My question for atheists.

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The big issue is that you have to realize that atheism often includes the position that faith and science ultimately do not harmonize. So, while there are continual ways to avoid that idea, an atheist will usually have some ground for criticism, and that will lead to criticism. Over time, the nature of the criticism may change somewhat, but the simple issue is that most atheists have views of how the world works and criticisms towards standard theological beliefs that simply cannot be reconciled with religions, and where atheists think they are correct. Like any kind of social dialogue, a lot of different expressions are taken, including attempts to reason, contempt, vicious argument, conciliatory expressions, etc. The atheist community is also marginalized(meaning that those who identify are usually more committed), the belief has a negative correlation with agreeableness, and the most extreme views usually get the most attention.

I mean, the problem isn't just that fundamentalists are evil, it's that the two views disagree and even that they clash in some ways that have massive social consequences. I doubt that gay marriage getting legalized is going to stop people from being outraged about gays being labeled as immoral, or anything else like that. So, sure, we may agree that fundamentalists are bad, but I don't think that your religion is true, and I do not think it is good that you believe.

Of course that happens in every religion if we all agreed on the same issues the world would be a very dangerous place for a atheist to live in. I don't care so much that your think my religion or belief is bad because it has no relevance to me. And in the christian community the extreme views are frowned upon but of course a athiest would view us all the same really its a two way street both sides are guilty of transgressions against each other. You see the point is their will always be religious and non religious people give all the evidience against God and more people will follow their religion fundamentally atheists are the ones that light the fire in religious people to have extreme views in the first place. Afer all it is true that atheists make the religious zealous.

Speaking about death

Buried microbes exist at limit between life and death

.......... The issue isn't just a mere opinion about something being bad. It's the arguments and structures involved.


I am not aware of what you're getting at about transgressions. Atheists aren't even organized, so talking about atheist transgressions becomes a bit difficult, especially compared to the religious side of things where more organization and unity exists, and if the religion is true, HAS TO exist.

Extreme religious views existed before atheism existed. Joker, your argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, would have to blame atheists for the excesses of the Reformation, and the purges of heretics done throughout history. The issue is that religious extremism has existed for MUCH longer than atheism, and the harms of religious people have actually DECLINED as atheism has increased in prevalence. This can be seen in the outright discrimination done to Bertrand Russell on grounds of his beliefs, compared to the modern university accepting many professors who are publicly atheist.

Your best argument for your point is that people hate being proven wrong, so they dig down to confirm their original beliefs in some form of blowback effect. The issue is that this isn't going to work equally on all people, nor will it work equally well in the long-run. A lot of the stronger fundamentalists are hicks who have never met an atheist. However, a lot of more liberal believers are ones who lived in contexts where atheism was a real intellectual force. The issue is that there is little reason to think that this trend will not hold. There is little reason to think that liberal Christianity will abolish fundamentalism. The two communities have been separate for centuries. Conservative Christians don't even consider the more moderate ones anything but wayward, so talking about like-minded influence seems silly.

Asking a religious group to back down is utterly ridiculous-it's like asking every christian to stop spreading the good word because they've saved "enough" souls.

.......... The issue isn't just a mere opinion about something being bad. It's the arguments and structures involved.

What other issue could it be then and why can't you athesists be organized the way theists are?

I mean it would be a great way to piss them off you see the more atheists talk down to the religious your only making their faith stronger.

When Charles Dawkins wrote the book the God delusion we christians muslims and jews didn't care because the faithful depend on those types of books it makes are faith stronger.

In fact if athiests stopped making those books and stopped attaccking our faith we would cease to be zealous on behath of God.

If atheists truly want the religious to be peacful then they must allow us to whorship and believe with out making attacks against our faith we would be willing to stop our attacks against atheists.

We are supposed to be zealous in the name of God when our faith is attacked we become violent we will defend our religion and culture because we view them both the same.

What you must understand is when dealing with a person of faith you will find no common ground their is no reasoning with all the evidence in you have against our faith it has no relevance we are not gonna stop spreading our faith.

Just as you atheists will never stop attacking us their really never will be peace between the religious and atheists that is a fact we both will agree on/

Umm.... atheism is a negative movement unified by a common rejection. It isn't a community group. Most religions are community groups.


This varies from person to person. Yes, some people really will end up with a strong counter-reaction. Others will try to mediate interests. Some people may actually get upset by this shock and change their mind, and this really does happen.


You mean Richard Dawkins, and it varied from believer to believer. Nobody believed it was the end of religion. Nobody outside of atheists really appreciated it either.


No you wouldn't. This claim is not only unevidenced, but it is utterly contrary to every single piece of evidence we have, whether it is modern middle-eastern Islam, or historical Christianity. Both have shown excesses of zealotry in an environment where no atheists existed. They have freely used their power to oppress their opponents, even opponents who are weak and minor. So, your claim is just flatly false.


Atheists do allow you to worship. You have no right to go uncriticized though, and the idea that you would get off without criticism is utterly ridiculous. Do the republicans get off without criticism? No. Do homeopaths get away without being criticized? No. That's just not how things work. Your communities are based upon ideas, either these ideas are true, or they are false, and if I believe they are false, I'm going to tell you that you are wrong, and ask that you stop being such fools in wasting your lives.

Also, atheists don't care about apologetic efforts. They don't threaten us. Nor do you have the power to stop the religious from making efforts. The historic core of the monotheistic sects of Christianity and Islam isn't "live peacefully holding to whatever faith you'd like", it is "CONVERT! OR YOUR SOUL WILL PERISH!! !", so it isn't likely that these religions are going to deny their core beliefs and ignore atheists without trying to sell them some faith. That's just absurd. There will always be fundamentalists, not because of atheism, but because of the kind of belief that fundamentalism is. I mean, the KJV-only movement existed LONG BEFORE Richard Dawkins.


At the moment, we're talking about your beliefs getting criticized. I don't even know what you're talking about in terms of violence. A problem is that many churches have a culture that atheists believe is toxic in certain ways. We're not letting it off the hook, just like we wouldn't let any other evil off the hook. It's significant if gay people feel stigmatized, and that's a matter of religion. It's significant if truths are being suppressed because of their conflict with faiths, including the truth of evolution. We can't turn a blind eye to that.


I can't make sense of your sentence structure.

However, the issue is that if you're talking about a person who will not respond to evidence, you're talking about a person who is diseased in some way preventing them from reasoning like a healthy individual should. That's not acceptable. We should not turn a blind eye to such issues. If anything, we need to expose to people that this kind of behavior conflicts with moral norms and values, and that higher standards are important.

The faithful not reasoning isn't relevant. Atheists are not going to stop talking about what we think is true, and we're not going to stop trying to put the world more in line with the truth and to improve it. To do otherwise would fail to be human.


I'm not sure why we would really be looking for that peace. We want to maintain civil order, but if you're wrong, why do I want to not criticize you? I don't care if you criticize me. Either I'm right, and your criticism doesn't matter, or I'm wrong and your criticism should be something I change to, and in either case criticism is acceptable. The real issue is arriving at the truth and getting rid of the lies. If religion is one of the lies, then we ought to get rid of it. Truth, values, and things like that are simply not negotiable.

When a religious follower allows a atheist to change their mind about their faith they never had faith to begin with. And yes I meant Richard Dawkins not Charles Dawkins their are plenty of groups through out history that promoted atheism the USSR People Repulic of China ect.

BTW its really hard for me to understand how to use punctuation and grammar it is the main thing I struggle with when it comes to being aspie.

So, you're saying that faith is the opposite of intellectual integrity? If so, then you may be right. However, if faith can be seen in things like devotion, sacrifice, and so on, then the existence of pastors turned atheists seems sufficient to argue that a person with faith can change their mind and become an atheist. The issue is that mind change is probably less about the person and more about the contexts, in that there is probably no such thing as an unsinkable faith, even if what it takes is brain cancer.

You're talking about Marxists. The issue is that Marxism is quite separate from atheism.

That is such a cop out you went striat into denial when I brougt up poltical movements that promoted atheism btw People Reupublican Of China where never marxist. So many people suffered under the so called intellectual rule it did harm just like religion has done both have done harm. But when atheism does harm atheists blame in on other things and not atheism at least we theists can say that are religion has done harm in the world we live in.

Marxism and Atheism go hand in hand with each other. Not to mention Atheism and totalitarian regimes killing theists left and right. And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic?

Marxism and religious authority, particularly Christian religious authority, i.e. church and its associated interests are in opposition. The Marxists regard the church as an agent of the current property owning class and a defender of reactionary anti-labor policies.

The question of whether god exists is not nearly as relevant as the question of what is the church doing with respect to the conditions of the workers who do not own the means of production that they use.

In fact in Latin America some of the church people have taken up the struggle against injustices committed against that class of people who toil but do not own or control the means of production. This is sometimes called "liberation theology". So the issue is not atheism so much as it is church-ism (forgive this clumsy word, please).

ruveyn

The People's Republic of China is Marxist. It's run by the Communist party. It was founded on Marxism.

I agree, Marxism has done many evil things. But I consider this separate from atheism though simply because
1) Marxism as an ideology shows a lot of unique traits, and these unique traits are really not conducive to a properly functioning discourse. Marxism has historically tended towards a drive for ideological purity, and even a need to fulfill a vision of the "end-times", and both of these change the matter immensely.
2) Marxism is not a functioning economic philosophy. It is utterly broken and utterly false. This created problems because nations like the USSR found themselves stuck in a situation that was not workable, when they had gotten there through means that were not workable. So, the cruelty of the dictatorship was partially driven by the earlier need for ideological purity, but also driven by the fact that the communists were running their society on a broken idea, where they had no idea how to implement it, and where their efforts were deeply confused.
3) Marxists simply did not practice what we in the West know to be best practices, and emerged from a revolution. Governments that emerge from revolutions are known to be unstable.

Joker, there is no unified "atheist" ideology, unlike with Christianity or Islam, etc. There are not a lot of unifying traits for "atheism". There are different ideologies that either require or are compatible with atheism, and these ideologies are important in evaluating the issue. Marxism, as I pointed out, is toxic. However, the term "atheism" suggests a negative identity. Atheists identify as atheists because they are NOT theists, because the sociological set-up is such that an identity as NOT being a theist is meaningful. Unless you believe there is a unity in atheism, and wish to identify it, then there is nothing to discuss.

If there IS a unifying atheistic cause to various evils, and you can identify it as specifically related to atheism, you are free to do so and argue on those grounds. But pointing to a few Marxist governments that emerged from dilapidated systems involves too many other common variables that could cause the same effects to make this a useful example.

So, Joker, if I am copping out, then show how Marxist brutalities are rooted in atheism, and how non-Marxist, non-revolutionary atheist societies have led to such utter depravity. Give me a more complete and fleshed out model of the situation, like what a cause would require. Saying "X was there! Therefore X is responsible!" doesn't work.

Karl Marx took his politcal views mixed it with atheism and created a dogma so to speak which lead to state atheism instead of whorshipping God it was guys like Mao Pol Pot and Stalin that where whorshipped I don't care so much about non theists. Just find it strange that they give credit to whom they don't believe in.

*sigh*

Let me clarify: Marxism is an ideology that requires atheism. Marxists are not the predominant atheists and most atheists today will not associate themselves with Marxism. Marxist ideology also includes a LOT MORE than just atheism. The issue is that this "LOT MORE" is sufficient to explain the outcomes caused by Marxist policies. Finally, as absurd as this may be, various religious groups have tried incorporating Marxism into their belief systems, mostly certain far-left sects of Christianity, and Marx is a major figure at a number of liberal seminaries, making the entire matter much more complicated.

So, the reason why I say they are separate is because frankly, the problems of Marxism really appear strongly associated with the social theory aspects, as the same social theory aspects also required the need for orthodoxy, which also included purging religion and things like that, it's really NOT an issue with Marxism being materialist.

If you disagree, you can express this, but I wanted to make the issue about Marxism only being a subset of atheism, and marginal subset of Western atheism rather clear. I'm not trying to say that Stalin was a Catholic or anything of that nature, only that the comparison is absurd. (And frankly, the comparison *IS* absurd. The confounding variables in the situation are so extreme that the use of the example is more likely just a sign of poor knowledge of that situation, or a very underhanded apologetic strategy. I cannot say the same about the efforts to kill heretics, as that was part of the Christian experience UNTIL the Enlightenment, and it is STILL a part of the Islamic experience. Unless we wish to abandon all of Christian history as relevant(something absurd given Christianity's claims about the church and how it is guided by God), we have to admit that Christianity has been willing to kill people based upon what they believe.