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Forums - General Discussion - I told some bible thumping Christians that I was an Atheist today, to get them to **** off!

KungKras said:
Jumpin said:
Scoobes said:
Jumpin said:
The only people I have had come to try to convert me were neo-atheists; it happens a lot on Internet forums especially, most of them trying to argue their points using straw man arguments, and arguments that were refuted centuries ago.

Most atheists are fairly ignorant too, believing that because someone is religious that they somehow don't believe in the scientific method.

Mostly I see atheism as an excuse certain types of people use to justify their bigotry.

What's a neo-atheist?!

The current major atheist movement led by Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet.

Mostly on the sale of aggressive attacks on straw men they built to represent the viewpoints of religions. 

Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet and Harris use strawmen? When? Of course you can back that statement up by pointing out the arguments and explaining how and why they are strawmen.

Oh, and when they try to defend scientific integrity in schoolbooks, is that being agressive too?

You've just established a good starting point. They make the constant assertion or implication that religious people don't believe in the scientific method. This is clearly a strawman argument, I personally don't know any religious people who don't believe in science (although I have come across some on the Internet, I don't know where these people come from), so I am not sure how this is a valid argument against me or anyone else in my church. For starters, the Cosmological and Teleological arguments for the existence of God, nowadays, rely purely on scientific evidence as supporting points (especially the big bang theory).

If you are looking for a documented strawman argument from those 4, you don't have to look further than the thesis statement of the biggest book among them: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The central point in The God Delusion is as follows: "If God created the Universe, who created God?"
The straw man he is beating up is some form of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam who believe in a created God. In reality: Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not believe in created Gods.

In other words, the central argument of the most popular book of the Neo-Atheist movement is a textbook example of a strawman argument.



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Do not answer your front door to Jehovah's Witnesses. How desperate they must be to go around knocking on strangers door to join their questionable cult?



Scoobes said:
Marks said:
I find bible thumping Christians and atheists equally annoying. Why do Christians have to annoy and try to convert people all the time? And also why can't Atheists just relax and not spend all their time disproving religion?

Just for the record I believe in God but don't follow a religion. I guess I'm a Deist or something similar.

I think that's born of the extreme examples of religion encroaching on others to the point of being detrimental. Much like the creationists trying to push off religion as science or the issue of "honour" killings.


This also includes bitching about national motto on dollar bills, whining about a cross on a 9/11 memorial and suing schools for praying before class and busses driving pas churches right?



I hate when they send the old ladies door to door around here. how the fuck am i to slam the door in the face of some woman that looks like my grandmother (when she was alive, because if some some rotting corpse came to the door, i think i could slam it just fine).
I much prefer the younger ones though...i dont care how cute they are...door is getting slammed right in their face.



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

Player1x3 said:
Scoobes said:
Marks said:
I find bible thumping Christians and atheists equally annoying. Why do Christians have to annoy and try to convert people all the time? And also why can't Atheists just relax and not spend all their time disproving religion?

Just for the record I believe in God but don't follow a religion. I guess I'm a Deist or something similar.

I think that's born of the extreme examples of religion encroaching on others to the point of being detrimental. Much like the creationists trying to push off religion as science or the issue of "honour" killings.


This also includes bitching about national motto on dollar bills, whining about a cross on a 9/11 memorial and suing schools for praying before class and busses driving pas churches right?

You get extremes on both side, but like I said, atheist extremism is born of a desire to counter religious extremism (a lot of atheist arguments are countering extreme religious views rather then mainstream religious views).

Although personally, I think if you're going to put a cross on the 9/11 memorial you should probably also put the religious symbols of all the religions from all the people that died that day and if the school is paid for by the state, then praying should be optional. That's just my personal view though.



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Scoobes said:
Player1x3 said:
Scoobes said:
Marks said:
I find bible thumping Christians and atheists equally annoying. Why do Christians have to annoy and try to convert people all the time? And also why can't Atheists just relax and not spend all their time disproving religion?

Just for the record I believe in God but don't follow a religion. I guess I'm a Deist or something similar.

I think that's born of the extreme examples of religion encroaching on others to the point of being detrimental. Much like the creationists trying to push off religion as science or the issue of "honour" killings.


This also includes bitching about national motto on dollar bills, whining about a cross on a 9/11 memorial and suing schools for praying before class and busses driving pas churches right?

You get extremes on both side, but like I said, atheist extremism is born of a desire to counter religious extremism (a lot of atheist arguments are countering extreme religious views rather then mainstream religious views).

Although personally, I think if you're going to put a cross on the 9/11 memorial you should probably also put the religious symbols of all the religions from all the people that died that day and if the school is paid for by the state, then praying should be optional. That's just my personal view though.


More generally speaking, fundamental ('neo') atheism is born of a desire to counter pretty much every value your own family, society and culture set up for you (not that i think there's anything wrong or right with that), like most counterculture ideologies supported by arrogant rebellious western teens on the net.



Jumpin said:
KungKras said:
Jumpin said:
Scoobes said:
Jumpin said:
The only people I have had come to try to convert me were neo-atheists; it happens a lot on Internet forums especially, most of them trying to argue their points using straw man arguments, and arguments that were refuted centuries ago.

Most atheists are fairly ignorant too, believing that because someone is religious that they somehow don't believe in the scientific method.

Mostly I see atheism as an excuse certain types of people use to justify their bigotry.

What's a neo-atheist?!

The current major atheist movement led by Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet.

Mostly on the sale of aggressive attacks on straw men they built to represent the viewpoints of religions. 

Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet and Harris use strawmen? When? Of course you can back that statement up by pointing out the arguments and explaining how and why they are strawmen.

Oh, and when they try to defend scientific integrity in schoolbooks, is that being agressive too?

You've just established a good starting point. They make the constant assertion or implication that religious people don't believe in the scientific method. This is clearly a strawman argument, I personally don't know any religious people who don't believe in science (although I have come across some on the Internet, I don't know where these people come from), so I am not sure how this is a valid argument against me or anyone else in my church. For starters, the Cosmological and Teleological arguments for the existence of God, nowadays, rely purely on scientific evidence as supporting points (especially the big bang theory).

If you are looking for a documented strawman argument from those 4, you don't have to look further than the thesis statement of the biggest book among them: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The central point in The God Delusion is as follows: "If God created the Universe, who created God?"
The straw man he is beating up is some form of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam who believe in a created God. In reality: Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not believe in created Gods.

In other words, the central argument of the most popular book of the Neo-Atheist movement is a textbook example of a strawman argument.

When you say cosmological and teleological arguments for god, do you mean that garbage that William Lane Craig is spouting?

Anyways, I've seen Dawkins in debates against creationists mention that the previous pope and the archbishop of canterbury believes in evolution, so I don't get how he is misrepresenting all christians.

To get back to creationists that deny evolution. It has been proven to a degree of certainty similar to the germ theory of disease or earth orbiting the sun theory. The people who try to deny it most certainly doesn't seem to believe in the scientific method.

It's hard to comment on the books because I haven't read them, I've only seen the live debates. And I haven't seen dawkins use many strawmans in them. I'll just hope that someone else in the thread has read it and can reply to the point you made.



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Player1x3 said:
Scoobes said:
Player1x3 said:
Scoobes said:
Marks said:
I find bible thumping Christians and atheists equally annoying. Why do Christians have to annoy and try to convert people all the time? And also why can't Atheists just relax and not spend all their time disproving religion?

Just for the record I believe in God but don't follow a religion. I guess I'm a Deist or something similar.

I think that's born of the extreme examples of religion encroaching on others to the point of being detrimental. Much like the creationists trying to push off religion as science or the issue of "honour" killings.


This also includes bitching about national motto on dollar bills, whining about a cross on a 9/11 memorial and suing schools for praying before class and busses driving pas churches right?

You get extremes on both side, but like I said, atheist extremism is born of a desire to counter religious extremism (a lot of atheist arguments are countering extreme religious views rather then mainstream religious views).

Although personally, I think if you're going to put a cross on the 9/11 memorial you should probably also put the religious symbols of all the religions from all the people that died that day and if the school is paid for by the state, then praying should be optional. That's just my personal view though.


More generally speaking, fundamental ('neo') atheism is born of a desire to counter pretty much every value your own family, society and culture set up for you (not that i think there's anything wrong or right with that), like most counterculture ideologies supported by arrogant rebellious western teens on the net.

You don't think you're generalizing a bit much there?



I LOVE ICELAND!

NightDragon83 said:
Ironically I told a group of God-hating Atheists that I was a bible thumping Christian the other day.

And that's it. Nothing happened.


Atheist dont hate god they dont believe in him. Not believing in something is not the same as hating it. Antitheism is the is what would be considered in direct oposition to god and the closest someone can be to hating god.



This is the Game of Thrones

Where you either win

or you DIE

I would say most Christians have gone through periods where they've said they hate God. It's natural I suppose, in a sense.



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