I seem to run into a lot of people that claim they are atheists, but when you listen to what they are saying you find that they are not atheists, they are anti-theists. Now according to them, anti-theism is just a more activist version of atheism. This post to to hightlight why this is not true and try to explain why so many anti-theists want so badly to be classified as atheists.
The best way to describe this is a little story. A theist walks up to an atheist and says "I believe I can fly". The atheist (rightfully so) responds with "Show me some evidence". After much arguing and no demonstration of this ability, the atheist says "I don't believe you can fly". When this story is replayed between a theist and an anti-theist. The only difference is the anti-theist says "I believe you cannot fly". The anti-theist also generally goes on make comments describing how the theist is lying and how they are such a low life for making such claims.
Where the atheists simply says "I don't believe you" the anti-theist actively asserts that they not only don't believe the theists but that the theist is wrong for making the claims they make. Both are rightfully using the lack of evidence as justification of their position. However the anti-theist is taking it one step further and applying some kind of moral judgement on the theists.
This gets at the heart of the difference between atheists and anti-theists. To a hard core atheist, there is no such thing as absolute good or evil. Those concepts are nothing more than expressions of people's likes and dislikes. To attempt to make them into something more than just personal opinions, is to do nothing more than raise one person's feelings of likes and dislikes to a level that is more important than other people's feelings. This of course has the effect of downgrading someone else's feelings to point where they can be disregarded.
For an atheist, NOBODY'S feeling are more important than anybody elses. There is no scale where somebody's feelings can be ranked as more virtuous than another's. In fact, the act of blessing some people's feelings and supressing someone else's feelings is generally the cause of most of the inflicted harm that is perpetrated on people every day.
However, the anti-theist look at this entirely different. They generally feel that theism has caused some kind of problem that they don't like and now feel justified to mock and insult the theists. The most militant of the anti-theists will actually advocate penalizing the theists.
This can only be described as a kind of mental disease. The theists are wrong because they want to force their beliefs on others, but somehow the anti-thists are right because they want to force their beliefs on others. The theists are wrong for pushing their moral agenda, but the anti-theists are right because they are pushing their moral agenda.
An atheists sits back and says, "While it's not possible for both sides to be right about the existance of a god. The other possible answer is that BOTH sides are wrong". Unless you are an idiot and have not kept up with the advance in mathematics during the 20th century, you would know that there are situations where it is simply impossible to make a decision about which is the right answer.
So while there may be some truth to one or the other answer to the question of a god's existance, it is entirely possible that this is just one of those situations where it is not possible to choose. In other words there may be some ultimate truth, but no human can EVER know the answer. Therefore choosing to be on the side of believing a god exists or believing a god doesn't exist, is simply wrong on an fundamentally trivial basis.
If you pay attention, you will find that most anti-theists where at one time theists and "deconverted" as they call it to their anti-theism position. This is actually a very interesting point. The hard core theists attempts to push their moral position on others while the hard core anti-theists do the same thing. They both follow the unethical position that they are right and the rest of the world should be forced to follow their kind of thinking.
Both positions are in sharp contrast to an atheist's position that NOBODY should be forced to believe or disbelieve anything. Every person has the right to make up their own mind, and there is nothing wrong with choosing any possible alternative. The only thing that could possible be a universally disliked thing is when someone else tries to force you to believe something you don't accept. Or worse, when someone advocates penalizing someone for their bad thinking.
If you want a demonstration of the difference between an atheist and an anti-theist, make the following statement: "Atheism is just another religion". An atheist will respond with sure why not, there is nothing wrong with religions. An anti-theists on the other had will take great offense at that statement. The anti-theists are so wrapped up in the ideal of how evil religion is and how wrong the theists are that they think it's an insult to claim such a blasphemy.
The anti-theists just like the theists, seem to be so unsure of their position that even the slightest hint that they may be wrong is unacceptable. An atheist on the other hand makes no moral judgement about a person based on their beliefs. For an atheist a preditor is not evil for killing Bambee, it's just feeding.
When the theists or anti-theists feel attacked they seem to identify with Bambee and consider the preditor is some kind of evil thing. The atheist simply accepts them for what they are and defends themself. No need to go out and hnut down those evil preditors and eradicate them or change them into something else. All you need to do is protect yourself from them and the stupid people who don't, simply choose to be the preditor's next meal.
I suspect that most anti-theists at some level understand how closely they are related to the theists they hate so much. They have a real fear of the same thing being in them that they see in those evil theists. Because of this they want to classify themselves are atheists (without god) to make themselves feel more confortable with what they are esposing.
However, if you think there is something wrong with theists, atheists, or anti-theists you are NOT an atheist. You are just a religious kook that is trying to use your personal view of religion to justify some crappy treatment of somebody you don't like.
Why don't you stop hating them for what they believe and hate them for being douche bags reguardless of what they believe. Don't people get that atheism is without the existance or non-existance of a god. It's simply without a god. If your running around talking about how bad people are because of their belief in a god, you are most definitely WITH a god. Just one you don't like.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Why are atheist arguments so ineffective?
After watching tons of atheist videos and reading tons of atheist blogs, I am struck with how ineffective their arguments are. While atheism has been around as long as theism, the atheists remain a small minority of the population.
Commonly. a statistic of somewhere near 16% is quoted by most atheists. However, that number is actually the number of non-religious people. If you dig deeper, you will find that about half are theists and half are atheists. So the reality is that atheists only make up about 8% of the population.
Considering the placebo effect, that makes atheism only slightly more effective than homeopathy. Even if we are generous and grant 10% to the group, that means that 90% of the time people do not find the atheist arguments to be convincing.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I am trying to make an argument and find that it is ineffective, I attempt to figure out what the weak points of my argument are and adjust to compensate for those weaknesses.
However, in the so called atheist community, it’s virtually never considered acceptable to actually criticize atheist positions. As an atheist, I have many times been criticized as a closet theist simply because I have brought up weaknesses in some atheist’s argument.
It’s almost as if the atheists are so unsure of their position that even the slightest hint that their arguments are flawed MUST mean that the theists are correct. I guess I should expect this because so many of the atheist arguments are based on the idea that if one minor thing about a theist argument is wrong, that is accepted as proof the entirety of the theist’s position is wrong. Of course, in those cases, the atheist is making a common logical fallacy so it’s really undeniable that their argument is weak.
Another common tactic of atheists is to use some variation of the traditional ad hominem logical fallacy. They attempt to paint their opponent as some uneducated fool so therefore the opposing position is wrong. As any honest person knows, this is not a fair tactic, so once again the atheist looses on grounds of being a douche bag.
A significant number of atheists attempt to use science to refute their opponent. And yes, quite a few theists do use science incorrectly to defend their position. However, the atheists are much worse at this intellectual offense.
To begin with, the phrase “scientific proof” is one of the greatest oxymorons of all time. Nothing in science is ever proven. In fact, if anything in science is ever proven it immediately becomes an unscientific idea. One of the hallmarks of scientific thinking is that all ideas are falsifiable. However once an idea is proven it is no longer falsifiable so therefore it is no longer a scientific idea.
Along with the logical inconsistency of “scientific proof” is the idea that scientific evidence is somehow anything more than just evidence. And as anybody with a lick of sense knows, evidence is also not proof of anything. Put in legal terms, evidence may be accepted or rejected by the trier of fact. Nobody is under any obligation to accept any evidence. So demanding that your opponent accept your evidence is just another sign of a weak argument.
In general, atheists claim there is no evidence that god exists and they are correct in that assertion. However, on the other side there is no evidence that god doesn’t exist. Attempting to use a scientific argument for something that has no evidence supporting or refuting a position is misguided at best.
By the time the atheist is demanding proof or even evidence for a god’s existence, they have already lost the argument and are just acting like a whiny little kid that isn’t getting their way. The best they can do it retreat to a position of describing how they believe, without being able to convince their opponent.
Which leads to the idea of what an atheists believes. Many atheists will claim that they don’t believe a god exists and they don’t believe a god doesn’t exist. While this is a very pure definition of atheism (i.e. being without god) it does beg a real tough question.
If you truly don’t believe a god exists and you don’t believe a god doesn’t exist, how could you possibly justify a position where theists are wrong? At best, you could claim that theists have not proven their point, but then again the atheist has not proven they are correct either.
Taking the approach being used by many atheists, since the theists have not proven their position and the scientists have not proven their position, believing science is somehow better than religion is just another religion in itself. Something based on unproven assertions.
If atheists want to ever be more than a marginalized group of religious kooks, they need to stop making weak arguments and begin to focus on the problems with religion without bring up the existence or lack of existence of god.
beechgrovejoe
Commonly. a statistic of somewhere near 16% is quoted by most atheists. However, that number is actually the number of non-religious people. If you dig deeper, you will find that about half are theists and half are atheists. So the reality is that atheists only make up about 8% of the population.
Considering the placebo effect, that makes atheism only slightly more effective than homeopathy. Even if we are generous and grant 10% to the group, that means that 90% of the time people do not find the atheist arguments to be convincing.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I am trying to make an argument and find that it is ineffective, I attempt to figure out what the weak points of my argument are and adjust to compensate for those weaknesses.
However, in the so called atheist community, it’s virtually never considered acceptable to actually criticize atheist positions. As an atheist, I have many times been criticized as a closet theist simply because I have brought up weaknesses in some atheist’s argument.
It’s almost as if the atheists are so unsure of their position that even the slightest hint that their arguments are flawed MUST mean that the theists are correct. I guess I should expect this because so many of the atheist arguments are based on the idea that if one minor thing about a theist argument is wrong, that is accepted as proof the entirety of the theist’s position is wrong. Of course, in those cases, the atheist is making a common logical fallacy so it’s really undeniable that their argument is weak.
Another common tactic of atheists is to use some variation of the traditional ad hominem logical fallacy. They attempt to paint their opponent as some uneducated fool so therefore the opposing position is wrong. As any honest person knows, this is not a fair tactic, so once again the atheist looses on grounds of being a douche bag.
A significant number of atheists attempt to use science to refute their opponent. And yes, quite a few theists do use science incorrectly to defend their position. However, the atheists are much worse at this intellectual offense.
To begin with, the phrase “scientific proof” is one of the greatest oxymorons of all time. Nothing in science is ever proven. In fact, if anything in science is ever proven it immediately becomes an unscientific idea. One of the hallmarks of scientific thinking is that all ideas are falsifiable. However once an idea is proven it is no longer falsifiable so therefore it is no longer a scientific idea.
Along with the logical inconsistency of “scientific proof” is the idea that scientific evidence is somehow anything more than just evidence. And as anybody with a lick of sense knows, evidence is also not proof of anything. Put in legal terms, evidence may be accepted or rejected by the trier of fact. Nobody is under any obligation to accept any evidence. So demanding that your opponent accept your evidence is just another sign of a weak argument.
In general, atheists claim there is no evidence that god exists and they are correct in that assertion. However, on the other side there is no evidence that god doesn’t exist. Attempting to use a scientific argument for something that has no evidence supporting or refuting a position is misguided at best.
By the time the atheist is demanding proof or even evidence for a god’s existence, they have already lost the argument and are just acting like a whiny little kid that isn’t getting their way. The best they can do it retreat to a position of describing how they believe, without being able to convince their opponent.
Which leads to the idea of what an atheists believes. Many atheists will claim that they don’t believe a god exists and they don’t believe a god doesn’t exist. While this is a very pure definition of atheism (i.e. being without god) it does beg a real tough question.
If you truly don’t believe a god exists and you don’t believe a god doesn’t exist, how could you possibly justify a position where theists are wrong? At best, you could claim that theists have not proven their point, but then again the atheist has not proven they are correct either.
Taking the approach being used by many atheists, since the theists have not proven their position and the scientists have not proven their position, believing science is somehow better than religion is just another religion in itself. Something based on unproven assertions.
If atheists want to ever be more than a marginalized group of religious kooks, they need to stop making weak arguments and begin to focus on the problems with religion without bring up the existence or lack of existence of god.
beechgrovejoe
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