hipster Atheist

[Esquilax]

Put aside the issue of whether sex, drugs and rock music are good or bad. That is not relevant to the question of whether atheists use these things to recruit people.

But it is relevant to your general thesis that those things are what makes atheism bad. Hence why I brought it up at all.

atheist position rather than a person one: This is related to the question of whether sex, drugs and rock music are beneficial for atheism. I cannot get inside of each persons head and see whether they are processing that sex, drugs and rock music are building up their movement. Actually, it doesn't matter. If they tolerate it, that is significant enough. It shows that they receive any benefit from it that they receive.

You understand there are plenty of religious people that tolerate those things too, right? Are they using sex, drugs and rock and roll to promote religion, in that case?

how being tolerant of these things inherently helps atheism: I think that asking this question is intellectually dishonest. If you don't realize that sex sells, that drugs sell, you are intentionally deceiving yourself. What does the atheist movement needs? It needs numbers. How does it attract people? Well, turn on the TV. How does everyone else attract people? What do you see most of all? You see music, which has powerful psychological effects constantly being used to sell things. You see sex, sex, sex, more sex, and even more sex. And, you see drugs, alchohol, at sporting events, alchohol, at bars, at clubs. American culture is saturated with these things and they are absolutely used to promote products.

And now you're being intellectually dishonest. I agree, sex is used to sell products. How does this relate back to atheism in any way?

No, I'm serious: do you know what else all those ads have in common aside from sex? A target. You see some boobs, and then you see the product being sold. There's never just sex on tv with the advertisers hoping the product message gets through via osmosis. The product is always presented.

Now, how many atheist ads do you see on tv? How many atheist ads do you see anywhere? I've seen some billboards, some bus ads, but none of them have anything remotely sexy on them, and beyond that, those are rare.

All you're doing is equating the presence of sex in advertising with advertising the atheist movement. Yes, I agree, sex sells. Now, who is using sex to sell atheism?

The intellectual way that atheism is promoted is understandable. The other way that atheism is promoted is HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE. Atheism is promoted in music, bands such as Disturbed, Bad Religion, Nine Inch Nails, Dead Kennedy's use music specifically targeted at young people to promote atheism. This sort of atheism is well represented on this board. Atheism uses sexual imagery and acceptance of sexual promiscuity. Atheism uses drugs and tolerance of drug culture to promote its message.

Again, you've just said words. Can you support them?

All of these things obviously exist and are a major and obvious feature of the atheist movement. The question is: to what degree are these different product enhancers (sex, drugs, music, politics) used to intentionally sell atheism? I think it varies person to person.

See above. Seriously, the answer to the question "how is atheism being sold through sex and music?" cannot be "They are selling atheism with sex and music."

But the cultural norm of atheism is tolerance, and tolerance benefits the atheists, so I hold them responsible and consider them to be actively using these different elements to promote their beliefs.

Have you ever considered that we might actually just believe in tolerance? Rather than using it as a recruiting tool?

Ever considered that without dogmatic religious idiocy there's no reason to think that sex or music or drugs are inherently bad, and therefore no reason to hold a position against them? Tolerance is not the same thing as advocacy.

The conclusion is clear: Atheism is a culture that absolutely thrives on using sensational images and sights and sounds and orgasms and drug highs and rock shows and everything imaginable in existence to draw in as many people to its culture war as it possible can.

Generally, one needs to support premises before they can come to a conclusion. You seem to have skipped that part.

You are fighting a war, whether you like it or not. You can be on the side of atheism (I would say, Satan) or you can be on the side of God. It is really up to you.

Your side can call it a war as much as you want. That just means you guys are combative blowhards who can't see anything outside of a context of conflict. Nothing more.

If you want to argue that there is nothing wrong with sex and drugs, perhaps in another thread. What if you are wrong? A lot of people disagree.

What if you are wrong? A lot of people disagree on religious (read: baseless) grounds. So what?