# Calling All Atheists and Interested Parties **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 26, 2006, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575 "2006-12-26T01:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/101 "2006-12-26T15:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] I’m not usually one to toot my own horn, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t [call this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7908235&postcount=611). [/QUOTE] Omigod, would you cretins realize when you’re being made fun of? I can’t agree with **badchad** without someone reiterating the whole “get a room” meme anymore, so since I did agree completely with that modest post of his, I went way over the top in an attempt to amuse you. Instead I seem to have filled you with self-righteous gloating at last confirming your pointless point about how he and I agree on a lot of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/102 "2006-12-26T16:01:33Z")
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber] Omigod, would you cretins realize when you’re being made fun of? I can’t agree with **badchad** without someone reiterating the whole “get a room” meme anymore, so since I did agree completely with that modest post of his, I went way over the top in an attempt to amuse you. Instead I seem to have filled you with self-righteous gloating at last confirming your pointless point about how he and I agree on a lot of stuff. [/QUOTE] But if they think **badchad** is Evil and you always agree with him then that proves that you are Evil too. It all makes perfect logical sense. He does not need to add anything else. He wins the internets. Jim ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/103 "2006-12-26T16:08:21Z")
Theist (roll yer own variety, not christian). No, and No. [QUOTE=Evil Captor] I’m not superstitious, i.e., I’m an atheist. No and no to the OP’s question. But catsix nailed the problem with Christianity here. It’s as full of lardbrained malarkey as most other religiions, but it gets a pass in a way the others don’t. It’s not institutional bias, though, it’s cultural bias. [/QUOTE] I don’t see it that way. There’s a lot of leeway to say “The following assertions are unmitigated bullshit”; there is less leeway to say “If you believe that, you’re a fucking moron”. Christians have no more license than anyone else to make _ad hominem_ attacks on people whose beliefs don’t jibe with their own, and folks who are in vehement disagreement with Christians have no less license to take the intellectual scalpel to Christian beliefs than SDMB members have in general for taking on any set of assertions or beliefs. Moderator action (as opposed to people inputting their takes on things, some of which people may be moderators) seldom pertains to the content of what is being asserted. I do see exceptions, some of which is well-explained and some less so, but I really don’t see moderators shutting down intellectual deconstructions & dismemberments of Christian belief systems, nor a granting of license to Christian posters to be vituperative in a way that the rest of us are not allowed to be. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/104 "2006-12-26T16:43:09Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] [QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber] Omigod, would you cretins realize when you’re being made fun of? I can’t agree with **badchad** without someone reiterating the whole “get a room” meme anymore, so since I did agree completely with that modest post of his, I went way over the top in an attempt to amuse you. Instead I seem to have filled you with self-righteous gloating at last confirming your pointless point about how he and I agree on a lot of stuff. [/QUOTE] But if they think badchad is Evil and you always agree with him then that proves that you are Evil too. It all makes perfect logical sense. He does not need to add anything else. He wins the internets. Jim [/QUOTE] Get a room, you two. ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/105 "2006-12-26T16:51:19Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] Uh, that wasn’t the question. [/QUOTE] I was responding to the post directly above mine. The hijack was his not mine. What can I tell you, it happens. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/106 "2006-12-26T17:05:39Z")
Atheist son of atheist parents and only nominally religious grandparents. Nope, no directed bias against atheism. But I will agree with **RJKUgly** on this… > [@](#): > > But if a xian (or poster of pretty much any religion) posts about beliefs, does not claim to have scientific proof, or even any proof, just a belief, they usually aren’t given too much grief. And they might even get mod protection if one of our oh-so-noble-we-just-HAVE-to-fight-ignorance-or-we-betray-all-we-hold-dear atheists gets a little too frisky. > > In my opinion, this is the way it should be. > > So the xians (or other theists) who don’t make falsifiable claims, or who at least aren’t basing their main points on falsifiable claims, may get treated differently then those who do. Again, IMHO, this is ok. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/107 "2006-12-26T17:13:32Z")
No one should make any demand for a falsifiable claim about faith. To do so, a person would have to be either ignorant about both science and faith, or else just a troll. It’s no different from a person demanding that science be tested by prayer. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/108 "2006-12-26T17:26:38Z")
Aye, but there’s the proverbial rub. It seems to me that there are people on this board who are radical empiricists who believe that everything that exists (or for which to speak of existence has any meaning) does by definition exhibit qualities that lend themselves to falsifiable claims that demonstrate their existence. Furthermore, they do not regard _that_ as being subject to debate. Rather, like rationality, it is simply assumed to be a starting point. ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/109 "2006-12-26T17:27:57Z")
What’s a “falsifiable claim”? Is that like a “claim”? If not, what’s different? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/110 "2006-12-26T17:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] And Christianity has given us: -_Lord of the Rings_ -_The Chronicles of Narnia_ -Michaelangelo’s _Pieta_ and the Sistine Chapel -Handel’s _Messiah_ What has Scientology done for us? _Battlefield Earth_. And Leah Remini. [/QUOTE] To be perfectly fair, Christianity’s been around longer. And one were to compile lists of _negatives_… ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/111 "2006-12-26T17:32:11Z")
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber] Omigod, would you cretins realize when you’re being made fun of? I can’t agree with **badchad** without someone reiterating the whole “get a room” meme anymore, so since I did agree completely with that modest post of his, I went way over the top in an attempt to amuse you. Instead I seem to have filled you with self-righteous gloating at last confirming your pointless point about how he and I agree on a lot of stuff. [/QUOTE] I would’ve bought it as a joke if it didn’t seem that you’d had your lips attached to his ass by a plastic surgeon months ago. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/112 "2006-12-26T17:41:17Z")
[QUOTE=According to Pliny] What’s a “falsifiable claim”? Is that like a “claim”? If not, what’s different? [/QUOTE] Falsifiable claim: All horses have hooves. How: Find me one horse with no hooves. Claim difficult to falsify: No horses have antlers. How: Investigate every single horse in existence and verify lack of antlers. Claim difficult to falsify: The Allosaurus had red skin. How: develop whatever technologies are necessary to allow you to determine skin pigment from fossil specimen records and/or other conceivable artifacts of the period; Claim not subject to falsification: Honest people are more dignified than deceitful people. Claim not subject to falsification: The sight of the midwinter sky from a remote mountaintop is more beautiful than the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 7th symphony. Claim not subject to verification: The course of evolution is a manifestation of the will of God. Does that clarify the distinction? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/113 "2006-12-26T17:42:48Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] It seems to me that there are people on this board who are radical empiricists who believe that everything that exists (or for which to speak of existence has any meaning) does by definition exhibit qualities that lend themselves to falsifiable claims that demonstrate their existence. Furthermore, they do not regard _that_ as being subject to debate. Rather, like rationality, it is simply assumed to be a starting point. [/QUOTE] I am one of those people. Not to be a narrowminded asshole (really), but I truly don’t understand the opposing view. This isn’t exactly the thread to discuss it, but I would appreciate it if you would start a Great Debates thread outlining your view. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/114 "2006-12-26T17:49:15Z")
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber] Omigod, would you cretins realize when you’re being made fun of? I can’t agree with **badchad** without someone reiterating the whole “get a room” meme anymore, so since I did agree completely with that modest post of his, I went way over the top in an attempt to amuse you. [/QUOTE] Get better material because the only one you amused is yourself. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/115 "2006-12-26T17:50:21Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy] I am one of those people. Not to be a narrowminded asshole (really), but I truly don’t understand the opposing view. This isn’t exactly the thread to discuss it, but I would appreciate it if you would start a Great Debates thread outlining your view. [/QUOTE] I think that would be a good idea, and would well serve both the atheists and those who have squared off with them in those acrimonious debates to do this meta-debate first 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/116 "2006-12-26T17:57:04Z")
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] Get better material because the only one you amused is yourself. [/QUOTE] Apparently, I’m one of those comedians with a small cult following. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/117 "2006-12-26T17:58:16Z")
Agnostic, no, no, and no. I think it would take some very selective reading to believe that Anglican/Catholic/Protestant Christians are given a pass any more than any other group. What I _do_ notice is a willingness to jump an argument from anyone of any faith when that argument is not presented in a reasonable, well thought out manner. The vast majority of the Christians here are well educated and intelligent. They present their arguments in such a way that encourages open and frank discussion, and they’re respectful of other posters’ arguments (for the most part.) They are responded to in kind, even when other posters disagree with them strongly. That isn’t bias. To my knowledge, that’s the way it’s supposed to work in Great Debates. (I don’t hang out there often, please feel free to correct me.) Frothing fundie doofuses who show up posting end times bullshit are routinely pointed and laughed at after the thread is inevitably moved here. As are Chick Tracts, the Westboro Baptists, the Pope (at least three pit threads in the past few months that I can recall), Christians who believe that Jesus showed up in pizza/toast/shower grout etc., Christians who are heads of PAC churches that try to get gay marriage outlawed and get found out to be having gay sex with a coke spoon up their nose…the list goes on and on. If Christians can be perceived to get more of a pass on this board than Scientology, perhaps it’s because there are so many fun and enjoyable examples in the media of Scientologists exhibiting bizarre behaviour. If they just shut up and practiced their religion and didn’t flip out and sue every time someone made fun of them, it’d probably be fine. I would also suggest that perhaps it isn’t the views expressed by **badchad** that is causing the perceived bias, but the fact that he feels it necessary to be such a dick while doing so. Just my two cents. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/118 "2006-12-26T18:01:21Z")
I am an agnatheist, or agnostic/ soft atheist if you will. I actually like and greatly admire all of the moderators, INCLUDING TOMNDEB (I will give him a second to pick himself up off the floor after reading those words). I think they are all doing a good job. My suspicion is that Tomndeb is a liberal Roman Catholic. I stand to be corrected, but as a former Catholic, I can smell them at a hundred paces. I think he sees the RC Church as more liberal and less reactionary than it is through wishful thinking. For example, many of his posts seem to imply that it is possible for a practising homosexual (practising be damned, I’ve had it down pat for decades 😃 ) to belong to that church without any contradiction. To justify his view, he clings to the Catholic doctrine about supremacy of the conscience. Of course, he completely ignores the corollary fact that the Catholic Church tells its faithful to be guided by its teaching. And its teaching on gays is very non-equivocal. As a liberal, Tom wishes the Church were more accepting and so he sees it a so. Similarly, I think he subscribes to the “benefit of clergy” tradition. If you post irrational beliefs that fly in the face of scince and reason, people in the SD boad will quite rightly jump on you. After all, if we are fighting ignorance, surey there is no greater ignorance than believing things on faith in direct contradiction of facts. But label that ignorance as “my faith” in the religious sense and presto, you get some form of modern “benefit of clergy”. And why does anyone need protection by moderators anyhow? When you get right down to it, the postings on this board are nothing but words on a screen. Go ahead and call me a butt-fucking, shit-covered, pansy-ass faggot who is afraid to have normal sex with a woman and wants to make decent people bow down to his mental illness and perversion in the name of phoney civil rights, and ho is going to burn in hell. I will just laugh and go to another board or another site. Moderating is often nothing more than just censorship and tin-out dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/119 "2006-12-26T18:02:36Z")
[QUOTE=Valteron] Moderating is often nothing more than just censorship and tin-out dictatorship. [/QUOTE] :smack: Ton-pot dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2006, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575/120 "2006-12-26T18:03:53Z")
Agnostic / Soft Atheist. _Help, help, I’m being oppressed! Come and see the violence inherent to the system! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!_ [ahem] I mean “No, and no.” Also count me in the group of non-believers who gets annoyed at the non-believers who take the offensive over _every tiny little niggling_ display of faith. I find these folks every bit as obnoxious as the occasional “you’re all going to hell for believing in evolution” trolls that wander through. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-atheists-and-interested-parties/385575.md?page=7)