Why do atheists care. [rhet]

Originally posted by FMF
So you believe the 'Noah flood' killed about 7 billion people?

Do you believe there was a "Noah flood"?

Originally posted by josephw
Do you believe there was a "Noah flood"?

I'm fairly sure there was a terrible flood at some point that affected a limited area ~ perhaps as far as its survivors could see ~ and that took many lives. Original eye witness accounts then got exaggerated as it entered the tribal folklore and was passed down through the generations as oral history. Eventually it found itself turned into a fully fledged metaphor for the Hebrew God figure's vengeful wrath.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The problem with the treatment of this question in the O.P. is that it's a negative way of caring. The question being answered is: "Why care that others believe in Gods?". So we have an expression of atheism in opposition to theism but not for itself. It implies that if there were no theists there would also be no atheists. However the converse is ha ...[text shortened]...
In the absence of a focus of belief I'm left wondering what a spiritual life is for an atheist.

Well you are an atheist... So what is your 'spiritual life' like?

Personally I don't have a 'spiritual' life, I have a reality based life. Spirituality is a word that points to woo.
I don't do woo.

And I am not 'for' atheism in and of itself as anything other than the fact that it's true.

However the question that gets asked, and which I presented an example for, is why atheists
should care what others think.

For there to be any kind of focus of belief for atheism it would have to be to an abstract concept such as "The Truth" and even then I doubt you'd find much agreement from atheists that there is any kind of focus of belief.

You are making the same mistake theists do.

My beliefs are not focused on, or founded in, atheism.

Atheism is a consequence of my beliefs, not the source of them.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Personally I don't have a 'spiritual' life, I have a reality based life. Spirituality is a word that points to woo.

I don't agree. You shouldn't allow propagators of "woo" and superstition and the notion of human immortality to hijack the word "spirituality"! 😉

Originally posted by divegeester
No, you are over generalising based on one example. There may be other similar examples especially in the US, but you are still incorrectly applying a characteristic to a huge population based on a small sample.

I could give hundreds of thousands of examples of harms great and small done by
religious people because they were religious.

I chose to give one example in the thread because I wanted to share and focus on this
particular example and not spam umpteen. And also because this example showed the
commonly given sentiment that religion [Christianity in this case] is under attack from
people simply because they are trying to stop theists of one particular stripe forcing their
religion down everyone else's throats. I would note that a number of those noted as being
effected in the article were Muslims, and not atheists. I would imagine there were probably
Christians at the school who would have disliked having a different brand of [more extreme]
Christianity being forced upon them. And I know that there are many Christians who oppose
trying to teach Creationism [for example] and who vehemently support separation of church
and state [in the USA].

I have watched many episodes of the Atheist Experience a [now] web based call in talk show
dedicated to promoting positive atheism and the separation of church and state that is based
in Austin Texas [but they get callers from all over the world]. And on the show they have countless
examples of the damage and harm religious belief does. Both in the appallingly bad twisted semblance
of logic and reason that gets trotted out by theist callers who try to justify their faith, and in the
stories of harm done by theists to both themselves, other theists, and atheists.

That series has been going for years and has ~950 episodes [plus spin-offs] and that alone can
give you thousands of examples of harms done.

The podcast FMF linked to recently from the BBC talked about how in the USA it is [now] often easier
to come out as gay, than to come out as an atheist. And that some people fear coming out as an atheist
even in some places in the UK ffs.

But as a single example, that is indicative of the wider problem and is an excellent example of why this
stuff matters. I thought the story I posted in the OP was pretty good.

Which is why I chose to share it.

Originally posted by divegeester
Clearly you are either unable or reluctant to read the OP correctly. It is a generalisation of an entire religion based on one example.

It really wasn't.

Either by me, or the article writers.

Originally posted by divegeester
OK before your thread gets too hijacked arguing about what you mean can I ask for some clarification.

It appears to me that you are using this one example to generalise against an entire population of Christians and indeed the wider group of theists. Rather than bicker over this point, please can you clarify if this is the case or not, and if not can you explain how the example you provide supports what you are trying to say. Thank you.

I was not generalising from this one example.

I was using this one example to highlight the kind of problems that exist when people
hold faith based beliefs and particularly when they then try to impose those beliefs on
others.

I did not say that all theists, or even all Christians act this way.
Although however, all irrational beliefs are to varying degrees bad, both for the person holding them, and
for their effect on the wider society.

That said, when we have problems that are as bad as those in the OP, I don't need to be that
subtle in pointing out obvious examples of things going on in the world that make discussing
these issues important.

People have a right to believe whacky irrational stuff even though it's harmful to them and others.

What they do not, or should not, have the right to do is try to impose those whacky beliefs on others.

I would contend however that there will always be a subset of believers who will try to impose whatever
whacky beliefs are in vogue on everyone else [one way or another].

Which is what makes holding up principles like separation of church and state [secularism] and
properly enforcing those principles where government and other institutions are involved is so important.

It's that which drives the 'atheist movement' and 'why we care'.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I don't think ancestor worship is really in a different category from theism. I'm not asking for a spiritual life to be tied to their atheism, I'm asking what it means for an atheist to have a spiritual life.

Ancestor worship is equally silly, but it's not a belief in a god, so it's not a theistic belief.

Unless they believe that their ancestors 'become gods'. But I don't think they do.

Originally posted by FMF
I don't agree. You shouldn't allow propagators of "woo" and superstition and the notion of human immortality to hijack the word "spirituality"! 😉

I have looked at what people seem to mean when they use that word.

None of the uses I have encountered make any sense to my life.

I am not spiritual.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I have looked at what people seem to mean when they use that word.

None of the uses I have encountered make any sense to my life.

I am not spiritual.

I think you are.

File it under 'thought experiment' perhaps. 😉

Originally posted by FMF
I think you are.

File it under 'thought experiment' perhaps. 😉

As an experiment it's been running 30 years.

I have never in my life felt anything that could be remotely described as spiritual.

Awe and wonder, those I have felt, but those words are not synonyms of spiritual.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Awe and wonder, those I have felt, but those words are not synonyms of spiritual.

Yes, awe and wonder. Essential capacities of the human spirit. For religionists, awe and wonder are the kinds of things that lead them to subscribe to ideologies about supernatural things. That's where their human spirituality leads them. It's an inevitable part of the human condition. Your human spirit ~ the combination of faculties and capacities, and uniqueness as a person, that you and every human posses ~ led you to atheism. As I said, don't let religionists hijack the word "spirituality". 😉

Originally posted by FMF
Yes, awe and wonder. Essential capacities of the human spirit. For religionists, awe and wonder are the kinds of things that lead them to subscribe to ideologies about supernatural things. That's where their human spirituality leads them. It's an inevitable part of the human condition. Your human spirit ~ the combination of faculties and capacities, and uniquene ...[text shortened]... sses ~ led you to atheism. As I said, don't let religionists hijack the word "spirituality". 😉

Experiencing either awe or wonder is not in any way the same as being spiritual.

Being spiritual, or having a 'spiritual experience' is something different. What people
talk about when they discuss these things bares no relationship whatsoever to my experience.

People are NOT all the same.

I am not spiritual.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Experiencing either awe or wonder is not in any way the same as being spiritual.

Being spiritual, or having a 'spiritual experience' is something different. What people
talk about when they discuss these things bares no relationship whatsoever to my experience.

People are NOT all the same.

I am not spiritual.

You have the only kind of "spirit" that actually exists ~ and that everyone has ~ the human spirit ~ which I have defined already. Religionists deploy it in convincing themselves that there are divine supernatural things. People like yourself deploy it into coming to the conclusion that there aren't any divine or supernatural things. In the course of all this, religionists and theists commandeer the word "spirituality" and declare that they have it and dissenters don't. Animals - not being endowed with the kind of spirit I am talking about, at least as far as we know - can't get involved in all this awe-wonder-curiosity-driven speculation/deduction. 😉

Originally posted by googlefudge
People are NOT all the same.

I haven't said that they are. 😀