(September 7, 2014 at 12:24 pm)Chuck Wrote:

(September 7, 2014 at 11:28 am)Dolorian Wrote: Recently came across this article which I think is relevant to the OP: Atheists, Please Stop Saying These Things

In brief here are the nine things the article mentions (see the article for more detail on each):

1. Please stop saying that “we’re all born atheist.” .

2. Please stop trotting out simplistic reasons why people believe (ie. they just believe because they are afraid of dying).

3. On a related note, please stop explaining the creation of religion in equally simplistic ways. (ie. religion was created to control people).

4. Stop conflating fundamentalism or Biblical literalism with Christianity itself.

5. Please stop saying that being religious means someone is stupid.

6. “Religion is a mental illness” or “religion is a virus.”

7. That if you call yourself an agnostic you’re really just a wimpy atheist who won’t commit or who doesn’t have the courage of their convictions.

8. Tax the churches! Churches are tax-exempt under the same section of the IRS code as the FFRF, ACLU, Americans United and American Atheists.

9. “The founding fathers were all deists” (or worse, atheists).

Why?

1. Um if you have no god claim in your head that is like an empty glass. "Atheist" does not to some atheists means "no god" but all of us are "empty" as far as god claims when we are born.

2. Theist certainly do not have to be afraid of dying and can be quite brave in defending a falsehood. But they are psychologically unaware that it is an attempt to defend the idea being infinite when the truth is we are finite. It is not so much a fear of dying as much as it is a fear of being finite.

3. No religion was not invented to control people, but group survival does set up social orders and those social orders do become political, so religion does control people.

4. Why not? Liberals do not understand the context of when those books were written and civility is because they water it down. The literalists DO NOT water it down.

5. If you are claiming the Yankees wont the Superbowl you are stupid, there is no polite way to put it.

6. This one depends. Humans can have mental illness that leads to bad claims. But religion itself is a result of gap filling, but to say it cannot spread like a virus is absurd, otherwise people would not indoctrinate their kids or switch from one religion to another. I used to poo poo Dakwins meme theory. I would translate that into mere marketing and marketing even when lacking facts, unfortunately can and does work.

7. You cannot simply be an agnostic. You can be a theist or agnostic theist, or an atheist or an agnostic atheist, but you cannot simply be agnostic because the word is a qualifying word and not a position itself.

8. Yes tax them if they break the law. Otherwise stay the fuck out of politics.

9. I agree, they were not all deists but many of them were and someone like Jefferson if he ran today could not run on the Republican ticket having called himself a Unitarian and saying atheists could be moral even though he was not an atheist himself.

(September 6, 2014 at 9:22 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: I don't think there are any arguments 'for' atheism, rather arguments 'against' theism however defined.

You wouldn't consider the fecundity of naturalistic explanations over the alternatives in every case that theism can be and has been invoked as accumulative and inductive evidence for atheism?

Natural explanations are the useful kind and logically the only kind that actually have explanatory value.

Supernatural explanations are more an act of sorting. It amounts to deciding it is the sort of thing one can't explain, a difficult determination to make it seems to me.

(September 6, 2014 at 5:00 pm)Blackout Wrote: 1 - Atheism is right because most scientists worldwide don't believe in gods - This is as bad as saying theism is right because most people believe in some type of god

2 - Religion is wrong because it hurts society - Just because something is bad it doesn't mean it is wrong - God could exist and be an evil bastard

Are these arguments atheists actually make? In the second example, you're more likely to see "Religion is bad because it hurts society", though you may see a variation in which fundamental claims of a religion are shown to be wrong or false because conditions in the world are completely incompatible with a god who is supposed to be wise and loving. That's similar to the argument you suggest, but not the same.

Quote:4 - Demanding idiotic evidence to believe in god - EG 'I demand that god literally shows up in front of me' - I think a bit of sustainable evidence would be enough

The demand for evidence is only idiotic if it is unreasonable compared to the claim being made. When the claim is "I know that my specific God created the universe and speaks to me", that is a claim so astoundingly huge and absurd that there really isn't any way to make an unreasonable demand of evidence for it. If the claim is for a god who has the power to do anything, then it has the power to appear in front of me and show itself.

Quote:5 - Generally pointing out flaws and issues with a specific religions or all religions, just because religion is wrong (or at least we think so) that doesn't mean gods do not exist, in fact a god could exist and not be the god of any known religion. Proving religion wrong doesn't prove theism wrong

In my experience, people treat the god claims as separate from the religious claims, for the most part. After all, the religious claims are completely worthless anyway, since no religion can prove that their god exists.

(September 7, 2014 at 1:10 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(September 6, 2014 at 9:22 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: I don't think there are any arguments 'for' atheism, rather arguments 'against' theism however defined.

You wouldn't consider the fecundity of naturalistic explanations over the alternatives in every case that theism can be and has been invoked as accumulative and inductive evidence for atheism?

I was an atheist far before I could even comprehend what naturalist/spiritualist/temporal/supernatural arguments even were.

Also, atheists believe in all sorts of fantastical bull. Favouring naturalism is no precursor to being an atheist.

I get irritated when atheists trot out the "We're all atheists with respect to most gods, Atheists just go one god further" thing. I think it can be a fair statement, but it's just so over used that I've come to find it annoying.

With that said, though, most theists probably haven't heard it, so even if I find it annoying I wouldn't be opposed to whipping it out if a conversation with a theists calls for such a thing to be pointed out to them.

(September 8, 2014 at 11:53 am)Clueless Morgan Wrote: I get irritated when atheists trot out the "We're all atheists with respect to most gods, Atheists just go one god further" thing. I think it can be a fair statement, but it's just so over used that I've come to find it annoying.

With that said, though, most theists probably haven't heard it, so even if I find it annoying I wouldn't be opposed to whipping it out if a conversation with a theists calls for such a thing to be pointed out to them.

What is wrong with that one? It is true. We do simply have one less god claim we hold than they do. They are merely unaware of the logic they use to reject all the other claims they do not buy.

If you do not believe in Thor, you are an atheist on that claim. If you do not believe in Vishnu, you are an atheist on that claim. You do not hold the position that that god exists.

Biggest mistake I see Dawkins & co. making is not empathising with their audience

Furthermore, not promoting agnosticism and science enough

They'd rather focus on ridicule and pettiness

Which would be fine, if they could actually take a joke about themselves

But no, they more significant

They more eloquent

Hip to the element

And now they telling them

Here we go again...

...what.

The Dark Ages argument and the Bronze Age argument....really not so much arguments but one-line sayings that too many atheists have used online that show they have little grasp of history. Whenever I see an atheist use those statements, I see that there isn't really much value in their intellect. Frankly, they have so much better material they could use if they weren't so lazy to research.