I live in a country full of superstitious twits

You are just as much of a bigot as those you are rallying against by blanket labelling anyone who believes in God as a superstituous twit. I don't have a problem with you being an athiest. What I do have all the problem with are all the fucked up generalizations and attacks I have seen you make against those who aren't. You expect tolerance, but don't seem to give any yourself. WAAAH I don't get any tolerance is not an excuse if you practice what you preach.

thank you cristiano for writing a paragraph to elaborate my point for the wikipedia philosophers.

Wow, I didn't think this was all that difficult to understand but obviously I need to explain it for the double standard crowd: Believing in god is all fine and dandy. Believing in god but believing that anyone who does not believe in god is less American, less trustworthy, and less suitable as a marriage partner, makes you a bigot. It also makes you a superstitious twit if you believe that morality comes from god and not from common sense humanism and that atheists are less moral by definition. But of course I'm an atheist so you can just assume that I'm a bigot and label me as such without expending an iota of thought on the irony of that in relation to the thread subject.

Ok, sorry, I should have said condescending bigot, my bad. It is fine to believe in God, or to not believe in God, that is your choice, my choice - something each individual has to decide. It doesn't make you right, or me right, it is a belief (and not believing in God is in itself a belief). It is no more fine for someone to claim you are less American that it is for you to claim that those who believe their sense of morality comes from their belief in God is some half-witted superstituous twit. Nice superiority complex there. You can't have it both ways. You think your morality comes from common sense, so be it - others have their morality founded in their religious faith. Neither is right nor wrong, just a different set of beliefs. Yet it is fine for you to label them, but you shouldn't be labelled. Again, that is the height of hypocrisy. In that regard you are just as bad as those you are saying are so horrible. It sucks all around - and your intolerance is showing loud and clear just as you pat yourself on the back for how tolerant you always are.

Okay I'll talk real slow this time and maybe that will help you grasp this apparently difficult concept - my belief that religious faith is superstitious is by itself no more bigoted than anyone else believing that a god exists and atheists are wrong. If you think one position is bigotry and the other is not then you hold a double standard, which would actually make you a bigot.. Further, if you believe someone's belief system defines how moral they are or their worth as a person you're an ignorant bigot, or twit as the case may be. Rocket science, Yay!

Oh but Chip, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good". (Psalms 14:1).

So see Chip, there is the proof right there, you are obviously just trying to corrupt us.

Pfft on you and your sweat shops!

Briana Dawson

Will you cut out the condescending bullshit, Chip? Really, at this point it just makes you look like a smug jerk. I said neither position - belief in God or athiest was right or wrong, they are personal beliefs. You didn't even read what I said apparently. I said that you lambasting people as being superstituous twits is as bad as anyone making negative satements about athiests. NEITHER is acceptable. I love how you always try to portray those who don't agree with you as somehow having subpar intelligence, but it doesn't work with me. Nice try though.

Ummm, you do realize that you're defending the beliefs expressed by the survey that people's worth or morality is determined by their belief system, right? And that you're calling me a bigot for taking issue with it?

Where have I defended that it is alright to do that? People determine their own morality, and what it is founded in. For you, it is based in what you consider to be common sense and humanity, for others they base it in their religious faith. I have said that neither is right or wrong, and that bigotry goes both ways - that thinking only your beliefs and how you view the world is the right way and everyone else is either some halfwit idol worshipper or some soulless monster is equally wrong. People judging anyone on being an athiest is wrong. You judging people on their religious faith and dismissing it as mindless superstition and impuning their intelligence is also wrong.

umm, no, i think he's calling you a hypocrite.

That's not what I'm doing which I've been attempting to explain for three posts now. I'm impuning the intelligence of the religious respondents of the survey who DO believe that atheists are inherantly less moral or American than they are. I'm not impuning all religious people which I thought would be obvious. I'm calling the survey takers superstitious twits, not all religious people. Hello? Is this thing on?

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You can't win this one Chip, it's a tautology. To a Christian, a moral man derives his own love and his morality from the love of God. A faithless man is by definition immoral. Of course you're caught in your own trap on this, since to an athiest a belief in God is by definition stupidity.

I'd question both those points, really... you're dealing in generalities on both sides of the fence, there. Stereotyping. Yeah, there are loads of Christians who think athiests are subhuman because of their lack of faith; there are loads of atheists who think Christians are delusional. Not all of 'em, though, on either side.

In all honesty, reading over the thread, I think Chip and Cristiano started off with a misunderstanding, pissed each other off, and are now sullenly glaring at each other across the dance floor. When 'I Had The Time of My Life' starts playing, though, they'll patch things up, and we'll have the happy ending we all paid $8 of our hard-earned American currency for.

I know, I know.

And ugh, now I'll have visions of Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze stuck in my head.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

haha, well that's the good thing about arguing with people you respect and that you know are thick skinned. We can smack each other upside the head and still walk away as friends... even when Cristiano is wrong!

To me this survey illustrates very well why I prefer humanist philosophy to religious philosophy. The only generalities it makes about people is that everyone is assumed equal until proven otherwise. In all other repsects it's about individual merits. Most religions on the other hand (the belief systems, not necessarily the believers) supercede individual merit with value judgements based on which particular club someone belongs to. To my way of thinking, assuming that someone is less moral or of less worth because they don't pray to the right god (or to any god) is itself immoral and no different than judging people by the color of their skin or their sexual preferance.

While it's true that as an atheist I think religious beliefs are superstition and wishful thinking (and disturbingly tribalistic) I do not think belief systems are in any way a reliable indicator or morality, intelligence, or worth. Those kinds of judgements are codified in most religions and I will always find it disturbing that so many people unquestioningly embrace that aspect of them. If that makes me a bigot, so be it.

haha. bigot, you just made me laugh!

Many people who we might call "atheists would rather be put under "other" or agnostic rather than rate so low.

As per the norm, I admire Chip for stating much more clearly and just plain "better" what I think on most issues. I feel he's unfairly taken the brunt of this discussion, so I'll pipe in, woo my first post ever!

I THINK, and would not speak for Chip without that caveat (finally! took me a while to remember that word) , that he's saying, again, much more politely than I can get across, that, basically

"While I respect your views on a shiny robot who loves you, <or insert your own religious belief> the fact that you don't respect my views that a shiny robot who loves me in fact is unprovable, silly (to me) and delusional (again to me). is disrespectful in the fullest."

I read the OP as "look, atheists are the new danger", and honestly and seriously resent that if I don't get SOMETHING that you feel I should, I'm a danger to our values.

/shrug, I just dont' want chip to catch all the heat while I'm off trying to fuck a kid av skeleton.

And yes, I realize that I'm prolly the last guy you want on your side

taco, where you and chip differ is that you are focused on whether you are deluding yourself in your search for the truth or not whereas chip wears his wikepedia athiesm as a badge of superiority over the superstitious twits.

Wow J-Wu, you're really going out of your way to sound like an asshole in this thread. Well done.

Taco, you can be on my team any time.

I think Chip chose some inflammatory language, mostly because he's pissed about the way (some) religious people perceive atheism. I might have phrased it differently, but I can't disagree with him on that. I consider myself an agnostic, and have learned not to broadcast that particular facet of my being in the little Southern town I call home. Because I got very tired of people alternately trying to save me (in a very insistent and ultimately condescending manner), or just straight out telling me I was going to hell.

I mean... can you really argue that if one takes the Bible at its Word, that it is not exclusionary and a justification for bigotry? It baldly states that if I don't accept Him What Is, I'm burnin' for certain. And yeah, not all Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, but if you managed to ask every Christian alive if I was hell-bound for not thinking on their wavelength, how many would say 'no'?

If you can show me a way to view someone thinking that I deserve to suffer unimaginable torment for all eternity, for the simple reason that I don't believe in the same religion that they do, as something other than a form of bigotry, then I'll make fun of Chip along with you.

firstly, i don't think that is what your bible belt buddies wish you deserve or they wouldn't be trying to "help" you.

secondly, this article in no way states that religious people are wishing torment on athiests. it just says they are less trusting of athiests because of differing core values and their perceptions of athiests. some of those percpetions, such as cultural elitism, our buddy chip exhibits on a regular basis.

thirdly, as cristiano stated, bigotry can go both ways.

anyway, anymore posts about religion are going on the 500 L$ list.

team