Atheists' Worldviews

[Rye]

Ok, first I'll start by completely admitting being godless isn't a worldview in and of itself, though it's a popular tactic to treat atheists like they are.

However, there's a lot of commonality between modern western internet-using atheists, they're usually socially liberal, if not libertarian, and tend to economically vary. On here there's usually somewhat of a social outlook, other places (almost always american) there's a load of libertarian atheists.

There's a lot of atheists that by into antichristian myths about the historicity of Jesus, and a lot of atheists that buy into evolutionary fact, and these people are often the same. There seems to be a bit of herding behaviour amongst a lot of atheists anyway, and it turns out people that call themselves "freethinkers" are usually just regurgitating the thoughts and arguments of someone else and get emotional and dismissive when someone argues with them, assuming that the person must be a christian because they disagree with them.

There seems to be a lot of groupthink on the internet, anyway, sometimes this can be good and people end up with a load of preprogrammed legit responses to the average apologetic arguments, even if they're not truly considering the arguments, at least their unoriginality can be countered by the automatic responses.

So, given these people are atheists, and they're not really "freethinkers," what herd exactly should they fall into? They do seem to have a reactionary common philosophy, usually fall into the same traps, think in the same way and are pretty predictable. For instance, if you're talking about Jesus, they'll probably bring up Mithras, or if you bring up Josephus, even outside the Testimonium Flavianum, they will automatically assume, even if you specify An 20.9.1 before mentioning it and afterwards, that you're talking about the TF and will repeat themselves on that "talking point" till they're blue in the face.

So yeah, what should this subset of atheists be classified as?

[wolveraptor]

Stupid? Honestly, your belief system has very little bearing on any aspect of your character if you're genetically pre-programmed to be a certain way.

[brianeyci]

Why classify them at all?

Seen Chris Rock's new comedy, he walks down the street and sees the nerds, the jocks, the greasers, the artsies. Ends up he only fits in with the nerds, and then a teacher sees him as black and he's instantly dumped into the jocks when he becomes a basketball star. It's funny because it's a caricature of real life--beyond high school life doesn't work that way, and even in high school it's not like that, at least if you go to a good one.

I see no reason why lack of belief of something should be classified into anything at all. As for Libertarian, Libertarian is not liberal or even a shade of liberal and there's a lot of Libertarians on this board, except they keep their mouth shut because they know the Sith Lord will call them on their bullshit. I don't necessarily buy into the idea that the most liberal person is Libertarian, or that the most conservative person is a fundamentalist. The idea that all liberals are people who have no responsibility to society, Mel Gibson road warrior types, is part of the reason why liberals are viewed as dangerous which is just silly.

And there's already a label for people who regurgitate someone else's ideas without a single shred of creative thought... the me-too.

And the idea of why so many atheists on the Internet's already been covered in a lot of threads... it probably has more to do with socioeconomic factors and less chance of ostracization rather than anything special about the Internet.

As for getting emotional and dismissive, that's a common troll move, to accuse the person on the other side of being too emotional or too "worked up" when you're losing a debate, so I'm not surprised it happens on the Internet a lot, especially when atheists shove quotes down other's throats and the religious person can do no more than shrug and say it's a metaphor or resort to troll tactics.

[Rye]

Stupid? Honestly, your belief system has very little bearing on any aspect of your character if you're genetically pre-programmed to be a certain way.

"Stupid" is worthless as identifying a specific social movement or set of movements, philosophies, ideologies etc, especially if smart atheists want to take advantage of the situation and use the normal herding behaviours of humanity for good, for instance, get them less discriminated against in US politics.

Similarly, unthinking groups that dehumanise christians and muslims or whoever can and do lead to bigotry, and while it may just be in its infancy, there's the potential for such atheists to make a situation just as lame as the christians they complain about.

I see no reason why lack of belief of something should be classified into anything at all.

I'm not classifying them by lack of belief you 'tard, if I did that, I would be classifying myself with them. I already mentioned some of the popular ideas and predictable arguments these people will regurgitate. It's their belief system and commonality I'm attempting to classify because it's got the potential to turn as lame as any other belief system. Atheists are quick to deny commonality due to lack of belief, and I have no particular complaint with that, however, this doesn't mean there's not atheistic circle jerks complaining about religion and fundies while at the same time putting forth pseudohistory, bigotry and other bullshit.

As for Libertarian, Libertarian is not liberal or even a shade of liberal

Who cares? What I said makes sense.

The idea that all liberals are people who have no responsibility to society, Mel Gibson road warrior types, is part of the reason why liberals are viewed as dangerous which is just silly.

This has nothing to do with anything I ever said.

And there's already a label for people who regurgitate someone else's ideas without a single shred of creative thought... the me-too.

That applies to anyone that's part of a crowd and is fucking worthless. WHAT are they me-tooing?

As for getting emotional and dismissive, that's a common troll move, to accuse the person on the other side of being too emotional or too "worked up" when you're losing a debate, so I'm not surprised it happens on the Internet a lot, especially when atheists shove quotes down other's throats and the religious person can do no more than shrug and say it's a metaphor or resort to troll tactics.

It's indicative of an irrational groupthink that people are conforming to rather than a rational belief based on evidence. That's what concerns me, since it's dumb.

[brianeyci]

I'm not classifying them by lack of belief you 'tard, if I did that, I would be classifying myself with them. I already mentioned some of the popular ideas and predictable arguments these people will regurgitate. It's their belief system and commonality I'm attempting to classify because it's got the potential to turn as lame as any other belief system. Atheists are quick to deny commonality due to lack of belief, and I have no particular complaint with that, however, this doesn't mean there's not atheistic circle jerks complaining about religion and fundies while at the same time putting forth pseudohistory, bigotry and other bullshit.

This is based on the assumption that if everybody has the same conclusion, then they are kneejerking or copying other people's arguments, instead of rational people coming to the same conclusion on their own. Creationists have a history of cut-and-paste arguments. Where is the evidence that this subset of atheists exist in a large number and do the same thing, rather than coming to the same conclusions independently? Just because a lot of people come to the same conclusions that doesn't mean they're all me-too or stupid. If you're going to claim a statistically significant number of atheists as pseudohistorians, bigots or so on then you will need more proof than ancedotal evidence.

As for Libertarian, Libertarian is not liberal or even a shade of liberal

Who cares? What I said makes sense.

No it doesn't because you said this,

However, there's a lot of commonality between modern western internet-using atheists, they're usually socially liberal, if not libertarian, and tend to economically vary

implying a connection between liberals and Libertarians.

The idea that all liberals are people who have no responsibility to society, Mel Gibson road warrior types, is part of the reason why liberals are viewed as dangerous which is just silly.

This has nothing to do with anything I ever said.

Yes it does because you said this,

However, there's a lot of commonality between modern western internet-using atheists, they're usually socially liberal, if not libertarian, and tend to economically vary

implying a connection between liberals and Libertarians.

And there's already a label for people who regurgitate someone else's ideas without a single shred of creative thought... the me-too.

That applies to anyone that's part of a crowd and is fucking worthless. WHAT are they me-tooing?

And you hit on the bang on reason I was trying to get through with the Chris Rock example. Labels are fucking worthless. If you need a label why not use one already existant -- me-tooing other more intelligent people who have thought out their arguments. Do I really need to explain that to you? This forum is one of the most serious on the board, and your post boils down to "what name should we call these kind of people" which is fucking childish.

As for getting emotional and dismissive, that's a common troll move, to accuse the person on the other side of being too emotional or too "worked up" when you're losing a debate, so I'm not surprised it happens on the Internet a lot, especially when atheists shove quotes down other's throats and the religious person can do no more than shrug and say it's a metaphor or resort to troll tactics.

It's indicative of an irrational groupthink that people are conforming to rather than a rational belief based on evidence. That's what concerns me, since it's dumb.

Or people who do not believe in god all come to the same conclusions on their own and post the most hateful parts of the Bible or so on.

[Chiaroscuro]

Most atheists that I've met are atheists simply because the lack of a god seems to be the most scientifically likely option. There are thousands of religions everywhere that all contradict each other and say that there are multiple gods, or just one, and that all of these gods control the world. Seems pretty ridiculous.
I'm an agnostic personally--I think it's impossible to tell whether or not there's a higher power--but I'm a pretty-close-to-atheism agnostic.
I don't get where you're finding that all atheists are just feeding off each others' ideas.

[wolveraptor]

"Stupid" is worthless as identifying a specific social movement or set of movements, philosophies, ideologies etc, especially if smart atheists want to take advantage of the situation and use the normal herding behaviours of humanity for good, for instance, get them less discriminated against in US politics.

Similarly, unthinking groups that dehumanise christians and muslims or whoever can and do lead to bigotry, and while it may just be in its infancy, there's the potential for such atheists to make a situation just as lame as the christians they complain about.

In that case, I prefer to group atheists who are obnoxious about their beliefs and theists who are obnoxious about their beliefs into a single category. Whenever I encounter them, I like to point out how similar they are to the Christians they supposedly hate, or ask them why it's such a big deal whether Jesus actually existed. After all, Jesus's existence doesn't validate the rest of the Bible. It only makes it .00000001% more credible than, say, L. Ron Hubbard's Scientological writings. At least we know some people described in the Bible exist.

[Rye]

This is based on the assumption that if everybody has the same conclusion, then they are kneejerking or copying other people's arguments, instead of rational people coming to the same conclusion on their own. Creationists have a history of cut-and-paste arguments. Where is the evidence that this subset of atheists exist in a large number and do the same thing, rather than coming to the same conclusions independently? Just because a lot of people come to the same conclusions that doesn't mean they're all me-too or stupid. If you're going to claim a statistically significant number of atheists as pseudohistorians, bigots or so on then you will need more proof than ancedotal evidence.

I'll do that later, I'm about to go out.

No it doesn't because you said this,

However, there's a lot of commonality between modern western internet-using atheists, they're usually socially liberal, if not libertarian, and tend to economically vary

implying a connection between liberals and Libertarians.

So, I mention how they economically vary after mentioning social liberation and you bring this stupid bullshit up? Fuck off. It's a worthless nitpick at best and it's pretty inaccurate anyway; if you think libertarianism has nothing to do with social progress and reform, as well as equality and liberty for all, you're a fucking idiot! I already distinguished them where it's meaningful, i.e. economically. Libertarianism might be short-sighted and an ideal, but you can't claim it has nothing to do with socially liberal attitudes.

Yes it does because you said this,

However, there's a lot of commonality between modern western internet-using atheists, they're usually socially liberal, if not libertarian, and tend to economically vary

implying a connection between liberals and Libertarians.

Again, fuck off you bleeding arse.

And you hit on the bang on reason I was trying to get through with the Chris Rock example. Labels are fucking worthless.

So, labels are worthless, though a few lines ago you were claiming libertarianism is in no way liberal? FUCK THE HELL OFF!

If you need a label why not use one already existant -- me-tooing other more intelligent people who have thought out their arguments.

Because they are a relatively recent phenomenon that aren't yet named. "Atheists" is misleading since they are not representative of all godless people, and they may prefer "freethinker" even if they're not truly open to argument.

Do I really need to explain that to you?

You couldn't explain explanation to an explainers' convention. Don't even bother responding unless you can actually grasp what the fuck I'm talking about.

This forum is one of the most serious on the board, and your post boils down to "what name should we call these kind of people" which is fucking childish.

Why is that childish?

Or people who do not believe in god all come to the same conclusions on their own and post the most hateful parts of the Bible or so on.

Yeah, I couldn't possibly have considered that, right, Brian?

I don't get where you're finding that all atheists are just feeding off each others' ideas.

Check your arse for the same place you pulled that fucking retarded strawman. Yeah, I'd well accuse myself of being totally unoriginal.

In that case, I prefer to group atheists who are obnoxious about their beliefs and theists who are obnoxious about their beliefs into a single category. Whenever I encounter them, I like to point out how similar they are to the Christians they supposedly hate, or ask them why it's such a big deal whether Jesus actually existed. After all, Jesus's existence doesn't validate the rest of the Bible. It only makes it .00000001% more credible than, say, L. Ron Hubbard's Scientological writings. At least we know some people described in the Bible exist.

They're dogmatic arseholes, I wouldn't say something like "you're just like a christian" because there's a lot of decent christians, and it'd be just as unpleasant as their tirade, and insulting them isn't worth losing the high ground on that subject. Attacking dogmatism and groupthink is ok, though. Motivation-questioning the historicity of Jesus is also not something I would do; inaccuracy, lies and misinformation are all far worse than the rather obvious motivation of hating christianity.

[Chiaroscuro]

Check your arse for the same place you pulled that fucking retarded strawman. Yeah, I'd well accuse myself of being totally unoriginal.

Fine, whatever, then I'll echo Brianeyci in asking, where do you get the idea that "a lot of" or "most" atheists are unoriginal idiots? Because I haven't found that to be the case, not that my internet experience is particularly vast.

[brianeyci]

I'll do that later, I'm about to go out.

No problem, but from the replies I am not the only one going what the fuck when you mention rampant atheist morons. Here's a hint, if you do post conspiracy theorists and idiots, see if you can find something like an ICR for atheists, as popular and full of idiots who parrot ideas, and I'll concede the point this is a problem. Until then it sounds like you're making a mountain out of a molehill, all in an attempt to say "a subset of atheists are as bad as religious fundamentalists" which sounds like golden mean bullshit.

So, I mention how they economically vary after mentioning social liberation and you bring this stupid bullshit up? Fuck off. It's a worthless nitpick at best and it's pretty inaccurate anyway; if you think libertarianism has nothing to do with social progress and reform, as well as equality and liberty for all, you're a fucking idiot! I already distinguished them where it's meaningful, i.e. economically. Libertarianism might be short-sighted and an ideal, but you can't claim it has nothing to do with socially liberal attitudes.

The main tenet of Libertarianism is that nobody has a responsibility to anybody else as long as they mind their own business. This is in stark contrast to liberals, who believe that minority rights, human rights and so on are the responsibility of all of mankind. Saying Libertarianism is similar to liberals is like saying liberals is similar to anarchists. Uttering Libertarianism and liberal under the same breath, and you accuse me of reading too much into it? Well up yours!

So, labels are worthless, though a few lines ago you were claiming libertarianism is in no way liberal? FUCK THE HELL OFF!

Labels are worthless, you're making a big issue out of it and a whole thread about it you dick when it doesn't appear to be a problem at all. Some subset of atheists are morons, boo hoo let's invent a new name for them! Dumbass. It has to be a problem first, or even a concern, and I'm not at all convinced of that. Especially when you said that this subset of atheists has the potential to be as bad as creationists.

Because they are a relatively recent phenomenon that aren't yet named. "Atheists" is misleading since they are not representative of all godless people, and they may prefer "freethinker" even if they're not truly open to argument.

Then show this exists beyond the Internet and you have a point, or it's just as stupid as greaser or nerd or geek in high school.

You couldn't explain explanation to an explainers' convention. Don't even bother responding unless you can actually grasp what the fuck I'm talking about.

I do understand--you are looking at a way to label a group of atheists as bad as creationists.

This forum is one of the most serious on the board, and your post boils down to "what name should we call these kind of people" which is fucking childish.

Why is that childish?

Because it's belief in a golden mean, unless you have some sort of evidence to support your claim they will one day be as bad as creationists. And guess what wolveraptor already thought of a name--stupid. Now that wasn't hard was it. Or me-too.

Or people who do not believe in god all come to the same conclusions on their own and post the most hateful parts of the Bible or so on.

Yeah, I couldn't possibly have considered that, right, Brian?

Apparently not, because you think this subset of atheists exists at all and deserves mockery, when their only crime according to you is coming to the same conclusion as other reasonable people.

[brianeyci]

Also, parroting someone else's ideas and being a me-too doesn't necessarily make them irrational. Very few people have the scientific knowledge and debating skills to debunk creationists, and if you want to argue with one, you go to Mike's database or talkorigins for primers. Part of being rational is also knowing where your limits are, and if you admit you can't think of it yourself because you're too stupid, well it's rational to side with apparently other rational people. Which is why "mockery of stupid people" only goes as far as "mockery of stupid people who don't know they're stupid" in real life. I see no problem with people who have unoriginal rebuttals to religious people. They might be hacks, but they're right, and at least know enough to know the right side to be on. In other words how is it irrational to side with one side when you know the other side is more stupid? Did you see Mike saying that science is based on faith if you don't have training and expertise? But it doesn't have "the potential for such atheists to make a situation as lame as the Christians they complain about" as you claim at all.

[wolveraptor]

They're dogmatic arseholes, I wouldn't say something like "you're just like a christian" because there's a lot of decent christians, and it'd be just as unpleasant as their tirade, and insulting them isn't worth losing the high ground on that subject.

I should've added the qualifier "fundamentalist" in front of Christian, then.

Attacking dogmatism and groupthink is ok, though. Motivation-questioning the historicity of Jesus is also not something I would do; inaccuracy, lies and misinformation are all far worse than the rather obvious motivation of hating christianity.

If their primary motive for pursuing the subject at all is to discredit the Bible, then what's wrong with pointing out that the existence of one guy doesn't make any damn difference? I highly doubt these people are passionate historians only seeking the truth.

[Medic]

snip OP

This may seem somewhat short, but it's the 1st and I think a decent solution: religious atheists.

In that sense, it kowtows to the perception of some Christians or non-atheist observers, that atheists act religiously. While I'd scoff at it inasmuch as I'd only appreciate differing world views and opinions for the strength of evidence to back them up, if these people, as-described exist, "religious atheists" seems to me to be an apt title.

[Rye]

Check your arse for the same place you pulled that fucking retarded strawman. Yeah, I'd well accuse myself of being totally unoriginal.

Fine, whatever, then I'll echo Brianeyci in asking, where do you get the idea that "a lot of" or "most" atheists are unoriginal idiots? Because I haven't found that to be the case, not that my internet experience is particularly vast.

A cursory google search for "Jesus Never Existed" will find a whole slew of these types of people, as will going in any religious debate chatroom and asking "who thinks Jesus was real?" As for "most" I wouldn't go that far, a significant proportion seem to be, however, since I've seen the same shit every time the issues are brought up. Hell, even Durandal brought up the Mithras thing. Now, I know he's otherwise very smart, but I also can predict he brought it up because he was probably convinced of bollocks history by some lame site and didn't feel compelled to look into it much further.

Fuck, brian, READ the goddamn OP, I already preempted your fucking complaints, the legit ones anyway. I'm not setting up a golden mean you extrachromosomal cockshank, I'm saying there's atheists out there that lie about history and their ideas are popular amongst atheists and spread because they dislike religion. Hell, I was like that once, ages ago I posted a thread about Jesus being taken from Mithras/Osiris/Attis and nobody refuted it; it's something I've said and seen said by quite a few atheists over the years. Most of this bullshit can be tracked to The Jesus Mysteries ultimately, and after that, sites like Jesusneverexisted and the god who wasn't there movie.

[brianeyci]

Preempting objections as you put it doesn't make them go away. You think you can say this,

Similarly, unthinking groups that dehumanise christians and muslims or whoever can and do lead to bigotry, and while it may just be in its infancy, there's the potential for such atheists to make a situation just as lame as the christians they complain about.

and get away with it? Please. Show me these groups that dehumanize Christians and Muslims who are atheists who have a potential to become as bad as Christians and Muslims.

DW has once suggested Jesus could have been insane. There's not much a step between going from Jesus was insane to Jesus did not exist. Why not? And I haven't seen Jesus Mysteries or visited jesusneverexisted or anything like that. I just don't know much about Jesus. Why should I? Likely nobody is a biblical scholar or has the knowledge. It's probably hard to find a biblical scholar who isn't a moron, such people are probably academics and wouldn't debate religion on the Internet, not a big surprise, just like it's hard to find a Kuroneko. And there's already a name for people like that who buy into pseudohistory... crackpots, conspiracy theorists. Put it another way, I see no purpose in your quest to assign a name people ignorant of the history of religion at all except if you're looking to promote the idea of a golden mean, or if you have had particularly bad experiences with them. But whatever you call them it's not likely to catch on, so what's the point. If you want to debate whether Jesus existed, why not do that instead. Go, bring down the Durandals of the world! It'd be a better thread than this.

[Kuroneko]

To disclaim any particular competence in religious history, in the past I've been taken by the urban myth of the particulars of Mithras connection as well. It seems to be fairly common; I've even heard it repeated at a local university (although not by a professor of history, so I suppose it's no different from any other hearsay). A little bit of research would have demolished it, of course.

[Darth Wong]

So yeah, what should this subset of atheists be classified as?

Nothing. Yes, there's a subset of atheists that can't argue their way out of a paper bag. I would submit, however, that there's no reason to believe that this subset is any larger than it is for any other kind of identifiable group in society. If you've got such a reason, please explain it for the class.

Failing such an explanation, the idea that this is some special characteristic of atheism which requires unique classification is utterly retarded.

[B5B7]

There's a lot of atheists that by into antichristian myths about the historicity of Jesus, and a lot of atheists that buy into evolutionary fact, and these people are often the same

If you deny evolution as fact, then you are starting from a false viewpoint so iit is virtually pointless to debate with you. It is not just atheists who know that evolution is a fact - so do many religious people, and it is the official position of many major religions (probably including your own church unless you are a member of some fundie sect).

[Surlethe]

It's a simple fact that a lot of people are stupid, and if they are, they probably won't be able to support their beliefs or argue them, regardless of whether or not those beliefs are correct. The truth of the assumption that a correct belief (or lack thereof, as the case may be) is sufficient to conclude intelligence is not immediately evident, and so I don't see why people for whom it is not true require classification.

There's a lot of atheists that by into antichristian myths about the historicity of Jesus, and a lot of atheists that buy into evolutionary fact, and these people are often the same

If you deny evolution as fact, then you are starting from a false viewpoint so iit is virtually pointless to debate with you. It is not just atheists who know that evolution is a fact - so do many religious people, and it is the official position of many major religions (probably including your own church unless you are a member of some fundie sect).

The point of juxtaposing those two statements was that even people who can appreciate the fact of evolution can be wrong about the historicity of Jesus, not to somehow imply that evolution is not factual.

[Darth Wong]

The historical accuracy of any Jesus story is a joke, and I don't see how one is automatically considered a mindless anti-Christian for thinking that. Virtually all of the historical documents used as source material for Jesus' life story are heavily influenced by religious motive. It may be a bit of a stretch to conclude that no such person existed at all, but one can quite easily argue that if any such person existed, his actual life and conduct was probably so far removed from the popular accounts that he might as well be a different person.