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The arrogance of being right

I sometime read religious boards and it amazes and disappoints me how much religious zealots and atheist have in common – the absolute and righteous certainty that they at the exclusion of others possess knowledge/revelations that makes them the bearers of the truth.

Recently on a different Atheist discussion board a lady that had just lost her young daughter wrote about her religious experience and of the comfort she receivers from her faith. She politely shared her heart breaking story and even offered words of kindness. The replies were predictably brutal and mocking, barely a shred of compassion for a mother that lost her child. I made my best to present my atheist point of view to this lady but I did so with respect, compassion and understanding. I also felt ashamed for my fellow atheists.

I see it here too at nexus, the same hubris and arrogance that at times is such that some individuals proclaim that their philosophies are “my own religion” while others are themselves “…my own religion” and their church is “my flesh and blood”. Does this sound strangely familiar? I suppose soon we will have Gods among us.

Before we all get too heady from over indulging in the advantages of having the weight of evidence in our favor, we should remember that pointing out the irrationality of religion is as-easy-as- shooting-fish-in-a-barrel! The real challenge is offering something better.

We are no better than those that dismiss us and demean us for being atheist if we dismiss and demean them for being believers. The belittling of others only diminishes us and at the very least makes us as misguided as we see theists to be.

It would serve us all well to remember that before presenting our carefully constructed arguments we could show something very simple – respect – and maybe even modesty.

If you believe that logic and reason offers superior guidance than mysticism and religion then BE the example.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 10, 2010 at 8:14am

Yes. I'm starting to question Miguel's motives. This whole story has the trite air of a Sunday school parable. Neat and digestible, designed for the uncritical audience.

Permalink Reply by Miguel on July 10, 2010 at 2:48pm

Roy,

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not going to ambush people that took part in another conversation by placing their comments in the public square. I don’t wish to publicly shame anyone much in the same way that I would not go through our comments to copy and paste them elsewhere.

My reply to this lady was lengthy so bellow are what I think the most relevant parts of my comments to the lady that lost her daughter. I think you will find that I did not back off from challenging her views but I did so as politely as I could.

My reply:

W---, thank you for taking the time write and share with us words that must have been difficult to write…

[…] I understand that [your faith] was not born of out of calculated reasoning or prolonged deliberation on the paradox of miracles in a world subject to natural laws. Rather it was born out of great pain and the need to come to terms with the unfathomable… There could be no other way of accepting the existence of a benevolent God when a child is taken from you unless you have faith that there will be a later explanation that can resolve the loss of that child.

[… ] I can understand the role that religion and faith have in many people’s lives but we must also acknowledge that although religion may be a source of comfort and maybe even wisdom, religion and faith are not the tools for the advancement of knowledge or society.

Take for example what you said about cancer, you are attributing your cancer to your anger with God after the loss of your daughter. I have friends that do research on cancer and AIDS and have made significant contributions to our understanding of both. What if they and others like them were to quit and simply say if don’t want cancer then “you need to come to terms with God.”

It’s projected that cancer rates will increase by 40% in the next 20 years. What should we do? I don’t mean to sound harsh but these are the facts and if we think that God is behind things like cancer then why look for a cure?

…not the greatest of hope nor the greatest of grief can change that Nature and the world is as we find it and not as we hope or dream it to be. And what a wondrous and fascinating world it is.

W---, I shared [my own experience of loss] to show you that in grief and pain we all turn to what we know to look for consolation. I tried to reason the existence of a universal justice that would allow me to not only be with my wife once more but to see the boy I never saw. But that is a dream that when bittersweet memories creep up I find solace in. Still, I separate my dreams from the world of the here and now because in my limited time on this planet I would like to make a difference through my work and the problems at hand require that I face the world as it is.

Again, I'm sorry about the loss of your girl. I hope that you are well.
Miguel

Did I abdicate reason in light of her tragic loss? I don’t think so.

What would have been gained if I ridiculed her statements that her “Dad” is Jesus or that the story of Jobe explains all suffering? I highly doubt that my comments influenced her in any way, but I don’t have to pre-empt her irrationality with my own by mocking her.

Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on July 10, 2010 at 8:38pm

Miguel, I need Proof of Life. I need the exact time in print your supposed reply above became live.

Before you venture into a demolition job, make sure you have the proper tools. Until you supply me with the proper links (do a screen-shot!) I will consider this tale of bereavement pure fiction not from a theist mole but CLOSE enough.

If I am wrong about this, my molestake, err mistake. :)

Permalink Reply by Miguel on July 10, 2010 at 11:06pm

I explained my reasons for not posting other people's comments in another website without their permission and I certainly am not going to the trouble to try to get it.

How many people openly and even proudly admitted to being rude on this very discussion and you need proof are you kidding?

I will have to leave you with the satisfaction of believing that I'm a theist mole.

Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on July 11, 2010 at 12:04am

No, I am not kidding.

I am not defending the people here who disagreed with you as they are perfectly capable of defending themselves. You provoked them. Theist mole, troll? All the same.

If I was politely requesting for proof in my previous posts, now I am demanding it.

My concern is your story of the bereaved mother. Fact or Fiction? I asked for proof, you just keep on evading it. As things stand, it is fiction and you just manufactured it.

I leave it to the thinking A|N members to decide who is the clown here.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 11, 2010 at 12:34am

Miguel: I explained my reasons for not posting other people's comments in another website without their permission and I certainly am not going to the trouble to try to get it.

The only thing Roy asked you for was a link - not a complete reprint and DNA profile. I assume it's a public forum. The only grounds for your secrecy would be if it didn't exist. You're not telling fibs are you?

How many people openly and even proudly admitted to being rude on this very discussion and you need proof are you kidding?

OK, you tell me who? Unprovoked rudeness - zero. Provoked rudeness - everyone that has a spine.

Your line of argument and reasoning is a train wreck. It has no cohesion or direction or logic. It's consistent feature is your quivering lip of indignation propped up by the arrogant hubris of which you accuse us.

Either be coherent and back up your statements or shut the fuck up. There are minimum standards for discussion here that you completely fail to meet. Your incoherence is that of a troll feebly scraping away because he's not getting the responses he wants. I'm not going to ask you what you really want because you won't answer that honestly. But you are not going to get any respect or be treated seriously unless you lift your game. You're just wasting time otherwise.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 11, 2010 at 2:09am

There are people here with worse english than yours Fred. If you can't understand what's been said here, it's most probably because you don't want to. Here -

Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on July 11, 2010 at 2:41am

This post is based on a fabricated story meant to incite negative responses. To me, that is what is sad about this and disgusting at the same time.

Miguel played us. I am giving him the courtesy to lick his wounds. Until he supplies the appropriate links to show that this is based on a real event and not imagined, I am standing by my position that this is nothing but a pile of horse shit

Fools rush in.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 11, 2010 at 6:07am

Roy: This post is based on a fabricated story meant to incite negative responses.

This is precisely it. This is the gazzillionth re-run of exactly the same crap: "atheists are so intolerant blah blah" followed by miscellaneous chain yanking, faux indignation and "I told you so"'s. On a significant number of occasions it was indeed guerrilla theists on a mission. Most of the rest have been militant agnostics with an axe to grind against atheists, probably because an atheist made then feel stupid once too often. I used to laugh at the very idea of the latter, but unfortunately they do exist. Whatever they are the goal seems to be the same - to push someone to the point where they make an unfortunate outburst which then can get filed away to be used as necessary in promoting similar noise-fests elsewhere. An equally important goal is to rub their wank blistered palms together gleefully while congratulating themselves on their own cleverness. Yes, some folks are that petty and brainless. Fred's sympathy is just a special, unlooked for bonus.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on July 10, 2010 at 5:53am

Okay, I've got one more comment to make on this bit and I'm gonna bail, but here it is:

WHY would someone go into the enemy's camp, looking for comfort?
Why didn't this person go into a believers' group, instead?

This is a behavior I see all the time on another board I work, and without exception, the reason is to proselytize, period. It's possible you can argue that the initial response statement might better have been, "Ma'am, I believe you're in the wrong forum," or whatever, but again, she KNOWINGLY went in there.

This is a pattern we see time and time again: the theists invade OUR space and vastly more often than we do theirs (at least to my experience). Done once it might be a mistake, but multiple times, the pattern and intent becomes all too clear.

Those who want to be purposefully stupid will eventually find themselves paying the price for being stupid.

That's all I've got. I'm outta here.

Permalink Reply by Miguel on July 10, 2010 at 12:23pm

"Those who want to be purposefully stupid will eventually find themselves paying the price for being stupid."

Let us hope for your sake that the price will not be more than you can bear.

Permalink Reply by D R Hosie on July 10, 2010 at 1:42pm

I agree, Loren - this thread has gone about as long as it could (probably longer than it should).

uɐƃoɹƃ ɥɔןǝɟ, this kinda reminds me of one of the last guys to get 'bounced' out of here. No sense getting into an ass-kickin' contest with someone who doesn't have a leg to stand on ;)