Atheism

Panchgani wrote:


The hatred of Militant atheists is more poisonous than any right wing religious cult.

My time is limited right now as I'm on my way to work but I want to take a moment to say that I am so incredibly grateful for this post. Some specific themes reflected on these threads by some posters are clearly fueled and driven by the kind of failed thinking that we easily and rightly call hatred in other areas. The appearance of having nobody else recognize this has been beyond sobering and unsettling.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Apparently, you are not interested in the origin of easter at all. You are interested in finding something to beat the atheists with. I think that's more than a little sad. I also think the hostile tone of your last post is uncalled for and more than a little sad.

Don't be sad for me Thomas. Ugly bigotry should make any thinking person hostile. Not one thing I have ever said is about "the atheists". The only sweeping statement I ever recall making about atheists as a group was a few years ago when I said I thought the choice has more than a few elements of courage as it often means being in a position of painful opposition with family and it sheds the refuge and comforts of faith and religion. My objection is to bigotry. That it comes here when it does with the sheen of intellectualism and atheism is not in my control.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Apparently, you are not interested in the origin of easter at all. You are interested in finding something to beat the atheists with. I think that's more than a little sad. I also think the hostile tone of your last post is uncalled for and more than a little sad.

It is very sad. Sadder still is that the hostility (and name-calling) has been present for many pages.

I, for one, am grateful for your attempt to get things back on topic especially since the tit-for-tat pettiness, of which I was part, was the main reason it strayed.

Just like friends don't let friends drink and drive, friends should not encourage friends into bigot cheering squads.

This thread, I've decided, has to be one person taking the piss by signing into different accounts and writing to him/herself.

It's the only explanation for such double-ended-insanity.

From my perspective it's been one long effort to battle gluttonous ignorance with facts. I struggle to imagine on what other topic this would be considered "insanity".

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Apparently, you are not interested in the origin of easter at all. You are interested in finding something to beat the atheists with.

Standing ovation.

I came upon what I thought was an interesting interview of A.C. Grayling on Sam Harris' blog. Granted, it's to promote a book called "The God Argument", but I thought I'd share it anyway.

The reviews of the book, btw, range from "Compelling and inspiring" to "Nice examples from the wide world of really dumb atheists". No surprise, given the subject. I was especially moved by one simple part of the author's very first response - "I was brought up in a non-religious household..." The idea of that is so foreign to me, and I couldn't help conjure ideas of how free and alive he must have felt as a child. Later on, he says we should teach children to "think, question, always ask for the evidence and arguments in support of any proposition..." I appreciated that point very much as well.

Anyway, I liked a lot of what he had to say and thought at least some of you might like it, too. (Though you might already be familiar with much of what is here.)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-god-argument

The Real Wizard wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Apparently, you are not interested in the origin of easter at all. You are interested in finding something to beat the atheists with.

Standing ovation.

Some people need a good spanking ...

  ;)

The Real Wizard wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Apparently, you are not interested in the origin of easter at all. You are interested in finding something to beat the atheists with.

Standing ovation.

I can assure you and TQ that the fact that a couple of people posted a bunch of narrow and misleading nonsense about Easter and have not a drop of shame about it is in no way a reflection on me. I'll note as well that you really absorbed the lessons from the crock of crap "quote" you posted from Pope Francis. Well done. That you can't stuff your face full of idiocy fast enough on this topic is your business, but when you cavalierly and regularly vomit it all over the internet it's everybody's problem. None of the links I provided to the analysis and debunking of that meme is pretending that it's purpose was anything other than to dig at the assumed stupidity of Christian celebration and wallow. None. None have implicitly or explicitly implied anything other than the fact that it was ignorant and irresponsible. The fact that the post skulked off the Dawkins organization's Facebook stinking and discredited says all there is to say really.

So seriously Mr. standing o, let's be real about who is interested in seeking and sharing knowledge and who is not. I've been trying to do just that to a mercifully small but ugly as fuck wall of bigotry for weeks. You've been busy spreading ignorance, thick headed rhetoric and asinine generalizations like cream cheese. It's completely fucking shameful. You live in a beautiful, world class city that is arguably the most diverse in North America. You more than so many others have an opportunity to not only look but to see. To find the common threads and the similarities that run through us all so much more than the differences. All you seem to have done with that blessing and opportunity is to carve people up into belittled homogeneous chunks. Talk about sad.

Religion divides us alright. Divides through people like you. I've had a foot in and a foot out of organized religion for 45 years and if there is one thing I can tell you with certainty it is that people are the fundamentally the same everywhere. The breadth and depth of the reasons people embrace some form of organized religion to varying degrees is boundless, fascinating and full of a richness of life experience that lays such thorough waste to your ignorant ramblings that there are probably not sufficient words to truly communicate it. That you and others want to cut yourself off from that to wallow in intellectually bankrupt generalizations is certainly your right. It is also the very definition of prejudice. For the sake of those who have to breathe your intellectual air I can only hope these prejudices and your proselytizing of ignorance are mostly limited to the rarefied air of Queenzone's bully pulpits and others who are already resigned to drowning in stupidity.

GratefulFan, I have rarely had the displeasure of seeing someone act so unreasonably hostile and aggressive as you have in this topic. For someone who pretends to hold nuanced views, I find it shameful that you post such remarks as claiming that anyone who wants to "cut [one]self off from" organized religion is "wallow[ing] in intellectually bankrupt generalizations", or that denouncing the hypocrisy of organized religion is "the very definition of prejudice". You are presenting yourself as an extremely embittered fanatic, a John C. Calhoun of religion, who sees every form of criticism as an attack on your religious freedom, and who insists that anyone who disagrees with you is dishonest and driven by sordid motives, or at the very least is "drowning in stupidity".

I am afraid to say, GratefulFan, that you have misinterpreted everything you possibly could misinterpret in this topic, and that you turn the most innocent things into capital offenses. You seem to be personally insulted by the claim that Easter comes from Ishtar, but as I believe I have made clear, while there is no 1-1 direct link, the feast of Ishtar has certainly influenced Easter. Yet you refuse to see this nuance: it's all liars telling you that Easter IS the feast of Ishtar and other "ignorant ramblings".

I honestly don't know what's gotten into you. I would be lying if I said I liked you, and I am sure the feeling is mutual, but I have never seen you act in a way such as you have these last few pages, which I can only describe as fanatical and deeply worrying.

The way you are abusing Bob is quite simply shameful. If there is one person here on QZ whom I would describe as humane and tolerant, it's Bob, and I am quite sure that a vast number of Zoners would side with me on that.

You're hardly in a position to lecture anyone about hostile and aggressive comments Thomas.

Holly2003 wrote:

You're hardly in a position to lecture anyone about hostile and aggressive comments Thomas.

I hold perhaps the most moderate opinion in this discussion, and this discussion is all that counts in this topic.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The way you are abusing Bob is quite simply shameful. If there is one person here on QZ whom I would describe as humane and tolerant, it's Bob, and I am quite sure that a vast number of Zoners would side with me on that.

I think this entire post was very well said. And I am one of those who agrees with you about Bob.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Holly2003 wrote:

You're hardly in a position to lecture anyone about hostile and aggressive comments Thomas.

I hold perhaps the most moderate opinion in this discussion, and this discussion is all that counts in this topic.

Err... no, that doesn't make any sense. You have been aggressive and hostile in many topics and just because you are less so here doesn't give you any high moral ground.