Anti-theistic strawmen?

Then it cuts both ways. We shouldn't be using a strawman of "anti-theism" in a discussion about anti-theism.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

true enough, but the use of this generalization of theism *is* part of the discussion here and part of the particular threads referenced in this sub-discussion.

Fair enough. Just dotting the t's and crossing the i's.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Certainly in the examples we have of FORCED eradication of faith we see catastrophe but if you look at those cases they have more to do with the fact that a governing body was forcing people to do ANYTHING not just tear down religious institutions.If you really get familiar with Dawkins argument, he and others such as Sam Harris are NOT advocating for an institutionalized rejection of religion at all. The whole point is to get people to personally reject dogmatism. They are advocating for culture change. Only Harris seems to go a bit farther calling for a "conversational intollerance" for religious ideas as it comes to making policy decisions.

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

In fact, Dawkins and Harris both argue this exact point in the Beyond Belief videos that Percy posted awhile back.This issue is that there may be multiple sources for social irrationality and that we should be working to reject ALL of them. Religion just happens to be ONE of them that through the ages has consistently been used to motivate populations to reject reason.

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

There are already a number of people speaking up about the validity of this.My question to you is how can you count those a "tallies" toward atheism? Were these deaths done, "In the Name of (insert non-god here)"?The more reasonable answer is that these deaths are a result of oppressive regimes of political power. Just because those regimes also rejected religion does not make them representative of what the OP is talking about.Prominent anti-theists are not calling for oppression of religion. They are calling for a shift away from the thinking that empowers religion when it comes to making decisions that weigh in on the longevity and success of our society.

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Except that your examples of all that were religious. None were particularly irreligious or atheist.They were all examples of movements based on supernatural beliefs supported by no good evidence. If you have evidence of atrocities committed by people who were committed to open inquiry led by evidence, committed to learning, committed to the scientific method, then I'd like to know what they are. I don't believe history has a single example.

This is one of the BIGGEST problems I have with the likes of Dawkins on this issue. Was it Dawkins that said something like, "Most people are atheists with respect to all the other gods who have existed, some just go 1 god further"?Comparing the God of Abraham to Zeus, Apollo, Thor, Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, etc is not a good argument simply because there are vastly different reasons for why people reject those figures.The reason crashfrog rejects Zeus and the reason Buzsaw rejects Zeus are different. Crashfrog would probably say he rejects Zeus because there is zero evidence for the existence of Zeus. He may even go into some dialogue about the god-of-the-gaps and how Zeus used to fill in the gap in our knowledge about where lightning came form.Buzsaw however, I would expect to denounce Zeus moreso because his religion teaches him to! One of the commandments of his faith is to reject all other deities. He may somewhat agree with crashfrog in assuming that it is silly to believe in Zeus, but fundamentally, they are coming from almost complete opposite directions in their disbelief in Zeus.If I misreprested Buzsaw or crashfrog I appologize. You can easily substitute their names for "stereotypical christian/atheist".

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I was at least 20 when I became an atheist, and believe me, I'd heard every different kind of religious philosophy there was, from dogmatic scripture-only religionism to advanced liberation theology and everything in between.I'm not sure the "adult" theology you refer to even exists. When somebody says "I just take all the good feelings I get, the sense of wonder I feel at the natural world, I just roll all that up and that's what 'God' is to me", I don't see a particularly sophisticated philosophy there that atheists are required to refute. In fact that person seems to be hanging on to the absolute minimum belief in God, and so it seems to me that all the atheist arguments that refute a more rigorous theology refute that guy's, simultaneously.The theology that Dawkins' critics often refer to, the one they say he's ignoring, is less developed than the rigid, explicit dogma of the fundamentalists. It's just fundamentalism with a lot more handwaving. As a result, it's not necessary to target it with any specific refutations, because it's based on fundamentalism, and therefore the anti-fundamentalist arguments refute it at the same time.

Yeah, but how about for Santa Claus? Christianity doesn't reject the existence of Santa, explicitly - indeed, Christianity affirms the existence of Santa Claus (or Sinterklaas, "Saint Nicholas") as a saint of the Catholic church.But Buz doesn't believe in Santa Claus, I'm sure, because there's evidence that there's no toy shop at the North Pole, evidence that raindeer can only fly in shipping crates, and evidence that you can't deliver toys to the world's children in just a single night.Heck I'm sure Buz has probably even been a Santa Claus, so he's in on the gimmick. It's a falsehood we knowingly propagate to children, for fun. (By all means, let's keep doing it. It is fun, plus for a lot of children it's an introduction to skepticism.)So I would say that Buz and I reject Santa Claus for the exact same reason. Indeed, the reason I don't believe in God is the same reason Buz doesn't believe in Santa (unless Buz is a curmugeon who swore off belief in Santa because he didn't get that sled, that one year.)

By all means, what's the "adult theism" you find so intellectually bulletproof?"I'm ok, you're ok, God is when you love someone"? "The feeling I get from eating chocolate, hearing birds, and smoking pot, that's God"?"God exists, but there's absolutely no evidence, and it's not like he talks to us, or makes us feel a certain way, and it's becoming less and less likely that he's even the creator of the universe, and he would certainly never do anything so coarse as leave evidence around for his existence - but I believe in him anyway, and all you atheists should just shut up when the oh-so-sophisticated adults are talking"?Well more than half of all Americans believe in a God that's literally going to come back to Earth and judge people, precisely as described in the Bible. Nearly everyone who prays believes that, in doing so, they've supplicated God who will then respond if they had enough "faith."Dawkins may not be addressing the oh-so-sophisticated granola God that passes for deep theology among the faith-based intelligentsia, but that's partially because1) almost nobody believes in that bullshit anyway; and
2) there's absolutely no substance there to address. If you want to wrap up all the warm fuzzies you get after hot chocolate and a blowjob and stamp "Contains God; do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" on the side, that's between you and the Oxford English Dictionary.But that's not an exercise in theology. That's an exercise in sophistry. And it certainly has diddly-squat to do with religion as the phenomenon actually practiced by the religious.

I think there is some kind of rediculousness threshold that a mystical idea needs to reach before it can't become easily dismissed. Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy both fail to meet this threshold. The God of the Bible does.What I guess I am trying to say is that it is still different. God and Santa ARE different mythical figures with different levels of believability. One of the big differences, and what I was really trying to point out in the last post, is that the Bible has built in anti-skepticism tenents for which dogmatic believes reference.Buz will likely disavow Zeus BECAUSE the Bible says so.
Buz will likely dismiss a comparison between Santa and God BECAUSE the Bible says so.The point is simply that anti-theists get absolutly nowhere by making these comparisons because they are basing their argument on the thought that their opponents are coming to their religious decision by way of reason. They simply are not. They reject these comparisons as a matter of faith.

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yeah, I guess you're right. One is a great big man who lives on top of the world, watches the actions of people all year long to judge whether they've been naughty or nice and punish or reward them appropriately on one special day, has a long white beard, brings you stuff if you ask hard enough in just the right way, and has a lot of helpers constantly around him, doing his bidding.And the other one is Santa Claus. No, they're not at all different. They're precisely the same. The only difference is that society says that only children can and should believe in Santa Claus and that the rest of us only need to play along with the illusion when the kids are around; but that you're never too old to believe in God, and anybody that doesn't should keep their big fat trap shut constantly, because only a great big meanie would attack someone's belief in Santa - oops, I mean God.That's the only difference. We live in a society that says God is real and that Zeus and Santa are not, and relegates those who disagree to second-class citizenship. Just as a great weight of society's opprobrium comes down on those curmudgeons who would dare tell a child that there's no such thing as Santa Claus. Nobody remembers little Virginia's little friends except as bullies and assholes (and "skeptics), oddly enough precisely the reputation atheists gain nearly everywhere. So does Santa. "How does he get around the world in just one night?" "Reindeer magic." "Why does the Santa down at the mall have straps running from his beard?" "He's just one of Santa's helpers, but talking to him is just like talking to Santa."The only difference is that the anti-skepticism protection is calibrated for children, whereas the ASP in religion has a little something for everyone. It's irrelevant why Buz dismisses the comparison. What's at issue is why Buz dismisses Santa Claus, and it's because it's abundantly obvious that Santa Claus is a myth we, as a society, decided to create for children.Similarly, it's abundantly obvious that God - all gods - are a myth that we, as a society, decided to create for adults. The reason Buz doesn't believe in Santa Claus - who is not mentioned in the Bible at all, contrary to your assertion - is the exact same reason I don't believe in God. (Or Santa.)Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Actually one of them (Sam Harris?) has pointed out that the biggest difference between religion and these other potentially dangerous irrational faith-based ways of thinking is that for some reason it is supposed to be discourteously to openly criticize religious ways of thinking; for some reason, one is supposed to respect irrational faith-based ways of thinking if explicitly labeled religion.I can poke fun at a person's superstitious belief in a giant Invisible Hand That Regulates Marketplaces -- people might disagree with me, they might even call me silly, but at least it would be considered a legitimate discussion in political/social/economic discourse.But if I criticize a persons superstitious belief in a Charleton Heston look-alike living in the sky who loves us and wishes he didn't have to send us to Hell, then I'm told that I'm out of line.It's the idea that some irrational faith-based beliefs are supposed to have some sort of protected status.

---

In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

From your eloquent and objective perspective, sure they are. Believers are not being objective. Thats the point. I think the big difference though is in how abstract the ASP is. "Reindeer magic" is just a mystical answer to a mystcal problem. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me", and, "whosoever believith in him shall not perish but have everlasting life" are constraints on faith propositions that help a believer GENERALLY reject criticisms from the standpoint you are coming from. First off, I never claimed the Bible talks about Santa. The Bible does however instruct believers to reject other forms of mysticism, and that there is a Truth (tm) seperate from all other forms of mysticism. Moreover, it teaches that assults upon that Truth (tm) should be considered confirmation of it. That is a much more sophisticated "ASP" than a one-off mystical response such as "reindeer magic".Second, you are correct in your analysis that Buz may reject Santa for the same reason but that was not my point. Buz will reject the comparison because he is anti-skeptical BECAUSE of his religion. I mentioned that Buz may be more sympathetic to the example of obvious fairy tails such as Santa Clause, but when it comes to other figures in the category of Supreme Being, the situation immediatly returns to what I was describing before where the rejection occurs for primarily for religious reasons rather than rational ones.

---

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)