# Let Theists agree before they have the nerve to criticize atheists! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2007, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785 "2007-05-12T00:55:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/141 "2007-05-14T07:23:54Z")
QG, where the blue heck do you get “Honour A Divine” from the basic tenets of Buddhism? …and I note you’ve been careful to say “ **A** Divine” and not “ **The** Divine”. Why is that? A tacit acknowledgment that “The Divine” of Islam is not “The Divine” of Judaism? And what about Xipe Totec? How were your “Two Commandments” applicable in His worship when His worship made them paradoxical? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/142 "2007-05-14T07:29:09Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] On the subject of ‘proofs’, nobody has yet satisfactorily answered me how they can accept the existence of similarly unprovable abstract concepts. [/QUOTE] So God is an abstract concept now? Well, as an atheist, there’s a God I can believe in. In fact, I already do! I believe that the abstract concept “God” exists, fo’sho. Well, that was easy. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/143 "2007-05-14T07:35:00Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] Well, yes; it’s what you do when you step a level above the individual religions and examine common precepts of the phenomenon as a whole. [/quote] Alright. Then why stop at “a Divine, and generally be nice”? Let’s go even higher still, to “generally be nice”. Then my morality gets to be included, too. So hey! Basically, we all believe the same thing. Isn’t that nice? Oh, except for all the Christians and atheists and everyone who don’t. Because you still haven’t shown that these are indeed the “common precepts”. > [@](#): > > Precisely. Which is why trying to do analysis at the level of fine detail will mislead you. You need to pull back (or up) to where the bigger picture exists. The bigger picture is still a matter of interpretation, mon ami. No amount of “pulling back” removes your personality from the picture. > [@](#): > > On the subject of ‘proofs’, nobody has yet satisfactorily answered me how they can accept the existence of similarly unprovable abstract concepts. Give me a hunk of proof I can touch and see and smell that ‘thought’ exists. Or love. Or hope. You simply cannot claim you live in a world where nothing that is not concrete doesn’t exist for you because the vast majority of the most important concepts about life are not concrete. Somebody give me proof that hope exists. Show me a photo. Measure me its size. Send me a piece. I love this argument. Hope is a feeling. Feeling hope is in and of itself proof. Can I give you empirical evidence of it? Not really, no. I don’t believe you can recognise hope on any brain scans of any kind (although there may be a pattern associated with it; no idea, though). So why do I accept this feeling which has no empirical evidence? Because the only characteristic necessary for hope’s existence is that it be felt. I can feel it. Ergo, it exists. God, on the other hand, is not just a feeling, but a being. I can’t say “if you feel God, God exists” since _feeling God_ and _God existing \* can be two entirely seperate things. You could be mistaken when you feel God. Could you be mistaken when you feel hope? No, because the feeling_ itself\* is hope. On the subject of unanswered questions, you seem to be missing quite a lot of them by now. I’ve answered yours - could you answer ours? ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/144 "2007-05-14T07:38:38Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] I’m s_till waiting_ for \*\*Quiddity Glomfuster \*\*to tell me what aspect of “The Divine” the worship of a priest of Xipe Totec and the worship of a Christian/Jew/Muslim had in common. [/QUOTE] Something/one metaphysical exerts effects on people and their world. What you complain about, I’m sure, is the way humans thought they should honour that metaphysical being. That’s where humans goof it. They know Somebody’s (or Something) is looking out for them but then they try to figure out how to make the Somebody/thing happy. Humans ain’t too bright so they don’t often do the best job of figuring it out, I suspect. They make their ham-handed offerings the best way they can, kind of like your little guy bringing you home a ceramic ash tray when you don’t even smoke and the thing is ugly as sin. He meant well, he just didn’t quite get it right. An art critic looking at the ashtray would say it was junk but that wouldn’t negate the kid’s sincere intention at doing right. Note the sacrifice in the story; the god flayed himself - sacrificed himself - to feed humanity and humans, in their turn, emulated that. Even today, people behave the way their heroes do in tribute to them even when it seems crazy to do so. You want a modern example? Hazing - in which people allow themselves to be mistreated in order to align themselves with and belong with a group they emulate. And that’s just people doing that to please other people, not even a god. So don’t be going on about what people have done to please the gods they revered; it’s a human tradition to equate sacrifice and pain with some sort of ritual. Take the Samoan _pe’a_ tattoo, for instance - performed without any sort of painkiller. There’s plenty of examples. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/145 "2007-05-14T07:41:03Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] It was an example. As in Constitution is to groups proclaiming to follow it as religion is to scattered groups who claim to be adherents. Get it yet? [/quote] Sort of; it’s a bad analogy. There’s only one constitution per country; there are many religions, with many interpetations. And constitutions tend to be more coherent and consistent. [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] Asked and answered. Boil down the Ten Commandments, you end up with 'honour a Divine (not necessarily a persona, but something greater) and ‘be good to others’. Same goes for the basic tenets of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. [/quote] There are religions that don’t **have** a “divine”. And the Ten Commandments are hardly restricted to “be good to others”; “worship no other god” and “honor the Sabbath” have nothing to do with being good to anybody. Nor are they the universal values you claim. And then you have religions that call for people to be cut up on altars or ritually strangled. [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] On the subject of ‘proofs’, nobody has yet satisfactorily answered me how they can accept the existence of similarly unprovable abstract concepts. Give me a hunk of proof I can touch and see and smell that ‘thought’ exists. Or love. Or hope. [/quote] You have the proof if you have experienced them. Unlike a claim to the existence of something external, a purely internal experience doesn’t require external proof. Or, as the phrase goes, I think therefore I am. [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] You simply cannot claim you live in a world where nothing that is not concrete doesn’t exist for you because the vast majority of the most important concepts about life are not concrete. Somebody give me proof that hope exists. Show me a photo. Measure me its size. Send me a piece. [/QUOTE] A brain scan with the proper equipment and techniques will get you the picture. I’m afraid finding a volunteer to have the relevant brain chunks flash frozen, cut out, and mailed to you so you can hold them in your hand might be a little hard. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/146 "2007-05-14T07:44:40Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] QG, where the blue heck do you get “Honour A Divine” from the basic tenets of Buddhism? [/quote] It’s more abstract; not a personification but more a universal consciousness/oneness concept. > [@](#): > > …and I note you’ve been careful to say “ **A** Divine” and not “ **The** Divine”. Why is that? A tacit acknowledgment that “The Divine” of Islam is not “The Divine” of Judaism? Well they are. Don’t know where you get that they aren’t. You do realize that Mohammed is not considered a god, do you not? > [@](#): > > And what about Xipe Totec? How were your “Two Commandments” applicable in His worship when His worship made them paradoxical? See hazing and tattoos above. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/147 "2007-05-14T07:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Sort of; it’s a bad analogy. There’s only one constitution per country; there are many religions, with many interpetations. And constitutions tend to be more coherent and consistent. [/quote] The point was that speaking to some adherents won’t necessarily give you a true picture of the nature of the thing. > [@](#): > > There are religions that don’t **have** a “divine”. Note; not as person. > [@](#): > > And the Ten Commandments are hardly restricted to “be good to others” “worship no other god” and “honor the Sabbath” have nothing to do with being good to anybody. No, they are the ‘honour the Divine’ part. > [@](#): > > And then you have religions that call for people to be cut up on altars or ritually strangled. You keep dropping out of meta. And, really, please name the religion whose entire body of adherents practice these rituals. Today. > [@](#): > > You have the proof if you have experienced them. Unlike a claim to the existence of something external, a purely internal experience doesn’t require external proof. Or, as the phrase goes, I think therefore I am. And there, my dear **DT** , is precisely where the proof of religion exists. You cannot accept that your own experience is the only valid experience for all humans; however if you accept that ‘proof’ can be had by personal experience alone, then you have zero leg to stand on in your claim that God does not exist. None. Bupkus. > [@](#): > > A brain scan with the proper equipment and techniques will get you the picture. All a brain scan will do is show you that the brain lights up or that blood and/or oxygen are flowing to certain regions. Which means nothing; it’s not a picture of ‘thought’. It’s a picture of what is happening to the brain during ‘thought’. You’re not going to be able to show me a photo or brain scan or anything else of an actual thought. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/148 "2007-05-14T07:56:29Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] And there, my dear **DT** , is precisely where the proof of religion exists. You cannot accept that your own experience is the only valid experience for all humans; however if you accept that ‘proof’ can be had by personal experience alone, then you have zero leg to stand on in your claim that God does not exist. None. Bupkus. [/QUOTE] Bzzt. You seem to be missing a rarther important point. Hope is entirely a personal experience. That’s all it is; a personal feeling. I accept that proof of an entirely personal experience can be found by having that experience. Gods are not a personal experience. There may be some level of personal experience involved with them, but that is not what they are. I am perfectly willing to accept that feeling that God exists proves that you feel God exists. I’m not happy to accept that feeling God exists means he does. There’s the difference, mon ami. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/149 "2007-05-14T08:01:46Z")
> [@](#): > > **Czarcasm** : …there’s no way for us to say one is right over the other. Exactly right. So ignore how I interpret it. Ignore how **Der Trihs** interprets it. Educate yourself and form your own opinion from your own perspective. Or not. But don’t tell me to give you “facts” after I’ve indicated that that’s not my purpose. I get so tired of intelligent people being hostile to me for actions that I don’t take and beliefs that I don’t hold just because I _am_ a Christian. > [@](#): > > **Csarcasm** : Let’s make it even easier. List the common traits of the top 100…no, lets make it 50…hell, lets make it just 20 of the worshiped gods. I’m willing to lower the bar that much. Sounds fair to me – as long as the challenge is to Quiddity and not to me! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/150 "2007-05-14T08:03:06Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] The point was that speaking to some adherents won’t necessarily give you a true picture of the nature of the thing. [/QUOTE] Nor, surely, will speaking to you? I have read your arguments in this thread with increasing irritation. By asserting the similarities, you are in direct contradiction to a huge number (possibly the majority) of adherents of those very religions you seek to defend. You don’t realise that yours is a fundamentalist view, too. Your appeal to a search for common ethics fails. Where’s the common ethic between Islam and the cargo cult that worships Prince Philip? _Prince Philip is not divine_, and I suspect even the Queen would agree with this. IMO in actual fact, with your “honour the Divine”, you’re actually acknowledging a human frailty that ascribes that which cannot be comprehended, to something magical. As the cargo cults prove. What you’re seeing there is the birth of a religion. “What’s all this crap falling from the sky? Must be magic.” All else follows from there. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/151 "2007-05-14T08:10:34Z")
Another Doper posted this at one time. I’ve kept a copy on my wall ever since. This is an excerpt: > [@](#): > > The essence of our real condition, the complexity, the confusion, the pain of it is shown to us in glimpses, in what Proust and Tolstoy thought of as “true impressions.” This essence reveals, and then conceals itself. When it goes away it leaves us again in doubt. But we never seem to lose our connection with the depths from which these glimpses come. The sense of our real powers, powers we seem to derive from the universe itself, also comes and goes. We are reluctant to talk about this because there is nothing we can prove, because our language is inadequate and because few people are willing to risk talking about it. They would have to say, “There is a spirit” and that is taboo. So almost everyone keeps quiet about it, although almost everyone is aware of it. – Saul Bellow, Nobel Lecture ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/152 "2007-05-14T08:11:55Z")
It’s nice, but it’s the debating equivalent of glurge emails. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/153 "2007-05-14T08:49:32Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] Something/one metaphysical exerts effects on people and their world. [/QUOTE] This is a non-answer to my question - what does their worship **have in common** with JudeoIslamiChristian worship? The nett effect that is exerted is “go flay slaves in My name”, so what are the similarities? “exerts an effect” is no pointer to commonality when the effects are wildly disparate. “By their fruits shall ye know them” and all. At least **kanicbird** would have simply tell me the Aztecs were worshiping demons, not God. I find that a lot more believable than your nebulous “A Divine” that mysteriously, metaphysically makes some people go to church to pray and others go to pyramid to flay. [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] It’s more abstract; not a personification but more a universal consciousness/oneness concept. [/QUOTE] You know nothing about Buddhism and are speaking out of your ignorance - there is no “Universal Conciousness/Oneness Principle” _AS A CENTRAL TENET_ of Buddhism. If I was still a Buddhist, I would find your presumption quite insulting. No,scratch that, even now, I still do. > [@](#): > > Well they are. Don’t know where you get that they aren’t. I get it from you saying “A” rather than “The”. But of course, since _you_ say they are, I have to believe you :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > See hazing and tattoos above. I’d submit to you that flaying _someone else_ alive hardly equates to submitting _yourself_ to hazing or tatooing, and that no worship that embraces human sacrifice can be said to have “be good to others” as its other central tenet. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/154 "2007-05-14T09:07:54Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] And there, my dear **DT** , is precisely where the proof of religion exists. You cannot accept that your own experience is the only valid experience for all humans; however if you accept that ‘proof’ can be had by personal experience alone, then you have zero leg to stand on in your claim that God does not exist. None. Bupkus. [/quote] Heh. I knew you or your fellow believers would try to twist and distort what I said like that. To quote myself : "Unlike a claim to the existence of something **external** , a purely **internal** experience doesn’t require **external** proof. " That’s **external** as in a god, as opposed to **internal** like an emotion. [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] All a brain scan will do is show you that the brain lights up or that blood and/or oxygen are flowing to certain regions. Which means nothing; it’s not a picture of ‘thought’. It’s a picture of what is happening to the brain during ‘thought’. You’re not going to be able to show me a photo or brain scan or anything else of an actual thought. [/QUOTE] It’s a picture of what a thought is on the hardware level; not a very good picture, because our scans aren’t that good yet. It doesn’t look like a thought because we don’t know how to translate it. That doesn’t make it not a thought, any more than a paper with unreadably coded orders isn’t a set of orders because we can’t read it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/155 "2007-05-14T10:36:46Z")
My bolding: [QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] And, really, please name the religion whose entire body of adherents practice these rituals. **Today**. [/QUOTE] Oh, so not only is it abstract, but “The Divine” is temporally-dependent? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/156 "2007-05-14T10:53:11Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] It’s a picture of what a thought is on the hardware level; not a very good picture, because our scans aren’t that good yet. It doesn’t look like a thought because we don’t know how to translate it. That doesn’t make it not a thought, any more than a paper with unreadably coded orders isn’t a set of orders because we can’t read it. [/QUOTE] Sure, but when I look at a tree, a certain pattern of activity occurs in my brain - that doesn’t mean the tree is a figment of my imagination - my experience of the tree happens inside my head, but it’s not ultimately caused there - the theist argument here is that, similarly, the pattern of activity that represents a religious experience _does not necessarily_ demonstrate that the cause of the experience is internal. Of course it’s fairly easy to demonstrate the existence of the tree (unless you get into philosophical arguments about the nature of existence itself) and so the analogy breaks down a bit, but still, It’s not necessarily a sound argument to say that activity observed in the brain means the totality of the attendant experience is caused internally. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/157 "2007-05-14T11:18:18Z")
I’m sorry, but I was gone for a few hours. Has **Quiddity Glomfuster** (or anyone else, for that matter) come up with what the top twenty religions have in common yet? Has he even shown that he understands what the basic tenets of the top twenty religions _are_? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/158 "2007-05-14T11:21:13Z")
Remember, to keep on topic, we have already established that all atheists have one basic tenet that we all share: We have not yet seen any objective evidence that there are any gods. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/159 "2007-05-14T11:42:03Z")
Assuming atheists are all singing from the same unhymnsheet, why does it need to be the case that theists need to all get aligned with each other? Certainly if it were the case that people were saying “all of us theists are right, and because we’re all in agreement, you guys - the atheists - are wrong”, there would be a need for consensus, but as far as I’m aware, that isn’t the case. Why should any given theist have to be in agreement with all or any other theists in order to present and argue their own viewpoint? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785/160 "2007-05-14T12:10:17Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Assuming atheists are all singing from the same unhymnsheet, why does it need to be the case that theists need to all get aligned with each other? Certainly if it were the case that people were saying “all of us theists are right, and because we’re all in agreement, you guys - the atheists - are wrong”, there would be a need for consensus, but as far as I’m aware, that isn’t the case. Why should any given theist have to be in agreement with all or any other theists in order to present and argue their own viewpoint? [/QUOTE] I could be wrong, but no-one’s actually supporting that (well, except Valteron, but he seems to have abandoned this). We aren’t arguing that theists actually disagree with each other a lot, therefore they shouldn’t criticise atheists; just that theists disagree with each other quite a lot. Either way, criticism of atheism is fine (as long as it’s reasonable, of course 😉 ). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-theists-agree-before-they-have-the-nerve-to-criticize-atheists/403785.md?page=9)