If it feels like you're going in circles TomK it's because:
1) You make some bold claim - gods are evil, such gods don't exist, evidence for gods doesn't exist
2) Are asked to provide proof for your claims as, being the person making the claims, you bear the burden of proof, not anyone else
3) You then wail and gnash your teeth that you can't provide proof because you either don't have any or it's an impossible claim to prove because of the impossibility of proving a negative
4) You then try to shift the burden of proof onto others to prove things they have never claimed
5) When reminded of not being allowed to do this, you return to 1) and start again
If you would like to stop going around in circles you could:
1) Directly answer the atheist's claim: do gods exist?
2) Answer MyManao's questions such as "only the insecure resist foreign ideas because they view them as threats to their own. As you have done for reams and reams of posts.. ad nauseam. Why?"
3) Answer some of my other questions such as "are lava flows evil?" or "does all of science rely on evidence?" as this would provide off-ramps into other fields such as ethics or epistemology.
As for Ricky Gervais, he's clearly much more careful with his language, which makes sense as being a comedian you craft your words very deliberately. My only point of contention would be with his initial claim that Religion has convinced everyone else that you can't ridicule it, as making fun of religion is probably as old as religion itself.
Tom K - I'm struggling to think of a religion that doesn't discriminate. Are there any?
As MyManao pointed out it depends on what one means by "discriminate". If you mean simply to "recognize a distinction or to differentiate" then most religions probably do that if only to figure out who is in the religion, with some being quite good at making such distinctions as comedian
Emo Philps has pointed out.
If you mean by discrimination "to make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people" you might look at religions least likely to do this, such as
Buddhism,
Quakers,
The Satanic Temple, and of course MyManao's Church of One, of which we all are already a part of, by definition. If Kirt or anyone else would like to put Pastafarianism up for contention, or to have its claims discussed, I'd be open to and interested in that.
TomK - "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan is a book I suggest everyone reads.
Finally there is something we can agree on! :) However, given that you like to reference Sagan, I figure you know that he was Agnostic and shared his thoughts on these matters several times in a few interesting ways. As fellow agnostics, neither I, nor he, would be in any way a good candidate to prove the existence of gods as you keep demanding of everyone.
https://archive.is/ITYNL
Carl Sagan: “An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no God.”
To Robert Pope, of Windsor, Ontario, Oct. 2, 1996
Carl Sagan - “I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. I am not that wise, but neither do I consider there to be anything approaching adequate evidence for such a god. Why are you in such a hurry to make up your mind? Why not simply wait until there is compelling evidence?”
Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow
“Carl meant exactly what he said. He used words with great care. He did not know if there was a god. It is my understanding that to be an atheist is to take the position that it is known that there is no god or equivalent. Carl was comfortable with the label ‘agnostic’ but not ‘atheist.'”
To be clear, I'm not trying to say Agnosticism must be true because
an authority like Carl Sagan said it. But given Sagan's unique combination of keen insight, clear communication, gentle humility, and genuine curiosity about the universe, I find his thoughts and ideas worth taking the time to consider. I think the world could be a much richer, kinder, and better understood place if more people took Sagan's ideas, and his methods for humbly and kindly engaging with these questions, to heart.
