Atheists do NOT worship themselves or anything else

[agricola]

Its just a matter of association - MMO'H claimed the label atheist and behaved obnoxiously, therefore (to many people's minds) 'atheists' are represented by her. I know it isn't fair (it really ISN'T fair!) but it is a 'thing'.

She's just the first 'atheist' that I thought of. If there is a better example, by all means bring him or her up. People often pull up Stalin, for instance, or Pol Pot when they talk about 'atheists' but I don't really know how either of those guys actually defined themselves. Ms O'Hare was fairly clear on the subject!

(I mean, I'm also stuck with Howard, and he's incredibly obnoxious, but probably none of you have ever heard of him, so it wouldn't work to mention 'Howard' as a representative obnoxious Jewish person (trust me, he is really incredibly obnoxious)).

But really, the main idea is that a philosophy or religious group is often defined by others by the behavior of the members of that philosophy or that religious group, and to have a major such group act like Mission Impossible ('if any of you are caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow your actions') is - what - unethical? improper? at least annoying?

[B.H.]

The Christian Church Disciples of Christ are stuck with Jim Jones.

If I have to be stuck with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar the Disciples have to be stuck with Jim Jones.

You Jews have to be stuck with Menahem of Israel and Bernie Madoff.

The Church of Christ is stuck with James Garfield who was a preacher but liked to visit whorehouses during the civil war.

[agricola]

It occurs to me now (and this may be totally bogus because I just woke up) but I think - maybe - this could be a kernel of why religious people are suspicious of atheists as a group.

People behave the way they do largely because of their upbringing, and that upbringing within a typical religious community includes a whole lot of 'act this way' teachings. Plus the 'act this way' teachings are very broadly similar across all or most religious groups - even wildly different ones like Islam and Buddhism.

But nobody knows WHAT an 'atheist upbringing' consists of - it might be, actually, ANYTHING. They do know that it does NOT include the 'religious' teachings about how to behave to others or how to behave generally.

So SINCE most religious people see morality and ethical behavior strongly tied to their religious belief, there is a deep feeling that atheists don't - even CAN'T - have those ideas instilled in them.

Sometimes what you know from being educated/told about something, isn't what you actually believe in the back of your mind.

There's a kernel of hope in this, because as more people have more experience with more 'atheists', they will (I believe) be reassured that atheists really aren't that weirdly different that they lack those qualities of morality and ethics. Maybe that will make everyone think more about such things.

So should I go have my coffee now? Or is there at least a tiny bit of reasonable sense here?

[KLP]

...
If I'm stuck with Bernie Madoff, then you are stuck with the KKK and Westboro Baptists, whether you like it or not.

(and Atheists (with a capital A) I guess have to be stuck with Madelyn Murray O'Hare).
...

Well if MMO is not an acceptable reference then maybe consider the murderous commies who also happened to be atheist, they seem to go out of their way to persecute religionist. One might think atheists wouldn't give a hoot about religions or what people choose to believe but no, these atheist really had it in for people who did not conform in thinking. I mean if we are bringing up the KKK then it seems everything is now fair game.

Note...I am not saying commies and atheist are interchangeable terms since obviously there have been mixtures or instances for Christian Communism and Jewish Communism. But it seem the violent murderous strain seems to be most noticeable in the atheistic versions of communism, not sure if that is a pattern or not. Maybe all the millions are murders by atheist is part of the reason some folks are wary. And then there are the Atheist that get all worked up over such terrible things as a stupid nativity set....so again maybe that is why some folks have questions about the level of self-restraint and reason of an/all atheist. My point is that while there are benign and/or altruistic atheist there is also a whole range of atheist including very aggressive, obnoxious, and even the violent. If groups have to own everyone as Agri suggest then Atheist have a lot of bad characters in their tent. The argument that atheism leads or tends towards peace and religion is responsible or tends toward suffering is just silly pandering IMO. People are people. I am not one for assigning guilt by association.

[KLP]

I have never knowingly met an atheist who does not think they are smarter than just about anyone who is not an atheist, that their world view is superior which of course is why they chose it. But some will go on to claim that they did not "choose" atheism or some other semantic argument but rather some version of story that they were enlightened to the point that they had no point but to be atheist because atheism resonated so strongly and now everything makes sense and it was the best thing ever to finally accept they enlightened state. Or some variant of all of that stuff, it always has a built in notion of being superior. But ya know, if a dog will not wag it's own tail then it is not much of a dog...so sure, atheist ought to think their way is the best. But that does not mean there is not an arrogance aspect to it. IMO, there is always a decided disrespect shown to people who hold to a belief in the supernatural...but it varies. If the belief is some sort of eastern mysticism and meditation then it generally gets a pass, but anything Abrahamic is generally prima facie evidence to the atheist that it is "backward" and "unenlightened". So in my experience, No, atheist are not usually indifferent to religion.

So I would posit that atheist do share some commonality in behavior and attitude and can be lumped together at least in some root aspects. And yes this atheism POV often ends up also having a political expression...but I find it difficult to separate the two aspects. It is this notion of "knowing better" that is part and parcel to atheism that also favors or tends toward certain forms of governance. The particular manner one uses to accomplish the political POV or to the extent they are willing to go is of course the difference. But in its essence it is still an insistence that some are more enlightened and should therefore be accorded more weight or authority to implement certain policies or programs. The "assumption" is that being so enlightened they are only motivated for the common good or the long term good of all mankind. It comes out in forms like "put scientist in charge" and if there is push back then there is the accusation of being "anti-science" which just underscores the assumption that to not be "atheist" is to be backward and unenlightened.

But no, like I said atheism and communism are not interchangeable terms as there have been both Christian and Jewish expressions of communism and certainly communalism. And certainly not all arrogant people and snobs are atheist. Nor am I saying that atheist cannot be kind or good neighbors or fun to be around. But certainly there are some common traits or ways of thinking.

[agricola]

I think I definitely should have had my coffee.

Well - clearly, anybody who has any integrity at all, is going to believe their particular vision of the world is more correct than other visions, right? Because otherwise, they'd change their ideas.

and as a corollary to that, everybody is going to think that people who don't share their vision of the world are - at least probably - wrong. Yes?

So that is just a normal attitude, and not something unique to any particular world view, religious or not, Christian or not, conservative, liberal or what have you.

and when I use 'you', I'm talking quite generally about everybody, and not any particular 'you'. Sorry - habit of speech (or typing anyway).

It is quite likely that most other posters do about the same thing, so unless the 'you' is actually labeled, please be generous in the interpretation of exactly which 'you' is being discussed.

I'm asking, all you guys.

We are all in this together, ultimately. This state of mutual misunderstanding, heavy weather, and trying to learn something new. It isn't always easy.

[agricola]

Back in the day - the day when I was studying myself out of the coc, and eventually out of Christianity altogether, I did kind of flirt with the idea of atheism (this is at least thirty years ago, so yes, that's probably why Ms O'Hare popped out of my subconscious, because she was the 'face of American Atheism' in those days) -

I had some pretty good friends who were atheists, and they were perfectly nice people, so I certainly thought about it. It would certainly have gotten me out of the dilemma I was in at the time (I was still stuck in the coc notion that a) there was an absolute true religion and b) it was critically important to join the right one. But I was having a lot of trouble trying to figure out WHICH).

I realized eventually that I wasn't really going to be a very happy person as a 'none'. It also seemed to me that my atheist friends claimed to be 'none' but still were what I would call 'generic american protestants' in that they still celebrated those major American holidays of Easter and Christmas. Remember that in those days I was a newly out coc member, and I was hung up on being consistent.

I mean, I had this idea of intellectual purity, or some such thing, so that if you were REALLY an 'atheist', you couldn't celebrate any religious holidays at all. (Did I mention I was only very newly out of the coc?)

Fortunately, I managed to muddle through and mostly get out of that particular hangup, so I never actually had to make that denominational decision. But I did seriously think about whether or not there was a god at all, and if so, what a god might actually 'look like'.

Big Serious Thoughts with Cosmic Importance. Hey, I was single and young.

So I'm still claiming the 'agnostic' label here, because I don't claim to KNOW one way or the other - but I THINK there is something out there. I don't believe there ISN'T. So I don't NOT believe, which I think is the hallmark position of an atheist, right?

I try not to get too fancy about it, though, because I can't prove it one way or the other, really (except that some ideas ABOUT a god are clearly not viable given what we know about the universe). Clearly (to me anyway) IF there is a god, THEN this god 'wants' (or allows, or doesn't care one way or the other) people to have to deal with an unproven and unproveable god idea.

'God' is - to me at least - an hypothesis, not even a Theory, but an idea. Any and all data 'about God' are mostly anecdotal, therefore.

So - as a good little agnostic theist - I grant the hypothesis, and work from there.

[KLP]

I don't think anyone questioned the notions that various people of faith had things in common. And so we have KKK being lumped in with Christians and Episcopalians with Westboro. No one took issue with having to be lumped in with the bad characters. Except of course one poster where there seemed to be a refusal to accept the terrible actions and behaviors of many murderous atheist. Somehow it is even an issue to lump in O'Hare with other atheist? And then that post goes on to claim that atheist are so different from any other group that they generally have no lumping even claiming that it is unlikely to be appropriate to ever lump atheist together. Yes they are all just that unique and special that there is supposedly no commonality or at least that it the assertion if they cannot be lumped together. I just doubt that and so I responded. Didn't meant to upset any one or cause anyone to go off on a personal tangent, I didn't think I was saying anything earthshattering about atheism.

Atheism's stock and trade of course has to be a claim to the superiority of reason and rational thinking. Atheism denies any revealed wisdom from a supernatural source. And therefore it has to presuppose that any appeal to a sacred text which cannot be proved is inferior to a dependence on technical/rational thinking alone. It has built within it this concept of being better and being "valid". But of course atheist think they know better than non-atheist...and that is fine...a dog should wag it's own tale. Good for atheist, I hope they think they are right. But is it an insult to point out it has this aspect of assumed superior thinking and intelligence since it relies on human reasoning and thought? If so, then perhaps this unwillingness to be honest about the position of assumed superiority is will give another reason for people to be wary of atheists. Atheism technically has nothing to do with being nice or not or a likable personality, but that does not mean that behind it all is a humanism that has to discount all other forms of recognizing or accepting wisdom. And if there is a trust in that competency of reason alone then it will generally lead or tend to certain other expressions. This should not be provocative.

I am saying that if some groups can be lumped together then all groups can be lumped together.
If one group can claim to not have anything in common with bad actors then all groups can disown and disavow bad actors.
It is just that simple.

[agricola]

Christianity (and any world faith) is a large umbrella, with some very interesting (and occasionally weird) little fringes.

So far, atheism (as a 'thing') isn't quite so large - and not NEARLY as organized, because as we are learning, it isn't a 'thing' at all, but a lack of one, so to speak. So - I guess - we should expect a huge amount of variability to be normal for 'atheists' since they really need not have ANYTHING in common outside a lack of a belief in gods. That's not a huge defining feature.

I know we can all point to some 'famous atheists' who have behaved remarkably badly. But I don't quite think we can say the bad behavior was specifically linked to the 'atheist' part of their descriptions. Those folks (Stalin, etc) behaved the way they did largely for political reasons.

Did they 'give atheism a bad name'? Sure. Did they care? I doubt it. Atheism was not their defining characteristic at all.

I don't think some of the weirder fringes on the Christianity tree 'care' either, that people who encounter them and think they are somehow typical (or maybe just representative) of Christianity. Does the KKK give Christianity a bad name (they are actually very anti-Catholic, BTW)? To some extent. Does Westboro Baptist? (more so - because they claim to be 'true Christians' and claim their actions are accurate and authentic representations of the true Christianity they espouse).

But if numbers have any influence, it is the Roman Catholic church that should 'define' Christianity, since that collection of believers is - I think - the largest single Christian group around (aren't they? I think so).

[KLP]

You say Tomato...and that is fine. As I said before, it seems clear to me at least that it is the atheist brand of communism that excels in atrocities as opposed to other Christian or Jewish forms of communism. But if we want to blame the communism aspect and claim that atheism has no part or role in the millions of atrocities then so be it...I have said my piece, no sense going round and round or else it just causes hard feelings.

Hey, how about that cold snap that hit Siberia, looks like another big polar vortex winter.