This thread is about the insecurity of theists which is why they go on about an "atheist ideology" as they cannot rhyme with the fact that their are a vast majority of people (in this country 90%) that do not require any form of religious ideology to live.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Sendraks wrote:But, what is the atheist ideology?

Well to get back to that,

Will we? So many pages in and apparently only now will we "get back" to something which should have been defined at the outset.

Jayjay4547 wrote: in the case of “rational skeptics” the central belief is that you don’t need to act as though there is a God.

I don't need to act as though there are Pink Flying Unicorns either.

Jayjay4547 wrote: at the other extreme Darwin could have said that Nature had presented creative opportunities for improvement, which populations flowed into thanks to the mechanisms of natural selection.

Darwin could have said this and it would indeed have been an extreme, given that such a statement would not have been supported by the evidence.

The question for you JayJay is in what way Darwin wrote in any way can be considered an extreme, given it was supported by evidence?

Jayjay4547 wrote: If it weren’t for atheist ideology,

We're still no closer to what it is, where it exists and how one might subscribe to it?

Jayjay4547 wrote: this spectrum of explanations for human origins would have long been explored in detail from one end to the other.

Do the thousands of years preceeding Darwin when humanity came up with all sorts of fascinating but, ultimately baseless, explanations for human origins not count all of a sudden?

Jayjay4547 wrote:And it’s a pity that society has clustered towards the end that discounts the power and grace of what is out there, which I have been calling “biomes”. We can’t afford that right now.

It is a pity that science has focused on evidence based explanations for how life evolved?
Your suggestion that we ignore science being something "we can't afford right now" runs rather in stark contrast to the message that because people ARE ignoring science, the climate is in dire straights.

Jayjay4547 wrote:*snip*

See?

Jayjay4547 wrote:in the case of “rational skeptics” the central belief is that you don’t need to act as though there is a God.

What does it mean to 'act' as though there is no God? I am pretty certain that you are implying that humans who do not espouse convictions in the existence of any gods are then given free rein to all manner of immoral acts. This is why it is necessary for you to insist on atheists as an homogenous group who share the same ideology. If you simply accept the fact that the theory of evolution does indeed adequately describe the mechanisms for the creation of species without necessary recourse to any other agency, then you would have no basis upon which to constantly insist upon a unified atheistic ideology. If indeed some other agency is required for the creation of species then this necessarily has to be demonstrated, otherwise it has to be accepted that atheists have every right to view evolution as supporting the hypothesis that no supernatural mechanisms were required in this process... But to keep implying that atheists are a unified ideological group whose foundations have their basis in immoral conducts, since that is what apparently unifies them: " acting as though there is no God", is indeed a disingenuous smokescreen to evade the fact that evolution does indeed support this view.

the central belief is that you don’t need to act as though there is a God.

Watch JJ get in a tizzy.



All of these people are acting as though there is a god.

Including the one about to explode a device, killing himself and many of the others.

So is that then part of what JJ means? Not acting as though there's a god entails not being willing to murder a large number of strangers in cold blood for ideological reasons?

I'll get the babushka dolls ready. Cue biting defensive strategies in baboons in 3, 2, 1...

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Sendraks wrote:But, what is the atheist ideology?

And it’s a pity that society has clustered towards the end that discounts the power and grace of what is out there, which I have been calling “biomes”. We can’t afford that right now.

You have been calling biomes? Without science you wouldn’t even have that concept to abuse in your own tortured way.

Biome - Wikipedia

The term was suggested in 1916 by Clements, originally as a synonym for biotic community of Möbius (1877).[4] Later, it gained its current definition, based on earlier concepts of phytophysiognomy, formation and vegetation (used in opposition to flora), with the inclusion of the animal element and the exclusion of the taxonomic element of species composition.[5][6] In 1935, Tansley added the climatic and soil aspects to the idea, calling it ecosystem.[7][8] The International Biological Program (1964–74) projects popularized the concept of biome.[9]

As for Clements who invented the term, it seems he couldn’t advance his ideas because he had a hard time letting go of old ones. Bit of an object lesson for you here JJ.

Frederic Clements - Wikipedia

Lamarckism
Edit

Clements was an advocate of neo-Lamarckian evolution. Ecologist Arthur Tansley wrote that because of his support for Lamarckism, Clements "never seemed to give proper weight to the results of modern genetical research."[9]

Science historian Ronald C. Tobey has commented that:

[Clements] believed that plants and animals could acquire a wide variety and range of characteristics in their struggle to survive and adapt to their environment, and that these features were heritable. In the 1920s, he conducted experiments to transform plant species native to one ecological zone into a species adapted to another, higher, zone. Clements was quite convinced of the validity of his experiments, but this experimental Lamarckism fell to experimental disproof in the 1930s.[10]

Clements spent much time trying to demonstrate the inheritance of acquired traits in plants. By the late 1930s scientists had provided Darwinian explanations for the results of his transplant experiments.[11]

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Sendraks wrote:But, what is the atheist ideology?

Well to get back to that,

Will we? So many pages in and apparently only now will we "get back" to something which should have been defined at the outset.

I had said everything in that post, a number of times before. Though I have got a bit better at it over time.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote: in the case of “rational skeptics” the central belief is that you don’t need to act as though there is a God.

I don't need to act as though there are Pink Flying Unicorns either.

Your reaction stamp you as the exactly the kind of ideologue I am identifying. Anyway my point in identifying a central belief in terms of action was to sidestep the argument often made by ratskeptics that they don’t believe anything therefore they can’t have an ideology. You are what you do, not what you say.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote: at the other extreme Darwin could have said that Nature had presented creative opportunities for improvement, which populations flowed into thanks to the mechanisms of natural selection.

Darwin could have said this and it would indeed have been an extreme, given that such a statement would not have been supported by the evidence.

Of course the evidence supported that Nature had presented creative opportunities for improvement, which populations flowed into thanks to the mechanisms of natural selection. Especially when one considers that Nature exists in time, as individuals do. Just as an individual is equipped to solve certain problems though having been “educated”, so the extant physiology of a natural population equips them to flow into particular opportunities in the environment.

Sendraks wrote: The question for you JayJay is in what way Darwin wrote in any way can be considered an extreme, given it was supported by evidence?

Darwin was in no way an extremist. Let me rephrase, that his presentation of evolution in his (powerful) conclusion to Origin of Species, was at ONE END of a spectrum of possible framings he was equipped to present. It was like saying that The Titanic sank because steel is denser than water.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote: If it weren’t for atheist ideology,

We're still no closer to what it is, where it exists and how one might subscribe to it?

The atheist ideology is what makes you happy as a pig in shit, to believe that you don't need to act as though there is no God, it exists in your head and on this forum and you inhabit it, you don’t “subscribe” to it.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote: this spectrum of explanations for human origins would have long been explored in detail from one end to the other.

Do the thousands of years preceeding Darwin when humanity came up with all sorts of fascinating but, ultimately baseless, explanations for human origins not count all of a sudden?

You snipped the context where I argued for a bias in scientific reaction to the discovery of Australopithecus as an ape brained primate biped totally lacking in the typical primate fangs, having lived on the African savanna, and a persisting bias towards within-species explanations for human origins. Earlier narratives, e.g. Genesis, do count because Darwin’s theory got caught up in a social reaction against their attributing causality to what it greater than us.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:And it’s a pity that society has clustered towards the end that discounts the power and grace of what is out there, which I have been calling “biomes”. We can’t afford that right now.

It is a pity that science has focused on evidence based explanations for how life evolved?
Your suggestion that we ignore science being something "we can't afford right now" runs rather in stark contrast to the message that because people ARE ignoring science, the climate is in dire straights.

One could just as well argue that science got us into this mess by enabling unsustainable population growth, energy consumption, waste production and enslavement of the environment. And so long as you link science with rabid atheism, that is bad publicity for science.
Everything in science that is towards appreciating nature is good and a narrative of human origins that focuses on nature having been our mother and creator, is towards that end.

It's the way of all theisms. Start with concrete claims then steadily retreat to vague deepities.

Jayjay4547 wrote:And so long as you link science with rabid atheism, that is bad publicity for science.

Maybe. But the extent of your reliance on modern (scientific) medicine when you are ill is good publicity for science. Your reliance on scientific technology to spam the internet with texts of your (xian) ideology is good publicity for science and bad publicity for anti-science.

Of course, of all those present here, you're the one who's decided to link science with 'rabid atheism". The rabies is all in your mind, and given the disposition, one could diagnose a mental illness after a certain point. This is not a condemnation, but merely a means of deciding how seriously to take a random anonymous opinion of 'rabid atheism'.

Jayjay4547 wrote:One could just as well argue that science got us into this mess by enabling unsustainable population growth, energy consumption, waste production and enslavement of the environment.

We can only treat it as a 'mess' if we think there's something special about humans, or (indeed) about life. Vitalism FTW. Will it go 'round in circles? Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?

Rabid atheism, drooling at the mouth atheism, mentally instable atheism. Refusing to believe in gods because reasoning offered is shit... you bad, bad man.

But blowing up people on religious grounds is morally superior, y'all.

One could just as well argue that science got us into this mess by enabling unsustainable population growth, energy consumption, waste production and enslavement of the environment.

Good point. I'm off to blame my local ironworker for enabling that hammer I hit my finger with.

I see JJ's still peddling the same lies and PRATTs...

Jayjay4547 wrote:
I had said everything in that post, a number of times before. Though I have got a bit better at it over time.

And yet here we are, none the wiser.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Your reaction stamp you as the exactly the kind of ideologue I am identifying.

Except that you have identified nothing in the way of an ideology. It is just normal behaviour to not act with regard to things that are not evidenced to exist.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Anyway my point in identifying a central belief in terms of action was to sidestep the argument often made by ratskeptics that they don’t believe anything therefore they can’t have an ideology.

No, this would be a nonsense argument you and other theists make up, because you don't want actually deal with what is being said.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Of course the evidence supported

If it did, then it would have been reported as such. It remains a fact that you do not understand and do not want to understand what the evidence reports. Instead you entertain the fantasy of what you think the evidence should report.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Let me rephrase, that his presentation of evolution in his (powerful) conclusion to Origin of Species, was at ONE END of a spectrum of possible framings he was equipped to present.

Again, no. This is not how actual scientific interpretation of evidence works.

Jayjay4547 wrote:It was like saying that The Titanic sank because steel is denser than water.

No, because that would be to disregard what the evidence actually shows. The complete opposite of what Darwin did.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The atheist ideology is what makes you happy as a pig in shit, to believe that you don't need to act as though there is no God, it exists in your head and on this forum and you inhabit it, you don’t “subscribe” to it.

So there is no actual defined ideology, you just have a set of assumptions (which are incorrect) about what this non-existent ideology does. The concept that there is an ideological "need" to act as if there is no god, would first have to be supported by evidence that said god actually exists. But, the claim of god's existence is unsupported.

So we can be clear at this point that the atheist ideology, as you describe it, is a wholly imaginary construct which exists in your head only. Because god is not demonstrated to exist, there is no "need" for anyone to behave as if god does not. People just behave as they would with regard to the myriad of things that are not shown to exist.

However, there is an ideology of people believing god does exist and that should influence their behaviour or thinking. There is also an ideology, held by you JayJay, of thinking that atheists are actively engaged in believing "they don't need to act as though there is no God" and that this somehow governs the outputs of science.

Thank you for the clarity. We can now be clear that the atheist ideology does not exist and therefore, cannot have messed up the human origin story.

Spearthrower wrote:

Alan B wrote:

Sendraks wrote:But, what is the atheist ideology?

Erm, Erm,

Oh ffs, Alan! Didn't you read the thread?

In summary, it's 19th century Anglican church holistic prognostications about the deterministic Ordovican Legolas-Gimli self-creative divide encapsulated in naturalistic gedenken hierarchies of chimpanzee canine biting profiles in haka fecal throwing as evidenced by Russian battle captains' advancement plans in Sviatoslav's campaign against Khazars, the content of Bilbo Baggin's wet-dreams, and the picture I drew tabulating all this here:





You're just not even trying anymore, are you Alan?

I must confess I haven't read all the thread, but thanks for clearing that up. I must do a web search for my nearest ABC (Atheism Belief Centre).

Alan B wrote:I must confess I haven't read all the thread, but thanks for clearing that up.

There'll be a test later!

Alan B wrote:I must do a web search for my nearest ABC (Atheism Belief Centre).

Do make sure you pick up a copy of your Atheist's Bible while you're there, otherwise how would you know if you're doing your not believing in gods right?

Also, be careful not to pick up the Atheist's Qur'an by mistake - that's blasphemous nonsense... they don't believe in the wrong god!

Spearthrower wrote:
Do make sure you pick up a copy of your Atheist's Bible while you're there, otherwise how would you know if you're doing your not believing in gods right?

Also, be careful not to pick up the Atheist's Qur'an by mistake - that's blasphemous nonsense... they don't believe in the wrong god!

is genius.

And also hilarious.

I wonder if they do a Mormon Bible? Probably only in Murica...

Destroyer wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:in the case of “rational skeptics” the central belief is that you don’t need to act as though there is a God.

What does it mean to 'act' as though there is no God? I am pretty certain that you are implying that humans who do not espouse convictions in the existence of any gods are then given free rein to all manner of immoral acts.

I can see how you might have imagined that was what I was implying but as I said to Sendraks, I phrased the central belief of rational skeptics in terms of action so as to avoid an often used counter argument by ratskeps via agnosticism: that since they have “no position” on the existence of God, therefore from first principles, they can’t have an ideology. I was drawing on Orwell’s calling WWII pacifists “objectively pro-Nazi” and on B. F. Skinner.

For the record I don’t think that people who think it’s OK to act as if there were no God, feel they are given free rein to all manner of immoral acts. Hmmm mind you, what did my kids get up to at AfrikaBurn? “Working” in a “post office?” What was that really about? I’ll have to ask about that next time I go to the city to bludge off them.

Destroyer wrote: This is why it is necessary for you to insist on atheists as an homogenous group who share the same ideology.

I insist on ratskeps as a homogeneous group because posters act ideologically and in consort on the dDebunking Creationsm site. And that’s OK it’s fine I’m just pointing to evidence.

Destroyer wrote: If you simply accept the fact that the theory of evolution does indeed adequately describe the mechanisms for the creation of species without necessary recourse to any other agency, then you would have no basis upon which to constantly insist upon a unified atheistic ideology.

Working backwards through that, I do think it’s possible to trace the development of atheism in the West since the 18th century, that story centrally involves Darwin and his social context. Our generations have been socially groomed by it.

I don’t allege any “other agency”. I argue that the story of life revealed by palaeontology is one of vast creativity and that creativity can be ascribed to large biomes fluxing biomes. For example, “Africa” created a series of animals closely resembling human beings, and then actual talking human beings. To say that the low level mechanisms of natural selection did that, is like saying that the Titanic sank because steel is denser than water.

One reading of this argument is that creation doesn’t really need a theory at all, the interest is all in palaeontology, just like we don’t need a theory of history. But I’m trying to develop the aspect of embededness in a natural hierarchy. The creation has been marvelous and it’s also radically unpredictable.

Destroyer wrote: ...otherwise it has to be accepted that atheists have every right to view evolution as supporting the hypothesis that no supernatural mechanisms were required in this process... But to keep implying that atheists are a unified ideological group whose foundations have their basis in immoral conducts, since that is what apparently unifies them: "acting as though there is no God", is indeed a disingenuous smokescreen to evade the fact that evolution does indeed support this view.

Atheists are wrong in so far as they deny that human beings exist part way up in a creative hierarchy. Why, considering how big and marvelous this place is, should we be at the top?

Of the numerous faults in JJ's methodology, I've always found his wilful forays into historical revisionism to be the most transparent and laughable.

As usual, he's got it arse-about-tit. There's no sudden atheism in the West from the 18th (Darwin, in the 18th century? lol) century, rather, it was then when legislation became sufficiently equitable that Christians could no longer oppress atheists or atheist thought, nor revise it out of history.

Euripides - 480–406 BCE

“Doth some one say that there be gods above?
There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool,
Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you.”

1 A time there was when disorder ruled
Human lives, which were then, like lives of beasts,
Enslaved to force; nor was there then reward
For the good, nor for the wicked punishment.
5 Next, it seems to me, humans established laws
For punishment, that justice might rule
Over the tribe of mortals, and wanton injury be subdued;
And whosoever did wrong was penalized.
Next, as the laws held [mortals] back from deeds
10 Of open violence, but still such deeds
Were done in secret,—then, I think,
Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
15 Even act or speak or scheme in secret.
Hence it was that he introduced the divine
Telling how the divinity enjoys endless life,
Hears and sees, and takes thought
And attends to things, and his nature is divine,
20 So that everything which mortals say is heard
And everything done is visible.
Even if you plan in silence some evil deed
It will not be hidden from the gods: for discernment
Lies in them. So, speaking words like these,
25 The sweetest teaching did he introduce,
Concealing truth under untrue speech.
The place he spoke of as the gods' abode
Was that by which he might awe humans most,—
The place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals
30 And things advantageous in their wearisome life—
The revolving heaven above, in which dwell
The lightnings, and awesome claps
Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
Beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time,—
35 From which, too, the meteor's glowing mass speeds
And wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth.
Such were the fears with which he surrounded mortals,
And to the divinity he gave a fitting home,
By this his speech, and in a fitting place,
40 And [thus] extinguished lawlessness by laws.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/ ... rld-review

Ted Cruz declared last year that someone who does not begin every day on “his knees” (sic) is not fit to be commander-in-chief. Atheism is controversial, in the US as in many other countries around the world. But both its detractors and its supporters tend to portray lack of faith in a divine power as a possibility or danger available only in modern times.

Those in the Cruz camp often view atheism as a marker and a cause of the degeneration of contemporary society; Cruz’s father famously declared that it is the cause of sexual abuse.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/dis ... s-religion

Despite being written out of large parts of history, atheists thrived in the polytheistic societies of the ancient world – raising considerable doubts about whether humans really are “wired” for religion – a new study suggests.

The claim is the central proposition of a new book by Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge. In it, he suggests that atheism – which is typically seen as a modern phenomenon – was not just common in ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome, but probably flourished more in those societies than in most civilisations since.

Of course, it would be fair to note that JJ's post above is obnoxious, sneering, and uncivil... the very charges he is quick to toss out when people respond in kind, but of course, he is to be held to a different standard. That standard also seems to comprise making up any old shit he fancies and expecting it to be taken as fact, never admitting error ever, and blaming atheists for his shit being rejected. It's atheists rejecting his shit that is the ideology he's most concerned with, and thus rather than revising his points or according with usual standards for communication, he instead uses their refusal to countenance shit as being the evidence for 'atheist ideology'.

There are 2 primary motivations here for JJ. One is to remind you just how much he despises you and everything you stand for (which is not genuflecting to his beliefs), and the other is a massively inflated sense of self-worth.

JJ is hubris from start to... well, not end, because he's incapable of stopping himself.