(February 10, 2013 at 11:55 pm)jackkazim Wrote: Sooner or later we all get the excuse from theists about how we're "too aggressive". Too aggressive? Really? If I could compare all the times theists and atheists approached me: telling me to join them, leaving flyers on my car, yelling at me for not agreeing with them, etc. Atheists have not done that in my experience. Theists on the other hand do that a lot in my experience! The one thing that contributes to this, it the sense of entitlement theists have. The sense of entitlement to power and the sense of entitlement to censor dissidents. The fact that those play a role in this, makes me laugh when a theist calls an atheist aggressive, even in cases where it MIGHT be true. Because this atheist movement threatens theist power so they have to resort to making up things, just to seem like the victim. The other day, my teacher said, atheists are closed minded and impossible to debate with. In any debate I've seen, the atheist is always more respectful. I mean really we should try not to be douchebags to each other. But please just spare me the complaints about atheists being "too aggressive".
I'm an atheist who is very well read in Physics, Psychology and Philosophy and my views are often a mix of the three. This leads me to some very different conclusions from most science-biased atheists.
On occasions I have been accused of being a 'theist in disguise' because my views are quite a radical departure from the 'norm', but they are grounded in solid reasoning (I can assure you I am most definately an atheist).
I often suffer the same treatment from atheists that you ascribe to theists above. I think the issue at the heart of this is if you make any comment that is percieved as an attck on people's beliefs (and I include scientific theory in 'beliefs') they become irrational in defence of them. Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with your teacher, the new Dawkins-type atheists are a very agressive bunch who will quickly become unreasonable in the face of a solid challenge to thier systems of belief. I've even had an atheist stalk me across my youtube account and post offensive messages on my completely unrelated art videos.
Sadly, I've even seen glimpses of it on AF.
Like you say, it's partly a power issue. If you strike at the heart of someone's internal authority they panic and behave in agressive and often irrational ways.
MM
