Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – another philosopher unable to grasp atheism

a “professor of philosophy of religion” seems to be unable to grasp what atheism is and like many theists, attributes many things to it that simply aren’t true. Hard to figure out what kind of christian he is, from him going to a “concordia university”, but that influences is definitely here.

My response:

as an atheist, I am curious just what you mean by this: “I point this out because people tend to assume a stability of meaning around these terms. Even fashionable qualifications such as “I’m spiritual, not religious” or, similarly, “I’m atheist, not nihilist” are susceptible to similar problems. Now, I gather by the questions that their terms are meant to delineate poles of what for convenience allow me to call an existential orientation. “Religious,” let us say, is taken as a substitute for traditional understandings of transcendent meaning (insert your choice object). “Atheist,” by contrast, represents the more modern (not necessarily better) option that, at best, prevaricates on the issue. “

Atheism isn’t nihilism so how is that “fashionable” and how is it wrong?

and do tell how the term “atheist” prevaricates about anything at all.

“A religion resplendent in meaning and practice fulfills its followers in ways that challenge an atheism parasitic on the absence of such things. “

every religion claims they are “resplendent in meaning and practice” and yet not one can show that their claims are true. Feeling fulfilled is a subjective concept. I need no religion to feel fulfilled in my life and I have plenty of meaning without any religion. As for your claims of atheism being “parasitic”, do show how that is true.

“Atheists themselves, of this increasingly underrepresented variety, confess to being envious of those who seem to have escaped the baptismal waters of disenchantment and its accompanying pathologies. “

Curious how I and every other atheists I’ve interacted wtih have yet to supposedly “confess” anything like this. As seems to be typical, the theist has no actual evidence for their claims.

” Indeed, as is common knowledge, even religious traditions that do not involve belief in or worship of a deity thrive in the world sustained by different networks of meaning.”

religion by definition only involves belief in or worship of a deity to exist. So you seem to be making things up, in a typical thesit attempt to claim everyone “really” agrees with them and everyone has a “religion”.

“Nihilism, of course, is always a threat, but I don’t believe it hinges on polarizing options. It becomes a real threat when throwing the baby out with the bath water. That is, when imagining that millennia of wisdom, not always “religious” in the sense assumed in the questions, are simply incorrect because they fail to align with pet sensibilities.”

Unsuprrisngly, nothing shows that nihilism happens when one does not agree with the supposed “wisdom” of religion, since considering what religoins have to say as “wise” is entirely subjective. this seems to be a typical cherry picking of what religions say. This is also an appeal to tradition fallacy, that somethign that has been around for a long time is somehow better than something that has not.

The accusation of “pet sensibilities” is the typical argument from a theist who assumes that only his “sensiblities” are the right ones.