The Trouble with Militant Atheist

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26 Nov 2011, 3:14 pm

I am leery of anyone who claims to have all the answers, whether they are theist, atheist, or whatever else they may choose to call themselves.

Lecks
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26 Nov 2011, 3:28 pm

StonedMoonie wrote:

My biggest problems with militant atheists is how often they distort the Bible and religious doctrines, and how they have an ideological zeal to blame religion for things that can more realistically be blamed on politics or sheer stupidity.

I have almost exactly the same problem with militant theists.

I think we can all agree that "militant <anything>" is a bad thing and such people don't represent the majority of whichever groups they happen to be associated with.

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26 Nov 2011, 3:41 pm

Vigilans wrote:

ScientistOfSound wrote:

Militant atheists are just as bad as fundamentalist christians. I hate Richard Dawkins with a burning passion. He's an a**hole.

-Also, I'm an atheist, and proud of it. But that doesn't mean I'm going to be an a**hole about it like militant atheists are.

Yep, arguing on the internet and making public criticisms is just as bad as trying to deny people their basic rights and simultaneously attempt to halt Human progress often through violence...

If Dawkins and his Cult of Equality nutters get any more powerful that's exactly what they do.

Democracy is a religion, and far more dangerous than all the Mullahs in the world.

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26 Nov 2011, 4:05 pm

Georges Lemaître one of filthy Atheists that came up with the big bang theory .
consorting with a known Jew.

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26 Nov 2011, 4:35 pm

artrat wrote:

I still belive in a creator. It is hard for me to understand how other people can not.

I'm agnostic as to the existence of a Creator (I think it's unlikely, though). I would much rather a Creator didn't exist. The world is full of suffering and the universe is heading towards greater disorder. I would rather not have a Creator for the universe because then it would have moral agency (nature itself is amoral) and be responsible for the state of things. It would, I think, be 'evil'.

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donnie_darko
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26 Nov 2011, 4:43 pm

I feel the exact same way as you.

The fact that so few people identify as atheists in my opinion is because it's quite an extreme viewpoint, to believe that life has no purpose whatsoever (aside from what people make of it).

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26 Nov 2011, 4:46 pm

Vigilans wrote:

ScientistOfSound wrote:

Yep, arguing on the internet and making public criticisms is just as bad as trying to deny people their basic rights and simultaneously attempt to halt Human progress often through violence...

Calling people who actually argue about their views "militant atheists" is just proof of how horribly biased people are towards their holy cows. So much that even cultural members of a religion (atheists that were raised in a religious setting) cringe at the notion of some atheist on the web actually stating that religion is crap.

Nevermind that all theists in the internet do the same thing . Eg. "I'll pray for you to change". "I think catholic cheatings don't match mine". Etc, etc, etc. But of course, to the theist mind, those guys are just stating their beliefs, they are not worthy of the 'militant' title.

But of course, we give the "militant" title to atheists. Because they voice that religion is crap. And that's ridiculous Even RD is quite mild in comparison to a true Christian militant. All that Richard Dawkings does is be inconsiderate to your beliefs, but he is worthy of the title 'militant', which puts him in the same level to abortion clinic bombers and Muslims who explode buses.

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26 Nov 2011, 4:49 pm

StonedMoonie wrote:

Vigilans wrote:

ScientistOfSound wrote:

Yep, arguing on the internet and making public criticisms is just as bad as trying to deny people their basic rights and simultaneously attempt to halt Human progress often through violence...

If Dawkins and his Cult of Equality nutters get any more powerful that's exactly what they do.

Democracy is a religion, and far more dangerous than all the Mullahs in the world.

I'm not really into Dawkins et al. But I don't really see them trying to halt Human progress. Atheism is not a religion; as Fnord recently said, that is like claiming it is a hobby when you don't collect stamps

While I have my problems with democracy, I am curious why you see it as more dangerous than the radical Muslims

donnie_darko wrote:

The fact that so few people identify as atheists in my opinion is because it's quite an extreme viewpoint, to believe that life has no purpose whatsoever (aside from what people make of it).

What is wrong with making your own purpose out of life? How can you think that atheism equates to believing life has no purpose?

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26 Nov 2011, 4:51 pm

donnie_darko wrote:

The fact that so few people identify as atheists in my opinion is because it's quite an extreme viewpoint, to believe that life has no purpose whatsoever (aside from what people make of it).

I'd rather life did not have a fixed purpose; then I'd be judging my life against some criteria of whether it fulfils that purpose. Even if the criteria was just something easy, like 'appreciate beauty' or 'feel love' - I would still get stressed as to whether I was doing that enough. Just surviving is difficult enough.

This is why I get annoyed when other non-religious people say, 'the purpose of life is to reproduce'. No, I'd like to keep my life meaningless, please.

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26 Nov 2011, 4:56 pm

donnie_darko wrote:

That people think that atheists don't have a purpose in life says more about the theists saying so than it says about atheists.

I have tons of things to ponder in life. I have a family, I have a career and I have ambitions. If I stopped being a pantheist, my life would still have quite a whole purpose and an objective. In fact, my belief doesn't really give me much purpose.

When I think in retrospect, being a catholic didn't really help my life have a purpose. My life was emptier before when I thought I was part of some role playing game in which you have to make a deity happy not to go to hell.

When I dropped that absurd monotheistic view of a punishing God, my life became a lot more richer. That's the irony here. There are so many theists and Christians assuming that other people's lives are emptier when it is the other way around. It is THEM that would have nothing if not for their absurd beliefs of a giant bearded Jew. Not the atheists.

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26 Nov 2011, 5:28 pm

My main problem with atheism isn't so much their belief the Universe is pointless, but more than they believe the Universe is a result of random chance. I just think there's too much order in the Universe to believe that it didn't arise from some kind of intelligence. The watchmaker argument imo is pretty strong even though atheists love to bash it. I don't believe in a vengeful bearded God, but I do think there is probably a high intelligence who created all of this and I also think we are not purely physical beings. But I could be wrong.

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26 Nov 2011, 6:54 pm

puddingmouse wrote:

artrat wrote:

I still belive in a creator. It is hard for me to understand how other people can not.

Why would the creator be responsible for evil? I think humans would be to blame for evil since we have free will.
I think that the creator created the universe and life and did nothing else. We were given free will after that.

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26 Nov 2011, 7:32 pm

artrat wrote:

You can't say that all suffering or 'evil' is caused by humans, given all the diseases and natural disasters out there. Plus the universe is heading towards a heat death according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If the universe has a Creator, then the Creator has moral agency for making things the way they are.

If by Creator, you only mean 'first mover', then there's no moral agency involved because the 'first mover' did not have a plan. I don't see the point of attaching spiritual significance to a first mover, though.

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27 Nov 2011, 6:01 pm

donnie_darko wrote:

Well, you're wrong about atheists 'believing in random chance.' A lot of very non-random laws (they're called "laws" because of their consistency, not their randomness) can produce quite a lot of complexity and order without any intervention from any 'higher power.'

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28 Nov 2011, 12:06 am

artrat wrote:

Why would the creator be responsible for evil? I think humans would be to blame for evil since we have free will.

It is a common trope in ancient fiction that the creator is also the one who created humans. So, The evil that comes from humans was originated from this creator and is still his responsibility.

Huh, if your kid breaks another kid's head, you are liable.

donnie wrote:

My main problem with atheism isn't so much their belief the Universe is pointless

You are using [Ancient aliens TV show] argumentation practices. You mention something as fact and then skip to elaborate on something else, so anyone will focus on the rest of your paragraph and forget the little 'fact' you dropped before the elaboration.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It has nothing to do about believing "the universe is pointless."

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28 Nov 2011, 11:34 am

artrat wrote:

Even if I did study the big bang theory I would probably still believe in a creator(not an invisible man).

If you knew how a car worked would you believe that there are little gnomes that move the pistons in the engine up and down? If you knew how the human body worked, would you still think diseases were caused by demons? Knowledge kills ignorance.

artrat wrote:

I have no interest in studying it because science bores me to death. It's only a theory.

So, you're willfully ignorant then. You obviously don't know what a theory is. This is why I hate religion, it celebrates ignorance disguised as faith and dumbs down our entire species.

artrat wrote:

I may be ignorant in the subject of science but I'm sure you are ignorant in many subjects that I am knowledgeable about.

You're right! I don't know anything about knitting, skiing, bear hunting, french poetry, or nascar. I do however know a lot about many different branches of science that pertain to this discussion. I fail to see your point.

artrat wrote:

You should not insult the ancient people they had some very wise ideas. The goat herders that you put down used the night sky as a map.I really respect ancient people much more than modern scientist
Which come up with new theories every day.

They thought diseases were caused by demons, witches were real, human sacrifices were ok (in certain cultures), and that we were being watched by the person who made us in their image. All of these are equally stupid and need to die out as beliefs. They have no evidence and hold us back.

artrat wrote:

If there is no creator then who created science?

We did, right after we created the concept of god. At least we got it right the second time.

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