Why Is There An Athiest Board?

speedboatchase

I'm an Athiest but seeing as it's not really a religious belief system, what is there to discuss? "No god eh..."; "Yeeeeep... pretty awesome stuff", "Cool, I'll catch you later?:

Being an Athiest I don't particularly care about what other people believe and I don't try to "convert" anybody (as somebody suggested in a thread), I just leave them be.

"Athiests buy Catcholic.ie MEGALAWLZ ROFL "

"I may come across as arrogant to these people but I do think that I am intellectually superior to devout muslims, christians etc"


I hate the stereotype that if you're an Atheist you have to be smug towards people's beliefs or insult them for being "sheep" or whatever. Seems to me people on here are doing their best to live up to the stereotype by making this an Anti-Catholic board for "edgy" non-comformists. Ron Paul '08 I suppose too guys?

Webmonkey

Eh? - why is there a Christianity Forum then?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=333

Maybe a common place for Athiests to discuss stuff - debate to each other on issues maybe?

speedboatchase

Well because this is a sub-section of "Religion & Spirituality", so religions will naturally be discussed. Athiesm isn't a religion so its inclusion smacks of tokenism to me. This site is barely about issues in any case, it's just smug anti-religion posts which confirm bible bashers worst stereotypes of us.

My best mate is an Athiest but never do we bring it up, what "issues" are there to talk about anyway? How stupid everyone else is outside our little bubble?

Dades

I agree completely.

All the Athiests in here give atheists a bad name.

LaVidaLoca

I would have thought there was a good deal to more to talk about in Atheism than in the others.

Far more than in Religion, for example. In religion there's one, primitive, childish, hide-bound, idiotic or nonsensical answer for pretty much any question you ask (What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What is good? What is Bad?) and that answer is "God says..."

Whereas Atheists, by definition have to actually engage with these questions and try to find a real answer to them. We dont have have an imaginary friend and his magic guidebook to tell us what to beleive. We've gotta figure it out for ourselves.

adamd164

speedboatchase wrote: »

Being an Athiest I don't particularly care about what other people believe and I don't try to "convert" anybody (as somebody suggested in a thread), I just leave them be.

Christopher Hitchens said something along the lines of this: I don't care what other people believe. You are free to have "faith" that the world is 10,000 years old and is the centre of the Universe. Good luck to you. But when you try to teach my children that nonsense, it becomes a war.

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

Dave!

Check out all the pages in the forum... there's no shortage of discussion and debate

adamd164

Xhristy wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Why would he do that? It's not populist.

Red Hand

OP, you are liable to be banned for bringing up or discussing certain topics in the other Religion fora on boards.ie. Plus, people who are questioning aspects of their faiths, which might get them banned in the other fora, can discuss them in this sheltering harbour of butterflies and sanity.:)

Zombrex

speedboatchase wrote: »

I hate the stereotype that if you're an Atheist you have to be smug towards people's beliefs or insult them for being "sheep" or whatever.

Well then just stick to insulting atheists .... :rolleyes:

kelly1

Why is there an atheist board?

It's an outlet for people who are addicted to using words such as:

irrational
illogical
ignorant
stupid
nonsensical
ridiculous (occassionally fu**ing is added for emphasis)
absurd
silly
unintelligent
idiotic

all directed towards those silly theists of course.

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote: »

Why is there an atheist board?

It's an outlet for people who are addicted to using words such as:

irrational
illogical
ignorant
stupid
nonsensical
ridiculous (occassionally fu**ing is added for emphasis)
absurd
silly
unintelligent
idiotic

all directed towards those silly theists of course.

Hey, no one is forcing you to be irrational illogical ignorant stupid nonsensical ridiculous absurd silly unintelligent and idiotic

Scofflaw

Dades wrote: »

I agree completely.

All the Athiests in here give atheists a bad name.

Yup, we really are complete tools. After all, when you no longer have faith, there's nothing left to discuss.

pointlessly,
Scofflaw

Dades

Dades wrote: »

All the Athiests in here give atheists a bad name.

I'm just realising that probably no-one noticed the difference in spelling in my sentence above. It was meant as a signal of irritation at people who complain about atheists and can't even spell the damn word (see OP).

Oh, and Noel, you feed fuel to those flames you complain of!

Zombrex

Dades wrote: »

I'm just realising that probably no-one noticed the difference in spelling in my sentence above.

I did ... gold star for me :cool:

stakey

Scofflaw wrote: »

Yup, we really are complete tools. After all, when you no longer have faith, there's nothing left to discuss.

pointlessly,
Scofflaw

You sure about that? Once you get past faith and the huge amount of damage it has done to human endeavour and thought there's a universe of amazing scientific wonders to discuss.

One of the great things about this fora (and others) is people can discuss these things without having the definitive answer being 'God made it'.

pH

Dades wrote: »

I'm just realising that probably no-one noticed the difference in spelling in my sentence above. It was meant as a signal of irritation at people who complain about atheists and can't even spell the damn word (see OP).

I don't know about you, but the thread *I'm* most looking forward to is :

Athiests : How did you loose you're faith?

robindch

pH wrote: »

I don't know about you, but the thread *I'm* most looking forward to is

Oh, go on!

stereoroid

speedboatchase wrote: »

I hate the stereotype that if you're an Atheist you have to be smug towards people's beliefs or insult them for being "sheep" or whatever.

Hey, we didn't start the "sheep" thing - see Psalm 23.

There's a big difference between (a) criticising a person's beliefs and behaviour, and (b) insulting the person... or there used to be. I keep seeing complaints of "persecution" by Christians and Muslims, when their beliefs are criticised.

IMHO this relates to the difficulties theists have in keeping their beliefs to themselves. If they did that, they would not be so liable to criticism. Here in Ireland, however, you're "swimming" in Catholicism, from a young age, and it's only recently that other voices have been heard at all. I think these are the "growing pains" of the Enlightenment in Ireland.

I'm not Irish, but from a country (Scotland) that had an Enlightenment 200 years ago. I don't post here to insult or grandstand, but in the hope that something I say will encourage people to examine their beliefs, and actions resulting from those beliefs. Whatever it is you're thinking or doing... why? Are there reasons behind it? If so, what? Are they reasons based on logic and knowledge, or on tradition, dogma, inertia, or authority? The unexamined life, and all that...

An Fear Aniar

kelly1 wrote: »

all directed towards those silly theists of course.

I'm glad you use that word - theist.

I'm a theist but not signed up for any religion. Couldn't possibly ever be religious.

But the absurdity of human religious groups does not in any way disprove the existence of a universal Capo di tutti Capi.

This board is supposed to be about atheism but in practice it's merely religion-bashing.

I'd have thought atheism would be an "ism" of some kind.

People possibly working out how competing human wills can live together well in the absence of threats of some post mortem payback.



.

PDN

kelly1 wrote: »

all directed towards those silly theists of course.

In the light of the OP shouldn't that be thiests?

FruitLover

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Whereas Atheists, by definition have to actually engage with these questions and try to find a real answer to them. We dont have have an imaginary friend and his magic guidebook to tell us what to beleive. We've gotta figure it out for ourselves.

The Philosopy forum already covers this.

pH

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

But the absurdity of human religious groups does not in any way disprove the existence of a universal Capo di tutti Capi.

This board is supposed to be about atheism but in practice it's merely religion-bashing.

Good to see you've embraced the board's ethos so completely, and then had a little moan about it - lovely!

Zombrex

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

People possibly working out how competing human wills can live together well in the absence of threats of some post mortem payback.

We do that through religion bashing ... its all part of the plan ...

zenith

FruitLover wrote: »

The Philosopy forum already covers this.

Philosophy forum does not automatically exclude flying-spaghetti-monster related 'solutions', though.

lostexpectation

speedboatchase wrote: »

Well because this is a sub-section of "Religion & Spirituality", so religions will naturally be discussed. Athiesm isn't a religion so its inclusion smacks of tokenism to me. This site is barely about issues in any case, it's just smug anti-religion posts which confirm bible bashers worst stereotypes of us.

My best mate is an Athiest but never do we bring it up, what "issues" are there to talk about anyway?

if you have kids sometime in the future where are you going to send them to school?

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

I agree completely.

All the Athiests in here give atheists a bad name.

Even me?

Dave!

Especially you.

Dades

Galvasean wrote: »

Even me?

Are you an athiest?

(See my post here for clarification)

Cantab.

speedboatchase wrote: »

Seems to me people on here are doing their best to live up to the stereotype by making this an Anti-Catholic board for "edgy" non-comformists.

My thoughts too. (And I'm a Catholic). Atheists post more drivel in the Christianity forum than they do inside their own forum. It's as if atheism is rooted in anti-Catholicism.