What is with all the threads attacking atheism/atheists lately?

Originally posted by Annee

Originally posted by Arsenis
sometimes repetition is the best way to not ignore this points.

I dunno. Some "hard heads" on here - - that just can not and will not accept that some lack belief in a deity.

How many times must it be repeated?

Annee, there is no limit. There will never be consensus. Logic and reason do not ever burn as bright as belief and faith.
The problem is not the lack of belief in a deity (any deity, an oft misinterpreted point) but simply that one who "knows the truth" will not entertain any argument opposing that viewpoint even when it is merely a different interpretation of the same "truth".
For almost all deity based religions whether pantheistic or monotheistic any differing viewpoint is regarded as a threat (more so today than any other time).
By definition you, I and many others are regarded as that threat simply because we choose not to believe what we are told and display disturbing tendencies to ask "how ?" rather than to accept what is taught.

Our lack of faith is disturbing, for if a deity falls from the heavens and it has no believers...does it still make a sound ?
Guess we should ask all the skyfathers and mothers who no longer have followers.

Re Arsenis

You wrote:

["I think both sides fight because both sides are trying to tell each other what they believe in, mostly by insults, "Atheist" call the other side fairy believers, and Religious people condemn the Atheist."]

You're right, but the heated part is much more manifested, when somebody inisists on 'pushing' exclusive absolutes. While I'm no genius nor professional scientist, it's not only irritating, but right out insulting, when some whippersnapper reading aloud from a holy manual to me, decides on my part (and all of mankind's) what's ultimately true for me. Completely disregarding my many years of decent lay-person study on the subject, even after this whippersnapper has been told about my half-way competence.

"No, no, it SAYS so here in the holy manual, and why do you close your eyes to 'truth'." (Which is another way of telling me to put my knowledge, where the sun doesn't shine; at once).

It's not a question of pulling rank, by age, knowledge or competence on my part. It's just my aversion to self-contained and self-satisfied unwillingness to communicate.

Those with willingness to communicate without pushing their absolutes, usually are met with more respect. Not being an atheist myself, I generally/mostly find atheists more easy to communicate with. With the occasional non-pushy theist being decent also. But such relaxed theists don't seem to participate much on ATS.

Re Noncompatible

Quote: ["Our lack of faith is disturbing, for if a deity falls from the heavens and it has no believers...does it still make a sound ?"]


Niiiice. Many applauds here from Weirdville. You summed up twenty years of study in one elegant and witty sentence.

You computer-types can put some smiling faces or waving hands in your posts. Such is beyond me. Consider it done instead on the screen of mind.

If you have to ask …WTF? The Christians didn’t get together to attack the atheists and atheism? They just started to defend themselves from the atheists. It’s about time. I’m seeing this all over the world. The groups that have been beaten down by politically correct left wing commie pinko’s have been taking a stand! Now the lefty politically correct pinko’s are scared. They don’t know how to handle someone they can’t shut up and conform to their ideology. Remember when being left was radical. The left is the establishment and the RIGHT is the radicals!

reply to post by Student X


If someone were to posit that the word "God" refers to an extra-terrestrial intelligence or being, as opposed to an omnipotent all-encompassing creator who used human beings as surrogates to write a book, then yes, I would accept that as a potentially valid hypothesis.

I think the above may have been the point AllIsOne was attempting to drive at, but we were unable to arrive at consensus, it appears.

@AllIsOne; I know I must have upset you with my last post, but the exercises you were attempting to have me conduct are/were meaningless as to the subject at hand. If you would care to clarify what you were attempting to say, I would attempt to understand it without terse words. However, in our conversation so far I believe you have been rather vague, if not outright cryptic in presenting your case.

I just wanted to quickly point something out, I havnt read the thread yet, but will be going back to read it. I am new here and was from glp, I cant tell you how funny it is to see the title of this thread, compaired to all the threads that were on glp saying "Why so many hate Christians/Jesus". ahhh fresh air

When the cat is out, the mice play on the table...so I would like to join in the recent anomaly-direction, including an intent to justify this as a somewhat part of the OP and a suggestion on a potential common communication-basis.

From the age of twenty and onwards, my life started to be flooded with anomalies in different areas. In shorter or longer periods and in such different contexts as tantric sex, UFOs, my amateur-reiki-healing, extended close encounters with non-human entities and little aside and above 'transcendence'. Sometimes alone, sometimes in company (well, that goes without saying for at least the tantric part).

While there's no safety in numbers (from a logic perspective considering 'validity'), I'm at least not insane alone; which is a small consolation. But caught betwen the ultimates of materialist reductionism and doctrinal theist 'explanations', I would, if forced, rather be considered insane from a classical science/medicine perspective, than still being insane AND on the top add some theist fabulation. A fabulation I don't need for satisfying my personal mindset, a fabulation hindering a search for 'real' answers.

The origin of most theist doctrines can ALSO be considered from an anomaly perspective (though a closer examination would divide the anomaly group into cosmic/non-cosmic. But that's beyond my present aim).

Disregarding the extremist groups of materialist reductionism and doctrinal absolute theism, which on predetermined principles process anomalies this or that way, I'm convinced that a few simple words can bring some sense to the seemingly dichotomies popping up ever so often:

"Working hypothesis"

It cointains no threatening absolutes, it's flexible enough to admit changes without loss of face, and in its best forms it shouldn't create a false antagonism between 'hard' intellect/logic/science and 'soft' subjectivism.

Two conditions must be filled before venturing into such an effort of syncretism: A common epistemological basis (non-threatening to value-systems in other 'relative reality' models) and a good cleaning up in one's own backyard (extremists will start howling at the last one).

But we already have a potential meeting ground in a relationbased-observer-holographic-universe scientific hypothesis.

We already have various bids on a 'science of mind', and though 'science of mind' needs a lot of sharpening up, both semantically and not least rationally, it is per se a useful and valuable concept. Some of such bids including a relationbased-observer-holographic-universe hypothesis.

Without a greater risk of sneaking any extremist principles in through the backdoor, a dialogue should be possible.

Re Defenestrator

Quote: ["I guess I got lucky, I now have a permanently attached giant sociological tin-foil hat. Having seen that was a blessing and a curse."]

I would be wary about using a tin-foil hat. Contrary to funtioning as a Faraday's cage screening out weirdness, it's been said, that it actually amplifies it. My own observations at least confirm, that there's no preventive Faraday's cage effect concerning anomalies.

Re Annee

Quote: ["I'm one who does believe the "gods" of ancient time were off planet beings. In my opinion "god" - the omnipotent one of religion - is a man-made phenomenon."]

On this specific subject, you and I are of one mind.

Though I would like to include hyper-dimensional beings as an option also. I'm somewhat a fan of J. Vallée (name-spelling?).

Originally posted by defenestrator
reply to post by Student X

 

If someone were to posit that the word "God" refers to an extra-terrestrial intelligence or being, as opposed to an omnipotent all-encompassing creator who used human beings as surrogates to write a book, then yes, I would accept that as a potentially valid hypothesis.

Well for what its worth, that strikes me as an open-minded position. For an atheist.

If the nature of reality is psychophysical, or that of a neutral or mental monism, then the kind of intelligence you refer to wouldn't really be alien to the earth. It would be alien to the conscious ego-self...which is a tiny part of the psyche.

The Enduring Enigma of UFOs

[...]

“Space-Age myth” does not imply that UFO sightings or encounters with angels, aliens, fairies, sprites, elves, or demons are fantasies. Rather, it suggests that some of these experiences may literally be psychophysical, blurring conventional boundaries between objective and subjective realities. Some may object that this proposal doesn’t account for the physical traces associated with some UFO reports, but this misinterprets what Jung and others have proposed. They suggest that the manifest world emerges from mind, that is, that mind shapes matter. Where have we heard this before?

In his book Global Mind Change, former IONS President Willis Harman discussed three basic ways of looking at the world. He called the current Western scientific worldview “materialistic monism,” or “M1.” Within M1, everything both matter and energy— is made of a single substance. From matter emerges everything, including the brain-generated illusion called mind. In M1, angels and aliens walking through walls are fine plot points for an episode of The Twilight Zone, but they are impossible in the real world. In M1, UFOs are conceivable, but only in terms of hard, physical spacecraft with humanoid pilots. Most of the modern technological world was created based on M1 assumptions, so it carries enormous persuasive power. But the whole panoply of noetic experiences defy materialistic explanations, suggesting that M1 is an incomplete worldview. Detailed taxonomies of these anomalies are described by all cultures; they include, among others, the Hindu siddhis, the Catholic charisms, Sufi attainments, and, in indigenous societies, shamanic magic.

Harman’s second worldview, M2, represents dualism, which assumes two fundamentally different kinds of substances in the universe, matter and mind. Many scientists today reject dualism because it begs the problem of how two deeply different substances could interact at all. In addition, it seems lavish to require the universe to maintain (at least) two distinct essences, when it would be far simpler to have only one.

The third worldview, M3, is transcendental or mental monism, which Harman argued is the source of both the perennial wisdom and the emerging worldview of the twenty-first century. In M3, consciousness is primary, and matter and energy are emergent properties of consciousness. M3 accommodates everything that M1 and M2 allow for, as well as rogue phenomena like telepathic ETs, observation-shy UFOs, and collective mind–manifested UFOs. Evidence in favor of M3 has been slowly amassing for over a century. Such recent books as Irreducible Mind, Entangled Minds, and Measuring the Immeasurable (see review 0n page 41) discuss the empirical evidence in detail, ranging from psychic phenomena to creative genius to mind-body interactions to evidence suggestive of reincarnation.

[...]

Re AllisOne

You wrote:

["So the rational mind is the gate keeper of truth ...?"]

Only from a reductionist perspective or in a formal 'we stay at defined science' situation. But the last option is to narrow for general communication. Emotions (however defined and 'explained') are a pragmatic part of human existence.

Quote: ["There are many paths that the mind can explore, ....."]

True, and it can be quite fun too.

[".......but there is only one way for the heart."]

Which is ....?

Meh.

The Theists are only a concern when they start burning witches.

The pushing of a "theocracy" is always a goal of some of the Corporate manipulators. As long as you can get a large enough group to be "fundamentalist" -- about anything -- it doesn't matter what. You can manipulate them because they DO NOT QUESTION THEIR LEADERS.

You only need to corrupt, co-op, or replace the great leader, and you OWN fundamentalists. So historically, religion is useful to despots and exploiters and they are always at the top of every mountain of fools.

Re Something wicked

You wrote:

["Agnostic atheism is a buzzword to make something sound more exotic than it is. Sorry, atheism could not be simpler to define - disbelief in God/s."]

Is this almost obsessional preoccupation with language, bordering on scolastic, really constructive? As far as I can see, the initial introduction of this specific subject was a debate-tactical maneuver, to paint athiests into a weak corner-position.

'Reality' is bigger than language, language not bigger than 'reality'. That goes for all kinds of symbolic representations.

Originally posted by bogomil
Re Annee

Quote: ["I'm one who does believe the "gods" of ancient time were off planet beings. In my opinion "god" - the omnipotent one of religion - is a man-made phenomenon."]

On this specific subject, you and I are of one mind.

Though I would like to include hyper-dimensional beings as an option also. I'm somewhat a fan of J. Vallée (name-spelling?).

Yes - I'm open to almost all probable/possibles. But still consider religion man-made.

Re Student X

You wrote:

["Thats fine. I wouldn't expect you to, until you experience that which those words refer to. Just keep in mind...the words are not the things. The words are mere symbols."]

Yeeees.

["If those things were expressed to you in an entirely different system of terminology and symbolism with no emotional and cultural baggage clinging to it, you just might find that you do indeed believe in them. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."]

Yes again. But the 'just might' is manifesting as a problem for mankind in general in proportions out-of-context. We're at the mindset level there, not even slightly rational or 'objective' (whatever that can be said to be ultimately).

Re D1Useek

You wrote:

["If you have to ask …WTF? The Christians didn’t get together to attack the atheists and atheism? They just started to defend themselves from the atheists. It’s about time. I’m seeing this all over the world. The groups that have been beaten down by politically correct left wing commie pinko’s have been taking a stand! Now the lefty politically correct pinko’s are scared. They don’t know how to handle someone they can’t shut up and conform to their ideology. Remember when being left was radical. The left is the establishment and the RIGHT is the radicals!"]

Thank you for examplifying my opinion on doctrinal extremism. You did great.

Though the special angle of 'persecuted christians' could do with a bit more sophistication. You're not on a political thread here, and by thus not really responding to the present thread, you also demonstrate some confusion about your present location in life.

But nice try and again thank you.

PS I dislike red, both as a colour and as a poltical symbol. I'm a bit rightist politically; in case your involvment on this thread goes beyond hit-and-run.

haha... no, the christians did not have a secret meeting lol. Neither did the atheists. What you (and the christians) have to understand about this site is that there are people who, for whatever reason, like to incite hatred, rouse emotions, etc. Some of these people are just bored and this is there way of exerting a little bit of power over some other people. Some are hired by the gov to keep us from uniting. If I go start a thread attacking raligion or atheism or some other belief, people from both sides will come in and attack each other, grudges will be held, feelings will be hurt, and the people who fell for it will never be able to unite against those who take advantage of you. I wouldn`t even waste my time joining in the battle, you won`t convince anyone by arguing and insulting them, which is the tactic used by most. People need to go their own path. You didn`t come crawling out of the womb with your current beliefs in mind. And 5 years from now, or 5 minutes, your whole belief system could change. It happens every day. So it seems kinda silly to go on ansd on until you`re blue in the face trying to convince someone of something noone ios sure of... if anything you will only push them further away from your point of view. Well unless you use scare tactics and your goal is to scare them into bel
ieving as you do, then screaming and ranting and raving just might be the thing for you. It`s worked for pastors & cult leaders for a loooong time. Don`t get me wrong, I enjoy reading the religious threads, what I don`t enjoy is reading posts where people declare the truth as if they know it and then insult everyone else. I don`t care what side of the fence you`re on...you were not there when the universe was created or when humans were created, so you do not know how it all went down. Keeping that in mind, feel free to speculate in a polite manner on ANY subject, just keep an open mind about things which we do not know the answer to. There is no shame in not knowing everything. As rediculous as it sounds, I felt it was necessary to say that. "Admitting that you know nothing is the first wise thing you can do in life, it`s the 1st step towards knowing something." Some of us have not taken that step and it kills me to see these inflated egos, I feel sorry for them. And part of me wonders how many are being paid to uppset people in here and disrupt what could be a great cooperative learning environment.
It`s just sooo easy to do it... it makes it hard to believe that it`s not going on around here. And did I hear they got rid of the ignore button recently? Interesting timing... after the white house declared war on conspiracy sites. Well, any thing that gets big enough and popular enough will eventually be infiltrated, so if it hasn`t happened I`m sure it will soon. Nature of the beast... wonder what the next big clue will be, I`ve already seen quite a few threads questioning the integrity of this site, but hopefully it`s all just coincidenses.


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reply to post by something wicked

Originally posted by something wicked
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

Oh dear, where do I start? Randomly I guess.

You could just address my points in sequence. Hell, you could show me where my syllogism is flawed:

1: You are unable to believe ideas you are unaware of.
2: If you are unable to believe something, you do not believe it.
3: People who do not believe in any deity are called atheists.
4: People who are unaware of the concept of deities are unable to believe in them.
5: People who are unaware of the concept of deities do not believe in them.
6: Therefore; People who are unaware of the concept of deities are atheists.

QED

Quantify is relavent, I was quantifying, you were attempting to qualify. Quantify is to measure - I said atheism is a binary decision - believe in a deity or don't believe in a deity. You listed several degrees of atheism. We were both quantifying the level of atheism.

No, you were attempting to practice the fallacy of the excluded middle, better known as the false dilemma. You cannot break down atheism into a binary issue, and I demonstrated why that is. You replied with a simple statement that I was wrong without so much as explaining why.

You said "you do not believe in things you do not know of".... I do not know the population of Sierra Leone - does that mean I do not believe Sierra Leone has a population?

Incorrect example. You know of Sierra Leone and you know of its population, but you do not know it. "Know of" and "know" are two separate concepts.

I'm sure you do not know of a more than a few cities in the world, so I'm sure you cannot believe in their existence. Now, once someone introduces you to these cities and their existence, you will think differently.

Of course it doesn't, it means I don't know it. I guess you've got some leftover atheist t shirts you feel the need to give away, but please stick to logic.

Says the person who is perpetuating logical fallacies and not actually using any? If you are entirely unaware of a concept, you cannot believe in it. You are somewhat aware of Sierra Leone and that awareness implies more than a bit.

I mean, argument from ridicule right there!

(BTW, please don't go on Wikipedia to tell me the population, if I wanted to know I'd look myself.)

Why the hell would I do that? Oh, you're trying to ridicule me further.

What if, understandably, as a baby I am not aware of what Sierra Leone is - does that mean I disbelieve in it?

Of course. You are unaware of its existence. Being unaware of something excludes the possibility of believing in it.

No, it means I have no concept of what it is and so have no opinion worth discussing.

And you consequently disbelieve in it.

I think we will have to disagree on this, I know my opinion is correct as much as you know yours is, that's why opinions are so worthwhile. Your opinion is wrong though

Except that I addressed my 'opinion' as a concrete and irrefutable logical syllogism.

You have no idea of the general religious population of ATS for one reason - it's entirely possible that people who log into ATS do not do so to discuss religion.

...I have an idea. It might not be founded in a concrete census, though I generally have an idea. And I'm only dealing with those who are here to discuss religion, so why would I bother with those who aren't?

ATS is a broad church dealing with many different things, religion is one of them. Perhaps when people are saying that George Bush is a shape changing reptile from Pleides they neglect to mention they are also, well I don't know, let's pick something at random.... an atheist. If the highest number of users of ATS is based in America I'll concede that as of 2011 most have some level of Christian faith then so be it.

And most who discuss religion on here are either Christians or atheists.

You said 'not everything Jesus said was right', kind of means you accept a character called Jesus said things, some of which you agree with, some you don't - how can you possibly interpret your words differently?

...a character called Jesus doesn't imply all the unnecessary baggage you attached to the words I said. You were attempting a logically fallacious and childish tactic.

Just so we both understand my words - if you are unaware of a deity, you don't have an opinion on said deity. That means one thing... you don't have an opinion.

And don't have a belief in it. You cannot believe in that which you do not understand. Babies don't have a belief in all sorts of things until they are exposed to them. Whether these are beliefs that are of faith based items like deities or sensory based items like the color purple, the smell of coffee, etc is irrelevant. You don't know of it, you cannot believe in it. If you cannot believe in it, you do not believe in it. If you do not believe in a deity, you are an atheist. To repeat the syllogism again:

1: You are unable to believe ideas you are unaware of.
2: If you are unable to believe something, you do not believe it.
3: People who do not believe in any deity are called atheists.
4: People who are unaware of the concept of deities are unable to believe in them.
5: People who are unaware of the concept of deities do not believe in them.
6: Therefore; People who are unaware of the concept of deities are atheists.

QED

You stated it's my opinion that - and I quote "if there is any doubt over belief then you are not an atheist" is just an opinion. Seeing as the dictionary definition of atheism is disbelief in God, then how can you then claim that is just my opinion but I haven't bothered with a basic reason? It's very black and white - disbelief = atheist. Not sure = not atheist.

Argument to authority? You're suggesting a dictionary that exists to define words is questionable?

Why yes, I am. I highlighted why it's questionable in this instance.

The term arguement to authority (also known as appeal to authority) is most often used when claims by a person who's credentials are claimed to suggest a deeper knowledge in the area are used. A good example is 'astronaut says aliens exist". I hope you aren't suggesting using a dictionary definition falls into this space? If so, that's a little sad. A quote from a philosopher would though be an argument to authority as they are stating an opinion.

Except in this case you are stating that your argument rests entirely in the authority of the dictionary. I have showed you how the dictionary is demonstrably wrong. If I can demonstrate how your source is wrong then I have a point. Furthermore, there's a reason why we don't have just a single dictionary. We have philosophical dictionaries, biology dictionaries, medical reference dictionaries, physics dictionaries, etc for a reason. In this case, a general use book is useless.

An atheist group is still laughable I'm afraid.

Except that atheists are still discriminated against. People uniting against wholesale discrimination is far from laughable. We are currently the least trusted group in America for no good reason. People wouldn't want to elect a known atheist to office, they wouldn't want their child to marry an atheist, and they don't think we share their 'vision of America'.

Atheists are harassed, bullied, discriminated against, etc in a manner that most individuals are unaware of.

Not believing in God is not currently a movement, it's a personal opinion.

And nobody claimed it was a movement. The movement is against discriminating against such people and promoting the understanding that such people are actually people.

Why are such people distrusted? Do they stand outside places of worship shouting 'I don't believe in your God'? If so, they are never going to win friends. Please tell me what they do to warrant this distrust in the eyes of those who distrust them.

They do nothing. That's the point. They're distrusted out of ignorance.

reply to post by Student X


Unless you would consider the creation of fiction to illustrate a point 'mythological thinking', then I guess I must disagree. We can think abstractly without the invocation of anything beyond the natural world. Mathematics is the best example. There is nothing concrete about mathematics until it is applied.

What separates us from the animals is our magnitude above them of intelligence. We can figure out problems in more complex ways, we can recognize patterns better, we are able to conceive of problems before they arise.

None of this require mythological thinking, though the recognition of patterns does seem to be the cause of it.

Re VitrioAndAngst

You wrote:

["The Theists are only a concern when they start burning witches."]

Also when they start infiltrating, even taking over, functions of liberal democratic society.

(Which you correctly point out as common attitude amongst all types of fundamentalism).