I wonder who first associated the word "militant" to "atheist"?

Why aren't they "zealous"? "Enthusiastic"? It's always "militant atheist."

/never seen an atheist militia...

letrole: No. You're treading very close to the idea of the noble savage. The secret to our success is that we're descended from those who were stronger and able to take what they wanted and impose their will.

Thankfully, most anthropologists disagree with you.

If we were a primarily competitive species, like most wild cats, we wouldn't have evolved things like speech and empathy. All other humans would be greeted with suspicion. Societies would never form, as they require people to cooperate on large scales and live around people they've never met.

Now, you may view all other humans as threats to our life and well-being, but most humans don't. If this is the case, I suggest you get your medication changed, as you're likely a paranoid schizophrenic.

I just donated $25.00 to them.

May do more depending on their totals.

Anti_illuminati: That's kind of like us and our Neocon neighbors. Well she's nice, but we really can't be around him for more than 20 minutes before he brings up Obama.

True story: We had a party on election night to watch the results come in. We invited our neighbors, a 20-something couple who live in the city with us and don't have kids, and they were sort of on the fence about it. I said "Don't worry: Everyone there will be Democrats!"

Turns out they're Republican.

\They didn't come to the party
\\But we did share some champagne with some neighbors who moved in the week prior

ReverendJasen: Every time, someone goes "oh, haha, your name is letrole, we get it!" and you have personally defended him in at least three threads now that I can remember, saying the same thing. "oh, no, his surname really is le trole!"

Well, all I can say is, you are mistaken about that. I only started doing that in this thread, and that was to mock him for his standard response to accusations of trolling. Note my post at 2009-07-05 08:33:46 PM, where I use it on him.

MorganFreeman: jso2897: MorganFreeman: letrole: reklamfox: That's exactly it, they were told by CHRISTIAN missionaries. That doesn't mean it was right, it was just different.

The religion of the missionaries is moot. It was brought forward only to show that this was a functioning society in recent history.

I find it most amusing that the natural state of man is assumed to be a cooperative form of social altruism. It's not. We are cruel and violent and savage.

I'm none of those, but also an atheist. So... am I a robot?

No. Just self deceiving, and possibly not too well acquainted with history and anthropology. Unless what you mean is that you are a civilized person who has chosen to be more and better than his mere biology made him to be. Man can transcend his animal nature - but he must know it and own it to do so, in the long run. And no system of belief can guarantee that outcome.
the Golden Rule may be hackneyed and cliched - but finally, it's all we've got.

Let's not get catty. I don't lack education, I just recognize that what people call the "natural state of man" is malleable. The savagery letrole talks about would be completely unnatural in my life. I'm not too stupid to know things would be different if I was fighting wolves for food scraps in the forest. letrole talks about social altruism like it's a stupid concept, which is something only a stupid person would believe.

I apologize. That actually sounded snottier than I intended. my point is that many of the things we value in ourselves are artifacts we have chosen to create around ourselves, and not aspects of our intrinsic nature - and that most of what is known about our species points to that conclusion - I did not intend it as an argument from authority, which it came off like. Sorry.

The Icelander: Anti_illuminati: That's kind of like us and our Neocon neighbors. Well she's nice, but we really can't be around him for more than 20 minutes before he brings up Obama.

True story: We had a party on election night to watch the results come in. We invited our neighbors, a 20-something couple who live in the city with us and don't have kids, and they were sort of on the fence about it. I said "Don't worry: Everyone there will be Democrats!"

Turns out they're Republican.

\They didn't come to the party
\\But we did share some champagne with some neighbors who moved in the week priorfark 'em. Their kids will grow up to be school shooters.

/Kleibold's and Harris' parents were Republicans. Look it up.

As a black African-American atheist, whose mother lives in Florida, I'm really getting a kick out of these replies all of this.

Quantum Apostrophe: Boy am I glad I don't live in the US where adults are basically 200+ lbs children!

What's the difference between a Canadian man and a Canadian woman?

Nothing! They are both dickless.

The Icelander: Anti_illuminati: That's kind of like us and our Neocon neighbors. Well she's nice, but we really can't be around him for more than 20 minutes before he brings up Obama.

True story: We had a party on election night to watch the results come in. We invited our neighbors, a 20-something couple who live in the city with us and don't have kids, and they were sort of on the fence about it. I said "Don't worry: Everyone there will be Democrats!"

Turns out they're Republican.

\They didn't come to the party
\\But we did share some champagne with some neighbors who moved in the week prior

Nice.

I got a text from my neighbor that night, "Congrats to your Messiah. One nation under Allah!"

I never realized why he always talked to me about politics; however after living next to him for about two years I realized he has no social life at all. Feel bad for him really.

MorganFreeman: I'm not too stupid to know things would be different if I was fighting wolves for food scraps in the forest.

If you were fighting alone, sure.

But if you were alone in the woods and came across another person you didn't know, it wouldn't take too long for you to figure out that you'd get more scraps from the wolves if you were working together.

The Icelander: Now, you may view all other humans as threats to our life and well-being, but most humans don't. If this is the case, I suggest you get your medication changed, as you're likely a paranoid schizophrenic.

For some reason a lot of ill-educated people think of primitive societies as being lone-wolf me-against-the-world oriented. I think it has to do with sublimated adolescent fantasies of power and control. Those early humans who did practice this lone-wolf existence probably did not breed much and fortunately did not pass on their antisocial genes. A single human by himself is no match for much of anything.

ReverendJasen: tit
theorellior: tat
ReverendJasen: spit
theorellior: spat

There now, girls. Play nice.

letrole: I find it most amusing that the natural state of man is assumed to be a cooperative form of social altruism. It's not. We are cruel and violent and savage.

In some cases yes.
But overall? No. Overall humans are cooperative creatures, and if you put any sizable population together, the majority of them will come together to help and protect each other. If this wasn't the case, humans simply wouldn't have lived long enough to even invent religion.

Saying that cooperation is an ingrained behavior isn't the same as saying that every human is a saint from birth who would never do anything bad to another human. What it says is that we are predisposed to cooperate with each other and form groups to benefit all. This is the definition of a social animal. Chimps can do it without the Bible, so can we. The difference is that our brains also give us the ability to have a complex culture, which then allows groups of humans to refine their behavior over time by passing down the rules.

Excen: fark 'em. Their kids will grow up to be school shooters.

/Kleibold's and Harris' parents were Republicans. Look it up.

They're really quite nice. They apparently went to a party at the local RNC. Ours was probably more fun.

letrole: ReverendJasen: tit
theorellior: tat
ReverendJasen: spit
theorellior: spat

There now, girls. Play nice.

See? Because you called me out and since I'm a social creature who believes in morality and playing fair I had to show my hand to letrole. Thanks a lot, ReverendJasen. BTW, God didn't make me do it, I did it myself.

; )

Excen: MY religion dictates that all people flexible enough to suck their own dick are witches, and as such, must be burned at the stake.

theorellior: A single human by himself is no match for much of anything.

And that's why people form into tribes. But primitive societies aren't run like kum-bah-yah hippie communes.

The Icelander: letrole: No. You're treading very close to the idea of the noble savage. The secret to our success is that we're descended from those who were stronger and able to take what they wanted and impose their will.

Thankfully, most anthropologists disagree with you.

If we were a primarily competitive species, like most wild cats, we wouldn't have evolved things like speech and empathy. All other humans would be greeted with suspicion. Societies would never form, as they require people to cooperate on large scales and live around people they've never met.

Now, you may view all other humans as threats to our life and well-being, but most humans don't. If this is the case, I suggest you get your medication changed, as you're likely a paranoid schizophrenic.

It's not that simple. These empathetic characteristics you describe are very real and essential, they are also distinctly tribal in their manifestation. And the process of tribal competition, and the survival based "marketplace of ideas" that it has exercised over the course of our history was essential to the emergence of successful cultures, which in turn lead to civilization itself - which is all that has REALLY ever improved Man's behavior toward man.
Many "natural" aspects of our being are bad. many of the artifices we have erected between ourselves and other parts of our selves are good. It ain't simple.

It's a war Atheism. If their god is so powerful I am sure he will strike the sign down himself.

vertiaset: Morality is purely a human construct. It comes from our ability, unique in the animal kingdom, of perceiving a "separateness" from the rest of God's creation.

No, it comes from the fact that we're social animals. Other social animals demonstrate morality as well. Dolphins will protect swimmers from sharks and save shipwrecked sailors. Female wolves will raise abandoned human children as their own.

One thing that bugs me about Christians is that if there's a question they don't know the answer to, they automatically jump to god as the explanation. And then, when they're proven wrong time and time again, it's the scientist's fault for hating religion.

jso2897: Many "natural" aspects of our being are bad. many of the artifices we have erected between ourselves and other parts of our selves are good. It ain't simple.

You're right, it's not as simple as I was making it out to be. But it's also not as simple as letrole is making it out to be, either. And I think his "The only thing that keeps us from bashing open each other's skulls and feasting on the goo inside is religion" hypothesis is the one that's the furthest from reality.

The Icelander: Dolphins will protect swimmers from sharks and save shipwrecked sailors. Female wolves will raise abandoned human children as their own.

I once saw a cartoon that had a talking cat.

vertiaset: G2V
vertiaset:
One of my main problems with atheists is that all too often in abandoning their faith they also abandon any sense of morality. Many, certainly not all, become moral relativists or, even worse, amoral.

One of my main problems with religious people is that many, certainly not all, churches require you to kill someone and bathe in their blood in order to be baptised. Also, they are commanded by god to kill one unbeliever per week or, even worse, to commit drive by strafings of churches of different belief systems.

Durrr ... durrr ...

I liked it - see what he did there? I took it as "you make up stupid shiat about atheists and I'll make stupid shiat up about religious types"

letrole: But primitive societies aren't run like kum-bah-yah hippie communes.

Well, no, nothing would get done, no one would want to hunt, and who would grow the patchouli?

ggecko: "I don't know the reason for putting this sign up," said Big Mama. "It says 'Do not believe in God.' How are we going to make it? Look at our schools, everyday. Everyday there's something going on. Kids are out here killing each other, kids are here using drugs. Who else are they going to believe in?"

The first thing I yelled involuntarily was: "how about their farking parents you fat cow!!!"

If the damn parents teach their kids that it is *not* alright to act like idiots then perhaps there may not be as many kids killing kids. But I'm pretty sure that everyone has been praying their way through all the violence for decades. Guess what? It's not working!!!



So, is she trying to say it is only athiest kids killing each other? Afterall, those that believe in God, they wouldn't do such a thing, right?

andreo: So, is she trying to say it is only athiest kids killing each other?

Are athy kids like emo kids?

vertiaset: In humans though, there is more than this. We extend this bond first to our mate, then to our family, clan and tribe. Then to nation and even to mankind or all of creations. We can now love abstract things such as liberty or beauty.

Love of one's mate evolved because human babies take an astonishingly long time to raise and therefore having another parent around really helped their odds of survival. Love of one's family and tribe has a similar root.

Love of abstract things like liberty and beauty aren't nearly the same as the love I have for my daughter or my wife.

theorellior: and who would grow smoke the patchouli?

Me.

letrole: I once saw a cartoon that had a talking cat.

I prefer the ones without the talking cat. ^{(^)}

Huh -


I'll be damned

How dare they? To suggest that you can be moral without being religious is tantamount to saying that non-religious people are equal to religious ones in more important ways. It's extremely disrespectful to religion to insinuate that religious people are not inherently superior to nonreligious ones.

After seeing the billboard, Team of Life community activist Essie "Big Mama" Reed brought her students out to protest it Wednesday afternoon. "Nothing else matters, but that sign needs to come down. In the name of Jesus," Big Mama chanted, as she led her students in protest.

Glad she has her priorities straight.

The Icelander: But it's also not as simple as letrole is making it out to be, either. And I think his "The only thing that keeps us from bashing open each other's skulls and feasting on the goo inside is religion" hypothesis is the one that's the furthest from reality.

I never said such a thing. My point is that apart from God, there is no right and wrong, only results. I presented an example of men in the wild state who didn't have a full-blown sense of Western Ethics, as many "modern thinkers" seem to assume they would.

jso2897: boomshakra: The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. In the end, Religion will kill us all. ~Ed Krebs

I respect that many members of my family are Christians - I choose to think for myself, but that quote above pretty much sums up where we're headed...

That's bullshiat. The world is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide because we are killer apes, and that's our nature. Religion and ideology are just excuses, and if we didn't have those, we'd find others. We have only improved very gradually over time, as we have evolved towards being a higher species. and we still have a looooooong way to go.

ok, you lost me at "...and if we didn't have those, we'd find others..." if we didn't have excuses...we'd find...other...what? this thread is about opposing beliefs (religion vs atheism).

perhaps you should quote Arnold in T2 "...it is your nature to destroy yourselves..." yes, we are very well developed apes capable at destroying entire continents...

not trolling, just looking for a bit more elaboration

letrole: My point is that apart from God, there is no right and wrong, only results.

So, apart from some fictional ideal of an absolute right and wrong, there's no absolute right and wrong?

I can buy that.

letrole: reklamfox: That's not atheism that's anarchy. "No rules" does not sum up atheism, it sums up what you like to think atheism is.

Not true. The Eskimos, when we still called them Eskimos, had some very harsh practises. It was only in the last century that the following began to be discouraged, mainly by Christian missionaries.

If I want something that you have, and I take it by force in public, it is not theft.

If I do not like you, and I bash your brains in public, it is not murder.

If you are old or infirm and you become a burden, you are left to die on the ice.

If her firstborn is a girl, the mother must smother the infant.

Who runs Eskimo Bartertown?!?

letrole: The Icelander: But it's also not as simple as letrole is making it out to be, either. And I think his "The only thing that keeps us from bashing open each other's skulls and feasting on the goo inside is religion" hypothesis is the one that's the furthest from reality.

I never said such a thing. My point is that apart from God the God I believe in, there is no right and wrong, only results. I presented an example of men in the wild state who didn't have a full-blown sense of Western Ethics, as many "modern thinkers" seem to assume they would.

Are you starting to see what's wrong here?

vertiaset: Don't be silly. Ants are social animals as are bees. There is no morality in nature beyond man and you know it.

I would think that it's pretty obvious that I don't. And I find your comparison between ants and bees and wolves and dolphins laughable.

Scientists do not hate religion.

Way to miss the point.

vertiaset: So, all of you "moral" atheists. Where does your sense of morality come from anyway? Is there "good" and "evil". Are these universal or do they vary from person to person or society to society?

Mind telling me where you get yours? No sarcasm intended.

nmathew01: Mind telling me where you get yours? No sarcasm intended.

I'm also interested to know how he knows not to kill witches and unruly children.

The day I stopped believing is fairy tales I raped a baby and stole an old lady's life savings.

The Icelander: letrole: My point is that apart from God, there is no right and wrong, only results.
So, apart from some fictional ideal of an absolute right and wrong, there's no absolute right and wrong?
I can buy that.

Absolutely. This is where your high-horse ride ends. The supposed basis for morality that New Atheism attempts to concoct is bunk.

You think murder is murder, theft is theft, whatever, only because you were brought up in a Judeo Christian society. Try as you might, you can only find ways of "scientifically" explaining the things that you were already taught.

vertiaset: We are more than a product of the sum of our parts or and our cumulative genetic evolution.

What exactly is it that we do that isn't due to our biology?
All those things we do that you talked about are directly due to our brain's capacity for abstract thought, something it provides us precisely because of our parts and "cumulative genetic evolution".

genner: PlatinumDragon: If you don't believe in a imortal soul why do you care about what happens 100 years from now?

Why is belief in an immortal soul related, at all, to concern about the future of humanity?

Simple you'll be dead in a 100 years. With no soul no continue and no god to reward you why do you care?

That's why I tend to think that atheists are more moral individuals than the kind of people that hold the views that you just espoused.

See to the type of faithful that you described, when they do a good act it is to please their god and secure a reward in the afterlife, or avoid some kind of punishment.

When an atheist does a good act - they are doing it because they are simply good. Not to secure a reward, not to avoid punishment. I know it baffles the minds of some of the faithful that such people exist, but it's true - they live amoung you.

Another reason is that people want to be immortal - one of the reasons religion appeals to people - they enjoy believing that they will live forever in another form.

I can't speak for others, but my awareness that I contain DNA from a population of DNA that will continue to replicate after I die gives me a sense of kinship to future and past generations. As such I care about the future as it is the legacy of that which I am currently a manisfestation.

Also a person lives on more personally in the works they leave behind and the impressions they leave on others.

It really doesn't take deluding onesself into beliving in immortality to give a shiat about the future beyond one's own lifetime. Trust me, I do it all the time.

letrole: The Icelander: letrole: My point is that apart from God, there is no right and wrong, only results.
So, apart from some fictional ideal of an absolute right and wrong, there's no absolute right and wrong?
I can buy that.

Absolutely. This is where your high-horse ride ends. The supposed basis for morality that New Atheism attempts to concoct is bunk.

You think murder is murder, theft is theft, whatever, only because you were brought up in a Judeo Christian society. Try as you might, you can only find ways of "scientifically" explaining the things that you were already taught.

1. We are not a Judeo-Christian society, they just make up the majority of the people. It's not the same thing.
2. How do you explain the fact that people in non-Judeo-Christian societies all over the world believe these same things?
3. Are you going to answer me this time, or do the Christian thing and ignore completely valid points when they contradict your world view?

letrole: You think murder is murder, theft is theft, whatever, only because you were brought up in a Judeo Christian society.

True that. All my Hindu friends have no concept of murder or theft.

MorganFreeman: My point is that apart from God the God I believe in

So substitute whatever deity or religion you choose. You end up with somebody saying "because I said so". Either that, or it's each man deciding for himself if murder is murder.

letrole: MorganFreeman: My point is that apart from God the God I believe in

So substitute whatever deity or religion you choose. You end up with somebody saying "because I said so". Either that, or it's each man deciding for himself if murder is murder.

So... you're admitting that morality is actually completely subjective.