This site bearing the same name as my post offers 422 evidences of fundamentalist atheism. Here are a few that finish the phrase: You may be a fundamentalist atheist if:
- You call a view held by less than ten percent of the American public "common sense".
- You say that there is no God and that those who believe in God do so in blind faith, yet your claim that there is no God also rests on blind faith.
- You complain when Christians appeal to their emotions when justifying their belief in God yet you feel justified on appealing to your emotions for lack of belief in God.
- You blame God for the starvation, sickness, pain and suffering in the world...when, indeed, it is MAN's greed, politics, selfishness and apathy that not only causes, but also ignores the sick and the starving masses. We aren't our brothers' keepers....but we should be.
- You say that the existence of God is a "blank idea", since no one knows the universe's secrets, yet you continue to state your opinion of God not existing as a "fact".
- As a member of the Skeptic's Society you pride yourself on being skeptical of extraordinary claims. You also pride yourself on silencing everyone who is skeptical of the extraordinary claims of evolution.
- Any scholar who believes in a historical Jesus must be a theist. If they are an atheist, then they must secretly want to be a theist.
- 100+ year old scholarship is good enough for you.
- You desperately wish that Stalin and Mao hadn't been atheists.
- You believe that any Christian who claims to have once been an atheist is either lying or was never a "true atheist."
I personally like the idea of seeing atheism as just another branch of fundamentalism. Many atheists come across as closed minded zealots for their cause much like the religious fundamentalists they seem to oppose. What do you think? Have you encountered many atheists?
Very, very good answers. I especially like your choice of cartoon.
ReplyDeleteI have encounted a couple. One just wrote me off as a loony...the other actually had a civil conversation with me. I didn't convert.... Neither did they, so we left that conversation as it had begun...except the seeds that were planted.
Happy New Year Bob ~~
Wanda
Yeah, most atheists build their religion around debunking Christianity. I've met a couple in blogworld who were civil and had friends on both sides.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was a "true" atheist until Jesus paid a visit.
You say that there is no God and that those who believe in God do so in blind faith, yet your claim that there is no God also rests on blind faith.
ReplyDeleteYour magic god fairy is no less childish than a tooth fairy, so it's ridiculous to say faith is required to not believe in it.
There's more than one billion atheists in the world, and our numbers are growing rapidly, thanks to improved science education.
Most atheists completely ignore religions. Other atheists are fed up with religious insanity. Virtually every 21st century conflict, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are religious conflicts. Another problem is Christians are constantly trying to dumb down or completely suppress the teaching of evolutionary biology, because science threatens their childish belief in magical creation.
For more information you can click my name to watch this 5 minute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZWDyMLGIQ
The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions being made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.
Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says "I'm willing Lord, to do whatever you want me to do". But since there are no actual gods talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas...
This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and recognize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the millions of their fellow followers.
-- Bill Maher, Religulous
Thanks for stopping by bobxxx.. I think that you missed the point of the post and kind of proved the existence of fundamentalist atheism with your comment.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked this stereotypical and fundamentalist comment about Christianity:
"Another problem is Christians are constantly trying to dumb down or completely suppress the teaching of evolutionary biology, because science threatens their childish belief in magical creation."
I think that you have been listening to too many fundamentalist preachers.. not all Christians see Genesis in literal terms.
Of course faith in evolutionary theory is a fundamentalist tenet of atheism.. you all have your narrow dogma.. like the religious fundamentalists.. the point of my post :)
Good answer Bob.... :)
ReplyDeleteBill Maher...the "go-to" guy for scholarly dissertation! LOL.
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ReplyDeleteI deleted your comment bobxxx.. if you want to tell us (in a civil manner) what it means to be an atheist please feel free to comment.. if you feel a need to rage against Christianity and call people names go someplace else.
ReplyDeleteShoot, I was composing an answer to invite him to offer examples of how atheists have served and bettered the world, so that we can see by their example what kind of people they are.
ReplyDeleteHospitals, AIDS hospices, free clinics, inner-city schools, training programs in crafts, agriculture and medicine in the Third World, orphanages, adoption agencies, shelters for crisis pregnancies.
Then, when he brought forth examples for us to admire (or not), I was going to ask about accomplishments in medicine, hard science and philosophy.
Therese Z, very good points. A few of the atheist associations offered secular charities to their followers ( :-D "followers") to donate to after Katrina. I was amazed...who cares who helps during a crisis?!? And, the atheist association has no charity of its own, apparently.
ReplyDeleteI do know a couple of very sweet agnostics and atheists. I was one, once! ;-)
and I know some sweet ones, too, usually they qualify as agnostic, if pressed to form an opinion.
ReplyDelete