Kassiana

Biff opines:
So you have gone to all the trouble of finding a non-Theist site, registering, and posting all of these blurbs just to tell us that you don't care?

Kass replies:
I don't care that you're atheists. That is correct. Try to find one post of mine where I tried to convert an atheist to theism. You won't find one. Thanks for being non-judgemental and kind to me. I appreciate it. After all, I try to do the same with atheists.

Anitra

Hi, Zeda.

That is certainly one of the most common claims. It is important to separate morality from religion so that both theists and atheists can think about it more clearly.

This seems to me a very accurate description of the psychology. I just don't think it goes far enough. There are people who come to disagree with the creed and intellectually reject the doctrine of Original Sin, but keep the emotional attitude. They become an atheist who says, "Humans are hateful and violent by nature and always will be. Humans are greedy and self-centered by nature and always will be." Now he credits it to evolution instead of to the Fall. That's the only difference. The "This is the only Light that can lead anyone out of their inherent Darkness" effect of the attitude is the same. Whether they are claiming that Faith is the only antidote to human problems or that Reason is the only antidote to human problems, the structure of the behavior is the same -- they just paint it differently.

The attitude does not grow out of the ideology; the ideology grows out of the attitude. If a person changes the attitude and stays Christian, his interpretation of Christian ideology changes. If a person keeps the attitude and becomes non-christian, his interpretation of the new ideology is adapted to support the same attitude.

When an individual considers themselves valuable and capable, they do not feel exceedingly threatened by others being valuable and capable, and are inclined to see value and capability in others and encourage it. When an individual distrusts themselves, they feel threatened by others, and are motivated to undermine others trust in themselves. People with high self-esteem have high esteem for others; people with low self-esteem have low esteem for others. If anyone, Christian or nonchristian, spends a lot of time talking about the corrupt nature of humankind in general, or vilifying others, or arguing that an opponent cannot trust their own reason or perceptions or values because they are, after all, deluded -- the person who uses such arguments has a basic distrust of themselves. They are trying to gain power over others by undermining their trust in themselves.

I find low self-esteem, and its behavior, and high self-esteem, and its behavior, in both theists and atheists.

truthie

True,

There are things that religious theism offers and that atheism lacks quite a lot.
People are used to rely on belief-systems because they give hope, moral, the “beauty of the supernatural�? and so on.
It could be possible that secular humanism may gain popularity (I hope that never happens.) However, it is too atheistic and many people are not ready for skepticism, logic, reason, especially now, that New Age/"magical mysticism�? is almost sacrosanct.

T.

Anitra

And so? All sorts of people make claims of fact that I don't agree with, and try to thrust them on me. That's their problem. I will change my mind when they present evidence and reason for doing so. Otherwise, I won't. I will make my own case, and they will either accept it, or they won't. If they want to get all frothy and frustrated about it, let them have the exercise. I don't need it.

Oh goodness, Massa, Ah did not realahze that you was rescuin' us poh helpless slaves out of ouah dahkness. Now why would I feel disrepected about THAT?

You don't agree with something. Fine and dandy. Disagree. Make your best case. That's what public dialogue is all about. But the rest of us have our own reason and our own lives, and what we do with them is our own business. If we don't agree with you, that's just part of reality-as-it-is that you have to live with.

Demanding that the entire society share your viewpoint is totalitarianism, not freethinking. Any society with a monolithic viewpoint stagnates and dies. That is part of reality-as-it-is. Even having off-the-wall viewpoints around helps stimulate the thinking of others. The culture of critical inquiry has proved historically to accumulate useful knowledge the fastest, and essential elements of that culture are freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. Anyone can make any claim or challenge any claim, and nothing is ever regarded as settled-for-certain.

There are two basic premises to free thought: 1) There is a reality and we can understand it. 2) We never understand it perfectly. NONE of us do. Your understanding of reality is not reality-itself. Honest people can have honest differences of opinion.

You can oppose physical actions based on a belief without attacking proponents for the belief. I am not going to let conservative Christians legislate the use of state force to make others behave according to their own sexual mores. They can, however, believe that homosexuals are evil lustful sinners, and say so, all they want -- as long as they are willing to let others believe that they are bigoted cabbage-heads, and say so. (That, of course, would be an attack upon persons. It would be more accurate to say that the belief is wrong and is bigotry.)

Generally the whole country was complacent about the extremist movement in America Christianity and the government's steady shift to the Right. There were voices of dissent and alarm, both among theists and atheists, but they never gained a lot of attention and momentum until GWB&Co. had pushed the country to such an extreme that the pain was impacting most everybody.

I am still appalled that there is not outrage and riot, in the media and in Congress and on the street, over some of the things this administration says and does. John Ashcroft can sit there and bald-faced refuse to release memos to Congress, and how many see a Constitutional crisis upon us? The majority of the population -- theist and atheist -- is saying, "Oh, gee," and then going about their business. Complacently.

This is the human lust for power at work, not an ideology aggrandizing itself. Ideologies are abstracts, they have no physical substance, let alone organic capability of action. Ideologies are not the enemy. There are living human beings, individual humans with individual motivations, doing this shit.

If you only pay attention to liberal Christian dissent that is broadcast in the mainstream media, you aren't going to see much. You aren't going to see a lot of the liberal dissent in general, or dissent among conservatives even. Opposition to the Right's takeover of power is not going to be done in the mainstream media; that is one of the things that has been taken over. We are going to have to organize person-to-person, on the Internet and in alternative media and in physical life. We are going to have to put aside the demand that any potential allies by 100% ideologically pure, and work together with anyone who desires freedom of conscience and freedom of speech -- even those who believe and say things that we disagree with.

All freethinkers are allies against all totalitarianism.

Because this is a written media, you can go back and re-read that. It is an analogy, not a misdirection. There are liberal Christians, like myself, who work to oppose the extremist takeover of America, who oppose religious bigotry. We don't do it 24/7, any more than you work on anti-racism 24/7. We don't see it all, we aren't there to say something in every case -- any more than you see all incidents of racism that happen in the United States, and speak up very time. The limitations of our opposition do not mean that we support religious bigotry, any more than the limitations on your opposition mean that you support racial bigotry.

[quote]Actually I am, to a degree, in control of how other people act towards me. That is why I have the personal policy of never taking shite from anyone.[/quote
You can affect how other people act toward you. You cannot control it. The effect you can have on how you yourself experience what they do, and how you respond to it, is many times greater than the direct effect you can have on what they do.

You are responsible for how you act. You are not responsible for how other people act. No matter what someone else does, or says, you are still responsible for what you do and say.

I'll pass on a favorite saying of my mother's: "Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you. For it will drive them batspit, and then their eyes bulge out and their face gets red and they yell a lot, and they are fun to watch." :-D

It is appealing to the ego, isn't it, to regard others as victims and ride forth to rescue them? Even when I know another person to be being conned, however, I do not regard them as a "victim" to be "rescued." I will give them information and assistance, yes, but I regard them as capable of getting themselves out of the situation.

If you disagree with my opinions, then make your case. If I ask for your assistance, give me assistance. Don't try to "rescue" me, dear. I stopped playing codependency games years ago.

Sure, I've been attacked by a lot of conservative Christians, too, and they whine like crazy when I criticize them in turn. Anybody who uses criticism as attack tends to experience criticism as atack.

But nobody is beating on you. This is word-symbols being drawn by electrons on your very own computer screen, which you control. Nobody is coming down the electron tunnels with an aluminum baseball bat to bash you about the head and shoulders.

Even the people verbally attacking you, or advocating legislation that will authorize the use of state force against you, are not all of the Christians. You have allies on the schoolyard, even among those who seem dressed the same as the bullies.

Starboy

Atheism lacks almost everything. There is only one thing that atheism has and that is honesty. Many people don't care about honesty and would rather live a lie if it makes them feel better. Honesty is brutal, it is tough, it takes no prisoners.

Starboy

blink

"When an individual considers themselves valuable and capable, they do not feel exceedingly threatened by others being valuable and capable, and are inclined to see value and capability in others and encourage it. When an individual distrusts themselves, they feel threatened by others, and are motivated to undermine others trust in themselves. People with high self-esteem have high esteem for others; people with low self-esteem have low esteem for others. If anyone, Christian or nonchristian, spends a lot of time talking about the corrupt nature of humankind in general, or vilifying others, or arguing that an opponent cannot trust their own reason or perceptions or values because they are, after all, deluded -- the person who uses such arguments has a basic distrust of themselves. They are trying to gain power over others by undermining their trust in themselves." --Anitra

This sounds true, but I think there are people who experience themselves as having high self-esteem and yet they undermine others. There is a big gap of awareness there that makes it possible to project all the problem on to the other guy and preserve their self-esteem. Deep down maybe they are very fearful people, but they put on such a good act that many are fooled.
Also, I think people who call other people deluded are not always trying to gain power of the other, but may be trying to gain power to define things themselves. Maybe if they worded it, " What you're saying doesn't seem real to me, or true at all." you would consider it not a power play?

I for one appreciate it when a person is outraged by the harm and injustice some people experience through involvement with people of certainty. I don't think it's clear that such concern is a rescue syndrome. People have vulnerabilities and are NOT always capable of getting out of harmful interactions and affiliations.

Zeda

Hi Anitra /waves

Yes, I believe that you have done a good job of expressing most of the problem here. Self-esteem I believe comes alot from our methods of child-rearing. If you can raise a child to have good self-esteem and feel loved, you have given them a great gift. A society or religion that seeks to tame the natural savage or worse yet break thier spirit, will leave a damaged adult.

I believe that most liberal Christians that I have met, are just as disgusted as the irreligious, when it comes to fundamentalists of any stripe. The question is how to respond to what is happening today, in an world that seems to be getting more and more polarized. Where people seem to be checking thier brains at the door, and following thier masters without reason, whoever or whatever thier master is.

truthie

All right,

Practically, my question regarding Mrs. Madalyn Murray O’Hair was ducked except by Starboy.
“The search for The Solution�? slightly ignored.
Still waiting for a response from Godless Wonder, though.

A question,
As many of you know, atheists are heavily discriminated, however, I do not see many atheists interested in “atheist activism�?. So, do atheists really care about their bad reputation? Is the disconnection that exists among atheists the problem?
On the other hand, if atheists started to promote the positivism of the philosophic position, atheist proselytism could start..

T.

Anitra

Yes. There is a difference between ego strength (self-esteem) and ego defenses. Someone with strong ego defenses does not admit to personal error, and always finds a way to blame it on someone else.

Certainly. We all struggle for our own sense of truth and meaning. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, insisting on the right to define truth and meaning for ourselves easily turns into insisting on defining it for others.

Our understanding of reality is not reality-itself. When we get that, we can let other people have their own understanding of reality, without threatening ours or interfering with our own perceptions. People who are intolerant seem to be stuck at the level of concrete thinking, where the symbol is the thing, and their understanding of reality isreality.

Yup. That'd be fine. In fact, no matter what someone claims, I consider them to be saying, "This is what I perceive, this is what I think, this is what I feel, this is what I value, this is what I am going to do" -- and that only. Whatever we say about what we perceive is true. Claiming certainty, however, is never true.

Opposing harm and injustice is not what I was referring to as 'rescuing' behavior.

Homeless people are suffering harm and injustice. In order to help someone get more control over their own life, though, you have to believe in their own ability to help themselves, and then help them do it. Directing their lives for them because you consider them incapable of doing it is rescuing, but it is not helping.

If someone says, "I think you have been conned, this is why," that is legitimate helping. If someone says, "You are incapable of telling truth from falsehood, so let me tell you," how is that any different than an evangelical saying, "You are in the grip of Satan which is why you cannot recognize the truth of the Gospel"?

Starboy

From what I have seen of other atheist replies to similar question there are a variety of reasons for atheist apathy.

1) Not all parts of the country are being taken over by Christian loonies. There are places where the local Christian population is tolerant of dissenting beliefs. For these atheists there is no reason to be active. They live in a live and let live environment.

2) Many parts of the country are overrun by Christian loonies. Places where if your boss learns you are an atheist you could loose your job. Or where if you put a Darwin fish on your car, your car could be damaged or worse yet they could be waiting by your car to teach you a Christian lesson. In these place atheists do not dare be active. It is similar to, though not as bad as being a nigger in the Jim Crow south. However if you don't open your mouth and if you are careful they can't tell you are an atheist whereas the negroes in the south could not hide so easily.

3) Atheism is not a belief. People who only share a lack of belief are not going to be all that motivated to associate with each other. What has been a big motivator for many atheists is not so much what they are for but what they are against. The great increase in intolerant Christian behavior in our society has probably been the biggest cause of increased atheist activism. If they were to cool it and leave people alone I think that most atheists would just melt back into the woodwork again.

Starboy