Oldskeptic wrote:Jayjay4547 wrote:Oldskeptic wrote:You should layoff asking JayJay to explain what atheist ideology is. He's explained it very simply and succinctly as a set of rational attitudes that make it difficult to believe in gods. I can get fully on board with that definition, but then I have to ask him what fault he can really find in that? By JayJay's definition of atheist ideology I suppose that theist ideology could be explained as a set of irrational attitudes that make it easy to believe in gods.
Did I say the atheist ideology is a set of RATIONAL belief?
No, you said, "...atheist ideology is a set of attitudes that make it difficult for a rational person to see how there could be a god."Good Grief. I didn’t mean to say that.
More like you regret saying it.
I do regret my incaution. I didn’t appreciate that you could very easily read that as atheist ideology is a set of RATIONAL attitudes that make it difficult for a rational person to see how there could be a god. And why shouldn’t you interpret it that way? After all a rational person is one who has rational attitudes.
You used that to make out that I would prefer my set of irrational (according to you) attitudes prevail over a set of rational (according to you) attitudes. That couldn’t have been my intention. To prevent that word game I’ll adapt the definition:
Atheist ideology is a set of self-serving attitudes that make it difficult for a reasonablee person to see how there could be a god.
Oldskeptic wrote:Oldskeptic wrote:JayJay's complaint is that this set of rational attitudes leads to the undermining of belief in creation by something greater than ourselves. JayJay would rather have his set of irrational set of attitudes prevail over a set of rational attitudes. The point of his in this thread isn't that atheist ideology messed up the human origin story; It's that rational attitudes interfere with creationism.JayJay wrote:
That passage would be about right if you everywhere changed “rational” to “irrational” and “irrational” to “rational”.
But then it wouldn't match how you described atheist ideology.
Not how I have now reframed it, to stop you from making out that my position is the opposite of what it is.
Another point I want to bring out is that the self-serving attitudes that make up an ideology are made up by a group of believers over time, so that the “reasonable person” inherits them and swims in them. There is also inevitably some institutional/economic/political interest involved.
You ignored my bringing up that an ideology becomes visible when it’s wrong. It should be possible to demolish part of an ideology by showing that some attitude is held by s bunch of believers and is wrong.