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[Blargityblarg]

How can you be a fundy atheist? There no doctrines or dogma to vehemently cline to.

Believe me, there is dogma. There are people who believe the most popular theory with absolute faith, without considering whether there are holes in it, without considering the validity of other theories. These people, some of them being scientists, will rabidly attack any alternative theory instead of scientifically considering alternatives.

I can't believe you...
Atheism isn't a belief system. There is no dogma. And there are anti science atheists.

I don't think it's that they're fundamentalist atheists, it's that they're atheists who are also fundamentalistic about some particular theory or whatever.

[Leafsnail]

Many popular scientific dogma are highly incongruent with the data and don't employ the scientific method, but rather rely on grants fed by politically motivated institutions that seek to find a certain thing to be true rather than to find what the truth happens to be.

Ok.  Name me some "popular scientific dogma" which don't fit the data.

[Osmosis Jones]

These people, some of them being scientists, will rabidly attack any alternative theory instead of scientifically considering alternatives.

*facepalm*
That's how science works. Everything is being attacked all the time so false theories can be discarded. To crib Tim Minchin, alternative theories that can't be validly attacked are called theories.

I don't know about you, but the scientists I know (myself included) don't call them theories. Wrong gets bandied about mostly (also psuedoscience, hat full of crazy, bollocks,asshattery, muthaf***in miracles etc ). To trot out the tired old statement, scientist don't use the word theory like laymen do (at least, not outside of casual conversation).

Now, yes science can be a bit cruel to new ideas. Look up the story of the guy that discovered quasicrystals sometime; the guy was reduced to a near nervous breakdown. Aside from the obvious skepticism of outlandish claims by science in general, there are other reasons. There are people who have a lot invested in existing theories, and they don't like to see their theories fall by the wayside. More often, people don't want to lose the prestige of being associated with the field-leading theory; that, or simply because it can be frustating to have your life's work invalidated by some upstart.

What it isn't is a fiscal interest.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm currently a PhD student in a materials science degree. I earn less than my country's minimum wage; when I finish in 3 years, I'll be earning around $65-70k, AUSD. If I cared about money, I could have done a chem engineering degree and be on six figures easily by that time, or at $65k 6 months after my undergrad.

Now, as much as there is a stubborness in science (much as there is anywhere humans are involved), there is a saving grace; if your theory is correct, and testably so it will succeed. Yes it may be a long and painful process, but if we can't disprove it, even the most reticent will be dragged kicking and screaming into the new view.

How can you be a fundy atheist? There no doctrines or dogma to vehemently cline to.

Believe me, there is dogma. There are people who believe the most popular theory with absolute faith, without considering whether there are holes in it, without considering the validity of other theories. These people, some of them being scientists, will rabidly attack any alternative theory instead of scientifically considering alternatives.

I can't believe you...
Atheism isn't a belief system. There is no dogma. And there are anti science atheists.

I don't think it's that they're fundamentalist atheists, it's that they're atheists who are also fundamentalistic about some particular theory or whatever.

Regarding "fundamentalist athiests", the label is a bit oxymoronic. Now, fanatical athiests, those exist; there are sadly athiests out there filled with missionary zeal, a complete lack of tact, and a rather abrasive nature. 

Like Dawkins. I respect the guy; he's an amazing orator, is humourous, and can construct brilliantly logical arguments. However, he is a horrible spokesperson for athiesm (which he has basically become, courtesy of his well-written, accesible popular-science books, frequent TV appearances, and vocal campaigning). In any debate, it is VITAL to avoid outright hostility and abuse; all that it achieves is reinforcing the Us Vs Them mentality in the opposition. Just because we athiests cop a lot of shit from the uneducated, doesn't mean we should call them all morons. 

It's a lesson a lot of brand-new freshly-aware athiests need to learn as well.

FAKEEDIT: Actually, now that I think about it... there are athiests who become so for the wrong reasons; I've met a few online who declared as athiest pretty well purely to screw with their conservative parents. Those people were, objectively, terrible athiests, and gave the rest of us a bad name. They couldn't construct a rational argument to save their life, and resorted to personal attacks more often as a result. That said, they're rare, and I'm still not sure if you can call them fundamentalist, or just a-holes...

[MaximumZero]

I think that if we need a new spokesman for Atheism, it needs to be Sam Harris. Unlike Dawkins and PZ Myers and the like, he's not abrasive at all. He's a silky smooth speaker, he's humble, he's highly educated and intelligent, and he's passionate.

[Leafsnail]

I'd rather someone who can be a bit abrasive and confrontational than Mr "We are at war with Islam".

[alway]

FAKEEDIT: Actually, now that I think about it... there are athiests who become so for the wrong reasons; I've met a few online who declared as athiest pretty well purely to screw with their conservative parents. Those people were, objectively, terrible athiests, and gave the rest of us a bad name. They couldn't construct a rational argument to save their life, and resorted to personal attacks more often as a result. That said, they're rare, and I'm still not sure if you can call them fundamentalist, or just a-holes...

Those aren't atheists, those are theists in remission.

I say that because, about 10 years later, those will be the people standing up at the front of the church saying something to the tune of "I used to be a bad person, doing all these bad things, but then I let tha powwaaaah of jeeeebbbuuss into my life, and I bacame a better person!" and are a big part of continuing the discriminatory stereotype against atheists as 'evildoers and immoral scum.'

[Hiiri]

I'm just not quite comfortable calling it a god in and of itself

I don't believe that any god exists, because he hasn't shown himself to anyone.

THERE! You're an atheist, get over it.

[palsch]

A prominent climate science spokesman suggested that the homes of "deniers" should be burned down to save the rest of humanity.

For one thing Zwick isn't especially prominent. I've followed the climate debate quite closely for a long time. He isn't anywhere near the central figures. He is also a strong advocate of free market solutions to climate change, something that isn't especially feasible given the actual scale of the problem.

That particular post was one of his free market ideas. Explicitly;

First, I’m not advocating anyone go out and burn someone’s house down, but am simply asking what to do if a house is already on fire and the owner is culpable.  Do we save his house, or the houses of his neighbors? I added the phrase “until the innocent are rescued” in the eighth paragraph above after posting to make this point even more clear, but the comments keep flooding in.  I can’t go changing text above, so I’m adding this addendum.  Read it, then read the post, and then comment.

We can make the analogy stronger by adding layers of complexity: IF a person intentionally sets fire to his own house — perhaps for insurance money — and that fire spreads to the neighbors, and the town has just one fire truck and four firemen, which house should they save first? Let’s assume the person told half the town of his intentions beforehand, so the firemen have a pretty good idea of what happened.  They have some tough choices to make.

Turning back to the analogy, the people who owned the houses committed no crime — they just decided to save $75 by not paying the fire protection fee.  They took a risk, and they suffered the consequences.

Anyone who acts to prevent preventive action on climate change is not only taking a risk, but also dumping the downside of that risk on the rest of us.  What’s worse, it’s a dumb risk — one that you could argue faces 50:1 odds against winning (based on the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists on this), but which has a marginal payoff at best.

Since people are taking risks that impact the rest of us, doesn’t it make sense to ask how the innocent should be made whole IF things go awry?  Also, how do we differentiate between people who were acting in good faith but were swayed by deceit and people who were obfuscating the truth?  In a sense, I’m asking you to put yourselves in the shoes of lawmakers and not of judges — let’s see if we can agree on the definition of a crime and what the penalty for that crime should be before we go trying to determine guilt or innocence.

If the denialists or whatever you want to call them really are acting in good faith, they won’t object to this even if they end up being wrong, because it only applies to people who can be shown to be disseminating patently and demonstratively false information.  It’s also, obviously, an unworkable mechanism, but I thought maybe it would spark some interesting comments on how best to deal with externalities and the tragedy of the commons.  Perhaps now?

Stupid? Somewhat. It's applying horrible libertarian ideals and hopefully unnecessary triage principles to climate change. The burning house metaphor was a bad one to use, especially given how easily it was taken out of context. But it wasn't a threat or call for violence.

[Tabbyman]

How can you be a fundy atheist? There no doctrines or dogma to vehemently cline to.

Believe me, there is dogma. There are people who believe the most popular theory with absolute faith, without considering whether there are holes in it, without considering the validity of other theories. These people, some of them being scientists, will rabidly attack any alternative theory instead of scientifically considering alternatives.

I can't believe you...
Atheism isn't a belief system. There is no dogma. And there are anti science atheists.

There are flavours, dude, just like anarchy. There's no one anarchy, there's not even one Christianity. There are many varieties. Maybe I should have called this one scientific atheist fundamentalists, ones who tout the big bang as verified truth like it's been reproduced in a lab.

[MagmaMcFry]

Atheist fanboys.

[Tabbyman]

I'm just not quite comfortable calling it a god in and of itself

I don't believe that any god exists, because he hasn't shown himself to anyone.

THERE! You're an atheist, get over it.

I'd be inclined to agree to some extent that I'm an atheist, despite my agnostic tendencies. Did you think I have a problem with atheists?

I was referring to the kind who'll blindly believe a theory they haven't bothered to think critically about, tout that theory as absolute truth, and otherwise behave in an offensively religious manner. (Edit: while thinking they've evaded religion by believing a theory without checking if it's backed by sound evidence)

I used the term fundamentalist to separate these types of atheists from the milder ones who don't bother anyone, just like the milder Christians who don't make it their business to offend others.

[MagmaMcFry]

Atheist fanboys.

my sleep deprived brain is struggling to tell if it's a joke or an insult...#

this annoys me.

Let's clarify:

There are flavours, dude, just like anarchy. There's no one anarchy, there's not even one Christianity. There are many varieties. Maybe I should have called this one scientific atheist fundamentalists, ones who tout the big bang as verified truth like it's been reproduced in a lab.

Those are what I'd call atheist fanboys.

[Tabbyman]

Upon taking a few breaths, I'm just gonna say, I've posed my view, I've done a wee bit of arguing, but really I don't want to spend my weekend feeling like I'm at war with an opposing view. Conflict makes it hard for me to relax and enjoy the final hours of freedom before the next 8 hours of paid slavery commences.

Was fun arguing, but mostly I just wanted to share a view and GTFO. Some may agree, some may disagree. This is to be expected.

[Strife26]

Atheist fanboys.

my sleep deprived brain is struggling to tell if it's a joke or an insult...#

this annoys me.

Let's clarify:

There are flavours, dude, just like anarchy. There's no one anarchy, there's not even one Christianity. There are many varieties. Maybe I should have called this one scientific atheist fundamentalists, ones who tout the big bang as verified truth like it's been reproduced in a lab.

Those are what I'd call atheist fanboys.

I'd say that's a fair label to put on certain segments of the atheist population. 

[MagmaMcFry]

Upon taking a few breaths, I'm just gonna say, I've posed my view, I've done a wee bit of arguing, but really I don't want to spend my weekend feeling like I'm at war with an opposing view. Conflict makes it hard for me to relax and enjoy the final hours of freedom before the next 8 hours of paid slavery commences.

Being at war with an opposing view would mean that you think it necessary to defend your view, which is entirely the wrong approach. You may defend your view as much as you can, but participating in an argument means that the aspects of your side of the conflicting viewpoint are wrong about 50% of the time, unless your argument is about belief in different logically sound and undisprovable concepts, in which case there isn't an argument. The point of an argument is to share as much knowledge as necessary for both participants to align their views, because given the same knowledge, two intelligent people will make the same conclusions. You can't go into an argument expecting both parties to agree on your viewpoint, because either the other person is stupid (in which case he will ignore your arguments just like he ignored the same arguments from other people already), or he has as good reasons to have a different viewpoint as you have reasons to have yours.