Should Skeptics, by definition, be Atheists?

[Apology]

But I find some of the apologists like unrepentant sinner more offputting to new members like Fran and six7s than the atheists... Oh, and speaking of apologists-- "the atheist" is rather abrupt but he's usually attacking of our non-believing members... I'm not sure the most off putting people are the ones that are atheists... I find the ones I call "the apologists" and "the self appointed experts" far more abrasive to new members--particularly non-believing new members who could really use a friendly forum to mingle in. Believers have a whole world of comaderie-ship and judging of others-- maybe it's okay for them to see how the other half lives. There are members that I find annoying and abrasive and whom I worry may frighten off new members-- but they aren't the overt atheists... they seem to have other issues. And our theists like DOC and T'ai are very offensive to people new and old. JREF is not an atheist organization--but the majority of members are atheistic or don't believe in any kind of personal god. But there are threads where that is never mentioned.

I think that when you see a new member you like you ought to welcome them, and give them a clue if you see them haggling with a particularly obnoxious forum member.

Well, I can't say I've never lost my patience myself. I did with historian and with George too, and I've seen Atheist's thread in forums management . I think my friend likes to keep them talking and draw them out a bit more, that's all. This guy is a master of convincing Christians that science is good. A fringe benefit of that is that the people who he speaks to regularly think that he's unfortunately still going to hell, but are no longer quite convinced that he's an evil and horrible person that deserves it.

I know we can't all be that patient but it certainly is something I aspire to

 

[articulett]

Fran, don't worry about being rude to T'ai-- he's impervious-- over 10,000 posts and nary a clue-- Plus he's got most everyone on ignore.



I worry about HIM frightening away the more logical new members.

I was kind of thin-skinned at first... but I like being able to speak my mind... I'm a smaller woman, and I'm usually timid around the irrational blowhards in my life-- they could throw things at me and such... but I find it empowering to let the blowhards here get a hint of my pent up hostilities. (I'm sure they wouldn't be sharing their opinions with us if they weren't eager to hear ours in return.) I dunno; I find it relaxing. And when they get too annoying, I just put them on ignore. (If only I could do that in real life.)

 

[Mobyseven]

I think it's notable that one of the people I attempted to refer was an atheist scientist who felt that the forums were too "bullying" and tended to just beat people down rather than try to convince them. He had already heard of the place before the membership drive and had already decided he didn't care for it much. I was kind of surprised because he enjoys lunacy like the Bigfoot stuff and Virgin Mary pareidolia, but I really didn't see any room for me to debate. I understand that we need to be able to speak freely, but you have to admit, some users are pretty heavy handed and a lot of threads end up in sissy slapfights.

So let me get this straight - you think it's notable that an unnamed "atheist scientist" who had heard of JREF prejudicially decided that he didn't care much for the forums based on what he'd heard about them?

Excuse me if the quality of your anecdote underwhelms me.

 

[-Fran-]

Fran, don't worry about being rude to T'ai-- he's impervious-- over 10,000 posts and nary a clue-- Plus he's got most everyone on ignore.

I know I just felt that for a moment I might have stooped to his level.

I worry about HIM frightening away the more logical new members.

His logic sure is frightening to those who are logical, yes

I was kind of thin-skinned at first... but I like being able to speak my mind... I'm a smaller woman, and I'm usually timid around the irrational blowhards in my life-- they could throw things at me and such... but I find it empowering to let the blowhards here get a hint of my pent up hostilities. (I'm sure they wouldn't be sharing their opinions with us if they weren't eager to hear ours in return.) I dunno; I find it relaxing. And when they get too annoying, I just put them on ignore. (If only I could do that in real life.)

I can relate to this. I'm actually quite scared of conflicts. When Cleon started to go at me earlier in this thread, I sure got scared enough but I must speak my mind anyway. I will back down if I was rude, or admit I was wrong if I am proven wrong, and I can back down from discussions because I do not feel I can handle it, or I feel I don't get anywhere, or I simply get bored... but I don't like being hushed, even if it is only an indirect suggestion. I will try to put my fears aside then and speak anyway. As a fairly new member that can be a bit tough sometimes, I have refrained from speaking a few times because I knew I would have to disagree with some who carry a lot of weight around here. But that is my problem, and I am learning.

In real life I avoid conflicts too, just as you, physically I am less than impressive I need the Internet as an outlet.

 

[Apology]

So let me get this straight - you think it's notable that an unnamed "atheist scientist" who had heard of JREF prejudicially decided that he didn't care much for the forums based on what he'd heard about them?

Excuse me if the quality of your anecdote underwhelms me.

Pardon me for not doing scientific research on the membership drive. I have only my own successes and failures in referring people to relate. If the "unknown atheist scientist" cared for the JREF forums at all he might come here and explain his position for himself, but apparently he thinks y'all are too snippy and pedantic. I think it's a shame because he would have been a valuable addition to the forums.

 

[Mobyseven]

Pardon me for not doing scientific research on the membership drive. I have only my own successes and failures in referring people to relate. If the "unknown atheist scientist" cared for the JREF forums at all he might come here and explain his position for himself, but apparently he thinks y'all are too snippy and pedantic. I think it's a shame because he would have been a valuable addition to the forums.

I don't really care if you think he'd make a valuable addition to the forums. I don't really care about what he has to say either if he's so lazy and unskeptical that he'll accept someone else's likely biased opinion of the forums as fact without even bothering to check them out himself.

I just don't know why you'd think this guy's uninformed opinion would be notable enough to bring up in the first place - I don't care if he's an "atheist scientist", if he's too lazy to do some basic research, his opinion about the forums means very little to me.

 

[Apology]

I don't really care if you think he'd make a valuable addition to the forums. I don't really care about what he has to say either if he's so lazy and unskeptical that he'll accept someone else's likely biased opinion of the forums as fact without even bothering to check them out himself.

I just don't know why you'd think this guy's uninformed opinion would be notable enough to bring up in the first place - I don't care if he's an "atheist scientist", if he's too lazy to do some basic research, his opinion about the forums means very little to me.

What are you talking about? I asked him if he was interested in the forums and he said he already knew about them and didn't like them. What is your problem?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Aye, there in lies the rub(adub): What is it, exactly, that is so supernatural?



It's not religion-extempting. It's simply acknowledging that skepticism doesn't concern itself with non-testable claims.

That concept is useful for some things, like explaining why science cannot seek things outside of the Universe nor before 'Big Bang' time began. But that same concept is not as useful when it is used to simply excuse oneself from having to confront god believers or one's own god beliefs.

Take ghosts for example. You can say science isn't concerned with the supernatural, or you can say there is a better explanation for that variable electromagnetic reading on your silly ghost detector. Likewise you can say science doesn't concern itself with the untestable, therefore it's just peachy to have a god belief and use science for evaluating everything else.

It sounds like a cop out which allows the scientist not to have to confront the god believer. Or, it sounds like a blind spot, allowing the scientist to hold onto one superstition, his binky he is not yet ready to let go of. The alternative is to look at the question scientifically, just as one does with astrology and homeopathy and whatever other 'supernatural' phenomenon one used science to debunk. Using science we evaluate the evidence. The Bible is no different from the oral traditions of the Hopi Indians. Coyote didn't steal fire from heaven, Pele isn't doing battle with her brother the sea and it isn't turtles all the way down.

There's only questionable corroborating evidence Jesus was an actual person and there's a lot of evidence the Jesus story is a fable. We know the Earth is not 6,000 years old, we know the Creation story is a myth. Zeus isn't in charge of lightning bolts, and nothing happens to people when they are prayed for. How can you call Zeus a myth, see the Greek gods as myths originated as human generated folk tales, then turn around and ignore the fact the evidence clearly shows the Bible is no different?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
If you only take the purist approach that you are agnostic about invisible pink unicorns and flying spaghetti then you can make your case.

I don't see why such a case couldn't be made, though. Since neither invisible pink unicorns nor flying spaghetti (unless it's thrown) affects me, I don't see a need to expend any energy accepting or denying it. If it's brought up as an excuse, then it can be challenged to see if there is any testable measure. If none are present, then it doesn't work as an excuse.

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
The problem I have is threefold:

1) There is no evidence of gods so why entertain the idea in the first place? Why not just say there can always be new things we have yet to come across?

Being agnostic doesn't mean entertaining ideas arbitrarily.

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
2) The current god definitions and descriptions defy everything we know about the Universe so far.

The wording you use, whether intentional or not, leaves open a door for a dogma to replace religious (or theistic) dogma. That's my main problem with taking an absolutist stance. I agree about religion falling short of explanation of the universe now that we are able to explore and observe to such a great degree, but I tend to stop short of saying all religious ideologies 'defy' our growing scientific knowledge because as far as I am aware religion is not science.

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
3) Not only is there no evidence of gods, there is a good case to be made that gods are man-made constructs. The evidence points to that. I see no reason not to draw conclusions from the available evidence.

Please. My main hobby is lay study of ancient history. I don't argue with the first three sentences, but the last is no less absolutist that religious statements as I interpret it.

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
I draw conclusions about other things based on the evidence.

The trouble is that in most cases evidence is found to either prove or disprove something. When it comes to people's religious faith evidence or lack thereof doesn't always necessarily work that way. That doesn't mean that someone of faith can't be capable of the intellectual honesty to remain skeptical of subjects in sufficient quantities to be indistinguishable from anyone else in testing said subjects.

Originally Posted by skeptigirl
Once you take the "special" case out of god beliefs, there is no case for agnosticism.
And you don't find this statement at all similar to those of religious fundementalists? No offense, but replace a few words there and the sentence is exactly the kind Ray Comfort uses.

The point you are missing in all these answers is the fact evidence is the key here.

If the evidence suggests god beliefs are myths, are you suggesting one should ignore that evidence?

If evidence to the contrary surfaces, then you change your conclusions. Dogma is stating you won't change your conclusions ever. I could say I am agnostic because I leave open the possibility new evidence will surface that supports god beliefs. Well new evidence might surface that refutes the theory of evolution. It isn't dogmatic to say that with the advances in genetic science it is not going to happen. If it does, I'll reconsider. Why wouldn't I? But do I think it will? Of course not.

You really can't see that you are making an exception to the evidence in this case. I am not being dogmatic. I am looking at the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that god beliefs did not arise because there actually are or were gods. God beliefs arose from human storytelling and whatever other sociocultural reasons there might have been. We know that because we have evidence based explanations that in the past, god beliefs were used to explain. We know that because the Bible is full of contradictions and absurdities. It has stories that are as imaginary as the Greek myths, or the Native American stories or the Hawaiian volcano god explanations.

No one seriously entertains the idea invisible pink unicorns exist. But many skeptics do have trouble letting go of their god beliefs. I have no such trouble whatsoever.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Goodness, there's 7 new pages here since I last looked. Guess I'll catch up later.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

But I find some of the apologists like unrepentant sinner more offputting to new members like Fran and six7s than the atheists...

That sounds more like it's your problem with your straw version of me than with the actual me.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Beside using the word 'recruiting' which I also found a bit odd, I am certainly not saying that anyone should be smacked down, but really, if the theist skeptics can't even handle a thread like this (and I still can't see the smacking in here) are they actually that good "recruits" to begin with? Surely they should be able to handle at least as much attack on their own thoughts and beliefs as they are themselves ready to hand out to the groups mentioned above?

But recruiting is exactly what we're trying to do here. What word would be more accurate, "evangelizing"?

(See Note...)
As far as your focus on this thread, I'd say there has been very little smacking down. There has been, as I hoped in the OP, a discussion about the official "face" of JREF and what sort of organization it is. My concerns had been festering for 5 years and a number of recent events, additions of newer people, and general attitude changes of late prompted me to start this thread when the new JREF topics subforum opened.
(Note, I mixed this thread up with the "JREF is not an atheist organization thread, but I stand by what I said here so I'm leaving it.)

I'm going to snip the rest and perhaps reply to it later because you seem to be saying as long as religious skeptics shut up about their religious beliefs they should expect to get hammered on them... which is an interesting attitude since so many of the militant atheists around here say they want this to be a safehouse where they can get away from religious people while simultaneously claiming this is a forum for like minded peoples.

They're basically saying this is an atheist forum for like-minded conversation, not a skeptics forum for like-minded conversation. We need to find happy medium between "you're not welcome here" and you're welcome here and we won't question your beliefs." I think many people here have staked their claim on the former and I don't know of any who want the latter.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

God as originally conceived and described in most religious texts - rather easily.{snip}

That's correct. I'm a bit duplicitous when I'm on Christian forums discussing Creationism and Evolution because part of the reason I'm not a Christian is because Genesis cannot be taken literally even though I tell Creationists I'm trying to convince about the validity of evolution that it doesn't have to be.

The problem is that a lot of ancient texts were written from the perspective of the writers. They assigned God of the Gaps explanations to things because they didn't know any better. Just because we understand weather and climate patters, and know why Georgia is in a drought, how do we then know definatively:
- God didn't set the laws of physics into motion that govern those patterns.
- God isn't YHWH/Jesus but is more capricious and ignores supplicative prayers.
- God isn't punishing Georgia or testing their faith.

I get what you wrote in that paragraph I truncated, but I still don't see how we are supposed to put factors like this into the test tube.

Bearing in mind any form of contact with "god" would fall under the definition of being testable, on what basis does one believe in an utterly intangible god?

That's true within the scientific method. What about things that lie outside the scientific method? Ghosts are another example of the supernatural that is similarly problematic. Say we can determine some activity is occuring in a location.
- How do we know it's a ghost?
- How do we know that ghost is a disembodied spirit?
- How do we differentiate from an unknown phenomena that mimics what we've (or at least to woos) come to call a ghost but is something else entirely?

Of course there is. A world of difference. I agree. There is no conceivable harm that could come from such a belief. I have as much time for a sceptic that chooses to believe in a god without evidence as I do an atheist one. I just want to understand them better. In a way, I suppose it's because I would rather like to be able to hold a similar belief, rather than be truly alone in life and gone forever in death (assuming this god allows for some form of afterlife, I don't know).

For myself I shudder to think of an eternal afterlife. Forever is more disturbing to me than never again. Some of our resident religious skeptics do have those beliefs primarily for comfort. Hal Bidlack is one of them. He's an old school Deist who sometimes prays and sometimes hopes for an afterlife, but I don't think anyone would deny his skeptical street cred.

Again, absolutely fine. You agree that such beliefs are open to being challenged then? It's just that one or two reactions from the religious came across as overly defensive, and some of those from those keen not annoy the former seemed to be saying "sssh, we need these people!". I would think of all religious people, that sceptical ones would be most open to discussion about it using the common ground of scepticism. But then I'm probably underestimating some of the atheist responses that have put some backs up - I hope I haven't been one of them.

The most vocal religious folks who are vocal about their religion of late are fundy nutters and should be ignored within the larger context of the discussion. Most of the people who have been critical of atheist orthodoxy within skepticism have been, like me, atheist or agnostic.

 

[chillzero]

Fran, don't worry about being rude to T'ai-- he's impervious-- over 10,000 posts and nary a clue-- Plus he's got most everyone on ignore.

I'd just like to point out that a person's post count or perceived thick skin in no way justifies any personal attacks or rudeness. Also, you may find that some members take exception to being 'boxed' into labelled groups, so this should be avoided where possible.

To comment on topic, and not from a mod's perspective, I feel there is much to be lost by insisting that skeptics be atheist. Skepticism is aside from religion. It is a process, a method of managing information. I would never tell my deist or christian friends (or those of any other religions) that they are not skeptics, if I can clearly see that they use a skeptical approach in life.

Even the most atheist skeptic in the world is still likely to have a blind spot, or a misunderstanding of something. There is no such thing as a perfect skeptic - it's like the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.

 

[Dancing David]

I debate the contention that people are not welcoming here, I have participated in some of these ID threads, and abiogenesis threads, and most recently the 'electric sun' thread by beachooser.

We have flyby trolls who come here and spout nonsense and then expect people to just suck it up. So if a few people get turned away, that is going to happen, read some of J. Hewitts threads, DOC threads or lightcreatedlife threads.

The goal is not to convert people, the goal is to engage in critical thought and discussion.

Scepticism is the art of judging evidence. Some people really don't like that.

 

[Belz...]

These are all evidence based assertions. I think it's perfectly skeptical to say that, until proven otherwise, all gods (and other invisible forms of consciousness--souls, demons, angels, etc.) fall into one of the above categories-- that is, there is a natural, prosaic explanation for what people are claiming.

Seconded.

 

[Belz...]

I'd just like to point out that a person's post count or perceived thick skin in no way justifies any personal attacks or rudeness. Also, you may find that some members take exception to being 'boxed' into labelled groups, so this should be avoided where possible.

To comment on topic, and not from a mod's perspective, I feel there is much to be lost by insisting that skeptics be atheist. Skepticism is aside from religion. It is a process, a method of managing information. I would never tell my deist or christian friends (or those of any other religions) that they are not skeptics, if I can clearly see that they use a skeptical approach in life.

Even the most atheist skeptic in the world is still likely to have a blind spot, or a misunderstanding of something. There is no such thing as a perfect skeptic - it's like the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.

We all have our woo...

 

[Beth]

No, it is a logical conclusion that one must reach based upon the primary premise that the universe is finite. That isn't to say that there aren't many true claims about the universe, simply that there are a theoretically finite amount as compared to the theoretically infinite amount of false claims.

Now you have two untestable claims:

1. The universe if finite. This is unknown and untestable for us at this time.

2. Given a finite universe, there are a finite number of true statements that can be made about it. This doesn't necessary follow. The space between 0 and 1 is finite, but there are an infinite number of numbers between them.

 

[chillzero]

We all have our woo...

Exactly.

 

[Big Les]

Thanks for that post UnrepentantSinner, it made a good deal of sense, but you didn't address my question of "on what basis does one believe in an utterly intangible god?". If not the old and discredited ideas that arose from fundamentally misunderstood observation of natural phenomena? Belief in god didn't just happen, it emerged from this process. Over the years the real-world claims have been scaled back in western countries, to the point where you have people joking that they're not religious, just "C(hurch) of E(ngland)", and people who have only notional, "other-world" belief, such as our sceptical chums. What does it actually mean to say that you believe in god, if you don't believe in any real-world influence and have no evidence of anything else. Where does the very notion of "god" come from if not these old and discredited ideas? Remove those ideas, what's left? What purpose does this "god" serve? Is it a way of conceptualising the mechanism by which the universe was created? Is it just the wider universe that is so awe inspiring and that reminds us all that we are totally insignificant and temporary? If so, hell, I believe in that. I think Dawkins calls it "Einsteinian Religion". But use of the term "god" implies something else to me.

I'm genuinely interested in this, which for me makes it a shame that the religious sceptics seem to have disappeared and don't want to talk about their beliefs. I suppose that, and the controversy here, comes from the way the OP was stated - "should Skeptics, by definition, be Atheists?". In fact, none of us can say that, or has the right to say that. I'm interested in the why and how of these, let's call them Deist, beliefs, but not in telling them that they shouldn't have those beliefs.

Like I said, I wish I could hang on to some notional version of god, because frankly I've struggled many a time with the mere idea of existence with no external purpose or higher power. I would never have any time for organised religion nor all the superstitious woo BS that most of us here eschew, but to have just that idea that there might be something more, does appeal. But I see no reason to believe in it. In many ways, I simply substitute the enormity and beauty of the universe and the relative insignificance of human existence, for a Deist or other notional "god". The evidence for that is all around me.