Question for Atheists

[Joods]

I would still like to see you address the contradiction I pointed out.

Are you talking about me using "there" instead of "their?" Is that the contradiction you're referring to? I understand the difference between the two, I'm typing fast and working at my job at the same time. It was a small grammar mistake get over it.

No... it was my other post, further back in the thread.

[Cyberman]

This one.

[tonyc4444]

[Thumpalumpacus]

IT was a good read, but there is a bit of knowledge required in writing believable characters. As an example if I wrote an American Christian character who DIDN'T think country was important, a lot of American Christians would find that hard to accept as a believable Christian. You're right in that a story doesn't have to be logical necessarily in it's realism, after all there's no Hockey Mask wearing supernatural zombie running around taking axes to the face either, but the characters surrounding that ARE important or the story falls flat.

Of course. In crafting a character, making that character representative of all members of a given group is not realistic. If the atheist in your story is a gnostic atheist who has a touch of irrationality, what of it? Even though that doesn't represent a large proportion of atheists, people like that do exist, and as you likely know, writing fiction is writing about individuals, not mass demographics. Trying to reflect all the different shades of atheism in one or two characters is like trying to represent the average family in a story -- how do you get 2.36 children?

So while it will no doubt be useful to you, this thread, you likely already know you'll need to decide what type of atheist your character is and go with it.

Good luck with your project. Hope it turns out a good read.

[FatAndFaithless]

Ignoring the fact that "being in the GOP" is not "putting 'country' in the top 3 most important things in your life"...

So, you aren't speaking for Christians in general (as you implied earlier), you're speaking for specifically American, specifically Republican, and (to use your words) specifically 'hardcore' Republicans.

[tonyc4444]

Ignoring the fact that "being in the GOP" is not "putting 'country' in the top 3 most important things in your life"...

So, you aren't speaking for Christians in general (as you implied earlier), you're speaking for specifically American, specifically Republican, and (to use your words) specifically 'hardcore' Republicans.

I'm not speaking for anybody, I asked a general question about Atheists and you guys somehow latched onto something that was only meant to give context. But specifically American Christians do tend to be patriotic. Hell it's right there in almost every Patriotic song you hear, it's written on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance. You may not like this fact, though I'm not sure why as it's not YOUR belief system, but it is what it is. "God Family Country" is all by itself a common saying.

You don't have to like, you don't have to even accept it, I really don't care. But it is reality.

---

IT was a good read, but there is a bit of knowledge required in writing believable characters. As an example if I wrote an American Christian character who DIDN'T think country was important, a lot of American Christians would find that hard to accept as a believable Christian. You're right in that a story doesn't have to be logical necessarily in it's realism, after all there's no Hockey Mask wearing supernatural zombie running around taking axes to the face either, but the characters surrounding that ARE important or the story falls flat.

Of course. In crafting a character, making that character representative of all members of a given group is not realistic. If the atheist in your story is a gnostic atheist who has a touch of irrationality, what of it? Even though that doesn't represent a large proportion of atheists, people like that do exist, and as you likely know, writing fiction is writing about individuals, not mass demographics. Trying to reflect all the different shades of atheism in one or two characters is like trying to represent the average family in a story -- how do you get 2.36 children?

So while it will no doubt be useful to you, this thread, you likely already know you'll need to decide what type of atheist your character is and go with it.

Good luck with your project. Hope it turns out a good read.

Absolutely, I agree with everything you said I here.

[Joods]

Sooo... I see a contradiction here. You "assume" by, as you say, asserting that xians put "country" in their top 3 but at the same time, you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people?

So are xians not a "group" of people?

My apologies Judi I missed this post before. I don't know what a "Xian" is, I've never heard that term before but in the context you're using it I'll assume you mean Christians, if that's wrong please correct me.

Xian means Christian. It's a shortened term for it.
Just like Pxian means Progressive Christian.

And while you may have explained away your reasons for saying xians put country in their top three, it doesn't explain how you still managed to contradict yourself, prior to my asking for a source. Up to that point, you made a generalization about a group of people without identifying any sources to back up that generalization. So I responded in kind, asking why you made that assumption but then turned around and said that you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people.

[FatAndFaithless]

I tend not to accept unfounded or poorly-constructed assertions.

[tonyc4444]

My apologies Judi I missed this post before. I don't know what a "Xian" is, I've never heard that term before but in the context you're using it I'll assume you mean Christians, if that's wrong please correct me.

Xian means Christian. It's a shortened term for it.
Just like Pxian means Progressive Christian.

And while you may have explained away your reasons for saying xians put country in their top three, it doesn't explain how you still managed to contradict yourself, prior to my asking for a source. Up to that point, you made a generalization about a group of people without identifying any sources to back up that generalization. So I responded in kind, asking why you made that assumption but then turned around and said that you don't want to assume something about an entire group of people.

Because I'm not assuming anything about Christians. You THINK I'm assuming something about Christians in general, but I'm not.

My assumption that Atheists place science on a pedestal was an assumption, saying that Christians tend to place God, Family and Country as their source of emotional stability and happiness is not an assumption. It's an observation that is grounded in reality. The only assumption here was that you and others already knew that. Apparently you didn't. But like any discussion it's not necessary for me to site every single source for every single statement I make. If you take issue with something I say, THEN it can be addressed, just like we did.

[abaris]

I'm not speaking for anybody, I asked a general question about Atheists and you guys somehow latched onto something that was only meant to give context.

Because that's the first and most important fallacy of all. You asking a question about atheists. Well, as I said before, there's only one answer any atheist can give you from a group standpoint and that is - I don't believe in god(s).

Everything else is up to the individual and although christians tend to form groups called churches, most of them are still individuals too with individual cravings, individual goals and individual life stories.

So, if you're writing fiction, you can paint your lead in any shape form or color you like. Just don't assume that there's some kind of hive mind involved that makes certain ways of thinking the norm.