Atheism A Religion Of the Condescending Intellectuals

[rug]

Ibhubesi
Atheism A Religion Of the Condescending Intellectuals
09 December 2011, 11:21

Over the last few weeks we have had some serious debate raging here on News24 about atheism and other religions, mostly the Christians trying to prove the Atheists they need to be saved.

You sit and read both sides of the coin with the Atheists hitting you with all the intellectual stuff and the Christians with all the fairytale stuff. As the debate rages on and you read about Darwin, black holes, evolution and Big Bang Theories, you come to the conclusion that Atheism is the new religion for bored intellectuals wanting to outdo each other with stuff even more scary than a devil and his hot stinging poker. It has no doubt become a fashion accessory amongst the snobs.

Like most people I too wanted to label myself as something and for years I thought I was an atheist. In the black community where I come from, this word is never mentioned.

So what I am about to say about religion, be it the Atheism of the clever intellectuals or Christianity, Mohammed or Buddha of the fairytale people, don’t read any further because you are about to hear the squatter side of faith. Here will be no theories or bibles of any sort in this article. Nothing to stimulate your Atheist condescension or on the other side, your delirious belief in magic stuff.

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Atheism-A-Religion-Of-the-Condescending-Intellectuals-20111209

[Ian David]

1. Well, the important thing...

[cleanhippie]

8. Win

[AmericaIsGreat]

2. Maybe it is a "fashion accessory" for some people

But it's still not a religion.

[Ikonoklast]

3. I take it the author is a "Fingersinmyearsist".

Must be difficult trying so hard to be superior to all one might meet.

Guess that scary intellectual stuff the Atheists were spouting scared his ignorant, uninformed self so he hides behind belittling that he cannot fathom.

Oh, and Atheism is not a religion, no matter how many times people may state that as fact.

[rug]

4. He just oozes superiority.

"Up until the age of 9, when I was orphaned, I was dressed up in my Sunday Best and followed my mother to a Catholic church in Soweto. I would have to sit still and watch some very crazy rituals and in the process taught myself to count. I started counting from one, and about at about 5400 counts the service or torture would be over.

"After my mother’s death it took about two weeks for me to open the last tin of peas and after that a terrible hunger would set in. My father left us when I was very small after he had infected her with the dreaded disease nobody talks about. My mother and I ended up in a tin shack on the wrong side of Soweto with her cleaning white people’s houses to keep us alive."

[Ikonoklast]

7. The circumstances of his childhood have little to do with his condescending attitude.

Many have grown up in as bad or worse circumstances, yet fail to denigrate that which they do not understand.


I give no 'points' for his previous station in life, as I give none to those born to luxury.

[rug]

11. You confuse his reaction to condescension with the condescension itself.

I do give him points for what he's gone through. I doubt he'd call it "his previous station in life".

[Ikonoklast]

27. Not everyone who grew up in poverty is a saint.

Not all those born to wealth are evil.

[darkstar3]

16. Nailed it.

[noamnety]

5. The last time I sat through a church service

The pastor was preaching to his Lutheran congregation that "rationale thought is the work of the devil." He was warning them against it.

[Thats my opinion]

35. Stupidity is stupidity

Are you sure that is what he said, or is that filtered through whatever you wanted him to say? I have never heard in all my decades, any minister say anything like that. On the contrary, part of the great commandment is to love God with all your mind.

[noamnety]

40. That was EXACTLY what he said

in those words. I wasn't paraphrasing. It was an entire sermon about the dangers of listening to "rational thought" instead of relying on faith alone, and that was said during the sermon.

[trotsky]

42. Your problem is that you never visit churches outside your ivory tower circles.

If you actually went and studied how the majority of Christians worship and think in this country, I believe you'd be in for a huge surprise.

[skepticscott]

44. Sheesh, you are a piece of work. Come down

out of your ivory tower of intellectual puffery and self-congratulatory "liberal" Xstianity for a while, and see what religion is like in the lives of ordinary people in this country, not just the out-of-touch think-tankers you spend all your time listening to and blathering about.

Do you have no idea at all how bankrupt it is to say (as you frequently do) that because you personally haven't experienced something, that the likelihood that it is true is significantly reduced?

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Peasant. n/t

[Jim__]

9. "The Universe has all the answers to all our needs and if we listen to its voice ...

"... we will never be lost."

It really seems like there are different answers for different people. If each of us can find an answer that works, then he's right, the universe does have the answers to our needs.

[trotsky]

10. What if the answer a person receives...

is that life begins at conception and abortion doctors are murderers, and must be executed to save innocent lives?

[MarkCharles]

12. Somehow, I don't think a believer will come back and answer your question...

they seem to shy away from the really tough ones like that.

[LARED]

18. Then that person is a nut that happens to be religious,

and breaking the law and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. Of course you make it sound like pro-life people routinely murder abortion doctors. I think the number of murders is around 4 in US modern history.

[trotsky]

19. Then that's 4 too many. I don't understand why you trivialize murder.

The other poster said, " If each of us can find an answer that works, then he's right."

I gave an answer that some individuals think works. Are you disagreeing with the other poster, or me?

[LARED]

20. If it's breaking the law then obviously it doesn't work

Don't put words in my mouth. I am not trivializing murder.

My comment was a reaction to you taking an extreme and repugnant "answer" that happens only very rarely, and applying it to a general observation about how people find answers to lifes complicated questions.

[trotsky]

31. But it is what they have heard, and what they deeply believe.

Who are you to tell them they are wrong, even if it's rare? It was pretty rare to think that women had equal rights as human beings not that long ago.

[LARED]

32. It's not me, it's society telling them they are wrong

We live in a land of laws. Not subject to the whims of kings, Even if they are really really bright atheocrats or Theocrats.

It's not my place to tell them what to believe. No one has that power.

[laconicsax]

33. Atheocrats?

:rofl:

[Humanist_Activist]

50. There's nothing worse in the world than Non-Theocrats!

:rofl:

[trotsky]

37. You are part of society.

You have given your assent to its laws by participating in its democratic processes.

And we tell each other what to believe all the time. You're doing it to me right now, in fact.

[LARED]

46. I lacked clarity

I wanted to say I can't make anyone believe anything.

[trotsky]

48. OK. So address the point that remains. n/t

[Jim__]

28. "... if we listen to its voice ..."

Do you think that's what the universe is saying? Really?

[trotsky]

30. #1, I don't think the universe is "saying" anything.

#2, That *IS* what some think it's saying - and who are you to tell them they're wrong? Are you saying that YOU know what "the voice" is really capable of saying, that you can tell who is listening to it correctly, and who isn't?

[Jim__]

39. Ipso facto, you don't believe that's what the universe is saying.

[trotsky]

41. The question here is how you are judging that for others.

How you can say your reality is more valid than theirs? (Though I suspect that yet again, you will introduce another red herring or simply run away as usual.)

[Jim__]

53. The answer here is that I'm not judging that for others.

[trotsky]

55. Oh but you absolutely are.

You are deciding that the universe could not possibly tell someone to execute an abortion provider. I want to know how you can tell someone that what the universe told them is wrong. Will you explain, or just throw out a subject-line-only post and avoid the question, running away again?

[dtexdem]

13. That is how some atheists act, but far from all.

I have known many atheists who are not condescending -- and in fact, some who are not intellectuals. Yes, I have a lot of trouble with fundamentalist atheists, who act much like fundamentalist Christians, just with a different content. But just as there are many open-minded, rational, non-condescending believers, so there are many such atheists.

I just don't have enough faith, or rather belief, to be either one; but I don't condemn those who do have such beliefs.

[dmallind]

14. What bad things have "fundamentalist atheists" done?

What belief does it take to be an atheist?

[Humanist_Activist]

51. What the fuck is a fundamentalist atheist?

Also what beliefs are required to be one?

[NMMNG]

52. ...

[beam me up scottie]

15. "(Christianity is)...a religion for insecure people that can’t face the realities of life."

As I grew older and the crowds around me would take the journey off to the churches to go pray, I would wash cars and practice one of the greatest principals the Universe taught me and that is work.

Christianity is a real big evil the white man brought with him from Europe. It taught Africans that the illusive god will fix everything that is wrong if you pray hard enough and have an undying faith. Some say Jesus came along in 1994 and saved us from the Nationalists. I think we all know we were merely saved from one evil to all be victim of the next corrupt evil.

Christianity is also no good for Africans because it teaches them to sit and pray and all will miraculously happen. They will never see a light and realise that the required 10% is all that really matters for their preachers. Christianity is the most convenient excuse to justify everything that is wrong and create hope in minds that can never be realised. A religion for insecure people that can’t face the realities of life.

[Thats my opinion]

36. Fundamentalist bigotry takes many forms nt

[skepticscott]

43. Which of course you will decline to provide any examples of

when it comes to nonbelievers. You'll simply leave your implied smear up there, and then slink away, as usual.

[beam me up scottie]

54. Funny that you point that out when the op refers to atheism but not when referring to your religion

And by funny I mean typical of fundamentalist bigotry.

[darkstar3]

17. Anyone who refers to atheism as a religion with a capital "A" can't tell their ass from their elbow.

[NMMNG]

21. My cat's breath smells like cat food

[beam me up scottie]

22. Your cat eats catfood because he believes he's a cat.

Better make sure he doesn't start asking questions or learn how to read.

[NMMNG]

24. My other cat eats most human foods

Just last night she ate the remains of my General Tso's sauce and my wife's spicy lamb shanks. She also goes nuts for seaweed. Perhaps she believes she's human.

[beam me up scottie]

25. My dad had a cat he would share his dinner with.

She would sit by his chair and wait for him to put her share in her dish.

I tried to feed her once, I put a few pieces of my dinner on the floor next to her and she wouldn't touch it. She just gave me dirty looks.

My dad translated "You expect me to eat off the floor? What do you think I am, an aminal or something?".

:rofl:

[NMMNG]

26. We are but servants to our feline overlords

"In ancient Egypt, cats were worshiped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this."

[Silent3]

23. Anti-intellectualism is wonderfully self-protective

If you try to put forth an intelligent argument to overcome an anti-intellectual position all the anti-intellectual has to do is call you "too clever", stick his fingers in his ears, and then, while humming loudly to himself, he can relax, smugly certain of the rightness of his ignorance.

[LARED]

29. I'm not defending anti-intellectualism, but the world is full of examples

of folks considered intellectuals that promoted and implemented what are really dumb ideas in the face of valid criticisms by "lesser beings".

All this of course takes place while the intellectuals has their fingers in their ears while humming loudly to himself smug in his superior knowledge.

[Silent3]

34. That OP's original author doesn't show any signs of "valid criticism".

He simply flatly claims Christians are awful one way, Atheists are awful some other way, and then babbles some dull platitude about "listening to the universe".

[trotsky]

38. You say you're not defending anti-intellectualism,

But you're attacking and putting down intellectuals. Odd.

[LARED]

45. Humm; pointing out that intellectuals sometimes

screw stuff up because they feel they are superior is attacking them?

Pretty much the same thing anti-intellectuals do.

I thought it was just factual.

[trotsky]

47. Oh, it's plenty clear what you were doing.

You don't have to be coy.

[edhopper]

49. What the fuck is he talking about?

"As the debate rages on and you read about Darwin, black holes, evolution and Big Bang Theories, you come to the conclusion that Atheism is the new religion for bored intellectuals wanting to outdo each other with stuff even more scary than a devil and his hot stinging poker. It has no doubt become a fashion accessory amongst the snobs."

Atheist did "come up wit this stuff", it's called science and it is what has been discovered, by scientist both with and without faith. And anybody, religious or not, who does not accept the reality of these basic scientific concepts, is not living in the real world.

This whole article is just absurd.

[Deep13]

56. He's projecting.

Some people just can't wrap their heads around the idea that others simply have no need for belief.