Is Fundamentalist Atheism real?

Great Debates
101

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Interesting point. I see some Christians growing increasingly uncomfortable with our more diverse culture. They feel some urgency to declare the US as a Christian nation.
I felt evangelical was appropriate because of this “marked by militant or crusading zeal” definition. I agree that the response by Harris and Dawkins is a reaction to actions by religious groups {see, it’s the actions} but isn’t it still similar? Evangelicals feel it is their responsibility to share salvation {the truth} with the rest of the world. Aren’t Dawkins and Harris doing the same? Christians might say their zeal is a response to God moving in their lives , or the sin in the world. Is the fact that it’s a response change the definition.
[/QUOTE]

At the most Dawkins is attacking what he sees as a dangerous type of religion, and not sharing atheism. I don’t recall him ever attacking Buddhists. He paints all religions (or all god-believing religions) with the same brush, which really boils down to objecting to special pleading for them. Would he write about this at all if all religions were moderate? I suspect he’d mention his atheism in passing, but I doubt he’d devote so much time to it.

I don’t think most evangelicals are reacting to the broader culture in their evangelicalism - but the attack the TV shows you don’t like guys are. I’d have a problem with the term evangelical creationists for the same reason I object to evangelical atheist. If the evilutionists would just shut up, they’d never mention the subject, except in passing.

102

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Citations that you have been told that “repeatedly”?

And, even if you can actually come up with a couple of posts that do that, are the authors of those posts actually participating in this thread? Or are you simply making the claim that if any theist has ever done such a thing, there is some legitimate point in interrupting other threads with complaints that you are just giving back what you (might have) encountered in other places at other times from other people?
[/QUOTE]

Tell me, do you read these posts you’re supposedly moderating, or do you simply visit here from time to time to ask for cites that appear in the thread you’re supposedly moderating? See posts # 4 and 14, as if you give a fuck about my supporting my assertions (shocking to you, I understand) that I’ve been told that non-belief is in itself arrogant. Have you considered getting a job or something?

103

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
I’ve been informed repeatedly here that it’s arrogant of me to dismiss the specific belief of God’s existence.

I have no idea what you mean by “It’s rude to dismiss the all facets person who holds it.” That doesn’t make sense to me, syntactically. Try expressing your thoughts again, perhaps?
[/QUOTE]

But not by the people you’ve responded to in this thread right?
If you respond to a post with a reference to something that has nothing to do with the post it helps to make that clear. If you use the “you” meaning believers in general rather than the poster you’re responding to make that clear as well.

If others have told you it’s arrogant to dismiss that belief I for one disagree wiuth them and that should already be clear to you. There’s no reason to respond to me or other posters as if we hold those beliefs when it’s clear we don’t. If it’s only an example it helps to say so.
No idea huh?

you responded to Sevastopols post

and began your little journey here. You even accused that poster of trying to poison the well by suggesting rejecting God belief was arrogant. That’s a misrepresentation of what was posted. That wasn’t the suggestion at all.
Rejecting God belief, resurrection from the dead, a blood sacrifice for salvation, turning water into wine, are all very specific beliefs. Reject them all. What Sevastopol was saying and I am now explaining again, is that people and belief systems are multi faceted. Someone may believe something you think is silly and still have an amazing intellect or a heart full of compassion. When they are labeled as fools and morons that is a dismissal of the person, or all the people who have similar beliefs.

104

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
But not by the people you’ve responded to in this thread right?
If you respond to a post with a reference to something that has nothing to do with the post it helps to make that clear. If you use the “you” meaning believers in general rather than the poster you’re responding to make that clear as well.

If others have told you it’s arrogant to dismiss that belief I for one disagree wiuth them and that should already be clear to you. There’s no reason to respond to me or other posters as if we hold those beliefs when it’s clear we don’t. If it’s only an example it helps to say so.
No idea huh?

you responded to Sevastopols post

and began your little journey here. You even accused that poster of trying to poison the well by suggesting rejecting God belief was arrogant. That’s a misrepresentation of what was posted. That wasn’t the suggestion at all.
Rejecting God belief, resurrection from the dead, a blood sacrifice for salvation, turning water into wine, are all very specific beliefs. Reject them all. What Sevastopol was saying and I am now explaining again, is that people and belief systems are multi faceted. Someone may believe something you think is silly and still have an amazing intellect or a heart full of compassion. When they are labeled as fools and morons that is a dismissal of the person, or all the people who have similar beliefs.
[/QUOTE]

Huh? The statement “It is simple arrogance to reject it wholesale” (‘it" being "religion’) doesn’t equate to “suggesting rejecting God belief was arrogant”? On what planet does this not equate? (Assuming your tangled syntax means what I think it means–I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt in trying to disentangled your jumbled or elliptical word-order).

105

Y’know, Pseudotriton, you don’t have to reach back to Baal worshippers. We have an active threads in Great Debates right now about Hinduism: Hinduism - calling all Hindus, ex-Hindus, and those merely interested - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board
and Paganism:What does it mean to be a Pagan? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board.

In the Paganism thread we had Lilairen say:

While this isn’t EXACTLY Baal worship, one could certainly argue that a modern-day Set worshipper is just about as close as one might reasonably expect.

So here we have a person who claims to follow/worship Set. Or in the Hinduism thread, which was sparked by a news report of Hindus literally worshipping elephants. This sort of religious practice still exists. Are those Hindu villagers who worship elephants nutjobs? Are they in some very real sense literally insane for worshipping elephants? Is Lilairen literally insane for claiming to worship Set (for varying definitions of “worship”, naturally)?

I agree with you that worship of a deified jewish carpenter makes as much sense as worship of Set, or worship of elephants, or worship of your dead great-grandfather in some Shinto ceremony. It makes as much and just as little sense. But your logic is that since it is obvious that Set worshippers are nutjobs, since it is obvious that elephant worshippers are nutjobs, since it is obvious that ancestor worshippers are nutjobs, it should be equally as obvious that Christians are nutjobs.

Except no one in the other threads have yet jumped in ranting and raving about how all Hindus or Pagans are nutjobs. And no Christians have yet jumped in waving the First Commandment and banishing all Hindus and Pagans to hellfire. It turns out that it is NOT obvious that Set worshippers are insane.

Oddly, Hinduism and Paganism are given just as much respect in those threads as Catholicism, or Mormonism, or Lutheranism, or Anglicanism, or Quakerism. Meaning, a moderate amount. Enough respect is given so that we can HAVE a discussion. There aren’t shrill demands for Hindus to prove that Krishna exists, no shrill demands for Pagans to prove whatever it is they believe in, before we can even begin to have a discussion of Hinduism or Paganism. Because that’s not the point. I have exactly as much respect for a Hindu Ganesh-worshipper, a Pagan Set worshipper, a Wiccan Goddess worshipper as I do for a Jesus worshipper. I don’t automatically assume ANY of them are nutjobs, although they very well may turn out to be nutjobs, we’ve all encountered enough religious nutjobs to know that no religion is immune to nutjobbery.

So your contention that Set worshippers would be subjected to harsh ridicule and immediately dismissed by the members of this board is falsified. Please revise your world view accordingly, or I will count you as among those who irrationally cling to a falsified belief despite abundant evidence to the contrary. You wouldn’t like that, would you?

106

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
Tell me, do you read these posts you’re supposedly moderating, or do you simply visit here from time to time to ask for cites that appear in the thread you’re supposedly moderating? See posts # 4 and 14, as if you give a fuck about my supporting my assertions (shocking to you, I understand) that I’ve been told that non-belief is in itself arrogant. Have you considered getting a job or something?
[/QUOTE]
So, based on your deliberate misreading of two separate posts that did not actually accuse you of being arrogant for the mere assertion of your lack of belief, you want to begin hurling personal insults at me in Great Debates? I am hardly shocked at your assertions; you have made me the target of repeated unsupported personal attacks. However, I was hoping that you could engage in this discussion with fewer personal attacks and mischaracterizations of other posters’ comments.

There is a difference (that you seem unable to distinguish) between asserting that no god exists and that persons who believe in a god or gods are in error and asserting that anyone who happens to hold such belief is mentally deficient (the actual statements made that were not directed at you). While it may make you feel all warm and fuzzy to deliberately conflate those issues so that you can play the martyr, you are probably going to evoke more ridicule for your poor logic than you will persuade anyone of your position.

107

Both posts #4 and #14 were addressed to me, and I took them as directed at me. If that’s not the case, I’d like someone to show me how I am supposed to take either of those posts as directed otherwise.

I’d also like to know how you’re so sure (other than your irrational hatred of me) how I came to misread those posts (which is as yet unproven) deliberately? Again, you are working very hard to establish that a clear personal insult in GD, when directed at one of your adversaries, was no insult at all, while claiming as a fact my supposed insult of you.

Are you speaking here as a Mod, or as poster, or as your own invention, A-Mod-When- I-Wanna-Be?

108

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
Both posts #4 and #14 were addressed to me, and I took them as directed at me. If that’s not the case, I’d like someone to show me how I am supposed to take either of those posts as directed otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, you were being addressed–or, rather, your discussion point was being addressed as is appropriate in this Forum. You laid out a thesis, (that it was permissible to be dismissive of religious beliefs, but that you found it wrong to then be accused of rudeness for that attitude), and your respondents pointed out a counter thesis, (that rude behavior was separate from the expression of one’s opinions). In other words, they addressed the topic without calling you names, to which you have now attempted to mischaracterize their statements as personal attacks on you for even discussing the topic.

109

[ Moderating ]

I have challenged your arguments. I have not called you any names. As long as you conduct yourself according to the rules of this Forum, there is not going to be any “Moderator” action.

However, since you have brought it up, I will note that if you insist on breaking the rules of this Forum and directing any personal attacks at me, I will reprimand you. You cannot insult me, even by cracks about getting a job or similar personal slurs. However, as a poster on this Forum, I am entitled to be treated the same way that other posters are treated and if you continue to make this personal, then I would consider myself obligated to make an official response, simply to maintain a level playing field, here.

If you want to insult me, go to the Pit.
If you want to challenge my Moderating, go to the Pit.
If you want to discuss your views of the issues of belief and non-belief, then post those views without taking insult where none was offered or inflicting insult where no provocation was offered.

(See how easy it is to distinguish between my posts as a poster and my posts as a Moderator?)

[ /Moderator ]

110

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
So your contention that Set worshippers would be subjected to harsh ridicule and immediately dismissed by the members of this board is falsified. Please revise your world view accordingly, or I will count you as among those who irrationally cling to a falsified belief despite abundant evidence to the contrary. You wouldn’t like that, would you?
[/QUOTE]

Did I contend that ALL members of this board would ridicule ALL those who professed to worship Set? Since I’m (still) a member of this board, and I have no knowledge of Set and have never been offended by such a believer, I can categorically state that this would be a false claim on your part.

You are oversimplifying my views to create a strawman, and I can’t allow you to do that.

Or as Tom likes to say, with annoying regularlity, “Cite?” (I’m not asking you to go on a hunt for a cite that doesn’t exist. I’m pointing out how “Cite?” might be used as a substitute for arguing a point by someone who doesn’t have much of an actual argument.)

What I’m doing here, if anyone is deluded enough to think that I’m trying to hijack this fine thread, is provide you with examples of what I consider “fundamental atheism” to consist of. Xianity is built on the premise that God exists (and is in fact the single most important entity in the Universe.) I’m trying to show how a fundamentalist atheist (if one exists) would argue against that point, by demanding (as is only reasonable and logical) that before we can so much as discuss X, it needs to be demonstrated that X exists. If you wish to discuss X as a hypothetical, he may grant you that hypothetical to see where you’re going with it, but (absent proof of X) is always free to conclude the discussion by pointing out that you have in fact so far not so much as demonstrated X to be anything other than a hypothetical entity. No need to point out absurdities in the Bible, no need to point out how the ten commandments contain gross insults to holders of other faiths, no need to demonstrate the evil that Xianity has caused–all a fundamentalist atheist need do is to challenge theists to produce good evidence that God exists.

111

Tom, let’s get back to how you knew that I was deliberately misreading various posts? Are you a mind-reader, or was that a personal insult on your part? Please clarify.

112

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
Tom, let’s get back to how you knew that I was deliberately misreading various posts? Are you a mind-reader, or was that a personal insult on your part? Please clarify.
[/QUOTE]
I asked for citations of people telling you “it’s arrogant of [you] to dismiss the specific belief of God’s existence” and you pointed to two posts that only noted that arrogance might be inferred from the delivery of the opinion. In your next post, you claimed that you had been told “that non-belief is in itself arrogant” even though neither of the posts to which you referred made that claim.

Challenging your interpretation of a post is not a personal insult, despite how you would like to portray it. I do not need to be a mind-reader, merely a reader of English.

113

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
The Xian god is a false god: it is steeped in untruth, from beginning to end, and people who believe in this false god, and the concept of him, much less the worship of this false, false, false god, must cease immediately.

You have a problem with this commendment that I give unto you, Daniel?
[/QUOTE]
Huh. Why do you believe that to be true?

If you happen to believe that this is the case, then no, I have no problem with it. If you go around irritating people by ranting at them about this belief, then yeah, I have a problem wiht your behavior.

See the difference?

Daniel

114

Oh, and prr, lemme step in and provide Tom the evidence he needs to show that you misread post 14 (whether deliberately or not is obviously beyond my ken): you misread it.

Let’s quote the bit where I spoke of arrogance:

Where in there do I ever discuss your lack of belief in God? I’m talking about your insistence on trying to twist discussions around to the empirical when other folks are interested in having an entirely different discussion, and treating them with contempt when they want to have that different discussion.

Daniel

115

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Thats awfully considerate of you. This is pretty interesting. I recant. Feel free.
[/QUOTE]

Rather than joining this thread (which is fast becoming yet another prr trainwreck) I’ll try to write up an OP later in the week. Or, of course, anyone else can if they are interested.

We now return the thread to its regularly scheduled rhetoric.

116

And I’m saying that attitude towards religion is

A) what I’m terming the “fundamentalist” position in atheism (as per the OP)

B) my own position. IOW, I am self-identifying as the “you” about whomyou say

*you insist on turning it into an adversarial discussion in which only empirical evidence is acceptable, then you’re showing contempt for the discussion they want to have, showing almost a blindness toward what they want. That can come across as arrogant. *

You’ve called me in that one post contemptuous, near-blind, and arrogant. If that’s how you write to someone whom you don’t intend to insult personally, I’d hate to see how you treat someone whom you’re trying to insult. You are (by use of the “you” which is a tip-off) addressing me personally, so forgive if I interpret the “you” are being directed at me, and not my position.

That IS my lack of belief in God in a nutshell: He doesn’t exist because no one has ever defined him or argued his existence in a way I find logical or reasonable. Ergo, he doesn’t exist. This is what you are calling an arrogant position and, to any reasonable and unbiased Moderator, is a deliberate insult to the person stating that position as his own.

Not that I mind the insult, Dan. I’m used to insults by now, and I don;'t really expect Tom to treat an insult to me the same way he would treat one to Polycarp. So I’m content to let this go, if Tom is quite done hijacking this tread.

Do you understand how the fundamentalist atheist position is one that (quite reasonably, in my view) denies the theist the capacity of discussing God without first demonstrating that he exists, or how he exists? It’s a simple enough point, and quite a powerful one. It’s not contemptuous or arrogant in the least. It’s logical.

117

And since I don’t want to make** jsgoddess** feel unwelcome here (she often has intelligent contributions to make to such threads) I’ll bow out gracefully at this point from the thread, and let you folks have a discussion of religion without my noxious presence.

118

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
Did I contend that ALL members of this board would ridicule ALL those who professed to worship Set? Since I’m (still) a member of this board, and I have no knowledge of Set and have never been offended by such a believer, I can categorically state that this would be a false claim on your part.

You are oversimplifying my views to create a strawman, and I can’t allow you to do that.
[/quote]

Oh, come on.

Here’s the exchange I was talking about:

So I found a current thread where someone claimed to be a Set worshipper…not from Mesopotamia in 500 BC, but in the United States, today. Is this person a fool and dupe? You seem to have the idea that people arguing with you object to the idea of calling Christians and Jews fools and dupes, but would have no problem calling Baal worshipers fools and dupes. But the evidence shows this is not the case. Read the thread on Paganism, read the thread on Hinduism. Here are real life contemporary examples of people you think the rest of us would scorn as fools and dupes but we hypocritically don’t do the same for Christians.

Except no one scorned the Set worshipper as a fool or a dupe. Or do you feel the need to go into that thread and denounce her as a fool/dupe?

You’re trying to demonstrate inconsistency where none exists.

Except no one brought the Paganism thread to a screeching halt saying, “Set? Set? You claim to worship Set? Look, before you can make such an assertion, first demonstrate that such an entity exists. Until you do, you have no right to even mention Set.”

Do you agree that Set worship makes as much sense as Christianity? You complain and complain about how Christianity gets a free pass, yet you won’t even open your eyes and see that Set worship and Krishna worship gets the same treatment as Jesus worship. There’s no need to get into an argument with the Set worshipper about whether Set exists, because, get this, you know and I know that no such entity actually exists. So what’s more interesting is figuring out WHY this person claims to be a follower of Set, despite living in 2007 America instead of 1000 BC Giza. Or barring that, just finding out WHAT she believes–even if we don’t understand why–would be interesting. We don’t have to have an argument about it, we don’t have to mock her and call her a fool and a dupe, we don’t have to refuse to have a discussion with her until she admits that Set is imaginary.

And neither does every discussion of Christianity need to begin with establishing whether Christians are, in fact, fools and dupes, or not. Sure, sometimes that’s appropriate. But we can have a discussion about Santa Claus even though most people over 8 years old realize Santa Claus doesn’t exist. We can have a discussion about what Christians believe without getting into whether such a belief is justified or not.

So I hereby ask you to stop complaining that Christians get a secret “get out of debate free” card they get to play that no other religious people do.

119

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
And that, I think, is where the arrogance can creep in. If folks want to have a discussion about their own personal experiences, but you insist on turning it into an adversarial discussion in which only empirical evidence is acceptable, then you’re showing contempt for the discussion they want to have, showing almost a blindness toward what they want. That can come across as arrogant.
[/quote]

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
your insistence on trying to twist discussions around to the empirical when other folks are interested in having an entirely different discussion, and treating them with contempt when they want to have that different discussion.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
You’ve called me in that one post contemptuous, near-blind, and arrogant. If that’s how you write to someone whom you don’t intend to insult personally, I’d hate to see how you treat someone whom you’re trying to insult. You are (by use of the “you” which is a tip-off) addressing me personally, so forgive if I interpret the “you” are being directed at me, and not my position.
[/QUOTE]
Let’s see, here.

He did not call you “contemptuous,” he noted that your actions treated other posters “with contempt.” In other words, he challenged the style of your posting without actually calling you any names. (And that aside from the fact that “contemptuous” is hardly an insult. It does not describe one’s character in the way that, say, “contemptible” would.)

He did not actually call you arrogant. He noted that in a particular pursuit of a discussion, “And that, I think, is where the arrogance can creep in.” In other words, in a particular form of argument, still in the realm of the hypothetical, arrogance can (note the use of the conditional) “creep in.” No claim that you are, indeed, an arrogant so-and-so.

He did not say that you were near blind. He said that by refusing to acknowledge discussions as they already existed, instead, requiring them to be recast in your desires , you are “showing almost a blindness to what they want.” Again, a description of your actions in discussion, not an attack on the qualities of your character.

And this sort of response that ignores the actual text to which you are responding is why it appears to me to be a deliberate misreading. You have posted that LHoD was deliberately insulting you, yet your claims for his insults of your person have to be wrenched out of context and twisted around, even changing the words, in an attempt to make your point.

120

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Let’s see, here.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks, tom. I was reading his post in befuddlement, wondering about Bizarroland. It looks like it’s just not productive for me to engage him further on this issue.

Daniel