Messages

Maybe the RWHN comment is premature. Nigel hasn't started dragging this into other threads yet.

But as much as it is clear that Nigel is aiming at 'extremist atheists', what she's actually hitting is all atheists - whether that's a big part of your personality or just something you happen to believe. Because that's the language that she's using, regardless of intent, and she's determined to dig her heels in because... 

Well what I'm mostly getting from the tone is that she doesn't think much of us 'boys' as the primary reason.

Does it really matter? We should maybe just address the arguments as we can most charitably interpret them instead of personally insulting the argumenter.

Everyone in this thread is a butt.

Stop generalizing, asshole! 
You hurt my feelings... 

Anyway, back to business...

Something interesting that is relevant to Nigel's argument, as I understand it

Take your time, don't worry about cliffhangers.
This isn't something I could read in a single sitting, so I imagine writing it must take a lot of effort.

What do these statements protect? And why is it worth protecting?

I think what those statements have in common is that they are meant to protect against any kind of change.
Change of mind, change of heart, even change for the better, in the case of statement six.

Our own egos protect us from change because if we change, then we wouldn't be us anymore. For the ego, all change is death. It's a common theme in the BIP that we are our own jailmakers and prison guards.

Relevant lesswrong article about something that I think Nigel was trying to say:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/

Relevant quotes:

But there would also be a simpler explanation for my views, a less rare factor that could explain it:  I could just be anti-non-mainstream.  I could be in the habit of hanging out in moderately educated circles, and know that astrology and homeopathy are not accepted beliefs of my tribe.  Or just perceptually recognize them, on a wordless level, as "sounding weird".  And I could mock anything that sounds weird and that my fellow tribesfolk don't believe, much as creationists who hang out with fellow creationists mock evolution for its ludicrous assertion that apes give birth to human beings.

You can get cheap credit for rationality by mocking wrong beliefs that everyone in your social circle already believes to be wrong.  It wouldn't mean that I have any ability at all to notice a wrong belief that the people around me believe to be right, or vice versa - to further discriminate truth from falsity, beyond the fact that my social circle doesn't already believe in something.

Back in the good old days, there was a simple test for this syndrome that would get quite a lot of mileage:  You could just ask me what I thought about God.  If I treated the idea with deeper respect than I treated astrology, holding it worthy of serious debate even if I said I disbelieved in it, then you knew that I was taking my cues from my social surroundings - that if the people around me treated a belief as high-prestige, high-status, I wouldn't start mocking it no matter what the state of evidence.

This right here could be the origin of that attitude some atheists have that makes them think they are more intelligent than other people just becuase they have one fewer stupid belief. That might have made sense in the past: for example, Hume's skepticism really is quite admirable, considering it was before Darwin's time. Nowadays, not so much.

Another interesting aspect of that article (it's worth reading it in full) is that it sounds so much more convincing when Eleizer says it than when Nigel says something similar. This has been bothering me all day, becuase it could mean that:

a) I consider white, male, non-threatening, certified capital A Atheist Yudkovsky to be more convincing, because he is a member of My Tribe®, or

b) Eleizer is just a better writer, and he knows better than to mind-kill his entire target audience by referencing politics, religion and race in such a manner right in the thread title.

DOUR, the reason very few people took issue with pent after he used the f-word was because after the first three or so people did so, it was deemed NOT CONTROVERSIAL. Everyone agreed that word was inappropriate.

At least, that's the reason I didn't say anything. I felt I had nothing to contribute that hadn't been said before, and you were defending yourself just fine, better than I could have in that situation.

I will try to pay more attention to that kind of situation in the future. You already said people tend to just assume you are made of steel and don't bother to take your emotions into account, so I should have known.

From where I am sitting it looks like the term "Atheist" has been thoroughly hijacked by those who would use it to form a group identity that is reliant on the idea of relative worth.

The only one who used the term that way in this thread has been you, Roger and I, specifically to discuss the kind of atheist that don't post in Discordian forums.

I've seen the rest of the internet and I share your frustration, but do you really have to bring that tribal bullshit to the one sane forum on the internet?

I don't think they're terrible people. I think they're kind of pathetic and grasping at attributes that they can leverage to make themselves feel powerful, and they have so little going for them that they settle on something that allows them to look down on other people in order to have an illusion of relative status.

I think I see what you mean. I can't go around saying I'm better than, say, Gilbert K. Chesterton, just becuase he had a couple of stupid beliefs which I don't share.
To be better than him, I would actually have to do something that makes the world better than whatever he did, not just believe things.

["Got nothing going for them"]

Question for you: Do you identify as an "Atheist" or do you merely hold an atheistic position regarding the existence of God? Because I would argue that "an Atheist" is a different animal from an atheist, in much the same way that a white person is a different animal from a White Supremacist.

The current direction of the Atheist Movement, as a group of people who identify as Atheist, is a mindset that I can only describe as Atheist Supremacy.

I don't identify as anything in particular, because I don't like playing those weird tribal affiliation games.
Of course, when I have to pick a tribe, I sometimes pick "Atheist", sometimes "Discordian" and sometimes "Liberal Catholic" depending on the situation.

I think you are taking these tribal affiliation games a little too seriously. It's just a game, and Atheists play the game with very low stakes.

I'm with you on preferring not to affiliate.

I don't think I'm taking anything too seriously. There seem to be an awful lot of people tribing up under the Atheist banner because they're looking for someone to hate, and Atheism-as-tribal-identity gives them an enemy in the form of everyone who isn't their tribe.

So, those people go in the same mental category I put White Supremacists, which is the "Got nothing going for them" category.

Oh, THAT category. I thought you meant "terrible people" or something like that, which is the category I use for White Supremacists.
You can see the source of my confusion.

Question for you: Do you identify as an "Atheist" or do you merely hold an atheistic position regarding the existence of God? Because I would argue that "an Atheist" is a different animal from an atheist, in much the same way that a white person is a different animal from a White Supremacist.

The current direction of the Atheist Movement, as a group of people who identify as Atheist, is a mindset that I can only describe as Atheist Supremacy.

I don't identify as anything in particular, because I don't like playing those weird tribal affiliation games.
Of course, when I have to pick a tribe, I sometimes pick "Atheist", sometimes "Discordian" and sometimes "Liberal Catholic" depending on the situation.

I think you are taking these tribal affiliation games a little too seriously. It's just a game, and Atheists play the game with very low stakes.

Atheists did a series of memes along the lines of "this is what Christians actually believe", with nonsensical Bible quotes.

Christians responded by posting swastikas and picturs of genocide and satan with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them.

Atheists and surrealists retaliated with nonsensical pictures with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them, to mock Christians.

More of why I don't much like atheists and refuse to call myself one. They're all backlash and no substance; monkeys out to find an enemy, and not much more.

"Let's poke at Christians! Poke poke poke

EEK EEK OOOK OOK THEY RESPONDED DO IT MORE!"

It's different when you poke at pagans becuase, um...

Because as a Discordian I technically AM one. You clearly haven't been paying attention to those trolls. I hate Internet Pagans because they're fascist status-seeking shitbeans, not because of their beliefs, even when those beliefs are irredeemably stupid.

Yeah, never had the patience for that kind of persistent trolling you guys do 

Putting the U.S. at a stark disadvantage compared to its most active rivals and competitors — neither Russia nor China face nearly as much scrutiny in their intelligence activities, for example — is difficult to see as anything other than an attack on the U.S., not a defense of anyone's rights.

Well, it's not like all of my email has been going through Russian or Chinese webmail companies for the last decade, so from a selfish point of view, I just don't care enough about surveillance there.

Maybe  we should? Do you think Russian or Chinese surveillance can be a threat to normal people that live outside those countries?

Atheists did a series of memes along the lines of "this is what Christians actually believe", with nonsensical Bible quotes.

Christians responded by posting swastikas and picturs of genocide and satan with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them.

Atheists and surrealists retaliated with nonsensical pictures with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them, to mock Christians.

More of why I don't much like atheists and refuse to call myself one. They're all backlash and no substance; monkeys out to find an enemy, and not much more.

"Let's poke at Christians! Poke poke poke

EEK EEK OOOK OOK THEY RESPONDED DO IT MORE!"

It's different when you poke at pagans becuase, um...

Atheists did a series of memes along the lines of "this is what Christians actually believe", with nonsensical Bible quotes.

Christians responded by posting swastikas and picturs of genocide and satan with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them.

Atheists and surrealists retaliated with nonsensical pictures with "this is what atheists actually believe" on them, to mock Christians.

More of why I don't much like atheists and refuse to call myself one. They're all backlash and no substance; monkeys out to find an enemy, and not much more.

"Let's poke at Christians! Poke poke poke

EEK EEK OOOK OOK THEY RESPONDED DO IT MORE!"

Well played, Nigel.

Marginally relevant to the OP: A literary critique of DSM-5 by American Psychiatric Association. http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/book-of-lamentations/

Jesus Christ 
This made me actually want to read the DSM

But it wasn't really the point.  The point is, you can't really make a factual statement about the subject, because the subject isn't testable.  Yes, I know I just made not one but two factual statements, but I'm a venerable Holy Man™, so shut up.

The point I'm trying to make is shut up, by which I mean, if someone's belief, or disbelief as the case may be, does not interfere with your life in a direct fashion, then shut up.  If everyone followed this advice, the world would be what it is supposed to be.

And if they CAN'T follow this advice and insist on insisting, then you have the moral authority - no, the moral obligation - to use the 3 field rotation system, the vassal/liege system, and the manorial accounting method on them.  In short, thou shalt get all medieval upon their posteriors.

Thus sayeth the Dark God of the Desert.

But Reverend, itś the 21st Century already, and we're living in the future.
These people, like all of us, have been taught all their lives that we are supposed to be reasonable, that only ignorants believe in superstitions.
Nowadays, it's just not fashionable to believe something merely based on tradition, faith or authority.

Can you really blame them for trying their best to reconcile modern epistemology with their religious believes?
Wait, on second thought,don't answer that