@ Squeers

I don't think we can have met. I am sure I would remember someone so patronising and presumptuous repeatedly pissing in my pocket. Pocket's all warm, now, so you can stop.

I am not a nihilist and I am far from bored. I can think of many things I would rather be doing than defending my rights against theists and my intellectual integrity against your straw man characterisations of me, but here we are.

You are incorrect. There is much in human behaviour that is unpleasant in isolation from religion, but religious doctrines and heirarchies offer independent and unnecessary mechanisms people can use to be unpleasant to each other.

Don't try to speak on my behalf again. Besides getting it badly wrong, it is arrogant and makes you look like a bully, more interested in getting your way by intimidation than through reasoned argument and evidence.

>> ""McReal – you say that morals “are more than preferences. They are expectations”.

"So, are you saying that you have your preferences about what you think is right and wrong and that you expect others to abide by those preferences? You might think a certain action is wrong and you expect others not to do it. Another atheist, though, may not think that action is wrong and does not expect that he should be penalised for doing it. How then does your reference to expectations solve the dilemma for atheists as to what is right and wrong?"" <<

Posted by JP, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 4:18:41 PM

The expectations are a collective, a consensus. Via many overlapping civil entities, from schools to sports clubs to professional and trade associations.

Still, some entities get it wrong; which is why some churches have a history of higher rate of child abuse than others.

Diver Matt,

clearly I've pissed you off, but I don't see how I pissed in your pocket? Or that it's even possible to do both simultaneously?
Normally I'd interpret your pissed-offedness as a sure sign I'm right, but you don't seem to have understood what I was saying beneath the gentle persiflage (I'm glad I wasn't rough!). Perhaps I should change my style, I notice more and more these days that people are often incapable of "reading carefully", or seeing beyond their preconceptions on whatever topic's at hand. They just scan stuff, and rather than "reading" they reconstruct their own preconceived, and generally cliched, thinking, oblivious to anything that goes beyond their intellectual horizon. Yet that is the whole point and joy of reading; expanding the mind. Dawkins is the patron saint of the New Atheism and his mind is closed to anything beyond its fixed-horizon. Even worse, while he's critical of religion and other cultures, he's incapable of reflecting critically on his own thinking or on behalf of his society and its evils.

< Don't try to speak on my behalf again. Besides getting it badly wrong, it is arrogant and makes you look like a bully, more interested in getting your way by intimidation than through reasoned argument and evidence>

I thought it was clear above that I was referring to new atheists in general and not to you or your "integrity".
I read and responded to your comments. I don't believe in stroking egos or massaging my meaning, and there's a great deal to find fault with in this article, in the new atheist line, and in your post.
So far I've been unable to get a straight answer from your crew. Rather, and again here, I get impressive dudgeon.
The new atheists can dish it out but they can't take!

If you care to have another go, my numerous questions, criticisms and observations, here and above, stand.

Thanks for the chuckle, woot.

>>*rolls-eyes*<<

It was fun reading your post, along with its in-flight descriptions of your facial expressions.

Your protests were nicely dramatic, too, indicating just how much my analysis of your convention had hit the mark.

The simple fact is that - by your own admission, not by my speculation - you will be spending your time bitching and moaning about religious groups, and their activities.

>>...people getting together that feel the impositions imposed by religion in their life, it's about the privileges demanded by it... Why exactly should a religious group be able to discriminate eg: against single mothers... etc etc<<

You really cannot grasp the fact, can you, that you (collectively) are doing the rest of us atheists a serious disfavour, by your slavish imitation of the way in which the religious folk conduct themselves. If you think my illustrations a little strong... then, tough. Give it a little more thought, if you are able, and you will see why the whole idea of banding together with the objective of bagging religion is a really dumb, pointless exercise.

By all means, complain about discrimination. But there is no justification whatsoever in labelling yourselves "a Global Atheist Convention" in order to do so.

In fact, you are diluting what could be a perfectly logical, reasonable and acceptable position, by expressing it from your "Global Atheist" bully pulpit.

Sadly, you probably cannot see the irony in this statement of yours.

>>Thanks for showing the bigotry that many atheists deal with every day simply for not having a belief in a god and daring to gather and voice it.<<

"Daring to gather and voice it..."

Your courage is indeed boundless, woot.

Squeers, you have expressed a good deal of opinion but you haven't asked that many questions. All I read that are not rhetorical are (with their preceding assertions):

"All teaching is preaching.
Why do they need the institution?
Sovereignty--no accountability--tends to tyranny and indifference.
Would you have a society of sovereigns?"

Why do they (children) need the institution (school and marriage)? Each has its societal purpose which is obvious (is this really debatable?), but they certainly don't need to be rooted in religion. Cavemen took wives and taught their children enjoyment and survival skills (which you call preaching?!). Where was/is the necessary role of religion in this Religion is lower in the order of man's needs, a luxury, and that's how many people live it.

"Sovereignty" and "no accountability" ? In what way are they co-joined? You could just as easily replace the word sovereignty with religion and argue over that 'til the cows come home. More throwaway assertion Squeers, but on to the question of a "society of sovereigns"

We would be no more such a society under an atheist state than a religious one because there is so much more that binds than merely religion. Nihilism is not the obverse of atheism yet you and other posters assert it as if without religion there can be no healthy societal norms. You would assert your version of a "healthy" society, imposing "your" norms over all, rather than simply living by a creed of "live, let live, do no harm, defend the rights of others".

Your focus upon the tax status of churches attempts to make it a jealousy issue. It is an issue at the heart of the power of churches to grow to infect future generations of children with fairytale belief systems.

Luciferase,

More to the point is that an "atheist convention" is organising itself as a counter movement to religious influence - a movement "with a purpose".

The question, therefore, is why are atheists imitating the institutional behaviour inherent in religion as a mechanism devised to oppose it? It's all very well if they choose to go down that road, but let's call a spade a spade. According to this article, this convention is organised with a purpose in mind, not as some nebulous forum for people to congratulate each other on their lack of belief in a deity.

It seems that atheists bang on interminably about wanting to be left alone to "not believe" - they don't approve of control linked to "belief" - yet it is becoming increasingly obvious that "organised atheism" is now clamouring for control linked to "non-belief".