Rational Atheists vs Atheists by ideology

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I posted that once in a local forum (it was a debate with Lebanese communists and socialists):

There are 2 kinds of atheists:

1-The atheists by reason: These atheists become atheists gradually by reasoning and researching. These atheists are very fond to science and they find no logic and scientific truths in religions.
They read a lot about religions , they reason a lot and they analyze a lot in order to find the truth of religions. These atheists are usually highly ethical persons since they have enough balls to questioning about some of the unethical principles in the holy books , they are usually very tolerant toward people of different religions, races and usually see all humans as equals, they have a very high sense of humanity
In fact, based on what I observed , most members in the secular humanist movements such as anti-discrimination, anti-sexism, peacekeepers, greenpeace ,animal's rights movement are usually atheists or agnostic or barely religious.

These atheists are very resistant to any kind of brainwashing and they have a freedom of mind and their own reasoning , they usually value themselves as very unique individuals and they are usually very intelligent and educated people..

2-The atheists by Ideology : These atheists are arrogant, stupid and bunch of hypocrite idiots. These atheists choose suddenly to be atheists because they follow a specific ideology that tells them so. They usually follow a leader like sheep and they are very prone to be brainwashed by propagandas , they are usually very limited people in reasoning and thinking since they don't think outside the box of their socio-political ideology.They are usually anti-west and they are a very hypocrite and have double-faced thinking, they insult extremist religious groups yet they ally with any anti-US religiously extremist group.

These atheists are very unethical,racists and bloodthirsty like their idolized leaders. Unlike the first category , they lack the sense of humanity.
They are even worse than extremist religious people since they worship a person instead of a god.
They are just followers of a 'religion'=their ideology .
(ie. Communists, Baath,SSNP....these idiots worship and praise bullcraps figures like Stalin , Saddam , Castro ...and other crap hypocrite leaders, figures whose their pics don't deserve to be more than toilet papers)


Who agree with that?

I can't agree with such a simplified conclusion.

I don't believe the second group are atheists.

Fortunately I have seldom if ever met that category.


My Grandfather became an atheist from his experiences in the 1914 - 1918 war.

The sad thing is, you could replace the word "athiest" with the name of any established religion or denomination, and "secular" with "religious", and it would still apply.

In effect, athiests have the same 2 camps that most religions do: The rational and progressive side, and the ideological nutjobs...

Also, as iceb said about the second group, if you were to modify it to concern a certain religion, I don't think that such a group could truly be considered a part of that religion (i.e. I don't really consider Fred Phelps to be a christian...)

There are those who call themselves atheists because it is fashionable.

There are also those who follow what in effect is a religion, that is only called "Atheism". Many are indoctrinated with this "Atheism", that actually has a very strict dogma. I consider it an offensive perversion.

Oh dear someone else that does not understand the principles of communism as shown by your association of Stalin and Castro with that particular political theory. Do not criticise what you obviously do not understand.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can be a rational/scientific atheist. Science shows that the probability of a god is minutely low but it cannot prove gods non existence, this is why I do not call myself an atheist but instead an agnostic bordering on atheism

And then there are those people like myself who do not believe and never believed in religious nonsense. I had no religion as a child and never had the need for one. The whole business has always struck me as weird and unnecessary and a total waste of time.

Well, if you want to cut things that way, there are no real communists and never have been. The fact that Castro doesn't fit your definition of communism is slightly interesting, but irrelevant to the way that most people use the word. I don't believe that a particular interpretation of Marx and Lenin have a monopoly on the use of the word - there are Hippie communists who don't care about Marx, there are Christian communists who share their possessions with each other because they were inspired by an interpretation of the Bible, etc.



Ok - but if you do not affirmatively believe in a god or gods, then it is reasonable to classify you as an a-theist or non-theist. The fact that you agnostically leave the door open for what you consider the miniscule possibility that god might exist is not the same as believing in god.

I have never come across any evidence to support such a statement.. that atheists are reasoning.. and researching.. when it comes to religion.

Examples.. please.

In my youth I was an atheist myself.. I became an atheist at the age of eight.. after my first experience of Sunday school.

In fact.. I still don't believe in supernatural beings.. or miracles.

Instead I understand the biblical stories as symbolic accounts.. metaphors.. allegories.. which.. when interpreted wisely.. make perfect sense.. at least to me.

Isn’t that more logical than getting in bed with the literalist approach of many Christians.. ?

I would say so.

However.. since the atheist shares the position of the literalist christian.. (which is rather naive in this day and age).. for me the two beliefs are both ridiculous.. and are more based on the reader's poor reading comprehension.. and lack of logic.. than anything else.

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“Everyone inexperienced puts faith in every word , but the shrewd One considers his steps.” - Proverbs 14.15

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Which is easy enough..

"For the entire Law stands fulfilled in one saying, namely: "You must love your neighbour as yourself." If, though, you keep on biting and devouring one another, look out that you do not get annihilated by one another." - Galatians 5:14

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Examples of “unethical principles”.. please.

Is this what could be considered an unethical principle… ?

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“Why do you not judge also for yourselves what is righteous?”

Luke 12:57

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This being the case.. then why take the position of not believing in religion.. ?

Both Buddhism.. and the Bible.. clearly teach (Mohammed missed the boat on this one).. that loving kindness.. righteousness.. justice.. peace.. wisdom.. truth and freedom.. are the highest of all human principles.

Is the atheist honestly saying.. they don’t believe in these core human values.. ?

If so.. then where is the logic in such a position..?





Isn’t it logical.. to treat each other the way we would wish to be treated ourselves.. ?

And to believe in.. loving kindness.. righteousness.. justice.. peace.. wisdom.. truth and freedom.. ?

Isn’t such a teaching.. a science (or knowledge).. of true ethics.. ?

For example.. The Law of Love.

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"The men who discovered for us the Law of Love were greater scientists than any of our modern scientists. Only our explorations have not gone far enough and so it is not possible for every one to see all its working.

Such, at any rate, is the hallucination, if it is one, under which I am laboring. The more I work at this law the more I feel the delight in life, the delight in the scheme of this universe. It gives me a peace and a meaning of the mysteries of nature that I have no power to describe."

Gandhi

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And.. I wonder..

Do atheists find logic.. and scientific truths.. in what their governments are saying.. ?

Don’t they believe it.. when the Bible says our.. so called..
“leaders”…... are misleading us.. ?
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“O my people, those leading you on are causing you to wander, and the way of your paths they have confused.

And those who are leading this people on prove to be the ones causing them to wander; and those of them who are being led on, the ones who are being confused.”

Isaiah 3:12 + 9:16

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So.. do atheists really disbelieve in what the bible is saying.. ?

Somehow....... I doubt it.

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Last edited by Accelerator on 06 Sep 2008, 6:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Agreed.

The first group reaches its conclusions only after careful consideration of all available evidence, and may even change their conclusions based on new eveidence. "Science is Self-Correcting."

The second group reaches its conclusions first, and then seeks supporting evidence. They may also target specific religions while ignoring others, or even drawing support from religions other than their chosen target. "Religion is Self-Serving."

The Atheists I know don't fit either description. They just don't believe in god and that's all there is to it. Really. And most of the people I know that are of my age (20) are atheists. Back when I was in the tenth grade or so a teacher asked who believed in God. Only two or three people raised their hand.

If you asked one of these atheists whether they believe in God, you'd get the same reaction as if you had asked whether they believed in the Easter Bunny. A strange look on their faces and some hesitation before the answer while they try to figure out if you might be trying to fool them somehow.
They stopped praying to god around the same age they stopped writing wish lists to Santa Claus (or rather the Christkind where I live).

There is no reasoning behind atheism. They don't believe because they have no reason to believe, not because they have a reason not to believe. If you are a believer you won't get attacked by these people, they don't care. But you won't be able to convert them either. The notion of God just seems outlandish. Just like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny: maybe a part of culture, something to tell your children about, but nothing a sensible person would ever believe to actually exist.
That's atheism for most people.


As far as I can see, your two groups are just a general characterization of people participating in discussion forums:
1) The "good" posters who you want to persuade you by argumentation and reasoning.
2) The "bad" posters who are just stubborn and become ever more aggressive the more you try to reason with them.

You will only see these kinds of people on forums because they are the only groups who will actually take the time to participate in a discussion. The "regular" people mostly won't care enough to get into an argument.

I believe that applies to agnostic atheism, in which by that definition, they take that approach. The problem I see with this, is the assumption, "if there is no evidence I would assume God doesn't exist or desbelief God, until evidence is found that proves it". After all, lack of evidence is never evidence itself. Where exactly the "new" evidence would fit here?

Empirical agnosticism or weak agnosticism, is also the approach one takes that if the existence of God is proven then it should be accepted, the difference with this, is that the existence of God is stated as unknown, seen as a probability rather than disbelief or assumption of non-existence until proven otherwise, like the first group of atheists.

I believe I may fall into "weak" agnosticism, even though sometimes I'm not sure where exactly I stand, but mostly I feel like this.

When it comes to the scientific method, I believe that empirical agnosticism to be the best and most valid approach to all things unknown or uncertain.

Anyway, the issue related to God is seem mostly to be a personal matter rather than a real scientific matter, any individual has their personal opinions about related stuff which will always differ from other individuals, in which science is not necessarily related. You cannot say a real scientist has to be atheist or a real scientist has to be christian, etc. I don't believe it is necessarily related.


Hmm, honestly I thought you might have belonged to this group, because you admitted to be anti-religious, and you seem to support antireligious and antisupernatural agendas, also you seemed to, based on few posts, to make a conclusion first and seek evidence later. This is not an attack though, it is an observation, notice that I am not claiming certainty.

Castro and Stalin were totalitarian dictators, and were communist only because they called themselves that, capitalist organisations perpetuate the myth that these dictators were the embodiment of communism so that people fear the word and the associated ideology. They have married the behaviour of the likes of Stalin, Castro and Mao to the work of Marx which is like associating christianity to satanism. You are absolutely correct we have never seen a communist state, Russia tried it and failed due to various reasons many of which Marx predicted. Sharing possessions does not make you a communist.




From the oxford dictionary

atheism
/aythi-iz’m/

• noun the belief that God does not exist.

As I said I find it highly improbable that there is a god, however scientifically I cannot prove that god does not exist therefore as I rely upon science for my opinion, I cannot say that I am an atheist.

Oh ... I don't know ... maybe an angel of the Lord appearing to them and saying, "Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy..."


Perhaps ... but I'm not an Atheist.

Exactly!

The thing is, with what you stated, that new evidence change the current ones, "Science is Self-Correcting." I agree with it, this is how science works, nevertheless, this seemed to imply that current evidence would already exist regarding to the existence of God, or in this case non-existence, (I would assume that you agree that lack of evidence != evidence) by the new evidence and self-correcting suggested, which this was being argued.


This seem to be mostly the case, here.



well, at least we seem to agree here.