brighid

So you can come to a place where thousands of atheists are known to congregate and you are able to identify atheists. WOW ... now that is a supernatural power, not unlike the ability of going to say ... I don't know a bunny farm and being able to identify bunnies! WOW dude, your GOD is REALLY, REALLY ... impotent if that is the power He gave you. You should feel totally ripped off. Especially since you can simply look in someone's profile, or read some of what they have posted here and thereby "confirm" your results. I guess your God didn't give you the ability to discern atheists through non-loaded or obvious questions.

Now, if you really did have "supernatural" powers you would be able to discern atheist from agnostic from deist from liberal Christian, from radical Muslim, from Scientologist by simply laying your hands on them, or asking ambiquous questions like what is your favorite football team, and do so with 100% accuracy. Anything less then 100% accuracy isn't supernatural.

Brighid

Goliath

xian,

First you say,

And then you say:

This is a contradiction, since you have yet to prove your claim. Why should I take seriously your yammering on about your "supernatural" ability when the very fact that you don't want to prove any of your claims clearly indicates that you are not interested in any kind of discussion?

What are you afraid of, little xian? Afraid that we're gonna tear your "test" apart once you post all of it?

Sincerely,

Goliath

Goliath

xian,

I'll tell ya what. I'm feeling charitable enough that I'll give you one last opportunity to redeem yourself. Find some philosophical trait that is shared by 50% of all atheists on this planet (other than the lack of belief in the existence of any gods), and then prove that said trait is indeed shared by half of the planet's atheists.

Sincerely,

Goliath

Jamie_L

xian:

I wanted to reply to your OP, but I don't have time to read the 5 pages that have since transpired. I apologize if I am repeating anything, or if the thread has since departed from the OP in such a way that this post is no longer relevant.

When people say "atheists share only a lack of belief in gods", what they mean is that this is the only thing that all atheists by definition have in common. That is, I don't believe anyone denies that many atheists have many things in common. What they are saying is that you cannot, with 100% certainty say that "because you are an atheist, you also have traits X, Y, and Z." While most atheists may have traits X, Y, and Z, atheists to do not, by definition, have traits X, Y, and Z. It would also be a strawman to say something like: "Trait Z is logically flawed, therefore atheism is flawed." This is what often prompts the atheist to make claims about atheists only sharing a lack of belief in God. By definition, that is all that atheism entails. For instance, people are always attacking moral subjectivism as a flaw in atheism. However, atheism does not necessarily entail moral subjectivism, and furthermore, there are all sorts of varieties of moral subjectivism. To attack atheism because of flaws in a variety of moral subjectivism would be erroneous.

Likewise, Christianity entails only a belief in some form of the Christian religion. Why are there so many different flavors of Christians? Because there are so many more Christians, and because Christianity is a complex philosophical worldview, not a true/false statement like atheism. Christianity envelopes everything from Catholicism to the Klu Klux Klan. There's lots of room for people to have vastly differing belief systems, yet still be classified as "Christian". Which in some respects makes "Christian" a much more vague term than "atheist". "Atheist" covers one specific conclusion. "Christian" in effect covers many different religions that share a number of conclusions.

Just because many atheists share other common beliefs that doesn't make "atheism" anything more than it is. Just like the fact that many Christians share very little in terms of common beliefs doesn't make any particular flavor of Christianity more or less than it is.

Jamie

Hawkingfan

Funny how Christian "humility" and "humbleness" does not keep so many of them from flattering themselves unashamedly.

Since when does the ability to make normal, everyday deductions qualify as "supernatural"?

Flynn McKerrow

Your ability to pick out atheists could only possibly be even considered to be supernatural if you were to pick them out of a lineup of complete strangers without asking them any questions at all.

Until then,

Kintaro

a bit more than 25 posts ago (from 25% to 50% of page 4), I have yet to see xian (or anyone else for the fun of it) determine whether the 3 people questionned (BoomChish, lilshini and [<3]) are atheists or not.

As I said, one answer is a catch-22 so if only that is screwed up, I'll be somewhat convinced, since I don't feel like getting a larger sample. And the catch is due to something that is beyond my control, beyond any quizzer's control, but I will explain it once we have attempts at answering. I won't look down on anyone who fails that specific one.

Stephen T-B

Back to the OP (and my apologies if this has been pointed out already but I’ve not had time to look through this entire thread):
“Ironically, when trying to classify Christians based on common beliefs, it is much more challenging. ...

"Classifying atheism is a simple task for me.”

But you are not “classifying atheism” - (I doubt this even makes sense) – you are attempting, simply, to identify atheists, and the fact is, you could as easily and certainly identify Believers, based on a similar set of loaded questions.

To classify atheists, you must first draw up a list of the categories into which they can be put.

xian

Jamie is one of the people in here I have respect for. Jamie is, of course, is 100% correct.

My point is simply this:

There is only one thing all atheists have in common- that is lack of belief in god(s). But too often atheists seem to think this single point of commonality makes them unique from other groups, when this is not true. Christianity is no different. THere is one- thing common to all Christians by definition which is also quite vague :"Some belief in a being named Jesus"

Some Christians deny the Bible fully as having any credibility whatsoever. Some Christians think Jesus taught Hindu reincarnation. And yes, I even knew a guy once who told me "I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in God" (those are his exact words, I remember them because they were so bizzarre)

So there is nothing special or unique about the atheist position that they only have 1 universal thing in common. This is not necessary in order to make a fairly accurate prediction that someone is an atheist. This is because a professing atheist will GENERALLY have certain resulting philosophical views about the universe that are predictable as a result of atheism- and this is the part that atheists (in my experience) don't like. THey don't like someone saying "an atheist will have certain predictable views about the universe as a result of (or tied to) atheism"....in nearly every case in my 10 year history of speaking to atheists, whenever I raise that sentence, it is met with fierce resistance. Over time, I have concluded that the resistance itself is so common to atheism, that I have incorporated it as another principle of confirmation. In the same way an atheist can GENERALLY say "It is predictable that a Christian will have some sort of belief in the accuracy of the Bible"...I am also able to say "It is predictable that an atheist will uphold the view that life arose from nonlife through randomness" and I can also predict (though with much less accuracy than the previous statement): "It is predictable that an atheist will resist a theist making claims that he can predict certain behaviors/philosophical beliefs simply as a result of professing atheism"

Of course, no prediction I refer to will be 100%, but when ALL of my statements from that test are taken together, the result will be a fairly accurate ability to identify one as an atheist OR to make predictions about the conclusions that come as a result of professing atheism.

tdekeyser

I haven't read this entire thread, but Atheist and Christians are very different in the commonalities they have with their groups.

Christians are limited to grouping with Christians only. As so it is written...Come and be separate.

Atheist can hang out with ALL groups because they have no book that tells them not to. They are WAY more accepting than the Xian groups.