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Post by Ryzuki on Dec 23, 2012 4:16:28 GMT -5
(End of the world failed and suddenly we start talking about religion.) I wish we could all just get along. You believe what you want, I'll believe what I want, and we won't get pissed off at each other for not believing exactly the same thing someone else says we should. I just don't understand why people go nuts over that sort of thing. Fear I assume. That and most people (myself included) feel they have to be right about nearly everything. Some Need to assure others that they're wrong so they can ensure themselves that they're right. Others are afraid someone may end up in hell or whatever happens to bad people after death. (Those are the first two that come to mind anyhow.) Even if there's an afterlife that punishes or reward people based on the actions they conducted in this life, there's no real guarantee that God will favor you. True, but considering that it's all about faith, all one must do is believe that they're OK... until the end at least. Logic isn't really something you can put into this sort of topic y'know. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2012 7:22:59 GMT -5
It's not that I'm against religion in general. I think being completely anti-religious is counter-productive and over-simplifies many of the complex problems that society faces, but I also find it laughable that some people treat their personal God as some sort of cosmic Santa Claus who will reward them when they die and punish all the "bad people" they don't like. Even if there's an afterlife that punishes or reward people based on the actions they conducted in this life, there's no real guarantee that God will favor you. I apologize, I wasn't trying to be a dick, it's just that sometimes you're pretty extreme in your opinions (as am I), so I figured I'd give you some shit about it in a friendly bout of trollish behavior  . Anyway, I can totally respect what you said here (and in the post just before). The only time I get mad at people about atheism is when, as you said it, they oversimplify the world and imagine that there will be no war, disagreements, AIDS, etc. if religion went away. Humans are animals and we thrive on conflict, so we'll make up new shit if it means getting in a fight or having some stress in our lives. I know I'm like that anyway. I bitch and moan when I'm swamped at work and when I'm dealing with stupid assholes, but then I whine and complain when there's a lull and things are peaceful. I'd imagine the same thing applies at some subconscious level about war and shit. Anyway, I'm a self-loathing Catholic but I still try to respect other people when it comes to Religion and let them be. I hate debates and I hate debating something that quite frankly I'm not gonna win on because there's no physical proof to back it up. That, and pushing your beliefs makes you kind of a dick. When I was in college there was a group of southern Baptists in one of my classes that harassed me that I was going to hell (I have no idea how they found out). It went on for the whole semester, in and out of class, and it was annoying as hell. I wouldn't want to do something like that to somebody. |
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Post by Ryu the Grappler on Dec 23, 2012 13:28:47 GMT -5
Most self-identified atheists are just as obnoxious in their "lack of" beliefs as fundamentalists are in theirs. The worst thing is that people like Dawkins claim their atheism isn't like a religion at all, yet they hold atheist meetings like Christians do in their churches, they cite from the God Delusion like it was their Bible, they print public ads where they tell people it's okay to be an atheist just like Christians do and they encourage their "freethinkers" to wear a scarlet letter A like a holy cross. I think the "Atheistkult" nickname someone came up for them with is quite fitting.
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Post by Weasel on Dec 23, 2012 14:06:22 GMT -5
Well, even some self-admitted atheists I've spoken to still subscribe to some superstitions...I'm not really sure what I'd classify as, but I do at least feel that karma is a thing, and I do try not to upset that particular facet of spirituality...but in all honesty, I don't usually think about it that much, and tend to get uncomfortable when someone outright asks me whether I'm a religious or spiritual person. I suppose that's why it surprises me that I was able to hold a conversation with that barber for so long without just ducking out of the building.
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Post by Allie on Dec 23, 2012 18:43:38 GMT -5
I'm the sort of person where I can likely have a one-on-one conversation (where nobody else is going to attempt to pile on) about nearly anything, with few exceptions.
The one sort of person I've absolutely found I cannot do so with, is the type where when he knows you disagree with his ideas, opinions, and beliefs, he jumps into psycho-land and immediately starts haranguing you to defend weird psycho-land shit in some sort of "with me or against me" goalpost-moving.
Example : Tell him that you're anything except an atheist (even say you're an agnostic), he's going to extrapolate that into you being a fundamentalist fanatic and he'll start haranguing you about "Magic Mormon Underpants".
I get wanting to be right all the time and wanting to win every argument, but I'm not sure that method really counts as winning.
(Yes, I did know someone like this. They were dating a friend of mine. They might still be.)
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Post by Ike on Dec 24, 2012 6:07:51 GMT -5
Is this the 'bitch about atheists' thread now because hooboy
I think the problem in the atheist community is that atheism has been dressed up a bit into something starting to look like a specific philosophy (I won't say religion, because it isn't) by a loose connection of internet atheists and the "New Atheist" philosophers, Dawkins, Dennett, etc. I don't think this was an intentional thing, because Dawkins in particular has always stressed that atheists not be dogmatic in their beliefs.
I just don't think atheism is any kind of grounding for the sort of force people want to build it up in to. It's an empty position by definition; saying "I do not believe that there exists a God" is philosophically a very small statement, and is not incompatible with a whole slew of other beliefs regarding human rights, existence, humanity, etc. At least, it's not any more incompatible with any of those than "I believe there exists a God" is. There's no philosophy inherent in it, but then you get Dawkins trying to claim that religion causes Literally Every Bad Thing Humans Do and there's the suggestion there that an atheist world would prosper if religion were absent, but this is based entirely on the presumption that people would naturally elect into the wholly abstract ethics system of Humanism. This is unlikely; there seems to be a large section of the population who really depend on something "concrete" like a God to hold their world together, and I don't think this is something they can be reasoned out of.
I think probably the majority of atheists agree with me. The ones you guys are talking about are a small fraction of what I'd loosely call the atheist community, they're just very loud. There are a few types of atheists, and I'll let you guess which ones are giving the bad image:
1) Atheism by way of libertarianism - No don't guess it's these guys. I'm not wholly unsympathetic to libertarian philosophy, which is to say I think I understand it for the most part. There's a certain "do it yourself" attitude implicit in libertarianism that the idea of a godless world appeals to. Hence, you get the neckbeardy "philosopher" atheists who argue with everybody who professes even a vague hint of spirituality. Whenever someone makes an argument, he'll cite the specific name of the fallacy committed ("Ah, the Naturalistic Fallacy!" and then tent his fingers in front of his face) and put dramatic spins on his voice without any irony whatsoever and you just want to grab him by his greasy ponytail and fucking ch
2) Atheism by way of Christianity - the vast, vast majority of atheists you'll meet in the US. A lot of them are adults who have broken away from a strong religious upbringing and are going through the transition to varying degrees. Often times they will be people who have only recently broken away from a church they were miserable at and are still on a high of talking about why God isn't real with people who are parroting the exact same thing back at them. Others are people who fell away as teenagers and have retained some aspects of their faith as they've gotten older. I think this comprises the largest segment of actual atheists and agnostics. These people are fine, but you don't tend to meet them because they don't talk about their (lack of) belief to everyone they meet like jackasses.
So basically I'm afraid the atheist community is going to come to be represented more by the former than the latter type.
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Post by Allie on Dec 24, 2012 8:18:02 GMT -5
Honestly, I can't say either of those really 100% describes that person in particular. He's a bit of Type 2 AND a bit of Dawkins.
But I wouldn't say he considers himself part of a "community" as far as that's concerned. I certainly never got that impression from him. He didn't seem to be the "movement" type (so far as I could tell, the only 'cause' he was any passionate about was legalizing weed).
So it's not really my intention to say that he's an indictment of any non-believer or what have you, just to point out what kind of 'wtf'-ery he specifically tended to engage in, as a person.
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Post by Ike on Dec 24, 2012 8:20:50 GMT -5
Yeah, I was just thinking more generally. It's hard to say there's an atheist "community" in the same way you'd say there's a Christian or liberal community. More like a general trend among people who tend to think this way.
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Post by Allie on Dec 24, 2012 8:39:50 GMT -5
Honestly, getting away from the Atheism thing for a moment here, the person I know who's probably pissing me off the worst right now is someone who has the attitude of "I wish everybody older than me would all drop dead at once, because then the world would be perfect just the way I think it should be."
...there are ALL SORTS of problems that'd come with that.
But hey, I guess at least he'd be the oldest person on Earth.
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Post by Super Orbus on Dec 24, 2012 11:10:20 GMT -5
So basically I'm afraid the atheist community is going to come to be represented more by the former than the latter type. Not unlike the religious community. It's the annoying, vocal minority that comes to represent the whole. |
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Post by Scylla on Dec 24, 2012 12:03:37 GMT -5
The problem is that atheism by definition is a very arrogant outlook. Agnostics accept possibilities, but atheists, by definition, must be confident in their belief that God doesn't exist. It's the same with fully confident religious people. It takes a level of arrogance beyond that which I personally possess to be so confident in something that you KNOW is not provable one way or the other. Unfortunately, a lot of religion is corrupted and misguided, and somewhere along the way, some people have been led to believe that faith = confidence. If anything, that's the exact opposite of what faith is supposed to be. Faith is supposed to be believing in spite of doubt. That's why God values belief, because man has free will and can choose to not believe. There's no value in the faith of mindless, brainwashed sheep. If you look at many of the most respected figures in religion, time and time again, you'll hear of them having intense periods of doubt, even people like Mother Teresa. Whether somebody does believe in God or believes that God doesn't exist, I think everyone would be better off if they were a bit more humble and accepting of the possibility that one could be wrong.
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Post by Allie on Dec 25, 2012 1:02:44 GMT -5
When people are desperate to believe a completely made up bullshit story about you because they just get too much schadenfreude out of it to believe that somebody could have lied to them.
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Dec 27, 2012 1:40:01 GMT -5
Honestly, getting away from the Atheism thing for a moment here, the person I know who's probably pissing me off the worst right now is someone who has the attitude of "I wish everybody older than me would all drop dead at once, because then the world would be perfect just the way I think it should be." ...there are ALL SORTS of problems that'd come with that. But hey, I guess at least he'd be the oldest person on Earth. The thing I find amusing about those kind of people is that they generally don't want to include all old people "Like what about that old actor you like? And your 2 sets of grand parents?" "Oh they're excluded OF COURSE, but the rest..." "Yes, right...  " |
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Post by Allie on Dec 27, 2012 13:19:18 GMT -5
Internet White Knights that have to come flying in and accuse you of bigotry if you have a negative opinion of someone (or some fictional character) who isn't a Hetero White Male, or even just of the works of someone who isn't (ie: a movie, TV show, etc.).
Mostly for the assumption that they suddenly think they can play Psychoanalyst and pick apart someone's brain just from that, without really knowing a person at all.
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Post by Resident Tsundere on Dec 28, 2012 22:40:02 GMT -5
I hate how hope seeps into everything I do, when there's none for me. I guess it's a typical human trait.
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Even if there's an afterlife that punishes or reward people based on the actions they conducted in this life, there's no real guarantee that God will favor you.
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