What are your main beefs w/ Atheism?

Great Debates
21

Ok, let’s get this straight. I do, in fact, mean “atheists that attack Christianity” but I didn’t say that because the OP of the original thread said “Christianity” instead of “certain Christians”. I also plagiarized (satirized? no, not really) his closing line, to emphasize the bite it really has to the people on the other side of the fence. Also, I’ve never said “main beefs” in my life until now…also copied.

Pochacco, this isn’t a debate at all, really. The original one was a IMHO, but got moved here, instead of the Pit, where both threads surely belong.

Miller: A) On gays, it may surprise you to learn I’m pro-gay rights. The Christian community is split like the rest of the country on the law part. I’d say there’s consensus on the moral part. So I’m not using secular law to push it on you. Yes, my religious IS asking a significant portion to forego a human desire (not need), and it’s working (mostly) well for the clergy. Why can’t gay Christians follow suit? It’s a heavy cross, but can be born.

B) On birth control: It’s never wrong to say “In order to behave, you must to A and B” and insist that BOTH be done. We’re saying “No wanton sex, no birth control.” You’re just saying A isn’t possible, and so B doesn’t work. I agree.

C) On “I’m right and you’re wrong”: I’m not trying to get you to agree with me (in this thread). I’m trying to show you why it’s so annoying when atheists say we’re wrong for believing we’re the only right ones. If I was trying to convert you, I’d be saying things about the proof of Christ, but I’m not. I just want to show that my argument is at least a position that *could * be proven.

D) On primitives and mirrors:

I’m not sure what you mean by “the general point stands” but my general point is that those cultures are made up by the mind of the particular atheist espousing them. So I agree with the former, but the latter is my point.

E) Church wealth: I don’t have the Vatican’s balance sheets in front of me, but I’d like to instead point to all the small, independent churches that survive in tiny buildings supported barely by private donations. Those I HAVE seen the balance sheets for, and it’s hardly vast wealth.

F) On school taxes: a touch, a touch, a most palpable touch! [/Shakespeare]. I’ll admit I can’t see the bottom of those muddy waters.

G) On Bible translations: I mean simply that the original texts have been copied and copied and copied again by monks, then by printing presses. I don’t mean edited, I mean copied/reproduced. I’m saying that it’s annoying when atheists say “You know, we can’t really trust that the Bible says the same thing it said originally” and dream up some lazy conspiracy scenario to back that up. It’s not easy doing such a thing, especially when the copies are widely distributed while eye witnesses are still alive to verify it. That’s mainly what Paul’s epistles are about…him writing to churches going “Now I’ve heard you guys out there have heard some crazy things from a few of your members. It’s not true. This is what should be done.” Rumor control from day one.

Quickly, to Der:
A) and B): basically the same. If you follow the rules, it works. You can’t just say “but we break one rule all the time, so the rest are dumb.” and not expect me not to say “Then stop breaking the first rule.”

C) I know you think it’s stupid and obnoxious. I just feel it’s like I’m going “But here are the reasons I think it!” and it’s not that Atheists reject them, it’s that they don’t hear them.
E and F) Same as above.
G) What king has authority over an underground organization spreading like wildfire? After that, what king has continental authority, and can not only threaten scribes all over Europe/Asia but can also confiscate every copy up to that point?

Phew, long post. Can we go to the Pit now?

22

Have you tried some good wine? Works for me!

I’m an atheist, and I’m not anti-Christian. In fact, I’ve come to the defense of Christians many, many times on this board when they’ve been attacked by real anti-Christians (there are only a few of those among the atheists on this board, IMO).

In fact, I’d say the complaints registered in the OP are mostly strawmen. Sure, you’ll find a few people here with those beliefs, but not many.

23

Now you’re talking about copy lines instead of translations. This is a different issue.

We really DON’T know what the Biblical manuscripts said originally. We don’t have the autographs, the copies contain thousands of variations and we don’t have a definitive orginal text for anything. Reconstructing the autographs is all guesswork. There’s nothing “dreamy” about it. Just ask Bart Ehrman or Bruce Metzger.

Not easy doing what?

What books of the bible do you think were being distributed at a time when eyewitnesses could verify anything? That’s certainly not true of the Gospels, the first of which was not even written until 40 years after the crucifixion. I also don’t know where you’re getting this idea that the copylines all match each other. They don’t come close.

All the other Christian factions were saying the same thing about Paul (who was a witness to nothing, by the way). Paul’s letters contain one side of a multi-faceted sectarian debate.

24

I don’t have any beefs with atheism, in fact, I think I’m reasonably sympathetic toward it. I have had beefs with certain atheists in the past (but probably a smaller number than I’ve had with Christians and other theists).

25

Out of interest, which rights are you for, and to what extent? Marriage/Civil Unions? Adoption?

My main beefs with anti-Christians is that they often go too far - try and make a point by outlandishly exaggerating a situation. If it’s a good point, it’ll work by it’s own merits. You shouldn’t have to just make stuff up. My other main beef would be that they make me as an atheist look bad; just as in the OP, it’s all too easy for someone to see virulent anti-Christian types (or selectively see) and generalise to larger populations.

26

Great! Good for you.

For every straight Christian who asks why it’s so unreasonable for gay Christians to give up sex for the rest of their lives, I have one response: You first. If this is a cross that can be bourne, let’s see you do some heavy lifting, first. Requiring others to take on a burden you are unwilling to assume yourself is pretty shitty.

There’s a lot wrong with telling people, “Don’t do B,” when doing B will save their lives. I appreciate the Church’s philosophical stance on contraceptives. However, in terms of policy, the Curch is placing their philosophy over the suffering of millions and millions of people. That is not morally defensable. Saying, “They shouldn’t be having sex in the first place,” is not a defence, unless you are arguing that having pre-maritial sex means you deserve to die. Which is, again, not a morally defensable position.

Okay, this… does not make a whole lot of sense. You weren’t trying to prove your beliefs, you were just trying to show that they could be proven? Uh, how does that work, exactly?

So? The fact that there are poor people in Atlantic City does not disprove the existence of Donald Trump. The Catholic Church, as an organization, is extremely wealthy. That there are so many impoverished parishes only raises more questions about what the Church is doing with all that money.

Right, and now we have a Bible that says exactly what God wanted it to say… according to Paul.

Seriously, “many eyewitnesses?” Paul wasn’t even alive at the same time as Jesus. Have you ever heard of the Council of Nicaea? The Apocrypha? Do you know what arsenokoites means? If you don’t, you’re not alone, because nobody does. Despite this, its used as the foundation for the Catholic Church’s (and the Christian right in general) stance on one of the most controversial social issues in modern America.

Okay, I have got to hear the explanation for this one.

27

WHAT “underground organization” ? Christianity was the state religion of the cultures that produced those translations. And what makes you think that they did confiscate all copies ? What do you thnik Biblical scholars study when they want to read the pre-translation original ?

And you seem to be implying that all translations are alike, that they all agree, and that’s simply not so. You ARE aware that there is more than one version of the Bible ?

28

The OP reads to me like an atheist trying to make a Christian look bad.

29

IntelSoldier, there are numerous indigenous tribes outside your country and your church that know nothing of any modern inventions, and to their credit and glory: have no need for them. Instead of ranting and raving about what you consider a ridiculous fallacy, why not do some research first? Survival is a 40 year old international organization whose members fight for tribal rights around the world. In Papua New Guinea there are 312 different tribes, including an estimated 107 uncontacted tribes. There are an estimated 50 uncontacted tribes in Brazil. There are more- but if you are truly interested, you can read over the site.

You can’t imagine my reluctance to share this information with you- I am sick with certainty that you will use the information on this webpage to plot more conversions with your churches. And if you do successfully collect enough money to get to West Papua- by all means: take a mirror and report back. Prove me wrong. I am more than willing to learn new things.

I am not sure how you remain unaware of the still uncontacted peoples in the world- perhaps you don’t watch PBS, BBC, National Geographic, or the Travel Channel. Perhaps some pop culture icons also slipped by you: At Play in the Fields of the Lord, First Contact, or The Gods Must be Crazy (no religious debate in this one; just a general complaint about the clash of modern and primitive culture). In the interest of fair disclosure, commercial interests are just as culpable for destroying primitive cultures as are Christian missionaries. I just picked on missionaries because the deliberate removal of all traces of native dress (or lack thereof), native social habits, and the Christian fear and disgust with perceived idolatry is supremely prudish and judgmental to me. All of the world is not designed for white Christian culture.

In that one naive, nitpicking comment about primitive culture you have summed up my entire complaint about Christianity- how absolutely insular and exclusionary your club is. If you will peer out your stained glass windows you will find a fascinating, complex world thriving without your rules and expectations.

30

Then you should have said so, rather than muck things up as you have. As to the bite: Welcome to the real world.

Grand! So you feel that it’s immoral for two unmarried people to engage in sexual relations. Are you satisfied with clucking your tongue in a disapproving fashion? Or d’you want to see to it that others follow what your faith tells you is correct? Because if so, you’re talking about the law. As others have said inre foregoing a basic human imperative: put up or shut up.

And while it’s “. . .working (mostly) well for the clergy.” It’s the times that it doesn’t work that most people are concerned with. Bleeding-leading and all like that.

Yet you feel the desire (not need) to spout off about it in a most ignorant and undignified manner. Tsk, I say.

31

If you wanted this in the Pit, you should have posted it in the Pit. I will ponder whether it will make my life easier to simply push this out of the Forum or whether the need to defend your statements logically and with facts in a civil manner will do more good by encouraging you to not repeat this exercise in the Forum.

Look, your primary complaint, (when one gets to the primary complaints and compares it against the facts), is that some limited number of posters who are antipathetic to either spiritual belief or organized religion or some particular variant of organized religion or a few specific beliefs or actions of a particular organized religion have, over the course of time, made a number of statements in opposition to one or more of the previous positions and some smaller number of those people have done so while using a too broad brush and getting their facts wrong.
In response, you have opened a thread to invite all sorts of people with all sorts of (often contradictory) beliefs to make a lot of too broad condemnations of a large and vaguely identified group relying (based on what you provided in the OP)on overgeneralizations and (often) errors of fact and logic.

As a Moderator I would be quite happy if the half dozen to a dozen rabidly anti-religious posters and the similar number of rabidly anti-anti-religious posters (this last group not being confined to religious or even theistic posters) would go off and play on someone else’s board. The signal to noise ratio in these threads is nearly the lowest on the SDMB.* However, if you are going to post as if you have a logical and fact-based debate, then have at it (and I hope you and a few of the angrier posters on both sides of the fence take the time to learn sonmething about the way that other people perceive the world–although, lacking a desire for cyanotiic skin, I am not holding my breath).

  • (This is not a condemnation of all threads dealing with these topics; there have been a few threads that provided good insight to the human psyche. However, they suffer from Sturgeon’s Law and they attract a lot of posters who would do better to observe a serious discussion than help create a typical one.)
32

Ah HA! “You people” are always insisting that you are not organized, yet here you are proposing to go out and vote together. I knew you guys had an agenda.

33

My main beef with athiesm is that it makes it harder to swear properly.

Terry Prachett

I’ve had my uber religious brother jump on me for saying things like ‘Oh my god’ when I’m surprised. He thinks it means I actually do believe. When I try to explain that it’s reflexive, and being brought religious will do that to you, he just smiles and nods, as if he thinks I’m lying. I need a good athiest swearword. Kinda hard to put it into one word.

34

In my experience both on the internet and in life in general, very few people are genuinely what I would define as “vehemently anti-christian.” In my experience most of the ones who are have significant personal problems and I think their anti-Christianity is an outlet for a lot of internalized rage.

Now, I have actually experienced an almost amusing amount of anti-Catholicism, growing up as a Catholic in the South; a lot of the Protestants 40 or so years ago only had vague ideas about what Catholicism was about and many of my school mates would ask if Catholics believed in Jesus or if all Catholics were going to hell.

35

What really puzzles me is that while Martin Hyde doesn’t believe it’s possible for two men to have sex (according to his definition of what sex is), he believes it’s possible for two men to be in a relationship (in the romantic/sexual sense).

In fact, he has two male neighbors who by his own description “have been in a relationship for decades”. ISTM that accepting that gay couples are capable of committed pair-bonded “relationships” while declaring them incapable of having “sex” is really straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. So to speak.

36

While I agree with you in full, this is actually incorrect; Paul is generally accepted to have been a contemporary of Jesus, although they never met.

37

My head hurts. This is a strange discussion.

My beef with atheism is that a strident few seem to take pleasure in sneering at the faithful. This gives atheism a bad name.

I really have only that one beef–and it’s more a manners thing. Christianity (organized religion in general) has a lot more to answer for.

38

Was he? I thought he came around some thirty years or so after.

39

I think I can help with this. Take all the songs about Jesus and when it comes to the name Jesus substitute the word no one.
What a friend we have in no one. All our sins and griefs to bear.

or even better

No one loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.

problem solved. No please don’t gush. Glad to help. :smiley:

40

IntelSoldier, on the limited matter of the texts, I think you are simply mistaken.

Copying things by hand in those days IS a lossy transmission medium, and an extremely lossy one: even the letter with known authors, like Pauls were copied over and over, and as a result, we have lots and lots of different versions of texts, and in many cases can’t tell which ones are the truly original ones. Heck, we don’t even know if the people Paul was likely dictating to got his spoken words down accurately: they often didn’t.

We also know that one of the major accusations made by the early opponents of Christianity is that they altered their sacred texts to fit the doctrines and orthodoxies of the day. And indeed, we find plenty of evidence of this meddling in the text changes. None of this was a conspiracy, in fact, just the opposite: it was the result of chaos and decentralization.