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Twilight Of The Godless: The Death Of Atheism?

We want the facts out there and to speak for themselves and let the people decide.

Does 'out there' refer to a global stage - i.e., something beyond merely 'out front' on Avenue Appleton?
 


Guess what is inside angel's envelope (etc)
Nice try at a Gish Gallop, have one in return

The fastest growing element of "faith" is non-belief whether or not you think that Agnosticism and Atheism are the same.

Atheism is a null hypothesis that requires you to produce verifiable evidence to overturn it and, until there is such evidence, it stands

The mechanism of action of any deity is magic and spells without any explanation

There is an utter lack of evidence for any deity

It is not a straw man to point out that the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Mormon deity is, on the evidence of the holy books, a genocidal, incest approving, child abusing, rape enabling, gaslighting control freak. Luckily most people in these faiths have standards that exceed those of the deity described in the holy book

It is not a straw man to point out that prayer has been shown to be ineffective by in an actual blind controlled test conducted by a believer
Power of prayer flunks an unusual test

It is not a straw man to point out the fraudulent nature of all faith healers

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a nonsense
 
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It's called Freedom of Speech, Something people have forgotten in the totalitarian age. Atheism would flatten reality to an inescapable singular dimension. The times and prevailing ideology mirror each other.
Free speech is only the freedom from the Government restricting what you say

Private entities can shut you down at any time on resources they control
 
Free speech is only the freedom from the Government restricting what you say
Private entities can shut you down at any time on resources they control

There is an irony in the OP posting in a public forum that we have "forgotten" freedom of speech "in this totalitarian age." Thankfully, we are at least able to say freely that we have no freedom of speech, and openly criticise some unspecified and nebulous authority or elite for this fact — and we equally free to argue against that point of view.

I am grateful to live in a country where I can criticise the government (such as it is) and the opposition (also, such as it is!), and strongly disagree with the established church without fear of the pre-dawn knock on the door. I am also grateful to live in a country where those who support the government, or the opposition, or the church, are free to express their views strongly. I am not always grateful for the tone of the debate, but that's a separate thing!

Schwadevivre's point is a good one. In most western democracies, we have something approximating free speech. In the USA, it is guaranteed by constitution. Anyone can publicly express any opinion or view without fear of legal repercussions or persecution by the authorities. For common sense reasons, there are exceptions such as anything that incites hatred or violence.

The principle has not always been followed perfectly (thinking here of attempts to ban various books in the UK, and the USA's McCarthyite witch hunts of alleged communists) but it's pretty good compared to many countries in the world.

However, anyone who owns and controls a private platform such as a newspaper, internet forum, or private broadcaster is perfectly entitled to choose what to allow, publish, or delete.

I control a Facebook Page for my Morris dance team and if someone on there posted something that was absolutely against what the team stands for, I would delete it. Similarly, I would not expect to get away with posting long rants in favour of atheism in a church forum, or my broadly liberal political views on a hard right Facebook page. (I tried the latter once before I realised the post I was objecting to had been shared by such a page. Ooops!)

The OP on this thread joined the forum yesterday and so far has posted 6 posts, all on a thread that they started. Those posts are somewhat combative in tone and there seems to be a predetermined agenda — although it is unclear whether that is to do with the "end of atheism" as the title suggests, or something to do with psychics being frauds, or something vaguely about 9/11.

I would prefer the OP's posts not to be deleted, and for the OP to engage in the open and good natured arguments that make this forum one of the friendliest places on the internet. People here often disagree, sometimes passionately, but nearly always in a sporting spirit, fencing rather than fighting to the death.

However, if the OP is simply trolling, then no doubt this will become obvious after a few more posts and perhaps then the moderators will step in.

I value this forum as a friendly place for open and intelligent discussion with friends whom I have never met.
 
It's called Freedom of Speech, Something people have forgotten in the totalitarian age.
@Mikefule is eloquent as ever on the subject of freedom of speech. Meanwhile, have you forgotten about Freedom of Association? I find many people who capitalise freedom of speech seem somehow to forget about another freedom, that of association. You can say what you like, at any rate for as long as our hosts here extend the courtesy of allowing you a platform that they are under no obligation to offer, and the rest of us can choose to listen or to associate with you, or not.
 
So nothing about the Stick and Bucket Dance, then
Are you calling me friendly????

I hadn't come across it (I read the early Pratchetts then sort of drifted away) but I just looked it up. I'd have no problem with this being discussed on any of the various Morris sites and pages I know.

Here is Belswagger Morris doing their version.


For those who are interested, the tune they are dancing to is a commonly used in a dance from Bampton (Oxfordshire, UK), the figures are from Adderbury (Oxfordshire, UK), and the chorus (with the sticks and buckets) is modified from a fairly recently developed dance in the style of Lichfield (Staffordshire, UK), which is normally danced with 1.5 sticks per dancer. The team, Belswagger, is from South East Queensland (not UK!).

There is also an annual competition at Chippenham Festival:

As for your second point, I called the forum friendly. Attention to detail is what makes me so annoying. ;)
 
The Sad End Of Hitman's Attempt To Get Shouty On The Board [alternative title suggestion]

(BTW if you're reading this Hitman: not all of us here, or maybe not even a majority of us, are atheists)
 
I read the early Pratchetts then sort of drifted away
His later work got very good indeed - away from D&D parodies towards, well, the whole human condition. It's amazing how much light he could shed on that by drawing on a broad cast of non-humans. You might particularly enjoy the concept of the Dark Morris in Wintersmith.
 
For those who are interested, the tune they are dancing to is a commonly used in a dance from Bampton (Oxfordshire, UK), the figures are from Adderbury (Oxfordshire, UK), and the chorus (with the sticks and buckets) is modified from a fairly recently developed dance in the style of Lichfield (Staffordshire, UK), which is normally danced with 1.5 sticks per dancer. The team, Belswagger, is from South East Queensland (not UK!).

One long one & one short one? That's a lot of ones in a short sentence..
 
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After all the above, I'm still not sure why atheism would end.

INT21.
 
Well that was over before I could dig out the corn popper.

Pro tip: Caps lock is a great way to help others see the errors in their thinking. Pretty much works every time.

P. S. I'm not an atheist. Atheism is a belief system like most religions and I don't follow any of those either. I consider myself blessed (as it were) to know some really cool and fine humans who are atheists.
 
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... as would any dogma. As has every dogma that's obtained enforceable power over people ...
Atheism is not necessarily a dogma, although some people and groups are dogmatic about it. In my case, it is a personal position I reached after careful thought and after that, its only real effect on my life has been to stop worrying about the question. I never try to convert other people to my atheist point of view, but I will engage in debate about it just as I would about anything else I have an opinion about.

However, I disagree with the idea that if any dogma develops enforceable power over people that it "flattens out" as the OP suggested.

When you have a one party state, the party divides into wings. When one wing has the ascendancy, it divides into factions. When one faction becomes dominant, it divides into cliques, and so on.

Even when the individuals' objective is unequivocally to gain power for themselves, they nearly always rally to the banner of some doctrinal difference. (Sunni-vs-Shia, transubstantiation-vs-consubstantiation, hard Brexit-vs-soft Brexit (not to mention cream, cottage, and blue veined Brexit), Marxists-vs-Trotskyists. People's Popular Front for Judea-vs...

Even when pursuit of personal power* is not the issue, people still love to be both part of something bigger than themselves and yet also to be part of a distinctive minority. You only need to look at how genres of music subdivide (punk rock, hardcore punk, anarcho punk, punkabilly...) despite the fact that an outsider can seldom tell the difference.


*Someone did say this was the alliteration thread. :)
 
OP will doubtless be relieved to see that, per wiki, in a list of 19 categories of religious belief (which does include atheism), all have shown small but steady growth rates in the first decade of this millennium. Many, indeed, have shown higher rates than in the previous 100 years, which should give OP particular hope. Indeed, the group that shows the slowest growth rate is the atheists.

religious groups.jpg


Mind you, I kind of got a sense that OP was only really concerned with 1, possibly 2, of those categories...
 
It's called Freedom of Speech, Something people have forgotten in the totalitarian age. Atheism would flatten reality to an inescapable singular dimension. The times and prevailing ideology mirror each other.

What a ridiculous statement. If these other dimensions actually exist, they don't need to be defended by freedom of speech, as they are accessible as part of the rich body of human experience. There is nothing to suggest that an atheist wouldn't consider the possibilities of other dimensions existing. No, in fact the only thing atheists don't believe in is that these other dimensions are populated by things that deserve to be worshipped because they pretend to be deities. It sounds to me as if the only thing hitman has been hitting is the LSD.

P. S. I'm not an atheist. Atheism is a belief system like most religions and I don't follow any of those either. I consider myself blessed (as it were) to know some really cool and fine humans who are atheists.

On the contrary, atheism is not a belief system. Atheism is based on a single well considered opinion that is supported by evidence. That opinion is that gods don't exist. One opinion when supported by evidence is hardly either a "belief" (which requires no evidence), or a system (which requires an ideological framework, as opposed to a single opinion). As to the evidence, why, it is obviously the appallingly fallible scriptures that purport to offer special knowledge of the will of these divinities, but get basic facts about the material world so hopelessly wrong that they cannot be the work of an all-knowing perfect, all-powerful and utterly benign deity, as such a deity wouldn't allow such tripe to be printed in their name. As no god has been forthcoming to edit and correct these ridiculous documents, which serve as the primary focus of the recruitment drive of the terminally gullible into deity worship, surely no such deities therefore exist.
 
Indeed, the group that shows the slowest growth rate is the atheists
Eh? Something does not compute....surely, according to that table, atheists went from (in 1910) 243,000 to 136,652,000 in 2010....which is a massive increase of 56,235%.

Islam shows an increase of just 70%...Christianity 340%....and Agnostics show a 20,000% expansion.
 
Eh? Something does not compute....surely, according to that table, atheists went from (in 1910) 243,000 to 136,652,000 in 2010....which is a massive increase of 56,235%.

Islam shows an increase of just 70%...Christianity 340%....and Agnostics show a 20,000% expansion.
I'm assuming it must be somehow relative to total population increase, which appears to be in the range of 200%, very roughly speaking, throughout the 20th century, rather than just raw numbers.
 
Eh? Something does not compute....surely, according to that table, atheists went from (in 1910) 243,000 to 136,652,000 in 2010....which is a massive increase of 56,235%.

Islam shows an increase of just 70%...Christianity 340%....and Agnostics show a 20,000% expansion.

The figures are meaningless because they are self-defined and culturally influenced. Even those who no longer believe, or never did, often feel that they ought to at least pay lip service when asked. Not many people in Saudi would risk declaring themselves atheist, and the same probably applies in parts of the USA. Conversely, in England, there is a sort of mild virtue signalling in modestly claiming to be Christian as long as you don't make too big a fuss about it.

Openly declaring yourself to be an atheist can be difficult. Just as (no doubt due to a bizarre statistical anomaly) there are almost no gay Premiership footballers, there are suspiciously few successful politicians in the UK or the USA who are atheist.

As for "agnostic", it is one of the most abused words in this field of discussion. To most people it means something very vague along the lines of "I've never really thought about it but I believe in something, at least I'm certainly not going to commit the faux pas of declaring myself one way or the other, and you never know, but I'm a good person although I don't go to church." Technically, an agnostic is someone who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. They may then choose to believe, as a matter of faith, or choose not to believe.

My dad has a better term for the woolly vague sort of agnostic. He claims to be one himself: "a death bed repentist."
 
The figures are meaningless because they are self-defined and culturally influenced. Even those who no longer believe, or never did, often feel that they ought to at least pay lip service when asked. Not many people in Saudi would risk declaring themselves atheist, and the same probably applies in parts of the USA. Conversely, in England, there is a sort of mild virtue signalling in modestly claiming to be Christian as long as you don't make too big a fuss about it.

Openly declaring yourself to be an atheist can be difficult. Just as (no doubt due to a bizarre statistical anomaly) there are almost no gay Premiership footballers, there are suspiciously few successful politicians in the UK or the USA who are atheist.

As for "agnostic", it is one of the most abused words in this field of discussion. To most people it means something very vague along the lines of "I've never really thought about it but I believe in something, at least I'm certainly not going to commit the faux pas of declaring myself one way or the other, and you never know, but I'm a good person although I don't go to church." Technically, an agnostic is someone who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. They may then choose to believe, as a matter of faith, or choose not to believe.

My dad has a better term for the woolly vague sort of agnostic. He claims to be one himself: "a death bed repentist."

I agree with everything you've said here, many people seem to define themselves as "Christian" as a default despite being something closer to either an atheist or agnostic. I suppose they are to some extent "culturally" Christian.

I'm an agnostic under the latter, and accurate, of your citations, I've come across many people who say "I believe in something" though, in fairness I've never heard any of them claim to be agnostic. I suppose group overlap with the "cultural" Christians somewhat.
 
I do feel sorry for Jesus. Let us suppose, just for a moment, that he existed. We'll ignore whether he was divine or not. 2000 years ago he was telling people to love one another, to care for others regardless of race, to protect children, and so on. Yet more violence and atrocity has been committed in his name than probably any other single person. (that is not a scientific estimate, BTW). Even his message is embedded in a larger book that advocates all kinds of nastiness.
 
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