Atheists: Lowest Retention Rate Next to JWs

by breakfast of champions 173 Replies latest jw friends

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  jamesmahon

  Sab - I read science papers pretty much daily because of my job. I probably wouldn't though choice.

  The scientific jargon to which you refer is actually an attempt to use very specific terms to avoid any wrong conclusions being drawn. I'm not sure what you mean by 'atheists spouting scientific information'. Sounds like you are already very biased. Do believers 'spout scientific information'?. Or is it just people reporting things that have been discovered through objective and replicable analysis that happen to disagree with what you are saying? Just dismiss them as 'spouting atheists' - it will make you feel better.

  Your description of science apart from your last sentence I would broadly agree with. Someone has a theory (or opinion) that they then go out and find a way to test. If this generates information that proves their opinion /theory wrong then they or someone else comes up with another theory. This also happens if new information comes along that contradicts their opinion. To maintain your opinion is correct when there is evidence to the contrary or no evidence for support is dogmatic. There are some that call themselves scientists that may fall into this category. I would argue that there are more believers. Science itself is not religious. The scientific method of having a testable hypothesis that you are prepared to accept is wrong is the antithesis of religion.
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  botchtowersociety

  Botch - an atheist who sees the danger of faith ( both to themselves and to their society ) will be very motivated to try and influence people.

  Who cares? And this isn't the first time I've experienced this. Out here living in the non-fundie, nonJW world, people of various faiths hardly discuss religion. But there are so many atheists that do it all the time, and they are hostile and mocking, and they harp ALL THE TIME. And I meet a lot of them, especially in political events. I know one who is a longstanding friend, and he is mostly OK, unless he gets on the subject and then it is like he has Tourette's (he has other redeeming qualities). And guess what? If I was at a party with some, let's say Jewish friends, and started going off angrily trying to prove their religion wrong, it would be FUCKING RUDE.

  Other people who claim no belief are the milder agnostic types that say live and let live, and I know more than a few who I consider friends, but a lot of the hard evangelizing atheists are cult like in their behavior. And I have seen this repeatedly. It really isn't just the people on this board, amazingly enough, although I suspect the percentage here is higher than in the general population.

  The recent pictures of a woman murdered for supposed adultery by religious thinkers stirs the blood of most people.

  What does that have to do with what happened? How incredibly idiotic to conflate people like me with these extremists.

  Atheists can see quite clearly that faith is the common denominator and the mechanism that allows a suspension of rational logic also allows the suspension of moral thinking and makes possible the acceptance of such memes as eternal damnation, sin, scapegoats, sheep / goats, chosen / rejected, wheat / chaff , saved / lost and the capability to burn a heretic or shoot an adulterous woman.

  Ridiculously condescending. If I conflated your atheism with the great crimes commited by atheists in the 20th century, you would be the first to say the one has nothing to do with the other.

  I'm proud that your friend had a discussion with you that forced you to confront important concepts.

  More patronizing and condescension. I was forced to confront nothing. I've heard it all before, over and over and over and over again. It's hilarious, but in my experience militant atheists discuss religion far more than moderate believers.

  That this got in the way of a nice evening of drinking probably sucked but I suspect the woman who got shot by the faithful also had a bad day and my sympathy is actually with her rather than with your first world problem whinge.

  How stupid is this? It defies description. Someone was murdered on the other side of the world in some fundamentalist extremist type situation and I somehow have something to do with it? I need to be preached to by a militant atheist whether I like it or not? How disrespectful. Give me a fucking break.
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  Diest

  Yeah never be patronizing or condescending to BTS.....He never acts that way.
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  NewChapter

  Oh goodie---personal experiences make everything true.

  I am surrounded by people that are fundamentalists. Can't shut them up when it comes to political events---America is a Christian nation and all. They are constantly praising Jesus around me. I tend to stay quiet in RL, because---well I fear pitchforks and torches. But if they do know, even when I DON'T want to talk about it, they corner me and start preaching and preaching and preaching and please make it fucking stop!

  I'm am often told that I NEED to go to church, that I NEED to accept the lord, and when my boyfriend was living with me, I NEEDED to get it right with the lord and marry! Now---if this had been someone close to me that felt they had been given permission to advise me, well that's one thing. This was just a 'concerned' neighbor. I was also told recently that I was going to burn forever in Hell---by a total stranger.

  But if I speak up---I'm militant and offensive. Give ME a fucking break. You don't need one. You aren't outnumbered.
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  FlyingHighNow

  NC, I think you'd like SW Michigan. The fundamentalists here are kinder and gentler. They usually don't talk about religion or God. Most of them are Christian Reformed, but some are non-denom. I'm with you, I don't like that kind of thing being pushed on me.

  Disclaimer: Not all believers have either rabies or are nutters. Although best to avoid anyone that is frothing at the mouth.

  And not all atheists react with a religious type fervor. I'm thinking most of them don't.
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  sabastious

  The scientific jargon to which you refer is actually an attempt to use very specific terms to avoid any wrong conclusions being drawn. I'm not sure what you mean by 'atheists spouting scientific information'. Sounds like you are already very biased. Do believers 'spout scientific information'?. Or is it just people reporting things that have been discovered through objective and replicable analysis that happen to disagree with what you are saying? Just dismiss them as 'spouting atheists' - it will make you feel better.

  Logic is the methodology of which those "specific terms" are selected. The conclusions that are being drawn are supposed to be peer reviewed, but the peers are segregated into people who can read scientific jargon and those who cannot. This is exactly how hierarchical religion works. You start out as a peon and you gain knowledge about the subject until you are a "guru." After suffcient time has passed, say 400 years, and you will have a bunch of guru's who cannot "progress" without being in company with other guru's.

  So what I am saying is that peer review is a closed loop and has limited transparency. The students of the upper tier are forced to accept the simple language generated by the guru's or to go through the steps of learning the discipline themselves. This is exactly how conventional organized religion works and is structured, but instead of science they are studying a deity.

  What I mean by atheists spouting scientific information is that all atheists are scientists. Not all of them acknowledge the authority of the world scientific community, but they all choose the scientific method over any alleged deity. So they are going to be furthering their cause by asserting that their way is the best and they will use science to back it up. However in order to "check" them you have to intergrate with their community and go through their processes. One thing that I see atheists being dogmatic about is their insistence that science is something that you can just "check up on" within your home. Science is funded by billions (trillions?) of dollars and incredibly expensive equipment is being manufactored and utilized. It is unreasonable to think that everybody has the opportunity to be part of the peer review community as a whole. Without sufficient education, just like in a religion, you will not be up to snuff to join their community. There are standards of which have repelled many people's ideas including my own.

  The theists do the same thing, but they just want to be considered an equal voice as the atheists, but the atheists are too dogmatic about their community processes and strict methodologies. Maybe the data in the OP is reflectant of that dogmatism because that's what drives youth away in the early stages of the family.

  -Sab
• 

  mind blown

  Corruption everywhere......bible and some science....

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I1EBiYKdDk

  One of Eight:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3t3cbwUh5Y
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  Qcmbr

  Botch - you may call it idiotic but it's that attitiude that we atheists / rational thinkers/ agnostics have to fight every day - stand for reason against a variety of woo and get called stupid and disrespectful. There is a never ending stream of poor logic and thinking that has to constantly be overcome time and time again before anything of use occurs in a discussion. Just one outspoken believer in a group will drag the discussion all over the place demanding that their weakly thought out god delusion must be considered and treated as of critical import and of greater validity than all of science and human knowledge because they have a personal relationship with <name of god>. You seem to willfully forget as usual that the believers are the ones who send out missionaries, it is the believers who lobby constantly for laws to be passed that privilege them, it is believers who fly aircraft into buildings, it is believers who hold up a meeting or a meal to say meaningless words to invisible people, it is believers who picket funerals or use them as an opportunity to preach their version of how you are unworthy. It is faith and those who give their minds over to evidence lite methodologies that hold back mankind. Your first world problem of not having a good enough answer to deal with the rise of skeptical enquiry and a group of people no longer willing to give shoddy thinking a mental pass is heartbreaking.

  When it comes to faith I will be utterly condescending because its is all too often intellectual imbecility. No sooner do you explain to one believer why evolution is factually correct than the next one pops up and starts on about how a global flood occurred or Brahama sits on an island looking out on a lake of milk or that Jehovah will destroy all unrepentant people yadda yadda yadda. Its like disney for the intellectually retarded with all day passes when trying to discuss reality with a group of edit** committed believers.

  This world is at danger from religious idiots (Bush - God told me to invade <country with oil>) and it is almost certain that a large number of coming wars, conflicts and terrorist attacks will be done by the faithful because of their faith. Militant atheism is a necessary response to god fearing bigotry and anti science rhetoric. The most advanced country in the world is crippling many of its students by teaching them barking mad ID. For the first time ever society has matured enough to allow room for public disbelief.
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  FlyingHighNow

  This world is at danger from religious idiots

  Respectfully, Q, there is a problem when you don't make a distinction between religious idiots and other believers. It is not belief that is dangerous. It is what someone believes that can be dangerous. I consider your belief that all belief is dangerous, to be its own kind of danger.
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  botchtowersociety

  Respectfully, Q, there is a problem when you don't make a distinction between religious idiots and other believers. It is not belief that is dangerous. It is what someone believes that can be dangerous. I consider your belief that all belief is dangerous, to be its own kind of danger.

  Indeed. Not only that, but there is danger in being too, as the poster glenster puts it, 'centric. A foolish certitude leading to intolerance and pugnacious disrespect carries a danger all of its own.