Gripes with your own...

philologos

This is another idea for a thread along the same lines as the last. This is an idea based on an interaction between an athiest and a Christian on youtube which I have seen which has been rather successful and I think it's a good idea.

The idea, gripes about how your own ideology is executed or the others that are sharing your belief. Mine are as follows. For the first while I would like atheists to do this as well, just so we can be a bit clearer about ourselves. I realise this can be hard to do but please make an attempt rather than complaining about the motives of the thread.

1) Denominational squabbles or disputes. When Christian unity as Jesus advises in John 17, is threatened by people arguing over tiny points of Scripture. The fractures in Christianity can put newcomers to belief off, and fractures in Christianity often stop us from being a more effective force in the world.

2) Televangelism and greed. The popularisation of Christianity has unfortunately brought people who make business and make profits from the Christian message and from the person of Jesus Christ and the teachings of Jesus Christ by donations. I find this irreconcilable with the Gospel message.

3) The promotion of violence in the name of Christianity. This was one of the issues I have particularly in America, that people can advocate that a war is God's will without providing rhyme or reason for suggesting so. Given the character of Jesus Christ, and the New Testament and the idea that Christians are to be submissive of the State and it's authority it seems difficult to me to suggest that Christians should be leading battle efforts under this motive.

4) Doubting the salvation of other Christians. This is related to point 1, I think we should be building other people who are interested in Christianity up as in Ephesians 4 rather than casting doubt that they have indeed achieved salvation. I see this as fruitless, as even if people have not achieved salvation in your opinion does not mean that they have not already, or that there isn't room for growth.

5) Denying what Christianity is for the sake of popularity. For example referring to Christianity as being "not a religion, but a relationship." I find that Christianity does tick all the boxes of a religion as being a group of people who organise a community based on rites, and practices, and that believe in a theos (God). There is no reason why a relationship with God cannot be an integral part of religion.

6) There is a tendency not to encourage questioning by certain Christians. I think this however is the greatest tool in strengthening people to serve God in a world that demands answers.

7) Primary method of communicating the Gospel - I far prefer someone who can tell me what Christ can do for me rather than telling people what Christ can't do for people or how He will punish x, y and z. Defending the Gospel gently as called for by Apostles such as Peter and Paul is crucial. I believe that this is crucial for people to actually see Christianity as a real option. I don't believe that topics such as hell should be avoided, I just believe that other methods of evangelism should be promoted.

8) Physical sins being seen as somehow worse than the rest - There seems to be a notion amongst some that physical sins such as sexual immorality and drunkeness and so on are so much worse than hatred, lying, coveting, lustfulness, greed, gluttony when in reality the Christian texts say that the heart is the store for all things that are evil and evils are brought forth from the heart.

9) Distortionism - The justifications of hatred in the name of Christianity such as abortion clinic bombings in the USA, white supremacists such as the KKK, religious based violence in Uganda amongst other things. It's hard not to have incidents like these make your blood boil. On a more local scale, the abuse of Christianity by political terrorists such as the IRA, UVF, UDA etc.

10) The awful deeds done in the name of Christianity in the past - Part related to the last point. However, the Crusades, the Inquisition, violence against French Hugenots in France by Catholics and vice versa in other parts of Europe. Salem Witch Trials, Papal abuses in the name of Christianity, things like this just make you frustrated to even think that they took place. Christianity has so much to offer the world and it's a shame the corrupt nature of man has to get in the way.

11) Oversimplification of Christian beliefs. There has been a trend to simplify beliefs into nice and easy acronymns, they often cause a lot of unnecessary misconceptions about Christianity. An example of this is for Bible, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I personally do not think that the Bible is basic, or that it merely contains constructions, but rather legal, wisdom, poetry, prophesy, narrative and so on.

12) Advocating Christianity as merely something that you do rather than inspiring your life - I find that often rituals such as baptism ends being done only due to the fact that it is the done thing. The meaning of these events can often be lost. There is also a tendency for church to be just something you do, not something you are passionate about. This is another gripe of mine more that Christianity is so centred on ritual rather than the message.

Maybe some Christians can help me out with the gripes. It's quite a hard subject to deal with. I want to see some atheists try and do the same. I hope we can have a fulfilling discussion about this

Bottle_of_Smoke

People saying they're atheist because they don't like religions or religious people

"Humanism"

The belief that the world will be a much better place if everyone was an atheist.

The instant full belief of any damnation of anything religious without checking the facts, whilst complaining about religious people doing the same for their faiths

Atheists complaining about being "harassed" by street preachers when the reality is they look forward to being approached so they can tell their mates about how annoying someone was.

Have been guilty of most of the above in the past I'll admit.

limerick_woody

Atheism is not an ideology - we simply do not accept the available evidence warrants belief of any supernatural being. That's it - honest.

I do think communication between the religious and non-religious could be better - but it is difficult to criticise atheism as a belief system, or doctrine or ideology when it clearly is not.

philologos

limerick woody: How about dealing with your gripes about how atheism is executed, or advocated in the world. There must be some form of criticism that you have?

limerick_woody

Jakkass wrote: »

limerick woody: How about dealing with your gripes about how atheism is executed, or advocated in the world. There must be some form of criticism that you have?

Your question is leading. There is no atheist movement to criticise. Each atheist is free to communicate their views however they see fit, sometimes i agree, other times i think they go too far. There is a very obvious religious movement, dogma, doctrine etc that can be criticised as such. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in gods - it's personal.

That's not to say of course that pushing atheism couldn't be done better - for sure it can - but here i would only be complaining about individual methods and not about atheism - which, i think, you feel is the parallel to your (excellent) post.

philologos

limerick_woody wrote: »

That's not to say of course that pushing atheism couldn't be done better - for sure it can - but here i would only be complaining about individual methods and not about atheism - which, i think, you feel is the parallel to your (excellent) post.

That was the idea of the thread to promote people to look to the way that people advocate atheism and to outline any gripes you may have about the way that this is done.

I'll embed the youtube videos doing this:

NightVisionPhantom - Christianity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1DtqbGduY

coughlan666 - Atheism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrOaldfy5Q

I'm not asking you to go as far as coughlan666, but surely it shouldn't be that difficult to get you to think about it

limerick_woody

I will look at this later - but i am going to go out on a limb and suggest that your youtube hippy and myself are not going to agree on things

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

That was the idea of the thread to promote people to look to the way that people advocate atheism and to outline any gripes you may have about the way that this is done.

Good question again.

I'm sure that there must be a few spotty teenagers on youtube or elsewhere who advocate atheism at the top of their voices and if they're out there, these fine people probably need nothing more than a cup of warm cocoa and a good night's sleep.

Having said that, I can't really recall any person or movement that's advocating atheism -- in the sense that they're trying to get people to acquire their pov -- who's doing it in a way that I have any serious objections to. And that's mostly because there are so amazingly few people out there advocating it to start with and most of them are pretty smart and pretty decent people. Yes, Hitchens can be amazingly rude and arrogant, but he's no less so than many religious preachers. No, the Chinese, North Korean, Saudi and other governments are not advocating atheism -- they're protecting their political power base against erosion in a particularly nasty way. And that leaves the books of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and a few more, plus the delectable Ariane Sherine, a few buses, the HAI, AI and this forum's inhabitants.

Basically, it's asymmetric.

Atheism isn't taught in schools, madrasahs and so on worldwide. There are no atheist preachers on Henry Street from dawn 'til dusk. There are no extravagant churches where the unfaithful can arrive up to hear sections of the population described as "intrinsically disordered". There are no satellite channels disgorging endless atheist speeches. Atheist street-workers do not go door to door, or emigrate to strange countries and cultures to spread their beliefs to people who have no natural defenses against them. And recalling something that floated in to me last week, atheists do not stuff people's letterboxes with promotional literature telling me that I'm going to burn in hell (or whatever the atheist equivalent could be!) if I don't unconditionally believe whatever the flyer wants me to unconditionally believe.

So, summarizing my position - I can't say I've any great problems with the atheism advocacy that I'm aware of.

Dades

I have gripes with agnostics who won't admit they are actually atheists.

And anyone who makes YouTube rants.
wtf - coughlan666 = Gaius Baltar :pac:

Overblood

Gripes with atheism:

• None

Rev Hellfire

I have gripes with atheists who won't admit they are actually agnostics.

(Until someone comes up with a proper concrete definition of a 'god' which everyone can agree on)

Myggel

I don't believe in the traditional or any type of God but would not classify myself as atheist, agnostic or anything else.

I always think about how vast the universe is, wonder where we fit in and imagine us as a race in the past, present and in the future.

I never believed in religion tbh. Just seems like the lazy mans way of tying together the unknown and unexplainable. I much prefer the idea of looking, learning and finding actual answers.

I will never sit down and rip religion apart though - there's no point. Believe what you want. I don't mind nodding along and agreeing with religious types, as an Irish person I've been doing that all my life. There's more to life than letting everyone know your opinion. Keep it, develop it, change it. The more you learn the more it will change. What's wrong with keeping opinions or ideas to yourself? The more you know the more they evolve so really opinions are just a function of time. I have great conversations in my mind about things I know none of my friends would give a ****e about so why bore them.

5uspect

Dades wrote: »

And anyone who makes YouTube rants.
wtf - coughlan666 = Gaius Baltar :pac:

Now that you mention it...
If he had a head six in his videos maybe I'd actually watch them.

in other news I passed my PhD Viva today, yay!

coffee_cake

5uspect wrote: »

Now that you mention it...
If he had a head six in his videos maybe I'd actually watch them.

in other news I passed my PhD Viva today, yay!

grats dr 5uspect ;P

5uspect

Fortunately no one suspected a thing!

Ahem,
Gripes?
Well they're fond of hijacking threads and dragging them off topic.

lostexpectation

sorry what jakkas op got to with atheism?

philologos

lostexpectation: I'm asking people to take a look into how their belief system is advocated. Belief system is the best term I can use to describe it. Then after having done this to assess what are the flaws in how it is executed. It's aimed as being a conciliatory exercise like my last thread titled "The others....."

robindch

Jakkass -- I'm putting on my mod's hat here briefly -- as limerick_woody said, there's really no atheist movement to speak of, just small groups here and there which object to one religious thing or another and no central co-ordination or guidance.

Putting my finger in the air, and talking about Ireland only, I'd say that the number of people who post here in the A+A forum, plus the HAI, plus AI, plus whatever student bodies are out there, would be comfortably outnumbered by the number of people who show up in a small church in a town in West Clare on a damp Sunday morning in January.

If you can point to the atheist equivalent of the two youtube boyos up above, then perhaps people can form more of a coherent response. I get the feeling that there's a certain amount of aimless flapping going on in the thread just now

philologos

robindch: I'm merely trying to get people to think.

E.G Do the acts of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hoxha etc in the name of state atheism not annoy you?

NightVisionPhantom is the Christian (first video)
coughlan666 is the atheist (second video)

I don't see what is so hard about criticising how atheism is put forward.

Responses such as Overblood's just seem to me to be a lack of critical thought on the subject rather than actually considering the idea.

The Mad Hatter

5uspect wrote: »

Now that you mention it...
If he had a head six in his videos maybe I'd actually watch them.

in other news I passed my PhD Viva today, yay!

AGH! *averts eyes*

Don't tell me I'm gonna have to start avoiding A&A too! (Won't see season 4 until it comes out on DVD on the first of June.)

If I give up this forum, I might actually have to start doing stuff with my day...

(btw congrats on the PhD)

DapperGent

Jakkass wrote: »

E.G Do the acts of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hoxha etc in the name of state atheism not annoy you?

Oh for fúck sake. :rolleyes:

philologos

DapperGent: You're giving credence to the idea that atheists don't like to actually question how their own position has been advocated both in the past and in the present.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

robindch: I'm merely trying to get people to think.

That's good

Jakkass wrote: »

E.G Do the acts of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hoxha etc in the name of state atheism not annoy you?

You must have missed my first post above (and many other ones previously).

What Stalin and the other lads did does annoy me enormously, but not because they were "acting in the name of atheism", but because they were murderous assholes. They instructed others to commit their crimes because they were political paranoids of the first order and were prepared to do whatever it took to preserve their grip on power. They had nothing whatsoever to do with atheism, even, as far as I can establish, as the lamest of excuses.

Like, seriously, have you ever looked through any of the collected works of these guys? Let's try Mao, since I did this to correct some of PDN's more egregious errors of fact a couple of months ago. Mao does not claim to act in the name of atheism anywhere. Nada. Zilch. And it's a lie that he does.

Jakkass wrote: »

NightVisionPhantom is the Christian (first video), coughlan666 is the atheist (second video)

Sorry, I only watched the first 30 seconds of the first guy and assumed that the second guy was the same.

coughlan666 has eaten far too many skittles and drunk far too much coke to be worth 11 minutes of anybody's time. As above, a cup of cocoa and a good night's sleep is what the poor chap needs.

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't see what is so hard about criticising how atheism is put forward. Responses such as Overblood's just seem to me to be a lack of critical thought on the subject rather than actually considering the idea.

Well, overblood's post refers to atheism itself, not the presentation of atheism. Which is a bit difficult, as I said, to criticize when there are really very few people out there advocating it, and of those very few that are, most are smart, decent and honorable people.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

You're giving credence to the idea that atheists don't like to actually question how their own position has been advocated both in the past and in the present.

And you're making at least one poster here amazingly suspicious that you've never fact-checked

dvpower

I must admit, some of the language Dawkins uses goes way too far e.g. comparing religion to child abuse. Even the title of 'The God Delusion' seems harsh.

This kind of language just turns people off. It may play well with (some) other atheists but it is only going to alienate religious people. Atheists pride themselves on being rational thinkers, but insulting those you are trying to communicate with doesn't seem to me to be too rational.

Absolute atheism also annoys me a bit. I don't think I could ever say 100% that there is no God (I use the term God loosely here); we can only say that there is insufficient evidence for God.

philologos

Does militant atheism or the idea that atheism could become organised not annoy you to an extent as well? (i.e summer camps etc)

robindch: Perhaps I haven't clarified my positions 100% but this isn't about me drawing out potential gripes that you may have with atheism, at least that wasn't the intention.

robindch

dvpower wrote: »

I must admit, some of the language Dawkins uses goes way too far e.g. comparing religion to child abuse.

I'm going from memory here, but AFAIR, the comparison to child abuse was in reference to the specific case of a woman who'd been told by some adult that some non-believing family member who'd died was going to burn in hell for all eternity. A thought that gave her recurring nightmares. In that specific case, I think the comparison is at lease arguable.

AFAIK, Dawkins has never said that religion = child abuse, though plenty of people seem to think that he has, possibly because relatively few people have read Dawkins, and instead relied on second-hand reports which have proved to be less than reliable.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

Does militant atheism or the idea that atheism could become organised not annoy you to an extent as well? (i.e summer camps etc)

Given that religion is coalescing into a number of numerically smaller, but much noisier and occasionally much more dangerous, groups, the response must unfortunately become united too.

Frankly, I'd much, much prefer people to think for themselves without the need to join or form self-reinforcing ingroups, but that just doesn't seem like an option just now.

As for the idea of sending my kid to an atheist summer camp? Yuk, with knobs on. But if I had to choose a camp, she'd certainly be going there and certainly not to Jesus Camp (which, for the record, constitutes child abuse to me).

The Mad Hatter

robindch wrote: »

I'm going from memory here, but AFAIR, the comparison to child abuse was in reference to the specific case of a woman who'd been told by some adult that some non-believing family member who'd died was going to burn in hell for all eternity. A thought that gave her recurring nightmares. In that specific case, I think the comparison is at lease arguable.

AFAIK, Dawkins has never said that religion = child abuse, though plenty of people seem to think that he has, possibly because relatively few people have read Dawkins, and instead relied on second-hand reports which have proved to be less than reliable.

Still haven't read TGD, but I've seen him in interviews say that religious indoctrination is child abuse.

robindch

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Still haven't read TGD, but I've seen him in interviews say that religious indoctrination is child abuse.

Fair enough. If Dawkins was referring to religion in general (was he?), then I stand corrected.

Though, as above in reference to Jesus Camp, certain types of religious (and political) indoctrination certainly do constitute child abuse to me, even if there are plenty that certainly do not.

dvpower

robindch wrote: »

I'm going from memory here, but AFAIR, the comparison to child abuse was in reference to the specific case of a woman who'd been told by some adult that some non-believing family member who'd died was going to burn in hell for all eternity. A thought that gave her recurring nightmares. In that specific case, I think the comparison is at lease arguable.

AFAIK, Dawkins has never said that religion = child abuse, though plenty of people seem to think that he has, possibly because relatively few people have read Dawkins, and instead relied on second-hand reports which have proved to be less than reliable.

I have read Dawkins. I have it in front of me.
Chapter 9 is titled 'Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion'. Dawkins doesn't make the direct accusation, but my point is that the harsh language he uses is counter productive.

For example:

The God Delusion wrote:

Once, in the question time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the widely publicised cases of sexual abuse by catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long term physiological damage of bringing the child up catholic in the first place.