What is the equivalent of a bible basher...

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Yeah, I guess that's the whole point. It is a lot of information to take in. These are big and complex subjects and we shouldn't be lording our opinions over each other if we don't even have a very solid grounding in the arguments for our own viewpoint. I'm not the expert on all of this either, for the most part on a lot of these subjects I'm just a passionate amateur that likes to read (although to be honest I am an active member of the scholastic community and have a few degrees and journal articles, whoopdy freakin doo right? I mainly write on history, archeology, and anthropology).

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 02 Apr 2014, 6:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No, I'm not a YEC. I am aware of potassium argon dating and dating in cosmology and astronomy using the CMB and judging distances from stars using parallax and supernovas. So YEC theories are pretty solidly debunked unless you subscribe to the idea that everything was created with the appearance of age. Of course saying that everything was created with that appearance seriously begs the question of why, making it an inane idea.

Carbon dating is involved in several different discussions that are germane to religion, like dating the shroud of turin and the titulus crussis, or data from archeological sites such as Jericho and Ai that can either support or detract from the bible's historical accounts of those locations.

To be perfectly honest, I don't even think the YEC interpretation of Genesis is at all necessary or even tenable given some knowledge of ancient Hebrew. In the Hebrew a literal seven days and 6,000 years in Adam's genealogy are both soundly debunked.

The two most frequent terms I've heard for describing those folks are "anti-theists" and "evangelical atheists". They're not simply content to avoid God; they don't want anyone else believing in Him either. They will go out of their way to actively discourage people from having spiritual faith of any kind, especially if there's a similarity to Christianity involved.

an evangelist

A door to door athiest? [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-bWz74h518[/youtube]

There's no such thing as an "atheist thumper". Atheists usually just want to be left alone and they only do their "atheist thumping" as a response to religious people trying to push their beliefs on them. If they were just left alone by the religious, then you wouldn't hear a peep out of the atheists. Here's a video that illustrates the point:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmXpJuEnNnw&list=UULhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ[/youtube]

Maybe there is no such thing as one in south africa. But here there certainly is such a thing and they aren't uncommon.

An anti-theist is someone else altogether.

An evangelical atheist believes there is no God, wants others to share that view, and actively works to try and "convert" people.

An anti-theist believes that belief in God is immoral, and harmful to society.

There are theistic equivalents. A religion may try and drum up numbers without thinking that other religions are immoral; a highly selective religion may believe other religions are wrong, but not necessarily try and recruit new members. There is a subtle distinction.

Of course, there can be evangelical anti-theists, but evangelical atheists are not necessarily anti-theists, and anti-theists are not necessarily evangelical.

Not so. Not even Richard Dawkins is one. Most of the people called "atheist thumpers" are only called so for stating their opinions of why they don't believe, and it's pretty mild stuff too. Virtually no atheists at all even care about what other people believe as long as they don't bother them. When the religious start pushing their beliefs on them, only then do they "thump" their disbelief and it's not to push it on the faithful, it's only in response to the religious pushing their beliefs on them. I believe that in america, there are some atheist groups trying to get rid mandatory praying in schools for example but even then, it's to protect the rights of children who do not want to pray with the rest of the class because they don't believe, it's not to push their disbelief on everyone else. Otherwise, writing books like "The God Delusion" is not "atheist thumping. People who don't like it, don't have to read it.

Once again, you live where you live and I live where I live. And where I live I do meet militant atheists, especially at (but most certainly not limited to) the universities I frequent (UOP in particular). And Dawkins is an "atheist thumper" because not only has he literally said that religion is a virus (I fail to see the mildness in that statement) but he regularly enters public debate and insults religious people during those debates. In fact, he doesn't even debate academics any more, he just debates church elders. Not to mention that he is a hack who hasn't even published a work on biology, his own field, for over fifteen years now. And don't get me started on Sagan, his literary statements and his public behavior.

And what about Christopher Hitchens? I could go on and on. Popular "atheist thumper" authors abound and I get references to their books all the time as if I'll just see the light if I read one of them. There is a whole society headed by Dominic Crossan called the Jesus Seminar, that is a historical society that participates in this kind of crap and even gives credence to ridiculous conspiracy theories like Jesus just being a reiteration of Mithra.

So are you going to tell me what my own experiences have been? I have experienced plenty of "atheist thumpers", so "nuh'uh" isn't going to be a valid response here. Not to mention the "atheist thumpers" that abound on websites such as this.

Fine, give an example of one incident and then I'll see if that is really "atheist thumping".



First of all, he hasn't called religion a virus, he was talking about religion as meme, that it get's passed on to the children from their parents and it's only when religion interferes with the child's ability to learn science (such as evolution) or when it's the cause of extremist views that he has a problem with it. Richard Dawkins don't actually have any problem with moderate religious people who don't bother anyone else and has even said as much. Also, his debates aren't "atheist thumping". Most of the time, the religious people are one's who challenge him to public debate and stating his opinion that he thinks that their beliefs are silly isn't insulting them nor is it pushing his disbelief on them.



Richard Dawkins has actually contributed to scientific research in the past and is still a qualified scientist. The last paper that I can that was written by him was published in 2004. Whether or not he still writes papers depends on whether he still contributes actively to research. However even if he isn't, the fact that he has in the past still makes him a qualified scientist. It doesn't matter if he retires or not.



You don't have to read them. You can believe whatever you want. Also, the idea of Jesus' death and resurrection being a reiteration of older pagan myths is not a conspiracy theory, it's a real possibility because there are many pagan myths that are similar, like the Egyptian myth of Osiris and Horus. Don't get me wrong, there may indeed be a real historical Jesus but whether or not there was a real person called Jesus does not mean that he rose from the dead.



How cute. If you're going to call me one, then remember how this conversation got started.

Ah. Well, you said that atheists were using carbon dating against you so I'll assume you think the shroud of Turin is real despite the dating and that you don't like the currently accepted date for Jericho's fall or occupation. Seems like you have your work cut out for you given the lack of evidence that millions of Jews fled Egypt at that time, or lived in the Sinai desert or engaged in a rapid mass conquest of Canaan. Those are not fringe conclusions. I would agree with those who say it's a mangled memory of the much earlier Hyksos expulsion. Actual Semites who arrived, settled, adopted a local storm god that was similar to their own, and who were then chased out back across Sinai. There is no shortage of Egyptian records about that.

As for your list of bad scholars and scientists, well, I don't quite get the point. Popularization is important and there is no requirement to be the generational Einstein of their field to do it well. They need a gift for translating complexity into standard English and often they aren't presenting original research but just an overview of research in the field. No one masters all of that. I haven't read any Dawkins but I have read Sagan and Ehrman.

There are "new atheist" writers but I don't see why that's a problem. The Christian bookshelves seem pretty well stocked.

None of those authors are "fringe authors," and as far as I have seen, the only "peers" that do not respect them are ones who actively encourage the dismissal of anyone who is not a christian. Plus Sagan should be remembered as an agnostic, not an atheist (along with being one of the most respected scientists of his time).

I would also have to disagree with you stating that theism is flourishing in the scientific community. There are plenty of religious people in academia and science, but there are many more atheists within that demographic than any other by far.

And just for the record, the vast majority of physicists I have met are atheists, myself included. Most of the physicists I know that have religious beliefs do not identify as christian, either. I have met more buddhist physicists than christian ones.

I dunno bout that.

Its like - if you named a highschool after Martin Luther King Jr. - it would confuse the hell out of everyone.

Thats because then the school would be "Martin Luther King Jr. Highschool" even though it would NOT be "a junior highschool"!

It would be a senior highschool named after someone with "junior" in their name.

So... an "antitheist" could be either: "someone who opposes God",or it could be "someone who opposes belief in God". Could be an "(anti- god) believer, or they could be an "anti Godbeliever".

I don't know how many hotheads at the uni have told me that my beliefs were a virus and that I should quit being so ignorant. And they have gone out of their way to do it. That is "atheist thumping", isn't it?



Okay, riddle me this then: why is it that the original title of the God Delusion was "the root of all evil"? The book was based on a documentary that had that title and there is even a section entitled "the virus of faith". And he draws upon his book The Selfish Gene for the title and much of the content of that section.

He has also been quoted on several occasions saying that sex abuse does "arguably less long-term psychological damage" than being brought up a Catholic, and that indoctrination is "child abuse". One prominent example of that was at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival.

And now I quote from Al Jazeera:



More from you:



He still is a proponent of the selfish gene theory, which has been resoundingly criticized since the 90's. I don't even personally know any evolutionary biologists who subscribe to the theory any more. But I am interested to see this paper you're talking about, because I haven't heard of him publishing anything in biology for quite some time. It's all well and good if he wants to retire, but if he wants to masquerade as a leader of the scientific community and purposefully choose church elders and other uneducated folk instead of apologists to call theism and christianity silly (that is insulting because of who he chooses to debate).



Well I have read quite a few papers by the Jesus Seminar actually, and it is my expert opinion that many of their claims are fabricated. Furthermore, we see extremely strong trends against syncretism in Judaism so there are scant reasonable grounds for any real professional historian to claim that there was syncretism on such a scale. Their entire society was practically built on the opposite of religious syncretism.



I was making an observation about the environment that I normally find in places like this, not you in particular.

I don't have enough information to form an opinion on the shroud of Turin, it was merely an example. The sample may not have been good and there is clear evidence for that because the fire was well documented, but I personally think it was probably a good sample. And it's all well and good that you have opinions on the archeological issues surrounding Jericho and the conflict over distinguishing the Habiru people from the Hyksos. I'm sure you may be well read on that and would love to debate with you on those issues, but I wasn't commenting on folks like you, was I? I was commenting on folks who don't even know what the half-life of carbon is or how to date pottery and they want to tell me everything I've got wrong.

It isn't a problem that there are new atheist writers. The problem is the quality of their work and the fact that they have been going to popular publishers instead of submitting to peer review, in order to trash religion. Several of their works (especially Sagan's), when checked for citation quality, are sheer crap. People lap it up like dogs when it's exceedingly obvious they didn't bother to look into the footnotes. Dawkins is pretty much the worst when it comes to that, he paraphrases parodies of theist arguments in order to ridicule them. One example of that would be his treatment of the KCA (not an argument I personally support) in his "God Delusion".