Talk:Antitheism

I was amazed we didn't have this article already. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 05:30, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Similarities with conspiracy theories

I don't understand the layout of this section. Something 'explicit' & then something else 'explicit' next to it, and then the same thing 'implicit' underneath. . . . What? weaseLOId~ 08:27, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I believe the idea is that while the explicitly expressed ideas of antitheism and conspiracy theory differ, if you look at the implied ideas of antitheism, they are the same. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 08:32, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Yeah I got the idea; it's just an incomprehensible layout. Is it supposed to be a table with antitheism on the left & conspiracy theories on the right. 'Cause that isn't made clear. weaseLOId~ 08:37, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I think it's a good idea and a valid comparason, it just could do with a tiny bit of expansion. ArmondikoV^moral 15:00, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Straw man

What exactly did you mean by that? Just out of curiosity. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 06:47, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I think it means he doesn't like how I characterized antitheism. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:53, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

With regards to your edit comment: Yes, thank you, Mr Big Werds, I know what it means. My point was that Bob could equally have meant that antitheism itself is based on a strawman-like view of religion, which makes much more sense, as it's actually right. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 06:58, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Now you mention it, it could be ambiguous. But no, the description of "Antitheism" views eg: "I am one of the few sane people on this planet for realizing this and opposing it." and "This makes me a valiant hero for struggling to bring you all to enlightenment." is obvious Straw man.--Bob^{bing up} 07:09, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

With all due respect, Bob, that was the only explanation I could think of for why so many antitheists are complete asses. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:27, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Our straw man article states: Straw men are notoriously easy to construct, and require little more than extending the opponent's arguments beyond their original point until their stance appears ridiculous.. I would suggest that your wording "This makes me a valiant hero for struggling to bring you all to enlightenment." is a good example of this.--Bob^{bing up} 07:39, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I disgree. It was a logical explanation for why I have never met one who said "I am just a humble person, trying to make the world a better place for everyone" but have met plenty who said, "Why won't they fucking listen to me! I am right!" Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 16:28, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Doubtful line

The text now says: Atheists are invariable 'strong atheists', holding not just an agnostic doubt that God or gods exist, but a positive certainty that He or they do not. Is this trying to say that all atheists are strong atheists - that is to say they claim to have positive prof or the non-existence of god? If so, then it's wrong. If it's not saying that - what is it saying?--Bob^{bing up} 14:50, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I edited it, I think it was supposed to say "antitheist" not "atheist". It makes sense now. It might be worth looking into "fundamentalist" too; I planted that idea into the line but I'm not sure what the general concensus is on it. ArmondikoV^moral 14:58, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Steal my insight, would you?? Oh cruel fate! Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 15:02, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

(EC)I believe it's supposed to say "Antitheists are invariably 'strong atheists'".

However, I must warn you; I have no empirical evidence of this :( Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 14:58, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I think there perhaps may be a misconception about what a "strong atheist" is. A strong atheist is one who claims that he can prove god does not exist. Presumably any god including the deist god. I have not seen anybody on this site make that assertion. A weak atheist does not believe in god because there is no evidence for its existence.--Bob^{bing up} 15:07, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I don't think anyone claims to be able to prove that God does not exist. It might be more helpful to define a "strong atheist" as someone who is certain of God's non-existence, as that defintion actually includes some people :P Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 15:15, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

(Damn Edit conflicts...) I always thought that a strong atheist had an active belief that there was no God, rather than just a simple dismissal of the idea due to lack of evidence but keeping an open mind to the possibility. Even your strong atheist is only 99.99% sure, whereas it would be your hypothetical fundamentalist atheist who would reject God 110% even if the evidence undeniably swayed the other way, hence the fundamentalist part. That would be the position that no (sane) person appears to hold. ArmondikoV^moral 15:16, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I did intend to write "Antitheists are almost invariably 'strong atheists'". Thanks for correcting that error. Re 'strong atheism' - I don't think claiming to prove the non-existence of God is necessary (since arguably His or Her existence cannot be decisively disproven). Basically I think the difference, as I tried to outline in the text, is that strong atheists have a real conviction that there is no God, whereas weak atheists lack that conviction, but equally lack a conviction that there is a God. weaseLOId~ 15:25, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Mmmm. Having gone to WP I must back-track slightly. They say:

• Strong atheism is a term generally used to describe atheists who accept as true the proposition, "gods do not exist". Weak atheism refers to any other type of non-theism. Historically, the terms positive and negative atheism have been used for this distinction, where "positive" atheism refers to the specific belief that gods do not exist, and "negative" atheism refers merely to an absence of belief in gods.[1] Because of flexibility in the term "god", it is understood that a person could be a strong atheist in terms of certain portrayals of gods, while remaining a weak atheist in terms of others.--Bob^{bing up} 15:27, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

If religion is a direct cause of violence, so is atheism

The above is an edit comment from Mouse. Can you give me an example of an atheist carrying out a violent act because he is an atheist Mr Mouse?--Bob^{bing up} 16:02, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I don't think anyone's suggesting that it can't be a cause, just that so far, it really isn't. I don't think you get atheists specifically targetting and murdering people en masse because they're theists. See: [1] ArmondikoV^moral 16:14, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

(EC)Off the top of my head... Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 16:15, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I be proved wrong then. Although you do get that sort of thing with any totalitarianism taken to it's batshit extreme. ArmondikoV^moral 16:21, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Exactly my point. It's a CP-style smear to say things like "[insert belief-system] is a direct cause of violence".

<grumble>I suppose the bit I tried to remove makes sense in context, though...</grumble> Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 16:25, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, that section as it is reffers mostly to the authors who get called "militant", I've backed off that last sentence for now and will probably try and condense a little about Albania or any other example into it. ArmondikoV^moral 16:33, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Plenty of examples in totalitarian regimes, from Soviet Union to priests Nazi concentration camps, I THINK. And this only in Europe. Editor at CP^{Oh, Finland! Why?} 16:36, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

What have Nazis got to do with antitheism? This is getting a long way off topic. weaseLOId~ 16:38, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Editor: Are you suggesting that the Communist and Nazi regimens were 1. both atheist and 2. evil because they were atheist?--Bob^{bing up} 18:04, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Many things can be caused as a reason for violence, though I think this discussion would be a bit clearer if they made a distinction between atheists and anti-theists. I don't see how an atheists who isn't antitheist would use his atheism for violence against theism. --GTac 11:14, 30 January 2009 (EST)

My baby's grown up!

I'm glad to see my darling baby article grow into this battleground. *Sniff* They grow up so fast. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 16:22, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

I think it's just the RW way of making articles. Someone starts it and then as it pops up in recent changes, everyone jumps on it until it's more or less complete. Then activity dies down and it's just a case of people remembering that the article is there and not leaving it ophaned. ArmondikoV^moral 16:27, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Fact tags

I noticed, like, a million fact tags. While they're nice, they were added while the article was written as thus: "most atheists think [religion should be destroyed]" as it's since been changed to "some atheists" it's no longer as matter-of-fact and definite, we don't need them. Although it would be nice to referrence some stuff, we don't need to fact tag everything like WP has to. ArmondikoV^moral 07:19, 30 January 2009 (EST)

I'd say that without the fact tags it's not clear that this is just the opinion of a couple of authors.--Bob^{bing up} 09:22, 30 January 2009 (EST)

If that was the case, we'd need to tag the entire site. So long as something doesn't explicity say "this is a FACT" without backing it up with solid references, they're not needed. ArmondikoV^moral 09:52, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Well, if nobody is going to substantiate the claims, and fact tags are not appropriate, I've added some weasel words to show that none of it can be referenced.--Bob^{bing up} 10:17, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Is this perhaps because you're an atheist and can't comprehend that people with that belief may just be arseholes to the same degree as as fundies? Pretty much anything by Dawkins or Hitchens says that they think the world would be a better place without religion, some are just as anti-religion as some fundies are anti-atheist! ArmondikoV^moral 10:23, 30 January 2009 (EST)

I just think that it would be nice to explicitly substantiate the statements. As you maintain you are acquainted with atheist authors and wish to defend the piece you might wish to go ahead. If not, I'm not going to get into an edit war about it.--Bob^{bing up} 11:26, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Problems with Problems with antitheism

I think a lot in this article seems pretty skewed and especially all three parts of 'Problems with antitheism' are pretty subpar. The article would be better off if they were removed.

• The Inquisition was Catholic: States in the very first sentence that it doesn't really represent antitheism, but many people say it and it's a bad argument. People using bad arguments is not an argument against antitheism.
• Similarities with conspiracy theories: This states that few antitheists actually believe in an elaborate conspiracy theory, but many do have a strong negative opinion about the opposition and tend to generalize things. This "us versus them" mentality is nothing special, it sums up pretty much everyone with a strong preference in religion/politics/sports/cars/energy drinks/nationality. And again, not an argument against antitheism.
• Militant atheism: This states that bad things have been done by atheists. And this is an argument against atheism, why? And didn't the previous two arguments just say that it's bad to generalize a belief by its people??

What do you think? --GTac 11:31, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Frankly, I think the whole thing needs to be re-written by somebody without an axe to grind. Which conveniently excludes me.--Bob^{bing up} 11:38, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Oh and yes, you're right GTac.--Bob^{bing up} 11:39, 30 January 2009 (EST)

It's no more skewed than any other article on RW. It's taking a critical look at people who think religion is bad thing and needs to be irradicated. Or is the Glorious Belief of Atheism imune from any criticism at all? ArmondikoV^moral 04:26, 4 February 2009 (EST)

I'm sure that we should be prepared to criticize anything that comes within our POV and mission.--Bob^{bing up} 05:17, 4 February 2009 (EST)

It certainly is, or can be, "on mission". But as GTac pointed out above, those particular arguments aren't very good ones, unless at least they start with evidence that many "anti-theists" use them. ħuman 15:44, 4 February 2009 (EST)

There were a number of fact tags in other parts of the article - but they were removed on the basis that the statements weren't written as facts (or something like that). :-) See above.--Bob^{bing up} 17:29, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Yes, that was lazy of the writer(s) not to at least use the RW difflinks they were snarking on. There's a lot of "some people" to it right now that needs to be fixed with said links. Or by just rewriting it. ħuman 19:40, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Just glancing at it again, this article is still pretty bad.--Bob^{bing up} 21:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There is an article called "misotheism" at teh SoK drawer. It might have some fun stuff in it, but a SoK drawer is loading really slow for me right now... ħuman 00:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Clean up

EMC has cleaned up the entire article. It seems mostly okay at a quick glance although I think the entire thing is still messy as fuck, and still seems to be stuck with the weasel-worded content creep that marred the previous versions. However, the section on militant atheism should be added back, or at least the term addressed. Militant atheism redirects to here and is a topic certainly worth looking at. ^gnostic 14:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'll include a portion addressing militant atheism. I'm opting for a whole rewrite of this article. The further I get it away from the previous version, the better it'll be. --emc ^[TALK] 15:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

We could just nuke it and start from scratch. I think the original had some tangential points in, then people tried to get it on track, then it creeped up, then we tried fixing it, and suddenly the entire thing got painted into a corner. If you feel you can do it justice, please do, I'm currently not volunteering due to time constraints and the fact that I've completely gone off the subject as an interest recently. ^gnostic 15:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Cover story?

I think so, yes. And only because I wrote it. --emc ^[TALK] 17:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

So I assume this means your masterpiece is now finished? ^gnostic 17:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. But methinks it needs a picture. --emc ^[TALK] 17:07, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Cover? No, I still get a tl;dr from the slabs of text. But I did bronze it - David Gerard (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

NOBODY ASKED YOU. GO BRONZE YOUR DICK. --emc ^[TALK] 17:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

MY DICK IS MADE OF LOVE AND BEAUTY AND QUANTUM BIOFIELD SCHNAPPS. IT SAYS SO RIGHT HERE ON CITIZENDIUM - David Gerard (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Can we acknowledge accusations of Bigotry?

As we all, know; Anti-Theism is usually called bigoted. You can't call it "fundamentalism" because the scripture required is non-existent. You can't call it "militant" either, because no one is killing others because they inexplicably still believe in Santa Claus.

However, could we say somewhere that this attitude is not generally accepted? If not, can we at least acknowledge the accusations of bigotry and Richard Dawkins' legendarily stupid arguments trying to refute aforementioned accusations to expand the scope of the article? SoFlah (talk) 00:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I really do not know what you're getting at (also, "militant" doesn't necessarily mean killing. It's defined as someone being aggressive or combative, and doesn't necessarily restrict itself to actual, literal, fighting and war). ^gnostic 01:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

If my interpretation is correct, SoFlah and I share an opinion regarding this article. He is, of course, welcome to correct me on the subject, but it is at least my opinion, so if I may interpret/express my thoughts;

This article, while not overtly in favor of antitheism, is rather skewed (at the time of this posting). The "Criticism & alternative views" given are either supportive or flawed/outright wrong (and such issues are helpfully pointed out in the same articles). As has been pointed out elsewhere, atheism's sole unifying trait is a lack of belief in gods (or similar entities). While it is certainly a part of this wiki's mission to dispel misconceptions and lies regarding atheism, not all atheists support antitheism, and some are even opposed to it.

This in mind; would it be deemed acceptable for this article to be edited so that it better represents a more complete view on the subject of antitheism? - Gameboy (talk) 00:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

PS: As a side note, I am unfamiliar with Mr.^(honorific?) Dawkins' arguments regarding antitheism, and as a result, cannot comment on them. - Gameboy (talk) 00:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Marx

(can't remember login, was active a few months back under Ho Chi Mihn Holiday Inn)

While I agree with a good amount of the depiction of Marx, there are parts that are confusing to me. This section in particular has no basis in Marx from my readings of his work:

However, Marx emphasized that it was not necessary for the overthrow of the unfair capitalist system to precede the abolition of religion and that it would be better, if not helpful to the means, for religion and theism to be abandoned beforehand.

When, exactly, did Marx say anything remotely like this, let alone emphasizing it, in his critique of religion? This is precisely the opposite view of what Marx wrote in his Critique of Hegel, and is certainly not a view held by Engels, Lenin, or future Marxists. I'll let both Engels and Lenin speak for themselves:

"And this demand that men should be changed into atheists par ordre du mufti is signed by two members of the Commune who have really had opportunity enough to find out that, first, a vast amount of things can be ordered on paper without necessarily being carried out; and, second, that persecution is the best means of promoting undesirable convictions!"-Engels

"Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, ie, to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated."-Lenin ^{— Unsigned, by: 98.225.192.242 / talk / contribs}

I know this is old as fuck, but I think it's worth bumping. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 13:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The two-and-a-half year revert

Now, I dislike Proxima's writing as much as anyone else on this site, but reverting to your own version (with a slight correction) from two years ago is a bit too much...

Oh, and I'm not very impressed by arguments from etymology. In my experience, the label is used somewhat arbitrarily.--ZooGuard (talk) 09:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Anti-antithiesm

The Pol Pot counter argument is based a strawman; it's not that athiesm will turn someone into a tyrant anymore than thiesm, in and of itself, will turn anyone into a tyrant. It's that athiesm is a part of their ideology, and their ideology was toxic. The same explanation can be given to all religious tyrants, believing in God, whatever that means, in and of itself doesn't make anyone do anything.

What is atheist ideology, why must an atheist believe in it, and how would it be toxic? If you want to change things you need to do more than make vague generalities. An easy to read list for each belief would make things go a ton faster knowing people around here. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Are all antitheists anti-Semitic?

Technically they are against Judaism too, so are they? I am an antitheist myself and always was curious. Sievert 81 (talk) 20:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Not necessarily; I'm an antitheist, and I think Jews are okay; it's their religion I don't like. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{Steal my ideas} 20:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. That's why I left Conservapedia. Too much religious crap. I originally tried to edit around the religion but then I got sick of it and left. I don't dislike Jews. I dislike Judaism. Sievert 81 (talk) 20:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

If an individual thinks that all religions are inherently bad, that does not tell you anything about what opinion they might hold about the people who believe in various religions. They might well regard believers as victims.

Looking at it another way ... Christians do not believe in the tenants of Judaism and might believe that that religion had some bad aspects - but that does not mean that all Christians are anti-Semitic.

Having said that, an antitheist, a Christian or a Muslim could all potentially be antisemites - but that would be because they were jerks.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

There's also another thing to consider, non-theistic versions of religions. There's atheistic Jews for whom Judaism is all about culture, mythology, and social rituals. For that matter, in greatly secularized Christian countries, a large portion of people who think of themselves as Christian don't believe in God, but they may participate in Christian events (e.g. Sweden). And so on for other religions, to varying extents (though I know less about it). Which points to that it's possible in antitheism to separate theism even from the culture that traditionally included it, beyond separating it from the theists as persons. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)