They think that people who don’t believe in God have nothing to stop them from, like, killing everybody, etc.

Which I guess means believers-in-God think of themselves as being kept from killing everybody, etc. not out of a sense of decency but out of fear of punishment from the Sky Fairy.

yeah all those good Christians like DeLay are so anti-materialism.

A lot of people who are really atheists call themselves agnostic or “spiritual.”

I’ve never understood why anyone bothers being agnostic. Like, ok, technically I can’t prove that Santa Claus–or any other omnipotent being–doesn’t exist. Does that mean I’m agnostic about Santa Claus? No. I’m just as sure as it is logically possible to be that there is no Santa Claus.

As for being “spiritual,” fah on thee. Religion is a specific set of beliefs, not some vague feeling that there’s a higher power. I call these people atheists also.

Brad – he has done it again! I have got to come up with something to send in.
SHAFT CONSERVATIVES [Jonah Goldberg]

Special help: I think the word “realpolitik” will come in handy trying to stay true to the original song’s rhyming scheme.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_03_19_corner-archive.asp#093220

[this is sort-of religion-related, so it is on topic for the post…]

I’m just as sure as it is logically possible to be that there is no Santa Claus.

So, an agnostic would say, the only logical position to take would bet to say: I don’t know.
Furthermore, they would say both the atheist and the theist are making knowledge claims which are not legitimate, since they do not actually know the answer to the question in any testable way.
I’m afraid, superdude, you have your analysis backwards- if memory serves, more self-identified “atheists” are closer to agnosticism than true atheism than vice-versa. Your terminology is incorrect as well- those individuals who are “spiritual” are theistic or at least agnostic-types. Atheism is not (merely) the absence of religion, but the declaration of a knowledge claim that “God does not exist”.
Do you see the distinction?

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add my obligitory “Your turn now, cobagz!”

Honestly- I don’t see why people are threatened by atheists. After all, it’s such a small phenomenon in the US. Like anti-semitism in the US- I’ve never got it. It’s a tiny part of society in which only a tiny portion of even bother to publically prostelyze about.
That said- I might put atheists down there with evangelical Protestants with groups that “don’t share my vision of American society”. Not that I find that to be necessarily bad (we need constructive debate and exchanges of ideas, after all. One party rule always stagnates the country, after all), and not that I don’t have tolerance for anyone’s choice in their spiritual affiliation (I really don’t care so long as people don’t pester me about it- honest. People can think whatever they want as far as I care).

Over at answers.com (or somewhere) they argue that agnostics come in theist and atheist flavours, not that agnostic is a correct third path. Like this –

“It is possible, therefore, for someone not to believe in a God (as Huxley did not) and yet still suspend judgment (ie, be an agnostic) about whether it is possible to obtain knowledge of a God. Such a person would be an atheistic agnostic. It is also possible to believe in the existence of a force behind the universe, but to hold (as did Herbert Spencer) that any knowledge of that force was unobtainable. Such a person would be a theistic agnostic.”

For me, the suggestion that the knowledge claim of atheists is not legitimate boils down to the “you can’t prove a negative” truism or its extended version “supernatural claims can’t be refuted inductively”. Big deal. I can’t, as Carl Sagan said, prove that we’re not being urinated on by invisible pink elephants, but that doesn’t make me agnostic about my belief that we aren’t. And not being able to prove – in the logic/mathematics sense – that there is no God doesn’t mean I have to surrender to the agnostic cop-out. We throw people in gaol on a considerable less stringent notion of “proof” than logical proof. Here’s why I believe there’s no god – there’s no evidence for such a belief (“credible evidence”, if you absolutely insist), natural phenomena can be adequately explained without recourse to god, and even a cursory examination of history and anthropology demaonstrates that notions of god are socially determined and change over time.

One big problem here is definitions. Anytime the subject of atheists comes up, people start arguing definitions. Most people who call themselves atheists define atheist to mean simply lack of god-belief. Their definition diverges from what most Americans think of when they hear the word: raving God-hater. Further, many Americans just don’t introspect enough to know what they really believe or why they live as they do.

Those who think of atheists as raving God-haters are confused. Why would I hate something I don’t believe exists?

It’s Christians I hate.

Checkit!

http://sites.gizoogle.com/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sadlyno.com%2F

“Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify…”

Well, we can solve that one easily. I suggest we atheists wear a colourful armband in public – this would aid both public identification. Perhaps our elders should disseminate some protocols to help with the formal organisation side of things.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday:

Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite

Here’s the thing. Is the person sporting this an atheist, probably not.
If they are a Christian, then aren’t they going to hell for taking the Lord’s name in vain?

-I’m an atheist, in that I don’t find God necessary to explain anything. I don’t really spend any time obsessing over the fact that I don’t believe in the big dude in the sky. The definition of atheist that Guinessguy gave really doesn’t make any sense. How can you rage against something that you don’t even acknowledge exists?

Absence of god-belief. That’s the definition I use.

BTW – I heard a Phillip K Dick quote yesterday:

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

“BTW – I heard a Phillip K Dick quote yesterday:

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.””

Unfortunately for P.K. Dick’s sanity, the pink light beaming information into his head didn’t go away.

Alas, poor Dick.
One of the most uneven authors I’ve ever encountered. Some great stuff (A Scanner Darkly), some crap (don’t remember, couldn’t even finish), some great ideas executed crappily (Clans of the Alphane Moon).

The definition of atheist that Guinessguy gave really doesn’t make any sense. How can you rage against something that you don’t even acknowledge exists?

What can I tell you- we spent a couple weeks on it in my Philosophy class, and that’s the definition they use.
Lack of belief in God doesn’t cover the whole shebang of atheism, which must make a knowledge claim (God does not exist)- agnostics don’t discount the possibility and therefore reserve judgement on this issue for reasons of intellectual honesty (they don’t feel able to make a statement of belief on the matter) or don’t bother to make a statement out of either laziness or declared apathy for the whole argument regarding the existance of a deity (I don’t care whether God exists or not).
Those who have apathy for the whole cosmological debate are technically agnostic, but probably self-ID as atheist (and probably are “atheists” to those who were doing the answering of the question above). Those last individuals would fall into the catagory of, I suppose “soft” atheists, as opposed to “hard” atheists.
The “raving-God hater” thing is likely the correct description of what is being feared by most of the answerers- technically, it is “raving religion haters” (generally a very hardcore “hard” atheist) and there aren’t a whole ton of them around in any case- and as has been said, most Americans probably aren’t thinking about this too hard.
I’d recommend reading some Descartes for those interested about the validity of knowledge claims (even if you don’t agree with him, it’s interesting).
For the purposes of this post, “non-belief” is probably a suitable definition of “atheist”- though it is important to recognize the distinction between the “hard” atheism and this “soft” atheism.

“Which I guess means believers-in-God think of themselves as being kept from killing everybody, etc. not out of a sense of decency but out of fear of punishment from the Sky Fairy.”

Wow. Hit us over the head with your contempt for us progressive Christians, why don’t you.

It’s really sad to see that the Left (as represented in its entirety by this one commenter’s throwaway line) is still alienating potential allies like us with such hatred towards our Stratosphere Pixie (no true Christian believes in something as silly as a “Sky Fairy”).

Thus, even though you atheists and us liberal Christians share every conceivable value aside from our chosen form of spirituality, even though we are as one in our opposition to the conservative, fundamentalist position on virtually all political issues in this country, even though not a single mainstream liberal political candidate has or ever will run on a platform of making fun of Christians … we now have no choice but to abandon liberalism in its entirety and offer our voting support to the most reactionary, small-minded, mendacious scumbags we can find.

See what you drove us to?

Well, it seems that the definitions used carry a lot of baggage from when the Enlightenment was new.

Definitions drift – and the modern definition of atheism is more akin to what we’re using here. And, dammit, we’re gonna get in the OED with this one! And get and archaic stuck next to the old one!

Here’s my favorite bumper sticker:

God Killed My Pilot

Outraged Jesus Freak

LOL!
I actually made the point the other day on Pharyngula that maybe we liberal atheists were put here by God to test liberal Christians’ commitment to Christian ideals (helping the poor, healing the sick, etc.).

If you can’t take a little mocking, and it drives you to support the party that has proven to be warmongers and screwing the poor, (not that the Dems are perfect, of course), then it is the sin of pride that is making you do it. (And giving Satan a fit of the giggles.)

Shorter Descartes:

I don’t think very much, therefore I may not be.

Definitions drift – and the modern definition of atheism is more akin to what we’re using here. And, dammit, we’re gonna get in the OED with this one! And get and archaic stuck next to the old one!

True- I just consulted my books, and I believe Bertrand Russell makes a similar point about the nature of the definitions in question:
(From “Am I an Atheist or Agnostic”)
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

GuinnessGuy

Ok, I gotcha. Kind of like theory in the scientific vs. everyday usage.

I like the quote from Richard Dawkins –

Something like:

We’re all atheists in regards to most of the gods that have ever been worshipped. Some of us just go one god further.

Correct, dAVE- I’m still kind of hypersensitive to it, since the finals cramming about it still hasn’t left my conscious mind yet. Got the impulse to correct, and indulged myself- hopefully that will be gone by the weekend.

Outraged Jesus Freak, I was a) being mostly tongue in cheek, in conjunction with b) referring to the people who feel scared of atheists.

I think OJF also has tongue firmly planted in cheek- just given the content of his site, only a guess, of course.

Wow, y’all are indulging in serious discussion. Huh.
Me, I gots to go for the low-hanging (pun intended) fruit (no pun intended):

Guys, you can put a camera in my room 24-7 and I guarantee you won’t see any rampant materialism, cultural elitism or criminal behavior (unless you think masturbation is criminal, and I hope you don’t).

Woo! Brad’s setting up a jerk-off web cam! Huzzah!
Wait a sec, let me re-read that….

Ah, shit!

wait, you guys are athiests!?

-snort-

Agnostics are more or less atheists who are just hedging their bets.

I consider my atheism a faith in its own way. I am completely at peace with the fact that there is no God, no referee in the sky judging whether I kissed his ass sufficiently enough while I was alive. You can live by the Golden Rule without believing in talking snakes in trees and Revelations and all the other crap that’s in the Bible.

I live my life without fear and without delusion. When I die I’m not going to be reunited on a cloud with my dog that died when I was ten, and I’m not going to have a guy jabbing me in the ass with a pitchfork either. And that’s okay. I’m making the most of the time I have while I’m here.

Screw you atheists. Ben Domenech told me it was box turtles all the way down.

Send us up
To that spirit in the sty.

I’m hoping there’s a God so I can party with BradRocket in Hell after we shuffle off this mortal coil.

I’m with Marq – shouldn’t you C0b4gz be having this discussion over at like, I dunno, Yglesias’ place? This is just too weird.

I’m hoping there’s a God so I can party with BradRocket in Hell after we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Visit me in Purgatory, if you can swing it- I expect to be there a few hundred (thousand? hundred-thousand?) equivilent-years, so just come by whenever…

Whenever there is war, God fights on both sides, which tells me God has no ethical center. Sad, for a diety.

Is it possible for God to favor both Krispy Kream AND Dunkin Donuts?

Verily, She works in mysterious ways.

Usually, at about this point in any thread discussing atheism, a well-meaning fundamentalist comes along who wants to save us all. Allow me…

Hey, you can’t PROVE that JESUS is not the KING, so logically you should WORSHIP HIM. See, if HE doesn’t exist and you worship HIM, you’ve lost nothing, but if HE does and you don’t, your TESTICLES will roast in FIRE for all ETERNITY. Even if you’re a woman: SATAN will give you testicles just so he can BURN them.

Hows that, did I convince anybody? Anyway, for some reason, I feel like singing. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”

Major Wody, let me assist:

The SOCRATIC APPROACH is most successful when confronting the
ignorant. The “socratic approach” is what you call starting an argument by
asking questions. You approach the innocent and simply ask “Did you know
that God’s name is ERIS, and that He is a girl?” If he should answer “Yes.”
then he probably is a fellow Erisian and so you can forget it. If he says
“No.” then quickly proceed to:
THE BLIND ASSERTION and say “Well, He Is a girl, and His name is
ERIS!” Shrewedly observe if the subject is convinced. If he is, swear him
into the Legion of Dynamic Discord before he changes his mind. If he does
not appear convinced, then proceed to:
THE FAITH BIT: “But you must have Faith! All is lost without
Faith! I sure feel sorry for you if you don’t have Faith.” And then add:
THE ARGUMENT BY FEAR and in an ominous voice ask “Do you know what
happens to those who deny Goddess?” If he hesitates, don’t tell him that he
will surely be reincarnated as a precious Mao Button and distributed to the
poor in the Region of Thud (which would be a mean thing to say), just shake
your head sadly and, while wiping a tear from your eye, go to:
THE FIRST CLAUSE PLOY wherein you point to all of the discord and
confusion in the world and exclaim “Well who the hell do you think did all
of this, wise guy?” If he says, “Nobody, just impersonal forces.” then
quickly respond with:
THE ARGUMENT BY SEMANTICAL GYMNASTICS and say that he is absolutely
right, and that those impersonal forces are female and that Her name is
ERIS. If he, wonder of wonders, still remains obstinate, then finally
resort to:
THE FIGURATIVE SYMBOLISM DODGE and confide that sophisticated people
like himself recognize that Eris is a Figurative Symbol for an Ineffable
Metaphysical Reality and that The Erisian Movement is really more like a
poem than like a science and that he is liable to be turned into a Precious
Mao Button and Distributed to The Poor in The Region of Thud if he does not
get hip. Then put him on your mailing list.

Whenever there is war, God fights on both sides, which tells me God has no ethical center. Sad, for a diety.

God’s a fucking pussy. How else to explain why His historically preferred method of execution, the lightning bolt, has declined as a killer of Americans since the mid-50s? He’s losing his edge, big time, even as we’re getting more blasphemous. Plus, most lightning bolt deaths are in the religious red states. No one can remember the last time lightning killed a single secular liberal in the elite urban enclaves of apostasy.

Why is that?

I’ll tell you why. Because God knows we’d fling that goddamn lightning back at His ass so fast his lame angelic harp band would go electric.

I’m thinking He’s got one, maybe two more hurricane seasons left in Him before he hangs ’em up and waits to get elected into the Make Believe Cloud Being Hall of Fame on his third ballot. I hear he’s going to be splitting time this season with this Allah phenom they’ve got down on the farm, anyway.

Anne is exactly right. Which means these assholes aren’t moral because it’s right, they are moral out of fear.
My wife doesn’t believe in God, and she is the most moral person I know.
I think I will tell lies to the next 10 people I see and lust in my heart for the next woman I see.
I don’t think I will burn in hell for eternity for those “sins”, and I am a Deist.

And I have no problem with real Christians who actually practice what they preach.
It’s “christians” like Tom Delay who drive me nuts.

By the way, where’s the link to Brad’s Wank-O-Cam? A, um, friend was looking for it, yeah, that’s it!

Let me break down the differences between atheists and agnostics for y’all:

Atheist: It is SAFE to assume that there is no god.

Agnostic: It is safe to ASSUME that there is no god.

Now, to some of you, it might seem like these are the exact same statements, differing only in which part of the idea is emphasised.

In reality, these are profoundly different statements that indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that agnostics are squishy-minded cowards who can never commit to and idea unless it is mathematically proven nine different ways and who refuse to apply simple techniques like occam’s razor to certain ideas, because they’re still contaminated by idiot belief systems.

It also proves that atheists are hard-headed idealogues who insist that they can disprove such nebulous concepts as “god” even though the term applies to entities that are neither scientifically impossible nor self-contradictory, using only intellectual shortcuts.

I hope you’ve found this educational.

Is it possible y’all are missing something?

Benefits.

We all know religious belief has costs (like hanging out with idiots and getting bitten by snakes, at least here in Kentucky).

But it’s amazing with all the atheist/agnostic hairsplitting going on around here that no one has pointed out just what the religious get out of it.

Religions give people instant community, especially helpful to transplants and immigrants. That community can also provide extremely lucrative business contacts (our local Mega-Church, Six Flags Over Jesus, is notorious for that).

Religions allow people to feel superior to others, “in on THE TRUTH”, without having to struggle with hard questions. Sharing a religion with the majority provides camoflauge to ward off xenophobes, and provides shared language and customs.

Finally, religious belief has been repeatedly correlated with positive outcomes for a vast number of diseases. While psychosomatics and placebos can account for this, Religion has proven to be a surprisingly robust, low-cost psychological tool for “hacking yourself”.

From a purely cost-benefit analysis, Hypocritical Religion seems extremely rational.

I’m sorry, where is the link to the original article? I would sure love to pass it to my thoroughly Republican gay atheist bestest friend!

Chadwick, religion also serves as a meeting point for people to engage in ritual, which seems to be a human need … especially during the big life events like birth, marriage, death. That’s the last serious thing you’ll ever hear from me, promise.

I already know I’m going to get flames for this one. I think I can accept that. And I’m going to get flamed because I’m not going to go “Oh, poor picked-upon atheists”. Instead, I think I can actually say what it is that chafes most people about atheism, which is more useful than a pity-party.

Let’s face it: atheists have the worst PR in the history of philosophy. Bar none.

This isn’t entirely without merit. Atheists have a habit of saying things like “Religion is the root of all evil”, which only alienates about 97% of the population of the world as being stupid and evil. They also have a habit of (should they be vocal) coming off as bitter, know-it-all bastards. The first time I ever met a vocal atheist was when she screamed (yes, literally screamed) that I was an idiot for being an agnostic, since only drooling, insane morons would allow for the possibility of a god.

Now, yes, I know that the batshit-crazy fundies have said the exact same things to and of atheists. And I think that the fact that atheists are so despised is, itself, despicable. People should be allowed to believe or not believe in whatever they want.

The issue is that the people who represent atheism in the eyes of Americans are people who throw the words “Christer” and “religionist” around, and who relentlessly mock anyone with any religious beliefs. I think that PZ Myers is a funny, smart guy, but when he asserted (on the old version of Pharyngula, so I doubt it’s there anymore) that “after the religionists, we’re going to go after the freethinkers and agnostics”, I stopped reading. To my knowledge, none of the atheists who read his work, or have him in their blogrolls, suggested that it might not be a good idea to alienate people who share your methods (just not your conclusions).

The strong atheists, in other words, are the ones who get the press. And while the strong atheists DO NOT actually represent atheism, in the eyes of most Americans, all atheism is created (as it were) equal.

(By the way, polls taken in the US in 2005 indicate that anywhere between 5-10% of the population are atheists, not 3%.)

Okay fine let’s put it this way:

Q. “God exists”
A. “That statement is contingent upon your definition of ‘God’.”

Q. “Fine, Ganesha exists.”
A. “It can be easily established that he doesn’t.”

Q. “The God of Abraham, of the Bible and the old testament exists.”
A. “I think we can pretty well establish he doesn’t.”

In other words: Do extraterrestrials exist? Possibly. Do Klingons exist? Severely doubtful to absolutely not.

Oh, yeah, mr. smartytehl4m3? Then how do explain this Klingon version of John 3:16?

3:16 | vaD joH’a’ vaj loved the qo’, vetlh ghaH nobta’ Daj wa’ je neH puqloD, vetlh ‘Iv HartaH Daq ghaH should ghobe’ chIlqu’, ‘ach ghaj eternal

Snap! Or should I say, Grkz!

you can put a camera in my room 24-7 …
Erm, we’ve already got a camera in your bedroom. There’s a room full of NSA techs here and we’re all pretty disgusted, particularly the whole thing with the rabbit and the lawn darts.

Since playing with the meat stick kills millions of potential people every time you do it…MURDEROUS ATHEISTS!!!

So are homo-atheists the worst threat of all?

“See what you drove us to?”

South Dakota?

Usually, at about this point in any thread discussing atheism, a well-meaning fundamentalist comes along who wants to save us all.

Yeah. Where the fuck is “Watchman” when he’d be amusing? OK, he’s never amusing, but, still….

The strong atheists, in other words, are the ones who get the press. And while the strong atheists DO NOT actually represent atheism, in the eyes of most Americans, all atheism is created (as it were) equal.

The outrageous blowhards of any ideology are always the ones that get the most press. Pat “Let’s assassinate foreign leaders in the name of God” Robertson and his ilk represent Christianity in many people’s minds because they get all kinds of press for the shit they say. When feminists are quoted in the mainstream press it’s always the “castrate all males” feminists. When “The Left” is quoted as being anti-God, how often is it some adolescent who’s just rebelling against any kind of institution?

Do I think it’s a waste of time to believe in God? Absolutely. Do I care if other people believe in God? As long as they keep their hands off my civil rights, they can believe in whatever they want. Since I studied history in undergrad, I know of both the good and evil done in the name of religion, so I can’t just discount the enterprise as a whole. That doesn’t mean I can’t call religion on its bullshit.

(By the way, polls taken in the US in 2005 indicate that anywhere between 5-10% of the population are atheists, not 3%.)

And we’re growing. That’s what scares religious people. 🙂

I’ve been an atheist all my life. It’s not something I ever really thought about. All that Jesus hocus-pocus just never made sense to me.

Antonin Scalia thinks masturbation should be criminal.

My husband, when I was first getting to know him through the power of the internets (I’m so cool), assumed I was an athiest at first. Why? Because he was one, felt all smart people were naturally athiests, and he thought I was smart. It just made sense!

That sort of attitude, however gently expressed, is really off-putting to a lot of people, I think. No one likes it implied that they’re some sort of stupid gibbering moron because they believe in God for whatever reason it is they believe.

That said, when I first met him, I was pretty combative with the harder athiests too, so I was also plenty off-putting myself, I am sure. But once it became clear to him that I didn’t believe for the sake of believing, but that I wrestle with and examine by beliefs pretty harshly almost every day, he’s a lot more comfortable with our conflicting views as far as that goes. And frankly, I’ve relaxed a lot towards athiests, because y’know, if I didn’t believe in God, I’d be fucking sick to death of people thinking I’m some sort of immoral babyeater too.

As far as the Agnostic/Atheist comparison and debate goes, while technically, many people who refer to themselves as “Atheists” cannot offer any stunning proof that there is no god or gods, and thus are “Agnostics with attitude,” or some such, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I haven’t seen bupkis in the proof for god category. Hows that for a run-on sentence?