I read an article on Salon, about a woman who gave birth to a premature baby that didn’t survive. The point of her article was tell everyone how much she hates when people tell her her baby is in Heaven.
But actually her point is more than that. Her point really is to make sure you know that she is atheist. And to tell you, that you are dumb for not being one. Because this is what good atheists do. They talk about how the “great thinkers” like DeGrasse Tyson and Sagan give her comfort, when they reassure her that you are just a tiny speck in a much bigger universe (that has no purpose).
So her belief is that we are just specks of dust. So I wonder if she would get more comfort, if her friends reminded her, when she talked about the grief of losing a baby she never even knew, that it doesn’t matter, she was only a speck of random DNA dust anyway, so any incidental feeling of connection or purpose to that speck, is just a sorry illusion. nevermind it.”
Because, afterall, isn’t this what the Dawkins and the Penn Jillettes, and the Steve Novellas are hear to constantly remind everyone else? Is that how her friends should respond in the future, so she then doesn’t have to write any more blogs talking about how sad she is losing her speck of dna?
The atheists say we are nothing. They say life is meaningless, and you are just an accidental robot. Heck, they even don’t think we should grieve over abortions, so why does this woman want to remind us that she is grieving over a baby that lived eight hours?
Basically, atheists are hypocrites really. But as Penn Jillettte likes to says, he doesn’t think there is anything the slightest bit wrong with hypocrisy.
I think the article should be, please stop telling me your are sad about a speck of meaningless DNA. Its an illusion.
OR, perhaps atheists should stop trying to tell others that their beliefs are wrong. That would be novel.
It seems I have been a little hasty in calling your entire life worthless. Let me restrict that just to the parts you expose on-line. Presumably you are a constructive person in real life who does more then simply knock holes in other peoples hard work. I look forwards to hearing about your array of real-life achievements.
Elizabeth,
Arguing that there are different levels of disbelief in a God is pretty silly even for you. Most people who believe in a God are also not 100 percent certain of this. Does this mean they can its not really about their beliefs, but really just about their lack of belief in no Gods?
You believe there is no God. You may not be certain of this, but this is what you believe. You don’t have to lie about it, because you think that would win you some false argument points. Penn Jillette didn’t call his book, “There is No God” because he doesn’t understand what words mean. When Steven Hawkings and Jerry Coyne say “There is no God”, they know what these words mean. When someone starts a blog called “Why There is No God” or writes a book called “A Universe From Nothing” they know what these words mean.
OMagain,
I don’t hate you for being gay.
Rumraket,
I’ve yet to hear him specify if he’s an atheist agnostic or a theist agnostic, though.
I’ll tell your Father tonight when we meet for our tryst.
Yes, I think so. It’s difficult to help anyone who is deeply grieving, but certainly sensitivity to their worldview with regard to death is a good thing. That’s true whatever the belief system in question is. And I’d say that the most important thing to do is listen.
Think of the comedy! Complete failure to understand regression, Veblen goods or reviewing a paper based on its extract only. Now if we were to use Phoodoo logic, this would show “Christians are dicks” or something. Oh right, utter logic failure too. I put him in the WJM / JoeG bucket, along with one of Mung’s feet.
Obviously I don’t think it’s silly at all. And actually I don’t even think it’s question of “level” at all. I think there is a fairly binary distinction between the statement: “I have no reason to think that X is true” and “I have reason to think that X is not true”.
Most atheists would subscribe to the first statement (where X=”there is no god or gods”) but far fewer would subscribe to the second. Those who do are usually referred to as “strong atheists” – where “strong” isn’t a quantitative term but a qualitative one.
No, that is not the case. I do not believe there is no God. I simply do not believe there is. See above.
I assume they know what they mean by those words. I myself make no such claim.
I am troubled by phoodoo’s disbelief in Zuul.
Elizabeth,
Canonically explained as “‘Bald’ is not a hair color.”
I wonder what makes you think you have an exclusive insight into what most atheists believe. Oh no, wait, I mean , you think you have an exclusive insight into what they DON”T believe.
In his post titled: “Why Atheists are Kind of Assholes” Phoodoo asks SOMEONE ELSE “I wonder what makes you think you have an exclusive insight into what most atheists believe.”
Precious.
Said the person who in the OP told us all what atheists believe.
Atheists believe God probably doesn’t exist. Agnostics have no strong opinion or insight, or simply acknowledge they don’t know.
Arguing otherwise is more of your propaganda obfuscation bullshit.
But anyone here who wants to admit they have no idea if a God exist, and have no belief one way or another, feel free to be honest and say so now.
You do know what being honest means right? You have probably read about it at least.
Is it reviewing a paper based on the abstract only?
As Rich points out, there is such wonderful irony in that comment! I’ll let you into a secret, phoodoo. There isn’t an atheist church or dogma. True, there has been some attempt in the US for atheists to organise into groups to protect their freedoms from religious encroachment but, on the whole, atheism is just a point of view. I wasn’t recruited and I don’t specifically seek the company of other atheists. This blog is about the only place I regularly discuss my lack of religious belief.
There are quite a few atheists here who would, I’m sure, give you a brief account of their views on the existence of gods if you were interested enough to ask them. My personal view on gods is simple. I don’t rule out the possibility of a divine creator of the universe, I just find all the current proposed gods too much like human constructs to be plausible.
I took time out for RL while writing my last comment so didn’t see this till now. I admit I have no way to know whether a god or many might exist. For all we know compared to the deep reality of this universe we might be ants scurrying on the sidewalk a foot away from and oblivious to the Empire State Building. But, as I said, current stories of deities seem all too much like human invention to me. And there is the added point that whenever claims of deities working miracles are made, evidence to support those claims is absent.
I certainly don’t object to those who find comfort or solace in any such deity. The issue is when religious groups try to insist that their particular dogma has some moral authority that can be imposed on others. Which is why I live in a largely secular society and why I advocate true secularism (that guarantees freedom of worship as an equal right, not a superior one) as a basis for social living.
phoodoo,
Close, but not quite correct. Here’s the diagram from my post on that topic:
Yes, but it always goes back to the teapot orbiting Mars. Could be there, wouldn’t put a lot of stock in that possibility.
Glen Davidson
I’m a radical agnostic — I believe that the existence or nonexistence of God (as defined by the classical theistic tradition) is completely unknowable by creatures with our kind of cognitive abilities.
The basic line of thought here is quite straightforward:
(1) All objectively valid claims — all claims that could be true or false — are either a posteriori or a priori;
(2) The classical theistic conception of God is an infinite, unchanging, eternal, necessarily existing Being or Ground of Being that is simultaneously Being, Mind, and Love all at once (here I’m assuming that Hart is basically right about what the tradition states in The Experience of God);
(3) Finite measurements are the epistemic ground-floor of all a posteriori claims;
(4) But it is impossible to understand how there could be a finite measurement of such a Being, since we cannot take measurements outside of the Universe as a whole;
(5) So there cannot be any a posteriori evidence for or against the existence of God;
(6) All a priori claims are either analytic (e.g. logic) or synthetic (e.g. mathematics).
(7) No analytic a priori claim can establish existence-claims, since all such arguments only test for consistency within a set of freely and arbitrarily stipulated definitions;
(8) All synthetic a priori claims establish existence-claims only relative to a freely and arbitrarily stipulated conceptual system;
(9) But metaphysical claims transcend the limits of any conceptual system, so there can be no stipulated conceptual system for establishing metaphysical claims as synthetic a priori existence claims;
(10) So there are neither analytic a priori nor synthetic a priori claims sufficient to establish the existence or nonexistence of God
(11) So there cannot be any a priori demonstration of God;
(12) Hence, there are no objectively valid claims about God — the claim that “God exists” is neither true nor false.
If someone wants to take a ‘leap of faith’ and affirm the existence of God, I have no objections. But if she wants to say that she knows that God exists, then I’ll object. And I’ll also object if someone says that he knows that God doesn’t exist.
However, I do think that our policies and laws should be guided, to the maximal extent possible, by argument and evidence. And since religious claims are not grounded in argument or evidence, then they have no place in any discussions of policy or law.
Kantian Naturalist,
Atheist agnostic or theist agnostic?
For what it’s worth, I read the title and didn’t read any further.
Is there some reason I should?
Naw, you’re not missing anything.
Typical phoodoo incomprehension and incompetence at “mind-reading”. A bunch of slagging, most of it well-deserved against phoodoo, but not particularly interesting.
Good comments by Elizabeth (and me, if I say so myself) but hardly worth un-burying them …
Also, speaking strictly for myself, none of the New Atheists have had any impact on me. I don’t really know anything about celebrity-scientists like Sagan or Tyson, though I read some of Sagan’s books as a teenager. All I know about Penn Jillette is that he was a guest star on an episode of Babylon 5 (“Day of the Dead”, March 11 1998, written by Neil Gaiman).
Point is, none of the people who are associated with the atheist movement have had any impact on my thinking at any point in my intellectual development. So there’s no point in putting up some quote from one of them as if it is something I might be expected to agree with.
These days I’d say that my attitude towards religion is pretty much what Dewey was getting at in A Common Faith: a religious attitude without supernaturalism.
I don’t. All I have is experience of talking to people who describe themselves as atheists. Very few are what would be described as “strong atheists” i.e. claim to know that there is no god or gods. Most that I have met either do not, or have ceased to, belief in god or gods, rather than hold the belief that there is no god or gods. Very few of them are assholes, and some of them are in foxholes.
Patrick’s diagram sums it up pretty well.
Yes ,Phodoo, the death of a child is a never dying pain,theist or atheist. If her agenda was to make theists look like uncaring, hateful, frightened fanatics ,she failed miserably, however Phodoo, you knocked it out of the park. Congratulations
KN,
The New Atheists (and atheists in general) have had a huge impact on you. You seem to harden into a little ball of irrational anger whenever they are mentioned.
Case in point: this thread. What did Priscilla Blossom write that justifies the label — “atheist asshole” — that you and phoodoo have applied to her?
Neither? Both?
Here’s my worry about your position: taken one way, your position assumes that it’s intellectually acceptable to distinguish between metaphysical claims (what one holds to be true) and epistemological claims (whether one takes oneself to know or not).
I don’t think it is — I think that metaphysics is always answerable to epistemology (and conversely). No one is entitled to make a metaphysical claim ‘for free’, without doing some epistemology that establishes their right to make that claim. Of course the vast majority of people do make metaphysical claims without any corresponding epistemology, but that’s just to say that the vast majority of people routinely shirk their intellectual responsibilities as rational beings. No surprise there!
But maybe when you say “belief in the absence of knowledge” you mean something other than making a metaphysical claim. Then it would depend on what exactly do you do mean.
When it comes to claims that are part of the public sphere — claims that I expect others to challenge or accept — I think it is imperative for a rational being to restrict his or her claims to what can be supported with argument or evidence.
When it comes to claims that are privately held — claims that are part of one’s own personal, quite idiosyncratic way of being in the world — the expectation of challenge or acceptance by others isn’t part of the game, so argument and evidence aren’t required.
So I live and act as an atheist agnostic in the public sphere, and I live and act as a theistic agonistic in the private sphere.
Not sure if blogs are pubic or private, though. 🙂
keiths,
Going meta, I think its good if people try new approaches to things, even if they are wrong. So bravo ID, I suppose. Knowing there is nothing behind the door is also worthwhile.
I don’t “know” anything. I have opinions. I have expectations that I live by.
Some of my opinions and expectations are rather strong.
I expect to get up tomorrow and go to work. Other than weekends and holidays, there are so few exceptions to this, I can’t remember the last one.
I expect my car to start, but I’ve been disappointed in this. a number of times.
I have no strong opinions about what god might be. I think revealed religions are bullshit, leaning toward dangerous bullshit. I have a strong bias against belief that goes against evidence or common experience.
So I could say I believe the Abrahamic god is a myth having no more authority or substance that any other myths. It’s one of many gods I don’t believe in.
I don’t see that this particular disbelief makes me an atheist. I have no opinion at all regarding the existence of ground planes of being, etc. But when I think at all about such things, I mostly think about what physicists have to say.
Rich,
Trying new approaches is fine, but one needs to evaluate the results.
Apart from a transient frisson of self-righteousness, what does KN gain by his hair-trigger labeling of Priscilla Blossom as an “atheist asshole”?
“A little ball of irrational anger”? That’s almost Gregory-level hyperbole. I assure you, I’m no more than a medium-sized ball of semi-rational irritation.
On this point, I have a deeply embarrassing confession to make: I hadn’t read the article when I first responded to Phoodoo. I assumed — wrongly, as it turns out — that Phoodoo was reading Blossom’s article with some degree of understanding and empathy. Based on my own reading of Blossom’s article, after my initial remark, I would like to retract my remark that Blossom said anything disrespectful, rude or inappropriate.
In my partial defense, Salon does tend to give condescending jerks a platform when it comes to religion: They really want a theocracy: The GOP candidates who want to make you bow to their lord. The condescending jerk move is not the condemnation of theocracy, but in the simplistic identity of theocracy with religion and of secularism with rationalism.
Kantian Naturalist,
I was simply distinguishing between belief and knowledge. When someone asks you if you believe in a god or gods, “I’m agnostic” isn’t a response to the question. If you have belief, you’re a theist. If you lack belief, you’re an atheist.
I realize that some people claim agnosticism as a way of not making waves. I just don’t believe that religion deserves that privilege. If you wouldn’t say you’re agnostic about faeries at the bottom of your garden, you shouldn’t dodge the question just because theism is popular.
Phoodoo? Phoodoo???????????????
Glen Davidson
That’s fair, and I don’t quite disagree with you. I was trying to make a different point: is it intellectually respectable to have a belief that doesn’t meet the criterion for knowledge?
I think that it when comes to public beliefs, the answer is no — one should, in public matters, hold one’s own beliefs to the standard of knowledge and not believe things that aren’t (or can’t be) known.
When it comes to private beliefs — beliefs that don’t impact others, or impact others only insofar as they are part of one’s personal associations — the standard is much lower.
KN,
It’s a pretty accurate description.
That’s the kind of deep irrationality I’m talking about.
Ditto. It was irrational to make that assumption about phoodoo (of all people!), but you did so anyway because you wanted him to be right.
Kantian Naturalist,
Darn, we’re now in complete agreement. Do try to hold up your end of the argument longer next time.
It was irrational of me to make that assumption, yes — but it wasn’t because I wanted him to be right. It was because I’ve encountered previous articles in Salon in which self-described atheists come across as condescending jerks. It was a bad induction.
I make no promises! 🙂
The other day (it was Sept. 12, 1997) our beloved pet schnauzer died. It was awful, as you can imagine, devastating really. But we gained some comfort from the fact that the brilliant teaching of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell assured us that our lovely little “Mugsy Brittles” was playing with his rag doll in Heaven, along with our pet hamster Woolsy.
So I was telling this story at a party the other day, choking back the tears, and you know what happened? Someone told me they don’t think dogs and hamsters go to Heaven! How dare they. How dare they! They said, there is no evidence for Heaven, they said don’t worry, you can get another hamster. Another Woolsy? Yea right! I raised that little muffin for almost two weeks. How could I replace her?
And so that’s what I want people to understand. You think you are being kind by telling me that I can get another Mugsy, another Woolsy. That explaining to me that life is about a giant universe which is much more important than my Mugsy. That life goes on. And you just don’t care how evil that is.
But here is the main thing. Its not just the people who said I can get another ball of fur, the problem is the “religion” of all the people who came up to me to comfort me, when I needed it most last week. And every labor day (that’s when people can be the cruelest), because this was just 9 days before Mugsy found his playtoy in the sky.
You see, I want people to help me grieve THE WAY I WANT them to help me grieve. Can’t they see this?? Tell me WHAT I WANT to hear. let me rant wherever I can about how I think my religion is the right way to help me. About how my religion is wonderful, and gives me comfort. I am sure they think they are trying to be kind by giving me a hug and telling me its Ok, there are other Schnauzers. But the bond I shared with Mugsy, in the two days we owned her, can never be replaced.
Congratulations Phoodoo. You found a way to make yourself look like an even bigger ass than previously.
Well, the important thing is that you have made this into a way to attack those you don’t like. Not exactly new, but apparently self-satisfying.*
Glen Davidson
*Yes, obviously it’s supposed to be analogous, but I never really cared about that article anyway, although it gave you “reason” to attack a whole disparate group over it, so what of that? Anything is “reason” for you to attack, malign, and stereotype those with whom you disagree.
GlenDavidson,
Oh which the entire article was an attack of a stereotype! Which you all have conveniently and ironically overlooked! The title of her article is a stereotype!
“But you know, it gives me so much comfort to know we are but a speck in the unknown universe, as the Svengali Tyson said….THIS is how I want people to comfort me. Comfort me the way I WANT!”
No I haven’t, bozo, I disagreed with it and said I didn’t care for it. That she would call Sagan and Degrasse Tyson great thinkers would be enough reason for me to think that she’s kind of a herd atheist who hasn’t thought through things much.
But so what? There’s a whole lot of religious and atheist dreck out there, and it’s bigots that claim that the specific is the general.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
But the article is written by a proto-typical atheist. That is why Salon printed it. they didn’t print it because they thought she was a fringe nut. They printed it because they feel (quite rightly) that she represents a large segment of the atheist populations beliefs.
Her references to Sagan and Tyson are part of that core belief. These guys are famous, and also atheist, so they must be great thinkers. She is a grieved parent (she has no problem with the fact that her basically having a stillborn child gives her every bit as much right to demand sympathy as a parent who lost a child they actually knew and raised). She calls ideas of a God fantasies. She derides the idea that a decent God would let babies die. She calls herself a victim for being an atheist in a religions persons world (Oh no, I am a religious person in an atheists world!) . She hits all the marks atheists love.
And that is just why Salon would print it. NOT because they feel she is a fringe crazy. She is a mainstream atheist.
Whom EVERYONE on this site, outside of you is racing to defend.
KN,
You’re making my point for me.
1. A sensible induction would have been something like this: “Phoodoo consistently misrepresents atheists’ views. There’s a good chance he’s doing it again, so I’d better read the article myself instead of trusting his summary.” You inexplicably assumed the opposite.
Glen’s reaction says it all:
KN:
Glen:
2. Even neglecting phoodoo’s poor reputation, there was no basis for your assumption about Bloom’s article. Salon is anything but a haven for atheist puff pieces. Check out these titles:
ETA: Oops — prematurely posted. To be continued below.
2. Even neglecting phoodoo’s poor reputation, there was no basis for your induction regarding Blossom’s article. Salon is anything but a haven for atheist puff pieces. Check out these titles:
New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins (May 9, 2015)
8 atheist leaders actually worth listening to: Forget Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. The new atheists don’t have the final word on godlessness (June 18, 2015)
Atheists’ self-defeating superiority: Why joining forces with religion is best for non-believers (March 22, 2015)
Richard Dawkins’ moralizing atheism: Science, self-righteousness and militant belief — and disbelief (August 15, 2015)
Bill Maher’s bigoted atheism: His arrogant shtick is just as ugly as religious intolerance (April 13, 2015)
And those are just from the first page of search results!
Also, don’t forget that it was you who accused Dawkins — falsely, as it turns out — of “failing utterly as an empiricist.”
That’s pretty rich coming from someone who condemned an author as an “atheist asshole” without having read a single word of her article.
Beautifully put. Personally, the only reason I adopt the descriptor “atheist” at all is that it’s the label that seems to best describe me to most theists. In fact, when I was a theist I was accused of being an “atheist” by theists. So as the cap seems to fit reasonably, I’m content to wear it if someone else puts it on. It’s not a word of my own choosing.
At the risk of summoning Gregory, I’m an atheist in a similar sense to the sense in which a buddhist is an atheist (but I should make it absolutely clear I am not a buddhist). Or Einstein, when he wrote so beautifully to the father of a child who had died:
It’s also what I tried to convey to my own child when my mother died, and why I wrote this.
phoodoo, are you are parent?