No, I don’t expect the issue to go away, but I just want to vent.
Allow me to draw an analogy with homosexuality: would you require me to have a minimum IQ to qualify as gay? Would any but the most hidebound insist that I deliberately chose male over females for my attractions?
I’m not smart enough to follow all the logistic handstands that go on in the threads on atheism. I can’t defend my atheism. And even if I did, your eyes would glaze over after 20 words, the same as mine do reading your posts
I have resolved, however, to stop calling myself an “atheist” I’m tired of being lumped in with that annoying jeans-out-at-the-knees-and-proud-of-it guy you knew in college. I don’t receive the Atheist Newsletter. I don’t log onto Atheist Central (which plays a midi version of “Imagine” at the homepage) for my daily marching orders.
Instead of calling myself an Atheist, I’ll just say “oh, I’m not anything,” as if saying “no thank you, I’m not hungry.” when offered a hydrox cookie. (I’ll let you know how well this works out. I’m skeptical, but it’s worth a shot).
But just to vent, to all the Atheist and people of faith, both strident and gentle who post in on those threads, there at least one Doper here who’s not buying it either way because he’s as fucking thick as a lost lamb’s wool. It’s not your fault, it’s mine, so let me gyre and gimble in peace.
You’re confused? What about us morons, both atheist & people of faith, who are too dumb to take part in theological debates? We’re like the proverbial lilies of the field, except I think that was a parable, not a proverb, so wouldn’t that be “parabolic?” But
isn’t “parabolic” a geometric term? Ouch!
It’s my own fault: I keep reading each new religion thread in hopes of fighting my spiritual ignorance. But soon my head hurts and I drift off the MPSIMS looking for any new flatulence threads (though I doubt there is a God, I do thank Him for Lieu) . Maybe I’ll be like Voltaire and tend my garden while everyone else gabs on and on and on; until just before I die and, also like Voltaire, re-embrace Mother Church so She won’t haul my corpse to the dump to be eaten by dogs.
The local MAB* has been getting more than a little annoying lately. I’m not a religous person (well, other than accepting Karana as my Lord and Savior, but that’s just for funsies). Bottom line, we really don’t need another atheist thread started every couple of days. We get that y’all are all militant and proud and whatever. Fine. Just please STFU about it. By the way, I’d say the same if the various flavors of religious folks were polluting the board with mind numbing drivel. It’s been done. Time to move on.
MAB = Militant Atheist Brigade
Y’know what’s funny (besides kittens with their head caught in Kleenex boxes, which never fails to get a laff)? In real life, religion as a topic almost never comes up–in my real life, anyway. I’ll wager none of my coworkers and few of my acquaintances know anything about my religious beliefs or lack of same, though here on the Boards I am known as a bellowing, soapbox-perching atheist.
I beg to differ. Had he started such a thread and it dealt purely with the religious aspect of Judaism, as opposed to members of the Jewish “race/nation/family/etc./that’s a different debate”, I’m pretty sure it would have stayed open. Personally, I think it was a poorly chosen title for GD, but targetting some other religion wouldn’t have decreased its longevity.
I tend to say I’m agnostic, though truth be told I’m probably closer to an atheist. I don’t understand what’s so hard to grasp about why people are atheists… or for that matter, why people have faith in religion X. There are a vast spectrum of belief systems and non-belief systems and as long as the individual in question is content with that, I don’t see the point. Though I might have missed the thread you’re referencing… the last one I saw was about whether it takes faith to be an atheist. I haven’t been around long–is this an ongoing thing? Are there dead horses laying about, continuously beaten?
All topics in Great Debates ebb and flow. We are currently in a cycle of a (very) few atheists opening threads demanding to know why anyone would ever believe in a god with a(n even tinier) number of theists making plaintive and ill-considered threads to refute them. (Once the threads are opened, of course, the numbers and qualities of the participants can vary widely from sub-topic to sub-topic.)
As for dead horses, there is a reason why the Chicago Reader owns stock in a glue factory.
Not all people who choose not to believe in God refer to themselves as atheists. Some call themselves free-thinkers, secular humanists, agnostics, etc. There was a episode of South Park last year where Cartman froze himself in time and ended up waking up into the future where all religion had been eliminated. Had the religious conflicts ended? No, because all of the groups of atheists were fighting each other over what to call themselves. I don’t think that’s too far off.
