As I’ve indicated on other posts, I occasionally search on the terms “atheist” and “atheism” on Wordpress’s blogs. Here I find a lot of posts by atheists, and also a lot by theists and agnostics too.
Agnostics always strike me as very defensive. They seem to think that having no position is the only position. they also have a tendency to defend religion on the “what’s the harm” basis (that always fails and this website shows why). This one for instance, that insists that us atheist have “ruined” atheism. What it pretty much comes down to is someone who doesn’t like atheists having the facts on our side, and that we should sit down and shut up because we might offend theists and him. This is my response to our agnostic:
Atheists and atheism haven’t changed at all. We’ve always been here and we’ve always been just as confrontational. Why you want to pretend we haven’t been is beyond me and it shows you’ve never read Robert Ingersoll, et al from the 19th century. Is it that you want us to sit down and shut up by trying to make directness a “bad” thing? That Ham admitted that he is an idiot and would rather believe a lie than accept anything else is no bad thing against atheists. It sure does show poorly for theists.
And yes, atheists *are* on the side of science. We know that the lies of creationists are not based on reality. Not one claim of a theist about their myths and magic has ever come true. Atheism is the scientific position since we know that there is no evidence for theist claims and plenty of evidence for completely different events happening. The gods as described by their believers don’t exist. They have attributes claimed to them and thus then can be tested with no problem. Believers know this for they keep trying to change their definition of their god, with Christians like Karen Armstrong, makin their god vaguer and vaguer so their god can keep hiding in the ever shrinking gaps.
You might want to hide and not confront people who lie. That is your choice. That does not make atheism and atheists wrong. Us “rough men” allow you to hem and haw and insist that your way is the only way.
As for your claims of all of the “good” religion has given us, what is this good and why is it religion that is the source of it, rather than just decent and humane human beings? You seem to be intent on ignoring the harm that religion has done, the children that the faithful have sacrificed on the altar of their ignorance sure that their god will heal them, the genocides caused by the religious sure that anyone who disagrees with them is evil and satanic, the destruction of science because the religious can’ take anyone showing that their god is imaginary, etc.
as for your false claims about how charitable believers are, all they are doing is contributing to themselves. Their contributions to the church for that great new sound system are part of this charity that you cite without thinking. That great big megachurch is technically a charity but funny how the actual charities in those towns go begging for money from everyone. In my town, we have ten pages of churches in the phone book but funny how the local homeless mission has to ask for money from an atheist like me. Moral framework is not from religion which constantly changes what it wants to claim “objective morality”. Or do you want to claim that genocide is just peaching since religion claims that their gods want this?
author, you seem to be no more than a religious apologist who doesn’t like atheists having the facts on their side.
as for humans being disposed to killing one another, wouldn’t be nice to have one less reason for that to happen, especially one based on lies about magic beings and whose imaginary friend is better than the others?
Club Schadenfreude 
I am atheist because I’ve concluded that there are no gods, and their never has been. What is a god? The Sun? The creature under my bed? A ghost? What is it? If knowing for certain is the criteria, then all are agnostic. And those who claim to be agnostic are atheist, since they do not believe in the existence of god. Atheists have ‘ruined’ atheism? Really? What have we done? What have I done? And what is ‘atheism” anyway? “No gods” — we done.
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Oppsie….’there” I can’t fix it now. Oh well.
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*she bookmarks for future reference *. 🙂
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Interesting that someone who is not atheist… And probably not really agnostic either, just noncommittal… would judge atheists for being the ‘wrong kind’ of atheist.
Sounds like he doesn’t really understand the conversation at all.
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This is my comment just left iin the other persons post
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“I’m an agnostic, otherwise known as a fence-sitter. I don’t believe in any god, but that doesn’t mean one can’t exist.”
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In this I think you are making two errors. One in saying you are not an atheist. As one who doesn’t believe in any God, you are by defin option an atheist by your own confession. Two in thinking atheism says there are no gods, because they can’t exist. Sorry, you need a better understanding of what atheism is.
Atheism is a non belief in God or gods, not a positive claim that none do or can exist. They are two very different answers to two very different questions:
1. Does a God or do gods exist?
Vs
2. Do you believe in God or gods.
One is a question of knowledge, the other a question of belief. To say No to the first requires knowledge and demonstration. To say No to the second, is only a rejection of the other persons claims that they do, because theists have not met their burden of proof.
You can be both agnostic and atheist. But by your own admission, you are atheist and possibly have an incorrect understanding of what an agnostic is. Thx for allowing me the comment.
-mike
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How about this ““I’m an agnostic, otherwise known as a fence-sitter. I don’t believe in any [particular] god, but I can’t say that one cannot exist”
It still makes the person an atheist but agnostic because they are open to the possibility of a god.
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Atheists are not closed to the idea, they suppend belief until it’s justified. That’s not agnostic, it’s atheist
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It is also agnostic. I don’t know many atheists who will say they are on the fence. Even though I say I reject the theist claim of a god, I wouldn’t say I’m on the fence about it.
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The evangelical love affair with the most vile man to have ever held public office speaks to just how effective religion is at taking advantage of the very, very stupid.
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Public agnosticism, like that of Kurt Anderson in his book “Fantasyland,” is as tepid as the last month’s discarded coffee grounds. Despite the millennia of religious aspirations and institutions and bafflegab spoken or formulated by the human species, there is not one credible supernatural piece of evidence. Nothing. Zero. Yet agnostics are 50/50 that some form of credible, scientific supernaturalism is going to occur right beside them in the next moment. Yeah, sure.
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Nota….
Some agnostics are just trying hedge their bets just in case or not trying offend the sensibilities of those whose sensibilities are offended by people either not believing or actively countering what they believe with facts and evidence to the contrary.
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“..potaatoes, potahtoes let’s call the whole thing …” It started long ago when we didn’t know poop from plaster. To provide a reason for what we didn’t know, we created the supernatural. As Lewis Black might scream, “There ain’t no fuck nut supernatural. Everything is natural, you asshole.” Humans must be educated to the fact that the supernatural is a delusion. It’s all natural, but we like to believe in magic. GROG
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hello grog. Yep, I agree. I’d personally love if there was magic,and I could be throwing spells around like my D&D characters, but there ain’t.
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