Is Atheism Intellectual Cowardice?

[genkaus]

Nope. On general academia. A few atheists compare themselves to the stereotypical theist and get the impression they don't need to further their lifelong education because they are just content with up-staging Fundies. Again, thankfully, these atheists are few and far between. The only reason they even show up at all is because of the pervasiveness of the internet.

"I don't believe in god therefore I don't need to learn anything else"...

Yeah, you know what, Im gonna call bullshit on that one Polaris, I think your "few" is equal to my "none". By all means, if you've actually encountered someone who has said something like this, send em my way to bitchslap em, but I'm willing to bet that you haven't.

I'm gonna call bullshit on both here. Just being an atheist does not put any obligation on anyone to engage in lifelong education. In fact, I think most of the atheists would fall into this category. They'd say to themselves "Okay, religion is bullshit and there is not god. But that doesn't mean I have to go around looking for answers to all the things religion supposedly provided answers to. Questions about quantum physics, the origin of universe, the origin of life etc are not relevant ot my life. What is relevant is how that fucker Johnson is gonna screw me out of the promotion."

I used to be one of those atheists. I became an atheist during the course of my education and was perfectly alright focusing on my job and the rest of my life. I felt no need nor obligation to educate myself on anything. If and when I did encountered theistic arguments, I could easily use my pre-existing knowledge to counter their claims - they were quite sufficient in that regard. And what's more, two or three atheists I do know in my personal life are the same. They don't care about debating online or discussing god and they have no interest in expanding the horizons of their knowledge in any way that doesn't personally benefit them.

The only reason I'm here is because I enjoy it. I enjoy debating and I enjoy learning new things - even though I'm not obliged to do either.