Creationist meets atheists: FIGHT
October 21, 2008 8:41 AM Subscribe
Skeptics In The Pub, a group of, well, pub-based skeptics in London, host a talk from a Young Earth Creationist. Area atheist is not impressed - not by the talk, but by the crowd. Is atheism becoming another kind of religious intolerance?
This post was deleted for the following reason: meh, there's already an atheist post a couple threads down, and this is just front pages for various groups with one blog post recap of an event. -- mathowie
It would have to be religious for it to be religious intolerance; atheism is a religion the same way "bald" is a hair color.
I'm totally tolerant! Some of my best friends are religious!
posted by Stynxno at 8:48 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
I'm totally tolerant! Some of my best friends are religious!
posted by Stynxno at 8:48 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
Man, I can't wait to watch this "discussion" unfold again. Breaking news: human beings belligerent, unpleasant: organization of perfect movement continuously hampered by problem of people showing up.
posted by nanojath at 8:48 AM on October 21, 2008 [6 favorites]
posted by nanojath at 8:48 AM on October 21, 2008 [6 favorites]
I would call Chinese persecution of Falun Gong religious intolerance, adipocere, despite the lack of an intention to replace it with some other religious regime. If you want to parse religious intolerance from intolerance of religion, fill your boots.
That being said, call me up when they start the lion feedings, or at least start legislating. This is weak ass tea.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
That being said, call me up when they start the lion feedings, or at least start legislating. This is weak ass tea.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
There's no word for someone who doesn't believe in pixies, faeries, sprites, elves, or bugbears... other than 'skeptic'. I don't even really like the word 'atheist'; it assumes that there is some sort of even starting point in the argument. There isn't.
I like 'apatheist': one who no longer cares to debate it any longer. Faith is Faith, Reason is Reason... there's no point in one side trying to discourage the other. People who really truly believe in their hearts that some guy rose from the dead aren't likely to be discouraged by a reasoned argument. Similarly, people who look at the fossil record, the scientific method and the stunning amount of empirical evidence around us aren't likely to put all that aside and 'allow God into their hearts'.
It's a fucking waste of time.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
I like 'apatheist': one who no longer cares to debate it any longer. Faith is Faith, Reason is Reason... there's no point in one side trying to discourage the other. People who really truly believe in their hearts that some guy rose from the dead aren't likely to be discouraged by a reasoned argument. Similarly, people who look at the fossil record, the scientific method and the stunning amount of empirical evidence around us aren't likely to put all that aside and 'allow God into their hearts'.
It's a fucking waste of time.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
There's no word for someone who doesn't believe in pixies, faeries, sprites, elves, or bugbears... other than 'skeptic'.
That doesn't really even cover it. I refuse to "remain in doubt" about the existence of faeries. Show me some evidence or it stays on the infinite list of things I might imagine but aren't in fact true.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:55 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
That doesn't really even cover it. I refuse to "remain in doubt" about the existence of faeries. Show me some evidence or it stays on the infinite list of things I might imagine but aren't in fact true.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:55 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
Every group that views themselves as marginalized is going to frame the world in terms of "us vs. them." I find it revolting no matter who the "us" or the "them" are.
posted by desjardins at 8:59 AM on October 21, 2008
posted by desjardins at 8:59 AM on October 21, 2008
Careful now.
posted by mandal at 9:00 AM on October 21, 2008 [2 favorites]
Is atheism becoming another kind of religious intolerance?
This kind of post is perhaps better served on Ask Metafilter.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:00 AM on October 21, 2008
This kind of post is perhaps better served on Ask Metafilter.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:00 AM on October 21, 2008
I like 'apatheist'
I'm an apetheist. My god is a giant silverback gorilla.
posted by adamdschneider at 9:02 AM on October 21, 2008 [4 favorites]
I'm an apetheist. My god is a giant silverback gorilla.
posted by adamdschneider at 9:02 AM on October 21, 2008 [4 favorites]
I'm not atheist. I'm agnostic. I don't think Jesus was my saviour, rather someone who was probably a really nice bloke. I thought even as a child that the Old Testament was a way of explaining things that couldn't be 'properly explained'; as an adult, part of me likes the idea that we don't yet know what the universe is, does, or how it all works.
What I don't like is anyone telling me what to believe, or what not to believe.
I'm not a fan of the blogger linked to mainly as there's a pervasive attitude of superiority (not to mention some odd attitudes) in many of his posts - part of me wonders whether this one is more of the same, part of me feels that this is a mindset I've come across when speaking to A FEW atheists. As a younger woman, I felt that those who liked and believed in what I liked and believed in would have some commonality with me. It took, ooh, about a week at university to disabuse me of this notion.
posted by mippy at 9:08 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
What I don't like is anyone telling me what to believe, or what not to believe.
I'm not a fan of the blogger linked to mainly as there's a pervasive attitude of superiority (not to mention some odd attitudes) in many of his posts - part of me wonders whether this one is more of the same, part of me feels that this is a mindset I've come across when speaking to A FEW atheists. As a younger woman, I felt that those who liked and believed in what I liked and believed in would have some commonality with me. It took, ooh, about a week at university to disabuse me of this notion.
posted by mippy at 9:08 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
I'm pointing that that, while atheists can be intolerant of the religious, that doesn't make it religious intolerance. I'm not trying to split hairs (or lack thereof). For one, intolerance by atheists will probably be of a somewhat different character.
Also, the protest signs might have better spelling.
posted by adipocere at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2008
Also, the protest signs might have better spelling.
posted by adipocere at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2008
One more atheism post for the hat trick.
posted by fixedgear at 9:12 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by fixedgear at 9:12 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
There is an occasional tendency for atheists to treat all religious folks as rubes and dupes (I think demonstrated by the film Religulous, which careful picked blatantly absurd religious examples and, for the most part, studiously avoided the mainstream). Certainly religion has its rubes and dupes, but it also has a lot of smart and decent people, and I certainly don't think atheism does itself any favors when perhaps a small but very vocal minority of atheists cannot help themselves and must bray about how moronic religion is in general any time the topic is broached.
Additional, I find myself concerned that knee-jerk negative response to all religions might cause some atheists to accidentally participate in the marginalizing of already despised religious minorities, such as Muslims. There was a bit of a toss-up here in Minneapolis about a mostly Muslim charter school that had been targeted by a local right-wing columnist for some rather minor oversights in policies, quickly corrected. The school was then the recipient of threats of violence, because Muslims have been so thoroughly demonized. But I heard from a few other local atheists that it was somehow there own fault for basing their lives around so thoroughly stupid a set of religious beliefs. It's as though, for some people, they feel that any expansion of intolerance, so long as it is directed as the religious, is as it should be.
Coming from a live and let live viewpoint, I just don't care what other people believe, as long as it doesn't affect me. People think a lot of stupid things. I've met people who think Cats is a great musical. I've met people who think we never landed on the moon. I've met people who honestly believe that Thomas Kinkade makes great art. As odious as I find these beliefs, I have not made it my job to let them know how hideously, moronically wrong they are, and won't until they start passing laws saying that I must study the arts of Thomas Kinkade while attending a production of cats and shouting angry epithets at Charles Duke.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2008 [5 favorites]
Additional, I find myself concerned that knee-jerk negative response to all religions might cause some atheists to accidentally participate in the marginalizing of already despised religious minorities, such as Muslims. There was a bit of a toss-up here in Minneapolis about a mostly Muslim charter school that had been targeted by a local right-wing columnist for some rather minor oversights in policies, quickly corrected. The school was then the recipient of threats of violence, because Muslims have been so thoroughly demonized. But I heard from a few other local atheists that it was somehow there own fault for basing their lives around so thoroughly stupid a set of religious beliefs. It's as though, for some people, they feel that any expansion of intolerance, so long as it is directed as the religious, is as it should be.
Coming from a live and let live viewpoint, I just don't care what other people believe, as long as it doesn't affect me. People think a lot of stupid things. I've met people who think Cats is a great musical. I've met people who think we never landed on the moon. I've met people who honestly believe that Thomas Kinkade makes great art. As odious as I find these beliefs, I have not made it my job to let them know how hideously, moronically wrong they are, and won't until they start passing laws saying that I must study the arts of Thomas Kinkade while attending a production of cats and shouting angry epithets at Charles Duke.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2008 [5 favorites]
"If you want to parse religious intolerance from intolerance of religion"
I meant this.
Also, I have been a member for about a month, it was about time I made a LOLRELIGION post./
posted by mippy at 9:14 AM on October 21, 2008
I meant this.
Also, I have been a member for about a month, it was about time I made a LOLRELIGION post./
posted by mippy at 9:14 AM on October 21, 2008
I have the same problem with the movie Religulous and the abrasive rhetoric of Richard Dawkins. While I don't mind listening to it, it seems like a pale and cynical substitute for proselytizing.
posted by sswiller at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2008
posted by sswiller at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2008
One more atheism post for the hat trick trinity.
posted by mandal at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2008 [3 favorites]
posted by mandal at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2008 [3 favorites]
Has any pub-based philosophical inquiry ever been remembered for politeness, succinct phrasing, and consistent logic?
posted by Benjy at 9:26 AM on October 21, 2008
posted by Benjy at 9:26 AM on October 21, 2008
Also, I have been a member for about a month, it was about time I made a LOLRELIGION post./
No.
posted by tula at 9:28 AM on October 21, 2008
No.
posted by tula at 9:28 AM on October 21, 2008
it was about time I made a LOLRELIGION post.
Some might disagree.
posted by jessamyn at 9:29 AM on October 21, 2008
Some might disagree.
posted by jessamyn at 9:29 AM on October 21, 2008
I used to call myself an "agnostic" (many years ago), but then realised that it sounds too much like bet-hedging. You know, the Bible/Koran may or may not be the inerrant word of God, the universe may or may not have been created in six days, you may or may not burn in Hell if you eat pork or have sex or step on a crack in the pavement or whatever. In any case, agnosticism seems to be a halfway house for those who are expressing doubts about formerly held religious beliefs but not quite prepared to take the leap and give them up completely.
IMHO, we don't know what's out there but we do know that all models of the universe which come from religious scriptures can be explained as the products of human culture and psychology rather than supernatural forces, and are inadmissable as evidence. What evidence there is shows no sign of gods, supreme beings, an afterlife or supernatural phenomena, and as such by Occam's razor, it makes sense to tentatively assume a purely material universe. Which sounds like atheism to me.
As for atheism meaning absolute belief in the non-existence of a god, I haven't met any atheists with that degree of faith.
posted by acb at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
IMHO, we don't know what's out there but we do know that all models of the universe which come from religious scriptures can be explained as the products of human culture and psychology rather than supernatural forces, and are inadmissable as evidence. What evidence there is shows no sign of gods, supreme beings, an afterlife or supernatural phenomena, and as such by Occam's razor, it makes sense to tentatively assume a purely material universe. Which sounds like atheism to me.
As for atheism meaning absolute belief in the non-existence of a god, I haven't met any atheists with that degree of faith.
posted by acb at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]
This kind of post is perhaps better served on Ask Metafilter.
no, that's scatfilter - i mean, chatfilter
posted by pyramid termite at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2008
no, that's scatfilter - i mean, chatfilter
posted by pyramid termite at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2008
I pictured Gary Larson when I though it said "Cartoonist meets atheists: FIGHT".
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2008
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2008
mippy: "I'm not atheist. I'm agnostic."
Yeah, that seems to me to be an area where proper word choice is extremely important. The way I learned it the Greek alpha privativum marks negation or lack of something; so a-theism would be a position where someone actively claimed "there is no Higher Being". A-gnostic, on the other hand, means that this is something you do not know, maybe can not know (after all, if there was an all-powerful deity wouldn't he/she be able to hide all evidence of his/her influence?), and that's a much more sensible position (IMHO, YMMV).
All of which unfortunately does not mean I wouldn't like to hit some of those religious nuts over the head with a cluebat sometimes...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 9:36 AM on October 21, 2008
Yeah, that seems to me to be an area where proper word choice is extremely important. The way I learned it the Greek alpha privativum marks negation or lack of something; so a-theism would be a position where someone actively claimed "there is no Higher Being". A-gnostic, on the other hand, means that this is something you do not know, maybe can not know (after all, if there was an all-powerful deity wouldn't he/she be able to hide all evidence of his/her influence?), and that's a much more sensible position (IMHO, YMMV).
All of which unfortunately does not mean I wouldn't like to hit some of those religious nuts over the head with a cluebat sometimes...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 9:36 AM on October 21, 2008
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posted by adipocere at 8:45 AM on October 21, 2008 [6 favorites]