153 replies to this topic

[Sarah Horrocks]

I find athiests as obnoxious to be around as christians. Anyone for whom God(or not God) is a major talking point in their life, tends to have a touch of annoying in their eye.

For me sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I believe in Gods, sometimes I don't. It is so completely unimportant in my life that it almost bears no mention, except for the rampant lecturing from theists, and atheists.

I'm a filmist, comic bookist, musicist, telivision showist...

[Will]

I must admit that I am often guilty of this myself. Being more tolerant is something I'm constantly working on. I'm ok with actively attacking religion in politics because I think the world would be a better place if there was a separation of church and state but I am all too often catching myself making snarky comments towards friends and family when I see something posted on facebook or twitter, or even worse - in person. Sometimes I need to remind myself to live and let live.

And that's why I'm one of your favorite learned men and intellectuals.

[Chris D]

For me sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I believe in Gods, sometimes I don't. It is so completely unimportant in my life that it almost bears no mention,

Same here. Is there a God or not? Don't know. But it doesn't really have a bearing on how I live my life. I do what I do and it'll all get sorted out when I die.

[stephanie familiar]

Same here. Is there a God or not? Don't know. But it doesn't really have a bearing on how I live my life. I do what I do and it'll all get sorted out when I die.

procrastinator!

[garjones]

A vast majority of people follow faiths they were born into and raised in. They consider their religion no more a choice than they consider their own name a choice, even though both are technically choices.

This is very obvious in Malaysia. It's one of the most diverse countries in the world when it comes to religion:

The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of religion while making Islam the state religion. According to the Population and Housing Census 2010 figures, ethnicity and religious beliefs correlate highly. Approximately 61.3% of the population are practicing Islam. 19.8% practice Buddhism; 9.2% Christianity; 6.3% Hinduism; and 1.3% practice Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. 0.7% declared no religion and the remaining 1.4% practised other religions or did not provide any information

Conversion is extremely rare, it's very difficult in Islam but even after over a century of Christian missionaries (until independence in 1957) they manged to change only 9% to their cause. Conversion to Islam I've only seen happen when people want to get married as the rules demand you have to convert first, then I see them in the pub later sneaking a bacon sandwich and a pint.

[David Meadows]

The militant atheists just use words. When theists become militant people die.

You're overlooking the militant atheism of Communist China there.

Edit: never mind, I see that's already been done.

[Daniel R]

Okaaay.

Maybe someone should split this off into it's own "atheism" thread. In any case-

I find it a little on the specious side, to say the least, to equate Dawkins, Hitchens and others with the regimes of Communist China and Soviet Russia.

Politically, there is a fundamental functional difference between them and "atheistic" states, namely that while Dawkins along with others are philosophically and academically atheistic and stridently so, politically they are (primarily) secularists: they believe that religions simply shouldn't possess the privileged position they do in modern public life.

They believe they possess their current power and prestige not due to intellectual or ethical merit on the part of their doctrines or organisations, but because of simple historical reasons - they gained power when our societies first formed by conditioning belief in their followers and have worked very hard to keep it since.

They believe that both states and societies should treat them the same way that any voluntary organisation is treated and nothing more. They also strongly believe that their ideas should be just as open to critique as any; that taboos in public life against criticising the ideas on which religious doctrines stand should be cast aside.

Marxist-Leninist states, historically, are "atheistic" in the sense that they do not tolerate any competing ideologies; their "materialism" was part of a package of beliefs which led to their ideology acting very much like a fundamentalist religion in all but name, that resulted in them persecuting millions. The "New Atheists" believe in the free exchange of ideas - they simply don't think that religion should be exempt from debate and (sometimes) ridicule, like anything else in a democratic society. The contrast couldn't be sharper.




-DR

[Robert B]

There was once a time, before I got dumb, that I was able to easily read and absorb Jacques Derrida. He was one of my favorite learned men and thinkers. Camus as well, although I think I am still smart enough to read his stuff.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I find athiests as obnoxious to be around as christians. Anyone for whom God(or not God) is a major talking point in their life, tends to have a touch of annoying in their eye.

For me sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I believe in Gods, sometimes I don't. It is so completely unimportant in my life that it almost bears no mention, except for the rampant lecturing from theists, and atheists.

I'm a filmist, comic bookist, musicist, telivision showist...

Theists and atheists all suck!

[Will Carper]

I've liked reading the thoughts of--

Sartre
Nagarjuna (so really, Buddha)
Carl Jung

And I got there via fiction by the likes of Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Paul Auster.

[Johnny Henning]

That is a good point. A lot of these thinkers reach people from popular entertainment first rather than from school.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

procrastinator!

Hear hear! We're at war here people! Pick a side!

[Ulf Imwiehe]

It's more of the aggressive tone that I take offense to. And that's for the guy standing on the street corner telling everyone they're doomed if they don't repent as well as Dawkins or others who attack.
You (the general "you" not "you, Ulf") don't believe what I do, that's fine. I have faith we can have a rational discussion and remain respectful. I am under no delusion that we can if either of us are out to attack the beliefs of the other.

Live and let live.

I absolutely agree. I just think that the interaction between religious people and unbelievers would be so much more enjoyable and fruitful with a little sense of humor, self-irony and genuine interest in different worldviews from both sides.

Which brings me to another of my favorite thinkers: French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I highly recommend his book The Phenomenon of Man in which he puts forth the theory that evolution leads to increasing complexity, culminating in what he refers to as the Omega Point – a collectively conscious cosmos in which every particle of the unity is still conscious of itself: God. He also expands on the noosphere concept (the interaction of human minds) as a psycho-evolutionary sibling to the geosphere (concerning inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life).

The church wasn’t too fond of his work to say the least.

[garjones]

Dawkins has a sneery tone. I'm being quite serious here, it doesn't help him even if you agree with what he says. He needs to lighten up. I have no religion but sometimes he rubs me up the wrong way. I woudn't want to have a pint with him.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I've liked reading the thoughts of--

Sartre
Nagarjuna (so really, Buddha)
Carl Jung

And I got there via fiction by the likes of Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Paul Auster.

Fucking dickheads, all six of them.

...

Nah not really of course. Nagarjuna I haven't read myself, but it's on the metaphorical pile.

[Steve Sensible]

Dawkins has a sneery tone. I'm being quite serious here, it doesn't help him even if you agree with what he says.

I'm pretty sure he's really a devout Catholic, using reverse psychology. He's definitely the kind of person who'd make you turn to religion just to spite him.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I agree Dawkins isn't really that charismatic, but the things he says are hardly insulting. He criticizes organized religion and some things he deems irrational, but he doesn't call Christians in general stupid.

[Steve Sensible]

I saw Dawkins in a documentary last year, and he does his otherwise rational arguments a disservice. It's not a lack of charisma - he comes across as completely obnoxious. As others have said, he's a non-religious extremist. And just as most Muslims find Muslim extremists offensive, as an atheist I found him offensive.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I saw Dawkins in a documentary last year, and he does his otherwise rational arguments a disservice. It's not a lack of charisma - he comes across as completely obnoxious. As others have said, he's a non-religious extremist. And just as most Muslims find Muslim extremists offensive, as an atheist I found him offensive.

I hear that a lot but I don't see it. Can you explain what it is that makes him obnoxious?

[garjones]

I hear that a lot but I don't see it. Can you explain what it is that makes him obnoxious?

It's his manner, he gets this Evil Claw excitement when he gets someone who agrees with him. I think he is evangelical in that sense.

If his words were all written, or in the style of those absurd Sinn Fein comments in the 80s when they got an actor to dub the voice, I think he'd face less opposition. I can't quote anything he says I disagree with, I'm also an atheist, but he is quite annoying.