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Dear Atheist Movement
recurs|on
procrastinator generalRegistered User regular
procrastinator generalRegistered User regular
First of all: good job. I agree with almost everything you are doing. I think it makes our world better. Assuming that is our common goal, though, I do have one request:
Stop bashing moderate religion so hard. It's counterproductive.
Most of your objections against moderate religion seem to be one of two things:
1. Unsupported claims of harm. For example: Moderate religion leads to, allows the existence of, or otherwise supports fundamentalist religion. This assertion is not based on evidence. One can easily construct an equally supported and more plausible argument that moderate religion is the only realistic pathway that fundies will take towards greater use of reason.
2. Points of principle. For example: They just stubbornly refuse to pay much attention to your brilliant points on Why There Almost Certainly Is No God, even though they claim to be rational people. This is usually followed up by #1. For example: Well, if they won't give up that irrational belief, what else irrational might they do? We just can't count on them.
Clearly, you guys would greatly prefer that everyone simultaneously give up religion entirely in favour of atheistic spiritual practices. I can understand that, but you are alienating potential allies who may be not only helpful, but necessary. It may not be reasonable for moderates to react in that manner, but it is very real. Suck it up and focus on common goals.
Thanks.
CC: Relgious Moderates - BTW, fuck off with the atheist bashing, assholes.
Stop bashing moderate religion so hard. It's counterproductive.
Most of your objections against moderate religion seem to be one of two things:
1. Unsupported claims of harm. For example: Moderate religion leads to, allows the existence of, or otherwise supports fundamentalist religion. This assertion is not based on evidence. One can easily construct an equally supported and more plausible argument that moderate religion is the only realistic pathway that fundies will take towards greater use of reason.
2. Points of principle. For example: They just stubbornly refuse to pay much attention to your brilliant points on Why There Almost Certainly Is No God, even though they claim to be rational people. This is usually followed up by #1. For example: Well, if they won't give up that irrational belief, what else irrational might they do? We just can't count on them.
Clearly, you guys would greatly prefer that everyone simultaneously give up religion entirely in favour of atheistic spiritual practices. I can understand that, but you are alienating potential allies who may be not only helpful, but necessary. It may not be reasonable for moderates to react in that manner, but it is very real. Suck it up and focus on common goals.
Thanks.
CC: Relgious Moderates - BTW, fuck off with the atheist bashing, assholes.
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How is that productive? Did that contribute to the debate at all?
on topic: everyone needs to lighten up and just respect each others different viewpoints. Why do people feel the need to impose their beleifs on each other? This is for both religious people and atheists: quit pretending you know everything.
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Because people believe their viewpoint to be the correct one and fear the affects of people holding different views as it will affect how they act and their acts affect others.
?
EDIT: Speeling.
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
That was a particularly sardonic way of telling him to stop taking assumptions of whose beliefs are correct into account when attempting to decide what is "for the better."
I don't think the world would be particularly better if everyone was a Pagan or Yahweic or whatever else there is in regards to religion, but I also don't think that attempting to force the belief that people are not accountable for their actions in life once they have died is going to make the world better.
The OP leads me to believe that the TC is/was/would be one of those people that refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance (N/A, I suppose, if you're not a yank) because it has the word "God" in it, and instead grins to himself about how he has everything figured out.
This is a correct statement.
Also - atheist movement?
I put forward several ideas in the form of a letter to the "Atheist Movement". I CC'd the letter to Religious Moderates, with a note to them to stop bashing atheists, for largely the same reasons.
I was imagining people might enjoy the form of the post, and perhaps engage in a discussion of the ideas it introduces.
I think one of the issues here is that many Judeo/Christian religions see spreading that religion and converting the heathens as a cultural imperative. Rather then just chuckle politely and walk away, the athiest movement trys to get into an arguement which is completely counter productive.
However, when religion starts making its way into a school curriculum or the front lawn of my local courhouse, it becomes harder to ignore.
I just thought it was kind of funny that you tell atheists to stop bashing religious moderates, then you call religious moderates assholes.
Forum is slow. Had an idea. Figured I'd post it for people to kick around.
Atheist movement? Dawkins et al.. I thought it might be fun to post in the form of a letter. Not pretending such a formal organization exists, any more than a formal Religious Moderate organization exists.
And just why is that? If purely secular views are already being taught in school, there can be no harm in covering the viewpoints of pagan and monotheistic faiths as well.
The secular theories taught in school are "theory only, not fact." I don't see why the same can't apply to the various religious theories.
Despite popular stupidity, religions are valid theories.
Religious moderates are assholes for bashing atheists just for being atheists. Which they sometimes do, and should stop.
No. Once again you are just dead wrong. A theory is something that can be subjected to scientific inquiry and analysis.
Beliving in an invisible being or a 2000 year old book that is constantly being used to prove itself is not anything that can be legitimately studied.
I don't doubt that this happens, but I think the vast majority of atheist bashing occurs not because the atheist is an atheist, but because the atheist decides to hoist up a banner of supreme arrogance and proclaim anyone that disagrees with him to be an illogical loony.
No they're not. That is if we're talking about scientific theories.
The theory that all matter comes from an explosion can't be proven any more than the theory that all matter comes from an explosion caused by a divine being.
Does it work if you spell it wrong?
From Wikipedia:
That seems pretty observable and measurable to me. Tell you what, if the Hubble picks up a huge white guy with a long beard, you can win this one.
PS. You're all going to Hell.
I wish people would see that the foundation of your morals is no where near as important as those morals themselves. I mean, can an atheist believe in kharma and reincarnation? (I ask in all seriousness, I don't know how atheism treats that). Afterlife accountability is about the only place I can see a difference between religion and the lack thereof, and for many that's a non-issue.
Sarcasm aside--is there any more reason to believe this explosion was spontaneous or whatever the explanation is, as opposed to believing it was a deliberate act by a divine entity?
These theories both seem pretty sound, to me. There's evidence that both could have happened, but no evidence that one of them happened and the other didn't. Unless you have something other than a sarcastic comment for me, which I would sincerely be interested in hearing.
Your pretty much spot on. Most of the Religious Moderates, as far as I've seen, are perfectly happy to ignore the atheist. The problem is, especially on the internets, you get alot of atheist who like to trot out how their obviously intellectually superior to religious people. And they don't even need to come out and say it directly. They do it just with the language they use to frame the debate.
I do see this happen, but most of the time it's the moderates defending religion in general, because alot of atheist don't like to make the distinction in their attacks between the "crazy fundies" and "the rest of them". Making blanket statements about religion is a good way to get the moderates to make blanket defenses of it.
I have heard plenty of moderate religious people speak out very vocally against fundie practices. Do they have to name names and throw insults to get noticed?
To go one step further, no religious group is going to sit idly while others are getting their material into gradeschool texts. It's not even remotely plausible to try and gather all points of view either, so it's better just to leave them out.
Besides, every science textbook I was exposed to in my K-12 career included theory that was seemingly open-ended. Sure, they imply that the big-bang did indeed happen, but if it's true and how it came to be is still up to you. Religious ideals on the origin of man are all very de-facto with little room for interpertation.
It's really just better to leave them out of public school, where they would not even be done justice, and let children explore other avenues to learn about religion if they want to. No book they encounter in class will make them choose between super-science and god.
Argueably they are. Look at the proportion of atheists and agnostics among say scientists and philosophers compared to Joe Blogs who flips burgers for a living.
There is evidence that there was an explosion of matter which created the universe as we know it.
Believing in a cause which can not be proven makes no less sense than believing there is no cause because you can't prove what the cause was.
Logically, something had to happen at the dawn of the universe to cause it all to... Well, explode. Until we have evidence that points to a specific cause, then theorising any cause, or theorising that there was no cause, is a perfectly valid thing to do.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Atheism isn't exactly all that comforting to people eveloped in poverty and urban blight, so of course they will be less frequent among those people.
Do it a hundred years ago and see how different your results are from today. Einstein was religous, as were most (if not almost all) of the scientists back then.
It's always seemed like atheist slant of academia is a very recent thing. Talking to fellow students and TAs and such, I've always gotten the impression that it's alot like it is on the internet. Atheism is the new cool way to be. Just like bashing Lost or saying how awesome 300 is.
You´re aware that most religious fundamentalists would not agree with you, because the big bang never happened?