Question for Atheists

[Joods]

I would still like to see you address the contradiction I pointed out.

Are you talking about me using "there" instead of "their?" Is that the contradiction you're referring to? I understand the difference between the two, I'm typing fast and working at my job at the same time. It was a small grammar mistake get over it.

No... it was my other post, further back in the thread.

[Cyberman]

This one.

[tonyc4444]

I think it would be stupidity compounded to commit suicide after finding out your god or gods don't exist. You are faced with the fact that there is nothing after you die, so you want to hurt up and end that incredibly small (on the cosmic scale) slice of existence you have? Are believers really that stupid? Not all of them, some are EX-believers.

You and others are making some false assumptions about what is in my book. No, I don't believe very many Christians would up and off themselves tomorrow if they found out God didn't exist. By itself. In any case I'm not sure it really matters all that much.

There's also a difference between coming to the realization of something on your own, and then being forced a piece of knowledge you didn't have before and having difficulty swallowing it. When the world you believe to know turns out to be false, then yeah I think that can lead to some depression problems. If severe enough, sure that could lead to suicide. With in the context of the book it will make much more sense I assure you, like I said I don't want to give to much away.

---

No, I'm fairly confident in that particular assertion.


No there was no malice of intent on my part, I'm genuinely asking so I don't misrepresent an atheists position on something within the book. I'm not an Atheist so I'd rather not just assume something about an entire group of people and would rather ask the question. There's truly no malice intended here, just serious research for myself.

*words bolded by me to show relevance

Sooo... I see a contradiction here. You "assume" by, as you say, asserting that xians put "country" in their top 3 but at the same time, you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people?

So are xians not a "group" of people?

If you are confident they put "country" in their top three, would you mind providing the source that backs up your reasoning?

As for my three, Family always comes first. Rations second. Freedom third.

My apologies Judi I missed this post before. I don't know what a "Xian" is, I've never heard that term before but in the context you're using it I'll assume you mean Christians, if that's wrong please correct me.

I grew up as a Christian surrounded by Christians here in America. That "assumption" is not so much an assumption as a direct observation. I also served in the Armed forces. If you're Christian in America, there's a very good chance you are also Patriotic. It's truly baffling me that this is news to a few of you. Pick up a newspaper sometime, actually go out and speak to Christians here in this country anyway, it's not a secret of any kind.

But if you want numbers here:

http://www.pewforum.org/2012/02/02/trend...filiation/

These are statistics on the number of Christians who are in the GOP, and I don't really need to give you numbers on whether the GOP is the "Nationalist" party do I?

[Thumpalumpacus]

IT was a good read, but there is a bit of knowledge required in writing believable characters. As an example if I wrote an American Christian character who DIDN'T think country was important, a lot of American Christians would find that hard to accept as a believable Christian. You're right in that a story doesn't have to be logical necessarily in it's realism, after all there's no Hockey Mask wearing supernatural zombie running around taking axes to the face either, but the characters surrounding that ARE important or the story falls flat.

Of course. In crafting a character, making that character representative of all members of a given group is not realistic. If the atheist in your story is a gnostic atheist who has a touch of irrationality, what of it? Even though that doesn't represent a large proportion of atheists, people like that do exist, and as you likely know, writing fiction is writing about individuals, not mass demographics. Trying to reflect all the different shades of atheism in one or two characters is like trying to represent the average family in a story -- how do you get 2.36 children?

So while it will no doubt be useful to you, this thread, you likely already know you'll need to decide what type of atheist your character is and go with it.

Good luck with your project. Hope it turns out a good read.

[FatAndFaithless]

Ignoring the fact that "being in the GOP" is not "putting 'country' in the top 3 most important things in your life"...

So, you aren't speaking for Christians in general (as you implied earlier), you're speaking for specifically American, specifically Republican, and (to use your words) specifically 'hardcore' Republicans.

[tonyc4444]

Ignoring the fact that "being in the GOP" is not "putting 'country' in the top 3 most important things in your life"...

So, you aren't speaking for Christians in general (as you implied earlier), you're speaking for specifically American, specifically Republican, and (to use your words) specifically 'hardcore' Republicans.

I'm not speaking for anybody, I asked a general question about Atheists and you guys somehow latched onto something that was only meant to give context. But specifically American Christians do tend to be patriotic. Hell it's right there in almost every Patriotic song you hear, it's written on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance. You may not like this fact, though I'm not sure why as it's not YOUR belief system, but it is what it is. "God Family Country" is all by itself a common saying.

You don't have to like, you don't have to even accept it, I really don't care. But it is reality.

---

IT was a good read, but there is a bit of knowledge required in writing believable characters. As an example if I wrote an American Christian character who DIDN'T think country was important, a lot of American Christians would find that hard to accept as a believable Christian. You're right in that a story doesn't have to be logical necessarily in it's realism, after all there's no Hockey Mask wearing supernatural zombie running around taking axes to the face either, but the characters surrounding that ARE important or the story falls flat.

Of course. In crafting a character, making that character representative of all members of a given group is not realistic. If the atheist in your story is a gnostic atheist who has a touch of irrationality, what of it? Even though that doesn't represent a large proportion of atheists, people like that do exist, and as you likely know, writing fiction is writing about individuals, not mass demographics. Trying to reflect all the different shades of atheism in one or two characters is like trying to represent the average family in a story -- how do you get 2.36 children?

So while it will no doubt be useful to you, this thread, you likely already know you'll need to decide what type of atheist your character is and go with it.

Good luck with your project. Hope it turns out a good read.

Absolutely, I agree with everything you said I here.

[Joods]

Sooo... I see a contradiction here. You "assume" by, as you say, asserting that xians put "country" in their top 3 but at the same time, you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people?

So are xians not a "group" of people?

My apologies Judi I missed this post before. I don't know what a "Xian" is, I've never heard that term before but in the context you're using it I'll assume you mean Christians, if that's wrong please correct me.

Xian means Christian. It's a shortened term for it.
Just like Pxian means Progressive Christian.

And while you may have explained away your reasons for saying xians put country in their top three, it doesn't explain how you still managed to contradict yourself, prior to my asking for a source. Up to that point, you made a generalization about a group of people without identifying any sources to back up that generalization. So I responded in kind, asking why you made that assumption but then turned around and said that you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people.

[FatAndFaithless]

I tend not to accept unfounded or poorly-constructed assertions.

[tonyc4444]

My apologies Judi I missed this post before. I don't know what a "Xian" is, I've never heard that term before but in the context you're using it I'll assume you mean Christians, if that's wrong please correct me.

Xian means Christian. It's a shortened term for it.
Just like Pxian means Progressive Christian.

And while you may have explained away your reasons for saying xians put country in their top three, it doesn't explain how you still managed to contradict yourself, prior to my asking for a source. Up to that point, you made a generalization about a group of people without identifying any sources to back up that generalization. So I responded in kind, asking why you made that assumption but then turned around and said that you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people.

Because I'm not assuming anything about Christians. You THINK I'm assuming something about Christians in general, but I'm not.

My assumption that Atheists place science on a pedestal was an assumption, saying that Christians tend to place God, Family and Country as their source of emotional stability and happiness is not an assumption. It's an observation that is grounded in reality. The only assumption here was that you and others already knew that. Apparently you didn't. But like any discussion it's not necessary for me to site every single source for every single statement I make. If you take issue with something I say, THEN it can be addressed, just like we did.

[abaris]

I'm not speaking for anybody, I asked a general question about Atheists and you guys somehow latched onto something that was only meant to give context.

Because that's the first and most important fallacy of all. You asking a question about atheists. Well, as I said before, there's only one answer any atheist can give you from a group standpoint and that is - I don't believe in god(s).

Everything else is up to the individual and although christians tend to form groups called churches, most of them are still individuals too with individual cravings, individual goals and individual life stories.

So, if you're writing fiction, you can paint your lead in any shape form or color you like. Just don't assume that there's some kind of hive mind involved that makes certain ways of thinking the norm.