Yikes. No. I’m saying that it LOOKS like an Art Bell style conspiracy-theory style screed, with its bad clip art, its screaming fonts, and the accusation that they’re building an “incest and genocide park”. I don’t think you know what a straw argument is, but that’s not what I’m saying.
No, I’m not. I’m suggesting a better use of billboards and public education around the issue. The people of Kentucky don’t need badly-designed screaming junk like this on their highways; it brings nothing to the argument beyond hair-on-fire reactionary finger pointing. It’s clear you’d rather anger people than educate them, though.
I think that there is plenty of room for a diversity of opposition for the Ark Park’s shenanigans. No single effort needs to be all encompassing. Advocacy doesn’t have to be lowest common denominator. And ridicule can, in fact, be an effective tool in public debate.
Isn’t countering something with “that’s a straw argument!!” rather than actually debating a point, in itself a straw argument? It’s lousy debating of thoughts, in any case.
Some people prefer to mock, scream, and ridicule, and that’s fine. It can absolutely draw attention to an issue. My feeling is that when the opposition sinks below its target in rhetoric (and really ugly, awful design), it hurts their argument. But as long as there’s multiple voices drawing attention to something, different tones are just fine.
I’d like to support getting rid of the tax subsidies for a religious theme park, but I find the billboard insulting. If you disagree with someone, you don’t need to insult them. We’ve plenty of that in the zoo that’s passing for a Presidential bid this year.
If the details of the religious myth taught as fact by the Ark Park seem insulting, perhaps you should consider that to be on the religion and the the park that teaches this horrible story (as the act of a benevolent god) rather than on the billboard that exposes the precepts of the story. Scientology, too, has an intense dislike of having it’s awful religious myths exposed to the public, becoming infamously litigious in its efforts to stomp out public exposure that leads to public ridicule.
What is the insulting part? The genocide? The incest? Calling a myth a myth?
I think this park trying to use religious discrimination in their hiring is far, far more offensive than a billboard that notes the genocide and incest that is in the story.
Hi IronEdithKidd. I’m quite prepared to concede that religious people are guilty of all kinds of perfidy. The question is whether atheists have any grounds to be angry at them given the presuppositions of atheism. My discussion with LDoBe might make it clearer.
I think the issue is that you confuse Atheism with Nihilism. There is an argument that one is the natural consequence of the other, but it’s not widely accepted, and especially not among Atheists themselves. .
Thanks for catching this. A flaw in the Discourse commenting system. I clicked on the quoted dug post and used the Discourse quote function, but it seems that Discourse does not get the attributes right if you quote from a post revealed by clicking the up arrow.
Not a survey but simple observation! I’m quite happy to allow the point that atheism does not necessarily reject entities like souls (especially in former times). But I’m genuinely surprised that you think it worth bringing up in this day and age.
Do you yourself subscribe to this more metaphysically exuberant atheism, Skeptic (sic)?
It might lead to nihilism, but I’m simply talking about determinism being a necessary implication of scientific materialism.
If by “simple observation” you mean plural of anecdote with a heaping of confirmation bias.
You are still missing my point. The only thing that all atheists have in common is a lack of belief in a god or gods. There is no requirement that this lack of belief must be acquired through a reliance on science.
Anyways, back to the topic. You wrote:
[quote=“Skeptic, post:132, topic:75257”]Hi IronEdithKidd. I’m quite prepared to concede that religious people are guilty of all kinds of perfidy. The question is whether atheists have any grounds to be angry at them given the presuppositions of atheism.
[/quote]
No, that is not the question. The non-existent pre-suppositions of atheism don’t come in to play. One can oppose the unconstitutional mixing of government and religion that is the Ark Park regardless of whether one is a theist or a non-theist. Mixing government and religion is the enemy of pluralism and equality. The only way to treat all religions equally, and lack of religion, is to keep them out of government entanglement entirely.
That simply means one has no belief based on faith in the supernatural. In plainer terms means they do not feel the need to accept supernatural batshit. Pretty much everyone who does not sacrifice animals to ensure a good rain is this.
