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I am an old-school atheist (note the little "a") and I too find neo-Atheists to be incredibly annoying.
Neo-Atheists marched in that Christmas parade to prove a point; me being old school, I don't feel I have anything to prove. Marching in a parade celebrating something that didn't even happen is a waste of a precious day off.
Neo atheists get angry when they see a nativity scene. For me, a nativity scene has the same effect as a scene featuring Santa and his reindeer: it's all fiction, what the F is the diff?
I don't hang around with atheists, I don't have lengthy discussions about atheism. I decided that the Tooth Fairy wasn't real when I was 8, and I never needed a support group once the decision was made. Neo-atheists are grown ups yet feel the need to sit around talking about what they don't believe... seems like a waste of time.
I'm the same way, yet I consider myself a neo-Atheist.
Did you read the linked article? It's specifically talking about being visible, not going up to people's doors, or into their churches, etc. A good example they gave was the Atheist Vuvuzela Band in Texas recently, where they were in a Christmas parade playing Jingle Bells on vuvuzelas, yelling Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Happy Hannukah/Happy Kwanzaa. They were doing absolutely nothing offensive, and yet simply because their banner identified them as the atheists, stupid people got their panties in a twist and started whining about how atheists should be banned from Christmas parades.
Christians have a terribly biased double standard.
Maybe it was the Vuvuzela Band that was offensive.
Maybe it was the Vuvuzela Band that was offensive.
Okay, I grant you that.
Point was though, that this group was expressing many different holiday sentiments, covering many different belief systems and also secular holiday greetings. The only reason anyone would be able to tell that they were atheists is because they carried a banner with the name of their group on it. Take the banner away, and their holiday greetings and their holiday song renditions (as horrible as a vuvuzela may be) would not have marked them as atheists.
So...we're allowed to join in, but we'd better keep our damn dirty mouths shut about who we are? That's the point I'm trying to make...the outcry against them is senseless.
The question isn't what you know, the question is what you believe.
Of course, given the many different definitions of Atheism, it could mean just about anything anymore, so maybe I'm incorrect.
Too many people seem to think "believe" and "know" are the same thing. I "believe" I'm a naked bipedal ape running 'round in a linear progression through the foruth dimension until I expire, and that's what the evidence I see seems to suggest, but I can't truly "know" that in the strictest sense of the term. For all I know I could actually be an AI in a simulated universe, or a dream within a dream within a dream a la "Inception". Who knows? We really don't have the perspective to truly come to conclusions.
Too many people seem to think "believe" and "know" are the same thing. I "believe" I'm a naked bipedal ape running 'round in a linear progression through the foruth dimension until I expire, and that's what the evidence I see seems to suggest, but I can't truly "know" that in the strictest sense of the term. For all I know I could actually be an AI in a simulated universe, or a dream within a dream within a dream a la "Inception". Who knows? We really don't have the perspective to truly come to conclusions.
Time is the 4th dimension, so I am in it, being that I'm getting wrinkles, my first grey stubble and a slightly smaller mortgage payoff amount. You can stay in the garden of eden if you want to, though.
Too many people seem to think "believe" and "know" are the same thing. I "believe" I'm a naked bipedal ape running 'round in a linear progression through the foruth dimension until I expire, and that's what the evidence I see seems to suggest, but I can't truly "know" that in the strictest sense of the term. For all I know I could actually be an AI in a simulated universe, or a dream within a dream within a dream a la "Inception". Who knows? We really don't have the perspective to truly come to conclusions.
Tried to rep you but I was denied.
I will change my status line in your honor, though. Had to modify it to get it to fit.
"If you follow the atheism debates in op-ed pieces and whatnot, you'll see that critiques of the so-called New Atheist movement are often aimed at our tone. Among the pundits and opinion-makers, atheist writers and activists are typically called out for being offensive, intolerant, disrespectful, extremist, hostile, confrontational, and just generally asshats.
The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks. And if these op-ed pieces and whatnot were all you knew about the atheist movement and the critiques of it, you might think that atheists were simply being asked to be reasonable, civil, and polite."
I've been longing to say I agree with something you posted. Mind, I do agree with people helping others where they want to be helped and I consider that debate not be silenced by people who want to shut others up. But by and large, not hassling the others is a good way to live.
Maybe it was the Vuvuzela Band that was offensive.
I'm working on a chromatic vuvuzela.
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