It took me a while to wander into GD, but since I started lurking/posting there I’ve been amazed at the number of God threads with heavy posting by atheists.
What I don’t understand is, if they don’t believe, why do they care if someone else does?
I can understand the desire to challenge religion-based assertions that contradict our current knowledge base, such as creationism. And I’ve created problems for myself in some threads because I’ve used bad examples and haven’t argued well, which spurs participation (and although it’s not fun to look stupid it’s at least an opportunity to learn from better debaters, so I’m glad they joined in).
But still, it doesn’t make sense to me that the very concept of God is revisited so frequently by people who claim indifference. When I’m really, truly indifferent to something it’s awfully easy to just ignore it.
I can think of four possibilities -
people are just pissed off at the overwhelming Christian tone of this country and looking for revenge
or they’re undergraduates who’ve just begun to question the truths handed down by their parents
or they just like to argue about anything anywhere
or they’re actually not truly confident of their skepticism
Sometimes I get the impression that people want to believe in some kind of higher power and they’re hoping that someone in a debate will surprise them and provide a God-model they can use.
You final sentance and bullet point are specious. You’re likely to get flamed for those. Also the part about “looking for revenge” in the first bullet is likely to be seen as confrontational.
There are probably as many reasons to engage in those debates as there are debaters. I’d imagine the first part of the first bullet and the next two are responsible for some of the debate. Although argue is probably not the correct term. “Debate” would be more appropriate.
Other engage in debate because they take the Constitution of the United State seriously and feel like religious instrusion into the government needs to be taken to task. Others debate because religious edicts are used against us and we defend our rights.
Maybe they are just tired of having shit thrown at them by the believers.
You want to believe, fine. Quit fucking telling me about it, because I don’t give a flying fuck.
On the other hand, religion is an important factor in most societies and it helps an atheist in his dealings with his fellow man if he understands the believers - and then in the course of trying to understand he encounters soemthing that makes him go “How in the fuck can possibly believe that?”
Some atheists feel that religion is delusion on a mind-boggling level, sheer and utter ignorance. Hence the occasional “Magical Sky Pixie” or “Invisible Pink Unicorn” comparisons that you see - it’s an attempt to point out the utter amazingness of such a belief. Imagine someone’s astonishment at temples dedicated to, say, the Tooth Fairy - tithes being given over so that she can continue her work, different sects arguing over the way in which she is worshipped and claiming that not only dental health but souls are at stake (even resorting to violence), and so forth. Some non-believers in the Tooth Fairy might say “well, it’s comforting to them, let them believe”, while others might attempt to argue with believers, attempting to wake them up from their folly.
On a board with “fighting ignorance” as its motto, you’re going to get some people who feel compelled to share what they believe is the truth about religion - whether believers or not.
Homebrew I really wasn’t looking to inflame, I’m just trying to learn more. I wouldn’t dare make my “Methinks the lady protesteth too much” assertion in a GD because that would be presumptuous and rude, but it is the way it looks to me at times.
I participate mostly because I just like to argue (unfortunately sometimes I fail to debate), and also because it’s something I’ve thought about a great deal. I come from a very religious family, my great-grandfather was a Methodist minister & that whole side of my family is still repenting! Plus I do share the atheists’ anger with organized religions and their presumptions of ownership of God - that really pisses me off.
After examining various religions and being an atheist, I feel good about the God-model I’ve adopted for myself, and it’s probably just human nature to want to share. Personally I think it’s possible to reject all religions as flawed but still believe in “God” as something we can only hope to glimpse but never truly understand, something we can experience only very personally. Anyway I find that helpful.
I think that, aside from people who obviously have axes to grind with religion, a big part of it is that religion is such an integral part of just about everything that goes on in the world today, that an athiest would be plain stupid not to engage in discussions about religion with those who do believe in some sort of god.
Well to tell the truth. I’ve also been a bit surprised at the number of threads about religion. I’ve mostly put it down to being an American thing, or about religion playing a much greater role in the US. But really isn’t it a bit silly - there’s nothing to debate; ether you believe or you do not.
So If You Really Don’t Care About God, Why Debate It All The Time???
For the same reason that we try to debunk any other bit of ignorant nonsense shared by large numbers of people, whether it be astrology, psychics who can speak with the dead, UFOs, or what have you.
The purpose of the SMDB message board is to help eradicate ignorance. Why should we give special treatment to one set of irrational beliefs and not others? Why should the alleged existence of God get a free pass, but not the existence of Santa Claus, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Elvis? Does the simple fact that more people believe in some form of God than in the Chupacabra mean that it is therefore wrong to debate the existence of the former and not the latter?
Perhaps not so much “revenge” as “self-defense.” Or frustration.
If people would sit inside the comfort of their homes praying to a mythical sky faerie, that wouldn’t be so bad.
But two years ago, a bunch of morons flew planes into buildings, in an attempt to kill as many innocents as possible, so that they could say “Our mythical sky faerie of love is better than your mythical sky faerie of love.” Our response was to bomb civilians to prove that our mythical sky faerie of love was, indeed, more loving.
The leader of the free world tried to pass a law basically saying that in order to receive government charity, one had to believe in an invisible pink unicorn.
There is a judge who wants to display a creed requiring people to worship a pixie.
Three men are imprisoned – and one is on death row – because a bunch of idiots who believe in the invisible pink unicorn thought those three worshipped the invisible black goat.
How can a rational person not argue with such rampant stupidity?
Simple explantion: it’s called Great Debates, not Great Pontifications. If you want to share your superstitions without any inconvenient interruptions by rational thinkers, may I suggest you do so at the Left Behind board?
Also, since irrational beliefs cause actions that we might not agree with, we try to change the beliefs, as tdn said so…uh…trenchantly.
Here’s an example: A friend of mine has AIDS. She insists that she doesn’t. She has found web sites, books and etc. that help her believe that her HIV is nothing, just a medical anomaly. I spent every day last week visiting her in the hospital because she had pneumonia. Had she taken her medecine like she should have, she & I wouldn’t have had to go through that, probably.
The same sort of thing happens with religious beliefs. People do stuff because they believe that god will take care of things, or that god “wanted” them to, and they & the rest of us suffer.
And we DO care – if we didn’t care, we’d be, I dunno, agnostics or something.
The majority of atheists, I think, believe that religion is harmful to humanity. Even those who don’t believe this think it’s a delusion, and that it’s helpful and reasonable to try to dispel it. Some are activists in this regard.
Of course, if any statement that’s verifiably untrue pops up in one of these “god” discussions, it’s free game for anyone who enjoys pointing out falsehoods. Even Christians will do that to less reasonable Christians.
The four classes in the OP exist, of course; but they’re less common than you think. The point of the OP is undermined by its false presumptions.
Well I’m glad I posted my query, even if posters are…prickly…about the subject. It’s fascinating to me that what I think of as “God” is so different from what you-all associate with the word. Thanks for clarifying.
I probably shouldn’t have used the word “revenge” (although some people are really angry), “venting” would perhaps have been a better choice.
Speaking only for myself, Iwould have no animus against Christian folk if they would stop trying to convert me and attempting to turn America into a theocratic republic. I would like them to stop trying to restrict my civil rights as a gay man because they believe their religion should be binding on everyone, not just believers. I have no desire to live in The Handmaid’s Tale, thank you.
What’s wrong with that? I suppose that could have applied to me not too long ago. I was starting to think properly about stuff, and wanted to discuss them with others. Isn’t that kinda the point od this site?
(I tend to avoid religious\homosexuality\evolution debates nowadays because on here there are plenty of people who can cover them better than I can, and on the other boards I frequent they just end up in pointless flamewars because people don’t actually want to debate. Hey-ho.)
I’d just like to point out how insulting this point is (as well as the others). What you’ve basically said here is that atheists are not smart enough to figure out for themselves what they believe, and are waiting for someone to save them.
For me, it’s at least a two-pronged answer. One, it’s difficult to watch laws made that encourage a belief in a religion. Two, to fight ignorance, which is the goal of the Straight Dope.
Ahh, there’s the key word. ** INDIFFERENT**. As an atheist it’s hard to be indifferent when you have religion stuffed into so many places that shouldn’t have anything to do with it. I’m not sure where you derived the atheists’ indifference opinion from. I’m sure there are atheists with a laissez faire attitude about religion. I, for one, am not when it directly impacts laws and certain inescapable social “mores”
1)Yes, I’m sick of the Christian tone in this country. Politicians usually list what church they go to as proof of how respectable that may make them. They hide behind the Bible to create their own warped sense of morality or justification for their actions.
2)I feel sorry for anyone that doesn’t question any information they’ve been handed. Scrutiny is your friend. Being automaton is not.
3)Yes, it SO fun go over the same points over and over and over and over . The fucked up book(s) that christianity is based on is so poorly written that if someone submitted it to a publisher they’d wonder what the fuck they were writing about.
4)Confident of their skepticism? Yeah that and my penis size. That’s why I’m waving the atheist’s flag.
That’s funny, that’s the same reason I debate with people who are racist. Maybe I’m missing something in the slurs and I’m just waiting for some fucking brain synapse to say “Red Rover, Red Rover”.