Or they know they’ll be fired if they let their boss know they are an atheist, or are afraid of vandalism or physical attack, or don’t want to be disowned by their family.
To Americans, simply admitting to being an atheist is “dickish” in itself. Especially if you don’t follow it up with a speech about how miserable and awful you are and how you wished you believed in God.
They won the argument a long time ago; a great many American Christians just aren’t rational enough to acknowledge it. Do note that, say, the Catholic Church accepted evolution as being true a long time ago, so pointing out a fossil to them won’t get you anything.
However, despite all their speeches about “faith” the believers like to pretend that their fantasy is supported by facts so yes, pointing out the factual errors in their claims does help against them.
It has more useful advice than religion does. And clearly your estimate is way off, or creationism wouldn’t be so prevalent.
It’s certainly true that the number of religious people in the US who don’t accept evolution far outnumbers the number of religious people in the US who belong to churches which advance an anti-evolution agenda. In fact, 25% of the folks in the US are Catholic, and they should all be on the evolution bandwagon, but many of them (like my mother) are not.
Now, this prof teaches in AZ, which is a pretty conservative state, although it’s Western Conservative, not Southern Conservative, so I don’t know how big an issue Creationism is in that state.
He was accurately remembers it being a thread he started on this message board and remembers what it is he asked. I won’t be surprised if he claims he’s confusing the responses in that thread with those supposed militant atheists on other boards that freak out over an innocent question, though.
What I recall about that thread is that, rather than answer my question, most respondents took colossal umbrage at my implication that atheists can be dicks. Which, oddly enough, seems to be what’s happening here too.
But I didn’t go back and check that thread before posting in this one, so if you say that everyone was super nice and sweet, I’ll take your word for it. My bad.
Except that Dawkins doesn’t hold the position “there are no deities”. I’m not sure about Krauss, but I strongly suspect he doesn’t either. It’s simply not an accurate description of the skeptical position. Are there atheists that believe there are no gods? Yes, but those typically don’t adopt the mantle of “skeptic”, and I can think of exactly one prominent atheist figurehead who holds that position, and he makes it perfectly clear that he does not strongly hold that position (Matt Dillahunty, and he refers to it as anti-theism).
I am rather shocked that you of all people would speak disparagingly over the belief of science as the arbiter of reality. Yeah, science is the arbiter of what is true and false. It earned that position by being the *only *epistemology that reliably gives us anything real. Every time this comes up, I welcome anyone to show me an epistemology that works even close to as well.
Nothing comes anywhere close… But science doesn’t actually deal with “truth.” It works with “working explanations.” It works with “functioning models.” Every time a model is shown to be flawed, science discards it most ruthlessly.
Scientists believe in the raw data, but not in the theories they’ve come up with to explain the data.
(Now, yes, every now and then, a model comes up that is so overwhelmingly and clearly right, we do believe in it. The origin of species via evolution is so strongly supported, it really can be called “true.” But, for instance, parts of General Relativity are still debated, cosmology is in an upheaval, no one is quite sure what to do with Quantum Uncertainty, and particle physics is still really messed up. We don’t have any real concrete “truths” here, although we’ve certainly eliminated a whole lot of untenable ideas, the ones we know aren’t true.)
Every time miracles, resurrection, virgin birth, omnipotence, omnipresence, intervention on behalf of prayer get mentioned and treated as true…that is a scientific claim.
If they claim it happened in the real world or can happen in the real world, that is a scientific claim.
Thus far…so what? as long as such claims have no bearing or impact outside of the person holding it I really don’t care. Be as wrong or misguided as much you want “it neither breaks my bones nor picks my pocket”. I’ll certainly challenge people on it if the subject comes up, just as I would if we were discussing the merits of a particular football team or political policy and will use exactly the same levels of courtesy and respect.
The moment such claims are used to back-up or justify taking actions that do impact on others then the gloves are off. Different rules apply and different standards are demanded and sometimes someone’s hair is gonna get mussed a little.
Alright, I know that speaking to the OP has become off topic, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Hatred does not convince anybody. At least not the ones that atheists mean to convince. Speaking from personal experience, and as an um “areligious” person (Is that a word, or did I just coin that?) rabid atheism is going to drive me to the theist side more than it is the atheist side. I read people like Der Trihs’s post and I wonder: Why do you hate so hard? The standard response from posters like him is that “because they hate us more”. How fucked up is that?
If that was how it worked then you’d be driven towards the atheist side, since there’s vastly, vastly more hatred from the religious side. The sheer numbers of believers alone ensures that.
I think you just made my point for me. You are so convinced that people hate you because of your belief system, or lack thereof, that you have to hate them back harder. That’s fucked up on a couple of levels.
I don’t know if Der Trihs *hates *these people… I can’t speak for him. I think these boards are a good place to vent your anger though. I’ve done it myself.
I don’t really object to some of the things certain atheists do to combat religion. I just don’t want to be associated with some of them. I really want people to know that there are different types of atheists out there, just like any other group.
This just seems like a knee-jerk towards what you think has been said rather than what actually has been said.
Which post of Der Trihs do you see him “hate so hard”? And more importantly who is he hating and why? What does he say?
Quote it, call it out. Be specific. Even though I’m no fan of religion I’ll join in pulling him up on it and if it is hyperbole I’m sure he’ll be willing to explain himself more fully.
If you’re supposedly responding to the OP, then why are you talking about hatred and about Der Trihs? Neither were evident in the OP. Rather than responding to the OP, you’ve opted for partisan pot shots.
And do you make decisions about all topics based on such a fickle epistemology?
Not only is that one hell of a persecution complex, but it stereotypes all “believers”. It’s a bigoted point of view. It’s an “us and them” point of view. It’s irrational. It’s stupid. It’s hatred.
To this I will more or less agree. There seems to be an assumption that there is some significant contingent of “rabid atheists” out there when, in fact, I’ve never encountered one in my entire life. Except, that is, for a few folks on this MB. Richard Dawkins is not the atheist equivalent of those Westboro Baptist folks. He’s not even the atheist equivalent of Billy Graham or Joel Osteen. He’s a biologist who doesn’t believe in God and who makes a point EVERY NOW AND THEN of pointing out the fact that one doesn’t need God to explain anything in the natural world.
If you don’t think “we offend them by existing” isn’t an example of crawling up on the metaphorical cross, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Well, maybe I do. Question: Who is the “them” Der Trihs is referring to? That’s a pretty broad brush now, isn’t it? The Dalai Lama is a religious person, do you think he’s offended by the fact Der Trihs exists?