Atheists Agonistes

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

WTF is outside 'poly?

There are experiences outside poly?????? OMFG!!

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I truly am having a hard time recalling the last "You heathens are going to burn in hell thread." I can easily count on at least 3-4 "Religions is teh ghey thread" per month.

That's because one of these things is not like the other. The "you're evil and going to hell" people tend to get banned for flaming the hell out of everybody who disagrees with them. The "religion contributes to stupidity" people don't tend to get banned, because haughtiness is generally not a bannable offense.

Plus, theism tends to contribute towards humans being stupid more than atheism does -- nobody's ever blown up a building in the name of no-God. About the closest you get to stupidity sparked by atheism is the people who keep trying to get "under God" off of the pledge/currency, and that just doesn't compare to, e.g., the "god hates fags" people or the "lets blow stuff up and saw people's heads off" people. So naturally you're going to get a helluva lot more "look at what this idiotic religious person is doing" threads (which often turn into or are interpreted as "religion is dumb" threads) than "look at what this idiotic atheist is doing" threads.

[Fake Boris]

Whether those attacking Islam are secularists or not doesn't change the big picture. It remains true that if some posters feel compelled to bash Islam so openly while remaining relatively soft towards Christians, it's in part because of the ethnocentric prejudices engrained into our culture and inherited from the Church's proximity.

I have no idea what Datajack Franit or PA think about God, but in other cases (BK, Heresson, Aneeshm) it's well known. This said I'm not engaging in "flame calculus" and evaluating the violence of a side's rhetoric against another's. As we can already foresee, this will degenerate in a flow of example vs counter-example until it comes to look like both sides happen to have their fair share of skeletons.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by loinburger
nobody's ever blown up a building in the name of no-God.

I think they simply executed them in the Soviet Union.

[Fake Boris]

And Loinburger makes a good point, we don't have the same tendency of blaming crimes on atheism as much as we do when religion is involved. People are quick to blame things on Islam, but few would say that Stalin's atheism would be the motivating factor for his purges.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Not to be contrary but I beleive that DD referenced an aetheistic psuedo religion back on page 1 that has more than its share of violence in its very short history: Substitute the word 'State' for "God" and you can pretty much replicate all the idiocy you claim above:

The 'State' hates fags - No children for the fields
The "State' says we should encourage blowing up building to overthrow the foreign bourgeous appressors
The 'State' says public executions are necessary to quell traitorous sentiments

etc. etc.

Many people here have stated time again that fanatics come in all shapes and forms including those of purely secular bent.

[Kuciwalker]

Plus, theism tends to contribute towards humans being stupid more than atheism does -- nobody's ever blown up a building in the name of no-God. About the closest you get to stupidity sparked by atheism is the people who keep trying to get "under God" off of the pledge/currency, and that just doesn't compare to, e.g., the "god hates fags" people or the "lets blow stuff up and saw people's heads off" people.

What about Monsieur Guillotine and his party?

[DinoDoc]

I'm guessing they never blew up a building and don't count.

[Kuciwalker]

[Kuciwalker]

Weren't they planning on tearing down the Notre Dame? Does that count?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
And Loinburger makes a good point, we don't have the same tendency of blaming crimes on atheism as much as we do when religion is involved. People are quick to blame things on Islam, but few would say that Stalin's atheism would be the motivating factor for his purges.

You would likely have a great deal of argument from Soviet Jews circa 1930's in that regard.

Likewise any number of New Martyrs of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I think they simply executed them in the Soviet Union.

No they tore down a number of churches as well.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Many people here have stated time again that fanatics come in all shapes and forms including those of purely secular bent.

I'm not saying that atheists never commit atrocities, I'm saying that atheism doesn't get the blame for the atrocities. F'rinstance, McVeigh's attack wasn't motivated by religion (I don't know if he was an atheist or not, but I'll assume he was), but atheism doesn't get the blame, McVeigh (and the "survivalist gun nut" community) gets the blame. However, if he'd blown up a building in the name of Jesus or Allah then it would have prompted "McVeigh is nuts, therefore religion is dumb" threads. But short of Dawkins blowing up a federal building, you're a lot less likely to get "Dawkins is nuts, therefore atheism is dumb" threads.

Ditto with Communism. The conclusion often drawn is "Stalin / Pol Pot / Mao Zedong / etc. were nuts, therefore communism is dumb," not "Stalin et al were nuts, therefore atheism is dumb." At most you'll get somebody posting in the thread bleating "not only were they communists, but they were atheists too," followed by a few rolleyes.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What about Monsieur Guillotine and his party?

Robespierre was certainly a nutter atheist, but the problem (from a thread-equality viewpoint) is that there aren't many Robespierre's around nowadays -- so you're going to get a lot of "these religious people are acting stupid" threads and not many "newsflash: Robespierre was a douchebag!" threads.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


You would likely have a great deal of argument from Soviet Jews circa 1930's in that regard.

Likewise any number of New Martyrs of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion.

Perhaps, but in any case it's not as widespread as the Islam=violence idea. Besides, I wouldn't buy it, just like I don't buy the bias about Islam.

[Aeson]

I'm agnostic. In the sense that I don't know if there is a higher power (at least of a conscious sort) out there or not.

In some specific cases I would be atheist. I don't believe in most of the specific explainations of God(s) that I've been exposed to, but I don't pretend it's anything more than a belief on my part. There's the potential that I am wrong. Be that from the possibility that I'm still residing in a mental institution, drugged out of my mind, and all of this is a hallucination, to the fact that when I analyze other people's views and actions they always seem to have blind-spots they aren't aware of (thus "blind-spots"), and if I had my own... I understand I wouldn't see them.

From a more technical standpoint, I am an analytical system which can only validate it's conclusions by use of the same analytical system. In short, everything I accept as reality (including other analytical systems that I may trust or not) is upheld by circular logic. Of course I could be wrong about that too. What are the odds? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter because I have to deal with this reality as it's all I have.

The problem I see with the "atheist viewpoint" most often is that it is generally targetted at a close-minded view on what "God(s)" could be, to go along with an overconfidence in the truthfulness (rather than usefulness) of our advances as a race. I would be very suprised if the sum of human knowlege amounted to much more than a drop of water in the ocean when compared to what truely is out (and in, and well... other-dimensionally my grasp of the english language is rather limited) there. And certainly all forms that a God or creator could take have not been analyzed. (And really, why should they be?) Science is built on hypothesis, which are formulated and tested until a useful one is found. Not all hypothesis are formulated, we just need one that works. Because in the end that's what matters, finding an explaination or process that's useful for our purposes.

I pray on occasion. Meditate too. Nothing like the formally structured words that I was taught while growing up. Sometimes it's good to just talk about what's going on and not have anyone there to interrupt (either way). I don't pretend that anyone/thing hears or connects, but also don't exclude the potential that there is.

In any case, in expressing the thoughts and words it helps me to work things out for myself, and brings a sense of calm. It's useful to me. It doesn't really matter to me if that's due to divine intervention, a connection with nature/environment, or just a physiological effect triggered by the action.