Why I Hope Religious People Read This Site

I too would like believers to post here. The few times they do, they do tend to get pounced on, but it’s mostly civil and that’s good. One of the best responses I ever got from a post I made on a religious site was a compliment, albeit backhanded, when the religious person concluded a discussion saying that (s)he was surprised that for an atheist I was reasonable and civil. It’s a start.

Jo, I sometimes think American atheists and agnostics behave in the manner you call theistic as a defense mechanism. I think we do it because we need people to know that we’re here. We also want other non-believers to know that there are more people like them and that it’s okay to be skeptical. It may also be a response to incessant attacks from right-wing pundits like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Fox News.

I’m not sure if this is the best response, but like everyone, non-believers are learning. In my own experience, I’ve had to remind myself that not all Christians accept the same fundamentalism that I was taught in church. We’re getting there, but I do think it’s a blanket stereotype, inaccurate, and a touch lazy to say all atheists are religiously anti-religion.

(I hope you will forgive me: I say “lazy,” but the word carries a connotation of rudeness that I truly don’t intend. My meaning is that I hope by accepting the widely used argument that atheism has become a religion of its own, you won’t absolve yourself from continuing to examine the topic.)

Many theists don’t bother me either, in fact some of my best friends are theists! But in the US we have a long history of religious fundamentalism and revivalism, and along with that go attempts to create a Biblical theocracy. That’s why we’re the birthplace of Intelligent Design; religious science. We are in the middle of one of those periods now, and that tends to push atheists and humanists together, for mutual protection.

I think a site like this probably attracts two kinds of religious people: the zealots who will never accept reason, but have a missionary complex to defend their views (especially as they are on the decline), and the seekers- religious people who already have doubts, and are just looking for the motivation to give it up.

Just one more box to uncheck Starship 🙂

(j/k, leave it checked, the world would be boring if we all had the same set of checks)

this thread, yes. And I’d hesitate with the “looking for motivation to give it up” label. But the zealots? Josephus Polanconium?

With a name like Josephus Polanconium who could be surprised?

I imagine the reason you see the same bits said over and over again is because those are the usual rebuttals to the common points that are brought up by those who believe in a certain dogma. After a while it becomes a rehearsed format between groups, even if the individuals at play aren’t the same people in the discussion.

Most of what I see from atheists are counters to apologetics and creationist dogma. However when it comes to Christianity and now increasingly Muslim religions, we’re seeing people use the same tricks and tips that have been used by theologians, priests, Imams, and so on for centuries – find the contradiction within the text and use it against your opponent. When it comes to the atheist added to the mix, you get to the classic Greek stance when it comes to religious views. Either prove your point within the realm of reality or admit to being incorrect. If there is no evidence to support a claim, then that claim can be disregarded out of hand.

which often turn out to be false

“Often?” you can back that up with links, and examples- specific to the comments on this blog. just to be clear: “often” suggests regularity, or even a majority, of something. i defy you to back up your claim.

or you can be yet another believer who makes a blanket statement without any proof, and continue to contribute to the atheist understanding of what believers really are- intellectually lazy cherry pickers who barely skim the factual information atheists and nonbelievers contribute to these discussions because they have no real intention of considering what we have to say, but instead only want to reinforce their own narrow worldview with opinion masquerading as fact.

I skip most of them as well. When Hemant first started, I was transcribing them to fix the Youtube captions, but I don’t have the energy to keep up that endeavor. Youtube doesn’t do it for me as a way to disseminate information that doesn’t have a necessary video component.

It was not my intent to suggest that those are the only types of religious people visiting this forum. But from what I’ve seen posted on most topics here, those two constitute the majority of them.

Hemant, I read your book and follow your site in kind of a “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” sort of a way. Not that I consider you or any atheist to be my enemy, but I am expecting increasing animosity as New Atheists become stronger and more explicit and militant in their calls for the abolishment of religion. So many posts seem sarcastic, divisive, hateful and profane! As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I have known all my life (44 years) the Bible foretells the nations will completely devour man-made religion as a judgment from God for their involvement in secular affairs, support for warfare and violence, hypocritical greedy, pompous and immoral conduct, along with suppression of the truth in favor of God-dishonoring unbiblical teachings such as hellfire and the Trinity. You may consider this an unlikely event, but what was not even considered is now being discussed and hoped for in many forums such as this. Such will succeed beyond your wildest dreams! JWs will give a final message and a effort will be made to stomp out these annoying pacifists for good. We are bait though and our rescue will permanently settle the debate over whether God exists. I watch your site as one barometer of how close to that event we are getting. Thank you for strengthening my faith by reporting progress to that foretold outcome. As this is proved true, we are reassured the promises for mankind to fulfill its purpose on earth will also be fulfilled after

Nah, that’s pretty bog-standard JW stuff.

LOL. They love the soft sell. They kinda have to, because the details are scary.

The videos are blocked at my work and I am rarely inclined to go back to a post later. Even when I’m home, unless it’s not more than a few minutes, I am unlikely to watch a video unless the topic really interests me. Though I can usually get the gist of these videos from reading the comments, and often the conversation is worth reading even if I haven’t seen the video.

I’m not religious.

Yeah, I’ve seen that. So much for seperation of church and state :/

Do you feel the need, or even simply the desire, to meet with like-minded people to discuss topics of mutual interest?

If so, why do you think atheism is an exception?

I agree.
I skim the friendly atheist homepage looking for something that’s a blog post rather than a video.

Really, I enjoy them simply for the discussion. Of people’s backgrounds and deconversion experiences (or lack thereof for the raised-godless), the harm being done by religion and how to counteract it, different people’s motivations and reasons for being atheist, etc, etc. I don’t see how you can meaningfully describe this as “theistic” without also describing every book club and sports team as theistic (although, some sports fans…)

Perhaps all that is not accurately described as “discussing atheism”. But I would argue strongly that it is the discussion of things very closely related to atheism.

But aren’t you zealous for atheism?

It’s hard to make an exact comparison, since percentages tend to be quite sensitive to question wording. However, the polling data I turned up suggest that while the levels are slightly lower in the UK, and there may be a higher ratio of old-earth to young-earth types among UK creationists (compared to the US ratio), there’s still around 30% creationists in the UK (compared to circa 45% for the US).

Which in politics is a minority large enough to be very relevant.

My suspicion is that the sorts of grouping you see are not so much theistic, as human social impulses even older than religion, which religion has since hijacked and become the most common means of expressing them.

That’s the whole point. It doesn’t have to be scary.
Everyday when I read the newspaper I look forward to the end of man’s inhumanity to man, the greedy commercial and political systems, the ruin of the environment and the senseless warfare.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/l/r1/lp-e?q=Ps+37%3A10-11
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/l/r1/lp-e?q=Luke+21%3A26-28
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/l/r1/lp-e?q=zep+2%3A2-3
http://www.jw.org/en/

And so the Jews whose book this was before you borrowed it, their whole “perhaps using the Name of God isn’t a swell idea, because it’s always partially in vain” notion, useless?

And you are aware that Jehovah/Yahweh are both epithets, not names, right? A circumlocution used to avoid saying the thing-that-should-not-be-said.

If God didn’t want people to use his name, he wouldn’t have to told it to them. Jews used it constantly for a 1,000 years even in a casual way such as Boaz greeting his harvesters with “Jehovah be with you.” Ruth 2:4

Hebrew names starting with JEH or ending with JAH or IAH include the divine name (eg Elijah means “God is Jehovah.”) It was the overly-legalistic Pharisees whom Jesus condemned as “making the word of God invalid by their traditions” who prohibited it’s usage. God’s purposes have always included all mankind.

“By means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves.” (Genesis 22:18)

LORD/Adonai is the circumlocution for YHWH so YHWH cannot be a circumlocution as well.

Inigo Montoya, That is the difference between Atheists and New Atheists. Atheists are live and let live. As a long-time minority they have been more concerned with establishing their own rights to belief than curtailing anyone else’s. New Atheists are impatient for religious belief to end and think it should be sped along. As an example Jerry Coyne wrote a book on “Why Evolution is true.” He is frustrated everyone doesn’t agree with him, feels religion is the culprit and something should be done to remove this obstacle. Here is a link with the relevant part at the conclusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW9G2YVtBYc&feature=youtu.be&em

This is a mild example and it isn’t hard to find more strident calls from recent authors such as Dawkins, C. Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc. Since 9/11 such are no longer content to wait it out as you suggest. Because some enmities and violence have a religious source, or are seen as backwards such feel all should be restricted. “Militant” referred not to atheists arming themselves, but to their calls for action by governments. FIrst this is by lawsuits, loss of tax exemptions and finally bans on assembly and activity, by force eventually. You think I’m exaggerating, but as 1 example, Moscow has already used anti-terrorism laws against my pacifist faith of JWs. Peaceful meetings have been interrupted and women, children and elderly arrested and literature banned. Such will steadily intensify worldwide. As economic conditions worsen, tolerance will decline and suddenly the dam will break. Research what those of the “Enlightenment” did to religion during the French Revolution.

*I had been