This is a good question I haven’t seen answered in a sensible way. God.
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See, this is why I describe myself as agnostic. Well, that and I don’t want to go crazy.
When people are being blown up and lives permanently ruined in the name of god(s), many logic-embracers find themselves to be, well, angry.
Now, there is no stupendous reason to pull a peaceful, well-meaning religious person apart from their belief in god(s), but it’s hard to ignore poor decision-making and policy justification in the name of FSM.
Very hard to ignore.
May as well ask why be an atheist, Oliver. You’ve been on this anti-”angry” atheist kick as long as the GOP has been on an anti-”angry” Democrat thing.
In capsule version, Oliver, it goes like this. An avowed homosexual has a better chance of being elected president than an avowed atheist. There is at most one openly atheist member of Congress, yet several open homosexuals. My school has Good Friday off for no discernible reason, and people can’t rush quickly enough to declare that this is a nation “under God” and rise in indignity when anyone questions it.
And anytime someone questions it, they’re “angry”. The main reason I’m an “angry” atheist is self-indulgent theists who call themselves progressive and smugly wonder what’s wrong with me if I want equal rights. I mean, it’s not just anyone who gets equal rights — you have to belong to a sympathetic maligned group. Why can’t I just be happy with the fact that my type is no longer burned at the stake.
Having to listen to “people of faith” tell me over and over that I’m a sinner and I’m going to burn forever if I don’t pray to their god and that Columbine was because the Ten Commandments aren’t posted in schools and that only “people of faith” should run the government and that Darwinism is a bunch of hooey and that “secular progressives” are the root of all evil and that gay people are icky and a whole bunch of other wildly distasteful shit, well, that pisses me off sometimes.
I think that, far, far too often, anytime that an atheist is assertive, it’s labeled as angry.
Speaking confidently is not anger. Neither is being critical of opposing beliefs – as someone pointed out, this is exactly the same brush that conservatives have painted liberals with in recent years. Any assertiveness of one’s own position or criticism of someone else’s, no matter how moderated and reasoned, is called “shrill” and “angry.”
You guys all nailed it. Firstly, being assertive about your choice is not the same as being angry. Secondly, we supposedly live in a free society, and yet we’ve had a sitting president state on the record that aethiests shouldn’t be considered citizens (GW Bush. and I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that the son agrees with the father.
I’m a fan of your site Oliver but you’re knee-jerk reactions to any aethiests that pop up in the news is annoying. If the headline was “why be gay?”, would you still react the same?
Of course it’s easier to beleive in god. It’s also easier to be straight. But the easy road isn’t the right road for every person.
Be more tolerant, please.
I consider myself an atheist, but I agree with Oliver. Atheists often seem to treat theists with the same condescension that European explorers treated native peoples. I just don’t think it’s necessary.
That said, while I don’t encourage people getting up in arms over how other people believe, I do actively object to theists when they attempt to impose their beliefs on others.
Joshua, theists are just too fucking sensitive about it, even having to consider they may just be totally wrong.
This may jsut be my experience, but my very existance as a non believer is an affront to the faith of some.
That’s not my fault. I don’t care what you believe. Please, in fact, keep it to yourself.
I am an atheist, but I don’t consider myself to be angry. Merely baffled and frustrated that in the 21st century, with all of the advance we have made that there are still people who believe that Noah’s Ark really happened.
To give a Christian or any religious person an insight into what I mean, just imagine if 10% of the population of the United States was Christian and the other 90% were fervent believers in astrology. You would find it absolutely mind boggling that 90% of the people in this country based every important decision they made on what their horoscope told them.
That being said, I do not seek the abolition of religion. It is enough for me that the government be impartial with respect to religious belief or lack thereof, that policy decisions be based on facts and logic and not Iron Age mythology, and that we preserve a pluralistic and tolerant society where people are free to worship as they please or not worship at all.
It goes without saying that the “Why Wont God Heal Amputees” guy is an idiot who fails to understand logic much less the specific breed of it employed by religious apologists. It also goes without saying that, by dint of being an arrogant incompetent, nobody outside of his immediate family would have ever heard of him if not for this blog linking to that blog that linked to his site. What apparently doesn’t go without saying is that that idiot is not only not representative of atheists, but also that its utterly asinine to equate, as out esteemed host is wont to, this random twit with, for instance, an Oxford senior fellow and Doctor of evolutionary biology. The pathological need for theists to play the stereotype card against people who disagree with them on matters of faith is as stunningly embarrassing as their inability to so much as question what they believe in.
…okay, looking at that just now I can see me coming off as arrogant. Certainly didnt mean to, but frankly that also kind of shows how theres basically nothing an atheist can say at all without coming off as arrogant to some degree. So I put it to the “sensible” theists then, how does one go about trying to convince a person to question what/how they come to believe without coming off as an unredeeming ass?
“Angry Atheist”
That term is the equivalent to calling a black person. “uppity.”
Maybe you know now why some of us are angry.
You basic atheist, someone who just doesn’t believe and is content to let me alone the same way that I, whilst being a believer, am content to leave everyone else alone, is just fine.
Its the active atheists, the people who have psychologically supplanted a belief in a deity with an active disbelief that bother me. They are just as reprehensible in their proselytizing and self righteousness as the most offensive evangelical Xian.
Another person’s beliefs, no matter how alien or foolish aren’t your fucking business. Each person has the right to believe or not believe as suits them and no one else should have anything to say about it, though they should be allowed to. The alternatives are all some form of tyrrany. But, that’s just my deluded, faith addled brain talking.
But, that’s just my deluded, faith addled brain talking.
Bear in mind, of course, that it is the atheists who are smug, sarcastic, self-righteous arrogant pricks, and never, ever the theists of course perish the thought why I never. Just thought that needed clarifying for the folks playing along at home.
Also, I don’t think you can call an attempt to get people to re-evaluate a superatural worldview with logical positivism “proselytizing” but thats just my scary angry atheist mindset talking.
“”Angry Atheist”
That term is the equivalent to calling a black person. “uppity.”
Maybe you know now why some of us are angry”
—————————————————————-
You nailed it better than anyone. Thanks.
That’s ridiculous Oliver.
Cherry picking a couple of tasteless extremists and stereotyping an entire group of people is the stuff that you usually rail others for doing. Embracing that tactic to sooth your own prejudice is pretty low.
Yes, the media is stupid and superficial as you so often like to point out, but apparently you are no better.
Like I keep saying, I don’t understand why some atheists think they have to go further than embracing their own beliefs and attacking others. I don’t like it when purported Christians go on about godless secularists, and it isn’t any palatable the other way around. Why can’t you guys see that?
“Another person’s beliefs, no matter how alien or foolish aren’t your fucking business”
It is when they decide to enforce there beliefs on others. Do you understand how many stupid laws there are that have no other basis other that religion?
The religious right wanted to ban that cancer vacine because they tought it would encourage young women to have pre-marital sex. If you don’t get angry at that, you’re just not human. There’s something wrong with yout emotions.
“Like I keep saying, I don’t understand why some atheists think they have to go further than embracing their own beliefs and attacking others. I don’t like it when purported Christians go on about godless secularists, and it isn’t any palatable the other way around. Why can’t you guys see that?”
That is such a bullshit comparison.
Christians, moderate Christians believe that if you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your saviour, you deserve to burn in hell forever. I dare you to find me anyone on the atheist side who says the same.
I have more to say, but I want an answer to that first. I want to hear something that these, “Angry Atheists” have said that compares to that.
It’s one thing to get angry when someone tries to limit your human and civil rights based on religious beliefs that you don’t share.
It’s quite another thing to get angry at someone because they have religious beliefs that you don’t share.
The former is rational, necessary and efficacious.
The latter is irrational, illiberal, and a waste of time.
“It’s quite another thing to get angry at someone because they have religious beliefs that you don’t share.”
There are a lot of athiests who do that to anyone with religion, no matter how good a person the religious guy is.
Basically it all comes down to some people are just jerks no matter what movement or deliniation they belong to. The end.
“Angry Atheist”
That term is the equivalent to calling a black person. “uppity.”
Maybe you know now why some of us are angry.
Posted by: C.S.Strowbridge
BINGO!
I’ll stop being an “angry” atheist when I and my friends can own land and a building to meet in that take advantage of all municipal services (sewage, fire and police protection, roads, etc.) without the burden of property taxes.
I’ll stop being an “angry” atheist when “In God We Trust” is removed from our currency and “…under God” is removed from The Pledge of Allegiance.
Like I keep saying, I don’t understand why some atheists think they have to go further than embracing their own beliefs and attacking others. I don’t like it when purported Christians go on about godless secularists, and it isn’t any palatable the other way around. Why can’t you guys see that?
Thought experiment: change the topic from religion to politics and see if that doesn’t help bring the intellectual repugnance of that statement to light.
Like I keep saying, I don’t understand why some liberals think they have to go further than embracing their own opinions and go trying to argue in favor of it. I don’t like it when purported Conservatives go on about evil, treasonous liberals, but it isn’t any more palatable when liberals go and insist they aren’t. Why can’t you guys see that?
Politics should, of course, be debated, like any other intellectual endeavor, and that is why the above statement, if made about politics, would be stupid. Why then is this not the case for matters of religion?
- Douglas Adams, 1998, quoted in A Devil’s Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
[[I'll stop being an "angry" atheist when I and my friends can own land and a building to meet in that take advantage of all municipal services (sewage, fire and police protection, roads, etc.) without the burden of property taxes.]]
You can. ALL non-profit charitable organizations are tax-exempt, not just religious ones.
That building you atheists meet in? Use part of it for a soup kitchen. Simple.
Don’t non-profits have to pay property taxes?
Repack makes a good point though, isn’t tax exemptions for religious orgs a violation of church and state? It puts the government in the position of deciding what is and isn’t a religion. Let them all become non-profits and have their finances reviewed by the government.
Because it’s sometimes frustrating that perfectly sensible people believe in magic, ghosts and invisible sky beings.
I’m not an “angry” atheist, more exasperated with people who can’t seem to leave their fairy stories in their childhood.
Personally, I don’t care what people believe. If they want to believe in fairy tales fine. It’s when they start trying to make public policy based on it that I have a problem.
You are learning well in the ways of high Broderism, young acolyte.
Incidentally, I would like to take pride in my country being just a tad smarter than this.
You know, I hate these ridiculous posts that seem designed to do nothing more than provoke the same tired debate over why atheists are inherently “broken” somehow. It’s hard to miss the obvious implication that angry atheists aren’t the exception, they’re the norm and are clearly in the wrong. It’s telling that a hand full of individuals manage to score some attention by perhaps being a bit more vitriolic and outspoken and suddenly, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, all of atheism is held up as a quasi religious form of extremism itself. It’s an argument broken from the outset because people are so conditioned to think in terms of “God(s)” that to simply, even unconsciously, choose not to believe in one is seen as a type of belief. Got that? Your non-belief is a belief and it should be just as much a burden on atheists to prove their isn’t an omnipotent invisible overseer running everything as it is on others to prove there is one. Seriously, accepted scientific methods are held in no higher regard by that kind of reasoning than “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” So cut some atheists a bit of slack for being pissed off. When the majority make no bones about publicly denigrating you and making it clear you’re not welcome, it can be hard to keep your cool.
However, the argument about religion being the source of much of the violence that plagues our lives is wrong in the sense that wars, for example, are fought for land, or wealth, or a host of other less savory, or marketable, reasons. But how do you sell that to John Q. Public? Why, wrap it up in religion, of course (along with a hefty dose of jingoism and nationalism run amok). Can anyone seriously tell me that the current “war on terra” would be possible without framing it as a fight between “God’s chosen” and the “infidels?”
History is replete with examples of a greedy or expansionist elite manipulating the masses to do their bidding by framing their policies in religious terms. This is what makes the otherwise innocuous notion that personal beliefs about God should be no one else’s business potentially dangerous. The U.S. is supposed to have a government of the people and by the people, but what if enough of those people were voting based not on objective facts but on perceptions of personal beliefs reflected in certain candidates or policies (or not, as negative campaigning would suggest)? Objectively, Al Gore should be our president. Uhhh, he isn’t. Obviously there are numerous reasons for that. Media bias, election fraud, a broken SCOTUS, among others, but the net result was that we have endured nearly 7 years of “Terri Schiavo” style governance. This is, I think, the concern for some atheists, particularly the more outspoken ones. It’s not the personal beliefs of the unwashed masses, it’s the idea that they take their God(s) with them to the polls.
There is a very simple reason why I am quite an irritated atheist, at least.
“Believers” — including every single member of the news media, apparently — freely assert that moral behavior in human society can only arise from belief in supernaturalism of some kind or another. (In public discourse, different creeds, though incompatible, are given equal weight; it is the fact of devoutness, or, literally, the willing suspension of disbelief, that is the mark of moral superiority.)
Not only is this logically ridiculous, as a brief survey of human violence and corruption shows, but it is also a bitter insult to me and many members of my family. This includes my late parents, both atheists, who were the kindest, most loving, and most ethical and law-abiding people in the world.
So, yes, I do get a bit aggravated when public opinion lauds the sanctimony of such moral luminaries as George Bush, Joe Lieberman, James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell, and considers my family moral lepers.
You know what I love about these threads? The excellent defenses of atheism, and “angry” atheism, that are for the most part ignored by our esteemed host and by those few who buy into this inane argument that atheists should shut up and behave themselves.
Like I keep saying, I don’t understand why some atheists think they have to go further than embracing their own beliefs and attacking others. I don’t like it when purported Christians go on about godless secularists, and it isn’t any palatable the other way around. Why can’t you guys see that?
Oliver, I agree with you that going around yelling at people for not sharing your beliefs is annoying, whether it is for religion, atheism, or anything else. However, isn’t that how societies move forward? If Copernicus and Galileo had taken a “don’t rock the boat” attitude, then the world would be a very different place than it is today. That is also exactly how most religions were spread in the first place. You don’t have to like it, but you seem to be using the Bill O’Reilly tactic of “I don’t like it, so just shut up.”
If, on the other hand, you really are trying to criticize a couple of tasteless extremists, then call them out by name. Don’t put a story under a sensationalist headline like “Why Be An Angry Atheist?” and then claim that you are being even handed. Like I said previously, those are the tactics of Fox News and the right wing that you seem to hate so much, so it is very disturbing to see you embrace those same tactics to soothe your own prejudice.
I actually did call them out by name, specifically Sam Harris. I think it’s the height of silliness when an atheist writer doesn’t only push their agenda but also feels the need to deride someone’s beliefs. I don’t understand why you guys can’t see you’re doing the same thing you profess to hate. I’m not telling atheists to shut up, but I don’t think you gain any ground by sneering at people either.
Like I’ve said, yeah people on the religious right have a megaphone atheists clearly don’t but it doesn’t strike me as a very good excuse for behavior.
What’s the goal? Getting atheism a seat at the table? Fine with me, but slapping at the religious is not going to be the way you get it and it will in fact cause a backlash. I want atheists to be heard from, not shunned. But if you allow a guy like Harris to be one of the leaders, its going to end up as extreme as the christian right is and set back atheists.
I’m an agnostic, and while I believe there’s something out there I don’t remotely profess to know what it is. I believe in science and evolution and the scientific method. I think creationism and young earth theory is bunk. Yet based on the rhetoric of guys like Harris and Dawkins I’m just as bad because I don’t automatically deride belief in God as a fairy tale.
Doesn’t that seem a little wacky to you?
I don’t particularly want a “seat at the table.” (What table? The discussion-of-theology table? Why?) But I would like to *not* be continually insulted.
Well I don’t know if you won’t be insulted, because many seem to take the presence of religion as an insult. As well as vice versa. The table in question is the one where public policy is decided.
I have a notion of where the arguments of activist athiests go awry–but I won’t get into whether or not these athiests are “angry.” Only they would know. On the other hand, I think we all understand who Oliver is talking about.
When athiests set out to disprove religious beliefs, they’re letting believers frame the debate: that there’s a Supreme Being, a Redeemer, and/or a Holy Spirit that fit the descriptions provided in one religious text or another.
What happens if you don’t engage that debate? What can an athiest say if he’s asked to describe his observations of the apparent universe? What’s the animating force that drives the organization of peptides into complex organisms? How does one explain consciousness? Or love? Causality?
If you propose any sort of an answer to these questions, you’ve just defined your religious belief, even if you don’t believe even one word of the Bible.
You seem to have this continuing belief that atheists should behave as if they are trying to conduct an effective campaign for the hearts and minds of Americans.
Really, Oliver, can’t some people be cranky and atheist? Can’t some people be loud and unpleasant and atheist? Can’ some people be insufferable elitists and atheists? Can’t some people intend to promote a rational view of the world over a belief-based viewpoint of the world, but do a really crappy job of it?
Can’t some people be lashing out at a world that hurts them for reasons that don’t make any sense to them?
It takes guts to take a public platform in the United States to defend atheism and to question the benefits of Christianity. In such a situation, those on the platform will differ greatly from the overall population of atheists. You will tend to see people who have very strong feelings about the topic, or who are either unaware of or uninterested in tempering their arguments to soothe the feelings of others.
In place of the “uppity negro” analogy for “angry atheist”, I’d nominate the term “black militant”. The title of your post isn’t so different from: “I fully support the right of negroes to express their opinions, but do they have to be so angry?”
Another useful analogy is the gay pride paraders of past decades. The parades tended to bring out a subset of gays that was atypical of the overall gay population and that led many Americans to have negative reactions ranging from puzzlement to discomfort to revulsion. The average gay person was too worried about losing job/family/life/community to admit to being gay, much less to go out and march.
Adopting the “angry atheist” question for your post suggests that you are in the puzzlement camp regarding the highly visible and vocal subset of atheists.
Try to understand the position of atheists in America. Then you might understand why you see angry atheists.
Oliver, atheists have a moral right to get pissed when they get slandered, get their patriotism questioned, get intrusively asked by stone strangers on the street “what church do you go to”, when leading clergymen publish articles entitled “Why atheists cannot be good citizens,” when atheist soldiers like Pat Tillman get killed and the military pissed on their atheist family. Specific, concrete grievances against the government or against arbitrary or asinine conduct generally.
I don’t mean the penny ante bullcrap like the Pledge or “In God We Trust” which is about as theocratic or discriminatory as naming January after the Roman god Janus ot Thursday after Thor.
But, sadly, some atheists focus on the petty scrap. They spend their time mocking religious people, freak about the money, freak about the pledge. I don’t really want government in the god business at all, for or against, but a grown-ass man will recognize between petty foolishness and real issues. Some of these atheists can’t.
The truth about atheists and religious people: the majority of both groups are basically responsible people who spend their days taking care of business, not worrying about the religion/atheism wars. Most atheists aren’t thinking about church; they are thinking about (to them) interesting things – their spouses, their jobs, their golf game. Most religious people ditto.
I’d like to form a secular or atheist club called “Good Neighbors.” This would be for non-religious people who like being non-religious, and also believe in being decent good neighbors to decent people who are religious. “Good Neighbors” would try to help out churches, mosques etc., with the good general charitable things that they often do, but on a floating basis – the Unitarians one week, the Baptists another, etc. Sam Harris won’t get a membership application, unless he chills out a little.
Hmm…the biggest atheist threat to theists: “You’re wasting large stretches of time and are having a negative affect on impressionable people.”
The biggest theist threat to atheists: “Your life is devoid of meaning and purpose, and after you die you will endure billions of years of intense physical pain, emotional humiliation, and spiritual emptiness.”
Yah. It’s the atheists who are the angry ones.
I honestly want to ask: WHO THE HELL IS ASKING RANDOM PEOPLE ON THE STREET WHAT CHURCH THEY GO TO? I don’t doubt that maybe some of you have run into this kind of intolerance, but as someone who myself lives a decidedly non-religious life, I just don’t see it. Sure, people can be angry about their atheism all they want, but don’t be surprised then when people get the wrong impression. I think the analogy to civil rights to be kind of ridiculous, but you do realize that Martin Luther King was more effective than “militant” blacks for a reason, right?
Does it really take guts to be an atheist in America? Sure, you’d have a hard time running for public office, but then so would a black lesbian in favor of legalizing marijuana.
Oliver, you live in Takoma Park, I think. They don’t do it here in Maryland, even on the Shore.
But if you are in a small town in Oklahoma and you get barely introduced to someone, you may well get asked pretty fast about where you work, whether you are married or where you go to church. I don’t know about “on the street,” but from strangers, yeah. It’s considered a way to get to know someone, to make them not a stranger any more.
“Sure, you’d have a hard time running for public office, but then so would a black lesbian in favor of legalizing marijuana.”
Um, are you suggesting you’d also have a problem with black lesbians who are “militant”? Cuz I think they’d have a problem with you …
You know what I love? Political operatives that tell me my pov is irrelevant because gosh darn it, I’m just so uncivil.
I especially love it when they’ve just, a couple of days previous, spent some time telling me about how when THEY believe something they just come out and say it. Other people’s delicate sensibilities be damned, they have a point to make.
Then, when I point out the above, they shrug their shoulders and say “whoa, I’m not saying that (tho my implication was as subtle as a dumptruck full of howler monkeys), I just want an honest answer.”
Yesiree. I sure love when that happens.
“Does it really take guts to be an atheist in America? Sure, you’d have a hard time running for public office, but then so would a black lesbian in favor of legalizing marijuana.”
According to recent polls, being black or lesbian isn’t as bad as being an Atheists. And I’ve never heard a president says either of those precludes you from being a patriotic citizen.
And I also say when you come out and say something expect there to be a reaction to it based on the way you’ve said it. Walking around and telling someone that what they believe is mythology is just going to make them shut down and not solve anything.
Bruce, you were the one talking about strangers on the street. Just say you don’t go to church, outside of the hardcore areas in America most people don’t have the interest to give a damn. And if they do, you both move along with your lives. Everyone doesn’t have to be friends with everyone else, you know.
I’m simply stating that some beliefs and demographics are not “mainstream” enough to be electable. There’s no law barring atheists from running for office, but people aren’t likely to vote for one. Especially if you decide calling them idiots is a good tactic.
Is Bush the one who said you have to be religious to be a patriotic citizen? In case you haven’t noticed he says a lot of stupid things.
Willis has adopted the foolish position that atheist are angry and no amount of logic or reasoned discourse is going to sway him from it.
Ollie,
It was George H.W. Bush who said that he doesn’t consider atheists to be patriotic citizens. Not the current occupant of the White House.
It seems like you’re just not going to re-evaluate your position on this at all, Oliver, so the following little comparison might be completely self-indulgent and not get anything accomplished. Nonetheless…
The reason that people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and other atheists brave enough to speak out say things amounting to, “Religious people believe in fairy tales” is because that’s the conclusion they’ve drawn from countless hours of thinking about the issue and formulating/debating the points for each side. If you’d read the God Delusion, you would realize the painstaking thought put into this by those “atheist asses” like Dawkins. Simply put, the conclusions they’ve drawn are at direct contrast with the beliefs of billions of people on Earth. It is as though they’ve discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but everyone continues to believe the converse. If someone actually believes that 2+2=5, are you going to let that slide?… or are you going to try to show them that their beliefs are incontrovertibly wrong?
As I’ve already enumerated extensively in my battles with Frank, the burden of proof is on religious folk to prove God’s existence. Until then, they just continue to believe something that has absolutely zero evidence for it. You might as well believe in leprechauns and unicorns… and this isn’t me being angry, this is me reflecting on the empirical evidence for the existence of these particular things.
Finally, it’s worth noting that you still haven’t answered Rex’s (and Dawkins’) question about why its ok to point at a conservative and say, “No, you’re wrong about government regulation,” but not ok to point to the theist and say, “No, you’re wrong about God.” Why can we criticize someone for their beliefs in one domain, but not the other? What exempts religion from criticism? Why can’t I tell my crazy aunt that God is a total fabrication, that Heaven and Hell do not exist, and that our lives and deaths don’t matter at all in any kind of cosmic sense? (incidentally, me calling my aunt crazy has very little to do with her being religious… she’s really quite mad)
Here’s the exact quote from the elder Bush, on the campaign trail in 1987:
“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”
Nice. Real nice.
Oliver – re “on the street” fair point. I have not experienced it, my wife is from Oklahoma and she described life in Norman, OK to me.
What exempts religion from criticism?
Its funny too how its religion and not belief specifically that seems to be protected. The cultists of, for instance, Heaven’s Gate were, albeit posthumously, mocked in the media for, of all things, believing that a spaceship was hiding behind a comet, waiting to take them to paradise but only after they cut their balls off and drink poison while wearing Nike’s. How foolish of them not to realize that its really an invisible man in the sky waiting to take you to heaven but only after you cut your foreskin off and eat wine and crackers every sunday while wearing a suit. I would comment furthWhat exempts religion from criticism?
Its funny too how its religion and not belief specifically that seems to be protected. The cultists of, for instance, Heaven’s Gate were, albeit posthumously, mocked in the media for, of all things, believing that a spaceship was hiding behind a comet, waiting to take them to paradise but only after they cut their balls off and drink poison while wearing Nike’s. How foolish of them not to realize that its really an invisible man in the sky waiting to take you to heaven but only after you cut your foreskin off and eat wine and crackers every sunday while wearing a rosary. Oh, also money, he needs alot of money, and I mean like a whole damn bunch. How does one represent a failure to think things through and the other make for good moral fiber? Is it that they wore the wrong things? Cut off the wrong bits?
For me belief in God (as well as its concomitant need to demonize non believers) stems from the problem of never wanting to ask oneself that simplest of questions, the one that basically lies at the heart of all scientific endeavor: “How would I be able to tell if this assumption were false?” The problem of course, for the believer, extends beyond an inability to accept science as being more than a conspiracy to test their faith, but seriously consider how many of the devout truly seem to have no idea what the Bible says. How many people believe the Ten Commandments to be critically important and support installing them in schools and cant name more than two? How many people describe God as all love when capital-H He describes Himself as being Vengeful, Wraithful, Petty, Jealous, and implicitly guilty of all seven deadly sins. How many people look at Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild (who cursed a Fig tree to death for daring not to be in season, Mark 11:12-14, seriously go check) and make his life the justification for the organized church structure, when its precisely the very idea of church structure he was railing against (see Christ v Pharissees)?
Profoundly rarely is it the case that faith represents anything more than a failure to critically examine things, and indeed you could almost define it as much. People who then end up professionally critically examining such ideas then (Dawkins, Harris, etc.) are socially reviled for the simple reason that the inescapable conclusion (that there almost certainly is no Zeus, Odin, Thor, Ra, Freya, Wotan, Allah, Garnesh, Vishnu Brahaman, Waheguru, Elohim, Baal or Yahwe) is deemed offensive, because indeed, there seems to be no possible way to argue “it is perhaps a mistake to believe in things for which there are absolutely no proof, and worse still to make drastic actions based on that belief” without upsetting people. Is this because Oxford senior fellow and Doctor of evolutionary biology is a raving “angry” loon, or is it perhaps that people, by and large, are just pretty fucking dense.
…um, ignore my first paragraph. Teach me not to self-edit.
Because while issues like conservative economics can be easily disproved because of their inherit crap, someone saying that God doesn’t exist has just as much proof as someone saying he does. I don’t think the burden of proof is on the religious because both the religious and the atheist has a belief system. Neither one has the proof of scientific or physical evidence.
You can easily prove that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth. Proving or disproving God is slightly more complex.
I don’t think that all atheists are asses, but I do think the vocal people being held up as being in the right like Harris and Dawkins are going to, in the long run, make things worse for atheists (and eventually agnostics like myself).
Rex, you’re my hero.
Oliver, approaching the topic honestly and scientifically, atheists do not have to prove or even find evidence for the nonexistence of God, any more than disbelievers in UFOs, unicorns, dragons, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or ghosts have to prove that all those things don’t exist. It’s ridiculous (and unscientific) to lay that burden on atheists… and it’s ridiculous to believe everything that just cannot or has not been disproven. On the other hand… if I were to say I believe that dragons exist(ed), you’d probably want to see some evidence, wouldn’t you?
As far as you perception regarding Dawkins/Harris… I disagree with you on the nature of their tactics, as well as the utility of their impact. But this is something that I don’t think we’ll see eye-to-eye on. And that’s probably ok. Differences of opinion in person-perception are inevitable.
But, as you seem to be a reasonable guy for the most part, you should recognize the truthfulness of my initial point regarding burden of proof and the illogicality of religious belief. It’s blatantly self-evident. If you substitute any other supernatural being/occurrance in favor of God, you’ll see that I’m correct.
someone saying that God doesn’t exist has just as much proof as someone saying he does.
Replace God with Tooth Fairy in that statement and tell us if you still believe in it.
You want proof though? Here’s the simple one: The natural world is, as far as is discernable, entirely self-sustaining, rendering the idea of a supernatural force unnecessary and extravagant (two traits that evolution does not favor), and therefore, in all likelyhood, nonexistant. Other (needless to say better-worded)refutations abound for your statement, and no doubt you’ve never read them since they come from the Infuriated Infidels (If you insist on Angry Atheists as a characterization, could we at least have a more, I dunno, fun name?) Dawkins explainins why there almost certainly is no God, and how the hypothesis must be testable and why it fails, and with luck someone else here might be inclined to read it.
…both the religious and the atheist has a belief system. Neither one has the proof of scientific or physical evidence.
Thinking God exists when we cannot personally witness Him is a belief. Thinking that Evolution is true when we cannot personally witness it happen is only a belief in that, when you witness the presently observable rules about biology and how it extends to all of the animal kingdom throughout time, you “believe” they didn’t magically un-exist a few hundred thousand years ago. In that sense you also “believe” that, when mommy plays Peek-a-boo, her face does not actually disappear simply because it is covered. You are either confusing belief with understanding here, or Atheism with Nihilism (where I think the distinction is that the Atheist reaches his No-God conclusion through critical thinking and the Nihilist doesn’t but don’t quote me).
You’re like the Mudcat Sanders of theists. I’m taking you off my list of blogs I read.
You’re like the Mudcat Sanders of theists. I’m taking you off my list of blogs I read.
Some problems with your “proof”:
The natural world is, as far as is discernable, entirely self-sustaining, rendering the idea of a supernatural force unnecessary and extravagant
Any force of nature we cannot “discern”, i.e., measure or reproduce, is, per se ’supernatural’, in that we cannot determine its origin or workings. As Arthur C. Clarke put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Secondly, if the forces of nature which are at this time discernible, were to be explained, it might be that some other explanation besides spontaneous existence is the correct answer. Evolution having been proved incorrect, the concepts “unnecessary” and “extravagant” would be irrelevant.
Thinking God exists when we cannot personally witness Him is a belief. Thinking that Evolution is true when we cannot personally witness it happen is only a belief in that, when you witness the presently observable rules about biology and how it extends to all of the animal kingdom throughout time, you “believe” they didn’t magically un-exist a few hundred thousand years ago.
You are engaging in a tautology here, and it is obvious.
Consider this:”when you witness the presently observable rules about biology and how it extends to all of the animal kingdom throughout time.
The ‘presently observable rules about biology’ you refer to are the idea of spontaneous origin and evolution of species by natural selection, are they not? So, of course, the rules you expect nature to “follow” are those rules, are they not?
Would you accept evidence that they have not been obeyed? Have you ever?
I’ve heard about the idea that the simplest thing to believe is correct. But, is that true?
Let’s say I happen across an empty box — or at least, I think it’s empty. If I don’t touch the box, or shake it, or wait to see if the wind blows it, then it might be safe to assume it is empty. But couldn’t it be so full, that the wind can’t move it? The contents so soft, you can’t hear them shake?
Of course, they can.
So there is no acceptable reason for either believers or atheists to presume that their belief is nothing more than a belief.
Ah… I think Frank’s back!
Listen, “Anonymous,” read Dawkins a bit and get back to us. The short answer is that you’re mostly wrong. I’d enumerate it here and now, but I don’t have the time and/or energy at the moment.
I must confess to a man-crush on Rex also.
As I’ve already enumerated extensively in my battles with Frank,…
Here’s the meat in the sandwich. Trying to convince someone of a differing viewpoint time and again can wear on your nerves. Just tell Dugger that Bush told a lie again (no, don’t) and you’ll get angry after a while. “Why can’t they see it right in front of their face?”
We have a Creation Museum in this country. That fries my butter a little bit.
My in-laws just moved to North Carolina and they get asked frequently what church they go to by new neighbors. The air gets a little colder when they ask where the Catholic church is. Just sayin’.
I don’t think that all atheists are asses, but I do think the vocal people being held up as being in the right like Harris and Dawkins are going to, in the long run, make things worse for atheists (and eventually agnostics like myself).
We can say the same thing about Al Sharpton, can’t we? Dawkins doesn’t speak for everyone who questions or rejects the existence of God, just like Sharpton does not speak for the majority of African-Americans.
Religion is one of the major causes of strife and division in the world. It is Santa Claus for adults. Humanity will not evolve (MATURE) until religion is found to be the debilitating disease upon human psychology that it is.
The supposed “good” that religions profess come with a cost; a person’s liberty is strangled. I have nothing but contempt for any and all religions and if my fellow atheists exhibit publicly the contempt I feel and keep within me for “believers” I fail to see the problem. What are the god-people afraid of?
This argument (god or no-god) is flawed on so many levels that it is beyond the scope of meaningful argument. However, when religions attempt to impinge upon my liberties and ally themselves with government and use a nation’s treasury to dictate their morals upon society I have to say, “stop it, just stop it.” I have a deep distrust for both institutions and if religion is allowed to become enmeshed within the government you will get the nation you deserve and the US will become another footnote in history along with Imperial Spain after the expulsion of the jews and muslims, and catholic France after the expulsion of the huegonauts.
There will always be good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but it takes religion to make a good people do evil things.
If you keep your gods to yourself we’ll get along just fine. I am only angry because you say I am, child.
Trying to convince someone of a differing viewpoint time and again can wear on your nerves
Of course, whenever one is confronted with what you believe, the appropriate response is to roll over and play dead.
Religion is one of the major causes of strife and division in the world. It is Santa Claus for adults. Humanity will not evolve (MATURE) until religion is found to be the debilitating disease upon human psychology that it is.
The supposed “good” that religions profess come with a cost; a person’s liberty is strangled. I have nothing but contempt for any and all religions and if my fellow atheists exhibit publicly the contempt I feel and keep within me for “believers” I fail to see the problem. What are the god-people afraid of?
This argument (god or no-god) is flawed on so many levels that it is beyond the scope of meaningful argument. However, when religions attempt to impinge upon my liberties and ally themselves with government and use a nation’s treasury to dictate their morals upon society I have to say, “stop it, just stop it.” I have a deep distrust for both institutions and if religion is allowed to become enmeshed within the government you will get the nation you deserve and the US will become another footnote in history along with Imperial Spain after the expulsion of the jews and muslims, and catholic France after the expulsion of the huegonauts.
There will always be good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but it takes religion to make a good people do evil things.
If you keep your gods to yourself we’ll get along just fine. I am only angry because you say I am, child.
Hey anonymous, I would argue the appropriate response is to think critically about the argument and the evidence. A main objective of mine, or at least a wish of mine, is to have people think critically instead of being uncurious sheep. I don’t want them to be blind atheists any more than I want them to be blind theists. However, I think that critical thinking on religious belief are essentially mutually-exclusive, such that if you engage the question of God’s existence rationally and thoughtfully, you must naturally realize religion to be a sham and God to be nonexistent.
…sorry, should have read “critical thinking AND religious belief”…
Would you accept evidence that they have not been obeyed? Have you ever?
No I haven’t, Not-Frank-At-All because no such evidence exists. I’m not trying to be pompous, this is seriously the case. I’m certain though that you’re on the verge of trying so eagerly to prove me wrong, but could you do us a favor? After you google for “creationism proof” and find out how, for instance, seashells in mountains proves Noah’s flood or something, would you also consider googling “creationism wrong” to see if any of the evidence actually stands up to any part of the scientific method? (hint about the seashells, vertical tectonic compression)
If then you actually do manage to fi
nd proof, existing in the natural world, of supernatural forces (meaning something natural for which there is no natural explanation, necessitating the supernatural) then I daresay you’ve managed to tear a massive hole through the entirety of evolutionary biology. Good luck with that, friend.
I’ve heard about the idea that the simplest thing to believe is correct. But, is that true?
And then you go on to basically say there could be two different explanations for the same observable evidence. Of course, until you actually go and look into the box both states are effectively, equally true. However, whatever may be in the box, it is almost certainly smaller than the box. To think otherwise is madness (save for bright red police boxes) because such are the physical laws of the universe. To suggest that something bigger than the box is inside the box is to employ, by necessity, a series of explanations for why rules do not apply and evidence is misleading and myriad other quantifiers in order to maintain the ridiculous notion that theres a grown African elephant inside that shoebox. The complicated belief is that, in the special instance of this box and its contents, the rules of the universe do not apply. The simpler (and godsdamn correct) “belief” is that this isnt the case, and whatever is in the box must be smaller than the box itself.
Similarly the complicated belief is that, in the special case of a God, the laws of the physical universe are bent and broken, warped and withheld in order to allow for His existence. The simple “belief” is that this is not the case. And while the fact that such rules would have to be bent to allow for God’s existence doesn’t de facto prove that they weren’t, the simple fact of it being a more complicated answer tels us that, unless anything hinged on the God Hypothesis being true (and since Evolution explains life, Quantum Physics explains the universe, and Sociology explains Moral development, this is certainly the case), the best accurate assumption is that He does not exist.
Dawkins piece doesn’t disprove God, any more than thousands of texts from religious prove it either. I guess if you want to disprove a lot of the stuff in the bible, sure that’s easy to do and anyone who accepts the bible as literal truth is off their rocker. But Dawkins doesn’t prove anything more than he can write in as much absolutes as any fire and brimstone christian/muslim/etc.
Here’s the thing with the creation museum. I think it’s stupid. The fact that it exists bends my mind. But I also don’t have to go to it.
Oliver, would you PLEASE address my and Rex’s point regarding the difference (or lack thereof) between supernatural entities like dragons, ghosts, Bigfoot, and the Tooth Fairy in comparison to God.
Or are you saying that since I can’t currently disprove Bigfoot’s existence, that people who believe in Bigfoot are just as reasonable and possibly right as me?
Oliver, have you ever heard of the Radical Flank Theory? To use the Civil Rights movement as an example, it was the radicals like Malcom X who made the Martin Luther Kings look mainstream and respectable.
If Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens seem radical in their criticism of religion, they play an important part in at least gaining attention for atheism as a viewpoint and for pointing out the obvious question, why should religious beliefs be exempt from criticism?
If atheism becomes somewhat more popular, it will inevitably highlight those of us atheists who lead decent, law abiding lives, raising our children and so forth who just don’t want their government controlled by people who see themselves as carrying out a Religious Right agenda.
Also, and I understand that this is a thread that has generated a lot of comments, but please note my astrology comparison near the top of the thread.
From Dawkins’ article:
If, by ‘God’, you mean love, nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, or Planck’s constant, none of the above applies. An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘He’s positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that is ¬religion!’ Well, if that’s what you choose to mean by religion, fine, that makes me a religious man.
Dawkins only makes the case against a Biblical, personal God, a Yaweh who listens to prayers and smites the wicked. If you can get past the notion that “God” is separate from the apparent universe and embrace the idea that God and the universe are one and the same, the debate vanishes.
mambo: I don’t think there’s much difference between those things and belief in God. In the case of a few of them, science has disproven their existence but on the other hand, who says ghosts don’t exist? I don’t happen to believe in them, but I fail to see how it destroys civilization for someone to believe in them. I don’t want them foisting that belief on me or my (nonexistent) children but you’ve got a right to believe whatever you want, I think, unless someone can scientifically prove otherwise.
Tommykey: I don’t disagree that religion isn’t up for criticism, but I don’t see the need for the sort of invective filled blasts that are essentially fundamentalist in nature – a declarative fatwa that God doesn’t exist is as baseless as an unequivocal assertion of God’s existence.
One of the things I think you guys may be getting wrong from me is that you think I raise Christianity above the others. I don’t. Frankly, I find all of the religions (and non-religions) equally valid. Some elements get clearly disproven by science (ie the earth is older than 6,000 years) but who can say that we aren’t ruled by Greek or Roman gods? I think in this area, once you decide to go on the path of declarations, nothing good can come of it.
I’m not asserting “balance”, clearly evolution is scientifically proven whereas intelligent design is religious belief and that’s how the issue should be approached, but if someone believes in God/Allah/Yahweh/Jah/etc. more power to them. And the same if they don’t.
“Because while issues like conservative economics can be easily disproved because of their inherit crap, someone saying that God doesn’t exist has just as much proof as someone saying he does.”
Two points:
1.) The bible says there are giant warehouses in the sky filled with hailstones. That’s a scientific claim that can be tested. In fact, the bible makes plenty of those and fails in almost all of them.
2.) It is the person who makes the claim that has to prove it. That’s how reality works.
However, whatever may be in the box, it is almost certainly smaller than the box.
Well, good for you. So we have established, with a reasonable amount of certainty, that something is either in the box or it is not.
Could we further assume that the origin of the box is outside of the box, or I have I gone too far?
I think you can guess where I’m going with this, especially with regard to this comment:
If you can get past the notion that “God” is separate from the apparent universe and embrace the idea that God and the universe are one and the same, the debate vanishes.
Quaker in a Basement | Jun 12, 2007 9:35:07 PM
I think you can guess where I’m going with this, especially with regard to this comment:
Then you’re giving some of us–well, me anyway–too much credit. I’m stumped.
No, really, no snark here, I’m not getting it.
Ah, nothing like an atheism thread to pull Frank back out of the woodwork. His personal hissy fit lasted all of what?… 3 days?…
The box analogy isn’t worth talking about. It’s boring, and Rex does an excellent job of turning it (as you’ve put it, “Anonymous”, heh) on it’s head. Besides, an analogy is not an argument.
Minor point, however. the Police box is blue, not red.
Unless its dark outside.
“I don’t think that all atheists are asses.”
Wow, thanks. Any chance of you coming clean and admitting that you’ve never read Dawkins, and probably never even heard him being interviewed?
Harris, on the other hand, actually IS kind of a prick, though I suspect you’re just pushing received wisdom in both cases.
mambochicken23: How come it was “an argument” when you were using it?
And Rex Mundane does no such thing.
He insists on perpetuating the fraud that sociologists studying moral development is the same as saying that moral development itself is scientific.
There are courses in World Religions. Do those courses make religion scientific?
Hissy fit?
There are courses in English, too. Does that make English scientific?
Give it a rest, Frank. Take the rest of the day off.
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