You insult other people and you insult the remarks that they make. Rudeness and insults aren't the same thing as thoughtful and friendly disagreement.
Where have I insulted you?
Far from being a "red herring", atheists' compassion is the stated subject of this thread. Like it or not, you and the other atheists here on Sciforums are examples of atheists. How you behave towards others represents data-points relating to this issue.
You are not an object of compassion. You are participants in a debate. You're not even really people; you're just words on a screen. And as such, I'm taking my argument to those words, not to your person. I don't know you. I don't know what you look like, I don't know what you sound like, your temperament, or anything important about you. I can only judge you here by your arguments, and then only the traits relevant to these debates, such as your intellectual honesty, perhaps your ethics depending on what the debate is, or your tendency toward Political Correctness. And your argument against the studies presented are indicative of intellectual dishonesty and Political Correctness. I can tell that you're smart enough to understand the studies and their conclusions, so I'm only left with the option that you consciously choose to ignore it.
I said that my own experience has tended to contradict the study's conclusions. In my experience, the more militant sort of atheists display noticeably less compassion than the average person. They are noticeably ruder and nastier. Your behavior on Sciforums is consistent with that generalization, Dawg.
Your conclusion is not based on the same criteria those studies were based on, and you're presenting a much different definition of "compassion" than we are operating under. For you, compassion is politeness in debates, but I don't know anyone (outside of the usual suspects here) who would agree to that definition. The study itself consisted of people being shown images of suffering and helplessness, and asked to either give or withhold fake money. This is not the same as studying two people engaged in a philosophical or scientific debate and seeing which one between the theist and the atheist is more rude.
I would not be surprised if many atheists you met were less than patient with you if presented with silly ideas. For example, dismissing a group of studies by redefining terms and making assertions you won't or can't support might make an atheist think you're being intentionally dense.
I also said that when I turn my attention away from self-identified atheists arguing atheism to typical people in everyday secular situations, I can't generally distinguish what religious grouping a person belongs to, if any, simply by how they behave towards other people at work, recreationally or when they are shopping. People seem to display a similar compassion-range, that seems to be more a function of their shared humanity than of their religious adherence or lack of it.
Again, compassion is not simply how well you get along with your workmates, so I'd question your authority to make such a claim. How often in your everyday life are you witness to situations in which compassion would come into play? Even if you were to tell me that you sit next to a homeless man asking for change every day for an hour, how could you say that there was no difference in general between atheists and theists unless you knew what each person passing by was? The simple answer is that you can't, therefore your claim is baseless.
In other words, if people are behaving in non-religious contexts, I don't think that religion typically influences their level of compassion all that much. Compassion arises deeper in people's psychology.
The studies suggest otherwise. Can you link to any studies that actually support your claims?
When people find themselves in explicitly religious (or anti-religious) contexts, the more aggressive personalities among them will often start to act like jerks. We see that happening with religious fanatics of various sorts, and we also see it happening with militant atheists. I think that's probably what explains my observation that loud atheists are noticeably less compassionate than the average person.
What explains your observation is a misunderstanding of what "compassion" means.
a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
Compassion is not how someone reacts to your silly ideas and irrational arguments.
The point was that atheists' aggressive and uncompassionate rhetorical behavior is self-defeating in this thread, since it belies the conclusion that they want other people to accept, that atheists are more compassionate than others. Compassion is something that atheists will have to actually demonstrate in their own behavior.
Again, you're using "compassion" incorrectly. If I call you an idiot for your beliefs, I am not demonstrating a lack of compassion, because you are not stricken by misfortune. I am perhaps showing a lack of
patience, and depending on the level of vitriol, a lack of civility, but certainly not a lack of compassion. Compassion does not come into play here.
I think that compassion is empathy and sympathy for the suffering and discomfort of others. It's typically associated with a desire to not cause additional suffering, to avoid making existing suffering worse, and to help alleviate it if that's possible.
Oh, so then your misuse of the term above is witting? That's troubling.
You've called my remarks "irrational" and told me that you "see what I am up to", but you haven't really said a whole lot about why you think I'm wrong.
Don't play that game. Of course I have said why you're wrong. And there are three studies after the link which also contradict you.
You're welcome to disagree with me. I invite people to do that. (All of my posts are made in hopes of stimulating discussion.) But especially in the context of this thread, where the topic is atheists' supposedly superior compassion, atheists need to express their disagreements... compassionately.
Once again, you misuse "compassionately." But aside from that, I do not need your permission to disagree with you. Once you put your thoughts on the forum, they are up for debate. And I sincerely doubt that your post was made to stimulate discussion. The fact that you know what compassion means yet use it incorrectly to suit your needs suggests that your only goal (or perhaps your primary goal) is to appear moderate, because the appearance of moderateness can be mistaken by the uninformed as the appearance of intelligence or thoughtfulness.