Rob Knop on Gnu Athiests

[Ghel]

If you choose to abdicate your own, and others', personal responsibility, that doesn't actually make anyone any less responsible.

Are you still talking about deconversion stories? Because it seems to me that moving from theism to atheism means actually taking responsibility for your own actions, rather than letting your religion make all your decisions for you.

[Andara Bledin]

It's a factor, to be sure. But nobody is forcing anyone to do anything they don't, ultimately, choose to do.

If you choose to abdicate your own, and others', personal responsibility, that doesn't actually make anyone any less responsible.

^-.-^

[Boozy]

People used to (some still do) treat blacks as second class citizens or worse. And yet, we don't blame racism for their actions; we blame the people who took those actions.

Wait a minute - seriously?

I absolutely blame racism for racist acts and opinions. The culture of racism creates an environment where people feel safe and comfortable committing racist acts and saying racist things.

Obviously certain religious sects in certain geographical areas create the same sort of environment.

[Andara Bledin]

People used to (some still do) treat blacks as second class citizens or worse. And yet, we don't blame racism for their actions; we blame the people who took those actions.

This is no different, no matter how much emotional investment anyone has in vilifying a set of ideas.

In that same vein, people are also the ones responsible for the good that is done in the name of religion. People volunteer to help the less fortunate, people donate money so others don't have to go hungry, people donate their time to visit the lonely.

Religion is merely one of man frameworks that people use to help them make their way through their own lives. They are social constructs.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

Again, people, not ideas.

Religion is just a collection of people who believe the in the same thing or hold similar ideals. So, I don't think you can say, "Oh, that's the fault of people, not religion." Would those people carry out those actions if not for the sake of religion?

I had a neighbor try to convert me when I was *five.* Yeah, nothing like telling a 5 year old that "the wages of sin is DEATH." Luckily, my mom told her to cut that shit out. But if the Baptist church didn't have such a colossal bug up its ass about "spreading the word" and "witnessing" and "OMG you have the duty to save your neighbors from everlasting hellfire!!", do you think she would have done such a thing? Of course not.

If people commit an action in the name of religion, then religion is the root cause. Religion can't claim all the good works that people do in its name and then ignore the bad.

[Andara Bledin]

That's entirely possible. It's also possible they're angry at being indoctrinated as vulnerable children, with the threat of eternal torture in an imaginary hell, from people they're supposed to look up to.

And that would be the fault of those peoples' guardians. Again, people, not ideas.

^-.-^

[Talon]

Allow me to re-iterate: Correlation does not equal causation.

You are correct, I was mistaken to use the word "proof". Nevertheless, those testimonials do lend some credibility to the idea of a "recovering theist". Yes I know, credibility is not proof either.

Nevertheless, you yourself have argued that only the individual in question is qualified to truly judge whether their life has value or not. Well some of those people featured my link have made the judgment that their lives were wasted on religion.

These people are angry at themselves for not having realized sooner that religion was not for them. They're abdicating their own responsibility for their decisions to something outside their own control as a way of shifting blame. Of course it's not their own faults that they made the wrong decisions for themselves and didn't realize earlier that it was wrong.

That's entirely possible. It's also possible they're angry at being indoctrinated as vulnerable children, with the threat of eternal torture in an imaginary hell, from people they're supposed to look up to. How can adults make a fair decision regarding their beliefs, when their ability to critically examine their beliefs have been so stunted as children? They were done an intellectual disservice.

Yes, some of those children grow up and do come to terms, but some don't. Like the Mormons. It's not a fair choice when choosing non-belief can cost you your family and friends.

Further edit: To make my point clear, think about this: attempting to use testimonials on an Atheist page about how they recanted their religions to prove anything about whether people have "wasted" their lives to religion is about the same as going to www.paypalsucks.com and using the testimonials there to determine how satisfied people are with PayPal. It's an immensely biased comparison.

Biased you say?

Do you suppose the vast majority of testimonials I linked to skewed towards the dramatic? Like that bit about ex-Mormons and family strife I suggested earlier? If the site owner wanted to make religion look as bad as possible, wouldn't you expect that only the dramatic de-conversion accounts would be posted?

If you thought "yes", you'd be wrong. The majority of testimonials were from people who were already on the fence concerning atheism/agnosticism. Expressed feelings of personal liberation non-withstanding, they weren't very dramatic. Hardly the stuff of TV drama. I had to dig deeper to find dramatic accounts, and I don't recall them being very numerous.

Again I'm going off memory here, don't take my word for it. To the people who've been dismissive of what I've posted, I again invite you to read some of the testimonials before you judge.

[Boozy]

The sarcasm is not helping your position.

And your smug superiority isn't helping yours.

Ahem.

I believe I've already addressed this kind of nonsense earlier in the thread. Here's your first (and last) reminder:

The moderators are getting somewhat concerned at the tone this thread is taking.

We do not want to see any discussions about a member's debate style. Those concerns should be addressed to a moderator via reports or PMs.

Go ahead and discuss Rob Knop's debate style. He's not a member here. Go ahead and discuss the debate style of "Gnu Atheists". But keep your comments generalized, please.

Many members will identify themselves as a member of a certain group, or align themselves with certain beliefs. That doesn't mean that you can shift focus to that member. The focus must remain on the group in general, or the set of beliefs in question.

For further clarification, please see my explanation in Site News.

[Cata]

There is proof.

Over at Richard Dawkins' website, there's an ironically named section called Convert's Corner. Within, there's over 30 pages of testimonials from ex-theists. Being the insufferable nerd that I am, I've read almost all of them. Granted, this was several months ago, going off of memory here.

I observed some common themes. Some people were on the fence, some were in the closet, and some were even hardcore theists who were turned around by reading Dawkins' work. And yes, some people felt angry and disillusioned that they had squandered their lives on superstition.

Oh and the term "recovering theist" that you find so offensive? It's not without merit either. Some people found it difficult to let go of the artificial fear and guilt imposed by their particular former religion, in spite of how liberating it was. Speaking of liberating, those testimonials also belie this idea you have that atheism is some kind of empty bleak void of existence.

1 person's word doesn't count, but you can't ignore 30+ pages of testimonials. But don't take my word, feel free to read them yourself. Oh and for the record, I've never read any of Dawkins' work. I've only been exposed to him on Youtube.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Edit: Beaten. That's what I get for loading the page, and then not reading it for a half-hour.

Further edit: To make my point clear, think about this: attempting to use testimonials on an Atheist page about how they recanted their religions to prove anything about whether people have "wasted" their lives to religion is about the same as going to www.paypalsucks.com and using the testimonials there to determine how satisfied people are with PayPal. It's an immensely biased comparison.

[Andara Bledin]

The sarcasm is not helping your position.

And your smug superiority isn't helping yours.

I was not talking about value. I was talking about how the individual views his or her own life.

If there is no value, then there would be nothing to "waste." I 'wasted' a lot of opportunities when I was young; that's part of what growing up and gaining experience is about; learning to discern what is worth pursuing and what isn't.

You claim that being religious is "wasting my life" but were you to examine my life, you would come up empty of any evidence of any such waste. You're basing your entire argument on assumptions about why people do what they do, and the answer is, quite simply, because they chose to do so. Regardless of the justification or the abdication of responsibility, they are the architects of their own situations, and if they squandered opportunities, it was they, not the religion, that caused this to happen.

I can see that Dennett's analogy of an idea lodged in the mind to an ant with a parasite is a pretty damn good analogy.

Only if we are as unintelligent and bound to instinct as an insect. At that point, it breaks down completely and irrevocably.

The dog analogy is a bit more convoluted. It is about the human's relationship to God, rather than the idea's relationship to the human.

He tried to claim that we molded our dogs' devotion to humanity on humanity's devotion to God, which is easily proven to be false. No more, no less. Anything else you might read into it is projection.

I would still rather be either ant or dog than a sheep - a creature that is raised for fleece and for food, that has been bred to be docile and can no longer survive on its own.

That's nice.

And completely irrelevant.

We're humans. We have the ability for higher thought and the ability to choose whether or not to engage in critical thinking. You don't like following the flock. That's fine. But there are others who are quite happy being just another sheep and abdicating personal responsibility. Are you going to live everybody's lives for them, or are you going to let everybody discover which mode of life makes them happiest, just like you did?

There is proof.

Allow me to re-iterate: Correlation does not equal causation.

These people are angry at themselves for not having realized sooner that religion was not for them. They're abdicating their own responsibility for their decisions to something outside their own control as a way of shifting blame. Of course it's not their own faults that they made the wrong decisions for themselves and didn't realize earlier that it was wrong.

1 person's word doesn't count, but you can't ignore 30+ pages of testimonials.

30+ pages of testimonials is not proof of anything; it's a bushel of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

^-.-^

[Talon]

This right here is what I'm talking about. You have no proof that anyone has wasted their life, yet you speak as if this is proven fact.

There is proof.

Over at Richard Dawkins' website, there's an ironically named section called Convert's Corner. Within, there's over 30 pages of testimonials from ex-theists. Being the insufferable nerd that I am, I've read almost all of them. Granted, this was several months ago, going off of memory here.

I observed some common themes. Some people were on the fence, some were in the closet, and some were even hardcore theists who were turned around by reading Dawkins' work. And yes, some people felt angry and disillusioned that they had squandered their lives on superstition.

Oh and the term "recovering theist" that you find so offensive? It's not without merit either. Some people found it difficult to let go of the artificial fear and guilt imposed by their particular former religion, in spite of how liberating it was. Speaking of liberating, those testimonials also belie this idea you have that atheism is some kind of empty bleak void of existence.

1 person's word doesn't count, but you can't ignore 30+ pages of testimonials. But don't take my word, feel free to read them yourself. Oh and for the record, I've never read any of Dawkins' work. I've only been exposed to him on Youtube.

[Ghel]

Well, then, since you are so all-knowing about this subject, we should put you in charge of other people's lives, to ensure they don't do anything that might waste theirs.

The sarcasm is not helping your position.

Pardon me while I roll my eyes at the idea that you have any idea as to the value of my life based purely on the fact that I self-identify as Christian.

I was not talking about value. I was talking about how the individual views his or her own life. Quite often, when a person realizes that the God that they've been raised to believe in doesn't exist, they feel a sense of loss or grief. They realize they have wasted a huge portion of their lives chasing after phantasms. It would be so much better if we could bring them to that realization earlier, so that they can move on to more productive endeavors.

So, you honestly don't see how calling someone a puppet with no control of their self slave to a parasite lodged within them is considered more offensive than calling them a loyal servant man's best friend, a beloved pet, a faithful companion? Are you actually serious with this statement?

I can see that Dennett's analogy of an idea lodged in the mind to an ant with a parasite is a pretty damn good analogy. It doesn't have to be a religious idea. It can be any idea that causes the creature to do something that they otherwise wouldn't do. They might not know how dangerous their behavior is, but they keep doing it anyway. The parasite, like the idea, isn't consciously aware of what it is causing the creature to do, yet it is the cause of the destructive behavior.

The dog analogy is a bit more convoluted. It is about the human's relationship to God, rather than the idea's relationship to the human. In some ways, I think this is an apt analogy to the Abrahamic religions, since many dogs will still be loyal to their masters even when their masters are abusive. This analogy also could be used to describe childhood indoctrination. After all, it is easiest to train a dog when he is still a puppy.

I would still rather be either ant or dog than a sheep - a creature that is raised for fleece and for food, that has been bred to be docile and can no longer survive on its own. I refuse to give up my critical thinking skills in favor of herd mentality.

[Andara Bledin]

If someone has spent their life worshiping a god that cannot be shown to exist, then yes, they have wasted their life. That is as close to a fact as anything can be.

Well, then, since you are so all-knowing about this subject, we should put you in charge of other people's lives, to ensure they don't do anything that might waste theirs.

Pardon me while I roll my eyes at the idea that you have any idea as to the value of my life based purely on the fact that I self-identify as Christian.

A loyal servant? To a god?

We were talking about dogs. You know, man's best friend.

Parasite-puppet vs. Dog.

Is this more deflection to escape the fact that the earlier comment was patently ridiculous or is this evidence of some inability to correctly connect abstract concepts to the ideas they represent? Or, possibly, it could be a sign that the response was written in haste without proper consideration for the meaning of the statement to which it responds.

I'll rephrase to make things less easily misconstrued:

So, you honestly don't see how calling someone a puppet with no control of their self slave to a parasite lodged within them is considered more offensive than calling them a loyal servant man's best friend, a beloved pet, a faithful companion? Are you actually serious with this statement?

^-.-^

[Ghel]

That tells me that he knew what he said would be found objectionable.

Not to get into another semantics debate, but you are using an equivocation here. I was using "objection" meaning "a disagreement" and you're using "objectionable" meaning "offending good taste, manners, or etiquette."

You have no proof that anyone has wasted their life, yet you speak as if this is proven fact.

If someone has spent their life worshiping a god that cannot be shown to exist, then yes, they have wasted their life. That is as close to a fact as anything can be.

So, you honestly don't see how calling someone a puppet with no control of their self is considered more offensive than calling them a loyal servant? Are you actually serious with this statement?

A loyal servant? To a god? Particularly the Christian God? Who is described in the Bible as a jealous, insecure bully. "You'd better tell me I'm wonderful, or I'm going to beat the crap out of you!" Even Jesus describes unending pain for those who don't believe in him. That sounds like an abusive master, not someone you would be loyal to.

[Andara Bledin]

That's him anticipating an objection and responding to it before it's made.

That tells me that he knew what he said would be found objectionable.

It is true that it is impossible to tell someone nicely that they've wasted their lives.

This right here is what I'm talking about. You have no proof that anyone has wasted their life, yet you speak as if this is proven fact.

Correlation is not causation. Otherwise ice cream would be a controlled substance.

A step up? In what way? A life is a life. No living thing is more evolved than another. No living thing is intrinsically better than another.

So, you honestly don't see how calling someone a puppet with no control of their self is considered more offensive than calling them a loyal servant? Are you actually serious with this statement?

^-.-^