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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It would have been better if you circled the dot because my un-trained eye cannot see it, the picture is rather impressive and the quote seems well thought out although it is ultimately rendered redundant by the creator's limited understanding of religious teachings. It's still a decent site though and I'll give it a 4 because it looks like you put a lot of time and thought into it, the song works great too.
hey uh.... "TightenUpTheGraphics"... what you said is very hipocritical... you said you were "nice" to people.. WELL! INSULTING PEOPLE WITHOUT GROUNDS IS NOT NICE HIPOCRiT! also... you implied that all "athiests or agnostics" are nice... well... What about colombine hmm? They were athiests.. and they asked people if they were christian and then shot them if they said yes. thats not nice... thats homocidially insane... you also implied that christians only act nice because they fear "hellfire".. well...
you obviously didn't do your homework... Being saved is not about being a good deed fairy. It's about truly beleiving, and truly being sorry for doinfthings that are mean etc.. If you sin once, your a sinner. No matter what. The only way to get in to heaven is to be forgiven ( Which is easy as long as your really sorry, 'cuz its easy to tell if you don't mean it) So, do your homework next time before insulting someone okay?
I think some people are taking this as some bash against Christianity, which it truly isn't. I think what Lave was trying to say was that whetstone said that atheists had no capacity for love or morals because of their view, and I think Lave was countering that. And I personally think that the quote by Carl Sagan can be taken to heart by the atheistic and religious alike, for he's commenting on how we are almost alone in an all-consuming universe, how incredibly small we really are on a cosmic scale...
Very interesting. And why are you guys arguing? Wasn't the entire point of the quote that such arguments and conflicts like this are petty and insignificant? Everything is insignificant, and believe it or not, that's a very warming thought for me. If I think that to myself I won't have to worry about any of the stupid little problems that occur in life, because in the grand scheme of things they really have no meaning. It's easier to enjoy life in that mindset sometimes.
I've got to say that the way that Sagan refers to how humanity views itself in relation to the universe is completely rediculous, our "feelings" in comparison to the universe is incomprehensible, and therefore why bother to compare them to it? Human feelings were developed by evolution so that our genetic information may survive, and for that purpose only. To become "supreme" ruler simply means that a person is trying to spread their "ideas" which are an extension of their genes.
When people are cruel or prejudiced it is because some one is different and therefore a threat to a person's genes, the more alike they are the less of a threat they are. Often people are cruel to others because they wont accept their ideas, also because they threaten their genes. I may have completely miscommunicated what i meant and that may have made no sense what i just said. :)
In relation to other comments on this site i feel that many of them are quite narrow minded in simply picking apart peoples comments. I myself am a Roman Catholic because i was raised that way and its nice to cling to some idea of how people are guided. But I believe that atheists are simply more modern than any other "belief" as religion existed solely to explain the world around us and provide moral law and in this scientifical world of today, religion is losing its use.
The loss of religions use can be proved through the difference between the medieval ages and today. In Medieval times, just after the fall of the Roman Empire, almost all science and logical thinking was lost. Thus the dark ages began, a time without safety shelter or anything to guide anyone or give hope. But then people began to gather together and form working economies, slowly recovering. Christianity began to take hold with the Carolingian dynasty of France, and with the "crowning" of Charlemagne
as the next Holy roman empire it signified the recover from the total dark ages. Thus Europe progressed into the renaissance where religion began to come into question. It was at this point in my opinion where religion lost its purpose almost entirely, and the many art works which make the Renaissance seem like the peak of religion exist solely due to the beautiful minds of the Renaissance guided by the church.
I can't bring myself to vote on this site because all Lave did was point out that atheists are not stupid just like everyone else in this world (except for the stupid people) hehe, and its always fun to see how incomprehensible how big the universe is. I wish i was smart enough in the world of ytmnd site making to make a site about my views, but im not. but feel free someone to do this, because its nice to put my $.02 in even though i doubt Lave or anyone else will get this far down on the comment list lol
Whetstone fails because he doesn't explain why the First Cause is god. Just because it's beyond our comprehension doesn't automatically make it god. Why can't it be the devil, for example?..... or some other high power? Maybe the "First Cause" is none of these gods, and all are wrong? "The only thing that is definite, is that nothing else is definite".
Kookamachi's right, you know... though truth be told I'm confident Religion is also a survival mechanism. We, as a species, do not survive by adapting to the environment. We survive by adapting the environment to US. Therefore, the more we understand the happier and more successful we are. In order to understand the Sun, we need a God thereof. Why? because as pack animals, our mentality is to assume that, like the pack leader makes good things happen, there is an even GREATER pack leader we cannot see...
http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/ http://loldebate.ytmnd.com/
I fail to see how an atheist who can point out that the Earth looks small and insignificant from a distance (much like ANY object) proves anything other than that he can ignore simple perceptual constancy for the sake of injecting an emotionally based political argument into a scientific datum. Neither do I see how quoting someone who drones on about the woes of intolerance is consonant with your dismissal of religious ideas as "[sic] small minded."
Your thinking is pretty flawed. Absolute belief that a supreme being doesn't exist is every bit as small-minded as absolute belief that a supreme being does exist. Your ytmnd is just a mound of emotional bullcrap, just like every other 'lolmyreligiontmnd' on this site. If you've a point to prove, then f*cking prove it, don't coat it in this emotional sh*t. You get a 2 for attempting to prove the stupid religious f*cks wrong, but you wound up looking like a stupid antireligious f*ck instead.
The reasons I hate religious people is for 1. they try to drive their views down your throat, 2. they think "I don't like the thought of not going anywhere when I die..." well you don't there isn't a nice happy shiny area or a deep fire pit there is only nothingness...get over it, and 3. more children that are religious are so because their parents brainwash them into believeing their parents "truth". I am atheist but only for the reason I am intelligent and not a sheep soaking up what people tell me.
Any religious person that can actually say there is no evolution is just plain moronic it happens everyday and everywhere on earth. Any living thing will evolve to adjust to the weather or to be be more defensive/offensive against other animals. Just open your eyes read something other than your fictional book called "The Bible" and be intellectual.
Excellent YTMND! All the squares quoting philosophy 100 courses can go blow, since they clearly miss the point here; this isn't an argument against God, but rather a highlighting of human inferiority and the futility of self-righteous beliefs. On a side-note, the reason America sucks so much *ss is because of all the sheepish, self-righteous Christians it harbours. Ugh.
i am not an athiest, but i did appreciate this ytmnd more than that other one you are countering, that other one was boring and i didn't feel like reading a bunch of crap about some old athiests dying. in fact i didn't. i stopped watching it 2 minutes into the 7 minutes it said it was.
just because the picture shows a pale blue dot, it does not make me belive in God any less. in fact it reminds me of how it is beyond anything i will ever understand.
I would 5 for effort, but the lack of ANY facts what so ever have made it phail. Plus just because we're a microscopic dot on the face of the universe doesn't mean we don't matter. If you say that, than you are saying an empty void of space the size of earth matters as much as the earth. I dont mind religious discussion on ytmnd, but 80% of it are utter phailures.
"So the universe is too big for you to believe in God? silly atheists, pretending gases from nowhere exploded and started everything...what goofy ideas will you people come up with next?" - Silly God-fearers, do you really think that there has been some omnipotent being sitting there for all eternity? What would he have been doing for the (Literally.) eternity before he created the universe?
Better to believe what we see rather than let a book written by other humans dictate our lives. Fact is, we know there was a big bang because galaxies move further apart over time. We know that we are insignificant because everything is so huge in comparison to us. We know that there's more to the universe than just pretty sh*t for us to look at in the sky, so why insult your ability to think by ignoring the truth? Just keep covering your ears and praying to your big invisible friend and his magic baby.
That wasn't very funny.
Oh, and that was also improper use of quotation marks. When quoting something that is multiple paragraphs you put a set of quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and then one at the very end. Not after every paragraph.
On that note, I don't see any dot in the picture, just a bunch of lines.
"just because the picture shows a pale blue dot, it does not make me belive in
God any less. in fact it reminds me of how it is beyond anything i will
ever understand." =\ You're missing the point...and this is exactly the kind of mindset that bothers me most about these intensely religious people - this "life is so beyond anything I can ever understand" crap is such a lame cop-out. When all is said and done, there's a good chance that humanity's salvation will come of our own desire to learn...
...to learn and to solve the most enigmatic complexities of the universe. What has advanced us to the point we are at now, and the only thing that will CONTINUE to advance the human race will be our ability to leave no stone unturned and no question unanswered. If you don't think you can "ever understand" life, or if you can't manage to envision a life without the will of an all-powerful being controlling everything...then I can't help but think that you're a couple steps behind the rest of humanity...
...if you're content to just accept the myths, tales, poetry and assorted works of fiction from a book written by other people, who themselves were only trying to understand existence, almost two millenia ago...then I won't try to persuade you otherwise. All I ask of people like this is that they don't try to enforce their narrow, restricted views on anyone else.
1: Einstein's theory of relativity. The further out in space you go, the slower time ticks by. A day in heaven (the outermost reaches of the universe) could be 1 billion years to us for all we know. 2: Using this, put the Evolutionary chart and the sequence of events from Genesis side-by-side, and you'll notice they coincide perfectly. Evolution and Creationism are one in the same.
Well done YTMND, and it is a good picture. I'm a christian and I see no good in debating the matter here. It is your decision in what you believe. My appologies on the behalf of the other christians that have commented. The only reason we care enough to post is because we are told to spread God's word, so we do. And it scares me, too, the thought of so many people going to Hell pointlessly. I simpithise with you, but, I say to you other chrsistians, this is not the place for religious debate.
Reading through the comments, it seems I'm not the only one who noticed that you framed a debate and then failed to follow through. Instead, we're left with a non-rebuttal and a protracted Carl Sagen quote. -2 stars for continuity, -2 stars for creativity and originality, +1 star for fitting music and layout.
If you feel so strongly about it, why are you using a website such as YTMND as a medium? People come here for an escape from politics, religion, and all real world troubles, and here you are trying to make it like we should care about something so trivial.
I downvote you not because of the YTMND but because of the whole ordeal.
P.S. TL;DR
I don't see how justifying religous beliefs with quoted sayings, and small pictures of earth is going to proove anything here. The definition of religion is this..."A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp." Notice beliefs is plural? That means there are different beliefs from different people, which means, everyone thinks they are right and everyone else is wrong. Therefore, there is no point to this YTMND becuase your are saying your point of veiw, the atheist.(c)
So, why make a YTMND if its about the very topic you are fighting? Whestone was mearly showing his opinion about the things of this time, as are you. Therefore, why make something to combat whestone for doing the exact thing that you are doing? You my friend have formed a paradox, well, what would be considered a paradox to anyone with any sense. Stop making bullsh*t ytmnds and accept the diversity of this site.
You fail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, and do not try again. You FAIL! >=K
I'm more of an agnostic and I will agree with some that just because we are small does not mean there is not a God, what this ytmnd serves to show is that we are insignificant beings in the vastness of the universe and that we should be humbled by that more than anything else and try to treat each other with respect as fellow human beings, no matter whether a God exists or not.
1'd not so much because you are an atheist and I hate you for that, beause I dont. 1'd because. Atheism is a clod dark religion with no God, no hope, no morals, and no light. If there is no God then there is no right and wrong, and if there is no right and wrong, there is no difference between Murder, watching T.V., child porn and any other beliefs morals or rights you might think you have. I am not going to sit here and argue over it here, if you want to talk about it more with me, send me a message me.
ZOMG TEH RELIGIONS ARE TEH SUXXINGS :(:(:(
Seriously man, bashing religion in the first couple slides is just stupid. It's nice to know that you have different views, but if people want to believe it, don't smear the sh*t in their face. Plenty of scientists were very religious, doesn't mean aethiests are the greatest scientists ever.
I loved the quote, but the attack on whetstone as you have done contradicts the point you made. It wasn't important enough to include, just as you said how we all have this meaningless struggle when we should work together...no wait I just read the description, but it (or some of it) is still coming up. Anywho, I just want to say that life on this planet is futile for ourselves, but not others.
You are ignorant and a homophobe. I will continue to blame you and your kind for all my problems. Rational debate has no place on the internet. By the way, your whole argument is moot because, as we both know, Carl Sagan is a cyborg, and is thus unable to objectively assess the value of ignorance and hate speech in the name of God. Y'all really need to find Jesus and accept him into your life. Heavens yeah.
I am greatly religous, although i try not to convince people to change thier ideas about religion as i learned a couple of years ago that it is almost impossible to change someones opinion of something that they already decided, so even though I could probobly write a 3 page rant about how I disagree with this, and why I think that, I'll just skip that part.
I will say though, that although I disagree with your opinions and beliefes. I do like how well done this ytmnd is. My only complaint was that there..
continued from above:
was one frame that I wasn't able to finish reading in the quote.
I'll you a 3, becouse although I disagree with it, which i would originally have given you a 1 for, it is like I said earlier, very well done.
Also, if your "Anti-sponcership" thing worked, then i would get rid of 20$ off the sponcership at least.
Just because you cannot see a god, does that mean air and gravity do not exist?
If we cannot see a atom, or a neutron, how can we see they exist? Science has prooven that these things are real, but, can science proove or DISPROOVE of a god? No, it can't. Therefore, there is no reason for this. And, I have a feeling its more about attacking whetstone than making your point of veiw known. The comments tell the whole story.
Very nice. I do think you could get rid of the stuff about whetstone at the beginning and it wouldn't take away from the message of this YTMND. If only more people could decide to just live this life and enjoy it instead of being so angry and up-in-arms about causes that are practically insignificant in comparison to the history of the universe, the earth, or just the human race. If only.
btw, on insignificance. the availability of a viewpoint from which the earth appears infinitely tiny is balanced by the availability of a viewpoint from which the earth appears infinitely large. from the point of view of say, the entire galaxy, the earth is so small as to make us feel very insignificant. but from the point of view of say, some theoretical object which is 1/999999999999999999th the size of an electron, the earth is so large as to make us feel godlike.
now, which of these views should we take? are we, and is the planet we live on, infinitely tiny (and infinitely insignificant), or are we infinitely large (and infinitely important)? neither, imo. when you consider it from all perspectives, the idea of judging anything as having any kind of "absolute size" and especially, considering that to have any importance when considering ideas of significance, seems a bit silly, at least in an infinite universe. cant fully explain in short comment but there ya go
ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO A SLOW VIBRATION ALL MATTER IS MERELY ENERGY CONDENSED TO
totally irreleevant, and if we are this pathetic blue dot doesn't that give us all the more reason to believe in a higher being? or should we be even more confident in placing our trust in our own self confidence and simply believe this infinitely huge unniverse was an accident, and it just so happens that one planet in that entire unniverse had the perfect conditions to be suitable for life? You know, it takes a much greater degree of faith to not believe in God andsimply believe that life is an accident
I hate religious people. They can't be content with the fact that the universe is bigger than themselves. They have to have an all powerful version of themselves in charge. They have to comfort themselves with delusions of an afterlife because they can't deal with the finality of death. They refuse to look for answers in the vastness of space, but rather say "It's too big for us to ever understand". Well f*ck religion, and f*ck ignorance. If we don't search for answers, "God's" not going to give them.
This is very close to the worst YTMND i have seen. All of the soap box YTMNDs are pretty bad. But yours was about as dry and boring making some garbage point about how we should all hug eachother. Couldn't you have made this point in a more entertaining or visually stimulating way? A piss poor job of using the medium.
Nice job, man. You've expressed your views without being an ass, or saying that every other religion is wrong, or anything like that. Unlike Whestone, you avoid scare tactics and merely present your point. Personally, I'm a very religious felow, and I was not in the least offended by this. I was just left thinking "man, this guy has it together" and "This guy knows how to get a point across. You are possible the most literate and mature user YTMND has ever seen. I give you a 5, and may you get many more.
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