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[Cheeetar]

My point is that if you are trolling it would be useless to falsify your arguments, as you would simply make up more. So, people should ignore you. Stop replying to your posts. I believe you are trolling, so I am encouraging people to ignore you.

[Idiom]

My point is that if you are trolling it would be useless to falsify your arguments, as you would simply make up more. So, people should ignore you. Stop replying to your posts. I believe you are trolling, so I am encouraging people to ignore you.

I believe you are trolling me yourself. Answer me this:
Why shouldn't atheists criticize or scrutinize each other's thinking?
If you would rather ignore that then how is that idea so radical that it trolls you?

[Grek]

It's not so much that atheists don't disagree, so much that their disagreements never turn up in religious discussions. There is only one possible theory of atheism, that no Gods exist. If you accept an alternative theory, you are definitionally a theist of some sort.

The only real disagreement between two atheists over the topic of the existance of Gods is that which is between agnostic atheists, who are uncertain but doubtful of the existance of Gods, and gnostic atheists who feel certain of the nonexistance of Gods. But that's an epistemological point that most people aren't able to properly argue over and honestly don't care enough about to even argue in the first place.

I, myself, am a theist, but I am almost certain that I would disagree with 99.9% of the forum about the nature of the Divine. The specifics of theism make for a great deal of disagreement between theists which simply is not possible between atheists.

[Idiom]

There is only one possible theory of atheism, that no Gods exist. If you accept an alternative theory, you are definitionally a theist of some sort.

Have it from an atheist: They're all individual, they shouldn't be lumped in groups.

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.

Forget the schools then, they should all be fending for themselves from each other then with schools of single people. Yes, you're right, they don't have doctrines they follow in groups, they have it all on the personal level.

It's not about theories of atheism, it's about how you derive the conclusion, and what you derive from the conclusion. Same with theists. You could say theists only have one possible theory of theism, that there is a god. How they arrive at that involves different everything. Different books, different prophets, different cultural values. What they derive from that conclusion is completely different as well, it reaches out to touch other things such as political or personal decisions. For theists, you get a major religion, and then the specific doctrines and churches which generally have a collection of stances derived from their conclusion much like a political party has a platform of stances on various issues.

Theist to theist:
Hey I believe XYZ.
[Here starts an argument  between people of different religions or doctrines in which they actually beat at the problem's in each other's beliefs]

Already in this thread I've identified a second major kind of atheist. The one derives that there is no god on a personal level. It's not relevant to them, it does nothing for them, they don't care for it. You could fragment that again into each specific reason, and their steps to reach it. The other major group derives that there is no god on a universal truth. I highly disagree with the solidity of deriving a universal truth with the methods they use. Then there's all the personal things they both derive from their conclusion that affects their real world decisions (some of which can even be called "douchebag" ish by another athiest").

Atheist to atheist:
Hey, I'm an atheist.
Sweet. Me too.
[Then later they both attack a theist for the theist for being erroneous]... when one of them can certainty find something erroneous in how they're an atheist. There's almost irony I sense here.

Remember Armok way back at the beginning of this?
"You're all wrong because your approach is wrong and mine is right?"
And he was an atheist?

Drag him back in here. Lets see how he derived that there is no god. I'm curious. Can he defend his reasoning? He skimmed it very abstract.

[chaoticag]

Actually idiom, there are organised athiests in places.
Take a look at this.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3970
Actually, here is a better link:
http://www.nyc-atheists.org/

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Why shouldn't atheists criticize or scrutinize each other's thinking?

Why do you think they don't? Now, I may be a bit behind the curve in this particular discussion, because most of it is just tl;dr rambling that reeks of having just been pulled out of the speaker's ass, but why wouldn't atheists argue and bicker amongst themselves? Or do you just mean "why don't they sit around saying 'why don't you believe in God? What, that's not a very good reason, you should be a christian instead like all good people are' to each other"?

Now, to be more serious, I believe your point was something along the lines of I see, from what you posted while I was typing this, that it's apparently not this, as I assumed, but rather the point bolded above, which I originally included as a joke thinking it too ridiculous to be true, the rest of the post is left as my contribution to the discussion, as I was planning on writing it anyways "why don't they stop each other from thumbing their noses at religious folk?", or why they themselves may do it, correct?. Both are rather obvious, when you think about it. For the first, because, in any combination, a) they don't give a shit, b) they don't know the people, c) can't do shit about it if they wanted to, or d) agree with it but don't care enough/have enough time/energy to do it themselves. For the second, a few more obvious factors are at work, all stemming from the fact that they're human.

First off, as far as their proselytization goes, how they rationalize it is rather irrelevant: it's the same damn reason any of you are bothering to argue your point on the matter, or any matter really; same reason people socialize in fairly ideologically homogeneous groups. Humans are driven to attempt to socially homogenize their environment: someone who acts different from the group must be shown the "error" of their ways, or driven off. Tribal instinct at work; it doesn't need rational justification, it's just programmed into your head. It makes sense in a tribal setting, less so in the context of modern superpopulations and ubiquitous connectivity. But we've mostly been living in some form of tribal life up until a few hundred years ago, and a fair number still are (counting rural villages as tribal enough to fit this concept). Millennia of selection won't be undone by a few decades of hippies spewing "tolerate everything and know that everyone is a special little flower who should be totally different and shit man". And atheists, by the way, aren't hippies, and they don't all subscribe to that silliness.

Second, as to why some seem to get off to thumbing their nose at the religious: again, tribal instinct. They're driven to lay down lines in the sand, so to speak; define themselves as a social entity that's not afraid to stand up to the monolithic incumbent culture. Now, they would be afraid if there weren't laws and watchdogs stopping the incumbents from just going off and lynching them, like they used to get away with.

Also on that bit, many atheists do *hate* devoutly religious people, at least ones they don't personally know. It's all just an amorphous blob of "people whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to my own". The exact same goes for the devoutly religious, though on both sides most are too polite or have too much sense to voice their feelings out loud, at least in public. Trolling them, one way or another, is just a way to feel you've inflicted some harm on your "enemies", in the form of causing them some stress or wasting their time arguing with you.


Now, Idiom, you're either trolling, or just have no clue what you're talking about. You're saying atheists should either organize into formal, christian-esque splinter factions, or just stand as one man social groups? Not a whole lot of ways someone can take that.

[Alexhans]

idiom... do you still have a point or is it just that you want to be last poster?

Basically, what I'm seeing is:

omgz, atheist/theists are bad because there's some atheist/theists who are douches... blah, blah, blah...

reason, not reason, rationalize, faith, whatever, words, words, fluff

If someone is a jerk... it won't matter what he believes or doesn't believe in.  If someone is not.  He will respect your beliefs/non beliefs.   I know, because I can do it and some of my friends or acquaintances who think very differently can still hang around with me.  No one needs to convince anyone else.

btw, people who react agressively because they feel attacked, cornered, alone won't help their point.  What you need when you hold a different position than everybody else (in any context) is dignity.  Yes, you understand their point but no, you have another stance about it.

[chaoticag]

Will the next few posters please keep their chill. I can see this spiralling down if we don't control it soon. This is a touchy subject, so leaving your emotions by the doorstep might be appreciated.

Let me clarify though, emotions are like water, you need them to live, but they can distort things when you look through them.

[MrWiggles]

Atheist to bicker among themselves, a lot. About everything. Anything really.

Atheist is a diverse social group. We have the rigerians, scinetologist, (some forms of) buddist, satanist and a few other woo like philo. There also the nick picking among the none woo* philos. Determinist or free will. Secular Humanist, or fuck. The counter example to that one escapes me.

There even debate on collective names, and even if we should debate religion at all.  If anything, getting atheist to inter agree on anything, as it has been said a hundred times, is like herding cats. I personally love debating. I know I got idoim in this quagmire, I meant to address his points, but by the time I got back, it has spread by a few pages and Idiom was changing topics and calm down.

I'm a secular humanist with a scientific skeptical outlook. I'm also a determinist. I'm a D/s dominant. I also self identify as an atheist. I don't favor 'spreading atheism', (or whatever the heck that means). I don't favor anti theism. Its fine by me to abide with your magical thinking. I'm in favor of critical thinking skills promotion. (I think it should be a core tenet of public education.) There is a lot to debate on how I identify my life philosophy.


The whole no god thing, is a none issue, because there is no god (Please allow for the joke). It doesn't come up a lot. Much like the question of; 'do you like foot ball?' in a kick off party, does not come up. Its assumed.

Not all atheist go on and debate theists. Most do not. In my experience, those that do are still rather new with being out of the closet. I self ID as an atheist when I was 14, and I didnt come out of the closet until I was 22. This whole liberating feeling of being able to test your own conclusion with those that believed in what you dropped for myself, was very appealing.

I never debate religion with the goal of winning. Its a matter of consequence, because all current formal arguments are flawed.

I do so above all else, because its fun. I find it fun because I can talk about what I believe independent of myself and and I have an understanding that I can be wrong, and that I need to be weary in order to adopt a more correct stance.

It allows me to develop my debating skills, that I've only been working on actively for two years. I've gotten better. I am much better at spotting flaws in premises then I used to be. Most of the time, I dont need to copy and paste, then do a break down of the post to identify the construction of the argument.

I may present information that the active parties are not aware of, as they may make me aware of as well. Generally they do. I think get to read about something new. Thats always a happy thing.

I may inform fence sitters to make up their own mind. Hopefully to investigate more, and ask more questions.

I also do not like reality being misrepresented or misinformation being propagated, and feel that always needs to be debated on and/or about. This happens a lot with the religious. Though I debate more with Woo woo, myself. Ghost in particular are a favorite subject of mine. (Did you know that high end hand held recorders pick up less EVPs? They pick up cleaner sound, and scrub out the white noise static that low quality recorders leave him. Thusly giving less for paradolia to work with.)

---
There is one point of Idioms that I would like to mark on, that he said so many pages ago about atheist being on the affirmative simply because they are aggressive or passionate.

 Debate style, or lack there of, does not change who has the affirmative in a debate.

[dreiche2]

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.

Well, it was me who used the word "retreat", so as you are still going on about that, I should probably say that I didn't want to provoke the association of a "war" here.

Apart from that, yeah I don't think there's much more point in continuing that particular argument. Apparently you had a couple of bad experiences with atheists on the internet, and now you keep on ranting against "the" atheist, as if it's a singular type of person.

And I still would say that the whole argument is a red herring as well. Islamic countries introducing the Sharia? That's a problem. Science being opposed on religious grounds? That's a problem. US politics being influenced by religion? That's a problem (at least to me). But some atheists being too vocal and bickering on internet forums? Really? As if rudeness on the internet was specific to atheists...

Finally, as you like to equate atheism with religion: I have yet to see people blowing each other up (and/or themselves) over atheism. You might say, if people do that for religious reasons, then in reality someone is abusing religion as a tool for some other means, as you have stated before (and I wouldn't necessarily agree). But even then, apparently atheism at least doesn't offer itself as a tool for such abuse.

That does of course not mean that atheists wouldn't blow each other up for other reasons, but that holds true for religious people as well.

[Andir]

Will the next few posters please keep their chill. I can see this spiralling down if we don't control it soon. This is a touchy subject, so leaving your emotions by the doorstep might be appreciated.

Let me clarify though, emotions are like water, you need them to live, but they can distort things when you look through them.

I really only see one person here losing control: trying to categorize an un-categorical belief, trying to drag atheists into the same structure of religion that drives most of them away... then three posts later reversing that decision, but berating people for not doing it anyway.  They don't fit in with his view on how people should act and converse with each other, yet this person continues to call people "douche bags" and other derogatory terms.  It looks like a troll, quacks like a troll...

What this person needs to understand is that Atheists DO NOT HAVE A RELIGION.  There are countless groups specific to Atheists all around the globe.  I can think of one in my city called Omnipresent Atheists... I don't think many people go and I don't think many people want to go because it feels like another church, whose meetings are held in a bar downtown.  Groups like these pop up, but there's really no purpose for them but to meet people.  Once you've met them, shook hands and agreed that you don't think there is a god, there's nothing else to talk about but what you did that week.  They aren't going to sit around contemplating why they think there's no "God."  That kind of process smacks of doubt and most Atheists I know of don't doubt their belief.  They wouldn't be atheists if they did... that's agnosticism.

Also, most of the groups MrWiggles describes are not really tied to atheism per say.  Anyone with belief could join said groups and fit in quite well, but I'd argue they tend to be populated with people who have rejected religion and are looking for the social acceptance and interaction that church had given them before.

[Leafsnail]

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 invisible unicorn is, I think, a perfectly valid excercise.  It isn't associated with religion at all in the camp - it's just an exercise for people to try and disprove the existence of an invisible unicorn which all the counsellors pretend to believe in.  Heck, if anything, it encourages moderate atheism where you don't boast about being able to disprove God.

Now, if other people think it's not fine... why is it their problem?  If it doesn't affect them, it shouldn't be up to them to dictate what this summer camp does.

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.

You are correct - I wouldn't support or run such a scheme myself.  But I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do it.

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.

Look, Idiom.  I will try to explain this.

Atheists are NOT a group.  They are NOT an organization.  Atheism isn't even necessarily a worldview.  It's just a word used to describe people.  Heck, try replacing the word "atheist" with "blonds" or any other arbitrary group connected only by one (relatively small) similarity.

I do not have any more authority over atheists than you do.  Nor do I carry any responsibility for the actions of people who have nothing in common with me other than a lack of belief in a faith.  I don't try and pin blame for the crusades on Christians or the blame for terrorist attacks on Muslims.

The reasons I have defended the two things you mentioned are different.  In the first example the reason is because I don't think it's bad, the second example is because, while I think it's bad, I'm not sure how atheism makes it worse, and I wouldn't condemn students making other similar protests.  You seem to be giving it as an example of why atheists are douches, and I'm saying that this doesn't stand out as a particularly bad protest.

And I do disagree with atheists on a lot of things, but obviously not in terms of belief in god.  Hence I do not argue with them here - I'd argue with them elsewhere if the issue came up.

[Musluk]

What this person needs to understand is that Atheists DO NOT HAVE A RELIGION. 

Atheists are NOT a group.  They are NOT an organization.  Atheism isn't even necessarily a worldview.  It's just a word used to describe people.  Heck, try replacing the word "atheist" with "blonds" or any other arbitrary group connected only by one (relatively small) similarity.

As I've said before; that from the outside, two circle-jerking groups of douchebags from both the theist camp and atheist camp looks almost the same on the internets and in real life. Now, I'm NOT SAYING THAT ATHEISM IS A RELIGION, nor organized etc etc, just pointing out what I've seen.

Adding more to the fact that it's a fad amongst the "angsty teens" as a cause for rebelling (if there's an all-powerful god, makes sense to rebel that entity [tying back to the father figure]  instead of your school board or whatever smaller authority figure) kinda actually damages the image of the cool-headed individuals amongst atheists, with increased circle-jerking groupings of douchebags. Same happens on this side of the pool as well, though.

I can see why Idiom's so gung-ho about this, but it's not the best way to approach a subject. Past scars from internet debates sounds kinda silly if you think about it And yes, I have some too.

[Andir]

As I've said before; that from the outside, two circle-jerking groups of douchebags from both the theist camp and atheist camp looks almost the same on the internets and in real life. Now, I'm NOT SAYING THAT ATHEISM IS A RELIGION, nor organized etc etc, just pointing out what I've seen.

I think this is more of a misconception than anything.  (ie: You belong to a group, therefore those that don't agree must as well.)

It goes into my philosophy that people tend to explain things in a binary fashion.  It's right or wrong, left or right, etc. and no amount of middle ground can exist because there's always a line and on the other side of that line, people do the opposite that I do.  (eg: You were in jail.  You are obviously a morally wrong person and would probably kill babies if given the chance because I've never been there and I wouldn't.)

[Idiom]

Crud, hold on. I'm not going to have much time for ranting the next few days. I go back to work today. Quick one.

Or do you just mean "why don't they sit around saying 'why don't you believe in God? What, that's not a very good reason, you should be a christian instead like all good people are' to each other"?

I mean, why don't they sit around saying 'why don't you believe in God? What, that's not a very good reason, XYZ is a better reason not to believe in God. Atheism doesn't need to do anything with theism.

Why did you immediately insert "christian" into there? I haven't even stated my own beliefs on that sort of thing yet, just ranted in which parts of atheism I think are done wrong.

Atheist to bicker among themselves, a lot.

Atheists I want you guys to disagree with more are defining themselves almost exclusively through anti-theism. The douchebag atheists don't debate with other atheists enough, or make a move to, and become these anti-theist bigotry machines with no other purpose in life.

Heck, try replacing the word "atheist" with "blonds" or any other arbitrary group connected only by one (relatively small) similarity.

And then you get dumb blonde jokes when there are intelligent blondes. You are SEEN as one big group. Doesn't matter if you actually are or not, outsiders see you as one big group and treat you as such. Same thing with the pink unicorn and college stunt, it's tied to you, and some people find it offensive. When I see atheists being douches or crossing lines, I have almost NEVER seen them try to keep each other in check. All I'm saying is that some of your peers make you look stupid. Smack them.

You're saying atheists should either organize into formal, christian-esque splinter factions, or just stand as one man social groups?

NOT christian-esque, specifically. Right there is a wiff of bigotry from your assumed stance. I'm saying they ALL need to be fragmented. If groups are too large for you guys, then fine, splinter into one for every individual. The douche clusters are not being broken up. Anybody outside of atheism just makes them stronger when they try to break them up. These people NEED to be bitch slapped and broken apart by their peers.

because most of it is just tl;dr rambling that reeks of having just been pulled out of the speaker's ass

Was just before bed too.

Now, Idiom, you're either trolling, or just have no clue what you're talking about.

I can see why Idiom's so gung-ho about this, but it's not the best way to approach a subject.

A whole case of delicious homebrewed lager as a gift from a friend on a couple days off, while somewhat angry and with nothing else to do, actually. I've got like, several ideas all melded around per post and forgot about half a dozen other ideas, skimming back. Hehe. I'll never get around to any of the other ones here. I'm just going to ditch them. Be happy for that then. If I can't keep my thoughts straight, it's because they're not and I can't. If I was trolling, I would have actually planned it out ahead of time. Rambling trolling is weak.


---
Look, just, the lot of you, next time you come across a fellow atheist who's being a douchebag in some way, especially to outsiders, consider how they'll be perceived and smack them upside the head. That is all.