I live in a country full of superstitious twits

i'm not judging you on your belief system. i'm judging you on your own words. i have no problem with your athiesm. i have a problem with your behaviour - the insecure fringe athiest apostolicizing a dated rational empirical world view of the industrial revolution like a new age religion and making life diffucult for the rest of the 3% by acting like a jackass towards the other 97%. you are the athiest answer to bible thumpers.



before you question my reading comprehension, have a look at your high school blunder of taking an ambiguous qualifier like "many of the study's respondents" to make a blanket attack on the superstitious twits. if you hadn't been itching to engage in another religion bashing escapade, you probably would have realized: not enough information.

anyway, i don't know why i'm debating this with you. convincing a someone so deeply religious as yourself to see differently is futile.

at least with prok we can take comfort in the fact that she's just roleplaying. you are serious!

On what do you base that assumption? You're all doing a marvelous job of proving the point of my original post.

How ironic considering you and Cristiano are the ones who came into this thread and started making personal attacks based on my opinons (otherwise known as beliefs). Hypocrite. I'm sorry for you that you're so spineless that you can't stand up for your own belief system because it might make life difficult for you.

The only problem with judgement, Cristiano, is when it's based on emotional responses, rather than available data. Judgement in and of itself is not wrong - it depends on how it's done. The problem is with people on both sides of the argument who make a knee-jerk judgement without data.
As an example, let us say that one encounters a 45-year-old who says, quite earnestly, that he Santa Claus exists. Would one be likely to simply nod in acceptance of his belief system and assume that he's totally intelligent and rational in all other respects?
Probably not.
The evidence would, indeed, point towards him being less than a full wit.
Well, speaking for myself as an atheist, that's exactly how I view religion. There's as much evidence that God exists as Santa Claus, and yet somehow an adult believing in God is rational but an adult believing in Santa Claus is not. We all "know" Santa Claus doessn't exist, yet the existence of a deity is "debatable." Why the difference? There's no verifiable evidence for the existence of either.
Furthermore, the sad truth is that this belief in something with little rational basis has led to endless violence, terror, and death. Yes, religion has had good effects, and yes, people would probably do lots of shitty things without religion - but religion does seem to motivate an awful lot of negative behavior. Certainly more than atheism.

As Cris mentioned above, I really have nothing to go on but your own words. As for proving the point? I guess I do enjoy twitting you.

Which is why I don't subscribe to either.

I don't think I have enough information to make the call either way. When we speak in absolutes, especially when we have no way of proving or disproving something, we run in dangerous waters, which is why I steer clear of debates with evangelists, be they theist or atheist.

I think coming from either side with an absolute viewpoint, and especially crticizing other's views based upon one's own, when one really has absolutely no method to prove that their view is the correct one, is at best presumptous, and at worse pompous.

I love how you try to obscure things and say that I'm saying it's offensive for you to point that out. I didn't say that. What I said is offensive are the comments you make all the time about people of religious faith, regardless of the presence of any survey. Also, again, how is you calling someone a half-witted superstituous twit so much better than someone thinking you are immoral? Both are judgements of people, and neither one is right. That is my point. Spare me the last line, that is just pathetic pandering.

I get a free pass because I am not bashing either side - I am calling you on your own crap. I don't have a problem with athiests or the religious, I have a problem with indivudals of any belief system who act like some kind of zealot and raise up their own viewpoint by trashing that of someone else. You did that in this very thread with your comments about religion. The people in the survey did that with their comments about athiests - thus my original point - you are hardly in a position to talk at this point.

Yet the entire survey is based on people's opinions about their beliefs, and you are complaining about it. You are again trying to have it both ways. I am certainly not spineless - I have been standing up not only for my own belief system but yours as well - I just don't at the same time think it is ok for you to trash the beliefs of others, or impune their intelligence because they disagree with you or refuse to conceed your contradictory point.

it's really convenient if you take all the bad things in the world and lump them under religion. because religions like islam, christianity, or buddhism don't cross dozens of national borders and ethnic groups. because religions don't help the poor and take humanitarian efforts.

i really don't understand how some religious people judging all athiests by the actions of a minority of athiests is any different from some athiests (YOU) judging all religious people by the actions of a minority of religious people.

Please provide examples of my bashing of theists. You know, where I call them stupid and insult them instead of calmly explaining my own point of view. I'll wait. Oh, that's right, if an atheist explains their point of view, no matter how they go about it, it's religion bashing, but if a theist does it it's somehow different.

what are you talking about? what do i have to stand up for? there's no organized anti-athiest witch hunt going on that i need to band together with my team and fight back!

i think personal attacks are completely legitimate if its calling a bigot out on his bigotry. oo000ooh sorry did i break some forum rules?

Okay, so you're fine with being maligned, mischaracterized, marginalized, and being considered a threat to American values. Gotcha.

I've gotten used to it, whenever I dare express my own viewpoint. It goes with the territory.

Well, if the only thing one hears concerning atheists is their attempts to change what most Americans see as "what it means to be American", then it's a matter of poor public relations on the Atheists side.

Standing against God in a nation known for its coupling of God and Country is the fastest way I know to upset and irritate ones audience.

second fastest.

the best way to improve your situation is to insult the people who are "oppressing" you. that's great "standing up for your beliefs." i'm sure you will get the results you are looking for.

So should I assume you don't have a problem with the point of view expressed in the survey and feel that speaking out against it is an insult? Just sit quietly and maybe no one will notice you and make your life difficult. Imagine where gay rights would be now if they followed your advice and didn't speak out against those that feel their very existence, like the existence of atheists, is an insult. Things change because people have the courage to speak up, not because they hide in closets.

If 97% are believers, and 3% aren't, what side of the audience do you want to influence?

Yes, that's the fastest.

Well, since they already believe we're condemned to some kind of special hell, I don't think they have much ground in being offended if an atheist calls them on it. Twits.

Again, there is a glaring example right in this thread:



I have not made a single derogatory comment about athiesm. Yet here you are, calling someone's beliefs "wishful thinking" and "superstitious, which is hardly being respectful of them, nor is calling them "disturbingly tribalistic". Your own nasty way of saying group think. This is one small example of thie disdain you express for the religious all the time. Apparently, you saying whatever you want those with religious beliefs is fine, but no one can dare question or judge your beliefs. You can make all the pandering bus and closet references you want to try to show some solidarity in oppression, but you are protected by the same freedom of religion as those damn theists who are so half-witted, ignorant and superstitious, even if that freedom is to practice no religion at all and not believe in God.

PS - I find it interesting that in the St. Patrick's Day thread you were all about how horrible it is that people separate themselves into little groups based upon their commonality, that we are all equal and don't need any of that. Yet here you are playing the poor downtrodden minority for all it's worth.

Didn't you already say to believe in God is not rational?

That would lead you to assume the believer is irrational in other areas.

The whole point is, it's expected one will be bigoted in favor of ones group. It's ingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Eh, there have been non-bigoted LEADERS of faith.

That is the hard part Kevn. Believing in something without judging others.

It can be done, and I thank the stars for the two VERY wise pastors at the church my family attended when I was growing up for taking us to a Russian orthodox mass, to a synagogue, a mosque, and so on.

We did it every few weeks, and I think that was a wonderful thing, even though I am no longer religious in the Christian sense.

(I taught Sunday school while in 11th and 12th grades, btw, so I have a clue)