Atheists are Dangerous!

[Tom 1]

The statement of mine that you quoted wasn't about reasons for being an atheist.
The reason for disbelief is generally because a person is unconvinced about the evidence or the claim or both.

My statement of mine you quoted was a question. Not specifically to you, but to anyone who thinks there is an Atheism or an atheistic belief system.

I mean if you are Christian (i know there is variability in christianity) typically you believe in Jesus as being a god/human and dying and being resurrected and being a salvation from sin. You also believe in sin, believe in sanctity of marriage, believe in holy water, believe in angels and demons, god and satan, heaven and hell, believe god created everything, believe in answered prayer etc It's a whole bunch of things.

With atheists, other than a non belief in gods, what else is there?

A variety of things, in my experience. I gave you a few examples, those are some things I've come across. If you are asking if I think there is some defining framework or a particular set of beliefs, then no I don't think that. What I am saying is that there is no fundamental difference in thinking, just the same idea of a set of things to take on faith. Examples would be things like those I've mentioned, beliefs that the whole question of God simply doesn't matter, beliefs that the bible is a kind of alternative scientific hypothesis to be refuted, beliefs that a society rooted in principles that are atheistic in nature, i.e. ideas that come out of the underlying framework for thinking laid down by Neitzsche (et al) that humankind can and should develop an entirely different mode of living that is, as far as possible, disconnected from anything that went before it. And so on.

 

[Tom 1]

The statement of mine that you quoted wasn't about reasons for being an atheist.
The reason for disbelief is generally because a person is unconvinced about the evidence or the claim or both.

My statement of mine you quoted was a question. Not specifically to you, but to anyone who thinks there is an Atheism or an atheistic belief system.

I mean if you are Christian (i know there is variability in christianity) typically you believe in Jesus as being a god/human and dying and being resurrected and being a salvation from sin. You also believe in sin, believe in sanctity of marriage, believe in holy water, believe in angels and demons, god and satan, heaven and hell, believe god created everything, believe in answered prayer etc It's a whole bunch of things.

With atheists, other than a non belief in gods, what else is there?

To make it clearer (maybe) I’ll go back to the ‘stance of...’ Statement; this is fine as a definition of a concept, but people don’t function on concepts. They are just ways of explaining to yourself the predictions your brain makes in different scenarios. The saying ‘there are no atheists in a foxhole’ isn’t just a facetious observation, the ‘belief’ of a non acceptance stance person in a calm, rational, soothing environment is no more or less real than the belief of a praying atheist under a hail of hot metal. The idea that we are rational beings, and that our ‘rational’ thoughts define reality, is a delusion. We can think and behave in ways that we describe as rational under certain circumstances, and if those circumstances are prolonged we start to try and define everything else from the standpoint of that mindset. There is a world of difference between the concepts ‘I know things about the physical world’ and ‘the physical world is all there is’. All of the thinking that creates that system of belief is largely circumstantial, and can be seen as a belief system in that it is self-contained and self-defining, it leads us to reinterpret how people thought in the past based on what we think now, for example. Becoming locked into that way of thinking through choice and experience doesn’t make it ‘real’ in some universally objective sense.

 

[stevil]

If you are asking if I think there is some defining framework or a particular set of beliefs, then no I don't think that.

OK, that's good. Us atheists don't have that. We aren't coordinated like Christians are, we don't have a scripture, or authority on things like good and bad, or purpose or such.

What I am saying is that there is no fundamental difference in thinking, just the same idea of a set of things to take on faith. Examples would be things like those I've mentioned, beliefs that the whole question of God simply doesn't matter

I think apatheists are a vast minority. I'm ignostic, which means I can't tell the difference between the Christian narrative (and other religious narratives) and fiction. Just like I can't tell the difference between Vampires and fiction. There is no evidence that I can understand for such things. So I don't consider any truth to them. That's not to say that I have proven that gods don't exist or that Vampires don't exist, its just that I accept that we can imagine an infinite amount of things, it wouldn't make sense to me to behave in such a way as if any of these things actually exist. Pascal's wager for example (the "but what if") doesn't entice me, just as I would feel safe being out in a forest alone in the dark or in a graveyard alone in the dark. I am not going to be fearful of Vampires, Werewolves or Ghosts. I can't prove they don't exist, and I don't hold a belief that they don't exist, but I do lack a belief in them. And I just can't find myself being fearful of an unlikely "what if".

beliefs that a society rooted in principles that are atheistic in nature

There is no such thing as an atheistic society. You can however have a secular society. And if you are going to be an inclusive society then you must be secular because as far as I see, all religions have an exclusivity about them.

 

[stevil]

To make it clearer (maybe) I’ll go back to the ‘stance of...’ Statement; this is fine as a definition of a concept, but people don’t function on concepts. They are just ways of explaining to yourself the predictions your brain makes in different scenarios. The saying ‘there are no atheists in a foxhole’ isn’t just a facetious observation, the ‘belief’ of a non acceptance stance person in a calm, rational, soothing environment is no more or less real than the belief of a praying atheist under a hail of hot metal. The idea that we are rational beings, and that our ‘rational’ thoughts define reality, is a delusion. We can think and behave in ways that we describe as rational under certain circumstances, and if those circumstances are prolonged we start to try and define everything else from the standpoint of that mindset. There is a world of difference between the concepts ‘I know things about the physical world’ and ‘the physical world is all there is’. All of the thinking that creates that system of belief is largely circumstantial, and can be seen as a belief system in that it is self-contained and self-defining, it leads us to reinterpret how people thought in the past based on what we think now, for example. Becoming locked into that way of thinking through choice and experience doesn’t make it ‘real’ in some universally objective sense.

I think I get what you are saying. You are saying that each individual's experiences create a view of reality. And that at the individual level, we have a limited and biased experience such that we cannot truly know reality.

And I would agree on that level.
What I disagree with is the concept that there is an "Atheistic belief system".
Sure there is a Stevil belief system. I believe a great many things, and that is part of who I am, and it is due to my experiences and influences that is true too.

 

[Tom 1]

just as I would feel safe being out in a forest alone

I’m guessing you’ve never slept in a forest clearing in Romania

There is no such thing as an atheistic society. You can however have a secular society. And if you are going to be an inclusive society then you must be secular because as far as I see, all religions have an exclusivity about them.

Yes, I agree that societies should be secular. I was referring to the ideas Neil DG Tyson has/had about a society in which belief in things which don’t have some empirical basis are eliminated by some process of rational discourse.

 

[Tom 1]

I think I get what you are saying. You are saying that each individual's experiences create a view of reality. And that at the individual level, we have a limited and biased experience such that we cannot truly know reality.

And I would agree on that level.
What I disagree with is the concept that there is an "Atheistic belief system".
Sure there is a Stevil belief system. I believe a great many things, and that is part of who I am, and it is due to my experiences and influences that is true too.

Yes there are many flavours of atheistic viewpoints, I imagine. My notion of agglutinative ideas forming some sort of whole is the nearest I can get to a definition, for the purposes of discussion.

 

[JackRT]

Nobody needs to read any of that stuff to be influenced by it. I didn’t read the Epic of Gilgamesh, or Beowulf, or the Canterbury tales, or a lot of other things, before I was out of my teens, but they have all influenced my thinking because the influenced the society I lived in. Every human society is framed and shaped by what went before it. That’s just a basic reality, people don’t grow up in a vacuum. Influences change and develop, what people believe in or don’t believe in changes and develops as a result.

Add the Bible to that list. Its influence on modern society has been immense.

 

[Tom 1]

Add the Bible to that list. Its influence on modern society has been immense.

Sure I was just aiming for some balance. Gotta bash some other books too occasionally

 

[JackRT]

Are you trying to claim that the Sidhe do not exist?

Just because there are no leprechauns doesn't mean there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

 

[JackRT]

Actually fundamentalism is a little bit more than simply a strict literalist interpretation. That little bit more has to do with an attitude of superiority coupled with a contempt not just of other points of view but of the people holding them. Viewed in this way almost any belief system can have its share of fundamentalists.

 

[Tom 1]

Just because there are no leprechauns doesn't mean there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Colour me a-potist, if there were any out there I’d have hit one with the plough by now.

 

[KCfromNC]

Actually fundamentalism is a little bit more than simply a strict literalist interpretation. That little bit more has to do with an attitude of superiority coupled with a contempt not just of other points of view but of the people holding them. Viewed in this way almost any belief system can have its share of fundamentalists.

But if it does include a literalist interpretation in addition to those other things you're adding, what is it that these supposed fundamentalist atheists are literally interpreting?

 

[Rubiks]

A fundamentalist is
"a person who believes in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture in a religion"
How does an atheist behave like that?


Well of course Richard Dawkins and Sam aren't religious scholars or authorities in that field.
It doesn't make much sense to bring them up in a discussion about the bible or theology.

Richard Carrier however does have qualifications on the historical Jesus topic.

But people who participate in forums or debates on topics aren't necessarily "fundamentalists", they are merely people who are interested in discussing or debating topics. Some of them are trolls.






A person that believes that Jesus didn't exist, is mere that, a person that believes Jesus didn't exist.
This does not make them a fundamentalist atheist. There is no atheist scripture that says a historical Jesus didn't exist.

I would consider a person that thinks religion is the cause of almost all suffering to be an anti-theist rather than a fundamentalist.

The word fundamentalist just doesn't apply to atheism.

The only way that I could see it coming close is for an atheist to quote passages from the scripture in question and insist they must be taken literally and use those to discredit that whole religion.
There are people that fit this behaviour. But that is of course criticising someone else's scripture rather than actually believing a literal interpretation.

Well of course an atheist doesn't have scriptures to take a fundamentalist interpretation off of. The term is more of a tongue-in-cheek term I use to describe atheists with the same level of toxicity as fundamentalist Christians. (see Reddit's r/atheism community)

 

[stevil]

Yes, I agree that societies should be secular. I was referring to the ideas Neil DG Tyson has/had about a society in which belief in things which don’t have some empirical basis are eliminated by some process of rational discourse.

Atheist only refers to lack of belief in gods, rather lack of belief in anything.
I believe that my friends will be kind and loyal to me
I believe that my wife will be trustworthy, won't rob me and run away
etc

Sure Tyson is an atheist, and a really good scientist, but he isn't an atheistic authority, so I'm not sure why he is brought up.

 

[stevil]

Well of course an atheist doesn't have scriptures to take a fundamentalist interpretation off of. The term is more of a tongue-in-cheek term I use to describe atheists with the same level of toxicity as fundamentalist Christians. (see Reddit's r/atheism community)

OK, sure. But it confuses me in conversation with you, because it doesn't make sense, and so I can't understand what you mean by it.

Some people sometimes use the phrase militant atheist, which is probably better than fundamentalist atheist, but still, atheism isn't a political cause and so noone gets militant in support of the "no god".
Part of the term militant implies confrontational. So maybe it would be best to use the term "confrontational atheist". I agree there are many confrontational atheists, many that bounce around on Christian sites trying to prove that Christians are wrong, or simply trying to stir up a storm. Some Christians do that too on atheist sites.

Anyway, you get to choose the words you use.

 

[Tom 1]

Atheist only refers to lack of belief in gods, rather lack of belief in anything.
I believe that my friends will be kind and loyal to me
I believe that my wife will be trustworthy, won't rob me and run away
etc

Sure Tyson is an atheist, and a really good scientist, but he isn't an atheistic authority, so I'm not sure why he is brought up.

Just as an example of a way of thinking about the world, I’m sure he has some influence either directly or otherwise on how people think about the development of society in the future.

 

[keith99]

Well of course an atheist doesn't have scriptures to take a fundamentalist interpretation off of. The term is more of a tongue-in-cheek term I use to describe atheists with the same level of toxicity as fundamentalist Christians. (see Reddit's r/atheism community)

Or sects/denominations. So a fundamentalist atheist is unlikely until the AAA, UAA and UAL exist.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Or at least so says one Christian here who started such a thread in the Christians only
area.

Atheists Are Dangerous

Providing this link to an opinion piece on Fox.

Today's atheists are bullies -- and they are doing their best to intimidate the rest of us into silence

I am in fact dangerous, but far from ignorant. I know a lot of Christians here rarely if ever go into the Christians only area (save perhaps a denomination specific one for their denomination). This sort of thing seems to happen often so I have decided to start dragging some of these into areas where those accused can answer. Forcing them into the sunlight so to speak.

So this is a chance for atheists to disagree and a chance for a more balanced representation of Christianity to show us where you stand.

I'm not afraid..

hahaha

 

[ruthiesea]

Sure Tyson is an atheist, and a really good scientist, but he isn't an atheistic authority, so I'm not sure why he is brought up.

I don’t know who would be or what “atheistic authority” means.

 

[stevil]

I don’t know who would be or what “atheistic authority” means.

Agreed. There is none.
You don't need someone to lead you towards disbelief in something.