Atheist Re-Activism

[ChristineM]

I agree with all of the above. And I have no issue with anyone "talking back". I appreciate it. But something I do find annoying about a lot of the "talking back atheists" I encounter is that they are not good at listening, at all. They listen only so far and so long as it takes to develop and argument against whatever they are hearing. So they don't really hear anything being said.

That certainly works both ways

 

[Alien826]

Well, this is very true. And I've argued this from the beginning. Atheism is only a reaction to theism. Therefore no infant born from the womb can be claimed to be an atheist by "default', as some like to make that claim in support of atheism as the imagined "default position" of humanity. If they have no idea about God at all, they cannot be an atheist, because atheism is a reaction to theism, exactly as you have said.

What many atheists mean is though if there were no religion we would all be de facto atheists, but that there would be no need for the word. After all, we don't have a word for someone that believes we need air to live, in opposition to those who think we don't, because there aren't any of the latter group and the subject doesn't arise.

I was a moderator on a largely atheist site for many years, and everytime some young Christian dared to talk about God, or even other fellow atheists, like myself at that time, who dared to be soft on spirituality or religion itself, would be literally dogpiled by them. I called them the pitchforks and woo crowd, attacking others crying "woo woo", to whatever they might be suggesting beyond hardcore anti-theist, anti-religious thought. It was their new calling by their no-God belief, to stamp out anything that even hinted at spirituality or any positive view of God belief.

Yes, I've experienced that. And Christian sites where people say that all atheists should be shot and everyone cheers.

That my friend, is evangelicalism. And that is how I found my way in time over here instead.

Yes, woo woo for RF!

 

[osgart]

This is, of course, a reaction to the thread Typical atheists vs. Online atheists

Thesis: There is no such thing as atheist activism or proselytisation.

Some religious people find some atheists to be "loud", too loud.

I don't understand that. When I look around on YouTube or RF I see almost no atheist activism. What I see is re-activism. The typical video by "loud" atheists is a reaction video to a theists video. Pro-active atheist propaganda is hard to find if not non existent.

And how could it. Atheism has no message on its own. Atheism is always a reaction to theism. If there were no theists, there wouldn't be atheists.

So, what theists are really condemning is atheists talking back.

Thoughts? Refutations?

Well whether you are an atheist or theist, you are doing philosophy to reach those conclusions.
There are plenty of posters here who are adamant that science and evidence directly support their conclusions of atheism. I don't think that is honest nor is it true.

Two opposing sides who have opposite, contrary intuitions, assumptions, and inferences is all I see.

So reactionary, and hot headed responses are going to be typical because the convictions on both sides are personally held.

I'd be lying if I said that I never got the impression that some atheists are very evangelical on RF.

Personally I'm an unwilling atheist. Natural intelligence and agency I have not been able to rule out.

I get the impression that most religious people on RF want to discuss religion with other religious people, and often they unwillingly get sucked into debates about science vs. religion.

I think many religious people don't have an issue with science other than those that claim science itself is against religion. That's where all the hot headed stuff comes in for theists.

The theme I see that draws the most reactionary responses is that science refutes religion therefore religious people are against science.

So yeah there are atheists out there that want to obliterate religion. They'll be doing philosophy to try and achieve that, and they'll call it science.

 

[Kenny]

Well, I try to compromise on all of them, but bigotry is the hardest one in a sense.

So true. I also think that some people's definition of bigotry is something along the line of "If you don't believe like I do, you are a bigot".

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

So, what theists are really condemning is atheists talking back.

Not quite. Because see, the problem doesn't come from Atheists, but Anti-theists. The activism is what makes the distinction, and make no mistake there are active anti-theists out there who do (for lack of a better term) proselytize. The type of people who seem keen on just picking fights and flexing their Scientific Superiority and find the need to comment and ridicule open displays of faith (e.g. personal "prayer" statements or displayed articles of faith).

 

[Subduction Zone]

What about "Florida man"?

I agree, often the ethnicity has nothing to do with the story and using it in the headline smacks of racism. Using it in the body to minimize repetition like "father of three", "60 year old", "former baseball player" is OK though.

"Florida Man" became a meme because the state of Florida is a bit more free with their arrest records. So if some man does something stupid in Florida it is a lot easier to find than if the same thing happened elsewhere. And because of Florida's easy pickin's when it came to "Hold my beer" news stories the eponym caught on. Trust me, all fifty states have events that would have qualified for "Florida Man".

 

[Heyo]

I think I would consider an anti-theism to be proactive. It seeks to disabuse any believer of their beliefs through debunking their faith in God. If it's an attack on religion in general, it's not just reactive. It's an active mission to destroy religious faith, because it sees the mere idea of religion to be an evil that needs to be gotten rid of.
[...]
But for the point of this thread, there is a difference between simple atheism, and anti-theism. An atheist may not seek to persuade others of their beliefs and ideas about religion, but an anti-theist may.

Not quite. Because see, the problem doesn't come from Atheists, but Anti-theists. The activism is what makes the distinction, and make no mistake there are active anti-theists out there who do (for lack of a better term) proselytize. The type of people who seem keen on just picking fights and flexing their Scientific Superiority and find the need to comment and ridicule open displays of faith (e.g. personal "prayer" statements or displayed articles of faith).

I think you are confusing pro-action with over-reaction.

Pro active is who acts spontaneously. That would be an atheist or anti-theist who wakes up in the morning and posts a video on YouTube about how not believing something without scientific evidence is the only way to live.
(Over-)reactive is the anti theist who is woken up in the morning by the church bells and posts a video on YouTube that Christianity is evil and has to be eradicated.

The important thing is not the message but the reason.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I think you are confusing pro-action with over-reaction.

No, I really am not.

If I'm minding my business, say shopping for groceries or browsing games at GameStop, and some anti-theist douche sees my Mjolnir, scoffs, and takes time out of his day to interrupt mine with a "You really believe in Thor? I saw Vikings too, but it wasn't that good. [How dumb you are, don't you know anything about meteorology?]" (last bit embellished, though it usually follows) he is being proactively atheistic, he is "prostelytizing" atheism (for lack of a better word) and he makes the people who simply have no belief look bad.

 

[Heyo]

No, I really am not.

If I'm minding my business, say shopping for groceries or browsing games at GameStop, and some anti-theist douche sees my Mjolnir, scoffs, and takes time out of his day to interrupt mine with a "You really believe in Thor? I saw Vikings too, but it wasn't that good. [How dumb you are, don't you know anything about meteorology?]" (last bit embellished, though it usually follows) he is being proactively atheistic, he is "prostelytizing" atheism (for lack of a better word) and he makes the people who simply have no belief look bad.

Excellent example. He is re-acting to your display of Mjölnir.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

You're reframing it to absolve fault.

 

[Heyo]

You're reframing it to absolve fault.

I think that was directed at me?

No, I don't absolve the over-reaction or proselytising in general, I'm just pointing out that his reaction was triggered by your action, not spontaneous.

I usually don't lecture people that there are no gods when they exclaim "Oh my gods!" but it would be a re-action. (And I sometimes do it to start a conversation.)
I have never spontaneously started proselytising my Agnosticism without a trigger.

 

[metis]

I also think that some people's definition of bigotry is something along the line of "If you don't believe like I do, you are a bigot".

Nice post, Mr. Bigot.

Devil made me do it!

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I'm just pointing out that his reaction was triggered by your action, not spontaneous.

There is no action on my part. Wearing something is not an action, and such action on his end was not a reaction, it was only action. It was, by definition, spontaneous as it was a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination.

An overreaction would require actual action on my end. If, for example, I saw a game I wanted and exclaimed "By Thor!", and that caused him to fly off the handle about how Thor doesn't exist, that would be an overreaction.

Rather, he was absolutely being proactive in informing me how he thinks my beliefs (an assumption, really; I could just be a metal head) are silly and unfounded, etc etc.

 

[Windwalker]

I think you are confusing pro-action with over-reaction.

Pro active is who acts spontaneously. That would be an atheist or anti-theist who wakes up in the morning and posts a video on YouTube about how not believing something without scientific evidence is the only way to live.
(Over-)reactive is the anti theist who is woken up in the morning by the church bells and posts a video on YouTube that Christianity is evil and has to be eradicated.

The important thing is not the message but the reason.

A related joke. What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with an atheist? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.

I think you missed my point above. Even the evangelist has a reactive reason to proselytize. He or she views the world as evil and sets out to insist upon their point of view as the one true way to be saved. The anti-theist who wakes up and hears the evil of the church bells, wants to insist upon their view as the one true way in response to the presence of religion that the world needs saving from.

Both are doing the same thing. Both are trying to save others with their ideas of what the truth is for everyone else. It's just religion without God.

 

[Windwalker]

What many atheists mean is though if there were no religion we would all be de facto atheists, but that there would be no need for the word.

I've had countless debates on this, here on RF, and what they mean to say and do say all the time is that atheism simply is a "lack of belief in God", therefore an infant is an atheist. That's absurd of course, as atheism is a response to theism. Without theism, you don't have atheism. You have a blank slate. You have openness. Atheism is not "openness". It's a negative answer to a question regarding the existence of God. Without the question, you have no answer.

An infant is not born a believer or a disbeliever. Those do not apply to a pre-reasoning mind. They are simply open, yet to be programmed with beliefs. It's not until they are taught by others the idea of God, that they can reason and choose to either believe or disbelieve in it.

After all, we don't have a word for someone that believes we need air to live, in opposition to those who think we don't, because there aren't any of the latter group and the subject doesn't arise.

We have a word for those who don't know what air is as a concept. It's called simple unawareness of air as an idea. A frog doesn't believe or disbelieve in air. It doesn't use conceptual thoughts. Neither do infants. They just breathe, unaware it's even a "thing" at all. You don't believe or disbelieve in something you have no conceptual understanding of.

So an atheist, most clearly has an idea or a concept in mind that they disagree with. It's not just a lack of awareness of the question.

Yes, I've experienced that. And Christian sites where people say that all atheists should be shot and everyone cheers.

Indeed. Flip side of the exact same coin they all are.

I like the saying, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. Even if these same Christians lose faith and become an atheist, that doesn't change who they are and how they hold their beliefs. All they've done is simply switch what they believe in. Not how they hold those beliefs.

They don't quit being proselytizing evangelicals, simply because they now believe Science and reason has all the answers, instead of the Bible and God like they used to believe. It takes a lot more to change that than simply having better "evidence".

Yes, woo woo for RF!

I have come to see those who call things woo woo, are very allergic to things that challenge their boxes of reality they like to fit it into. It's a lot like those who dismiss the "heathens" as "sinners". It's says more about the person who says it, than anything else.

 

[Heyo]

A related joke. What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with an atheist? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.

I think you missed my point above. Even the evangelist has a reactive reason to proselytize. He or she views the world as evil and sets out to insist upon their point of view as the one true way to be saved. The anti-theist who wakes up and hears the evil of the church bells, wants to insist upon their view as the one true way in response to the presence of religion that the world needs saving from.

Both are doing the same thing. Both are trying to save others with their ideas of what the truth is for everyone else. It's just religion without God.

I could have agreed with you if you hadn't had to get the "atheism is a religion" talking point in.

 

[Windwalker]

I could have agreed with you if you hadn't had to get the "atheism is a religion" talking point in.

I did not say atheism is a religion. I said, "It's just a religion without God," for them. For the anti-theists whom I was talking about. That was the context:

The anti-theist who wakes up and hears the evil of the church bells, wants to insist upon their view as the one true way in response to the presence of religion that the world needs saving from.

Both are doing the same thing. Both are trying to save others with their ideas of what the truth is for everyone else. It's just religion without God.
​

The context was about the anti-theist who wants to save the world. They treat their anti-theism as the truth for the world. It's a religion for them. That was the context.

BTW, atheism and antitheism are not the same things. This is a good article that explains that difference quite well, I feel. Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and "New Atheists" aren't new, aren't even atheists

 

[Heyo]

I did not say atheism is a religion. I said, "It's just a religion without God," for them.

I agree that some of them follow their goal religiously - that doesn't make it into a religion.
But that is just semantics, we agree in principle.

 

[vijeno]

Thoughts? Refutations?

Much like Rule 34, I suspect that there is another Rule: If it exists, there is activism for it.

But I agree that atheist activism is sparse, not very loud, and tends to be re-active.

Though, at the start of each episode of The Atheist Experience, I think they always say that the Atheist Community of Austin "promotes positive atheism". So they do see themselves as activists.

I haven't looked into it for a long while, but those atheist youtubers I used to follow, like CosmicSkeptic, often make non-reaction, philosophical stuff.

But again... as you say, most atheist content is a reaction, yes. You have to actively search for stuff that isn't.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So true. I also think that some people's definition of bigotry is something along the line of "If you don't believe like I do, you are a bigot".

Yeah, the other is this one: If I treat myself as a special positive and other humans as a special negative, I am a bigot. But that one has nothing to do with the divide between non-religion versus religion.