"Cornered Atheist" approach doing us harm!

[Rick Dawkins]

Kharybuce

Well, your heart is in the right place. However, I'd have to disagree with the first statement in bold. I've met Atheists who were animate right-wing conservatives, and I've met Atheists who were extreme liberals as well. I've met Atheists who were anarchists, communists, and even some who believed in re-establishing a monarchical government. Hell, in this guild we have Atheists who believe in magic, some believe in souls, and there some still that believe in heaven and hell, and a variety of other variants. I truley believe the reason there hasn't been a real politically recognized organized Atheist group is because of the immense spectrum of Atheists out there. And it is because of that that I feel it would be very hard for any group of people to gather and claim that they speak for all Atheists. I know that the very man that you've modeled your username from does not represent me, my philosophies, nor my views on Atheism.

The fact that you've met people who describe themselves as atheists as well as many other things, although I don't question it at all since I myself have met many different kinds, isn't representative of the demographic as a whole. On average, atheists have a higher level of education, have a higher IQ, have fewer children, and describe themselves as liberal more often than conservative. Atheists as a group have a greater percent of members that consider themselves secularists (even if they are monarchies), and tend to lean Pro-choice. I'm speaking, of course, only about atheists in the US. I'm not saying that all atheists feel this way or ARE smarter or higher educated, but on average, many are. So while atheism itself does not form a cohesive bond among those admitting to subscribe to it, they still follow many of the same trends as their classmates.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that atheism doesn't pull people together. Atheism, as you've hinted at, is valued by its constituents for it's individualistic tendencies and it's ability to rise above the masses. That's why we need to retool the networking.  

[Inferno Breeze]

The problem with atheism is that it isn't "atheism;" its not a singular entity unto itself, its just a general term for anyone who doesn't believe in the supernatural overlord shtick. We aren't an organized group. You can't "become part of" a non-group. The best you can hope for is to break up the group-groups: aka, organized religion. So atheists should continue their solo battles against blind, unreasonable faith. Banding together will only create problems.  

[Kharybuce]

Rick Dawkins

The fact that you've met people who describe themselves as atheists as well as many other things, although I don't question it at all since I myself have met many different kinds, isn't representative of the demographic as a whole. On average, atheists have a higher level of education, have a higher IQ, have fewer children, and describe themselves as liberal more often than conservative. Atheists as a group have a greater percent of members that consider themselves secularists (even if they are monarchies), and tend to lean Pro-choice. I'm speaking, of course, only about atheists in the US. I'm not saying that all atheists feel this way or ARE smarter or higher educated, but on average, many are. So while atheism itself does not form a cohesive bond among those admitting to subscribe to it, they still follow many of the same trends as their classmates.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that atheism doesn't pull people together. Atheism, as you've hinted at, is valued by its constituents for it's individualistic tendencies and it's ability to rise above the masses. That's why we need to retool the networking.

Firstly, I have to wonder why you typed "people who describe themselves as atheists." Are you questioning whether or not they are legitimate? As far as I'm aware, the only requirements to qualify as an Athiest is simply a lack of belief in a god, gods, or god-like beings. I only mention this because I've had many arguements about whether or not one can believe in spirits, fate, an after life, heaven and hell, and reincarnation and still be considered an Atheist, and I was curious if that may be why you might be questioning the authenticity of the Atheists I mentioned in my previous post.

But now back to the topic at hand. Although Atheists do exhibit trends in both morals and philosophies, as you've mentioned, that still leaves a minority that goes attended. If a group of Intelligent Liberal Secularists want to push for a greater seperation of Church and State/Government, then I applaud them in their quest, but the moment you add "Atheist" to that title, it becomes and a separatist group. Unless an Atheist group is willing to accept all Athiest regardless of morals, politics, and views on religion, it cannot accurately represent Atheist as a whole. If a group of Liberal Secular Atheists unite, then it is only a matter of time before a Conservative Secular Athiest group emerges, etc, etc, and then, because they will differ on morals and politics, they will eventually argue, and Atheists will be torn. After that it's only a matter of time before we turn into the South Park joke of the Allied Atheist Allegiance waring with the United Atheist League.

You see, I strongly believe that if you unite one kind of Athiest, even if that is the majority, you exclude another kind, and whenever a group feels missrepresented, no matter how small, they inevitably unite and creat their own group. Then you've lost all hope of unity, and worse yet, you've created "lines". And now, perhaps worst of all, you're not much different than a religion. You've created grouops of people each siding with whichever group they feel is closer to their own beliefs. Sound familar?

As I said I don't feel Atheism to be a belief, I believe it to be an undenyable truth. There are no groups fighting for the recognition of gravity, nor that the sun is a ball of gas, nor that the earth is round. As I said, if a group of Secular Liberals wanted to push for religious speration, I'll sign on the dotted line, but the moment they claimed Atheism, they would be missrepresenting a group. And in the end, they'd probably do more harm than good. cry  

[_C r y s t a l_RB]

I think something should be done to show that we aren't evil and are just as good of people as any religious person. I don't think spreading our beliefs is necessary. Forgive me if this sounds terrible, but it takes someone willing to think outside the box to be an Atheist, and I just don't think that those who are already deeply into religion have the ability to change their minds. I'd hate to see Atheists become the next Mormons going door to door selling their religion.  

[Inferno Breeze]

There is something that I don't quite understand is why people believe that if you don't believe in god, you won't have morals.... i mean, do they have such little faith in basic human decency?  

[Kharybuce]

Inferno Breeze

There is something that I don't quite understand is why people believe that if you don't believe in god, you won't have morals.... i mean, do they have such little faith in basic human decency?

Some do. I know that Catholics believe that you are born with "original sin," which means that if you die an unbaptized baby, you go to hell. Pretty shitty, huh? confused  

[Sanguvixen]

Inferno Breeze

There is something that I don't quite understand is why people believe that if you don't believe in god, you won't have morals.... i mean, do they have such little faith in basic human decency?

I think it is not so much that they have little faith in basic human decency. These people (some of them) are brought up believing that all that is good comes from their religion. They are taught that to be a good human being you must abide by the laws set down by a "God" the "Creator".

I think many of them grow up not realizing that the laws that they are abide by, are actually laws people can grow up and follow without religion. It is part of being a human being. How can a group of people really co-exist together if certain basic behavior that are self-destructive and destructive to society are not put down as stuff not to do?

They mistake good morals and behavior as being only relevant to religion.

EDIT: To be honest I do not have much faith in basic human decency myself. Humans, are little bastards.

 

[Rick Dawkins]

Kharybuce

Are you questioning whether or not they are legitimate?

You see, I strongly believe that if you unite one kind of Athiest, even if that is the majority, you exclude another kind, and whenever a group feels missrepresented, no matter how small, they inevitably unite and creat their own group. Then you've lost all hope of unity, and worse yet, you've created "lines". And now, perhaps worst of all, you're not much different than a religion. You've created grouops of people each siding with whichever group they feel is closer to their own beliefs. Sound familar?

As I said I don't feel Atheism to be a belief, I believe it to be an undenyable truth. There are no groups fighting for the recognition of gravity, nor that the sun is a ball of gas, nor that the earth is round. cry

First, I'm not going to question anyone that way, "who call themselves *blank*" is just a phrase, not an insinuation of fraud. This is a great discussion, I enjoy talking about this stuff and I welcome everyone to join in. I promise I'm not questioning anyone here, I want to make it perfectly clear that I consider this a sincere forum and I respect your opinions and beliefs. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was questioning your friends, I apologize if it sounded like that! Anyway, let's get to your arguments which, admittedly, I've had to think hard on.

1)If any group unites (like atheists) they'll leave out minorities.
It's true, there's no way to include everyone because we are diverse.

2)Those minorities will feel shunned.
Perhaps, I can only say that effective communication and effort to include the minority is important and will lessen the impact.

3)The minority will unit against the majority.
Possible, whenever majorities unite there's a chance all the diverse minorities will team up to struggle against them. But lets say (hypothetically) 60% of atheists unite with the goal to increase awareness of our positions. If the other 40% could possibly ban together even though they are so diverse themselves, then you could have a huge split. But there are two problems: whose to say the minority will speak up? Atheist as a group, you've mentioned, are intellectual loners. Second, if they speak up, whose to say they'll create a group with a strong enough base to split the party? They could splinter out into tons of smaller groups that might never unify.

4)Unifying under a belief (or "truth") will sink us to the level of a religious group.
I say "truth" because although I agree with you that it is undeniable, the perception to Christians is that atheism is the opposite of the truth because they either disregard the evidence or are ignorant of it. As an example, lets look at environmentalist groups whose goal it is to save the environment. Certainly it's a diverse group with many different ideas on how to take on the task, much like we atheists. If they said "we can't join because we'll form party lines," they would get nothing done and the environment would suffer. But they formed groups and lobbies, even though dangerous splinter groups like the Sierra Club were created (minorities that believe in eco-terrorism). Environmentalists are a good example of unification without the splinter groups ruining the effect.

My main point is that unification is effective. If you're choosing to avoid unifying like the religious because it's one of their strongest attributes, then you're losing out on that effective strength. When Eisenhower added "under God" to the pledge of allegiance to unify the country against the "godless communists" he didn't worry about alienating the minority and creating unified splinter groups. The unification brought him effectiveness and action. I can get into the "atheist bible" thing later, but it's the same precept. I'm not saying we should have one of course.  

[Kharybuce]

Okay, I think we're starting to get to that point where we understand each other, so now we're just debating the details. So here's where I think we are, correct me if I'm wrong.

What you're really argueing for is a secular givernment, and you feel that creating a group of Atheists, regardless of whether it's conservative, liberal, or whatever (you're just after the majority), will help to push for this further seperation of religion and government, which, if I'm not mistaken, is really the only reason you want unity in the first place. As for what I mentioned of seperatism, missrepresentation, and paralleling to religions you've chalked up to "you can't make an omlet without breaking a few eggs." If this is the gist of it, then I can say that I agree with you for the most part.

If the only purpose in Atheist unity is to create a truley secular government where all people of all theologies, including Atheists, can live their lives without feeling pressured, harassed, or made to suffer any forced exposier to any other way of living, and then once that government is acheived, and those freedoms ensured, it will disband or remain idle only to rise when the forementioned is at threat, then I'm on board.

Unfortunately, I feel that naive idealists dream. I believe history has shown the truth in "power corrupts, ablosute power corrupts absolutely." I find it hard to beleive that the learders and heads of these groups will simply die down once their demands are met. History has also shown that people are always willing to lay aside their differences in the face of a greater threat, but once that threat is removed they then turn their eyes on the next issue.

Those groups, whether a mighty few or many splinters, will eventually argue that their set of morals, philosophies, practices, whatever are more logical, justifiable, reasonable, whatever, than the other groups, and fighting will ensue. Just as Christians argue over what way to serve the same god, and the same messaiah, Atheists too will argue over the most rightious of morals and virtues. I understand that Atheists tend to be a bit smarter than most, but this does not make us a group of magnanimous beings. There will always be those who would abuse such a unity to rise to power only to enforce a belief.

I think I do fully understand what you're argueing for, and I hope that you're right, and that we Atheists can become a positive force in the Amrican governments developement without falling prey to the natural temptations of the power of unity, especially since I think you'll get your wish within the next ten years or so. I just really don't think so. I don't think we Atheists are that benevolent. I wish I did. sad  

[Rick Dawkins]

Awesome. I think you're right that we're on the same page for most of this stuff, which is good. Still, I love the opportunity to hear other points of view so this thread has been great. Anyway, I don't know if anyone here listens to podcasts, but you guys should reeeeeally check out infidelguy.com. He has a guest on there every once in awhile named Robert Price who has written a number of books, I'm reading one right now. The show is awesome and these guys know A LOT about religions and (Dr.) Robert Price has studied the Bible for years. I'm learning all kinds of stuff:

Seraphim = flaming, winged serpent.

Levites = were worshipers of Leviathan (which is awesome, I never made that connection even after playing all these final fantasy games!)

The serpent in the garden of Eden was supposed to be a winged serpent with arms and legs. That's why he was made to crawl on his belly for tempting Adam and Eve.

Yahve (now pronounced incorrectly as Yahwe), El Elohim = The names of two of the Jewish gods that were combined during the Babylonian exile to form the one God. That's right, the Jewish had hundreds of gods up until the Babylonian exile!

And God Damnit! I just found out that "Do not take the Lord's name in vain" has nothing to do with cursing or cussing. It just means don't make a promise to someone and invoke the name of God without being sure you can finish the task. So by God be damned, say whatever you want around your Christian buddies!  

[Angst-Bot]

Just...stop caring what others think. o-o If we ask not to be attacked for our beliefs, they have the exact same right.  

[Rick Dawkins]

Angst-Bot

Just...stop caring what others think. o-o If we ask not to be attacked for our beliefs, they have the exact same right.

Maybe you haven't read the rest of the thread, but the whole idea is that inactivity and turning a blind eye is tantamount to allowing Islamic theocracies to develop nuclear capabilities. Giving people the freedom to worship whatever God or Gods they choose is one thing, and I'm all for that. However, assuming that your inaction will somehow inspire inaction in those that wish to harm us directly or indirectly, either by acts of war or slowly trying to push good science out of our education system, is naive at best. I'm not asking you to force your beliefs on others, I don't enjoy being force-fed beliefs like that myself why would I do the same to others? I'm asking that you keep an eye out for our secular rights and the freedom FROM religion as well as the freedom OF religion.

Originally my intention was to develop a plan to reduce the animosity towards atheists by promoting ourselves as a positive force in society. That way, like I mentioned before, liberal religious groups (who are mostly on the same side as many atheists on social issues) would see our good side and put an end to their fundamentalist comrades that aim to turn our great country into a theocracy. You can "convert" between Theist and Non-theist, but secularism is different. Secularism simply means that our government system is separate from belief systems, meaning that many liberal religious groups can be theist as well as secularist. There's a good reason for being religious and secular at the same time: It means you can keep your church from being corrupted by the politicization of a theocracy. Secular government is what has allowed Christianity to keep it's place in this country.

Again, be an atheist, let others be Christian or Muslim or Hindu. However, saying things like "just let them do what they want and believe what they want" is like handing dominionists and theocrats the keys to the city. Inaction isn't a positive thing here.  

[Koravin]

I don't think 'converting' people is really necessary. I don't really care what other people believe, so long as it doesn't interfere with me, or harm anyone in any way. My goals would be more political, getting religion out of government, getting it out of science classes, stopping persecution, etc.

I don't 'convert' people, but I will discuss avidly.

EDIT: I hard-core support secularism. I have my own beliefs, but I don't let them rule me, I rule them. I can quite easily set aside my beliefs and look at things objectively. Later, I reexamine my beliefs to see if they hold up. If not, I readjust them.

Government should be run without religious baggage. If they have private religion, that's fine, but their religious beliefs should never dictate national policy.  

[Dronning Dagmar]

I think promoting the ideas you're talking about should be separate from atheism. What I mean is, though a lot of people who support whatever ideal (e.g. secularism) with be atheists, they aren't all atheists, and perhaps all atheists don't support it. So you have something like the Secular Coalition for America. It doesn't say "atheist" in the name because that's not the draw. Just like The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason doesn't need "atheist" in the name (although Dawkins has enough reputation that the name may still deter some people who would otherwise be on our side). This is exactly what Sam Harris was talking about in his controversial speech at AAI. We don't need the name "atheist" to get causes put forward.

In my opinion, if a group has "atheist" in the name, it should basically be social rather than political. I'm in an Atheist Meetup here, and we enjoy getting together about once a month and just having a beer or we may watch a movie or something (I think "Jesus Camp" is coming up) but we aren't activists.

Here in Denmark, the situation is quite a bit different than in the US. There is no separation between church and state, yet the people as a whole I would consider apatheists. No one really cares enough to call themselves atheist, Christian, or anything else, with the exception of Muslim (mostly Turkish) immigrants. This apathy allows the church-state integration to continue. To push for separation, there is Ateistisk Selskab (of which I'm a member, despite the fact that the name goes against everything I just talked about!) but we don't seem to be getting anywhere yet.

(By the way, if anyone has questions about what it's really like to not have church-state separation, I'll be happy to talk about it. I'm an American and I didn't really understand it until I started to consider moving here.)  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

I have read the thread, however, due to the little scrolly thing at the bottom not going through the whole thread, I will not be able to take on all the posts I want to, so, taking that into account:

I disagree with what most here are saying. Most people here seem to not want to 'proselytise' for fear of 'looking like a religious group'.
Here is what I have against that: I am right. This is what I think. If I didn't thinnk I was right, I wouldn't think what I currently think and would be looking for something that I could agree with, and at that point, I would think 'I am right'. Do you think that there is any form of deity? If so, you would want to convince others about the existence of this deity, either because the deity demands it, or just because you respect others enough that you do not want them to be incorrect. If you do not belive in a deity why would you want to tell people that their belief is wrong? For me, it is because I respect people enough to not want them to be wrong. I certainly do not like being wrong, but am happy when proved wrong becuse it means that now I am less wrong than I was before.

That is just the ethical side.

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there is a big difference between promoting our viewpoints and spreading Atheism.

I am really sorry, but I do not see the difference. All I see is that you use different words which based on the context, mean exactly the same thing.

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I truley believe the reason there hasn't been a real politically recognized organized Atheist group is because of the immense spectrum of Atheists out there. And it is because of that that I feel it would be very hard for any group of people to gather and claim that they speak for all Atheists.

This is true, this is so, so true. I am an atheism because I am a materialist, and materialism does not allow the 'ideal', the 'immaterial'.
Other atheists are idealists but just do not believe in the divine. I cannot work with them because our understandings and approaches to political questions (which is what the secular question is). That said, I do belive that a group should be made, this will be dealt with below.

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So atheists should continue their solo battles against blind, unreasonable faith. Banding together will only create problems.

I am sorry, but this is childish. A group has more resources than the individual, not only that, but the group can give support to its members. An individual 'fighting their lone crusade against fanaticism and ignorance' will only end up being inneffectual, watering down their demands so that they in no way resemble what was originally planned, or end up with a group surrounding them, that is, they cease being an individual, but are now part of a group.

The only way to truely get rid of fanaticism is to take it out of schools and to teach materialist philosophy and science in its place. This can only be done by fighting as a group. A good example is Russia: in Russia there was a group of terrorists a hundered years ago (actually, it was more like a hundered and thirty...). They would do the whole romantic lone revolutionary gag, throw the bomb at the tzar or his minister and run away, if caught, live out their prison sentinces or go the the scaffhold proudly. But over thirty- fourty years what did they achieve? Nothing whatsoever. Who changed everything? the Bolsheviks, a disciplined group of revolutionaries.

Sure, there are massive differences: their aims were to topple the government, yours is not (for me the struggle for a secular state is inseperable from he struggle for socialism, but that is not relevent here), because of that they used violence: one used the isolated violence of individuals, the other disciplined political agitation culminating in the taking of state power, but these differences make no impact on my ultimate message: only through organisation can there be success.

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You see, I strongly believe that if you unite one kind of Athiest, even if that is the majority, you exclude another kind, and whenever a group feels missrepresented, no matter how small, they inevitably unite and creat their own group.

Yes, there will be disunity, but so much the better: without combat there can be no growth. The group that is more right will win out in the end (among the atheists). What you are doing is saying that people who are wrong and hold harmful views about the world (all incorrect views are harmfull, not because, with the fanatics you will go to hell, but because you end up fighting against the correct view and therefore hamper human progress) can live in peace and hold their harmful view in peace and that they may try to convince people of their harmful views, but the people with correct views, precisely because they are correct, are not allowed to convince people? are not allowed to organise against this attack?

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There are no groups fighting for the recognition of gravity, nor that the sun is a ball of gas, nor that the earth is round.

This is denying history. People did fight for recognition of such views, some died, roasted on the stake for those views. Now they are accepted and no longer fought for, precisely because the fight has been won, you say that we shouldn't fight the fight that has not been won?

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but the moment they claimed Atheism, they would be missrepresenting a group.

Incorrect, they would be declaring that they are a group. Any others that felt that they could not participate in that group are free to form their own group, fight the common enemy, but also fight to prove who is right amongst themselves.

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Forgive me if this sounds terrible, but it takes someone willing to think outside the box to be an Atheist, and I just don't think that those who are already deeply into religion have the ability to change their minds.

This is disgustingly elitist. In France, in thr 1790's there was a campiagn done by the people of Paris called 'Dechristianisation'. Lovely name, I know, but you will most likely disagree with what they did. The went around the country shooting priests and inscribing 'death, the eternal sleep' on the arch into grave-yards. They were atheists, they were commoners. Just craftsmen, beggers and small shopkeepers. Nothing special, but they saw what needed to be done and they had the balls to do it (not that I would ever advocate the shooting of the clergy of any religion outside of humour...)

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I say "truth" because although I agree with you that it is undeniable, the perception to Christians is that atheism is the opposite of the truth because they either disregard the evidence or are ignorant of it.

I have itallicised the important part. The perception to christians is that we are evil little ******** who want to eat their children and rape their kittens while stabbing them with their own crucifices (actually, that last part...).
The perception of that I get of the christians in your country (and increasingly so here as well) is that they are ignorant little children who need to be quiet and listen when the grown-ups speak or they will get spanked with the spank-bot that we were able to invent because we know/aknowledge the laws of physics and they couldn't because they don't.

Apart from that, I agree with most of your post.

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Those groups, whether a mighty few or many splinters, will eventually argue that their set of morals, philosophies, practices, whatever are more logical, justifiable, reasonable, whatever, than the other groups, and fighting will ensue.

So, are you saying that such argument is bad from a tactical standpoint, or do you just think that 'we should not impose our morals on others?'

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I find it hard to beleive that the learders and heads of these groups will simply die down once their demands are met.

And how would that affect anything? what about this, exactly, is your fear? (not saying it is wrong, just wanting to know so I can make such a decision)

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There will always be those who would abuse such a unity to rise to power only to enforce a belief.

What is wrong with state teaching of materialist, rational and scientific interpretations of natural and historical phenomena while barring idealist, irrational, religious interpretations of natural and scientific phenomena?

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Yahve (now pronounced incorrectly as Yahwe), El Elohim = The names of two of the Jewish gods that were combined during the Babylonian exile to form the one God. That's right, the Jewish had hundreds of gods up until the Babylonian exile!

Please check out:: Foundations of Christianity, by Karl Kautsky

Also, when X-fanatics talk about how jesus was all for peace, ask them about Luke 19:27, 22:35-, and Mathew 10:34... no matter how much they point out that there are such pacifist pieces as Luke 22:52-, they cannot get away from the fact that he TOLD them to buy swords in the first place.

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Maybe you haven't read the rest of the thread, but the whole idea is that inactivity and turning a blind eye is tantamount to allowing Islamic theocracies to develop nuclear capabilities.

As opposed the the non-theocratic-but doesn't-really-matter US or the non-secular Israel, both with nukes? Sorry, but I fear the US more than Iran (in fact, I defend Iran against any and all attack by US imperialism, and declare that in the nuclear age a country without such weapons is defenceless and that Iran needs nukes if it is to defend itself).

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I think promoting the ideas you're talking about should be separate from atheism. What I mean is, though a lot of people who support whatever ideal (e.g. secularism) with be atheists, they aren't all atheists, and perhaps all atheists don't support it.

Not a good atheist who demands the unification of church and state.

I guess the easiest way to say all of the above is to just say I am committed to the belief that I can be right, and want everyone else to be right as well. Doesn't it hurt you when you see people taking advice from the class know-it-all about their computers when the advice given is wrong? Or it might be info about a band you are into, or just a piece of history, but then those people go away feeling enlightened but all they have recieved is crap. Unless you tell them that this person is an idiot who knows nothing, thay will continue to get advice untill they are burned by it.