Pretty please. You lot could use some organizing. You’re all over the place with all your gods and what to eat and what not to eat and when to stand and when to sit. How do you keep track?
So help me understand your point.
There are already small, specialized groups of atheists organized to do various things - community outreach, charity, education, etc.
There are already small, specialized groups of monotheists (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc) organized to do various things - community outreach, charity, education, etc.
Why is there a need for a general atheist organization is there’s no corresponding need for a general monotheist organization?
You clearly assume this to be the case, but you’ve provided ZERO evidence for why.
Pchaos wasn’t taught where I’m from, and some of us are here to learn another language.
You are overstating your case. I know that you made some valid points, but I have also. If they weren’t valid there wouldn’t be atheists trying to start churches.
All I’m saying is that if you don’t believe that a church is the right form for this organization. Why don’t atheists try another form?
And size does help. The Salvation Army attracts a lot of donations from all religious backgrounds. And I’m sure that atheists also donate to them.
Hehe… yes, indeed.
And marvel at the locals.
This makes zero sense.
As repeatedly demonstrated in this thread, atheists start their own organizations for their own reasons - and NOT YOUR REASONS.
You can’t claim validity to your arguments when [A] you didn’t know they existed in the first place (see earlier posts in this thread) and ** their purported reason for existence directly contradicts your arguments.
Monotheists can’t settle on a single house of worship (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc).
“If none of those work for all monotheists, why don’t monotheists try another form?”
Why do you keep dodging this point?
And what’s your point?
As mentioned above, the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” is not religious. I’m sure it attracts a lot of donations from all religious backgrounds.
Where are atheists trying to start churches?
Since you state ‘trying’ - that implies they are failing - cite please.
And answer the questions related to your assumptions on the prior page related to charitable donations from wealthy atheists.
We are. The form of NOT starting another church/organization. We’re like hipsters but without the hip vibe and bumper stickers.
I don’t want to be a member of an organization. I’m sure there are a lot of people like me. Do you think I could start an organization just for us?
For some unknown definition “valid,” I suspect.
They aren’t. (And I thought you were claiming they weren’t just a few posts ago. Can you make up your mind?) Der Trihs found one example of a church-ish group for atheists that started last month, and that’s the only example of an overtly atheistic church-type of group that has been posted to the entire thread. And that’s a brand new group that might be just for people who are in the process of leaving a religion; who knows if it will endure. Different atheists have different needs and they can organize on that basis as they see fit, but I think there’s little pent-up demand among atheists for a specifically atheist “church.”
Wow.
You make up your own rules and definitions for everything don’t you?
It’s a lawyer thing. You wouldn’t understand.
Because lawyers know that the best way to state their case is to use non-standard definitions, and that’s glory for you!
Well played, Humpty.
Therefore, the Leader of Atheism should look like this.
I prefer this.
I’m sorry, that should have been phrased as “Therefore, the Leader of Atheism should look like this?”
You cannot be the Atheist Leader (but I’m still gonna picture you in that suit).
“That’s why you’re the judge and I’m the law-talking guy!”
It’s even worse than that. Some of us non-football-watchers don’t even watch non-football-TV. We surf the web, instead, so you non-football-watchers who watch non-football TV shows have to persecute us non-football-watchers who are are heretic non-TV-watchers. You know, just like the Christian Catholics persecuted the Christian Protestants (and vice verse) during Europe’s religious wars a few hundred years ago, or the way the Muslim Sunnis persecute the Muslim Shi’ites (and, again, vice verse) today.
“Web-surfing non-football-watchers UNITE! DEATH to all the TV-watching non-football-watcher heretics!” [sub]That’s my rallying cry, and I’m sticking to it![/sub]
OK, seriously, now…
I’ve been thinking about this subject, off-and-on, for the few days this thread has been here and I’ve been reading and posting in it, and I believe I’ve come up with an analogy that illustrates pchaos’s problem in understanding ‘atheism’. Please indulge me as I elaborate:
We all have cognitive models. Think of them like a Windows file system, with subfolders within folders. Our friend, pchaos, has a folder labeled “Religion”, with a subtitle of “Christianity”. Inside that “Religion:Christianity” folder are subfolders labeled “God”, “Christ”, “Morality”, “Origin of the Universe”, “Origin of Life”, “Origin of Humans”, etc. His error starts with assuming that everyone has a “Religion” folder. We atheists don’t. His error continues with an assumption that everyone’s “Religion” folder contains subfolders similar to his own. It’s a reasonable (but wrong) assumption, given that “Religion:Judaism” or “Religion:Islam” also contains subfolders such as “God” and “Morality”, and they put something kinda similar into it. There’s even some vague similarity in the subfolder “Christ”. Muslims put Mohammed in a (vaguely) similar subfolder, Buddhists put “Buddha” into (again, a vaguely) similar folder, and even Jews have a vaguely similar folder labeled “Messiah”. They just say it’s currently empty, and are presumably waiting for something to come along to fill it.
The problem comes in with an apparent assumption that everyone has the same cognitive models (i.e. folders and subfolders, in my analogy), just with different labels on the folders. This isn’t the case, and he’ll never understand “Atheism” until and unless he realizes that it’s not a “Religion:Atheism” folder, but rather a subfolder labeled “God”, not inside a “Religion” folder, but rather is inside a totally different folder labeled “Ideas I’ve encountered that aren’t actually useful”, and containing nothing more than a text file that says “This one has no evidence that makes it believable”. Many of us append “but I’m willing to look again, if evidence is presented” to the text file, others of us append “in fact, I believe there isn’t one”, or “I’m convinced there isn’t one, and ain’t willing to look at any evidence.” And there are still more possibilities than those.
Until he understands that other people’s cognitive models do not resemble his, and his does not correspond to theirs, will he have any hope of understanding theirs.
Sorry, tomndebb, and Marley23, but he ain’t a troll. OK, this is probably going to get me a warning; He’s certainly an idiot. But he isn’t a troll.
I think that pretty much what I surmised. The action of going to Church is so central and basic an activity, somebody not engaging in it altogether is unthinkable.
It’d be like if someone told you that they don’t eat beets. Well, what do you eat? You can’t say nothing. We all need to eat SOMEthing.