I reject the OP’s definition of atheist zealot-a definition that broad would by necessity include most atheists.
I question that there are enough atheist zealots(even using the overly broad definition given) out there compared to the number(and wide variety) of religious zealots for the OP to be concerned enough to pit the former but not the latter.
I’m still waiting for that apocryphal evidence we atheists supposed reject out of hand.
I don’t want to leave the slightest impression that I walked away from this thread because I couldn’t defend my own point of view against a superior argument.
I know what zeal means :rolleyes: . But a clarification can’t hurt so here goes:
1-You can’t be passionate about something unless you know it’s true and since atheists can only use logic and science (as opposed to revelations, personal intuitions or other non-factual evidence) they are therefore mistaking their feelings for facts since, as I argued in my previous post, they actually don’t know squat.
2-I’m sharing my ideas and trying to enlighten people who think what I say makes sense. I’d say I’m a straightdope zealot
Bit of a cheap shot but I laughed. I was just thinking that no thread I ever started got this big.
Anyways, I’d like to take a moment to emphasize that challenging opposing views is healthy and good overall, my only wish is that you people don’t become entrenched and refuse to keep an open mind and see that you might be taking your feelings too seriously and stop listening. That’s when the tooth fairy comments are abused.
We’re discussing , ultimately, whether there is a reason and meaning to the universe in the form of a higher power or if all is chaos, whatever that means*. The zealots are the ones who drop out of meaningful conversation and start spamming and trolling. You can use the tooth fairy to show that people can make shit up and that ‘shit’ includes deities but so what? It’s irrelevant to the only truly interesting puzzle at hand, finding the question whose answer is 42
*yeah, whatever that means. Chaos is a weird concept, might not even be valid outside of mathematics.
Atheists know that belief in incredible claims without incredible evidence is irrational and potentially dangerous. Of course I’m overgenerealizing a bit as all an atheist must have in common with another is lack of belief that any gods exist, but that’s the general “passionate” knowledge we’re being accused of being zealots over.
That’s absolutely true…in the bizarro world! Logic and science are not enough to arrive at factual conclusions, revelations, personal intuitions or other non-factual evidence must be employed? Whoa!
Atheists aren’t claiming to know anything. We’re claiming that we don’t know that gods exist because there isn’t any evidence for them.
So then I guess if sharing ideas makes one a zealot, zealotry’s not such a bad thing, is it? Where do I sign up to be an atheist zealot?
Voyager didn’t make your point; he showed that your point wasn’t true. A wrestling fan can be passionate about wrestling without knowing it’s true and without trying to convince someone else that it is.
Go to a majority black neighborhood and wave a sign claiming that blacks are a subhuman race. Go to Tel Aviv and make public speeches about how Jews control everything behind the scenes and drink the blood of Christian babies. Go to a typical American neighborhood and claim that America kidnaps foreigners for their organs. You’ll see people getting VERY passionate about things they don’t believe.
Hey, anybody can find anything annoying for any reason. My first post to this thread asked, rather pointedly I thought, if what the OP really found annoying wasn’t atheism as such, but atheists who have to nerve to say they are atheists, instead of politely keeping their mouths shut. He did make the point of saying being an atheist was okay in his book, except apparantly when you talk about it.
That starting this thread was almost certainly going to get atheists to speak up (and thus annoy the OP) causes whatever sympathy I might have had to completely evaporate.
Anyhoo, I’ll admit that some of the earlier examples of possible evidence of a being of Godlike power (words written in fire across the sky and such) could be compelling. Would a theist please present well-documented evidence of such an event?
Hokay… let’s get this straight here… in your book, the only way to know something as a fact is by non-factual evidence??? In that case, millions of children under the age of 5 know the existence of Santa Clause to be a fact. I mean, they know it, with asterixes and everything. Who are we adults to claim that Santa Claus is a fantasy, since we’re only armed with non-factual tools like logic and reasoning? Or is your point that we can know it, but not really be passionate about it, and therefore since we’re not as passionate as children, that means they’re correct and Santa Claus exists?
