Results 21 to 40 of 58
resting a political position on atheism is dumb as shit. feminism is an actual political position. equal rights for lgbt people is an actual political position. not being widely persecuted for being Muslim is an actual political position. i don't care if "atheist activists" have no political representation.They don't annoy me as much as activist Christians. Activist atheists have no political representation. The same cannot be said for theists. All atheists have are words. Christians actually have political power--something particularly dangerous in the hands of those with unjustified irrational beliefs.
Atheists are the most hated of all groups. Even homosexuals and Muslims aren't as widely hated. So I don't blame atheists for being angry as fuck. They should be.
That sounds like the same kind of horseshit that comes out of people about feminists. They are annoying or whatever.
in ultra-religious texas, people knew i was agnostic. my super-religious in-laws know i'm agnostic. hell, they know i'm a communist. know what i do to not make them look down on me, or them give not a lick a shit about that? not characterize their metaphysical beliefs as "unjustified irrational beliefs."
Last edited by Creative Destruction; 30th December 2014 at 17:10.
I will miss nothing of this imperialist liberal "socialist". Anti-theism is an enemy of the people and a view supported by only a vague fringe of leftism.
bismillaah ir-rahman ir-raheem
al hamdu lillaahi rabbil alameen
ir-Rahman ir-Raheem Maliki yaumid deen
iyyaaka na-abudu wa iyyaaka nasta-een
ihdinas siraatal mustaqeem
siraatal ladheena an amta alaihim
ghiaril maghduubi alaihim waladaaleen
ameen
I've always been an Atheist but I will admit that the "New Atheist" movement swept me up. I watched everything I could on the subject, scoured youtube for whatever I could find, watched debates, interviews, talks, read the books.etc etc
I say that to give context as to why for myself, and probably a great many others, there is a real battle that goes on within. Christopher Hitchins for all his many failings, along with Dawkins et al, had stood up and said what we were thinking. That religion was crazy, harmful and had injected a real dose of hard-right ideology into politics, education, science and medicine. Not to even mention the emotional cruelties of Hell fire, damnation, sin.etc
As time has gone on those heroes have begun to show their true colours and to disgrace themselves, Hitchins with his descent into hysterical reactionary politics, Dawkins & Grayling into profit-making education and as far Sam Harris goes, the most disgusting racial chauvinism.
All that said, as appalled as I am by their behaviour and despite rebukes from fellow left wingers that I shouldn't concern myself with religion, I still harbour a lot of the same concerns I had at the start. Religion is still a dangerous weapon that the forces of reaction everywhere seem only too happy to use and that's without even starting on the true believers. Those who really do wish this entire mortal coil just went up in flames so the real fun could begin in a totalitarian heavenly theocracy.
Mixed feelings, that's what I have for Christopher Hitchins. I deplore his unprincipled politics and his self serving careerism but for a while he seemed like a breath of fresh air.
- To Vanguard or not to Vanguard, that is the question.
I don't miss anything about that pompous jerk. He made a living ranting about religion and supporting imperialism. He contributed basically nothing to humanity except a few tirades about religion that no one will remember in another decade. At least Dawkins actually writes about science occasionally .
FKA Red Godfather
It's like they needed to package a growing atheistic sentiment out there & channel it in ways that makes it containable & malleable to the agenda of the powers that be. But it's a diversion from taking up dialectical materialism. People can be atheists & fuzzy about materialism at the same time.
George Galloway tore him apart in New York.
New Atheism is a cult.
Though I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, Hitchens was the beginning of my political, religious, and argumentative awakening. He was the guy I would listen to for hours on my iPad while I played games, with his baritone British voice and astonishing debate skills. He simply wiped the floor with whoever who he was debating.
I mean, Hitchens views moving into the late 90s and early 2000s were simply appalling, they were nothing more than an excuse for his own, seemingly, islamaphobic stance, something very deep in British society. I was watching him the other day on one of the "best of" videos of his, and you can see where he could, rightly, trash the Church and Mullahs, but simply refused to see what was wrong with his advocation of imperialist and, frankly, genocidal policies that he proscribed to remedy the situation.
It really repulsed me to see that he couldn't see right there in front of him, the wool that was being pulled over his eyes, or worse that he was so ingrained in that elite U.S. culture that he refused to recognize the nonsense coming out of his mouth. To this day I would deride and denounce Hitchens for his blatant disregard of the facts regarding the Iraq War. But he was still probably the best debater of our time and certainly a charismatic figure.
Not to mention the New Atheist's circles and their support for imperialism, torture, and many other outright outrageously insane policies. Even though I've moved on and criticized that movement heavily, I am atheist because of Hitchens sound and cutting argument to which the religious simply could not, and never will, answer.
Realize that your chains are freely worn. Life has no inherent meaning. All meaning is man made. The canvas is blank, so paint your own. To The Daring Belongs the Future.
No Gods, No Masters, No States, No States, No Wars.
If I'd become an atheist because of that disgusting pig, I'd probably have turned to religion out of spite for Hitchens.
bismillaah ir-rahman ir-raheem
al hamdu lillaahi rabbil alameen
ir-Rahman ir-Raheem Maliki yaumid deen
iyyaaka na-abudu wa iyyaaka nasta-een
ihdinas siraatal mustaqeem
siraatal ladheena an amta alaihim
ghiaril maghduubi alaihim waladaaleen
ameen
You're very right about that. He always was a arrogant, rude arsehole lol.
You're in denial. People do get persecuted for atheism. "Saudi Arabia had enacted a new law equating atheism with terrorism. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razak had branded "humanism and secularism as well as liberalism" as deviant. And in Egypt, the youth ministry had launched an organised campaign against non-belief among the young, designed to spread awareness of the "dangers of atheism" and the "threat to society" that it posed"
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasm...nd-persecution
& yet, you're standing up for all these other people who are persecuted for their theistic beliefs, sexual orientation, or what-have-you. I wouldn't characterize that as being "dumb as fuck", but it's inconsistent as fuck. (WTF)
Your religious in-laws are tolerable towards your agnosticism because you're sitting on the fence. As for your pseudo-communism, they probably see through that as well. (It's just ultra-liberalism noise. "He'll get over it.").
But agnosticism is cognitively dissonant. Claiming that something is unknowable is to make a claim of knowledge about that thing. Awkward!
Don't be daft. How does it help to make statements like that. It clearly wasn't a cult by any definition. That's nearly as ridiculous as the people who stamp their feet and shout 'but Atheism is a religion too,' Utter nonsense.
- To Vanguard or not to Vanguard, that is the question.
New Atheists are worse than religious people when it comes to delusions and zealotry. They blame religion for everything. Cult.
Atheists are more delusional than people who believe in a supernatural being who can manipulate nature at his/her/their command? You've got confused along the line somewhere. As for zealotry...I'm happy to accuse the high-profile "New Atheists" of being bourgeois intellectuals, closet racists, reactionary liberals with their priorities in the wrong place but to label someone like Dawkins a "zealot" is, I think, to completely rob the term of any meaning.
New Atheist Zealots who put pithy posters on buses, who wear pithy tea-shirts, who write books about the separation of church and state, who debate conservatives in church halls that barely 200 people will ever see. If this is zealotry what are members of the Green Party of England & Wales? What are the RSPB? What are the people who want marijuana legalized?
Are they politically misguided? Yes.
Are they mostly spoiled-wealthy, white, able-mind/bodied, heterosexual, male, middle class academics? Most definitely.
Are they radical? Hardly.
Are they zealots? Don't be ridiculous.
- To Vanguard or not to Vanguard, that is the question.
New Atheists are not freethinking dreamers they really are a cult. In regards to whether or not Dawkins is a zealot, here's a good article I stole from sasha http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/...chard-dawkins/
Man is but a goat in the hands of butchers
Every movement has its pillocks. I'm objecting to the conflation of pillock with zealot. New Atheists are for the most part politically irrelevant and benign. The same cannot be said of the target of their greatest ire, the conservative right in America. As far as I'm aware their main political activism has always been fighting the encroachment of creationism into the classroom, Pro-life into medicine & gay bashing into law.
As I've said I'm no fan of the big wigs in the movement and I would never deny they have their fair share of odd balls and reactionaries but the movement aren't a bunch of zealots, that's just a total load of rubbish.
- To Vanguard or not to Vanguard, that is the question.
I disagree that their main target is the christian right here in the US. Dawkins and his crew put an excessive amount of effort into harassing the muslim minority in the UK compared to any one else. That's not to say that members of that group are not responsible for some some awful tendencies, but really after so many years one has to question the basic nature and appeal of a movement consisting almost entirely of middle class white men who spend their time harassing poor minorities or enshrining 'western values' to an extent that rivals the conservative right in my country. Irrelevant sure, benign not so much.
Man is but a goat in the hands of butchers
Didn't Dawkins also come out in support of some "cultural Christianity" bullshit and so on? "New Atheists" don't just fail at analysing society and, you know, not drumming up hysteria about minorities, they pretty much all fail at being atheists as well.
Christianity was started by a pacifist hippy and look where that led. Nu-Atheism is started by a bunch of pro-imperialist racists. I'm sure their cult will be much more peaceful.
Nu-atheism is a cult because it asserts it's own primacy over all other forms of thought. It wants to be a state religion, it wants to destroy all other religions and most of it's followers have very reactionary views on the workers of the world. If a God was involved at all you would be demanding a united front against Nu-Atheism.
bismillaah ir-rahman ir-raheem
al hamdu lillaahi rabbil alameen
ir-Rahman ir-Raheem Maliki yaumid deen
iyyaaka na-abudu wa iyyaaka nasta-een
ihdinas siraatal mustaqeem
siraatal ladheena an amta alaihim
ghiaril maghduubi alaihim waladaaleen
ameen
Yes he's claimed it for years at this point. I wonder if I could re-introduce flagellation for a mass market and get some book sales and a decent cult out of it.
Man is but a goat in the hands of butchers
