Tell me what sort of literary and/or film portrayals of atheists that you hate.

Ruv Draba

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The only ones I hate are the atheists who aren't really atheists. They're either Defiant Agnostics daring a god to exist, or Naughty Apostates defying a god that they know must exist, or Megalomaniacs trying to be a god, or Lost Sheep who aren't really atheists but just converts Awaiting The Right Message.

I don't hate characters for being those things; I just hate authors who believe that those things are atheism.

Aside from that, I don't mind. For all the hilarious examples of Hollywood Atheism referenced by SPMiller, such people really do exist: the Straw Vulcans, the Raving Ratbags, the Bitter Cynics and many more. They're fun to write and read about.

But as Vein pointed out in another thread, there are also atheists who are none of those things. Just ordinary people. They're good to write about too. :)
 

Albedo

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Subtype: the hubristic scientist who defies nature. A particularly awful(ly hilarious) example is Kevin Bacon's character in Hollow Man. He really hams it up in the opening scene with lines like "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am God."
 

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The only ones I hate are the atheists who aren't really atheists. They're either Defiant Agnostics daring a god to exist, or Naughty Apostates defying a god that they know must exist, or Megalomaniacs trying to be a god, or Lost Sheep who aren't really atheists but just converts Awaiting The Right Message.

I don't hate characters for being those things; I just hate authors who believe that those things are atheism.

Aside from that, I don't mind. For all the hilarious examples of Hollywood Atheism referenced by SPMiller, such people really do exist: the Straw Vulcans, the Raving Ratbags, the Bitter Cynics and many more. They're fun to write and read about.

But as Vein pointed out in another thread, there are also atheists who are none of those things. Just ordinary people. They're good to write about too. :)


Wow. I am feeling very philologically challenged at the moment with all these colorful titles you've offered up. Again, I need to digest.
 

Plot Device

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Subtype: the hubristic scientist who defies nature. A particularly awful(ly hilarious) example is Kevin Bacon's character in Hollow Man. He really hams it up in the opening scene with lines like "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am God."

Rats. I missed Hollow Man.

But I think I get your drift here.
 

Marian Perera

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I can't stand the portrayal of atheists as inherently mean, nasty, foolish or evil (there are people who hold this opinion, that most atheists are inferior in some moral way to theists, but there's enough bigotry against atheists in real life that I don't want to encounter it in fiction too). It's not much fun when the author goes in the opposite direction either. I've read a book where the atheist character was so brilliant and hypercompetent that it was just as impossible to identify with him.

Atheists are just people.
 

Maryn

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Yeah, what Queen said.

I'm weary of atheists being portrayed as people who have no ethos, no moral compass of any kind, and no conscience. I can't remember the last time I stole something because I wanted it, much less killed a toddler whose crying was bothering me.

Too many writers (and non-writers) seem to believe that if we are not instructed by our faith on how to be good people, we cannot make the same choices about our behavior people of faith would make.

Maryn, who thinks she'll broil a kitten for lunch
 

Plot Device

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Okay, guys, help me overcome the following prejudice I personally hold toward atheists. It's a prejudice rooted in an unconfirmed assumption. And this assumption stems from the very over-simplified way that the whole thing was explained to me as a kid.

On the one hand, you have agnostics.

On the other hand, you have atheists.

I put it in quotes to try and separate those words from "me." But this is how it was originally presented to me. And because it was so long ago, and because I was so young, I am still to this day having a hard time separating it all.
 
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Sarpedon

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Why would you call someone who disagrees with you philosophically 'closeminded' when you haven't inquired as to why they disagree?

To put it another way; to simply label atheists as closeminded is to unfairly generalize; especially as most religious people don't bother to actually find out why we disagree.

Who is being closeminded?
 

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Tell me what sort of literary and/or film portrayals of atheists that you hate.

Stereotypes.

There are as many different atheists as there are Buddhists, Christians, or any other 'religious' or 'non-religious' types. It bugs me. Humans are like snowflakes - you have to search darn hard to find two that are even similar, let alone identical. YMMV.
 

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Why would you call someone who disagrees with you philosophically 'closeminded' when you haven't inquired as to why they disagree?

To put it another way; to simply label atheists as closeminded is to unfairly generalize; especially as most religious people don't bother to actually find out why we disagree.

Who is being closeminded?


Which is exactly why I need some help here.
 

Plot Device

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Stereotypes.

There are as many different atheists as there are Buddhists, Christians, or any other 'religious' or 'non-religious' types. It bugs me. Humans are like snowflakes - you have to search darn hard to find two that are even similar, let alone identical. YMMV.



Okay. What are a few of the many shades of atheism?
 

veinglory

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Plot, what exactly is that quote? Because it is pretty damn insulting and I think this would go better if you actually deleted it. See sticky post: "do not directly, or by implication, required atheists or non-theists to defend the rationality or virtue of their beleifs". I think saying 'some people think you lot are closed-minded and judgemental' might fall in that general area.

Also that defintion is just too inaccurate to be useful. I suggest tossing it out and starting from scratch.

Main Entry: athe·ism
Pronunciation: -th-iz-m
Function: noun
: the belief that there is no God
 
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SPMiller

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Atheists are, by and large, "open" to the possibility of there being some great divine power. However, given the universe we live in and what we know about how it works, there doesn't seem to be any room for a magical all-father looking down kindly from the heavens. We simply don't see any reason to believe in your God, or in any other for that matter.

It's not difficult to compare theism to any other belief in unproven phenomena. You might say many atheists have what could be described as a thoroughly skeptical worldview.

And so, if you can produce hard evidence that there's a God, I for one would be quite willing to change my position on the matter. But so far, well, let's just say that evidence is lacking...
 

escritora

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Another defination: On the other hand, you have a religious person. And a religious person is someone who is dead certain there is a God, and so he is therefore NOT open, and so he is therefore NOT open-minded, and so he is therefore autmatically closed-minded about the whole thing with a stubborn and don't-even-try unbudgableness. And he's also very judgemental about it all.

help me overcome the following prejudice I personally hold toward atheists.

Whatever steps you took to overcome your prejudice of those who believe, apply each to atheists.
 

Plot Device

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Plot, what exactly is that quote? Because it is pretty damn insulting and I think this would go better if you actually deleted it. See sticky post: "do not directly, or by implication, required atheists or non-theists to defend the rationality or virtue of their beleifs". I think saying 'some people think you lot are closed-minded and judgemental' might fall in that general area.

Also that defintion is just too inaccurate to be useful. I suggest tossing it out and starting from scratch.

Main Entry: athe·ism
Pronunciation: -th-iz-m
Function: noun
: the belief that there is no God


Okay. But can anyone offer a clear separation between atheism and agnosticism?

It was an attempt at such a distinction that caused such a destructive seed to get planted for me.
 

SPMiller

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Whatever steps you took to overcome your prejudice of those who believe, apply each to atheists.
That sort of reminds me of a saying, courtesy of Stephen F. Roberts:

I contend 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.
 

SPMiller

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Okay. But can anyone offer a clear separation between atheism and agnosticism?

It was an attempt at such a distinction that caused such a destructive seed to get planted for me.
It's pretty simple, at least for a certain subset of us...

Agnosticism: There is no proof; therefore, I refuse to say either way.

Atheism: There is no proof; therefore, I do not believe.
 

Plot Device

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Another defination: On the other hand, you have a religious person. And a religious person is someone who is dead certain there is a God, and so he is therefore NOT open, and so he is therefore NOT open-minded, and so he is therefore autmatically closed-minded about the whole thing with a stubborn and don't-even-try unbudgableness. And he's also very judgemental about it all.

Well then, since you put it THAT way, I guess it just goes to show that mathematical inversion is everyone's friend when trying to apply straight up logic to sorting out a concept that hails from philosophy and is embodied almost entirely in written language.

Whatever steps you took to overcome your prejudice of those who believe, apply each to atheists.

Now THAT is a head-twister-and-a-half. Believe me, I had to get past a LOT of pre-conceived notions about people from other religions. But there was always the assumption that such a sorting had to be done at the exclusion of atheists and agnostics. There was this assumption that they needed a different treatment. Can you see how deeply it runs?

This stone that needs moving is proving far larger than I anticipated.
 

Dawnstorm

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That is pretty simple.

In theory, yes. Try being either an atheist or an agnostic and figure out which; it's not all that easy.

First, I agree with SPMiller's definition. To add onto it:

Atheism is about the existance of God.

Agnosticism is about what we can know about the metaphysical.

Question:

Does (do) God (gods) exist?


Answer:

1. Atheist:

No.

2. Agnostic:

a) Nobody knows.

b) This cannot be known.

c) The question is irrelevant.

Since you can believe in God while accepting that there is no rational grounding to your beliefs, it's quite possible to be theist agnostic. A theist agnostic would recognise his/her own belief in God as irrational. Similarly, an atheist agnostic does not believe in God but accepts that his believe in the non-existance of God is irrational. Both theistic and atheistic agnostics would probably hold a relativist theory of what belief entails ("I believe because I grew up that way.")

But a "pure" agnostic neither believes nor doesn't believe in God. Rather, they think that God is outside the realm of human knowledge (or even human knowledgeability), and thus it doesn't matter what we believe about Him. They'd think that investing emotion or any sort of energy into God's (non-)existance is a waste of said energy, though they might find the resulting debate intellectually stimulating.

In practice, from a Christian point of view, atheists and agnostics may look quite the same, especially if they hold an if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us position. The problem is that the response to the Christian "missionary impulse" is quite the same. I keep joking that I'm an agnostic six days a week but turn into an atheist on Sundays.

Neither atheists nor (atheist or pure) agnostics allow God's word any authority, for example. Neither pray - although they might go through the motions.

Finally, while a theist's morals and ethics are perhaps bound up with the existance of God, an atheists or agnostics morals are not bound up with their respective believes. They will have independent ethical theories to guide them: compassion, rational choice, utilitarianism, whatever strikes their fancy. This means that, while God's existance is very relevant to the Christian believer on a daily-life basis, God's non-existance is rarely an issue for atheists and (especially) agnostics. It usually only comes up when they clash with "missionaries".

The more "missionaries" you meet, the more likely you'll turn your atheism into a active shield against these attempts. Agnostics may not really hold to atheism, but they could still use atheist discourse to counter the missionary impulse, simply because they are annoyed with the conversion attempts. So, basically, you might the same kind of response to your quesitons from both atheists and agnostics, with the difference that atheists mean them, while agnostics may be merely striking out in frustration.

The emotional baggage that comes with conversion attempts makes it hard for me to tell whether I'm an agnostic or an atheist. I honestly don't know. The thing is this: when I'm down, or drained of energy I really don't want to hear about God. Thinking about what God might mean takes energy I don't have to spare. Unfortunately, this is also when people are most likely to suggest "God" as a solution.

So here's the thing: if you want to convert me, bring up the topic when I have the strength to consider it, say, after we've watched a movie with relevant themes. Don't wait until I'm drained. I will have little patience for what you have to offer. No doubt I won't come across as open minded in my response. But, see, it's just bad timing.

I suspect that I'm, perhaps, an atheist agnostic. I maybe do believe that God doesn't exist, but I don't think that believe of mine matters much. It feels more like a question of taste: I don't eat bananas, I don't wear orange, I don't believe in God. But then again I haven't yet figured out what it is that I supposedly believe doesn't exist.
 
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JimmyB27

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Okay. But can anyone offer a clear separation between atheism and agnosticism?

It was an attempt at such a distinction that caused such a destructive seed to get planted for me.
I like the way Richard Dawkins explains it in The God Delusion. He uses a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is absolute faith in the existence of God, and 7 is absolute faith in the non-existence of God. I consider myself as being a number 6 - ie, I don't believe God exists, but I don't have absolute faith that he doesn't.

As for portrayals of atheists I hate, the worst one is the formerly religious person who has suffered some sort of personal tragedy, usually someone close to them died, and they subsequently lose all faith in God, because what loving God could do something like this?
I'm sorry, but no. Did you not realise that people suffered such tragedies until it happened to you? Are you really so self centred that you couldn't see all the tragedy and upset everywhere in the world around you? Is your faith really so weak?