In a sense, yes. I admit that my subjective frame of reference (my consciousness) is closed to anyone else. No one else can experience it but me. Of course, that’s not likely what you meant, but still…
This is what I was talking about and not the “rules”. An example would be His4Ever, she is sincere in her belief that she must convert all of us over, thus saving our souls. She runs into lots of resistence here on the boards (even being taken to the Pit). I would imagine that elsewhere she doesn’t run into such resistance. As pointed out if any doper encountered her IRL, there would probably be no confrontation. If this is true of a good Christain, like His4Ever, there is little problem understanding the real “jerks”. 
Apos, you made some excellent points.
If I am reading this right, it is sort of a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” question, and I think is equally unanswerable as to any given person. Certainly there are people who by their nature or by their life experiences are more loving and caring than others. The problem is that one could ascribe these attributes to being from God, or not, as one believes. Ultimately, I don’t think that it is possible to objectively argue one way or the other. Certianly, there are some theological responses to this, and they may be right, but they would not be objectively provable that I can see.
The short answer is that it doesn’t. Since being closed minded is an extreme, you either are or you are not. I don’t know that it is possible to be more closed-minded any more than it is possible to be a little more pregnant.
While most non-believers assume that Christians think they are closed minded, my discussions with Christians lead me to believe that such a view is clearly in the minority. Being closed minded is not a matter of degree. I have met people who are completely closed-minded when it comes to religion or God, and others who don’t believe, but are not at all closed minded, they simply disagree with me.
I find it curious that we live in a time that the prevailing assumption is that being closed minded is a bad thing. An absurd example: Two people are travelling through Africa when their jeep comes upon a pride of lions lying in the sun. The closed minded guy locks the doors. Lions are dangerous, after all. The open minded guy thinks “maybe lions aren’t so bad.” So the open minded guy gets out to pet one of the lions.
Obviously, this is an absurd example, but most things that we as a society take to be common sense is really a reflection of what we have seen enough of to be closed minded about. I would rather be closed minded and right, than open minded and wrong on any issue. I say all of this simply to say that the perjorative sense of “close-minded” is perhaps overdone in our society.
I think that Libertarian’s response to this issue was brilliant. Assume a person has a really bad headache. If you know the person, you might notice they are acting differently, or maybe their facial expressions give it away, but you will never, ever objectively know that person has a headache. But you will also never be able to convince the person with the headache that he doesn’t have one. The reason being that the pain he feels is all of the evidence the person needs. Love, emotions and relationships are all the same way. The person with the headache is not necessarily closed minded, in the true sense of the word, he is simply certain of a reality. What is objective to him is subjective to everything else. A person who has a relationship with God is much the same. That relationship is internal evidence that is unassailable in many respects.
If God wanted blind faith, he wouldn’t have given us eyes. The close-minded term I use, as such, indicates an unwillingness to try to understand what you feel you already know. I never expect a Christian to stop believing; I ask Christians what it is that they believe. This, in my experience, is generally a no-no.
eris: I’ve found that 1) is the case (that the number of Christian jerks is approximately proportional to the number of non-Christian jerks, and may in fact be a tad bit higher), and as an atheist I can’t really comment on 2). However, one major difference between Christian jerks and (e.g.) atheist jerks that I’ve noticed is that, 9 times out of 10, the Christian jerks will behave more appropriately when told that they’re acting like jerks, while the atheist jerks will only correct their behavior 1 time out of 10. F’rinstance, when told that he/she is being a jerk (in a manner to which he/she is receptive, though in my experience a simple “You’re acting like a jerk” suffices), the most common Christian Jerk response I’ve encountered is “Golly, you’re right, I am being a jerk, I’ll try to do better,” while the most common Atheist Jerk response I’ve encountered is “You’re right, I am being a jerk, but Nietzsche/Rand/whoever says that I’m fully within my rights in behaving like a jerk, so I’m gonna keep acting like a jerk.” The Christian jerk may immediately relapse back into jerkdom, but at least he/she doesn’t (in my experience) take pride in the fact that he/she is acting like a jerk – I’m usually able to tolerate Christian jerks to some degree or another, but atheist jerks are often utterly intolerable.
I’m not sure that it’s fully understandable. I still can’t get over how, in the span of an instant, my whole worldview turned upside down, inside out, and sideways. One moment, I saw the world as an atheist; the next, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and knew God intimately and eternally.
I’ve tried to understand it. But one thing I’ve learned is that intellectual belief and spiritual faith are not the same. It actually took some time for my intellect to come into synch with my spirit. Spiritual knowledge doesn’t come from the brain, but from the heart — the essence, the innermost being.
(Thanks, Serenitynow. I consider it quite an honor to be recognized in your fourth ever post in more than a year.)
Lib, I think you of all people could actually understand what I mean. I don’t expect a final, or nearly-final, or essentially complete answer or discussion. It is the bromide, the pat answer, that I face, indicating that I know as much as they do: we read the same books, listened to the same arguments, and so on. It is as if they reject the question. It is condescending.
Your answer itself is indicative of the kind of response I appreciate, which only serves to further illustrate my frustration.
I agree, loinburger, that jerk atheists are quite jerky, too. But I don’t have a problem with that. Why?—because atheism isn’t a belief that hinges around principles like “don’t be a jerk”. This is the distinciton I am trying to flesh out.
—Unless someone understands his experience with God to be subjective, he can become confused when others deny his experience.—
It’s largely a problem of how people talk about these things. It’s never particularly useful to deny that someone had an internal experience. The truth of that claim is almost always beyond anyone’s ability to ascertain other than the person who had it, and when someone speaks about having an internal experience, it’s always best to just take them at their word. Between the two of you, they are, after all, the most authoritative expert on their own experiences.
Instead of denying it, which seems at best meanspirited, I think there are plenty of more honest alternative responses:
-I didn’t or am not having having that experience. I understand that you did/are, but I can’t confirm anything by it other than that I agree you are having it.
-If I did have the experience you describe, I still can’t say how I would interpret it as opposed to how you have/are.
or
-I did have the experience you seem to be describing, but I just didn’t find cause to interpret it the way you do.
—I saw the world as an atheist; the next, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and knew God intimately and eternally.—
Sounds like your intellect was involved though: since it quickly interpreted whatever happened as being the Holy Spirit in particular at work and knowing God.
What I mean to say is that jerk Christians usually seem to be much less jerky than jerk atheists, since as a rule Christians tend to recognize jerkiness as a Bad Thing while there is significantly more deviation in the way that atheists apply (or even recognize) the Don’t Be A Jerk rule. F’rinstance, I’ve never met a Christian who revelled in jerkiness, while I have met one or two atheists who were jerks and proud of it.
Eris wrote:
Well, glad I could help if only a bit. 
I guess I’ll say this for what it might be worth to you in the way of advice. Try to discern whether the basis of their belief is from their brain or their heart — if it’s from their brain, then you will likely have a rationalizer; but if it’s from their heart, then you will likely have a patient and understanding believer who will share what he can but not hold you accountable for what he believes.
Apos wrote:
Well, that’s what I meant by my intellect having to catch up with my spirit. All I knew at the time was that I had just had some sort of spiritual orgasm, and that everything looked different to me. It took some time to connect the intellectual dots.
Although I grew up in the church and have remained a Christian, I had an experience about twenty years ago which I also have described in exactly the terms that you use – “a spiritual orgasm.”
My experience was instant and unexpected. I was filled with overwhelming euphoria. I saw no distinction between me and anything else in the universe. And what I felt and experienced is not something that can be conveyed with words – though I have tried many times. It changed my concept of reality forever.
I don’t want to hijack the thread at all, but if any of you have experienced something similar, perhaps that would make for a good thread unless it has already been done.
erislover, here’s a small point that may or may not help you with your attempts to get your arms around this interesting issue. While atheism itself doesn’t hinge on any doctrine of “nonjerkiness,” atheists, like deists, come in all stripes. There are, as you doubtless know, many atheists (we could apply a label such as “humanist”) whose personal ethic includes such values as tolerance and understanding. Likewise, there are those with a more selfish approach to life.
As with deists, selective perception would seem to apply in how we record our experiences. By that I mean that in our interactions with these four (broadly-painted, I’ll admit) groups: tolerant believers, jerky believers, tolerant nonbelievers, and jerky nonbelievers, we would tend to have more negative experiences (and hence stronger memories) with the two jerky classes of people. I’ve certainly experienced the in-your-face atheist in this very forum, in fact. Still, I wonder if I don’t have lower expectations for the jerky nonbelievers, because (as you say) there isn’t a well-accepted ‘atheist creed’ espousing tolerance of other points of view.
Don’t know how clear all that was, but it did help me organize my own thoughts along that line, anyway.
—Still, I wonder if I don’t have lower expectations for the jerky nonbelievers, because (as you say) there isn’t a well-accepted ‘atheist creed’ espousing tolerance of other points of view.—
Depending on how you define atheist (And you certainly seem to be defining it as a synonym for non-believer, which I do) then the idea of an atheist creed, or even lower expectations, seems downright nutty.
It would be like all the people who don’t watch Fear Factor and forming a creed around their common lack of something. Eh?
—F’rinstance, I’ve never met a Christian who revelled in jerkiness, while I have met one or two atheists who were jerks and proud of it.—
The real problem is that not everyone agrees on what constitutes being a jerk. Plenty of people who have been jerks simply thought they were doing others a favor, or being pragmatic, or whatever.
—Well, that’s what I meant by my intellect having to catch up with my spirit. All I knew at the time was that I had just had some sort of spiritual orgasm, and that everything looked different to me.—
Isn’t the concept of what happened involving your intellect catching up to your spirit, or it being a spiritual type orgasm, is an intellectual interpretation itself? Is it possible that a different person experiencing the same thing could have interpreted it in a different way than your concept of spirit led you to interpret it?
I’m not sure how I’d be able to rule out, from any internal experience, the possiblity that it was just internal. My brain can experience anything, but that doesn’t necessarily tell me much of anything about the world, since I can experience all sorts of perceptions and feelings things (and have) that are not true or have no refferent. It’s like the old Satan problem. Even if Satan is nowhere near as powerful as God, imagine that he is powerful enough to manipulate human perceptions and emotions completely. In what way can an experience created by Satan to mislead one be distinguished from an experience created by God? You can’t get around it by saying that “well, I just feel it was from God” because this Satan CAN make it feel exactly like it was from God. Even if, perhaps, God could create some even higher experience than Satan can, you yourself could not know if the present experience was really that highest one: since all you know is that you’ve experienced none higher so far.
Hmm. I’m wondering if my lack of clarity is what has you thinking of the idea as nutty, when in fact atheist creeds exist all around us.
I certainly did not mean to imply that all atheists might be expected to belong to some umbrella sect of nonbeliever morality, any more than all believers share a common doctrine. I was referring to the many secular organizations that do espouse a higher ethic of one kind or another, such as the Freethinkers, Humanists, Bertrand Russel Society, Rationalists, etc. Most of these come out rather strongly against jerkiness in their statements of purpose.
And frankly, I think that your Fear Factor analogy does apply. The Freethinkers, for example, are composed exclusively of members of the subset of people who are non-theists–by definition. While I doubt they see it as “their common lack of something,” it is that very non-belief with which they identify.
Again, I sure hope this parses smoothly, regardless of whether you agree: I’ve been away from SDMB for several months, and my GD writing style seems a little rusty. Bear with me while I warm up, please.
I think most atheists are not jerks. And like you point out, some condemn jerkiness. But the fact remains that they have their share of whole-cloth hand-stabbing dyed-in-the-wool jerks, like the American Atheists.
Forgot to mention it above, Apos, but I found this entire argument to be very compelling, and a cogent description of an internal wrestling match I’ve had with myself in the past. I’m interested in hearing what others think.
Apos wrote:
Certainly. The intellectual interpretation is, in fact, irrelevant.
Please allow me to jump on myself with both feet before someone else uses a chainsaw. Yesterday, I said to ]erislover,
Then, not 24 hours later, I tell Apos,
Sounds pretty contradictory, doesn’t it? Hope you all understood that part of my point was to distinguish the concept of some sort of an umbrella atheist creed from the very real, disparate creeds that do exist. Still, I shoulda been clearer.
—Hmm. I’m wondering if my lack of clarity is what has you thinking of the idea as nutty, when in fact atheist creeds exist all around us.—
Atheists have creeds.
People that don’t watch Fear Factor have creeds.
That doesn’t make them inherently “atheist” creeds or “people who don’t watch Fear Factor” creeds. If anything, it’s the atheists who want to pretend they can speak on behalf of all non-believers who lack clarity.
—The Freethinkers, for example, are composed exclusively of members of the subset of people who are non-theists–by definition.—
Not so. Freethinkers are a much bigger unbrella than non-believers. Especially back in the old days, many Freethinkers were deists and even Christians (albiet UUs).
—While I doubt they see it as “their common lack of something,” it is that very non-belief with which they identify.—
The fact that a group can be described by, and self-identify to distinguish themselves from others by, a negative definition does not give them any sort of reason to have any more common interests or common principles. That would require some positive/affirmative similarity.