douchebag atheists

I don't know if you'll see this, the post was a while ago. I'm going to assume for the sake of argument that you weren't trolling.

Atheism is a lack of belief in God. Atheism does not mean that you beleive there is no god (though gnostic atheists/anti-theists would fall into this category).

I think you would find that the majority of atheists don't claim to know that there is no god. I haven't been convinced that god exists. That is what makes me an atheist. I haven't been convinced that the loch ness monster exists. I'm not going to go around telling people that I KNOW god doesn't exist any more than I'm going to say I KNOW the loch ness monster doesn't exist. Buddhism has no god (as far as I'm aware, I'm no Buddhism expert), which would make Buddhists atheists by default. If you were born in the jungle and never had any knowledge of the concept of god, you would be an atheist by default.

I think that most atheists that you meet in your lifetime will never identify themselves as such, because "atheist" just describes what you aren't.

For example, I'm not from Rhode Island. However, the fact that I'm not from Rhode Island tells you literally nothing about where I am from. In the same way, telling you that I don't believe in god tells you nothing about what I do believe, so why would I even bring it up? Many atheists are in this position. They don't identify themselves as "not from Rhode Island", so you don't label them as atheists. Then, you go and say something like,

While I might not describe myself as "not from Rhode Island", I can't help but feel annoyed when you're directing condescending insults to everyone who isn't from your little part of the world.

Now, some people are raised by convicted sex offenders in the slums of Rhode Island. Some of those people make it out of Rhode Island and move to New Jersey. They understandably harbor quite a bit of resentment, and might write books detailing exactly why Rhode Island is the most piece of shit cesspool on the planet, and that everyone should leave that hellhole of a state as soon as possible. They might say that they would rather perform cunnilingus on the rotting corpse of Rosie O'Donnell after it had baked in the Florida summer sun for a month and a half, than spend one more minute in the shit-stain of the universe that is Rhode Island.

I see how in your eyes, those people come off as condescending pricks for voicing their hateful opinions of your beloved state, but you need to understand that when you say things like,

You're stating that you "fucking despise" everyone who doesn't actively believe in a god. Is that really what you're trying to say?



Disclaimer:
I don't mean to pick on Rhode Island. I only used it in my example because it is objectively the worst place on the planet. I have no personal problem with anyone who lives in Rhode Island, but if I were ever elected president, your entire state would become a nuclear wasteland on the day of my inauguration.

 

i like to talk about atheism very frankly

 

Yours is a rant.

I believe in nothing more than ethics, consequences , truth, integrity, the love of learning , my family, respect for beauty and great thought.
but then i am a Jew who does not go to Synagogue because i am in the country.

 

morality always opposes aggressiveness.
it does not require leaders nor beliefs to do so.

i certainly won't disagree, that one fanaticism is as bad as another.
but i also don't believe, western abrahamic religion is the ox most often being gored.

 

But i often find christians less honest than non-believers.

Nob's fess up, christians don't.

 

a recent study classified atheists into six groups, and the researchers say that as this is a new subject, many more classifications may come up later. basically it says that atheists are just like everybody else.

http://www.wcti12.com/Study-finds-six-types-of-atheism/-/13530288/20987090/-/l74d0k/-/index.html

I live in Georgia, and I consider myself an atheist in relation to the hardcore christians that are so prevalent here. If i grew up somewhere else, say seattle washington, I might not consider myself an atheist, but when there are crazy fucking hardcore christians telling you all kinds of fucked up bullshit, then absolutely yes.. compared to them, i am certainly an atheist. to answer atheist when some nutjob whacked out christian asks me if i believe in god makes things a whole lot simpler.

 

If you are a thinker you believe in something, not believing is not to be confused with a believing position.

 

Ethics and proper social responsibility are not the mandate of christians.

Thankfully they don't say they are?

 

I wounder if they truly believe that there is no God , or they are just un happy with the major belief systems , and see the faults in them ?

 

do christians truly believe there is no Brahma? (hindu god)

how do you define god?

 

I think most Christains believe in a God that is a gray haired old man on a mountain top , or in the clouds . I see God as a creative life force . There was an interesting post on astral pulse where some one went to see God , while out of body , if I find it I will post the link to it . http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/
p.s. The point I was making was , would some of the atheists accept a slight different immage or concept of God ?

 

No, because then they would not be considered an atheist.

 

I've always considered myself SUPER agnostic. I don't believe in a sentient higher power but that doesn't mean there isn't one. To my mind, there is a 99% chance that there is not a higher power but I can't say that I am certain. I wouldn't want to be as sure of myself as religious people seem to be. I do think it's funny that most people are devout to whatever religion they happen to be born into. Of all the choices, it would be quite a coincidence that they were just born into the right one.

 

depends on the image, surely.

i have a pen here, i could decide to start referring to it as "god". i wouldn't invest in it any supernatural powers or anything like that, it would still be a pen. and i, surely, would still be an atheist.

i know this seems like an absurd example of pedantry, but it gets interesting when you consider things like spinozism and pantheism, if i believed that "god" was just all life, it was synonymous with nature, that it reveals itself to us as everything simultaneously, then would the difference between me and atheists be merely semantics?

 

desert rat was specifically referring to "God" with a capital G, not some arbitrary naming of an inanimate object. By using "God," he implied the belief in deities, so that it was I was referring to.

 

so the pen was a bad example, but my second point?

 

In your second point, it seems like you could endlessly redefine god to shape your argument. In the end, your definition does not appear to give this concept any conscious power.
Atheism rejects the idea that there are deities; so, how does your concept represent a deity?

 

it doesn't.

therefore a spinozist could be an atheist, despite believing in a supernatural God (as a thing which was necessarily independant/outside of the physical natural world, supernatural, if you will.) kind of interesting.

 

I guess I don't get how you equate someone who "believes in a supernatural God" as being an atheist.

 

normally i wouldn't. but it seems to have become a grey area when it comes to monism. from what i've gathered from our conversation so far, an atheist can still believe in a supernatural thing, an all-powerful thing, with control, or at least influence (or conflation) with all things, but what decides his atheism is the degree to which this thing either:

1) has consciousness.

2) is an entity distinct from the physical.

or both.