And, by describing oneself as “nonreligious” instead of “Atheist” (even though both words might be accurate) one avoids being identified with those whose only reason for living is their Atheism.
From another “nonreligious”–raised RC, now Atheist/Agnostic. I find religion interesting in the context of myth/legend/psychology/art. Being fond of the scientific method doesn’t mean that I think every part of life can be quantified.
And I spend more time at SDMB in areas where one can argue about whether Joss Whedon is God.
An experience unsupported by evidence proves nothing but the experience itself, even to you. You may want to believe otherwise, but that changes nothing.
Because it lets the rabid ones run rampant and set the religious agenda. That’s why I dismiss people who talk about nice religious people or how their church is tolerant and liberal - they don’t matter. It is and always has been the bigots, power mongers and lunatics who have set the course of religion; the relatively reasonable people have little voice and less power.
But they don’t. Everywhere you look, societies with less religion are healthier than those with more. And before anyone whines about communism, as I’ve said a dozen times I consider that a religion.
Yes, you do. It falls upon those who want to be right, who want their beliefs to have some connection to reality.
“Bias” is not the same as censorship, or even a deliberate agenda. Nor did I ( and others ) say the bias was just or even mostly on the Mod’s part.
No, because it’s already been done. It doesn’t take any more faith than believing I can climb stairs that thousands of people have climbed before me.
It’s not that some of the more rabid atheists on this board decry religion and God, its just the manner in which it is done. per this one poll some 2 billion people follow Christianity alone. Do you truly feel that these 2 billion people are all willfully ignorant and stupid? they are all misled somehow? For something with no “proof” the enduring belief in God has been around for some time now, even with all the advances in science and critical thinking.
so are the other billions just not seeing something, or could it be you who aren’t? Would you even consider the possibility?
Since there are over 6 billion people on this planet, do you truly feel that those 4 billion who do not believe in Christianity are all willfully ignorant and stupid? Are they all misled somehow?
Nope. I just used Christianity because it was the largest. per my link some 84% of the world believes in a deity of some kind.
In any case… I have never attacked an atheist on this board like some of the atheists in this post have attacked theists. I have never said atheists are ignorant, or stupid. if you are an atheist who has never attacked a theists then my post wasn’t directed at you.
I consider them and their fellow believers in other religions to be ignorant, fools or insane. Since the majority of historical cultures held slaves, I consider the majority of historical cultures to have been evil. Being the majority doesn’t make you right.
So ?
Why ? It’s stupid. Some beliefs are so utterly foolish that they are not deserving of respect.
(Bizarre experience. I could have sworn I answered this, but the post is nowhere to be found. I must have closed the tab without submitting or something. After all, it isn’t there. The spirit of it went something like this…)
Strained analogy. My post is not to my cite as my life is to my experience. What you’ve quoted isn’t even a paraphrase of what I said.
I agree with you. And that’s what I’ve actually said. I’ve had (and do have) experiences with what I perceive as God. You can test scientifically for those by measuring my temporal lobe activity, just as you can test for my reaction to pain by measuring activity in my parietal lobes. But I could have the same reaction to everything from an hallucination to an epileptic seizure.
Science can tell you what happened in my brain, but not what happened in my life. Only I know that, and you can’t replicate it. You have a life of your own with your own experiences. And I can’t replicate those. Ever. Not with science nor by any other means.
You are right Catsix, I do not agree with you completely, I am not an atheist. But you are also wrong as I am not asking **you ** to prove God does not exist. I do not currently, nor for the last 32 years of my life have the mental makeup to be sure there is no Godlike being.
woodstockbirdybird: Are you sure the multiverse is not accepted physics currently. I might be under the wrong impression, but I thought it was tied into string theory and everything else. IANAP but I will ask you for cite that I am wrong.
severus: Thank you, I am glad that some atheists are comfortable with us less sure agnostics.
I believe you’ve lost me, you seem to be replying to a different question/statement than mine. My rhetorical question: “why should someone **in the more liberal religion ** act all censorious towards the more radical”, is an observation that upon reading BC’s commentary on the issue in the current multiverse o’threads, I thought, y’know, he has a point, liberal-progressive Christians should NOT puff themselves up over being so much more “enlightened” than their fundamentalist cohorts (among other things because it’s unchristianlike), and can folks like myself who cue up “Another One Bites The Dust” whenever some Jim Bakker/Ted Haggard type gets exposed and brought down, honestly say we’d do the same if someone on our side of the ideological divide were himself revealed to be corrupt. Like a more recent poster pointed out, I should rather care about people’s behavior, not just belief.
THAT** is ** one good “teachable moment” look-at-myself type point I got from badchad in the course of these discussions. Alas, to get to it I had to wade through a containership’s worth of his annoying, irritating, abrasive, smug, confrontational, absolutist “fuck you, I’m right” attitude, all of which IMO was unnecessary to make that point.
And goddammit, this was a thread about Atheist/theist bias, under accusation of being about pseudotriton, and now we’ve gone and hijacked it into a thread on badchad. :o So to get back on track, that folks on this board react badly to abrasive, smug, “fuck you, I’m right” antirreligious AND religious fundamentalists, but react favorably to soft-spoken, politically-correct moderates both theistic and atheistic, just tells you the kind of social culture we have. It’s not persecution.
The multiverse theory is a hypothesis that is basically untestable withour current technology. Superstring theory itself is far from universally accepted among physicists. Some of the equations used in proposing SS theory are said to open up the possibility of multiple universes, but I admit I’m not fluent enough to understand the calculations (basically, the ten-dimensional model of reality explained in string theory allows a lot more variations of reality than our current 4-dimensional model). I’m not saying superstring and/or multiverse theory don’t have serious backing from many respected scientists (I suspect they’ll be proven at least mostly right), but at this point it’s a fool’s errand to put them on the same footing as evolution or gravity for explanatory purposes. I’m sure wikipedia or Google has tons of info on the debates around the topic; I’m at work right now, and relying mostly on memory of the books and articles I’ve read on the subject, but I’ll try to remember to look up some info when I get home.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs “Bias” is not the same as censorship, or even a deliberate agenda. Nor did I ( and others ) say the bias was just or even mostly on the Mod’s part.[/QUOTE]
So it’s a bias without repercussions? Heck, that can’t be said of starting too many threads about Bush or bondage. Therefore Bush-haters and bondage-lovers have more concerns here than atheists because discussion of the subjects dear to them have to be limited.
Sure, but it’s dishonest, if it’s the sort of false or disgusting belief that reflects badly on the holder of that belief. Do you treat racists with respect ? Homophobes ? Fascists ? Does anyone believe the fundies who rant and rave about how homosexuality is the ultimate evil, but also claim that they are compassionate and loving towards gay people ? I sure don’t; when I hear people spout some variation on “hate the sin, love the sinner”, I tend to think “liar !” As I think I’ve made clear while I’ve been here, I not only don’t believe in religion, I regard it as evil and destructive.
< sigh > You talked about banning, not “repercussions”, which I and others are complaining about. In this very thread.
You misunderstand. When I said that I could always go to other threads or forums, I didn’t mean to continue arguing about religion. I rarely introduce religious topics. Mostly I respond to questions. I respect the choices of atheists to expect evidence before they themselves would ever believe. I respect their non-believing. I admit that I may be wrong. To a point, I will share in discussions about experiences an beliefs.
What I won’t do is do all of the sharing. And I won’t answer questions on demand. And I won’t provide evidence that God exists. I cannot! But then I don’t wish to be involved in an arguement about whether God exists or not. That’s why the burden will never be on me. (And, of course, it’s really not on you either.)
I hope that you are wrong on this one! If they are really more powerful, we will have a theocracy. I think they are just moderately powerful and very vocal. Just changes are coming much too slowly though, I will admit.
As with atheists, teachers, accountants, Americans and children, more specific information should be specified. Which Christians? Which Jews? Which Muslims, Scientologists, Hindus, Rastafarians, Buddhists?
What, having some of your threads closed? Having a mod wave a finger at you? Boo-hoo. For a variety of reasons, some thread topics create more problems than they’re worth. Saying Christians are dumb just for being Christians happens to be one of those, though saying some Christians are dumb for seeking laws and wanting to change school curricula to match their beliefs have always been fair game.
Human behavior is what has the capacity for evil and destruction. It also has the capacity for benevolence and constructiveness. Religious belief is not necessarily implicated in any given human impulse toward evil and destruction, nor is it inherently excluded from implication in instances of generosity or elevation of the general Human Condition.
I don’t see any conflict between a general policy of treating human beings with respect and calling out, confronting, and/or snubbing people whose behavior is reprehensible, whether that behavior is motivated by racism, homophobia, fascistic tendencies, fundamentalist religious zealotry, or atheistic evangelicalism.