People will always disagree with each other, including atheists.

Keep your chin up, Sapient!

In the last week or two, I've had at least a half dozen conversations, both online and in RL, that have left me feeling a little bummed. There's nothing quite so discouraging as explaining a perfectly logical concept and then having it blasted by people who are theoretically on your side... especially when they clearly don't understand, or don't want to understand what you're saying.

And there are definitely some irrational ideas being carried around by atheists. Lucky for us we don't claim absolute rationality, eh?

Definetly I agree. But wouldn't it be nice if we could all agree to abstain from making assertions without knowledge of what we're asserting? Or at least we could all agree to only hold true, what we can prove?

I've been bitched at recently for asking that very question.

Sure. Would you still have a problem with an atheist that disagrees with you on this, even after they have read up on what you're doing?

Problem with the atheist, no. I can still be close, and get along with people who disagree with specific projects I engage in. Obviously I may disagree, and an agree to disagree rule may have to get put into play.

While I don't associate with any of the examples above (and while this may be a non-sequitor), I do tend to feel a sense of anomie about this holiday season. I mean, I know the history surrounding the misapporpriation of Christmas (many times over), but I do still reserve a romantic idea of the season (esp. living in New York City where all kinds of holidays create atmospheres that are, at best, charming and, at worst, disarming to our critical senses).

And to compound this, I've shifted my view of the scriptures from that of being the, you know, work of the divine, etc. to that of literature with social and historical value, but also, dare I say, artisitic value. And with that, I tend to see it as valuable in the way I see the Greek Tregedies valuable also ... the point here is that, though I know its not true, I tend to like aspects of the Bible (I feel I can pick and choose because I am an Atheist) and one story I rather like is the "Christmas" story. Now this "liking" is wholly subjective ... the same way I like the Grateful Dead or the tv show "Freaks and Geeks" - I guess I bring it up becuase it pertains to the holiday season and my feelings towards the thing.

(Forgive my use of your blog comments to rant ... and my first post too)
G

I think you'll always have people disagreeing with you no matter what you do, because you are putting yourself out there. I'm sure that's something you already know, though.

Dilbert is a comic in the newspapers. Dilbert has a dog named "Dogbert", who talks to him and holds some intensely intelligent conversations with him.

In one strip, several years ago, Dogbert was walking across a table with a cardboard tube. Dilbert asked, "What are you doing with that cardboard tube?" To which Dogbert promptly replied, "I'm going to go up to everyone who has a strong opinion about things that they know nothing about, and bop them over the head with this cardboard tube." Dilbert responded, "But, that would be everyone in the world except you and me!" Dogbert held up the tube and said, "Lean over here."

People invariably don't want to put much effort into anything. As a general rule, humans are simply very lazy. I really don't know how we have ever survived as a species. I believe it was Bertrand Russell that said, "Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do so!"

So don't take much stock in the opinions of the willfully ignorant. If they don't understand something, it is usually because they don't want to understand it.

Yes, that would be grand and ultimately lead to much more fruitful discussion. However, absolutism in one's assertions seems to be an inherent part of human psychology and asserting an opinion is far easier than actually studying up on it.

It happens so often that it should probably be a truism, that when engaged in debate about matters which go to the core of humanity, i.e. religion, politics, social issues, that far more opinions will be offered than knowledge and that both sides tend to misunderstand the other due to a lack of study and understanding.

My birthday approaches, which no doubt is why I've become a bit more thoughtful about how I conduct myself. Age, it seems, tends to inspire thoughts about how one has lived their life. But anyway, I have found that the only way to truly engage someone in debate on such weighty matters is to first step out of the idea that you are right and for a moment, truly grasp what it is to believe the other side. This goes beyond the logic and propositional phrasing and down to the psychological.

The prevalence of religious thought is not due to people's stupidity or the fact that religious thought is philosophically tenable. In understanding just why it is so virulent, one begins to see one's own susceptibility to it.

When I have children, I plan to introduce them to "The Santa Hypothesis" and encourage them to debunk it themselves, through logic and reason. It's a great way to teach them critical thinking skills, and it could boost their self-esteem to know they are smart enough to disprove it without their parents just coming out and stating the truth.

That is such a great idea! It would encourage them to take everything with a grain of sand, and not just to accept anything, from anyone, as gospel. I love it!

Wow. I don't want to have kids, but if I did, I'd want to have them with someone like Yana. That is crazy smart.

I honestly think this is the first time I've ever heard of this idea, and it's mind boggling to me that nobody's mentioned it before, among all my atheist friends.

Yana, you are going to have wonderful children. Kuddos to you.

Doing the Santa thing = lying to your kids? Aw c'mon. Maybe technically, but so what? I don't resent my parents for "lying" to me about Santa. I realize it was all in good fun and I sure as hell enjoyed the excitement at the time. Plus, coming to the realization that Santa wasn't real was an excellent exercise in critical thinking.

I know, I know, I'm using the same rationalization as theists use - we feel better if we believe so why not let us. Here's the difference: Santa is a harmless fantasy that all kids soon grow out of. God and religion is taken much more seriously and is often used for real-world social and political purposes. I guess I'm saying that we can afford belief in Santa in the name of humor and good fun, but that belief in God has proven too expensive.

Her drop dead gorgeous looks don't hurt either.

What effect would the dissolution of Christmas have on the economy? Although there is nothing ostensibly Christian about J.C. Penny (pun intended), nor the ceremony of counting up the receipts when the season is over, it would appear the ongoing belief in the birth of the Lord fuels the impetus for gift-giving, upon which the retail companies depend in a huge way. Granted, the economic desirability of a thriving retail economy doesn't confirm the existence Jesus (or Santa...maybe), but I can already see Pat & Jerry blaming us when the next recession hits.

It's to be expected from something that is so antisocial. Anything that challenges authority people re going to rally behind simply because of that, and there is no notion of authority greater than the idea of god. I mean, there is being "against the man" and then there is being "against THE man."

Consider this: the fact that god doesn't exist is horribly sad. No one can rationally desire that there be no god. But what you and other reasonable people understand is that that doesn't mean there is a god, or we should just pretend that there is a god (that is, have faith.) But look at how happy so many of these atheists are that there is no god - that alone makes them neccesarily irrational.

Atheists have all different feelings about the absence of god, but the most common feeling is complete indifference since it is senseless to be upset about the absence of a fictional character. I might just as well mope around bemoaning the fact that Winnie the Pooh isn't really out there bringing cuteness to the Hundred Acre Wood.

What atheists, as a group, do tend to get happy about is when others come to see the light and drop their baseless beliefs. This is because we hold out the slim hope that humanity will someday evolve away from our dependance on this mental security blanket.

The fact that god doesn't exist isn't horribly sad. It is a relief to know that there is no catankerous old man in the sky who cares that we believe in him, and cares what we do in the bedroom, and cares that we tithe him 10% every Sunday. It is happier for life to have no meaning, than to have a meaning you don't agree with.

I don't think that the Winnie the Pooh example takes into account our humanity. We aren't creatures of knowledge but creatures of belief, and so while we should yield our minds to truth that doesn't mean that truth is what our minds value. When we learn that what we found value in was always only a lie, we are going to be hurt. And to be honest, I don't see why this hurt would be wrong.

If I think that my girlfriend is a loving woman who values intimacy and respects me, and then I find-out that she had been cheating on me throughout the entire relationship, I am going to be devastated. And this will be despite the fact that what I loved was only a fiction - who I thought she was was nothing more than a fictional character that the real her deceived me into thinking was a person. I would have lost nothing but a lie, and would have gained an understanding of the truth, yet I am still going to mourn. And I do not think that that is wrong. And so when someone learns that god is a fiction that they were deceived into believing in, I am not going to think that it is wrong for them to mourn.

You can tell me that this irrational, but I do not believe that any well-adjusted person could apathetically abandon everything they love when they find it to be a lie - they should abandon it anyways, but it would be derranged for them to claim that we are apathetic towards the loss of what they loved, even if it was only a loss in perception. That is why I believe that we ought be mourning god, not rejoicing that its always been dead.

If there were a god, then there would be no true death. If there were a god, then every single iota of suffering would have purpose. If there were a god, then there would be justice in judgment, security in faith, and peace in salvation. And so I simply do not understand how you can say that it isn't horribly sad that there is no god.

Perhaps you are looking at the contradictions, and how things like The Problem of Evil make it so that a good god simply couldn't exist. But when I say that it is sad that god doesn't exist, I don't mean the most rational idea of god (which is incoherent and can't be used), but what it is that people perceive god to be. And that is something good, loving, that makes death an illusion, etc.

As for the "better no meaning than meaning you don't agree with", well, I don't really understand this. The idea that you can be taught what is meaning is just outright baffling to me. So I can't really make sense out this, and I can't understand your point enough to agree with it. (We are all driven by a sense of value, and at worst the only thing we can do is come to be in denial of it... no one who truly doesn't care about anything cares enough to say it - everyone has a sense of value, and purpose, and believes that meaning exists.)

And that is the conundrum we deal with here in the Bible-belt. We live in a freedom-less haven where "peoples right to believe whatever they want" is routinely not supported as a cultural imperative in the contrived "culture war" of those "blessed by grace" vs. everyone else. Encouraging people to engage critical thinking skills in all aspects of their lives makes David's effort to slay a mighty Goliath a "piece of cake" by comparison.

Here, it is all about "the book", "the book", chapter and verse. For all its scattered inconsistencies, archaic cryptic unfathomable literary idiosyncracies, and many dubious ethical lapses, "the book" is presented as the inerrant foundational theorem for truth, ethical guidance, and prescription for positive infinite survival of the individual consciousness. Any other belief paradigm, whether based on critical thinking, whether tolerant of other paradigms is - not - to - be - tolerated. How does this compare with the social reality of the northeast, or California? We think that makes a difference on how we can best proceed.

Critical thinking, you say? We aspire first to wrest our friends and neighbors away from the wildly irrational insistent dogma that the medley of literary artifacts, the Holy Bible, scribally authored in goat and sheep herding societies, is indispensable to the human condition. If we can achieve that increment ( a big "if"), then that is a huge victory in its own right. After all, is that so different from what you seek? Your webcast platform Freethought Media hosts Abraxas, an up-front Christian Gnostic along with proponents of his belief paradigm, presumably far in advance of freethought than the more traditional orthodox brand. No, that is not my idea of the optimum conclusions derived from clear and conclusive critical thinking either. But ignoring the cultural context that has for so long run against the grain of rational process is like barfing into the wind of a hurricane.

That is why we chose the recommendation of Prof. Daniel Dennett in Breaking the Spell. We choose to simply lay out the facts of history and anthropology -- the information that buffoons like O'Reilly and Gibson at Faux News choose to be ingnorant of. As Sgt. Friday of the old Dragnet TV series used to say, " . . . just the facts, Ma'am. Just the facts." And yes, information that is readily known and accepted by minority theists as well as atheists. How people who accept the information choose to respond to it -- we say, let the chips fall where they may. If they reach the conclusions of optimum crtitical thinking about new information, cool! But always ensuring such a result presents a whole different challenge.

We breeched our policy this afternoon to endorse your inspired blasphemy challenge in a MySpace bulletin. Even some theists can deny the holy spirit, rationally and without contradiction.

BTW, we are enthusiasts of your position on the public relations inanity of "the War on Christmas". Our MySpace page has referenced the endchristmas.com website and will do so again.

Your compassion for the disillusioned theists is to your credit, Waterweave.

I will take small issue with your girlfriend analogy. You know that girlfriends exist. You know that some girlfriends love their boyfriends and are true to them. You were probably working on some empirical evidence to that effect when you came to the conclusion that your girlfriend loved you and was true to you. Therefore I would have much more sympathy for you when you find out that it's all a purposeful deception. Theists, on the other hand, have formed their beliefs without evidence. In most cases this isn't their fault - they were indoctrinated from birth. But the fact remains that throughout their adult lives, in most cases, they have failed to really examine their beliefs or even to read their own bible and discover what it's really saying. I don't feel very obligated to protect these people from the full force of the truth.

Comment: Christmas has nothing to do with Christ; it was stolen from previous holidays. Let me say I'm not a history prof, bible scholar nor do I read any old "dead" lang. But I do know CHRISTmas has every thing to do with you, me, and yes CHRIST. For if it was not for you or me CHRIST would not have needed to come. Yes Christians keep traditions from pagans intended for pagans who had accepted the TRUTH of CHRIST--Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that (generally) involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief. So when you say” Religion breeds ignorance" and Atheism is a belief  system so yes you can be correct saying that. Being that atheism and Christian both have some members who like to just shut off the brain and say "THIS IS HOW IT IS" all Religion can breed ignorance even yours( I do realize that you know this).

We do what we do... Check it.... the argument is not that your god exists or not, atheists KNOW he does not, a you as a xtian KNOWS that he does. I propose a different logical issue, The logic of the existence of god itself. Christians assume that atheists believe that this universe came from nothing but xtians have no issue that god came from nothing, why is that? First the assumption is just wrong. Second the universe that we live in DOES exist because WE LIVE IN IT! There is no undeniable evidence available to 1 or more of the 5 senses that God DOES exist. I cannot see, touch, hear,taste or physically feel a god. Not just YOUR god, because YOUR god is ONE of MANY. Any god. And by quoting a book that first of all is one of the most historically inaccurate books in the planets history does not help your cause either. When you ACCEPT the contridictions and fallacies within that book, you will be taking the first step in the journey away from indoctrination. You werent born a christian. You were simply born in a region where christianity was the dominate faith. I have no doubt in my mind that had you been born in Saudi Arabia, you would be a fundamentalist muslim, with the same type of conviction, due to the type of person you are. All we ask you to is logically look at the evidence. Hopefully you will come to know the truth, that your god is one of many invisible supernatural creatures that DO NOT EXIST. Hopefully....But i doubt it.
Greydon SquareRational Response SquadGrand Unified Theory

I must say Sapient, this is quite a good post, and it is swell that you are putting this into the spotlight. I have been a part of several internet communities where apathy (usually disguised as tolerance) and ill-knowledge seem to go hand in hand, and so far I have not spoke out against it in many of them. Normally, I am the minority in this issue and I would easily be banned as well. This is one of the most informative communities I have signed on for a very long time, so kudos to you.... 

But you just admitted that you don't have any special knowledge about the bible or history.  How, then, can you argue with the statement, which was posted by someone who has researched this matter? 

Assumes that christ came, that he was god incarnate and that his coming was for the reasons given by the christian church.  Present evidence for these assumptions or stop repeating tired dogma that we've all heard a million times. 

Fascinating.  How have you come by this amazing new information concerning the absorption of pagan ritual into early christian practice?  Intense historical research?  Oh, that's right, you don't know any history.  I guess we should conclude, then, that you just pulled that statement out of your ass, which is hardly surprising considering the rest of your post.

Yes, nothing like scattering a bunch of unrelated words around in different formats to really make a persuasive point.  It has one advantage:  you can't argue with it because there's no argument.

We don't have to.  You are the one claiming god exists.  Now prove it.  Or admit that in your world flying pink unicorns exist, too, because you also can't prove that they don't exist.

Evidence please. 

In your case this would be a problem since you clearly have no understanding at all.