Pentagram?
Just throw out your other cards.
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I don’t know - to me it seems like a perfectly natural selection to make.
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Even though very few people here speak German, I’d be surprised if the average American didn’t understand what ich bin means. We’re not that dumb.
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That only makes sense if you believe that Atheism is a religious preference, and therefore believe that Atheism is a religion.
But because I know this particular strain of weirdness exists I try now always to say “atheist” then “non-theist” in the same sentence.
Although I should probably look at ways of negating the assumption without reference to the label used by the assumptive assumptee.
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“Disgusting trash can”?
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What about pedantry preference? How do you show that?
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Also, Jesus tap-dancing Christ, if there’s a German construction Americans know, it’s “Ich bin…”
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Every word in German sounds like it means disgusting trash can.
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I will try to not examine how that factors into my teenage goth-industrial crushes…
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Personally, I can’t say I’m an atheist since there are some kinds of gods I could say exist in some sense, though none are really anything to get excited about or worship. So I’m mostly ignostic, with a large dollop of apathy. I’ve reached the point where I really see the whole domain as hopeless. These kind of arguments are trying to apply technical precision and rigor to a domain that’s too sloppy to ever accept them. For all the fury and zeal on both sides, I don’t see any of it as really mattering in the abstract, and all the arguments for why one really must care on either side seem like as much bullshit to me as all the rest of it. I’ll happily slag Christianity, Islam, Dawkinsite orthodox atheism, et al, if they’re stuck in my face, since they’re all incoherent messes, but the thing I loathe most of all is any kind of evangelicalism, whether it’s pro or anti religion.
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As distinct from evangelism?
It’s weird. I wonder if you can be evangelical for specificity in language. It sounds more plausible for cultural inheritence. The replicators (memes) must have a replication function by design, or attach themselves to one at least. So, whether the transmission of cultural inheritance constitutes evangelism is probably down to a matter of degree, no?
Is muttering on a message board akin to proselytising? Is all cultural communication whatsoever a religious exchange?
Can religion please keep its hands out of my everywhere please?
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No, that was a typo.
Yeah, the part of evangelism that is the problem is transmitting ontological/epistemic/metaphysical claims with some deep seated sense of urgency, necessity, and importance, where that class of claims might be interesting but are virtually always the kind of thing that’s among the lowest priority issues people face. If you’re responding to absurd claims in that domain with better thought out ones, that makes sense, but doing so with a lot of intensity and massively inflated claims of existential import is just getting sucked into the same ridiculous game. That’s a behavioral issue, really.
Can be, if you’re there because you’re trying to save someone from the grave evils of holding false ontological/epistemic/metaphysical views.
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Okay! So you’re annoyingly smug about that and the shoe thing.
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The right sole is readable and the left one is mirrored so, yes, you can leave footprints.
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I agree that moot invalidation of someone else’s position through resort to claims of personal epistemological preference in the context of a public arena can be a problem.
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Your observation doesn’t line up with my own or of my Jewish friends in the US. Are you yourself Jewish that this would matter to to personally?
No, I’m not jewish, but all the people I, personally, know who are willing to identify as out atheists are secular humanists who don’t want to see people come to harm just for their religious beliefs. Secular humanists tend to be more concerned with the whole “your liberty ends when your fist meets my face” dialog. So they work to try and keep religion separated from government. The nazis didn’t stamp “gott mit uns” on their freaking belt-buckles for nothing, after all.
And it’s not like the evangelicals leave atheists alone either. We fight for a lot of the same things as you do, including religious liberty. I say I have a right to freedom from religious meddling, you may fight for the freedom to practice yourself, and that’s essentially the same thing. As long as the religious don’t try to backstop laws and policy with more religion. I believe laws need to be grounded in concrete, provable things.
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Agreed.
