rationalskepticism.org

kravarnik wrote:I was directed to this board due to me saying there are barely any civil atheistic forums, with a relatively large memberbase. I believe this thread to be redundant, as I believe the issue lies much deeper. To be more precise, it lies in the misconceptions about the opposite camp and especially the lack of interest for comprehending the opposition. And these miscoceptions are not exclusive to atheists or theist, but to people in general.

Oh you mean "lack of interest for comprehending the opposition" of the sort we see here all the time from supernaturalists, who routinely erect the same tired, old, repeatedly destroyed canards about atheism and atheists? Based upon a smug, self-satisfied attitude that they somehow magically possess a hot line to The TruthTM, just because they've chosen to treat unsupported mythological assertions as fact?

Let's see, we've had supernaturalists routinely present here, such canards as "atheists cannot be moral", despite the fact that we have evidence pointing not only to the fact that atheists can be moral and are frequently moral, but numerous news articles pointing to instances of criminal malfeasance on the part of supernaturalists, of a sort that would result in endless smug, self-satisfied crowing, if it was reported that an atheist had committed the same crimes. Or equally sinister and duplicitous attempts to try and portray our entirely proper suspicion of unsupported mythological assertions, as purportedly constituting some sort of mental deficiency. That's before we start looking at the large body of evidence pointing to discoursive mendacity on a grand scale within supernaturalist apologetics. Whilst creationists are a particularly florid source thereof, this is not restricted to them by any means. You'll find plenty of evidence here in numerous threads, if you bother to read them.

kravarnik wrote:What I mean is, if you view religion/non-religion/atheism/-insert what you like- as evil, irrational and stupid, then most likely you won't be handling its adherents in a good manner, since all you see in their actions are negative attributes.

The difference being, that we have evidence for the malign influence exerted upon both discourse and policy, arising from the treatment of unsupported mythological assertions as fact. Supernaturalists have nothing but fabrications to offer in reply.

kravarnik wrote:You won't be seeing your counterparts as people who genuinely seek the truth, as you do, but as evil people who try to win you on their side.

Oddly enough, I expounded the very same principle on numerous several past occasions, when expounding on the aetiology of doctrine centred world views. You're not contributing anything original here, and indeed, your attempt to erect a "symmetry" between us and supernaturalists in this regard fails for the reason I've given above, namely, we have evidence, they merely have fabrications. Not that this stops supernaturalists from resurrecting attempts to peddle this fake "symmetry".

kravarnik wrote:Their ways and reasoning becomes deceptive to you, thus false and deservent [sic] of bad treatment.

Once again, your "symmetry" here fails. Because several of us here have exerted effort learning about the proper rules of discourse, a central one being that he who presents assertions is required to support them, an elementary rule that supernaturalists routinely demonstrate that they are either [1] ignorant of, or [2] regard themselves as exempt therefrom.

kravarnik wrote:This does no good to anyone, nor the very purpose of discourse - to seek and find the truth.

We're not the ones driving a tank battalion through the rules thereof.

kravarnik wrote:I believe we need more comprehension.

You think we haven't had enough material here to study, presented by supernaturalists?

kravarnik wrote:We need to understand that these people, who spit out words which are seemingly false and non-sensical, are just like us, trying to find the truth, or sharing what they deem to be truthful, even though, to us it's of no intellectual value.

Except that when we point to reliable sources of knowledge, demonstrating that their assertions are either untestable, or plain, flat, wrong, the responses we receive tend to fall into the following categories:

[1] Pretence that the evidence doesn't exist, followed by stonewalling and repeat parroting of their falsified assertions;

[2] Erection of fake Freudian "diagnoses" about our purported "mental handicaps";

[3] Synthetic complaints about post style in order to avoid addressing post content;

[4] Erection of outright and demonstrable fabrications, followed by a wholly unwarranted assistance that we treat said fabrications as fact.

For example, when over a million peer reviewed scientific papers, published in journals covering evolutionary biology, contain documentation of vast swathes of empirical evidence rendering creationist assertions null and void, there's nothing left to "understand" about creationism and its adherents, other than the fact that they choose wilfully to disregard the evidence, and continue clinging to their pet mythologies.

kravarnik wrote:We need to understand that these people are like ourselves, although mistaken in our eyes.

Once again, you'll find I've expounded at length on the aetiology of doctrine centred world views, and the corrupting effects upon the mind that these have. You'll also find that many of us here, myself included, recognise that many of the adherents of doctrine centred world views are just as much victims thereof, as those on the receiving end of said adherents' displays of bigotry and hatred for those beyond the doctrinal pale. The reason we take a vigorous approach to much supernaturalist input here, is because said input manifestly consists of ideological stormtrooping for doctrine. The people we reserve genuine antipathy for, are those who build lucrative careers out of selling lies to the adherents, to keep them adhering.

Oh, I'll also remind you of another elementary principle of discourse in operation here, namely, the entirely proper scientific principle that ideas are disposable entities, and the decision to dispose of an idea is taken when tests of those ideas against relevant evidence tells us to dispose thereof. As a corollary, a maxim in operation here, is that bad ideas exist to be destroyed, not least because we have plenty of historical evidence, that allowing bad ideas to persist, frequently results in the brutal disposal of human beings. It's precisely because we possess compassion for our fellow human beings, and wish to avoid said brutal disposal thereof on the sacrificial altar of a doctrine, that we take the vigorous stand that we do.

Furthermore, this is another aspect of the supernaturalist aetiology in particular that we have discerned, namely, that supernaturalists routinely fail to understand that you are not your ideas. Human beings have the capacity to change their views, if they exert the proper, diligent effort to examine relevant evidence, and as a corollary, I and the other atheists here will quite happily discard several ideas we currently regard as informative and useful, if evidence tells us to do so. This is something you will almost never see a supernaturalist say. Take a look at the recent debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham for a classic example thereof.

Indeed, all too often, supernaturalists regard an attack on their ideas, which in proper discourse are a free-fire zone, as some sort of personal affront, courtesy of a wholly unwarranted emotional attachment to said ideas, usually eliciting the responses I've classified above. This is another area where your attempt to construct a "symmetry" fails, because we regard all ideas as potentially disposable, regardless of provenance, if the evidence says it's time for them to go, whereas supernaturalists routinely regard certain ideas as "sacred", untouchable by the usual rules of proper discourse, and as a corollary, regard the application of said rules to those ideas as some sort of offence. Indeed, the entire historyof supernaturalism is characterised by the wholesale stealing of discoursive privileges for unsupported mythological assertions, and the protection thereof from even the most elementary level of scrutiny, along with the stealing of policy making priviliges for those same assertions. Now that we live in an era where information can be shared across the planet at the speed of light with ease, by millions of human beings simultaneously, and those assertions are being subject to scrutiny like never before, supernaturalists all too often exhibit a revulsion for this entirely proper process.

kravarnik wrote:Try to void mockery, try to avoid the snarky remarks for easy points of witt

Oh, you mean the snarky remarks arising from people like the user formerly known as "AtheistsAreVermin"? You might want to track down some of his posts, though you'll need his new user name of "ispoketoanangel" for this. This is an individual who openly admitted that if his magic man told him to, he would happily exterminate us all. Whilst his particular example is extreme, it's by no means unusual, with respect to the underlying attitudes.

kravarnik wrote:try to be more understanding, etc. This will only help, I promise you.

It won't in the case of the hardcore ideological stormtroopers for doctrine. This is a lesson we've learned the hard way.

kravarnik wrote:I am a Christian and I really hope there are people capable of understanding, capable of sensing genuineness.

Be warned. We've seen enough duplicity from people claiming to be "Christian" in the past, to operate on a hair trigger.