Starting Point: This is NOT a thread about the existence of God, or gods. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone. In fact, I'm going to try to do my best to stay out of this one, outside of the initial question. Not making any promises, but that's the intent. I'm posting this to learn something. At most I'll ask for clarification, if required.
Rather, this is a discussion around what it would take to bridge the gap we see here, between atheists and theists. We see a lot of angry posting here, that goes well beyond the academic debate of "real or not real", from both sides. Is there a way to deal with that anger, or is this a manifestation of the overly combative climate we find ourselves in generally?
Of course I have my own thoughts, but I'm trying to leave this wide open.
Important note: It is important to acknowledge that not all atheists and theists fall into the "angry" category. Many folks are happy to live and let live, irrespective of what camp they have landed in. If you are not "angry", which we'll define for this thread as going out of your way to disrespect someone for their lack of belief or belief as a starting point, then I am not attempting to say that you are.
So...if you're "angry" at atheists, what would it take your to not be? And, if you're "angry" at theists, what would it take to not be?
IMO the biggest problem is that there is very little evidence that any god exists. And now, with the internet, there is nowhere for theists to hide this fact, so they fall behind immediately as each of their arguments has been debunked time and time again. For example, I was involved in two discussions yesterday.
The first was a theist who introduced a 12 step (or so) argument that god existed based strictly on logic. Of course, there were all sorts of mistakes with the logic, and numerous people repeatedly pin pointed errors. The biggest being that the "logic" could be used to poof anything into existence, simply by replacing the word "God" with an alternative such as "Leprechauns". This of course meant that contradictory beings could be poofed into existence, and thus the entire argument failed. Instead of admitting the failing the theist said it only applied to necessary beings. They then claimed their God was a necessary being, and Santa Claus wasn't. When asked that they provide their burden of proof to support these claims, they went off on crazy tangents, like
"You proved God exists...Huzzah!!", etc. It was bizarre.
In the second, a theist was literally denying the words of the bible. I quoted a verse, it was very plain what it said, but the theist absolutely refused to admit the meaning of the words. At one point they claimed that when Jesus said
"Slaves obey your masters" he really meant
"Employees obey your employers". I correctly pointed out that a typical Middle School student wouldn't make that mistake, and thus their argument was that Jesus couldn't write as coherently as a typical Middle School student. The reply to that was a personal attack where the theist claimed I had no respect for myself, for my employer, etc. Again, it was bizarre, but this happens to numerous other atheists as well, so while my behavior might not have been perfect, it clearly wasn't the only cause.
In my experience, as soon as most theists start losing the argument, they either start lashing out with insults, or they refuse to have a mature discussion, instead giving bizarre non sequiturs. And as they have no good evidence to support their claims, they tend to fall behind rather quickly.
:lol:
