Do stereotypes have any truth to them?

[Jamie Smithie]

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Read the rules.  Especially the spamming rule. Post content deleted. 

[Fake Messiah]

It seems to me that you are desperately trying to make a brawl on this forum by opening nonsensical but very flamboyant topics like this one about racist stereotypes and the Tate brothers.

[Belacqua]

Administrator Notice
see note above

I suppose one way to approach the question would be to reflect on the stereotypes about people in your own group. 

So for example people who don't like Christianity will sometimes speak as if all Christian ministers are hypocritical pedophiles. And of course some percentage of them are, though to treat them all the same would be unfair. 

I know that I'm in a group about which there are some stereotyped assumptions, and some of them are true of me. It's a little cringe, though, so I don't like to admit it.

[Sheldon]

This doesn't need a thread, only a dictionary.

stereotype
noun
1. A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

[brewer]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

[Sheldon]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Most often I hear apologists claim "atheists can't have any morals, as morals come from a deity. The irony of course is that the deity they are peddling as perfectly moral, is depicted as barbarously cruel and sadistic. mass murdering, even genocidal, and capriciously violent, endorsing slavery, encouraging its pets into wars of ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking prisoners even children.

[brewer]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Most often I hear apologists claim "atheists can't have any morals, as morals come from a deity. The irony of course is that the deity they are peddling as perfectly moral, is depicted as barbarously cruel and sadistic. mass murdering, even genocidal, and capriciously violent, endorsing slavery, encouraging its pets into wars of ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking prisoners even children.

You not cherry picking their books correctly.

[Thumpalumpacus]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Most often I hear apologists claim "atheists can't have any morals, as morals come from a deity. The irony of course is that the deity they are peddling as perfectly moral, is depicted as barbarously cruel and sadistic. mass murdering, even genocidal, and capriciously violent, endorsing slavery, encouraging its pets into wars of ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking prisoners even children.

... which only goes to show that despite theist claims that morals are absolute, clearly, in their own tacit view, morality is indeed relative and subjective. You won't catch a believer admitting as much, but it's the upshot of this doctrine -- if humans do it, it's immoral, if god does it, it's moral.

[Belacqua]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Yeah, that's certainly not justified. Lots of atheists have morals.

It's true that a lot of atheists think that morals are simply social conventions, with no objective existence. But even if a person believes that, he can still do his best to obey the conventions of his time and place. 

There's another stereotype concerning atheists I see occasionally. People who study theology seriously will make fun of what they call "Reddit atheists." These are people who 1) talk a lot about religion on line, and 2) have enormous confidence in their own reasoning power, and 3) know little or nothing about theology. And of course until quite recently they often referred to the works of Dawkins and/or Hitchens. 

This is the sort of person who thinks he has any and every Christian check-mated, while not bothering to learn much more about Christian thought than "TalKinG SnaKES!!1!" "NO MaterIAl EvidENce!!!!!"

I think we've all encountered people like that, but Reddit atheists are surely not representative of most of us. They are on line and visible by definition, while the great majority of atheists don't care enough about it to go on the Internet every day and criticize.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Yeah, that's certainly not justified. Lots of atheists have morals.

It's true that a lot of atheists think that morals are simply social conventions, with no objective existence. But even if a person believes that, he can still do his best to obey the conventions of his time and place. 

There's another stereotype concerning atheists I see occasionally. People who study theology seriously will make fun of what they call "Reddit atheists." These are people who 1) talk a lot about religion on line, and 2) have enormous confidence in their own reasoning power, and 3) know little or nothing about theology. And of course until quite recently they often referred to the works of Dawkins and/or Hitchens. 

This is the sort of person who thinks he has any and every Christian check-mated, while not bothering to learn much more about Christian thought than "TalKinG SnaKES!!1!" "NO MaterIAl EvidENce!!!!!"

I think we've all encountered people like that, but Reddit atheists are surely not representative of most of us. They are on line and visible by definition, while the great majority of atheists don't care enough about it to go on the Internet every day and criticize.

(Bold mine)

The implication here is that there are at least some atheists who have no morals. Could you please list some of these amoral atheists? Bet you a shiny shilling that you can't.

But what a sly boots you are, perpetuating a stereotype like that.

Boru