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There is a burgeoning cadre of people who are embracing perspectives that are fully supported by objective reality, but only by way of devaluing the human experience, especially by way of devaluing the human experience of others.
I'm not suggesting you haven't seen such rigidity, nor that this type of rigidity is exclusive to theists, but I'm not sure I understand your example. Are you saying you believe there to be a ... growing ... population of atheists that are indifferent to human emotion and/or devaluing people?
Yes, as I already said.
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Originally Posted by bUU
I guess your experience is more limited than mine. Besides the dogmatic atheists who peddle their extremism on online discussion forums, there is an increasing number of liberatarians, including a set of in-laws, who engage in the kind of rationalization for dogmatic atheistic perspectives that I alluded to, exhibiting that hypocrisy that you, yourself, highlighted earlier. In addition, I am a member of a religion that includes a very significant minority of card-carrying atheists. Most of them are pretty even-headed people, but there are a small number who exhibit the same kind of inability to "follow your heart (while taking your brain along with you)" that the graphic provided earlier touted.
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Originally Posted by MartinEden99
Because the vast majority of those rigid enough to fit your example (or at least, a similar example), in my experience, tend to be very young adults who are still finding themselves on a lot of levels (exponentially more than we all still are as we age).
Again, who we have been exposed to will vary based on our own experiences. My recent personal experiences with such rigidity included an 80-something friend and a 70-something in-law of my younger brother. Yes, there were a couple of Gen Xers as well, those folks being church friends. How the rigidity manifests is a little different, the older folks buying into the Ayn Rand prattle that libertarians peddle and the younger folks buying into the most rigid rhetoric coming out of the extreme left. Remarkably, among the Millennials I've interacted with, there seems to be a lot more grounding in care and concern for others, and that's regardless of the religious stripes of the Millennials.
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Originally Posted by Rafius
What makes you think your 'experiences' should command respect?
I hope you can see that that's the same thing that those afflicted by the kind of rigidity we're talking about would say: Evidently, the only experiences that warrant respect in the minds of those folks are the experiences that they personally value, in denial of the uniqueness of a diverse society and in obstinate opposition to acknowledging the individual freedom that is guaranteed to all (rather than just those they like) and the incumbent expectation of worth and dignity we each should be afforded as a reflection of basic human decency.
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Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8
The behavior you are describing is neither atheistic or religious; it falls under human behavior.
But that is the point: The accusation is consistently directed against religious reactionaries but the behavior is practiced by atheists as well. It is anti-moderation itself that typifies the problem.
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Originally Posted by Rafius
What if they are ridiculous?
If everyone in this thread (given how diverse this thread is) believe that they are ridiculous, then let's talk further about it. Otherwise, let's just acknowledge that you're working very hard to craft a rationalization for offensive behavior in which you really want to engage.
There is a difference between agreeing with a perspective and respecting that perspective. I respect the desire of pious evangelicals to live in accordance with their own beliefs and values, no matter how baseless and supernatural the foundation of their religion may be. Basic human decency dictates that people are the supreme and final arbiter of what governs what happens within their own skin. It is only when people seek to impose their baseless and supernatural beliefs onto others (where those other people's beliefs and values are supposed to prevail) that there is foundation to raise objection.
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Originally Posted by mordant
"That which is ridiculous is worthy of ridicule" is basically the unofficial manifesto of "new atheism".
The new, generally dogmatic, atheism.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Put an end to the free ride in the marketplace of ideas, to the undeserved and unearned deference and respect for religious ideation. I used to cringe (mainly when I was a new deconvert) at this attitude but have come to see that it is, to an extent, an overdue corrective for structural and institutionalized attitudes that unfairly favor theism in social discourse.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Yes, it is a reaction to a long pattern of abuse. That doesn't make it defensible. People must be the change they want to see, not become as offensive as their abusers.
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Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
if a person is unwilling or unable to see the difference between "i disagree" and "stupid, imbecilic, ridiculous" then they have a long ways to go in learning and implementing basic healthy communication skills, and mature respectful adult behavior.
Guys like Jesus had a grasp of quantum mechanics. That time is measurable and yet unmeasurable - biblical quotes - to para phrase "To God a second is a thousand years and a thousand years but a second" - How far can we go into the infinitely small? How far can we go into the infinitely large? What is beyond eternity....certainly there must be something...that a physics that is not physical may exist.
Except that a "non-physical physics" would be non-physics, with non-rules, non-math, etc.
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Originally Posted by O.A.Bachlow
We all imagine that people who lived 3000 years ago were stupid and we are perfectly smart...that the movement forward in time guarantees evolution - progress.
Speak for yourself. I believe that we will be seen just as backwards and dense to our descendants 3000 years from now as the goatherds of ancient Sinai seem to us now. I can imagine Zorkdant, my distant descendant, looking at this very conversation, and saying, well Mordant had just a glimmer of a clue but what a stupid conversation in the first place. I wonder why he wasted his time on it. Because he died only 10 years later -- back then people died -- and he must have known his time was limited.
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Originally Posted by O.A.Bachlow
In some cases we see a degrading of human intelligence as we move forward. As far as I understand the original doctrines set down by Christ were not put in place to create a religion. They were an attempt to bring mankind into a higher mindedness.
I challenge you to demonstrate one single time in human history when a theologian has tapped a scientist on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, but your equation is off here ... and here ... and you overlooked X, Y and Z ... and if you adjust for this here, and that there, you can make aluminum transparent and get antigravity out of it as a nice side effect."
It's never happened because science, imperfect as it is, is what has moved humanity forward ... it demonstrably works, whereas religion demonstrably does not work.
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Originally Posted by O.A.Bachlow
I have faith...in the idea that the universe is conscious - that it think...that there is a God...but my faith does not mean I am a religious person. Faith may be something separate of religion.
It is true that you can "roll your own" faith and not be a joiner, but that just makes you a proto-religion of one. You still have a dogma that is asserted and lacking in substantiation IF it is based on the failed epistemology of faith.
I challenge you to demonstrate one single time in human history when a theologian has tapped a scientist on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, but your equation is off here ... and here ... and you overlooked X, Y and Z ..."
It's never happened
actually it has happened. it does happen. off hand i know of several examples.
note carefully your inner responses, inner reaction to this information
Why did you not list the examples vs. just claiming that you know of several?
because we are resting in the fertile pause of absorbing this reality. we are allowing for the inner responses and inner reactions to be noted, observed, felt.
because we are resting in the fertile pause of absorbing this reality
What makes you think that anyone needs a resting pause to absorb what you are claiming?
You are not convincing anyone here by making those types of claims.
Sure go ahead and tell us of the several examples you have.
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I challenge you to demonstrate one single time in human history when a theologian has tapped a scientist on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, but your equation is off here ... and here ... and you overlooked X, Y and Z ..."
I challenge you to demonstrate one single time in human history when a theologian has tapped a scientist on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, but your equation is off here ... and here ... and you overlooked X, Y and Z ...
Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, Monsignor Francesco Ingoli, Pope Paul V, et. al.
What Galileo overlooked in his empirical observations was what the Bible said about that which he observed.
Yes, it is a reaction to a long pattern of abuse. That doesn't make it defensible. People must be the change they want to see, not become as offensive as their abusers.
Yeah, I used to think this, but the world is not a friendly place for idealists. By your logic, gay people should not have conducted in-your-face provocative protests, nor should blacks have done so. They should have just sat back meekly and not offended anyone or disturbed anyone's composure and complacency -- or their complicity through inaction and sometimes unaware action, in the very bigotry that was the problem in the first place.
As I said earlier, possibly in this thread, entrenched power does not concede to non-demands, and structural discrimination does not give way to anything other than discomfort for those discriminating.
It is fine to imagine that this is a wonderful kum-by-ah moment that everyone should give kudos to each other's magnificence. But very often it is not a simple matter of live-and-let-live. It is a majority imposing its will on minorities. The degree to which this happens varies, and in fact in many liberal precincts of theism, an erudite and dignified tete-a-tete is entirely possible. But in many cases, sadly, it is not.
I know that you must know this because you are UU and many UU members have a long and proud tradition of nonviolent protest. They get themselves chained to the entrance gates of businesses around here and hauled off to jail in protest of underground gas storage and fracking and such ... and I am sure that the local authorities use the exact same arguments against them that you use against atheists who are not even interfering with commerce or getting physical: that we are undecorous, unkind, inconsiderate, self-absorbed, dogmatic and un-nuanced. And certainly our objections are either unfounded or expressed in self-defeating ways.
But guess what, the local judge let a bunch of those people off because over time they won him over and he came to respect their dedication to their cause. He did a complete 180.
Perhaps we can hope for you to do the same someday ;-)
Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, Monsignor Francesco Ingoli, Pope Paul V, et. al.
What Galileo overlooked in his empirical observations was what the Bible said about that which he observed.
Wasn't Galileo tried for heresy? The Church has a long history of opposing science that is in conflict with their interpretation of Scripture.
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