Anti-theistic strawmen?

I don't get it, I guess.What does atheism have to do with any of those guys? Hitler was Lutheran and had the support of the Catholic Church in his mission against Jews; Stalin had a degree from a seminary and certainly enacted plenty of religious doctrine of his own. Pol Pot was the leader of a religious agrarian crusade, and Mao Tse-Tung led a communist revolution.None of those figures led an atheist crusade; they simply attacked the local religion out of competition for power. Hilter did nothing that could be described as "atheist", he regularly cited the approval of God for his attacks on Jews.Not believing things on the basis of no good evidence, which is what atheism is, has never killed anybody. The millions that you mention fell victim to the same kind of faith-based thinking that typifies religious thinking, even if specific supernaturalism wasn't always prominent in their religion. Certainly these despots were held in religious esteem by the followers.Re: Stalin, no society that considered marching in front of a painting of the leader just the same as if he had really been there is "atheist." They've just exchanged one religion for another.But Hitler? How does he even make it in your list? Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot I can see; at least those figures were personally atheists even if they were the leaders of religious movements. But Hitler? What on Earth would make you think Hitler was an atheist, except for anti-atheist bigotry on your part?

Sorry, but anybody who is ascribed supernatural powers by his followers - like the ability to see out through paintings of himself, or to "reverse" radios and TV's into surveillance devices - is the figurehead of a religious movement, by definition. Except for all the religions that believe in many Gods, or don't nominally believe in a God at all (like some varieties of Buddhism.)It's belief in the supernatural, characterized by faith-based thinking, that represents religion. And that belief certainly typified the movements of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. It's just faith-based thinking. The same thought that typifies adherents of religion typifies the adherents of the movements of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.If you have another word in mind for "a movement characterized by faith-based thinking and investment of supernatural power in an infallible leader" besides "religion", I'm all ears and I'll begin using it, I assure you. Well, actually the point of atheism is that you stop using faith-based thinking. So clearly the movements NJ describes have nothing to do with atheism, even if their leaders were privately atheists and their followers rejected native religions. I define it as a changing of mental habits. When you make an effort to oppose faith-based thinking, you're an atheist. Was that the point of the movements of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?No, of course not. They were the leaders of cults, of religions. Their followers invested them with supernatural powers on the basis of no good evidence, on faith. What on Earth does any of that have to do with atheism? NJ probably won't even attempt to explain. Can you?

I'm all in favor of a better word for "movement based on supernatural or counterfactual belief held as a result of non-evidentiary, faith-based thinking." To me that screams "religion", but if we're going to ignore all the non-church, non-God religions and demand that "religion" only refer to going to church and believing in God, then I'm open to whatever word people think is better. Agreed. When communism fell in Russia, the Orthodox church was back in full force almost immediately - proof that Russian communism was not an "atheistic movement", but rather the exchange of one religion for another. And when it was over they obviously simply changed back.

Except that your examples of all that were religious. None were particularly irreligious or atheist.They were all examples of movements based on supernatural beliefs supported by no good evidence. If you have evidence of atrocities committed by people who were committed to open inquiry led by evidence, committed to learning, committed to the scientific method, then I'd like to know what they are. I don't believe history has a single example.

I was at least 20 when I became an atheist, and believe me, I'd heard every different kind of religious philosophy there was, from dogmatic scripture-only religionism to advanced liberation theology and everything in between.I'm not sure the "adult" theology you refer to even exists. When somebody says "I just take all the good feelings I get, the sense of wonder I feel at the natural world, I just roll all that up and that's what 'God' is to me", I don't see a particularly sophisticated philosophy there that atheists are required to refute. In fact that person seems to be hanging on to the absolute minimum belief in God, and so it seems to me that all the atheist arguments that refute a more rigorous theology refute that guy's, simultaneously.The theology that Dawkins' critics often refer to, the one they say he's ignoring, is less developed than the rigid, explicit dogma of the fundamentalists. It's just fundamentalism with a lot more handwaving. As a result, it's not necessary to target it with any specific refutations, because it's based on fundamentalism, and therefore the anti-fundamentalist arguments refute it at the same time.

Yeah, but how about for Santa Claus? Christianity doesn't reject the existence of Santa, explicitly - indeed, Christianity affirms the existence of Santa Claus (or Sinterklaas, "Saint Nicholas") as a saint of the Catholic church.But Buz doesn't believe in Santa Claus, I'm sure, because there's evidence that there's no toy shop at the North Pole, evidence that raindeer can only fly in shipping crates, and evidence that you can't deliver toys to the world's children in just a single night.Heck I'm sure Buz has probably even been a Santa Claus, so he's in on the gimmick. It's a falsehood we knowingly propagate to children, for fun. (By all means, let's keep doing it. It is fun, plus for a lot of children it's an introduction to skepticism.)So I would say that Buz and I reject Santa Claus for the exact same reason. Indeed, the reason I don't believe in God is the same reason Buz doesn't believe in Santa (unless Buz is a curmugeon who swore off belief in Santa because he didn't get that sled, that one year.)

By all means, what's the "adult theism" you find so intellectually bulletproof?"I'm ok, you're ok, God is when you love someone"? "The feeling I get from eating chocolate, hearing birds, and smoking pot, that's God"?"God exists, but there's absolutely no evidence, and it's not like he talks to us, or makes us feel a certain way, and it's becoming less and less likely that he's even the creator of the universe, and he would certainly never do anything so coarse as leave evidence around for his existence - but I believe in him anyway, and all you atheists should just shut up when the oh-so-sophisticated adults are talking"?Well more than half of all Americans believe in a God that's literally going to come back to Earth and judge people, precisely as described in the Bible. Nearly everyone who prays believes that, in doing so, they've supplicated God who will then respond if they had enough "faith."Dawkins may not be addressing the oh-so-sophisticated granola God that passes for deep theology among the faith-based intelligentsia, but that's partially because1) almost nobody believes in that bullshit anyway; and
2) there's absolutely no substance there to address. If you want to wrap up all the warm fuzzies you get after hot chocolate and a blowjob and stamp "Contains God; do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" on the side, that's between you and the Oxford English Dictionary.But that's not an exercise in theology. That's an exercise in sophistry. And it certainly has diddly-squat to do with religion as the phenomenon actually practiced by the religious.

Yeah, I guess you're right. One is a great big man who lives on top of the world, watches the actions of people all year long to judge whether they've been naughty or nice and punish or reward them appropriately on one special day, has a long white beard, brings you stuff if you ask hard enough in just the right way, and has a lot of helpers constantly around him, doing his bidding.And the other one is Santa Claus. No, they're not at all different. They're precisely the same. The only difference is that society says that only children can and should believe in Santa Claus and that the rest of us only need to play along with the illusion when the kids are around; but that you're never too old to believe in God, and anybody that doesn't should keep their big fat trap shut constantly, because only a great big meanie would attack someone's belief in Santa - oops, I mean God.That's the only difference. We live in a society that says God is real and that Zeus and Santa are not, and relegates those who disagree to second-class citizenship. Just as a great weight of society's opprobrium comes down on those curmudgeons who would dare tell a child that there's no such thing as Santa Claus. Nobody remembers little Virginia's little friends except as bullies and assholes (and "skeptics), oddly enough precisely the reputation atheists gain nearly everywhere. So does Santa. "How does he get around the world in just one night?" "Reindeer magic." "Why does the Santa down at the mall have straps running from his beard?" "He's just one of Santa's helpers, but talking to him is just like talking to Santa."The only difference is that the anti-skepticism protection is calibrated for children, whereas the ASP in religion has a little something for everyone. It's irrelevant why Buz dismisses the comparison. What's at issue is why Buz dismisses Santa Claus, and it's because it's abundantly obvious that Santa Claus is a myth we, as a society, decided to create for children.Similarly, it's abundantly obvious that God - all gods - are a myth that we, as a society, decided to create for adults. The reason Buz doesn't believe in Santa Claus - who is not mentioned in the Bible at all, contrary to your assertion - is the exact same reason I don't believe in God. (Or Santa.)Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

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Buz will likely dismiss a comparison between Santa and God BECAUSE the Bible says so.

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How can the Bible refute Santa Claus when he's a saint of the Catholic Church? You seem to have completely ignored that point.Either way it's a little ridiculous to argue about what Buz would do, when neither of us can read his mind. Nonetheless, the Christians who don't believe in Santa Claus do so because of the same reasons I don't believe in their God. If you ask a Christian why they don't believe in Santa Claus, the Bible is not anywhere close to the first argument they'll make. I doubt they'll even draw any connection. Who cares if he rejects the comparison? Of course he's going to reject a comparison that he finds belittling.Nonetheless, he's going to reject Santa Claus for precisely the same reason I reject his god. Case closed. The Bible doesn't have anything to do with it. How could it? Santa Claus is a saint of the Catholic Church.

I'm prepared to accept that it was ambiguous wording on your part, since I don't think you're an idiot or something, but exactly what does the Bible "say so", when you say it "says so"? It's a great example, because it's precisely illustrative of the fact that even Christians reject other supernatural deity-figures on the basis of the evidence, not on the basis of religion. Christianity doesn't reject Santa Claus, indeed he's even canonized by the Catholic Church; Christians reject him, because everyone older than 12 is let in on the big secret - Santa Claus is made up. Have you ever actually seen Christians argue with members of other religions? Even they know that an argument like "your religion is wrong because mine says so" is pretty intellectually unfulfilling. Pop around a few apologetics websites and you can see how it goes down. Arguments from Scripture are fairly rare, except for the argument that goes "the Bible is better than your holy book because of more fulfilled prophecy" etc, because even a Christian can put themselves in another person's shoes and understand that an argument based on the assumed inerrancy of another religion's holy text isn't likely to be compelling.No. It's always stuff like "Christians are better people", or "Christianity is a completely unique religion, not like the others", or "your religion's tenets are contradicted by recorded history." Arguments that, while not being scientific by any means, are at least an attempt to defend Christianity on an objective basis. It's just not true, Jazzns. That's not at all how other people defend themselves against other religions. That's not at all how they argue about it. Even the deeply religious see that, in order to proselytize, they need more than circular reasoning. "Because the Pope said so" is an argument that is only convincing once you're a Catholic. Even the Catholics understand that. They're not idiots.

I never said they did; quite the opposite. But that's not an example of the religious justification you're talking about; they're making an objective, extratextual claim that the Bible is inerrant according to its match with history.Not just "there's no such thing as Zeus because it says so in my book." Well, obviously. They're not going to be idiots about it. Of course, "convert or we'll fucking kill you" continues to be the strategy in widest use, but even those guys know that "your religion is wrong because our holy man says so" isn't going to get very far with anybody who doesn't already consider their man to be holy. True. They're using rational reasons in addition to irrational ones, and refusing to apply the same rational reasons to their own religion. From the fact that believers aren't idiots, they haven't amputated their ability to discern bullshit arguments; they've simply suspended it in regards to their own religion. It's a kind of on-purpose blind spot.Well, I don't have the same blind spot. I turned the same bullshit detector that kept me from being Muslim or Buddhist on my own Christianity, and as a result I detected a great amount of bullshit.And I didn't like the smell.

It's not a syllogistic structure at all. It's just a mish-mash of granola ideas and crystal worship just vague enough to avoid being pinned down. It's self-refuting, so it's hardly necessary for Dawkins to expend effort to refute it.There's nothing mature or sophisticated about it.

It doesn't require "God", either, so in what sense precisely does someone who espouses moderation and wisdom on their own merits constitute a "theist"?If you're going to say that "God" is just a metaphor for human community and everything good about us, not an actual conscious being who takes real action in the universe for our benefit, in what sense are you a theist? Sounds like atheism to me, except that you apparently take such a dim view of humanity that you feel the need to dehumanize the best in each of us.Somebody who says that "God" is only as real as love is no kind of theist. They don't believe in the existence of God - only in the existence of metaphors.

Look, if your "sophisticated theology" only defends itself from refutation by being a complete fucking secret, I don't know what to tell you.I'm not going to sit here and fucking guess what you believe, Brenna, in order to take potshots at it. But neither am I going to take very seriously an argument that says "Dawkins isn't the smarty-pants he thinks he is, because he can't refute my oh-so-mature and sophisticated secret theology."Regardless of what you said, what I described was the beliefs of the "mature theologians" whom Dawkins is accused of ignoring. The reason that it's appropriate to ignore them is because their "theology" isn't; it's completely content-free. There's no "there" there. Dawkins refutes that God, and I have as well, on many occasions. The theism you describe has been refuted. In AO's eyes, I imagine that makes your theology quite immature. Actually, the fact that you assert a God who actually exists makes you a country bumpkin, theologically-speaking, in the eyes of Dawkins' detractors, who are convinced that nobody at all could possibly be so gauche as to propose a God who actually exists and takes action in the universe in response to supplication.I'm just saying. The God you believe in is not the God Dawkins is being accused of ignoring. The God you believe in is the one people are saying is Dawkins' strawman characture.

Millions of Jews murdered in horrific ways says that he was indeed a Christian. The Holocaust was a sectarian conflict.