Interesting Links for 05-08-2014

[andrewducker]

• This pretty much sums up how I felt about "Guardians of the Galaxy"
  (tags: review marvel movies )
• The stigma of being an atheist in the US
  (tags: atheism society USA )
• How much more do programmers get paid (as a map - Bulgaria surprised me!)
  (tags: programming maps money )
• Hotel fines brides $500 for every bad review their guests post online
  (tags

Comments

[artkouros]

I think Madalyn Murray O'Hair sort of ruined it for atheists in America. She was the symbol of atheism and not a very likable person.

[andrewducker]

One hopes that it's only a mini-ruining.

And that eventually America will catch up with the rest of the civilised world.

Interestingly, I was digging out the graph for religion vs wealth across countries:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/opinion/04blow.html

and came across this commentary on it:
http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2014/07/10/inequality-usa-outlier-religiosity-economics/

Showing that it's inequality that's the issue.

[artkouros]

America was founded on religiosity and has always been very religious. Income inequality is a fairly recent thing, growing greatly in the past 30 years, during the same time that Americans have become less religious, so I'm not sure I buy the correlation.

[gwendally]

At issue is that nearly every atheist who expounds on it is not a very likeable person. The basic tenant of their religion is that "My brain understands everything in the Universe and can tell you that there is no God." Um. Sure, your brain is that big. How nice for you.

Anyone with that little humility, that sense of superiority, that lack of imagination is a poor choice for someone to hang out with.

It's easier to be around people who don't share your perception of Higher Power than it is to be around someone who thinks they are so smart that they understand all the contents of the 10 to 26 dimensions in our Universe.

[andrewducker]

You know, I've never heard an atheist say anything close to "My brain understands everything in the Universe and can tell you that there is no God."

The closest I've heard to that is "I've never seen any evidence for the existence of God.", but never any of them claim to understand everything in the universe.

[gwendally]

Then you don't hang out with atheists much. Agnosticism says they don't know what to believe. Atheists affirmatively state that they know what to believe and that it's that there is no Higher Power.

[andrewducker]

39% of the UK don't believe there is a God. I'd say the incidence amongst my friends is much higher than that.

I don't know anyone who would claim to understand everything in the universe.

[gwendally]

The top hit when I googled was : http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/atheism.html

The top line in this link:

"What is an Atheist?

An atheist is a person who does not believe that any gods exist."

Perhaps your friends are agnostic and just mean to say that they don't participate in organized religion.

[andrewducker]

No. Not at all.

They just largely don't believe that God exists, because they have no reason to. No more than they have any reason to believe that there is a Santa Claus. Or Fairies. Or Karma. Or any other thing that people believe without evidence.

This doesn't mean that they think, as you said "My brain understands everything in the Universe". It just means they don't go around believing in things without a reason to do so.

[gwendally]

Agnostics say they have no reason to believe so they don't believe, but they'd be persuaded by evidence.

Atheists take a leap of faith and affirm that God does not exist.

Perhaps this is a difference in use of English, which would also help explain why United States atheists are perceived as annoying zealots.

[andrewducker]

Interesting. I find a huge difference between the definition you found:
"An atheist is a person who does not believe that any gods exist."

and what you're saying now:
"Atheists take a leap of faith and affirm that God does not exist."

Because the two feel quite different to me.

I do not believe that God exists, because I have no reason to. But I am not affirming, absolutely, that God does not exists. Because I have not checked inside the 26th dimension to see if God is lurking there.

And yes, I've had the agnostic/atheist discussion on many occasions - and heard multiple definitions of each. I'd tend to go with your definitions, but have found that most people actually go for:
Atheist: Doesn't have a belief that God exists.
Agnostic: Believes that the existence of God is unknowable.

Nowadays, when drawn into these debates I go with Ignostic - in which it is futile to debate the existence of God unless one is given a concrete definition to debate with. Otherwise one is wrestling with a cloud.

[theweaselking]

They are quite different - in addition to turning it into a requirement to prove the negative, it also reframes non-religion as religion. To wit, it falsely claims that "not having a religious belief" is just another religious belief, equally as valid and supported as whatever specific religious belief that the bad-faith[1] arguer has arbitrarily chosen themselves. It's a way of trying to argue that since they made an arbitrary and unsupportable assertion, not making that same assertion is equally arbitrary and equally unsupportable.

It is, obviously, nonsense.

(Also: The "standard definition" of agnostic includes both "unknowable" and "does not know".)

[1]: No pun intended

[gwendally]

I think agnostic in practice is more like "meh, I see no reason to believe in God so I'm going to stay uninvolved." This strikes me as a completely sane way to behave.

Atheists, on the other hand, are out proselytizing. They are trying for converts. They are trying to stamp out other people's religions. They make sophomoric arguments that work out to be "you believe a wrong thing, but I'm smart enough to believe the right thing" and then deny that it's just a religous difference. (Just saw the WeaselKing do that below, LOL.)

There are no societies against agnostics that I know about. But, yeah, atheists won't be Presidents anytime soon.

[andrewducker]

You're leaving out the people who are campaigning because in various areas having the "Lack of belief in God" is enough to cause large amounts of social friction and people to get very upset at you.

To grab two examples from the article:
"Things were really not good to begin with. She was so angry," he says.

"After a while I think she just accepted it. We still don't talk about it. It looks like she's not going to kick me out."

Dancay-Bangura admits that he still has not told his father.

"I don't want our relationship to be destroyed because of that," he says. "You hear it all the time."

"And you hear about people being kicked out, and sent to bible camps where they're forced to be religious. I don't want to lose my father to that."
=======

If I lived in that kind of place I'd also be a lot more militant. I only get to not be militant here because so many people don't believe in religion that you can't act prejudically against them.

[theweaselking]

For bonus fun: Compare and contrast this:

Atheists, on the other hand, are out proselytizing. They are trying for converts. They are trying to stamp out other people's religions.

.... with both the actual actions of nontheists, and with the identical rhetoric used against, says, gays (and the matching responses)

They make sophomoric arguments that work out to be "you believe a wrong thing, but I'm smart enough to believe the right thing" and then deny that it's just a religous difference. (Just saw the WeaselKing do that below, LOL.) You: "I assert that since X, Y must be true

[gwendally]

I do *not* think you need to share my religion.

I think your position that there is no Higher Power (whatever your understanding of that) is a leap of faith based on your perception of your superior brainpower. If there WERE a God - as the majority of people believe - YOU would have spotted it. You haven't, ergo, there is no God. When people tell you where THEY spotted it you twist and say "your religion hates gays!" Whatever. Enjoy your smug superiority.