are you an atheist?

I was a militant atheist once, but I sort of demobbed myself. Those who say that militant atheism is somewhat dogmatic and indicative of an authoritarian personality, no so far from a fundie, have a point.

xpost Well, I don't go around acting like Dawkins. I don't think he's wrong about much though, it's just that his approach is futile and even counter to his desired effect. Being the poster boy for angry anti-God scientists is a foolish thing to be, especially seeing as how "anti-God scientists" are not otherwise organized in any way.

I'm a militant agnostic - I don't know / can't prove anything and neither can anyone else.

There have been enough ppl on here who have quite aggressively knocked the likes of ANairn, Dee, and Kiwi to make me think militant/Dawkins style athieism is plenty prevalent.

I'm with Latebloomer tho I think - we Just Don't Know shit (even with science's best).

Yes, I'm inclined to agree.

I've never been militant, but I've had some rather heated arguments with fundies regarding the foundation (or lack thereof) of their beliefs. Usually in response to them querying my stance, which is very easily defensible.

Oh and Dawkins shits me to tears. Makes loads of very good points, then trashes them by getting all angry and wound-up.

we Just Don't Know shit (even with science's best)

But science's is not a way of making assumptions and declarations about the world, it's a way of examining it. A scientist knows that we don't know shit. That's what gets you into that game! You want to know more.

(x-x-post) However, against the idea that agnosticism is the most sensible standpoint, Dawkins considers this approach to be wishy-washy and hence dangerous. He thinks one should take a stand against the influence of bizarre beliefs on public policy, and not without good reason.

(I mean "game" loosely, of course -- it's far from play. Religion does not cure polio.)

xpost to kenan's early post. right, even if both extremes can be rude, the sticks they hit with are pretty different. there's a massive demographic of belligerent fundies. there's also a very large demographic of religious folks who aren't belligerent at all. the haters on both sides get a lot more press than the rest of us.

I don't think those who aggressively knocked those posters would do anything of the sort to someone IRL. it's a bit of a false positive.

Perhaps yr right there.

i'm not an atheist, but 75% of my friends are atheist. all quite nice, moral people. hell, a few of my atheist friends are bigger prudes than me. (and i'm a beer drinkin, noise rockin Deacon... don't ask me how on earth i got asked for that job in my church. the joke is certainly on me.) at least, for the most part, there's this larger cultural split that exists and so just as a believer here in ilx, i'm in the vast minority, that same thing carries over to the circles i know offline. for whatever reason, me and atheists have more in common than me and your average church goin fool.

i dislike fundies more than you guys do i would imagine. for me, way too much energy is wasted on fingerpointing. if christians collectively stopped oppressing eachother and everybody else, we could EASILY stop world hunger, put a major dent in world poverty, etc etc etc. but no...

it's enough to make you not believe. it really is.

DO IT. DO IT.

:( That's not what I want to see at all.

If more religious leaders were like msp...

Went with "atheist", though I'm more of a committed agnostic. Push comes to shove, though, the "there is no god" position seems just as silly & unjustifiable to me as the "God is LOVE!" position.

Really? Refusing to accept that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches you all the time is as silly believing there is one?

(simplified and pissed on for comic effect, obv.)

x-post to AA... ha! nice! wow, sunday mornings free...yeah... no more cheesy hymns...yeah... ah but the free donuts. nah. gonna stick with it for a while.

Difficult to prove that something doesn't exist, but slightly easier than trying to prove something does exist when there is no proof.

Still, that's why they call it a belief innit.

I ahte to quote Bill Hicks, and i apologize, but I do love that he said "A belief is just that. It's just what you believe. Doesn't make it true." Because that's kind of, wow, truthbomb.

(zillions of x-posts) I would not have said athiesm agruments are silly or unjustified. The arguments put forward by atheists such as Dawkins are logically quite simple and sound, and all based on variations of the point that interpolating a deity presupposes all the mysteries the interpolation is supposed to explain.

For example, the argument for the existence of a creative deity aims to explain the creation of the universe; but, in so doing, it creates a new problem of the same nature, viz, how the creation of the deity took place.

The soundness of the arguments against deism are what incline former agnostics towards atheism, when they look further into the matter. It appears that, on elementary logical grounds alone (see Dawkins - you may not like his tone, but that is another matter) deities are both unnecessary and useless when trying to explain the universe.

Therefore, atheism rather than agnosticism is to be preferred. But a gentle atheism. I wouldn't want people constantly pointing out to me that I really know almost nothing about music for example. On a basic level, that is certainly true, but I don't want to be constantly ridiculed about it. It may be that many deeply religious people are touchy for the same reason. Deep down, they know their beliefs are untenable, but aren't yet prepared to make a terrifying leap into the lap of their former enemies.

But science's is not a way of making assumptions and declarations about the world, it's a way of examining it. A scientist knows that we don't know shit. That's what gets you into that game! You want to know more.

in theory, at least. but i'm not arguing with this, my quarrel is not with science. earth is round, gravity is a fact, etc. etc.

my problem is with those who confuse their interpretation of what those those facts mean as equivalent to those facts.

(xp)

Some definitely fall into that category.

It would be terrifying, though, when you think about it: A belief you have held all your life; a family who keeps up the pressure to stay in the fold; friends and peers who would look at you differently if you abandoned them; an overwhelming sense of guilt for even entertaining the notion; in some cases, an entire racial/cultural group ready to disown you if you dare to step off the wagon.

I've never been religious so I can't directly empathise, but bugger me if it wouldn't be a ballsy move.

(x-x-post) One last thought - it appears that many atheists want to say to religious people that, becuase they hold irrational and delusional beliefs, that they are mentally ill in the clinical sense - and, indeed, many of them are. It is seriously questionable, however, that ridicule is the most effective response. maybe it is, maybe it isn't. As for logical argument, it's demonstably clear that people who hold delusional beliefs aren't so amenable to logical demonstration. The treatment of delusional beliefs is no simple matter.

It's just not clear or obvious how an atheist should respond to crazy world views. Ridicule? Argument? Pacification? Ignoring?

Ignoring people with extreme beliefs can turn out to be very dangerous in the long term, it need hardly be pointed out.

Deep down, they know their beliefs are untenable

That's assuming too much, I think. Maybe that's true for some for some, maybe even for many, but deep down or not, if enough people started thinking that their beliefs were untenable, they would talk amongst themselves, some kind of critical mass would be reached, and soon *every* church door would have a notice nailed to it. History does not provide evidence that humans always tend toward rationality.

It's a risky stategy, fomenting discontent within a community. I think for many people (myself included), it's usually a better strategy to lie low and keep one's sketicism to one's self rather than incur the wrath of the community. Though I do take your point that I may be assuming too much.

Well, on the other side of the argument, maybe your assumptions are supported by the extreme measures churches have historically taken to prevent people sowing the seeds of doubt. You know, like, killing lots and lots of people. Of totally inventing the idea of hell.

oR totally inventing, etc

I have to accept that I Don't Know Shit about why people remain religious. ;)

"I get what Trayce is saying, tho, because when someone says "I'm an atheist" there's a terrible moment where you just KNOW their next words will be "and Ayn Rand is a great thinker.""

and so is the pope

you know, much as i hate religious bullshit it's fucking silly to think of religion as simply a disease to be cured or treated. even if you could eliminate religion, people would kill and fight over other things. religion is just one of many excuses people use to be terrible to one another.

it's probably not even the primary one.

But religion as an institution, especially as a political institution, is a major boulder in the road to the long overdue War on Being A Dumbass.

^ truth bomb

Yeah but one less excuse would be nice.

well yeah. it's not like i need a lesson in how shitty religion can be. i live in south carolina fer chrissakes.

*hugs*

awww

I grew up in Texas, which at least has the advantage of being a bit edgy. In either direction.

(for "a bit edgy" red "completely over the edge and mired in piles of its own batshittedness")

reAd, not red

time for bed!

I think the difference between militant atheists and militant religous types is that I never see an atheist standing in the street with a fucking loudhailer every fucking saturday while i'm trying to have a pleasant stroll around town telling me that if i don't change my ways i'm going to hell.

With diagrams.

"Excuse me, Sir, will you be going to this Hell place with your loudhailer?"

"Well, of course not. But you are."

"If there is no asshole with a loudhailer, place just might be Heaven."

Also I never get militant atheists knocking on my door suggesting that I might want to look further into the non-existence of a higher being and perhaps take away some literature.

They don't know where you live

NOTE: if the JWs come, best way to get rid is to say you've left the church. They are duty bound to shun you.

I had Xtians at the door one Sunday, dude asked me if I would like a copy of a 'tract'. They then asked me if I knew the world was getting worse, scarier and I disagreed to put a spike in the rapture-ready narrative (my SOP for this is 'it's narcissism/wrong to think the world ends with idiots like you'). There's a huge sign on the door of my building that says NO SOLICITING and I love how they come in here thinking for some reason they're not doing that.

Thanks.

wonder when Tumblr discourse will die. possibly never

I don’t know where that tumblr post is supposed to lead. Okay, it’s different?

I didn’t lose any faith, didn’t break from any kind of religion so ‘my atheism’ is different from anyone who did, regardless of ethnicity/gender/etc., right? So what am I supposed to do with that? (I mostly just don’t ever think about god, gods or atheism.)

If a group of non-believers got to that point because they were being more overtly oppressed by the hypocrisies and belief discrepancies in the bible, in the end all atheists are non-believers. There really isn't any value in dunking on r/atheist caricatures when what we all have in common is a rejection of the idea of deities/spirits. Those discrepancies in the teachings of any specific religion are covered within that common rejection despite anyone's personal experiences with them.

i'd say there really isn't any value in recognizing that all non-believers can tick a categorical when social reality is structured by shades of domination, but then i'd be doing a pale imitation of, say, noodle vague who is always so rich on these kinds of topics and much better than i am at countering silly hogwash while also being charitable.

this feels more like "my atheism is more pure than your atheism", which doesn't make me feel comfortable

you could try starting a hashtag #notallcishetwhitemaleatheists, but somehow I don't think it would sit well.

it's probably simplest to try to quiet your discomfort by telling yourself the chance is quite high that they will simply do that 'human thing' of holding two contradictory ideas at the same time, and what is absolutely true for them in one frame of mind will be replaced by a different, more flexible, truth at other times.