(June 12, 2012 at 10:19 pm)Shell B Wrote: Really, Aiza, you're going to have to provide proof that a single atheist extremist has ever existed. Atheism is not the belief that people who are not atheist are somehow less than you. However, Christianity is precisely that.

Christianity is not "precisely that" at all, Christianity is precisely following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who explicitly called for non-violent approaches, with neither he nor his Apostles killing others while in Ministry. Christianity has fuckall to do with anything except for following the teachings of Christ. Any reasoning you can use to justify the double standard can just as easily be flipped the other way around.

It is easily demonstrable that those with the attitude of "I'm going to kill everyone who is not atheist, if I can get away with it." exist (even more if we replace "kill" with "suppress"). Calling it "atheist extremism" makes sense given the earlier definitions you yourself posited for what differentiates a belief from an "extreme" belief. Perhaps you would have used a different phrase for "I'm going to kill everyone who is not an atheist, if I can get away with it"? What phrase do you think would be better, Shell B? Either way, I don't think calling this particular 20th century phenomenon "atheist extremism" is "intolerant" of atheists or whatever. I'll show you real intolerance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in...st_Albania

Read and pretend that all the religious in this history were atheist and all the atheists were religious. Would you feel intolerant calling it "religious extremism"? Religion itself is "a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values". Meaning "religion" probably has less holding it together than "atheism" does, but somehow I doubt that these atheist blogs would have much of a problem with that phrase.

(June 12, 2012 at 10:19 pm)Shell B Wrote: Answer this, Izzy. What is the difference between Catholicism and a cult?

It depends on what you mean by "cult". If you mean "a system of religious devotion" then there is no real difference, if you mean "a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister", then we aren't really "relatively small" no matter how "strange" or "sinister" you might think we are

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(June 12, 2012 at 10:16 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Perhaps you like to think that this is splitting hairs in a silly way because to think otherwise would force you to confront the nastiness of the history of faith and the faithful?

What? Huh? We are talking about the history of atheistic ideologies. The history of "the faithful" (lol what?) hasn't even come up here.

If anything, I think this strange nitpicking and constant double standards are ways that others avoid confronting the nasty history of atheists in the West.

Quote:Yes, I am actively opposed to the very idea of god , gods, the godly, etc. How do you propose I go about being in "active opposition" to theism without rejecting the very idea of the godly

What? Because "the godly" refers to "devoutly religious; pious" and not so much to "something I dislike which I can connect somehow to gods in a roundabout way". Good for you that you are actively opposed to everyone who is devoutly religious. But if you start saying Stalin is "godly" because he's powerful and God is powerful to so therefore antitheists also are against Stalin, wellll...no.

Quote:Why do you imagine that it would be fair to say that? Your churches body count reads like a demons resume.

Does it really? It pales in comparison to the secular governments of the time.
Either way, we have a 2000 year old history, and one atheist known. That is pretty few and far between.

Quote:Bolding mine, misdirection yours.

Um what? Yeah thats some good bolding you did there, Rhythm. Too bad you have no scientific evidence of any NRMs or religious movements using "brainwashing" and your bolding does nothing to change that fact.

Quote:Wait..wait, so is there "brainwashing" or isn't there? Bullying is not the only way to manipulate a person, and I;d wager that among all possible ways to manipulate a person, it's the least reliable.

Brainwashing/Mind control refers specifically to unethical forms of manipulation (which are also to the detriment of the individual). It has happened in the past, but the point stands that no one actively converted me to Catholicism: not through bullying and not through more kindly persuasions either.

As for if there is brainwashing at all--its pretty tenuous to say the least. Its a very theoretical sort of concept without a lot of scientific backing, though people who do believe in brainwashing say that's just because the scientific community has blacklisted it.

Quote:Godwin.

What. Godwin doesn't mean what you think it does.

Do you find comfort in being obtuse?

A religion is a whole plethora of beliefs. Atheism is a single disbelief. Before I delve into that, I would like you to use the actual definition of cult to form your answer instead of making up your own. Time is precious. Try to not to mince words.

Okay, so here's your precious Jesus, leading by example.

Quote:Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.Matthew 10:34
I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.Luke 12:49-51

Where's the double standard you speak of? Atheists have no holy book filled with contradictions and orders by a supposed deity who is far from blameless. There are no clueless followers who spout utter lies to protect their ignorance. There are no bullshitters who are supposedly training to becomes sisters but spend their time on atheist forums repeating back swears and spewing emoticons with their tongues sticking out because they think the tripe they spew is clever.

For your benefit, I hope you are a poe. Otherwise, you're just another "good" Christian.

EM dash spaces, please. It makes my brain hurt.

The worst athiests I meet are usually smug superior bastards. And 1 sociopath. But thats's still a lot better than the bad christians i've met. Excluding the sociopath, but that's a separate issue altogether.

(June 4, 2012 at 5:07 pm)Aiza Wrote: Here is a direct link to the pdf study on personality:
http://ns6.ucl.ac.be/cps/ucl/doc/psyreli...iBFive.pdf

You know this article doesn't distinguish between atheists and people who don't go to church much, yet you keep throwing it at us. If you applied the same critical thinking to your sources that you do to mine, you'd stop using it. Please take this on board: the vast majority of people who don't go to church much are theists. Atheists who don't go to church much are a small subset of the people who don't go to church. You don't have adequate justification to make conclusions about atheists, even unchurched atheists, based on this study; anymore than if you knew Norwegians don't go to church much and you used this study to claim that Norwegians are more likely to be psychotic.

What I would like to know is what is an atheist here? Some one who doesn't go to church or some one who does not follow the theistic mind set?

Someone who isn't a theist. Apparently though, being atheists was the single most signficant thing about totalitarian communists.

Remember her sideways dodge with the label "irreligious." LOL.

(June 13, 2012 at 8:53 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: You know this article doesn't distinguish between atheists and people who don't go to church much, yet you keep throwing it at us.

The last time I "threw it" at anyone was over a week ago, and it was specifically in response to Epi's denial that religious people (not "theist" people) had better self-control, etc. than irreligious people, when science shows otherwise.

Go back to the posts and look for yourself. It centers around religion, not theism.

Edit: Also, needless to say that the personality study uses a wide range of measures of religiosity (Section 2.2), most of which are internal and not external, and church attendance is not one of them. Church attendance usually plays a larger role in some of the health studies, where it explains up to half (though not all) of the gap.

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Shell B Wrote:A religion is a whole plethora of beliefs. Atheism is a single disbelief.

But if we were to lump together all religious, we would find they hold absolutely no beliefs all in common, whereas atheism holds that disbelief in common (or it should, though I don't want to bring back up that Pew Forum poll).

Either way "I believe X and I will kill all others who disagree" can be seen as an extremist position.

Quote:Before I delve into that, I would like you to use the actual definition of cult to form your answer instead of making up your own. Time is precious. Try to not to mince words.

Both definitions of cult I gave were straight out of the dictionary. They are the "actual definitions", and were not "my own".

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cult&tbs=dfn:1

Quote:Okay, so here's your precious Jesus, leading by example.

Yes, a metaphor in which he uses sword to represent generational divide, which is expressly non-literal given many other sayings in the book and in others which note that violence is not permissable for a Christian. (Including one where the Apostles try to take him literally when he mentions a sword in the context of conflict between Christians and society and he has to snap at them).

Furthermore, if we are talking about Catholics specifically, we don't interpret the Bible for ourselves (its actually pretty expressly forbidden). A better guide to Catholic beliefs is the CCC which incorporates all relevant scripture passages, Ecumenical and particular councils and synods, professions of Faith, Pontifical and Ecclesiastical documents, Canon law, liturgy and writings from the Saints into one definitive book of Catholicism. If you look more closely specifically at Part 3, Section 2, Article 5 of the CCC you will find that yes, murder is totally unjustifiable under the Catholic religion. Who knew?

Quote:Atheists have no holy book filled with contradictions and orders by a supposed deity who is far from blameless.

Wait what? You don't need one. What an oddly specific requirement you have in order to call something "extremist". All of religious don't share a single holy book, but you'd still let the phrase "religious extremism" slide. Catholic dogma expressly forbids any sort of violence. You still think that "I am a Catholic and will kill anyone who disagrees" is "Extremist Catholicism", when an extremist Catholic actually needs to go against Catholic beliefs; whereas it is intolerant to say that "I am an atheist and I will kill anyone who disagrees" is "extremist atheism" in spite of the fact that nothing within atheism precludes this behavior.

You never gave a good phrase or term which could be used in replace of "extremist atheism" either.

Quote:There are no clueless followers who spout utter lies to protect their ignorance. There are no bullshitters who are supposedly training to becomes sisters but spend their time on atheist forums repeating back swears and spewing emoticons with their tongues sticking out because they think the tripe they spew is clever.

Oh geez. There are plenty of clueless atheists, I promise you. And no, I am not "training to become a sister". I want to become a sister. You don't start any sort of "training" process until you've already entered a community.

I apologize if my repeating back "a swear" offends you, that certainly was not my intention. My intention was to expressly point out how your own statements wrt atheism can be flipped. I hardly use the smilie because I think I am being "clever" just by stating a few easily searchable facts, but just because I think they are cute and fun. I'll try to refrain from using it with you from now on.

"Either way "I believe X and I will kill all others who disagree" can be seen as an extremist position."

And this has what to do with your contention that atheists have killed in the name of atheism? Red herring.

I fail to see how the Big 5 is a solid piece of evidence, lol, it's a personality quiz, nothing more.

Also, I have issue with the phrasing of the statement, "better self-control"... Wouldn't participation in risk-taking behaviors be a little less emotionally charged?