The Image Problem With Atheism in America

[Mister Agenda]

QFT

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No "atheism" is not worthless. Is accepting that Santa is not real "worthless"?

It is called growing up. When you have Stephen Hawkins saying "A god is not required" that is the same as "Santa is not required"

It matters how you get there. What's the value of not believing Santa is real but stepping on a crack will break your mother's back? That's not growing up, it's cherry-picking your superstitions.

There are atheists who believe in ghosts, in astrology, in homeopathy, and so on. The process matters, atheism is only an opinion on a single topic. A person who is otherwise rational but can't let go of a small portion of their childhood indoctrination is far preferable to me as a potential ally than ten atheists who are atheists because they're rebelling against their religous parents, the cool kids are doing it, or because they were never taught to believe in the first place (and aren't thoughful about it).

[Losty]

It would be nice if more 'atheists of color' joined active atheist groups.

The problem is white atheists in America do nothing to encourage minority atheists to join their ranks...they're just like the Republicans who think it's a good idea to have a few token blacks and hispanics to entice the minorities, but that always fail quite miserably.

What does this mean? I don't understand. Are we supposed to be out recruiting new members?

I don't care about people's race any more than I care about their religion, so sadly I haven't recruited anyone of any skin color.

I don't ask for special treatment. I only wish people would treat me the same as they did before they found out I don't believe in any god. I don't think that's too much to ask.

[Mister Agenda]

It would be nice if more 'atheists of color' joined active atheist groups.

The problem is white atheists in America do nothing to encourage minority atheists to join their ranks...they're just like the Republicans who think it's a good idea to have a few token blacks and hispanics to entice the minorities, but that always fail quite miserably.

Um, atheists aren't even an organization. Some atheists tend to gravitate towards organizations that are predominantly atheist. The organizations themselves tend to be passive: the active membership is whoever shows up. It's a fact that a higher percentage of atheists are white, and it's probable that if a person of color comes to a meeting, looks around, and sees no one else like them, they will be less likely to come back, regardless of how they're encouraged to return. If those organizations did more outreach, no one would complain about it more bitterly than people like you. I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and have all the nonwhite atheists in my area start to show up to our meetings. I don't have a magic wand. I have some ideas, and all I can do is try them. But the reason atheist groups don't have proportionate representation of blacks and other racial minorities is nothing like the reasons the GOP, which acts against their interests at every turn, does.

There's also no atheist kkk. Fucking atheists with their liberal bias!

Most of the conservative leaders that caused the most destruction in history have been atheists. It only took them 50 years to ten-fold outmatch the theists in terms of sheer brutality. But wait....next someone will use the No True Scotsman fallacy to bullshit out of that reality.

I like how you anticipate that the fact that you misrepresented the communist totalitarian dictators of the last century as 'conservatives' would be criticized, but it's not fallacious to point out that apples aren't oranges.

I do have to agree with Agenda though....most people don't have an issue with the religion of America so much as Americans themselves....Americans are going to act the same way whether they're Christian, Moslem, Jew, or Atheist.

Pretty much. The more we're a slice of America, the more average/typical we will be.

I have seen far too many American atheists who simply copy their beliefs from a blogger's website (sounds just like those Fundies with their Biblical interpretations).

I've seen far too many idiots who think they can divine where people got their ideas from a few posts, but you don't see me complaining about it.

One Yank was such a dolt,. he thought that using an atheist blog to explain advanced evolution principles was valid when basic university (state college evolution courses) websites thoroughly disproved it.

Given the Nobel Prize awaiting the faculty members who disprove evolution, I'm surprised I've not heard of this historic event.

Min, from your comments, you have agreed with many positions made by the WBC. You really want to act like them?

Funny, from Min's comments, I gather he already acts a bit like WBC but doesn't hold ANY of their positions. I'm interested to hear two examples of positions of the WBC also held by Min. You claim he agrees with many of the WBC's positions, so coming up with two shouldn't be hard.

Although your behavior on this forum so far leads me to predict you're going to misrepresent Min terribly, though I hope I'm mistaken.

[Lemonvariable72]

I'm going to straight up. This article is fucking garbage, and it was intended to do nothing but incite anger. Msot attempts to outreach to minority communities have been terrible received for one, For two she seem is talking about activist organizations, many of which need free time and travel. Those are much more difficult for working class people as we often have work longer or shittier hours and dont have the extra cash to travel places freely. Now in america for reasons that are completely beyond my understanding there are more per capita middle class white people then black people, so as a result you have more white people at this meetings. I personally thing this whole thing is retarded as average black man is just as capable of doing whatever he sets his mind too as a white person but I feel this is something that suggests far deeper societal issues. Unfortunately being Canadian I can't elaborate on this because we dont have these issues to even close to the same extant and our education is much better(though you wouldn't know it from my typing)

[Polaris]

Most of the conservative leaders that caused the most destruction in history have been atheists. It only took them 50 years to ten-fold outmatch the theists in terms of sheer brutality. But wait....next someone will use the No True Scotsman fallacy to bullshit out of that reality.

Did these evil atheists do these evil things because there was no god? I'm being serious here, was that specifically their reason for doing bad things?


And as for outmatching theists in terms of sheer brutality, I'm sceptical of that, remind me again, how many crusades were there? 6? 7? How many witch burnings? How many stonings?

Well at least you used the other logical fallacy. Even if you had 100 crusades, they wouldn't equate to the crimes of just one of those despots.

Agenda, I can "divine" where they get their ideas because those atheists like to link to those blogs like they want more people to visit them. I mean, the university websites disproved what the Yank was passing off as evolution theory.

The WBC and min's islamophobic rants focused on the hijab. Also, they also share the same views on Christian groups, especially their constant ravings about the Catholic Church.

The issue the author was illuminating stated that it was the religious who were the ones doing the actual good and that even the minority atheists had to team up with them because the atheists with clout were wasting time on petty issues that really didn't matter (an American saying I have heard describes the latter's attitudes perfectly...First World problems).

[Cato]

Well at least you used the other logical fallacy. Even if you had 100 crusades, they wouldn't equate to the crimes of just one of those despots.

You are either intentionally disingenuous or missed an obvsious consideration. Do you honestly think that a crusade fought with today's transportaion and military technology wouldn't result in significant casualties? Simply tallying the historic dead won't do.

Tyrants, marauders, despots, and would be emperors have always existed and sadly I'm of the opinion that more will try. Whether they wrap themselves in a veil of religion as a useful tool or not is immaterial.

What is material is that religious sensibilities cannot prevent atrocity and from time to time religion is specifically used to coordinate and foment violence. Religion is impotent as a means of detering those that would be violent for any reason.

[Polaris]

Well at least you used the other logical fallacy. Even if you had 100 crusades, they wouldn't equate to the crimes of just one of those despots.

You are either intentionally disingenuous or missed an obvsious consideration. Do you honestly think that a crusade fought with today's transportaion and military technology wouldn't result in significant casualties? Simply tallying the historic dead won't do.

Tyrants, marauders, despots, and would be emperors have always existed and sadly I'm of the opinion that more will try. Whether they wrap themselves in a veil of religion as a useful tool or not is immaterial.

What is material is that religious sensibilities cannot prevent atrocity and from time to time religion is specifically used to coordinate and foment violence. Religion is impotent as a means of detering those that would be violent for any reason.

Even with today's war technology, the same level of misery wouldn't be needed if fought in the style of the Crusades.

[Whateverist]

Given that we're not an organization of any kind (as Mr. A points out) it isn't surprising that 'we' haven't worried about our collective image. No one can join our 'ranks' because we're not in any kind of formation. We're a non-group consisting of those who don't subscribe to god belief. Of course, from the point of view of a believer, we all alike in being sinister.

[archangle]

Given that we're not an organization of any kind (as Mr. A points out) it isn't surprising that 'we' haven't worried about our collective image. No one can join our 'ranks' because we're not in any kind of formation. We're a non-group consisting of those who don't subscribe to god belief. Of course, from the point of view of a believer, we all alike in being sinister.

bullshit.

We are not the "black sheep", despite what you feel inside.

---

I'm going to straight up. This article is fucking garbage, and it was intended to do nothing but incite anger. Msot attempts to outreach to minority communities have been terrible received for one, For two she seem is talking about activist organizations, many of which need free time and travel. Those are much more difficult for working class people as we often have work longer or shittier hours and dont have the extra cash to travel places freely. Now in america for reasons that are completely beyond my understanding there are more per capita middle class white people then black people, so as a result you have more white people at this meetings. I personally thing this whole thing is retarded as average black man is just as capable of doing whatever he sets his mind too as a white person but I feel this is something that suggests far deeper societal issues. Unfortunately being Canadian I can't elaborate on this because we dont have these issues to even close to the same extant and our education is much better(though you wouldn't know it from my typing)

agreed.

[Whateverist]

Given that we're not an organization of any kind (as Mr. A points out) it isn't surprising that 'we' haven't worried about our collective image. No one can join our 'ranks' because we're not in any kind of formation. We're a non-group consisting of those who don't subscribe to god belief. Of course, from the point of view of a believer, we all alike in being sinister.

bullshit.

We are not the "black sheep", despite what you feel inside.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. In what sense would we be the black sheep? You're now an expert on what I feel inside? What have you been smoking?