Do Atheists pick on others (Off Topic version)

[whenpigsfly]

a lot of them bash because a lot of christians act like theyre perfect when theyre not

 

[tango]

Im sorry but if that's what your sister thinks then she's not a biologist. She's denying evidence in favour of religious mantra. There's no such thing as a micro/macro distinction in the ToE.

Maybe not but you can certainly draw a distinction between an adaptation where a species changes to suit a changing environment and speciation. In the experiment I described the preferred temperature of a particular microbe (I forget the species) was pushed from approximately 98F to something in the region of 130F before the colony was contaminated. The microbes were the same species, they had just adapted over multiple generations to demonstrate optimum growth rates far above what would be normal for the species.

I'm not sure whose sister it was (it wasn't mine, it was someone else upthread), just drawing a distinction between two different modifications that could be referred to as "evolution".

 

[tango]

I'm not sure whether I should take this seriously or not. Putting spells on people is in the realms of fantasy books, it's not reality.

For the sake of argument though and accepting that your curse was the cause of overdose, who was it that you contacted in the supernatural world to transfer your ill wishes into your victims mind to make him take the pills?

You may think it's in the realms of fantasy books, I saw it happen with my own eyes. Unless there was some other reason that the person took a massive overdose almost immediately after I put the curse on him of course. If that was the only time something like that happened I'd be willing to consider the coincidence explanation. But during my time in the occult I did many such things, and saw several situations where things panned out more or less exactly as I had intended.

If you haven't seen it with your own eyes you have the freedom to not believe. But once you've seen something first hand it's harder to claim it doesn't exist.

As for "who or what" I contacted, I prefer not to go into great detail because I don't want others following that path (it leads to some seriously nasty places). The form of sorcery I used could arguably be compared to a prayer (although obviously not to God).

 

[MoreCoffee]

Curses have no innate power.

A person who hears the words of a curse may dwell on it. It may prey on his/her mind and lead to psychological problems - for many people this will not happen but some people are deeply wounded by some words - and the problems may result in a bad outcome.

 

[tango]

Curses have no innate power.

A person who hears the words of a curse may dwell on it. It may prey on his/her mind and lead to psychological problems - for many people this will not happen but some people are deeply wounded by some words - and the problems may result in a bad outcome.

Except in my cases the people I put the curses on didn't know I'd done it.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Except in my cases the people I put the curses on didn't know I'd done it.

Don't be deceived. God does not empower curses spoken by people who have no love for him and he does not teach those who love him to curse other human beings.

 

[psalms 91]

I will leave you to your unbelief, I see now why it is so hard for you to accept the supernatural things of God. For if they are present then evil also has power, not as much as God but they do have it

 

[TubbyTubby]

It's not just your god I don't believe in, I also.dont believe in the thousands of other gods that you don't believe in as well.

When adults talk of curses/spells, gods, angels, giants, devils or any other such supernatural stuff as though it's real I feel sad that as we reach out to discover new planets in our galaxy and continue to discover more about our world that a large portion of us continue with irrational and divisive beliefs.

 

[MarkFL]

Atheism isn't a position of stating that there is a god or not, it simply rejects all of the thousands of positive claims (books) that gods exist.

Quite correct...there are only two possible claims regarding the existence of gods...they exist or they do not. Both theism and atheism address only the claim that gods exists...and atheists reject the claim because of lack of compelling evidence. Theists accept the claim despite this, using faith. An anti-theist on the other hand will claim there are no gods, and like theists have a burden of proof. Theists and anti-theists are making a claim, therefore they both have a burden of proof, while an atheist has no such burden because no claim is being made.

 

[MarkFL]

Now, regarding the topic of this thread...do atheists pick on others?

Yes, some atheists can certainly be combative, I have been guilty of this more than once.

On the flip side, after simply stating I am an atheist when the subject of theism comes up, I have been called an agent of Satan, a hater of God, unpatriotic, told I should leave this country, and so after hearing these things on multiple occasions for years, it is natural for an atheist to become somewhat combative and defensive. What I need to keep in mind, is that most theists are not like this, and not fall victim to the kind of selective memory we are all capable of.

I think an equally valid question is: Are atheists picked on by others? Not that two wrongs make a right mind you, just trying to shed a little light on the mindset of an atheist in a predominantly theist society.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Now, regarding the topic of this thread...do atheists pick on others?

Yes, some atheists can certainly be combative, I have been guilty of this more than once.

On the flip side, after simply stating I am an atheist when the subject of theism comes up, I have been called an agent of Satan, a hater of God, unpatriotic, told I should leave this country, and so after hearing these things on multiple occasions for years, it is natural for an atheist to become somewhat combative and defensive. What I need to keep in mind, is that most theists are not like this, and not fall victim to the kind of selective memory we are all capable of.

I think an equally valid question is: Are atheists picked on by others? Not that two wrongs make a right mind you, just trying to shed a little light on the mindset of an atheist in a predominantly theist society.

It's good to see you again Mark

 

[MarkFL]

It's good to see you again Mark

Thanks, Phil!...it's good to be back. :tea:

 

[psalms 91]

Yes, it is very good to have you back

 

[Lamb]

So in my OP I asked if Atheists picked on others besides Christians. I've received some great responses so far and from those responses I see that the influence of whether other religious groups get picked on comes from the upbringing of the atheists and the ties to other religions. I wonder if atheists from Asia pick on other groups more than Christians?

 

[psalms 91]

I know that in some countries that claim to be athiest that Christians are persecuted

 

[MarkFL]

So in my OP I asked if Atheists picked on others besides Christians. I've received some great responses so far and from those responses I see that the influence of whether other religious groups get picked on comes from the upbringing of the atheists and the ties to other religions. I wonder if atheists from Asia pick on other groups more than Christians?

I misunderstood...I thought you were asking if atheists pick on theists in general...sorry about that.

I think the issue, at least in the U.S., of atheists singling out Christians is simply because Christianity is the majority and thus a much larger target. I know prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens are/were openly critical of Islam and Hinduism as well, and in fact critical of any type of theism.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has been pretty clear that his main objection as an educator is when non-science such as creationism is put alongside evolution as a means of explaining the diversity of life, or alongside the big bang theory to explain the origins of the cosmos. Naturally, any scientist, theist or not, should strongly object to this. It's when theism is put into places where it doesn't belong that most atheists have issue.

 

[TubbyTubby]

I think I mentioned it in an earlier post but I don't discriminate between different religions in my contempt for them much like the names mentioned above put their case.

I don't go out of my way to 'pick on' any of them in particular, instead I will make my feelings known to any street corner christian evangelist or door knocking jehova who feels it necessary to impose their belief into my and my childrens world (but always with politeness I should add).

I will stand up for my position of non-belief wherever it is threatened and have done so in my childrens school on more than one occasion. In the words of the great Christopher Hitchens "Since it is obviously inconceivable that ALL religions can be right. The most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong." and that really sums up my feelings on the topic.

 

[Lamb]

I think I mentioned it in an earlier post but I don't discriminate between different religions in my contempt for them much like the names mentioned above put their case.

I don't go out of my way to 'pick on' any of them in particular, instead I will make my feelings known to any street corner christian evangelist or door knocking jehova who feels it necessary to impose their belief into my and my childrens world (but always with politeness I should add).

I will stand up for my position of non-belief wherever it is threatened and have done so in my childrens school on more than one occasion. In the words of the great Christopher Hitchens "Since it is obviously inconceivable that ALL religions can be right. The most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong." and that really sums up my feelings on the topic.

You have posted that you don't want people of a religious nature to impose their beliefs upon your children and yet you mention their school. Are you imposing your belief by demanding something there that goes against other peoples' children's belief within the school system?

 

[tango]

Don't be deceived. God does not empower curses spoken by people who have no love for him and he does not teach those who love him to curse other human beings.

I wasn't looking to God to empower curses (at the time I was involved in the occult). How would you explain someone taking a trip to intensive care so soon after being cursed? How would you explain a curse that takes effect more or less exactly as specified?

 

[tango]

It's not just your god I don't believe in, I also.dont believe in the thousands of other gods that you don't believe in as well.

When adults talk of curses/spells, gods, angels, giants, devils or any other such supernatural stuff as though it's real I feel sad that as we reach out to discover new planets in our galaxy and continue to discover more about our world that a large portion of us continue with irrational and divisive beliefs.

How is a belief irrational in the face of personal experience that it is real?

If we take an observation in the purely physical world we might see the cause (I throw a brick), the effect (the window breaks) and, upon repeating a few times, conclude that throwing bricks at windows breaks them.

We can move to something a little more abstract if we see the cause (I flick a switch), the effect (the light comes on) and, on repeating a few times, conclude that flicking the switch causes the light to come on.

How is it any different if we transfer to the supernatural, where we see a cause (I place a curse/I said a prayer), the effect (the curse or prayer takes effect) and, upon repeating a few times, conclude that prayers and curses have an effect? If anything I'd say it's more irrational to deny the effect. It's a fair hypothesis to suggest that something else is at work but to simply respond to an experience that something happened with "it cannot have happened" doesn't really work.

We may take different approaches to explaining why things happen - the brick causes the glass to shatter, the switch completes the circuit allowing electricity to flow. The third one may fall more into the realms of "I don't know why it happens" but whether or not we can explain why and how something happens doesn't change whether or not it actually happened.

There's a world of difference between believing in something following personal experience, and insisting that something is true because I'd really like it to be true. I can close my eyes and picture prancing unicorns and dragons and pots of gold and Gandalf-like characters throwing thunderbolts from the end of a white staff, but that's a fantasy world. Seeing things first hand takes it out of the world of fantasy.