Vuvuzelas? Yeah, I can see the death penalty being appropriate there.
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.While I believe that all religions create moral individuals, I do believe that the Judeo-Christian tradition often promotes a system of divine morality that may not match exactly with the moral systems used by atheists. As such, I believe the two need to conflict—not violently, but in mutual attempts at conversion. After all, if you really believe what you say, why not try to convince others of it?
And @ the article: I've stopped taking any Americans seriously when they start talking about how they're oh so oppressed and everyone hates them, because I have yet to find a group of Americans that doesn't use that line.
edited 16th Apr '11 5:30:45 PM by feotakahari
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something AwfulIntolerance isn't a religious thing, it's a human one.
That said, I agree with most of the article - atheists are verbally attacked more simply because they're outnumbered. Nor do I see how an Atheist Marching Band is more of an assault on Christmas than Black Friday sales, celebrating nothing more than the almighty consumer culture.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswAs a polite atheist, I have had a friend start an argument with me about it with no prior provocation at all. (He wasn't particularly coherent either; he kind of babbled on about how atheism didn't seem to make any sense to him but never delivered an argument that didn't boil down to that.)
Now, I've seen atheists start arguments with religious people before too, so maybe this doesn't mean anything. But I've never had a conservative start an argument with me out of nowhere, either.
No, it's a problem with the privilege. One of the things that repeatedly came up in the other thread, and I think it's the core of what we should be talking about in terms of this, is the double standard.
People make a big deal when atheists do what religious groups do regularly. There really is a strong double standard with this sort of thing. Or to be more precise, religious groups/individuals I think created a lot of the rules/guidelines for this sort of thing, by and large atheists in terms of promoting ourselves follow those guidelines, and yet it's controversial. If the guidelines are wrong (and they might very well be) wouldn't the best thing to do be to pull back groups with more cultural/social power first, in order to establish new guidelines?
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserveA lot of "aggressive" atheism is just asking "Is it true?"
Uh. Wow. fanatic much?
You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!@neo: The either is supposed to take the "maybe it doesn't matter" and "never had a conservative argue with me" as its arguments.
@Wicked: No, it's pretty much my position on this. The only thing that has any impact on whether or not you should believe something is whether or not it's true.
It doesn't matter if you'd feel really nice if you believe the earth is flat; all that matters is the earth isn't flat.
Black Humor: That, again, is holding the axiom that "Beliefs should perfectly, or as perfectly as is possible, reflect the truth of the matter, to the exclusion of all other criteria."
That is, indeed, a radical position. I don't think it's wrong necessarily, but it's not the position I myself hold.
I'm a/n (soft) atheist, and I don't put much emphasis on "truth" as I see the idea being subjective.
In any case, I try not to push any of my ideas onto other people although I'll explain them if asked. Unfortunately, there's a Christian at my work who... talks a lot about God, and ever since he learned I was an atheist, he's been somewhat pushing those ideas onto me. It gets kinda annoying.
Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.@Tomu: The reason I hold it is:
Suppose you want to be happy, and False Belief X will make you happy if you believe it. So you try to believe False Belief X for the sake of the warm fuzzies. But alas, as you know X is not true from the outset, you cannot honestly believe X, and if you don't honestly believe X you don't get the warm fuzzies. And similarly, if you already believe X, you can't not believe in a counterargument; if you come across a convincing enough counterargument, you will cease to believe in X no matter what you want to believe.
So therefore, in order to get warm fuzzies, you must utterly ignore the warm fuzzies and believe X on its merits. Since you must believe or not believe X on its merits, you should evaluate X as if it was any other hypothesis, and reject it if there isn't enough evidence same as any other hypothesis.
edited 16th Apr '11 7:37:01 PM by BlackHumor
I'm rather torn on this issue. I feel that there is a clear double standard in place, and I don't like it - but at the same time, the most visible atheists do tend to be pretty confrontational (that's why they're visible, of course), and I do find that attitude somewhat irritating, even if the atheists themselves might not regard it as aggressive.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffThis one thinks that there is definitely a double standard here. Of course militant atheists are annoying, but if theists were held to the same standard, then most of their public figures would be considered militant also. It is not an excuse, of course, but it is something worth paying attention to.
edited 16th Apr '11 8:11:52 PM by Beholderess
If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in commonI'd say it comes down to arrogance.
Naturally though, said arrogance is overwhelmingly present on either side.
Given that I'm a fan of Eliezer Yudkowsky* , I'm pretty much able to ignore it by now. Arrogance and hypocrisy don't magically invalidate what people have to say, regardless how annoying they are.
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GODThreadhop: -thinking as I read article- hey this is a pretty good opinion piece, a bit whiny but so far I haven't found anything to silly
It's hard not to see this as theocracy being threatened.
theocracy being threatened.
theocracy
...
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

A common claim in the thread about atheism being a flame magnet was that people were not upset by atheism, but by aggressive atheism.
To those making such claims, how do you respond to this article?