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From: muirm@argon.gas.organpipe.uug.arizona.edu (maxwell c muir)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Why do people become atheists?
Message-ID: <May.11.02.37.42.1993.28189@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 11 May 93 06:37:43 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson
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In article <May.9.05.41.56.1993.27583@athos.rutgers.edu> gt7122b@prism.gatech.edu (Randal Lee Nicholas Mandock) writes:
>In article <May.7.01.09.44.1993.14556@athos.rutgers.edu> muirm@argon.gas.organpipe.uug.arizona.edu (maxwell c muir) writes:
>
>>In all candor, I would be happy to be proven wrong [about believing  
>>in atheism].  Problem is, I will have to be _proven_ wrong.
>
>In mentioning some nonsense about psychology :) and atheism, Bob Muir asks
>the following question.   

No smiley on the part about atheism, I see. Do you realize that your
statement says that I was mentioning "nonsense" about atheism? This is
hard for me to defend against if this is the claim you are making, as you
have only included the last two sentences of my post and mentioned the
first. Please address the substance of my post rather than rejecting it
out of hand. 
But, because of the sometimes ambiguous nature of English, I may be
misinterpreting your wording here. Please clarify: did you or did you not
mean to call my statements about atheism "nonsense"? If so, care to back
up that claim?

>>	Do I sound "broken" to you?
>
>I answer in the affirmative.

OK, then. Start up the amatuer psycology again. How am I "broken"?

>Is it politically correct for Christians to be the only besieged group
>permitted the luxury of arrogance?   

*YAWN* Excuse me, I don't recall any portion of my post in which I called
Christians arrogant quote me, if I did. I do remember calling Christianity
"silly" and then following that up with information that I was nine years
old when I thought that. I also said that I find faith to be intellectually
dishonest and I would like to see some sort of proof of your god's
existence. I define "faith" as "belief in the absense of any proof", BTW.

Also, I subscribe to a.a as I mentioned and we see fundies of all types
there, so in answer to your question: "no."

Finally, I'd hardly call Christianity "beseiged" in this country. I seldom
see Christians ridiculed for merely practising their religion or wearing
crosses or having Christian bumper stickers. I don't know for sure, of
course, I only say I haven't seen it happening. What I have seen happening
is my homosexual and/or friends being beat up, or preached at by people
who claim to be Christ's followers. I know that this sort of thing isn't
practiced by the majority of Christians, but it is a very vocal minority
who are doing it and I don't see comperable victimization of Christians. 

>Now I have a question for Bob.  Why in the world would any self-respecting
>atheist want to subscribe to a Christian news group?  

The implication being that I am not self-respecting, of course. I'm not a
student of psychology, BTW, but I am a student of Creative Writing and
Linguistics, so literary analysis _is_ my forte. Also, if the implications
I see are improper, please let me know.
I'm here because I'm not sequestered in my own little atheist cubbyhole as
you seem to think atheists should be. Did it occur to you that I _don't_
think I know everything and that maybe someone will say something that
will change my life? Have you read my other posts here or did you see
"atheist" and decide it was time to poke at someone who doesn't deserve
your respect?
Aw, geez. I'm sorry, I probably am getting my back up a little too high,
here. It's just that the "nonsense" thing really annoys me. I figure you
should see my first reactions, though, since they are my true reactions to
your question.
Now, the smoothed feather version:
I seek all sorts of knowledge. That's why I came to my university. Yes, I
am looking at your religion (well, sorta, I have no idea what *kind* of
Christian you are) from the outside, and hopefully with an objective view.
I've been trying to ask reasoned questions here, because I genuinely don't
know the answers to them, but when I saw the question directed at atheists
I figured I would answer. After all, you can speculate about atheist
motives here all you want (hence the "amatuer" psychology crack), but
without an atheist, you can't be sure of even one atheist's motive.       
I'm hoping people really
want to know and I was trying to show that I actually checked out several
religions and I actually read all the pamphlets people have to offer and I
actually think about these things. Instead, I'm still faced with the
implication that atheism is some kind of aberration and that only "broken"
people are atheist.
	Try it from the flip side: I posit that atheism is the natural
state and only broken people are theists. I offer as proof that so many
people witness from horrible lives which picked up as soon as they 
discovered their religion, that religion is regional (if people didn't
follow the religion of their areas, there would be a more homogenous
mix), so many terrorists claim theistic motives, and that theists tend
to be so pushy and angry when challenged on alt.atheism. Why are religions
so successful? Because there is so much suffering in the world, which 
"breaks" people.
It's an uncomfortable situation whichever way you look at it, which is another
reason I'm here, to try to see the flip side of my thinking (and also as 
a watchdog for logical fallacies :).
>I have a 
>difficult enough time keeping up with it, and I think I know something
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>about the subject.     
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The implication here being that atheists can't possibly know anything
about Christianity. Probably jumping at shadows again, but I think my
reaction is somewhat justified. After all, the first post suggested that
atheists are "broken", hostile people. This post confirms that someone
else believes it. 

>
>Bob reminds me of my roommate.  In order to disbelieve atheism, he says 
                                             ^^^^^^^^^^
>he will need to be proven wrong about it. 

Well, he got me there. I am a strong atheist, because I feel that lack of
evidence, especially about something like an omnipotent being, implies
lack of existence. However, I haven't met the strong atheist yet who said
that nothing could ever persuade him. Call me a "seeker" if you like, I
don't. 
_Weak_ atheism is being ignore here, though. Some atheists simply say "I
don't believe in any god" rather than my position: "I believe that no
god(s) exist." For the weak atheist, the is no atheism to disbelieve,
because they don't actively believe in atheism. (If you think this is
confusing, try figuring out the difference between Protestants and
Methodists from an atheist point of view :).
This is another fallacy many theists seem to have, that everyone believes in
something (followed up by "everyone has faith in something"). Guess what?
My atheism ends the moment I'm shown a proof of some god's existence. Is
that really too much to ask?


>Well, I don't even waste my time trying. 

Well, I guess you won't succeed in converting him or me. Why the
supposition that you will fail to convince him? (amatuer psycology on) Is
it because you yourself are unconvinced? :) 

> I tell him that he'll just have to take my word for it.
And I told you that I find faith to be intellectually dishonest. Note that
I can only speak for myself. If you find faith to be honest, show me how.
I have been unable to reconcile it so far. Maybe that's how I'm "broken"?
I tell you that I have invisible fairies living in my garden and that
you should just take my word for it. If you accept that, you are of a
fundamentally different mind than I and I really would like to know how you
think. All I ask for is proof of the assertion "God exists". Logical or
physical proofs only, please. Then we'll discuss the nature of "God".

>In response, he tells me he will say an "atheist's prayer" for me. 
Prayer?! Uh, oh, we'll have to revoke his atheist club card and beanie! :)

>Good luck, Bob.  And, best regards.

Good luck to you, as well. And, again, I apologize if the inferences I
made were inaccurate. 

>-- 
>Randal Lee Nicholas Mandock 
>Catechist
>gt7122b@prism.gatech.edu 

Muppets and garlic toast forever,
Max (Bob) Muir


[Note that abbreviation of quoted pasages is not always the fault
of the poster.  I sometimes do it in order to get a posting by
the 50% rule in inews.  --clh]
