Comments on: "Their First Steps": Atheism and Patience, Round 2

By: Crommunist

Crommunist — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:57:00 +0000

I think your piece is missing something pretty major. There’s a second half of your thesis that you not only don’t include, but don’t make allowance for.

So what does this mean for atheists? I think it means we have to be patient…

…IF, and only if, our goal is to persuade religious people out of their belief. Not every conversation in atheist spaces is for the purpose of addressing the questions of religious people. In spaces that aren’t about them, patience is not required. People may or may not choose to be patient, but that’s a ‘style’ issue rather than a ‘tactics’ one.

A lot of conversations about how we ‘should’ or ‘must’ behave get pulled into the gravitational vortex of this idea that the goal of every conversation is to rationally persuade those who disagree with us (which I happen to believe is largely based on a myth of the “golden logical bullet”, but that’s beside the point). Persuasion is most certainly one valid goal of conversation, but it is not an exhaustive list of all goals.

I don’t think this piece is intended to be prescriptive – “all atheists must behave this way” – but it does omit a point that is often omitted by prescriptivists.

By: Joey Fox

Joey Fox — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:37:50 +0000

To answer your questions Greta:
I was raised a Christian and continued it for 17 years. I began looking at the personality of the biblical god and realized I wanted to worship no such person. Then I began reading and studying science- so much that I switched college degrees and can’t get enough of it. I realized that my beliefs, though no longer “religious” (yet still “spiritual” heh) were based on wishful thinking. Like the soul. That one’s a bit of a struggle, but I can’t deny logic and evidence.
I checked out this blog because an athiest friend posted it on her facebook. I kept coming back because I saw questions were being addressed, about Jesus’ teaching, about the soul, new age stuff, etc. That, your liberal views on life, and how you take joy in the temporary were all things I needed to explore.
Patience is good for those of us who are letting go of fantasies. And we DO want to be argued out of our beliefs! At least I do. I need the debate, the evidence, the logic, the science, otherwise I can’t believe anything. Floating along isn’t that bad… but realizing that this life is all I have actually motivates me to get off my ass instead of waiting around. That’s what religion did to me: allowed me to wait around comfortably for something “better.” What a waste.
Thanks, Greta, for your blogs of awesomeness. I continue reading! 😀

By: Puzzled

Puzzled — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:57:58 +0000

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) one hears, at times, the same thoughts from religious people about converting people – the atheist who argues with you is taking the first steps towards belief. You know what? They’re right, and you’re right.

By: Joel Monka

Joel Monka — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:34:06 +0000

I am a believer who loves your blog. I started reading it when it was referenced by a fellow churchgoer. (being a UU, half my friends are atheists) I continue reading because you state your case better than any other atheist writer I know, and I learn a lot- one doesn’t learn a thing listening only to people who agree with you.

By: chanson

chanson — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:04:31 +0000

I know a number of people in the ex-Mormon community who spent time arguing for the church on apologetics websites — and cite it as an important step towards unbelief.

By: Iamcuriousblue

Iamcuriousblue — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:46:17 +0000

Its interesting that you bring up Skeptical Inquirer, because that was my entre into nonbelief and skepticism as well. I was never really religious, but there was a point in my life where I believed in a lot of woo â tarot cards, i-ching, magick, shamanism, non-specific "spirituality", and the like. I was a *huge* fan of Robert Anton Wilson. At the same time, I knew that this was an area that was absolutely rife with bullshit, and I figured reading the skeptical literature would be an excellent way of putting a check on the obvious bullshit. However, as I held more and more of what I believe in up to the light of skeptical inquiry, and at the same time, as my own science education progressed (I am a now a biologist, specializing in mycology), I found more and more that practically none of the woo I had believed in held any empirical evidence. I do still maintain some interest and openness toward herbal and alternative medicine, because, I do think that a small percentage of it actually can be incorporated usefully into scientific medicine (examples: Lorenzo's oil, medical marijuana, and psilocybin treatment of OCD). But in well over 99 times out of 100, serious rational inquiry into the paranormal, conspiracies, and the rest finds those ideas utterly bereft and yielding no interesting new areas of inquiry even beyond their simple debunking. On the other hand, empirical scientific research is constantly uncovering new truths about ourselves, our world, and our universe.

By: Mike Caton

Mike Caton — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:34:07 +0000

Excellent post! Iâve just recently been thinking about this also. If you know of any denomination-specific communities for on-the-fence theists, please comment at luckyatheist.blogspot.com – I’m collecting them. There are many people losing their faith who are programmed to run for the exits when they see the word âatheist”, and there arenât a lot of middle-of-the-road sites on the internet. Itâs easier to get them to take a couple more steps if they find a community thatâs using language theyâre comfortable with and making them feel welcome and supported.

By: TheTransitionalForm

TheTransitionalForm — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:37:43 +0000

I grew up in a Jewish family and started calling myself an atheist about a year ago. However when I did believe in God the God I believed in was more of a Deistic God than a Theistic God. I didn’t know what the word Deist meant at the time so I didn’t use it to describe myself by it is an accurate description of what my theological views were before I became an atheist. I know there was a time in which I believed in a traditional concept of God but I think it was when I was fairly young. When I was in high school I remember telling my mother that created the universe and then left. At some point I might have also believed that God seeded life on this planet, but it is hard to hold to supernatural explanations to things when the natural explanations are so much more interesting.
I actually discovered the atheist community online before I was an atheist myself. My brother showed me a website called fundies say the darndest things. It was basically a collection of quotes from fundamentalists that people thought were so stupid they were funny. I found the quotes amusing at first until I realized that people actually believed them. I was there for the same reason the atheists were there to make fun of the religious nut jobs. The fact that I believed in God didn’t make fundamentalists and creationists look any less stupid.
Then I discovered YouTube. The video’s were generally directed at creationists so it was trivial for me to say that their religious beliefs were irrational but mine weren’t. My reason for believing in God was something resembling the cosmological argument and the finely tuned argument. I didn’t encounter many formal apologists before I became an atheist so my reasons for believing in the existence of God were more nebulous consents in my mind than logical arguments.
I don’t remember what tipped me over the edge but once I fell I was unable to get back up. I have told some people that I became an atheist when I realized had redefined God out of existence, and others that I became an atheist after my last argument for God fell apart. They are both true to some extent.
There was a short time after I became an atheist that searched out theistic apologetic material hoping to be convinced, but it didn’t last long for two reason. The first was I knew it would be crap to begin with, and the second was I wasn’t in an emotional state that would allow me to dig trough a pile of dung to find a gold nugget.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:40:31 +0000

It might be better to expand on that slightly in a way that is more useful: I was already reading a fair bit of material in the skeptical community when I was still Orthodox. That involved also reading a bit of atheism related material as sort of spill over. For the last two or three years of my Orthodoxy I would have readily agreed that there wasn’t any strong evidence for God and that my beliefs were essentially out of mainly emotional reasons.
When I did change my position it was due to a variety of issues. The most prominent was simply finding the problem of theodicy to be too severe. The second was seeing how many of my coreligionists and religious people in general didn’t accept very basic science especially in biology. This made me see religion as a serious blinder to seeing reality.
During all this, pro-evolution sites such as TalkOrigins Archive as well as very usenet groups (such as talk.origins ok. big surprise there) and such had much more impact on me than material in the blogosphere. I stopped being Orthodox in 2005-2006 (the tsunami in East Asia in 2004 had a lot to do with my increasing problems with theodicy) at which point the atheist end of the blogosphere was still young and still much more connected to the general skeptical end of the blogosphere which was more developed. But the skeptics still had a lot of material on theodicy and related issues incidental to their skepticism. And that certainly pushed me further in that direction.
I don’t think the issue of politeness to theists ever impacted me very much since I already knew that people could have a wide variety of views and still be either polite or be jerks.
Hmm, I guess all that rambling says more or less that I’m not a very useful data point.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:26:27 +0000

Depending on the day of the week and the exact context I generally identify as either agnostic or atheist. I used to be an Orthodox Jew.
My own history is a bit complicated and I’d say that the atheist blogs played some part in my change but not a large part.