rainbow wrote:Atheists should lack a Temple.

For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

Fallible wrote::yawn:

I raise you one snort and 2 face-palms.

amkerman wrote:
For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

amkerman wrote:Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

amkerman wrote:

rainbow wrote:Atheists should lack a Temple.

For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

But shouldn't the virtue of reason be promoted?

Loren Michael wrote:

amkerman wrote:

rainbow wrote:Atheists should lack a Temple.

For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

But shouldn't the virtue of reason be promoted?

Not in my temple, damnit! It will just get in the way of all the incense mediated happy-clappy highs!

amkerman wrote:

rainbow wrote:Atheists should lack a Temple.

For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

Oh they do? How many different ways can someone lack a belief, in your view?

Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

I guess we'd better all worry about it sounding eerily familiar 'to' what you personally have come to understand a religion is. Or...not?

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Loren Michael wrote:

amkerman wrote:

rainbow wrote:Atheists should lack a Temple.

For a group of people with literally "nothing" in common some atheists sure do get all up in arms about the correct ways one should "lack" belief in God.

Is this going to be like a museum? I could be down with that. Is it going to promote a "lack of belief in God or gods" or extol any moral or ethical "truths", such as, perhaps, the virtue of using reason? That's where the alarms go off. Starts to sound eerily familiar to what I have come to understand a religion is.

But shouldn't the virtue of reason be promoted?

I don't know Loren, should it? And if so, by what authority do you claim reason is a virtue? Or is it self-evident?

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Incidentally, amkerman, you and I (and probably everyone here) share our disbelief in fairies. That absence of belief is nothing, so we literally have nothing in common - right? Or is sharing a disbelief in fairies something in common? If society at large believed in fairies, wouldn't our shared disbelief be of somewhat more significance than it otherwise is?

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Your humanity is not shared by virtue of your atheism. I, for example, am not an atheist. Yet somehow, I still manage to share in your humanity... crazy.

But atheists are human, so one thing they all share is their humanity.

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Incidentally, amkerman, you and I (and probably everyone here) share our disbelief in fairies. That absence of belief is nothing, so we literally have nothing in common - right? Or is sharing a disbelief in fairies something in common? If society at large believed in fairies, wouldn't our shared disbelief be of somewhat more significance than it otherwise is?

Disbelief is not a lack of belief, you're getting confused between the difference between 1, 0, -1. A disbelief is a negative belief, not an absence of belief.

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Your humanity is not shared by virtue of your atheism. I, for example, am not an atheist. Yet somehow, I still manage to share in your humanity... crazy.

Didn't you see the wink?

The 'duh' was the main response as it best sums up how far you missed the target but it was a bit short, so I offered a similarly offbase response effectively modelling your reply!

But then I went back and added another paragraph to explain it: how's about them fairies, amkerman? I take it that your disbelief in fairies is of practically zero importance in your life, amiright? However, if you were living in a society where people routinely extolled the virtue of fairies, the necessity of their being for morality, and your lack of belief in them was seen as an almost inhuman deficiency.... wouldn't you feel some degree of kinship with people who shared your disbelief?

Fallible wrote:But atheists are human, so one thing they all share is their humanity.

How can you not see that they all share in their humanity because they are human, not because they arer atheists? Atheists have only have "an absence" of a "thing" (belief in God or gods) in common by virtue of their atheism. Anything else they may or may not have in common is not due to them being an atheist. They only have "nothing" in common by virtue of their atheism.

It's not an insult, and it's shouldn't really be open for debate. It's true by definition.

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Incidentally, amkerman, you and I (and probably everyone here) share our disbelief in fairies. That absence of belief is nothing, so we literally have nothing in common - right? Or is sharing a disbelief in fairies something in common? If society at large believed in fairies, wouldn't our shared disbelief be of somewhat more significance than it otherwise is?

Disbelief is not a lack of belief, you're getting confused between the difference between 1, 0, -1. A disbelief is a negative belief, not an absence of belief.

Pointless semantics.

Both 0 and -1 are not 1.
1 is neither 0 nor -1.
0 and -1 are the same position with respect to 1.

I have 1 apple.
You have 0 apples.
I stole my apple from Fallible who effectively now has -1 apples.

The only person with an apple is me.

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Your humanity is not shared by virtue of your atheism. I, for example, am not an atheist. Yet somehow, I still manage to share in your humanity... crazy.

Religion can be divisive. Some dogma separates humanity into the saved and the damned, the good and the evil. Religion can obscure your view of humanity. Removing the religious clothing can reveal the humanity beneath.

I think this not an issue unique to religion, other ideologies can do the same, but religion adds claim of infallible authority to its dogma.

"Our humanity is more easily shared by virtue of our discarding of divisive dogma." Potentially.

Of course "You must not worship false gods" could become dogma. "reason above all" could become an ideology.

amkerman wrote:

Fallible wrote:But atheists are human, so one thing they all share is their humanity.

How can you not see that they all share in their humanity because they are human, not because they arer atheists? Atheists have only have "an absence" of a "thing" (belief in God or gods) in common by virtue of their atheism. Anything else they may or may not have in common is not due to them being an atheist. They only have "nothing" in common by virtue of their atheism.

It's not an insult, and it's shouldn't really be open for debate. It's true by definition.

Right above your post:

Spearthrower wrote:how's about them fairies, amkerman? I take it that your disbelief in fairies is of practically zero importance in your life, amiright? However, if you were living in a society where people routinely extolled the virtue of fairies, the necessity of their being for morality, and your lack of belief in them was seen as an almost inhuman deficiency.... wouldn't you feel some degree of kinship with people who shared your disbelief?

You can share a disbelief when it is in contrast to an overwhelmingly held position.

I live in Thailand: practically everyone here is Buddhist. I don't believe in Buddhist dogmas, Buddhist practices, Buddhist claims. Most of my friends do. When they're out temple-hopping, is it really unusual that non-Buddhists might spend time together in their shared position of not being Buddhist?

amkerman wrote:

Fallible wrote:But atheists are human, so one thing they all share is their humanity.

How can you not see that they all share in their humanity because they are human, not because they arer atheists?

Oh, is that what you meant by 'by virtue of their atheism'? I do understand they share in their humanity because they are human. I guess that when you say atheists have literally ''nothing'' in common, that can be taken in more than one way.

Atheists have only have "an absence" of a "thing" (belief in God or gods) in common by virtue of their atheism. Anything else they may or may not have in common is not due to them being an atheist. They only have "nothing" in common by virtue of their atheism.

It's not an insult, and it's shouldn't really be open for debate. It's true by definition.

Well this isn't really true. It would be impossible for people to accept some things and also be theists. So people who have the acceptance of these things in common probably need to be atheists, and therefore have those things in common 'by virtue of' their atheism.

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Quite, which is expressly why this group of people with literally "nothing" in common (who ever suggested that?) are all 'up in arms' in our traditional militant, aggressive, condescending, smug and petulant manner.

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Absolute genius!! You've got us. All us atheists have nothing in common, not one single thing because of our lack of belief in God/s.

I'm prepared to agree to a point that you're right. We will all differ in our morals slightly, our level of empathy towards other people/animals etc. We're different in our political leanings, levels of education etc. Now explain to me how that is different from someone who Does believe in any form of God and you've made your point.

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

amkerman wrote:

All atheism is is a "lack of belief in God or gods" correct? Well a lack of belief is an absence of something, it is nothing. All atheist's literally have in common, by virtue of their atheism, is "nothing".

Duh.

How's about our humanity?

Your humanity is not shared by virtue of your atheism. I, for example, am not an atheist. Yet somehow, I still manage to share in your humanity... crazy.

Didn't you see the wink?

The 'duh' was the main response as it best sums up how far you missed the target but it was a bit short, so I offered a similarly offbase response effectively modelling your reply!

But then I went back and added another paragraph to explain it: how's about them fairies, amkerman? I take it that your disbelief in fairies is of practically zero importance in your life, amiright? However, if you were living in a society where people routinely extolled the virtue of fairies, the necessity of their being for morality, and your lack of belief in them was seen as an almost inhuman deficiency.... wouldn't you feel some degree of kinship with people who shared your disbelief?

I addressed your contention. Disbelief and absence of belief are not congruent. A disbelief is a -1 and an absence or "lack" of belief is a 0.

My understanding of reality and yours are so far off that I can't even concede to you that I disbelieve in fairies because we mean different things by the word "disbelief". I am probably closer to the definition of atheism "lack of belief" when it comes to fairies, they may possibly exist but i have no reason to believe in them.

I do not disbelieve things I have no reason to believe. It is invincibly ignorant to do such.

No, I feel no kinship with other people who don't pay attention to fairies because I will never talk about belief or disbelief in fairies unless asked, so really I don't have a good method of knowing who else lacks belief in fairies, nor do I care to know such. Anyways I feel more kinship with those who actively choose to believe than with those who actively choose to disbelieve.