world as beautiful" or something. You'll just seem that much more professional. Have a quick flash of 'lol, whetstone' (or whatever the hell you really want [since you've got the piano version of 'lol, internet' anyways]) appear in a corner; just so people get an idea where this idea came from. By insulting whetstone (even though that's fine with me), you lower people's view on you and your YTMND.
FlamingWombat, he clearly stated that he beleives Whetstone shouldn't be banned as it implies that atheists "cannot shoulder" his worldview - that we must live in ignorance of religion to remain atheists, that it's impossible to believe that we could live in a world so full of religion without the existance of a god.
BTW this is the dumbest argument for "God doesnt exist" yet. One virus is smaller than the millions and millions of cells in your body, but that one virus could kill you. Did you ever think the point was humility? Or that to show us how imperfect and tiny we are just for refrence and to show us how undeserving the unfathomable love that a greater being than you or I or anyone has simply to sustain our pitiful existence so that people like you could try to use your narrow mindedness to disprove Him.
I won't vote on this because it's not a humor site, it's an Internet Argument and I don't want to encourage that. BUT... I WOULD 5 it... I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, and CARL SAGAN FTW. That dude was right on. And Whetstone IS a douche for coming on a humor website and backhandedly threatening people with hellfire.
some of you morons may want to re-read the OP's comments again
" And off up and coming, well that was fun whilst it lasted. It's not meant
to argue his points. I also state that I think he should be allowed to make
his sites. I am against banning him. I just wanted to make a site about the
beauty an atheist *can* see - to go against his "all athiests are infidels
that hate the world" sites. Nothing more. That and I think the site stands
on its own."
I would love to 5 this, because it's well-done, and even as a Christian, I adore Carl Sagan. But I can't. Sites like this only fan the flames of anger between Christians and Atheists, and they don't need more fanning (and I have said this to Whetstone and his ilk as well). As a side note, I agree Atheists are capable of seeing the beauty in nature without religion, but I don't think "beauty" was Carl Sagan's point - actually, it was more of an intellectual way of saying "be excellent to each other.
MuffinBear, first of all, atheism does not automatically deny the existance of a soul or life force. Many atheists are also skeptics, including myself, but some do believe in such a thing. Second of all, I was raised to be a Christian, but I changed my mind. How does this fit in with your just pretending theory?
I also understand that there are interpretations of the Bible - albeit very unpopular ones - that arrive at pretty much the same ethical conclusions as myself. Thus I am not denying the existance of god just to allow me to "sin" either.
I understand your point and I like it. The problem with the site, however, is you immediately start off with whetstone and use the word "idiocy" in the same sentence as religous ideas. Those with the attention span of 5 seconds will immediately assume you are bashing Christianity (I know I did). In fact I didn't quite understand your point until I read your comments here.
Bravo, Lave! To everyone b*tching about Sagan's "anti-Xtian" comments: Sagan was simply pointing out that, no matter how important you believe yourself or your beliefs, they are miniscule in comparison with the sheer awesomeness of reality. THIS world (out of inifinite billions) is our home and should be respected and cared for. We may possibly be the only sentient beings in the universe and we need to get over the petty little BS that divides us (race, religion, sexual orientation,etc).
Isn't it frightening that we could be ALONE? That the people who you love, like, hate, dislike; could be the only ones? And that we have the power to destroy ourselves completely via NBC weapons several times over? Isn't that a sobering thought - that our petty differences could very well lead to our utter destruction and the destruction of this fragile little world as we know it?
Carl Sagan and astronomy.. =]
I liked this a lot. The idea that there is no God, I understand, being an atheist. We can't always give credit to someone else for our accomplishments and blame them for our mistakes. It's foolish. If something is out there, we'll probably never know, especially when we destroy ourselves like this so slowly.
"I'm calling religous people like Whetstone douchebags. " And with that, you are ignoring everything Sagan said about hatred, misunderstandings and dealing more kindly with each other. Just let whetstone think what he wants to think. Just like you have every right to think what you think. In short: stop -hating-.
I don't believe this can be called a rebuttal of any sort shape or form...however it does prove that we need to stop f*cking making such a big deal about everything and keep our beliefs to ourselves...at least so that we don't bash everyone who doesn't believe what we do...I mean...if the world ends I can garauntee it'll be over religion...
Nobody ever said atheists could NOT create beauty. But think carefully about that statement--atheists did NOT create that image--they only created a machine that took a picture of that image. The statement of Mr. Sagan, deep as it is, is still not a tangible arguement against the existence of a Creator. Sorry. :-(
iono this sh*t sounds too emo for me, life is meaningless because we are small? thats all i got from it. Like dont try and do anything significant like start world war 3 because in the end you live on a lil blue dot. ignorance is bliss so imma try and feel important by working hard so i can live in a mansion drive fast cars and be content with material things and do lots of drugs cause its fun
Why does everyone hate Christians so much? Seriously, part of our moral fibers, our religion, says to spread the word so that others may be saved. We are just following our basic principles. I might agree that YTMND is not the place for this, but thats no reason for hate speech against Christians. Stop being so prejustice.
Woo-hoo..... an athiest with a conscious. Big whoop. It's amazing how much athiest scream and preach abotu world peace and how most of the world is at war due to religions. But you mention christianity (mind you, no other religion: *JUST* christianity), and they can spew out more vile and hateful comments than I've seen from some truckers I deal with on a regular basis. Most athiests I've found are nothing more than people who love to hate Christians... nothing more. I find that more small minded --
"Why does everyone hate Christians so much? Seriously, part of our moral
fibers, our religion, says to spread the word so that others may be saved."
... Not if they don't seek it out. It'as not truely salvation unless they come to you, not the other way around. Also, you're a douchebag if you preach to people who allready made up their minds about their religious beliefs.
Unless they're Scientologists. Then do whatever you want to 'em.
*sigh*... Can't we stop this Atheist/Christian fight? Now, I agree with Max about keeping religion off of YTMND. It doesn't help anyone, and it just starts flame wars and bitter hatred/stupid liking toward the creators of the sites. This includes atheism. Here's a tip: keep all Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, whatevers OFF OF YTMND! They have NO place here. Jeez people... I come here to see unbiased humor, not annoying opinions.
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