Welcome to the forums.

Do us a favor though, please figure out how to change your text color. It is hard to read black text on this background.

For your next post I mean.

 

 

        My Teaching License will be in Social Studies. I could teach anything in that area but I would prefer history or world religions. The schools I have visited (Al-Amal, and Torah academy) both allow teachers not of that faith. It is actually against the law to discriminate against the beliefs of the teacher. It is true that they do teach their docterines but Judaism is big on critical thinking and this is shown in the scholar world. Jews are not only very good at science but are amoung the most respected scholars, as far as religion goes. I would also like this school because I could teach certain classes in Ancient Hebrew.

       The Islamic school is equally as orthodox as far as traditions go but they are light years a head of the Jewish school as far as science goes. The Jewish school simply does not teach evolution and refers students to their parents on this matter (granted this school only teaches up to 8th grade,) but the Islamic school does teach evolution and current science. Though they may not personally believe in it they understand it needs to be taught for the students success. They teach through grade 12 but by graduation their students have 4 semesters of college credit.

     Some Christian schools may brainwash their students  but I would not be involved in that garbage. I would probabaly limit myself to Catholicism for the main fact that they are the most respected in the scholarly world as far as Christians goes. Catholics do a good job of teaching science (especially evolution) and English. Studies have shown that students from Catholic schools have more knowledge of evolution than those who went to public schools.

     There are pluses and minuses to private/religious education. The question is does one want to risk their child following a particular faith for a good education or not? It is a difficult decision because children are very impressionable.

 Hello Athans!
You seem an interesting person. 

I'm not offended but no, atheism is not a religion and never was. It is a simple statement of unbelief. It is the same opinion you have about an invisible pink unicorn. But people are complicated and they like to decorate the facts. They like to expand upon atheism through philosophy, or express devotion and idealism towards it. 

On the other side, deeply religious people see all the world as religious. They sometimes can't imagine that scientists or philosophers just like interesting, true and precise facts, they don't worship some god or demon of knowledge. Or that they oppose religion because it's evidently unreal and illogical, not because they cheer for the Devil. These are the main reasons why people consider atheism a religion.

 

 So, how does a class of creationism look like? What will you say to the kids about that side of the discussion, once you get to teach it?

Hi Athans,

Welcome! Very interesting introduction. You'll certainly find lots to talk about here.

I tweaked your post. There is a button on the editor that looks sorta like an eraser, and its tool tip says it is "Remove Format". If you get stuck in some wacky formatting, you can select the text and use that to get out of it. Also, if you're pasting from another source, you can use the "Paste as plain text" or "Paste from Word" to clean up formatting issues. I recommend keeping formatting fairly simple. For example, the only formatting I used on your post was to change the titles from the "Normal" format to the "Header 3" format. If you are comfortable with HTML you can click the "Source" button to edit the HTML directly, if necessary. Aside from that, usually Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, Ctrl-U, adding links and using the quote function are sufficient for most purposes.

Like, religion in space, or just religion and space independently?

Agreed!

Your background brings to mind two people you might be interested in, if you haven't heard of them already. First is Dr. Robert M. Price, who used to do (still does? not sure) The Bible Geek podcast. He's a real character and has the kind of intense passion for the study of religion (mostly Christianity) that you seem to have. Fascinating guy and a great sense of humour too.

Second is Richard Carrier, a historian of Ancient History (including religion and science). He's a brilliant guy and has written a lot about religion (esp. Christianity) from an atheist/naturalist perspective. He's also done some great lectures and appearances on podcasts and the like.

Interesting. I actually agree with that sentence, but probably differently than you mean. I think the more people understand about religion, the more likely they will give it up as a belief system, and that will cut out a lot of hostility.

I have a similar feeling, perhaps. For me philosophy is just a natural part of my life. I spend a lot of my time thinking and working on my own philosophy. But I can't stand most academic 'philosophy' and 'philosohpers'. One of the few I respect is Daniel Dennett.

Would love to hear more about this.

Correction: Some forms of religion can be considered atheist. The simplest--IMO best--definition is simply lack of belief in any gods. All other definitions tend to leave out people who are obviously atheist, but don't fit in to the additional conditions tacked on to the basic 'lack of belief' definition.

Very good plan.

Lucky!...

If you're getting paid to go to school, and need help in Biology and math, as it turns out I'm currently working as a tutor in sciences (early bachelor level, all sciences, incl. Bio and evolution) and math (all bachelor levels). I don't know if it's feasible, but if you're interested in trying over-the-internet tutoring, I'd love to help. Send me a PM (or use my Contact tab in my user profile if you can't do PMs) if you're interested.

Again, welcome. Feel free to join in whatever interests you. I'll be interested to get your perspective on things. If you ever find the heat of discussion too much for you, you can always use the Kill 'Em With Kindness forum.

Interesting that this blog by Jason Rosenhouse just came out a couple days ago:

Somewhere in the comments around that post I found an analogy I hadn't heard before, but that seems to work really well: If atheism is a religion, then being pro-gun-control is a form of gun ownership. If you can find it, it's worth a gander.

 

       Wow there are a lot of new responses. I will get to them one by one. I agree with your view but I will explain the "religion" of Atheism a little more. I agree that the atheism you discribe is not religion but there are some cases when atheism can fit into the definition of religion. The definition in which it would fit is the definition of religion put forth by Sociologists. The theory was first proposed by Emilie Durkheim and has been changed slightly over time by those following in his foot steps. Basically they consider religion a social construct and things such as football could be considered "religion." It is a very broad catagory...

       The best example I can give of atheism being a religion was that imposed by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Atheism was forced on people and they tried to get rid of "religion," mainly Christianity. This was not a simple statement of unbelief but an imposed ideal on all Russian people.

       Creationism is not a scientific theory. It does not have a testable hypothesis. It is simply what they claim to be "evidence" and "logic" but is neither. It is a simple case of being uneducated or worse, a blatent attempt to get religion in the classroom. Creationism will never be taught in a science class HOWEVER I am not opposed to it being taught in a philosophy class or a theology class as long as the class is not required. Unless I recieve a teaching licence in science I will not have to deal with the issues that come up but if I did I would explain what science is or ask them to talk to me after class.

'Atheism' can be an aspect of some actual dogma or world-view, such as Stalinism, etc, which itself could be seen as a 'religion', but it would not correct to call atheism the defining core of that doctrine. So no, atheism cannot be defined as a religion.

 

Thanks for cleaning up my first post. Sorry about this post being a big text block but when I copy from word it doesn't show my spacing and stuff and I can't figure out how to get it to show up.Lol sorry I was unclear. Religion and space separately, unless there is religion in space? That sounds very fascinating. I grew up watching shows on TV about space and I have always liked Star Trek and Star Wars. I also used to go to star gazing groups. I think this is one of the reasons I was so drawn to Ancient Astronaut Theory. I wanted AAT to be true but once I started getting involved in scholarly research I came to almost hate it. I mean it is a good for a laugh but I take special offense to people such as Zachariah Sitchin. He portrays himself as a scholar of Ancient Languages and an archeologist. He is neither. He went to school for economics and that is about all. He could not provide any proof of a single course taken in either of the categories he claims to be an expert it. I take offense to that because he is undermining scholars who have spent their entire lives in this field. To get a degree in this area it takes a 4 year bachelors, like normal, but then takes another 5-9 years to receive a Ph.D. This guy eliminates 10-15 years of schooling by making some claim he is an expert and then people believe him. What would you like to know about Ancient Astronaut Theory? I could give you some basic details or I guess I could actually post a paper I wrote last semester in which I was looking at AAT as a religion from the stand point of Mircea Eliade. It was kind of a ballsy thing to do, especially with that professor, but I feel it went well considering I got a B+ on the paper. My English and grammar suck (I will need to work on that in the future,) so I normally do not do well on papers so a B+ is really good…The problem is they WON’T give it up as a belief system and that is the reason I do not argue about religion. I will post a short paper done by my friend who explains this and my view on religion. In short “religious” people need abductive reasoning alone. They do not need logic, empirical evidence or inductive reasoning like I’m sure most of you do. I have a lot to say about this topic but in short this is my biggest gripe with most atheists. They believe if these illogical religious people were just shown the facts they would give up their faith. That is no different than saying an atheist would become a Christian if they just simply read the Bible.Thanks for the tutoring offer but I do not think I need it. There are 2 reasons for this. First, I understand the theories and the information in science but I do poorly because they require me to math. I just do not understand math and I really shouldn’t have passed it in high school. Going back to school I was excited because math fits my line of thinking but I just can’t grasp it. You can show me a problem 1 minute and it makes sense but then 5 minutes later I cannot figure it out to save my life. My wife gets annoyed because she has a degree in science but I always crush her in Chemistry topics. She gets mad and asks how I know this crap because I got a D in Chemistry. I tell her that I understand Chemistry just fine but if you ask me to figure out how many mols or there are in a certain number of grams or something, I’m in trouble... The second reason I do not need help is my wife is amazing at math. She took the most advanced math classes and slept through them, so she is here if I need her.I might check out the Kill ‘Em with Kindness forum but I’m sure I can hold my own. And like I said, I am not here to get in heated debates.

 

Here is my friend Anthony's Theory of Religion. I feel like it is a good representation of my beliefs. I hope you take the time to read it but if you do not that is fine also. Anthony is a Religious Studies major with a Political Science minor. He is also a linguist.

Religion : A Definition
by Anthony Meyer on Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 4:50pm
Preface

It has been an active pursuit spanning more than two centuries now to discover and analyze a theory of religion which could be used universally, with a descriptive function, to serve as a foundation for a dialog about religion and how it relates to the human experience. It has been a noble pursuit, to my eyes, for definitions are incredibly important to understand one another, and understanding is something absolutely essential when it comes to a dialog about religion. It seems that at least in America, religion is an inherently emotional topic, and people tend to make the stakes of these dialogs very high (and with good reason). Thus, finding a universal definition for the term "religion" is not only a noble task but a useful one as well.

However, despite the goal's nobility or usefulness, it has become a popular trend in the field of religious studies to concede a defeatist attitude about a universal definition of religion. Instead, the ideologies of the liberal "intellectual" have risen to power declaring that such cannot be found, and where once we valued systematic interpretation and the scientific approach we now value something wholly different: tolerance. Now I would be the last person to argue against tolerance in social practice. I agree with my forefather when he said, "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782). That said, it is a very different thing altogether to advocate tolerance in language. Tolerance in language necessitates inclusion in definition which renders language meaningless. That is, if we are to be tolerant and open minded about how a word is defined, we must then concede that the number of things which may be included under the umbrella of that word is constantly increasing ad infinitum until the word comes to mean anything and everything, and thereby means nothing. Not only does such a linguistic tolerance do injustice to language, but it also does an injustice to its subject. As a case in point, our subject here, religion, cannot be called just anything for there are certain things which religious people themselves protest that they certainly are not; a nation or political system, for example.

Therefore, in that vein I would like to pick up where the greats of religious studies left off, and in so doing cut off the liberal intellectuals who followed them in their wrong direction. I speak in reverence, of course, of Clifford Geertz. To my eyes, his "thick" description of religion was, and remains to this day, the closest we as scholars of religion ever came to realizing the universal definition of religion. There are certain, specific things which Geertz and I disagree on, which will be assessed below. Yet, on the whole, most people, even his religious subjects, could easily find truth in his work, and I feel that in the field of religious studies that is the true pay-off: the work must be agreed upon by its subjects. Without this, the study has not been a scholarly pursuit of the "other's" perspective, but rather a twisted and perverted view of one's own perspective put on display to stroke one's own ego, a sort of "intellectual masturbation." As I have said, Geertz made great strides in this way. However, he had his shortcomings as I certainly will. Given below has no pretense of being "gospel," but I do hope that it can be seen is a next step in understanding religion and how it functions in the human experience. Along these lines, I'd like to close this introduction by quoting Newton, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Theory

I suppose the simplest way to begin is to declare outright that I believe that Geertz was correct when he portrayed religion as a cultural system. For Geertz, lots of things create a society's culture: economics, politics, art, and not least of all religion. Thus, all of these things are cultural systems. This may seem like common sense, but believe it or not, this was a revolutionary theory at the time. Far more common was the idea that religion was not a producer of culture alongside these other things, but rather religion was a product of these other things. Marx, for example, famously claimed that religion was a product of social class struggle. Durkheim believed that religion was a product of the creation metaphors for the society as a whole. Indeed, Geertz was one of few voices in the field to finally bring religion up to its proper place.

However, Geertz makes things, to my eyes, far more complicated than need be. He gives a terribly specific, 5-point description of religion which is brilliantly argued, point by point, but really only serves to alienate his subject as he goes on. I am relatively certain that this alienation was not intentional of Geertz, but rather unavoidable given his worldview. For my part, I present here a 3-part description of religion in hopes that it will not alienate my subject or turn religion into something it is not.

A religion is:
(1) any social group of
(2) individuals who are psychologically dependent upon beliefs which are
(3) based on faith.

Each of these parts will be taken below, in Geertzian fashion, point by point.

1. Any social group: Immediately it may seem that I have offended some. Especially in America, the religious experience is characterized as a uniquely individualistic experience. The Evangelical Christian is encouraged every Sunday to have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." Even more problematic is the practice of the religious ascetic who (like my namesake, Saint Antony) leaves the society to live alone in devotion to their faith. Asceticism is not an uncommon aspect of religions and certainly not a uniquely Christian one. The life cycle of every person in Hinduism holds that after one has reached a certain point they are to become "forest dwellers," living outside of the village in a state of constant study of the Vedic texts.

Given these seeming contradictions, how then can I claim that religion is a decidedly social subject? To this question, I respond in kind: How is it that we have heard of Saint Antony? If Saint Antony was a true, absolute hermit with absolutely zero contact with the outside world, how would we have heard of his exploits, however fanciful their details? The fact is, although Saint Antony certainly did live outside the boundaries of the cities, that he left and stayed way so long only made him more entrenched in the social group. All this is just "pretentious-speak" for a simple fact, Saint Antony was famous. Now, just how separate are famous people from society? Would their fame exist without a social context. Simply stated, no.

As for the Hindu "forest dwellers," I have dishonestly left out an important detail. A man or woman only becomes a forest dweller if he or she lives long enough and with enough financial security to afford to do so. If their offspring are not independent enough to provide for the family on their own, the Hindu senior simply never "retires." Given the known poverty of this country, it should be little surprise when I tell you that it is far more common the case that a man or woman should die before ever realizing that ideal final stage. If they do, however, the sheer difficulty in attaining that position makes them highly honored and respected within the society they claim to leave. That alone makes a similar case as the one for Saint Antony above, but the reality is actually even less fanciful. In theory, the person goes and inhabits the forest alone in religious devotion, but in practice they usually just study diligently at home in the village.

Risking troubled waters, I now must assess this "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." For this I raise nothing more than what many Evangelical churches claim themselves. A popular Evangelical saying states the following, "Experience God, not religion." To this saying I supplement that this "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," should anyone actually ever truly attain it, is not a religious practice but rather a belief and practice of the individual in the realm of theism. We shall see, however, and I will make it clear here now, that theism and religion are certainly not tied at the hip. You can have one without the other. We will see that more specifically in section three.

In short, a religion is not a religion without some sort of social construct, and by social construct I mean that there are understood behaviors and beliefs which are valued or discourage by the "in-group." A personal relationship with Jesus is highly valued in the Evangelical social group, which is why they make such a spectacle of the "personal testimony" of their conversion stories or struggles in their individual lives which God has helped them overcome. On the other hand, the eating of pork in Jewish social groups is a common and simple example of a behavior which would have a social cost on the perpetrator. That religion is so entrenched in the social aspect of the human experience is actually probably more a surprise to the atheist than the religious among you. After all, the ten commandments were nothing if not a record of what was considered socially valuable or stigmatized at the time they were authored, and even the atheist will concede that at least a few of these commandments are consistent with social regulations still in use today.

2. Psychologically Dependent upon Beliefs: Here it will be significant to differentiate what I mean by psychological as it is opposed to intellectual. The former, psychological, refers solely with the realm of human instinctual feeling and emotion. When we feel hunger, lust, or fear (for but a few examples), we are experiencing that instinctual psychology of the human species which requires of us to protect and preserve ourselves. When we feel joy, fulfillment, or hate (again for but a few examples), we are similarly experiencing the emotional psychology of the human experience which has been born out of our interactions with each other. The latter term, intellectual, refers solely that to the realm of ideas and beliefs. These are mental constructs and how we feel about these beliefs is considered something entirely separate from the belief itself. To this intellectual category we will return in the third part of this work.

Psychological so defined, I must now make clear what I mean by "dependent." It will be hard for me to describe this part, again, without sounding offensive. I shall try my best, however, because I personally do not feel that psychological dependence is a "bad" thing. At the very least it is understandable, and at the most it can often be commendable. I view the term "dependent" in much the same way as I'm sure most people would; unable or willing to do without (something). Here, the analogy of the drug addict is, unfortunately, the best to display this point. Only accounting for the human mind's needs, the human mind does not (at conception) require cocaine, for instance (unless the mother was using during pregnancy, which offers an interesting parallel). However, should the human eventually use cocaine and become addicted, then and only then does the human mind biologically begin to need cocaine. This is what is meant by the term "addiction," a psychological dependency on a substance.

In the case of religion, the "substance" the religious individual is addicted to differs as widely as there are religions in the world. To serve the ends of explanation, however, two will be listed here in summary. First, I must approach my main audience, the Evangelical Christian. With this subject, his mind is either unable or unwilling to do without the knowledge that there is a deity watching over them and the world. For them, this is a satisfying and easing psychological view. When so believed, the world has a certain order (as is so important to Geertz) that makes the mysterious explainable, the tragic endurable, and moral ambivalence understandable. Should this view be undermined (as we will discuss in the final section), we would expect the religious man to respond emotionally and instinctively. And indeed, as any militant atheist would tell you, the Christian in debate often becomes very heated indeed. What the militant atheist would be less inclined to tell you is just how heated he becomes for similar reasons (His worldview too, in debate with a Christian, is being severely undermined. To this we shall return).

As for my second subject, I will take the curious case of the devout Buddhist. Buddhism, as Gautama taught it, is a strictly atheistic and anatta religion. Atheism can be summarized briefly as the ideological position that characteristically lacks a belief in a deity. Anatta is defined similarly as the ideological position which lacks a belief in the soul. Curious, then, is it that Buddhism should refer to itself without reservation as a religion. However, this is less curious when we recognize that religion and theism are not tied to the hip, to which we have already referred. Here, a Buddhist replaces the belief in a god or a soul with other equally psychologically satisfying (for him) beliefs; Dukkha (suffering) and one's release from Dukkha by means of Nirvana. I should like to make it perfectly clear here that I am absolutely NOT saying that Dukkha and Nirvana are the Buddhist's gods, but merely that they are serving the same psychological function as God does to the Christian. It is important to notice that same function does not dictate same thing. I can use the heel of my boot to drive a nail into a wall, but this does not make my boot a hammer. Just as much as we are making important the definition of religion as distinctive from other cultural systems, it is as important to keep distinct differing beliefs and terms, especially in such a controversial subject.

Returning to the subject of the Buddhist, the ideology of Dukkha as the simple reality of the universe and Nirvana as an ultimate process of salvation from that suffering can, thus, obviously be seen as serving the same satisfying and easing psychological effect as the Christian God. It is no wonder, then, that the Buddha is always depicted with a serene look upon his face. The suffering of the world is of no more concern for him; he no longer suffers from it nor adds to it.

3. Based on Faith: This is the intellectual aspect of religion. Already I will have perhaps made the militant atheist angry for, to the stereotypical atheist, to declare anything that religion does as "intellectual" implies that religion is not, as he believes, "absolute nonsense." And, indeed, this is precisely the implication I hope the reader to draw. Religion is neither irrational, nor illogical, nor unintelligent. To these conclusions we will arrive shortly. For now, allow me to, yet again, properly define my terms.

Faith, as I see it, is abductive reasoning without the requirement of deductive or inductive reasoning. Yes, I realize how unhelpful it is to define a term with even more confusing ones. However, I hope to make these terms clear, and in so doing, I believe they will be very helpful in forming my argument. The former term, abductive reasoning, is best depicted, to my eyes, by the following example from Wikipedia, "For example, the lawn is wet. But if it rained last night, then it would be unsurprising that the lawn is wet. Therefore, by abductive reasoning, it rained last night." With this example there are a great many other possible explanations for why the grass would be wet (some neighbor kids had a super-soaker fight, you accidentally left the sprinkler on all night, etc.). However, to come to any more narrowed (deduced) set of options necessarily requires abductive reason's deductive counterpart.

"Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypotheses. A deductive argument is valid if the conclusion does follow necessarily from the premises, i.e., if the conclusion must be true provided that the premises are true. A deductive argument is sound if it is valid and its premises are true" (Wikipedia). For example, all items with a density less than 1 g/ml will float in water, a ping pong ball has a density less than 1 g/ml, therefore a ping pong ball must float in water. Inductive reasoning is a bit like deductive reasoning except it begins with a premise which is, at the very least, generally accepted as fact (although this is never stated without a doubt), and the conclusion usually reflects the premise in absolute terms. For example, all the swans we have ever seen have been white, therefore all swans are white. While abductive reasoning has a known ending and the beginning must be presumed, inductive reasoning has a known beginning and a presumed ending. Therefore, if either is to be logically complete, deductive reasoning, which focuses on making valid steps from a premise (beginning) to a conclusion (ending), must bridge their gaps.

In short, faith is satisfied by a simple theory, belief, or ideology as long as it could possibly have produced the reality before them. No other evidence or system of logic need be applied or even taken into account. Defined this way, when I say that an individual's beliefs are based upon faith, I am in fact saying that his beliefs need only be justified using abductive reasoning. To the mind of the religious man, this is more than enough proof and once this perspective "lens" has been established in an individual anything and everything can be seen as further proof of that unknown premise of abductive reasoning. This is precisely what Geertz is describing when he speaks of the "religious perspective" as: "If one is to know, he must first believe." However, I disagree with Geertz in his view that the realm of common-sense and practical act are the paramount human experience, which implies that religion is always secondary. There is, in my experience, a very real power in religion to shape the "lens" of man so that the real world is instead seen as a manifestation of the divine all the time. Geertz, of course, knows the power of religion to change an individual's view of the real world as divine, but he appears to insist that even the most religious of men do not view the world as religious even a majority of the time. From what I have seen of religions, it seems to me that this dominant religious perspective is absolutely attainable and was probably the norm in the Ancient Near East.

As before, I am now again faced with the very real possibility that I have offended the religious among you. If I may respectfully retort, how is it that the religious man would typically define faith? Would it be inaccurate to assume a definition somewhere along the lines of what Kahlil Gibran says, "Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof."? Here, faith is considered beyond the petty burden of proof. Faith is considered superior, and indeed, for the religious man faith is absolutely superior to proof. In so saying, then, is it really inaccurate to define faith as this dispensation of proof? For, in reality, this is all that my definition claims; faith is above proof and human reasoning. It is, by definition, something beyond the comprehension of man.

To illustrate this point specifically, let us take up the Buddhist again. The ideology of the Buddha requires an unquestioned belief in the concepts of Dukkha, Nirvana, and yes even reincarnation (despite the lack of a soul to be transported from one body to the next). As far as deductive or inductive reasoning is concerned, neither seems to have been employed, not even by Gautama himself. Instead, the authority of this knowledge is based upon a rather mystical revelation under a fig tree after an unnatural time to have been without food or water. To the Buddhist, this knowledge and "myth" is more than enough to substantiate his whole worldview. In the same way, if I may take up respectfully the case of the Christian, his ideology requires the unquestioned belief in a god which can neither hear nor see nor eat nor smell; nor can he be heard, nor seen, nor eaten, nor smelled. Clearly, deductive and inductive reasoning are not of great concern to either of these men.

It is interesting, then, that the religious man should be found to use deductive and inductive reasoning while in debate with an atheist or other skeptic. This, however, should not be seen as the religious man's attempt to view his own religion or beliefs under these terms. After all, he has had no need to do so prior to this conflict. On the contrary, the religious man is only attempting to twist his opponent's logic against him. Yet, he is inherently not very talented at this skill. This is not a reflection of the religious individual's incompetency. By no means! In my experience, intelligent men are religious and non-religious alike. Along with the religious man's lack of skill in employing deductive and inductive reasoning runs the atheist's equal and parallel handicap of being unable to use only abductive reasoning. In other words, what is at play here is not a reflection of a lack of intellect, but rather a difference of logic systems, where each is seen by the adherent as the more valid. It is precisely this point which brings us to why the atheist and skeptic often become so heated in debates. Since the atheist worldview is shaped by logic and reason, the religious individual himself is the very thing which undermines that worldview. And, in accord with the religious reaction of emotion, the atheist, for he too is only human, becomes just as angry and hot as his opponent.

To close this section, I beg the pardon of the Christian reader, for an atheist is about to quote scripture. I do so only to make a point and to show that what I have said is specifically not earth shattering and apparently not all that new. For, if Jesus could have said it nearly 2,000 years ago, it must be an old and obvious idea indeed. In Mathew 11:25 states, "At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants." Clearly faith is not only something different from the wisdom and intelligence of mere men, but something very close to God.

Conclusion

In proper form, I shall end as I began. Religion is a cultural system. From this it should be implicit that, to my eyes, a cultural system requires three aspects: (1) a social, (2) a psychological, and (3) an intellectual. In this way, religion is not so unique from, say a Free Market Capitalist society. In this example, a Free Market Capitalist society is (1) a social group of (2) psychologically consumerist individuals whose beliefs are (3) based on self-interest. Yet, I mention this example not to show that, as Durkheim so profanely does, that religion is merely a representation of something else. On the contrary, I raise this example to show just how different and unique religion is even within its category of "cultural system."

In so many ways, religion proves to be atheism's superior. Never have beautiful works of art been made in the name of atheism. Never have nations been moved to peace and to war in the name of agnosticism. Religion is so much more than atheism, for atheism is only an ideology. Atheism itself makes no claim in a social system; for this most atheists resort to Humanism (myself included). Similarly, atheism alone stakes no claim on how one psychologically reacts to the ideology. In my experience, many people have resorted to an equally many different psychological dispositions. It seems very common, in the U.S. anyway, that newly converted atheists tend to quickly turn to the psychologically dependent system of social liberalism. For them, it seems that this "loving, tender, tolerant" perspective is a quick "Indiana Jones" switch for the dependence once enjoyed under religion. I for one made this conversion at first, as well. After a certain point, however, with the aid of my twin brother, I was shown that switching from religion to social liberalism is a bit like quitting smoking by taking up heroin. In other words, the cure for psychological dependency is not a different addiction, but rather psychological independence. This certainly seems to be what has occurred in Richard Dawkins and explains that unabashed ego of his (a reason to both love him and hate him).

Finally, I hope I have made clear the profound respect I have for religion, both the subject and the cultural system. Often I stand in awe of it; not with the open mouth of sarcastic piety, but with the open eyes of genuine reverence. That we differ intellectually should not be grounds enough for hatred between us. This message is for both my atheist and religious readers. So often we only learn about each other so as to "know thy enemy." In so doing, I hope I can say that I have made a friend of religion, and it has never done me any wrong. For the ills that religion does play on the world, I hope we, as atheists, can try to remember that we no more deserve to be "holier than thou" than the priests. After all, we are all only humans.

Your brother in death,

Anthony


Thank You

I should like to thank the inspirations of the preceding work. Certainly Dawkins and of course Geertz are among them. For the others, I wish I had the time, memory, and space to right them all. The three men which rise above all the others as the foundation of my "lens" with which I view the world are as follows in the order in which I demand others to read their works: "The Predictioneer's Game" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, "How to Read the Bible" by Marc Zvi Brettler, and "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley. Your works have changed my life over and over again, and I cannot possibly display the sheer burden of gratitude I bear for you three brilliant men. Next, I must thank Bernard Levinson for being my first true inspiration into the field of religious studies and for seeing something more in me than I saw in myself. I hope to be half the man you are one day. Of course, I would be remiss for not thanking my twin brother Brian. You have been the foil to which I compare myself our whole life. Always the reasonable one, I would not be what I am today had you not had a hand in shaping it. Finally, I feel I must thank (and apologize to) the victims of the innumerable religious debates with which I had instigated. It should be obvious that this work was "born out of fire." Know now that my "blades have been made into plowshares." To the many others who have inspired me, I cannot thank you enough. I hope that being tagged in this note will show how much you mean to me. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

 

So what you mean is an organized religion. Atheism does not become a religion, it becomes organized. Maybe it also becomes idealized, with many people devoted to it, but still there is no holy figure to give it a supposed supernatural trademark.
(well, from esoteric point of view the patron of skeptics, atheists, agnostics and scientists is Hilarion a.k.a. St. Paul)

Indeed! "Being fair to creationism" as some teachers say does not mean speaking of it as seriously as of the evolution science. It means explaining the sheer idiocy of creationism in blunt and simple words. But if it's for a class of philosophy, I think the best would be to mention some other bizarre creation myths, to see they're just as logical as the biblical one. What about some goat-milking in Odin's style or gigantic australian crocodile copulating with a hole in the ground.

Welcome to the forum.

 

<---- My baby.

Welcome to the forums Athans.

I too was raised Lutheran, my mother was originally a Lutheran school teacher. I became Catholic when I married. I became atheist after college and a graduate degree at a Jesuit University.

The more you learn about religion, the less believable it is.

 

@pauljohntheskeptic

That is one of my favorite quotes. We had a speaker that was raised Evangelical Protestant, converted to Catholicism and finally turned atheist. He was a school teacher and his last degree with in divinity. He said "the more you learn about the Bible, the less you believe it."

I guess that is why I try and get info about the Bible out there...

 

@RatDog

Well if you don't understand the world religion you are learning. Most people think the Abrahamic religions when they say religion.

I tend to agree with your observation for the most part as far as the Abrahamic religions go...

My big question was HOW did religions come about. That has led me more towards anthropology. I don't care that people believe in something we might think it stupid, I want to know why and how.

I agree. I spend most of my time here in lengthy discussions with Christians in regard to the Bible, understanding what was really meant and why. The Jews did not live in a sheltered glass bubble from the rest of the world. When one studies the details and compares them to other ancient beliefs, history, and events many distortions are obvious and the less believable.

There are several Christians here of differing viewpoints who are very willing to discuss issues. They won't likely change their views but others who read it that are in the "grey" areas just might.

Taking some time off. Burned out from work and I have a sick wife and a baby to take care of. I will be back in a couple of days.

You know, I don’t think this is the site for me. I may continue to read here but I am not going to support this hate for religion and I am not going to help try to abolish it. I like your attitude as far as keeping religion out of the science classroom and out of the government but trying to eradicate it like some type of disease is wrong. My number one rule is I do not argue about religion and what I am doing? Arguing about religion…You guys have ALL the answers and clearly don’t need someone like me. I started typing up a big long detailed response but it hit me after about an hour and a half that it was pointless. Just like a Christian claiming they have all the answers you too do the same thing and claim you have all of the answers. You have your world view established and it’s not going to change so what is the point of me trying to change it? This is all a dead end argument because anything negative you will blame on religion and anything positive you will find a way to give credit to some other factor.
Edit: I guess to be fair I will read what others are saying and not just the few I have had discussions with before I make my final decision but if you plan on doing the following I have no desire in talking with you.
I do not have the time and dedication to explain every little thing out for you word for word. I don’t know what you guys do but I have a family, job, and I go to school. One would imagine that someone might have the logic and reason to figure out what someone is saying but you have proven you are incapable of doing that. Instead you sit around and try and point out logical fallacies when there isn’t one. You want an example? Here are 2 of my quotes…
“WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? WE HANG RELIGIOUS PEOPLE?”
“If it’s not going away what should we do? Should we understand them and accept them, or hang them all?”
Here is your suggestion…
“ This is called a False Dichotomy Fallacy, the fallacy that there are only two possibilities when in reality there are more than two.”
Of course there are more than 2 options. Do you really think I am that stupid that I think there are only 2 options? That is what we call an example. I should not have to explain to you that that statement does not represent my beliefs of the only option. I was simply asking what you think we should do about it. Understand them and hang them are simply 2 of many examples.
While we are on the topic of logical fallacies I will point out ad hominem. I’m guessing I don’t need to explain the definition to someone brilliant like you right? Here is your quote.

Yeah, good job calling me ignorant, arrogant, condescending, and self-defeating. I have given up on them? As if they have some sort of incurable disease? I simply respect their beliefs and allow them to believe what they choose. YOU think they have a problem.
Calling someone hypocritical is not always an insult but it can be taken as one…

Hypocritical? Really? I give no solution? My solution is let people be religious. Just keep it out of schools and politics.
You also go on and keep asking for evidence while providing none yourself. I will give you more evidence than you can deal with but I know it’s pointless because you really do not care about anything that goes against your established beliefs. It appears your only evidence is personal revelation which Christians love to use. You also have your philosophical genius to support your cause. One of the reasons I am a philosophy minor is because I hate philosophy. It has some good points but for the most part it’s people sitting around speculating about things without actually doing any research, or at the very least reading a book. Here are 2 real quotes by people that have Ph.Ds in Philosophy…
“Well are you sure fish don’t feel pain? I mean maybe they feel this kind of pain but not this kind of pain…” No moron, I know fish don’t feel pain because I have the ability to read a fricking book.
“Well we know that homosexuality its natural because there are no examples of it in nature.” Once again a biology text book can prove that wrong instantly. Also my class called The Evolution and Biology of Sex, a class that can be taken by any university student, would prove that very incorrect.
And those are statements by trained Philosophers. Philosophy is worthless unless it is being used on information you already know something about.
That leads me to this…

If you are going to claim it is Non-sequitur why don’t you first PROVE your point with some EVIDENCE. Let’s see the peer reviewed articles that state what exactly make someone religious. Let’s see the evidence of why the scientists that believe there is a biological link are wrong. Let’s see proof that their natural state is unbelief. I actually find that last one plausible but I doubt you could find any scientific papers on it. Even if the natural state is unbelief you are not addressing the issue of whether or not they are inclined to believe something based on a certain type of reasoning.
You do this a number of times. You ask me to provide evidence and then take the opposing view and show no evidence. I am not going to just take your word for it that you know what you are talking about. At least give me some background info on you and what your degrees are in and I might take it a little more seriously. That is why I had such a big introduction, to say “hey I’m more than a Google artist.” I am not saying I have all of the answers, because I don’t, but I am saying I have studied a lot of this stuff in an academic setting.
Listen, some of the religious groups out there infuriate me to no end. I have had bad experiences with religious people and I still do, especially at school. Most of the people in the Religious Studies program are planning on being priests and pastors things like that. But a lot of times the reason I am attacked right off the bat is because of people like some of those on this site that think religion is evil and should be done away with. I’m sorry you had bad experiences but not all religious people are like that. If someone gets beat up by a group of black guys is it then justifiable to hate all black people and join the KKK? If you have been screwed over by a number of women is it then justifiable to hate all women? Just because you had a bad experience with some religious people does not make it justifiable to hate all religious people, and yes you do hate them. And don’t even start to tell me this isn’t analogous because I don’t want to hear your opinion on it. You aren’t fooling people with the “kill em with kindness.” We have a group on campus called CASH (Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists) and they always have signs up saying “Hug and atheist” and “Atheists are people too!” They also have a stand that says “ask an atheist anything.” I have spent many hours sitting near this stand watching and listening and it is my conclusion that they are only looking for an argument. I see more yelling and screaming at it and the atheists talk with such a condescending tone acting like they have all of the answers to the world. In my class, Religion and Ethics in Educational Policy, we had 2 atheists from that group literally stomping their feet and yelling at the Christians. That is why people don’t like atheists.
I really don’t give a crap if anyone responds to this and I kind of hope no one does. If this is my farewell speech, fine. But don’t talk to me if…
You don’t have scholarly, peer reviewed evidence
You are unwilling to tell me you background and educational experience
You are going to talk in a condescending tone
You are going to point out logical fallacies instead of addressing the topic
You are going to use circular arguments
You are going to tell me how much you hate religion and how evil it is
You aren’t going to take what I say into consideration without automatically dismissing it
You believe you have all of the answers
You really don’t think you can learn anything from me
You are just trying to educate me (because I do have the ability to read and watch youtube videos on your views and opinions)
You want to argue about religion
I think that about does it for the most part. If anyone still wants to talk I should let you know that I will be in Alaska for 2 weeks for military training so I will not be around.
 

EKAthans,

that is sad, and full of far more baseless assumptions and 'non-peer-reviewed' claims than I can see around here, nearly as bad in that respect as virtually every religious doctrine.

We are not basing our ideas on 'bad experiences with religious people'!!! Please!!

It is the fundamentally flawed and totally invented nature of the doctrines of religion themselves that most of us object to.

Even when they motivate people to do good things, it is for the wrong reasons, which means, as we see, that religion can just as easily, if not more so, lead people to do bad things, because there is no true moral basis behind it, being based instead on the conception of an authority figure handing down edicts, rather than genuine concern over avoiding imposing harm and suffering to others.

And we are not focussed so much on the believers themselves as objects of hate, except insofar as they persist in doggedly and deviously trying to justify the religious doctrines they claim to base their world-view on, after repeated attempts to show them what we see as the problems in the doctrines.

I try to be very positive and encouraging especially to the more honest 'theists' who are prepared to concede the possibility that there are problems in the official doctrines, especially the OT, but still find comfort in some parts of scripture.

Sorry you couldn't see that - if you are accurately describing your impressions of this site, then it clearly is not for you.

If you are this sensitive to having your beliefs criticized, then this is indeed not the forum for you. In fact, I don't think online forums, in general, are going to be very pleasing to you. 

Do you respect all religious beliefs, sir?

Racism is not a good analog of my position on religion for several reasons. 

Skin color is a physical characteristic of people that can be correlated to their actions, but it is very difficult for it to influence their actions. On the other hand, organized religions are social entities that are definitively closed-minded, having sets of fundamental beliefs that can't be questioned. If we allow that beliefs inform actions, then it is a given that religious beliefs will inform actions to at least some extent. On this point alone, it makes much more sense to be opposed to a religion than a skin color.

Also, skin color is a trait passed on through our genes while a religion must be passed on through advertisement, indoctrination, etc. so the religion of an individual can change while their skin color cannot. 

I don't hate religious people, except for some radicals and fundamentalists that I can observe to do 'bad' things; I hate most religions. Thus, for the analogy to be more accurate, our positions should be compared to hating black skin or hating the state of being female, rather than hating black people and hating women. No one holds such a position because there is no logical basis for despising such traits.  

I have had some bad experiences with religious people, but I am confident that, overall, my experiences are very mild compared to some of the other posters here. I am opposed to religion in principle, not because of personal experiences. 

That is certainly possible.

"Hate"? I don't hate belief systems. Your phrasing of my beliefs and attitudes as 'hate' is rather offensive to me.

So.... don't. Nobody's forcing you to, or even asking you to.

Why? You haven't provided any reason except for your own personal distaste for arguing over religion. I'm fine with you not wanting to participate in my style and in my goals. Do your own thing. Fine.

But when you tell me that I'm doing something that is "wrong", you're claiming I'm acting unethically, and I would like to see you make that case, or else stop making it.

How would you like it if someone said to you, "... but trying to study religion and teach others about it is wrong." Would that make any sense to you? Probably not. Just as your charge against me/us doesn't make any sense. Can you demonstrate that what we're doing is wrong? Can you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? If not, then stop making baseless accusations against us. We don't do it to you!

Nobody's forcing you to do this. As far as I remember, you initiated this whole debate by claiming we're doing something ineffective and/or wrong. If you didn't want to get tangled up in defending your claims against us, the easiest thing to do would be to just stop making such claims, especially when they are baseless.

What's that supposed to mean? Nobody here is claiming to have all the answers. We just disagree with your portrayal of the situation (as seeing deconversion as a hopless thing, when it is demonstrably not).

WHERE!!?!?!?!?!

Where has anyone done this in the conversations you've participated in?

How would you feel if someone told you "You think you have ALL the answers."? Would you think that their accusation was accurate, or inaccurate? Probably inaccurate, right? Because, probably, you don't actually think that, right?

Same goes for us. We don't actually think that. We don't accept your characterization of us. It is, frankly, bullshit.

Think about it. If you really believe that we think we have all the answers, but you don't have any sort of evidence to back that up as a fact, then shouldn't you double-check your assumptions? Clearly, you're missing something. Have you thought of alternative explanations? Such as that we don't actually think we have all the answers, but simply that we are confident enough in the tentative answers we do think we've found to make a strong case for them in the public sphere.

That is, in fact, false. My worldview changes all the time, as I learn more and more. I have changed positions on topics in the past and I will most probably do so many times in the future.

Your claim that I/we are closed-minded and dogmatic and impervious to reason is almost exactly 180 degrees opposite from reality.

How would you like it if someone claimed that about you? Would you think it was accurate or inaccurate? Insulting or not?

What is the point of trying to change anyone's opinion about anything? Because it's worthwhile? Because it is possible, and can in fact be very effective at bringing about change in society? Those are my reasons.

So, you already know everything about us, is that it? You know everything we're going to say, even before we ourselves do, is that what you're saying?

You have already decided that it's not possible for us to have good reasons for our positions, and that our questioning of common folk wisdom about religion is not actually questioning, but instead is really blaming and discrediting.

Well, if that were true, you'd be right in thinking that there's no point in discussing anything. However, what makes you think it's true? What if you're wrong and we do actually have good reasons for our positions? Wouldn't you be closing yourself off to that possibility by making such assumptions about us? Why would you want to do that?

Again, if you don't want to spend time discussing the effects of religion, then why did you join the conversation which was about those effects?

Don't blame us for responding to your comments. If you comment on something, anyone else is free to comment back to you in reply. If that bothers you, don't join the conversation.

Surprise! The people you tend to interact the most with on any website on ANY topic are the ones who have the time and interest-levels to spend on that topic. This is the website I spend the most time on because I think it's an important and worthwhile endeavour. Some are like me, but others only come on once a week or less. It makes sense that you're going to get the more 'hardcore' types interacting with you the most. It's the same everywhere on the internet.

Incapable? Really? You know, there's an obvious alternative that you (conveniently) left out: Sometimes when one is misunderstood, it is because one did not express oneself clearly enough to the intended audience. The solution to that problem is not to blame the audience of being 'incapable' of figuring out what you're saying, but to improve the way you say it.

So, then, why did you choose 'hanging' out of all this wide variety of possible examples? Why didn't you choose "go swimming with them" or "bake a cake"? Because those are just about as plausible as "hanging". In fact, I'd say they are far far more plausible than "hanging". So, why did you pick "hanging"? And you didn't just pick 'hanging' once, but twice.

And not only that, but you explicitly excluded a more reasonable third alternative, which, conveniently, just happens to be the alternative we would support.

So, yes, your rhetorical question was an attempt to force us into one of two positions: Yours, or an absurd one that we would never defend. That is what a false dichotomy is all about.

You were not simply asking what we think we should do, you were claiming that what we think we should do is "implausible".

If you were 'simply asking', you would have simply asked! Like, "So, what do you propose to do?" That's pretty darn simple if you ask me.

Please do. I would never want to rest my conclusions on the weak and wimpy tactic of spewing insults or distracting the audience with irrelevant characteristics of the other debator, as a replacement for an actual argument.

Thanks for the compliment. No, you don't need to explain it to me. I've been dealing with ad homs for a long long time. It's a very common fallacy.

Funny, I distinctly recall calling your dismissive comment about debating with religious people ("I mean other than an implausable one such as convincing religious people they are wrong..." ) as being "ignorant, arrogant, condescending, and self-defeating". I never applied those adjectives to you as a person. I rarely do that.

I maintain a strong distinction between peoples' beliefs, claims, actions, writings, opinions, and those people themselves as people. Beliefs, claims, actions, writings, etc. are not people, and people themselves, are not their beliefs, claims, actions, writings, etc. 

I'll feel free to blast people's beliefs, claims, actions, etc., but I very rarely take it 'to the man', or, as they say in latin, 'ad hominem'.

That's how it appears to me, which is how I phrased it:

If you haven't, feel free to correct me.

Do you respect the belief of many theists that gays should be denied the right to marry? How about the belief of many theists that most people on the planet, yourself included, deserve to be tortured for eternity? How about the belief that a good way to get into heaven is to fly airplanes into buildings?

Do you really respect such beliefs just because people hold them? If you do, then that's a more relevant topic for us to debate, because such harmful and dangerous beliefs do not deserve ANY respect. And they deserve even less respect for the simple fact that real people actually believe them and will act on them.

I respect those people more than I respect their beliefs. In fact, I respect them enough to try to help them escape such beliefs by expressing my massive disrespect for those beliefs.

That's why making a clear distinction between people and their beliefs is important. People deserve some basic respect just because they are people, but beliefs do not deserve any special respect just because someone believes them.

Also, expressing my view of disrespect for a person's beliefs does no harm to that person. They may be offended, temporarily, but at the end of the day, they have lost nothing, for they are free to listen or ignore as they choose.

The first step toward overcoming a problem is becoming aware that there IS a problem. There's nothing wrong with pointing out problems that people have, especially if they are not aware that it's an actual problem.

Correct. Sometimes it's simply a matter of fact, like having an embarassing skin rash.

"You have a rash."

"How dare you insult me?!"

"Umm, I'm not insulting you. I'm just pointing out that you have a rash. I can see the irritated skin right there. In fact, that looks like a particularly dangerous rash. You should get that checked out."

"WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? WE HANG PEOPLE WITH RASHES?"

"Umm, no. I suggest getting it looked at. I hear they can cure such rashes these days."

"You think you have ALL the answers! My rash makes me happy. You should respect my rash and leave me to have whatever rash I want!"

"You can have whatever rash you want (as long as you don't spread it around), but I'm not going to respect your rash. That's crazy. I respect people, not rashes. I respect you enough as a person to say that I really think your rash is unworthy of any kind of 'respect'."

"I'm offended!"

"Oh well. At least now you know that not everybody thinks your rash is a good thing. Oh, and people without rashes are good people too, by the way."

How's that been working out for ya, these last 30-40 years?

Is religion being kept out of schools? Just barely, and in some cases, NOT AT ALL well.

---

High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened

And politics isn't faring much better.

What claims have I made that require evidence? Quote me, please.

I have responded to your claims about what will and won't work. And, although you seem to forget, even though it is overflowing in the my response to you, I did provide all sorts of evidence that our techniques work and do no harm, but do good.

It is you who have provided no evidence that what we do won't work, and will cause more harm than good.

Excellent. I'm looking forward to it.

And how, precisely, could you possibly know this? You've interacted with me for no more than 1 week, and almost entirely on this one issue.

Besides, if you are correct that I'm so dogmatic, the best thing you could do is to show everyone all the evidence that I've been ignoring for years and years. This website is viewable by the entire internet. I'm not the only one who can see it. If you've got a strong case, make it. Or if you don't want to argue over it, don't. Entirely your choice.

The point is, whether or not I'm actually as dogmatic as you claim, there is no reason for you not to post your evidence.

Right. All the evidence I cited in my response to you is all imaginary, eh? Or did you just not bother to look at it?

Whatever that means.

As I already pointed out, I agree with you on this.

Are you actually saying fish don't feel pain, or was that a mis-placed 'don't'? Not that it's relevant to the thread, but it sure seems like a strange position to defend.

You mean my point that people are not born Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist, but that they must acquire their specific religious beliefs from the culture around them? Is this really so controversial an idea? Do you actually disagree with it?

You said: "I was starting to feel like we needed to scream at black people and tell them they shouldn't be black because that is what they are."

As if religious beliefs are built in to people genetically. But they aren't. That's obvious, right? Do you really need 'proof' to convince you of this?

Ask some newborns if they believe Jesus died for our sins. Pretty sure they won't be answering in the affirmative. Natural state: Unbelief.

You'd only have to look at the stats for which religion children exhibit after enculturation: If it tends to be the prevailing religion of their culture and/or family, for example in twins raised in separate households, then it seems undeniable that children are not born with religious beliefs. Whaddaya know? Kids tend to adopt the religions of their parents, by an overwhelming majority.

Are you seriously disputing this?

Yes I am. I most definitely am. I've written about these tendencies in the past. But I recognize that these tendencies of belief are not religion per se. They are simply the human basis for any and all belief. Religious belief is not a special kind of belief mechanism, it is a special kind of belief.

Furthermore, the tendencies of irrational belief are not something that is fixed and permanent. We are able to correct for them, and in some cases overcome them completely. In fact, it is possible to learn this ability to correct one's own reasoning through education in various topics of critical thinking. That's what we encourage. That's our main strategy. And it works.

Pretty much anybody can learn to spot logical fallacies, for example, and that is often one of the best ways to introduce people into critical thinking.

If you teach someone how to spot Argument from Authority, for examples, and they choose to apply that filter to the messages they are exposed to, all of a sudden about 95% of religious claims become suspect to them.

There may be (probably is) genetic variation in the degree to which different people are susceptible to different kinds of irrational belief, but that still doesn't make them genetically religious. And it doesn't mean that they are somehow incapable of learning critical thinking. This is what I mean by your apparent 'giving up on them'. I don't consider them incapable of change and learning and even eventually breaking out of religious belief. You seem to be, at least based on some of the things you've said. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

Largely, this is because you think I'm saying something which I'm not actually saying.

I'll make you a deal. You point out any positive factual (not simply my opinion) claim I make and I'll give you at least one link to some evidence to support it.

However, don't be surprised if what you think I'm claiming is not actually what I said. You've already displayed several preconceived notions about who I am, what I believe, how I act, what I support, etc.

In return, could you examine the evidence I've already supplied in the @EKAthans thread, and respond to it?

Good. I wouldn't want you to.

Degrees are useful for some things (such as job requirements for specific professions), but in many ways they are over-rated. I'm wary of people who demand respect for their ideas just because they have a degree in such-and-such. It's another argument from authority. What I care about is not 'what experts defend these ideas?', but 'are these good ideas?'.

Also, I'm a bit of an auto-didact. I spend much of my free time just learning and learning about stuff. It's one of my favourite activities. So I know quite a bit about a lot of things which interest me. But I do not claim to be an expert in any of these fields, because I don't have the academic credentials.

However, in the interest of answering your question directly: For what it's worth, I started university studying the sciences, Phsycis, Chem, Bio, Math, Stats, etc. But after 1st year, I switched to Computer Science, and graduated with a B.Sc. in Computer Science (4 year Honours program), during which I took a wide variety of extra courses, including Psychology, Sociology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Film, and a couple others that slip my mind at the moment.

Since then, I can honestly say I've learned far more outside of school than in it. For example, working as a software developer for several years, I read at least 50 textbook-sized books on software development, often walking to and from work with a hardcover text in front of me. I learned how to walk and study at the same time, avoiding obstacles and other pedestrians by using my peripheral vision.

I've always stayed current on the latest science news and magazines such as Scientific American, so while I'm not a 'scientist', I am a big proponent of science, and can hold my own in most debates with non-scientitists.

I've also had a long-time interest in philosophy, having read a few books in high school, taken about 3 or 4 philosophy courses in university, participated in several informal debates, and since then read several books and articles on the subject.

I take particular interest in evolution, the brain, informaton theory, and a few other 'pet' topics.

I'm currently studying the logical foundations of mathematics, vector calculus (from the ground up), Bayesian statistical inference, and critical thinking education for children.

I'm currently working as a tutor for children, adolescents, and adults (math, science, computers, mythology, et al.). In this capacity, I've also been studying various techniques in education, especially with a focus on teaching logic and critical thinking for grade-school students. I've had quite a bit of encouraging results here, which I'm quite excited about. My teaching philosophy is that learning is inherently fun, and anything that makes it not fun needs to be changed to allow it to be fun again. In this spirit, I'm in the process of developing computer games for kids for teaching math, logic, and computer programming.

You may believe that is the case. The religious people who attack you may believe that is the case. But I would bet a lot of money that neither they nor you can demonstrate that it is actually true.

These 'nasty atheists' you think are such a big problem, are basically non-existent bogeymen, more akin to negative stereotypes of people who identify as homosexual, Black, Jewish, or any other denigrated minority. Atheists did not create this bogeyman, religions did:

See? It's written there right in their book(s). And it's preached from the pulpit every Sunday and twice on Wednesday. And people believe it.

You know nothing of my experiences, one way or another. Instead of presuming you do know about them, why don't you ask me about them instead?

I have never claimed that they are (all alike).

Are you equating the RRS with the KKK?! Careful with your analogies there.

Let me give you a better one: Have you heard about the vaccine denialists? Jenny McCarthy and all that jazz? They spread anti-scientific nonsense about the supposed dangers of vaccines, which are at best extremely exaggerated beyond all conception of reality.

Are you aware that there have been within the last few years dozens of outbreaks of once-rare and easily avoided diseases such as whooping cough, measles, mumps, and others? Sounds pretty harmless, maybe, eh? After all, we've all had some childhood sickness or another, and we're fine.

Unfortunately, the only ones who can say, "We're fine," are the ones who survived. The dead have no such voice.

There have been hundreds of children dead from these entirely preventable outbreaks, many of them infants.

Now, I don't go around calling vaccine denialists 'baby murderers'. But I have no compunctions about stating the fact that vaccine denialism is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of children. I might even go so far as to say that vaccine denialism has 'blood on its hands'.

And I couldn't give two shits if some vaccine denialist gets offended by that.

And I will certainly not hold back my strong criticisms of anyone who defends vaccine denialism. I will say that their defense of denialism lends support to the outbreaks and the deaths, and that, in this way, by defending denialism, they are taking on some onus of responsibility for denialism's effects, namely, the deaths of children.

My critique of religion and defenders of religion is at exactly the same level.

Sure, not everyone who supports anti-vax will automatically make their kids sick. Nor will they automatically make any other kids sick (by weakening so-called 'herd immunity' which vaccine programs depend upon for success). But they are lending support to anti-vax itself, and therefore also indirectly supporting its harmful and dangerous effects (whether they are conscious of it or not).

Likewise, not everyone who is religious is automatically doing bad things in the name of religion. And not everyone who is religious is automatically a direct accomplice to those people who do bad things in the name of religion. But they are lending support to the idea of faith-based religion itself, and so are also indirectly supporting faith's harmful and dangerous effects (whether they are conscious of it or not).

And I don't hate either of these kinds of people. Many of them are not even aware of the negative effects of religion. And I don't even 'hate' (except in a purely metaphorical sense) the religious beliefs that influence them to support irrational thinking (such as faith itself) as if it were somehow a virtue. The only people I tend to actually hate (and this is very rare these days compared to when I was younger) are people who directly do harm to me, out of apparently malicious intent.

So, your analogy is terrible. It feeds into the false negative stereotype that atheists 'hate' religious people, or that they are even particularly hate-filled at all. It equates us with organizations that have actually hated people to the extent of lynching, murdering, and generally oppressing them. We have done nothing of the sort, and are staunchly opposed to such crimes.

All we do is speak out and express our opinions just like anybody else, but in our case, we are demonized for it.

Well, I'm here to tell you that I am not going to apologize for the false bogeyman in your imagination. It is not me, and I don't even believe it really exists to a significant extent in reality. I have followed up on claims of nasty atheists several times, and, like Bigfoot or UFO aliens, the evidence always seems to shrivel up and disappear the moment you look too closely at it.

If there are so many 'nasty atheists' out there doing such incredible harm to people, please show me where they are so that I can join you in condemning them for their actions.

Frankly, I do not believe you will be able to locate even one prominent such example.

So, you're telling me how I feel, eh? Does that make any sense to you?

How, exactly, do you know that I 'hate all religious people'? I'll make it easier for you: How do you know that I even hate the majority of religious people?

(When you fail to provide any justification for this, take a step back and realize how bigoted your comment is.)

LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!

How very open-minded of you.

And how would you know that, since you haven't even bothered to try posting there?

You know what would be really great? Video tape this behaviour you find so terrible and post it to YouTube so that we can all see it. Please, expose them. If they truly are 'only looking for an argument', then they are just being bullies, and you should expose them. If you can show atheists stomping their feet and yelling at Christians, you would be doing humanity a service by exposing them to public criticism. That would also be an incredible coup for your 'nasty atheists are everywhere' thesis.

Please. I would love to see this. Prove me wrong. Show me the truth I've been missing.

Seriously. Why is it so hard to back up what you're saying with something rather than nothing.

I do not deny that you believe you have witnessed this. (The same as how I don't deny that UFO 'abductees' have has some sort of experience, or that people have so-called 'religious experiences'.) I simply suspect your interpretation of the actual events/experience. I suspect you are succumbing to unconscious confirmation bias. That is why actually showing us independent evidence is so important here. You are making claims about something that should be easy to gather evidence of, and yet, there is no evidence.

But all my suspicions could be turned against me by just proving me wrong. So, go ahead. Prove me wrong. If I'm wrong, I will recant and apologize. You have nothing to lose. So, let's see it.

You mean, like this?

Or this?

Or how about this?

---

Umm, I'm doing both. Pointing out fallacies and addressing the topic at the same time. Where have I avoided the topic?

Where have I done that? Where did you get the presumption that I would do something like that? I point out the dangers and risks and actual harm of religion. I don't literally 'hate' it, nor do I use words like 'evil'.

What if it's the case that the things you are saying are not referring to real problems? Some claims (such as your claims about what you think I feel, think, do, and support) are so devoid of reality that the only thing left to do is just point them out as baseles and then to dismiss them.

Deal. I won't believe I have all the answers if you also agree not to believe that I actually think that I do (which I don't).

I've said several times I'm interested in hearing about your areas of expertise.

What if you say something that is false, and I tell you "Hey, what you said is false, and here's evidence against it," as I did in my post in response to you? You may see that as "trying to educate you". I see that as "setting the record straight".

That's easy. If you don't want to argue about religion, stop arguing about religion.

Nope this may not be the site for you. Truth to be told, the Atheist vs. Atheist debates get alot more heated on here than the Theist vs. Atheist debates. We have had some real hard arguments on here with each other, yet we get along. If people didn't challenge my opinions or put them up for examination, then I would be as guilty as the dogmatic theists that I do not agree with for their irrationalities.

It was great reading your introduction.