Rorschach wrote:Davey Avon FatBoy wrote:Rorschach wrote:[
Ah well. That didn't last long, did it. And I made such an effort to be polite.
I think we are still fine. I simply haven't responded to your post because it is longer and requires more effort than the ones I have responded to. Same with Qube's post earlier. I honestly appreciate the attempt at polite engagement - for whatever time it holds out.
Not any longer I'm afraid. It would seem that trying to keep things calm doesn't get you a response so I guess I'll go back to being as unpleasant as Mission, Echolalalandia and the rest of the unpleasant cunts.
Well that's fine. I've been busy living life and trying to answer all of the posts that keep coming up. Longer posts that require a lot of cut and paste sometimes get lost in the shuffle.
Anyhow - since it seems to mean a lot to you...
Rorschach wrote:Davey Avon FatBoy wrote:
A few questions I'd like you to answer.
1) How do you define 'fundamentalist atheism'?Here is a link from an atheist web site in which a fundamentalist atheist offers up a defensive definition in order to explain why such a thing is impossible, while simultaneously demonstrating its existence by having an atheist web site full of atheist dogma (an 'atheist dictionary" no less):
http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dic ... theist.htm
"An atheist dictionary, no
more" I would say myself.
I'm sure we'll have to agree to disagree but I can't see how a collection of definitions can be considered 'dogma'. I couldn't find anywhere where people were exhorted to believe unquestioningly what was written there. That's not remotely the same as the Bible etc.
All alone, I'd probably agree. But it is just one of many such resources yu can find on the net. There are an awful lot of people expending a lot of energy talking about what they don't believe.
I presume this dictionary definition of dogma is uncontroversial:
a fixed, especially religious, belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without any doubts.
I don't believe that any of the noisy atheists on this board believe that at all. I don't personally have any doubts. I don't believe. But I certainly don't expect anyone else to think the same. Mick the Monkey has admitted to being less sure than I am but, equally, there's no way he expects people to have the same opinion as him.
I beg to differ. I think there are all sorts of beliefs promulgated by the boards atheists that are expected to be taken as fact. The belief that religion is evil. The belief that man would be less evil without it. The belief that people are drawn to religion out of ignorance. The belief that ideas that fall outside of the realm of provable science are without value. Even the belief that fundamentalist religion is the true form of religion, and that all other forms must either answer to it or be judged as wishy-washy or non-committal. These are but a few of the many beliefs I've seen bandied about the board as if they were beyond debate. And that list does not even get to the dogma about atheism itself (how it is the absence of a belief, therefore any recognition of the common beliefs of a group atheists cannot be cited, because after all - they are atheists and thus supposedly lack a world view - thus goes the circular logic).
I really think that this 'fundamentalist' tag, apart from being used as a wind-up (which is fine) is a red herring. I think you need to look for another word or expression to describe the kind of people who don't believe in any kind of god and consider that an issue worth talking, or possibly shouting, about.
I'm open to other tags. I like "Dawkins botherers" but that gives him too much credit. Regardless - I am not simply talking about people who happen to disbelieve in God and perhaps find it worth arguing about. I am talking about a group of people who share a worldview: That the world would be better without religion. That is not the absence of a belief. It is a belief - and one that its adherents cling to with a fundamentalist vigor.
'll tell you why it isn't a thoughtless request. I'm pretty fed up with you, Tommanyhatz, and the Baron (and others though I can't remember whom exactly) taking pops at atheists, usually with an unflattering adjective attached, and talking about them as if it was anyone who spoke up on that side of the debate on any religious thread.
Nobody here "takes pops at atheists". The unflattering adjective you speak of is not just an adjective, it is a modifier - used to separate out the specific atheists in question from the larger universe of atheists with which none of us has any issue.
Am I being included? I don't know but if I am I'd rather be referred to directly so I can respond directly.
I honestly don't recall enough about our previous discussions to know how I view you. Based on this thread I have no issue with you. But I'll give you a quick guide: if you are able to talk about your lack of belief without putting down people who believe differently than you, than I'm cool with you.
In fact I find the clumping together of 'noisy or whatever atheists' (or sometimes, just 'atheists') rather hypocritical. You consider what you call fundamentalist atheism to be a quasi-religion. I don't think you'd consider it acceptable for me to make blanket statements about the Jews on the board.
It's lazy and inaccurate stereotyping.
I don't think anyone here does clump all atheists together, I don't even think "noisy" is the issue. It is the condescension of a specific sub-group that draws my ire. The fact that most of those are condescending with exactly the same language and the same talking points as a few well-known writers who have made a cottage industry out of assholery is what causes me to chide those folks for their ironic religiousity. Don't like that? don't be one of those people. You seem like a decent enough guy, and one smart enough to argue for your position without having to denigrate anyone else in doing so. So do that. I'm open to the idea that religion might be viewed as a negative overall when the balance sheet is done. But I'm not a brain-washed idiot for sticking up for the most accurate accounting. So have a modicum of respect and I'll return it.
As for the part about the Jews on the board - if we were calling all non-Jews idiots, I'd expect such a blanket statement.
Finally - I won't re-post your whole quote from the bus advertisement thread, but your point was that the similarities of the arguments found on many of the atheist web sites and the posters arguing here ought not be seen as evidence of any emergent new-atheist dogma, but rather just as good arguments that recur because they are good. I suppose that is possible. The judgment that they are indeed good arguments being subjective - I'll simply ask you to extend the same courtesy to people of faith when talking with them. Every person comes to their own faith or lack of it through their own personal process and life experience. When we judge whole swaths of people as brain-washed, ignorant or sheeple - we rob them of their humanity. not every person leads an examined life, but the ones that do exist on both sides of this debate.
So to sum up - if you think I am guilty of unfairly characterizing a group of people, I plead no contest. I am returning unkindness with unkindness. It does not have to be so.