RE: Over the top
August 21, 2019 at 9:38 am
(This post was last modified: August 21, 2019 at 9:50 am by Mister Agenda.)
"People are generally uninterested in holding other atheists to any kind of standard of truth or reasonableness."
--Belaqua
And by 'people' you mean atheists. Who are so very unlike theists in this regard. I'm not being entirely sarcastic, I know theists tend to fall into arguing amongst themselves when atheists aren't around, while atheists do comparatively little arguing about atheism, even when it's just us. There's sometimes a little friction between negative and positive atheists, but most of us don't think it's worth getting worked up over. It's not like we think our souls are on the line.
The USA RL demographics are the reverse of this forum. You choose to be here, but those of us who are USAians are in about a 10% minority with no natural connection to each other than a shared opinion; but it's an opinion that is very unpopular with a significant portion of the other 90% that makes us an object of stereotyping and sometimes even discrimination (and thankfully very rarely, even violence). Most of us (atheists in the USA) are not from atheist families. Personally, I was 42 before I knowingly met my third atheist. We're scattered and the internet is about the only thing that has allowed us to build a community, even when we have atheist friends in RL, we usually found them through the internet. If the majority didn't treat us as a collective 'despised or pitiable other', we probably wouldn't even be interested in associating based on that one opinion, because if we were treated equitably, we wouldn't need to show any solidarity. It's not the opinion that binds us, it's the desire to be able to have a discussion with people who won't act like we've got three eyes because we don't believe in powerful supernatural spirits. And of course, the USA is far from the worst country on this matter, but it stands out among developed countries in this regard.
I'm sorry if your experience in here is too similar to our experience out there when we dare to be open about our views on gods and religions. I wish we were better or superior to the other humans, but we're pretty much the same in most respects. But not in all. There are plenty of religious forums when atheists are in the minority, but I think atheist forums will pretty much die out if we're ever in the majority, because we won't be able to get anything her that we can't get from our friends and relatives, and we don't have real 'doctrinal differences'.
I don't expect gullibility and superstition will ever fall out of favor, so if I'm ever in the majority as an atheist, there will still be skeptics forums, I'm sure.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's bad form to piss on the dead in front of their friends. Ordinary socialization should cover that.
--Belaqua
And by 'people' you mean atheists. Who are so very unlike theists in this regard. I'm not being entirely sarcastic, I know theists tend to fall into arguing amongst themselves when atheists aren't around, while atheists do comparatively little arguing about atheism, even when it's just us. There's sometimes a little friction between negative and positive atheists, but most of us don't think it's worth getting worked up over. It's not like we think our souls are on the line.
The USA RL demographics are the reverse of this forum. You choose to be here, but those of us who are USAians are in about a 10% minority with no natural connection to each other than a shared opinion; but it's an opinion that is very unpopular with a significant portion of the other 90% that makes us an object of stereotyping and sometimes even discrimination (and thankfully very rarely, even violence). Most of us (atheists in the USA) are not from atheist families. Personally, I was 42 before I knowingly met my third atheist. We're scattered and the internet is about the only thing that has allowed us to build a community, even when we have atheist friends in RL, we usually found them through the internet. If the majority didn't treat us as a collective 'despised or pitiable other', we probably wouldn't even be interested in associating based on that one opinion, because if we were treated equitably, we wouldn't need to show any solidarity. It's not the opinion that binds us, it's the desire to be able to have a discussion with people who won't act like we've got three eyes because we don't believe in powerful supernatural spirits. And of course, the USA is far from the worst country on this matter, but it stands out among developed countries in this regard.
I'm sorry if your experience in here is too similar to our experience out there when we dare to be open about our views on gods and religions. I wish we were better or superior to the other humans, but we're pretty much the same in most respects. But not in all. There are plenty of religious forums when atheists are in the minority, but I think atheist forums will pretty much die out if we're ever in the majority, because we won't be able to get anything her that we can't get from our friends and relatives, and we don't have real 'doctrinal differences'.
I don't expect gullibility and superstition will ever fall out of favor, so if I'm ever in the majority as an atheist, there will still be skeptics forums, I'm sure.
(August 21, 2019 at 6:14 am)Belaqua Wrote: If it was over the top for me to say true things about the dead guy, does this mean you think it's bad to say things that are over the top?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's bad form to piss on the dead in front of their friends. Ordinary socialization should cover that.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
