The amorphous atheist.

[bluethread]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

[Pazuzu bin Hanbi]

Examples of said accusations, please.

[ElCodeMonkey]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Labels allow for easy blanket statements and ease of corrupting the label. "Atheist" is corrupted all the time in media by showing pictures of a bunch of drunks in Santa suits beside a sign saying "Who needs Christ in Christmas?". Atheists are reinforced as the "sinful" club where people disgrace "pure" religion and love all that is evil. Such labels cause prejudice against a group. Avoid the labels, avoid the prejudice. That's the best I could think of. Personally, there simply is no good label for me so I thus don't pick a label. I'm not sure I'd say atheists require such labels of theists though.

[bluethread]

In the "In here" thread it is clearly stated by an atheist poster that the only thing atheists have in common is that they do not believe in a god or gods. However, that poster does not support his point by identifying what kind of atheist he is. In that same thread, another atheists says that all followers of a deity should agree, regardless of what kind of follower he is. Atheists who reject commonalities among themselves requiring strict orthodoxy among theists seems to me to be a bit hypocritical.

[bluethread]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Labels allow for easy blanket statements and ease of corrupting the label. "Atheist" is corrupted all the time in media by showing pictures of a bunch of drunks in Santa suits beside a sign saying "Who needs Christ in Christmas?". Atheists are reinforced as the "sinful" club where people disgrace "pure" religion and love all that is evil. Such labels cause prejudice against a group. Avoid the labels, avoid the prejudice. That's the best I could think of. Personally, there simply is no good label for me so I thus don't pick a label. I'm not sure I'd say atheists require such labels of theists though.

Untrue, atheists have frequently presumed and some times required that I hold "Christian" views simply because I happen to share the same Scriptures. They also require all deities to support humanist philosophy.

[ElCodeMonkey]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Labels allow for easy blanket statements and ease of corrupting the label. "Atheist" is corrupted all the time in media by showing pictures of a bunch of drunks in Santa suits beside a sign saying "Who needs Christ in Christmas?". Atheists are reinforced as the "sinful" club where people disgrace "pure" religion and love all that is evil. Such labels cause prejudice against a group. Avoid the labels, avoid the prejudice. That's the best I could think of. Personally, there simply is no good label for me so I thus don't pick a label. I'm not sure I'd say atheists require such labels of theists though.

Untrue, atheists have frequently presumed and some times required that I hold "Christian" views simply because I happen to share the same Scriptures. They also require all deities to support humanist philosophy.

I'm not sure it's the atheists requiring anything of the Christians or Bible-Believers or Torah-Believers. Rather, the book says X, the theist holds to the book, thus logically the theist should believe X. Of course, this is fairly short-sighted since the conglomeration of theists all "interpret" things the way they wish to take them. God promises to have an everlasting Kingdom? Oh, but since that didn't happen I guess he meant spiritually . I certainly don't think atheists presume deities should be humanist. It's the theists who claim their deities are and the atheists pointing out that they most certainly aren't. I've heard a few times now some atheist asking the question why it's presumed a god must be good as opposed to evil (which is what all theists seem to present). I certainly don't think that "many" atheists are of any opinion about what a god must be or what a believer of a God must believe. Rather, they simply respond to the claims of the theists.

[bluethread]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Labels allow for easy blanket statements and ease of corrupting the label. "Atheist" is corrupted all the time in media by showing pictures of a bunch of drunks in Santa suits beside a sign saying "Who needs Christ in Christmas?". Atheists are reinforced as the "sinful" club where people disgrace "pure" religion and love all that is evil. Such labels cause prejudice against a group. Avoid the labels, avoid the prejudice. That's the best I could think of. Personally, there simply is no good label for me so I thus don't pick a label. I'm not sure I'd say atheists require such labels of theists though.

Untrue, atheists have frequently presumed and some times required that I hold "Christian" views simply because I happen to share the same Scriptures. They also require all deities to support humanist philosophy.

I'm not sure it's the atheists requiring anything of the Christians or Bible-Believers or Torah-Believers. Rather, the book says X, the theist holds to the book, thus logically the theist should believe X. Of course, this is fairly short-sighted since the conglomeration of theists all "interpret" things the way they wish to take them. God promises to have an everlasting Kingdom? Oh, but since that didn't happen I guess he meant spiritually . I certainly don't think atheists presume deities should be humanist. It's the theists who claim their deities are and the atheists pointing out that they most certainly aren't. I've heard a few times now some atheist asking the question why it's presumed a god must be good as opposed to evil (which is what all theists seem to present). I certainly don't think that "many" atheists are of any opinion about what a god must be or what a believer of a God must believe. Rather, they simply respond to the claims of the theists.

Am not sure how to respond, since your post appears to throw out several concepts in no particular order. Let me try. I do not see why a set of Scriptures would not be subject to interpretation. Who says that they were written in a vacuum. There is no communication, including this one, that is not dependent on context.

The middle section of your response appears to refer to those times when theists are sucked into allowing the atheist to define the terms. Why would one expect a theistic view to align itself with an atheistic premise? It is true that humanism is not exclusively atheistic, however humanism that holds a deity to humanist standards is not universal among theists either. Also, atheists who ask whether a deity is good or evil tend to claim the right to define those terms, presume their view of evil as sacrosanct, or both.

Then, if those atheists are asked about whether they are consistent with regard to all of these matters, they pull out the card you ended with. That is that they are not criticizing context "per se"; Atheism is not Humanism and only means one does not believe there is a deity or deities; good and evil are relative; and they are not saying anything, only responding. This, I believe, is completely disingenuous.

[Divine Insight]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Probably because the theist is trying to argue for a very specific religious paradigm whilst the atheist would rather keep an open mind.

[bluethread]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Probably because the theist is trying to argue for a very specific religious paradigm whilst the atheist would rather keep an open mind.

Even when the atheist is stating conclusions in the inquiry?

[Divine Insight]

Why do many atheists refuse to identify themselves with any particular philosophy, while requiring theists to identify with a particular philosophy?

Probably because the theist is trying to argue for a very specific religious paradigm whilst the atheist would rather keep an open mind.

Even when the atheist is stating conclusions in the inquiry?

You'd need to be more specific.

If a theist is trying to convince me of a specific dogma, I can often offer them alternative conclusions for the same inquiry.

What seems to often happen at that time is that arguments begin to be given by each side concerning which particular conclusions should be given higher merit.

I tend to get caught up in those types of debates myself. Usually those types of debates are truly futile and often only serve to obscure the real issues.

Like for example, arguments over the age of the earth, or whether or not evolution of the species is true, etc, etc, etc.

In truth, all of those types of arguments are a waste of time when it truly comes down to theology.

A far better discussion, or debate, would be to simply debate the reasons why the theists believes in the theology versus the reason why the atheist does not.

My reasons for not believing in the Biblical theology stem directly from the Biblical stories themselves and what those stories are asking me to believe.

To get side-tracked into whether evolution had occurred or not is truly irrelevant. It's irrelevant for me because those are not the reasons I reject the Bible.

It's probably irrelevant for the theist as well, because evolution is most likely not the reason they believe in their theology anyway.

So IMHO, about 99.9% of debates over religion are just a bit waste of everyone's time.

You tell me why you believe in your theology and I'll tell you why I don't.

That is a far more productive conversation IMHO.

Now you might even suggest doing this why my theology. (since I'm not a pure atheist in the generic sense of the term)

In other words, I too have "theological beliefs.

So you may ask, "Why don't we have a debate over why you believe in your theology and why I don't believe in your theology?"

And the answer to that is extremely simple. I don't care whether you believe in my theology.

It seems to me that where theology becomes problematic is when theologists are basically trying to convince other people to believe in their specific theology.

I'll be more than happy to tell you why I don't believe in the Christian Bible, or any of the Abrahamic religions that have a basis in the Old Testament tales.

The reason this has become such a hot topic is because there are so many religious people out there trying to convince everyone else that they should believe in the Bible.

If it wasn't for that fact, I wouldn't even bother with it.

It is the evangelical and proselytizing nature of Christianity that brings it to the forefront of debate.

Christians are trying to evangelize the religion to others, and the others are simply trying to explain why they aren't buying into it.

This then causes even more Christians to enter the debate. These would be Christians who claim that they aren't trying to evangelize the religion but they simply want to "Defend" their beliefs from these atheists who are explaining to the Evangelists why they don't buy into the religion.

The next thing you know you have non-evangelical Christians trying to defend their religious beliefs from atheists who originally started out trying to explain to evangelicals why they aren't buying into the religion.

And the whole thing then just grows into an endless holy war pitting innocent defensive Christians against innocent Atheists who were originally just trying to explain to evangelical Christians why they aren't buying into the religion.

I'm actually glad that I'm neither a Christian or an Atheist.

I'm a Mystic, and I'm happy to be one.