Primitive man, realizing that they could cause things to happen, no doubt assumed that things that happened in the natural world were caused by sentient beings. The point of my example is that they were wrong. I think the lack of necessity for a first cause has been discussed enough.
Usually God is used to refer to our god, and small g god used to refer to god as a general concept. Still, I suspect most of those using the First Cause argument are not as clear thinking as you, and would have trouble with the conclusion that no deity deduced from the argument implies anything about morals, salvation, or the purpose of life.
God in the Pledge is perfectly emblematic of the problem. “One Nation under Jesus Christ” would be politically unthinkable, even though most Americans disagree with the Jewish belief that Jesus was a false prophet, because there is nonetheless a widespread understanding that one can be a patriotic American “no matter what God you worship”. So long as many Americans equate “patriotism” with “belief in God”, we aren’t getting anywhere with getting most Americans to accept atheists as fellow citizens (regardless of what philosophical differences they may have with us).
I find the survey mentioned in the OP absolutely amazing. Personally, I have little trouble with anyone who has different beliefs than I and is willing to leave me alone. I don’t care whether you believe in Jehovah, Allah, Cthulu, or The Goddess, as long as you don’t wave a holy book that requires you to hurt me for disagreeing.
I find fervent Jehovah’s Witnesses mildly annoying. They believe that it’s their duty to convert people who don’t believe as they do. I can live with that as long as they go away when politely requested to do so.
I’m almost neutral on atheists. Most of the atheists I’ve talked to about the subject seem to believe that there is no god every bit as fervently (and just as much without proof) as theists believe that there is a god (please substitute plurals in that sentence as required).
I find fervent Muslims terrifying. The Quran requires them to “fight” (the word seems to differ depending on who does the translation) non-believers. They kill people like me just because I don’t share their beliefs.
I am definitely more mistrustful of a group that kills folks for disagreeing with them than a group that merely sneers at folks who disagree with them.
Depends on the agnostic. The “militant agnostic” says something to the order of “I don’t know, but neither do you.” Meaning, “your deeply held beliefs are just opinions.” That can kinda bug people, and not even the evangelical/prosletyzing ones.
Sure, but all theists (and naturalists) share one very important view: that there is some supernatural entity. Atheists aren’t just saying “I believe in a different supernatural entitiy,” but rather “I [do not believe in a/ believe in no] supernatural entity; therefore I equate The Easter Bunny, God, the afterlife, Mother Earth, and souls, etc.”
Heh. You may be being optimistic about my impact.
To put another way what I have been saying: I get people to accept me being an atheist (or militant agnostic or weak atheist or whatever the dang term is this year) simply by getting them to accept me first, then atheist second. Even by being in the “right” social circle, I can still name a few folks who I know to “love the sinner and hate the sin” (of my being an atheist). These same folks have (if not in so many words) told me that they would much prefer if I had a (any) religion.
I can use the “soft sell” approach to get people to see that not all atheists are e-vul (or communists or O’Hair or Newdow), but I can do very little to help someone overcome the fact that I just plain don’t agree with the basis of their most fundamentally held belief. For many people, that disagreement makes a huge difference.
I wouldn’t tell Newdow to drop his case even if I were President of the American Atheist Union. I think he’s right and I think his legal arguments are very good. There are ways in which I’m willing to compromise with people, and there ways in which I’m not. The government supporting God is one of the latter; I don’t consider my rights negotiable. There are bigger issues than the pledge, but that doesn’t make Newdow wrong. This thread has increasingly convinced me that it takes all kinds, meaning that atheists need ‘loveable’ people like Reeve and ‘unlikeable’ people like Newdow to get any real measure of acceptance.
That makes sense. The “we’re like you, live and let live” angle is important.
I agree. I’m also a Discordian in my own fashion, and Discordians are only barely less organized than atheists are.
That’s exactly how I took it. I think we once had a thread about openly atheist characters on TV. An atheist Kramer would be a step up from The Bitter Old Man Who Has Lost His Faith But Learns To Believe Again Throught The Eyes of a Child[sup]TM[/sup] or some such bullshit. An old Cafe Society thread about on that subject.
It’s about picking your battles, though. Trying to change the pledge, which is
a.) Associated by people with patriotism and loyalty to America
b.) Learned and recited by rote, so that people don’t really think about or care about what the words mean
c.) Relatively harmless in terms of its practical effect on atheists.
isn’t really a way to make people sympathetic. I think that if atheists do want a better reputation, we need to focus on issues that matter, and issues that non-Atheists can sympathize with…somebody who lost his job because he’s an atheist (bonus points if he’s telegenic), kids beaten up because they were atheists…stuff like that.
Basically, don’t take on causes that are unpopular and that you know there’s no way to win.
Yes. Although I think that if there is a god we might as well give him the big “G”, I should probably use the small “g” for clarity, and will from here on out. That aside, I’ve run into this numerous times on these boards: no matter how clear I’ve been, people argue against me as if I am arguing for a Christian God. I find it particularly puzzling when the discussion is about atheism, as the first branch in the decision tree is god vs no god: Theist vs Atheist. I think some of them do it because they find it easier to ridicule the Bible, miracles, etc.
And the nonsense of equating god with centaurs, pink unicorns, elves, a whatnot, is just that, nonsense. It’s no way to have a debate: “Okay, let’s debate. But let me start off by saying that your position is as ridiculous as a little girl dreaming about a unicorn.” It’s an unhelpful debating technique and is evidence of either an unfimiliarity with logic or comfort with dishonesty. Not to mention being rude. I’m glad a couple of other posters have pointed this out.
To atone for many of these posts being off-topic and into First Cause territory, let me speak directly to the point of the OP and ask, where are we? The suggestions offered so far are:
start a PR campaign, which probably means atheists should first
organize
encourage atheists in good graces with the public to talk about their philosophy
define what it means to be an atheist
seperate the rabid strong atheists from the flock
leave The Pledge alone (and/or publicly encourage Newdow to hush up)
be polite, realize that this talk of pink unicorns is unhelpful
acknowledge, what eveidently most athesists in fact believe: “I may be wrong”
That’s good advice, but it presents the essential problem with the whole issue. I just don’t care enough to go to all that effort. If I really, passionately cared about God, I’d either be religious, or I’d be one of those rabid atheists I’m supposed to be seperating from. I don’t care about God. At all. If other people do, fine, but I’ve got more important uses for my time. Which means that incorrect perceptions about me are going to continue to flourish, which is too bad, but again, since I don’t really care about God, it’s not something I need to bring up in my day-to-day life (this board being an obvious exception), so the fact that I’m an atheist is pretty much invisible to most people. So while the anti-atheist attitude many people have in this country is annoying, it’s not really going to affect me directly.
At least, not until they start up an Inquisition, or something.
Incorrect. I really, truly see no difference between believing in a god and believing that the world is crawling with invisible pink unicorns. Pretending to respect religion, to give it even the slightest credence; for me that would be dishonest. “Helpful” or not.
What non-material entity would you prefer we use as examples in our arguments? Do you find Thor insulting? Ahura Mazda? Marduk? Quetzlcoatl? Baron Samedi? Mithra? Thoth? Are any of these acceptable?
It’s not about respecting the belief, though. It’s about respecting the person who holds the belief. If you know your term is going trivialize something they think is important and hurt their feelings, you shouldn’t do it if you can help it. In addition to it not being nice, it’s counter productive, because it’s bullying and makes you look bad.
Sorry you don’t like it but those are all perfectly valid analogies. The evidence for all is exactly the same. You would have to explain why your sky god is inherently any more plausible than somebody else’s water pixies or tree fairies in order for those analogies to be invalidated. From a purely empirical standpoint, there is no difference.
I don’t believe in pandering to people’s delusions. It’s dishonest, humiliating ( to me ) and destructive ( to them ).
Pointing out that someone is wrong isn’t bullying if it’s true; I’ve been the victim of bullies and I know what the real thing is like. Also as an atheist I’ll look bad no matter what I do; I might as well do what makes me feel good.
It’s not nonsense, and as long as you will believe it is, you won’t understand atheists.
Using the examples of unicorns, pixies, etc… is the only way to explain how we (or at least I) perceive this issue. The only way to put yourself in our shoes is by imagining discussing with people who believe in something you really, really, don’t believe in, like pixies.
I know, by experience, that most believers just don’t get it. They’re so accustomed to perceive god as belonging to a different category than other mythological cratures that they have a hard time envisionning that someone else could. When I equate the christian god with Odin, it’s not cheap rhetorics. I really see no difference between them.
When someone mentions that we should at least admit the possibility that god exist and that I respond : do you equally admit the possibility that invisible pink unicorns exist, it’s not intended to infuriate anybody, but said because I really, truly believe that both are equally likely to exist.
As long as you will believe that these comparisons are just “debating techniques”, “nonsense”, etc… You won’t understand where I stand.
Try for an instant to imagine you’re actually discussing with someone who actually believe in pixies and is trying to convince you that they exist or at the very least that you should seriously consider they could exist, and you’ll understand how I feel and think when someone tries to argue with me about god.
To me, god belongs to myths and tales books, along with Osiris, dragons and river spirits. It’s just yet another mythical character that just happens to still have currently a lot of people believing in its existence, contarily to most others. As long as you won’t really get it, any discussion is pointless, and you will go on ascribing to bad faith what is just descriptive of my stance.
(and by the way many believers find insulting that their beliefs could be compared with myths, creatures, etc… many people used to believe in or even still believe in. Somehow it seems that their belief is so superior to others, either past or marginal, beliefs that a comparison is just nonsentical and can only be explaind by bad faith).
Then, like a previous poster said, which examples are we allowed to use? With what can I compare god with when told that it’s unreasonnable to not at least entertain doubts about his existence so that the believer or agnostic stating so will understand why I don’t?
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe in the current gods for exactly the exact same reasons I don’t believe in past gods, mythical creatures and made-up-on-the-spot entities. To say the truth, I even consider the existence of unicorns to be significantly more likely. If a believer is going to be all offended by such a statement, then he should abstain from asking me why I don’t believe in god and from trying to explain to me why my position isn’t reasonnable.
If you don’t want to know, don’t ask. It’s that simple.
