Is there such a thing as a moderate atheist?

[Swede]

I'm not sure anymore.

[w4rma]

1. Yes. (nt)

[Swede]

5. That's nice to know.

nt

[Random_Australian]

2. Nah, all us atheist go round shooting churches, like you see on the news every night.

[WorldResident]

3. His name's Rudy Giuliani

:D

[uppityperson]

4. Of course. eom

[kath]

6. And we're all SO immoral - we do all KINDS of terrible things!

[leftofthedial]

7. All atheists are far more moderate than the religiously insane.

Atheism is a measured and rational world view.

[Random_Australian]

8. Is this an "broad brush attack" competition? Here's mine: Do any Christians

not stone people to death for eating shellfish?


Yup, I think that's nearly as wrong as the OP, but this is going to be a close competition.

[Kelly Rupert]

10. That's a silly line of attack.

All Christians believe that Jesus negated the Old Testament dietary laws.

[Random_Australian]

14. Um, you did read my post, right? There was no line of attack.

And for the record, you stand corrected. I know a couple who don't. :) I have to agree they are very, very rare though.

[Kelly Rupert]

9. Sure. I don't believe in God. I also believe in respecting

all people's faiths and beliefs, as basic human courtesy. I also believe that my religious beliefs are my own, and I only share them with others when I am asked to. I would assume that makes me a "moderate" atheist.

Of course, if you mean someone between an atheist and a theist, we have those. They're called agnostics.

[Swede]

12. Courtesy is the answer.

nt.

[papau]

44. I agree - you are a "moderate" atheist since the term as you noted is more about being civil/polite

n/t

[gravity]

11. Are you talking about religious beliefs or political affiliation?

[Canuckistanian]

13. I don't give a shit about religion

Does that make me a moderate or a radical?

[Swede]

15. Neither. I wish that is how politics was.

Unfortunately that's now it is going.

[kdpeters]

16. Is there a such thing as a Christian atheist?

Or an atheist Christian? I don't give a fig. They're all so snarky, judgemental and disrespectful, I just keep my spiritual journey to myself. that's where I like it and that's where it's all mine but hurts no one.

Who cares about the self proclaimed deciders? they have no business in my journey unless they respect it. Otherwise, they can all piss off.

[Skink]

17. Moderate yes. A little defensive sometimes.

[Der Blaue Engel]

18. Please define. n/t

[Skink]

36. Were kind of like introverts.

75 percent of people are not introverts and they gang up on us quiet people.

[fishwax]

19. I don't understand the question. Moderate how?

:shrug:

[Jonathan50]

20. There are weak atheists and strong atheists..

The strong atheist says: There is no God.

The weak atheist says: I do not believe in God.

The difference is subtle but it is there, one is a positive affirmation of belief and the other is the lack of belief.

I suppose the strong atheist position could be construed as a religion of sorts.

Personally I'm a weak atheist.

[Swede]

23. Thanks.

DU has opened my eyes in so many ways.

[Jonathan50]

31. You're welcome...

I realize that many theists haven't had much or any opportunity to converse with atheists in a neutral setting and I welcome the chance to explain atheism.

Many atheists are defensive due to the great prejudice against us in the USA and they lash out when the opportunity arises to do so. I find it regrettable but it seems to be a fact of human nature to do so.

If you can think of any other questions, please feel free to ask.

[Swede]

51. Thanks for a nice reply.

With your permission I will PM you. I am a believer, I don't care if you are an atheist,Wiccan or Scientology's. Life is a journey and a destination.

[Bake]

39. The atheist says, "There is no God"

The agnostic says, "I don't know if there's a god."

The apathetic says, "I don't care if there's a god."

Fire away.

Bake

[Random_Australian]

45. That's pretty silly, the amount of times we have to tell people that their notions

of atheism are wrong and stereotyped.... Bah.

[Jamastiene]

21. wtf kind of question is THAT?

:wtf: Of course, there is a such thing as a moderate atheist. You have to ask?

[Swamp Rat]

22. About what would they be moderate?

[robinlynne]

25. I understood political moderates who dont believe in god. (like my mother,

my father, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents....)

[Swamp Rat]

29. With no other information I could not make a correlation with any other variable, like "political."

:shrug:

[robinlynne]

24. of course. what a silly question.

[Gabi Hayes]

26. here

http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/index.php

[ninkasi]

27. The most ethical, moral, best in every sense of the word

man I ever knew was my first father-in-law. A little background...I married his son in 1960, when I was 17, and my husband was 36. My father-in-law was a doctor, but due to his age then, only maintained an office practice, and no longer did surgery. He had come here from Mexico in the 1920s, and when WWII started, even though he was too old to draft, volunteered to go, feeling that he owed his country his service during a time of war.

He served in North Africa, and an ambulance he was riding in was bombed, shattering his hip. After the war, he was thrown from a horse, and the same hip was shattered, so he had to have a special shoe built up to use in order to walk. By the time I met him, as I said, he had given up hospital practice, and was open only for office visits.

This man, who spoke five languages fluently, and had studied in Vienna, and Mexico, kept his office open because the majority of his patients were Latino, and he was extremely lenient about payments, giving out as many drug samples as he could for patients who couldn't afford to but prescriptions, things like that. This man who could have retired years earlier, opened his office 7 days a week, and as early as 4AM, because, as he explained, his patients could lose their jobs for missing a day's work. He tried to be available to them to prevent any economic hardship on their part.

At seventy, he was getting ready to retire. What he was waiting for, though, was for a doctor who would agree to be good to his patients, and understood their economic hardships. Due to his previous injuries, he parked several blocks from his office, in order to exercise his bad leg. One early morning, he was shot as he walked from his car to his office. He had not yet retired. A man was seen leaning over his body, looking, we assume, for money, but was scared off by an an employee of an all-night drug store. This happened in downtown Houston.

He always proclaimed himself to be an atheist, and said he had stopped believing in God. I never, ever, would have asked him why, but I can tell you that the way he lived his life, the compassion he showed to others, is the reason I said that he was the best, most moral, and ethical man I've ever met. He did things out of his belief in fairness, compassion, and giving a helping hand to those who needed it. He was not driven by a fear of hell, or of a reward in heaven. He did, every day, what he could to ease the lives of those he came into contact with. He has been dead for over 35 years, and I still miss him.

He was an atheist, but you can all judge for yourselves what kind of man he was.

[Swede]

30. He sounds like a great guy.

How can I judge such a giver of live?

[Hekate]

41. What a wonderful man. My late mother raised us with a powerful ethical sense...

...and a belief in the power of human reason. She told me that when she broke from the Roman Catholic Church in her early 20s she thought long and hard about how she could raise her children with the parts of religion she admired (i.e. the ethical component) without relying on references to Jesus and God, in whom she no longer believed. (She kept the guilt, though ;-))

There's no way she would have gone around being aggressive about her lack of "faith," although if pressed she would say she was agnostic.

In my mother's house there was an emphasis on doing the right thing, being ethical, treating others as you would have them treat you, and using your rational capacity; I even remember hearing the words "social contract" at a very early age. You are supposed to internalize these attributes as you grow up, becoming and remaining upright, honest, hardworking, kind, and a productive member of society.

I myself an not an atheist, but I cannot imagine how a person can completely externalize their moral/ethical component and project it onto the figure of God.

My former son in law did that -- he thought of himself as a fundamentalist Christian and he said to me more than once that if he didn't believe in God, there would be no reason for him not to get out of bed in the morning and go murder someone. I thought then -- and still do -- that that was one of the most asinine statements I ever heard in my life and that it displayed a vast ignorance of the fundamentals of Christianity, although I didn't express it that way to his face.

In my life, some of the best and most tolerant people I have known have been religious, and some of the best and most tolerant people I have known have been non-religious. And clearly, my first teacher in this was my mother.

Hekate

[MonkeyFunk]

28. No, of course not

we're all suicide bombers. :eyes:

[Jonathan50]

32. LOL.. Atheist sucide bomber..

Where are my 72 virgins?..

For guys, Muslim heaven sound a *lot* better than Christian heaven..

Now, if I could only get over my lack of belief. :)

[Hamlette]

33. to many believers, the very words "there is no god" makes the person "not moderate"

I've never understood that. Maybe someone could explain. I encounter people who when I say "there is no god" they get very upset and claim I am attacking them. But those same people think there is nothing wrong in saying "there is a god".

[Jonathan50]

40. I suspect it is because they are having doubts about their own faith.

And when you vocalize that which they can barely even admit to themselves as possibly being true they get defensive.

It is impossible to prove the existence or nonexistence of God so saying "there is no God" is about as rational as saying "there is a God".

I have a number of reasons for not believing in a God, some philosophical and some rationally logical but none of them are definitive proof.

Hence I am a weak atheist.

[mondo joe]

34. Is there such a thing as a moderate disbelief in leprechauns?

Or do people who disbelieve in leprechauns have to be absolutist about it?

[Random_Australian]

42. Lacking belief versus believing in lack, of course.

Just like implicit/explicit atheism.

[Gabi Hayes]

35. take the blasphemy challenge.

http://www.blasphemychallenge.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7QVbJnSPQE

[Gabi Hayes]

37. that first guy is WRONG about one thing, though!

[pnwmom]

38. I like to call them

agnostics.

[lostnotforgotten]

43. What Does A Metaphysical Opinion Have To Do With Politics

The question reflects the worst sort of conflation.

[JNelson6563]

46. Yep, I'm one

with that said, such threads are nonsense and shouldn't be in GD.

Julie

[hedgehog]

47. Yes, there are moderate atheists, they're called

Unitarians!


(It's a joke!)

[GliderGuider]

48. Speaking as one of those myself

Nice one.

Q: what do you get if you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian?
A: someone who knocks on your door for no reason at all.

[hedgehog]

50. I love good natured religion jokes!

Garrison Keillor has a ton of them!

[CarbonDate]

49. Have you stopped beating your wife?

Just wondering.

[Skinner]

52. locking

broad-brush