Please Don't Hate Me Because I'm an Atheist Isle

[matthew]

first, i want to disagree with dan's definition of atheism, "the absence of belief".  i think that's a better definition for agnosticism, which is akin to skepticism, or need for proof, without actual denial.   "atheism"  is actually a strict BELIEF that there is no god. 

These are very common understandings of the words "atheism" and "agnosticism", but they are not historically sound. Popularly "agnosticism" has become synonymous with "weak atheism", and you tend to see a lot of posts like this on political message boards:

"I am agnostic, man. An atheist is someone who says, with 100% certitude, that there is definitely no god. They claim that this is undeniable, they believe this is a FACT. What does that sound like to you? It sounds like religion to me. Agnostics admit that they don't know, that anything is possible, that they don't know. That's why I am an agnostic."

The truth is that agnosticism concerns knowledge (absence of knowledge) and atheism (absence of faith) concerns faith, and the two overlap and are not mutually exclusive. I could be probably be described as an agnostic atheist, for instance.

Not a single atheist is the history of the universe knew for certain that there was no God, but that does not mean that there were never atheists. The implication that atheism is as rigid and stubborn a category of philosophy and thought as organized religion makes atheists out to be simple imbeciles, somehow completely oblivious to their (alleged) simple hypocrisy. These people I see post on message boards really seem to believe that even the most brilliant atheists are unaware that they are themselves committing to faith when they say that there is "no god". Often, and I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff on this, they are intellectual cowards and have little understanding of the meanings of either word.

Personally I remain a fan of this line from Jonathan Miller: "I only doubt because I am confronted with people who have religious certainty. You see, I am even reluctant to use the term 'atheist' of myself, not because I am embarrassed by it as people, or frightened of committing myself to it...I am embarrassed to call myself an atheist because it is hardly worth having a name for, anymore than I would have a name for not believing in witches."

On the other hand, as an anarchist (or left-libertarian socialist) I am a fierce proponent of freedom of religion, one that works both ways, one where I can be free of other people's bullshit religions. This means that religious fanatics can continue to indoctrinate their kids with their ancestors superstitions, but that it will have never be preached from governmental institutions.

Organized religion is like a barbed arrowhead and must be withdrawn from the consciousness over time ...it is designed to remain embedded, and aggressive motions will only exacerbate the damage.

[matthew]

The thing that drives me most batshit these days isn't even religion. It's the increasingly popular belief--whether it be amongst religious people, conspiracy theorists, UFO junkies, alternative medicine advocates, vaccines-cause-autism paranoiacs or whoever--that science is just someone's opinion, no more or less valuable than anyone else's.

Sure, legions of peer-reviewed studies with closely monitored methodology have produced near uniformly consistent evidence that there is no causal link between childhood vaccines and autism, but that's the opinion of those scientists. Jenny McCarthy's opinion is that her kid's autism had its onset right around the time he got his vaccines, so that caused his autism. The idea that these two things should be presented as "opposing viewpoints" as opposed to "hard evidence" and "some illogical shit paranoid people believe based on dim understanding of anecdotal evidence" is flabbergasting.

You can't (naw, you probably can) imagine how much of this I suffer through in a day working in a health food store...from both customers and staff.

Yesterday I listened to some older gentleman (who had just begun to eat organic food last week) drone on and on about all matter of imprecise pseudoscience. He started off complaining about pesticides and the FDA, which I thought was fine even though I could tell he was part moonbat. When he graduated to cancer talk I knew that we were up for a full reveal. Sure enough, within minutes he posited that "they" had discovered a cure for cancer but were keeping it from us. Why? "Money". As we parted ways I felt a touch of sadness knowing that I probably could have extracted some nuttier nuggets from him if I pressed a little harder. Oh well. Then suddenly he lurched back to me, trembling a little like he wasn't sure he should be so conspicuous:

"The whole world is run by a small circle of very powerful people." (eyes darting back and forth)

"yeh..." (me, swallowing tongue)

[Jeff]

Aw, Matthew, I hear you. I used to have what I called my Tragic Bar Patrons. Most of the time, their crazy was alcohol-related, but I had a few moonbats in there as well.

Like the lady who recounted her screenplay to me in agonizing detail. It was a standard heart-warming schlocker about a handsome n'er-do-well who learns to open his heart thanks to the love of a scruffy kid. She'd cast her handsome devil, too... Willem Dafoe. "He's dreamy," she said, expressing a sentiment I doubt even his mother shares.

Then she told me about her second screenplay, which was about Bigfoot. "He's real, you know." At this point, working in a dead bar with nothing to do, I cheerfully goaded her on, even buying her drinks, until she started to spout off about the conspiracy to hide the aliens, (including the little green one with a red hat (apparently life elsewhere in the universe looks like garden gnomes) who visited her as a child, the Trilateral Commission, the whole thing.

And while on the one hand, by the time she left, I had the satisfaction of knowing I'd beheld the full majesty of her crazy, I also felt sort of dirty for egging her on just so I could make fun of her bullshit later. Really, it was a pretty similar guilt to that I'd felt when I'd had drunken hookups with women I didn't really like.

[bebopbalogna]

Hey Pat, have you visited the Please Don't Hate Me Because I'm an Atheist isles? 

yes.   although i had forgotten about it until now.  i do however, use the amputee anecdote all the time in conversations with religious folk.  it's pretty much rebuttal proof.   (i even referenced it here.) i kinda feel the need to speak up in here now, since somehow i've become the torchbearer of the religious right around here because i scoff at organized atheism (almost as much as i scoff at organized religion), and am also glad to champion the rights of the religiously minded, and on occasion defend the (possible) historical accuracy of certain ancient texts which have been hijacked by the church.  there's a ton of stuff on these pages (and the end of that other thread) that i want to address, and will.  but this has been crazy busy camp week at the museum and this is literally the first time in a couple days i've been able to sit down in front of the computer for more than a minute.  knowing how my brain processes thought into written words, and my propensity to over analyze/ edit what i've written, my responses could take a couple hours to complete, and i want to get it all out at once.  so i'm gonna wait until i know i can be thorough.  there's a lot of good dialogue in here and i want to get in on it, but i got a lot of catching up to do.  be patient. it's coming.

[Jeff]

Pat, I can speak for everyone when I say with total certainty that no one here thinks of you as the torchbearer for the religious right.

[Doctor Rock]

Pat, please don't take anything we say personally.  We're just talking, and if in any way I sounded overbearing or condescending (I know I sometimes can sound that way), I'm sorry. 

In my mind, this is a friendly conversation.  I'm not trying to win an argument or to engage in a pissing contest.  Last thing I want is to offend you in any way.   If I feel the need to insult people, I'll do it at www.christianright.com or something, not on Crappity, know what I mean? 

[Jeff]

I tend to argue more fiercely with people I respect. Morons, I just give up on and walk away. Smart people, I just go around and around trying to get them to see it my way.

[Doctor Rock]

I tend to argue more fiercely with people I respect. Morons, I just give up on and walk away. Smart people, I just go around and around trying to get them to see it my way.

You're a better man than I am: with morons, I tend to lead them on, give them rope, goad them into saying something really stupid, and then I just crush them, usually pissing them off so much that they lose it.  It's amusing, but I'm the only one having a laugh, and in the end everyone hates my guts. 

I remember one time I was posting of some forum, and there was one of them conspiracy theory cranks saying their bullshit... This one happened to be a follower of Alex Jones.   So to annoy him, I pretended that I suffered from the same disability, and I very seriously posted a list of reasons why I thought Alex Jones was a CIA plant.  He posted and posted trying to rebuke me.  I kept making ironical statements, things that could be interpreted in multiple ways, goading him on, and finally, after pages and pages, he finally caught on that I was making fun of him.  I told him that if he couldn't figure out that some guy with way too much time on his hands was lying, what chance did he have against professional cranks like Alex Jones, eh?  He lost it, called me all kinds of names (If you want, I can find the posts and put them here), and complained to the mods.  I got banned for a month.  He disappeared from the board...

By the way, I'm not bragging.  After the whole ordeal, I just felt like an immature jerk.  But I must admit it was fun while it lasted

[Just Some Girl]

I tend to argue more fiercely with people I respect. Morons, I just give up on and walk away. Smart people, I just go around and around trying to get them to see it my way.

I'm like this, too, typically. I feel there's zero point trying to debate someone with their head screwed on wrong. (And I have to say, it's far too easy, though tempting.) They're never going to "get it" (though I suppose it is a little bit fun to watch them squirm as they hang themselves with their own, uh, ignorance rope). People who are middle-of-the-road on most issues will at least occasionally listen and even offer something thoughtful (even if I don't agree with what they're saying or their position), but it's absolutely delicious to have these kinds of conversations with smart people, those who are engaged (politically, socially, whatever), because it gets heated, yet remains respectful (at least on this board), and exposes one to a whole lot of insight into how others think and information/resources, etc. one might not already have access to.

Having said that, Jesus is just alright with me.










































(sarcastic cough)

[Jeff]

Having said that, Jesus is just alright with me.
 cough)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uSzjbYomSWA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/uSzjbYomSWA</a>

[Just Some Girl]

's'what I was thinking about when I typed that line. Seriously.

[Doctor Rock]

Having said that, Jesus is just alright with me.
 cough)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uSzjbYomSWA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/uSzjbYomSWA</a>

You probably know that, but there's a pretty good cover of that song in the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo record.   "The Christian Life" on the same record is also good for chuckles, giggles and even guffaws. 

[bebopbalogna]

jeff, dan......  i was being a bit sarcastic with the "torchbearer" comment,  so no worries.  but really, i wasn't trying to be confrontational at all and it became a bigger deal than i expected.  i'm pretty sure i'm on your side. i've actually got a word doc opened up and pasted everything i want to respond to/contribute to in one place.  whenever i get a few minutes i can add to it a bit at a time.   plus i'm adding some personal background/history so y'all get a better sense of where i'm coming from. it's gonna be more epic than anything matt ever posted.  possibly more epic than the pentateuch itself.

[Jeff]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/GN9zpf5cT0M" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/GN9zpf5cT0M</a>

And the response:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/fmHN3JtyUXg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/fmHN3JtyUXg</a>

[Doctor Rock]

Terry Pratchet on religion

It's not exactly very profound, but it's amusingly said.  Although, I must say I don't buy his "We are the consciousness of the universe" thing.