Is it possible for atheism to ever be anything more than critical theory?

[Lysistrata]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Since when is making a simple statement that one does not believe what has been told the them by another person, who might just be arrogant and pushy, a tearing down of anyone's beliefs?

BTW: people have all kinds of beliefs all over the world.

 

[WinterBorn]

I don't believe it is possible for atheism to ever be anything more than critical theory because there is no affirmative case for atheism. The only argument of atheism is to argue against religion and to criticize religion.

So my question is... Is it possible for atheism to ever be anything more than critical theory?

Atheism is simply a statement of a lack of belief in any deity. Nothing more and nothing less.

That there is no actual proof of the existence of any deity means that all religious belief is theory.

 

[WinterBorn]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

 

[Skull Pilot]

What ding doesn't realize is that if we define critical theory as

a philosophical approach to culture, and especially to literature, that seeks to confront the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. The term is applied particularly to the work of the Frankfurt School.

then the one god theory in its beginnings was critical theory as it sought to change the ideological forces and structures of the more widely accepted theory of polytheism

 

[dblack]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

 

[WinterBorn]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

Well said. Thank you.

 

[Quentin111]

If God is a creator......why did he stop?
Why isn’t he creating things every day?

Because we are creators. We will create God in future.

 

[rightwinger]

It's so amusing when people complain that someone is "criticizing religion." Here on USMB alone, people criticize Catholics, Protestants of various hues, Jews, Muslims, and others such as Wiccans. In the meantime, out in the real world, Jews and Muslims are going at it, as are Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Hindus and Muslims in India, Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, and so much else. It's wasted breath, and would be hilarious if such strife did not place so many people in danger. One cannot be a Muslim in Pakistan going to market without risking being blown up by another Muslim. I don't know why adults get involved in this crap. It's so juvenile. As I have always said:

Die and find out!

[This post brought to you by a former medieval history major]

Not complaining. Just saying that all atheists can do to validate their beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. That’s just a fact.

Apparently you agree because you sure aren’t disagreeing.

Again you have it backwards

Atheists have nothing to prove......they are your claims not mine

 

[rightwinger]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

Agree....most the time I just smile and go along with their religious nonsense
I enjoy saying Merry Christmas and God Bless you when you sneeze
I also say God Damnit and Jesus Freak’n Christ

It is only stupid threads like this where morons make ridiculous claims about atheists that I bother to respond

 

[rightwinger]

Most people I know just assume I am a Christian. I don’t bring up atheism unless they push the issue

 

[SweetSue92]

Yes, atheism isn’t critical theory. The practice of atheism will never go beyond the practice of critical theory.

It seems as though you believe you’ve scored some point against atheism using the term “critical theory”, but I’m afraid you haven’t. Atheism isn’t a practice, it’s a rejection of a practice.

I have to agree with you that there is no affirmative case for atheism. The point of your OP is that atheism has no positive argument for itself and all arguments for it are actually critiques of another position. That is true because one cannot prove a negative.

But that fact isn’t a mark against atheism anymore than it is against any other belief. For example, I don’t believe in big foot. Does that mean I am in a weaker position than one who does believe in big foot? I am not a practitioner of Islam - I don’t believe in Allah or the claims made by Muslims or their prophet Muhammed. Does that work against me in someway? No.

Until the claims of a religion or belief convince me of the veracity of those claims, I remain unconvinced. Simple as that.

Scored a point? It’s not a game. Just the nature of atheism. Atheists can only confirm their beliefs by criticizing the beliefs of others. They have no other options.

I don’t see atheists starting these threads

Only you

Does me telling you what you see atheists doing offend you?

Show me a thread of atheists attacking Christianity

You seem obsessed with those who do not find the nonsense you believe in to be credible

Read just about anything by Lysistrata. Just to get you started.

 

[ding]

I might be mistaken, but it seems like OP thinks "critical theory" means something like being critical in the negative sense of whatever thing. That's actually not what the word "critical" means in critical theory, though. "Criticism" in the literary criticism tradition is more like analysis and scrutiny, i.e. it can be either positive or negative, but the point is analyze whatever phenomena closely. Basically "critique" and not "criticism".

Yes, if that is all one does it is most definitely negative. Critical theory which is the Cultural Marxist theory to criticize what they do not believe to arrive at what they do believe without ever having to examine what they believe. They confuse critical theory for critical thinking. Critical thinking is the practice of challenging what one does believe to test its validity.

Relevant reading - The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory

 

[ding]

Why worry about people who don't believe that a supreme being exists? Why worry that there are some people who simply do not know? Why worry about people who think that more than one god/goddess exists?

Nobody is keeping you from your thoughts.

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Since when is making a simple statement that one does not believe what has been told the them by another person, who might just be arrogant and pushy, a tearing down of anyone's beliefs?

BTW: people have all kinds of beliefs all over the world.

Is that what you believe you are doing in the religious forums?

I don't see it that way.

 

[ding]

I don't believe it is possible for atheism to ever be anything more than critical theory because there is no affirmative case for atheism. The only argument of atheism is to argue against religion and to criticize religion.

So my question is... Is it possible for atheism to ever be anything more than critical theory?

Atheism is simply a statement of a lack of belief in any deity. Nothing more and nothing less.

That there is no actual proof of the existence of any deity means that all religious belief is theory.

And you are only able to confirm your belief by arguing against the beliefs of others, right?

How is that not what the OP is stating?

 

[ding]

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

Well said. Thank you.

And has absolutely nothing to do with the premise of the OP.

 

[ding]

Because theists are for the most part arrogant authoritarians who need to compel conformity and oppose dissent.

Indeed, in the mind of most theists to tolerate religious dissent is to is to acknowledge the falsity of their religious dogma.

The arrogance, intolerance, and authoritarianism common to far too many theists – such as Christian Dominionism – is what renders religion a chronic threat to a free, secular, and democratic society, and why the Framers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

Agree....most the time I just smile and go along with their religious nonsense
I enjoy saying Merry Christmas and God Bless you when you sneeze
I also say God Damnit and Jesus Freak’n Christ

It is only stupid threads like this where morons make ridiculous claims about atheists that I bother to respond

How is the premise of this thread ridiculous exactly?

Are you suggesting that you can confirm your beliefs some other way than arguing against the beliefs of others?

 

[ding]

What ding doesn't realize is that if we define critical theory as

a philosophical approach to culture, and especially to literature, that seeks to confront the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. The term is applied particularly to the work of the Frankfurt School.

then the one god theory in its beginnings was critical theory as it sought to change the ideological forces and structures of the more widely accepted theory of polytheism

And what does that have to do with the premise of the OP?

It almost sounds like you are agreeing with it.

 

[rightwinger]

It seems as though you believe you’ve scored some point against atheism using the term “critical theory”, but I’m afraid you haven’t. Atheism isn’t a practice, it’s a rejection of a practice.

I have to agree with you that there is no affirmative case for atheism. The point of your OP is that atheism has no positive argument for itself and all arguments for it are actually critiques of another position. That is true because one cannot prove a negative.

But that fact isn’t a mark against atheism anymore than it is against any other belief. For example, I don’t believe in big foot. Does that mean I am in a weaker position than one who does believe in big foot? I am not a practitioner of Islam - I don’t believe in Allah or the claims made by Muslims or their prophet Muhammed. Does that work against me in someway? No.

Until the claims of a religion or belief convince me of the veracity of those claims, I remain unconvinced. Simple as that.

Scored a point? It’s not a game. Just the nature of atheism. Atheists can only confirm their beliefs by criticizing the beliefs of others. They have no other options.

I don’t see atheists starting these threads

Only you

Does me telling you what you see atheists doing offend you?

Show me a thread of atheists attacking Christianity

You seem obsessed with those who do not find the nonsense you believe in to be credible

Read just about anything by Lysistrata. Just to get you started.

Does he post on this board?

 

[rightwinger]

Nothing outrages them as much as someone saying.......I just don’t believe what you claim is true

Outraged? No. Just stating facts. The only way you can validate your beliefs is to tear down the beliefs of others. You need to do that. You literally can’t help yourself.

Horseshit. I am an atheist. And I have even argued in favor of people being allowed to practice their religions.

The overwhelming majority of atheists simply go about their life without following any religious dogma. However, there are plenty of religious people who seem bound & determined to attack atheists for their lack of belief. This thread is a perfect example of that.

We're on a political message board - attacking and defending beliefs is the point.

Do you remember that atheist guy in the checkout line at the grocery store who wished you a merry Christmas? The atheist who wasn't attacking your beliefs? Of course you don't. He didn't bother to tell you he was an atheist. That's the way it is with most of us, most of the time.

Agree....most the time I just smile and go along with their religious nonsense
I enjoy saying Merry Christmas and God Bless you when you sneeze
I also say God Damnit and Jesus Freak’n Christ

It is only stupid threads like this where morons make ridiculous claims about atheists that I bother to respond

How is the premise of this thread ridiculous exactly?

Are you suggesting that you can confirm your beliefs some other way than arguing against the beliefs of others?

What is ridiculous is that you think I need to

Burden of proof is on you, my friend
You are the one worshiping a creator

You just haven’t convinced me

 

[Lysistrata]

It seems as though you believe you’ve scored some point against atheism using the term “critical theory”, but I’m afraid you haven’t. Atheism isn’t a practice, it’s a rejection of a practice.

I have to agree with you that there is no affirmative case for atheism. The point of your OP is that atheism has no positive argument for itself and all arguments for it are actually critiques of another position. That is true because one cannot prove a negative.

But that fact isn’t a mark against atheism anymore than it is against any other belief. For example, I don’t believe in big foot. Does that mean I am in a weaker position than one who does believe in big foot? I am not a practitioner of Islam - I don’t believe in Allah or the claims made by Muslims or their prophet Muhammed. Does that work against me in someway? No.

Until the claims of a religion or belief convince me of the veracity of those claims, I remain unconvinced. Simple as that.

Scored a point? It’s not a game. Just the nature of atheism. Atheists can only confirm their beliefs by criticizing the beliefs of others. They have no other options.

I don’t see atheists starting these threads

Only you

Does me telling you what you see atheists doing offend you?

Show me a thread of atheists attacking Christianity

You seem obsessed with those who do not find the nonsense you believe in to be credible

Read just about anything by Lysistrata. Just to get you started.

I've never said anything about entire religions. That something that you cult people brought about, starting in the 80's at least. Before that, people were polite about other people's religions or lack thereof. Your cult's showboat hysteria and rudeness rocked the boat; destabilized the country. No one of any religion ever demanded to erect some marble statue on public property until you idiots showed up, or claimed a right to violate our universally applicable laws. Your cult just wants special rights.