Kinda, although it has more to do with motivation than organization (I think organization is another factor, but it’s not what I had in mind). Imagine a random atheist who happens to be an arrogant asshole. Sure he’s an atheist, but, if he’s anything like most atheists, that’s not a hugely important part of his identity. Sure he gets vitriolic when religion comes up on message boards, but he doesn’t usually walk around all the time viewing the world through an active lens of there-is-no-God, he doesn’t go to atheist discussion and community group every Sunday, etc. Atheism is, fundamentally, not all that defining a part of who he is. So whatever way he ends up expressing his arrogant assholishness, it’s reasonably likely to have nothing to do with atheism… ie, it might end up being related to a sports team, or (as you suggest) his homeowner’s association.
To most religious people, their religion is much more of an self-identifying trait than atheism is for atheists. So whatever way their assholishness expresses itself is far more likely to be religious in nature… not to mention that for many religious people, there is a book of rules that they believe to be divinely inspired which literally tells them to go out and do various things. Those are all crucial differences between your typical asshole atheist and your typical asshole religious person.
Atheists are more than capable of being as jerkish as theists, we just can’t blame our assholery on the arcane rulebook of an imaginary dungeon master.
I’m an atheist. Most Christians, or people of other faiths, don’t bother me for the most part. I’m also a Broncos fan. I would like Tebow to get his completion rating north of 50%. He may pray all he likes, wherever he likes - I don’t care at all.
However, anyone who thinks that organized religion hasn’t been responsible for far more horrible things in this world than atheism has been is out of their mind. That doesn’t put the blame at the feet of all religious people, but it’s a pretty good reason not to be too supportive of religion in general. Of course, as long as people aren’t advocating limiting other peoples’ freedoms, I won’t hold their belief against them, even if I find it to be quite silly (note, however, that many religious people do want to do just that, and I’ll be happy to point out to them that their delusions are no basis for violating the Constitution or basic human dignity).
In other news, my cat’s breath smells like cat food.
Bryan Ekers - That was a damn funny post.
Regarding “belief”:
A “belief” is acceptance of a fact or position by your brain. For some reason, some people don’t want to use that term with respect to sciency or empirical stuff, but it is the correct term to use in all cases. It’s not just a “religious” type of position.
Regarding atheism as a religion:
That’s a stretch. Actually, that’s pretty moronic. That basically renders the term “religion” meaningless. My set of beliefs regarding the best way to parallel park is now included in the term religion.
Regarding “negative belief” vs “lack of belief”:
It’s really both.
Prior to any knowledge or thought about a particular position, it’s merely a “lack of belief”, but the minute it enters the consciousness, gets rolled around a few times and a conclusion is arrived at, then it just entered the set of “negative beliefs”, and that’s ok.
As a militant atheist I need to know who the fuck this Tebow person is before I grab my pitchfork. What the hell, who cares what he did, it’s about time we atheists start throwing people to the lions too. No more pussyfooting.
There’s more to this. Basically, the Christian Bible says that those who pray in public will be rewarded by people seeing them pray in public, that God is not pleased by public prayer and will not reward it.
This always amuses the hell out of me when I see a Christian or group of them praying ostensibly in public. Clearly they don’t know their Bible.
But most are driven by the need to declare superiority.
That person making a public statement that he’s of a Christian religion is more important to the hundreds of thousands that watch him, verifying their superiority over other un-christian people who are destined for christian hell, by definition.
I have seen mentioned on here on the boards another verse about “not hiding your light under a bushel”. I always thought that meant to be seen living a good Christian life but some take that to mean they can make an ass of themselves praying in public.