Atheism spreads religious awareness and biases our thinking...

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

It is a belief, but only in the sense we believe people who try to push gods and religion on us are full of ****.

But the dignified persons at a posh ceremony are full of **** as well. Their peristaltic colons, upper and lower, are a tube of **** building pressure until the urge to exercise the rectal sphincter becomes pressing.

We are habituated to forgetting such obvious scientific facts for cultural reasons. People may well push gods and religion for cultural reasons too.

What are the cultural implications of forgetting about gods and religion as we forget about our insides and the operations thereof?

Perhaps, ed, it is your duty to explain the cultural outcome of us all accepting the position you take and promote and forgetting all about gods and religion in the same way that we forget about the epidermal bag of **** we all are once cultural considerations are set aside.

Like all the others who pursue your infantile line you focus entirely on the faults you perceive in others and thus you are distracted, probably deliberately, from your own faults and the faults of the alternative to gods and religion which, of necessity, loom large when gods and religion are set aside.

Which is to say you are giving yourself a free ride pretending that the desuetude of gods and religion will have no effects. And an effect-less cause is no cause at all. Your argument has no point.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

No, some atheists believe that gods do not exist--and i assert that they are the loud, pushy, obnoxious type.

Guilty. Also, they conveniently forget to share their poutine with Setanta.

Setanta wrote:

Most atheists whom i have known, don't know, don't care, and don't believe any of the theistic horseshit they've been fed about gods.

. . . which makes them extremely hard to be counted as atheists, makes their neighbors assume they are probably Christians, and likely makes Cyracuz ignore them as he compiles his informal poll on how atheists think.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

The laughable part of all this is that Edgar definitely "believes" there are no gods. Joe Nation has done research and has evidence that there are no gods. Thomas has asserted there are no gods.

All true. Believing there are no gods is a sufficient condition for being an atheist. But it's not a necessary condition.

Frank Apisa wrote:

There are three atheists right here on A2K who BELIEVE there are no gods.

What makes you believe there aren't many more, and that you're just not noticing them?

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@Cyracuz,

One thing you will notice cyr is that as soon as atheists come up against the real argument, the cultural, they run away. Their excuse is that the real argument is drink induced bullshit and thus unworthy of their consideration.

Big girl's blouses in other words. At the wimpiest extreme. As precious as a starched, lacy petticoat.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

The American Heritage Dictionary states that atheism is the disbelief in or denial of the existence of god or gods.

. . . where "disbelief" means "refusal or reluctance to believe". Hence, if you withhold judgment about the existence of gods, you're reluctant to believe, meaning you disbelieve in gods, meaning you're an atheist --- just as Setanta and I said.

Cyracuz wrote:

Merriam Webster even goes so far as to say that atheism is the doctrine that there are no deities

That's one of Webster's two definitions. The other is "disbelief in the existence of deities", where "disbelieving" means one of two things:

to hold not worthy of belief : not believe
to withhold or reject belief

So Webster, too, covers withholders of belief under "disbelief", and hence withholders of belief about gods under "atheists". The fact that you don't see it when it's right in front of your nose demonstrates selection bias once again. You only noticed the parts of the definitions that agree with your prejudice.

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@Thomas,

Notice cyr that Thomas's silly post takes us not a jot or tittle further than we were years ago. It has not a shite of use to anybody. All the undecided are still in their playpens. Or fast asleep.

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@spendius,

If you continually and insistently told a gardener that he was doing it all wrong how long would it take the gardener to ask you what you thought he should do instead.

And culture is serious gardening. The grain-giving earth was not always so. It takes culture to get the earth to yield up its fruits.

The atheist has no confidence that his culture will make the earth yield up its fruits better, or even as good, as the Christians have made it do. He prefers to think the question irrelevant, which it is in a nursery, leaving out the nannies, and one only of interest to drunken fools.

"Well--he would wouldn't he?" as Mandy Rice-Davies said in slightly different circumstances.

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@spendius,

I'm sorry cyr that I quote Ms Rice-Davies so often on these threads but what she said is so often pertinent in these discussions and it is not possible to say it better.

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@Frank Apisa,

No Frank no...because a great deal of idiots don't have a clue, that there is no difference on what they are doing from what theist do, that doesn't make atheism to be what it is not...

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@Thomas,

It seems I misunderstood the meaning of the word "disbelief". I took it to mean that "disbelief towards theism" is not merely the rejection of theistic belief, but the belief that theism is wrong. We could probably have a looong discussion about this, but that was not what I was hoping for in this thread.
I realize that you are right, and that I was wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that the term "atheism" relates to theism, and that you cannot explain atheism without first explaining theism, which is how atheism can contribute to spreading theistic beliefs. That is one of the issues I was hoping this thread would be about.

The other was bias in our thinking created by the theism/atheism division. You used the words bias and prejudice. I am interested in how the before mentioned division shapes our biases and prejudices.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5018690)
Frank Apisa wrote:
The laughable part of all this is that Edgar definitely "believes" there are no gods. Joe Nation has done research and has evidence that there are no gods. Thomas has asserted there are no gods.

Quote:
All true. Believing there are no gods is a sufficient condition for being an atheist. But it's not a necessary condition.

Actually, Thomas, I didn't say it was. I probably have a minor disagreement with Cyracuz on this point, but to be honest with you, I think most people who classify themselves as atheists actually do "believe" there are no gods.

Some atheists don't have the ethical standards necessary to acknowledge that...but if you listen to what they say, it become evident despite their protestations to the contrary.

Quote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
There are three atheists right here on A2K who BELIEVE there are no gods.

Quote:
What makes you believe there aren't many more, and that you're just not noticing them?

Not sure what that comment is all about, Thomas. I was merely responding to Setanta's humorous assertion that most atheists stop at "I have n0 belief in gods." I suspect damn near every atheist in this forum...including Setanta..."believes" there are no gods.

But some of them want to guard against atheists being thought of as having beliefs (plural)...so they pretend they do not "believe" there are no gods.

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@Frank Apisa,

Anyone who thinks they don't have any beliefs is simply wrong. Some things we have to take on faith, even if it's just some little thing like believing that the car coming from the right at the intersection will stop at the red light.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Anyone who thinks they don't have any beliefs is simply wrong. Some things we have to take on faith, even if it's just some little thing like believing that the car coming from the right at the intersection will stop at the red light.

I enjoy your competence on contradicting yourself in less then 2 sentences...not to mention you start with a non sequitur once not believing in God doesn't mean you don't have any beliefs at all...people might at best hold that as an ideal to which they aspire, which of course mostly will mean that they believe they won't have any beliefs...

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

I realize that you are right, and that I was wrong.

Thanks.

Cyracuz wrote:

But that doesn't change the fact that the term "atheism" relates to theism,

No it doesn't. It relates to god[s]. The word "atheist" literally means "without [any] god". How the disbeliever ends up "without any god" is not part of the definition.

Cyracuz wrote:

and that you cannot explain atheism without first explaining theism,

Yes you can. It's only the term "god" you need to explain, not the philosophy of "theism". Again, consider the analogy of the toothfairy. You are an atoothfairyist (sorry, no dictionary reference) because you disbelieve in the tooth fairy. To be an atoothfairyist, you don't have to understand the philosophy of toothfairyism. And it's a good thing, too, because there is no such philosophy.

Cyracuz wrote:

which is how atheism can contribute to spreading theistic beliefs. That is one of the issues I was hoping this thread would be about.

And as evidence against this thesis, I pointed out countries like Thailand, whose people are nearly 90% atheistic. I bet you they didn't need to understand theism to be atheistic. All they needed was a religion --- Buddhism --- the tenets of which just happen not to contain any reference to deities.

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@spendius,

...yeah Thomas is that kind of guy who waits a long time and thinks allot before making a lousy chess move...I found his squary Logic redundancy's a perfect example of a vacuum of ideas...although he mostly gets to not contradict himself in his logical assertions he just don't get the premisses right for starters, not to mention that the informative value of what he asserts is almost null...seeing the name Thomas on a post is 90% guaranteed of boredom on the way... Laughing

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

I am interested in how the before mentioned division shapes our biases and prejudices.

The short answer is sex cyr. You will find that in the vast majority of cases there is something sexual they have engaged in which the Catholic Church condemns. One wouldn't go to all the lengths they do to put a stop to a Fundie knocking on their door once overy ten years or handing them a leaflet in the street.

It matters. It's personal. Non intellectual. No intellectual would ignore the implications of his view point if he publicly promoted it.

They take it amiss that a large number of people condemn what they have done, or are doing and think it shameful. Bearing in mind how many there are who do the same things it is amazing what a derisory position they hold in the opinion polls.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

If you actually knew what the words you type meant you would know that I am not contradicting myself in that post. What an exquisite specimen of idiot you are. Laughing

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@Thomas,

Quote:

And as evidence against this thesis, I pointed out countries like Thailand, whose people are nearly 90% atheistic. I bet you they didn't need to understand theism to be atheistic.

That is fine. But I bet they don't think of themselves as atheists either, because they don't have the cultural baggage of theism forced on them. And that's the point; atheism (the term) is a response to theism. We wouldn't have the word "atheism" if we didn't have the contrast of theism to give it meaning. Then it would just be Buddhism or any other philosophy without gods.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

That is fine. But I bet they don't think of themselves as atheists either, because they don't have the cultural baggage of theism forced on them.

Fishes are fishes whether they think of themselves as fish or not. Likewise, atheists are atheists whether they think of themselves as atheists or not. For what it's worth, I would be perfectly happy thinking of myself as nothing but a Utilitarian and a Critical Rationalist. But even if that was all I did, I would still be an atheist, because I would still fit the dictionary's definition of an atheist. The way I think about myself is irrelevant to what I am.

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@Thomas,

Perhaps. Though I still maintain that "atheism" is only a meaningful term because we have theism, and that it is meaningful only in the context of our culture.
To me, an Englishman is from the west. To an american he's from the east. It doesn't change where he is from, but it changes which way he came from. (Poor analogy perhaps, but I am only trying to show that what things are depends to some extent on the context we understand them in.)

1 Reply

Atheism spreads religious awareness and biases our thinking...

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