Debate Lesson for both Atheists and Apologests: Presmption and Bukrden of Proof

Actual debaters at a Tournament but I don't know
who or what tournament.


I put up a piece on this blog on Jan 22, 2007 and this very day that piece drew fire from an atheist commenter. Before getting to the comment, I first explain the context. The reader can see the entire piece on Atheistwatch today as I put it up there under a different title; "Atheists Con fussed About the Nature of Presumption and Scientific World View."

here's an except from the article:

The problem is this kind of atheist fundi fools himself into thinking that eh as some real verification and objective demonstration of his world view, but he's only being fooled by a self induced con job. It works like this. First he imposes a self privileging ideology upon the world. He priveledges doubt, so in his mind doubt comes to equal truth. Then he orients his world view around a value of accepting "only empirical evidence." He cons himself into thinking that he only accept ideas that are proven with empirical scientific evidence. Then attaches such importance to this concept that he is able to make a leap of faith and pretend that somehow valuing induction proves the materialist conclusions that he leaps to. So he thinks just because he wants all of his positions to be proven with empirical evidence, they must really be so. And of course he convinces himself that the task of science is to protect form religion and then science becomes his get out of hell free card. Let's review these steps.

(1)Impose ideology privileging doubt
(2)accepts value of empirical data only
(3)leap of faith from value of empirical data to assumption of empirically based conclusions
(3) sanctions with the aura of science.

Of course he has no such data. There is no data that God doesn't' exist or that there is nothing beyond the material world.He has no of proving this at all. But that's OK he says because it's having a scientific way of life that counts. At least his over all view is supported by his love of "objectivity" so that sanctions his conclusions even if logic doesn't' sanction them.

The truth is he has no such proofs and his bold scientific way of life is a sham because he has many assumptions upon which his world view is predicated, the basis of which cannot be supported by science. I've made lists like this before, they include all the basic epistemic assumptions:

here's the comment

comment:

Anonymous said...

Atheists are not supposed to provide evidence for the existence of god. You can't argue on negatives. Proof has to be offered by the person who makes the clam. Atheists make no claims. I can't give you evidence for a giant teapot at the other side of the universe and you can't ask evidence for that. It is the same thing. the burden of proof lies on theists.

This comment illustrates a great deal of confusion that atheists are inflicted with quite a bit. Many, not all of cousre, but many, think that their world view is guaranteed some kind of magic lionization or privilege just because they wish it was based upon scinece. What they are really getting at in real debate (by "real" debate I have reference to the rules of National Forensic League--high school Debate in the United States, and NDT, "College Debate" or the major arm of college debate in U.S.). There are other organizations* for debate now days and other rules but all of them basically assume the concept "presumption."

Presumption in debate is similar to the legal concept of being innocent until proved guilty. Its' the assumption that the status quo is right until it is proved wrong. It's the basic concept that one is innocent until proved guilty. In debate the concept is that the status quo is assumed to be fine until proved otherwise. To prove that there should be a change the Affirmative team has to present a prima facie (PF) case. Prma facie means "on face value" that says the case as presented before there's any refutation appears to all reason and logic to be a valid case. When a team meets he PF burden presumption is overturned.

Extrapolating to God arguemnts, I take this partly from Toulmin who talked about rational warrant for an argument, setting forth a logically valid reason to believe a concept would be rational warrant, which meets the PF burden. At that point presumption turns over, it then becomes the negative team's burden to show that the Affirmative has not made a PF case. Now the original argument this guy responded to is not about what happens when one presents a God argument. It was talk about the original presumption of atheist belief. Atheists don't get presumption merely becuase they want to dub their views "scientific." They may wish they were taking their ques form science, but they have no more privilege to assume their view of doubt is proved by scinece than a Christian does to assume that God is proved by science.

"Proof" is for mathematics. Just in terms of world views atheism is not the status quo. Atheism would actually be making the change thus they must prove that a change is warranted by demonstrating that belief in God is not warranted. The thing that gives atheists their idea that there's some reason why they should have a privilege, they thing about which they are right, is that when one ties to prove the existence of God the burden of proof is on the one who would prove. In that case the atheist assumption has presumption, becasue then, and only then, is it the status quo (in other words, he who asserts an argument must prove it and the doubter is not trying to prove the argument). Aside from the case in which a believer has made a positive God argument atheism as no basic presumption just because it's a lack of belief.

In this case it really matters what the claim is. If one says "God is proved becasue..." he has a burden to prove the argument. If one says "my personal conviction is that God exits" that person has no burden of proof becasue he's only discussing his habit (his belief--not trying to prove anything). The atheist has no privilege to assume that scinece offers presumptions against belief in God. That is purely a matter of personal conviction and all personal convictions have neutral and equal status in terms of privilege until the argument is made. Because while we are debating (theoretically) we are not dealing with government policy but with personal belief.

Some atheists are even more confused becasue they think that all beliefs are wrong and they mange to talk themselves into thinking that if atheism is the absence of a belief then scinece guarantees a factual world views so not believing is not a belief and thus is sanctioned by science. That is true only to the extent that one doesn't' try to gain privilege for it over other views. The reason is because absence of a belief functions as a belief in comparison to other convictions. The atheist is still working on conviction and a conviction is a belief. The belief is the belief that there's not enough proof to be compelled to believe that's still a belief.

Recently on my boards one of the most confused atheists I've seen (on carm) came over to Doxa forums and tried to contend that he had no beliefs. The discussion was sort of like, "so you believe you have no beliefs?"
"right."
"Isn't that a belief?"
"no it's a fact"
"Isn't it a fact that I believe in God"
"yes, and that 'tupid cause no proof"
"you believe that?"
"yes"
"then you have a belief."
"no that's a fact"
"it's it a fact that I believe in God?"
"yes"
"so my belief is a fact"

Yes, I know it's just a whimsical trick. His position is no less ridiculous obviously the notion that there's no God is a belief in comparison to the reality that there's no proof there's no God. then the unwary atheist will fall back upon the bromide "I don't need proof I have no belief." They are just confusing the two different senses of the word belief. That whole mess can be fixed up by just understanding the nature of presumption. One does not have presumption for one's doubt of another person's belief until and unless the other person is trying to prove something. In the neutral public square when one is merely deciding what to believe (or yes what not to bleieve) there is o privileged "scientific" views. Presumption only comes into play when proof in argument emerges from discussion.

I've seen atheists try really dumb things like saying "I assert that Christians are all insane, you have to prove they are not becuase you have the burden of proof." That's just making an assertion with no support couched as a negative (in a not very cleaver way--rather transparently) merely to play off of the misunderstanding about presumption.

No view has presumption unless one if trying to prove something. Religion has presumption in society in the fact of anti-religious attacks because it's the status quo. Atheists take on the burden of proof when one of two conditions are the case: (1) when the seek state assertively and positivity "there is no God" (2) when the God argument meets prima facie burden of it's own.

The orignial comment was not speaking about the status of presumption in a God argument but the position of doubt and belief before the argument when one is making a Dickson about one's convictions. Thus the criticism of the comment dose not apply. The point is atheist do have proving to do before the can assert privilege for their views.







________________
*Debate Organization

The oldest organization for college debate in America is the debate fratenity Pai Kappa Delta. The older high school organization is National Forensic League. Before those (1920s) debate in U.S. schools war organized by states. The highest championship one could win up to 1948 was the state championship, although they had national topics since the 1920s.

National Debate Tournament began in 1848 and created national championship for college debate although before that there was Pi Kap but you had to be in the fraternity. In 1980s CEDA was created as another form of cross examination debate for both high school and college. Parliamentary debate always exist but in the last few decades it has gotten popular, In my day (70s) it was not on the radar for most debaters. In all of these forms the rule is that the negative has presumption in defending the status quo. I don't know how they do it "Parli" as it's called. The form of debate I participated in and am discussing is called "policy" debate, or "poly." There is also the National Urban League and the YMCA that have debate organizations but they are not nearly as popular as NFL and NDT. There is a debate organization for homeschools.

The issue of Rod Swift and Christians more likely to go to prison

This came as a result of accusations on CARM that I use statistics unfairly and dishonestly. They have no demonstrated any dishonest use. As it turns out what they calling 'dishonest' is my failure to accept their words for things. This is a test case that I proposed because I think I had a pretty clear case. I had accused this Rod Swift who runs the "Holy Smoke" site (which I have written about on AW in other connections) of fabricating evidence to support his absurd argument that Christians are "60x more likely" to go to prison than other people in America. The presentation of his statistics (which come from Bureau of prisons) and were related to him differ from that presented by adhernts.com. Adherents is a respected website I thought I would be more likely that Swift (who runs this biased anti-Christian website) would do the fabricating. They atheists on carm immediately began insisting that it's the respected site that did the fabricating. First they tried to say I did it, but that is disproved because the two different versions of the data are on the Swift's site and Adherents.com neither of which I can control.

after all it is Swift who is making the ridiculous allegation that Christians are sixty times more likely (!) to go to prison. If that were true every Christian you know should be in jail. Of course what he really means to say is that prison statistics mirror the those of the general population. It's wondered in such a way as to get attention or make an absurd accusation. the very premise is silly. If we could trust that the statistics for prison pop mirror the general pop then why even survey their religious affiliations?

this is a post I put up after a huge thread to clarify the result in my mind of the "discussion."

this is to clarify the result of the discussion in the huge thread and how it has changed my thinking, and in what respects i have not changed my original view.

My original view: Rod Swift claims Christians more likely to go to prison (absurdly that they are 60x ore likely!). I previously held that Swift fabricated the statistics because his table has a difference form that of adherents.com. I assumed that a major site that is well respected would not fudge the data.

How my view has changed:

I now realize that both groups, Swift and Adherents have the data that says there's a category called "unknown/none" made up of people who did not answer the question "what is your religious preference or identification?"

Both had the same figures. One table has the figures integrated into it (adherents.com) and the other table omits it but has it at the bottom (Swift). So it may well be that adherents actually changed the table. Since we are not told if the original data was sent in the form of a table or not we don't know. There is a possibility that adherents added it to the table.

adherence data from their table:

None/Atheist/Unknown 18,537 19.908%

Swift's data below table:

unkown/No Answer 18381

not exactly the same and no percentile is given.

interesting that the numbers are different.

Where my view has not changed:

Adding the category to the table is not dishonest. it may be unwise because it changes the table (of course we don't know if the data was sent in the form of a table). it's not dishonest because its' the same data. The numbers just recorded in a different venue.

Let's assume Swift didn't take them out and Adherents put them in. they are not being dishonest because they didn't change the actual numbers.

Swift wants to create the impression that there are only a tiny handful of atheist in prison instead of a larger number that's 20%. therefore taking them out could be construed as dishonest. While putting them in is not. I can't prove he took them out.

either way my original page was not dishonest either because I really thought I had proved that Swift changed the table. It may be that my assumptions were wrong.

If we assume all informed are honest Swift has not proved his argument. But he's not necessarily a dishonest person and it was probably jumping the gun to say that. At least he does reflect the data below the table. That does help the impression he wanted to create I really don't know if he took them off and put them below or if adherents took them from below and put them on the table.

The accusations I made, while they may have been wrong, were based upon the way I saw it. I didn't' do anything dishonest. My views are not wrong. I am right in saying that he has not proved his argument. there's a lot more there to be said on that score (about the argument itself).

for those who can't get enough tedious reading:

Swift's page:

http://holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

my page

http://www.doxa.ws/social/Prison1.html

adherents.com page

http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html#altformat

you have to scroll to the top to see the adherent's page this link opens to Swift's table on the adherents site.

Here are comments and exchanges that followed:


Originally Posted by Metacrock

Adding the category to the table is not dishonest. it may be unwise because it changes the table (of course we don't know if the data was sent in the form of a table). it's not distention because its' the same data. The numbers just recorded in a different venue.

Let's assume Swift didn't take them out and Adherent put them in. they are not being dishonest because they didn't change the actual numbers.

Swift wants to create the impression that there are only a tiny handful of atheist in prison instead of a larger number that's 20%. therefore taking them out could be construed as dishonest. While putting them in is not. I can't prove he took them out.

Sky Lurker:

Swift did not "create the impression" he provided the transmitted data via the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It was Adherents.com that wanted to "create the impression" and manipulated the data. Suddenly if Adherents.com did manipulation it is "unwise" when you thought Swift did it you crowed all over the place on how he fabricated and misrepresented data.

Meta: Comments like that cause me to suspect that skylurker is Swift. He would otherwise have no way of knowing in form the data came to Swift. Be that as it may saying he doesn't want to create an impression is belied by the fact that he sells it as "Christians are sixty times more likley to go to prison." If that's not an impression nothing is.

an atheist:

Humorously you make comments like

"Sociologists would laugh themselves silly over the simplistic nature of Swift's thinking" - Metacrock

In the end it was you and Adherents.com that were the perpetrator of simplistic thinking.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

either way my original page was not dishonest either because I really thought I had proved that Swift changed the table. It may be that my assumptions were wrong.

Atheist:

On your doxa website you make simplistic and underhanded claims such as:

"Of course he's [Swift] distorting these figures too because it's not 8% certianly not 16%. He's including people who believe in God but don't like organized religion as well as agnostics as atheists. He's also dealing with his flase figures. The actual figure is 20% atheists in prison and 3% in society. So what does this tell us? Atheist are a lot less well behaved." - Metacrock

You don't want to include people who don't like organized religion when you want the number of atheists to be small as in the general population BUT have no problems with them being lumped in when the want the number of atheists to be large in prison. The figure is NOT 20% in prison you can't take "Unknown" for example and claim they are "Atheist" that is just wrong.

Some people just don't have a good sense of what is intellectually and academically dishonest. For example, it is dishonest that once you know your data is wrong, your accusations misplaced to not retract or fix or apologize for your published mistakes.

You called me a liar just how many time in the last thread?

Originally Posted by Metacrock

NO SOCIOLOGIST WOULD EXPECT THE Prison POPULATION TO MIRROR SOCIETY PERFECTLY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE DON'T' GO TO PRISON.

Atheist:

Yes, I bet Christian juries are biased and give fellow Christians breaks.

So Now he's an expert on the Criminal justice system. It's it amazing that no Christian I know has gone to prison (that's hundreds of people) yet are all 60x more likely too. So 86% of the population is 60 times more likely to go t prison than the rest, yet no on ever seems to go. That's hysterically stupid. If we could assume that the prison population is going to be perfect mirror of society then we don't to do reserach on their religious preferences. Obviulsy they are not going to prefectly represent society and we know that parishioners are disappointingly poor and uneducated. why would they not be disproportionate represented religiously?

He also doesn't deal the parole argument. They are saying they are Christians to get parole. No record kept on their religious views when they are first arrested. No attempt made to distinguish bewteen true adherents and adherents in name only. these are elementary thing anyone with a brain ought to know.

Be that as it may, notice his basic assumption of my honesty is "since you don't agree with my premise that proves you are dishonest." If that's the break I gave Swift then I should make a disclaimer and say I can't prove he's dishonest. Yet he's clealry wrong about the argument.

Propaganda and Hysteria: Media hype over incrase in atheism.

pie chart for Pew article on 2009 study

Originally Posted by Gracified23

That's right. There is another pew survey recently that shows atheism is on the rise to 19%, but they also included a diverse group as NONE.

So then we can't say that the 20% in the Adherent article are all atheists. That's probably why Swift must have separated it from the atheist itself. I don't know, that's just my logical thinking.

the Examiner

July 24,2012*

This went up in 2011. Today, another billboard sends the same message, instead erected in Omaha. Both billboards were funded by Coalitions of Reason, one a ColumbiaCoR chapter, the other an Omaha chapter.According to the Pew Research Center, 19 per cent of Americans identify as either atheist, agnostic, or believe in nothing in particular, a staggering increase in previous statistics which indicated only six per cent of adults were disbelievers in 1990. That anomaly was recently reflected in a billboard on show at the corner of Blossom and Pulaski Streets near USC's campus and on Interstate 20 West near Monticello Road in Richland County, which states: "Don't Believe in God? You are not alone..."

see the asteric * below because there's more to this than meets the eye.



quoting a bill board. I've already shown the billboard campaign is moneyed it's not the rest of grass roots but it's an organized world wide campaign. When I follow the links in the quote above they go to the Pew Research Center but no story about atheism rising. There's nothing about it there. The Examiner is an atheist website. They have a whole section called "Atheism" that consists of propaganda pieces. Articles like "on the logic behind God."

What does logic demonstrate when it comes to the existence or non-existence of God? Of course, atheists claim and fully believe that logic dictates that there is no God, nor gods, nor otherwise. They believe that science has demonstrated through Autonomous Evolution Theory that life simply came into existence through an act of random happenstance all upon its own. They assert that this is what logic dictates and that they are being logical in adhering to this line of thought, while any who believe in God are being purely emotional and have only faith on which to rely.(ibd)

That's a real unbiased website hu? It's nothing more than atheist propaganda. Of cousre I've demonstrated countless times in article such as "debunking the atheist fortress of facts" that this notion that scinece piles up a huge pile of facts that supports atheism is unscientific and violates what Karl Popper says about science. As for the logic issue that's a matter of knowing logic. Atheists are always trying to deny that logic supports God but they always lose the arguemnt and wind up saying that logic doesn't' tell us anything. The paragraph above asserts that logic says there is no God. If that's the case show me the lgoic, we'll end this nonsense right now. they never do. The it immediately shifts to the fortress of facts misconception. In that one paragraph they go around the logical arguments as though they know they will lose, move right into claiming "well it's scientific empiricism, we don't need logic."

This is not an objective source. We should expet them to be dishonest about their sources and they are. There is no such poll on any of the pages they link to. I suspect they mean to refer to the original 2007 poll. That one shows 16% unaffiliated and breaks it down with 1.6% atheist.

Pew Research shows a 2009 study that finds:

POLL April 2, 2009

Not All Nonbelievers Call Themselves Atheists

According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, 5% of American adults say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit, but only about a quarter (24%) of these nonbelievers actually call themselves atheists.

That's 24% of 5% which is about in agreement with the 1.6% of the 2007 study.

the article:

American Atheists, a group that advocates on behalf of atheists in the U.S., will hold its national convention later this month. According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, 5% of American adults say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit, but only about a quarter (24%) of these nonbelievers actually call themselves atheists.

below that it says:

Data from the Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted May 8 to Aug. 13, 2007, among more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older; released in 2008.
Pie chart based on respondents who say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit.
Due to rounding, nested figures may not add to the subtotal indicated.

It really does reference the 2007 study.

At that rate the 19% if there is any basis to it is probably based upon people who don't affiliate with religious institution but of them only a small percentage say they don't believe in God and an even smaller percentage say they are actually atheists.

As far as I can tell this is the only "new" study on the matter by Pew and it's based upon the 2007 findings. Rather than being a new study done in 2009 it's a 2009 article reprising the 2007 findings. Then this exaggerated by the Examiner which makes it sound like the 5% of non God believers is the whole American public so the 24$ of those who say "I am an atheist" or 24% of all Americans not just 24% of 5%. Then it's being touated by atheists on message boards like Gracrifed (I don't know if that person claims to be an atheist or not).


Now there's a USA today article that says "Unbelief is on the uptick." "Survey finds 19% without religious affiliation" is the title of the article. They don't really have right to equate lack of affiliation with unbelief. They link to their on put up page with the same materiel I found on the actual Pew page. The USA today article itself doesn't take it's 19% form Pew but form Barry Kosmin, co-author of three American Religious Identification Surveys. Kosmin is quoted as explaining the rise in non afflication thusly: "Young people are resistant to the authority of institutional religion, older people are turned off by the politicization of religion, and people are simply less into theology than ever before." It's not a rise in actual identification with atheism but a resistance to authority and institutions. this is actually how I explained it in an artilce I did for AW about "is Christianity dying in America?" (Part 2)

Get this, the Kosmin artile refers to a general social survey taht found 19% but that is traced to Pew also: "The 19% count is based on aggregated surveys of 19,377 people conducted by the Pew Research Center throughout 2011." Guess where the link leads? Back to the same Pew pages where the only thing I can find is the one with the pie chart. All these claims of 'studies' are merely citations circles that keep going around and round always wind up back that Pew study pie chart that doesn't say anything becuase it's only talking about 5%. It looks like the 19% is really the 5%. At least if it not there's no basis for claiming the 19% are atheists.

All the actual data flow thorugh the citatiaon circle but the aritlce in it's guts consists of a string of quotes such as:

How high the Nones numbers might go depends on demographics, says Mark Chaves, professor of Sociology, Religion and Divinity at Duke University, an expert on the General Social Survey.

Two forces could hold Nones' numbers down. First, they are disproportionately young, often single, and highly educated — all groups with a low birth rate. Second, the number of believers who immigrate to the USA from particularly religious nations, such as Catholics from Mexico, fluctuates with government policies and economic issues, Chaves says.

But the chief way the category grows is by "switchers." A 2009 Pew Forum look at "switching" found more than 10% of American adults became Nones after growing up within a religious group.

Chaves says there's another dimension to the unbelief trend worth watching.

"Americans famously say they believe in some variation of God. Over 90% do," Chaves says. "But it used to be 99% decades ago. The change is slow, but we can see it coming."

The real content of the article is, practicality nill. If we want to draw a lesson from it it would be that young people are loath to identify with commitments and institutions. I'm not sure when bleief in God was ever 99%.Maybe more than 50 years ago. I'm not sure we can say that belief as actually declined, it's just changed shape. It seems this is all a combination of media hype and atheist propaganda. One must doubt sensationalistic claims and follow the figures very carefully.

*I am going to do a special report on this site. Its' not exactly an atheist sties.It's just a strange case.

Who is like a spolied little girl?

Two things atheists said about me recently. On one thrad on CARM NewJagella says;

"I can empathize with you, though. I used to be a Christian, and I know how difficult it is to have Christianity critiqued and have nothing to defend it with." I answered:

Meta:

you are like so many I've seen. you want to claim a depth of understanding you did not have. you want to claim a background the credentials that come with it to have a qualification to vent your hatred of god yet you did not understand what it meant to be a Christian. you are not strong.

Then I'm told that I'm attacking his character.

A second thing I was told is the other day I said someone was whining like a third grade girl.I admit that was wrong. Not that there's anything wrong with being a girl and all third graders whine. It would have been enough to say "whine like a third grader." But look what the athiest NewJagella says about God:

He's much like a spoiled little girl playing with her dolls.

Little girls are taking it on the chin in apologetic. But ok that's something I can't critiize him for but I admit I should not have said it. they fell all over me as a sexist. I'm so sexist but no one has said that of him. Let's look at the rest of his statement:




NewJagella Secular Forums Member Reputation Points: 77

He is "evil" because he is unjust and cruel. He is "arbitrary" because he simply imposes his will on people without regard to their welfare. He's much like a spoiled little girl playing with her dolls. If she likes a doll, then she will cherish it. If she doesn't like a doll, then she may toss it into the fireplace. I call this practice of the Bible god "dollhouse theology."

Jagellaq--Former Christian

that's pretty hateful as far as I can see. what If I said this about a poster an atheist on the board.you would report it. No atheist on this board would ever take umbrage or understand a Christina being offended. I find it highly offense he's walkabout someone I love. he doe sent' doesn't care what I feel. you know it.

they say this kind of stuff all the time we have to just take it as a matter of course because they are atheists and that's just part of it.

look I didn't say anything like that about him. he's saying this about the center of my life. I'm supposed to just accept as the job description of apologist that its just what they say.

I'm welling to do it! but dont' turn around and tell me that I'm being mean to him when I say he doesn't have the knowledge I worked my *** off to have. dont' tell me I'm putting down his character.

Examining Atheist Propagadna

It's always instructive to examine atheist propaganda. Even though they may not being saying anything wrong, it's still interesting to note what they are saying. Almost every time I have said that atheism is a movement atheists have been incredulous. They always say "it's not a movement it's just the absence of a belief so atheists are all different." Yet if you look at what they do, they are always doing things to organize for a movement. Here is an example of a site where a woman is speaking to other groups about how to help atheists even if you are not one. I don't know why they would want to, but it shows them recruiting form beyond their own ranks. No one recruits for a non movement.

This woman is a sex writer and this is her private blog. She's an atheist and she wants to forge political alliances between atheism and other groups that represent her causes. There's still something contradictory about it, even though it's right to do it of course. It's not a movement and yet they have organized enough to speak of collectively and to be "alleys" of "them," or "it."

Greta Christina's Blog

Readers of this blog may have noticed that the comment thread on How To Be An Ally with Atheists has gone both completely off-topic and completely toxic. Regrettably, I've had to shut the comments on that post down -- which is a shame, since I think the topic is an interesting and important one, and I'd like to hear what people have to say about it. (And yes, I am all too aware of the irony of that particular post being the one where the comments went toxic.)

A quick disclaimer first: While I suspect that a lot of atheists will more or less agree with much of this list, I really am speaking only for myself here. Atheists are notoriously independent, and they don't like having other people speak for them. (Any atheists reading this: If you have disagreements with this list or things you'd like to add, please speak up in the comments.)

1: Familiarize yourself with the common myths and misconceptions about atheists -- and don't perpetuate them.

There's a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about who atheists are and what we do and don't believe. Needless to say, these myths and misconceptions are wrong. Don't believe them. Don't perpetuate them. Don't let them infect the way you speak and act, and please speak out against them when you hear them. Find out what we actually think and believe and do, instead of what anti- atheist propaganda says about what we think and believe and do.

Sam Harris has written a pretty good list of the most common myths about atheists, with short arguments against them. There's a touch of needless snark in the piece, IMO -- Harris can't quite resist the temptation to get in a few digs against religion when he should probably just be explaining atheism -- but overall, it gives a good, concise view of the most common misconceptions about atheism, and why, exactly, they're mistaken.

If it's an absence of belief and they are all different and it' snot a movement why should there be answers to myths and why recruit? How can form generalizations that are clear enough to deny myths about them when they are supposed to be bound together only by what don't believe?

At this point Harris's propaganda stuck in here. I'll answer it below.

back to the lessons on how to be an ally

2: Familiarize yourself with what it's like to be an atheist, both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.

Discrimination against atheists, in the United States, and around the world, is very real. It doesn't look exactly like other forms of discrimination -- no form of discrimination looks exactly like any other -- but it is real.

Here are just a few examples.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, asking Americans who they'd be willing to vote for for President, atheists came in at the very bottom of the list: below blacks, below women, below Jews, below gays. Below every other marginalized group on the list. With less than half of Americans saying they'd vote for an atheist. Unless you live in a incredibly progressive district, being an out atheist will effectively kill any chances you have at a political career.

Why should that be considered discrimination? Why isn't it just the recognition that atheism is a threat to civilization? I can think we can argue that it is. I'm not advocating any sort of legal ramification. If Atheists want to band together politically they have as much of a right as anyone, but drop the pretense that it's not a movement. If they can organize to gain adherents among non atheist groups and come close enough to agreement to work politically they probalby are a movement. I would probably agree with a lot of Christina's politics. I don't agree that atheism is a persecuted minority and should be any more protected than who people who think property tax should be replaced by sight value tax or another group in politics. They are clearly a movement and they need to be honest about being one.

(3) find common ground (appeal to religious people)

4: Speak out against anti-atheist bigotry and other forms of religious intolerance.

If you're white, it's important to speak up about racism. If you're male, it's important to speak up about sexism. If you're straight, it's important to speak up about homophobia. Etc.

Anyone who disagrees with atheism or sees a danger in it is automatically going to be cast in the role of "bigot." So atheists get to be seen as persecuted minority who do they persecute? Religious people. So religious people are scum who don't deserve protection to assertion their beliefs means they automatically bigoted against atheists. This is nothing more than a political correctness card. They are just trying to unfairly gain support for a movement that wont own up to being a movement. I certainly do not trust them not to persecute religious people. I've already quoted too many atheists who say "it's fair to mock and ridicule and brow beat people out of their beliefs because we don't like their beliefs."

And if you're a religious believer, it's important to speak up about anti-atheist bigotry and ignorance. Familiarize yourself with the common myths about atheism and the truth about those myths (see above)... and when you hear someone repeat the myths, speak out.

What is anti-atheist bigotry? Belief that atheism is dangerous is obviously bigotry right? Is disagreement with atheism bigotry? Is Belief in God bigotry? Any religious person who allies with atheism and helps it to become a force in society is a sucker and is just throwing his own beliefs.

Harvy Cox, theologian form Harvard tried to develop a sophisticated concept of modern secularization which casted secularization in the role of a necessary liberal democratic movement. His whole approach and attempted has been dismissed and ridiculed collectively as par of the "evil stupid theology" that atheists refuse to think about. The atheist movement is an Orwellian totalitarian movement. Even left wingers such as The Guardian have made that observation.

I am not advocating making any kind of laws against atheism. If atheist want to act as a political force of course they have that right. It then becomes their responsibility to persuade the public that their cause is just and not dangers. I am advocating that if one believes atheism is a danger it doesn't make one a "bigot" to say so. Like most things in democracy it's a narrow tight rope we have to walk between protecting the rights of free speech and allowing irresponsibility to run riot. I would err on the side of free speech.

Here is the peice that Christina linked to:

Harris' take on so called "Myths" about atheism:

By Sam Harris

The Los Angeles Times

SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.

Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.

Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was “not at all to be tolerated” because, he said, “promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”

1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.

On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.

There's a difference in precious and meaningful. Life can be meaningless and be "precious" in the sense that we don't want to loose it even if is meaningless. So this not an answer to the issue. The kind of meaning that atheists argue for is relative and discordable. It's not the kind of meaning religious people talk about. We talk about meaning in terms of the nature of the universe. Atheists talk about private meaning, the meaning they manufacture out of their own needs and relative tot heir own observations.

2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

This is just self serving propaganda. He assumes that if they were dogmatic and rigid then they are like religion. That's only becuase he uses the dogmatic rigid model of religion to paint an ugly picture of religion. This is like the atheists on carm saying I'm not a Christian every time I make a good point they can't answer. Hey it it's intelligent and open minded it's not Christian. Then that means nothing can ever count against their theory that Christianity is always narrow minded. We could have ten thousand examples of open minded Christians but because they are open minded they are not Christians.

The atheists Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin murdered a hundred million people and that is 100,000,000.

Of course Harris writes off their murders as "O that's like religion would do." It becomes evidence agaisnt religion because it fits his model of religion never mind that the people who did it were atheists and did it partly in the name of atheism. Atheism was a value of communism it was a Principe they fought for. The USSR did torture and imprison priests and nuns and other religious people for having their faith.

Disclaimer time: this is not proof that all atheists would be this way. This is guilt by association. Harris is not free of that fallacy because he places the guilt by association card by trying to paint these qualities as religious qualities (above) instead of just letting the chips fall where they may. I submit there are two aspects which make this danger more than just pot luck; atheism has a bit more to do with it then they would like to believe. The real issue of atheism is not just God or not-God, it's the reduction of all forms of knowledge to one form, empirical quasi scientific reductionist proof that those wielding power can control and manipulate. this is what gives the current new atheist movement it's Orwellian features. The other aspect is having restraint because atheists have no stable grounded ethical axioms that are not relative to culture and teleological value. Outcome oriented ethics an be used to justify anything.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the programmer Stephen F. Roberts* once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

Here we go again with the essentialist. Religious belief is an evil essence. Anything bad that atheist do is being done in a way that is similar to religion. It's "like religion" as he says above. So bad is always religious and good is always atheist, even when we are talking about atheists. So nothing can ever count against their thing. He claims atheists are not dogmatic but it's clear they are dogmatic enough to advocate mocking and ridiculing those who disagree with them. They are dogmatic enough to advocate sticking religious bleief with the labels and and clearing themselves by appealing to "religious-likeness" for all transgressions. They are dogmatic enough to reduce all forms of knowledge to the one they can control.

4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.

No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the “beginning” or “creation” of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.

The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, “The God Delusion,” this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don’t know precisely how the Earth’s early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase “natural selection” by analogy to the “artificial selection” performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.

It's probably true that creationists do a bad job of understanding the role of chance in origin of the universe. It is certainly true they they do a bad job of understanding evolution. We must be careful trying to make arguments we don' understand. Chance is a tool just like necessity. Chance is the aspect of creation that allows for contingent beings. So if we bleieve God created the universe, however he did it, he had to employ chance. Yet he would have employed amid a larger framework of control. It would be better not to make arguments where we use tools of God as values when we don't understand them completely. Yet is is true that in the bottom line atheists do have chance as the ground floor so to speak; if one is an atheist it is all a big accident and thus the notion of ultimate meaning for an atheist is untenable.

5) Atheism has no connection to science.

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

That is total bull that science erodes belief in God. He's trying to have it both ways. He's aware that atheism is not the monopoly on scinece, yet he wants it leave open the possibility of implying that scinece is atheism's enforcement mechanism. It is my opinion that creationism has made a fool of religious belief. It's a huge mistake to play out the knee jerk reaction agaisnt Darwin. That reaction was not the only reaction of religious people. There were any minsters who embraced Darwin and used evolution to advocate belief in God. For a good read on this topic see the book God and Nature by Lindberg and Numbers.

Atheism is quite unscientific. As a movement it has generated the notion of a fortress of facts. It says "we have a big pile of scientific that supports our view and religions doesn't have any." Of cousre that's totally unfair becuase scinece is not about proving ideas. They cast scinece in the role of the enforcer the proof of their view. (see refuting atheist fortress of facts part 2)

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

Everyone is arrogant. We have arrogance coming out our ears. I am arrogant. Yet I find atheism is arrogant about things they even refrain form learning about. Noting is more arrogant than the intellectually crippling BS the so called "courtier's reply." Theology si stupid even though I don't know what it says but I know it's stupid, so I don't have to learn about it, don't confuse me with the facts.

As an intellectual option atheism may be valid but as a movmeent it stinks. Any atheists themselves are coming to that conclusion. The Guardian (in America--not hte British version) is a left wing Newspaper and Andrew Brown (whose blog is on the Guardian site) is a left winger and he paints the new atheist movement as the fundamentalism it is.

are atheists insane?

I think we really have to ask this question. On CARM they have a standard response every time I made a decent point. Just let me get them in a corner that they can't answer they say "but no one agrees with you. Most of the Christina on CARM think you are not one of them so therefore I don't have to listen to your thing.

Here is a typical example. It's one I get all the time. this is just a particular version but it's quite common for them to say this kind of thing. I backed this guy into a corner by getting him to see that the major modern liberal theologians don't accept hell as eternal conscious torment. so what's his response? Is it that "well maybe Christianity is not so bad?" NO it's that I'm the only one who thinks that.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

so how do I prove that you are afraid.

Leman

Afraid of what?

I don't care about proving it.

Leman:

Proving what? My supposed fear of something that you have yet to indicate or describe?

Let's observe he already done the op on how stupid it is to believe in hell so turning around here and saying "you haven't proved that I am afriad of something" is kind of silly. Granted I haven't proved it but it's obviously I'm implying that his protestations about hos stupid it is is a cover for his fear.

Meta:if you are not then fine but I don't see you arguing about the ideas of Bonhoeffer or Tillich. I see you picking on the notions of a literal hell. Which is the easy target.

Leman

Easy target indeed. Which you also, IIRC, do not believe in, Meta.

Most of the Christians in these forums do not consider you among their select elite group destined for Heaven, in case you hadn't noticed, Meta.

Meta:

I can give you a reading list of need one btw.

leman

I'll pass for the time being, thanks. I have your websites bookmarked if I ever feel a need to educate myself as to your intellectual influences.

Have a great evening, Sir.

In other words, don't confuse me with the facts.

It's even more insane when you realize I've already said all these great theologians don't believe in hell so he concludes I'm the only one who doesn't!

on a related note atheists think they alter truth by laughing at it.


Liberation Sarah post 4

Meta's 200 "studies" are based on the mysticism scale, which was laughed off the table here a few weeks ago. Not only are the answers subjective and self reported, the questions are also incredibly vague. See for yourself: http://www.nvcc.edu/home/lshulman/MScale.html

Putting aside these problems, at best what metacrock can show is that people have funny feelings in their head, and these funny feelings combined with religious practice can make them feel happy (again, subjective and self-reported). Ok, so what? How does survey data showing that members of religions are happier demonstrate that an invisible, immaterial creature exists who uses telepathic powers to cause funny feelings in people's heads which makes them happy? Does meta provide a mechanism for us to examine? Does he offer any conceivable means of connecting the dots from these self-reported surveys to the immaterial creature with magic powers he claims causes the feelings? Does he rule out non-magical factors that might be at play in causing religious people to report being happier? Nope. It's a complete fail..and yet (sadly) seems to be the best that he has.

These are the 200 studies that I"ve documented incentatly are good and accepted in the field. The M scale is accepted as the standard of proof in the field. So she thiniks you can alter truth just by mocking it.

again here's what the qualified experts say about the M scale.

Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief.

Dale Caird
originally in journal for the Scientific study of religion 1988, 27 (1) 122-126

"Research into mystical experience has been greatly facilitated over the last decade by Hood (1975). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Stace (1960) he devised a 32 item questionnaire tapping eight categories of mysticism. This questionnaire the M scale was shown by Hood to have respectable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity.

Michael E. Nielsen, Ph.D.
Georgia Southern University
feb 2000

"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief. Although Freud reduced religious belief to a natural, if ultimately flawed, attempt to cope with life's stresses, contemporary psychoanalytic interpretations are not necessarily hostile to religious faith. Analytical schools find their inspiration in Jung's description of spiritual life. Most psychologists, however, consider such descriptions to be undemonstrated by scientific research, and therefore it plays a limited role in psychology. Object relations schools also draw from psychoanalysis, but focus their efforts on maternal influences on the child. Each of these three schools rely on clinical case studies and other descriptive methods based on small samples, which runs counter to the prevailing practice of psychology in America." \\

"Modern social scientific evidence does not refute the possibility that some mystical experiences are associated with scientifically unknown processes. Parapsychologists have accumulated a body of evidence supporting belief in paranormal phenomena (Broughton 1992). Even though their evidence has been criticized, the existence of universal features within collections of mystical experience accounts supports the argument that some forms of these perceptions are not fully cultural products but have important impacts on religious belief (Hufford 1982, McClenon 1994)"[/quote]

Center for Inquiry, Jesus Project, Athiest Orgnaization

Once upon a time I wrote an article called "cracking the Jesus Myther's Phony Scholarship code." It was about things like the Jesus project which appears to be a true scholarly endeavor but is just a front for Jesus myth propaganda. Another good example of that is Religious tolerance.com. It poses as a sight about religious tolerance but is really about how evil Christianity is.

This is about the Jesus project. Now this is not the Jesus Seminar. let's be clear. This is the Jesus myther project of destroying belief in Jesus.

This is an old blog, the piece I'm referring to is old also. The blog is "Richard Carrier Blogs" . Friday 26, 2008. The aims set froth:

This will be like a fourth "Quest for the Historical Jesus" (or fifth or sixth, depending on how you count), with two major differences that shall define the Project:

1. It will exclude all theological and dogmatic bias--conservative or liberal (none attending were sympathetic to either the Jesus Seminar or conservative apologetics). It will instead attempt to develop objective methods (which won't inherently favor any pet theory) and establish the facts independently of theory before moving forward. All the scholars present agreed every past Quest had (and has) consistently failed to do either.
   
   
2. It won't rule out anything just because someone attending thinks it's fringe. They will hear all the Dohertys, Tabors, Eisenmans, MacDonalds, Q-deniers, the lot. Hoffmann is intent on maintaining a wide and critical diversity of scholars in the Project. As his press release says, "Participants represent a wide variety of perspectives, ranging from Tabor's argument that there is substantial evidence that the tomb of the family of Jesus has been located, to the view that the evidence for the existence of Jesus as an historical figure is not persuasive." What we will require is an objective methodology from anyone who intends to argue anything to the group. It won't be a soapbox society. You will either explain how your conclusions can be proved to everyone's satisfaction, or you'll be shown the door.

In other words, Jesus myth propaganda. They "project" is ran form the stand point of convincing the world that Jesus didn't exist and selling that book. I'm sure the faitful wont see it that way. they are good honest secular minded God haters trying to spread the truth.

They mention Tabor who was attacked assiduously by the Jesus myth crowd. Even though he had a thesis that claimed to prove that Jesus was not divine and that Jesus' mission was just to put his family in power, he at least did seem to prove that Jesus existed as a man in history so they had to oppose it. This was so obviously a special collequy called for the pupose of putting Jesus mythism on a par with the Jesus seminar. That would give it a pretense of scholarship it has failed to obtain even today. Jesus mythers are more at war with scholarship.

When I wrote that old article there were an atheist who mocked and ridiculed me saying "He’s obsessed with linking the Jesus Project to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, a magazine..." We find that there is an organization called "the center for Inquiry." They run a blog called "The Jesus Project." Under "advocacy" they list:

The Center for Inquiry advocates for science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values through the following specialized policy and political programs:

The Office of Public Policy

The Office of Public Policy (OPP) works on three levels:

• At the grassroots level, the OPP works with CFI Centers and Communities on policy within the state and at the state level on federal issues. The OPP trains Friends of the Center to influence state and local level legislation, take part in political campaigns, and run for office.
• At the federal level, the OPP lobbies the U.S. Congress and the Administration in three areas: science and reason; secularism, and humanist ethics. The OPP also cooperates with powerful coalitions to influence legislators through individual and group communications.
• At the international level, the OPP supports the work of CFI at the United Nations by lobbying Congress and the State Department on UN-related issues.

CFI at the United Nations

The Center for Inquiry is a non-governmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It maintains official representation at UN headquarters in New York and UN offices in Geneva and Vienna, where it works to defend the secular, scientific outlook in the international community.

Legal Department

The Legal Department files amicus briefs in cases involving First Amendment rights, reproductive freedom, assistance in dying and other issues of importance CFI and its supporters. Where appropriate, the Center or one of its affiliates, such as the Council for Secular Humanism, may file its own lawsuit. In addition, the Legal Department will also consider offering free legal assistance to individuals who believe that their constitutional rights are in jeopardy or that they have experienced discrimination because they are not religious.

Legal departments hire lawyers that takes money. It takes money to do all of this and money is indicative of organization. While they try to laugh off the connections to Organized propaganda it's quite obvious have have a have a huge moneyed propaganda machine. Follow the records on any one of their publicans and you can see they have all kinds of things, a huge structure. Look what it says about the "federal level" They have lobbyist! you think that doesn't take money?


under outreach they say:

The Center for Inquiry isn't just a think tank—we're a world-wide movement of humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and atheists, all working together at the grassroots level to advance scientific and secular values where we live.

From social events to educational lectures, community volunteering to national advocacy, CFI members are living proof that there are good, ethical alternatives to religious and paranormal worldviews.

How many atheists have told me it's not a movement? Atheist always say 'it's not a movement." But here they say it's a world wide movement. Well that doesn't prove they are athiest, these are "Free thinkers." Look what they say then:

Whether we identify as atheists, freethinkers, humanists, secularists, or skeptics, we all share basic values rooted in inquiry, naturalism, and the scientific method—values that urgently need to be demonstrated and advanced in the broader culture.

There must be a system that can unite all of our voices when success requires our voice to be strong. That system is the new CFI Network.

Not only is it a movement but they are seeking to organize it and control for their agenda. They include atheists in their identification.

their announced goals include:

Fostering a secular society requires attention to many specific goals, but three goals in particular represent the focus of our activities:

1. an end to the influence that religion and pseudoscience have on public policy
2. an end to the privileged position that religion and pseudoscience continue to enjoy in many societies
3. an end to the stigma attached to being a nonbeliever, whether the nonbeliever describes her/himself as an atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker or skeptic.