Analretento literalism?
Voodoo Child
I think you expect too much of atheism, it is merely a single adjective that doesn't even describe oneself or all but one of our views.
Actually, I think atheists expect too little of atheism. It's a strange lack of sympathy that puzzles me. It would seem that most atheists I know both here at Sciforums and out in the real world have no real clue what they're asking of a religious person when they assert there is no God.
It seems like a small enough concept, I admit. But to a religious person facing the world without God, it's huge. Because along with that tiny assertion, out goes the moral foundation, the replacing of which is a huge, time-consuming, stressful process. (As a social comment, I wish to point out American labor and family habits; who really has time to upend their most basic paradigm?)
For some, God and His texts help them understand how to deal with this ultimately strange and unknown person they married. For others, God and His texts help people understand why they're carrying a rifle and killing people they've never met before.
Just a couple of examples; these are ethical structures which, while they have no part of an atheist's regard for the tiny idea of atheism, are foreseeable in its results. The inability of so many atheists to recognize this stifles any progress toward the defeat of religious ideas. The inability of so many atheists to recognize the scale of their miniscule assertion is a good reason why so many of them ramble incoherently when discussing the issues that atheism touches but is not. I mean, an atheist once told me I was arrogant and making myself too important when I asserted that people exist for the benefit of the species and not for their own benefit. Come on ...
that is funny. But it wouldn't have happened if the atheist had considered the scale of what his tiny ideas addressed.
Atheism is sometimes the direct result of history, philosophy and personal experience.
This I know well, both in the individual and cultural aspects.
Are you referring to their particular dislike of certain philosophies, certain historical perspectives? And their guardedness in accepting subjective experiences as a source of knowledge?
I'm referring in part to the childish hypocrisy of people's conduct. Why get mad at me for something they accept elsewise? Analogously, that's like Americans getting mad at someone for speaking his or her mind. It's pure horsepucky hypocrisy.
You've been around long enough to remember the big theist/atheist blowup we had earlier this year that has never really settled down. All of those people like Xev and GIL and others telling me I don't have an accurate picture of atheism despite the fact that I have held atheist beliefs and conducted myself accordingly in the past. People don't like my perspective? Why? Because it's the most roundly informed?
And, furthermore, if atheists are upset at my characterizations because they find them unfair, why not point out the general unfairness of them? I'm very critical of Christians, probably nastier toward them than toward atheists, and very forgiving of Buddhism, Sufism, and even Judaism. Why aren't they pointing out how unfair I'm being to Christians? What, we get all over each other for being unfair to other groups. What is it about the animosity toward Christianity that they're willing to accept?
At least I'm consistent.
The atheist is not opposed to this, nor immune to such distorted vision.
Seems almost uniform.
The typical atheist would recognise that the world doesn't conform to our beliefs, arrogant SOB that it is. They'd probably say that looking at things the way they want to be is merely an inefficient way of looking at ourselves.
I thought "typical" described a majority state:
1. Exhibiting the qualities, traits, or characteristics that identify a kind, class, group, or category: a typical suburban community. 2. Of or relating to a representative specimen; characteristic or distinctive. 3. Conforming to a type: a composition typical of the baroque period. 4. also typ·ic (-k) Of the nature of, constituting, or serving as a type; emblematic. (American Heritage)
1. Commonly encountered: average, common, commonplace, general, normal, ordinary, usual. See SURPRISE. 2. Serving to identify or set apart an individual or group: characteristic, distinctive, individual, peculiar, vintage. See SAME. 3. Having the nature of, constituting, or serving as a type: archetypal, archetypic, archetypical, classic, classical, model, paradigmatic, prototypal, prototypic, prototypical, quintessential, representative, typic. See SAME, USUAL. (Roget's II)
I like the "arrogant SOB that it is line". That the world is arrogant for disagreeing is definitely typical, but I don't see the rest of it as typical.
Perhaps atheists take issue with your presentation of atheism you both have different ideas of what atheism is. Most atheists(mass generalisation here) don't see atheism as a worldview or a collection of values.
And most gun owners think of their guns as "tools", not weapons.
The problem is that what atheism asserts
affects worldviews.
It's kind of like saying all you did was cut a piece of rubber. It's true, but what if that rubber is a brake line on a car and someone dies as a result of your actions? Sure, you just "cut rubber", but what it affected was more than just the rubber.
Certes, atheism is a tiny assertion. Nobody doubts its smallness. But what it aspires to affect is huge, larger than most atheists are capable of comprehending.
It is merely a term they use to describe their position to a certain aspect of the world(or from their perspective, a certain aspect of other people).
And if they are not smart enough to understand what their ideas affect, I'm supposed to ... what, respect them even more?
It's a word without a definition, technically, since a whole bunch of people with different views on God want to use the same label for themselves.
• God doesn't exist and never has; I'm an atheist.
• I am without any opinion of God; I am an atheist.
• I don't know if God exists or not: I am an atheist.
• I think God is a psychological phenomenon; I'm an atheist.
Oh, wait ... I can't recall any atheists standing for that last point. Whoops. Sorry. But there is:
• Religion is a mental illness; I'm an atheist
as well.
I expect that you have seen the high correlation of atheist characteristics* and assume they constituted a part of atheism
Well, having been an atheist and decided the idea too small to be functional, I keep wondering at this pseudo-religious assertion going on about what gives me my impressions of atheism and atheists.
Perhaps, for all intensive purposes they do.
I think atheists must be aware of their common identity. Think of another small phrase, miniscule idea, tiny suggestion:
• Harm none.
It's a tiny rule.
It has
huge implications.
Most witches know this rule; the
waerloga I've known were in constant denial of its scale.
There is no God: a tiny sentence with huge results.
In my experience it has been shown time and again that atheists would be better served to simply worry about other things. To stake so much on such a tiny idea while denying its massive implications makes atheism seem kind of cultish.
•
Analretento-materialism: I've also noticed a strong tendency among atheists to bear pseudo-literalist regard for religious texts.
thanx,
Tiassa
