Atheist Arrogance? Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . 17 NEXT | |
ARGH. This is the kind of thing that drives the agnostic part of my agnostic theism absolutely batty. Even if we concede that the man's hip bone was miraculously reconstructed with no medical explanation, how do you not see how much conclusion-hopping is required to get from that to it being positive evidence of the intervention of the Christian God? Maybe there was a perfectly plausible naturalistic explanation for it, and we don't have the science to understand it yet? Science is growing and changing in understanding every day, in enormously shifting ways; it's not a static process. We didn't have the science to understand the germ theory of disease at one point, we put that down to demonic activity. We understand it now. But even if there isn't, even in the most sci-fi technologically advanced culture ever imagined, any scientific explanation for what happened to the dude's hip, it's still not evidence that your god did it! Look at all the miracles attributed to Guadalupe-- maybe that's simply Tonantzin caring for Her people. Your people have taken over so many sacred sites that were sacred before you ever had anything to do with it, why would you automagically assume that anything positive that happens there is your God's work and not the work of the powers that were already a part of that place? You don't see anything fantastically arrogant about that assumption? That none of this before-stuff was real, so therefore if it can't be explained by current or past science, it's your god at work? You don't Know. Neither do I, neither does anybody else. You believe, and that's fine *for you*. It's evidence *for you*, because spirituality is an experiential process, and this explanation is sufficient for your own individual filters. That's not, IMO, something I think can be gainsaid. But it's not evidence in an empirical sense at ALL. | |
To respond to the OP; come on.... There's no such thing as atheist arrogance. There is however such a thing as the truth of what atheism means, upsetting hypersensitive religious people who demand that the myths they believe in not be criticised, receive taxpayer's money to promote and receive special protection, and a lot more. And that is their problem. They choose to believe in a religion, they deal with the consequences. The rest of it is a response to injustice and attacks on atheist. Atheists receive less protection than religious people in most countries. More insults are allowed towards them, in some countries even downright slander. A few countries like the US, even attacks and physical violence against atheists are allowed. Even though the law somewhat states assault is a crime, there was a deeply depressing case where a Muslim assaulted an atheist, and got acquitted in court by a judge who clearly reasoned "He's an atheist. Beating up those is fine". And more. Blasphemy laws are still enforced, sadly. Someone who was harassed by evangelicals at metal concerts made a poster of a burning church and hung it in his own living room. Police officers of questionable integrity walked into his garden, saw the sign and fined him € 250 for it. It held in a lower court. He really should've appealed, but it's insane in the first place you need to go to a court of appeals in order to not be persecuted by religious zealots and get your right to live your life in peace. Also churches have acces to the population registry here. Meaning that if you pack up and leave, they can check that, legally (nobody outside of police officials and the government has acces normally) and track you down to harass you about needing to go to church. And that goes very far. My wife and I were terrorised for months on end with harassing e-mails, phonecalls about that she needed to be saved. I myself was shunned pretty heavily when I left the church. It culminated in the church elder busting into our house when I was out, to try and intimidate my wife. I had to rush home and physically remove him. Undergoing that sort of stuff tends to make people a bit defensive. That is absolutely normal. Got complaints about atheists? Please take it up with the religious zealots who cause the hostile climate.
That's not trolling. What it says on that sign is less strongly worded than what's true, and really positively worded. Yet, religious intolerance was so vast and so strong that even such a sign became controversial and they started raising money for evangelical signs. Thus, the sign campaign which observed there is nog god reached its goal, namely of showing how closedminded and intolerant religious people are; you can't even run an ad campaign which states fact, without them getting upset.
Lol, evidence for gods existance... Anyway, don't play stupid. You know very well where the default stance lies, and that's that mythological things don't exist untill their existance is proven. You yourself even follow that stance in all things, except perhaps the god of your religion. Not really a strong argument to make if you yourself don't even support it. | |
You don't know why some guy is reported to have been cured of a condition that he allegedly had. This is evidence of nothing other than that shit sometimes happens. It is not an unambiguous miracle in any sense even if the reports are taken at face value. Sometimes people recover from tumors (tumors are not something programmed with an intention of killing or damaging anyone-- that's just what they tend to do; tumors are not some metaphysically different entity from other cells, they are just a human-made category of certain kinds of cell behavior.) Bones are likewise known to recover from injuries. The likelihood of it happening as well as reported in any individual case is probably quite small, but there are millions of people who pilgrimage to Lourdes and report absolutely no 'miraculous' effects whatsoever. That one of them might have made a few lucky saving throws in succession while recovering from a tumor is neither amazing nor miraculous. The probability of rolling four 1s on four six-sided dies is 1/1296. That's pretty low. Throw four six-sided dies a million times however and you'll see four 1s pop up many times-- likely more than 700 times-- even though the probability is quite low. But there is selection bias. How many articles could be written about some guy who went to Lourdes and nothing of note happened? Why write an article about something so commonplace? Frankly, we should expect weird things to happen in sample sizes so large. | |
To my knowledge there have been no controlled cases. It's always a vague claim about being ill which can't be controlled, or a claim the cure was caused by a miracle after medical treatment was applied and fixed the problem, or it just wasn't observed at all. Like that soldier who supposedly had a malign tumor: Where's the documentation of his diagnosis? Where's the 2nd opinion? A better explanation is that five months in a cast will heal a pelvic fracture. | |
Sometimes. Maybe not even that many times. But there is selection bias. That's the really important part. | |
Perhaps just as big an issue as the evidence is the assertion that he knows the truth of WHY. Even if the miracle were to be true, it wouldn't mean that God exists, especially not in the form proposed by the author. Should this miracle be true, it would be just as sensible to thank any of the possible deities, or perhaps Gaia herself. There's no reason it must be the Abrahamic God. A miraculous healing event further doesn't mean that all the rest of the dogma is true: someone getting better doesn't suddenly mean the Sabbath is a holy day, that we can't sleep with certain individuals or that there is a doctrine about what position in which we sleep with them, nor that an old book is suddenly legitimate. | |
Considering the implications of "Jesus saves" ("...or else!"[1]), I couldn't disagree with you more. But you're right, it doesn't really matter. I'm just saying that perceived Atheist arrogance - to me - seems to largely be reactionism against anything contradicting majority opinion, no matter how tame it really is. Dawkins even put a freaking qualifier ("probably") in there, he can't really defuse it more than that without avoiding Atheism - the point of the banner - altogether.
Look at that, I wasn't even aware of that part of the story. I mean, it was very obvious that it was a reaction to such Christian billboards in general, but I didn't realize it was more specific than that. Thanks for pointing out the context. [1] EDIT: Actually, I just saw that Polarity27 went far more into detail on this in post 71 than I did here, so check that paragraph for the general idea. As for her mentioning other religious groups standing "on the side lines": That's why I think talking about secularization is more important than promoting Atheism in itself. And that is something everybody (including secular-minded Christians) can work on. | |
I think that's the root of this whole "you're wrong" discussion. Atheism, pretty much by definition, is saying that the religious are wrong. If you strive to remove any hint of that from an advert in the hope of avoiding offending anyone, then you won't end up with an advert at all. And yeah, i agree with the whole "jesus saves" thing. These kind of ads, and the arrogance of them depends almost entirely upon a persons preconceived opinion. A religious person will see "jesus saves" and see a lovely message of support and outreach to those less fortunate, and an irreligious person will see a message basically stating that they are, in their current lifestyle, scum. Likewise, religious people will see an atheist ad and perceive it as insulting their intelligence, and an irreligious person will see them as simply stating a fact. And that's why I hate almost all of these types of ads. When has anyone, ever, altered their (ir)religious behaviour or viewpoint on a line or two of text that goes past them on a buss or billboard? There is no point to any of these, with the exception maybe of the support-for-minorities type (like the American atheists one). As for the OP: Yep, there most certainly are atheists dicks. We all know this, and you'd be a fool to suggest otherwise. However, it's good to compare how these dicks act with their religious counterparts. Excluding the absolute crazies on both sides (Atheists who think all religious people should be round up and shot, and violent religious extremists), just about the worst you'll get from an atheist is a series of expletives, and some insults to your intelligence. Compare this with the religious dicks, who generally go to hell as their threat of choice. the sentiments behind those two are extremely different, and one is clearly far worse than the other. It's that sort of thing that prevents me from being close friends with highly religious people. I simply can't act normally, and comfortably, knowing that this person thinks that I will be tortured for eternity, and is okay enough with that to act normally. | |
Example: D&D enthousiasts being so annoyed by evangelicals that they created the slogan "Jesus saves and only takes half damage"
Although you could probably find a few hundred Christians who take offense to that. | |
I would, too. Why would Jesus use a mace rather than magic?! If you give him a weapon, at least have him use a long lance! Get it? | |
We're arrogant? Which group are the ones that think that the all-powerful creator of the universe pays attention to their lives and intervenes on their behalf, again? I'm so tired of this "atheist bullies" nonsense. The godless represent a tiny, tiny minority in the world. A minority that only very recently has the tools and license to express itself; until very recently, voicing one's atheism carried with it major risks to career and personal safety. Or to put it another way:
Don't mistake confidence for arrogance. | |
I actually have someone like that at my work. He is extemely religious (to the point of possessing no TV and no video. He does have computers and internet though.) I was talking with him about the pope stepping down, and he asked me if I was Catholic. My response was "Technically, I am Lutheran, but its more complicated than that. Long story short, I believe that all religions pray to the same God and he doesnt take sides." His response? "Soooooo.......your a Liberal?" You have seen me post on here. You know the opinions I have. I have a question: How accurate is it to call me a Liberal? Because I had to restrain myself from laughing when he said that. OT: I think that the Atheist that make fools of themselves and are Anti-Theistic are just the vocal minority, like WBC. I personally dont have a problem with athiest; hell, I have friends from just about every major religion except Islam[1]. So long as they arent being an ass I dont give a damn what thier religion or lack thereof is. [1] Namely, one is Southern Baptist of the moderate flavor, One is still soul searching but has a sister that is Wiccan, two are extremely religious Lutherans of the tolerance variety, one is a religious bisexual (her church accepts her though), one is what I call a "Midwestern Athiest" (namely, she says she is athiest, but she believes in God and just doesnt have a religion), one I have no idea but I think she is Catholic, I already explain above, and my girlfriend comes from a catholic family that didnt have her baptized so she could choose her religion, and she believes that there is a God and Devil, but that there is no Heaven or Hell and we walk the Earth as ghost after we die. | |
Arrogance is universal. In this exact case it doesn't seem arrogant. However, I've definitely ran into atheist who are such arrogant assholes that I would just refuse to breach the subject. The same goes for some few religious people I've met, though they tend to be less belligerent and, ironically, holier then thou art in their discussions with me. There is never an excuse to be rude; when you are rude, when you debase yourself with cries of 'they did it to us', you become no better then the thing you profess to fight against. | |
I'll keep that in mind when I'm burning people at the stake. | |
There's a lot wrong with that assumption, both on an individual level as on a collective level. For one thing atheist rudeness is just a response to being oppressed, harassed, attacked and belittled by various religious groups. There's no indication that suggests it would exist if religious groups collectively, could behave. | |
Oh, sorry, you're quite right. I'll keep it in mind when I'm beating up and jailing people and merely calling for their execution. http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/calls-to-behead-indonesian-atheist-alexander-aan/495308 There is nothing worse than rudeness. | |
I never said that, did I? No, I did not in fact. What I said was there is no EXCUSE to be rude. But of course that means that being rude is the worse possible thing a person can be. Except it's not, it's really not. Holding someone to something they actually did is one thing; being rude is something else. Ghandi overthrew an imperialistic control over his country without violence, and without rudeness. He may have been a racist, but at least he wasn't rude, and he preached non-violence. | |
Well atheists are only about as arrogant as you can be when holding the most reasonable position. I think that gives a fair bit of leeway, like how it's hard to be arrogant towards creationists, or someone who thinks the Earth is flat. I mean, even the latter is possible if you throw in a ton of extra assumptions, particularly supernatural ones. Because in the end, theists have no evidence. Witty Name Here is utterly incorrect to think there is, even if there were a miracle(and he hasn't provided references for these miracles he talks about to see who is actually confirming them and how) it isn't evidence of a deity, for all we know aliens could be doing it for laughs. Now some may say that then we have to be agnostic, but quite frankly we don't act that way towards other ideas with no evidence. I leave my house despite the possibility that I'd be abducted by aliens if I do so, I breathe even though maybe the air will suddenly turn into poison gas, etc. I mean you can't disprove they'll happen anymore than you can disprove a deity because 'supernatural' means that anything can happen. But in the end they have no evidence either and it seems no one demands you be agnostic about those. | |
Gandhi? It's funny you'd bring that guy up, because he was major arsehole. Being heavily racist was about the least of his vices. The man really should be separated from the myth. | |
That in no way effects my point about rudeness, at all. If you want to be the good guy, you can't do bad guy things. You want sympathy for your 'plight', you hold yourself to a higher standard then the people you profess to be better then. | |
In the case of atheists that higher standard definately seems to be happening. Not that that is very difficult, of course. You'd need to work day and night on being an arsehole to be able to match the things religions have done. | |
From my point of view? The score is even. Considering that over 80% of the world identifies itself as religious, Atheist have to be better then breaking even. Religion has had longer to be a major force, give it a thousand years and the horrors commited in the name of 'atheism' will probably begin to even out; that's how humanity works. It still does not excuse you to be rude; nothing, I repeat this, NOTHING does. Dignity in the face of overwhelming odds makes you better then an enemy without dignity who wins. And rudeness doesn't help you win, it just doesn't, so why not be the better person and catch the better PR? | |
Then at the very least we need to see atheists introducing hardcore oppression of religious people, murders, assaults, systematic hatespeech, rape and a few other questionable practises being waged by atheists, against religious people, over differences in regards to religion. I may be biased but I've never seen atheists do any of that.
Because, to paraphrase comedians Lebbis&Jansen, it's much more fun when it's blasphemous. | |
Above: Rudeness. There's no excuse for it, Bentus.
That's some incredible mathematics there. As I said before; I've never been accosted and physically threatened on the train by an atheist before. I've never had an atheist come around to my house and tell me how "unfortunate" I am, on the basis of my beliefs, in their very most condescending tone. Seriously; what people do in the name of atheism boils down to argument, publishing a few books, campaigning against religious influence in politics and education. You really want to square that against prejudice and discrimination, sectarian violence, covering up of sexual abuse on a ludicrous scale? You want to square that against the beatings and hangings of religious law? The Pope's statement that condoms spread venereal disease? To be clear: I'm not saying that atheists are never violent, never discriminate. That would be clearly untrue. But it is far, far, far less often done in the name of atheism. Forgive me if the above can be construed as "rudeness". After all, there are far worse things. | |
Since when must I profess to be better than anyone? I didn't get that memo. | |
thats missing the point of the what, how & why God is operating in this day & age. belief in God isnt called "proof", its called faith, & for good reason. God isnt interested in our ability to be convinced by irrefutable proof. & why would he. | |
So, basically "mysterious ways"? Then don't expect anybody to be convinced when you tell them about your god. Why would anybody listen to your anecdotal evidence over the anecdotal evidence of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans etc.? But it's okay as long as you don't try to convince anybody else. | |
It's classic inferiority syndrome. I am an atheist and I'll even admit to it, although I make a point to not be overly aggressive in religious discussions. Christianity has had over 2000 years to solidify its hold on society, often in the most cruel and inhumane ways imagineable. Many many Christians today still carry the aggression that led up to these acts. So now we have this upstart minority of people who choose not to believe in anything but are very vocal in ensuring that neither their rights nor their person is trampled on by the overwhelming majority. We are easy to feel threatened because hate speech can quickly lead to hate acts so our defenses are always up. Can you blame us? | |
I'd hazard a guess and say that because he supposedly loves us, and knows that we will not accept his existence without irrefutable proof. And if he doesn't provide us with that proof, we'll be tortured for eternity. Usually if someone loves you, it would be expected that they would try and prevent you being tortured. Not just throw their arms up, say "meh", and let it happen. | |
Why would a cleric/carpenter hybrid class use lance? | |
Nah, I'm saying he shouldn't use weapons. | |
I apologise if this post is slightly rambling and hard to decipher, I have an awful case of the 'flu right now and my brain is kind of treacly (but if I do not respond now I will forget, and I am really bored after nearly 2 days in bed).
The linked sources state exactly which groups were behind the initial bus adverts, and then the response-to-the-response adverts.
This seems utterly irrelevant to either your post or mine. The history of the Church has nothing to do with this, unless we are talking about entrenched conservative dogma within those institutions.
So because one religion treated another religion like shit ad nauseam (The Romans - who were not atheists - and the Christians, then the Christians and the other Christians) it is fine for Christians to put out adverts with a message of "all non-Christians would burn in hell for all eternity" and to encourage "gay conversion therapy" that is banned in many countries for being a pseudo-scientific excuse for abuse? Also, it can be argued that the early Jews and Christians sort of deserved the level of crack-down that Roman society enacted upon them for nigh-on terrorist acts disturbing the civic peace. Was it a barbaric and uncivilised response? Yeah, but that is the ancient world for you. The Romans were quite good at dealing with other religious groups (whether subsuming them into their own pantheon or letting believers be), so one has to wonder why the Christians earned such ire. It is very interesting from a historical point of view, much like the schisms of Christianity forming the major denominations of today, but likewise is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
I'm not - I am judging Christians who express outcry over the "offensive and arrogant" remark that "there is probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", yet see absolutely nothing wrong with outright offensive adverts posted both first and in response. You claim that the atheist advert is offensive and arrogant as it is asserting there is no god (even though it uses the qualifier "probably" rather than making a definitive statement) - yet the responses are "there IS a God, BELIEVE" and "There definitely is a God" and labelling all non-believers as "fools" are totally not making any sort of definitive statement and couldn't possibly be offensive and/or arrogant?
Nor did I, and I was condemning the Christian community directly related to the adverts themselves, and how the "atheist bus campaign" is often misrepresented as being an uncalled for attack on religion when it was a direct response to a very hateful message contained in previous advertising. I did, however, say that it comes as no surprise that some Atheists have a reflexive and (to some it may appear as) arrogant or offensive response, when many religions (and not just Christianity, hence why I said faith groups) condemn them to eternal torment or view them as something "imperfect" to be changed. That is not excusing the behaviour.
No I am not, I explicitly stated that the Atheists are annoying, arrogant, haughty and I wished they would not be as it stifles discussion - that is hardly arguing that one group is better than the other.
So it doesn't matter who started it, but I can blame the Romans? ;) You say that atheists should stop dealing out the negativity, but how is "Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" a negative message? Particularly when compared to either implicit messages in "Jesus saves" or explicit messages like "all non-Christians would burn in hell for all eternity"? If we were to agree that the Atheist bus advert is "negativity" then the only way any Atheist views would be expressed would be either accepting itself subservient to a religious "normality" (and ergo being "abnormal") or not expressed at all. After all, any expression that someone's faith/deity may be wrong/in-existent will be seen as an arrogant and offensive remark by them (and thus negativity), so the only way for atheism to avoid such negativity is to not express itself at all. | |
In the year 2013 if you are an atheist in Afghanistan, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Sudan the law demands that you be put to death. There's also this:
You're telling people not to be rude by calling them douchebags. Legit. | |
| Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . 17 NEXT | |
This is really fascinating to me, from a third-party observer point of view. I don't know how to do this without pissing you off, but there's just so much unexamined privilege going on in how you and Witty are responding to these ads. Yes, it's saying you're wrong. So what? How is that "condemning" or "shaming" anyone? Everyone gets to be told they're wrong about something, all the time, and shrugs it off. People have opinions, sometimes they differ. That ad isn't saying anyone religious is stupid, it simply says "there probably isn't a god". You think "there probably is a god", so why should it matter to you that there are people out there who think otherwise?
Seriously, think about it for a minute. I think you're both feeling defensive because telling *you* you're wrong is just not *done*. Christianity feels that it's due a certain amount of automatic deference. "Don't believe in God? You're not alone" is inoffensive to you not because it's passive, but because it doesn't threaten your majority. Minorities seeking each other's company is nonthreatening. "There probably isn't a God" is the atheist putting himself forward as your equal, and putting his opinion out there baldly without couching it in deferential language. And this pisses you off, makes you feel attacked, and puts you on the defensive. You aren't used to other philosophies and other faiths treating themselves as your equals, and it upsets you-- otherwise you'd shrug it off like any other instance of "you're wrong" encountered on an average day.
You think "Jesus Saves" is a passive, positive message because you don't question the assumptions behind it, you accept them and see them as correct and don't have to think about it from the point of view of someone who doesn't. That the world is fallen and full of sin and iniquity, and that it, and everyone on it, are in need of salvation. That there is no salvation *without* Jesus Christ, and therefore those who do not accept him are doomed. It's not a passive message at all, really. It's saying, in the coded language of your religion, "you are mired in evil of your own making and you cannot help yourselves, you cannot and should not survive without bending your knee to our truth and accepting our way as your own". That's really not a passive message at all, it's a big ol' "YOU'RE WRONG" to everyone who doesn't agree with those assumptions, and it comes backed up with all the institutional power Christianity holds.
Christianity, in gaming terms, is a lvl 80 with top tier gear yelling "YOU'RE ALL WRONG!" with a permanent, deafening, megawatt bullhorn +100. Atheism is a lvl 2 trotting out there with a bullhorn they had to pool all the guild's credits for, on a week-long cooldown, and not +anything, yelling "NO, YOU'RE LIKELY TO BE WRONG!" And the response of the lvl 80 in the awesome kitted-out epic gear? Is to feel attacked and threatened. If it's not because the lvl 2 has the temerity to think his voice is equal, I can't imagine what it is, because the power is *so* asymmetrically lopsided in your favor.
(For what it's worth, the response of assorted non-Christian religious to that sort of message, and to every Christian vs. Atheist debate, is a bit of an eye-roll. The Pagan looks at the Hindu, the Taoist, the Buddhist, and the Vodouisante and says "look at 'em. At it again. It's like they don't even know we're in the ROOM. What, have we got a stealth field generator coming out our assholes?" The Hindu shakes her head and looks at the Jew and the Muslim, and says "dude, at least they come up for air once in a while and actually remember you two exist!" To which the Muslim says "yeah, but I only get to exist so they can both say how awful my culture is", and the Jew says "and listen to the Atheist going on about 'Judeo-Christian', like Christians actually recognize that they took all their stuff from us. As if! They both only know I'm there for about a half-second, then I'm as invisible as the rest of you." That we're all wrong is the only thing that both the Christians and the Atheists agree on, and we're used to it.)