Suggestion: Common misconceptions and FAQs

[Jackalope]

One of the things that we often see here are new members with misconceptions on some fundamental concepts or definitions. I'll start with a few examples:

* What "atheism" means, and that it only is a position on the belief in deities (and implies nothing else). Conflation of atheism with evolution / cosmology / immorality / ad nauseum.

* "Atheism is a religion."

* What a "scientific theory" is (and is not), as well as "scientific hypothesis" and "scientific law", and how those terms differ from those in non-scientific usage.

* What biological evolutionary / inflationary cosmology theory is and is not.

The above list is of course not comprehensive, but does give a representative sample of the type of issues that I'm referring to.

While we often do a pretty good job of clarifying these issues on an ad hoc basis as they come up, there's a lot of duplication of effort involved and threads get derailed and cluttered needlessly over issues indirectly related to the thread topic. In addition, when a member makes a post within a thread that addresses one of these meta-issues well, it's buried within that thread and not very visible for future reference. In order to have a meaningful discussion on a particular topic, I believe that it's helpful for everyone involved to be "on the same" page with respect to basic terminology.

Based on those premises, I think it would be useful to have a section where such information could be stored - maybe a sticky in "Rules & Information", or perhaps even better a new section (e.g. "FAQs and common misconceptions about atheism and related subjects").

In the interest of keeping these informational posts high-signal / low-noise, I would suggest the following:

* Posts could be read-only and created only by mods/admins, discussion [if any] should take place elsewhere. An alternative would be to allow follow-ups within the post, and allow the OP to be edited (presumably by a mod) to keep the most current information at the top of the thread.

* Posts kept as neutral, objective, and non-inflammatory as possible.

* Posts should be supported with references, and kept as short and concise as possible with links to high-quality external sources for more information.

Implementing this as a separate forum section (or as stickies in the appropriate existing area) would allow members to easily find the informational posts both with the search function and by browsing the appropriate section.

Obviously, such content isn't going to write itself. I personally would be willing to draft some of it, and I would think that there would be enough interest by other members to help out as well.

Comments or thoughts?

[Cyberman]

Sounds good to me. I might be persuaded to write some myself once the idea of content is decided.

[Minimalist]

Just one:

[fr0d0]

The meaning of the word atheist is an interesting one as most atheists would wish it to mean lack of belief, where current dictionaries don't agree yet. It's a controversial subject and one guaranteed to wind you guys up.

You could say something like "this is how we all like to interpret it, and we would ask that you adhere to our version in discussion here please".

Scientific statements likewise should never be stated as fact, but rather the best current interpretation held by a majority of trusted sources.

Of course you knew all that already and would be putting it across that way bless you :-)

Sounds an awful lot like a religion don't you think

[Erinome]

The meaning of the word atheist is an interesting One as most atheists wish to be labelled as it meaning lack of belief where current dictionaries don't agree yet. It's a controversial subject and one guaranteed to wind you guys up.

You could say something like "this is how we all like to interpret it, and we would ask that you adhere to our version in discussion here please".

Or we could just say that despite the variation of wording in dictionaries, the definition of atheism is a disbelief in the existence of deities. The end. Because that would be truer than your suggestion, and take up less space.

godlessness.

[Jackalope]

The meaning of the word atheist is an interesting One as most atheists wish to be labelled as it meaning lack of belief where current dictionaries don't agree yet. It's a controversial subject and one guaranteed to wind you guys up.

You could say something like "this is how we all like to interpret it, and we would ask that you adhere to our version in discussion here please".

Your point is well taken - and even amongst atheists there is disagreement over exactly what it does mean. With respect to that, were I to try and define it, I'd attempt to treat the topic fairly. What I personally think is important is it demonstrate that it doesn't mean anything beyond a position over the non-existence of deities and that nothing else can be inferred from it - whether that position be gnostic/agnostic, or is a positive claim that no deities exists vs. a rejection of the positive claim that they do.

Clearly any such undertaking should be treated carefully when the goal is to create more light than heat.

[fr0d0]

Yeah sounds really good CD.

btw sorry about the slow posting