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[RAM]

Hey, you know what'd make it better?  If I actually dismissed gods I don't believe in.  Go ahead, believe in them if you want.  Or don't.  I'm not gonna try to make you do differently.

It sounds to me as though this statement confuses belief in a deity and the deity itself. To dismiss something is similar to considering that it has no significance. It is exceedingly difficult to fail to dismiss something during the process(or lack there of) of failing to believe in it. Accepting other people's right to their own faith is completely different to respecting that faith on its own terms.
Replace "dismiss" with 'don't believe in'...

[Micro102]

He already used "dont believe in", so better words might be "pretend they don't exist"

[RAM]

Sorry, I intended the changes to be made to this quote.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other possible gods, you will understand why I don't believe in yours.

[Micro102]

Thats what i thought it was at first, the wording seems to have changed. I just copied it off a random sight but that sounds a lot more like what i remember it as.

[Sergius]

I think someone is confusing "dismiss" with "disrespect" or campaign against, or something crazy like that.
You dismiss something by not believing in it. It's being used as a synonym. Anything else is just arguing semantics to try to find a hole in the argument (like how paranormal believers try to find "loopholes" in physics because they think they're just some kind of legally binding document).

dis·miss  (ds-ms)
tr.v. dis·missed, dis·miss·ing, dis·miss·es

• To stop considering; rid one's mind of; dispel: dismissed all thoughts of running for office.
• To refuse to accept or recognize; reject: dismissed the claim as highly improbable.

[Lord Dakoth]

You believe in one fewer god than another atheist? Which is zero minus one? Let me guess, you don't believe in natural numbers either.

EDIT: Realized that I wasn't really contributing anything to the discussion. But it seems to me that "believe in" and "dismiss" are fundamentally different.

If you don't believe in something, it means just that, you don't believe it exists. If you dismiss something, you simply wave it off as irrelevant, whether it exists or not.

[KaelGotDwarves]

This thread is bad and it should feel bad.

The entire original post is calling out a group of people and asking them to defend their beliefs, while spouting implications that "atheism is a religion".

We might as well have a thread called "Christians" and ask Christians to explain how they can believe all the stuff in the bible, much of which is stories and myths. Yes, Old Testament is a a lot of myth.

It applies to any other belief system: Jews! I don't understand your logic, explain it to me. Muslims, why do you believe the things you do? Mormons, how do you feel about polygamy in the history of your church?

[Micro102]

I don't care whether athiesm is a religion or not. I also don't mind people challenging my beliefs. In fact i would love to have a crazy never ending debate about it (over PM of course). And i think i would enjoy that christianity thread.

This thread isnt bad unless you think of it as bad, and if you think of it as bad, ignore it and let other people enjoy it.

[Muz]

I don't mind debate either, nor do I mind people challenging my beliefs. What makes this thread bad is that people are so eager to prove each other wrong that there's no debate at all. It's just that people keep trying to drag the opposition into a place where they can be proven wrong, like trying to define atheism, pulling them into a debate about astrophysics, or saying that (lack of) religion is bad, based on a very bad example.

Really, for every Muslim suicide bomber and Christian cultist, I'm pretty sure there are a thousand sane ones.

[redacted123]

What's funny is if someone took the time to read the whole thread, they'd see that it has just been cycling. As far as I can tell, the current argument is on semantics. I think that's been the topic about three separate times.

[Starver]

This thread is bad and it should feel bad.

I disagree.  Just because the progenitor of a historic dynasty of kings came along and slaughtered the local tribesmen and did all kinds of nasty things to the fauna and flora of a country[1], doesn't mean that an enlightened kingdom couldn't have arisen from those ashes of devistation that (with the occasional hiccup, civil war, restoration and reshuffling of constitutional configuration over time) has been fruitfully developing a multicultural diversity of opinion, with a bit of "history repeating", but nothing to be ashamed of.

I forget now (and don't care to check) what the aim of the original post was.  Though if it was "Atheism is a religion", then No.  For at least the Implicit/Explicit distinctions across the whole generalisation, but also because I don't think a belief/philosophy is quite the same as a religion.  (And vice-versa.  You might do something "religiously", even if you don't believe it.)

But that doesn't matter.  Some more people now know that Atheism isn't God Denial (like "Liberal" does not necessarily mean "Communist" in US terms, and not at all in UK ones), and I think the lowest points in the conversation were the actually-quite-entertaining "Why is this thread still going???" types, bumping the thread.

Of course, it isn't over yet.  There's time for the penultimate benevolent dictator to be succeeded by his evil despotic heir and utterly drown the land in fire and brimstone.  But that's The Future.  And my beliefs about that are optimistic.  (Although it would have helped if I didn't bump the thread and let it peter out while it was so obviously 'in a nice place'.)


[1] Not actually saying that's what the origins of the thread were like, I'm employing hyperbole deliberately.  I'm also not referencing any particular RL history, before you try to nail me down to Genghis Kahn or William The Conquerer or anyone else, and then try to argue against them being as 'bad as this thread', or inspiration for the above analogy.

[Sergius]

This thread is bad and it should feel bad.

The entire original post is calling out a group of people and asking them to defend their beliefs, while spouting implications that "atheism is a religion".

We might as well have a thread called "Christians" and ask Christians to explain how they can believe all the stuff in the bible, much of which is stories and myths. Yes, Old Testament is a a lot of myth.

It applies to any other belief system: Jews! I don't understand your logic, explain it to me. Muslims, why do you believe the things you do? Mormons, how do you feel about polygamy in the history of your church?

This is exactly what the original post was like. Funny how it quickly turned into "you atheists stop oppressing us!".

[LegoLord]

This is exactly what the original post was like. Funny how it quickly turned into "you atheists stop oppressing us!".

From what I saw, it was the other way around.  I saw very little of non-atheists claiming that all atheists were oppressive monsters - what there was was actually targeted at a handful of specific atheists among those posting on this thread, not at all atheists in general (even other atheists were doing this).

[Sergius]

This is exactly what the original post was like. Funny how it quickly turned into "you atheists stop oppressing us!".

From what I saw, it was the other way around.  I saw very little of non-atheists claiming that all atheists were oppressive monsters - what there was was actually targeted at a handful of specific atheists among those posting on this thread, not at all atheists in general (even other atheists were doing this).

Well, evidently, it's impossible to know one way or the other, so the answer must lay in the middle.

[Muz]

You believe in one fewer god than another atheist? Which is zero minus one? Let me guess, you don't believe in natural numbers either.

Heh, I just saw that. The quote means that a monotheist believes in one God and dismisses all others. An atheists dismisses all Gods. The athiest claims that the monotheist is the same, because they take the same approach, and questions why the monotheist cannot dismiss his own God as well.