The reason there are so many atheists here is because there are no foxholes on the net. 
Maybe I’m just dense, but it’s not so obvious to me-why don’t you get a little more specific as to the type of atheist that uses the internet to get her/his point across?
Where’s our place? On a stake, on fire?
I think that the people on the Dope are smarter and more rational than average and it does skew our worldview away from religion.
Smart people can still have differences. People’s experience leads to different conclusions about the world that even evidence to the contrary makes it hard for them to change their minds on a particular subject. Also, it is not out of the pale for ‘evidence’ to be tampered with by whoever is presenting it, so our natural skepticism seems to win out.
Compare that to the many people who seem to think that Sarah Palin is smart and would make a good president. And they are partly correct. Compared to them she probably is smart and would make a better president than they would. I still wouldn’t want her as president, though. It puts people who believe such a thing on the wrong side of the intelligence bell curve even though there would be outliers there, too.
The ones who are more interested in winning debates than preserving relationships ie argumentative types who arent too worried about hurting other peoples feelings with what they say, or even are actively involved in the debate because it will elicit an emotional reaction from the person they’re arguing with.
The anonymity of the internet makes it an ideal format for people with those tendencies, so they tend to be more dominant in discussions.
Otara
It also has to logically follow that they think you deserve it. Having someone tell you they think you deserve to be physically tortured for all eternity is a little off-putting.
I…see.
It is impolite to expose what we feel to be religious bullshit in most real life situations, as has been pointed out before, and you feel that people who do so in an online environment that is designed for such conversations are more interested in winning debates than preserving relationships? Just a minute, while I scroll up for just a couple seconds…
I was right. The title of this forum is Great Debates. Funny, that.
Well, so? We’re not talking about defending a deity’s honor, we’re talking about people who are hurt and offended when people mock their deity. You admit you’d have a negative emotional reaction if I insulted your Mom. It doesn’t really matter what, if anything, you choose to do about your emotional reaction; the fact remains that you did in fact have one. Would you think much of me if I told you that you were stupid for having that reaction? If I told you what you “should” feel in response to me insulting your Mom?
The Magical Thinking Thread
It’s more along the lines of, “do you have an superstitious habits?” Like a lucky shirt, or do you cross your fingers when you’re waiting for someone to give you good/bad news, say, “wish me luck”, etc. It’s mostly just for fun.
(Like I mentioned my stuffed penguin, Sidney.)
No I think they’re simply the people who will be most attracted to that kind of forum and tend to remain there, and be happy to re-argue the same atheism/religion topics so repetitively.
Ready use of sarcasm would be one obvious example of the difference you might see in communication styles used. Theres no inherent ‘need’ for it as part of rational debate, yet you can observe it being used far more frequently in this setting than others.
There will be exceptions of course, but thats the overall way things tend to move.
Otara
Wow. Six pages in one day, and not during an election season. Is that some kind of record?
I might as well throw my two cents in here. I’m not sure why there are so many atheists here. I think it may partially be the proliferation of message boards in general, which tend to attract the skeptical, allowing a certain amount of anonymity, and providing a forum for those who may never have felt comfortable expressing themselves publicly on the topic before. I also have a suspicion there are more atheists in the general population than is believed.
I try to always remain aware of how my words may affect others, especially those who may disagree with me, and especially those who I’m sure do. I’m not always successful at it and am, at times, swept up by the emotion of a topic, but I do try.
The challenge I have is respecting a belief system that has no basis in fact, or is, at best, unprovable. I can respect a person who harbors a belief system I don’t, but I cannot, and do not, respect the belief itself. For example, not to swell his head at all, but one of the people on this board who I have the highest respect for is FriarTed. In my opinion, he is one of the most thoughtful, reasoned, and insightful posters here. I always pay attention to his posts, and most times come away feeling I’ve learned something, or had a cobweb or two flicked away. The man knows his stuff and is a great asset to this board. However, although I admire FriarTed immensely, and am impressed by the ease with which he willingly communicates with those who are sometimes needlessly and obnoxiously adversarial toward him, I do not respect the faith that is so much a part of who he is. I don’t think less of him as an intellect because of it, but I do wonder about his internal wiring, for lack of a better term. I find his belief system illogical, irrational, and damaging to society and to the advancement of the human race. He’d say I was wrong and probably be able to back it up, which is another reason I’m glad he’s around.
A few posters upthread have expressed dismay at what they see as wanton hostility toward theism on this board. I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. I have, more than a few times, seen posters admonished by moderators when the discourse descends below a certain undefined, yet expected level of propriety the board accords to religion, especially Christianity. The only other topic I’ve witnessed for which this is also, inexplicably, the case, but applied with even greater fervor, is Israel, but I’m getting a little off track.
I appreciate this board’s atheist community, all the more because atheism is not its purpose or driving force, but a byproduct of the personality types it attracts…in most cases.
In fact, there was a recent poll. After 488 responses from SDMB members, 45% self-identified as atheist, 28% as religious.
I’ve only been here a short time, but I feel so at home.
For me, once I came to the realization that there wasn’t really any need for a god in our Universe, nor is there any evidence for one, it was like flipping a light switch. Now I can’t possibly picture how any rational person could believe in such nonsense, perhaps that breeds a bit of contempt and causes me to be a little tougher on believers than I probably should be.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner.
In addition to Friar Ted, we also have Polycarp, although I haven’t seen him around as much lately.
My mom, who at last check is a real person, is a human being whose feelings can be hurt. Why the hell does your all-powerful, all-knowing and immortal deity even need your support and/or defense? He is all-powerful, for ghod’s sake!
If your mother was physically and logically impossible and responsible for the Crusades and so on, then yes I’d consider you to be silly to be offended at people mocking your mother. Or at trying to kill her for that matter. Your analogy doesn’t work well because people don’t have mothers who are impossible, illogical and who are responsible for the death and suffering of billions.
Unless they are Cthulhu.
Actually, I should say the reaction is the point. This little sidebar started from someone questioning why a poster should get so defensive about someone slamming their god. If a person takes the view that it’s His place to judge, not theirs, and that He forgives and understands all His children, then it’s reasonable that while it may sting to hear or read someone mocking God, it’s not their place to rise up to defend Him. He can take care of Himself.
I don’t think the idea that morals come from God is the property of fundamentalists and nutters. God laying down the moral law is reasonably mainstream, to put it mildly. Where do you think morals come from? Exactly what does the God you believe in do? I’m fairly sure I would lack belief in your god, but it is hard to say with such a paucity of characteristics of it.
Which shows that the expectation from some theists that atheism involves knowing or disproving that no gods exist is so silly. No sooner do you give an argument against some mainstream aspect of god than some theist or other pops up and says “that’s not my god.” We see it in the common claims that only a few nutters are creationists. They may be nutters, but they are not few. (They are way under-represented here for some odd reason.)
To repeat, I think it far odder that there are so many believers in non-sked theologies around here than that there are so many atheists.
My God doesn’t DO anything. God is a concept, like Freedom or Peace or Hope. Well, unless you think Hope does something - and what Hope does is pretty powerful.
But WE as a board, tend to lump all believers in with the nutters. Which, when you say "why are there so many atheists here…the opposite question is why are there so few believers. And part of that is the moment you say you believe, you get lumped in with the nutters. So you get very few people willing to argue a theist position.
Or, I’ll get told here, “why bother” - since my concept of God is so soft. So I’ll answer that. It gives me comfort and is nice shorthand. I LIKE the concept of praying for someone, its so much nicer than merely “hoping” - praying is hope with a direction. I like the concept of giving thanks, God provides a direction for that. It certainly doesn’t cost me anything to have this concept of God. And it adds value for me. I’m a regular churchgoer at a UU church where my minister is a self professed agnostic and where God as a concept is a far more common belief than the Judeo-Christian God.
So what?
You have been arguing all along that, in discussions about religion, it is not wrong to be offensive. OK, I accept that. You don’t like it when I tell you something offensive? Tough shit.
You keep whining about how offended you are, and then claiming it is OK to be offensive.
The boards attracts atheists because board culture allows hate speech against Christians. And no, it isn’t just Der Trihs - every time he gets Pitted there are going to be three or four posts of people saying “well, maybe he expresses his sentiments badly, but I agree with him for the most part”.
Regards,
Shodan