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Atheist unite!!

I honestly sometimes wonder if this thread is called "hey theists! come here and debate us on a range of topics!" and I've just been reading the title wrong this entire time...

Well, if your belief system can't hold up to a little intellectual rigour, maybe you're the ones more "cultish" than you, actually, realised.

After all, isn't that what you atheists pride yourselves in?

Critical inquiry and intellectual rigour?

How better to show what you're actually invested in, your belief system, than a little academic style "debate"?

Especially when one of you is accusing other's; spreading rumours of those who listen to other-than-mainstream-news Intel, of being in a "cult". Which was all that I was addressing.
 
@mumstheword , sending this post with love and just checking you're ok? The way I'm interpreting your posts is that this thread is challenging, and maybe it's one to press ignore on for you so it doesn't upset you?

I have no idea about the organisation (religious or cult or whatever description people want to put on it). But maybe everyone can think for themselves and figure their own beliefs out and whatever that is is ok, because it's an individual choice about what to believe or not?
 
@mumstheword Threadbanned.

This thread is for Atheists’ discussion ONLY. Your posts have been deleted.

It doesn’t matter how interesting, engaging, or enraging any of the discussions going on in this thread are to other members. This is the one thread, in the entire forum, for atheists to hang out and shoot the shit amongst themselves.

As has been stated on numerous occasions throughout this thread in addition to the OP.

If you’re not an atheist; do not post on this thread.
You WILL be threadbanned & your posts may well be deleted.
 
I totally missed all the brouhaha and never even read the deleted posts.

I think mums is a great person, honestly, but I'm not at all impressed with her cult. One of the main problems with people who belong to cults is that, since they believe they have all the answers and everyone else has none of the answers, they tend to be extremely overzealous about their beliefs in a way that many religious people - converts excepted - aren't.
 
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I'd prefer it if this thread stay on atheism and away from politics.
It IS a cult, featuring a shadowy leader (who I suspect has an office in the Kremlin) who communicates through "Q drops," and manages to make his followers believe Trump, the new Messiah, is saying exactly the opposite of what he's saying.
I understand your point - but only as metaphor. "Cultish" is not the same as "cult".

The QAnon ideology is political in nature and therefore not a topic appropriate to this thread.
Yeah, so rumours about Q should be left out too, especially when they are total and utter BS.

THAT of @somerandomguy was a conspiracy theory, if ever I heard one, regarding the intel known as Q so maybe you should let him know, as well, what this thread ISN'T about.
Next time, use report.
After all, isn't that what you atheists pride yourselves in?

Critical inquiry and intellectual rigour?

How better to show what you're actually invested in, your belief system, than a little academic style "debate"?
This isn't a "debate the existence of a deity" thread, it's a "lets talk amongst ourselves" thread. And since none of this particular discussion involves an actual deity (a point you yourself have made), there's nothing more to discuss.

Back to the topic. Questions, comments - use contact us.
 
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We'll have to agree to disagree, @joeylittle - I believe QAnon is becoming an actual religious cult as well as a political cult, based on the leadership, ideology, and the attitudes of the people who believe in it. Trump is not just a political Messiah - to followers, he's a full-fledged religious Messiah.

But I will drop the subject.
 
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For the record, because this is a really common fallacy that I hear/see often:
Atheism isn't a belief system.
It is, by its very definition, the lack of a belief system.
Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not playing basketball is a sport, or not stamp collecting is a hobby.
It makes no sense.

Other common fallacies around atheism that really irk me are that atheism and agnosticism are two positions on the same spectrum, or that agnosticism is some middle ground between theism and atheism.
They aren't, and it isn't.

The prefix a- means 'absence of'.
So, atheism is the absence of theism (belief in god(s)).
Agnosticism is the absence of gnosticism (knowledge (of god(s)).

Another way to look at it is that they are two answers to two completely different questions.
Do you believe there is a god?
Yes = you are a theist.
No = you are an atheist.
Do you know there is a god?
Yes = you are gnostic (which I would argue no one is, since I am yet to see falsifiable evidence of the existence of a god)
No = you are agnostic.
So, I define myself as an agnostic atheist.

Lastly (though there are probably others that I just can't think of at the moment), the burden of proof rests on the person making the claim, not on the person rejecting the claim.
It is not up to atheists to prove there is no god. The burden of proof rests on theists saying there is one.

Or, as Sagan put it: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If I'm the one claiming that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden, then I'm the one with the burden to prove that; not the person who rejects my claim.

Same when a reviewer comments on a claim I've made in an academic paper and asks me to provide more evidence, I don't then get to tell the reviewer that it's actually up to them to prove me wrong.
 
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If a belief system has a mystical way of determining good and evil and an all-knowing and all-seeing figure at the head, it's probably a religion.

But, so, what IS a religion? I'm pretty sure Unitarian Universalism is a religion, even though it is officially agnostic, and atheists are welcomed. I'm also sure Judaism is a religion, even though (as my wife has explained to me) belief in God isn't actually necessary to be a Jew in good standing as long as you keep the Laws.
 
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Today I was reminded of a joke I heard many years ago:

Q: Why do animals enjoy having sex?
A: Because they are not Catholics.

One could easily substitute "Christians" or any other religion, really, as the punchline.

Religion is so destructive. Imagine how much fun everyone could have during sex without God constantly watching them doing it. The big Voyeur.
 
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