My anti-theistic perspective

[Excited Penguin]

I doubt that ignorance and malice exhausts all possible reasons that a person might be an atheist in the absence of anti-theism.

 What other possible reason might there be? Religion is demonstrably bad in that it inspires division among people, it encourages dogma and it opposes rational thinking by its very nature. And that's only off the top of my head. All we do here all day is criticise religion. How can one do that and at the same time claim he isn't an antitheist is beyond me. An atheist that is not an antitheist - that would be the exception, not the rule. An implausible one if you ask me, once said atheist learns certain things about religion's impact in human affairs throughout history.

Now then, there are degrees of antitheism to be considered here. I might be more antitheistic than some and less than others. All that proves is more or less empathy and or ignorance on my part concerning humans and, respectively, religion's influence upon the world.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your inability to imagine a reason says more about the limits of your imagination than the limits of rational justification.  Don't you think?

[Excited Penguin]

Your inability to imagine a reason says more about the limits of your imagination than the limits of rational justification.  Don't you think?

I think you've lost the debate. Appealing to imagination rather than reason - that's a new low. 

I rest my case.

[Aegon]

I doubt that ignorance and malice exhausts all possible reasons that a person might be an atheist in the absence of anti-theism.

 What other possible reason might there be? Religion is demonstrably bad in that it inspires division among people, it encourages dogma and it opposes rational thinking by its very nature. And that's only off the top of my head. All we do here all day is criticise religion. How can one do that and at the same time claim he isn't an antitheist is beyond me. An atheist that is not an antitheist - that would be the exception, not the rule. An implausible one if you ask me, once said atheist learns certain things about religion's impact in human affairs throughout history.

Now then, there are degrees of antitheism to be considered here. I might be more antitheistic than some and less than others. All that proves is more or less empathy and or ignorance on my part concerning humans and, respectively, religion's influence upon the world. 

Again I'll draw the line for you between religion and organized religion. The Catholic Church has caused a ton of war and bloodshed throughout history. Islam is currently causing a ton of war and bloodshed. But not all religion is harmful, and sometimes it is actually beneficial. I recommend you read The Way of the Human Being by Calvin Luther Martin. He examines how the religious and spiritual beliefs of the Yup'ik peoples allowed them to live in a peaceful harmony among each other and wild animals. He describes how the Yupiit identify as different animals, and how their spirit can leave their body and join the animals if they so desire.  He describes a world where the ecosystem relies on a mutual respect between man and animal, and the purity and spirituality of the natives dictated whether or not the animals would give themselves up for the peoples’ survival, etc etc. However, over the years they lost those beliefs and their society turned to shambles. The Yupiit of today are plagued with poverty, depression, sucicide, alcoholism, and high incarceration rates. The respect within the society that their religion gave them is no longer there and they are worse off because of it.

You can't sit there and tell me that all religion is bad simply because that's just not true.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Religion may deserve mockery, but he was arguing against mocking religious people. There's a big difference.

Yes I will mock religious people who use it to justify sexism, bigotry, homophobia and especially violence and oppressive laws. And I will mock people who use religion to bastardize science.

Don't expect me not to. I think worrying more about offending or getting offended than the actual harm religion does far too often, allows bad ideas to go on to bad acts.

Well, those folk are only a subset of all religious people. I have no problem with mocking assholes, but the assumption that all religious people are assholes who deserve mockery is fatuous.

[houseofcantor]

Any atheist that claims to not care about the fact that most people are theists, beyond what directly concerns them, is either lying or a psychopath. Of course, they could also simply be confused about it, which is a form of lying in itself.

I see that nothing has changed.

[Catholic_Lady]

Is that also why you wish more theists had been killed in South Carolina?

Just askin'.

What the eff???

[Brian37]

 What other possible reason might there be? Religion is demonstrably bad in that it inspires division among people, it encourages dogma and it opposes rational thinking by its very nature. And that's only off the top of my head. All we do here all day is criticise religion. How can one do that and at the same time claim he isn't an antitheist is beyond me. An atheist that is not an antitheist - that would be the exception, not the rule. An implausible one if you ask me, once said atheist learns certain things about religion's impact in human affairs throughout history.

Now then, there are degrees of antitheism to be considered here. I might be more antitheistic than some and less than others. All that proves is more or less empathy and or ignorance on my part concerning humans and, respectively, religion's influence upon the world. 

Again I'll draw the line for you between religion and organized religion. The Catholic Church has caused a ton of war and bloodshed throughout history. Islam is currently causing a ton of war and bloodshed. But not all religion is harmful, and sometimes it is actually beneficial. I recommend you read The Way of the Human Being by Calvin Luther Martin. He examines how the religious and spiritual beliefs of the Yup'ik peoples allowed them to live in a peaceful harmony among each other and wild animals. He describes how the Yupiit identify as different animals, and how their spirit can leave their body and join the animals if they so desire.  He describes a world where the ecosystem relies on a mutual respect between man and animal, and the purity and spirituality of the natives dictated whether or not the animals would give themselves up for the peoples’ survival, etc etc. However, over the years they lost those beliefs and their society turned to shambles. The Yupiit of today are plagued with poverty, depression, sucicide, alcoholism, and high incarceration rates. The respect within the society that their religion gave them is no longer there and they are worse off because of it.

You can't sit there and tell me that all religion is bad simply because that's just not true.

Yes ALL RELIGIONS ARE BAD...........

Now, that really isn't any different than saying a volcano is bad. No you can't get rid of the volcano, but to take your eyes off of it would be stupid. Most of the time they are dormant and look pretty, but so what. Nobody is saying you can or should force them out of existence.

Some religions seem more peaceful because we chose to view them that way, and at our current point in history some make less trouble than others. But there has never in the history of our species a single religion that has produced 100% universal global peace, and not even within the same labels is there no conflict or competing sects, all of them have divisions even in the same labels.

Religion is a bad idea as a human invented construct. It gets humans to ignore that we are NOT a separate species. Now while I said before, you certainly cannot, nor should use force to end it, but it must be treated as the poison to human discourse it is, otherwise you won't be able to keep it to a more civil degree.

Every nation friend and foe alike all have prisons and hospitals. Holding a religion does not make it valid, it merely means one likes the religion they have. Our source of morality is in our evolution, not holy books or the religious clubs we belong to.

Saying religion does good, well yea, they all claim that. And that should tell humans that our capability for compassion is in us, not religion itself. But as long as religion exists, which I don't see it going away completely, it can be managed to more civil degree by recognizing the bad it does to human thought.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you've lost the debate. Appealing to imagination rather than reason - that's a new low. 

I rest my case.

My ironometer just broke.  Do you know the term we use when someone makes a statement such as "I can't imagine how they -x- therefore they can't -x-"?  We call that an argument from incredulity, or a failure of imagination.  Do you know the term we use when a person, conveniently in this case after making an argument from incredulity, offers two equally unjustified options as the only options?  A false dichotomy.  

You rest your case on an argument from incredulity followed up by a false dichotomy?   Do you do well in debates?

[Athene]

Let us talk frankly here. Most atheists are antitheist, as it is. If you're an atheist and you're not an antitheist as well, you're either ignorant or malicious.

"Think as I think," said a man,

"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."
                       
                         Stephen Crane