Extreme Evangelical Atheism vs. Moderate Atheism and Traditional Christianity

Unfortunately for your perception of what you think I 'only perceive', I don't keep up with televangelists or this Fred Phelps that you keep talking about. Most of my time with the TV is spent watching educational programs and once in a while a sci-fi movie. So, it looks again like you also have something defective with your ability to perceive things, people, and circumstances as they really are.

 

Oh, so you just close your eyes. My bad. I hereby retract my previous assumption.

 

Another wrong assumption on your part. If my eyes were constantly closed "just close your eyes"... then I certainly would not be able to type these responses.

 

That was about something entirely different. I saw them as enemies of the faith that were encouraged to be so from the pulpit, not of mine personally.
No, it is the ugly way that Christians engage in conversation if I question things about their behavior on here, like yourself. You guys get very p.o.'ed.

Two different issues entirely.

Thanks for your kind inquiry.

 

You see, that is probably the bigger part of your problem. You perceive things in a way that is not in accord with reality and then you subsequently make judgments based on those inaccurate perceptions. In example: As of this writing, you still have not written anything that has caused me to be "p.o.'ed". So you fail again in your analysis, but you succeed in letting others know that your judgment is 'questionable' at the very least.

Now as for your reasoning pertaining to how you perceived those members of the congregation (or rather, those sitting in the pews) as enemies. If your perception was based on their behavior and you were able to deduce that the behavior was resulting from an influence of another or others 'from the pulpit' then why did you abandon your station when you were not at fault? Please do answer that.

 

So your initial statement was misleading?

The problem with this statement is that there is no culture behind atheism.

I say again, that is demonstratably not always true. In extreme situations (and not just then), some religious people are perfectly capable of acting terribly and can (mis)use their faith as a justification for that behaviour. Similarly, some atheists in such situations will act exemplarily.

Relgion doesn't automatically make someone a better, mentally stronger or more moral person. A lack of religion (or theism - two different things BTW) doesn't automatically make them worse.

You've still not demonstrated this is the case though (and it would be very difficult to fairly measure anyway). There is no reason to assume fundmanetalists of any paticular form will be worse than any other. It is the fundamentalism itself that is the problem - the fact an individual believes that their position is unquestionably right and thus anyone who challenges them is the enemy. That will be entirely independant of the position their fundamental views are based upon.

 

You are right HJ. "There is no culture behind atheism" .... Atheism is a culture.

see here: www.thefreedictionary.com/culture

Just like there is a Mayan culture and an American Culture and a Christian culture ,,, there is also an atheist culture.

 

Oh of course, why didn't I see it before. There's also the 'no belief in unicorns' culture. Just like those who don't collect stamps constitute a culture as well. It's so obvious.

 

Yes I agree, however the Rev does have a suggestion. Maybe you should stop corresponding exclusively with fundy atheists and agnostics? If you want an intelligent reply you must send it to the theists and philosophers here at PF!

Rev A

 

There will have been a Mayan culture and there is an American culture (though also a number of sub-cultures within it) - they're clearly defined national and geographical groups. I wouldn't say there is one Christian culture - an urban American Christian is going to have very little in common with an rural African Christian for example.

Atheism is entirely different again of course. The term describes a single statement of the existence of gods. There are no cultural connections between all (or even most) atheists through the world.

 

Yes I agree with the bulk of your reply. In my opinion many angry atheists feel they have been harmed by Christianity, even though most atheists adamantly deny it. In some cases it’s my opinion that the person presenting those symptoms (denying harm by Christians or Christianity etc) is doing so involuntarily having repressed the memories of whatever pathogenic event caused it. I have seen few angry athiests present symptoms of Dissociative Amnesia. (no I am not being sarcastic but I retain the right to use the term later in a sarcastic moment ha ha). I am less harsh with those people because they can not fully avoid being abrasive and mean.

If malicious activist atheists (maa’s) are not moderately mentally ill, that leaves those (*)(*)(*)(*)able types who detest and do not trust Christianity/Christians for much of the same reasons we Christians do not trust or like the ways of atheists. What would that entail from a Christian perspective? A short list; attempted restriction of our freedoms and general insulting malicious behavior, i.e. the removal of prayer from school and the removal of traditional religious symbols. Lesser things such as getting in a chat room or forum for the primary reason to troll for Christians for toxic insults and belittle of the faith. Then there are the greater things such as the suspicion that if Atheists led a totalitarian dictatorship the MA’s would in all likelihood persecute us, and or develop a final solution to the Christian problem. Eh? Showers anyone?

Rev A

 

I would disagree even though their is no official recognition of a Fundy atheist its a created word that has an obvious defination.

Rev A

 

Atheistism is more of an worldview/paradigm than a culture. I would advise those arguing or debating an atheist use the words 'paradigm' or 'worldview', its accurate and it strips away their disingenuous mask of having no burden of proof.

Rev A

 

No burden of proof of what?

 

Do you really want me to go back and collect a highlight reel of all the ugly things you and your buddies have said to me, or the lies you have directed toward me? Do you really want them all collected in one place? I can do that for you if you like. If you say those kind of things when you are not p.o.'ed, I would hate to see how ugly you can get when you are.

As for enemies of the faith, it was simply that the whole structure of the church can't really cope with the actual teaching of Christ, the sacrificial nature of His message. The church has its own survival as its mission, and Christ didn't. He knew that if you walked His walk, it would end for you the same way it did for Him. None of the things that are challenging about Christ's teaching are things that Christians have any interest in pursuing. That is why I bring up the Fruits of the Spirit so often, and the obvious rejection of them by the fiery "believers" who post here. I would not change this from the pulpit, as creating a church organization is not the point of Christ's message, and it is the first job of every pastor in a religious organization. Perpetuation of the organization itself.

 

All evidence to the contrary.
Your theists and "philosophers" tend to give me very harsh responses and fabricate outrageous lies about things I have said. I have oodles of evidence of this.
There is a HUGE difference between atheists and agnostics, though some of the religious arguments lead people to both positions. But to throw them together is not address the important differences between them.

 

No, but there is an idea of the fundamentalist atheist. The religious can only oppose faith with his faith. If he opposes science such as the Big Bang or evolution then he must first make the case that such theories rest on faith. Likewise with the absence of his faith, - such an absence must necessarily be faith in itself.

What is always amusing about this is of course that something must always be argued to be faith in order to be bad to .. well, faith

 

Predicating a worldview on an absence of particular belief systems is a dubious enterprise, RevAnarchist. If that is how you want to play it then by all means, but doing so you must accept that your own worldview is predicated upon an infinity of particular absences. Though I may be terribly wrong, I have a hunch that you'd rather want to predicate your worldview on what you actually believe about the world than what you don't believe about it.

 

I think this is an unnecessary reaction to that position of Rev A.
Atheism and Agnosticism are worldviews. They inform how we see the true machinations of people on this planet. It is a closer description than "culture", as there is no evidence of enclaves of non-believers that create a way of life that is largely consistent. It most certainly does inform how we individually perceive the history of the planet and the goings on within it.

 

In order to understand my reply to RevAnarchist, you have to consider his assertion that calling atheism a worldview places a burden of proof of theistic entities upon the atheist.

I fully agree with you that not buying into ideas of personally catering gods is part of the perception of a world in which such presences are or have been bought into. However, in this also lies that such a perception is not predicated upon the absence of these kinds of gods but merely on not buying into the ideas of such gods.

 

I think there's a fundamental problem with the idea that not believing something represents a worldview. Worldviews are biases in observation caused by a particular set of beliefs. While atheists will all have their own worldviews, that's not caused by their atheism, that's caused by human beings being subjective observers of the world around them. Not believing in something does not color a person's perception in the same way that believing in something does. While the perspective of non-believers is certainly different, that doesn't make their perspective religiously biased.

Imagine, if you will, a world where nine out of ten people wore rose tinted glasses, but ten percent went without them. Would you claim the ten percent were seeing the world through air-colored glasses?

 

That your paradigm i.e. model of the world is valid. We all have one. Some have more than one world view or how they perceive their reality, from what I have learned its best to have only one that we know about. That said we may, according to science have an nearly or truly infinite number of realties where every conceivable event is taking place. I reject that theory which is a spin off of string theory, it goes by several names the MWI, the infinite universe theory Parallel universe theory. I am not sure which one we are stuck with currently. Personally I believe the hot big bang model HBBM is correct, it suggests only one universe exists (this one) but does not necessarily prohibit others, also the HBBM suggests that our universe is not cyclic and will die a ‘heat death’* in the unbelievably distant future. The HBBM also suggests that the universe began 14 b + or - years ago, unlike the recent newcomers that do attempt to make the case for either an cyclic universe or the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation). Lastly I feel we have only the normal three or four dimensions instead of a ridiculous large number of them that some string theorists have wrote about.


Atheism Oops! sorry I am off on a tangent I am scope jonesing probably because I haven’t replaced mine yet....(that I ran over). Well we have a couple of members posting here that don’t know what I believe so it may help.


Rev A

 

I aint' doin' that! Ha ha~ I think you may do not understand what I meant. I define reality by my senses just as everyone does. However God is part of my world view. In your world view and correct me if I am wrong If I asked you are you an atheist you would say yes. So atheism is a component of the way you understand the universe. BTW, I have already made the case that your form of atheism, if I understand it correctly is not valid. It could even be seen as disingenuous as per my thread. This is because of the redefinition of atheism that occurred in the mid 20th century. As Craig and Anthony Flew say the re-definition of the word “atheist” belittles the claim of ‘the presumption of atheism‘, Dr Craig says “for on this definition, atheism ceases to be a view. It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all. On this re-definition, even babies, who hold no opinion at all on the matter, count as atheists! In fact, our cat Muff counts as an atheist on this definition, since she has (to my knowledge) no belief in God.” quote by Craig. I hope I have clarified why the burden of proof should still be required of atheists.

Oh you may find this quote by Mr Flew interesting. Mr Flew who as you may know was a strong advocate of atheism ;

“ the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew).“

This is getting long, I will respond to the rest of your reply in an hopefully shorter method, asap~ I must attend a power lunch with a very important dog, my basset hound Mr Bogie ~



Rev A