Evangelical Atheists Have A God Complex

The BBQ Pit
61

I, for one, don’t believe in proof, but would like to see some good evidence. In terms of the Bible, reasons to believe have gone from direct contact with the deity back in the past to abstruse theological arguments today. If we had solid evidence that this direct contact with god took place, that would be something, but the more we learn about the past the wronger ancient Biblical history is.

The “irrationality” iof belief is this (and I know it is a loaded word.) Believers start out in Sunday School being taught that the stories in the Bible happened. As you grow older, and read, you discover they did not. It is like being up on a step ladder, and having it pulled out from under you. Some theists believe the ladder is still there. Some acknowledge the ladder isn’t. but like the view, and stay up anyway. And atheists decide that we would rather be on solid ground.

62

Nothing to argue with there.

63

I love watching the athiests scramble and scream when someone points out the obvious: their disbelief in God fills the exact same nitch for them in their psyche/mind/worldview/whatever as the theisist’s belief in God does, and because of that, some athiests are going to engage in the exact same behavior as some theists. From this frame of reference (life) there is absolutely no way to know, test, demonstrate or prove the case one way or the other. Anyone claiming certain knowledge to the contrary without allowing for the posibility that they may be wrong, from eiter side of this debate, is a fool

64

You know, I dithered about putting the word “necessarily” in my original statement. Your two examples, however, are questionable in my mind; one can be lead by the zealous but not be a zealot one’s own self, if you see the distinction, and I think that most likely applies to the Jones example. Had those people not been lead by a zealot, it is arguable that most of them would not have drunk the poison, nor would have found themselves in that position.

65

That’s an interesting take on it. The concept of zealots being attracted to religion turns it into a sort of selection-bias.

As far as religion being similar to patriotism or ethnicity, I think of the “levers” or persuasive power of religion as being much stronger than that of the others.
As an example, take a person who actually believes their religion. Their book being, literally, dictated by God. When your religious leader tells you that "if you don’t do “X”, you’re going to burn in hell forever. " Isn’t that a much stronger persuasion than “your country needs you” or “Your race requires something.”?

Obviously, most people aren’t sufficiently believing as to do some horrible act just because their preacher/priest/imam told them to. If this is true, then wouldn’t it follow that “the less you actually believe of your religion, the less likely you are to do something vicious?”

I’m not really arguing it at the moment, just thinking about things. I have a very visceral reaction to religion that I never had until I moved to Saudi. Religion has hurt this place badly and I have trouble believeing that others would do any better.

Regards

Testy

66

You know, I dithered about putting the word “necessarily” in my original statement. Your two examples, however, are questionable in my mind; one can be lead by the zealous but not be a zealot one’s own self, if you see the distinction, and I think that most likely applies to the Jones example. Had those people not been lead by a zealot, it is arguable that most of them would not have drunk the poison, nor would have found themselves in that position.

67

Yeah, I know that during times of crisis, I find solace in my nonexistent belief in a nonexistent entity to see me through. :rolleyes:

Count me with SisterCoyote on this one – the problem isn’t religion vs. atheism, it’s zealotry vs. non-zealotry. Being an atheist (or a theist) is no proof against being an asshole.

68

Faith is the key word, here…

More generally, and as I mentionned in the original thread :
When everybody on this board will stop dismissing, mocking, ridiculing all the fringe (or not so “fringe”, actually) beliefs that are times and again defended on this board, like NDE, psychic powers, alien visits, haunted houses, etc… then, I’ll consider not saying that what is taught in sunday school is crap. That someone who attacked me for stating so in the original thread immediatly followed up by saying that astrology is “crap” that “nuts” believe in is just laughable. The fact that she (I believe it’s a “she”) didn’t even notice the contradiction is just depressing.
There’s an absolute double standart at work. One must show deference for some cherry picked beliefs lest he’d be considered hateful and “evangelical” ( :rolleyes: ) but all other beliefs are fair game. More than that, a significant number of non-believers have been somehow convinced that this double standart is perfectly normal : “That’s mainstream? Show deference and respect, you, moron!”. “That’s not mainstream? Let’s laugh!”.
As usual, the only difference between an atheist and a christian is that the atheist believes in one less god than the believer. The believer as no qualm stating that 99.99 % of the beliefs are just plain false but somehow, when his belief is dismissed in the same casual way, it becomes offensive, evangelical ( :rolleyes: ), intolerant, etc…

69

And by the way, in response to some poster’s statement about our igorance, I know more about their own religion than the majority of the christians I met, and it’s true for the majority of atheists posting in GD. We might not know more than theist dopers, but more than the average christian? You bet. Most of us are more familiar with the gospels and the old testament than many a faithful church goer. I could certainly do a good job as a sunday school teacher (at least as a catholic one) if I were so inclined.

70

You’re missing the point. The basic foundation of your understanding of life the universe and everything is that it was not created by a higher being. A thiest’s basic understanding of the same is that it was. Neither one of you can prove your belief because the basic hypothesis in both cases is completely untestable. While a theist has faith that God exists, the athiest takes it as a matter of faith that he doesn’t ( The article of faith is that if he did exist, there would be some tangable evidence or proof of his existance. It ain’t necessarily so, I can easily conceive of a God that started the unverse and then went to Aruba to lie on the beach for all eternity.)

71

Let’s see. Does atheism provide:

  • a reason for existence? Nope.
  • a social setting? Nope.
  • an explanation of what happens after we die? Nope.
  • a moral and ethical code? Nope.

Besides that they are just the same. :rolleyes:

Very few atheists are as certain as you accuse us of being. There are a lot of potential deities out there, and few are well defined. Certain that God didn’t create the world in six days 6,000 and some odd years ago - you got me there. Certain enough to vote against someone for being a Christian, the way most Christians would vote against someone for being an atheist, no.

72

Let’s see. Does atheism provide:

  • a reason for existence? Why would I need a reason? Existence is its own reward.
  • a social setting? There are plenty of social settings other than church.
  • an explanation of what happens after we die? Again, who needs one?
  • a moral and ethical code? All moral and ethical codes that have ever existed were created by human beings.
73

Gosh Dave, and what about those who don’t claim to know for sure (an absolute requirement for any religion)? Can you tell us what we are? Please?

Because without your input I don’t know if I can fill that niche in my psyche/mind/worldview/whatever!

-Joe

74

I did speak of evangelical Mac users. Evangelical sports fans is another good example. It’s a very common colloquial use of the term, and you’re right, it has fuck-all to do with atheism, or with Christianity, or with any other belief/hobby/whatever. It’s an attitude that can be applied to many different things.

Dictionary.com disagrees:

  1. Characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous: an evangelical liberal.
75

That’s not an article of faith for this atheist at all. Why does it always seem that as one’s knowledge of atheism decreases, statements about “atheism is/is like a religion” increase?

76

Funny, and here I thought the basic foundation of my understanding of life the universe and everything [sic] is that we have to deal with the here and now, and not dink around with imaginary deities and divine rewards and punishments.

Thanks for trying to tell me how to think, but I think I’ll fend for myself. :wink:

77

Ugg, what a mess.

To start with, I’d wager that opinions offered via the SDMB have very little in common with how one would approach strangers or friends in meatspace. We’re an anonymous message board, after all, so we’re hardly indicative of how many people would behave with their coworkers, family, etc…

Now, as for most of the rest of the bickering, there is really only one solid issue: epistemology.

A non-belief in an unproven claim will always be superior to believing that claim. People rationally reject ideas of the Tooth Fairy once they pass a certain age but Yahwey, Allah, God, Zeus, what have you… sticks around much longer. Though there are certainly psychological reasons why that might be but I won’t touch on them here. And while I’d never tell anybody that they don’t have the right to believe as they will, I would argue the issues of epistemology, especially if it’s on the Dope.

Now, many of the quotes that the OP cited are absolutely true, and some are hyperbole. Would many adults accept a religion if they were raised to be materialists and rationalists? How could they choose? All religions make unprovable, untestable, unrefutable claims. Why would someone raised on empiricism and reason believe that Jesus was more than flesh and blood any more than believe that Mohamed was the last prophet of God? Would they believe that Odin the Allfather spent three days dead on a tree in order to learn the Secret of the Runes? As has already been stated, to most theists the religions of the past are simply quaint superstitions and myths. Most non-theists (or atheists if you’d prefer) simply extend that philosophy to whatever sacred cow the theist is protecting.

And it always tickles me when the the absurd “a-theism is the same as theism” meme is trotted out, yet again. Whee. Not believing that there’s a Unicorn in my closet is not the same, epistemologicaly, as believing that there’s a Unicorn in my closet. A burden of proof exists, and though we can ignore it, that doesn’t make it go away. Just as some have said that we don’t know all there is to know about the “supernatural”, I’d counter that we have no reason to even believe that there is anything which is super-natural.

That’s like saying “Well, you’re so certain that there’s not a Unicorn in your closet, but that’s arrogant since you don’t know everything about the Marshmallowverse. What, the Marshmallowverse? That’s the secret world just outside of ours which sets all the rules here.”

Yes, whether or not there’s anything ‘outside’ of Universe is definitely untestable and unknowable, but it’s also just semantic noise. One can be just as confortable in saying “There is no God” as “There are no pixies who sprinkle pixy dust to give us good vibes.” Because, after all, there is no good reason to accept God while rejecting the good-vibe pixies. So while there may be a God or Gods, it’s pretty much on the same level as the possiblity of fairies and elves.

So I suppose in summation I’d say: If you don’t want to have your beliefs challenged in meatspace, don’t talk religion with your friends. If you don’t want to have your beliefs challenged on the SDMB, don’t post or read here.

78

A proof isn’t warranted for disbelief. People disbelieve all sort of things all the time without giving it a second thought. God is one of the very rare things for which you’re asked to task if you disbelieve without presenting “proofs”. And not all gods, of course. Nobody is going to point out that I can’t prove that Thor won’t be on the front lines for Ragnarok and to require as a consequence that I refrain from dismissing his existence.

79

Unfortunately, this is neither obvious, nor true. For instance, not being a professional baseball player does not fill the same “nitch” (i.e.,: niche) for a person as does being a professional player. In fact, it is itself pretty doubtful that human beings are like standard filing cabinets: that we all have exactly the same “nitches” that need filling. More likely, people’s lives are filled in all sorts of different ways, few of which are necessarily comparable to the other. Does the life of a unmarried Muslim janitor who watches lots of TV have or even need the same “nitches” as a married woman lawyer who simply never thinks about spirits? Not likely. So your entire premise is bupkiss.

Given that the original premise is probably false, it can’t be “because of that.” More likely, the reason atheists denigrate religion is a somewhat childish urge for payback. The reasons that would declare themselves superior to theists would likely be plain old human arrogance: no elaborate conspiracy of “nitch filling” necessary to explain that. Although, again, with no particular dogma or creed to tie together the motivations for their behavior, there really isn’t any good way to generalize.

However, I’m not even sure we’ve really established that atheists do engage in the exact same behavior as theists except in a very very general manner that really is too vague to blame on theism/atheism in particular.

Point granted: so, therefore, admit that you were wrong, so that you don’t look like a fool.

80

No more than the basic foundation of my understanding of life the universe and everything is that it was not farted out of your ass (or, as we like to call it: your mouth).

Sorry, but you don’t get to define my reality in terms of it NOT being the same as yours. It is what it is. The only guarantee you have with atheists’ understanding of reality is that it does not include a belief in God. But that doesn’t imply that atheists spend any time whatsoever thinking about God or God’s non-existence. I know I don’t: about the only time the subject ever comes up is on, wait for it, this messageboard from time to time. The fact that non-car owners garages do not contain cars doesn’t tell you much about what their garages do contain, and so anyone that goes on to talk about “the basic contents of the non-car owner’s garage” is just talking out of their ass. Or, as we like to call it… you get the point.

Ah: but the atheist has an advantage: they aren’t necessarily claiming any particular hypothesis, not even necessarily that God isn’t part of it. They just do not have reason to believe that God was, anymore than it was the Hamburglar.

Which is untestable, and hence not really compelling for me to believe that it’s true. If I just went around believing anything I could think of, like you seem to be advocating, I could probably get a good job as one of Douglas Adam’s Electric Monks.