Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leafsnail]

Implies atheism is a religion. Don't even go there. Unless you're talking about the cultist bastard ones I hate.

Even then, you'd still need to be organized.  And I don't think any such atheist groups have enough recognition to be any more than a "cult".

Although... you could say Buddhism is an atheistic religion, as in some forms it does not have a god.  Hmm.

Parallel where I say people gravitate towards what makes them happier on their own.

I was partially converted... sortof.  It was more talking to someone and realizing that not everything I was told had to be true.

[dreiche2]

No, sorry dreiche2, you're cool. I'm starting to think I'm thinking of Leafsnail or someone else.

Alright I don't have time right now to discuss things further, but I just wanted to say: I really do appreciate that you back-pedal a little bit in terms of generalizations and aggression.

On the other hand, I'm afraid we actually disagree more on a couple of things than you make it seem now. For example, I agree in tendency with most of what Leafsnail wrote.

Anyway, good night, again!

[ThreeToe]

Realmfighter will be muted for 3 days for spamming.

If you have anymore problems hit the moderator button and I'll take care of it.

[Idiom]

I really do appreciate that you back-pedal a little bit in terms of generalizations and aggression.

I appreciate you guys keeping cool for the most part. I'm trying to recollect my thoughts and organize them. They kind of fragmented around the time I caught a wiff of the "science conquers religion" nonsense, or at least that's about the time I remember it was at a point of no return.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Speaking of which, I think there's a confusion of terms regarding the "retreat" of "religion". It becomes more obvious if you fragment "religion" into it's smaller components, such as spirituality, faith, rituals (Not necessarily rigid), explanations, and the many components of philosophical doctrines it may contain. So forth. Only some of the components, mainly religion being used to explain the universe as well as the more nonsensical rituals and sometimes pieces of the philosophy built upon internal logic, are replaced, depending on the person in question. Eventually, it may completely boil back down into simple spirituality among some of the other key subjects that make something a "religion". I think both of us were making absolute claims while in reality both are happening.

Anyway,
I should say I don't backpedal on the aggression towards the particular group I have in mind. I've just realized, they really aren't here. As for over generalizations, that was largely from the implied meanings of my wordings. I should add the disclaimer "I have observed and/or noticed some running trends of and/or was left with the impression of" and such. Not that those are absolutes given any atheist, but I do observe them and have been left with the bad taste of. I tally the patterns to be largely in the extreme atheists, which reading back aways I see a few other people notice these things too. Though I do regret the sarcastic nature of some remarks (as much as I enjoy them).

we actually disagree more on a couple of things than you make it seem now.

Well if I can catch you before you go off on whatever it is you're about to, I would like to clarify if I understood what you implied earlier, that you are with Leafsnail in your justification being a personal issue, not the declaration of a universal truth? Then there's not that much I'll disagree with.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unless you're about to go on about Occam's Razor. Ticks me off when people use it in the vacuum of empirical evidence to determine "infallible truths" and misinterpret the applications of the razor.

Though I'm going to guess it's stemming from your different priorities to different abstract values, such as ensuring scientific accuracy to all unlike me who thinks ignorance has it's place and uses (particularly in large and/or unhappy populations where the implementations of escapism are limited). Though I'm going to go on a limb here with an almost self-fulfilling prophecy and say religion will always be useful somewhere to counter your universal importance on the values of knowledge. I still think yours is an acceptable position (If stuffy).

Even then, you'd still need to be organized. And I don't think any such atheist groups have enough recognition to be any more than a "cult".

They're gaining recognition and they want recognition. They have summer camps and retreats. Worse yet, they have summer camps and retreats with an emphasis on invisible pink unicorns. They have swaps offering bibles for porn. Intentionally insulting things. A lot of passive aggressiveness and mockery in the manner they make their points which I think has a psychological affect on the disposition of new atheists to behave and think in the same demeaning manner (Based on my observations of a similar effect on the Internet where bad atheism has become an integral part of the hate machine).

I think they need official organization with actual doctrines to be able to regulate their more extreme members. Then it needs to split into the multiple churches of thinking. They need some means of self-regulation, but there's no peer review or anything of the sort I've seen. They usually all just high-five each other while kicking other people in the shins (*an abstract impression not representing the entirety of "atheists" rendered from personal experiences and memory).

[Leafsnail]

Worse yet, they have summer camps and retreats with an emphasis on invisible pink unicorns.

Firstly - who is "they"?  It's a group of people who want to teach kids to be rational.  It doesn't constitute anything approaching an atheist religion.

They have swaps offering bibles for porn.

Again - "they"?

I think they need official organization with actual doctrines to be able to regulate their more extreme members. Then it needs to split into the multiple churches of thinking. They need some means of self-regulation, but there's no peer review or anything of the sort I've seen. They usually all just high-five each other while kicking other people in the shins.

It wouldn't work.  At all.  I don't think you understand how atheism is fundamentally different (note - I'm saying different, not better) from any religion - it has no central doctrine, nothing uniting its members.  It's just a word used to describe someone without faith.  Any attempt to bring all these people into one group is doomed to failure.  And I'm not sure why we'd need our own peer review section.

[Idiom]

It wouldn't work.  At all.  I don't think you understand how atheism is fundamentally different (note - I'm saying different, not better) from any religion - it has no central doctrine, nothing uniting its members.  It's just a word used to describe someone without faith.  Any attempt to bring all these people into one group is doomed to failure.  And I'm not sure why we'd need our own peer review section.

Well, you have a bunch of people with different ideas and views all calling themselves "atheists". There are different kinds of "atheists". The lack of regulation in the schools of thought I think contributes to the messy state of affairs I perceive them in. In a similar situation for theists, they usually have local communally founded schools of thought that actively work to keep a reign on their own radicals. The system does go wrong when the upper management of a school of thought are corrupted, leading to a small community of douches, which is inevitable in either situation with or without structure in an "iest" community BUT with the actual self regulated "churches of" there's some actual distinction between rotten eggs and regular ones. They have real internal labels beyond "douches" like "Westboro church". It's easier to keep track of and differentiate, and then the in-line schools of thought can scrutinize the other radical ones as well. It's almost a system of checks and balances kind of thing and it works on multiple levels. The reason I think it needs to be implemented for atheists is because I perceive what I think to be an out of control population in radicals.

Firstly - who is "they"?  It's a group of people who want to teach kids to be rational.  It doesn't constitute anything approaching an atheist religion. Again - "they"?

Both in the news. "They" as in people who call themselves atheists using methods that can be considered highly offensive. In my own personal observations, such methods potentially lead to highly offensive and aggressive people. It's like if I were to be giving a political lecture and to prove points for political party A, I have built the foundations of my arguments on why party B is stupid rather than using unslanted material. Creates a bunch of close-minded party A fanatics with no respect.

[Leafsnail]

It still wouldn't work in the slightest.  It would be like attempting to create one big church of theism for people of all religions.  There are not different kinds of atheists  - all atheists are individuals, and should be treated as such.  Generally, when it comes to atheist "douches", it's just a bunch of pricks who happen to be atheist, and nothing more.  They aren't usually part of radical atheist groups or factions.  Besides... to some extent, atheist radicals are annoying but harmless.  They can be tolerated in the same way bastards like the WBC can be tolerated, as long as they aren't violent.

The so called "atheist" camp is really nothing of the sort.  It is just a normal summer camp with some excercises in rationality thrown in.  There's no reason to think it would create "offensive" or "aggressive" people.

The "bibles for porn"... a bunch of college students who feel like having a little protest against religious scriptures?  It seems to be just a publicity stunt, really.  They don't seem like insane radicals, just college students pissing around.  I mean, college students can be a lot more radical when it comes to other issues, so why is this one worse?

[Psyco Jelly]

I don't think atheists need any sort of organization, because I hate organized religion (or philosophy, or metaphysics, or whatever) in general. Sure, maybe a couple of people to discuss that sort of stuff with, but when it involves people you don't know it becomes uncomfortable.

It seems like a bad idea to keep a bunch of people that all have the same views on subjects together because it's like talking to a bunch of clones of your self. You don't learn anything that way. People should talk to people that have conflicting ideas, so that they can learn more, and teach more at the same time.

[Idiom]

People should talk to people that have conflicting ideas, so that they can learn more, and teach more at the same time.

But I don't see those happening. The douches congregate online in their own spontaneously occurring church. They, the douchebags, don't have conflicting ideas, learn more, or teach more. I've heard their logic loops a million times over. They've already become a bunch of clones of themselves. How often do you 'individual' atheists step out to view "atheism" from the outside anyway?

As an outsider, I'm telling you, you may be a unique flower among other flowers, but a lot of the flowers around you are dandelion weeds. I've tried weeding out the extremists before, but they and atheists who aren't even extremists just bury you in sheer numbers (a dozen of them simultaneously fragmenting your posts into a million pointlessly small quote relies and then declaring your entire argument invalid because you can't support all of it was one strategy I remember) as soon as they identify you as an outsider of atheism. You identify with other atheists you shouldn't. I'm telling you, you may think you're all talking to each other to "conflict and learn and teach" and such, but you're not. One of you kicks a guy in the shins, then all of you high five each other for it, and then there's little to no introspection between atheists on anything they said because they all rallied on the categorical level of "atheist". Not cool.

GET INQUISITIVE OF YOUR PEERS. If you are individuals as you say, then make distinctions from each other. If you make no effort to distinguish yourselves from each other, then you are all clones anyway. I see whole mixes of atheists, cool and radical, all cooperate to take down single targets. There's no teaching or learning between them, it's just all directed at their target. You aren't "freeing from oppressive thought" for yourselves if you don't question yourselves.

It is just a normal summer camp with some exercises in rationality thrown in.  There's no reason to think it would create "offensive" or "aggressive" people.

There are less sarcastic exercises. The invisible unicorn was created for and used for mockery everywhere else, so why is this an exception? Whether you think it's fine or not, I'm telling you, other people think it's not and they associate you with the douchebaggery.

The "bibles for porn"... a bunch of college students who feel like having a little protest against religious scriptures?  It seems to be just a publicity stunt, really.  They don't seem like insane radicals, just college students pissing around.  I mean, college students can be a lot more radical when it comes to other issues, so why is this one worse?

It is a publicity stunt. It's intentionally insulting. It's not necessarily worse, but by saying why is this one worse you're implying to me admission that it is bad regardless.

Look Leafsnail, you may not think "atheism" is all bad like I might sometimes imply it is, but what I'm trying to tell you is so important is that IT REALLY LOOKS LIKE IT when there's douchebags running rampant, and the cool atheists defend it, do nothing to discourage it, or they even join in on some parts. Remember how I came in sort of angry at people not here? And it was still directed at you? It's because there's a bunch of douchebags out there ruining your name. I'm asking all reasonable and cool atheists to DO SOMETHING about assholes making them look bad to everyone else.

Westborro Church is full of a bunch of baptist douchebags. You know how other theists separate themselves from Westborro? They condone Westborro's acts.

Is another atheist doing something potentially offensive, radical, or using shaky logic? Attack the douchebag. Don't be friends just because you're both atheists. You think all theists are friends just because they're theists?

Ok, now you just have me ranting again, but I think you can get the message from that.

Ideally, when you have an atheist/theist argument between multiple people, not only would the theists be fragmented within their respective religions and still attack each other, the atheists should as well.

On an additional note, this is a topic on atheism. This isn't an "atheism vs theism" thread, this is an atheism thread. Are you a unique flower? Then go kill all the other flowers here. Find something you disagree on with another atheist and challenge it, atheism to atheism.

[Cheeetar]

So, yes, you are just making stuff up to annoy people.

He didn't even try to deny this. Just ignore him guys.

[Idiom]

He didn't even try to deny this. Just ignore him guys.

You want a rebuttal to what I said cheeetar? Get off your lazy ass and make a real rebuttal. Additionally, if you want respect from me in a reply, it takes some for me to make some.

[Cheeetar]

So, yes. You are trolling.

[Idiom]

So, yes. You are trolling.

Ad hominem is not a real rebuttal Cheeetar.

[Cheeetar]

I'm not giving a rebuttal, I'm stating that I believe you are trolling. For example- You derided Leafsnail for 'picking apart posts' by quoting specific parts and replying to them. This is also what you are doing. You're saying that I want a rebuttal to you, and then insult me. I do not want a rebuttal. I would prefer that you be ignored. I said in the two sentence quote that I wanted people to ignore you. It would be impossible to misunderstand what I said, yet you have, or are trolling.

[Idiom]

If you want it ignored, falsify it. Any characteristic you think of me is irrelevant to that post.

I derided Leafsnail for that because it reminded me of a cheap tactic. He wasn't actually doing what I thought he was doing, it's just his preferred method of reply. What you are doing also reminds me of something dirty I have seen before. Speaking of which

I can't put my finger on the individual, but there's one here that I really dislike but it's been so long it might as well be the lot of atheists here.

Was that really you?

If someone actually does want to, I do request you don't split that long rant up into tiny quotes and rebut each. It inflates to where it can become unwieldy. I'll make another summation of my thoughts there to keep it cleaner:
A category of thinking that wants to remove erroneous and dangerous thought would be self-defeating without internal criticism. It's a blue moon when I see it within atheism. You know what, forming schools of atheism as I mentioned earlier or not, it's the internal criticism I'm promoting. When the category of thinkers is unified to focus on an outsider, they tend not to focus on each other's reasoning regardless of them taking different paths. As an outsider, I see this distribution of focus, differences in reasoning, and the occasional erroneous or dangerous thoughts while everyone else is too busy looking at me.
I think that was about it, except for the call to arms. Criticize each other. Not all atheists are equal.