A Request Directed to Sciforums' "Atheists"

[Aqueous Id]

Then it [atheism] really is a feel-good platform for lobbing stones at religious people.

In the case of pro-science atheists you're just seeing a response to 100 years of religion "feeling good" about trashing science . . . 150 years if you include feeling good about caricaturing Darwin as a monkey.

Yes, it would seem he asked the "right" question, as in one that pertains solely to you [Grumpy] and has nothing to do with how your proclaimed identity politic relates to other people.

What is the atheist identity politic that relates to best evidence in the way any superstitious identity politic relates to vulnerable minds?

Atheism has nothing to do with anything but whatever an atheist wants to complain about.

Religion has set the agenda by declaring war on the human mind, leaving nothing to the discretion of the complainer.

It's nice work if you can get it. So is porn if you're into it.

Establishing "best evidence" as a universal is just clean living. Nothing to tar there.

But here's the thing: Without that pathos, all identifying atheists are doing is lobbing Molotovs at the situation.

You're blaming atheists, who are manning the firehoses, for torching the halls of academia? :bugeye:

I'm not about to throw in with a movement whose entire purpose seems to be to remind us how horrible women are.

Misogyny is only a fraction of the total religious payload that is chronically nuking vulnerable minds.

Similarly, the simple fact that there is no God such as we find described in scripture is what it is,

Since there is no other God ever described outside of myth there is no reason to refrain from cutting the cords of superstition altogether, by simply declaring that the God historically alleged to exist, never actually existed.

but I'm not about to count myself among atheists;

If you disavow God, then you're called an atheist whether or not you admit to it.

I simply don't throw in with supremacist movements.

If you don't care about fundie control of public policy, then don't throw in with any movements atheists throw in with.
But don't equate supremacy with having superior evidence.

And people who want to say there is no movement, or cohesive body politic, or whatever, can continue to deceive themselves.

Atheism is no more a movement than the set of all people who deny the existence of the Easter Bunny constitutes a movement.

But it speaks poorly of all atheists everywhere—that is, you're staining each other—when the answer to everything is the functional equivalent of a Christian distancing himself from another by saying, "He's not a Christian".

You mean they say "He's not a true Christian." So far you are the only person I know of who disavows God but distances himself from atheism. Atheists are not concerned about other atheists. They simply don't throw in with religion.

There is no atheist movement?

There is no central authority around which atheism gravitates, so no.

Take it up with the prominent figures who would design symbols for the movement, or travel across the United States raising funds to build regular congregations. Coordinated efforts to put adverts in public? Sounds like cooperative advertising--trying to get something started. Organizations with names like Atheists Union?

Those are movants, not movements. In any case there is no movement.

I get it. There is no atheist movement. Atheists might wish to explain that to the movement.

I will write the press release if you will give me the address of the central atheist authority which publishes our announcements.

It reminds me of a member who used to post here, years ago, an evangelical who hated Catholics,

They haven't gotten over the selling of indulgences, although very many of them have no idea what that even refers to. They just know it's a dirty rotten sell-out, based on pristine traditions handed down to them by those same dirty devil-worshipping bastards. :mufc:

and would routinely accuse me of being Catholic.

At least take solice in the fact that they were placing you in league with the Devil.

The fun part about Balerion's response is that the answer is simple enough: What's the matter? Have I been too soft on my human neighbors for his tastes?

I don't know, but you're definitely being too soft on the real perpetrators of the religious war on social progress, the war on science, the war on common sense, and so on.

In the end, it's no different from the religious fanatics making similar projections.

If the focus would stay on the real issues, the differences between atheism and religion would never be called similar.

Once upon a time, both here at Sciforums and in the world at large, that thought would have horrified the atheists that I know.

All the atheists I know are horrified by the Right Wing religious public policy agenda--all the propaganda and lies that it entails, the manufactured controversies, and the ease with which people steeped in myth accept it as something God wants to have happen.

Now, apparently, it's a point of pride.

I suppose I could say I'm relieved not to have bought into the mean stupidity of telling women that God wants them raped--the sin of Eve visited upon the daughters?--or that the horrific suffering of the Haitian earthquake was God's punishment for the sins of their colonial ancestors--some alleged pact with the Devil?--being visited upon the children. But there's no pride in my relief. You basically have to equate common sense with pride to arrive at your conclusion.

My sin, as such, is expecting that (A) having no belief in God, and (B) engaging these religious fanatics was supposed to (C) help alleviate a bad situation.

The bad situation is the one that tolerates the grooming of psychopaths without finding the voice to speak against it.

But as this community's atheistic voice has once again demonstrated, result (C) has nothing to do with atheism.

I think a better conclusion would be one that says your post doesn't have that much to do with atheism, your calculus doesn't bother much with salient facts, and therefore any conclusion you arrive at is bound to be just about as plausible as any another.

 

[spidergoat]

Without that pathos, all identifying atheists are doing is lobbing Molotovs at the situation.

And preaching to the choir, oh yeah, and trying to convert the religious over to reason.

 

[brucep]

I suppose if there's a religious person out there living under a rock they may not understand what you're talking about. But for the rest there is no excuse. To them: Your ancestors ridiculed Darwin and prosecuted John Scopes for teaching what was already a settled matter of science (yes, the Darwin's finches did actually evolve per "adaptive radiation" from a common ancestor, as did the seaweed-eating iguanas, and the long and short necked turtles). They and their children filed lawsuit after lawsuit attempting to form in the common law a schism between government and science. And when that failed you elected George W Bush, who worked hard for you by picking political leaders of the government offices of science who would harass scientists, infiltrate the academies and universities, place restrictions on them and sanction them, while at the State level you elected to assemblies the enemies of academic freedom who wrote laws to curtail the free teaching of science, and school board officials who would require the publishers to go back and add caveats that "science is only a theory" "there may be other explanations" and of course they had to waste time in science class covering the history of religious outrage over Darwin's discoveries. Then, when Big Business married Big Religion and declared war on the government policies to curtail the orgies of greed that led to the crash of 2008, you invented Climate Science Denial, replete with its own infiltrators, mind-police, propaganda machinery, and of course lawsuits, harassment and intimidation of people like meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, experts in measuring solar irradiance, and biologists studying the effects of climate on ecosystem collapses.

But that wasn't enough. They and their children imposed Victorian taboos concerning private reproductive decisions, leading to countless deaths from sepsis and hemorrhage from back alley abortions. But even after the Supreme Court said "enough is enough" you decided to take it to the streets, harassing the pregnant women and staff at your neighborhood clinics, even resorting to vandalism, bombings, and murder--all in the name of God. Still that wasn't enough. You wanted to cure same-sex partners of their "disease" so you found satisfaction in what you called divine retribution for their "perversity": HIV/AIDS. Decades later you are still praying to keep same-sex couples marginalized.

And throughout all of this, you have created atheists, who shrank in horror from your pathological urges to harm innocent bystanders, your virulent religiosity, your manipulation of vulnerable minds, your lies, your narcissism and you chronic lack of remorse and blame-shifting.

Did you really expect no resistance? This is not militancy. Militancy would involve de-programming your congregations, suing your churches, bombing them and murdering their preachers, and raising an army groomed from childhood to root you out and destroy you.

So this is actually quite mild. This is just argument, just to tell you "we're not going to take it . . . anymore."

Ditto.

 

[Tiassa]

When Y'all Help Make the Point

And preaching to the choir, oh yeah, and trying to convert the religious over to reason.

To the one, therein lies the problem. What I'm after is exactly why you suck at converting the religious to reason. After all, I keep asking about the rest of the reason involved in that conversion, and am repeatedly told it has nothing to do with atheism.

So I would invite you to take it up with our neighbor, Grumpy, for instance.

The with-us-or-againt-us attitude shown by the atheists in our community is functionally problematic.

Well, unless, of course, we abandon any pretense of "trying to convert the religious over to reason".

The lack of human sympathy? That lack of pathos Grumpy proudly declared? It is exactly why you fail.

• • •​

A classic case of hiding one's head in the sand, ignoring the blatantly obvious, that there would be no lobbing stones at religious people if it weren't for the religious people lobbing stones at everyone else in the first place. If religions were kept behind closed doors where they belong, stones would be on the ground and not in flight.

A classic case of hatemongering hypocrisy by which one complains that another does wrong in order to justify his own wrongdoing.

Don't worry, though, I won't hold it against "atheists". After all, you have no connection to them, right? There is no movement.

So that bigotry is all on you, (Q).

Thank you for helping illustrate my point.

I would suggest it's stunningly hilarious that you are apparently incapable of perceiving this simple logic, but it's actually not funny; it's tragic.

• • •​

I don't lob Molotovs because of my atheism, but because of the butt-holery of the theists. If that butt-holery didn't exist then I would have nothing to lob those firebombs at. It's all about behavior , not belief.

See above note to (Q). You're part of the problem.

Good, then you have no excuse to continue to be so prejudiced and unreasonable in your reply. Do something about that and we will have no problem.

You speak arrogantly, as if only your opinion matters. Do something about your pathetic bigotry that hurts everyone and gains nothing but your own satisfaction, and I won't have a problem.

No, seriously, dude, your lack of sympathy for your fellow human being is exactly the point. Don't crow about being a wannabe sociopath. It's absolutely disgusting.

 

[Kittamaru]

See... this is what I don't get. Why can't Atheists and Theists co-exist? I mean... is a difference in belief REALLY that big a deal? Then again, I often wonder why Christian/Catholic/Jewish/Muslilm/Pagan people have such issues co-existing... I guess it just confuses me

 

[Tiassa]

The Atheist Question

Why can't Atheists and Theists co-exist? I mean... is a difference in belief REALLY that big a deal?

Actually, it's a huge deal, according to the theists. For instance, I don't recall anyone ever having to take an oath affirming that they believe there is no God in order to hold public office.

Consider, for a dramatic comparison, the Maoist rebellion in Nepal.

The Maoists capture police officers and torture them to death. Bad Maoists!

The police, on the other hand, are known to capture Maoists and skin them alive. Bad police? But ... but ... the victims are Maoists. You know, communists?

In truth, there are no good guys in that one.

In the naivete concomitant to my twenties, certainly I adored the atheist proclamations about rational discourse and the importance of facts. But the years have shown me that, whatever else, this particular sale was a con job.

I've been through it with leftists. I've been through it with "Americans". I've been through it with men, women, stoners, whites, ethnic minorities. And, you know, it's all irrational. So here come a bunch of atheists talking about rationality, who have no sincere commitment to rationality beyond reminding us just how puerile and unworthy religious people are.

I get the idea that Spidergoat put forward, of "trying to convert the religious over to reason".

And maybe in his case, that's true. But it's clearly not for many others. The result is that any number of atheists you want to imagine, whether two or two billion, might stand together and say, "We are atheists!" and the statement has exactly zero significance.

So whenever an atheist wants to talk about atheists he or she should remember that the only atheist one can accurately talk about is oneself.

Meanwhile, as I said, my sin is not openly hating religious people enough. That's enough for many atheists to consider me their enemy. When I look at the role religion plays in a difficult human situation, I want the situation resolved. This means I must come up with something more useful than pounding my fists in a bawling tantrum about how God doesn't exist. Apparently, moving past the juvenile supremacist phase is a betrayal of the cause that isn't really a cause, a selling out of the movement that isn't a movement. It's just not atheist enough. What I'm supposed to do, apparently, is everything I can to make the situation worse.

Is there really any wonder I don't want to be counted among them? I mean, with the KKK or NSM, it's easy enough to not count myself among their numbers; I don't believe in their bigotry. Atheists, though? It would seem many are trying to take that mere proposition about the existence of God and turn it into something more. But when questioned about that something more they scurry back to the mere proposition. Here we have what I think is an appropriate idea, but apparently one must be a hatemongering bigot in order to kowtow appropriately to the idol.

 

[quinnsong]

Meanwhile, as I said, my sin is not openly hating religious people enough. That's enough for many atheists to consider me their enemy. When I look at the role religion plays in a difficult human situation, I want the situation resolved. This means I must come up with something more useful than pounding my fists in a bawling tantrum about how God doesn't exist. Apparently, moving past the juvenile supremacist phase is a betrayal of the cause that isn't really a cause, a selling out of the movement that isn't a movement. It's just not atheist enough. What I'm supposed to do, apparently, is everything I can to make the situation worse.

I

What is it that you would have a discussion between a believer and a non believer look like, Tiassa? Should we just say, well that is your personal belief or that is your own personal journey and I wish you good fortune with your journey and leave it at that?

 

[Balerion]

You speak arrogantly, as if only your opinion matters. Do something about your pathetic bigotry that hurts everyone and gains nothing but your own satisfaction, and I won't have a problem.

What bigotry? Support your bullshit accusations with citation, please.

No, seriously, dude, your lack of sympathy for your fellow human being is exactly the point. Don't crow about being a wannabe sociopath. It's absolutely disgusting.

LOL!

"It is only because I am a pacifist that I would not endorse a wholesale slaughter of those who wear the badge." --Tiassa​

Your hypocrisy is astounding, T. Seriously, calling someone else a wannabe sociopath and criticizing their lack of sympathy while shit like that came out of your own mouth barely a week ago takes balls. Huge ones. Like, the kind rednecks hang from their pickups.

Meanwhile, as I said, my sin is not openly hating religious people enough.

No, your sin is that you're full of shit. This is just another vapid, half-assed "Look at me" moments, where you mete out judgment on everyone without getting your hands dirty with reasoned arguments or supporting citations. You have zero interest in actually having a discussion--otherwise you might have responded to what Grumpy actually said rather than pulling out Stock Response #2 by calling him a bigot, and why you won't even address Aqueous Id's post.

I mean, if you were really hoping to be taken seriously by the people you're attacking, shit like this--

Do something about your pathetic bigotry that hurts everyone and gains nothing but your own satisfaction​

--wouldn't have gotten past all the internal irony alarms such a sentence would have certainly triggered. And in a bait thread, no less! One that you created!

I'm stunned that I'm going to the bother of writing this, honestly. Even if you do reply, it won't be anything more than the baseless accusations of bigotry and ignorance you're famous for. More likely, you won't respond at all, because as I said, for you, this isn't about the discussion. It's about taking weak-ass pot shots at an idea that frightens you. You're not even really upset about the alleged bigotry--it's just an empty insult, after all, one you refuse to substantiate with citation or argument--and no one in their right mind would call others a bigot, or talk of banging their fists on the table while having themselves regularly made statements such as this:

"It's Mississippi. This is nothing more or less than we have come to expect from that ignorant wasteland known as "middle America". "​

So, yeah. There's that.

It's almost as if you're a parody of yourself. If that's the point, congrats. You had me fooled.

If not...well...yeesh...

 

[quinnsong]

I suppose if there's a religious person out there living under a rock they may not understand what you're talking about. But for the rest there is no excuse. To them: Your ancestors ridiculed Darwin and prosecuted John Scopes for teaching what was already a settled matter of science (yes, the Darwin's finches did actually evolve per "adaptive radiation" from a common ancestor, as did the seaweed-eating iguanas, and the long and short necked turtles). They and their children filed lawsuit after lawsuit attempting to form in the common law a schism between government and science. And when that failed you elected George W Bush, who worked hard for you by picking political leaders of the government offices of science who would harass scientists, infiltrate the academies and universities, place restrictions on them and sanction them, while at the State level you elected to assemblies the enemies of academic freedom who wrote laws to curtail the free teaching of science, and school board officials who would require the publishers to go back and add caveats that "science is only a theory" "there may be other explanations" and of course they had to waste time in science class covering the history of religious outrage over Darwin's discoveries. Then, when Big Business married Big Religion and declared war on the government policies to curtail the orgies of greed that led to the crash of 2008, you invented Climate Science Denial, replete with its own infiltrators, mind-police, propaganda machinery, and of course lawsuits, harassment and intimidation of people like meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, experts in measuring solar irradiance, and biologists studying the effects of climate on ecosystem collapses.

But that wasn't enough. They and their children imposed Victorian taboos concerning private reproductive decisions, leading to countless deaths from sepsis and hemorrhage from back alley abortions. But even after the Supreme Court said "enough is enough" you decided to take it to the streets, harassing the pregnant women and staff at your neighborhood clinics, even resorting to vandalism, bombings, and murder--all in the name of God. Still that wasn't enough. You wanted to cure same-sex partners of their "disease" so you found satisfaction in what you called divine retribution for their "perversity": HIV/AIDS. Decades later you are still praying to keep same-sex couples marginalized.

And throughout all of this, you have created atheists, who shrank in horror from your pathological urges to harm innocent bystanders, your virulent religiosity, your manipulation of vulnerable minds, your lies, your narcissism and you chronic lack of remorse and blame-shifting.

Did you really expect no resistance? This is not militancy. Militancy would involve de-programming your congregations, suing your churches, bombing them and murdering their preachers, and raising an army groomed from childhood to root you out and destroy you.

So this is actually quite mild. This is just argument, just to tell you "we're not going to take it . . . anymore."

I know this is the third time this post has been cited and re-posted but it is deserving.Great post Aqueous!

 

[Grumpy]

Tiassa

You're part of the problem.

Actually, it is you who has the problem and it is your piss poor attitude that causes it. I approached my answers in this thread seriously finding that I was throwing pearls in front of someone who doesn't bother to read them in the seriousness with which they were crafted and simply mashed them into the ground in their rush to demonize. I've lost a lot of respect for you. What a waste of bandwidth.

Grumpy

 

[Kittamaru]

Okay ya'll, lets just step back and take a breath here. We have some vastly differing opinions, and that's fine - everyone is entitled to their opinion after all. Lets not come to blows over it and simply agree to disagree, hm?

 

[GeoffP]

The core fault on the thread is the generalisation by Tiassa: I don't agree with demonizing the religious either, but Tiassa accusing SF atheists of roasting them wholesale smacks of a little too much hypocrisy for him to be able to carry off via metaphor. Tiassa has certainly generalised religious sentiment on the forums himself, so what exactly he could possibly be legitimately bitching about? Is he announcing a period of personal reform? I'd be amused to see him try to make a go of that.

 

[Sorcerer]

Okay ya'll, lets just step back and take a breath here. We have some vastly differing opinions, and that's fine - everyone is entitled to their opinion after all. Lets not come to blows over it and simply agree to disagree, hm?

Why not? That'll give more time for the religionists to oppress and demonise those that don't fit into their lousy cults. Maybe we should start doing what Aqueous suggested:

Militancy would involve de-programming your congregations, suing your churches, bombing them and murdering their preachers, and raising an army groomed from childhood to root you out and destroy you.

Then afterwards we can step back and take a breath alright.

 

[spidergoat]

Tiassa,

Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I'm a one-trick pony. I don't devote all my on-line communications to converting the religious. On Sciforums, my only goal is my personal amusement. If I can convert someone fine, but I also recognize that someone like Jan is a lost cause. We don't want people like that anyway. What's left in such a case? Ridicule, which has it's purposes too. The advantage of not being an ideology is that we don't have to answer collectively for anyone else. Do your own thing, it's not my problem.

 

[Grumpy]

Tiassa

You have a personal problem, stop blaming others for the prejudice and intolerance you yourself are demonstrating so well. When you succeed in doing that then I might have something more to say to you, otherwise KMA.

Grumpy

 

[Bells]

See... this is what I don't get. Why can't Atheists and Theists co-exist?

It's a bit like asking why don't oranges taste like apples.

While both belong in a fruit salad, one is not like the other. And while such statements are steeped in bigotry and I detest even speaking it, the reason atheists and theists have such a hard time co-existing is because each deems themselves superior over the other. A Catholic deems him/herself above someone who is Pagan, for example, and so on and so forth.

The reason the two do not get along is because of a lack of respect for the other or any other who does not believe as we do.

I mean... is a difference in belief REALLY that big a deal?

That depends on which standard you are applying. Couple of people not getting along on the internet? Not a big deal at all. Now take this complex of superiority to the world stage or one's political movement.

Then again, I often wonder why Christian/Catholic/Jewish/Muslilm/Pagan people have such issues co-existing... I guess it just confuses me

To put it simply..

My God is better than your God!

 

[Yazata]

My bold. Damn right, as long as the religionists persecute women and minorities.

You're making precisely the same error that Tiassa is making.

Tiassa seems to think that atheism and atheists in general are assholes, because particular examples of atheist assholes exist.

And you seem to think that religion and "religionists" (a peculiar and as-yet undefined word) in general are assholes, because particular examples of religious assholes exist.

You two seem to be mirror images of each other.

Psychologically, both of you display (and seem proud of) a weird self-righteous anger.

And logically, you're both making errors of faulty generalization. Atheists aren't all over-the-top militant assholes, even though those types certainly exist. And "religionists" aren't all "persecuting women and minorities", even though that sometimes happens.

It's just factually false to imagine that all atheists share some weird militant agenda because some militants exist. (Most atheists aren't even aware of those who presume to speak for them and wouldn't follow them if they did.)

And it's just factually false to imagine that all "religionists" are "persecutors" because some persecutors exist. (Many "religionists" are among the leaders in promoting human-rights and in helping people around the world.)

It's nothing to do with fanaticism or fundamentalism, just a desire not to be persecuted or demonised.

I seem to recall you saying that you live in Britain. Has anyone really been persecuting or demonizing you?

 

[Sorcerer]

You're making precisely the same error that Tiassa is making.

Tiassa seems to think that atheism and atheists in general are assholes, because individual examples of atheist assholes exist.

And you seem to think that religion and "religionists" (a peculiar and as-yet undefined word) in general are assholes, because individual examples of religious assholism exist.

You two seem to be mirror images of each other.

Psychologically, both you you display (and seem proud of) a weird self-righteous anger.

And logically, you're both making errors of faulty generalization. Atheists aren't all over-the-top militant assholes, even though those types certainly exist. And "religionists" aren't all "persecuting women and minorities", even though that sometimes happens.

It's just factually false to imagine that all atheists share some weird militant agenda because some militants exist. (Most atheists aren't even aware of those who presume to speak for them and wouldn't follow them if they did.)

And it's just factually false to imagine that all "religionists" are "persecutors" because some persecutors exist. (Many "religionists" are among the leaders in promoting human-rights and in helping people around the world.)



I seem to recall you saying that you live in Britain. Has anyone really been persecuting or demonizing you?

Please note what I said: "as long as the religionists persecute women and minorities."

If they stop doing that then I don't care what they do - they are free to carry on with their rituals. Well, I hope they stop killing each other as well - see my other thread.

Let's be 100% clear: the only problem I have with religion is when they influence public policy, seek to teach lies in school, or persecute women, minorities, or, come to think if it, other religions. People are people and have the same rights, and are entitled to peace, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness, which includes getting laid.

Making comparisions between Tiassa and myself is not very useful, tbh, and I never said that all atheists share anything at all: I only speak for myself.

And listen carefully now: don't get personal or seek personal details about me. Where I live or what I do or whether I am or have been subject to persecution is none of your business, and you should know that. An apology is in order.

 

[quinnsong]

I have to wonder is it really about belief at all? What I see happening here is pure EGO!

 

[Kittamaru]

Indeed... the war between personal belief, desire, and ego is one that can be very hard to sort out in ones own mind... trying to put it to words while avoiding conflict... that is something worthy of Godliness right there...