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Why do atheists spend so much time talking about religion?

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  • #122
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    MrPudding wrote: »
    You could almost be talking about lawyers.

    MrP

    Ambulance chasers? :pac:


  • #123
    Coriolanus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,879 ✭✭✭Coriolanus


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    My point was that atheism seems to concern itself with theism excessively, when there should be (I'd imagine) a whole raft of issues that could be addressed from the atheistic viewpoint. Morality struggles, sickness and death, life meaning, arguments that undergird your position. None of which need make any central reference to theism.

    In other words: athiesm (as seen in this forum) seems to advance forward whilst looking back at theism for it's reference points. Whereas I'dve thunk it would turn around and move forward using it's own foundational doctrines as a reference point.
    Most people discuss those issues in the relevant forum ie: Humanities (for real discussion) or in AH (when in the mood to troll).
    For myself, my atheism doesn't inform any of my opinions on the above except where it rejects the religious status quo.
    Not really sure how to explain it, but I'd wager most people here would label themselves as a humanist or liberal when asked for an opinion on a moral issue, rather than saying "Well, as an atheist I feel that x etc...". Contrast that to someone who's religious who identifies themselves as such and refers to that as their reason to oppose/stand for issue x.


  • #124
    eblistic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 162 ✭✭eblistic


    Nevore wrote: »
    ...but I'd wager most people here would label themselves as a humanist or liberal

    Now there's an interesting point. I'm sure it's been discussed before but, seeing as our only thing in common is a lack of belief in deities we should expect a broad spread of moral/political outlooks. In reality there seems a clear tendency towards liberalism (making "militant" atheist jibes sound a bit silly really). I can understand why that is (it might only be relative to the apologists for authoritarian religions) but I'm not sure it's a good thing.


  • #125
    Coriolanus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,879 ✭✭✭Coriolanus


    eblistic wrote: »
    Now there's an interesting point. I'm sure it's been discussed before but, seeing as our only thing in common is a lack of belief in deities we should expect a broad spread of moral/political outlooks. In reality there seems a clear tendency towards liberalism (making "militant" atheist jibes sound a bit silly really). I can understand why that is (it might only be relative to the apologists for authoritarian religions) but I'm not sure it's a good thing.
    I don't know, I think it's fair to say that some moral and political outlooks are more inclined to atheism than others. Liberals are generally egalitarian and the notion of a divine omnipowerful authority doesn't tie too well in to that. Not to say that there aren't religious liberals, there are plenty.
    It's probably worth a thread in itself. :D


  • #126
    eblistic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 162 ✭✭eblistic


    Nevore wrote: »
    I don't know, I think it's fair to say that some moral and political outlooks are more inclined to atheism than others. Liberals are generally egalitarian and the notion of a divine omnipowerful authority doesn't tie too well in to that. Not to say that there aren't religious liberals, there are plenty.
    It's probably worth a thread in itself. :D

    Maybe. So liberals might be more inclined to be atheists rather than atheism leading to liberalism?

    Also, I think the perceived "centre" of a political spectrum might be skewed by some aspects of religious doctrines.


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  • #127
    Coriolanus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,879 ✭✭✭Coriolanus


    eblistic wrote: »
    Maybe. So liberals might be more inclined to be atheists rather than atheism leading to liberalism?

    Also, I think the perceived "centre" of a political spectrum might be skewed by some aspects of religious doctrines.
    Imo at least, yeah, it's more likely to work that way than the other way around. Then again our, our minds aren't that neat and perfect. There could be an underlying pull factor affecting both of them and it's just that liberalism, having more gradations, seem to emerge first.
    There was an article in Social Psychology Quarterly this year about how liberalism and atheism along with monogamy-preference in males are evolutionary novel. The writer drew the conclusion that it was based on intelligence, but I found that part very flawed. More reasonably you could say that they emerge when the subject feels "safe" in some manner.


  • #128
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    This thread looks like a bit of a hit and run

    I wonder if the antiskeptic is going to come back to let us know if he is satisfied with the answers given


  • #129
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    Because they have nothing better to do?

    You know, i think Atheists care more about religion than religious people. I mean, im agnostic but ffs, i ain't going to sit on a forum or in public and talk about it all day. Talk about mind boggling boring.

    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.


  • #130
    MagicMarker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Because they have nothing better to do?

    You know, i think Atheists care more about religion than religious people. I mean, im agnostic but ffs, i ain't going to sit on a forum or in public and talk about it all day. Talk about mind boggling boring.

    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.

    And yet here you are, on a forum, talking about it... Are you bored yet?


  • #131
    ColmDawson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,001 ✭✭✭ColmDawson


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Because they have nothing better to do?

    You know, i think Atheists care more about religion than religious people. I mean, im agnostic but ffs, i ain't going to sit on a forum or in public and talk about it all day. Talk about mind boggling boring.

    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.
    Oh, just go and read the thread.


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  • #132
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    MagicMarker wrote: »
    And yet here you are, on a forum, talking about it... Are you bored yet?
    Yeah, one comment on it but people post thousands of posts on the same subject, which frankly, has a simple answer to it.


  • #133
    MagicMarker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Yeah, one comment on it but people post thousands of posts on the same subject, which frankly, has a simple answer to it.
    Tell us then, and we can close this bad boy down.


  • #134
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    MagicMarker wrote: »
    Tell us then, and we can close this bad boy down.
    The whole thing?

    Belief/non belief.

    Close thread.


  • #135
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.

    Translation : Ignorance is bliss.


  • #136
    MikeC101
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,707 ✭✭✭MikeC101


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Because they have nothing better to do?

    Because, regardless of ones own beliefs about the validity of religion or not, it can be a fascinating subject on so many levels. For me it's interesting to read and discuss the views of other people who also don't believe in a god. Plus I'm personally interested in freedom of speech issues, and this intersects with religion quite a bit. Equally it keeps me informed on current affairs with regards to religious interference in politics and society.
    KeithAFC wrote: »
    You know, i think Atheists care more about religion than religious people. I mean, im agnostic but ffs, i ain't going to sit on a forum or in public and talk about it all day. Talk about mind boggling boring.

    Some atheists probably do. Certainly some of them are better informed about religion than some religious people. But if you think the topics here are restricted to "I don't believe in god / Neither do I / Hey, me too!", you're wrong. There's a lot more being discussed here.
    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.

    I'm unsure how posting on a forum interferes with other people living, or getting on with, their lives.


  • #137
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Yeah, one comment on it but people post thousands of posts on the same subject, which frankly, has a simple answer to it.

    One comment on this topic. But most of your posts on the site seem to be about Northern Irish unionism. If you keep on posting I have no doubt you will have thousands of posts about one topic in no time. Do you not find sitting on a forum or in public and talking about unionism and related topics all day mind boggling boring? Clearly not. Do you not think it would be better to live your life, get on with it and let people do the same? Frankly therr is as simple an answer to what is going on in Northern Ireland in regards to unionism as there is to what is going on in the world in regards to religion.

    What is your suggestion? I'll make a deal with you, you don't post in any threads to do with the crap that goes on in Northern Ireland that relates to unionism and I won't post in any threads to do with crap that goes on in the world that has to do with religion. Deal?

    Or we could both just mind our own business and post on the topics that interest us individually.


  • #138
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,627 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Because they have nothing better to do?

    You know, i think Atheists care more about religion than religious people. I mean, im agnostic but ffs, i ain't going to sit on a forum or in public and talk about it all day. Talk about mind boggling boring.

    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.
    Hello! Isn't this you posting about the Pope in AH? :)

    Get on with your life, man!


  • #139
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,200 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Live your life, get on with it. Let people do the same.
    Yeah? It works both ways. If the religious followed your advice, we would never have heard of religion, or having this conversation. I'd happily stop talking about religion if its practitioners stopped behaving like drunken car salesmen.

    Still, it's fun to imagine myself in someone else's shoes for a bit, to try and see what the appeal is to them. While I was taken to church as a kid, my perception of it was very different to what I see now. It was like theatre or school lessons, not the soul-destroying obeisance demanded of adults. I went to a Catholic wedding in Portugal a few years ago, and sat on a side bench, just watching the adults follow these rituals that make as much sense to me as smoking (i.e. very little). There were kids running up and down the aisle without a care in the world, with no understanding of that for which they are being groomed.

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #140
    rantyface
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 496 ✭✭rantyface


    It's something we have common views on and it's interesting.


  • #141
    scientific1982
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,562 ✭✭✭scientific1982


    Because knowing your enemy is one of the fundamentals of the art of war.


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  • #142
    Coriolanus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,879 ✭✭✭Coriolanus


    rantyface wrote: »
    It's something we have common views on and it's interesting.
    It's the only thing we have common views on.


  • #143
    goingpostal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 858 ✭✭✭goingpostal


    Its part of my programme of as a Recovering Catholic. And because I find it a fascinating subject.


  • #144
    Metalfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46 ✭Metalfan


    Athiests talk more about it because they've spent time examining it - most people start off believing what their parents told them .... there is a god, there is a santa ... its only after they look at it for themselves they become older and wiser that they realise its all crap. The people who believe in god hardly ever talk about religion cause they have just blindly accepted what they were told and never studied religion and the bible for themselves


  • #145
    liamw
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    Metalfan wrote: »
    Athiests talk more about it because they've spent time examining it - most people start off believing what their parents told them .... there is a god, there is a santa ... its only after they look at it for themselves they become older and wiser that they realise its all crap. The people who believe in god hardly ever talk about religion cause they have just blindly accepted what they were told and never studied religion and the bible for themselves

    You may be correct for the majority of believers, but there are plenty of people that have studied theology and the bible in depth and still believe. And that's where the question gets really interesting, when addressing those type of believers....

    Here's some analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg


  • #146
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 5,249 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    For reasons like this:
    RTE article
    http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0803/education_primary.html
    DOE PDF:
    http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0803/education.pdf
    School Year
    2009/10
    School Ethos No of Schools % of Total

    CATHOLIC 2,888 91.25%
    CHURCH OF Ireland 181 5.72%
    MULTI DENOMINATIONAL 69 2.18%
    PRESBYTERIAN 14 0.44%
    INTER DENOMINATIONAL 8 0.25%
    MUSLIM 2 0.06%
    METHODIST 1 0.03%
    JEWISH 1 0.03%
    Quaker 1 0.03%
    Total 3,165
    Not sure how to make a table work.


  • #147
    condra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,852 ✭✭✭condra


    Why would any Catholic be surprised that many atheists have a bone to pick with religion?

    Antitheist. Of course we are going to discuss religion here. Many of us were at one point VICTIMS of religion.


  • #148
    midlandsmissus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Ickle Magoo wrote: »
    When I can live my life without fear of some religious nut job knocking on the door & disturbing my evening, my child being refused a place in a school because of lacking a baptism cert and no other part of my life is affected by religion or the religious unless I choose it, I will have absolutely nothing to say about religion - actually, I'd probably have a great deal more positive things to say.

    They are unavoidably interlinked anyway, without theism, there is no such thing as atheism - one only exists because of the other and often as a direct result of the other. The forum is not just for atheists btw, give-away in the title. :cool:


    Do you think this is a little over the top?
    What schools refuse children because of lack of a baptismal certificate?

    I was in a Catholic primary school 20 years ago, with no baptismal certificate, no questions asked.

    I was one of two who weren't any religion in secondary school, and the school went out of the way to accomodate us, giving us the option to skip religion, even though religion classes were very liberal and focused on all religions.

    And this was Ireland 15 - 20 years ago.


  • #149
    midlandsmissus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    condra wrote: »
    Why would any Catholic be surprised that many atheists have a bone to pick with religion?

    Antitheist. Of course we are going to discuss religion here. Many of us were at one point VICTIMS of religion.

    Victims of religion, come on - how were you a victim of religion. Victim of family pressure maybe, but you always had the choice to opt out of your religion?

    I got by as a kid, when I wasn't any religion and EVERYBODY else was catholic, there was peer pressure to be like evryone else, but I didn't give in and I got by fine.


  • #150
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    midlandsmissus wrote: »
    Do you think this is a little over the top?
    What schools refuse children because of lack of a baptismal certificate?

    I was in a Catholic primary school 20 years ago, with no baptismal certificate, no questions asked.

    I was one of two who weren't any religion in secondary school, and the school went out of the way to accomodate us, giving us the option to skip religion, even though religion classes were very liberal and focused on all religions.

    And this was Ireland 15 - 20 years ago.

    No, it isn't - it was a couple of years ago, told not to bother applying as they were already oversubscribed and the places would go to those with certs before anyone else. I love just because other people have never personally encountered difficulties they just assume everyone who has must be lying or exaggerating. :mad:


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  • #151
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,473 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Ickle Magoo wrote: »
    told not to bother applying as they were already oversubscribed and the places would go to those with certs before anyone else.
    When I explained a similar situation with my own kid over dinner one evening, a couple of members of my own extended family just looked at me, shrugged their shoulders and smiled at me. I felt like upending their dinners over them.


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