I'm honestly starting to think this might be a left/right brain phenomenon.  It seems the way atheists and non-atheists process information.

When I listen to atheists, it appears they find it rational that everything needs to be viewed empirically.  A way of thinking has no value unless it lends itself to substantiation. 

From my perspective (agnostic like Bill Maher), atheists appear to have difficulty with abstract thought, ambiguity or projection.    Not knowing seems to be a real connundrum that creates anxiety.  The response is to apply the scientific method to stuff that doesn't need it because they're afraid that terrorists will prevail without that level of vigilance.

A story can't be just a story. 

I feel ambiguity, imagination and the non-literal interpretations valuable, and would dread a world without these ways of approaching "truth" as much as I would be afraid of religious nuts taking over.  That certainly doesn't entail abandoning "reason" -- far from it.  I think pure rationality is another strange madness.......

And not a great adaptation.

Oh ye of little faith...I sleep with a unicorn almost every night!  Her name is Sparkles and she is a beautiftul white unicorn with a multicoloured horn!  My daughter goes no where without her!...cms

balckbelt, that's religious propaganda.  To choose just one of the vile quotes that have been attributed to dying men, let's look at Thomas Paine.

For reference, Thomas Paine was a deist, not an atheist, and the author of "The Age of Reason", a book that was critical of religion and advance the ideas of freethought and reason.

On his deathbed, Paine was visited by numerous religious men and women, who tried to get him to recant his published views from "The Age of Reason".  After he died, these claims of death bed confessions came out of the woodwork.  But the people who knew him and cared for him in his final days knew none of this.  Even some of his enemies said that Paine did not recant.  Thomas Paine's character has been smeared for centuries after his death, by religious cowards.  There have been charges that he beat his wife (the divorced, but remained friendly), that he defaulted on debts in England (there is no record of this, and there would be if true), and of course, the deathbed confessionals that his caregivers knew nothing about.

blackbelt, you didn't write these lies, but by propagating them, you're not much better than a liar.  If I want to use the quotes of long-dead religious leaders to make a point, I can use their actual words, admittedly spoken or written by them.  I'm not like you.  I don't defame the dead.  That's disgusting to me.

To me, the mark of the "fundie" of any kind is not just the lack of listening, but the tendency to assume that they are right and therefore have the right and even the duty to force their beliefs on others. For instance, those extreme atheists who suggest that religion is a social evil that must be stamped out by legislation if necessary or the extreme conservative Christians who wants the law to impose their views about abortion or homosexuality on society as a whole. The lack of listening and failure to accept or comprehend other's views is a symptom of this attitude of moral and theological superiority.

Mendalla

Can you point to any post on WC that advocates stamping out religion "by legislation if necessary"?  You know damn well that I can point to religious fundies on WC who want to impose their views on homosexuality and abortion.

Further, can you point to an atheistic group who advocates this, anywhere in Canada or the U.S.?

Mercifully, science by nature precludes this kind of absolutism. However, you do have the odd case of people pig-headedly clinging to a theory long after evidence has appeared to refute it. I recall that someone continued to cling to the steady state theory of the universe after the evidence for the Big Bang theory was pretty well established. However, I think this is more conservatism and stubbornness than absolutism. Human nature being what it is, we (and I am including myself in this) do not easily give up cherished ideas about our nature or that of our universe.

Mendalla

blackbelt....what are you talking about?  You don't know the first, second, or third thing about me.  I have a loving wife, one cute girl, and another kid due in a matter of weeks.  I have a career, a house, a shared cottage, friends, sports, and no debts or addictions to drugs, alcohol, or nicotine.  All things considered, I think I'm doing pretty well.

A month or so ago, for no obvious reason to me, you suggested that I was doing cocaine.  Last week, you asked what I was addicted to.  You seem convinced that any atheist who appears happy and together and can spell, must be a tortured, drug-addled wreck, bound for ruin.

Meanwhile, you are sharing libelous statements about dead men.  If there is a hell, wouldn't there be a place in it for cowardly people who attack the dead in this way?

Ahhh...OK, so you mean when I'm dead.  Somehow, you have your god treating you and your fellow sanctimonius blowhards to a heavenly afterlife, and damning me to hell.

On the off-chance that you're right about that afterlife thing, I sincerely doubt it.  It would have to be a seriously screwed-up god to reward your brand of self-righteousness.

That's not exactly "opinions aside" my friend, as I'm sure hansen will be happy to remind you.

As for me, I don't care a hoot in the holler' if people live a compassionate life here because they think that's what gets them into the hereafter club or because they think they better make the most of the run here because that's the end of it.

As long as they live a compassionate life.

Be Well

David

if im wrong you have nothing to lose hamson, if im right, which i am, you have erevything to lose

Honey, where's the camera?!?

Now I only have to quote you.  Nothing else necessary on my part, really.

*hats off*

Good job Chansen, you really didn't have to do much to help elaborate on what a fundie is.  The examples you have shown are impecable :P

BTW don't ever lose that quote.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

nice, you can give it to God on your last day, then you'll say opps they were righ uh

boltupright,

yup, this has been talked aboot here on WC before;  don't worry, as you see, the subject still has 'Legs' :3  It gives us, the ones who have written aboot it before, to potentially learn some more.

The fundie virus is in all of us.  We all cling to certainty, confusing our certainty with the actual thing it describes.  What is new and uncertain and in our consciousness becomes over time old, a habit, something unconscious and certain.

It doesn't have to be exotic at all:  it happens in everyday speech.  We say 'sunsets' and 'sunrises' when the sun really isn't doing the setting and rising...it is the Earth rotating that is doing the sun rising and setting.

Everyone has certain experiences that are comfortable to them.  Everyone also has certain experiences that are uncomfortable to them, or that are Taboo.  If they encounter what these Taboo things are, these trigger deeply-rooted reactions in the brain and stress reactions can occur, with sweating, anxiety, even anger and even ignorance of the experience ("it didn't happen").  Now, we all have a worldview through which we view our experiences.  A filter through which our experiences are experienced.  This is also called a BS (Belief System, after Robert Anton Wilson (cbuh)) or a Reality Tunnel (after Dr.  Timothy Leary).  Each of us can have different worldviews, so a Scientologist, a Theoretical Physicist, a Girl Scout, and a Southern Baptist can all experience an 'unidentified light on the ground' but they will, due to their differing BS, each experience the event in a different way.

Now, a fundie is someone who thinks that their BS is the One True Right One and that every other one is automatically false.  They forget (and/or are not aware) that their experiences are co-created by them and then 'thrown out there', so that they think their experiences are outside of themselves.

Now, the thing aboot BSs is that they are a lot like tools.  They account for some aspects of reality really well, account for some other aspects of reality not so well and don't account for some aspects of reality at all.  So, say you want to hammer in a nail.  A hammer would be the best because that is what it was made for.  A rock would do as well, but it would be a bit more difficult.  A wad of tissue, forget aboot it.

Thus, there is no one priveliged BS that accounts for every aspect of existence, there is no hammer that can equally hammer in nails as well as cleaning up your garage or taking your cat out for a walk.  There is also no one priveliged BS where we now have no responsibility for our beliefs or actions.  No matter what we do or feel, our influence is always there.

One has to be able to fiddle around with BSs, try others on for size.  As soon as you do so, there will be different Taboos, there will be different aspects of reality that will become 'tuned-in' (that is, experienced) and some aspects of reality that will become 'tuned-out' (that is, not experienced).

This is why, fer instance, I think it is important that Canada have both Liberals and Conservatives.  They both have differing BS which, as a country, can account for more of existence than if there is just one political persuasion.

For a fun romp through this subject, go to your library and check out The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson.

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Azdgari

I detest labels. I had spent some years getting away from using labels. Then I came to the WC and I've gone backwards observing people using labels, putting certain beliefs into a box.  I had never heard the term  fundy before. I believe it refers to those people who believe every word in the bible literally and  believe that their interpretation is the only correct one. I think a  fundamentalist believes most of the bible literally but not necessarily 100%. There is some wriggle room.

A fundie atheist would be one who attacks the bible because of reading every word literally. Generally he/she hasn't explored spirituality beyond the bible and also doesn't have knowledge in the area of bible study IMHO.

Azdgari

I understand what you're saying. Sorry  I can't respond further.

Azdgari,

these are working definitions, or fossil poems (just as real words are):

Fundy is as I have already written.

Fundamentalist -- someone who groks (and is trying for grokking with fullness) their BS.  Grok coming from that fine and wonderful book, Stranger in a Strange Land, which is a combination of both knowing and experiencing.  Someone who has thought through and examined their BS and who changes it by careful deliberation and not because it is new or trendy or modern.

There is also the other definition, that of that particular 20th century American branch of Protestantism that gave birth to biblical literalism etc.

Just don't take these terms literally, or, if you do, realize that if you do it, you deserve it :3

Oh my, here's what this has knocked forth:  say I believe that people are basically decent.  Does that mean I have to believe that there is something called 'Decent' out there that exists as a source for decency in order for me to believe that people are basically decent?  And if I don't or I do, does that mean I am lying (can it mean that I am lying and not lying at the same time?)

Which leads to something like trying on another worldview. Take these different worldviews: "The Christian G_d exists seperate from me" and then try on another "The Christian G_d is a projection of me" and then try on another one "The Christian G_d is bunk."  Can one actually see what these worldviews mean without trying them on, so to speak?  And if they try them on, how real are they?  Are they, in any sense, lying?

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

You can criticize belief all you want, just I (or any body else) can criticize atheism all I (they)want.

"Faith," in a religious context, is commonly regarded as a belief in a religious doctrine.

To me, however, faith is experiential—beyond doctrinal belief.

Sure, I have explanations for my faith, but I don't have faith in my explanations. They are speculative and metaphorical, and subject to change without notice.