Patrick Elliott wrote:
> In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
> says...
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
>>>> That is why, in public, I let the
>>>> people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *far*
>>>> better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:
>>>>
>>>> http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
>>>>
>>>> do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me
>>>> absolutely astounded.
>>> looks like a slut and sounds like a slut.  oh wait, she's actually a pro... :P
>>>
>>> That was a loong rant, sir. 
>> Indeed it was. I don't think that helps to get the message across. 
>> Perhaps Patrick would also benefit from watching some Marx Brothers 
>> movies ;)
>>> The thing atheists don't seem to grasp is that they
>>> sound just about as annoying and boring in their anti-religion rants as
>>> religious fanatics in their convert stories...
>>>
>> As just another atheist I'd like to point out that atheism is a religion 
>> too. Many deists think that an atheist is someone who is not convinced 
>> that God does exist (or worse: not yet). They are wrong. I *believe* 
>> that God does not exist and I mean that in the same way as a Christian 
>> or Muslim or whatever believes the opposite. I.e. I *know* that God does 
>> not exit moreover my ethical values are fundamentally based on the non 
>> existence of God. If it turned out she did exist after all, I would need 
>> a couple of weeks to rethink my ethics.
>> We atheist have no reason to form churches and that means that we have 
>> no religious leaders. Sadly that means that our believe is less 
>> protected than the church forming religions. That is already subtly 
>> noticeable even in the Netherlands. In the US it seems to be much worse, 
>> and under the inspired leadership of the current president it has 
>> apparently even reached the level of discrimination. I think that was 
>> one of the more important points of Patrick.
>>
> Speak for yourself. 
I did.

> You are what some of us call "hard atheists", and we 
> do consider you as much a believer in unfounded woo as the other side, 
> even while you are on ours. 
us, we, ours?
> In fact, atheists run the gambit from those 
> that just provisionally reject **churches**, but sort of kind of believe 
> in some stuff that might lead to god, if anyone could ever prove that 
> one was believable, to those like myself, who provisionally reject 
> **any** gods, both because none of the definitions make any sense, and 
> because there doesn't seem to be any valid reason why there needs to be 
> one, to those that, like you, insist that there absolutely can't be one, 
> which is *not* a rational conclusion. So, you want to claim you are 
> religious, on the grounds that your own view is purely emotional, not 
> rational, then go ahead, but please, call yourself something else, 
> because we have enough problems with the idiots that **want** to insist 
> atheism is a religion (never mind that the very definition of religion 
> means, "belief in the stuff atheists pretty much all reject as 
> unbelievable".), without you giving the wackos something to quote mine
> as some sort of ammunition for why secular views should be rejected 
> **instead** of theirs.

Sorry Patrick for not using the words with exactly the same meaning as 
you. I just wanted to make absolutely clear that being an atheist is 
simply part of who I am. It is in every cell of my body, in every 
thought that even remotely touches ethics, in how I interact with others 
and in all my scientific work. In short it is part of me the same way as 
believe in a God is for some others, that is why I said it is a 
religion. If some moron rejects that word because in his views that 
implies that it has to be unfounded, so be it. If you think it is an 
irrational emotional thing, think again. Besides if you think that for a 
true believer in God that is only for emotional reasons and that that 
can't be rational, you can not be more wrong than that.

[snipped the rest. Too long, but I did read and it did not add much ;) ]

Disclaimer: I am Dutch, my views may be influenced by other Dutch people.

Post a reply to this message