Zeda

Atheists are also apathetic because of the hopelessness of arguing with the convinced. Those who have a direct telephone line to God, arent going to hear one word that disagrees with thier worldview.
Those Christians, who come to these boards, are the miniority and generally more tolerant and better educated than those you are likely to meet at the local mall.

If one is an agnostic, or uncertain of what is right, many will take the time to relate thier religion and thier Bible to you, but most will shun a stone cold atheist, as believing that they are beyond as one poster, put here the God-sense. In fact the Bible itself, tells Christians to shake the dust off thier feet after being rejected by the unbeliever.

Having grown up a fundamentalist, and having most of my family and neighbors, still hold to those beliefs, I know the total hopelessness of engaging them in any rational conversation. They have to reach the point on thier own where they go searching.

Godless Wonder

Sorry to keep you waiting.

Yeah, boohoo is right. Currently, should I meet a nice but random, girl, as occasionally happens, I'd like the probability that she wouldn't think I'm a horrible person because I'm an atheist be greater then the dismal ~2% it currently is where I live. So, where I live, on average, us atheist guys have to meet ~25women (!) before we find ONE who can even tolerate our atheism. To make matters worse, the atheist guys outnumber the atheist women by almost two to one, so half of us are just plain and permanently out of luck on that front. Anyway, part of my rationale is really that simple. I want better odds than that, and if I have kids, I'd like them to have better odds than that too.

Where I live, I'm practically alone in being rational. The entire city is one giant insane asylum. You criticize me for wanting more sane people? Fine. Criticize away. I disagree with such criticism.

[ wild speculation about what an majority-atheist world would be like snipped ]

There's no danger of atheism becoming a fad in my lifetime, there is nothing to it. Literally, nothing to it. It's the lack of belief. There's not enough there for it to be a fad. Pretty much 100% of people don't believe in leprechauns, but aleprechaunism isn't a fad, there are no aleprechaunist t-shirts, bumper-stickers about how leprechauns don't exist, etc.

Anitra

It's a problem that feeds back on itself. Social stress tends to make people more absolutist, more heirarchical, more polarized; as people polarize, the social stress increases.

Every social exchange, however, shifts the social dialogue one iota. If you polarize, you are shifting others toward polarizing. If you dialogue, you are shifting others toward dialogue. None of us changes the world all alone, but all together we are changing it every day. That's all that society is -- the sum total of all of us, all of our exchanges.

Humans are exceedingly susceptible to self-fulfilling prophecy. Hope is a creative force, and so is despair. At any particular moment, you can look around and find evidence that the world is improving, or look around and find evidence that it's going to hell in a handbasket on greased skids. You choose what to focus on. While not denying that the negative exists, or trying to screen it out, I choose to focus on the positive, and work to encourage it. I choose to hope. Being certain that the future will be better may prove false, but working with that attitude has historically proved more successful than working with the certainty that everything's going to be horrid.

The most successful parents, and the most successful teachers, are those who treat children as adults in process. The most successful doctors treat their patients not as sick people but as healthy people in process. The most successful social workers treat homeless people as housed people in process. It is easiest to resolve conflicts with an opponent whom you regard as an ally in progress. It is easier to change conditions when you regard them as a future in progress.

As for myself, I think that the end of the "culture wars" lies in an expansion of classic liberalism; an ethic of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, with none of us entitled to enforce our moral opinions on anyone else except to the extent to protect the equal rights of all. Fundamentalists can be free to believe in an absolute truth, they just can't enforce it by law on anyone else. Skeptics can be free to disbelieve in anything, they just can't prevent other people from believing and saying things that the skeptics regard as false. A secular society in which public conflicts have to be resolved by dialogue between equals, solely on the basis of mutually observable evidence. "Secular" does not mean "atheist" -- it means "liberalist," allowing the maximum freedom to all forms of belief that is compatible with the equal rights of all.

To identify as one society, we need to expand our sense of common cause and common good. The balkans of special interest groups pitted against each other is encouraged by social manipulators because it strengthens their own power. This nonsense of atheist versus believer, believer versus other believer, is as self-destructive as the nonsense of black versus white or heterosexual versus nonheterosexual or rich versus poor or business versus labor. We all need each other. We all benefit from each other in countless ways. We all have more interests in common than we have interests opposed to each other.

Biff the unclean

When they attempt to write into law Bronze Age superstitions to replace 21st century science and morals it becomes everyone's problem.

Your bigotry is showing. You appear to just love to bring up racism and swing it around like a baseball bat.

All victims of all con enjoy being conned. Until the pay-off doesn't come. I am not so misanthropic as to close my eyes to you being victimized.

A strange thing to say from a person who becomes a pretend nigger to mock someone who states a view point other than her own.

When physical actions based on a belief start happening without the benefit of actual proponents of that belief I'll start doing that.

What they are willing to do…incase you haven't read the news in some time…is to amend the Constitution of the United States

That would be the liberal Christians smiling and nodding.
You do not find such complacency among American Atheists


Christianity is based solely on this lust for power. GWB and Constantine the Great use the very same means to the very same end.

A couple of paragraphs up you said "That, of course, would be an attack upon persons. It would be more accurate to say that the belief is wrong and is bigotry." You are contradicting yourself.

Something Christians would know little of

If you would only oppose religious dishonesty then you might have something there.

The fact that you are a supporter of the con does not make it any less a con. Your reluctance to assist others in need is appalling.

You wanted to know if I considered you to be an idiot. I told you that I considered you to be a victim. That you are a willing victim makes you no less a victim.

Interesting because a few months ago a colleague of mine had that very thing happen to her because she had a Darwin fish on her car.

So you have a short-term memory problem perhaps? You have already forgotten about liberal Christians not being proactive?

truthie

Of course, I would love to see more sane/rational people.
However, you said, “outbreed the theists.�? And not all atheists are necessarily rationalistic.

Well, the cause for atheism is quite different from that of “aleprechauns.�? It is stronger and heavier in content.
Most people don’t believe in leprechauns, most people believe in god(s).
As an aside, true, there is nothing to atheism, however I have realized that some people view atheism as being the same as secular humanism.

Starboy, Zeda

Clear as crystal.

T.

Ronin

I live in south Mississippi, in a city of only about 100,000. I have a John Kerry sticker, a pro-CSS sticker and a "dinner" fish emblem on my pov in contrast to the assorted "jesus" fish emblems found locally. I have never had my vehicle damaged nor have I had any exchanges with anyone over my choices.

I also have a Humanist "H", the original "godless" pledge of allegiance, an "In Gods Some Trust" flag portrait in contrast to the AFA version (which is based in Tupelo, MS) and a "Godless American" sticker prominantly displayed at my office.

Though, I once perpetuated the very same perception of Christians, I have not met with the asserted oppressive behavior that you claim of "Christian loonies".

While my chief and I may not always have the best of working relationships (he is a devout and proactive Christian), our disagreements have always stemmed from issues other than religion (mostly procedure and investigative techniques).

I think that if atheists can be less intimidated by the issue, educate themselves on their position and proactively debate in a reasoned manner...with less preconceived, emotive notions regarding what a real encounter with even a Christian evangelical will entail...then some of the fallacious rhetoric from both worldviews will start to subside.

Ronin

Why?

blink

I think you are right, Ronin. If an atheist is strong in belief that they are ok to have their opinions and questions, then refusing to be intimidated can be done less emotionally or defensively. I think it's a tremendously assertive and grown up thing to be open about atheism and to still expect to be treated well. I am not sure I'm up to it in my area, but I have been open about not going to church.

Anitra, I agree with you that believing someone is helpless or incapable of understanding something diminshes that person. But I think there are times when you can see that someone does not understand something though you do. For example, if you can see that a woman who stays with an abusive man is clinging to false hope that he really does love her. She really doesn't see, but could see. It doesn't have to be rescuing or condescending to share your perspective about it.
Maybe religious discussions would get further if both sides could just say, "Possibly this is what this is about." Just speculate.
I think people of certainty evoke some very aggresive responses because the elements within that certainty can be so aggressively destructive, like the notion that it makes you a bad person to have doubts. I think that's messing with someone's mind...making it bad to question.

Biff the unclean

Oh come on, you have to admit that it's worth a laugh when a Christian whose whole religion is based on the concept that people need to be saved. That they aren't worthy and are incapable of saving themselves. That the "good news" should be spread through out the world. That a Christian should find those sentiments so offensive and demeaning, when voiced by an Atheist towards her, that are the very foundation of her own Christianity.
It's as good as any irony-joke on Frasier

Anitra

Whenever anyone tries to write personal morality into law, it is everyone's problem. Law is the codification of a social agreement and the authorization of the use of force against anyone who breaks the agreement. With the premise that rights originate with the individual and are only invested in the state by the consent of individuals, then the only legitimate use of force against others is to protect the equal rights of all. On the premises of self-government, we all have freedom of conscience, which is the right to oursue what we ourselves consider good to the utmost of our own ability and drive, limited only by the equal right of everyone else to pursue what they consider good. You cannot interfere with a fundamentalist's morality just because you consider it to be Bronze Age superstition, unless he is causing harm to others. He cannot interfer with you just because he considers you corrupt and heathen, unless you are causing harm to others.

But not everyone who believes the same "Bronze Age" ideas is trying to enforce them on others by law; and some people with entirely different beliefs are trying to enforce them by law. Claiming Christianity is not the same as supporting theocracy.

And you, sir, wouldn't recognize a metaphor if it came up and gave you a hand job. You were talking like us poor benighted heathen have to be rescued from our ignorant ways and shown the light of civilization, because we are totally unable to reason for ourselves. I just dramatized the attitude.

Why are you so hypersensitive about anything that sounds like an accusation of racism?

You think I'm being conned; I think you are being conned. That accomplishes nothing. If you think something is wrong, say so, and let me help myself out of the situation.

Okay, now I know why you are sensitive to anything that sounds like an accusation of racism. You get them a lot, don't you?

I am not demanding that you share my viewpoint. I am not demanding that you respect my viewpoint. I am not even demanding that you stop insulting my viewpoint. I am, in fact, not even demanding that you understand my viewpoint. You can go right on thinking that I am a little victimized idiot and you are the great wise man. You just can't do it without my objecting to it. You object to what I say and I object to what you say. We both have freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

There is a difference, though. I do not say that atheism is a delusion that you must be rescued from. I do not believe that atheism is a delusion that you must be rescued from. I recognize that my understanding of reality is not the same thing as reality, and there are other viewpoints. I consider it valuable to have a variety of viewpoints in society. Societies with a monolithic wordview stagnate and die.

I would be glad to hear your viewpoint of reality. You don't offer much of it, though. You have told me very little of what you are for. You mostly just talk about what you are against. You don't offer your view of the world for consideration; you offer your view of me. I am the expert on what I believe, and you can't even accurately represent it.

What is the difference between the following:
A: No, you may not enforce your sexual morality on others by law.
B: You self-righteous Puritan, you have no right to spread your superstitious nonsense around in 21st century society.

I oppose conservative Christians passing laws - or constitutional amendments - to limit the rights of homosexuals. I also disagree with their beliefs about the sinfulness of homosexuality. I do not oppose them saying what they believe for as long as they believe it. I argue with them; I do not insult them. I will not let them attack gays, or legislate against gays. But even with people I disagree with on one thing, there is always something else where we can work together. People are not all one thing.

Your willingness to make absolute statements in total ignorance is appalling.
http://www.kcts.org/productions/kcts...pisode_347.htm

Categorical statements are categorically wrong. There have always been complacent people; there have always been proactive people. There are increasingly fewer complacent ones and increasingly more proactive ones.
http://anitra.net/activism.fundamentalism/

Polarization, btw, is not effective social change.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0820456519/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0814793630/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0345391691/