# Ok atheists, settle the fuck down. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 15, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366 "2009-01-15T02:10:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/381 "2009-01-16T17:52:50Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Good thing I never said any such thing. I said ‘Belief informs morality’. So that the morals of a Christian are going to be different from those of an atheist. Shouldn’t really be controversial. The moral beliefs of Christians vary, despite consistency in belief. Belief informs morality may be true, but it if is, it is trivially true. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/382 "2009-01-16T17:54:15Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > The moral beliefs of Christians vary, despite consistency in belief. Belief informs morality may be true, but it if is, it is trivially true. I disagree that it’s trivial. I think it’s fundamental. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/383 "2009-01-16T17:59:02Z")
You think belief (in God) is fundamental to morality? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/384 "2009-01-16T18:05:40Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > You think belief (in God) is fundamental to morality? Go back and reread my posts. I am not answering this question again. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/385 "2009-01-16T18:06:27Z")
I’m trying to get a clarification on what you just fucking said – and I thought quite politely as well. If you want to be a dick, so be it. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/386 "2009-01-16T18:10:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > You oversimplified a person’s point in order to fit your preconceptions of such people. What other appropriate response is there? I didn’t call you stupid, I said your argument was stupid, which it was. You can clearly comment intelligently on Dubai, but not things that fall outside of your zone of commitment. No, you actually did call me stupid in GD, and were warned by a mod. That aside, I’m confident you are NOT stupid, but you continue to argue your points like a dickhead. This means that your valid arguments are lost in your dickheadedness. I’m persistent because I sense there is hope for you, if you just stop being insulting and condescending. (ie see your reply to **Jack Batty** ) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/387 "2009-01-16T18:10:40Z")
Fine, I’m sorry I was a dick. For clarification. Belief in God is too broad and ambiguous a statement. Believing in the Christian God, or the Muslim God is fundamental to how your morality is formed. Just as not believing in any God is fundamental to how your morality is formed. So yes, if you believe in a God who has specific commandments for behavior then yes, belief in God is fundamental to YOUR morality. I am not arguing that atheists cannot be moral. I am arguing that the fundamental building blocks of their conscience are different. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/388 "2009-01-16T18:12:48Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > No, you actually did call me stupid in GD, and were warned by a mod. Actually what I said was something to the effect of, “I don’t know if YOU are stupid, but your argument is.”, and I was warned for leaving it open as a possibility. > [@](#): > > That aside, I’m confident you are NOT stupid, but you continue to argue your points like a dickhead. This means that your valid arguments are lost in your dickheadedness. I’m persistent because I sense there is hope for you, if you just stop being insulting and condescending. (ie see your reply to **Jack Batty** ) Well I thought **Jack Batty** was trying to lead me into the old boring argument about whether or not atheists can be moral. As you saw I was willing to re-evaluate my view of that. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/389 "2009-01-16T18:26:55Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I am not arguing that atheists cannot be moral. I am arguing that the fundamental building blocks of their conscience are different. Yeah, but who cares? If the end result is – hey, both believers and non-believers are (or can be) moral – then doesn’t that cast a bit of a doubt on whether religion, or faith, or whatever really makes any difference by way of morality? It sounds a lot like you’re saying that morality achieved through faith is a better quality of morality than that achieved not through faith. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/390 "2009-01-16T18:27:42Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I’m trying to get a clarification on what you just fucking said – and I thought quite politely as well. > > If you want to be a dick, so be it. [Post #32](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10700097&postcount=327)7, I recapped what \*\*mswas \*\*has said wrt the morality of atheists. Apparently atheists morals include lower standards, crude jokes and child pornography. Or is it that atheists don’t have morals. I’m confused and apparently not smart enough to grasp his logic. Of course, he’s now denying he linked atheism with child pornography. He must have been talking about the gays. God knows they don’t have any morals. :rolleyes: **Jack Batty** , you can sit with me on the dummy bench if you want and I’ll share my Nilla wafers with you. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/391 "2009-01-16T18:29:56Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > [Post #32](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10700097&postcount=327)7, I recapped what \*\*mswas \*\*has said wrt the morality of atheists. Apparently atheists morals include lower standards, crude jokes and child pornography. Or is it that atheists don’t have morals. I’m confused and apparently not smart enough to grasp his logic. **Jack Batty** The sort of ignorant twattery and ignoring of my point to make one that has nothing to do with the point I was making is what I thought you were getting at. I thought you were trying to lead me into saying what you wanted to hear like **Brown Eyed Girl** has done. I apologize for thinking you were heading where she was. If you were asking honestly, unlike her, then I definitely want to have the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/392 "2009-01-16T18:30:31Z")
This thread has really opened my eyes. I understand now it is oppressive to have the default assumption be that you are part of something that you are not, and that it is extremely insensitive to make these assumptions. Until now I didn’t even fully realize that not only am I being screwed over by manufacturers who pretend that people like me don’t exist, I’m being oppressed by society as well! Just yesterday I was oppressed by reading directions on how to count in Japanese. They boldly stated “with your **right** hand…” and proceeded to instuct you on how you should show the fingers on your right hand. This is wrong. Like a lot of other people, I don’t believe you should use your right hand, but your left. It’s rare that to meet a person sensitive enough to realize that not everyone is in fact right handed, and most make the insensitive assumption that we do things just the way they do. How many times have my fellows been insulted by someone across the counter passing them something to sign canted the wrong direction? No matter how firmly you right the paper in front of them, they continue to pass papers in a decidedly right-handed fashion, rather than neutrally angle them. This is just one proof that right-handedness is an institutionalized idea so thoroughly ingrained in society that the thought that someone might not be right-handed doesn’t even occur to the vast majority of people. And it’s not only a matter of actions, but a casual, even so thoroughly entrenched to be unconscious, attitude as well. Let us consider the words right and left. Right is another word for correct. One is able to boldly proclaim that they are right, and other people will celebrate them for it. When people speak of things everyone should be able to do, they speak of their rights. And left, what does left mean? Abandoned. No one ever says "My girlfriend right me for another man. " Indeed, they only say that she **left** him. In other cultures it’s even more baldly derogatory - in Latin the word for left shares its roots with the word sinister. This is wrong and hurtful. I think we should stop using the word right in a positive way, because it demeans those of us who are left-handed. Even more importantly, we should make an effort to make sure people realize how bigoted and hateful they’re being by using the word left to mean abandoned. Change will be slow, and people will resist, claiming that we’ve always used those words that way, but I believe that change is possible. We just need to bring attention to people’s bigotry and they’ll exam them, and realize how much they’re oppressing us with beliefs they never even realize harmed anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/393 "2009-01-16T18:30:35Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The point you are missing is that Christians view this as a turning away from God toward atheism. And they’re wrong. It’s that simple. How they view it is one thing. How it actually is, that’s something else entirely. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/394 "2009-01-16T18:31:54Z")
nevermind ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/395 "2009-01-16T18:32:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > And they’re wrong. It’s that simple. How they view it is one thing. How it actually is, that’s something else entirely. They aren’t wrong. If people are abandoning Christian virtue, then they are indeed abandoning the Christian God. They perceive it correctly. Being a Christian isn’t anything you want it to be. Like I don’t snort blow off of a hooker’s twat and think that I am being a pious Christian when doing it. Especially after I skip out without paying out the back door so her pimp can’t catch me. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/396 "2009-01-16T18:40:03Z")
Fundaphobia Fundaphobia (from "fundamentalist + φοβία (phobia), “fear”) is a non-clinical term used to describe the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against religious or secular fundamentalists, but particularly Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards fundamentalists, or fundamentalist behavior or cultures. Fundaphobic is the adjective form of this term used to describe the qualities of these characteristics while fundaphobe is the noun form given as a title to individuals with “fundaphobic” characteristics. Some believe any usage of fundaphobia is controversial and several new dictionaries characterize this type of fear as irrational. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/397 "2009-01-16T18:45:34Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > **Jack Batty** The sort of ignorant twattery and ignoring of my point to make one that has nothing to do with the point I was making is what I thought you were getting at. I thought you were trying to lead me into saying what you wanted to hear like **Brown Eyed Girl** has done. I apologize for thinking you were heading where she was. If you were asking honestly, unlike her, then I definitely want to have the conversation. Dude. You don’t have a point. You are as pointless as a nerf golfball. Your scoreboard is barren. When the point fairy was handing out points, you were too busy stroking your values to get one. I made a newb mistake, but I think I get it. The moral of this story is don’t poke the crazy with a long, pointy stick. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/398 "2009-01-16T18:49:07Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > Dude. You don’t have a point. You are as pointless as a nerf golfball. Your scoreboard is barren. When the point fairy was handing out points, you were too busy stroking your values to get one. > > I made a newb mistake, but I think I get it. The moral of this story is don’t poke the crazy with a long, pointy stick. LOL, you’re a fucking idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/399 "2009-01-16T18:54:46Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > LOL, you’re a fucking idiot. You’re a fucking bigot. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366/400 "2009-01-16T19:04:55Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > You’re a fucking bigot. Actually by the technical definition, you are, because you’re the one demeaning the beliefs of those who do not agree with you, and then claiming they believe something they have repeatedly said they don’t just to justify your own prejudice. 😛 When you graduate and have had a job for a couple of years maybe we can talk again. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheists-settle-the-fuck-down/481366.md?page=21)