The WP Strident Atheists

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" it seems an outright inconsistency to suggest that religion is outside of rational inquiry. After all, what other things do you hold are outside rational inquiry? What other things would you say are reasonable to believe if one does not have a solid amount of evidence? "

But - if I can still read Anglic - Orwell did not say that.

Of course religion is a subject of rational inquiry - unless we assume large numbers of serious thinkers in a wide range of contexts over centuries are a mass delusion.

But that is NOT the same as susceptible of proof - ask the string theorizers.

Reference my brief typology of things I believe. Ask any working scholar - rational enquiry may take you to certainty based on the data - without having enough to get you into your favorite refereed journal.

Proof or no proof does not equate to truth or falsehood.

And of course [though I try not to pound my drums too often] reason is in the grasp of GIGO.

I am highly critical of people placing credit of some supernatural imaginary friend if they or some other friend or some person(s) featured in the news recovers from a very difficult operation in hospital and not to the surgeons. Like for instance the separation of the conjoined twins Krishna the Trishna they give "God" the credit and hail it as a miracle but a too scared of pointing the figure of blame at him for making them that way in the first place. They do not give the surgeons the credit for soughting out the mess because they have some stupid notion that the surgeons were just God’s puppets. I just wonder why single out surgeons and people who do nice things as God’s puppets; shouldn’t that same rule apply people who do nasty things such as rapists and murderers? Some people may claim that people who do nasty things as the Devil’s puppets, but I cannot buy that supernatural nonsense as well. So I guess on those so called "miracles of convenience" especially medical miracles I am a strident atheist in that respect. I also do not like supernatural afterlives in supernatural realms such as Heaven or life can be expressed in the form of any supernatural afterlife such as ghosts, fairies or vampires, etc.

Banned Magnus:

You have my deepest sympathy. Just as I am a believer in a form of anarchy impossible in human society, I BELIEVE in holding the etymological and literal and logical sense of a word. When people use in English EGREGIOUS in its normal Anglic sense I cringe, and when terms get shifted to suit perceived expedience I weep.

I listen to this guy saying "There is no such thing as a Frenchman" - shifting the language to suit the field's jargon.

Aarghh.

But it is AFTER 1984. Big Brother remakes words to suit and the French Academy cannot keep "picnic" out of the language.

Yes, I agree a word should have a clear range of meaning whchich people ought to be content with.

But - wanting it does not make it so, and neiyher of us can fight Big Brother.

Best we can do is when we talk with one another agree on a sense and work with it. But the rest of the worldwill not play by those rules.

I agree that Big Brother shouldn't be fought and that is not what I am trying to do. I am just bored with all the moronic hypocrisy. It's fun to just f**k with people sometimes even though I know I will never rattle any sense into them.

as long as you understand that, by your reasoning, you and i share the ideology and dogma of "asantism."

unless i'm mistaken and you believe in santa.

I don't care if people believe in Santa. I like to pretend he is real from time to time. It's not an ideology to not believe in him. I mean, they don't have clubs and books written by people for people who vehemently oppose him and all of those who believe in him.

analogy fail

As much as I do not believe in any deity I do not have a problem with atheists who believe in lesser deities such as fairies, ghosts or Santa Claus just so long as any deity they subscribe to is nowhere near the power of the a supreme sentient being that created the universe, they a free to believe in any strange paranormal entities such as the Loch Ness monster or communicating with aliens through mental telepathy. There is no book of rules for atheists like there is for orthodox religions such as the Bible of the Koran, such as the 10 commandants set out for Christians. There is only commandment for atheists and that is "thou shalt not believe in any supreme intelligent designer and maker of the universe"

My point was you ARE a believer and a rationalist. There is a little contradiction there, true, but it proves my point: you can hold two identity cards at once, so to speak. Rationalism != atheism.

But I'm not a deist. Nor am I nearly as strict a materialist as Pedant and AG seemed to think. So in all three cases, the perception of my religious views is significantly closer to atheism than what I actually believe.

Your argument sucks. Those people are organizing as anti-theists not as atheists. Two different things, since there are believers (they usually call themselves "spiritual") that are opposed to organized religion. And there are atheists that like going to church/temple/services. They are not anti-theists, so conflating the two is wrong.

Likewise someone can be anti-Christian and not anti-theist. So some of them are not atheists either. Hindus, for example, do not believe in the "him" that you mention.

And what of Allah? There are plenty of Christians that are anti-Muslim after all. Its the same unblinkin god. See? a subset of anti-theism can even oppose the worship of ones own god!

You want a better analogy? Lets say you have never provided the tasty treat called unobtainium for your children. They have never eaten it. Can they then miss such a thing?

Could they be ideological about their lack of unobtainium? Of course not! They lack a concept, a frame of reference. Atheism: without god. Never tasted it. never heard it, never smelled it. No concept. Without god. Its a very basic definition.

Its only when one has taken the bitter taste of religious practice that one becomes an anti-theist. Since we are secularists, we are not opposed to god because we have no belief in them. We can only be anti-theists in the secular meaning, and that pertains only to the practice of religion. To be clear, the human practice of rites, beliefs and rituals. All the rest - "him and them" - we dont believe in.

To really be opposed to god(s) themselves, one must believe in them. Thats not an atheist, its, well... insane! Thats bear baiting on a cosmic scale.

As for unobtainium, its perfectly delicious and your kids dont know what they are missing. I think its shameful that you deny them this treat.

Who said "strictly a materialist"? Part of the issue though is whether you have non-materialism as a coherent part of your framework. In my mind, I see difficulty having that fit in, despite the fact your beliefs require you to not be a materialist. I mean, Orwell, the world that science accepts is one that is very much material, is there a non-ad hoc way to have something non-material in it? After all, we can't just explain bits of reality as "spirit stuff" because it is cool, but rather ideas exist in a framework.

The big question that those addressing your theism and questioning it is not whether you can state "Oh, I believe in God, even a miracle", but rather whether this is coherent with the rest of your belief-system, and whether a more consistent Orwell would attack your ideas (If you ever openly stated them) the same way this Orwell considers the Venus project promoters loonies.

Fuzzy, I don't know what you are talking about to be honest with you. You are absurd in your analogy. I can't even make sense of half of what you said. What the hell are you talking about with unobtainium? What does that have to do with the price of apples? Furthermore, there are no anti-theism movements. There are Atheists who all like to make fun of Theists or Pagans or new agers as santa clause worhipping hippies or sprout jests of elves in sock drawers and they think they are some elite intellectual group but in reality they just have different ways of thinking and perceiving and feeling. Basically they don't tolerate different brain types. It's brainism; a form of prejudice based on brain type.

you may be on to something with "brainism." since atheists lack belief in "magic" or "souls" or "other superstitious nonsense," we're forced to accept that intellectual differences stem from the brain. being wary of convicted child molesters is probably a good example of "brainism." that said, you've reached maximum fecal capacity if you can state that the lack of belief in one (fictional) character doesn't require an ideology or dogma but that the lack of belief in another (fictional) character does.

unobtainium is an unobtainable element. trust me, though... it's awesome. it's also delicious. your kids really don't know what they're missing.

i suppose i should let you in on another little secret. the truth is, Atheism really is a religion. our main holiday is on december 32nd, which is an extradimensional day after new year's eve that All Powerful Atheismo grants access to if you've been a good Atheist all year long. that means you can't miss any indoctrination meetings at the Temple of Athe. those deemed faithful enough to be granted access to december 32nd (it's an extradimensional day so it's more of a when than a where) get to drink corn whiskey with the ArchAtheAngels (pz myers, dan dennet, christopher hitchens ((ffs don't call him "chris." that's how i got kicked out a few december 32nds ago.)), and richard dawkins) without any fear of hangover.

maximum.... fecal... capacity...

consider this as my application for membership.

Members list:
Awesomelyglorious
Fuzzy
skafather84
Sand
Master_Pedant
DentArthurDent
Exclavius
Ergo Proxy
manifoldrob
Cheeseroyale34
LKL
MONKEY
Bethie
just_ben
MasterJedi

There you go. I've already noticed your posts as well on these issues, so happy to accept you into the flock.

Et pour quoi je ne see pas pgd aqui?

Surely if he applied he would be in like Flynn. Not for me to nominate, of course, just a bit surprised.