Zero, I'll even tell you what my problem is ....
After reviewing my posts, I'll say that it was wrong to say "white robe and cross". It was a logically error to associate every god with that.
Zero, this is the only point I'm after with that.
Given the message of your post, I found it quite offensive.
ut your yelling is not instilling an seriously apologetic feelings within me.
Well, your broad, brushstroke veneer of bigotry combined with self-righteous hypocrisy does little to impress my respect for your intelligence or character.
We're even on that, then, I suppose.
But given that I've been taking a lot of flak for pointing out the atheistic tendency (in evidence at Sciforums) to restrict the atheistic condemnation to a single religious paradigm while opposing the whole notion of God, I'm neither inclined to receive kindly the regular enactments of this concept which people merely need be able to identify in their own lives in order to change. I've pointed it out, I've provided examples, and I've received opposition. All I can possibly say is that if atheists do not want this particular result to be associated with atheism, they must necessarily be conscious of this result and how they reach it.
If you watch closely, there's one or two atheists that I don't argue with. I generally have no cause. And if, for instance, you were to dig up the archived posts on relevant topics, you'll find that most of the appearance of conflict 'twixt myself and those posters comes from communication issues which we quickly hammered out. It's one of the reasons why I think communication with atheism in general is possible--because it is known to exist elsewhere in the atheist/theist relationship.
But those posters are
aware of the fact that, when refuting any specific notion of God, that is the only one they're dealing with, and do not show this tendency to apply the cross as a blanket paradigm.
If I seem furious, it's for a number of reasons. Foremost and definitively most apparent is the issue of wrongful identification. It does, in fact, reveal a bigotry so deep-seeded that it interferes with your perception of reality. This is absolutely self-evident. But understand--and this seems to be a problem for humans in general, regardless of religion or favorite discussion board or whatnot--that
everyone bears such bigotries. It's how much we let them interfere with our perception that counts. I've been blazingly anti-Christian before, and it is, in fact, among the things I've gotten from Sciforums that I've come to be actually more tolerant of Christian diversity. Seriously, after watching Christians split that many hairs, I get the point; if I say that "they're all Christians until they stop and think about it", well, that reflects what appears to be the result. It's now much, much easier for me to hold each Christian responsible for more individualistic or factionalized faith points specifically, as opposed to a general notion. And the process of learning those distinctions also helped me understand something about the Christian psychosis. From experience,
Zero, setting aside this particular form of belly-fire bigotry will only help your understanding the functional reality of existing in a world with Christians.
But there are other factors which raise my ire. I'm well aware that some atheists do, in fact, differ on this point with me (I can't speak for the rest), but I think the
living result of an idea contributes to the measure of its functional worth. Christians, for instance, can tell me what they want about God and His attendant version of reality, but the key evidence of Christianity's failure is in its human manifestations. We're all sinners, sure, but come on ... Christians seem to specialize in certain sins that work to all of our detriment. There's something wrong there, and it's observable in its result among the living (and, in fact, the dead).
So here's the problem: I actually do respect atheism, and find its position both acceptable and to have a positive result. But this is a specific notion of atheism, which was at one point in my life, experientially common. It didn't work for me, but there's no denying the potential of it. However, atheists at Sciforums have soundly rejected that notion of atheism, and we're left with a neutral anti-identification that is preferred by the posters. Just as the individual Christians create a poor living representation of Christianity, so do atheists create a poor or good representation of atheism. If the willful (specifically) suspension of certain forms of superstition has any practical benefit?
I used to tell Christians that I felt like I respected Christianity more than they did. By that I meant that when put to me, I could describe a certain ideal state that could be wrought of Christianity. My vision was far, far more progressive and beneficial than I've ever heard from a Christian. Their utopiate ideas generally
suck. I really did feel like I had put more thought into it than they did. And it's possible I did, because while I never operated by the specific conscious label of "antichristian", my regard for Christianity has been, for years, a reactionary anti-identification. It's only in the last year or so that I've even
started to get over that. But it is entirely possible that I spent more time examining Christian faith than the average Christian. Yeah, I hope I learned from it.
Having found atheism inadequate for me because of certain consequences resulting from atheistic necessity combined with various factors of my fundamental beliefs, I still respect the idea, and see much potential for humankind in atheism. But I've been most stunned of late to find that such potential seems to be absent from a high percentage of atheists I know.
There are old debates, buried in the archives, in which Christians would accuse atheists of having no moral structure. The counterargument, which still holds true today, is that starting logically unfettered, one had a better chance of developing a truly moral propriety, based on observation of results, than one who operated under a preordained, blackmailing moral authority.
I do at this time owe Sciforums' atheists a collective apology; I apparently set this as a standard for atheistic propriety. That is, I apparently came to
expect this of atheistic manifestation, and that is wrong. I was, however, quite shocked to learn that my error was setting a standard that was too high. I don't mean that as an underhanded barb, either. I'll pitch that one blatantly because it's how I feel.
And I'll put it this way: I feel like atheists, who reject religion for certain specific reasons, such as the damage it can cause, are perfectly happy to carry on causing similar damage of their own free (non-blackmailed) will.
Atheism
can in fact make you a smarter and a better person.
I just don't get why that's so freaking offensive a notion to atheists.
Of course, I've also been called selfish for asserting the value of the collective over the individual. Whatever particular philosophical label that is the result of, it is one best avoided. I mean, whatever combination of factors resulted in that perspective, I do not wish to undertake except as a theoretical venture. Selfish ol' me can't bear to apply them because selfish ol' me believes that the best potential of my life also happens to coincide with the collective good as a rule of being alive. What I'm getting at is that certain things don't make much sense to me when I view their application in life. This angry, bitter atheism going around is more than a little like a religion. It's kind of scary that way.
I mean, look at it: diverse methods used to reach a preconceived notion that is the basis of the common identification. These diverse methods, while valid and
diverse, are somehow supposed to all equal the same thing. We have to start redefining words, as I've mentioned before, to accomplish that.
I accept its diversity. But it really is hard to address it since, every time one addresses atheism, there's an atheist there to tell him that he doesn't know what atheism is. We could spend as much time with that atheist hammering out the details, even become lifelong drinking buddies and so forth. And one day some dude at the pub has occasion to discuss God and atheism and as we consider the merits, this latest atheist says, No, you don't understand atheism. You don't know what atheism is. All sorts of stuff like that. I just don't get it. It's such an anti-identification, atheists protect it by not allowing it to be identified. It seems a simple enough proposition: the rejection of the proposition that God exists, some variation thereof, or complete and blissful unawareness of any such idea as God, and thus free from any superstitions that might lend toward such a notion.
Yet we're told by atheists that we're attaching too much to it when we discuss certain results of the atheistic conclusion. I accept that, but point out my repeated assertion that atheists may not understand the magnitude of what they're rejecting. Compared to a state of theism, it can be safely said that the atheistic conclusion would require a reformulation of these facets of life for ... 95% of the people who might become atheists.
Now I'm all for blissful unawareness, but what kind of isolation from the common human experience would be required to keep a mind completely free from the notion of God? So, working with the religious people ....
Atheism is an anti-identification, and this is where that point can become important. Joe the Christian one day concludes that there is no God. Feeling constricted by his moral structure, he begins examining why he holds the morals he does. Eventually he examines fundamental notions of right and wrong, and the presumptions behind them. All of this has to be reconstructed when one chooses to become an atheist if they already believe in a conventional version of God.
But Joe may become a Humanist or a Transhumanist or adopt any number of non-theistic philosophies or ways of living, or Joe may become "Joe", and just figure out a label-free, mutt perspective that makes him a happy and productive member of society unfettered by notions of God. Atheism chops away a huge part of people's moral and comparative psychology. It's a very specific idea, atheism. It cannot provide for all that void. And that's why the results of the atheistic conclusion are so important to consider. What it could be worth and what it actually buys are two separate figures.
So I won't bother asking excuse for my fury. Given the opportunity that comes with atheism to escape certain divisive and destructive patterns, I can't believe people are that determined to simply find non-religious justifications for the same kind of behavior.
Atheism rejects a God, a myth. This is inconsistent with their acceptance of many other myths.
It's part of the reason I gave up atheism.
But that's not nearly important as what atheism could accomplish if it understood what it was rejecting in the first place.
thanx,
Tiassa
