People often attack that which is wrong.
“Science” led to the electronic keyboard you used to create that message. Religion did not, and indeed could not. Do you really want to suggest equivalence or interchangeability?
It works like this message board. I can have a disagreement with you about something tiny, and it can go in IMHO. If it’s big, it goes GD. The rationale is exactly the same in real life. People don’t care as much about you disabusing them of their smaller beliefs. But pick a big one, and it’s going to make them upset.
I’m sure you can find a belief to challenge that would make anyone upset. Just think about the trolls that have been on this board. Even knowing they are wrong, people still get upset. Everyone has irrational beliefs, or at least beliefs that are judged silly by someone else. And, if the belief is strong enough and emotional enough, I can guarantee that daring to challenge it will make you upset.
I have more I could say about the actual thread topic, but I think this is something that is too important for people to understand.
I dunno, I’ve seen a lot of multi-page blowups over fairly trivial matters. Try claiming Deckard is a replicant and see where that takes you.
He isn’t, by the way,
The OP could simply say “aren’t (blank) just as bad as (blank)?”, and the answer would usually be yes. We humans are all know-it-alls who love disparaging others with differing belief systems.
But to answer the specific question, I am unaware of any Atheist Crusades, Atheist Inquisitions, or atheists flying planes into buildings in the name of atheism. So no, atheists aren’t as bad.
I would probably qualify as a fundamentalist atheist by that definition. I can be condescending and rude about the issue.
Having said that my observation is a society run via the values of secular humanism will have better outcomes than one run via theism (more secular industrial societies with less rejection of science tend to fare better on a variety of measurements than the US including crime, social safety nets and respect for science, plus Freedom house in 2001 did some research showing massive deficits in civil and political freedoms in islamic majority countries vs. less religious countries http://www.mfsd.org/debate/freedomhouse.htm although I think there has been progress in the last 10 years). Bill O’Reilly and christian conservatives in the US feels the exact opposite, that theism is superior to secular humanism and secular humanists are corrupting society. But I don’t see what is so wrong with that, and not everyone is going to view everyone’s opinions as equal. I believe a society run via secular humanism will be superior to one run via theism.
However I do reject the pseudoskepticism, materialism and allopathy and convention that you can see in some atheists. And I can see the authors point that in evolutionary timelines, we went from being scared of fire to thinking we know everything in a very short period.
My concern with fundamentalist atheism (to use that term) is when it goes on crusades. Trying to convert people away from their faith, or supporting the war on terrorism because it is a war against religious people (which is what I think motivated people like Hitchens, who aside from his views on the war on terror was pretty leftist).
:smack:
What is science?
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I agree. Whether the speaker is a hard-core atheist or a hard-core fundamentalist, there seems to be an absence of humility accompanied by huge amounts of self-congratulatory smugness.
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Why should anyone be humble about not believing in leprechauns?
Couldn’t tell, what with all that spittle coming out of your mouth.
Why should anyone be self-congratularily smug about not believing in leprechauns?
It’s a process of hypothesis and observation that allowed electricity to be studied and eventually manipulated, while religion was stalled on attributing it to Thor or whatnot.
Because it’s hard not to be when facing people who do insist that leprechauns are real.
If I’m not allowed to feel superior to people who literally believe a magical space wizard made a guy out of dirt and a chick out of his rib 10,000 years ago, who the fuck am I allowed to look down on?
Religion created the “don’t be a jerk” rule that stopped you from adding “… you credulous moron!” to the end of your first sentence. Science did not, and indeed could not. Different domains of experience, different toolkits to parse them with.
Science used to be a branch of philosophy, which is clear if you read the Greek and Roman natural philosophers and those from early Europe. But if you read scientific papers starting from Copernicus, you will see a move from philosophical arguments to experiments and math. They both involve logical thinking to be sure, but science checks its answers which philosophy cannot do.
And I’ve taken both - at MIT in fact, which has quite a large philosophy department.
I think Ed created that rule. What does religion have to do with it?
Why should someone waste time thinking about not believing in leprechauns?
Probably because leprechaun-belief related wars have killed hundreds of millions of people, the social pressure of believing in leprechauns has seriously impacted their lives, government wants to pass laws based on what we should do to make the leprechauns more likely to give up their pots of gold, etc.
Generally nobody does. Until some door-knob pops up insisting they are real.
Seems analogous of … something.
:rolleyes: Please. The absolute last thing that religion is about is not being a jerk. All you are doing is the standard religious trick of giving religion credit for things it had nothing to do with.