Atheists ratinoalizations and blaming the victim

carm

 this started about them taking exception to my findings (from Francis studies) that atheism is correlated with low self esteem. they were saying hwo can tell as though the study isn't as good their mature musings. they moved from taht to how bad I am then to how it's justfied to curch self esteem of victims because they are losers.

Bonoso is saying that I'm so arrogant.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

people with low self esteem always think those with healthy self esteem are egotistical. they think just the idea of loving yourself is egomaniac.

 Boneso

lol i love the way you keep suggesting i have low self esteem because of the same reasons that you portray yourself. What was it you thought i was again? Arrogant? That a sign of low self esteem isnt it?

hmmm... arrogance and low self esteem dont really go hand in hand do they? You are constantly contradicting yourself and looking like a fool. I genuinely believe that you believe your own BS so its not really your fault as such but, to be a good liar you need to have a good memory and a strong grasp of logic, and you meta are showing no signs of either...

Meta:

yea they do actually. it's compensation

MMJ2

He was never a "true atheist", just one of those who claimed the mantle of atheism because he thought it made him an intellectual. When he writes about being an atheist, it's quite clear he had no real understanding of what that means, just that he liked the title. Then when things got dire for someone in his family, he turned to the only thing he knew for answers, God. As it turned out he had nothing to worry about, because modern science was on the scene, and his family member recovered. However, out of resentment, fear and self-loathing he discovered that he really wasn't an atheist after all, and had discovered his true-calling...being annoying on multiple websites.

They think they know all about me. they know all my family my problems and all my motivations and stuff. Of cousre I deserved all the problems I had. "He was never a true atheist" that really gets me. We are all born atheists not this guy he was screwed up and had some belief in there.


Deist

Meta was just going through his rebellious teen stage where he was mad that God didn't do stuff for him.

Tyreal

Please stop comparing your voluntary participation on a discussion board to being brutalized physically/sexually. It's offensive and creepy.

you don't feel what you feel. We will assign the feelings we accept that you can have.


Originally Posted by MarkUK

It can only reduce a person who has had their hopes built up - telling me I'm not a millionaire doesn't hurt the slightest bit if I don't already think I am one.

I don't see why "you evolved and the universe doesn't care about you" could possibly be a bad thing unless you want or expect the universe (or its boss) to care about you.

what a rationalization. you are actually it's the victim's fault for being criticized.

Meta
we have seen proof over and over again of what unconscionable rationalizing blighters atheists are. they have no scrouips and no sense of decency. Those who are willing to stop to ridicule artistry that is. some don't ever do it. But those who do have no qualms about lying, pretense, blame the victim total bullies.

you are literally saying it's your fault if you are bullied, it's your fault if you are criticized you must really deserve it.

 Then go in for some accuzation against people with good self esteem.

MarkUK:

Thinking you're loved by an all-powerful being must be such an ego trip.

 good self esteem needs to be punished so it's justified we hurt you becuase you deserve it.

 Darth Moron

 And needing to think you're loved by an all powerful being before being able to accept yourself is certainly a sign of low self esteem.

 If you find your self esteem in Christ that's a sing you are really bad, you severed to be punished because why you have self esteem when they don't? The benefit of self love is turned into a sin becuase they don't have it. It's just a weak psychological need. Real mean bottle up their feelings and hate themselves. But they would still deny having low self esteem. Can't we see how the idea of low self esteem would self love into a sin?

 they try turn their weaknesses into lies of supriroity

 Deist

 You pulled you out of them. You just believe an unseen imaginary entity did it for you. Belief is the key. All one need do is believe that he or she is healed, out of the dark place, no longer an addict, and it is done. The next steps are up to you. Some need the psychological and imaginary god crutch because they like denying their own powers.

 They are rationalizing their character assassination. They are trying to turn self esteem into a crime and their self hatred into a virtue. No doubt this is fueling their hatred of Chrsitians. they are basically all too little zombies of hate.

What happens when you stand your gruond against atheists?

On CARM

When you stand your ground and offer empirical evidence, which they claim to seek, they just go apge and refuse to accept that it's empirical.

This thread went on for 40 posts with me answering all the arguments and demonstrating that they had no basis in criticizing them. Most of those early exchanges involved nice exchange with no temper, and me answering calmly. the issue is my studies on religious experience.I have 200 studies published in academic peer reviewed journals of psychology. They all show that those with religious experience do better across the board. that's a huge body of work documenting my arguments I've been talking about it with them for years. They never read them they've made all manner of stupid argument but never actually got a study to see what it ways and never actually made a criticism based upon what it says.

Exchange, example 1:

bigthinker

The studies are SURVEYS. Whether people agree simply means that people agree; nothing more.

Incredulity is not falsifiability. Just because you don't understand the problem of treating a survey as empirical evidence doesn't mean your studies prove what you think they prove.
Obviously I know what I'm talking about.

did you not read my answers?

(1) 91% of social scinece research is surveys--most accepted method in social scineces.
(2) they have scientific basis for them
(3) it's the only wya to know how people feel
(4) not all of them use surveys.

you did not answer answer these.


Example 2

bigthinker;

The studies are SURVEYS. Whether people agree simply means that people agree; nothing more.

Incredulity is not falsifiability. Just because you don't understand the problem of treating a survey as empirical evidence doesn't mean your studies prove what you think they prove.
Obviously I know what I'm talking about.

Meta:

did you not read my answers?

(1) 91% of social scinece research is surveys
(2) they have scientific basis for them
(3) it's the only wya to know how people feel
(4) not all of them use surveys.

you did not answer answer these.

I made a point of how in years of discussing these studies they have never read a single one. They have never made an actual methodological attack based upon any study.

exampel 3:
BT tried to claim that he has read one:
Meta:

which studies have you looked at? I remember one from the chapter in the textbook you put forth as flawed I showed that it was Hoods' exampel of a flawed study it wasn't one of the 200.

when it comes to proving that you have read them you can't name them, you can't show which ones.

the whole thread was going like this. I was giving clam friendly answers and even more detailed. than this.

example 4:

Originally Posted by bigthinker

For Meta, the closest he can get to a detectable, measurable, independently verifiable effect is long term positive effects associated with what he calls "religious experience".

Meta:

here we have another example of trying to argument from analogy. "I can show that X is wrong, and I can draw a link between X and Y, therefore Y must be wrong as well." That's fallacious becuase the links don't prove causality. Similarities are often surface appearances.

that's all we need because we are not trying to prove God exists, only that belief in God is warranted. That's the best we can do in getting at the foundation of reality. As the foundation it's too basic, as infinitive it's too big, so we cant' get empirical knowledge of such basic things.

Science is very limited in this way. We can prove the co-determinate that's all we need, and that's the same logic that scinece uses for things it can't get at directly.

bigthinker

Unfortunately religious experiences are poorly and circularly defined; typically distinguished from other experiences as an experience that produces long term changes -according to self reports. Now that's pretty vague compared to the effect of something like gravity.

Meta:
BzzzzZZZZZzzzz staw man alert! He just made up his down definition that I don't use and Hood doesn't use. He wants to forge the value of the M scale which is proved by a dozen studies in six different coteries. The definition Hood uses is that of W.T. Stace, and the M scale corroborates Stace's theory and thus proves his definition. Maslows definition and Jame's definitions are also related.That whole body of literature revolves around certain thnkers, such as William James, Abraham Maslow, Evelyn Underhill and W.T. Stace.

When the believer can produce objective, independently verifiable evidence of the existence of God that does not rely on personal belief, then the believer will have made positive progress.

Of course he's totally ignoring the fact hat I have document over and over again, that we have this. I offered the link to the text book chapter 149 times no one ever read it exact BT read a few pages and couldn't understand them.

He knows full well I've published material documenting these facts over and over again and he never comments and never acknowledges that it exists.

It's so long I'm putting it in the next post. look at part to answer to BT

all stuff he's never acknowledged exists and it's been up many times.


after about 40 posts I was doing well they started getting surly. They really began to lose it. It started with Hermit. Of course this is a tactic that I have identified many times; they cant' answer the argument so make the opponent the issue not the issues themselves. Detract from the message by making the other guy angry.

exampel of atheist incredulity:

example 1:

Originally Posted by Metacrock

*watching Bill Moyers the other day he says studies show that when people are confronted with facts and proof disproving their pet positions they just refuse to believe it. This is just a stadnards response people refuse to believe evidence.

Hermit:

Actually that pretty well describes YOUR reaction to honest, thoughtful critiques of your "200 studies" schtick.

I answer
Meta:

are you nuts? there haven't been any. come on get your head out and think. the one criticism that had potential was your finding the Borg study. that was good but I shot that down because I've prove that her scale that she used was biased and wasn't designed to do what she claimed it did. I presented evidence by the guy who invented her study he said it is not a means of determining the vanity of mystical expression. I also showed other evidence to her biases.

Now aside from that I offered the link to Hood's chapter in his text book that's the text book explanation of the studies and the M scale. only one personally actually read it and he said he couldn't understand it. I put it up 149 times one person looked.

the arguments made have been severely stupid. they range form "O tha'ts on a bibliography with something by Depock Chopra so it must be a bad study" to "that's just a survy they ask the people themselves if they were better off." That's not an argument it's not valid since most social science research is done that way.

none of the attacks have been nothing like thoughtful they have stupid, they have been clutching at straws, they've been unfair and unkind.

what about the one where the girl kept inditing she read one of the studies? it turns otu she read an article by a guy who did a study so he assumed that was the study?

get real this still should be enshrined and the shrine should be called "atheists hall of shame."

Then it starts getting ugly. Their tones began t be more and more shrill and hysterical.

Hermit:

What I have is a long history of experience with your bullshit. There's no point in trying to have a rational conversation with you about this because any interpretation of those studies which doesn't conform to your dogma will be angrily dismissed as "hateful" and "ideological" any contrary studies will be similarly dismissed or ignored and even my own personal experiences will be ignored, degraded or deemed inadequate in some way.

All of this will be accompanied by personal insults, ad hominem attacks and paranoid rants about how persecuted you are.

I made statements about the lack of methodological criticism no counter studies and so on. they began to answer that they have these things but they are not going to use them.

Electric skeptic

Why? You'll just say it's stupid, and whoever made it (and me, for thinking it's valid) are uneducated, ignorant, and stupid. That's how you roll.

he's totally ignoring the fact that most of my answer are never jsut to say "you are stupid" I always talk about the lack of methodological attack. or I answer what little methodology they talk about. Notice my answers above. They continued to answer that they have good arguments I just don't deserve to hear them.

Originally Posted by Electric Skeptic

Nobody's hiding anything. We're just stating facts.

Meta

No you are ignoring the facts. you have said no facts. your whole approach here is insinuate that some killer diller arguemnt is lurking out there but yu wont give it. that's not a fact. that's hidden facts or not having any. personally I'm betting on the latter.

Electric Skeptic

We're not going to bother making arguments that have already been made, because the only result they will have is you insulting, attacking and abusing us because we don't agree with you. That's what happens whenever anyone disagrees with you. Hermit's right.

the truth is nothing they said in this thread was anything I had not heard before. they made no new argument, documented nothing, discussed no facts but asserted their opinions with no backing. None of it was new, that's all they did do was make arguments they've already made and one's I've killed dead a hundred times.

Meta:

I'm not going to bother giving answers I've already given. I've Bearnard every BS stupid ignorant challenge and the facts are:

(1) you have not read a single study

(2) you have no methodological attacks

(3) you have no coutner studies.

those are the facts you can't challenge them. using this third rate corn ball old fashioned hype to hide your lack of evidence is not impressive.

Then they get really Really nasty:


Originally Posted by reverenddg

oh and your posturing isn't childish and conceded meta? come now.

look who is posturing. I've spent this whole threading waiting for a single valid attack it never never comes. no one will read the studies, no one here understanding social scinece research. their arguments are lame. Lame! it's stupid to say "those are just surveys." that is not a valid scientific attack it's stupid becuase 90% of social science research is surveys. the surveys not market research it's science. It's been developed. its' stupid to think that. That was back in 175 that I took social research methods and it's more true now.

please meta, the way you try to label arguments as fallacies doesn't support your claim in any way shape or form.

I must conclude you know nothing of logic. these guys most of the time argue by bad analgoy and guilt by association if you don't see that you don't know anything.

your latest site claims that atheists commit "special pleading" by accepting theoretical physic theories and not god,

No dodo I never said that. never said anything like it. learn to read. the problem is you are not bright and you don't get what you are reading because your understating is lame. you are not well educated and you really have no right to try and criticize studies you haven't read.

but the only way you can do that is by committing to fallacious arguments, and making up straw-men about peoples positions. also you seem to think that math isn't support for theoretical physics, you handwave away it by fiat even though you have no logical reason to do so.

how can they be straw men when I'm quoting actual argument with atheists form this and other boards. ignorant!

do you know what straw man is? It's not just a week argent. Its an argument you make up and attribute to your opponent. like the lie you told about the special pleading argument.

also i'm getting really tired of your asinine generalizing about atheists it is getting gratuitously sad, no, i don't accept your idiotic straw-men of atheists, i need more than math to support MV theory or string theory, because it isn't enough to me. it is still proof, but i need something more.

O brother what a hypocrite!!! atheists never never never never never never quality their assign sciildh dubm *** little attacks on Christians. Never.

blah blah blah, stop trying to mindread people meta, no one seriously thinks you can read minds, stop it, it makes you look narcissistic.

are you really so puerile that you can't figure out that when yu stay stuff it has logical consequences. that is just plain stupid. i you cay "Christians are fools" one gets the idea you don't like them.

I don't think that's too hard to figure out. Don't need to be a mind reader for that one.

I can also tell you have you never Read the the lgoic of Scientific Discovery. gee how do I do it?

if you did read it were asleep you sure didn't get it.


hey look at your reaction. just step back and look at the reaction. I spend 45 posts saying "hey I have not yet seen a lings eon of you who has read the studies and has a valid methodological argument."

to that you just go ape. I 'm so bad. I'm so mean I can't argue I'm so ignorant. I'm so stupid , ect ect. you are flaying off the handle because I sideshow you up. I'm documented what our ltitel cut of brainwashed idiots is made of> it' sobriquets. I'm Demosthenes it and you can't handle it.

your little phony world of brain washed hatred is now exposed as the bankruptcy that it is,t he intellectual bankruptcy and your mad as hell because I've exploded the myth that you sold your soul for.




this post is about electric skeptic and Hermit they way they are claiming to have good arguments that beat the studies but they are not going to make them because I'm so bad it wouldn't be worth it.



The Tide:

You should be getting angry, angry that your position has been refuted...angry that you maintain your position, even after being shown how fallacious it is.

by what? your really super into wishful thinking: since none of you has made a real methodological arguemnt, and none has read a study you have not answered any of the answers I have given above, this claim appears to be pure BS.

that' obvious you are saying that to feel better, your ideology has been exposed. your propaganda has been disproved. my arguments are based upon 200 empirical studies in scientific journals you have not one single valid argument against them.

Atheist (?):

You have 42 arguments, and 200 studies that indicate how personal religious opinions make some people feel good.

that's based upon you interpreting the facts the way you wont them to be. so obviously you are wallowing in self indulgent crap rather than making valid arguemnts. It's obvious not true since I didn't do the studies. they re pubilshed in peer reviewed journal so they have the academic stamp of validity





Atheist:

I have observed over 1,000 times that peoples claims about God are nothing more than wishful thinking.
There are, I'm sure, 100's of studies that show drugs affect the brain similar to religious experience.
I have observed 15,000+ people at a rock concert having mystical experiences.

ahahaahahahaahahah get a grip man. I really have researched theses studies. I've the bib up. the book will be in a couple of moths. It's real. I've talked to the researchers. this is the real thing. that stuff you name is just you going "I hate God I hate religion this guy is not good i hate you I'm going to pretend that I have all the stuff like he has."

well you don't.

same unknown atheist

it's not published it' snot peer viewed it's not academia. it's bs and you know it!

That's just a lie. they are all, 200 studies, peer reviewed journals

Atheist self Esteem part 2

Last time we looked at an general overview of the research, examined a specific study and put it in the context of its research milieu. That study said that rejecting Christianity correlates with low self esteem (LSE). This time we examine an argument made by an atheist, Skycomet the fallen angel (O him! of course). What's old Sky up to these days? He's on the Think Atheist blog. (I don't know the guy but screen names crack me up). In his article "Religious People Have More Self Esteem than Non Religious People," Skycomment argues against this view.

Skycomet

I was sitting in Adolescent Psychology class this morning and the topic was "self-esteem." About half-way through the class, the girl in front of me suggested that "more spiritual [which to theists means more religious] people have higher self-esteem than less spiritual [ie less religious or non-religious] people."

As most of us know, this is an extremely common theist argument against non-theists, particularly atheists. And, although I think the girl truly believed what she was saying...

But, the fact is that I REALLY disagree with her on this!

As documented in my last installment the studies show that there is a fairly solid conclusion suggested by the data, that religious people have high self esteem and such self esteem is a major factor in being religious. That does not automatically translate into the corollary that, therefore, those who reject religious belief must have low self esteem (LSE). We looked at a couple of studies that suggested it was true, but I admitted that is far from being actual proof. The research is just beginning. (I say a couple--one was directly designed to measure that hypothesis, the other correlated self esteem with God image, and skepticism with negative God image so it forms the basis of an argument but in an indirect way).

Skycomet goes on

Having been a former theist myself, I think it's more likely that religion [especially the monotheistic ones] impose low self-esteem on a person rather than bolster it!

That's irrelevant, the thesis is that people reject Christianity because of their LSE, and he did fall away. It may have been due to his self esteem. Now observe his view of God and Christianity:

After all [and since I came from Christianity I will use that as an example], what type of messages does Religion send it's believers?

- I am not worthy of your love, Christ.
- Why do you love me?
- I'm a sinner.
- Jesus died to save my sins, therefore I deserve to burn in hell.
- I must humble myself before the Lord.
- Pride is a sin.

He's confirming what Piedmont and the other researchers find, that negative God image is linked to rejecting Christianity, they also find that LSE is related to a negative God image. So in fact this may be confirming the original thesis thesis, Sky has unwittingly and contrary to his intent proved the thing he's trying to disprove. Of course its' only anecdotal and doesn't mean the thesis is proved. Yet, it does mean his argument is ineffective.

Some of the things in his list are not negative but they are indicative a low self esteem person. Humbling oneself before God is not negative but to a LSE person humility is equated with humiliation. LSE confuses Pride with high self esteem, and vice verse. He equates being a sinner with negative judgment on self wroth, whereas a high esteem person is capable of understanding that being sinner is not a judgment on one's worth a human being. Every single one of those statements indicate the opposite of what he wants to prove. He thinks they prove that that Christianity is negative and bad for self esteem, they really function like a semantic differential grid as the studies use and he's just proving his own LSE.

How in the world do those kind of messages correlate with positive self-esteem?!
It seems to me that they would do the opposite and make a person who is a TRUE believer [there are fakes among them, of course] think they'r * worthless.

If one starts with LSE in the first place. He's just reading the statements as low esteem would dictate. The low self esteem screws up the logic of the religious doctrine and distorts it. Take one example of the statments above:

Jesus died to save my sins, therefore I deserve to burn in hell.

That's not just illogical, it's not Christian doctrine it's antithetical to Christian doctrine, but it's a perfect example of the demonstration of low self esteem given by Piedmont (see 107-109). It's illogical that because Jesus died for me I must deserve to burn in hell. There's a missing step in there: my sins deserve punishment but Jesus loves me, I am not my sins." I am worth dying for since Jesus did die for me, that means Jesus loves me in spite of my sins. But this obvious conclusion is clouded by the LSE to remove the "I am worthy" premises so the connection between God's love and one's unworthy nature is made. This is the very example in the Piedmont book, "how could God love a person like me? I am unworthy of love, therefore, God either doesn't love me or there is no God."

Sky again:

However, this argument, and similar ones [like religion makes people happier then not having one] sound like baseless, bogus, and more manipulative attempts to use emotion and fear to turn people to religion! Afterall, who does not fear unhappiness? It doesn't seem to matter to a lot of religious people whether these claims are true or not... it only matters that they create more sheep [or slaves - whichever you want to call it] for their religion.

These claims are backed by hundreds of empirical studies, however, and I have demonstrated that and will soon (hopefully) have a book coming that about those studies. Of course it sounds bad to him he has LSE. All he's really proving is what I suspect that atheism is, at least for a lot of people, the product of LSE and psychological dynamics and unwillingness to do the hard work of re programing they way we years what's beings in the area of self esteem.

I see a lot of immorality and base cruelty in decieving people like this. [Although I don't think the girl was attempting to decieve people, I think she was one of the poor saps that believed the BS spouted from theologian mouths. And I feel sorry for her. - Which is how I tend to feel for a lot of religious people of late, sorry for them.]

This is based upon the bad assumptions colored by LSE.

I think non-theism, on the other hand, lifts someone's self-esteem. It gives us an incredible amount of power to control our own destiny and our own lives, it helps us to see through BS [whether it comes from religion or popular culture], and it raises the value of humanity above "god" giving us an incredible sense of self-worth.

This is of course an illusion based upon false premises which are in fact lies. Think about it, if LSE is leading one to reason poorly about God's love, so that love become an insult and hate and rejection of the source of love become liberating (because sin nature is now free run riot and is now confused with self esteem) then what's being experience dis not higher self esteem but a combination of temporary gratification of sin and revenge upon a father figure (God) who the skeptic hates for the alleged rejection he imagines to have been wrought upon him by God.

The fact of the matter is empirical studies prove religion = good self esteem and that people stay with their faith because it builds their self esteem. I can offer anecdotal back up for that becasue I was an atheist. I had LSE because idiots always told I was stupid because I had dyslexia. I had a born again experience and then my self esteem was healed I began to love myself for the first time since early childhood. This guy is just bucking the empirical proof because he doesn't like what scinece tells him.

So... with that said... it is clear to me... that this religious jibber-jabber is founded on nothing and sounds supiciously like an outright lie.

This little jibber jabber is based upon empirical studies. Notice he doesn't with any studies. Not a one of them. He does confirm what the studies show, the opposite of what he wants to confirm. The thing is this is not all good news for fundies. It may seem like it on the surface but not entirely. It means that the spiritual situation is mixed in with psychological dynamics. That means for the atheist it's not just a matter of "reason" and "logic" and being an atheist doesn't make him supiorior. Form the standpoint of Atheist Watch it proves my point, mocking and ridicule on message boards by atheists agaisnt Christians is probably the result of poor self esteem and their becoming atheists is a psychological problem not a logical truth or any kind of big liberation. For the fundie it means two things, they are failing to spread the gospel because they don't respect self esteem. The fundies do more to destroy self esteem than anyone (I say that having gone to fundie school and I became an atheist become of them). That means part of bringing God's love into the world is about loving people and healing them, it also means the spiritual and the psychological are mixed up together.

One thing I realized since the last installment (self esteem part 1) atheists generally take this topic as major insult. I'm saying "there may be a possibility that your atheism is the result of psychological dynamic" they see it as saying "you are not good!" After discussing with others I realize this is the way LSE works.You understand anything that is not lauding your greatness as an insult. People with LSE can't take any sort of criticism. They equate self esteem with worth. This is why they equate being guilty of sin with being found not worthy of love. That's just the LSE talking. That does not mean we are not worthy of love or that God doesn't love us. I am a person has always been effected by LSE. I had loving parents who cared, they tired to help but due to the dyslexia I always had LSE.

One more caveat, I don't believe in hell. I think the very doctrine of taking hell as a literal place of torment is in itself indicative a bad psychological dynamic, but it's one many of us are stuck with become we were taught to see things that way as kids. I think it gets in the way.



*typos in block quotes are made by atheists. I don't correct spelling for quotes. If I quote a person who misspells a word I quote the misspelling. I know I misspells words a lot that's not the point.

Atheists = low self esteem

rejection of Christianity and Low self esteem

Atheist Self Esteem Part 2

Who is Really Self Actualized, Atheists or Theists?

The Illiterate Connection: When Atheism Becomes a Drug

Psychology of Atheism

Atheists who say they hate Chrsitians.