believer´s opinion on not believers going to church?

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I don't have a problem with examination or criticism of any belief (see my thread on Jesus/small government). I have a problem with zealots and I have a problem with ignorant, baseless generalizations leveled by some atheists against theists--You know, that "religion poisons everything" sort of mentality. That mentality is very much akin to racism as far as I'm concerned.

Again, let me emphasize, I'm not referring to all atheists. I'm referring to militant atheists and despite what that cartoon I was commenting on might show, my experience has been that those folks can be as unreasonable, unfair and narrow-minded as any redneck you'd ever meet.

I don't see it as akin to racism at all. It's still not about a trait, but an idea. Are people "racist" if they say fascism or communism are bad ideas that result in harmful outcomes? No. They're still critiquing an idea. You might bristle at the suggestion, but it's still quite different in kind.

Where I do sometimes have a problem is when people start talking about things like forcing Christians to undergo re-education, outlawing religion, and stuff like that. But that's not really all that common. Most atheists are keenly aware of the central theme of persecution in religion, and how much it thrives on it and needs it, and don't want to do it any favours by giving it it's favourite meat and drink.

Okay, here's how they are similar.

The racist would say that a black man is inferior simply by virtue of being black.

Likewise, some more militant atheists would say that a theist must be irrational, superstitious, and scientifically illiterate simply by virtue of belief in a deity.

Both positions are similar and WRONG simply because they are TOO GENERAL and TOO EXTREME. Both positions are the product of laziness and ignorance.

Oddly enough I was kind of thinking of doing a social expirement........called dress up like this:



minus the facial hair.

Then go to various church services dressed that way to see how people react, then I shall write a blog or something about the reactions. I'm not in college so I can't do a college report on it.

I agree that the second statement is a generalization and not particularly nice, but that still doesn't make religion an innate trait. It is a belief in a number of truth claims that are, at least in case of the Abrahamic religions, not supported by any real evidence, and a moral value system that is quite insulting unless you're wearing the rose-tinted glasses of faith.

First off, according to Christian dogma, all people are sinners. Well, I'm not, and I strongly object to the accusation that I'm somehow morally corrupt. I haven't done anything morally wrong in my life and I don't need the forgiveness of anybody's god. The Bible is particularly insulting to non-believers and calls us fools for not believing in any deity. The wise and educated are also fools according to the Bible, all wisdom of this world is foolishness, infantile imbeciles will go to heaven and everybody who doesn't believe this deserves to be punished for all eternity.

Add to that the blatant misogyny of the Bible authors and their emphasis on the inferiority of women. According to the NT, women are the "weaker vessels" who "must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness", are supposed to "remain quiet" and may not "teach or exercise authority over a man". Talk about WRONG and TOO EXTREME Not to forget the rampant homophobia and anti-homosexuality in both OT and NT. And no, Paul didn't speak about temple prostitution, pedophilia, or whatever intellectually dishonest excuse Christian apologists have come up with, when he used very specific and descriptive phrases like "men who abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another".

These offensive, discriminatory verses can be found in all Bible translations and are hardly translation errors. Even if they were, why haven't they been corrected yet? Remove all these hateful and discriminatory statements from your holy books, and us non-believers might start respecting your beliefs. But even then, we will continue to object to supernatural beliefs being taught in the public square, used by political demagogues, or imposed on the impressionable minds of young children. This objection can be very elaborate and comprehensive, or as condensed as "your belief is irrational and superstitious". If you don't want to hear this kind of criticism, keep religion in your churches and temples and don't preach it in public.


PS: Here is a thought experiment. Suppose someone strongly believes that all world governments are controlled by aliens (which is not really all that different from "this world is ruled by the evil adversary of my god and some people are agents of Satan"). After bothering people at a street corner, this person is admitted to a mental hospital. Does the attending psychiatrist have to respect these beliefs? Or would it be discrimination on the level of racism to tell this person that his conspiracy theory is delusional?

Okay, I've already explained why I think racists and extreme/militant/evangelical atheist are similar, but to sum up, it has everything to do with unfair, ignorant generalizations and nothing to do with traits vs beliefs.

Just an observation here.... If you think racism is wrong because it targets an innate characteristic, beyond anyone's control---well you need to do a bit more thinking.

Racism is wrong because it is an unreasonably general prejudice, based on faulty logic.

You could certainly make the case that O.J. Simpson is a moral defective, or that guy (who happens to be black) that you were just chatting with is a moron.

However, you could not (reasonably) conclude from that data that all blacks are morally defective morons.

Likewise, you can argue that the Bible is full of hateful, backward ideas, or that christian fundamentalists who interfere with the teaching of science in public schools are bad.

However, you could not reasonably conclude from this that all holy books are full of hate, or even that all Christians are backward, illiterates.

My beef is with people who make lazy generalizations, not people who make well reasoned, specific, criticisms they can support.

Go back and look at your own post. Most of your criticisms are about Christianity/The Bible in particular.( And,by the way, I agree that the Bible is full of some really awful stuff. Reading the Old Testament is what convinced me that I could never be a Christian (certainly not in the conventional sense).) You make a good case against Christianity, but it does not follow that if Christianity is bad all religion must be bad.

Again, I don't have a problem with criticism. I have a problem with lazy, over-generalized arguments.


PS


In reality, the bolded part is the only important bit. If the person is not breaking the law, (at least in my country) he could not be admitted against his will to a mental hospital. In the US you have a constitutional right to believe anything you like as long as you are not directly harming yourself or someone else.

What you are describing is some kind of thought crime scenario. I hope I never live in a society where I could be locked up simply for holding thoughts different from the mainstream.

To answer your question directly... Simply locking the guy up (assuming he was not hurting anyone) would be a hell-of-a-lot worse than racism.

If the guy is simply on the corner, speaking nonsense and other people wanted to WASTE their time arguing with him, I'd say that is not anything like racism (unless they were arguing that ALL CRAZY PEOPLE are bad for society ), but it is a lot like being stupid.

Last edited by GoonSquad on 20 Apr 2012, 10:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

very very few of even the most millitant atheists i have seen proclaim religion is bad "because"

most of them have hundreeds of reasons and many of them quite justified, can you make that judgement?
i agree blanket statements arent excactly accurate nor are they of much use but sometimes people use blanket statements when they are tired of explaining a view point, does this make them automatic fanatics?

I would say it makes them and their cause look very bad. I would also say that if you are not up for actually arguing your position, you should stay out of the debate.

i agree but often that part of the conversation happens after the debate has already begun, giving people a personal interest as they spend time and energy on it.

i also agree it makes people look bad but often that is the extent of it, they look bad, and human perception is severely flawed especially at face value so to speak.
this goes both ways of course and while it isnt an excuse it is understandable human behavior, as long as people have enough mindfullness to learn from it it isnt a bad thing, (of course many dont)

Interestingly enough, blanket statements frequently apply to religion. Whodathunk ;D

Miliant athiests will also kill those of any faith and their are more in the world then you think theists and non theists can be fanatics but one can't exisit with out the other the more non theists you have the more thiests you will have also it's the yin and yang of things so to speak.

Where are these killer atheists?

Where are these killer atheists?

Though Stalin was not a militant Athiest he did have people convert or choose to be sent to a work labour camp until they died. He also had atheism taught in schools and social darwismin as well he got rid of religoin in Russia for political power but it was still death by association.

In the USSR, the Union of Militant Atheists (also known as "the Union of
Belligerent Atheists" or "the League of the Militant Godless")

the earths population is not determined by the ammount of believers nor non believers, it is quite detached.
so if there are more of one group it follows that the other becomes smaller.


also the whos worse game is degrading to the whole debate,

Atheism =/= Communism...

That was not my point the point but athiests are a group bigger in numbers then Theists are. It is the natural blance of thing's if everyone was a thiest or a non theist the world would be a very boring place life needs conflict and diveresty it makes life fun and interesting