Atheists, please condemn this...

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Before we begin, let me make something clear. This is NOT about the content of Atheism, this is about the conduct shown at this event.

This is really quite upsetting...

The "Reason Rally" the largest public organised event for atheists ever held, is proving to be the worst example of the excesses of the "new" atheism

Firstly, although they happily welcome the people from the Westborough Baptist Church to come along and engage with them, the organisers have said to the people of Ratio Christi "Make no mistake - you are not welcome at the rally". This is classic strawman. I can completely understand the desire of the atheists organising the event to not want to do a debate, but you can't have it both ways. You can't invite the crazies to make yourself look good and then deny the moderates.

 

Secondly, this

In his brief address, Dawkins encouraged fellow atheists to ridicule those who claim to be religious.

Exemplifying how he would approach religious persons, Dawkins said, "Do you really believe, for example if they're Catholic, that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ?"

"Mock them, ridicule them in public," he urged. "Don't fall for the convention that we're all too polite to talk about religion."

Making fun? Mocking? Really? This is acceptable behaviour? This is ENCOURAGED behaviour?

Thirdly, as part of their advertising campaign, the rally quoted Collossians 3:22 completely out of the broader context of the passage, trying to imply that the Bible was supportive of the slavery seen in the New World, with pictures of African slaves in neck chains.

Is this really acceptable. This, at the largest atheist event in the world ever held? This, at the event to show the world that its okay to be an atheist?

If you've been on this forum for any significant length of time, you know my position on matters of religion, but I have known plenty of passionate, engaging and incredibly polite and reasonable atheists on this forum. This isn't what I am seeing in this event.

Surely you would agree that this kind of thing isn't what atheism should be about.

[CD]

I have to make a confession, in the interests of peace and harmony and just because I'm a blabber mouth.

Yes, I'm an atheist.  Have been since I was confirmed a Catholic.

I think what I was taught since infancy was aborrhent.  The experience of religious people, particularly in my family, shows them to be people who deflect responsibility to an invisible man, worship nonsense, look down their nose at everyone else, and generally, act like scum.  I've seen this experience repeated in what is commonly known as the Sunday Christian effect and I think it's fair to say, it's institutional, and there's a doctrinal basis for it.  Having been taken through that ringer and learned a few things about how wide that river runs, there was a period there when I was very angry and I said some nasty, but not strictly speaking, dishonest things.  And to this day it makes me angry that the religion 'Christianity' (in the case of my country anyway) is falsely claimed to be my country's religion even though this has no basis in fact and it's sole purpose is to allow even more discriminatory laws to creep in than we already have.

HOWEVER

This is what gets my goat

• When people go on about the horrid pedophile priest stuff and say that all priests are pedophiles.  That is untrue.  The catholic church has a huge problem with this in general, but it's not just the catholics, and certainly not just priests. And despite my negative experiences with religion, I can tell you my parish priest was the opposite of negative, I actually found him personally to be the exact opposite - a really nice guy. One of the few gems in this rough, actually.
• When people think all religious people are like that.  Not true.  Just because Pope Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth, it doesn't mean that my partially Jewish Catholic school chums were fricking Nazis, thank you very much.
• When people complain that religious people cherry pick whilst also complaining about issues like bible literalism.  People who cherry pick are the ones who see Jesus healing the sick, not just Jesus stoning the gays.  Totalist literalists see both - heal the sick gays, and then stone them when it doesn't work.  I'd take a million cherry pickers over a literalist any day.

I've found that zealotry can occur in anyone, and that includes me.  So even though I contend that all religions are, without exception, complete and utter bullshit, and have no place in schools, in the minds of children, in politics, and in science (except when being studied ie religious studies), and the world would be better off without religion in general,  I'd have to say as far as human nature is concerned it's a neutral effect over all.  Assholes are assholes are asssholes.  Nice guys are nice guys are nice guys.  My parish priest cherry picked being nice to your neighbour, because he's a nice guy, it's as simple as that.  I'm honest about that because I personally value honesty, it's as simple as that.

And as far as 'speaking for atheists'  people like Dawkins may already know that they can't really do that.  They can only speak for themselves, and hold gatherings and raise awareness of their ideas.  Dawkins doesn't speak for me, and never has.  Nor has his kindred.  But when the movement points out, oh ok, so finally NOW we can be openly atheist, I get that.  I really do.  It's difficult to be openly atheist amongst religious people.  But even though I was, it was much easier than being openly non-heterosexual.  

And, the thing is there, is I think challenging the beliefs, and calling it on the bullshit that it is, is in fact, completely healthy in an open society that values free debate.   Criticising the speaker (ie ad hominem) isn't.  Setting debate agendas that don't allow for free and fair debate, isn't;  and that shouldn't matter if the debate is set up by Dawkins or the mainstream media, or between student groups at a university. 

So, in short, fuck your God, but not you. 

Then there's the definitional issues of 'atheist'.  I know people who are defined as atheists by other people but prefer to not have any label at all.  Their beliefs are identical to mine, except they say that the word 'atheist' was made up by religious people, and they're not (nor have they ever been) religious, so the word doesn't belong to them.  I've chosen to adopt the word for myself even though that makes sense because of my background alone.....so it's not just "in opposition to god" it's "we're not even on the same playing field"  as well.   And there are others who don't think religion is negative, it's just some silly ideas other people have.   I waver....despite what I said before.

So atheism shouldn't be about anything....because it isn't about anything...is it?  Not in it's whole at least. Or it's simplest form....

[Fake Crowley]

Point of clarification: I have beef with the Vatican because of how it handled the incidents with pedophilic priests, not because of the pedophiles themselves. Every group has it's bad apples, not every group sticks those bad apples back where they can do more harm without warning anyone and generally just blowing off the issue. I'm mad at the structure of the church and a few of the decisions they've made, but otherwise I could care less about Catholocism. By which I mean a good person is good, a bad person is bad, and an actual, non hypothetical person is somewhere in between, and I judge that last person based on where I think they lie. Religion has nothing to do with it, although truth be told I'm prejudiced against really outspoken Christians, something which I acknowledge and am in the process of changing.

[CD]

Point of clarification: I have beef with the Vatican because of how it handled the incidents with pedophilic priests, not because of the pedophiles themselves.

Cheers.  To clarify, I was making a reference to about 5 years of internet debates on a dozen other websites I can't even be bothered naming and hadn't even read whatever it is you needed to clarify.  I've heard the conflation "PRIEST = PEDOPHILE" a lot, and it gets my goat.  I mostly agree with your point on this one.  It's how they handled it that sucked. 

I just happened to focus on Catholicism cos of my background.  Speaking of which, do you really think a religion that is centered around events associated with a 12 year old farm girl getting raped by the magical ghost-seed of god delivered by a sky fairy to give birth to himself is one that is kid friendly?  Just sayin'  the joke 'anal doesn't count'  also has a real world cultural basis in some parts of the world....and Catholics are supposed to obey everything the authority tells them (it's part of the nicean creed) so doctrine is related....how much though....

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

I just happened to focus on Catholicism cos of my background.  Speaking of which, do you really think a religion that is centered around events associated with a 12 year old farm girl getting raped by the magical ghost-seed of god delivered by a sky fairy to give birth to himself is one that is kid friendly?

Catholics and indeed Christians as a whole do not believe that God had sex with Mary. He caused her to conceive. Being God however, he does not need to have sex with her in order to do that.

[CD]

Pardon my poetic license.  God wasn't even there at the time.  Gabriel just told her about it in the field one night.  I wonder if he was the father?

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Erm, God is omnipresent.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

And, the thing is there, is I think challenging the beliefs, and calling it on the bullshit that it is, is in fact, completely healthy in an open society that values free debate.   Criticising the speaker (ie ad hominem) isn't.  Setting debate agendas that don't allow for free and fair debate, isn't;  and that shouldn't matter if the debate is set up by Dawkins or the mainstream media, or between student groups at a university.

Criticising, debating etc I am fine with. Dawkins is encouraging ridicule. That's the issue here. Ridicule is not debate.

Although it is interesting that Dawkins does not want to debate William Lane Craig.

[CD]

In a strict sense of the term,  ridicule is definitely not debate.

On the other hand, we are dealing with fiction (when discussing the mythology rather than the ethics) so the artistic merits of comedic devices may apply, and unfortunately for religion, ridicule is one of those devices and it does apply to the ridiculous. 

Who is William Lane Craig?

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

On the other hand, we are dealing with fiction

No, you BELIEVE we are dealing with fiction.

so the artistic merits of comedic devices may apply

No, they don't. Your belief that it is fiction is not accepted by the other party in the debate. Thus, ridicule is not acceptable.

Who is William Lane Craig?

A leading Christian philosopher and theologian. Do some googling.

[CD]

Sure I'll give him a burl

And you know the thing is, my sardonic humour didn't make for a good argument.  But here's what does.

I believe religion is ridiculous (and based on the available evidence, I am correct in saying so), and if I don't have the right to say that, that's discrimination.  After all, religious folk have the right to express their beliefs.

Now, you BELIEVE (from what you're saying, although you've never said you're religious on here AFAIK) that religion is non-fiction, and you do so, in contradiction to the evidence. You have the right to express that belief as well, and to not allow you to do so, would also be discrimination.

Happy disagreeing!

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

I believe religion is ridiculous (and based on the available evidence, I am correct in saying so), and if I don't have the right to say that, that's discrimination.  After all, religious folk have the right to express their beliefs.

I am not suggesting that you should not have the right to. You are misrepresenting me. I am saying that it's increasingly mean spirited to encourage people to ridicule. Debate and discourse are not the same thing as ridicule, and Dawkins should not be encoruaging such a practice in a civilized context. Imagine a context where religious people were encouraged to laugh at athiests. Do you really think that would go down well?

Now, you BELIEVE (from what you're saying, although you've never said you're religious on here AFAIK) that religion is non-fiction, and you do so, in contradiction to the evidence. You have the right to express that belief as well, and to not allow you to do so, would also be discrimination.

Really? You have evidence that religion is fictional. Please, provide it.

[CD]

I am not suggesting that you should not have the right to. You are misrepresenting me. I am saying that it's increasingly mean spirited to encourage people to ridicule. Debate and discourse are not the same thing as ridicule, and Dawkins should not be encoruaging such a practice in a civilized context.

My bad, I take it we were speaking in parallel lines there.  I don't actually agree with encouraging ridicule myself...and agree with you that to do so is mean spirited...and if that's what Dawkins is encouraging, then once again, like I said, he doesn't speak for me. However, simply calling something ridiculous, is not mean spirited. It's just speaking your mind.

Imagine a context where religious people were encouraged to laugh at athiests. Do you really think that would go down well?

It seemed to be the status quo until Dawkins came along, actually.  And then some.

Really? You have evidence that religion is fictional. Please, provide it.

There isn't enough room on this forum to post it.  The internet is just starting to contain some of it, though.