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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so because a picture was taken of earth from a long way off, we must have come from a big bang, and not a creator. you want to limit God to what *you* understand, and to support your claim you put an image that only serves to show how much bigger he is than anything we are able to conceive. as brilliant as carl sagan was, he was limited by his humanity as much as the rest of us. your philosophy is devoid of hope, but your ytmd is good. needs more boobs.
The only problem I've ever had with atheists was the fact that the majority of immoral acts sprouts from it. However I do realise that there are some people who would rather care about the world or the 'pale blue dot' rather than what would happen at death.
Also I agree, He's a f*cking douchebag, he makes all christians look like door-to-door converters.
I was about to make something out of deep anger I feel towards the human race, their idiocy, their follies. Carl Sagan could not have put my thoughts more clearly down in history. To quote John Keats, "here is one who's name was writ in water" ALL our names our names are writ in water. We best remember that.
Honestly, posting a pro-atheist YTMND like this is exactly like a Christian posting a pro-jesus YTMND. What are you trying to do? Convince people? Prove a point? You're only falling under the same umbrella as the people you preach against. Maybe some people *want* to appreciate their religion and embrace the mysticism of it all. But no, they're wrong in your eyes so they must be douches. If you don't like it, don't watch it. I'm an agnostic, but at least I can accept and appreciate others' beliefs.
Look I don't care about anyones relgious belifs, in fact all these serious YTMND's are just getting annoying, Okay some atheist people did stuff and they were atheist, I really don't care, so because I'm getting sick of these not funny, "hey look I'm stating what my belifs" with some science YTMND's you get a one, and I usually give people 5's. Try to be funny next time. And this is for you and all these people bragging that your atheist and look at how insignificant earth is, YTMND is meant to be funny
I Highly blieve in God, but there is a point in that, not matter your atheist or Catholic Jew, Satnist. or a bird we need to stang together for our lvies. Anyoen could be right, maybe there is no God, Maybe there is but if we play for a roll on this 50 50 chance and lose we are screwed. So the only way to Completely Stay together and live is to make peace, and stand up and help each other, Now makeing fun of a religion is wrong, but we all have done it on YTMND. I admit it! Anyone else want to admit it?
I like your evidence for proving him wrong, it reminds me of basically every evolution vs creation debate I've ever been a part of. And while you are sitting here claiming a single scientific project to be a great work of those who do not believe in creation, let's look at the works of Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Boyle, Dalton, Ramsay, Mendel, Pasteur, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Pascal, and who knows how many others that did believe in creation who laid a foundation for such a research as this.
Yawn.... That was the worst attempt at an argument... Wait second worst.... attempt at an argument I have ever seen. Why even put the guy's name on the YTMND? The excerpt you used actually kinda supported the religious guy's ideas. In it you used the one part where the astronomer you quoted from saying look at such a tiny dot, people have killed for fame on that blurry blue speck(or something like that, something about people filling rivers with blood from wars, that part), then, he proceeded to state
This does not disprove religion, it's not by chance that such a complex system of interactions of particles and atoms arranged in such a delicate manner comes into being, God, or at least somebody, created the universe for us to marvel at his creation. This is only one small piece of his creation in a big picture.
as a buddhist i am a weak athiest ( one who does not believe in god because he has never shown himself to me) but i do not rule out his existence it simply strange to me. this gets a 3 because it does not rebutle anything, and it calls your rival a douche and loser, you sir have deviated fromthe path of win, welcome to fail.
ok, i think whetstone is a douche too. is that really so bad? we all think tom cruise is a douche too, just because whetstone is a user on the site doesnt make him exempt from douchehood. after all, he deserves it for preaching his religion around like christianity isn't already the most predominant belief system in our country (it is). off of that subject, this was very well written. i like your vocabulary. i also like that you posted a quote from one of my favorite people, carl sagan. what a cool ytmnd. 5
"just as bad as his christian ytmnds.. Relgion shouldnt matter on the
INTERNET." ~State-of-mi
You have a point. But you have to consider the freedoms of speech we have on the net.
Let me rephase what you just said then.
'Religion shouldn't cause hate on the Internet.'
I have tons of views I'd like to express- CHRISTIAN views. But do I make a YTMND out of them? NO. I know it would cause anger, hate, debate, and lack of respect for others. Its just not worth it, and UN-christianlike I'd say.
Five. Fave. If you can't appreciate the universe for what we can directly observe from photos like this, how can you possibly appreciate it as a creation of god? Sure, you can explain away how everything came to be by invoking god, but that's only because god was invented to be an answer to every question. To believe that the unfathomably enormous universe is simply some plaything for us to look at during the night is more egoistic than any Satanist I've ever known.
YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS YOU ARE ALL AIDS INFESTED N*GG*RS Y
"it's not by chance that such a complex
system of interactions of particles and atoms arranged in such a delicate
manner comes into being, God, or at least somebody, created the universe
for us to marvel at his creation. This is only one small piece of his
creation in a big picture." It's completely possible that it is all by chance.
And what are you proving with this? That you can join the thousands of blathering idiots that won't shut up about their problems with the beliefs of others? No one says that athiests can't see beauty. Whetstone's never said such a thing. If you want to whine and complain like the stubborn fool you clearly are, do so on your myspace account, or on your blog that no one reads. It's pretty clear that the only reason you made this ytmnd is to attack whetstone and drag 5's out of equally stubborn fools.
everybody who is saying this has anything to do with religion is an idiot.. all carl sagan was saying is that seeing earth from that far away, seeing how little it is makes you think about how we are a world filled with hatred, so instead of hating your neighboor for running over your dog, fogive and forget because who knows how long we even have here. make the best of it.
p.s.... i cant tell where earth is in this picture...
So is this supposed to be an arguement against religion or something? The Bible actually directly addresses the issue of how God still cares for the individual despite the vastness of the universe (somewhere in Psalms, maybe). I don't really see how "the universe is big and Earth is the only planet with life as far as we know = there isn't a God." No voting because it's still a beautiful YTMND and I could be misunderstanding it. It could have been even better without the (anti?) religious angle.
"He's not spamming anything. You choose to watch them. Second of all the
size of our planet in comparison to space doesn't prove anything except
that God created a large universe and it only shows his power. So why don't
you stop spamming your rebuttals and just let him post. This doesn't prove
anything about God's existance. God isn't going to be found in a picture.
God isn't bound to our physical world. Using pictures from space shows
nothing. At all." QFTW
Beautiful!
I'm not an atheist in the least, but I love this YTMND. I can't stand the hubris of the people who've got it all "figured out" (ahem, whetstone) and feel they have the right to say who is or isn't going to "hell" (a fictional place derived from a real one in a METAPHOR). The universe is so mind-bogglingly huge... and yet people can't pull their heads out of their asses long enough to think for themselves instead of being spoonfed millenia-old dogmatic bullsh*t. Its sickening.
There's nothing I hate more than when people get pissed at religion. I'm not going to state my stance, as it's irrelivent. Religion, at the very least, brings peace of mind to those who beleive it. Is that a bad thing? Why do you, as an atheist, care that someone else is happy because of what they think? Are you really so tormented by your lack of faith that you have to try to make religious people feel like villains? Screw you.
Frankly as boring as Whetstone's which at least doesn't bore me as much. As for achieving anything, taking a picture with a spacecraft is nifty and all but that bullsh*t lecture about how small we are in the cosmos sounded like Whetstone minus the God stuff. Frankly at least Whetstone makes an attempt (as poor as it is) to evangelize, you just bore. It proved nothing which concurrently you believe in, so if was that maybe it did work... Oh wait it proved to me that atheism is boring thats it.
If you say you're a Christian and called Lave an idiot, told him to kill himself, or anything along those lines, I'm embarassed to belong to your religion. Christian hatemongers have been giving us a horrible reputation for ages. All you need to do is form a lynching mob and you'd be down at the KKK's level. While I don't agree with Sagan's argument, it certainly puts things in perspective. That God focuses on us entirely says nothing about our significance, only His. 5'd since Lave apologized.
"Small minded = claiming with
certainty that god does not exist. Open minded = admitting that it is
possible that god exists."
Small minded= claiming that your god exists (an inherant facet of any religion). Open minded= admitting it is possible that your god is as real as Odin, Zeus, Thor, Ra and Allah
Actually, thinking about it, this would be better without the anti-Whetstone or religious part. Not because I support either Whetstone or religion (don't know Whetstone, and I'm an atheist), but because the matter Sagan raises, of human conceit compared to our astral insignificance, is essentially aside from religion. A separate issue.
Just so y'all know what it is, here we are: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul."
cont'd: "Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn [you] away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst ofthee
cont'd: "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;[Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth;"
cont'd:"Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."
cont'd: "And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.If thou shalt hear [say] in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,[Certain] men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;"
cont'd: "Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, [if it be] truth, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought among you;Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that [is] therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword."
cont'd:" And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;"
lol for people who can't read and missed the point (which is not that religion is bad, but that people who say NON religious people are bad are DOUCHEBAGS) No one needs to "counter" whetstones sites: they sink on their own bullcrap, lies, and arguments so dumb that anyone can see they aren't worth the time it took to sit through it.
If that's the case, plunge, why did you five a site written entirely in Comic Sans MS and accompanied by awful music that insults the memory of Sagan rather than honoring it? This YTMND is terrible; rate it for what it is, not for what Sagan stands for and not for your "freethinking" religious-philosophical slant.
It is utterly saddening because it is so small-minded, the same kind of small-mindedness I have seen atheists and Christians alike swinging at one another on YTMND. It is hypocritical to decry others' fragile beliefs based on a lack of evidence, then so assuredly proclaim yours as the truth when it too is based on a lack of evidence.
"I don't care what your stance on religion is or what your religion is. You
should let others mind their own beliefs as well."
Really? Do you let people who say that the holocaust never happened "mind their own beleifs"? You do? Would you let them "mind their own beleifs" if they activly killed for their beleifs? If they passivly killed for their beleifs?
@ IRrower: This is a totally different issue. There is hard evidence that the holocaust happened. And no, I do not condone religions killing in the name of their beliefs, nor do I condone forcing your beliefs or opinions on someone else. But when it comes to religion, I am agnostic, as there are many questions that need to be answered, too many coincedences in the concept of existence. I am quite skeptical of religion as a whole, but that does not make me atheist. Like I said, this is a much more...
"Just like a lot of other issues
in life, its not just black and white."
Is it really? Is it honestly more complicated than "God exists/ god does not exist"? By the Bible's own admission, it is the "word of God" and, also by the Bible's own admission, the word of God is infallible. By these two facts alone, one can either say that the Bible is real, or not; there is no middle ground, one cannot simply abandon certain concepts because they do not fit with a life now, that is theological ignorence.
What I heard: I'm sick of sanctimonious Christians talking down to me, they are all stupid idiots... let me get out my thesaurus so I can look smart on the internet by using huge words, atheists r smart, and to settle this point I'm going to have an atheist tell us what is already intuitive! Our world is small, the universe is big. What's your bloody point? I haven't seen all of Whetstones' YTMND's, but at least he tried to use logic... but if you turned this slideshow into an essay you would utterly fail
@IRrower... again: I never said you needed religion for moral guidelines or for "God" or god(s). Not all religions say that anyway. There are thousands of religions that have no god at all, or maybe have one or so but do not rely on them for moral guidence or protection or knowledge or whatever the f*ck else. Also, where did I mention Christianity anyway?
|For one, I beleive YTMND is for humour, not this kind of stuff... |For two, the fact that men automatically hate Christ beleivers is reason enough for me to beleive that God and demons exist. Just think about it for a while and you might understand my point of view... (Yes, I'm a Christ beleiver..)
Also, like I said, spirituality is a complicated concept. Like me, we cannot prove the existence or non existence of, although there are many questionable things in the concept of existance that trigger this discussion. Can you disprove maybe, the existence of other dimension, an after-life, a deity, a creator, etc... Just because there is a concept of a god doesn't mean he/she/it is here playing with our lives like The Sims.
I liked it but it doesn't really address whetstone. Just because we are insignificant on the big cosmic scale doesn't mean we can't have opinions about the cosmic scale or any other metaphysical entity. This would have made a better site if it were just the image and carl sagan's quote without mentioning whetstone at all.
It's a beautiful quote and a very profound message. However, it should not be used as a platform for your personal views to slander a fellow YTMND'er.
However, let it be noted:
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?
Tell, Me, if you have understanding. Who determened it's
measurements? Surely you know! Or who streched the line
upon it? Or who laid it's cornerstone, when the morning stars
sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Job 38:4-7 NKJV
"He streches the North out over empty space,
He hangs the Earth on nothing."_________
Job 26:7
_______It is also said in the Bible that "To seek the mysteries of God's creation is the honor of kings."_____
True Christianity is dedicated to understanding the fundamental truths of God's universe
and find out the mysteries of all the Earth and beyond. You're hampered by a typical atheist view we expect from everyone. You have no understanding to the true faith and subject us stereotyping.
Try to broaden your understanding a little. We are not the backwoods, stereotypical, witch hunters you read about in historybooks.
_____"For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men."
1 Corinthians 4:8-10
so you (or sagan for that matter) are saying we are just supposed to not give a sh*t cause we are just on this tiny blue dot out in this vast expanse? whatever dude. keep your apathy going and remember you yourself are about 1 / 137,188,690,000,000,000,000th of the size of this blue dot. so you must not matter 137,188,690,000,000,000,000 times more then the earth just as i and everybody else on this planet according to you. too bad we couldnt see you or your inflated ego in that picture.
mik3m, Jesus is all too real. He's the reason you even have a chance at life. Lol, Children's Life Activism Jesus! Thank Him for raising the standards of life for the whole world! THANK HIM FOR BREAKING THE ROMAN CUSTOM OF ALLOWING FATHERS TO EXECUTE THEIR CHILDREN UNTIL THEY TURNED EIGHTEEN!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm a christian. And honestly, I don't care about whetstone. What he did was dumb. Ok? Now stop making YTMNDs about it, stop talking about it, and just forget! Honestly! I'm sick and tired of people getting angry with a man who tried to put God into a philisophical perspective. It is impossible for us to put it in a way because God is above all things we have thought of and made. Obviously, it isn't possible to convince people. So stop trying and end this useless tirade.
Comparing the size of our world to the vastness of the universe is irrelevant. For God to be able to do everything that is claimed he must be able to multitask to an infinite degree. We are not too small to be seen or effected by God, he even knows the number of hairs on our head. God has seen our distress and is merciful. He came as Jesus and spilt his blood so that we may have hope. It is ironic that so many reject Jesus because of the pursuit of truth when he is the only truth you can ever know.
NightOption-" I don't really know why you would refer to the viewpoint of a religous
person as "simplistic". God, and the conception of him, is more complex
than any scientific theory."
Because, I religious person looks at the incredibly comples, incomprehensible universe, and says : "God did it; We can't understand God." The end.
Howbout admitting we dont have a f*cking clue, and either try to figure it out, or just not give a sh*t.
I will not question the intelligence or the passion of atheist thinkers. In fact many atheists are deep philosophical thinkers with many intriguing topics, from a humanistic viewpoint. However, their knowlegde gained is only from this plane of existance. What of the next realm? what happens after you die? That is where the questions go unanswered for those without faith. But I agree with Lave on how some christians are prone to unneccessary aggression. As a Christian you should know not to cause conflict.
"But when it comes to religion, I am agnostic, as there are
many questions that need to be answered, too many coincedences in the
concept of existence. I am quite skeptical of religion as a whole, but that
does not make me atheist."
In a way, I am an agnostic too, as I cannot "prove" that God doesn't exist... but I don't need to. The burdan of proof lies in the laps of those who make claims to ultimate knowledge, not the other way 'round.
"What of the next realm? what happens
after you die? That is where the questions go unanswered for those without
faith."
Why? Why not have a SCINETIFIC inquiry into where consciousness lies, so that you DO know what happens? All you are saying is that, because you cannot conceive of a scientific solution to what are now "metaphysical" questions, there is not a scientific solution, and will never be. This is not faith, this is willful ignorence.
"For God to be able to do everything that is claimed he must be
able to multitask to an infinite degree. We are not too small to be seen or
effected by God, he even knows the number of hairs on our head. God has
seen our distress and is merciful."
Really? Have you heard of the problem of Evil... at all?
I actually made this account (Not having an account prior to this) to say this... I have to say, that was something and it really made me think, but I honestly don't understand why it is "An Atheist's View" when pretty much any half minded individual could see that... But whatever, good job on a thought provoking ytmnd...
"What of the next realm? what happens after you die? That is where the
questions go unanswered for those without faith." That's where people make up whatever they need to feel better about their transience. You would be amazed by how unbound imagination is when there is no absolute law to it. We have an answer BTW. You rot in the ground, returning your nutrients to nature. New life feeds off of death. Beautiful afterlife, no deity needed.
"The inhabitants of this world will remain enemies, divided by tiny differences, until a common enemy threatens to destroy everything we ever had or ever knew, and only when this event occurs will we be brought together as one combined power in an effort to save this tiny dot which we have lived upon longer than we are aware of. This day will change humanity more than any day, year, or century ever has in all known history."
-Albert Einstein
You could have a great YTMND there if you omit the whole religious/atheist sh*t. Both of those can dirty any discussion. Also, whats the deal with all of the religious hating lately on the interwebs? Religion = 1'd Atheism= 5'd? It's nice to see the true intellect of YTMND come out all at once. Also, some advice: If you can't draw a nice looking arrow, take some art classes. As for me, I just live. That's the real secret of life.
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