Abrasive Atheism

As an overwhelmed minority in the US, and as a disgusted majority on youtube, many open atheists tend to get used to burdening a considerable chip on their shoulders. When people are so used to defending their positions against highly ignorant opposition, their patience often becomes understandably worn down and their demeanor becomes offputtingly recalcitrant. I consider this an attitude that we outspoken atheists should do our best to control.
It's okay to have a cutthroat, relentless, Hitchens-esque demeanor when dealing with another theist whom you've engaged with before, adequately felt out, or whom you know has had experience with religious debate. The problem occurs when apply that same zeal to a moderate theist who's new to the discussion and hasn't been callused enough to handle the keen edge of Occum's razor if yielded with excessive zeal. The important thing to consider is that those theists who've never had their belief's questions, and never been exposed to arguments against their belief are the ones who you've have the greatest chance of educating. They aren't going to stick around and actually listen to you for long if you smother them with ridicule and insult the instant they tell you their beliefs though.
If you're a youtube atheist you may have spent months or years now debating theology and defending your position of reasonable doubt. I implore you, however to treat every theist who comes to the discussion for the first time with a heavy dose of patience, and use that first encounter to really get a firm understanding of what it is they believe, what level of conviction they have for that belief, and why they have it. I personally don't like it when someone hears I'm an atheist and assumes I became one because evolution tricked me into it, that I think monkeys gave birth to humans, that I worship Satan, that I'm morally bankrupt, that I'm a nihilist etc. There's nothing quite as irritating as when someone else tries to tell me what my own position is, and light the straw man on fire before I can pluck a single strand from its frame. I urge my fellow atheists to not make the same obnoxious mistake to them.
Our goal should be to disprove any presuppositions about us being crass or evil intellectual snobs- not to confirm them. What I'm imploring isn't easy to do. In fact it's very hard to start over with a blank slate every time, but it's the only fair way to approach people. If you aren't prepared to give people a wide berth of patience and respect, and you aren't willing to listen carefully to their individual position before you gradually persuade them, then you're probably fighting the wrong battle in the wrong way.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• GrapplingIgnorance
• abrasive
• atheism
• manners
• polite
• approach

[EveryBodySucks100]

Nihilism is beautiful, is only when you understand you are not especial, you got no meaning niether purpuse than you can say SO WHAT!? and still live, just to live, the good and the bad, the nice and the disgusting, the up's and downs, without worring all your bloody life if what your doing has importance instead of just enjoying

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@EveryBodySucks100 It is my philsophical position, if you will, that we choose our own purposes. If you choose to hold no obligation to others, and to merely enjoy life for yourself at its fullest, then that's your purpose. Nobody assigns it to you.

[MightyMikeT]

your wasting your time bro. "Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead." — Thomas Paine

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@MightyMikeT Tell that to every atheist on their planet were believers at one time, but changed their minds when they had better evidence presented to them. Some examples you might recognize from youtube include: Dusty Smith, Matt Dillahunty, ProportionalResponse, and me.

[MightyMikeT]

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@MightyMikeT The fact that Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson said things doesn't make them true. I am fond of both of them, but that doesn't mean that any quote by them equates to reality. I especially disagree wit this one by T.J. To say that ridicule is the ONLY way to disarm propositions that lack intelligence is painfully wrong. Being civil and educational is not only an alternate method, but in my experience a far more successful one.

[TheIntolerantAtheist]

@IAmHotize Yes, us liberals are the fascists. You support your braindead leader Sarah Palin who fired the Librarian in Wausilla as Mayor because this librarian would remove books by Richard Dawkins or Harry Potter books, and we're the fucking fascists. Christian Dominionists like you want to see homosexuals stoned to death and then claim your religion is less barbaric than Islam. Idiots like you are the reason so many gay kids commit suicide, and I'm sure you're glad about that.

[EveryBodySucks100]

@GrapplingIgnorance Yeah i know, just wanted to talk about it, about the video i've been in a recent discusion with members of a church in my country (a friend made me fall into the discusion :( i often preffer avoiding that circumstance) , and kinda learn your lesson by the hard way, the funny thing is that is ok when they lose they're mind, but if you freak out just a little, you're been unrational and stupid...

[UrukEngineer]

Too right!

[uvauva2]

@GrapplingIgnorance

Er...

You are misunderstanding the Thomas Jefferson quote. He wasn't talking about "propositions that lack intelligence". He was talking about propositions that are "unintelligible", that is, that lack any distinct meaning that can actually be addressed. Like, for example, the trinity.

[mythmanjay]

Fairly Buddhist---knowing THE truth (reality), but also knowing that others think THEIR truth is true. Buddhism IS NOT 'worshiping (any) Buddha' ("all humans possess the Buddha-nature"), it's "being enlightened" (Sanskrit /budd/). At root, I am an Agnostic. That is, 'I know there's stuff I can never possibly "know."' To Christians, I would quote 'God,' who said "My reasons are not your reasons" (and I've seen no evidence (not even in THE REST of their fairy-tales) to show that that's changed).

[jfrontier1]

i tend to think that atheists as well as Christians do this sort of thing. Instead of getting to know someone, what they think and why, people tend to assume. As a Christian, I prefer to get to know someone and their thoughts. After all, I might learn something from them, as I hope they might from me. Only when we dialog from truth and honesty can we ever learn.

Nice video.

[b33p3rz]

@GrapplingIgnorance The ridicule found here, although like your video points out is sometimes callous, it provides the perfect stepping stone for someone to pinpoint the unintelligible parts of their own propositions. No idea is above ridicule or scrutiny, but ridicule and scrutiny must not be used to bully someone from a position, or we're no better than self-centered theists who use the same methods of social exclusion.

[b33p3rz]

@GrapplingIgnorance I'm sorry but I wanted to see where this sits exactly. Ridicule may be a small part of a earnest way of dispelling unintelligible propositions. I suppose the only source I'd like to mention is the idea of the IPH, and more importantly because it emphasizes the point, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it's associated website.