Why do some people feel the need to denigrate the religious?

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yes. your religion is equal to "the mummy 3". that is exactly what I want to say.
and when I say "our" explanations, I do mean: people who identify with humanism and enlightenment. not the people who identify with "the mummy 3".

brain damage is usually accidental, drugs includes sugar (it certainly makes the world a lot nicer... until half an hour later, when the world turns into an anxiety inducing mess), and microchips cure tourette's, or as you might call it: demonic possession.

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Yes, at these forums.
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If someone wants to talk about intolerant non-Atheist religious people, then they can take it up with the door-to-door denominations when they come to their door.
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Certainly.

Atheists can take that up with non-Atheists who actually gets in their face. ...like the denominations that knock on doors.
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Exactly, there’s no justification for aggressive criticism of others’ beliefs, or even a claim to know or understand someone else’s beliefs.
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Though some non-Atheists pick on Atheists elsewhere, at these forums here, it’s only the other way around. How often do you hear anyone here unprovokedly calling Atheists “stupid”?
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Yes, the poster-child for the OP’s point about aggressive gung-ho.
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Michael Ossipoff

...thus exhibiting the astounding presumption and pretense of believing that you know and understand the religion of every non-Atheist religious person.



...your delusion of grandeur.

Michael829

Last edited by Michael829 on 08 Dec 2017, 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This person is expressing his bizarre beliefs, to explain his aggressive and antisocial behavior in these forums.

By the way, he left out the apostrophe from "Atheists' ". Do we have here another ungrammatical Atheist?

Michael829

Maybe some non-Atheist religious people believe in contravention of physical law (That's the usual meaning of "supernatural"), but many don't. When you try to attribute a few people's beliefs to a larger number of people, that's called "bigotry".

Michael829

Some people want to claim Einstein as an Atheist. Well, for an Atheist, he made a lot of non-Atheist religious statements. Someone can say, "He didn't mean it.", but that seems rather pointless.

It's too late to ask him, so the matter is moot now.

Michael829

That's "et al", GnosticBishop. It's short for Latin meaning "and others".

No doubt pretending is fun, but don't bishops have to take Latin, at some point before they become bishops?

What's the point of these corrections?

Well, if someone can't get their grammar right, or pretentiously uses poorly-copied Latin, what does that say about their reliability in other areas?

Michael829

nothing. absolutely nothing.
you seem to have little but ad hominems, strawmen and semantics.
when you criticze my and other's grammar - or rather, spelling errors made in haste - I suggest we proceed in my native language and see how well you fare.
regarding the latter: so, mr. derrida, we understand that words are fluid concepts that can be interpreted in any way one chooses - and in an argument, be easily turned against the oponent.

it just doesn't get anyone anywhere - except the more agressive participant can "win" the argument - but it is a hollow victory, as nothing of value is gained.

the OP asked why some people feel the need to denigrate the religious - and some people answered, to the best of their abilities.

I think perhaps the only way to resolve postmodernism intuitively enough for everyone's liking is getting back to a place where stupid people get eaten by lions, tigers, or whatever else. As of right now we live in a world where someone can argue vehemently that the world is flat and live quite comfortably

The lack of consequences to being stupid seem to indicate to some that there's no consequence to being right, wrong, or whatever else or maybe even that right and wrong are social constructs. That and I can see the world, sincerely, looking that way to a person to slow to understand when they're hearing something from someone that they don't understand and the markers are in place to suggest that the person actually does, really, know much more than they do and happens to be right.

But ad-hominem and strawmen are the name-of-the-game for our religion-attackers.

And I deny that I used any strawmen. I was replying to religion-attackers themselves. (I won't call them by their self-designated name, because then I could be accused of criticizing a group).

But yes, the religion-attackers' belief that the Biblical-Literalist beliefs that they attack are the beliefs of all religious people, or even the entire significant belief of Literalists, amounts to a constantly-repeated strawman attack. So common and routine is that strawman attack, that religion-attackers use it subconsciously and mechanically, as if they all get it from the same hymn-book (as I've already mentioned)..

And, by the way, religion-attackers are religious too. They're fervent, devout and preachy True-Believers in the religion of Science-Worship.



You haven't said what language that is. I commend anyone who writes in a foreign language. I didn't know that you were, and I'd never intentionally criticize someone's errors when using a language that is foreign to them. You're getting nearly all of it right, because I had no idea that you weren't a native English-speaker.

Maybe the fact that English is a foreign language to you is part, or all, of the reason why you misunderstand what English speaking non-Atheist religious people say &/or believe. Might it not be best to withhold judgment about that?

But what's the native English-Speakers' excuse?

But, in any case, I stand by my claim that sloppy, mis-copied Latin, or ungrammatical sentences by born English-speakers, indicates a lack of conscientiousness, and probably goes with a disinclination to do the reading needed for qualified discussion of beliefs.



I've only objected to some really unmistakable aggressive rudeness. But yes, misinterpretation of words is what the religion-attackers are all about.



Aggressiveness, uncalled-for attack, is what I'm objecting to. It's what the OP was objecting to, as well.



...and, in some instances, used it as an opportunity to again exhibit their uncalled-for and inappropriate attack-behavior. So that's their best?

Michael829

But also remember - when on WP PPR you have to remember to sort conversations into the various heaps. One particular set of important binaries (to me at least) is purpose for engaging in debate - heap A being the one where interested individuals are trying to hash out solutions to problems, know more today than they did yesterday, and learn from those they constructively debate with and heap B - the people who come for something of an oratory medieval fair or sport where they identify personally with their ideas as if they're a completed corpus, have no desire to learn, and if they weren't coming here simply to win they probably wouldn't be here much at all.

okay, I will say something to you, and only you, because I'm not worrying that you will misunderstand me and go postmodern.
right and wrong are social constructs.
in the sense that: scientific knowledge is arrived at by deduction, hypothesis, experiment and failure to falsify.
however, throughout the history of science, what used to be right at one time turned out to be wrong at another.
so... was it ever right? - the theory of evolution has been "right" to the point where one would need evry, very strong evidence against it - but the theories about "inferior races" have been proven wrong - yet, in the mainstream of western culture, only after they have done considerable damage. - but they were considered "right" at the time.
Yet, it is also not true that there are no differences between races. Skin colour would be the obvious one. Lactase persistence another one. It took the entire twentieth century to sort out that the answer to the nature vs. nurture deabte is: both.
Now I propose the solution to think in terms of better and worse explanation for phenomena.
And I'd like to suggest the scientific method as a rulebook on how to settle what's a better explanation.

now some here have called me a science worshipper - as if science was in itself a narrative to explain the world, as religion is.
it is not. it is a tool to seperate good from bad.
And hence, the nature of scientific Truth is very different from transcendental truth - it is ever only the best explanation -

the scientific method itself can be made the subject of debate- is it a social construct? - of course it is. but applied to itself, it means: it is the best tool available - and until you bring a better tool, you're not competing.

I watched a "banned Tedx talk" earlier today. The speaker was complaining about the "dogma" in science, and that apparently, the speed of light is not a constant. However, he only complained about some measured fluctuation- but not providing a better explanation than what the physicists told him: that it was probably just a measurement error.
Instead of sitting down, figuring out how to set up an experiment to disprove them - and possibly go down in science history for the major discovery - he went to give a Tedx Talk(the X stands for indepently organized, and often, frankly, poorly vetted) and complained that "the materialists" were unwilling to drop their dogma - as if it were not possible for him to revise the assumption himself, by providing the better explanation.

I hand over to biologist Rober Sapolsky to give the best Explanation for religion science has to offer - and what I like about sapolsky: in his lectures, he doesn't only explain things, he also tells the story of how competing explanations got sorted out to arrive at this explanation.



for further education on human behaviour, and how sciencee knows that behaviour is controlled by neurons and chemicals interacting:



and these videos are actually not added to denigrate the religious. it is a challenge to come up with a better explanation.

They only problem I really have with the religious is religious people who try to impose their beliefs on others who don't believe the same. Its like they want their beliefs respected but can't respect that not everyone follows their same religious beliefs. I respect freedom of religion.

I mean if someones christian faith for instance makes them happy, or it helps them handle the rougher parts of life I don't want to ruin that for them. But if they use it to tell me what to believe, or make threats about 'gods wrath' then I can't say I have much respect for that.

I mean for instance with the world-wide same sex marriage debate, people have every right to disagree with same-sex marrige...but should people who disagree with it mostly due to religious beliefs be able to disallow it for people who want to participate in it? I say No.

"Right" and "wrong" might be "social constructs."

But there ARE "right" and "wrong" things.

Well said venus. I don't want rigid systems to dictate rights, if there is no basis other than the system itself.