A J Philips,

I doubt that we will ever get believers to acknowledge the fact that atheism is not a religion. They can accommodate heretics and infidels in their religious universe, however a philosophical approach that claims that there is no evidence for their world view is far too threatening.

If non-belief is a belief as these loonies argue then the following must be true.

Non-hitting is assault.

Non-swearing is potty mouthed behaviour.

Non-violence is violence.

Not knowing is knowing.

Because their whole religion is such a crock they have to come up with ridiculous arguments to match their ridiculous lack of knowledge.

But there is a lessen in it for Atheists... The word Atheists makes you a target for their stupidities.

The real thing non-believers should say is "I see no evidence for the existence of a God."

"I definitely don't see it in the followers of those Gods"...lmao

If believers are made in God's image, God can't be the sharpest tool in the heavenly shed...lmao

SR,

Now let me get this straight.

In one civilisation there is an up-swelling of revulsion against slavery led by leading members of the religion. That leads to not only a banning of all slavery in that place but a world-wide effort to ban slavery in all places where that civilisation holds sway. Enormous military, diplomatic and strategic efforts are put in place to halt all slave-trading and in some places wars are fought in part to end slavery.

In another civilisation, one bloke for strategic purposes outlaws one form of slavery in his kingdom while allowing and encouraging other forms. Additionally that bloke, 6yrs after banning slavery invades a neighbour and carries back to his homeland 10s of 1000s of (ahem!) slaves. That same civilisation, a few centuries later invades its neighbours and forces over 100000 women into sex slavery.

And you think these are equivalent. Do you realise how pathetic your argument looks when you have to delve this far into the bottom of the barrel?

Then we have one civilisation that invents and exports to the world ideas like universal human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, women's right and a plethora of other advancements. OTOH we have a bloke who effective said, "Be excellent to each other" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_yJFLvmjJY).

And you think these are equivalent. Do you realise how pathetic your argument looks when you have to delve this far into the bottom of the barrel?

Athens wasn't a democracy, at least not as we think of one. Two things with the same name aren't necessarily the same. For a start women were excluded. And at least 35% of the population were slaves who were excluded. And it wasn't representative but required attendance so large parts of the agricultural workers were effectively excluded. Out of a population of 150000 maybe 5000 were able to exercise any real power. Still a spectacular advance on other political systems at the time and unique in the ancient world (except arguably pre-imperial Rome) but not a democracy as we know it.

“I'm sure mhaze is the sort of person that would attest to the wickedness and depravity of fantasy RPG... seems like the sort of nutjobbery he'd buy into.”

Well it’s certainly easier to make up my views and then disparage them than to actually address anything I’ve said.
As to D&D, in my youth I was into war-gaming, using rules developed by the British army to train their officers. Re-examining history by recreating things like Waterloo, Cannae and Barbarossa. Reality based gaming. As such we looked down on D&D-ites as mere fantasist as against we realists. Funny how that extends into adulthood!

“Christianity hardly deserves a pat on the back for what amounts to dumb luck.”

The level of historic illiteracy required to allow someone to utter such a sentence is astounding. Yeah, the industrial revolution, the invention of human rights, freedom of speech, rule of law. Mere luck that they happened in the Christian west. Coulda happened anywhere really – upper Congo, outer Mongolia.
It wasn’t luck. It was the confluence of a differing forces combined with the inherent traits of the population that caused the ascendency of the West. Christianity was integral to that.

““Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. (To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.)” Cicero. (I included the Latin to better accommodate SR’s sensibilities.)

“..has your faulty comparison been employed to make Christianity not look so bad (i.e. make it look more desirable than it really is), or has it been used to drag atheism down to the same level (i.e. make it look less desirable than it really is)?”
Or none of the above. We all have beliefs based on faith rather than clear evidence. We all convince ourselves that the evidence for those beliefs is good enough to justify the belief. For theists it’s the deity (and possibly other things). For atheists it’s something else. Just as theists aren’t necessarily part of a religion, some atheists won’t be part of a religion.

Dear mhaze,

Oh come on mate you could have done a lot better than that.

Confucius didn't tell slaves to obey there masters or even going so far as to say if the escaped they should return to their servitude, Christ did. Besides which Confucius spoke of a free conscience, of equality before the law, and free speech and ideas.

Britain outlawed slavery only to commit genocide in places like Victoria a few years later.

Women didn't get the vote in Christian democracies until well into the 20th century but there were quite a few older cultures where it was part of the law;

“Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with the First Nations peoples of Canada during the seventeenth century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women, "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like the men, and it is they who even delegated the first ambassadors to discuss peace."”

If Athens wasn't a democracy then neither was Christian Switzerland until 1971 when women got the vote. Really piss poor argument from you on this one.

There is nothing special about Christian democracies or anti-slavery doctrines only that they were instituted by countries which had at the time high levels of global power.

That’s not what I suggested, mhaze.

<<Yeah, the industrial revolution, the invention of human rights, freedom of speech, rule of law. Mere luck that they happened in the Christian west.>>

Christianity did not arise with such things in mind, and, with immoral and problematic doctrines such as substitutionary atonement, things could have easily gone the other way in different circumstances.

That’s where the dumb luck comes in.

<<Coulda happened anywhere really...>>

I never suggested anything of the sort.

<<It was the confluence of a differing forces combined with the inherent traits of the population...>>

Yes, climate and resources included.

<<Christianity was integral to that.>>

Integral as in ‘built-in’? Yes. Integral as in ‘civilization could not have possibly arisen otherwise’? I am yet to see that justified. And until it is, who cares?

<<We all have beliefs based on faith rather than clear evidence.>>

That's a False dilemma. Faith and clear evidence are not the only two options. There is an entire spectrum of degrees of evidence.

I have trust that has been earned and I will grant trust tentatively, but I don’t have faith. Faith is the excuse people give when they don’t have a good reason to believe something. If you can show me a belief I base on faith, I’ll stop believing it.

<<We all convince ourselves that the evidence for those beliefs is good enough...>>

If we’re convinced we have evidence, then it’s not faith. Faith, in the context of religion (unless you want to equivocate again), necessarily lacks evidence:

http://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/faith

Show any reasonable person that there is no evidence for a belief of theirs (contrary to what they thought) and they will abandon it. Faith-based beliefs, by definition, do not need evidence.

<<For theists [the faith-based belief is] the deity...>>

Correct.

<<For atheists [the faith-based belief is] something else.>>

Or there isn't one at all. If there is, though, it wasn't determined by their atheism.

http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/97/Faulty-Comparison

But even if we WERE all hopelessly condemned to holding faith positions, atheists would still have one less belief requiring faith, and more freedom to choose where it is placed.